The Pearls

by Deborah Chester

  “Give him time,” the older courtiers murmured sagely to each other. “A young, enthusiastic emperor will settle eventually and delegate duties to his officials and minions. The court will calm down into a more pleasant, enjoyable atmosphere. There will again be afternoon revels and banquets lasting all night. Give him time.”

  But at the moment, as he strode along so quickly his portly chamberlain was having to trot to keep pace, puffing for breath and growing red in the face, Caelan knew he was behind schedule. The arguments waged today within his privy council had been unexpectedly fierce, making the meeting run far too long.

  It was nearly dusk. Long indigo shadows were reaching deep into the palace through the tall windows, and gathering beneath the loggias. Link boys in palace livery were darting about, lighting the countless torches, lanterns, and lamps of scented oil. There was to be a banquet tonight in honor of the new Gialtan ambassador, just arrived at court. Elandra’s home province was a firm ally, but Caelan did not want to jeopardize that relationship or take it for granted.

  “Your Excellency,” his scribe was saying, “the appointments with Lord Merstirk, General Ulth, and the merchants of—”

  “Send them all my apologies,” Caelan said, interrupting this list of unfinished tasks. If he ever paused to think about all that needed doing and all that never quite got accomplished, his head would ache. Elandra had taught him never to permit clerks and underlings to rule his schedule, and she was right.

  Caelan tossed the scribe a smile. “Make new appointments.”

  “New…yes, of course, Excellency,” the man said, then muttered under his breath, “How in Gault’s name am I to fit them elsewhere?”

  Ignoring the grumble, Caelan quickened his stride.

  Ahead, the passageway turned, dropped down a flight of shallow stone stairs, and so brought Caelan to a pair of tall, elaborate gates wrought with the warding symbols of Choven protections. Imperial Guards stood in front of them, but already word of Caelan’s approach had been sent ahead.

  “The emperor! Make way for the emperor!”

  These warning shouts from the pages caused an instant flurry. Flunkies bowed low. The Guards stepped aside smartly, saluting in unison. The gates to the women’s pavilion swung open. Most of Caelan’s entourage, permitted no farther, fell back. He swept in, appreciative of perfumed air cooled by enormous punkahs suspended from the ceilings, creaking lazily as small boys pulled their ropes. Carpets in an array of hues and patterns covered the floor. On all sides, maidservants and ladies-in-waiting stopped whatever they were doing to curtsy low to him.

  He was conscious of entering a place of feminine allure and mystery. Every part of the pavilion had been fashioned to further that mystique. The walls were curved and flowing. Small passageways branched off on all sides, leading to the private quarters of the ladies of the court. Ahead of him, the enormous atrium formed a sort of common room open to the evening sky. It was furnished with numerous small tables inlaid with capiz shellwork and cushioned chaises. A vast circular pool of water rippled like molten silver beneath the pattering shower of a fountain. Fish in rainbow hues flashed and darted just beneath its surface, gathering in anticipation as the serving girls in loose silk trousers brought large bowls of food and scattered it across the water’s surface. Some of the fish had been trained to leap up to take food from a steady hand.

  Caelan cast the serving girls an appreciative glance before climbing the steps of polished alabaster that led to the empress’s private apartments. Lamps had been lit beneath each step, so that the translucent stone glowed with golden light beneath his feet. Ahead stood more gates bearing Choven protections. And behind them rose a set of double, solid bronze doors sculpted with the Imperial Crest and Elandra’s initials in bas-relief.

  As these swung open, only Caelan and his protector walked through the portal into an enchantment of flickering lamplight, cool air, exotic perfume, and a mix of vivid colors in the hangings and silk cushions. The empress’s sitting room epitomized comfort and luxury.

  Rumasin, the Gialtan eunuch who ran Elandra’s household, glided forward in greeting. He was old, although few wrinkles marred his skin. His complexion was the shade of undyed linen with a smattering of pale freckles across his nose and cheekbones. Wise green eyes looked respectfully into Caelan’s, and he bowed low with his palms pressed together.

