* * *
4
SOMETIME MID-MORNING, six imposing guardsmen trooped into the archives with orders to escort me to the audience hall. Surprised and rather impressed—I'd never rated more than two before—I changed into a cleaner tunic that was long enough to cover the inkstains on my britches and the patch on my bum where the cloth had worn thin and allowed myself to be swept downstairs.
As we marched along, I reflected on how things had changed. The honour guards of the old Gil had carried purely ceremonial weapons, beautiful useless objets that couldn't cut cheese and weighed not much more than the gems set into their handles. These men were armed to the eyebrows, and their weapons were real. A short businesslike dagger hung in a sheath on each upper arm, haft downwards so it could be drawn quickly; the swords were long, sharp and hungry, and the only gems in sight were the crumbs of lapis on each man's insignum. I noted that a new weapon had been added, a loop of small razor-edged throwing discs depending from the belt opposite the sword. More and more, it seemed to me, Arko was ruling by force of arms. I suppose it was not easy being the custodian of an empty temple.
I paused on the threshold of the audience hall, cursing myself for not changing my britches as well as the tunic. Most of the senior Flamens were there, and about twice the normal number of troopers were formed up in a double honour guard from the door to the dais, backed by bands of harpists and hornists in full cry. Arkolef himself was seated on the high throne of Gil, his wooden leg hidden by the gold-heavy green robe of state, and one of his hands was waving majestically in time to the music. His face lit up when he saw me. He snapped his hand and the music stopped.
"Here he is now! Tigrallef! My dear brother!"
I looked at him narrowly. Arko was dim and rather sweet, and always seemed glad to see me, but he was not usually so bubbly about it.
"I have wonderful news for you, little brother."
"Oh?" All I could figure was that he'd decided to increase my book budget. I thought it over and finally permitted myself a noncommittal smile. Arko beamed back.
"Tig," he said grandly, "it's time you were married."
I gulped. The smile froze on my face. For the first time, I noticed the Primate glowering at me from the smaller throne situated significantly behind and to the right of Arkolef's.
Arko met my eyes with a clear, innocent gaze. "You're what, twenty-nine?"
"So?"
"So—you can't spend your whole life buried in the archives."
"Why not?"
"It's no life for a man."
"That depends on the man."
"You need a wife."
"I need a reliable supply of paper. The last batch from Sathelforn—"
"My lord Tigrallef." The Primate's razor voice cut cleanly through my diversionary tactic, rot him. I leaned sideways to see more of him around the edge of Arko's robe.
"Did you say something, Revered Primate?" I asked, keeping my voice polite.
The Primate rose and paced solemnly to the edge of the dais, his brows drawn together. He had worn the same face on that far-off day in Exile when he first decided to send me to Gil as a hero. He said, "Lord Tigrallef, the Priest-King is not just offering you brotherly advice."
I sighed. "That's obvious, Most Revered One. Where's the hook?"
The Primate's chin lifted reprovingly. "The Priest-King considers—" he began, but Arko himself broke in.
"Tig, you should be pleased. She's beautiful." He beamed again. Ever so quietly, the Primate's teeth ground together.
Those tiny hammers in my head, peaceful all morning, began to tap again. "She?" I asked.
Arko swept his hand gracefully through the air. "Yes, of course. And the dowry is superb, also the lady's rank. You're a lucky man."
I glanced down at my permanently inky hands to gain a moment, then back at my brother. "Am I to understand, Lord King of Gil, that you've already chosen me a bride?"
Arko laughed. "Did I forget to say? How stupid of me."
The Primate shook his head minutely and turned back to his throne. I could almost pity him for the job of running Arko as a king. My brother motioned to one of the Flamens standing at the edge of the dais, who advanced on me bearing a portrait in a garish gold frame. I stepped back.
"I'm not interested."
"But Tigrallef, you haven't even seen her. Just look."
