Last King of Osten Ard 02 - Empire of Grass

by Tad Williams

  In turn, Vordis told her careful stories of her own experiences among the Anchoresses, though living separately from the Hikeda’ya meant she could mostly only talk about what it was like when they were all with the queen. The unspoken knowledge that open speech was not safe meant that Tzoja learned little beyond the routine that would be expected of her.

  Tzoja had been prepared to die, or at least she thought she had. Now she had to prepare herself to live the rest of her life in a lightless room, a grim prospect even with a sympathetic cellmate. Thus, when the guards came a fifth time and stood watching them as they ate their meager meal, Tzoja felt a sense of excitement that almost but not quite overcame her apprehension. When the guards silently signaled the two of them to follow, and Vordis took her hand, her legs felt as shaky as a fawn’s.

  They were led through passages lit only by an occasional torch, but even that dim light seemed glaring to Tzoja after so long with no light at all. The corridors were not crude tunnels but seemed to be part of the huge palace, the floors flat and level, the walls and ceiling finished in stone that had been smoothed like fine silk.

  The guards brought them to a door where more guards waited, then ushered them through it and back into complete darkness. Vordis’ grip tightened on Tzoja’s hand. “Let me lead you,” she said. “There are stairs before us—steep stairs.”

  They made their way down until Tzoja could hear the sound of splashing water and the dull murmur of voices. Damp, warm air rose to meet her, along with the smell of wet stone and other, more complicated fragrances. At the bottom a single ni’yo sphere was set on a tripod in a niche, glowing like the first star of evening, and Tzoja could see naked female bodies.

  “We bathe here before we wait on the Mother of All,” Vordis whispered. “Mortals and immortals alike. All must be pure for the queen.”

  As she adjusted to the new brightness, Tzoja saw with a thrill of horror that the other Anchoresses had only dark holes where their eyes should be. The immortals were all agelessly beautiful and their faces were calm—some of them talked or even sang in soft, meditative voices—but below the brows of each one were empty sockets, like a room full of living skulls.

  Tzoja turned toward Vordis, wondering what damage she might see there, but her companion was not much different than she had guessed, still apparently of childbearing age, though her figure was small and girlish, and with a round face that most would consider pretty. Vordis’s eyes did not fix on anything, but compared to the other Anchoresses she looked reassuringly ordinary.

  “We bathe in the three pools, one after another,” Vordis said. “First take off your clothes.”

  Almost before Tzoja had finished peeling off her garments, which she had been wearing for more days now than she could count, another female Hikeda’ya, dressed in the dark garb of a palace menial, swept them away. She never saw them again. Then Vordis led her through bathing herself, first in water so hot it made her forehead perspire, then in warm water scented with oils and flower petals, and last in a cold pool. When she and Vordis stood on the other side, shivering a little and with skin needled by chill, another servant handed them loose white gowns.

  “Now we go out. Then there will be prayers,” Vordis whispered.

  A door on the other side of the stone chamber opened without a sound; the Anchoresses, all now dressed in flowing white, walked through it. A Hikeda’ya priestess of some kind waited on the other side, and as she sang the words of some ancient ritual, more servants appeared and gave to each of the Anchoresses a mask, the same eyeless disguises Tzoja had seen before. A servant came to her and with impatient gestures indicated that she should put her hands at her side. When she did, the hard-faced Hikeda’ya tied a cloth around her face, dropping her into darkness again, then pulled some kind of hood over her head and tied one of the heavy masks onto her face.

  “Today you will only be in the queen’s presence,” Vordis whispered. “Do not speak, no matter what you feel or hear. I will explain it all to you when we are home again.”

  Home. The word seemed to rattle like a dropped spoon, falling from her ears and into her breast. She was more grateful than she could say for Vordis, but the idea that a lightless box of stone would be her home now gave her a pang so painful she could not have spoken if she wanted to.

