Chapter 20: Jitesh

JITESH

A warm night. Mosquitoes buzzing about, crickets humming, and the haveli lit so bright it was a small moon against the light-flecked black of the city. It was beautiful, but…

Spirits, he was tired.

He stifled a yawn—then yelped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“How’s guard duty going?” Nikhil asked.

“Oh,” said Jitesh. “Fine, you know.”

“You definitely weren’t falling asleep there.” Nikhil’s voice was amused. “At least try to look like a proper guard. This is a special night.”

Lord Iskar had put on a lavish celebration to mark both the end of monsoon season and the birth of his first child. His second wife had given him a son, a fat and healthy baby with silver chains around his wrists and ankles to ward off ill luck, and an ash mark on his forehead for the mothers. Apparently mother and son were glowing and in good health, and Lord Iskar had arranged baskets of fruit and fine honey pastries to celebrate. From his position outside the celebration hall, Jitesh could just about see mother and child seated on a dais through the wooden window lattice, and the proud Lord Iskar standing at their side, greeting his guests.

All of Ahiranya’s Parijati elite had come, dressed up in fine silks with gold pins in their turbans, expansive strings of pearls and rubies at their necks. Not a single highborn Ahiranyi—but that was no surprise. Jitesh had heard that Lord Iskar was becoming fast friends with some Lord Santosh from Parijat who was close to the emperor himself, and who apparently didn’t think much of people who weren’t from his homeland.

“Stand up straight,” said Nikhil. “The commander’s coming over.”

His tone was derisive. None of the men liked their new commander, who was also Parijati, raised to his position because Lord Iskar wanted to please his new friend, instead of by any particular merit.

Both Jitesh and Nikhil were used to the way of things, of course. Lords did what they did for their own gain, and normal folk just had to accept it. But it was the man himself who irritated them the most. He insisted on talking to them. Trying to be their friend.

“He’s going to talk about politics,” muttered Jitesh.

“Spirits save us,” Nikhil groaned.

Apparently, a forbidden verse from the Birch Bark Mantras had been daubed onto a temple to the mothers of flame the previous night. Something about blood and righteousness, the maid who’d seen it said, when Jitesh had asked her about it. I don’t know. You think I’ve got time for poetry, Jitesh?

Jitesh didn’t think it was a big problem. Words could be scrubbed away, after all. But the commander was furious about it and wanted everyone to know it. His men were, unfortunately, a captive audience.

“No one goes to war for poets and whores,” the Parijati commander was saying to the soldier beside him, his Zaban rough and melodious by turns, as if he didn’t know whether he wanted to speak like his compatriots or like his gem-dripping family. “Oh, people like to whine, that’s true enough, but they should be glad those women were burned. They’ll be worshipped now. Immortal.” He sniffed, as if to say, I wouldn’t have been as kind. “It was a generous death—better than having their skulls crushed.”

“Yes, Commander,” said the long-suffering soldier next to him.

“Are you listening to me?” the commander demanded. Jitesh didn’t need to look at him to know his expression was sour, mouth twisted to one side. “You provincials, you don’t know anything about how the world should be—”

The commander went silent abruptly. Jitesh nearly sighed with relief.

There was a gurgling sound. Jitesh looked over again, wondering what was amiss.

Then he saw the hilt of a blade protruding from the commander’s throat.

The soldier who had been walking beside him gave a strangled cry of horror. Nikhil fumbled for his blade and Jitesh… stood there, frozen, catching sight of a figure on the roof.

He thought he would vomit, when the man leapt down before him.

The assassin wore an old-style Ahiranyi mask, dark mahogany with large eye sockets to allow for maximum peripheral vision.

“No one will go to war for poets and whores.” He repeated the words slowly, levelly. “Isn’t that what you said?”

Their highborn commander burbled out blood. Then he crumpled to the ground.

The masked man leaned down, twisted the knife, then drew it free. The commander was still.

“Come now, friends,” the man said pleasantly. “You’re going to have to move a little faster than you are. You may be traitors to Ahiranya, but you’re still my people.” He took another step forward. “I’d like to give you a fair battle. And a fair Ahiranyi death.”

He drew a hand scythe from the back of his sash.

Nikhil finally lunged forward, sweeping his sword through the air.

The rebel slipped beneath the arc of his blade. In a motion as graceful as a dance, he moved behind Nikhil and cut his throat. The other soldier cried out, helpless, as the rebel turned and stabbed the same sickle blade through his chest.

Jitesh was no idiot.

He turned and ran.

He ran into the haveli, ran down the corridor, straight into the arms of two other guards. He hit them with a thump so hard that one of them, winded, swore. Beyond them he could see the celebration—the guests, the gentle waft of music from a tanpura, the flicker of lantern light. He opened his mouth to yell.

It was already too late.

There was a scream as the first masked rebel emerged from nowhere—and truly they must have come from the air, because it looked as if they’d peeled open the thick lattice of wood, curling it away like mist, and surely that couldn’t be possible—and slit a guest’s throat. The screaming grew louder when three more emerged. Then another.

The guards holding Jitesh let go and reached for their swords. Jitesh stayed where he was, rooted by his horror.

By the dais, Lord Iskar drew his saber, face gray with fear. The regent was standing next to him. The regent was saying something, shouting, drawing his own saber, gesturing men forward. The rebels, Jitesh realized, were not indiscriminate. They killed one of the richest Parijati traders in the city. The wife of the most powerful tax collector. Then they strode toward Lord Iskar’s wife, who screamed, clutching her child close. Her husband stepped in front of her.

Jitesh saw a knife fly through the air and bury itself point first in Lord Iskar’s throat. Then the crowd of panicked fleeing guests crashed into him like a wave, and Jitesh was pushed back out of the room.

He ran through the haveli corridors, stumbling, blinded by panic. He ran even as he heard screaming begin from within the household’s upper levels and saw the first hints of golden fire at the windows. He ran even as other guards spotted the blaze, shouted, “Water, water!”

He ran. And then there was someone standing before him, blocking his path.

“You did well,” said a masked figure. It was not the masked rebel from before. The voice was younger, the eyes lighter. “A good run. I watched you. But now you’re going to stay still.”

He tried to run, but it was as if the ground tipped beneath him. He fell.

Frozen, he looked up at the figure above him.

“Thank you,” the rebel said. They took a knife from their belt. “That will make things much easier.”