Winter King

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  Patros’s head rested against Lyris’s breast, his expression strained but at peace. “My congratulations, lord, on your victory,” he said, and he attempted a bow, caught himself, blanched. Ilanit knelt beside him and soothed him with a touch.

  With a rush the world toppled the surrounding dike, admitting the flooding stench and screams of battle. Tembujin advanced warily on the flaming cart, his own hatred burned to ash. Dana slipped from her horse and came to Andrion, her steps tentative, her eyes hesitant, even fearful; despite the watching eyes, he took her hand and set it against his face, under the cold metal rim of his helmet, and drew from her a grave smile.

  A shape scuttled from under the blazing cart like a weevil popping out of a rotten pomegranate, tunic smoldering, voice squalling. Tembujin started violently and then rolled the plump figure in the dirt. Vlad, dirty, smudged with soot, slobbered onto Tembujin’s boots and begged mercy.

  Tembujin snatched the plaque of khan from Vlad’s throat and wiped it off on his own shirt. He looked around and met Andrion’s eye with an exultant and embarrassed pride.

  With a gracious bow Andrion set the plaque over Tembujin’s sleek black head. Do I look quite like you, slightly dazed? Andrion asked mutely. But he had the wit to declaim to every waiting ear, “Hail the ruler of Khazyaristan, my ally, the lion.”

  “My thanks,” Tembujin said. He did not add my lord.

  Andrion’s brows rose and he stifled a grin. Really, the man’s arrogance was . . . refreshing. “Our work is just beginning,” he said firmly.

  Tembujin glanced with queasy resignation at his brother, picked him up and shook him. “Yes, I suppose it is now my duty to teach you some manners.” Vlad whined fealty.

  The burning cart collapsed into smoldering embers. The imperial trumpets sounded, harsh and clear. Nikander and Ilanit turned to their waiting soldiers and led them back into the melee. The Khazyari writhed a few more moments, like the body of a beheaded serpent, and then threw down their arms. Dana sent messengers for Danica and Valeria and Shandir; she helped support Patros into the city. Andrion and Tembujin, with Lyris just behind, wove the torn and dangling threads of the battlefield into one great multicolored tapestry.

  The sun set, taking the day into the past. The wind murmured a low victory paean. Iksandarun’s gates stood open to the new emperor.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The sky was an overarching bell of crystalline indigo. Its rim, the temple square and the surrounding buildings, was a rich gold filigree; its vault held the stars, cold, remote, unstained by battle. The west swam in roseate honey, the east lightened with ripples of quicksilver as the full moon made ready its entrance. Andrion stood gazing around him, each image as pure and distinct to his eyes as a jeweled icon.

  The ruined temples, spilled bricks, charred wood, waited only for willing hands to rise again into shrines for ancient deities. In their midst was the high altar, a huge slab of limestone hollowed and stained by the centuries; stained by the blood of traitors the night Andrion had been born, and had almost died. The night Bellasteros had banned human sacrifice. Now Bellasteros himself lay on the altar, an icon of cinnabar and bronze, an offering to the caprice of the gods.

  Andrion knelt, set his helmet beside his father’s head, laid the curving blade of Solifrax at his father’s right hand, rested his forehead against the stone. The stone was chill, and yet surprisingly forgiving. It shimmered against his flesh, ancient voices murmuring. The summer king, sacrificed that the winter king might live, and living, secure . . . He started up. Surely he heard only the wind in his ears. But he wondered, secure Sabazel? Secure the Empire? As the seasons pass, so pass the generations of men.

  Bellasteros’s face in the waning light of the sun was translucent, no longer of this world and its passion. But it was the passion of this world that had hewn that face. And Andrion had loved it. “Farewell, Father,” he whispered, “until we meet again in some far realm.”

  As Andrion rose, he sensed the eyes of the gods upon his back, judging him, approving him. He was tempted to turn and flip them all a rude gesture, but thought better of it. With a sigh he retrieved Solifrax and thrust it firmly away. It purred in its sheath, complacent, but he could no longer hate it.

  A few paces away Danica, an icon of electrum and jade, bound Patros’s arm. Valeria wiped his brow, alternately beaming upon his gray head and upon Tembujin’s supple form nearby.

