Transformation

by Carol Berg

  In the last days before the ceremonies were to begin, Aleksander went back to his auditioning, this time for magicians. He spent an entire day watching one Derzhi magician after another demonstrate elaborate creations of colored clouds, fountains of light, flowers, sultry maidens, monkeys, and birds. “Druya’s horns,” he shouted, after a trio of women magicians made yet another flock of birds appear from behind a mirror. “Is there not a decent magical entertainment left in Azhakstan? Could you devise nothing at all unique for your prince’s dakrah? My Ezzarian writing slave could come up with something more exciting.”

  I wanted to stuff Aleksander’s mouth with my writing paper. Ezzarians needed no more animosity from the Derzhi Magician’s Guild. It was the Guild who had called Ivan’s attention to the fertile hills off his southern borders, and convinced him that the secretive Ezzarian sorcerers were dangerous. And it was the Magician’s Guild who had paid or tortured or coerced an elderly Ezzarian scholar named Balthar into devising the way to strip an Ezzarian sorcerer of melydda.

  “Perhaps if we showed you more, Your Highness,” said one of the magicians, a tall, anvil-chinned woman with protruding cheekbones. “This is only the beginning.”

  “Perhaps we should ask the Ezzarian what he would suggest,” hissed another woman. It was the women of the Guild who were the most brutal in administering Balthar’s Rites. Perhaps they were jealous of the status of Ezzarian women, equal in all things to men save in the matter of governing, where we had deemed it best they hold sway. Only in Ezzaria, of all the lands conquered by the Derzhi, had a woman held a throne.

  “Seyonne, a proclamation.” The Prince yanked me out of my wandering thoughts. I dipped my pen and nodded, having an uneasy conviction that whatever Aleksander was going to have me write, it was going to be a mistake.

  “No Derzhi magician will perform at my dakrah or at a dakrah in any noble House for twenty-three years. Perhaps by the time I have a son coming to his majority, they will have thought of something new.”

  “Your Highness! Surely you can’t mean this.” The three women were aghast.

  I hesitated before committing ink to paper. “My lord, I want to make sure I get the wording correct,” I said. “I dare not insult you or the honorable Magician’s Guild by misinterpreting your saying.”

  Perhaps if the women had been quiet, Aleksander might have reconsidered, but they would not leave it.

  “Your Highness, this is unthinkable.”

  “What will the Houses think to have no magic for their most sacred celebrations?”

  “You must recant this proclamation.”

  “You insult our Guild.”

  “We will carry our protest to the Emperor. He has ever shown respect for our profession. He’ll not hear of our being forbidden to pursue our craft at the most significant events of the noble Houses.”

  “Silence, all of you,” said Aleksander, leaping from his chair and sweeping their paraphernalia from a long table, “or I’ll forbid you to practice your craft on any occasion whatsoever. Return to your towers and vaults and learn your business. And protest to the Emperor at the peril of your necks. He favors Khelid magicians at present. Perhaps we’ll not have need for you at all in the future.”

  The three withdrew with such hatred boiling on their faces that I wondered if I should attempt to warn Aleksander. Could he have no idea what he had done? Even those with so little true power could be dangerous.

  All further consideration of the matter was erased by the announcement of the arrival of Lady Lydia and her party from Avenkhar. The servants quickly cleared the room of the grumbling magicians when the Prince said he would be damned if he would move to the formal reception rooms to receive the woman his father had chosen as his bride.

  “I’ll not move a step to see her. Curse it all, why could the witch not have fallen prey to bandits?” growled Aleksander to the Chamberlain’s back. “I won’t marry the she-wolf. I’ll hang myself first.” He straightened his shirt of fawn-colored silk and flopped down in his chair by the hearth, while servants bustled about bringing chairs and footstools to set close to the fire and setting a pot of steaming wine on a table.

  I continued writing out his proclamation, adding all the formalities that were required to make it law. If I was quick I might make my obeisance and escape before the lady entered, lest I be unable to get permission to leave and thus miss my evening rations.

