“Gavashat Urhemma!” he bellowed down at them at the top of his lungs. And even at the base of the tower, they could hear him, and they cheered.
At the high parapet, in the midst of the cheering adulation of the crowd, the Princess Maiya came out to join her father. She was wearing her finest white gown, one of Jehan’s gifts, and in the intermittent light of the fireworks her face seemed flushed with excitement.
“I come to congratulate you, Paban,” she said. “Congratulations on the birth of your second son.”
Jehan turned to her in surprise. Despite Maiya’s heavyhanded reference to Jehandai’s provenance, her words of congratulation actually did not sound sarcastic. This seemed a generous gesture; perhaps she would accept Golan’s birth after all. “Thank you, daughter,” Jehan said. “Thank you dearly.”
Maiya’s eyes lit up like the skyrockets above their heads. “So you do acknowledge that this new baby is your second son!”
On this joyous night Jehan was in no mood to rehash the familiar argument with Maiya, especially when he’d been so pleased by her congratulatory gesture. He answered jocularly: “In fact, I suppose I’ve sired many sons in my lifetime.”
“Yes, including my Jehandai.”
“Let us not discuss this. Look instead at the fireworks; aren’t they beautiful?”
“What could be a more appropriate occasion to discuss Jehandai? I will not be silent—especially not now, when you have a second son. I won’t let you cheat Jehandai out of his inheritance. You know that Jehandai is your true heir; you know it in your heart. Paban, tonight I ask you once and for all to do what is right: acknowledge the truth and give your first son his rightful place.”
Jehan looked at Maiya and was suddenly struck by a surpassing irony. His eldest living child was neither Golan nor Jehandai, but Maiya herself. Inheritance only by sons was the custom, but it was not an absolute, and certainly Golana’s capabilities convinced him that women could be men’s equals. There was no real reason why he could not have designated Maiya herself to succeed him on the throne—and he would presumably have done so, had the girl not been disqualified by madness. But she had proven her own madness by venting her obsession with Jehandai’s claims to the throne! Never had she thought of herself as ruler!
So Jehan shook his head wearily to her. “What you ask is impossible,” he said.
“Then you would suppress the truth? Has truth no value in your empire? Is that the teaching of Urhem? Paban, can’t you see what a dreadful thing you are doing: You would let the crown of Urhemma, which millions died to gain, pass to your successor on the strength of a lie. You will tarnish that crown forever. The crown is sanctified with the blood of our people, and you would wash it away with a cowardly lie.”
“But I deny your truth.”
“No, Paban, the truth is simply what is true, and a thousand emperor’s edicts cannot change it. You can hide from it because you are ashamed of it, because you are a coward, but you cannot change it. The truth is, you are the father of Jehandai.” Her finger jabbed straight at him. “Face the truth at last; Paban, it was you who did it, you who stuck your—”
“Stop! If you want truth, I’ll give you truth: It was not I who did it, it was you, Maiya. I refused, but you seduced me to save your own neck. So don’t tell me I did that unspeakable thing, when it was you yourself who did it.”
“There! So you acknowledge the truth after all. It is my child who is your first son, not the child of your Tnemghadi witch!”
“Bite your tongue, to call her a witch! She loves me. But perhaps that is beyond your understanding, since you seem not to join her in loving me.”
“Oh, you are wrong, Paban, so very wrong. I pity you, truly. You said that I once used my body to get what I wanted. Well, maybe I did, but don’t you see that Golana has done the same thing? Oh, she is a far greater seductress than I was; she’s used much more than just her body. She has ensorcelled you completely; she has you believing what she wants you to believe. She has so bewitched you that you don’t even know who it is who really loves you. It is certainly not Golana!”
Jehan snorted. “I suppose you’d have me believe it’s you who loves me?”
“You seem to forget that I walked on foot from Anayatnas to Zidneppa, with not a falu in my pocket. I left my own daughters, just to come to you, Paban.”
