Intrigues

by Sharon Green

  “It looks like we have our decision,” Jovvi murmured while I stood there trying to think of what to say. I’d been sure everyone would turn against us, but now… “Tamma, tell them we accept, at least for the year we promised.”

  “If that’s what you want, you have it,” I said after taking a deep breath. “But if you change your minds once you get home, don’t worry about it. This Seating is only for a year, just as I said to begin with. And now let’s get to the Seating.”

  The cheering rose to deafening proportions as we turned and headed for the chairs on the platform, the group of city leaders – wearing a variety of expressions - stepping aside to let us do it. Lavrit Mohr stood there beaming with pleasure and pride, but Ristor Ardanis, the leader of those with Sight magic who was so happy with us, was nowhere to be seen. We each took a chair and sat, and I couldn’t help noticing how expensively made but shabby those chairs were.

  The wood surrounding the back of the chair, as well as the arms and the legs, were all intricately carved with representations of the five previously known talents, and the padded back and seat was of red velvet. It came to me that the chairs were very old, and the extra one must have been a spare. It would never do if one of a new noble Blending had to stand because his or her chair had collapsed at the last moment…

  That, of course, was when Naran’s indrawn breath reminded me about the people waiting to murder us. It must have infuriated them that the platform refused to collapse and send us down into the hilsom powder they still thought was in the sand, but fury didn’t make them change their plans. When I looked up into the tiers of seats where one of the bows had been hidden, I could see that it wasn’t hidden any longer. A man stood holding it with an arrow nocked, and I could even see the choking anger on his face.

  A single, sweeping glance told me that the other bowmen were also preparing to loose, so it was time to try the new trick we’d thought of. That morning our Blending entity had … marked the bows and arrows with a touch of my talent, somehow linking the weapons and their missiles to my Fire ability. I had no idea how the trick had been done, but even as I sat there looking up into the tiers, I could feel those bows and arrows as clearly as I felt the power I used.

  So without wasting another moment, I sent my fires to the places that had been marked, along spider-web-thin and invisible trails in the air. The bows, along with the arrows in their strings, flared up in bright, burning flames that instantly turned the weapons to ashes. Most of the men screamed at the pain they felt from the small amount of burning I’d allowed to reach their hands, this time marking them for the guardsmen who quickly headed in their direction. One of the men actually loosed an arrow an instant before I touched his weapon, but the arrow only climbed a short way up its arc before taking on the appearance of a backwards falling star.

  We watched as the guardsmen began to arrest the would-be assassins, most of whom struggled to free themselves. Then, suddenly, the prisoners stopped struggling and tried to shrink back behind the guardsmen. The change was caused by the abrupt growls and snarls coming from almost everyone in the tiers, people who had just realized that another attack had been launched against their new leaders.

  “Is that likely to get out of hand?” Lorand asked as he stared at the same scene I did, most likely speaking to Jovvi. “If that crowd loses control, there won’t be anything left of those bowmen.”

  “Far worse is the near certainty that there would also be nothing left of the guardsmen,” Jovvi answered heavily. ”Mobs tend to have very little control once they form, and anyone trying to stop them becomes an enemy. Tamma, you speak to them while my link groups and I go to work.”

  “Stop where you are!” I shouted as I got to my feet, my voice reverberating all around the amphitheater. “Those cowards have been placed under arrest, and they’ll go to trial for what they tried to do. If you make any attempt to take the law into your own hands, you’ll be doing just what they were trying. Is that what you want? To be murderers like them?”

  Half the crowd started to argue bitterly with what I’d said, but the other half paused in the slow movement they’d started toward the assassins. They glanced around at each other as though seeking support, and the guardsmen wisely used the hesitation to drag their prisoners out of easy sight and reach. Once the targets for their anger were gone, the crowd lost quite a lot of the tension that had moved through them like small chains of lightning. No one seemed particularly happy about it, but the objects of their aborted vengeance had disappeared so the monster called mob never appeared.