  “May I take Your Excellency’s boots?” he asked.

  Caelan nodded, allowing the tranquility of his surroundings to wash over him and tame the hectic buzz of his day. Eager to discuss the meeting with his wife, he looked past the eunuch, but Elandra was not yet present.

  Rumasin beckoned to a servant, who came forward with a stool for Caelan to be seated upon. Kneeling, Rumasin drew off Caelan’s boots and handed them to the servant, who bowed and carried them away. They were already clean and polished, but Caelan knew that when they were brought back to him for his departure, they would shine even more. Another servant brought embroidered slippers lined with Mahiran cloth. The moment Rumasin slipped them on his feet, Caelan felt a tingling sensation of refreshment travel up his legs.

  He sighed in contentment, accepting a cup of delicious fruit water brought to him on a tray of silver, and felt the last of his day’s tension drain away. Smiling at Rumasin, he sipped more of the beverage, and asked, “The empress?”

  “She has bidden me to greet Your Excellency and ask for your patience in waiting.”

  “Ah,” Caelan said, draining his cup. “There must be some uproar in the nursery.”

  Rumasin smiled and glided away.

  When his son was born, Caelan had ordered the establishment of a separate household for Prince Jarel. The infant had begun life with his own apartments within the women’s pavilion, possessing fifty servants and highborn attendants to revolve around his small needs.

  At first, it had been customary for the baby to be brought to his doting parents each evening at dusk, to be admired and played with briefly before their evening banquets and entertainments. A few months ago, Jarel had begun walking. Now he was running, his clever little hands getting into everything. The calm, well-ordered nursery routine had been shattered, and chaos broke out frequently. Jarel was said to have his maternal grandfather’s temper, his father’s strength, and his mother’s determination. Although this sitting room remained elegant and welcoming in every detail, it had been stripped of its most fragile and precious breakables, for little Jarel was as lively as a jinja and as destructive as a wind spirit.

  An earsplitting squeal in the distance told Caelan that his son and heir was coming. From its cushion in a corner of the room, the empress’s golden-hued jinja shot upright with a hiss, pointed ears quivering.

  Caelan laughed and saluted the creature with his cup. “Hide, while you still can.”

  Another squeal, much closer, came from the passageway, accompanied by the rapid thud of small feet. Hissing, the jinja whirled around and bolted out of sight just as the door burst open and a naked toddler ran in, shouting, “Fa! Fa!” at the top of his lungs.

  Hastily, Caelan put down his cup and made a grab for his son, who was trying to climb up his legs. The child was dripping wet and as slippery as a river eel. Red-haired and blue-eyed, he had a chubby little freckled face full of guile and mischief. Beaming from ear to ear, he yelled in delight as his father lifted him high in the air, and flung himself bodily at Caelan’s neck.

  “Fa!” he yelled, grabbing fistfuls of Caelan’s hair and yanking hard.

  Still laughing, Caelan hugged him close. “That’s my big boy.”

  “Oy!” Jarel shouted, pounding his father with chubby fists. “Me Fa’s oy!”

  Caelan blew a loud raspberry on his son’s bare stomach, and the boy screamed and kicked with laughter.

  “Welcome, my lord and husband,” Elandra’s voice said.

  Looking up, Caelan smiled at his lady wife. Her Imperial Majesty Empress Elandra, Queen of Itieria and Star of Gialta, wore a gown soaked from waist to he
m. Her hair was half-pulled from its pins, with a lock straggling loose to her shoulder. Still, her beautiful face was serene, and only the maid standing behind her with a towel in one hand and a child-sized set of sleeping robes in the other showed fluster.

  Curtsying, Elandra walked up to Caelan and lightly caressed the back of his head.

  Quickly he caught her hand and kissed her palm. As always, the sight of her stirred him. He’d loved her from his first glimpse of her as a tense, beleaguered bride of the old emperor. Each day, Caelan counted her presence in his life as his greatest joy and blessing. Without her, he could not have ruled this empire, for he was not trained to the position as she’d been by her first husband. Without her, he would not have survived the aftermath of his fight with Beloth or the chaotic early days of his reign. He owed her his life and his heart. And she had given him this madcap, squirming son who was now kicking wildly in an effort to get down.