“Yes, but not because you loved me. You wanted to make yourself a princess.”
“Isn’t it strange that you will believe this about your own daughter, your own flesh and blood—but you refuse to believe it about this scheming Tnemghadi stranger? How could you be such a fool as to imagine she really loves you? She’s only using you. She made you marry her so she could have power and become empress. That’s what she loves: power, not Jehan Henghmani. How could she love you? You are the ugliest man in the world; no one can even stand to look at you. No one could love you but your own flesh.” Her tirade was punctuated by the crack of a skyrocket.
Jehan had not stopped her bitter words. “All right, daughter,” he finally said coldly. “We have no more to say to each other.”
“And I will say to you only this: that your son Jehandai is your rightful heir.”
“We will just see about that.”
Maiya suddenly flashed an eerie smile, with her lips drawn back from her teeth, lit up by a burst of fireworks.
“Yes, my dear Paban, we will see about that in the morning.”
In the morning, both Golana and her newborn son were found dead, stabbed through their hearts.
Jehan Henghmani looked upon his wife and son with an eye that poured out tears.
Everything was nothing.
He beat his fists upon his face. It was so unfair, so absurd, it made no sense that they could be dead. Golana had survived the birthing; how could she be dead now? It was impossible, it was grotesque!
So absurd it was that they could be dead. Only the night before, so much alive they’d been. What was different now? Nothing but a small wound in the breast of each, such minor imperfections. Surely the wounds could be smoothed over and they would be restored to life. Such small repairs to make—a doublet, a wagon, a table could be torn in half and still somehow be put back together. Why not a person too? Oh Why not a person?
He beat his fists upon his face because it could not happen, because people are such poor fragile creatures. He had the power of an empire, but it could not repair his wife and child. Absurd! They would soon be buried in the ground to rot away. So absurd, so outlandish!
How could such beauty of body and spirit be destroyed so easily? How could Golana be mortal? How could her flesh, that had given him such joy, be buried beneath the ground? How could her mind, so full of inspiration, fall forever silent?
Jehan Henghmani beat his fists against the terrible, terrible absurdity.
He had been awakened early on the twenty-fifth by Revi Ontondra and Hnayim Yahu, who took upon themselves the duty of conveying the horrendous news to Jehan.
The Emperor fell back upon the bed, stricken, as though by a spear through his heart.
And he knew at once who was responsible.
Maiya had planned this all along, as her ultimate resort to defeat Golana. She had acquiesced in Golana’s presence only because she had reserved to herself the dagger, should all else fail. It seemed so obvious now; why had Jehan never seen it?
The night before, the girl had come to him, asking one last time for recognition of Jehandai as heir to the throne. When Jehan refused, the course that Maiya had long before set down had to be played out to its dreadful end. Jehan could have averted it by giving in to her; but once he’d refused, the tragedy was ineluctable. Compelled by all the past years, Maiya had to act, as much a victim as the ones she’d killed.
All of the protection Jehan had arranged for his wife could not save her. She had been guarded around the clock, but guarded not a
t all against the one true menace. Maiya had come late at night, carrying a blanket, which she told the guards was for Golana. Naturally they did not stop or search her; they did not imagine that the blanket would conceal a dagger.
The murders were carried out swiftly and silently. Golana and her child were murdered in their sleep. Maiya left the weapon in her stepmother’s breast and covered it with the blanket she had brought. Then she bade the guards good night. Not until morning was the deed discovered.
Maiya, of course, did not flee.
When he recovered some measure of coherence, Jehan gave orders to fetch her from her chamber. They found her there with her son; she kissed the boy, and then willingly went before her father.
“It is my place now, Paban, to offer condolences upon the tragedy that has befallen you.”
Jehan stared at her wordlessly.
“Yes, I do offer condolences, even though I killed them. It was regrettable. It had to be done, of course, but that doesn’t make it any less regrettable.”
Maiya smiled queerly; her head was thrown back as though with pride. Jehan neither spoke nor changed his expression. He was still shocked numb.
