The Children of Kings

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “You’d have to ritually purify it!” put in a third man.

  A round of guffaws, echoed by other voices at some distance, answered him. Rakhal scrambled to his feet, leaving Gareth still prone.

  “O most cunning and valorous servant of the Great Lord Yvarin, allow this humble person to rectify the grievous and utterly unpardonable actions of—”

  “Out of the way, slave meat! And take that carrion with you!” sneered the first guard again.

  Gareth dared raise his head, just in time to see the scarred man slip something into his folded sash. Rakhal hauled Gareth to his feet and pushed him toward the edge of the plaza. Gareth had only a moment to notice that not a single woman remained near the fountain.

  Relief gave way to giddiness at still being alive and whole, and then to the sobering realization of how easily he had trespassed upon forbidden ground. What an arrogant idiot he’d been! Except for Rakhal’s intervention and the guard’s willingness to accept a bribe, the incident might have turned out quite differently.

  “You! Stay right here! Don’t speak to anyone! Don’t even look at anyone!” With a parting glare that could freeze the Kadarin, Rakhal went to retrieve Gareth’s horses.

  9

  Gareth trudged after Rakhal along a narrow street, barely able to see his own feet in the light of the widely spaced torches. The last of the day’s adrenaline had faded along with the sun, and Gareth ached in every bone. The brown mare had taken a sudden dislike to the packhorse, laying back her ears and baring her long yellow teeth. The second time she tried to spin and kick, Rakhal seized her reins and walked her in a tight circle, cursing unintelligibly. A few moments later, the mare seemed to have forgotten her animosity and was quite content to walk quietly beside the other horse.

  “Thank you for what you did at the fountain. I don’t know what would have happened if—” Gareth stopped himself. He did know, he just did not want to think about it. Had this entire adventure been criminally reckless, venturing away from the safe, trammeled places he had known?

  “You knew enough not to engage the guards. If you had, not even Nebran himself could have saved you. But you fought bravely on the trail, so no one can name you coward.”

  “You have very decided opinions for an apprentice.”

  “I know my duty . . . and my place,” Rakhal said tightly.

  A thought crossed Gareth’s mind, a conclusion so obvious he couldn’t think why he hadn’t seen it before. Now it all made sense: Rakhal’s self-confidence with Cyrillon, the easy way of giving orders, the faint edge of superiority that Gareth found irritating. “Your place? Are you Cyrillon’s son as well as his apprentice?”

  “No.”

  They proceeded along a tangle of ill-paved streets and finally to a district of wide, dusty avenues and sprawling compounds. Rakhal headed for one of these, no different from the others with its walls of mud brick and wind-etched sandstone. Sun had bleached the heavy wooden gates, so that even in the gathering dark, they shimmered, ghostlike. Torches burned in their holders, and a somber-faced Dry Towner, heavily armed, watched them approach.

  Under the guard’s watchful eye, the gates swung open. Beyond them, Gareth glimpsed a yard of raked sand, a rectangular house of white stone, and outbuildings, most likely quarters for servants, a stable for the master’s personal mount or storehouses for the household goods, everything within the protection of the walls.

  They entered the house itself through an intricately carved lattice gate. A pair of stout inner doors gave way to an open courtyard. Gareth, stepping inside, inhaled the sweetness of night-blooming vines. A fountain plashed gently. The noises of the town fell away, along with the cares of the journey. He glanced up at the sweep of stars and moons, now high in the sky, and felt as if their light shone clear through him.

  In the few moments Gareth stood, drinking in the quiet garden, a woman had emerged from a doorway on the far side, silhouetted against the honey-warm light beyond. He could not make out her shape, beyond the full skirts and layers of veil. She moved toward them with the tinkling of chains. Rakhal went up to her, and the two exchanged hushed words. Gareth could not follow their meaning, only the urgency of their tone. At one point, Rakhal gestured in his direction. Gareth imagined the apprentice saying, “He’s got no more sense than a sun-addled oudrakhi! He’ll get himself killed and bring shame to us all!”

