by Anne Perry
Eleni was here now, standing well behind her brother and her husband but lending a grace to what could otherwise have been a stiff affair.
Tathea shivered in spite of her voluminous cloak. She was not used to the cold, and the damp made it bite so much more deeply. No desert night had ever been as cold as this.
The congratulations of the leaders were finished and the fourth soldier was coming forward to receive his commendation for courage when a gust of wind tore at one of the battle standards, catching it and carrying it out of the bearer’s grasp. The flapping cloth startled several of the horses and one reared up, squealing. The rider regained control within moments, but not before another man had been badly trodden; his foot was crushed and bleeding.
A murmur of horror and sympathy went up from the watchers. The injured man made no complaint, but he could not hide his agony.
Alexius went across to him, shouting over his shoulder to send for a physician.
Isadorus turned to Eleni. She moved to join Alexius. He hesitated, looking at her, searching her face. He saw in her something that made him straighten up and step back.
Eleni bent and touched the injured man’s foot, running her hands over it. Again the miracle happened. The pallor disappeared from the man’s face and slowly his clenched body relaxed. A look of wonder filled his countenance. He stared at Eleni as if the rest of the gathered lines of soldiers had disappeared; not even the Emperor seemed to register on his consciousness. The ranks of the men behind him were silent, their eyes on Eleni, their faces filled with awe and a swift-dawning reverence.
Tathea walked towards them, compelled by something too indistinct to be called memory, but a need to be there, to warn.
Alexius noticed her first. His eyes met hers, searching for explanation, a long, steady gaze.
Isadorus swiveled round and followed Alexius’s stare. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“Ta-Thea,” she answered. “Of Shinabar.”
Understanding was instant in his face. “And this?” he demanded, gesturing to Eleni and the soldier. “Do you understand it?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation, certainty absolute inside her. “It is one of the great gifts of the spirit which has been given to Lady Eleni. It is rare, and precious ...” She stopped, frightened to say the rest of the truth that was becoming clear in her mind even as she spoke.
“And?” Isadorus said levelly.
Everyone waited: the soldier; Eleni, biting her lips; Alexius beside her, a protective hand on her shoulder, his eyes still on Tathea.
A horse shifted its weight. Leather creaked. Not a man in the courtyard moved.
Tathea struggled with indecision. She risked anger, disbelief, Isadorus’s rejection of her and everything she might say afterwards. And yet the compulsion inside her to warn Eleni overrode everything else.
“And there will be a price to pay for it,” she answered. Her mouth was dry, the breath caught in her throat, but she knew what she said was true. “A great price.” She swallowed. Her body was shaking. “The only price greater would be to refuse it. That would be to deny yourself, to refuse to accept who you are, who you have become.”
There was a minute’s silence. The wind gusted a spatter of rain across the yard.
“A gift from whom?” Isadorus asked. The question demanded an answer.
Tathea looked into his gray eyes. “From the God who is the beginning and the end of all things,” she replied. “There is no other God, only visions and beliefs.” She turned to Eleni. “The gift is yours. It is for you to choose whether you take it or not.”
Alexius’s grasp tightened on Eleni’s shoulder. His hands were strong, beautiful.
Isadorus opened his mouth to speak and then changed his mind. His face was gentle when he looked down at Eleni. There was no command in him, no overt desire.
It was the soldier who moved. He lifted his hand and touched his damaged foot, then smiled at Eleni, a slow, sweet smile, unwavering.
“I could not refuse it,” Eleni answered. “It would be a kind of death. I am as sure of that as I have ever been of anything.” Then she looked at Tathea. “Thank you,” she said softly.
Chapter IX
AT FIRST TATHEA WAs afraid—the task of presenting the Book to the Emperor and persuading him of the truth of it was so great, the price of failure too high. Now she doubted her ability. She had been too arrogant in her plan.
She looked at the Book where it lay on the table and was overwhelmed by her charge. Then in the silence of her heart she heard the words that were written: “I give no commandment except I make a way possible for you to fulfill it, if you will walk in obedience and trust in me.” A shining peace blossomed inside her. She could almost touch a memory of joy unimaginable, but she had no idea where or when it had been, simply that it had.
She met the Emperor on the balcony of one of his many private apartments in the palace. He leaned against the balustrade and regarded her levelly, as if they were two strangers who could have nothing to fear from each other, only from their own failure within.
Slowly he smiled. His body relaxed a little. “Now you look more like the Empress I have heard of,” he said with a flash of amusement. “No more hovering on the edge of events, averting your eyes and hoping not to be challenged.”
It was just. Until now she had behaved like the fugitive she was.
He saw the acceptance of it in her eyes, and for a moment his expression softened, but he made no apology. He straightened up and walked across the checkered marble floor towards the table and chairs, the sun catching the purple and gold edging of his robe.
“Tell me about this Book you have been sharing with my sister. Where does it come from and what is it? Why do you not share it with your own people?” He was regarding her closely, with the perception of a man who could afford few mistakes. He had inherited the throne from his father Baradeus, who had won it by force of arms, and Isadorus held it by skill and the power of his own character and judgment.