  But that must have been one of the most unusual Seating ceremonies ever to have been held.

  Chapter 13

  Lord Belvis Drean, nearly to the end of his strength, accepted the extended hand offering to help him up into the wagon. The hand belonged to some minor noble whose name he had never bothered to learn, and under ordinary circumstances Lord Belvis would never have allowed the man to so much as come close, not to speak of touching him.

  But circumstances had turned into ongoing nightmare, and nothing remained ordinary or usual. Lord Belvis stumbled over to the nearest piece of wagon floorboard unoccupied by someone else and collapsed onto it, paying no attention to the way the man who had helped him dropped off the wagon to walk behind it. The man had obviously already had his rest period, and now made room for those who hadn't.

  "This is completely intolerable," an exhausted voice near Lord Belvis said, speaking the words he, himself, had been thinking. "There has to be a way to end this nightmare for good and all, but no one seems to be looking for it. How are we to be returned to our proper places if no one looks for the way?"

  "I agree," Lord Belvis managed to get out as he regained some breath, his back against the hard wooden side board of the wagon. "And if it takes much longer, I'll have some very sharp words to say to those in charge."

  "When are you fools going to wake up to the real world?" a harsh younger voice demanded from a short distance away. "The only ones in charge are the Astindans, and they won't do anything but make our lot harder."

  Lord Belvis opened his eyes with a frown, seeing first the man who had spoken first. That man, like Lord Belvis, was clearly a noble in his middle years, looking just as tired. Also like Lord Belvis the man's body and face showed sagging traces of the weight he'd lost during this forced march. The pace set by the Astindans was much too fast, and the food given the prisoners was far too little and tasteless.

  The second man, however, seemed to be another matter entirely. The man was at least ten years Lord Belvis's junior and a good head taller not to mention broader, and the rigors of the forced march seemed to have hardened rather than weakened him. In point of fact the man looked more like a peasant than nobility, which observation made Lord Belvis sniff.

  "Don't speak of things you know nothing about, boy," Lord Belvis told the younger man, who stared at him with a light-eyed, very intense gaze. "We may be in the Astindans' capture right now, but that can't possibly go on forever. Our ancestors were in charge of this empire for more generations than you have years, and that means we'll soon be in charge again. No other outcome is possible."

  The older man who had spoken nodded his agreement, but the lowborn-looking young man rudely made a sound of scorn.

  "If I didn't know better, I'd think the Astindans forced you to believe that," the young man countered with heavy ridicule. "But all the Astindans did to us was make us obey all their orders and resist falling into suicidal depression. And come to think of it, maybe that's the answer. The only way you pampered fools can keep from giving up is to believe that you'll be rescued, so you talk about 'those in charge' finding 'a way out.' Obviously it's beyond you to understand that escaping is impossible because we've been ordered not to even try. No matter how badly we want to."

  The last of the boy's words were muttered rather than spoken, and the other man who had spoken simply closed his eyes and began to weep. Lord Belvis also felt the distinct urge to weep, but wa
s kept from doing so by the last remnants of pride. He was a powerful lord, after all, and the powerful made others weep. They didn't indulge in foolish hysterics themselves…

  Belvis, no longer a lord, began to sob, as did a few others in the wagon with him. He had no true idea why they had all come to such a pass, but it would have been a great kindness if he could have lain down and died. But that particular kindness had been denied all of them, and the shedding of tears was only a small comfort allowed in its place.

  Even as the tears flowed down his disgustingly bearded cheeks and face, Belvis made sure to let his body relax. He would soon be walking again, and would then require all the rest he'd managed to get…

  * * *

  Kail Engreath, youngest son of High Lord Mergen Engreath, pretended he saw nothing of the crying going on all around him. Instead he looked up past the small bit of awning over the wagon to study the very blue sky, a continuing indication of the nice weather they'd had since leaving Gan Garee. The only problem was his Water magic told him that the nice weather was about to come to an end, and they'd soon be walking the road in cold, pouring rain.

