A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  “I’ll need two or three good assistants,” Ylo said, thinking longingly of the team he had trained back in Qoble. “More than that and we’ll spend all our time passing stuff back and forth…” Then he had a sudden inspiration. “We’ll need extra couriers at the least—hussars?”

  “Why not? Give them something to do for once.”

  “So let’s keep the whole thing military, this part, too; keep the word from getting out. How about Praetorians?”

  “Now that’s brilliant!” Shandie said quietly, “Excellent!”

  “I know a good centurion.” Oh, sweet!

  “I’ll assign anyone you want.” The prince grabbed Ylo’s hand and pumped it wildly. “Good man! You have no idea what this means to me, Ylo! You have no idea what this will mean to the Impire!” He hesitated, as if embarrassed. “Frankly, I’m surprised. You’re turning down a lot.”

  “I’ll hold you to it, one day, sir.” Ylo was being a fool. He should take the dukedom and run.

  Shandie glanced along the room at the whimpering old wreck at the table. Another day the settlement would not include the satisfaction it would bear now, coming with Emshandar’s personal seal on it.

  “It’s yours when you want it. Tell me why, though?” The dark eyes studied Ylo narrowly—obviously the prince had expected to be refused.

  “Proud to serve, sir,” Ylo said hastily.

  He wasn’t going to say why.

  Rivermead was weeks away from the capital, but Shandie’s personal signifer would reside in the prince’s own residence. Ylo had seen a vision in a preflecting pool, a prophecy.

  A promise.

  7

  Out in the throne room, Eshiala was rapidly spiraling into panic. All these eyes! She should never have come here. She should have waited at Oak House. But the goslings, her maids of honor, had heard the cheering and persuaded her. Of course they had just wanted to be in on the excitement.

  They should be here beside her now, and they had scattered all over the hall. Gods knew who they were talking to, or what plans they were making. And everyone seemed to be staring at her.

  Shandie was back. Her husband. The man she was supposed to love. Tonight he would claim his marital rights. All very well to say that it was no more than her duty, but it had been a very long time since she had had to endure that. And from now on she would not be able to avoid the pomp and ceremony. Every day she would be on display at his side. Every night she would have to pull up her nightgown for him. She shivered.

  A group of the senior courtiers had closed in around her so she couldn’t escape, and now she was being baited by Emthoro—gaunt, saturnine, quietly vicious, jabbing at her with sly little hints and innuendos, enjoying her terror.

  “Dear little Maya is almost two now, isn’t she?”

  “Nineteen months.”

  “Close enough,” the prince said. She saw his nose twitch and waited for the spite. “Two and a half or three years is a very good spacing between children, I always think. I expect you’re both hoping for a son next time?” He must know exactly what was troubling her. Were her fears so obvious? Did everyone know?

  “Whatever the Gods choose to give me, Highness.”

  The long nose twitched again. “The Gods? Oh, I thought that was Shandie’s job!”

  Laughter all round—the consul and his wife were enjoying the sport and so were the other onlookers, a dozen or more of them now. She felt like a bear in a bearpit.

  Then, thanks be to the Gods! Ashia arrived.

  Eshiala had never been so glad to see her sister—gems, bows, lace, brocade, whalebone, and all. Ashia was no taller than she, but she was more buxom and she somehow managed to convey irresistibility, like a galleon under full sail or a runaway hay wain. Heels clicking, fan flailing, she swirled into the fray with a rustle of fabric to envelope her younger sister in a bearhug, crushing her against armored corset and overflowing bosom, whispering urgently in her ear, “Smile, you idiot!”

  Then she pirouetted on a grand scale, easing Eshiala aside and scattering the group so that it was no longer a bearpit around her. Eshiala wondered why she could never achieve such outrageous maneuvers.

  Ashia surveyed the bewildered survivors. “Prince!” she chirruped as Emthoro sardonically bowed to her. “Is it true, then?” She fluttered eyelashes like fly swatters.

