Page 85 of A Drop of Corruption

I raised my head from the bed, listening. The sound was no dream: there truly were bells, their tolling low and deep and rich.

“Eh?” I croaked.

Sabudara awoke beside me, coughed, and cried out something in Pithian—“Ghati? Ki uha ghati hana?” Then she sat up, parted from me—there was a wetclickas I was unmoored from her—and leapt from the bed. Then she went to the window and threw open the shutters, apparently indifferent to her nudity.

“Nia, nia,” she said softly.

I rose from the bed. Though I knew little Pithian, I knewniameant no.

“What is that?” I asked. “Are those tocsins?”

She did not answer. I clambered to my feet and realized they were not tocsin bells: not the pure, high, silvery sounds that cried out warning in the imperial cantons. These were much deeper, enormous bells whose tolling was so resonant it shook my bones.

Sabudara cursed under her beath, then swatted angrily at me as I tried to draw a sheet about her and veil her body. “Murakha!” she spat. “Ki tusim suna sakahde ho?”

“What?” I said.

“Bairana! Bairana mara latha!” she snarled. Such was her agitation that what little imperial standard she knew seemed lost to her.

Yet I paused, for I knew that last word.

“Latha?” I said. “Corpse? Dead?”

She nodded.

“Someone’s dead? Thisbairana?”

Another nod. “Bairana.” She gestured to her head, miming a crown atop her brow. “King. The king!”

I stared at her, then glanced west out the window, though I could not see much of the hills beyond.

“The…thekingis dead?” I said faintly.

“Haim,” said Sabudara. “Yes! The king!”

“Theking of Yarrowis dead?That’swhat those bells mean?”

“Yes! Yes!” cried Sabudara. Then she jumped into her trousers, tossed on her shirt and cloak, and then, without another word, sprinted out the door with her boots hanging from her hand.

I gazed after her, my mind all awhirl, before realizing she had left the door open, and I was still unclothed. With a gasp, I leapt over and slammed it shut.

—

After I’d stumbledinto my own shirt and trousers and boots, I darted outside. I intended to knock on Ana’s door but saw that the street was filled with folk staring west, murmuring as they watched something in the distance. I joined them, squinting in the morning sun.

Black smoke plumed high from the High City in the west: not the smoke of a wildfire but an intentional smoke, like that of a bonfire or signal.

Or mourning smoke, maybe. Which meant, perhaps, that the king was truly dead.

My mind churned, and images of the oathcoin and the poison burbled up within my memories.

“Oh, hell,” I whispered.

I recrossed the street and knocked on Ana’s door, heard her customary, singing “Come!” and slipped inside.

“Ma’am!” I said breathlessly. “Ma’am, those bells! I…It seems there may be news tha—”

I entered her main room, saw Ana sitting on the bed, and stopped.