A Man of His Word

by The Complete Series 01-04 (epub)

  “Your Majesty is most gracious!”

  Her Majesty was quivering with terror at what might have happened, but was determined not to show it. “I trust that you have fully recovered from your ordeal, Cousin?”

  Azak’s eyes glinted again, but he faked bewilderment. “Ordeal, Cousin?”

  “Two days ago? When we first met, you seemed to be smitten quite severely for a while. An agonizing experience, I think?”

  “Ah, yes!” He waved a large hand dismissively. “The slut sorceress seeks to break my will with mere physical pain. She should know by now that the effort is wasted.”

  Inos displayed shock. “It has happened before?”

  Azak shrugged, but his face was bright with pleasure at this opportunity to inform his followers about the incident. “Many times. Pain is nothing. She also inflicts plagues upon me: vermin or suppurating sores, disabilities in major organs. I have been struck blind, crippled … I expect she will learn in time that no prince of Arakkaran can be swayed from his duty by such trivia.”

  Uneasy expressions flitted over the faces of those princes of Arakkaran then present.

  “But what can she hope to gain by such atrocities?” Inos exclaimed.

  Another shrug. “Voluntary recognition of her ludicrous claim to an unmerited title. I will not submit if she chars my bones. But now, if there is nothing more that your Majesty requires at the moment …”

  But there was! This futile little ceremony was all a fake, a game that Azak had accepted to suggest Inos was his guest and not Rasha’s. Inos had played along for him, so now it was his turn.

  “Well…”

  “Yes?” Azak stopped halfway into a bow.

  “I am most eager to view some of this beautiful kingdom —” Just in time Inos stopped herself adding “of yours.” The narrowness of her escape took her breath away.

  “Of course! A carriage and escort … some ladies of high station to accompany—”

  She had already noted his high boots and drawn conclusions. “You are going riding, Cousin?”

  Several hairy mouths behind him fell open in shock, and even Azak blinked. “You ride?”

  “I do. Is that surprising?”

  “Peasant women ride donkeys, I suppose.”

  “In the Impire ladies of the highest rank ride, many of them very well. And I could certainly use a little exercise right now.” Plus a long talk about sorcery and politics and running kingdoms and military campaigns and things.

  Kade uttered a small moan. “I suppose if we do not actually—”

  Inos turned to her and smiled sweetly. “No need for you to come with us, Aunt.”

  “Inos! I …” Kade was shocked speechless.

  “I am sure that I shall be perfectly safe in the company of … our cousin of Arakkaran. Is that not so, Cousin?”

  Azak’s hot eyes flickered from niece to aunt and back again. Inos hoped she was conveying challenge, not entreaty, but for the moment the sultan was obviously nonplussed.

  “I shall be quite safe, Aunt. Surely you will not insult the … our royal cousin by implying otherwise?”

  Kade stuttered, flushing.

  Clearly Azak had other plans for his morning, but he was aware of his debt to Inos. He swallowed hard, the corners of his beard flexing cutely. “Of course I shall be delighted to escort your Majesty in person.” He was a terrible liar.

  “Wonderful! Who else could better show a queen the kingdom?” Still Inos remained unpetrified—the curse was obtuse at detecting innuendoes. “If I may have about ten minutes to change? I hope that my riding garb has been cleaned …” She glanced around at Zana, who was quite boggle-eyed at the conversation, but who nodded in agreement. “Ten minutes, then?” Inos extended queenly fingers.

  Azak shied backward as if she had stabbed him. For a moment his face showed something that Inos thought might be horror. She wondered what terrible offense against the customs of Zark could be represented by a lady offering her hand to be kissed. Then the huge young man jackknifed himself in another great bow.

  He straightened with ill-concealed fury. “However long your Majesty requires … I am at your service always.”

  Of course he was! Inos curtsied demurely, rewarded him with a last flutter of eyelashes, and departed in search of more suitable clothes without another glance at her aunt.

  Ally-gathering was about to commence.