  His narrow face grew wary. “Is what true, ma’am?”

  “That they’re drawing up the deed of abdication?” Ashia beamed around the ring of startled faces. “Well, whatever else can be keeping them so long?”

  “Apparently they are consulting with the Yllipo signifer.”

  “Well, perhaps they need a fourth for a game of thali?” Ashia countered quickly, and won a snigger. She whirled back to Eshiala without a pause. “Darling, I am as dry as a desert. Do let’s find some refreshment!” And she whirled her sister off to one of the side tables.

  “What in the name of virginity is wrong with you?” she demanded. “Cholera from the looks of you.”

  “Shandie’s back!” Eshiala moaned.

  “I know that! Everyone knows that! You should be glowing with joy and anticipation!”

  “It’s been so long!”

  How could she explain, even to her sister? She had been married for barely six weeks when her husband had left her. Now, more than two years later, he was back. He would expect her to do her duty tonight. Every night. “I feel I hardly know him!” she whispered.

  “Keep smiling!” Ashia said through her teeth. She snatched up two glasses of wine, pressed one into Eshiala’s hand, and clinked them together in a toast.

  “I warned you to stay in practice,” she muttered, beaming for the benefit of watchers. “You want to be wooed all over again, I suppose?”

  “Perhaps that’s it,” Eshiala agreed, forcing a meaningless smile that felt as unnatural on her face as a full beard and mustache. Would she know wooing if she met it?

  “Tell him it’s the wrong time of the month. Well, your Eminence! Isn’t this exciting!”

  No, Eshiala thought, she would not lie to Shandie. He had rights, and she had a duty—a duty to her husband and a duty to the Impire. Other women survived it. With luck she would conceive again right away, just as she had the last time.

  The senior courtiers were collecting around her again. She had never known the Throne Room so crowded. Ashia screamed with laughter at some witty remark or other and threw a question to the senator on the far side of Eshiala, effectively dropping a conversational barricade in front of her.

  The hall hushed as a herald appeared with his staff and his many-hued tabard. He headed for Eshiala, making her knees knock even harder. She held her head high as she followed him from the room, ignoring all the eyes and the whispers.

  She crossed the hallway and was ushered into the Cabinet, large and bright and normally a pleasant room to visit, for she was fond of Emshandar and he of her. She had never seen it without him present, though. For a moment she thought the place was empty.

  Then she saw a soldier riffling through an enormous tip of documents that filled the far end of the room. He had no helmet on, which was curious. He turned at the sound of the door closing and of course it was Shandie.

  For a moment they just stared at each other. Then he coughed and came forward uncertainly. “You really are as beautiful as I remembered!”

  Was that all he could say? Unsure how to answer, she sank into a curtsey instead.

  He sighed and raised her. “Ah, my lovely marble queen,” he said. “I, too, have my armor on, as you can see. I can’t embrace you properly in armor.” He pecked at her cheek uncertainly.

  “Welcome back,” she whispered. “Er… How did you manage to arrive so unexpectedly?”

  “Oh, there are ways.”

  “A good journey? Did you have a good trip?”

  “It was long, and tiring.”

  “I expect so.”

  “The child is well?”

  “She’s very well, thank you.
”

  “Ah.” He swallowed a few times. “Your accent’s much better. You don’t sound like Thumble now.”

  “Oh. I’m glad.” Gods knew she had worked hard enough at her elocution lessons—why did she not feel happier that she had pleased him?

  “I brought you some presents. I brought you pearls from the Sea of Sorrows and the finest Kerithian rubies.”

  Rubies? Pearls? What use had she for those? “They sound wonderful. You are very kind.”

  “Perdition!” he said. “I forget! I left them with the baggage—they’ll be here in a week or so.”

  They stared at each other, and then both looked away. “This Evilish armor —“ he muttered. “I could take it off, of course… ?”

