by Sylvia Kelso
He was in more than deadly earnest. I tried to look obedient, and not to gulp. Or break into tears. But I did find words, after all.
“Not even to marry?”
“Chaeris . . .” It was almost open pain.
“If I said—the one I wanted? The only one?”
He shook his head sharply, once. “Oh, my little one. Can you stop and think a moment? Just a moment? I can believe you feel so. That it seems so. But have you heard what I said? About Dhasdein?”
Two spoke, finding words where I could not. “No outland empress.”
“In Dhasdein, no.” Tanekhet was past tact himself. “But that’s not all. Picture for yourself, what would happen here, if you married him.”
I pictured, Two pictured, and both our senses reeled.
“Ah, my dear.” Tanekhet did not have to expand. “It’s not possible, no. Not for you.”
Not for my mother’s only daughter, the River’s oracle, the king-post of Iskarda, the child of my fathers and the heir of Amberlight. Not to leave her home-place. Not to enter the heartland of the oldest opponent, if not enemy. To blight Iskarda’s hopes and future, and become an empress of Dhasdein.
And if it were possible, memory burst on me like a thunderclap, would he ever ask? After Two made it so clear she wanted him as much as I did? And the way she did it?
Light as a moth’s touch, with his little finger Tanekhet wiped beneath my eyes. He did not say, Cheer up. It’s for the best. Eventually, you will forget. He did not say, Iskarda will be grateful, even if they never know. Iskarda will live by your sacrifice.
No more did he give me any kind of vilely sanctimonious praise. Touching my cheek once, he asked, gently matter-of-fact, “Has anyone thought, yet, to begin packing your clothes?”
* * * *
The House farewelled us as we had farewelled my mother, in Iskarda’s market-place. I could hardly see, let alone speak, in the maelstrom of loss, forebodings, simple fear, and almost as frantic an excitement. To be leaving Iskarda. To get on a mule, and go beyond the quarry, to ride even past the first mirror-signal post, to see, for ourselves, Marbleport. And beyond that, the length of the River, at last.
Two has full memory of the House farewells. I do recall Tez’s hug and double kiss. The quiet of her voice, so at odds with the stoniness of her face. And after her, last of the House, Tanekhet.
Who also kissed me like a kinsman, on each cheek, and alone thought past the House’s concerns, to say with his faint, acid, nobleman’s smile, “Now, my dear, gather knowledge like a bee in a clover-patch. Fill yourself to the limit, at last.”
My own heart lifted. I kissed him back, which I could do now face to face. “Thank you,” was all I could manage, but I daresay my expression was gloss enough. He gave me his full smile, that almost no-one saw except Tez. Let go my hands, and turned, the smile fading, to the one behind me. Therkon himself.
I felt the tension spring between them again. Therkon’s face was a mask to match. But then he took an abrupt step closer, swung his shoulder to block the House folk off, and said with urgent, with open longing, “Tanekhet?”
Tanekhet’s motion of withdrawal, of rising hostility, checked.
“I have wanted to say, for so long,” Therkon was speaking quickly, near fumbling, almost under his breath. The voice of a much younger man. “I could never tell you. Before. But I never intended, I never wanted . . .” He held Tanekhet’s eyes even as his hand clenched. “I would never have wanted—Deyiko.”
That look untangled puzzles at a glance, even as it added dimensions I had never dreamt. Something at Deyiko had hurt Tanekhet, in a way Keshaq had never forgiven. Tortured him, I heard Therkon’s own voice saying amid the boulders. And Tanekhet had never forgiven either. But to Therkon, Tanekhet had been more than Dhasdein’s Suzerain, a great noble, a traitor. Tanekhet had been at the core of his own life. A cherished presence, lost, but never resigned.
Answer him, I was saying silently, my own teeth clenched. He was crown prince in earnest now, Dhasdein’s Heir, Dhasdein’s hatchet man. But whatever prize he took from Iskarda, this could leave him burdened with a shame, a guilt, a loss no-one else could ease.