  The rest of the hour was an empty black blur. They were led into a farther chamber, then she heard the other Anchoresses’ rustling gowns as they dropped to their knees; Vordis showed her with soft pressure on her arm that she too should kneel. The queen was waiting for them there. Tzoja could not doubt it—she could feel Utuk’ku’s presence like an open window on a cold day, a chill that went right through her. She thought of the silver mask and the ageless mystery that must lie beneath it—the oldest living thing in the entire world, an unknowable dark presence that could have her killed with a gesture—and again found it difficult to breathe. Her skin prickled and shifted as if it sought to escape on its own. Perhaps sensing some of this, Vordis squeezed her arm, but then moved away, leaving Tzoja standing by herself in hooded blackness.

  A voice floated up from the far side of the room. Someone was singing—someone male. It was a song Tzoja had never heard, in Hikeda’ya words she could not understand except intermittently. It was strange that the sound, after such long silence, did not seem to disturb any of the other Anchoresses; they continued about their invisible business as Tzoja stood, trying not to topple over, until Vordis returned and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. The singer’s voice went on, echoing in the stony chamber, the melody as mournful as a nightingale’s.

  If the indifference the queen and her Anchoresses showed to the presence of a singer was surprising, Tzoja was even more astonished to discover that the singer was not particularly good, at least not by the standards she had learned in the years she had been captive in Nakkiga. His voice was young and sweet, but he seemed to make mistakes that even she could recognize—a shortness of breath here, a slurring of a sound there, and once or twice even an unsteadily held note. She did not know very much about Hikeda’ya music but she could not believe that the all-powerful queen could not command better entertainment. She had heard better pitch and phrasing from entertainers at the festival celebrations which Viyeki’s wife Lady Khimabu had mounted.

  At last there came a long silence, and as all the Anchoresses stood motionless, Tzoja could feel the queen’s presence diminish and disappear, as though the window to the harsh winter had been closed. The women were led back to the stone chamber and bathed themselves again, this time in reverse order from cold to hot. Tzoja had questions she wanted to ask, but every time she started to speak, Vordis squeezed her hand, silencing her.

  When they were at last back in their cell, surrounded by darkness if not by privacy, Tzoja tried to find innocuous words to ask about what had most puzzled her.

  “The singer,” she said. “He did not seem as . . . as well trained as I would have expected.”

  “He is very well trained.” The other woman’s voice held something somber.

  “Truly? Perhaps I am more ignorant of the Hikeda’ya than I thought—”

  “What he sang was Drukhi’s favorite song.”

  It took a moment for her to understand. “Drukhi, the queen’s son? The one that was killed by mortals so long ago?”

  “The singer has learned it precisely the way Drukhi sang it to his mother when he was young,” Vordis explained carefully. “He learned it from the singer before him, who learned it in turn from the singer who came before, and so on. This one is the third Drukhi-singer since I have been here, but I am told that there have been many, many more over the years. Dozens. Each one learns every note and word and intonation perfectly, so that they can sing to the queen just as her son once did.”

  Tzoja was so troubled by this that she could summon no other questions. Vordis at last curled up beside her. After a while her breathing became regular, but T
zoja lay awake for a long time, still hearing the haunting, imperfect song even as she finally drifted down into sleep.

  36

  Storm Winds

  Miriamele had never much cared for the Hall of the Dominiate. It had been erected during the First Imperium, and like most public buildings of that time it had been meant not to comfort those who visited it, or to inspire civic pride, but to instill a feeling of awe at the majesty and power of Nabban. As she waited for the ceremony to begin she felt a pang of longing for the Great Hall of the Hayholt, a place that despite its size felt much more homelike, the banners hanging from its roof almost low enough to touch, the walls hung with pictures of people, real people, with faces that told their stories.

  The roof of the Dominiate was almost impossibly high, rising to a peak some thirty or forty cubits above the marble floors, and its ceilings were covered with religious paintings too distant and detailed to make out, as though to remind the common people—who almost never saw the inside of the hall in any case—that they could not hope to enter into or even understand the lofty considerations of the mighty.