  From Aleksander’s horror of the woman, I expected a horse-faced, pockmarked Derzhi harridan twice his age, someone from a rich and powerful family that no one else would have. Every female under the age of forty seemed to fawn over the Prince—whether he scorned her or bedded her. I supposed they believed that there was always a possibility that the strong-willed heir would convince his father to allow him to marry whomever he fancied, and the chance to be Empress of the Derzhi was too tempting to risk.

  But my first glimpse of the Lady Lydia of the House of Marag told me she didn’t care whether or not she was the Empress. She would do it if required, and do it well, but she would take not one step out of her way to make it more likely. In that and in every important way, she completely confounded my expectations.

  She was no older than Aleksander, and as tall as I, taller if one counted the scarcely tamed red curls piled atop her head. Though slender and well formed, with long, elegant bones, she was neither fragile nor delicate. She was not exquisitely beautiful. Her short, straight nose, her prim lips, and somewhat narrow, angular face might even have been called plain. But her long, graceful neck could have driven a sculptor to madness, and her green eyes, stark beneath pale brows and lashes, caught wicked fire when she raised up from her deep curtsy and laid them on Aleksander. I found her breathtaking.

  “Welcome, my lady,” said the Prince, pointedly remaining seated at her entry, much as if he was staking out a position on a battlefield. “I trust your journey was uneventful.”

  He motioned her to a chair, and she slipped out of her dark fur-lined cloak and into the soft cushions in one fluid motion. Without fuss, disruption, or command, one rosy-cheeked serving woman had a footstool under the lady’s feet, another held her cloak, gloves, and fur muff, and another was pressing a cup of hot wine into her slender hands. The three servants were not slaves.

  “Is ‘uneventful’ the best you can wish me, Your Highness? I should think you could at least hope for satisfactory, or perhaps even pleasant, as we’ve known each other so long.” Her voice was as low and melodious as the stringed viols the Kuvai played.

  “Of course. Those, too.” The Prince recovered well from the first assault. “We’ve had bandits six leagues west and heard reports of attacks on our traveling guests, so uneventful is perhaps a greater hope than it seems.”

  The lady nodded seriously. “I’ve heard likewise, but I was assured that you had shed enough blood to make us all safe again. Is it not true?”

  “I did what was necessary.” The Prince was picking at the threads of the brocaded chair, not quite squirming under her steady gaze.

  “Of course.” She smiled serenely. “Uneventful well describes my journey. The Lord Dmitri took great care to ensure it would be safely so. I’ve never been better guarded. Perhaps Derzhi women have guardian spirits as Derzhi warriors do? Is it heresy to say so? Being both priest and warrior you must surely know the answer.”

  Aleksander ignored the jab and abandoned his defensive position when his uncle’s name was mentioned. He straightened and moved to the edge of his chair. “Did my uncle accompany you, then?”

  “Alas, no. He said he had another commission that would delay his journey.”

  The morose Prince settled back in his chair, tapping a half-closed fist on the chair arm. “But he was well when you last saw him?”

  “Very well. I was honored by his attentions—and yours to send him. We rode out hawking only a few days before I left. He was most gallant and charming, though I’ll tell you in confidence, I don’t know that he believes making ladies’ travel arrang
ements is quite up to slitting throats and ripping bellies. I’m surprised you would use him so. You will have to explain it to me.”

  I found myself trying to smother a smile, and even a murderous glare from Aleksander could not subdue my moment’s enjoyment. No wonder he railed at her. Even with no more evidence than this, I knew he had never gotten her to his bed. He had not found any way to conquer her, and it was driving him wild.

  “My uncle is happy to serve the Empire in whatever way he is asked.”

  The Lady Lydia did not deign to counter such a paltry feint. Instead she followed Aleksander’s glance and discovered me.

  “Who is this pleasant fellow, my lord? Have you got someone to write for you? I remember your dissatisfaction with the scribes in Capharna. You always used it as an excuse not to correspond with me. Shall I find that you have acquired the means, but not the taste for it?” Her attention did what Aleksander’s could not. My skin grew hot, and I dropped my eyes.

