by Judith Tarr
He should have been intolerably crowded. But it was freedom. No one knew him. No one fled from his path. Merchants importuned him, beggars plucked at him. Wanton women, all but naked save for the inevitable veils, leaned out of windows or beckoned from doorways.
He was not spat on, nor did a knife stab out of the dark. He smelled no conspiracy, heard no voices preaching riot. Of the prophet Vanyi had spoken of, he saw nothing, heard no word. But neither did he hear anyone speak of the emperor. His height and the color of his face brought silence where people stood together.
He had been where riot smoldered. Kundri’j was quieter than that.
Happy, no, it was not that, no more than any city in Asanion. It seemed prosperous enough. The hungry were not starving. The beggars had the look of honest guildsmen. Priests and prostitutes shared street-space with no apparent hostility.
He should have been more easy as he walked, rather than less. He had been imprisoned too long. He had forgotten what it was like to walk where he would; and he had never been unknown as he was here. He could even, he suspected, have taken off his hat and met no recognition. The emperor was in his palace. He did not come down among his people, or sully his pure self with their presence.
There was something underneath. Thought, awareness, memory. Longing. Wanting something. Something that was gold, no shadow in it. Prophecy—prophet—
He halted, half-stumbling into a doorway. Something squalled and fled. He started, clutched at the doorpost. He was dizzy. His power felt raw, aching, like a limb too long unused.
A shoulder slid under his arm; an arm circled his middle. Korusan was a fierce warm presence, a familiarity so sharp it burned, as if it had always been, time out of mind. He let himself lean on the Olenyas, lightly, while his body mastered itself.
“You are ill,” said Korusan.
“I’m well,” Estarion said, “for the first time in far too long. It takes me like this. You shouldn’t mind it.”
“Mad,” said Korusan as if to himself.
“Sane,” said Estarion. “Here, stop fretting. I was tasting the city; it was stronger than I thought. It’s been cycles since I could even begin to do it. There’s something in the palace, I think, that throttles magery.”
The boy’s eyes were a little wild. “There is something in me—that—” He silenced himself so abruptly that Estarion heard the click of teeth. “My lord, you will come back to the palace. You have had enough of—tasting the city.”
“I have not,” said Estarion. “I’m not even halfway to where I’m going.” He stood straight and pried the boy’s arm loose. “I won’t take a fit again. My honor on it.”
Clearly the Olenyas did not believe in the honor of emperors, but he did not try to stop Estarion from going on. He clung as close as Estarion’s own shadow, all but pressed against his side.
Estarion sighed and suffered him. He was comfort of a sort, in his robes and veils, armed to the teeth.
o0o
The city cast them up at a gate in the third circle, on a quiet street lit at intervals by lamps. That was wealth, to pay men to set up the lamps and keep them filled, and light them at dusk and quench them at dawn. No taverns here, spilling their light and their custom into the street; no tawny-breasted women at the windows. Here all the walls were blank, the gates iron-barred.
The one Estarion sought was unlocked. It opened to his touch, admitting him to a soft-lit precinct, outer court of a temple as it seemed to be, unwatched and unguarded.
But there were watchers. His nape prickled; his head throbbed. He walked boldly into the light, trailing his shadow. “Greeting to the temple,” he said, “and goodwill to its priests.”
His words fell in silence. He passed from the outer court to the first sanctuary, deserted likewise, lamplit, redolent of incense and the evening rite.
The altar was heaped with fruits and flowers. He bowed before it, aware of his shadow’s stiff stillness, and laid a coin in the offering-bowl. Prayer he had none, except his presence.
The door behind the altar was open like all the rest. It led to a vestry, and beyond that to the inner house. The priests were all asleep, it seemed, or out upon errands.
Estarion might have wondered that they kept so poor a guard, except that it was this temple, and this house, and these priests. They knew him. They admitted him without question: almost pain, to comprehend that.