  The usual surge of anger flashed through Kail, a small part of the fury he'd been filled with ever since he and his family had been arrested. Kail's father and two older brothers had refused to believe something like that could actually happen to them, and they'd wasted miles of breath trying to tell the guardsmen that they were making a mistake. Only Kail had understood immediately that it wasn't a mistake on the part of the guardsmen, just on their part. They'd expected the world to continue on forever in the same way it had always gone, paying no attention at all to who the new "leaders" of the empire were.

  Kail had actually tried to warn his father when Delin Moord and Kambil Arstin and the others were about to be Seated, but High Lord Mergen Engreath had had no patience for the foolish fantasies of his youngest son. Just because Kail hadn't gotten along with the other two young men was no reason to make a fuss about seeing them Seated. After all, they were nobles rather than low-class peasants…

  The internal clock activated in Kail by the Astindans suddenly began to pulse, telling him that it was time to leave the wagon. Kail got immediately to his feet and made his way to the end of the wagon, then offered a hand to the woman who walked close. Her own internal clock had told her that it was time to rest, so he helped her into the wagon and then hopped off before resuming his place in the lines following the slowly moving vehicle.

  "I'm glad you're back," Renton Frosh said from a few paces ahead of Kail, his thinning face a good deal less florid than usual. "I really don't think I'm going to make it to my next rest period, Kail. If I collapse, will you keep people from walking over my prostrate body?"

  "Actually, Renton, I've been thinking about urging them to walk all over you," Kail responded, his mood lightening the least little bit. "That way you'll start to feel right at home again."

  "Won't I ever," Renton agreed with a short laugh. "In actual fact I'm beginning to feel better than I ever have in my life, which is a horrendous joke. As a noble I was overweight and miserable, but as a slave I'm feeling marvelous? I'm afraid there's something definitely wrong there."

  "There are a lot of things wrong with this situation, and that's only the most minor part of it," Kail returned in a growl, anger burning inside him again. "It wasn't my fault or yours that the throne was stolen from those five peasants, so why do we have to pay for it along with those whose fault it really was? If they're all that interested in justice, where is the justice in this?"

  "I heard them answer that question," Renton said, no longer quite looking at Kail. "They said that some of us may not have actively done anything to cause the problems, but we also did nothing to stop them. In their view that makes us just as guilty as those who were actively involved in starting the war with Astinda, so we've been given the same punishment. And weren't you about to take over a rather important post in the government?"

  Kail didn't answer the question, and not only because Renton already knew the answer. Yes, Kail had been about to take over a governmental post, but only because his father had insisted. The man previously holding the post had died of old age, and his own sons had found positions elsewhere in the government years ago. High Lord Mergen Engreath had pulled a large number of strings in order to get the post for his youngest son, the only one in their family who didn't yet perform a "responsible function."

  Kail hadn't wanted the position, not when he'd been far more interested in being part of a small group that was trying to think up new uses for all aspects of magic. Most of the few people in the group were sneered at by anyone who learned of what they were doing, the sneerers suggesting that the group members would do better as peasants than members of the ruling class. It was considered bad manners even to mention magical ability; actually trying to work with magic simply wasn't done.

  So Kail hadn't had the courage to tell his father that he preferred the company of his group to the company of those in the government. His father was an important man in the government, so anything said against the others could also be said against his father – and no one, not even his son, would be permitted to speak against Mergen Engreath.

  "It wasn't my choice or my fault," Kail muttered, his anger turning sullen. He couldn't have stood up to his father alone, not without being tossed out, and where would he have gone? To one of his sisters and her husband, a husband who was just as eager a part of the government as his father was? It wasn't fair, it simply wasn't fair…

  A scream sounded near the wagon ahead of theirs, the kind of scream you would hear when a child threw a tantrum. Renton leaned out of his line to see what had caused the noise, and then he turned to Kail with a grimace.

