It was much too early for the hourly call. Afternoon three-bells could not have been rung more than a half hour before, and yet the calm of their high tea was already interrupted by another tolling of the bell tower.
Only these bells were frantic. An endless stream of peal after peal after peal—not the paced, even strikes of the hourly calls.
Even Rajini Chei stopped her pouring and frowned out the window. Across the table, Erma and Flori quickly found each other's hands, their faces blanching as they held on to one another.
'What is it?' Isla's voice drowned in the din of the bells.
Erma only shook her head. It was the other maid who whispered back at her, 'I don't know, but ... the last time we heard something like this was ...'
'Was what?'
'Was when they found Amarin dead.' Her grandmother rose, her voice still even despite it all. She nodded at her maids. 'Fetch the guards. Have them lock the estate down and secure every entrance. Then gather the servants and stay in the labyrinth sanctuary.'
'Ifrit's breath.' Isla pushed herself off the floor as Erma and Flori rushed out the tea room. 'Could it be the Napoii? Do you think the High Khan—'
'The High Khan is not so foolish as to make any attacks, outnumbered as he greatly is, here at the Grand Palace.'
'I wouldn't be too sure about his daughter.'
The rajini made her way to the windows. They were so narrow, each pane barely met the breadth of her shoulders. 'Pack your bags and be ready to leave.'
She's scared. 'Perhaps the Rani has passed. You said yourself she's been very ill.'
'They will not sound the alarm bells for a natural death. Now do as I say.' She turned away from her, her eyes clouding in a swirl of blue and white.
Finally the last of the bells had been struck, but the quiet that followed was all the more unnerving. A dull pattering of boots spread throughout the estate, an occasional shout of command would follow. Isla had already crossed the room and slid the door open when the rajini gasped behind her.
'What?'
Her grandmother shook her head, eyes still seeing through Huu. 'The Maha Garda. They are everywhere. They are saying ...'
For once the fear made its way to the rajini's face. She blinked the clouds clear, hurried away from the windows and gripped Isla by the shoulder. 'You're hurting me—'
'Forget your bags. Take only what you need and get to the gazebo.'
'What are they saying?'
'Judhistir is dead. Your maharaj has killed him.'
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Impossible. Isla waved at the rajini's guards to let her through. They refused at first, but they knew better by then than to argue with her. The doors were pulled open, and Isla ran across the porch and down into the rajini's garden.
It was absolutely ridiculous.
How long had it taken—the things she had to do—just to convince him to betray his nephew ... drug the Rama ... and now she was expected to believe Kiet had done something so dishonourable, so repugnant as to murder his own father? It was outrageous that anyone could believe it of him.
But everyone at the tournament heard the Rama rebuke him. Call him to the throne room. Perhaps some had even seen him draw an inch of his blade. And now the Rama's dead.
The sun was sinking fast, her grandmother's gazebo looked little more than a shadow across the budding plots of rosella and jungle geranium. All the garden lights were left unlit, and all Isla had was the wooden lantern, swinging in her hand as she rushed down the pebbled path.
Finally she came to the gazebo and for the first time stood back to study its foundation. It was not so high—perhaps a little over two feet of stone—and the entrance to the tunnels were there somewhere.
Isla rounded the construction until she stood thigh-deep in the rajini's lavender bushes. She crouched low and brushed their stems away from the stone until she found it: a slab of stone unlike the others. It was perfectly hexagonal where the others were irregular and cut rough. She peered over the top of the bushes before giving it a push.
The ground beneath her rumbled, but it was the foundation that moved, pulling itself inwards until it revealed a hole in the ground, a ladder fixed into its side. Isla gripped the lantern between her teeth by the braids of its handle and descended.
It must have been an entire floor down. Isla had reached the bottom and lit the first basin on the wall before the foundation sealed itself back up, scattering dust and debris over her head. Her coughs travelled through the tunnel along with the strip of flame that spread across the wall.
She blinked in the orange light. She was standing in a recess right in the middle of the tunnel with two directions to go. One would take her toward the curtain wall—toward the anterior ring. The other would lead her to the remaining consortial estates.
Her grandmother had instructed her to leave the palace, all the while refusing to do the same. Her absence would be missed, she argued, and only raise questions where none existed before. But Isla ... she was tied to Kiet. Rajini Dhvani's trial had made that all out for the palatial ring to hear. It was not unlikely that Maharaj Khaisan would have her questioned, too, and who knew then what other secrets would unravel.