  5

  Inos took longer than the ten minutes she had promised. She took even longer than the thirty minutes she had planned, but eventually she was ready and was led down yet another staircase to where the sultan stood with arms folded and toe tapping. The delay had been caused mostly by the need to find someone who could braid up a lady’s hair—a rare art in Zark, apparently. Then Zana had insisted on waiting for a suitable cloak to arrive. Inos had protested that her riding habit alone would be much too warm for this climate and she wanted nothing more, only to be informed in mm, motherly tones that she must wear a cloak of dark material, loose and airy—not for warmth, but to keep off the sun. Wind and dust, also, but mainly sun.

  Azak acknowledged Inos by folding himself in another acrobatic bow. She attempted to respond in kind—Ooof!—riding habits were not designed for such maneuvers. The princely gaze wandered arrogantly over her again in blatant appraisal. Then he presented the four companions who were all that remained of his earlier entourage. All four were princes with guttural-sounding names, but the relationships puzzled her. The eldest was one of Azak’s brothers, much older than he, thick-bodied and bushy-bearded.

  She caught the name of the next—Prince Kar—and decided at once that she did not like his blandly penetrating smile. He was clean-shaven, another brother, yet still older than Azak.

  The other two were uncles, identical downy-faced striplings about her own age, obviously twins. She made mental notes to have Kade disentangle the royal family of Arakkaran for her; Kade was a genius at such genealogical investigation. The laws of succession might be worth knowing, also, to explain how a reigning sultan could have older brothers.

  The princes and their guest set out for the stables—a journey long enough in itself to have justified horses. Azak did not speak and he deliberately strode so fast that everyone else had to scamper along breathlessly at his side. Inos concluded peevishly that this young giant still had a lot of growing up to do.

  And again there was an escort of hard-looking guards armed with enough weapons to furnish a military museum. Her father had walked alone anywhere in his kingdom, yet this so-arrogant juvenile sultan needed protection within his own palace!

  When they emerged from the last arched doorway and struck out across open courtyard, Inos felt sunlight hit her like a falling roof. It took her breath away—it would melt horseshoes. She knew she had been rash; now she wondered if she had been crazy.

  Even the grandeur of the palace had not prepared her for the magnificence of the stables, whose tiled roofs seemed to cover a small city. An ocean of silken paddock stretched off to faraway fences and trees shampooed in pink blossom. Above them the crenelations of the palace itself gleamed against the distant sea. Many men and animals were standing around in the open glare, waiting, but there was not a woman in sight. Probably these royal boors were finding her behavior shameless and outrageous.

  So it was mutual!

  Among this crowd she made out several who had been with Azak earlier, and many other men in green—some already mounted, others inspecting steeds and equipment—and obviously they had waited around only to view the extraordinary phenomenon of a woman on a horse. Once that was concluded, they were going hunting. The unfortunate five, Azak and brothers and uncles, gazed with undisguised longing at this mob of men and horses, grooms and kennelmen, bystanders and attendants. Dogs strained at their leashes and cadgers stood ready with birds.

  Inos felt a twinge of real guilt. “I see that I am intruding on your sport, Cousin. I was very presumptuous. My sight-seeing must wait until another day.”

  A
zak glanced down at her with exasperation—a sultan who had announced a decision could not then change his mind. “There will be many more days for hunting, Cousin.”

  “I would almost prefer to come along and watch,” Inos said with maidenly innocence, “if that were permissible. I have never witnessed hawks flown. Those are hawks, are they not?”

  “Goshawks.”

  “Ah. We used gyrfalcons in the north, of course.”

  Ten royal eyes lighted up like signal lanterns. “Gyrfalcons!” the two young uncles echoed in awed tones.

  “You … yourself?” Azak said.

  “Certainly.”

  Five royal faces went stiff with shock. Obviously a woman on a horse was a minor obscenity compared to a woman hawking.

  “My favorite was Rapier. Very fast, very responsive—oh, how I miss her! Father flew a golden eagle for a while, but he had very little luck with her. I tried peregrines a time or two at Kinvale, but I learned with gyrfalcons. There are no others at Krasnegar.”

  The princes exchanged glances that might have conveyed doubt or outrage or both.

