Read Online 2: Servants of the Crossed Arrows by Ginn Hale - Free Book Online Page A

he’d actually answered Pivan’s question, but it was all he felt safe saying. He knew very little about Basawar marriage rituals, except that men could and often did take more than one wife and that divorce was unheard of.
    “But if they were protected? If they were assured of food and shelter?” Pivan came back to the table. “Then what would you do?”
    “What would I do?” John repeated the question. Pivan regarded him calmly, waiting.
    “I don’t know. It’s been so long that I haven’t really thought about it. It may never happen.” John didn’t have to work to inject weariness into his voice. He spoke the truth. They might never find a way home. And then what? What would he do if they had to spend the rest of their lives here?
    “But you don’t have a woman waiting back in your village?” Pivan’s voice broke into his thoughts.
    “No,” John said quickly. “I don’t have anyone.”
    More truth. This conversation was turning out to be among the most depressing of his life.
    Pivan nodded and then placed the polished stone down onto the tabletop between them. He performed the action so deliberately that John knew it must carry some great significance. But he had absolutely no idea what that might be. The white quartz was cloudy at the bottom and then grew more transparent towards the top. It looked almost like a piece of ice sitting in front of him.
    Pivan said, “If I swore that I would provide for your sister and her husband and see that they would never be without shelter or food, would you be willing to leave them behind?”
    “Behind here?”
    “Yes.” Pivan kept his eyes on the stone. “Young Fikiri’in’Bousim must have an attendant to accompany him to Heaven’s Door. Ali das was chosen, but you’ve seen his leg yourself. He can’t possibly climb the Thousand Steps.”
    Suddenly all of Pivan’s questions made perfect sense to him.
    “You’re willing to take care of Loshai and Behr if I go in Alidas’ place?” John asked.
    “I have offered you my word,” Pivan said. “Will you take it?”
    John realized that physically taking the stone somehow symbolized his agreement to the proposition.     
    “You would have to live in Rathal’pesha as a priest,” Pivan continued, apparently ready to argue against what he imagined was John’s reason for hesitation. “You would leave no son after you, but your sister’s sons will be safe in the Bousim house and they will each know what you did for them. Your name will not die with you.”
    None of what Pivan said mattered, beyond the knowledge that he would protect Laurie and Bill and that John would get inside Rathal’pesha. He would have access to the holy keys as well as Ravishan and his teachers. John’s heart raced at just the thought of finding a way back home. Could it really be this easy?
    “Lady Bousim will be furious,” John murmured.
    “She will be angry with me, not with you,” Pivan said. “She doesn’t need to know that you agreed to this. She can believe that I forced it on you.”
    “Could you do that?” John was thinking of the legal aspect but instantly he realized that his question could also be taken as a personal challenge, which of course Pivan did.
    He smirked at John.
    “I’ve broken demons. I could break you,” he stated flatly. “But I couldn’t give you the strength to climb the Thousand Steps to Heaven’s Door. A man’s whole will has to be behind that kind of work.”
    “What if my will isn’t enough? What if I fail?”     
    “I’m a bad man to disappoint.” Pivan smiled at him. “But I’m sure that Lady Bousim would be greatly pleased with you.”
    John nodded and then accepted the polished quartz.
    “A wise choice,” Pivan told him.
    •••
    The next afternoon John found himself following Pivan through the narrow streets of Amura’taye. The last rays of afternoon sun cast long shadows and felt pleasantly warm on John’s face. His new coat hung over his shoulder, giving