  “Leggo, Fa!” Jarel shouted.

  When Caelan released him, Jarel darted over to his mother, hurling himself into the soft billowing fullness of her skirts, then darting away with a laugh before she could catch hold of him.

  The maid, still flapping her towel, set off in pursuit, saying ineffectually, “Now, that’s enough, Your Highness. That’s enough, sir.”

  Caelan and Elandra exchanged happy smiles. He rose to his feet and kissed her thoroughly. “You look beautiful.”

  “I’m sure I look a fright,” she said calmly, tucking back her errant lock of hair. “How did the council go? Have they approved plans for healing arts to be added to our university as a course of study?”

  Caelan’s smile faded. “It wasn’t discussed. There’s been an attack on the northern border. The Fifteenth and Sixteenth Legions are marching out to support the troops already stationed there.”

  Her hands stopped tidying her hair, and she grew quite expressionless. “Then it’s definitely war.”

  “No, not definitely. A few skirmishes, maybe nothing more.”

  “They’re testing you.”

  He nodded calmly. “Of course.”

  “What else happened in council?”

  “More provincial protests about high taxes.”

  She shrugged, a warlord’s daughter, unafraid of anything. “I told you that’s what Oucred of Ulinia would say.”

  “Aye, a dozen times at least. It’s what they all kept saying. And it seemed to be all they would say.” He sighed. “I’m told that Ulinia is certain to rebel if I tax them more. They’re in a drought—”

  “Ulinia is always in drought,” she said. “Or they suffer from famine, or a pestilence has just swept the villages. If that warlord can find an excuse to get out of paying you, he will. His father, I’ve been told, was worse. A thorough scoundrel.”

  Caelan raked back his long hair with his fingers and sat down. “So do I placate the Madruns or the Ulinians? I don’t want war from either at the moment. There’s too much else that needs doing. But if it comes down to one versus the other—”

  “It won’t,” she said. “Not unless you let Oucred and Bavriol negotiate the empire’s interests foolishly into that kind of corner. There’s always another way, my darling. Remember that when they pressure you with their silly ultimatums.”

  He grunted, far from convinced. She hadn’t sat through the arguments today, or heard the bad reports streaming in from the Madrun line. He wasn’t sure he wanted to tell her yet about the mutiny in one of the legions. It had been suppressed already, brutally, the rebels executed swiftly without trial. The one thing Caelan absolutely could not allow to escape his control was the army. Without it, he could not hold this empire.

  Gods, he’d far rather wade into a battlefield with a blade in his fist than sit through these long afternoons of sword rattling from old fools who were more theory than practicality.

  Standing behind his chair, Elandra rubbed his tight shoulders. “You’re thinking of the mutiny.”

  Surprised, he caught one of her hands and kissed it. He loved the shape and scent of her fingers. “So you know.”

  “Of course. I pay my informants well.”

  Tipping back his head, he gazed up at her. “It could spread rapidly.”

  “But it won’t. You can count on General Turmikian’s loyalty. There are bound to be traitors who escaped the initial reforms. They’ll be cleaned out, given time and patience.”

  “But if these shadow lovers infect the rest of the army—”

  She bent and kissed him. “Have faith, Light Bringer.”

  A squeal came from the opposite end of the room, accompanied by a ferocious spitting snarl and an explosion of cushions in all directions. The jinja clawed its way up a tapestry and leaped atop a cabinet of intricately carved fyr wood, hissing down at Jarel, who patted the base of the cabinet and laughed.

  The maid pounced, swathing His Imperial Highness in the towel and lifting him despite his struggles. His laughter became a howl, and then wails of rage filled the air. The maid brought him back to his parents to be kissed and petted despite his red face and huge tears of fury. Still howling, he was carried away to bed, and peace settled over the room.

  Elandra smiled in that special way she reserved for Caelan alone. “I must go and dress for this evening. We want to make a good impression, don’t we?”

