by Tanith Lee
“I begin to wonder if I can trust you, Lomandra. In that case, I shall require proof of what you’ve done.” The Queen settled back into her chair and her face took on a look of impenetrability. In that moment Lomandra despaired, for she felt she was no longer communing with anything human or rational, but rather with some she-devil from the pit.
“Bring me,” Val Mala said, “the smallest finger of the child’s left hand. I see you will like this task even less than the first. Consider it the punishment for hesitation. You understand the alternatives, I think. Disobey me and you’ll live the rest of your life with every manner of scar on your body that my whip master can devise. Go now. Get it done.”
Lomandra turned and went out, dragging herself like an old woman. She scarcely knew where she was going. With dull surprise she reached the curtain of Ashne’e’s room and could not remember how she had come there.
The child lay sleeping in its cot beside the bed; the mother too appeared asleep, and the physician had taken his leave. Lomandra went to the cot, stood gazing down with burning, half-sightless eyes. Her hand went out and touched the pillow’s edge. Easy, it would be so easy. The pillow slid half an inch from below the head of the unconscious child.
“Lomandra.”
Lomandra turned swiftly, and the girl’s eyes were open and full on hers.
“What are you doing, Lomandra?”
The Xarabian felt the impossible compulsion grasp her.
“The Queen. The Queen has instructed me to smother your son. As proof that I’ve carried out her wishes she desires the little finger of the baby’s left hand.”
“Give me the child,” Ashne’e said. “On that table the physician has left a sleeping draft in a black vial. Bring me that also.”
Lomandra, moving in a dull and soulless incomprehension, did as she was told. Ashne’e took her baby in the crook of her arm, bared her breast, and smeared there a little of the dark liquid before giving the child suck.
“Now,” she said, “fetch me a knife.”
Never in all her life had Lomandra witnessed such an adamantine ruthlessness. Beside this, Val Mala’s malice became a scattering of dust.
It seemed to the Xarabian that she moved like a doll to do what Ashne’e directed, as though some puppet-master brought about all her actions by the twitching of silver strings.
• • •
A man in the Queen’s livery bowed low before the Queen.
“Madam, the Lady Lomandra begs to present you with this token.”
“Indeed? What a pretty box. Elyrian enamelwork, I think.”
The Queen eased up the lid of the box a little way and gazed inside. Not a muscle moved. Only the sight of her personal blood distressed her. She had that true stamp of Vis royalty which made her consider all others, particularly those born from the lower echelons of the people, to be progressively more and more subhuman. She shut the lid with a snap.
“You may tell Lomandra that her gift delights me. I shall remember her kind thought.”
Val Mala rose and went into the privacy of an inner room, where she tipped something from the box into an incense brazier.
Moments later her women were brought running by a sharp cry. The Queen’s labor had come upon her, somewhat prematurely.
Five physicians and a flock of midwives were summoned.
The birth was uncomplicated, but Val Mala forgot she was a Queen and screamed like a street whore, cursing them, and complaining to the gods that this affliction was not to be endured. At last a drug was administered, and the child born as its mother lay insensible.
White birds were slaughtered on temple altars, offering-smoke lay like river mist over the Okris, stringed bells rang, blue signals shot from the city’s watchtowers.
The Queen woke.
Her first thought was of her own body, free now from its enslaving ugliness, the tyrant plucked out. Second, she thought of the King, the man she had created and would eventually rule as he sat on the throne of his hated forerunner, Rehdon.
Several women stood beyond the bed; low evening light caught ornaments glistening like rain and showed, too, a certain unease on the dark faces.
“Where is my child?” she asked them.
Nervously they glared into each other’s eyes.
A fat midwife approached the bed.
“Majesty, you have a son.”
“I know.” Val Mala became impatient. “Let me see him. At once.”
The woman backed away, was replaced by a man in surgeon’s robes who leant over her and breathed: “It might be best, gracious madam, if you were to recover a little of your strength before we bring the baby to you.”
“I will see him now. Now, fool, do you hear?”
The man bowed low, gestured and a girl came from the end of the chamber carrying the white bundle of the infant in her hands.
Val Mala stared about her from her cushions.
“Is the child dead?” The sudden question sent a pang of terror through her. This was her only key to Dorthar and the power of Dorthar; if this were a stillbirth—Oh gods, what would she do? She snatched the baby in its dragon-embroidered mantle, and it was warm and feebly moving, though it gave no cries. She unwound the cloth. Why did the thing not cry? Was this unhealthy? No, now it sat naked in her hands she saw that it was perfect. And yet, what was—?
Val Mala screamed. The discarded baby fell tumbling down the bed, the midwife and the girl rushing to catch it up.
A monster, she had birthed a monster. Waves of insane rage and fear pounded and smashed in her body like a boiling sea.
• • •
A pale bird, sacrificed on the altar of Amnorh’s palace, would not die. It screamed and fluttered, its breast sliced open, until all the birds in the cages of the aviary court were shrieking and dashing themselves against the bars. It appeared the gods were loath to accept the offering.
