Traveler of the Void
Part 1 - City on the Sea
Chapter 3 - Wind in the Flower Pavilion
The evening rays of the sun lit the Flower Pavilion in a golden glow. The Flower Pavilion was at the western edge of the royal palace near the tip of the cape that jutted into the ocean. It was a place of repose for the women of Sangal's royal family.
The women permitted in the Flower Pavilion were of the highest rank: princesses and queens, island guardians' wives and their daughters. The pavilion's structure was a dome supported by six large pillars. There were no walls. The roof was curved.
The women were afforded clear view of the cliffs and the waves of the sea crashing to shore from the edges of the pavilion. To the east and north, flowers bloomed in profusion, so thick and lush that in some places they were overgrown enough to conceal people behind and under them. This was not just a place of repose, but a place for women that wanted to hide—or to conduct discussions in private.
The floor of the pavilion was paved
in smooth white stone. In the very center, a decorative fountain
gushed forth. Water from the fountain flowed down into irrigation
grooves that watered the garden; the water eventually flowed over
the edge of the cliff into the sea.
The evening wind carried a tang of salt commingled with the fragrances of the ranguna flower and the floral perfumes of the women in the pavilion. Right now, aside from Prince Karnan's wife Zina, every woman of prominence was present. Zina's health was still delicate from the recent birth; when she wasn't conducting her mandatory ceremonial duties, she spent most of her time resting and recovering.
The king's second daughter, Roksana, reclined while sipping a liqueur laced with flower petals. "Ah, how refreshing. Rokkari must have put ice in it this time. I can't get anything so fine outside the capital. On Nōrmu, we want for nothing except ice."
Ice needed to be imported to Sangal from the north and stored specially in natural caves to preserve it at a low temperature. With the exception of the capital, no other islands or territories in Sangal maintained such caves, so ice was a great luxury.
As the women lounged and stretched in the pavilion, the topic of conversation turned to the welcoming reception of the foreign dignitaries during the Martial Arts Demonstration Ceremony.
"Saluna, you're so lucky!" Roksana said with a wink. "Crown Prince Chagum is pale, but very handsome."
Saluna gave her a slightly uncomfortable smile. "I suppose so...his eyes are striking." The women surrounding her tittered. "The men of Sangal are tough and strong, but their eyes hold no secrets."
"I liked the man sitting next to him," Roksana said. "He was taller than the prince by a full head at least."
"Ah, that's the prince's counselor," Saluna said. "In New Yogo, he is considered a very gifted Star Reader. Star Readers divine the shadow of the future of their nation. They also have the opportunity to become New Yogo's Holy Sage. Certainly, there are no disadvantages in cultivating such an acquaintance."
Cousins and aunts mingled and spoke to one another lightly in this way, but the king's oldest daughter, Karina, appeared vexed. Seeing this, Saluna took a seat next to her and asked, "What troubles you, sister?"
Karina smiled fondly at her, but her expression soon set itself into grim lines. She lifted her head and said in a voice that carried, "I have a concern to bring before you all."
Everyone ceased their conversations and looked at Karina. She was just thirty-four years old, but was possessed of a calm and quiet steadiness that caused many of the other women to view her as sailors would the captain of their fleet.
"Have any of your husbands been behaving strangely lately?"
The women looked at Karina with nervous smiles and shook their heads.
"Well," Karina said, "perhaps you can correct me if I'm mistaken. But I have cause to suspect treason."
Roksana plied her fingers over the edge of her glass and tilted her head toward Karina. "What cause? Do you have evidence? What kind of unusual behavior should we be wary of?"
"Let's see," Karina said. "Training extra-hard for a military competition, maybe? Or receiving an unusual number of messages via carrier pigeon, or attempting to open trade routes to the south...or holding private consultations without you present?"
Nearly half of the women's faces clouded over. "Hit the nail on the head, have I?" Karina asked sharply.
One of the middle-aged women shrugged. "Are any of those indicators really evidence of guilt? Traders come up from the south all the time, and people often communicate by carrier pigeon. Last year, I also grew suspicious at a sudden increase in the number of messages my husband was sending and receiving, so I bribed the bird keeper to pass me any messages going in and out. But when I did so, I discovered nothing suspicious."
"It is possible that the increased amount of messages was a smoke screen, my dear aunt," Karina said. "It may be that the messages were meant to draw your vigilance and that their contents were meant to put you at ease." Whispers broke out among the women as Karina spoke.
"My husband's communications have also increased in the past year, and I too have maintained constant vigilance," Karina said. "He has also increased his hours spent in physical training, though the messages he received had nothing to do with that. The messages were not suspicious in and of themselves, either. They concerned matters of shipping and cargo, and a certain something discovered by one of his longshoremen."