She smiled at him. “I did not have it when I was in Shinabar. But I will share it with my people as soon as I am able to return home.”
His brows rose very slightly. “You expect to?” He gave nothing away of how much he knew of the overthrow or current Shinabari politics.
She did not look away from his eyes. “Yes, I hope to. Wouldn’t you?”
He smiled. Strange how much the strength of a man could show in a mere smile. She could see strength in the ease with which he moved his supple soldier’s body beneath the embroidered tunic and robes, but it was the calm in his face that told of his true inner power. He was a man who had tested and mastered himself.
“I think if the throne of Camassia fell, I would not be alive to attempt a return,” he said dryly, watching her eyes to see how she should react. “I would be dead, as Mon-Allat is dead. But if my wife survived me, I doubt she could plan such a thing. But my sons would, that I would swear to on my life.”
“My son is dead,” she said harshly, her voice rough-edged. It was still difficult to say, as if the words reinforced the reality of it. “He was only four.” Without warning the tears choked her throat. She refused to look away from him. It was not an emotion to be ashamed of.
He was caught unaware. It was something he had not known, and there was a swift, naked pity in his face.
“Then you will have to act for him,” he said gently. “If you can.” The emotion vanished. “But tell me of this Book.” He indicated with his hand that she might sit down. “You brought it here to my empire, and you told my sister that it speaks of the God who gave her the power to heal.” He remained standing, looking down at her. “And at the same time you warned her that there would be a price for her gift, a high price. I require an explanation of that.”
She swallowed away the tears in her throat. She forced pride into her mind. She had been Empress of an older throne than his! “I went seeking the knowledge of who I am.” She waved her arm, encompassing the palace and th
e city beyond. “Stripped of the power of office and possessions, of lands, family, and identity in the eyes of others, who are you?” She allowed it to be a challenge. “If you were to stand naked before heaven, what answer would you give that question?”
A flash of laughter lit his eyes, self-mockery and amazement. “And are you going to tell me?”
“You are a child of God,” she said unwaveringly. “And that means you must learn to behave like Him. It will take time unimaginable, but you must begin now.”
He looked at her steadily and slowly understood the certainly in her. “Indeed? And is this Book of yours going to tell me how?”
She answered with certainly. “It will tell you something. Much of it you must learn for yourself, by experience and error. These things cannot be told by one person to another.”
He raised his eyebrows, the tug of amusement again showing at the corners of his lips. “Then what is in this Book that I should bother to read it? That life cannot be taught? Only a fool or a philosopher imagines it can!”
“Truth can be taught.” She smiled back as she said it, but she did not allow her voice to be light. “And wisdom, the reason for things, and the hope. Then you will understand what experience offers, and instead of confusion and despair, you will learn faith and obedience.”
“From a book of rules!” He shifted his weight, shrugging a little, but he did not look away from her. “Do this! Don’t do that!”
“By the knowledge of who you are,” she returned. “Where you began and where your choices will lead you.”
He moved to sit on a wide, cushioned stool with carved wooden sides. “Who wrote this Book that I should believe it?” His expression was bright, skeptical, but not unkind.
There could be no answer but the truth. “I asked the sage in the Lost Lands. He told me truth was a heavy burden, but if I was ready to hear it, I should wait by the sea. I remember being there all night. A skiff came in with a man in it.” Even recounting it brought a sense of peace, a calm radiance inside her, and her voice rang with certainly as she continued, “He asked me again if I was certain. I told him I was. After that I don’t remember anything until I awoke on the same shore, with the Book in my arms. I don’t know where it came from, but it is the truth. Touch it and you will know that too, whether you want what it tells you or not.”
“Rules?” he repeated, but the disbelief had gone from his face. His voice was surprisingly soft.
“No,” she answered. “A conversation between God, who would have us grow to fill the measure of every possibility for power and laughter and joy, and our Adversary, who would keep us eternally dwarfed, dependent, and spiritually unborn.”
“Bring it to me,” he whispered. “Let me read this myself!”
Tathea spent many days with Isadorus as he studied the text of the Book. He asked questions about the nature of the Adversary, and she struggled to answer, occasionally chilled by a sense of darkness as if just beyond her knowledge some immense evil waited, but she did not try to delineate it for him. It was an awareness of the soul, not of the mind.
The torches were flickering in their brackets on the walls, sending shadows across the floor as he closed the Book and turned to her.
“There is hope in this which is different from anything Camassia believes.” His hand lingered on the gold surface of the cover, as if he were loath to leave its warmth. “There is a pity and a love. But it is also very terrible to have the possibility of hell, and the knowledge that damnation is of your own creation. What the Great Adversary says of fear is true.” Unconsciously he had lowered his voice. This tranquil room was too far from the rest of the palace for domestic noises to intrude. There was only wind in the lemon trees and the evening sky. “It will cripple many of us. We will make promises we cannot keep. I want it to be true, but I am afraid of it.”
“So am I,” she admitted, smiling at him and biting her lip, acknowledging the irony of it, and her own vulnerability. “He knows we will do much that is wrong and make mistakes. He says so. Our life in the flesh is a journey, not an arriving. If there were not repentance, it would be unbearable.”