“It did have to be done; surely you can see that now, Paban. I tried to make you see, but you would never listen. Don’t you understand that the most powerful thing in the world is Truth? Truth must be served; it cannot be suppressed.
“It’s a pity that a poor innocent baby had to die, but don’t you see now that it was you who killed him, Paban? You killed him by trying to fight Truth. I wielded the dagger, yes, but it was Truth that guided my hand, and it was you who forced the hand of Truth.
“You wouldn’t heed Truth, and so a poor little baby had to die, to save the throne for the rightful heir of Urhemma. And as for that Tnemghadi, of course she had to die too, she deserved to die, that sorceress, that witch—”
Jehan lunged viciously at Maiya, a sudden explosion of insensate fury. He threw himself upon her and grabbed her thin throat in his huge, broken hands.
Ontondra and Yahu jumped on him and managed to pull his hands from Maiya. They piled on top of him, down on the floor, to hold him back, thrashing in their grip, while tears sputtered out of his one good eye and flooded down his face.
Slowly, he quietened, and they let him stand up.
He was shaking and glowering at her while Maiya resumed speaking, undaunted by his attack. “Yes, she was a sorceress who bewitched you; she should have been burned at the stake. Surely now that she is dead, her spell is broken, and you can see it for what it was. She never loved you, Paban, all she loved was power.
“Well, it’s been taken away from her now. You are finally the Emperor in truth as well as name. And after you, Jehandai will be Emperor, and his son after him, and his grandson after that, forever onward, the greatest dynasty in the history of the world. And all Urhemma will have me to thank for it, who sired the dynasty and who performed the glorious deed that made it possible!”
Maiya was radiant with the flood of her words. Jehan watched her bitterly, not opening his mouth, struggling to control himself.
Then she thrust forward her hands, as though delivering them to be bound. “You will have me put to death now, Paban. But I am not afraid. My life’s purpose has been accomplished, and I am ready to die. I am a martyr, Paban—a martyr to you, a martyr to our son, a martyr to our country, and a martyr to Truth.”
Jehan shook his head sadly. “You are not a martyr. You are a madwoman. You will not be put to death.
“Lock her up,” he said to Ontondra. “Lock her away somewhere in the palace. She is hopelessly mad. She will do no more harm.”
In his hands, Jehan Henghmani held a paper crown.
The paper was brown and fragile now, the berries and raisins that had been its jewels were moldy and withered. It was not a real crown, but Jehan had kept it with him.
He touched his fingertips to the berries, touching them lightly, almost caressing this toy crown.
And then he crushed it in his hands.
BERGHARRA—Urhemmedhin Nation, funerary medal upon the death of the Empress, Year 1188. Obverse: portrait of the Empress, left, surrounded by inscription, “Golana Henghmani, Mother of Urhemmedhin Freedom.” Reverse: large Radiate Sun above a view of the temple and palace complex of Naddeghomra; inscription, “Born 1143 Arbadakhar/Died 1188 Naddeghomra/Nation of Urhemma.” Breitenbach 2051, Bronze, 46 mm. A very beautiful medal; extremely fine, chocolate toning. Fine medals of this era are not frequently encountered. (Hauchschild Collection Catalog)
14
ONLY SLOWLY DID Jehan begin to grasp that Golana was gone.
Life itself seemed what he’d lost. He no longer considered Maiya’s old insidious question: Did Golana truly love him? At the beginning he had been lashed by self-doubt, but that passed. Golana was his love, there could be no other. Of his own love for her, he was certain, and he was certain too of the ecstasy she brought him. That, he would not depreciate by doubting.
“I am a Jehandi,” she once had said to him—didn’t that mean she shared his faith in their love?
“And I am a Golanadhin,” he’d answered her.
A Golanadhin he would remain for the rest of his life. On the day of Golana’s funeral, Jehan Henghmani swore on her white body an oath of celibacy.