I gazed perforce at the painting. A small, perfect, slightly feline face on a flower-stem neck; dainty shoulders and a snowy swell of bosom pushed high and wide in what I recognized as Miisheli fashion, but almost hidden by a crateful or two of heavy golden gew-gaws. A sweet smile, perhaps too sweet, belied by a certain set to the pointed chin that the artist had not been able to soften. But lovely indeed, exceptionally so, and rich with it. Miishel, eh? I said to myself. That explained the wind-galley in the harbour.
"I'm not interested," I said again.
Poor Arko. He was not even disappointed at this stage, only baffled. "Tig—she's a princess of Miishel."
"So I gathered. The answer is no."
He gawped at me from the high throne of Gil. "But you can't refuse. It's all been agreed—all except the final settlement."
"Already? Without consulting me?"
"They wanted a quick reply."
"You mean, you were advised not to approach me until the deal was complete."
Arko's eyes drifted away from mine. His grounding in the Heroic Code made him too honest for effective kingship.
The Primate cleared his throat. "Lord Tigrallef," he said smoothly, "whatever you may think, the Priest-King's sole considerations in this match have been your happiness—"
"Good. I'm happy where I am."
"—and the welfare of the nation. The situation is this. Miishel seeks an alliance with the Archipelago; Sathelforn, out of respect for the Scions of Oballef and the Lady Dazeene, insists on including Gil in the treaty. As a Scion and a descendant of the Satheli royal line through your mother, the Lady Dazeene, you can cement this alliance by carrying out one small, joyous duty—marriage with the Princess Rinn of Miishel. Naturally, you will reside with your bride's people."
"I see. As a kind of hostage."
"As the consort of the Princess Rinn," he said primly. "Is this too much to ask?"
"Yes."
"You still refuse?"
"Yes."
He sighed, and Arko dutifully sighed with him. The room was hushed with fascination—it was a rare treat to see the Primate being openly defied. The Primate glanced around, as if realizing this, and motioned suddenly for the musicians to resume playing. Under cover of the music, he stepped close to me and smiled, not a nice smile, more the kind you'd expect from a man who dined regularly on human babies. He took up a scrolled paper tied with green and gold ribbon and put it into my hand.
I unrolled it and read the opening few lines. The first jolt of shock hit my belly. Breathing hard, I forced myself to finish reading—the text was not long—and then I read it again. And again. The words written there refused to change. Stubbornly, they continued to affirm that the Primate of the Flamens was now also the First Memorian and, by special royal appointment, the Custodian of the Archives in Gil. I scrolled the paper up again and handed it back to the Primate.
"Couldn't you just torture me?" I asked.
"I wouldn't dream of it." The Primate leaned closer and whispered, "I need you unmarked and in good health."
"How did you get Arko to sign the appointment? Put something in his wine?"
"I pointed out that you'd be leaving us, and it would be necessary to find a new First Memorian. The Priest-King was grateful when I offered to take over the archives myself. After all, we couldn't leave your tame Sherkin and that lunatic Angel in charge of Gil's most precious asset."
"You hypocrite," I said, "you never valued the books before. You'd have thrown them out with the other rubbish when the Gilgard was being cleared—just as you left the archives from Exile to moulder on the quay—just as you grudged Arko
giving me the rooms to work in, the ink to write with—"
"Really, Scion, this is not seemly." He was purring, as a cat might to the mouse trapped between its paws. "Can you imagine how it would grieve me," he added, "to have to sell the archives?"
I stared at him, shocked beyond words. The Primate said something, but the sound was lost in a crescendo from the horns. I found my tongue again and hissed into his ear, "Tell me you didn't say that."
"But I did. And why not? The Lucian Clerisy has offered me a very handsome price."
"The Lucian Clerisy!" I shut my eyes and cursed the Primate by the new gods of Gil, all of them that I could think of, up to and including the Fiery Hand.
"I'll only sell if I have to," the Primate went on placidly. "Gil needs money, Tigrallef. If you marry the Princess Rinn, we'll get it from Miishel, by the shipful; if you refuse, which you're certainly free to do, even now, we'll sell the archives. I'd much rather sell you, of course, we'll get more for you. But you choose." His eyes were full of the confidence of victory. Behind him, Arko strained forward in the high throne, trying vainly to hear us over the clamour of the musicians.