“I know! I know!” He nodded quickly. “There is the Beloved One, who made that possible in a way I don’t understand. It is a better belief than ours. It is a better social law because it does not depend on the ability of man to judge or his power to execute sentence.” His wide mouth lifted in a wry smile. “An arrogant man may think to defy humanity. And I could name a score of those without going beyond my own court. I dare say you could too.”
She thought of them and their simple, heavy robes decorated with purple and gold borders, their solemn faces. They were the courtiers, the Archons. Their asceticism was a kind of pride in itself.
“I could,” she agreed wryly.
He grunted, leaning back in his seat. “And the devious ones may deceive. Perhaps you know more of that than I do. Or is it only my unsophisticated Camassian idea that the Shinabari are subtler than we are?”
“Oh no!” she said softly, meeting his eyes. “We are far subtler. Just sometimes we don’t show it, so you are left uncertain. Then at other times we do, so you imagine we are far cleverer than we are.”
It was an instant before he understood. Then he laughed openly, with unaffected amusement. It was the first time he had let slip his guard and permitted the man beneath to show.
The light faded from the sky. Torches glowed yellow, casting thick shadows. Servants brought food and wine.
They talked long into the evening, sharing random moments of past loneliness, doubts and joys, unexpected betrayals, and weaknesses long seen or suspected. He told her of his early years in the army when his father had been on the throne, of the isolation that always set him apart as the heir to a power that was envied but not understood. Fleetingly, by omission as much as anything, he touched on his dark moments when he questioned the old values of self-discipline, of duty and honor where courage was the greatest virtue and loyalty the ideal. There was little warmth in it, and no mercy for the weak of spirit, no second chances. Even the glory at the end of it was a poor thing compared with that promised in the Book. But there was also no Adversary. Not only was hell smaller, but heaven also.
After that evening, their relationship altered. He was less guarded with her. He had accepted the philosophy of the Book, even though his understanding was yet limited. In front of his household as witness of his intent, he covenanted with God and with man to walk in the teachings of the Book and keep its word. He asked Tathea to move her household into apartments in the Imperial Palace, where both she and the Book would be safe, just in case her growing reputation should attract Shinabari attention. She accepted, taking her own few pieces of furniture and of course the black and white cat.
Late one evening towards midsummer, when the torches were newly lit and smoking a little in the wind and the heat of the day was heavy in the air, Tathea was walking across the courtyard and she saw Isadorus. He was leaning back on a long cushioned bench, his face raised towards a woman who held out a bunch of bright berries in her hand. His body was totally relaxed. The pleasure of his face betrayed his loneliness, his need to escape the weight of duty. With this woman he was merely a man.
She said something, and he laughed, reaching out towards her. She did not play the coquette. The way she responded to him laid bare their long familiarity.
Tathea stopped. Coldness welled up inside her, and confusion, followed by a stinging loneliness. The moment’s intimacy excluded everyone else; certainly it excluded Barsymet. You could not love two women in such a way—not at once. Mon-Allat had never loved her like that. Tearing her memory apart, she could bring back no such simple tenderness, nothing so spontaneous or unguarded. Even in moments of passion, and the calm afterwards, he had never permitted her to creep inside his shell of self-awareness. Always he kept the core of his identity apart. Had he touched his mistress, Arimaspis, with the quick warmth that Isadorus now showed this woman, unafraid of rejec
tion, trusting her gentleness in return? Tathea had been a good empress, but he had not loved her, not with fire or tears or laughter or an ache of incompleteness if she were absent, even for a day.
Mon-Allat had shared the burdens of state with her only because it was his duty, and her purpose. She understood them. No doubt Barsymet understood also. But he had not shared his hopes or his pain, his weaknesses or his needs, his dreams. Had he shared them with Arimaspis? Had she known him as Tathea never had? Did she mourn him even now, and lie awake alone in her bed, missing his warmth beside her, and weeping for him? It was a new thought, and a bitter one. Until that moment it had not even occurred to Tathea.
But the Book spoke of integrity, of wholeness of heart. She did not need words to detail that Isadorus’s was divided. However well understood, however sanctioned by emotion or mitigated by love, it was not a heart single to the purpose of God.
How could she tell Isadorus? In doing so, might she lose the one man whose belief she must have if she were to gather the power to return home?
But he had sent for her, so she must present herself. Suddenly afraid, she continued her way across the courtyard and into the light of the torches.
Isadorus saw her shadow before she reached him and he turned with a smile. The woman stepped back, but only a pace. She was almost as dark as Tathea but beautiful in a subtle and gentle way, startlingly feminine.
“This is Tissarel,” Isadorus introduced her. He said no more, assuming that Tathea would guess her position. “There is no harm in her hearing what is written in the Book,” he added, seeing Tathea’s face. “Soon all Camassia will hear it.” He indicated where she should sit, and Tathea obediently did so.
Tissarel stood a little apart, listening. She did not interrupt, but more than once Tathea glanced up at her and saw her eyes, the tension and the shadow in them, and knew that she understood the weight of what they were saying, and that it would demand from all of them decisions from which there would be no escape.