At noon a flight of white pigeons, winging up past the windows of the Storm Palace, redrew the incident clearly and frightfully in his mind. An omen. Yet what place had omens in the Warden’s scheme of things?
Val Mala came into the room a moment later.
Her beauty was restored. It had taken her one month and the arts of a hundred women and slaves, masseurs from Zakoris, beauticians from Xarabiss and Karmiss and an astrologer-witch out of the Elyrian lands. She wore a gown of amethyst velvet, a girdle of white gold, and jewels scorched in her hair and on her hands.
“My greetings, Lord Warden.”
“I have been in darkness without the lamp of your loveliness,” he said.
“Pretty words, Amnorh. Did you buy them from a minstrel?”
Amnorh stiffened. He felt a sudden obtrusive coldness in his loins and around his heart. She had changed toward him, then. He must tread softly now, very softly. He thought of certain rumors he had heard concerning the birth of the prince. Certain rumors, too, that certain people present at the birth were strangely no longer seen about.
“I seek your counsel, Lord Warden. Your advice on a delicate matter.”
“I am your servant, madam, as you know.”
“Do I, Amnorh? Well.”
A low white shadow drifted through the open doorway. The kalinx had followed her in. The sense of cold griped in Amnorh’s vitals as if this creature were the presage of some disaster. It rubbed its face against her foot and sank down beside her, and she, seating herself in a low chair, began to caress its head. Her familiar.
“I am troubled,” she said, “deeply troubled. I’ve received curious reports regarding the Lowland girl. No one has seen her baby for many days, and she will say nothing. I think she’s killed the child and hidden the body.”
His narrow eyes studied her expressionlessly.
“And why, my peerless Queen, should she do that?”
“I’m told she suffered unduly at th
e birth. Perhaps she’s deranged.”
Amnorh gambled.
“Perhaps there’s a beautiful woman who hates her.” And saw at once that he had lost a good deal on this one cast. She stared at him with her black-as-venom eyes and said without inflection: “Never be too sure of me.”
“Madam, I speak only as your servant—one who would guard you whenever possible.”
“Really? You’d guard me, would you? Haven’t you known how this Lowland witch has practiced against me with all manner of diabolical magics and foulnesses?”
“Radiant Queen—”
“She is a sorceress and shall be punished as such,” Val Mala cried out in sudden fury, and the kalinx lifted its icy head and snarled.
Mastering himself, Amnorh tried a new tack with her.
“What you do is dangerous,” he said. “All high positions make enemies. Beware of those who will seize any opportunity to destroy you.”
“Who?” she said, almost in a caressive tone. “Tell me.”
“You yourself should be aware—”
“I am aware of more than you think, Amnorh. And why is it that you want the Lowland bitch to live? Was the body of the Queen not enough for you?”
“The nucleus of her spite,” he thought, “merely jealousy? But such dangerous jealousy.”
“There’s a reason why the girl should be spared. She has knowledge of peculiar powers. They would ensure you complete and unassailable rule. The throne of Dorthar would be safe for you and for your son.”
“I don’t need your safety,” she said.
Silk rustled in the doorway.
“Majesty, the Lord Orhn still waits on you in the antechamber,” a woman said.
“You may tell him I shan’t be long.”
Amnorh held his breath, weighing the feel of a balance in his mind. Val Mala rose.
“Go now,” she said, and she smiled at him, “go and enjoy your skinny little Lowland whore while you are able.”
“You misjudge me, madam.”
“I think not. I’ve heard you’ve often been a midnight visitor at the Palace of Peace.”
The coldness filled his mouth, and he shivered. Flinging the last dice, knowing already everything was lost, in a measured voice he said: “You forget the service I did you, Val Mala, in the Shadowless Plains.”
“Oh, but I do not.”
His tongue grew large in his mouth as it had when he looked at the white and golden nightmare creature in the cave. He bowed, turned silently and left her, knowing very well what she had promised him. In the anteroom he passed the tall figure of the Prince Orhn Am Alisaar, but did not see it.
Orhn, however, marked the Warden’s going and waited no longer.
He came into the room, and the kalinx lifted its head, lifted its lip and bared wicked ivory at him.
“Keep your place, you filthy abomination,” he said to it, and the kalinx sank, tail twitching, eyes a livid blue.
Val Mala turned.
“I didn’t give you leave to enter.”
“We’ll dispense with this playacting, I think, madam. I have entered and am here, with your leave or without it.”
“I’d heard, Orhn, that we were at last to be blessed with your departure.”
He grinned unexpectedly, but it was a wolfish, menacing grin.
“I’ll depart, madam, all in good time. But I seem to remember, madam, I did you a kindness which hasn’t been repaid.”
“Ah, yes. The prince rescued me from a serpent. What do you want, then? The usual mercenary’s fee?”
“What I have in mind I don’t imagine you spend on hired soldiers.”
Val Mala’s eyes widened. She took a step back, and he several steps forward. He reached out his large hands and gripped her velvet arms.
“Before I leave, I’ve promised myself something. And I calculate you know precisely what.”
“Your insolence is disgusting.”