I put my mouth close to the Primate's ear and breathed, "This is revenge. You're punishing me for destroying the Lady."
"It's economics, Tigrallef. Though I admit, none of these cults that you find so enthralling would have arisen if we still had the Lady. No political factions, no popular movements, no questioning of the Priest-King's right to rule. The Lady would have guaranteed his power."
Your power, Primate, I amended to myself; an excellent argument for having destroyed the pocketing thing. I stared into his pouched eyes.
"Here's the deal I'm offering you, Tigrallef. Accept this alliance and the archives will stay where they are, under a new First Memorian of your choice. Refuse, and the entire library will be on its way to the Lucian Clerisy within the week. Do you understand?"
I was silent. Not out of indecision; there was no doubt by now that I'd marry the princess. Whatever dismay I felt at being sold to Miishel paled beside the thought of my beautiful archives being lost to Gil—and going moreover to the Clerisy, mediocre fumbling fanatical pack of plagiarists that they were. I'd have married the Primate himself to stop that happening.
No, this time it was grief that tied my tongue, a sudden, terrible wash of grief that poured down on me out of nowhere while the priest was speaking and my alliance with that gold-weighted Miisheli female was becoming inevitable. I didn't want the Princess Rinn. I wanted Calla. I always would. A voice spoke in my head, reminding me: Calla's dead. And so she was, dead and picked clean by the fishes, a scatter of bones on the seabed somewhere between Gil and the drowned towers of Iklankish, but that did not stop me wanting her. I shivered with grief—and a dark hole began to open in my mind, a hole with lights like motes of gold dancing on its rim.
"So? Do you accept the offer?" the Primate demanded.
"What?" I looked at him, surprised. I'd forgotten he was there. "Of course I accept."
The hole yawned wider. I stared through it, oddly detached, watching the lights flicker around the Primate's head as he motioned for the music to stop. Arko leaned forward.
"Well, Tig?"
"Bless me, Lord King of Gil," I said flatly.
Arko relaxed, then shouted for wine for the obligatory blessing. Through that strange golden haze, I watched the pages approach with trays of beakers, saw the Primate put a beaker into my hand with a kind of hard-edged solicitude, heard without listening as Arko intoned the words of the blessing. The Primate lifted a beaker to his lips. Wistfully, I found myself picturing the Most Revered One choking on that mouthful of wine.
The Primate coughed violently. Fountains of wine sprayed out between his teeth, stinking of dead fruit. He was indeed choking. The coincidence did not strike me then, though I was interested to see that there seemed to be more wine down the front of the Primate's green vestment than he had actually drunk. When I blinked, the hole closed in my mind, the golden haze winked out. I looked around as if I'd just wakened from a deep sleep.
The hall was in chaos; distraught Flamens were crowding around the Primate and pounding his most revered back, Arkolef was issuing contradictory orders, the pages were running about in circles, the musicians scattering. I stayed long enough to see if the Primate would actually choke to death, and when it seemed that he wouldn't, I left.
* * *
5
THERE WAS NOWHERE to go but back to the archives. I trudged up the stairs in a black depression, lightened only around the edges by the image of the Primate's purple face. Angel and Shree greeted me as I came in, but there was something wrong with my powers of speech and I slipped past them into the reading room without a word. Then I found that being among the books was even more depressing, so I cast around for an escape that would not involve having to talk to anybody and ended up climbing a narrow spiral of stairs that led to one of the small round towers of the Temple Palace. At the top was a bare cell dominated by a large casement window.
I looked speculatively at the window, swung it open and leaned out. It was a good long drop to the ground and the first thing I'd hit on the way down would be a bank of decorative spikes along one ridge of the Middle Palace, which would finish me off nicely. And then, with the bridegroom tenderized like a chunk of tough steak—the books would go straight to the Lucian Clerisy. No, throwing myself out the window was not the answer.