  “Let us see you mounted first.” Azak almost put a hand on her shoulder and then withdrew it hastily, gesturing her forward. With the four princes trailing behind, they paced over the springy turf to where two horses stood apart from the others within a cluster of stablehands. One was a gigantic black stallion, undoubtedly the largest Inos had ever seen, jerking and prancing, stamping, keeping three grooms both busy and worried. Krasnegar’s ponies were hardy, shaggy beasts, but she had thought that Kinvale’s were the best that wealth could buy. This polished ebony marvel could have eaten them alive. She knew who would ride that one.

  She turned her attention to the sad little plug standing beside it, and any residual guilt she was feeling dissolved in a wave of indignation. A longer look turned indignation to fury.

  “Cousin!” she said in a slender voice that would have frozen any member of the palace staff in Krasnegar. “What is the meaning of this? My father would have had his hostler flogged for that!”

  “Your Majesty?” Azak stared down at her, his rosewood eyes filled wide with puzzled innocence. He really was a terrible actor.

  Inos’s voice went even softer. “Well, if you can’t see from the way she’s standing, then perhaps you should ask the groom to lead her around for you—if he can!”

  The old mare was back on her heels, hopelessly foundered. With a rider on her back she would be as immovable as the palace itself. The quartet of princes exchanged glances of appreciation that Inos found both satisfying and infuriating.

  “Ah!” Azak threw up his hands in sudden enlightenment. “My apologies, Cousin. I had not recognized … I thought it had been fed to the dogs already. The groom responsible was hard dealt with, I assure you. You! Take that rubbish away and bring a more suitable mount for the queen.”

  “Something more like that one,” Inos said.

  Error!

  The watching princes guffawed. Hairy gibbering apes!

  Azak’s teeth flashed in the sunlight. “You are welcome to ride Evil if you wish, Queen Inosolan.”

  She had pushed too far. She had been angered by the cruelty of allowing a dumb horse to eat itself to death, and infuriated by the arrogant assumption that she would not know a foundered horse when she saw one—and so she had pushed too far. Eagles and gyrfalcons and now this. She opened her mouth to make a smiling refusal, and her anger said, “Well …”

  Dare she try? She had just completed weeks of riding through the taiga—she had never been in better practice. She had ridden Firedragon once, although Rap had been present then and horses were always well behaved when Rap was around. Stop thinking about Rap!

  But wait! Yesterday she had lamented the uselessness of her Kinvale training. She had forgotten that she had other training. She had been taught to ride by a young man who knew horses as no one else did, who could always tell you exactly what a horse was thinking. Here was a chance to pay tribute to his memory.

  With her heart going insane inside her chest and every nerve screaming warnings, Inos walked over to take a closer look at Evil, a mountain of shiny blackness without a single white hair on him. If Gods were horses, They would look like this one. She offered to pat his neck as Rap would have done. Evil lifted a groom off the ground and rolled a menacing eye at her. The men clinging grimly to reins and cheekstrap glared at her resentfully.

  Inos glanced around the wide paddock. There was lots of room.

  She was a queen now. They had tried to foist a decrepit jade on her first. What sort of hack or vicious beast might they try next? A sultan’s mount could be nothing worse than high-spirited.

  “Shorten the stirrups!”

  Azak’s stupid smirk became instant fury.

  “No man has ever ridden that horse but me.”

  “That will still be true.” Inos met his stare, trying to show much more confidence than she felt.

  “Queen Inosolan, that horse is a killer!”

  Possibly so, but she could not back down now. Besides, Rap had always insisted that there were no such things as one-man horses. Of course, Krasnegar’s little herd had contained a couple of rogues that no one but Rap had ever dared approach—but that was irrelevant. Certainly Azak would be a superb horseman; in whatever he did, he would settle for nothing less than mastery. So the horse had been well trained. Anything more was just a matter of manners.

  “Did you or did you not say I might ride him?”

  Now Azak was boxed in, also. He was too furious to back down, but the ember-red eyes studied her for a long hot minute before he growled, “Do as she says!”

