Page 46 of Humans Don't Have Horns
I think of my guilt. With Ashar for not being powerful enough to fight him and then for being too powerful and killing him and condemning all those women to their death.
But I carry far deeper guilt in me for not being able to save my mother and sister. It took them a week to die, a week of immobilizing pain. I knew in my blood that if they could get a Renyan healer, they could be saved. Even without knowing it was poison. But my father didn’t care for my pleas. He said I was acting like all women—hysterical. And before that, I’d done nothing when he’d taken my brother away. When he’d beaten my mother, I’d done nothing but hide.
Maybe it’s guilt that made Siean bring the ashes. Maybe it wasn’tcourage but an attempt to get rid of some of her guilt. I think she blames herself for everything that has happened to our family. The first daughter. Born to rule.
I know guilt. I know why Daton left that day. But still, I can’t let him inside my heart again. I’m not sure that he won’t drown me in his guilt. I carry enough of my own. It’s all that I can handle right now.
***
It’s sunset when a Kozari messenger arrives at the Mongan camp. The red in the sky makes his golden armor appear as if it is made of blood. He wears gold from head to toe. His long yellow hair has a sandy shade, and it’s braided with golden strings. When he speaks, the gold covering his teeth twinkles. He speaks only to me as if the Mongans are not worthy of his attention. But even his attire and bravado can’t hide his terror at their presence. A shiver runs through him, noticeable to all. He announces that the Queen of Kozari will arrive at camp tomorrow. I’m shocked to hear the Kozaries have crowned a woman. True, Ashar had no sons. At least not by marriage. But the Kozaries treat their women almost as badly as the Aldonians do.
I realize suddenly that while my mind drifted, the messenger kept talking. He goes on and on about the setting appropriate for a royal visit. He looks more and more dismayed at his every elaboration of what is required because nothing at the Mongan camp is even remotely suitable for royals. Especially not for Kozari royals, so used to sumptuous luxury.
The kids are running shoeless and playing in the mud as the messenger carries on. And since the stench of the swamps is now left behind, the smell of the behemas has become the dominant one here at the entrance of the camp—that is, if you ignore the smell of rotting flesh from the hanging corpses. One of them is a Kozari, by his yellow hair, which the messenger can’t stop glancing at and yet never dares to speak of.
“Of course, we shall spread a gilded carpet for her to walk on,”Emek drawls when she is finally fed up with his chattering, and the crowd that gathered to watch the spectacle bursts out in bellowing laughs. I feel a little sorry for him then for being mocked only for following orders.
He seems to sense my empathy because he drops down to his knees in front of me and nearly kisses my shoes as he pleads, almost in tears, “This is no joke. You will be in the presence of the Kozari Queen tomorrow.”
But if I understand anything about Mongans by now, it is that the only thing they despise more than the Shavirs are Shavirs who try to enlighten them, to “improve” them. They may be poor, but they take pride in their ways.
If Dahav managed to become the first woman to ever rule Kozari, then she must be clever enough, and surely she understands that in Mongan territory, the scenery will be very different from what she is used to. I only wish they would take down the Kozari corpse, but I’m still avoiding Daton, so it doesn’t seem likely.
***
It’s late morning when the queen arrives at camp in an obscene display of wealth, as one can only expect of Kozaries. Three small, open carriages lead the caravan, shaped like golden half balls. Two white horses pull each carriage. In each, a man and a woman are seated. The men’s appearances resemble the messenger’s, while the women are covered entirely with gilded cloth. The cloth is without ornaments, and in the face area, it is a thinner cloth so that the women can see through it yet not be seen.
Behind them, the queen’s carriage is pulled by ten white stallions painted gold. The gold, diamonds, and valuable gems that cover the carriage and the stallions’ saddles sparkle in the sunlight and flicker through the Mongan camp. There is so much gold and so many gemstones that it is impossible to look at the caravan directly without going blind.
