Page 41 of A Trade of Blood

Fotia managed a half smirk at that.

Velona narrowed her eyes. “You’ve a clever tongue. I dislike that. Artful words veil a dark soul. But…I did not call you here to correctyourcrimes, and I’ve only so much time. There are other misdeeds we wish to discuss. Far worse ones, perhaps…perhaps of an unnatural making. Yes?”

Again, Ana bowed. “This is so, ma’am.”

Velona looked away. “Yes.”

Chapter 12

Velona’s eyes flicked to whereOsumlik stood in the draped moss. “How much time do I have?”

“Oh, rather less than half an hour, ma’am,” he said, bowing. “Then we shall need to begin a new set of treatments. You will need ah, extensive bed rest for that.”

“Yes…of course.” Her sagging eyes blinked for a moment in the darkness. “Once I saw all my lands atop my destrier, Fallowdance. Now I am confined to the landscape of my sheets. Such is my devotion to my bloodline.”

“It seems a grave thing, madam,” said Ana, “to shape your body in this distinct manner.”

“Is it?” said Velona. Something in her eyes flashed. “I am a rancher born. I have seen miracles done in this trade of flesh and blood. And besides, is this not the Empire? Are we not experts in leaf, root, branch—and tissue, even our own?”

Ana bowed but said no more.

“I know you have spoken to my nephew Ippeas, and Fotia here,” continued Velona. “As well as my brother. I will presume they told you thetruth,then—that Castus, my youngest, could not have done this crime.”

“They told Din this, yes,” said Ana.

“And what do you think?” she demanded.

“Oh, we are open toallpossibilities, madam!”

“All?” said Velona. She sat forward. Coral again shifteddiscontentedly in her lap. “When you say all, how do you mean it? Do you mean another fellow could have done this deed? Or that there is some foul work here? Or something even stranger? Tell me now! Be specific!”

“Well—Iam of Sazi stock, ma’am,” said Ana. “From the innermost rings of the Empire. My upbringing there made me aware of many mysteries—some we can comprehend, and others we cannot guess at. Thus, I am open to more explanations of the world than most.”

I suppressed the urge to frown. Ana, I knew, was profoundly contemptuous of nearly any explanation for any crime besides basic human stupidity or greed.Behind most every murder, Din,she often told me,is a fool who thought they’d gain a pocketful of talints, or earn a satisfying hump or two out of the killing.

Yet I knew she now played to Velona’s spiritual leanings and stayed silent.

The answer seemed to please Velona. “Mysteries…” she said quietly. “Yes. I ambesetby mysteries. Not puzzles, or riddles—but those of a more…uncanny sort. An alignment of deeds and, and events that cannot be natural. You saw my works when you came in, yes? The heads of my beauties, and the specimens I have wrought?”

“I did not,” said Ana, gesturing to her blindfold. “But I presume you mean those most admirable urhosi creatures Din mentioned he saw?”

“Indeed. They are the fruit of all my labors. I have overseen the development and breeding of lines of urhosi that are as unlike their ancestors as diamonds are from rough! I’ve procured bulls and cows from all across the Empire, and applied suffusions and grafts to them to augment their biologies so that their progeny is without compare. There is the penguia line, for example, who yield the greatest, most marbled cuts for the table. There is the forctia, grandest of all, who are to other cattle as gods are to common men. This I did, you see, because of the bounty of this land, left by our forebears.”

Velona fished in her robes and pulled out a charm that hung from her neck by a silver chain. I recognized the symbol: it was the one thathad been engraved on the brows of the Daljen statues outside—two spheres placed on either side of a vertical line—but I still had no inkling what it meant.

Velona saw my confusion. “It is the sign of Master Gaddar!” she said with a touch of anger. “The tree bearing fruit, for he was lord of all orchards!”

“Of course,” Ana said quickly. “Of course, madam…”

“There is no richer earth than here!” said Velona. “Not in all the Empire! The arc of soil across these hills is undoubtedly the work of the Daljen. With these fields they fed the elder Empire, their many blessed sister tribes of the Khanum, and the common folk! They were the shepherds, and we their flock. All that occurred here was given their boon—and all that sinned, they punished.” She replaced the totem in her robes. “Are you familiar, Dolabra, with the songs of the Daljen?”

Ana hesitated. “I am familiar with one story, of the Daljeni figure known as Qul,” she said. “How he came upon a wretched man, and sang him a new fate to afflict him for the rest of his days…”

“Yes.Yes.The Khanum of old had mighty voices and could sing a curse or prayer upon a common man and change his very destiny! This I know all too well…”

“You suspect,” said Ana, “that the ancestors are punishing you now, madam? You, or your line—they have sung you a new fate?”

“Yes,” said Velona. “This is obvious! I…I try to defy it now.” She placed a hand upon her bloated stomach. “The Armenta linemustbe given an heir. That is our heritage. That is our oath.”