  The woman disappeared into the house. Rakhal turned back to Gareth. “That settles it. You’ll stay with us.”

  Gareth did not protest.

  An hour later, washed and changed into a long Dry Towns robe, Gareth joined Cyrillon for the evening meal. The caravan master, resplendent in a shirtcloak of emerald-colored silk, reclined on a pile of cushions and gestured for Gareth to do the same.

  When Gareth attempted to thank Cyrillon for his welcome, the trader cut him off, saying, “Hospitality first, business afterward.” Gareth wondered what business Cyrillon meant, but a direct question, especially before the meal, would be the height of rudeness. In his years at the Thendaran court, he had learned patience if nothing else.

  The woman who had greeted them, who must be Cyrillon’s wife, offered platters of meat, chopped and rolled with dried fruit and savory spices, with pickled vegetables and flat bread. A second woman, slender and dark-eyed, moved silently by her side. Gareth could not get a good look at the younger woman’s face through her veil. She moved with a gazelle’s swift grace, although her chains glinted in the light of the lanterns. Except for an occasional soft clink, they made no sound. He supposed that most Dry Towns women went all their lives with fettered hands and became accustomed to them.

  Gareth bent to his meal, trying not to stare at the women. They knelt a short distance away while master and guest ate. He thought of his own mother, of his young sister, chained into silent subservience—or Grandmother Linnea.

  The Terranan were right to call us savages! Fire spread across his face and throat. He bowed his head, unable to eat.

  Cyrillon gave orders for the food to be removed. The women took it away in that graceful, silent way and did not return.

  “You will not smoke a water pipe, I know,” Cyrillon said. “I could not stomach it myself for many years, but perhaps you will not mind if I indulge myself? It is men’s business, forbidden to women. My wife and daughter will not disturb us.”

  “I would not have you deny yourself your usual pleasures on my account,” Gareth said stiffly.

  Cyrillon took up the water pipe and set about preparing to smoke. Gareth tried not to cough on the pungent vapors. He wondered where Rakhal was. Most likely, it was not the custom for an apprentice to dine with his master when at home. Gareth found himself missing the camaraderie of the trail.

  Gareth felt awkward, reclining in silence while his host smoked. He glanced in the direction in which the women had disappeared, wondering what they were doing—enjoying their own dinner, most likely, or gossiping about the men. What were they saying about him? Had Rakhal told them about the incident at the fountain?

  “To you, a man of the Domains, this must seem foreign and exotic,” the caravan master said, gesturing to include his compound and the town beyond, “but it is far more Domains than Dry Towns, and the wild lands of the desert are stranger still.”

  Gareth admitted that he had nothing to compare Carthon with. “Certainly, there are many Dry Towns customs here. I saw women in chains.”

  “The local custom offends you.” Cyrillon paused for a meditative puff. “I have never been able to convince my wife to leave off her chains. I suppose she feels as naked without them as you or I would, were we to walk breechless down the main thoroughfare of Thendara in the dead of winter.”

  Gareth laughed, admitting the man had a point. The old saying went, We are as the gods have made us.

  “As for my daughter, she is my only child and the ornament of my house. She does as she pleases
.”

  “And it pleases her to wear chains?”

  “Perhaps what she pleases is to be able to come and go, as secure as any woman can be from the predations of men. This way she draws no undue attention to herself, and any insult to her would surely be answered by whatever man holds the key to unlock those chains.”

  Was there a hint of mockery in those words?

  “Enough smoke for today. A wise man is always temperate in his pleasures.” Cyrillon took a final puff and set aside his water pipe. He disassembled it and carefully cleaned the mouthpiece with a cloth dipped in water, which had been laid out for the purpose.

  “Now,” he said, fixing Gareth with a humorless gaze, “to business. You handle a sword exceptionally well for a mere lens-grinder’s assistant. Do not deny it. I have seen men jab at each other with lengths of steel and call it sword fighting. More than that, you held back. You have been trained, and very well indeed, but I do not think you have ever killed a man. No ordinary man would have spared Merach as you did.”