  Tembujin was an ivory icon, a barbarian image now interpreted in familiar terms. The hulking bear stood nodding, no doubt receiving detailed instructions from Tembujin’s incisive voice; the warrior’s huge hand clasped Vlad’s collar as if the boy were a wayward puppy.

  Sarasvati sat with Miklos’s head in her lap, Shandir binding his wounds. Superficial wounds, except for the one in his eyes as he looked up at the lover he had abjured. “I had hoped to die, lady.”

  “Nonsense,” Sarasvati said as briskly as she had to Obedei. She met Andrion’s eye. “Can Nikander not use such a loyal centurion in Farsahn? One who would be happier at his own end of the world, I daresay.”

  “Indeed,” said Andrion. And, to Miklos. “Thank you.”

  The young man relaxed into their mercy. Miklos and Sarasvati, Andrion thought, a statue broken and reassembled in a different pattern, imperial lapis lazuli too fine for Sardian granite.

  Someone called his name. He turned. There stood Ilanit and Dana, with Bonifacio fussing at their heels. Ah, he thought wryly, if Harus could survive Gerlac’s devotion, he can certainly survive Bonifacio’s. Andrion set his face in an obliging smile and went to them.

  The star-shield rang and subsided to a genteel gleam. You, too, he thought, pretending innocence. But Ilanit’s face, Dana’s face, glowed at him; icons of emerald and shimmering pale gold set in the glory of Sabazel. He bowed to each of them, and in afterthought, to Bonifacio.

  The gates of the temple courtyard were thrown open as if by a gust of wind. Lyris and Nikander—her expression unimpressed, his impassive—waited outside. Beyond them the population of Iksandarun gathered, face upon face shadowed by the twilight into one expectant mass. Andrion stepped to the top of the stairway, steeling himself; the legends were already rife of how he and his sword had called fire from heaven and single handedly defeated the Khazyari god.

  They waited for him to speak. “The emperor Marcos Bellasteros is dead,” he called. “Dead for you, this day of victory.”

  A solemn sigh rippled through the people.

  He set his teeth, thought, Go on, say it.

  “Will you have me, then, as your emperor?”

  Cheers, shouts, pandemonium.

  Beyond Andrion lay Bellasteros’s mortal shell, a stark outline against the great blood-tinted face of the rising moon. Before him the moonlight glinted in a thousand eyes. Ilanit and Bonifacio scuffled surreptitiously, each reaching for the diadem Dana held. “Tradition,” hissed Ilanit, “for the queen of Sabazel to crown the emperor.” Lyris rattled her sword. Bonifacio desisted.

  With a grin and a flourish, Ilanit placed the diadem upon Andrion’s brow. Again it sparked gently against his skin, a light weight, perhaps crushingly heavy. The people cheered.

  Nikander came forward leading Ventalidar; his seamed face, amazingly, split into a brilliant smile. The horse danced as if his day had been spent strolling in the stable yard. Andrion patted him, received an approving snort, and leaped into the saddle. The moonlight glanced down upon them both, black horse and black-and-bronze rider touched with crimson.

  Torches flared along the street. Cheers rolled upward and dashed against the serenely gleaming sky. Andrion was a clear glass vessel, it seemed, scoured clean, filled with the mingled light of sun and moon. His dark pellucid eyes reflected them both.

  The names the people cried ran together, “Andrion Bellasteros, Andrion Bellasteros!” The world tilted, righted itself, and spun in orderly whorls under Ventalidar’s prancing hooves.

  * * * * *

  The petitioners were gone, official
s bowing extravagantly, soldiers saluting. The audience was over. Andrion glanced up at the bronze falcon propped beside the throne. It seemed to smirk at him, as if it could hear his stomach rumbling. He let himself dwell for a moment on the prospect of spring lamb basted with honey and lemon; but no, times would be leaner yet before they grew better.

  The gaunt form of the governor of Sardis appeared, his arm in a loose sling. Behind him stood his daughter Valeria, and beside her, his black eyes busily inspecting the ceiling, stood the khan Tembujin. Beyond them Sarasvati and Dana stood giggling together. So, the time had come to unravel a few complications. Andrion tried to look stern and solemn, but laughter bubbled inside him.

  “I ask your permission, my lord . . .” Patros said with a bow, and stopped, suffused with wry resigned amusement.