  Risers of splendid Harcha marble lined the hall’s two long sides, providing more than enough room for the ruling Fifty Families of Nabban to gather and consider the matters of the day, as they had been doing here for centuries. Miri sat at one end of the hall in the great chair once reserved for the Imperator himself, but which for years had served as the seat for any guest of sufficient importance to warrant it, like Duke Saluceris when he came to speak to (or even occasionally to be lectured by) the Patrisi—“the Fathers”—the heads of Nabban’s most powerful family houses.

  The side of the great hall to Miriamele’s right belonged to the supporters of Duke Saluceris, the other side to the coalition led by Dallo Ingadaris, with those who had not chosen one or the other mostly ranged around the center. It was quite obvious to Miri that the number of the holdouts who supported neither Kingfisher nor Stormbird had become shrinkingly small—most of the Dominiate had chosen one party or the other.

  On a table before her lay the ceremonial scroll of the new Octander Covenant, the culmination of weeks of labor by clerics and advocates from all the major houses, transcribed into beautifully formed letters by the finest scribes in Nabban. At the bottom of the document was the seal and signature of His Sacredness, Lector Vidian, who—after a great deal of persuasive effort by the queen—had finally agreed to put his name to the historic pact, beginning what Miriamele hoped would be at least a generation of peace between the leading houses of the Dominiate, and especially between the Benidrivines and the Ingadarines. Although Vidian had declined an invitation to be present, he had sent Escritor Auxis to give the invocation and to witness the signing in his stead.

  But Auxis looked unhappy, and even Dallo Ingadaris, waiting in one of the two seats of honor at Miri’s left hand, seemed to have lost some of his usual self-satisfaction. The bell had rung the noon hour and all around the hall the Patrisi shuffled their feet and leaned close to each other to whisper.

  “Surely, Your Majesty, you cannot be happy with such discourtesy,” Count Dallo said loudly. “We are all assembled. The Covenant awaits us. But where is the duke?”

  “I do not know, my lord,” she said. “And, yes, I am unhappy about his absence, but I am concerned as well. Also, I cannot help noticing that your ally, the duke’s brother, is not here either.”

  Dallo’s nonchalant look was not convincing. “That is true, but it is hardly to the point, Majesty. Drusis does not sign the Covenant on behalf of House Ingadaris—I do, and I am here. But Duke Saluceris appears to consider the ceremony and the presence of the whole of the Dominiate as well as Escritor Auxis—and of course your royal self—not worth his time.”

  Miri gave him a flat look. “Now you split hairs, Count Dallo. No, Drusis is not the Patris of House Ingadaris, but it is the rivalry between him and his brother Saluceris that is the reason we drew up the covenant. It is the role of Drusis as your supporter—and you as his—against his brother and his blood that has caused so much of the unhappiness that makes Nabban a dangerous place today.”

  Dallo waggled his chubby fingers. “If you say so, Majesty.” As always, he wore rings on all but the thumb, and on some of his fingers he wore two or even three. She wondered sometimes how he wiped his arse without losing one of the expensive baubles up his own backside.

  Has some servant do it for him, most likely, she thought.

  “You smile, my queen,” Dallo said. “Have you discovered something to enjoy in the situation? I confess I cannot. Perhaps you could share this amusing idea with your servant?”

  “Just a passing thought.” She saw that Auxis had risen from his seat and was approaching. In his heavy escritorial finery, golden robes stiffly swinging, he looked like a royal treasure ship being eased down the slipway for launching.

  “I beg Your Majesty’s pardon,” the escritor said quietly. All over the hall the members of the Dominiate watched the conversation, not so much in hope that something would change—everyone present could see that the duke was not present—but in the anxious boredom of those who had been waiting for a long time without being able to leave and were desperate for any distraction. “I have come to give the invocation, as you know. Have you heard any word of the duke? Is he coming?”

  “Unless the news was brought to me by a tiny fly, Escritor Auxis, I think you would have seen me receive it, since I have been sitting in this same seat in full view since well before the noon bell rang.”