  Gareth tried to summon a convincing story, but the only thought that sprang to his mind was that he had not planned to fight at all. That would raise the question why he carried a sword if he had no intention of using it.

  Cyrillon grunted, as if Gareth’s silence supplied the answer he had been looking for. “You speak the tongue of the Dry Towns quite well, you know. You must have had an excellent tutor. But he taught you the classical literary declension of the verbs to be and to make. A tradesman would use only the vernacular. Then, too, the color of your hair is not what one would find here in the lands adjoining the Dry Towns. I have never seen that tint of red except among the Comyn of the Domains. And if you will pardon my boldness in saying it, vai dom, you think entirely too much of yourself.”

  Again, the trader paused. From within the house came the sound of women’s laughter and music, a flowing arpeggio played on a flute. Gareth’s mouth dried up.

  “Who are you, in truth?”

  “Does it matter?” Gareth asked, the words emerging as a croak.

  “It does if there is sworn blood between our houses.”

  “There is not.”

  “But there is something. No, I cannot read your thoughts. I am no sorcerer. Your eyes betray you, Garrin—if that is indeed your name.”

  An image sprang to Gareth’s mind, of standing at a crossroads. He could cling to the disguise he had presented, in which case it would be best to not even attempt to explain the inconsistencies Cyrillon had listed. He could concoct another story, that he was the youngest son of one or another of the lesser houses. He knew enough of them to use an alias that could not be easily disproved. It was not unreasonable that such a person, with all the education of the Comyn but with no hope of inheritance, might seek his fortune in trade. This alternative story might sound more convincing, but was it honorable to deceive the man who had befriended him a second time? Was that not a betrayal of hospitality and of trust?

  There was third choice. He could tell the truth.

  And risk being sent back to Thendara under guard? Risk his parents and Tío Danilo, not to mention the Regent and the entire court, learning of his escapade? He knew what they’d say, and they’d be right.

  He’d already thrown away any claim to respect when he’d followed Danilo and Domenic. It did not matter if they knew what he’d done. He knew.

  He met Cyrillon’s gaze levelly. “You are a keen observer and an even more perceptive judge of men. I am not an apprentice of any kind, nor is Garrin my real name. I am Gareth Marius-Danvan Elhalyn y Hastur. You are, I believe, acquainted with my father’s namesake, Danilo Syrtis-Ardais.”

  Cyrillon’s face tightened, but not before Gareth caught the flash of astonishment.

  “I know nothing of your current business with him,” Gareth hurried on, “only that you bring him information from time to time and that he has confidence in you.”

  “Clearly he must, if he has entrusted me with the safety of the Heir to the Crown.” Cyrillon gave Gareth another of those piercing glances.

  Gareth swallowed. “He does not know I am here. At least, I have not come at his behest.”

  For a long moment, Cyrillon did not move. Slowly the blood drained from his cheeks, although his expression did not alter, except for the pulsation of a vein in his forehead.

  “Father of Sands! Dom Danilo’s messenger told the truth! What are you doing here, then?”

  “Does it matter?” Gareth said, miserable and ashamed. “What is to be done now?”

  “We cannot change what has already happened, but at least you came through it safely.” Cyrillon’s color shifted toward normal as he spoke. “As for what to do now, there cannot be any doubt. You must return immediately to Thendara, Your Highness!”

  Gareth forced himself to hold still, to accept the judgment. This was the only possible outcome of his escapade, to be sent home in disgrace. At least, he had enjoyed a brief time of freedom. Now he must pay for it.

  “Yet how can this be accomplished?” Cyrillon muttered, clearly turning over the problem in his own mind. “There can be no question of your returning alone or, worse yet, remaining here when I depart.” The light cast deep shadows in the furrows of his brow, giving him a sardonic look. “I may trade with the Domains, but in order to maintain the trust of the Dry Towns folk, I must keep to custom. As it is, my contact with your people makes me suspect in some quarters. But if a young man not related by blood were allowed the freedom of my household in my absence, that would have dire consequences. There are some—if word were to reach my wife’s kinsmen, your—how do you say it in cahuenga? your cojones would be in grave peril.”

