Harry Turtledove V

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obsidian bowl. The scrying picture vanished as if it had never been.
Tanshar felt the motion of withdrawal and opened his eyes. "Lord, have you
that which you require?" he asked.
"I do." Abivard opened the pouch at his belt, took out five silver arkets, and
pressed them into Tanshar's hand. The fortune-teller tried to protest, but
Abivard overrode him: "For some things I would not spend silver so, not after
the way the famous Murghab robbed the domain in the name of the King of Kings.
But for this, I reckon the price small, believe me."
"Are you then ensorceled, lord?" Tanshar asked. "If it be so, I don't know if
I am strong enough to free you from such a perverse enchantment."
But Abivard laughed and said, "No, I find I am not." He wondered why. Maybe
his naturally conceived passion had been too strong for the artificial one to
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overcome; Tanshar had said love magic was a chancy business.
"I'm pleased to hear it," the fortune-teller said.
"I'm even more pleased to say it." Abivard bowed to Tanshar, then took the
broken pieces of the lead tablet and headed up the dusty road to the
stronghold. He stopped and stooped every few paces until he had picked up
three black pebbles.
* * *
Roshnani looked up from her embroidery when Abivard stepped into the doorway.
The smile she gave him reminded him of the one he had seen in the scrying bowl
not long before. "What brings you here at this hour of the day?" she asked.
Her smile grew mischievous as she thought of the obvious answer, then faded
when she got a better look at his face. "Not that, surely."
"No, not that." Abivard turned to the serving woman who hovered behind him.
"Fetch my lady mother and all my wives to this chamber at once. I know the
hour is yet early, but I will have no excuses. Tell them as much."
"Just as you say, lord." The serving woman bobbed her head and hurried away.
She knew something was wrong, but not what.
The same held for Roshnani. "What is it, husband of mine?" she asked. Now her
voice held worry.
"Just wait," Abivard answered. "I'll tell the tale once for everyone."
Roshnani's chamber quickly grew crowded. Burzoe looked a question at her son
as she came in, but he said nothing to her, either. Some of his wives grumbled
at being so abruptly summoned from whatever they were doing, others because
they had had no chance to gown themselves and apply their cosmetics. Most,
though, simply sounded curious. A couple of Abivard's half sisters peered in
from the corridor, also wondering what was going on.
Abivard brought the flat of his hand down onto the chest of drawers. The bang
cut through the women's chatter and brought all eyes to him. He pulled out the
two pieces of the curse tablet, held them high so everyone could see them.
Quietly he asked, "Do you know what this is?"
Utter silence answered him, but the women's eyes spoke for them. Yes, they
knew. Abivard dropped the pieces of lead onto the chest. They did not ring
sweetly when they hit, as silver would have. The sound was flat, sullen.
He pushed a corner of the chest of drawers away from the wall and bent down to
scoop up the image that went with the tablet. It was no longer than the last
two joints of his middle finger, easy to conceal in the palm of a hand. He
held it up, too. Someone he didn't see who gasped. Abivard removed the four
cords that bound the image. Then he let it fall to the top of the chest. It
broke in pieces.
He took out one of the black pebbles. He dropped it not onto the chest but
onto the floor: the forms here had to be observed precisely. In a voice with
no expression whatever in it, he said, "Ardini, I divorce you."
A sigh ran through the women, like wind through the branches of an almond
grove. Ardini jerked as if he had stuck a sword in her. "Me!" she screeched.
"I didn't do anything. This is Roshnani's room, not mine. If anyone's been in
your bedchamber enough to try bewitching you, lord, she's the one, not me. You
never want the rest of us, women who've been here for years. It's not right,
it's not natural "
"In a scrying bowl, I saw you hide the image here," he said, and dropped the
second pebble. "Ardini, I divorce you."
"No, it wasn't me. It was somebody else. By the God I swear it. She "
"Don't make your troubles in the next world worse by swearing a false oath."
Formal and emotionless as a soldier making his report, Abivard told exactly
what he had seen in the still water.
The women sighed again, all but Ardini. Roshnani said, "Yes, I remember that
day. I was working on a bird with the bronze-brown thread."
"No, it's a lie. I didn't do it." Ardini's head twisted back and forth. Like
so many people, she had figured out what her scheme's success would bring, but
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she had never stopped to think what would happen if she failed. Her voice sank
to a whisper: "I didn't mean any harm." It might even have been true.
Abivard dropped the third pebble. "Ardini, I divorce you." It was done. With
the fall of the third pebble, with the third repetition before witnesses of
the formula of divorce, his marriage to her was dissolved. Ardini began to
wail. Abivard clenched his jaw tight. Casting loose even a wife who had
betrayed him was wrenchingly hard. So far as he knew, Godarz had never had to
divorce one of his women, and so had left him no good advice on how to do it.
He didn't think there could be any easy way.
"Please " Ardini cried. She stood alone; all the other women had invisibly
contrived to take a step away from her.
"I would be within my rights if I sent you forth from the women's quarters,
from this stronghold, from this domain, naked and barefoot," Abivard said. "I
will not do that. Take what you wear, take from your chamber whatever you can
carry in your two hands, and be gone from here. The God grant we never see
each other again."
Burzoe said, "If you let her go back into her chamber, son, send someone with
her, to make sure she tries no more magic against you."
"Yes, that would be wise, wouldn't it?" Abivard bowed to his mother. "Would
you please do that for me?" Burzoe nodded.
Ardini began screaming curses. Tears ran down her face, cutting through paint
like streams of rainwater over dusty ground. "You cast me out at your peril,"
she cried.
"I keep you here at my peril," Abivard answered. "Go now and take what you
would, or I will send you away as law and custom allow."
He thought that would shut Ardini up, and it did. She cared more for herself
than anything else. Still weeping, she left Roshnani's room, Burzoe with her
to keep her from working mischief.
Roshnani waited until the other wives, several of them loudly proclaiming
undying loyalty to Abivard, had left her chamber. While they, Abivard's half
sisters, and the serving women exclaimed in the hallway over the scandal, she
told him, "Husband, I thank you for not thinking I set that image when you saw
it. I know something of scrying; sometimes I can even make it work myself "
"Can you?" Abivard said, interested. So much he still did not know about this
young woman who had become his wife . . .
"Yes, though far from always. In any case, I know you would first have looked
to find the image. When you saw it behind that chest, it would have been easy
for you to look no farther and cast me out with the three black pebbles."
Abivard did not tell her how close he had come to doing just that. She thought
better of him because he hadn't, and that was what he wanted. He said,
"Tanshar the town fortune-teller and scryer said love magic was never sure to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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