Page 302 of The Priory of the Orange Tree

“You can take to your bed or your bier. The choice is yours.”

Making a face, Sabran sat up. “Very well. But you are not to play nursemaid.” She watched Ead rise and dry herself. “You must speak with the Easterner on the morrow. Everything depends on our being able to coexist in peace.”

Ead pulled on her bedgown.

“I make no promises,” she said.

In her years of study at the South House, Tané had been taught only what were considered to be the necessary facts about the Queendom of Inys. She had learned about their monarchy and their religion of Six Virtues. She knew their capital was called Ascalon, and that they had the largest and best-armed navy in the world. Now she also knew that they lived in damp and cold, kept idols in their bedchambers, and forced their sick to drink a lumpy gruel that set her teeth on edge.

Fortunately, nobody had tried to coax it into her this morning. A servant had brought her a jug of ale, thick-cut slices of sweet bread, and a stew of brown meat. All of it had clotted in her stomach. She had only tried ale once before, when Susa had stolen a cup for her from Orisima, and she had thought it foul.

In the South House, there had been minimal furniture and sparing artwork. She had always liked that simplicity; it left her room to think. Castles were more ornate, of course, but the Inysh seemed to revel inthings. Inadornment. Even the curtains were dolorous. Then there was the bed, which was so laden with covers, it seemed to swallow her.

Still, it was good to be warm. After such a long journey, all she had been able to do for a day was sleep.

The Resident Ambassador to Mentendon returned when the sun was high.

“Lady Nurtha is here, honorable Tané,” she said in Seiikinese. “Should I let her in?”

At last.

“Yes.” Tané set the meal aside. “I will see her.”

When she was alone, Tané folded her hands on the covers. Eels were twisting in her stomach. She had wanted to meet Lady Nurtha on her feet, but the Inysh had put her in a lace-trimmed garment that made her look a fool. Better to maintain a semblance of dignity.

A woman soon appeared in the doorway. Her riding boots made no sound.

Tané studied the slayer. Her skin was smooth and golden-brown, and her hair, which curled like wood shavings, sat thick and dark on her shoulders. There was something of Chassar, the man who had saved her, in the lines of her jaw and brow, and Tané wondered if they were kin.

“The Resident Ambassador tells me you speak Inysh.” She had a Southern lilt. “I had no idea it was taught in Seiiki.”

“Not to everyone,” Tané said. “Only to those in training for the High Sea Guard.”

“I see.” The slayer folded her arms. “I am Eadaz uq-Nara. You may call me Ead.”

“Tané.”

“You have no family name.”

“It was Miduchi once.”

There was a brief silence.

“I am told you made a perilous journey to the Priory to save my life. I thank you for it.” Ead went to the window seat. “I assume Lord Arteloth told you what I am.”

“A wyrm-killer.”

“Yes. And you are a wyrm-lover.”

“You would slay my dragon if she were here.”

“A few weeks ago, you would have been right. My sisters once slaughtered an Eastern wyrm that thought it shrewd to fly over Lasia.” Ead spoke without apparent remorse, and Tané wrestled with a surge of hatred. “If you will oblige me, I would like to hear how you started this journey, Tané.”

If the slayer was going to be civil, so would Tané. She told Ead how she had come to have the rising jewel, her skirmish with the pirates, and her brief and violent detour to the Priory.

It was at this point that Ead began to pace back and forth. Two small lines appeared between her eyebrows.

“So the Prioress is dead, and the Witch of Inysca has possession of the orange tree,” she said. “Let us hope that she seeks only to keep it to herself, and not to gift it to the Nameless One.”

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