  Auxis colored a little and Miri was irritated with herself. There was no need to make enemies—she had enough of those in Nabban already. “I ask your forgiveness for a foolish question, Majesty,” he said.

  “No, rather I should ask yours, Escritor, for my bad temper. Like all the rest of us, I am concerned and disturbed by the duke’s absence.” She turned to look out at the Kingfisher side of the hall until she spotted Idexes Claves, the lord chancellor. “Patris Claves,” she said, “you saw the duke this morning, did you not? Do you know any reason he is not here?”

  Idexes, a lean man who seldom smiled, shook his head. “I have dispatched guards to the Sancellan Mahistrevis. I imagine it is some small matter. I know from our talk that he meant to be here, Your Majesty.”

  “Then why isn’t he?” shouted one of the other Patrisi, a plump elder of the Larexean House, from the midst of the Stormbird side of the hall. “And where is Earl Drusis? Has he been dragged to one of the duke’s dungeons while our attention was here? Is he even now being tortured?”

  “Shut your mouth, Flavis,” said Idexes, “or I will come over there and shut it for you, you traitorous pig. We all know perfectly well who arranged that charade at the wedding, and you were in the middle of it all!”

  More shouting erupted from both sides, until Miriamele had to order the guards ranged along the back wall to step forward and stamp the butts of their long spears against the floor, which only diminished the uproar but did not silence it. She signaled again and the soldiers banged their spears against their shields until the sheer din overwhelmed everything else. Miri saw that Sir Jurgen had gathered her own Erkynguard around him, prepared to charge in and protect her, and that even Count Froye, veteran of Nabbanai political squabbling, had moved closer to her chair in fear of a general riot.

  “Is this the great legacy of the imperators?” she demanded of the now quiet hall. “Of the Dominiate, which once ruled the world? Nothing has even happened, for the love of all the saints. All this is because of what has not happened. No, the duke is not here, and we do not know the reason why. And his brother Drusis is absent too. But that is all we know, and it may well come to nothing in the end. In fact, it almost certainly will. And yet you act like children when their parents are gone. I am ashamed of my Nabbanai blood today, and I never thought I would say that.”

  “Your Majesty,” said Rillian Albias, rising like one of the orato
rs of old, his face grave. “May I say something?”

  “No.” Miriamele stood, and Rillian stared at her in wonderment for a moment, then looked to his colleagues, who gazed back helplessly. At last he lowered himself into his seat once more. “I mean no insult, Patris Albias, to you or any of the others, but the time for speeches is past. It is time to swear allegiance not to one family or another, not to this house or that, but to Nabban as a whole, under the High Ward. If we cannot do it without Duke Saluceris, there is no point in all of you men of affairs sitting here through the long afternoon. We are ready, but we lack our principals. As the ruling power here, in the name of my husband, myself, and the High Throne to which you are all sworn, I am ending this day’s business now. We will find the duke and his brother, and we will meet here tomorrow, at noon, to finish what we have begun. I will hear of nothing else. This is too important for argument.”

  A collective groan arose from the gathered nobles. Many of them were only in the capital for the day and had other plans before they returned to their houses in the provinces, but if they were willing to show defiance toward the Nabbanai opposition and even offer violence, none were so bold as to contest the will of the queen. Miri gestured to Froye and Sir Jurgen, then marched her small company out of the Hall of the Dominiate. The Patrisi watched, some—she thought—in outright displeasure, others with a kind of admiration she thought was more in response to her bold show of power than what she had chosen to do with it.

  “You have not made anyone happy here,” said Froye quietly as they walked out between the ranks of Dominiate guards. “I apologize for saying so, Your Majesty, but you have always told me you wanted me to speak what is true, not what is convenient.”

  “To be honest, Count,” she said through clenched teeth, “I am no longer much interested in making anyone in this poisonous, backbiting city happy. I am concerned only to let them know that the High Throne will not put up with their foolish squabbling, this constant endangering of the peace my grandfather brought them.”