  “The slave is just leaving,” said Aleksander. “He can finish his work later.”

  I slipped off my stool, genuflected to the Prince, and rose to leave.

  “Hold one moment,” said the lady, jumping up from her chair. I paused and crossed my hands on my breast to await her pleasure. “No. Please turn around again.”

  I turned my back to her, wishing I could do almost anything else. Fifty lashes, no matter how they are dealt, leave an untidy mess. I don’t know that I had ever felt so embarrassed about my circumstances. At least I wore a tunic so she could not see it all.

  “You are an exacting taskmaster, my lord. Did he blot a paper or stumble over a word?” Her playful edge had grown hard.

  “My slave is not your concern, my Lady.” The Prince was very polite, but had regained his self-assurance for the moment. “You may go, Seyonne.” I had come to believe that Aleksander, in some indefinable way, had some sense of the difference between his true authority and his fretful temper. It would explain why, though disgraced and mutilated, Vanye was living as a free man, while his brother-in-law Sierge was dead. I believed it was why I yet lived and why he had not let me suffer beyond necessity from his mistake with the demon’s knife. I had no other explanation for it. “Come, my lady,” he said. “I see Rakhan telling us that dinner is served, and I’ve friends enlisted to play ulyat tonight. Perhaps you’ll win a wyr-falcon to replace the one you lost to Kiril last year. Do you still maintain the fantasy that women can compete at games of strategy?”

  The lady flushed to a color that matched her hair, but her voice held nothing of defeat. “Perhaps this year our game will not be interrupted by state business just when I’m starting to win.”

  I bowed and retired, for once wishing I could remain behind so I could witness the next skirmish between the Prince and the lady. It could be a most interesting war.

  Chapter 12

  At midday on the first day of the fourth month of the year, the month of Athos, Ivan zha Denischkar, Emperor of the Derzhi, arrived at Capharna. Trumpet fanfares, parades of traditional Derzhi dancers and drummers, and showers of colored ribbons greeted the tall, powerfully built monarch as he entered the gates and progressed through the city. Eight Derzhi warriors held a red canopy over his head to keep off the heavy, wet snow. From the moment he dismounted his white warhorse at the palace gates, he trod on soft white carpet sprinkled with alyphia petals, the walkway unrolled in front of his feet and rolled up quickly behind him lest some unworthy foot touch his path. Accompanying Ivan was the Empress Jenya, Aleksander’s handsome, cold-eyed mother, and Kastavan, the Lord High Ambassador of Khelidar.

  Prince Aleksander met the Emperor under the towering portico of the Summer Palace, making complete obeisance to his sovereign father. Ivan raised him up and embraced him to the cheers of the onlookers. The two then proceeded to the Great Hall, where Ivan formally proclaimed the opening of the twelve days’ celebration that would culminate in the anointing of his son as Emperor-in-waiting. Then, with two thousand close friends and allies, Ivan and Aleksander reclined at table and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening getting deliriously drunk.

  I saw none of this. I had been up since well before dawn, carrying hot water to the guest rooms and carrying away slops jars, climbing up ladders to scrub soot from lamp glass and replace burned-down candles, hauling baskets of clean linen from the washhouse to the far-flung linen rooms, carrying in back-breaking loads of firewood, carrying out endless buckets of hot ashes, and washing away thousands of muddy boot prints from the tile floors. Every slave and servant in the palace, and many of the women, girls, and boys from Capharna, had been pressed into service. None of us were going to get much sleep in the next twelve days. My only participation in the opening night’s feasting came well after midnight, when I was on my hands and knees wiping up pools of vomit from the floor of the Great Hall. I was too tired even to be disgusted.

  Because I was attached to the Prince’s household, I was not required to work in the slaughterhouses or the cesspits or any other outside labor, and my work, even my late night scribing for Fendular, had always been at Aleksander’s discretion. But because the Prince was too busy to need my services and the staff was so pressed, I had been put at the disposal of the Lord High Chamberlain for the duration of the dakrah. As I suspected he might, Fendular saw to it that I had no such leisurely tasks as reading or writing, and certainly no business that would put me anywhere near the Prince or the festivities.