“I always appear to disgust you, but you graciously granted me this audience. And so beautiful and elegantly dressed you are for it. Or do I mistake? Did you pretty yourself for Amnorh instead?”
“Let me go.”
He pulled her against him and thrust one hand inside the neck of her gown, his fingers closing like five claws of hot metal on her right breast. She reached up and raked the point of a ring down his cheek. He came away from her in a second, but caught her wrists in his hand and struck her across the face without hesitation. The blow chopped her to one side, and only the grasp on her wrists kept her from falling. A weal of dark blood appeared like a brand on her cheek.
“Hell take you for that!” she screamed.
He swung her up struggling.
“What dulcet tones my lady has,” he said, and he was very jovial. He carried her across the floor, and she shouted at him and fought against him all the way. He kept her hands tight and a distance from his eyes. Her spite was entirely impotent.
A brief colonnade led to the door of her bedchamber. He thrust the door open and then shut, and dropped her down onto the coverlet, where the embroidery of suns and moons flared up shocked eyes at him.
“Do this to me and I’ll kill you,” she hissed.
“Try by all means. I’ve slain men in single combat sixty times, each one fully armed and skilled in weaponry. Don’t think you could do better.”
He bent over her and began to unlace her bodice but she scratched at him. He immediately struck her hands away and effortlessly ripped the material open and the lacy undergarment with it. The false paleness of her unguent faded into copper on her breasts. He slid both hands to cover the erect red buds at their centers and felt them harden, like warm stones, against his palms.
“Now,” he said, “this isn’t Zastis, madam. You’ve no excuse for that. And I am so disgusting to you. Let me disgust you a little further.”
He pushed aside the heavy folds of her skirt.
When he entered her she made a sound in her throat far from anger, and her arms came clinging to his back, but he pushed her away and held her still, totally passive under his riding. Not a long but a hard ride. At her abandoned cries of ecstasy he slipped the tether and fell plunging in blind convulsions of pleasure through the golden thunder of her body.
“You hurt me,” she murmured. Her soft hand slid over him, finding out his hard muscular body, its plains and crevices, the core of his loins, which stirred faintly, even now, beneath her touch. “You’re well endowed for this work.”
“And you are a whore,” he remarked.
She only laughed, and soon he pushed her back and took her again.
• • •
The blue dust of night settled in the room.
Orhn left the bed and stood against the open windows, a towering male symmetry composed of darkness. Lifted on one elbow, Val Mala considered him.
“You abuse me, then leave me, Orhn. To Alisaar?”
He did not reply.
“Do me a service before you go,” she said, and caught the glint of his eyes turning to her. “Help me rid myself of the Lord Warden of Koramvis.” Unable to see his mouth, she surmised he might be smiling. “And also of the she-witch who practices sorcery against me.”
He came back to the bed and sat beside her, and now she saw the smile. Still he said nothing.
“Orhn, might it be possible that the girl’s baby wasn’t Rehdon’s seed . . . perhaps some priest, before he used her—”
He stretched out and cupped her breasts.
“Val Mala, when we found Rehdon dead, the Lowland girl sent herself into a kind of trance, which Amnorh claimed himself able to revive her from. He was alone with her in his tent for some time.”
The breath hissed between her teeth.
“So.”
“So. I’ve answered both your questions, I think. And the child which tro
ubles you so greatly is no more than rotten fruit.”
“Amnorh shall be killed.”
Orhn shrugged. She caught the lobe of his ear between her teeth and bit it viciously. He pushed her away with an amused curse.
“Do as you like, gadfly. You’ve only the gods to answer to.”
“And you. Is it the regency you want, or me?”
“The regency. You, sweetheart, are the worthless dross that comes with it.”
• • •
White stars clustered in the sky, swung in the stained glass of the river, on the brink of which black hovels craned up to the moon. Some way off, on the opposite bank, the glow of a temple’s lights spilled down narrow steps into the water.
Lomandra moved along avenues of old cobbles, between the rat-infested remains of walls. Often she glanced nervously from side to side. Earlier a man had come out at her from a rotten doorway, thinking probably that she was a prostitute searching for custom.
“Let me by. I am summoned to the Garrison,” she had managed to choke out, and this invocation of the name of law deterred him.
She came to the place this time on foot, the hem of her cloak wet with mud from the filthy gutters, she, who had always in the past ridden here in curtained litters. It was a large formless building, white walls soiled with dirt and night. The guard at the gate blocked her path with a slanted spear.
“What’s your business?”
Lomandra had no presence of mind left to her at this moment.
“I am here to see the Dragon Lord, Kren.”
“Oh, are you, miss? Well, the dragon is busy, too busy to be interested in your sort.”
She felt her body wilting with weak hopelessness, but another man spoke from the dark beyond the gate.
“You, sentry. Let the lady through.”
The guard swung round, saluted, moved aside. Lomandra came into the dingy, damp court. She could not see the man’s face, but his voice had seemed familiar. He took her arm gently.
“The Lady Lomandra—am I correct?”
He led her beneath the pulsing splutter of a grease torch, and, looking up, she was able to identify him. His name was Liun, a man of Karmiss, one of Kren’s captains.