  “My lord,” Valeria chirped, her lovely blue eyes glinting as brightly as a steel trap. “I would ask permission to marry the khan.”

  Tembujin’s gaze crashed to the floor. Andrion could have sworn the man was seized in a fit of shyness, rather than concealing his triumph. Gods, what was the man’s appeal to these women? Andrion cleared his throat. “Ah, an alliance, very good. We can put together some kind of feast, I daresay.”

  Tembujin looked up. No, by the beak of the god, he was not triumphant. He had indeed learned the limit of his ambitions; Dana and Sarasvati stood smiling blandly upon his back, ever ready to remind him of it.

  Valeria flashed Andrion a glittering smile, then turned that smile upon Tembujin. Food, she seemed to be thinking, was not the feast she had in mind. Andrion allowed himself a chuckle. “When you are ready.” he said, to Tembujin, “you may lead your people north, where there is ample space for you to dwell in peace.”

  “My father need never have fought,” sighed Tembujin. “The land was there for the taking.”

  “For the giving.” Andrion amended. Their eyes met, and for a moment they struggled. Then the khan looked away, no longer needing such contests.

  Andrion leaned back and crossed his legs before him. The cat Qemnetesh oozed purring over his ankles, and he started, looking suspiciously at it. But it remained a cat. Sarasvati turned and beckoned, and Obedei entered the door carrying a roll of fabric. “My wedding gift,” she said to Tembujin with a sly sideways gleam.

  He gasped as Obedei unfurled the rich and complex pattern of the Mohendra rug. “I . . . ah . . .” It was his turn to clear his throat. “My thanks, lady.”

  Dana caught Andrion’s eye. He blew her a rash kiss even as he thought, I, too, know the limit of my ambitions.

  * * * * *

  A frosty dusting of snow, gleaming ethereal pink in the rosy light of dawn, lay across the plateau, concealing the graves of the imperial dead. The Khazyari dead had been returned to the elements under Tembujin’s grim supervision, given to the jackals and the ravens, as was their custom; not even their bones remained. Rebuilt yurts dozed to one side of the Road, the smoke of their cooking fires fragile silver tendrils reaching to a fragile waning moon.

  Dana considered Andrion’s profile, a clean edge carved in the silver sky. His features were marble, shaped and polished by time and fate. His dark eyes gleamed with ever-shifting depths of thought, with courage tempered by sensitivity. His test, she thought, will never be finished, any more than his father’s was.

  The young emperor’s eyes rested on the mound of stone that would soon be Bellasteros’s tomb. But only the conqueror’s fleshly shell was there in the cold quiet darkness. He lived still in some warm and shining otherworld, waiting until Danica, his female half, finished her own test and joined him.

  Andrion turned to his mother. Danica embraced him, her eyes stirring with a serene green-gold shimmer that seemed to melt the white ice around her, shading it with the colors of spring. When she released him, she left that shimmer reflected in his face.

  The Companions waited. Lyris and Shandir, holding the disgruntled cat in a wicker cage, were already mounted. Ilanit lifted the weight of the softly glowing star-shield and turned away, the good-byes repeated yet again.

  Patros and Andrion between them handed Sarasvati onto her horse. Of course, Dana thought, she should have been given to Sabazel at birth, traded for Andrion himself. In that, too, had Danica and Bellasteros shaded the law . . . Andrion bent over his sister’s hand, hiding his expression, and she smiled down at him. “It is for the best,” she assured him.

  “Yes,” he returned. “Yes, indeed.” With a sigh he let her go.

  Dana stood alone between Andrion and Patros, allowing herself one last moment of masculine warmth; they wore no armor, and nothing came between them. Even Solifrax was quiescent at Andrion’s side.

  Her belly stirred with a touch as gentle and tentative as that of a butterfly testing its cocoon. She caught her lip between her teeth, keeping herself from leaning against Andrion and murmuring something foolish.

  The company of women turned away from the world of men. Iksandarun dwindled behind them into the brightness of the morning. A flare of light before the gate was Solifrax, raised in salute and then sheathed. If the grief was perfect, then so was the joy, ever changing, ever enduring; Dana set her face to the northwest, toward the borders of Sabazel and home.

  The wind purled across the plain, cold and fresh and yet bearing within it a distant breath of spring.