It might have been a spectacular sight in any other setting, yethere in the shabbiness of the Mongan camp, it seems grotesque. The curious Mongan crowd seems quite baffled at the display. The queen’s carriage alone could feed the entire camp for several months. Since I once visited Amora, the Kozari capital, I know this is, in fact, a very modest display of wealth by Kozari standards.
Emek whispers to me, her eyes wide with amazement, “I heard they even eat gold, but I always thought it was a joke. Now I’m not so sure.”
It’s true. Kozari royals add chunks of gold to their drink and food. Commoners each receive a golden nugget at the weekly mass, and they swallow it whole as part of the service. Other than that, commoners don’t have access to gold. It’s considered unholy for a commoner to even touch it if not as part of a religious ritual. The gold diggers always wear gloves while digging so they won’t directly touch the gold.
I remember seeing the mining villages on the way to the capital. How destitute the people looked. Shoeless on the unpaved roads and so inadequately dressed for the cold weather. It is always cold in Kozari. They live in the high mountains, the cold wind constantly whipping and beating anyone and anything in her way. The land is made barren from it. The air is so dry you can feel your skin crack.
But in Amora, the high walls hold off the fiercest of the winds, and all the pavement is made of pure gold. Even under the influence of Nimatek, I found the contrast unsettling. “I don’t understand them. I don’t get this obsession,” Emek says disapprovingly.
I look at her in surprise. “And Aldon and Renya you understand?”
“Yes. I hate them. I despise them. But I understand wanting power and immortality. It’s human. But to eat gold, to cover your teeth in it? What do they gain from it?”
I shrug. “It’s a hard land. The cold is brutal. Nothing grows there. The pathways are almost impossible. I think gold is the only advantage they’ve ever had. It’s most likely the only reason they don’t starve to death. The only way for them to be treated as equals by the rest of the Shavirs. I don’t know. Maybe it just all got out of hand.”
As the carriages stop, the men and women get off and spread longgilded foil in front of the queen’s carriage and kneel at its sides, getting mud all over their knees in the process. From the queen’s carriage, a tall, wide man in his late fifties or perhaps early sixties emerges first. His yellow hair is partly white, and he has the presence of a man accustomed to others following his orders. Then a young man with a shaved head, which means he’s a Kozari priest, follows.
One of the men kneeling at the sides of the gilded foil crawls quickly to the carriage entrance. The older man holds out his hand, and a small hand covered in a golden glove reaches for it from within the carriage. The queen places her feet on the back of the man crouching before her and descends from the carriage. She’s covered head to toe in golden silk. Her face is concealed behind golden lace. But what strikes me the most is how small and delicate she looks, even under all the silk and lace.
I give her a curtsy as a princess would to a queen while the Mongans stand stiff, refusing to play a part in the royal fanfare. I escort the queen to the main tent, and from her entire entourage, only the two men who rode in her carriage follow us. Daton and Emek follow us as well.
Once inside the tent, the queen unwraps the silk and lace covering her, and remains in a revealing golden shirt and pants. These were the manners of the royalty of the Kozaries, as I remembered from my visit to Amora. Royal women were covered outside but were scantily clad indoors, while female commoners dressed the same wherever they went. And yet the queen’s choice to treat a Mongan tent as an indoor space isn’t trivial and a display of great trust and respect.
I’m amazed at how young she seems, almost like a child. She’s petite, with delicate features, an upturned nose, and flawless skin. She’s very beautiful, but she resembles her father in a way that makes my skin crawl.
She first turns to Daton and Emek and says in Aldonian, “It’s a great honor for us to meet you.” She speaks with a singsong voice, her entire manner demure. While she speaks, her golden teeth shine. Then she turns to me. “And it is lovely to meet you again, YourGrace.” At my apparent bafflement, she adds, “It was a long time ago. Of course, you will not recognize us. We were only eight at the time,” she says, using the royal “we.”
The queen then introduces the two men escorting her. The older man is Duke Nass, the queen’s uncle from her mother’s side and the head of the House of Oro. The younger man, Noka, is the head priest of Kozari, which seems very unusual for his young age.