  She looked at him in bewilderment, but he was studying a big, ugly couch.

  “If I were Ylo I would,” he mumbled.

  Who? She felt lost. What was he talking about?

  “There’s an awful lot of people waiting outside,” she said.

  “Yes. I expect there are. Well, let’s go out and be sociable, then. Darling.”

  Currents turn awry:

  Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all;

  And thus the native hue of resolution,

  Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

  And enterprises of great pith and moment,

  With this regard their currents turn awry,

  And lose the name of action.

  — Shakespeare, Hamlet, III, i

  EIGHT

  Gather ye rosebuds

  1

  The first rain had come to break the heat, and it drummed loudly on the thatched leaves of the roof, muffling even the nightly frogs’ chorus. It might be just a stray summer storm, for it seemed early, but Thaïle knew it meant that the next new moon would mark her birthday, when she was supposed to be at the College. The half year her father had promised was almost over.

  Even with the rain, the night was hot and sticky. She lay contentedly in Leéb’s arms on a thick, soft couch of reeds. He was asleep and she could Feel the confused eddies of his dreams. Fear and anger and hunger—they didn’t mean anything. Everyone dreamed such things. He was slickly wet, just as she was herself. She could smell his personal scent, made up of wood-smoke, loam, and green things, man and sweat and even the fish he had caught that day—all familiar to her now after so many nights like this, mingled with odors of reeds and the house. She loved it, the smell of love and home and safety.

  There had been no signs of the recorders. There had been no signs of anyone—the Leéb Place was a heaven for pixies. She could Feel the presence of other people at Places in the distance, but none of them had come snooping, and next year would be time enough to go visiting. They had seen no one at all since the day they arrived, except for the neighbors upriver, Boosh and Neeth of the Neeth Place. Neeth said no recorders had come by the district in many years.

  As Leéb had promised, the old couple had been very happy to have new neighbors at a respectable distance and they had helped a lot. They had freely showered advice and lessons on a hill-country girl who did not know many of the things that grew in the valley. Even Leéb had learned from them about crops he had not met before, like taro and murunga pods.

  Boosh was going to have to be more helpful yet, in a few months. She had already been helpful, confirming what Thaïle had suspected, advising her.

  Tonight, to celebrate the rain, she had told Leéb that he was going to be a father. He had been so happy at the news that she had started to weep, just from the strength of his Feelings. Then one thing had led easily to another. That was why he was sleeping so soundly.

  As a Placemaker, he had been as good as his word. He was a wonderful weaver, and he had woven two big rooms of their house already. There was not one drop of rain coming in, either, not one! She could have six or seven rooms if she wanted, he said, and she had laughed and asked what in the world a woman would want so many rooms for. For children, of course, he had said. Most couples never had more than two, but she had already explained that Gifted families often had more than two and then he had begun talking of having dozens.

  Easy for him! But he liked babies, he said, and she believed him. He was so gentle and yet so strong. Had any woman in the whole world ever been so much in love?

  Leéb had made a coop for the chickens and a stall for the kid. A wonderful fisherman, he was making a boat. He had taught Thaïle to swim—sometimes they wore no clothes for days at a time.

  She had never eaten so well in her life. She had grown plumper already, even before the baby had started. The woods were packed with things to eat: berries, wild onions, roots, and herbs. Breadfruit trees were as common as frogs; and one big breadfruit tree would feed a family all year round. There were many other trees that gave edible fruit—palms, ebony, nutmeg, mango… the list was endless. She had grown some rice and taro and beans. She had gathered wild cotton and started spinning.

  She had gourds and a cook pot and a good stone knife. She could think of nothing she might possibly want that she did not have. She listened to the rain and felt safe and secure in the arms of her man.

  But the next new moon… Would the recorders come for her? Could they find her? Would they punish her parents?