  “What sort of man is this ambassador?” Caelan asked.

  “I’m not sure. I’ve never met him, but my reports say he’s very proud, very haughty.”

  Her expression had not changed, but Caelan knew her well enough to discern a fleeting shadow in her eyes.

  “Too proud to bow to a former slave and the illegitimate daughter of his warlord?” he asked.

  She uttered a rueful laugh, her eyes wise as they met Caelan’s. “How do you always know what I’m thinking? He’s a Pareve. That family has always thought itself very superior, even to the House of Albain. He’ll be a snob.”

  Caelan shrugged. He no longer worried about the past, and experience had taught him that snobbery could not break down the unassailable fact that he was emperor and everyone else was not. “Are you going to wear cloth of gold and all your topazes?”

  Elandra shook her head. “That would be trying too hard. He doesn’t rate that much ceremony.”

  Kissing his cheek, she vanished into her bedchamber, where he heard the babble of women’s voices as the mysteries of his wife dressing for dinner began. Caelan had to smile at her tactics, for she’d deliberately neglected to tell him what she was wearing. He’d learned that it was a woman’s way to weave mystery and little surprises through a marriage. If that’s what she wanted, if that’s how she thought she kept her allure vital, then he was content to let her do so. In fact, he cared not what she wore or how she fastened up her hair. She was his, and together they were happy. That was all that mattered.

  Yet as he accepted a fresh cup from the servants, a sudden sense of uneasiness crawled through him. Frowning, he put the cup down untasted. Such feelings had come to him with increasing frequency this week. He could not trace them, had at first dismissed them as political worries.

  Now, feeling less sure, he beckoned to his protector.

  The man strode over, alert and calm. “Yes, Majesty?”

  “As we leave for the banquet,” Caelan said quietly, his gaze resting on Elandra’s closed door, “inform the Imperial Guards that I want extra men posted for the protection of the empress and my son.”

  The protector frowned. “Is there a problem, Majesty?”

  Caelan looked at him. “Let’s just say I want to avoid one.”

  Chapter 16

  Lea crouched in the bushes near a trickling stream, uneasily aware of the guard watching her from atop a rock a short distance away. Bandy-legged and so covered in tattoos that his skin looked blue, he was the one she liked the least, the one who had a habit of staring at her while licking his mouth and sniggering. His gaze gave her the chills, but she tried very hard to ignore him. She did not want him to realize how muc
h they frightened her, especially with the commander gone from camp.

  Warily she put a garment in the water to soak, weighting it down with stones while she scrubbed another. She had positioned herself in a way to block the guard from seeing what she was cleaning, but doing so made it difficult to keep an eye on him.

  “Spirits, come to me,” she murmured.

  Thus far, she’d sensed neither water nor earth spirits nearby. She tried to clear her mind and center herself, but each time the guard snickered, fresh alarm shot through her, scattering her concentration.

  During the past seven days, they’d left snow country for a warmer, rockier clime. The land lay dry and golden under an autumn sun. Sparse grasses were turning brown, and slender trees shivered yellow-tipped leaves in the wind while birds flitted among their branches. In the rocks across the stream, a beady-eyed chippaqui stared at her, too wild and shy to come entirely into the open. Had it not been for the guard, Lea would have enticed the small animal with acorns and pine nuts, but she did not try. The guard was likely to kill it for fun.

  This was the first day they’d camped in idleness. Some of the men had gone hunting while the rest lay sprawled about, dicing with low-pitched laughter and much wagering, or just snoring on their backs. It was the first day the commander had let Lea out of his sight, and she was determined to seize the opportunity.

  “Spirits,” she whispered again, calling harder with her mind. “Spirits, come!”

  They did as they pleased, of course. She could not be sure they would answer at all, and indeed it was risky to call element spirits in strange country, for she did not know whether they would prove to be benign or malevolent. After Rinthella’s death she’d been leery of trying, but now she felt desperate. There had been plenty of night marches lately when she wished with all her heart that the dreadful wind spirits of Trau would appear and scour these brutes to mere heaps of bone.