  Grooms flocked around to adjust the stirrups, then retreated hastily, leaving one man waiting with cupped hands and another at the stallion’s head. Both looked terrified. A third was poised on the far side.

  Inos eased out of her cloak and passed it to someone. She stepped closer; Evil showed his teeth and laid down his ears. His withers were higher than her head, his saddle the size of a barn roof. How would her knees ever find a grip on such a monster? It was a type unfamiliar to her, with a very high pommel, but she had seen its like at Kinvale, and she remembered a trick she had heard mentioned there. Certain that an instant’s pause would snap her nerve, she took the reins and reached up to bind her left hand to the pommel with them. She had to stand on tiptoe to do it. Evil rolled an angry eye. Inos raised a boot for the waiting hands.

  She seemed to fly higher than the highest dome of the palace. Men grabbed her feet and thrust them in the stirrups, leaping out of the way in the same moment. The groom at Evil’s head was hurled aside by Evil himself and the saddle rose straight up … Inos had never been hit by anything so hard as the impact of that saddle. She was staring down at a fleeing Azak, seemingly far below her, framed by Evil’s ears.

  Hooves hit the grass. Impact!

  He bucked. Impact! Impact! Impact!

  Then Evil was standing erect, front legs dark against the sky. With her face buried in his mane, Inos felt as if she were trying to climb a marble pillar. Her knees and thighs screamed at the strain. Came the sudden reversal and she hurled herself back to meet the rising rump …

  Impact! More bucking … Impact! Impact!

  Without warning, Evil took off, cracking Inos’s neck like a whip. She was moving faster than she ever had. The paddock was suddenly tiny, the blossom trees at the far side rushing straight at her in a blur of white and pink. He would leap that fence or go straight through it. He would smash branches with her. She kicked and tugged to turn him, and the stallion stopped dead. Her knees slid, her shoulder struck in his mane, and only her hand bound to the pommel saved her from disaster. A moment later he tried to bite her and she kicked him in the jaw. Then he wheeled, bucked again, reared again, was hit again, screamed with fury and launched himself forward again. Grooms and princes scattered like leaves as she bore down on them. He turned in midair. He skittered sideways on four straight legs. He had more tricks than a pres
tidigitator.

  Again she saw sky straight ahead. Impact! Then grass. Impact! Sweat was blinding her. Her spine was rammed into her skull. Then into the saddle. Skull again. Trees coming up ahead again. She caught glimpses of eggshell palace domes against blue, green turf, pink blossom, white fence, black horse, white, blue, black pink white black-blue-white-greenbluewhite …

  Her legs were breaking with the strain of gripping. She was dead—nothing could survive this. How much longer… get it over with … back to bucking again …

  The next few hours were all very exciting, but just when she had concluded for the hundredth time that she had lost, suddenly, inexplicably—shivering, dancing, foaming—Evil surrendered. He dropped to a trot. Feeling a great surge of triumph, Inos kicked him into a gallop. Again they rushed at the fence, but now she was in charge. Up they went. The top rail was higher than she was, but Evil seemed to grow wings and fly. Power!

  He landed as gently as a falling petal. No wonder Azak did not want to share such a marvel! She circled him, flew him back into the paddock again, and cantered sedately over toward the onlookers, rejoicing at the steady leaden thud of the great hooves on the grass and the wilder beating of her own heart. Triumph! Now those hairy-faced boors knew that a woman could ride.

  Now she would be one of the boys!

  But there was no cheering. Spectators scrambled back, clearing a path all the way to Azak himself, who was standing with arms folded and red murder blazing in his eyes. Inos reined in, just as a thunderclap of reaction struck her. Suddenly she was shaking, soaked in sweat, fighting not to have hysterics. Any minute now she would bring up breakfast. She thought she had sprained a wrist and bruised every bone … But she had done it, damn it! Hadn’t she? She was one of the boys now, wasn’t she?

  Evil was in no better shape—foam-flecked, white-eyed, every muscle jittering. Everyone else was cowering away in silence from the sultan’s fury.

  “Flogged, you said!” Azak roared, so loud that Evil shuddered. “Flogged? Any groom of mine who treated a horse like that would be buried alive!”