  * * * * *

  Andrion leaned in nervous weariness against the parapet and surveyed the rooftop garden. Now, at midsummer, the pomegranate and apricot trees that had been planted so hopefully the winter before last were laden with fruit. Beds of flowers and herbs lined graveled walks, and an arbor of flowering broom shaded a bench. Wind chimes concealed in the fretwork of the palace trilled. Or perhaps it was the wind itself, tickling his hot cheeks, that chimed reassuringly in his ears.

  He glanced again over the parapet. The horizon rippled with banners and light refracted off polished armor, prisms of color reflected into the blue dome of the sky. With a sigh he turned back to the garden.

  Tembujin stood beside him, looking not at the garden but over the rooftops of the city. Now, two years after the Khazyari attack, Iksandarun was still the worse for wear; new buildings and empty lots filled with rubble stood cheek by jowl, like an idiot’s gap-toothed grin. At least it was a grin, Andrion reflected.

  Beyond the city the plateau lay in golden silence under the afternoon sun. A few knots of activity marked rising farm buildings. And yes, in the last moment the procession had inexorably advanced, elephants glistening with painted patterns, sistrums playing a counterpoint to the wind.

  “Damn you, Tembujin,” said Andrion.

  The khan glanced around, brows rising. “What have I done now?”

  It was Dana who answered. She looked up from where she sat beneath the bower of golden broom, smoothing the horn and sinew of her bow. “Do not blame him,” she called. “Blame your advisors, who place such stock in sons.”

  Ah, Andrion thought, Tembujin and I both were sons, once. But that grief was oddly old and fragile, no longer needing examination.

  “Behold,” said Tembujin, with a sweeping gesture toward the procession. “Your bride.”

  Andrion’s throat went suddenly dry. Gods, why had he agreed to this? But he knew why; he was alone, filling the duties of emperor and general and father of his people. He was only twenty years old . . . Dignity, above all, dignity.

  Tembujin’s teeth flashed in a grin, his black eyes snapped. A sleek coil of hair nodded behind his head. “Cheer yourself,” he said. “She is a princess of the Mohan, and Mohendra blood makes one meek and unassuming.”

  Andrion glared at him. He subsided with a laugh. A page called from the doorway, “My lord, the ambassadors and the princess approach.”

  “I know,” Andrion snapped irritably. “I have eyes.” The page vanished. Andrion cursed himself. Unworthy of a king, to make a subordinate suffer for his own nervousness. He turned and watched Patros lead the honor guard with purple and scarlet pennons flying to the processi
on. He imagined the courtesies exchanged. He imagined the princess looking through the canopy of her howdah, every bit as curious and fearful as he was. An absurd game, strangers brokering themselves in marriage. He prayed that it was her choice to come here, that she had some spirit and was not a placid cow.

  If all his life had been planned by the gods, then this was, too. And if there was no plan, then this event, too, he would make his own.

  Solifrax murmured at his side. He set his hand on the hilt, reassured by its familiar tingle. Just a symbol now. He checked the draping of his cloak, the angle of the falcon brooch; his cheeks were smoothly shaven, his hair trimmed in a neat fringe across his forehead. The diadem of the Empire was hot upon his damp brow, sparkling, clean and bright.

  “I have a gift for you,” said Tembujin. “A wedding present.”

  Dana laid down her bow and came to join them. “It is from me as well,” she said, her solemnity belied by a twinkle in her eye.

  Tembujin produced something from his tunic, something that glittered gold in the sunlight. The wind caught it, and it emitted a low note of music. A necklace, Andrion saw. A golden crescent moon with a golden star at its tip. His throat closed, but he managed to stare with mock severity from black eyes to green and back. “It is about time you made good your peccadillo.”

  Dana looked at him as if his face were transparent glass, garishly painted with his every emotion. Smiling, she took the necklace and secured it around his neck. It thrilled gently against his skin. Tembujin swept into a low bow. Andrion laughed and thanked him.

  Sweet voices, innocent of death and desire, floated down the wind. Andrion, Dana, and Tembujin turned to see Valeria and four children moving like bright flowers through the garden. The eldest was a boy, over a year old, walking with studied intensity. Next were twins of about a year, trying to decide whether to walk or crawl. The youngest arched from Valeria’s arms, wanting to join its . . . cousins? The bloodlines became tangled.