Only the temple’s heart was closed to him. He felt its throb in his bones, the pulse of the Gate under the care of its guardians.
He could have forced the door. That power was in him. He did not choose to summon it.
Korusan was clinging to his side again, eyes darting, knuckles white on the hilts of his swords. Estarion touched him; he started.
“Down, lad,” Estarion said, making no effort to be quiet. “You’re safe here. Nothing will eat you.”
“And what will devour you?” the boy demanded.
“Nothing,” said Estarion. “These are my people here. This is my magic that sets your hackles rising.”
“I see no people. I smell no magic.”
“It doesn’t need your belief,” said Estarion, “to be.” He moved away from the warded door, following the tug of instinct.
o0o
She had a room to herself in an upper corner of the house. The way there was dim, deserted.
Once a figure trotted past him. He made no effort to be invisible.
The priestess took no notice of him at all. Anyone who came this far, it seemed, was judged to be harmless. He would have called it arrogance, had he known less of palaces.
Her door was latched but not warded. He opened it slowly.
She was asleep. His breath caught at the sight of her in lamplight, clothed only in her hair, with her coverlets fallen on the floor.
The room was narrow, bare, no more than a cell. The only light in it was the single lamp, the only ornament the torque about her throat. There was not even a rug for the floor. And yet it was beautiful, because she was in it.
After so much ivory and gold she was blue-white, her hair ruddy-dark, her face sharply angled, her body thin but full enough in the breast, narrow-hipped, long-legged, free in her movements as a boy. She was not tall, but she seemed so, even asleep: she had that gift, to seem larger than she was.
He bent over her. She did not stir. Her scent was dizzying. And nothing in it but herself; no perfume, no sweet oils.
He kissed her softly. She sighed. He pressed a little harder. Her lips parted; her arms came up, circled his neck as they always had, always would.
Her body went taut. Her eyes snapped open. She thrust him away. “What in the hells are you doing here?”
He sucked in a breath. “Good evening, Vanyi,” he said.
She scrambled herself up, as far away from him as the wall allowed. “What do you think you’re doing? Get out of here!”
He sat on the bed’s edge. He was perilously tempted to laugh, or else to weep. Neither would have been wise. “I’m glad to see you, too,” he said. “Have you been keeping well?”
“You’ve lost your wits,” she said. “How ever did you escape? And what is that?”
He followed the line of her glare. Korusan stood rigid by the door, looking everywhere but at her.
“That,” Estarion said, “is my shadow. No one will kill me, he’s promised. He reserves that pleasure for himself.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You look dreadful,” she said. “Don’t they feed you?”
“You sound exactly like my mother.”
“Damn it,” she said.
She rose, pushing past him. He did not try to catch her. She pulled a robe out of the clothing-chest and put it on, combed her hair with her fingers, knotted it at her nape.
Estarion watched. Korusan endeavored bravely not to.
She raked him with her glance. “You,” she said. “Out.”
He ignored her. Estarion bit back a grin. “Out, guardsman,” he said.
The Olenyas took station
just beyond the door. He could hear everything, surely, but there was no helping that. Estarion doubted that the boy spoke Island patois.
He stretched out on the bed. “God and goddess,” he said, “I’ve missed you.”
“You should never have come here,” she said.
“I’m safer here than I’ll ever be in that gilded dungeon. Nobody recognized me in the city, Vanyi. Not one.”
“Of course not. You’re not in ten robes and a mask.” She came to stand over him. “They must be combing the palace for you.”
“Not at all. They think I’m in the harem.”
He meant her to laugh at it, not to go bitterly cold. “So? And why aren’t you?”
“None of them is you.”
“I’m sure you’ve tested it,” she said. “Repeatedly. To be sure. Is any of them pregnant yet?”
He sat up sharply. “No!”