No. The realisation seeped into her as she took the passage right. It's Maha Rama Khaisan, now. It was only a matter of ceremony—but for all intents and purposes, it was he who now held the crown, and he who held the Maha Garda.
And he's sending them for Kiet. The best of the Garda were marching for his residence—her grandmother had seen it through Huu—and that told Isla that at least Kiet had managed to elude capture yet.
But what happened? She cycled through every possibility as she ran. Did the Rama discover the drug in his drink? Even then, nothing would have pointed it toward Kiet. Even then, he would sooner flee than murder his own father. He stood to gain nothing from the Rama's death. Khaisan, on the other hand ...
Her blood chilled. Had he grown tired of waiting for his grandfather's natural death? Had he started to fear his position as first-in-line? Killing the Rama and framing Kiet in the process would have made him two wicks with one flame.
Ah—I shouldn't be jumping ahead of myself. There was no point in speculations. Whatever the case—whether Kiet killed the Rama or Khaisan did and framed him, it only ended one way, and that was with Kiet hanging from the weeping fig.
Gods, please let it be not too late. Of course she would not leave without him. If her grandmother expected her to, then she should have made sure of it herself.
The labyrinths only spread as far as the palatial ring—and even then the Maha Garda would have all their exits guarded as well as all the palatial ring gates. Her father's tunnels were their only chance. The rajini had said it was built for servants a long time ago. That the royalborn had forgotten of its existence. Isla only hoped that held true for Khaisan. But if Khaisan doesn't know it's there, then Kiet wouldn't, either.
She was running so fast, her mind so occupied, that she almost missed it: a break in the light where the wall sunk in between two basins. Isla caught her breath before the recess in the wall. Metal bars had been installed into its surface—another set of ladders leading up.
This must be it. She recalled the maps she had studied of the palatial ring—the hedge maze and all three of the consortial estates it surrounded. Her grandmother's was first, occupying a southern pocket of the maze. Rajini Dhvani's was the northern-most estate, and right between them ...
She wiped the sweat off her hands and climbed, the bars cold to the touch. The draught did not help, either. It blew down her robes and ossa, howling louder and louder the higher she climbed, until finally she came to the last rung, tired and shivering.
Her lantern swung as she turned her head left and right, searching for anything unusual in the wall. It took too long to find; a small rectangle of a rock hidden in the shadows, only slightly more protruded than the rest. Her arms and legs were trembling with both fear and fatigue by the time she punched it with a fist.
For some reason she thought this exit, too, would lead her through Rajini Amarin's gazebo—but the first thing she noticed upon climbing out was the faint smell of sulfur and the warmth that lingered in the air.
She appeared to be at the end of a porch that ran between a cabin upon one side and a thick fence upon the other, the latter roofed over with overlapping layers of wood shake shingles. Yew bristles poked between the fence planks, and it was from further beyond the hedge maze outside that the voices came.
The Maha Garda. She froze where she stood, hoping all their shouting, all their boots storming over gravel and foliage would mask the sound of the false earth grinding shut behind her. They're surrounding the complex.
One was barking commands over the others, but a screech came from the skies and an arrow tore through the air for Kiet's capradon.
'Hold your weapons!' A slap and a grunt, and no other arrow followed. 'No attacks without Commander Gazhani's express instruction!'
Isla held her breath, but Kiet's bird circled high above, unharmed, before diving down upon them in retaliation. Isla clambered onto the porch beneath their screeching and screaming. The bird had grown large enough to more than mildly harass the soldiers. It grabbed at their spears, clenching them in its claws and carrying them away.
Isla used the distraction to creep along the porch unheard. She was right at its end, where the fence closed into a corner against the building, and there were no doors—no entrances into the building from her side.
It was a bath house. The porch took her all the way around the cabin, right where a pool smouldered at its end. Cloth hampers hung along the facing wall, and between them a door, still slid partly open. Isla slipped into the hallway inside. Some of the candles along the wall had been lit—but not many. Just enough to light the passage through, and they looked fresh; their wax barely melted.
Someone has been here, and recently.
The hot spring had seemed unused—there were no towels in the hampers, no water drops on the wooden porch. Whoever it was had not come for a bath.
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↝ END CHAPTER FORTY-THREE ↜
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☆ this chapter is dedicated to CarynBird ☆
Video: Music is OST from the video game Ghost of Tsushima
Image: Right image—© yours truly; remaining images—original artists unknown
Image of Kiet's / Rajini Amarin's estate was made with Dungeondraft. See the full map through the External Link or in-line comment.