Tanekhet had lowered his lids. It was the Suzerain’s look, hooded, inscrutable. I saw Therkon’s hope fade. But then Tanekhet’s eyes rose. He sighed a little. Then he said, quite gently for Tanekhet, “Given the situation—what could either of us do?”
Therkon’s every muscle seemed to spring in relief. His hands rose and he caught them back. He too, I saw, knew Tanekhet well enough not to attempt an embrace. But those eyes’ radiance promised some fitting recompense.
Aloud, this time audible to everyone, he said, “I give you my word. I will take care of her.”
Tanekhet looked him full in the face. And suddenly smiled as he had to me, and gripped Therkon’s shoulder with his scarred right hand and said, “Dear boy.” Meaning it. “I know you will.”
* * * *
That exchange lingered, in the little space left from the exigencies of the mule’s gait, not to mention my galled behind, from recording every visible detail of the hills and road and way stations before Marbleport. It lingered even when the flower-strewn, spring-green hills opened on a white scatter of houses, the arm of quay, and the endless steel-grey distance, ripples of current flawing its mirror sheen, that announced the River itself.
Thankfully, there were no more personal farewells. We lodged in Marbleport’s biggest inn, with me shielded now behind Azo and Verrith’s barricade. I had only to record the town and its folk, try to blot out the consternation at our news, and absorb the sum of Therkon’s state: the two hundred phalanx troops of his real escort, paraded between the warehouses, and the two Imperial galleys and troop-transport that would carry us all to Dhasdein.
The galleys were what they call fives, the new, larger sort that had replaced three oarbanks with five men to each of sixty oars. As they rowed us out Two and I snatched details, the dark-varnished, clinker-laid side, massive oarhafts flattened along her flanks, the deadly ripple over the submerged reef of ram. And, when I finally conquered the rope ladder, the stern-deck with tiller and steering oars, the flap of Imperial ensign at her prow, serpent and thunderbolt black on unbroken white. All else vanished in Two’s frenzied calculation of logistics for quartering, feeding and supplying over a thousand water-borne men.
I was inured to scarlet by then: the phalanx officers ashore flaunted their cloaks, the entire escort wore crimson kilts. Therkon himself had appeared that morning in the scarlet cloak and kilt of a high Dhasdeini officer. Only his troublecrew and mine kept their camouflage colors, almost lost amid the field of poppies on the galley’s deck. But Two was focussed on the vistas ahead.
Azo just blocked our sortie to the rowing benches in the waist, the foredeck beyond, horrifically overcrowded now with Therkon’s escort. But before Two noticed the hen-coop superstructure that would house officers and guests, the timing piper struck up. The rowing-officer shouted. The oarblades rose, slid, and dipped. The air reverberated to three hundred men’s hissing grunts, the River revolved suddenly, and Marbleport slid away backward under huge banks of snow and charcoal mid-spring clouds.
After that I had no time to remember, let alone miss Iskarda. Forget the galley: here was the River, and worse, the Riverside. Slipping by us, two banks of it, every moment leaving more unscanned, unknown—we could not have been a mile downstream before Two was yelling at Azo, “Too fast, too fast! Make them stop! Make them slow!”
We were still on the stern-deck. An outer perimeter of Dhasdeini troublecrew surrounded us. Therkon and his phalanx commander had withdrawn to the cabin, but the captain himself was by the steersman, resplendent in more scarlet this and that, recoiling at Two’s shouts with scandalized disbelief.
“Miss—madam—lady—You, tell her we’re under way. We’ve landfall to make, we can’t stop—!”
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Azo retorted stonily, “Tell her yourself.” Two, already frantic at what we had missed, fairly bellowed in his face, “I say, Wait!”
He thought I was a madwoman, and in Two’s frenzy, he was near right. She might well have had us lay hands on the steering oars, but of a sudden troublecrew parted, the captain fell back., and ducking out to me came Therkon himself.
“My lady Chaeris?”
“Your Highness.” I nearly sobbed with relief. Then I got as close as I could without actually grabbing his arm and went tiptoe to hiss in his ear, “It’s Two, we can’t see everything, it’s going too fast, can we just stop?”
The memory of that charred spot on the table was in his face. He began one sentence to me. Swung on his heel and addressed the captain instead.