“Pity,” she said. “It must be tedious, keeping all those women happy. How many are there? A dozen? A hundred? Or do you lose count after a while?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. This was not going at all as he meant it to. She loved him, he knew it. He had felt it when he touched her, before she was awake to flay him with her tongue.
“And why shouldn’t I be ridiculous? I’m your castoff, your commoner, the one who couldn’t carry your baby. Now it’s my turn, I suppose, and you’re too polite to leave me out of your round.”
He tried to be calm. She would think that. Of course. Everyone else did. “I haven’t touched even one of them,” he said.
“You don’t have to lie to me,” she said. “I’m jealous, yes, I admit it. I always did hate to let anything go, no matter how long it had been since I tired of it.”
“Are you tired of me?” He rose. “Are you really, Vanyi? Or are you only bitter? Maybe you have a right to be. I should have escaped long ago, or brought you into the palace.”
“In the harem,” she asked, “with all the others? Well for you you didn’t try.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you.” He laid his hands on her shoulders. She did not try to elude him. That gave him hope, although her face was stony. “Vanyi, I swear by my father’s tomb, I haven’t touched any woman but you.”
“Then you are a perfect fool.” She wrenched out of his grasp. “I don’t want you, Estarion. What will it take to convince you of that?”
“More than this,” he said. “Your mouth tells me terrible things. Your body loves me still. Why won’t you listen to it? I won’t be in this place forever. We can go back to Keruvarion, be as we were. And when your Journey is over, you’ll be my empress. Even Mother is almost reconciled to it.”
“Listen to you,” she said. “Your body tells me things, too. It tells me you don’t believe yourself, not honestly. You want to believe it. You want me to fall into your arms, give you your night’s pleasure, promise you what you can’t take. You can’t, Estarion. There’s no going back, for any of us.”
“There is,” he said stubbornly. “Damn you, Vanyi. I love you.”
“So you do,” she said. “So much that you won’t leave me alone when I ask, you creep up on me in my sleep, you all but rape me before I’m awake to know it.”
“Rape?” The word caught in his throat. “That was rape? By the thousand false Asanian gods, I hope you never know anything worse.”
She was white and set, hateful, hating him. He wanted to hit her. He wanted to weep in her arms for all that they had had, and that she would not let them win back. “Why?” he cried. “Why do you do this?”
“Because I must.” Damn her calm. Damn her cruelty. “Take your shadow, my lord. Go back where you belong.”
“No,” he said. His hands clenched, unclenched. “Not without you.”
“Then you will have to force me,” she said, “because I will not go of my own will.”
“Stubborn, obstinate, muleheaded—” He stopped for breath. “Vanyi! For the love of god and goddess—”
“For the love of your empire,” she said, merciless, “no.”
“When have you ever cared for my empire?”
“When have you cared for anything but what suited your whim?”
“God,” he said, “and goddess. Godri is dead, Vanyi. I came to you—”
“You came crying to me, hoping I’d make it better. It’s all I’ve ever been. A shoulder to cry on. A body to sate yourself with. You have a whole harem full of them now. Why do you trouble with me?”
“Because I love you!”
“If you loved me,” she said, “you would go now. And not come back.”
“Why?”
She turned her back on him.
He battered down the walls of his mind. He stretched a power gone soft and slack with disuse, and touched.
Walls. They were higher than his own, and stronger. When he pressed, they caught fire. They drove him stumbling back. They held him behind his own gates, warned him with lightnings when he ventured resistance.
A great anger swelled in him. Pain fed it, and grief, and the sheer bleak incomprehensibility of her hatred. For it was that. It could not be anything else.
“Very well,” he said, soft and calm. “I shall not trouble you again. Madam.” He inclined his head, though she could not have seen the courtesy. He left her standing there, cold hating obstinate woman, with her magic and her priesthood and her sacred solitude.
27
Korusan did not say anything, which was a virtue Estarion could admire. Nor did he follow Estarion back into the harem. Estarion was somewhat surprised at that. He vanished into the shadows of the passage.