Karina produced a lump of tar from her clothing and suddenly split it in half, revealing a sheet of white paper concealed inside. "The discovery was masterfully done. One night, a trade ship arrived in the harbor from the Talsh Empire. There was a welcoming banquet for ships that evening. One of my husband's longshoremen noticed a sailor from the Talsh ship leaving the banquet early. He followed him back to the dock. At first, the longshoreman believed that the sailor had only returned to his ship to check its moorings, but then the sailor suddenly dove into the ocean.
"After a short time, the sailor made his way back to shore, appearing entirely unconcerned. He returned to his lodging house shortly after.
"The longshoreman is a conscientious man as well as an observant one. He waited until dawn and dove to the same spot as the sailor. While underwater, he noticed this pressed tightly into the grooves of the anchor chain.
"Ingenious, isn't it? If he hadn't noticed the sailor leaving the banquet, he would never have thought anything suspicious about a small lump of tar attached to an anchor chain."
The oldest woman present, the deceased queen's mother Torana, rose from her seat and beckoned Karina over. Due to her advanced age, she was little involved with the goings-on of government any longer, but because of the early deaths of many of the women's mothers in childbirth, Torana's opinion was relied upon as if it came from their own mothers.
Karina stood up and took a place beside Torana. The other women pressed in, eagerly trying to read the letter that Karina had in her hands. The paper was full of holes, but nothing at all was written on it.
"The message is encrypted," Torana said. "There must be a trick to reading it."
"Yes, I thought the same thing, honored grandmother. In messages that my husband received from carrier pigeons, I thought there might be a cipher used to disguise my husband's true intentions."
Torana lifted her head from the paper and looked at Karina.
"Were you ever able to confirm if there was a cipher?"
"Yes, but this is not a message that can be read now. In order to discover its contents, it must be read in the light of the morning sun."
Torana frowned and slowly shook her head. "It seems the men have gotten worked up over something. Every man of Sangal that goes off his chain is always bound to be a little dangerous."
"What should we do? Should we tell our husbands what we have discovered and prevent them from doing anything reckless?" Roksana asked while looking at her sister and grandmother.
Torana shook her head. Karina took a guess at what she was thinking: "For now, we should continue to pretend not to know and keep constant watch. We need to find out who the instigator is and anyone lending them support. We also need to discover the root cause of this plot and destroy it."
Instead of anxiety or nervousness, the expressions of the surrounding women settled into a decisive grimness that would be considered most improper by outsiders. Like the men of Sangal, the women also preferred the challenge of strong winds to the boredom of calm seas.
"We have changed out any number of island guardians before, when the need arose," Karina said. "But what's critical here is that we avoid rebellion. It is our duty to prevent Sangal from collapsing from within. We have to find the leader."
One of the women said, "Keeping the hundreds of islands in the Yaltash ocean unified is no simple matter. But I am concerned about the matter of the traders to the south. It seems we may need to block them from access, and that worries me."
Karina's face tightened. "Hm. Well, we have cause to distrust at least one southern merchant, so it stands to reason we should distrust others. The person that concealed the letter in the anchor chain was a merchant from Yogo. Since that man and my husband have started business dealings, they've been in constant communication."
"A merchant from Yogo? Not a merchant from Talsh?" Roksana asked.
Karina nodded. "Yes. He was aboard a Talsh vessel, but his features were Yogoese. He was even wearing a Talsh uniform, but at the time I simply considered it a costume to make doing business with the Talsh simpler. Still, it was a bit odd, which is why I remember."
"My husband has frequent dealings with Yogo," one of the island guardians' wives said. "Perhaps it's worth investigation."
Roksana turned her head toward her. "Perhaps. But wasn't the man on the Talsh ship working alone? The man your husband deals with and the spy on the ship aren't necessarily the same. Do you remember his name?"
"Um, something like Togum."
"And is the man we have been speaking of also called Togum?" Roksana asked.
"No," Karina answered. "I've been informed that his name is Rasugu. But names are easily changed, as are appearances. What we need to do is find out who is manipulating these spies so that we can shed light on this plot."
The women surrounding her nodded. The future of the nation depended on them. They had been taught and disciplined to always work together on their shared goals.
"Karina," Torana said. "I am old, and my mind is not what it once was. I will delegate you. Hear every voice and take decisive action. We are most vulnerable now, before the new king is crowned. It is now that any traitorous island guardians will make their move. On top of that, your husband will soon arrive with the Eyes of the Nayugul Raita. I have only ever seen one once and have no desire to repeat such an experience. We are approaching a storm. Everyone, I entreat you, take every possible precaution and leave no stone unturned."
Sunlight streamed over the ocean waves, sparkling and scattering
light where it fell. The women looked out upon the waves at sunset,
their thoughts clearly weighing heavily on their minds.
No comments:
Post a Comment