“Have them back water and move inshore, if you please.”
I missed the details of royal confusion aboard both galleys, before the transport ran on, while they edged aside from the main current and lay to, almost in bowshot of the shore. Therkon had ushered me right back under the elegant lift of the stern fan. Now he turned to face me at the rail.
“Lady Chaeris,” he said softly, “how much of the River does Two already know?”
“I don’t—I’m not sure—” But Two was already answering him.
“Oh. This is Amberlight land.”
“And seen before?” He watched me, almost without expression. Except, in his eye, a gleam that spoke, not the prince handling a difficult situation, but the ever-curious philosopher.
“Oh. Yes.” The memories were unreeling now. I took a great breath of relief. “Yes, we, Two does know it. Not this time of year, but yes, she remembers—”
“Then do you think, we might make do with, ah, matching memories, every mile or so?” He smiled suddenly. “The galley, you can inspect when we lie to this evening. And if such matching proves enough, then I think, by tomorrow morning, we will reach Verrain.”
“Verrain?” Two’s lust got into my own voice. “Can we see that?”
“As much as we can, my lady. But, may I mention? I have been three weeks out of Dhasdein.” He made a diffident little gesture. “By now the Empire will need many decisions, many answers.” He moved a hand toward the cabin door. “I can deal with some as we travel, but . . .”
“But?”
“But,” more diffidently, “we have had no news from Riversend, or the Archipelago, for more than, ah, one of your moons. Shirran and Mel’eth are not friendly. It would help, till we come into Riversrun, if we could, ah, make all possible haste.”
A Shirran arrow, I heard Iatha saying. A Mel’ethi bandit. Therkon’s eyes, steady but worried, added the rest: no news might not be good news. The Empire would have need of him.
I bit my lip. But even Two could be brought to some sense of restraint.
“I suppose,” I said, “we could have another look. Coming back.”
His smile spoke relief, understanding. Equal bravado. He bent his head to me gravely. “Thank you,” he said, “Lady Chaeris.”
Then he turned about and used his imperial voice. “The lady Chaeris may bring us an oracle, but to do so, she must gather knowledge. All the knowledge she can find. Whatever help she seeks in that, we will give.”
* * * *
Which meant, added the captain’s glower, that even if she demanded such lunacy as lying to on a good current in open water, Therkon would obey.
But the day was better, after that. Even if Two had to check the Riverside every mile or so, even if Therkon, or Two’s own fuss, had put a circle around us wider than a plague sign would make. Even the looks, gone past wary to alarmed or belligerent or openly repulsed, could be borne. Because that night I would see over the galley. And tomorrow, we would shoot the narrows through the Iskan ranges, into Verrain.
For now, there was the River, somber grey, murky green, sapphire and celadon in patches of abrupt spring sun, and passing craft to learn: Verraini or Dhasdeini freighters, their differing rigs and figureheads, sweeping by under full sail or labouring on the oar. Local craft with a pair of sweeps and a protesting cow amidships, or a sideful of waiting nets. And the enormous breadth of sky over-arching them all.
For the narrows Two matched my mother’s memories. Zig and zag of rusty red granite cliffs, the River curling into tumultuous white, flights of grey-blue thin-leaved trees on each bluff, sudden magical prospects between. Green and gold in distant sunlight, patches and patterns of unfamiliar crops, framed by mountain edges against a background of celestial blue . . . until the last gap opened into the vast quilt of tilled fields and crowded villages, the spectrum of clothes and castes, the veining roads and paths and alleys full of ox-carts, horse-carts, palanquins, bright military flags, the rising boil of dust that was Verrain.
Two had me in the bows by then, almost hanging over the ram. I hardly noticed the unfortunate troops trying to stack themselves three and four deep against the break of the foredeck. Nor, though it was their territory. did the sailors dare approach. I never heard the light, even tread that did come, till he leant his elbows beside mine over the topside rail.
“Azo,” I burst out without bothering to turn, “there aren’t any Families so there can’t be estates, so whose are those soldiers? There, those are cavalry, aren’t they, but they don’t have camels—Oh.”