  Gareth felt the blood drain from his cheeks. “Then I must find an inn—”

  “Of course, you must be my guest, and as long as I am here, there is nothing improper.” Cyrillon seemed not to have noticed Gareth’s protest. “It will take me some few days to arrange for your escort and assemble my own crew. Tomas will live and walk again, but not soon. I’ll have Korllen, but I’ll need another man to handle the oudrakhi. Then you will return to Thendara while I must be off for Shainsa.”

  Shainsa! If Carthon promised adventure, lying as it did on the border between the Domains and the Dry Towns, a mixture of the familiar and the exotic, then how much more exciting it would be to venture to that ancient city.

  Gareth wrenched his attention back to the conversation. Cyrillon seemed not to have noticed the lapse and had gone on to discuss making arrangements for a suitable armed escort back to the Domains. Gareth was to remain here, within the walls of Cyrillon’s compound, until his departure.

  “I would not wish you or your family to be put to any inconvenience on my account.” Gareth heard the stiffness in his own voice. “At the same time . . . if I am to return so soon, am I to see nothing of Carthon except the inside of these rooms? I am not likely to have another such chance again. Having come this far and risked this much, I very much desire to use these few days in exploring a city so unlike my own.”

  Gareth braced himself for a refusal. Even if Cyrillon said no at first, the trader might become amenable after another round of reasoned argument.

  “True, you’re safer here than you were on the road from Thendara,” Cyrillon said, “and certainly safer than you would be in a place like Ardcarran. Perhaps a few days in the plaza district will convince you as no words can that there is nothing grander in Carthon than heat and dust.”

  Gareth could hardly believe his luck. “I would of course observe any restrictions you advise for my safety.”

  “You would give your word as a Comyn, as a Hastur, without even knowing what those might be?”

  “I trust your experience and your commitment to my well-being.”

  “You’ll do well enough as long as you keep to the better areas and don’t speak to any woman wearing chains. It would be better, actual
ly, not to even glance in their direction. I will send Alric with you as a guide.”

  “And not Rakhal?”

  “Rakhal? Ah, here in Carthon, Rakhal goes his own way. We shall see little of him until it is time to leave.”

  The next morning, Gareth broke his fast alone, for Cyrillon had already gone about the day’s business. Outside his door, he found a tray waiting for him, with a dish of grain porridge, much as he would have eaten in Thendara, and some pastries, dough that had been twisted, deep-fried, and then dusted with orange-scented honey crystals. There was no sign of the women, but Alric was waiting in the large chamber below. Shyly, but with obvious anticipation, the boy presented himself as a guide.

  Alric led Gareth along the major avenues, past the Great House and the jeweler’s guild, pointing out the bars of costly metal that protected the open windows, then through one marketplace after another. Almost everything Gareth could imagine was for sale here: carpets from Arcarran, bolts of woven linex and bales of the unspun stuff, filigree work, saddles from the Alton Domain, dried fish and pearls from Temora, salt and sulfur from Daillon. In the livestock market, horses and mules waited patiently beside lumbering oudrakhi and antlered stag-ponies. Gareth spent a few copper coins to sample the wares of the food stalls, purchasing spiced dates, cakes of an unfamiliar grain that had been parched and pounded together with slightly rancid butter, and skewers of sweet peppers, onions, and savory marinated meat.

  The gathering crowds blended into a motley of color: the dusty browns of traders, blue and green woolen cloaks from the Domains, shirtcloaks worn to the color of sand, and once, to the blaring of horns, a Dry Towns lord—perhaps that same Lord Yvarin—and his retainers, arrayed in garish sashes and elaborately gilded tunics.

  Through it all, Alric chattered away, mixing information and fabrication, much of which Gareth suspected the boy had concocted himself or picked up from street urchins.