Estarion walked through the riding court in starlight, and into the harem proper. Its halls were as empty as ever, echoing faintly with his footsteps. He paused where he should turn to take the outer way.
Had Vanyi not given him full leave, all but commanded him?
He passed the first door, and the second, on which a eunuch stood guard. The servant bowed before him.
He had half expected to be forbidden, late as it was. But this was his harem. His whim ruled it. Everyone said so.
Word traveled swiftly here. It was the lifeblood of the harem to know when its lord walked in it. They were awake, all nine of them, and waiting for him.
They had been waiting, it was evident, for long and long. The youngest, the pretty child with the ivory curls, had fallen asleep in Ziana’s lap.
They did not ask him where he had been, or why he looked so strange. He did not doubt that he did. His face felt stiff; his jaw ached.
Any, he thought, or all. Not little Shaia; she was barely come to her courses. Haughty Eluya, sweet-voiced Kania, Igalla and Maiana and Uzia and Ushannin, beautiful Ziana and her unwontedly silent sister. Any of them or all of them.
They knew that this was a choosing. Their tension was palpable, although they strove to conceal it.
He circled the room as he had that first day, setting a kiss on each brow. Eluya was like marble, enduring him. Igalla’s eyelids fluttered as if she would faint. Ziana offered him her lips, full, rose-gold, enchanting. Her perfume was honey and ailith-blossoms.
As before, he came last to Haliya. She seemed to expect it, to be resigned to it. Courtesy commanded that each lady be greeted properly; then the lord chose his favored one. She half slid away from him, easing his return to her sister. The others were all looking at Ziana as Asanians did, sidelong, measuring her.
He caught Haliya in his arms. She was too startled to do more than stare.
When he lifted her, she was astonished. So much so that she did not open her mouth until they were in the inner room, and the door was shut and the bed was waiting and he had set her on her feet beside it. “You don’t want me!”
“Would you rather I didn’t?” he asked, sharply maybe. Maybe only aggrieved.
Her answer was as forthright as the rest of her. She reached as high as she could, clasped her hands behind his neck, pulled him down.
“Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.�
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Her wonderment made him smile in spite of himself. Asanians did not, after all, practice the high arts in their robes. They made an art of getting rid of them.
She made short work of his coat and trousers, shirt and trews. Marveling at him; reveling in him. Stroking him as if he had been a great purring cat, running fingers through his loosened hair, playing with his beard.
She was nothing like Vanyi. She was both more innocent and more skilled. She knew what gave a man most pleasure, but it was all new to her, all wonderful.
The hard core of anger neither softened nor went away. But he had come to do grim duty. She was making it a pleasure.
He could more than once have put an end to it. Her boldness was half fear, her art half instinct. She was a maiden.
“We’re very careful of that,” she said, “when we have our training.”
“You train? As if for war?”
She sat astride him. She was small, but her breasts were deep and full, her hips ample. He filled his hands with her. She filled herself with him, riding lightly, grinning down at him. “Am I not a brave warrior?”
“The bravest,” he said, while he still could say anything.
Women in the east made more of their virginity than this western woman did. “For me,” she said as they lay together, she in his arms, toying with the curly hair of his chest, “the hardest thing was to show my face. The rest of it was simple. I was so afraid you’d find me wanting. I’m not pretty, I know. I never was. I’ve been a great disappointment to my family.”
“Even now?” he asked.
“Oh,” she said. “Now they’re all astonished. You were supposed to choose Ziana first. Is it that she’s too beautiful? Are you trying the waters with me, to work yourself up to her?”
“She’s interesting,” he admitted, “to look at. But I like a woman who can talk to me.”
“She’s very witty. She saves it, that’s all, for the inner room.”
“Can she ride a senel? And shoot a bow?”
She struggled up. “How did you know about that?”
“Spies,” he said. “Did you think the bow and the arrows just appeared on your mare’s saddle?”