  On the fourth night of the dakrah, in the midnight hours after the guests had reeled their way to bed, I was told to haul out the remains of the night’s feasting from the Great Hall. I was staggering toward the door, bearing four large, heavy buckets on a pole across my shoulders, when I lost my footing on the wet tiles and fell. It was bad enough that I splattered the foul mess over one end of the hall and would have to cut short my few hours sleeping to clean it up, but I had the misfortune to splash the filth on Boresh, one of Fendular’s assistants.

  “Incompetent beast!” he shrilled, smashing his boot into my face. He wasn’t as fast or as strong as Aleksander, but he made his point. I groveled and apologized, then spent two hours cleaning up the nasty mess, scarcely able to see for the swelling in my face. On most nights I would haul a jar of water to the attic and clean myself before sleeping, knowing I would rest better for it. But on that night I fell onto my straw pallet filthy and exhausted, promising myself that I would jump right up when the guard yelled at us in the morning and be first in line at our single washing bowl.

  There was no jumping up the next morning. I was fortunate that one of the other slaves saw me sleeping through the morning call and gave me a shove on his way out. I had time only to hurry outside to relieve myself, then report to Boresh the under-chamberlain to begin it all over again. Of course it was on that particular morning that Aleksander sent for me.

  I was standing on the top rung of a somewhat rickety ladder in the Great Hall, reaching high to pry the candle wax out of a brass sconce. My right eye was swollen shut, making it impossible to judge distances properly, so the job was taking me far too long. I had already earned a lash for dawdling, but that was a small matter. It was far more important that I not overbalance the ladder. I had no wish to end up an untidy smear on the distant, blurry floor.

  “Is the slave named Seyonne in here?” called the under-chamberlain.

  It always left me uncomfortable to hear my name echoing about so publicly. “Up here.”

  “You are to report to His Highness in the gift room.”

  I climbed down and caught Boresh before he left. “Have I leave to clean myself first?” I asked, when his face puckered in disgust at the sight and smell of me.

  “You are commanded to the Prince immediately. What do you care if he sees you as you truly are? I’ve heard you barbarians paint yourselves with muck.”

  It was not that I had any sensibility left. I had been in far worse shape, and Aleksander was welcome to see what he had made of me. It was the prospect of unpl
easantness that I despised. The Prince would be offended at my appearance and yell at me about disrespect and barbarian filth, and he would demand to know what insolence I had displayed to deserve the beating. And to prepare for it, I had to walk through the crowded halls and galleries of the residential wing and feel everyone shrink away in disgust. To be noticed by so many felt like having a thousand spiders crawling over me.

  The gift room was a large reception hall that had been converted to a repository for the statuary and silver, plate, jewelry, pottery, rugs, perfumes, and artworks people thought would buy their future Emperor’s favor. Fifty long tables had been arranged to display the smaller gifts, and the larger offerings were set about the perimeter of the room. The room was guarded by heavily armed Derzhi warriors, and I spent twenty minutes waiting before they received word from inside that I was indeed supposed to be there. To my distress, Aleksander was not alone. With him were three finely dressed young Derzhi warriors, a dusky Suzaini woman in red satin ... and the Lady Lydia.

  I knelt as close to the door as possible and put my head to the tiles, wishing fruitlessly that the Prince needed nothing that would take me closer to him.

  “Ah, Seyonne, come here.” No luck at all on this day.

  I stood up and stepped closer, keeping my eyes to the floor. “My lord,” I said.

  “Aldicar told me that these gifts have not ...” There was an ominous pause. “Look at me, Seyonne.”

  I did as he told me, resigned to a hand about my throat as on the first time I had come to him with a damaged face. Instead, I saw a furrowed brow and heard a soft question. “What have they done to you?”

  I spoke softly also, returning my gaze to the floor. From across the room I heard his guests laughing at a most explicit Veshtari fertility fetish. “It’s nothing, my lord. I’m sorry I had no time to clean—”