And thus did Maiya gain her ends: It was her father’s very devotion to Golana, which the girl had so detested and fought, that gave her victory. For Jehan’s devotion to Golana’s memory would keep him celibate—and there would never be another son to bar Jehandai’s way.
The misery that prostrated Jehan was more than simple loss. He saw himself as a tragic figure. Misfortune alone is not tragedy; tragedy is misfortune that one brings upon oneself. And that was what he’d done.
Maiya had had the effrontery to place blame for the murders upon Jehan. He had not contradicted her for compounding his anguish was his guilt.
He himself had indeed killed Golana, when he’d refused to acknowledge Jehandai as his heir. Mercilessly Jehan castigated himself, and swore he should have realized what bitter fruit that refusal would bear. For years he had lived with Maiya’s derangement, plagued by her obsession with Jehandai. He should have realized what extreme measures she’d be driven to by the birth of a rival heir.
For that tragic blindness, Jehan wanted to burn out his one good eye in penance. His sin was great, and his sin was more than just blindness.
Maiya had accused him of suppressing truth. It was indeed a fact that Jehan wished to forget what had happened with his daughter in the dungeon. It was true that he had defiled her, but he refused to face that truth. He would close his ears to it, and when Golana asked about it, he denied Maiya’s story and called it a perverse lie.
For his own lie Jehan was paying dearly.
He paid with his wife and son, and he had lost his daughter too. Even now this was part of his grief. Through all the bitterness and estrangement between them, she had remained his own daughter and he cherished her. No matter how obnoxious she waxed, Jehan did not put her out of his heart. But now it was finished. Maiya had at last compelled her father to despise her. The embers were stamped black and cold, they would never sparkle again. Never again would Jehan even see the girl.
He had lost everything: wife, baby, daughter. And he’d even lost Jehandai.
The boy was eleven years old, and his life had been an odyssey of following Jehan’s army back and forth across Urhemma. Now he had come to live in the palace at Naddeghomra. He was the Crown Prince, heir to the throne, and he understood fully what that meant.
He was also, today, a virtual orphan.
It was not until after his mother had been locked away in a tower of The Maal, and not until after Golana’s state funeral, that the boy was summoned into the Emperor’s chamber for a private talk. He had known that this talk would have to come sooner or later, and that it wou
ld be a very difficult one. He went with shaking knees, feeling very much a helpless child in confrontation with a powerful emperor, instead of a boy meeting his grandfather.
Of course, up to now, his grandfather had been abundantly fond of Jehandai, had loved to play games with him and give him presents. But both the man and the boy realized that such playful intimacy could never be resumed. Jehan knew he could never again look at this child without seeing him as the root of the tragedy, the person responsible for Golana’s death. Certainly Jehandai was innocent; but all the same, he was the reason Golana had died.
“Hello, Jehandai.”
“Hello, Garpaban.”
There was an acute silence, which Jehan finally broke clumsily. “Do you understand what happened?”
“Maban told me, but ... I don’t know what to think!”
“What exactly did she tell you? No, don’t say it. Jehandai, your mother killed our dear Golana and her baby. Do you understand that? Your mother went mad and put a knife in the heart of her own newborn half-brother, and in the heart of our Golana.” Jehan winced to be bluntly reciting such horrors to a mere child of eleven; but it was not to be glossed over. The boy would have to understand why his mother was being taken from him.
“Do you see, Jehandai? Your mother is not right in the head, she isn’t responsible for what she did. That’s why she must be locked away.”
“Maban said to me—” The boy didn’t finish, but bit his lip and screwed up his face with a look of intense distress.
“What did she say to you? You can tell me now, Jehandai, it’s all right.”
“She told me that . . . that the one who really murdered them was . . . was you.”
“No, Jehandai, it was your mother alone, she admitted it openly. Revi Ontondra will tell you that she admitted it, right here, the next morning. She was off her head when she did the thing. She went into their room and stabbed them while they slept.”
Children of the Dragon Page 34