The door creaked open behind me. I didn't turn around, hoping whoever it was would go away. After a short silence, a hand swatted me heavily on the shoulder.
"You'll need to be more careful of your back now," Shree's voice said in my ear.
I turned slowly to face him. There were purple shadows under his eyes and some spectacular bruises were developing on his jaw from our visit to the Fiery Hand, which now seemed an eternity ago.
"You look terrible," I said. "How's Lissula? Did she send me her love?"
"She sent you more than that." I waited for him to go on, but he leaned past me to look out of the casement. I followed his eyes. The ship from Miishel rode in the centre of the harbour, blazoned and beribboned like some barbarian queen—or some doxy. I said softly, "If I'd looked out the window more often, I might have seen trouble coming."
"The scholar's life," Shree said. "Tell me, Tig, how did you like the princess? Did the portrait make your loins quicken? I have it on the best authority that her bosoms—"
I stared at him so fiercely that he stopped and grinned. "How did you know?" I said through my teeth. "What have you heard?"
"Only what everyone else has heard. Rumour mostly, but I know the cloth has been ordered for your nuptial robes. Omelian silks—at Sathelforn's expense, of course; they say Gil couldn't afford homespun at the moment. Is it time to tell you where babies come from?"
"I know where babies come from," I said. "Damn it, Shree, if you'd heard something, why didn't you tell me sooner? I might have been able to talk Arko out of it."
He dropped the light manner. "I only heard last night, after I left you. Lissula told me."
"Lissula knew?"
"Of course she knew. I went to see if she could shed any light on our late friends at the Fiery Hand, and she greeted me with raptures on your forthcoming marriage."
I spluttered with indignation. "Why does the whorehouse know before the archives?"
"Come along, Tig. The shints know everything first. Fact of life. Actually, almost everyone outside the archives has known for days, ever since the ship from Sathelforn came in. The bookmakers are already taking bets on the size of the dowry."
I remembered the guardsmen sniggering, the Second Flamen and little pages being grotesquely paternal. Bits of the puzzle fell into place. Practise! Experience! The loaf before the feast! They thought I was a virgin. Shree waited patiently until I'd finished grinding my teeth, and then asked, "What are you going to do?"
"I've already accepted. I have no choice. The Primate's talked my brother into handin
g the archives over to his tender care, and he'll sell the library to the Lucian Clerisy if I refuse. I can just see him doing it, too. I can't let that happen."
Shree whistled. "Clever old Primate. I wondered how he'd bring you into line."
"You sound almost approving."
"You're a prince," he said bluntly, "of two royal lines."
"So?"
"So they were bound to marry you off someday. At least this one's rich and pretty."
I glared at him. "Did the Primate talk you into this?"
"The Primate couldn't talk me into breakfast. As your friend, I think you should accept this fate as gracefully as you can."
I turned back to the window, feeling betrayed. Shree put his hand on my shoulder. "Did the Primate offer you any terms?"
"Yes, if he can be trusted. I can choose my own successor in the archives—I suppose that will have to be you."
He shook his head. "No. Make it Angel."
"Angel! He'll be no match for the Primate."
"Nor were you, in the end. But it doesn't matter—the Primate won't bother with the archives, not once he has what he wants."
"But why not you?"
"Because," he explained, "I'll be going with you to Miishel."
I stared at him. A murderer, a barbarian, a traitor who had learned about treachery from experts; who better to have with me in a snakepit like the royal court of Miishel? However, I had not yet forgiven him for accepting my horrible fate so calmly. "I don't recall inviting you," I said.
"I'm coming anyway. It's for your own protection, Tig—"
"Protection!"
He shook my shoulder gently. "Yes. Do you think what happened at the Fiery Hand was a coincidence? If you're not careful, you won't live long enough to claim your bride."
"Well, then," I exclaimed, "so be it. Let me be killed! Let me die in the archives with a book in my hand! Die happy!"
Gil Trilogy 2: Scion's Lady Page 3