“Division-mayors,” said Therkon, in his soft philosopher’s voice. His eye-corners creased. “Verrain’s Land-chief has made districts and wards and shires of the estates, and given each its Assembly delegate. They are forbidden to gather wealth as the Families did. But they all wish to display—pomp.”
“An Assembly like Amberlight?” This was so new Two left me no time to feel constrained.
“Except for a nation, rather than just a city. Yes.”
The countryside faded as questions boiled up. I grabbed the topmost. “And does it work?”
“It seems so. At any rate, after some twelve years, the Land-chief still leads Verrain.”
Assembly delegates, fuss and faction, the most cumbrous imaginable form of government. And the freest, another voice cut sharply across Two’s recollections of the new Amberlight. Giving the highest possible number of the people some voice.
“Could you do it in Dhasdein?”
The query was instantaneous, kindled from Two’s flash of the Families, the iron pyramid which had supported the Verrain president, the great estates, so few owning so much of everything, the entire economy reliant on slaves. And then of the great nobles and kinglets whose rule persisted in what of Dhasdein’s empire remained.
His eyes jerked round to me. Then he took one elbow from the rail and turned physically, body language speaking his attention’s depth.
“Is that what you would have me do?”
He had both hands up before I could draw breath. “No, no, my lady Chaeris. I do not wish you to, to calculate what would happen, or even to ask if it could . . . I beg your pardon. I spoke without thought.” He ruffled a hand swiftly over his hair. The long mouth twisted in a way I was coming to know. “In Verrain, there was a revolution. The Families, who had endured time out of mind, were obliterated. Wiped out, overnight. We did not have such a—house-clearing—in Dhasdein.”
You lost whole provinces, I bit off on my tongue. Two was already extrapolating the rest.
“Then you could not cast the nobles out?”
He met my eyes and turned his hands out. He knew who had asked. “To change so much? The cost would be enormous. In time. In warfare, and other struggles. In lives.”
“Especially,” Two said, “now.”
Therkon glanced quickly behind us. He did not have to say, You mean, too risky, with this threat of the Archipelago? He did nod. Then he bit his lip, and swung abruptly away. And then back to me.
“My lady Chaeris—ah, I swore I would not do this. But if I only knew—” He clenc
hed his hands on the broad span of rail and let go. The Dhasdein signet sparked fittingly to the sun. “If you could tell me, with what you do know. If you could just guess—”
My mouth went dry, my heart jumped up in my throat. He wanted a prediction. An oracle. He was going to do exactly as Tez had warned.
I could make a fuss. Alert troublecrew: Azo and Verrith were right at my back, they would have heard, they would be tense to intervene. I could have the decision taken from my hands, as it had been in the rocks, when he was on this same gambit’s brink.
But he was Therkon. The philosopher who had understood, and perhaps been affronted, but never affrighted by us. The crown prince who had pledged to protect us with his life.
I got out, in a near whisper, “What would you ask?”
His head flew up and his eyes went wide. Then he actually hit the heel of his hand on the rail. “Ah, my lady, forgive me. If it were not for Dhasdein—if I did not have to ask—” I heard Tez, a week and a hundred miles behind: It’s what I do myself. “But.” A quick, hissing breath. “With what you know now, give me your best estimate. Can I advance, at this point, against whatever is in the Archipelago? And safely leave Mel’eth and Shirran in my rear?”
However inferior our intelligencers, Iskarda gathered the Riverword: we had no alternative. And Two had followed the reports since I was old enough to understand words. The white whirl enveloped me before I had time to realize Two would assent.
The whirl faded. “We know Mel’eth and Shirran’s resources,” Two said. “We lack full figures for Dhasdein. If you took twenty galleys to the Archipelago, what reserve troops could you raise, at need, in Riversrun?”
Therkon’s jaw very nearly dislocated. Then he shot one look across the deck, where I did not have to look to know his Trouble-head was out of earshot. Braced himself, and began, in complete candour, as crown prince of Dhasdein, to reply.
I wish, I found myself thinking, as he concluded, that I could pass this on to Duitho. But of course, I never could. Yet another trial for an oracle. Conflicting confidantes.