  "It's just that Mardimil witch again," Renton told him with a huge sigh. "They can make her walk with the rest of us and eat with the rest of us, but apparently keeping her from throwing a tantrum when she's forced to leave the wagon is beyond them. I really do think she's worse than our fathers."

  "Or at least as bad," Kail agreed, no longer looking over his shoulder before saying that. Families had been firmly separated before they left the city, which had made the situation less than a complete horror for Kail. "But that other woman does seem to take a great deal of pleasure in seeing the Mardimil woman being treated like the rest of us, and the other makes her enjoyment very clear. There must be something between them that we don't know about."

  "That other woman is Eltrina Razas," Renton supplied, as usual knowing the names of almost everyone. "She had something to do with the competitions, I understand, and the Mardimil woman's son is one of the peasant group that defeated the Seated Blending. I don't quite understand how he became a member of that group, but the Mardimil woman was brought to the palace by the Five toward the end of their time because of that fact."

  "Renton, did you know any of that Five?" Kail asked slowly, suddenly needing to confirm his own impressions. "Like Delin Moord or Kambil Arstin?"

  "I more or less knew all of them," Renton admitted after a short hesitation. "The girl, Selendi Vas, was very interested in my older brother for a time, and then suddenly she wasn't interested at all. Homin Weil seemed to live his life in constant terror, and Bron Kallan was an overgrown, spoiled brat. As for the other two … they frightened me, but for different reasons."

  "Moord struck me as being completely out of his mind despite that charm he always projected," Kail said, nodding to show his agreement. "Arstin was … easygoing, friendly, and never threatening, but there was always something about him that made me want to leave the room when he walked in. His father tried to get him a good position in the government, I heard, but apparently there were others who felt about him the way we did. And they're the ones our vaunted leaders allowed to be Seated. If they'd had the kind of 'accident' that happened to more people than anyone will admit, I wonder how things would have turned out."

  "If they'd had that 'accident,' it would have been the peasant Five w
ho were Seated," Renton pointed out, his tone weary. "Since no one in a position to do anything about it would have allowed something like that, things couldn't have turned out any differently than they did. Many of the Advisors said they'd rather die than allow peasants on the Fivefold Throne, and oddly enough that's just what happened."

  Yes, they died, Kail thought to himself as he noticed the very beginning of clouds starting to roll in. Most of the people responsible for Seating that Five are dead, but they're the lucky ones. The rest of us aren't dead, at least not yet…

  * * *

  High Lord Embisson Ruhl chose a chair and sat while Edmin looked about the house in which they would meet with the leaders of the Gracely army. Embisson had already inspected the house, even before he'd had some of his servants clean it up, and it was small but perfect. Its furnishings proved to be almost new under the sheets and dust covering them, all the services and decorations were in exquisite taste, and the stables outside were large enough to accommodate a great many horses.

  "The servants almost have our meal ready," Edmin reappeared to announce in his quiet, understated way. "Lord Sembrin is just now arriving, and hopefully our guests won't be far behind him. I'm hungrier than I expected to be."

  "And the meal promises to be excellent," Embisson agreed as he shifted in the chair. "Since we no longer eat such a full meal at luncheon, I find my anticipation just as keen. Do the servants understand about wearing their masks?"

  "They'll put the masks on as soon as we catch sight of our guests, and won't remove them again until we give them permission to do so," Edmin responded as he walked to the tea service. "The man we have on watch at the road should give us plenty of warning, so we'll be able to don our own masks in good time. Would you like a cup of tea, Father?"

  "If you don't mind," Embisson agreed again, finding the chair he sat in too comfortable to rise from. "I'm still the least bit weary from all those 'courtesy' visits we paid our peers in the area, but running all over the countryside was worth the effort. We'll be able to make very good use of the gold we collected."