  Surely even the recorders could not be so cruel as to take her away from the Leéb Place now? A pixie must be born where it was conceived, for that was the way of the people. One day she would clear away the reeds for a while and squat on the earth itself to produce her baby. Her first baby. Right here, in the Leéb Place.

  The hunger in Leéb’s dreams was changing to want—to love. She felt his body stir against her. She could almost imagine she saw herself in those Feelings, they were so strong and she was so close. Boosh had said it would be safe for months yet.

  Thaïle kissed the end of that silly snub nose and Felt her man awaken. He moved damply against her.

  She touched her lips to his. Tongue found tongue, his hand slid to her breast, and a thrill ran through her at once. Had any woman ever been so happy?

  2

  The great Imperial Bedroom had been designed for the Impress Abnila and Lord Umpily knew some scandalous tales on the subject that were amusing, if not very probable. Of course probability did not ensure accuracy in historical matters, any more than it did in domestic gossip; or vice versa. Lord Umpily was carefully keeping a diary of his own experiences as chief of protocol for the prince imperial. He would never dare to publish it in his lifetime, but future historians would certainly relish some of his stories—and what could be more improbable than what he was witnessing now? This scene—here, today. Whatever would the Impire say if it knew how it was being governed?

  And whatever would Abnila say if she could see what had been done to her bedroom now? The great chamber had been turned into a commissariat, or a scriptorium. Its erstwhile elegance was utterly disfigured by a horseshoe of tables around the bed. It reminded Umpily of a cockpit, with the spectators clustered around, laying bets, watching the long tussle between Emshandar and the God of Death enter its final round. The place reeked of candles and sealing wax and too many people.

  Beyond the great crystal windows, a few leaves were starting to turn on the beeches. The vases on the dressers held chrysanthemums. Summer was aging.

  In the center of all the activity, the imperor lay like a corpse, his vellum-coated skull on a silken pillow: toothless, eyes closed. Thus had his dominion shrunk. Now he did not rule even as far as his hands would reach, those spidery, misshapen fingers. Now he did not reign even as far as the edges of his bed, else he would surely make everyone go away and leave him to die in peace.

  To the left of the bed, Centurion Hithi pulled another scroll from the hamper at his side. There was an extremely interesting rumor going around about that centurion! Umpily had not been able to confirm it yet. The man had been Ylo’s superior, years ago, and now he was Ylo’s assistant. Gossip whispered that Ylo had told the man he was going to remain a commo
n clerk until he knelt and kissed Ylo’s sandal! If true, that was an exquisite revenge. No Praetorian centurion was going to kneel to any man before the Gods died!

  “Sentence of banishment against the earl of Wastock,” the centurion muttered, passing the scroll to Shandie.

  Umpily pricked up his ears. All documents relating to punitive matters had supposedly been removed and set aside for Shandie’s personal confirmation, for the old man had been far too vindictive with his proscriptions in the final few months.

  Frowning, Shandie checked carefully for Ylo’s initial, then he unrolled the top and scanned the text. Umpily waited with anticipation and felt glee as he saw the prince’s shocked reaction. Banishment was leniency in the Wastock affair. It had been a clear case of abuse of a ward, with many titillating messy details; Emshandar had wanted to hush up the scandal. Ylo had verified the facts with Umpily—a very thorough young man, that Ylo.

  “Another one, Grandsire!” Shandie held out the scroll.

  The sunken eyes opened. The old man started awake. He took the roll in a trembling, blue-veined hand, and passed it across to the legionary, who proceeded to affix the seal. Done.

  It was all legal, if barely so.

  Documents passed from hamper to centurion, from centurion to prince, from prince to the old man in his bed, and across the bed to the legionary clerks, and then into another hamper. The imperor had approved another law, edict, warrant, or something. It was legal.

  “Recall of Proconsul Ionfeu.”

  “Grandsire?”

  That was new business—Umpily and Acopulo had proposed Ionfeu as one of next year’s consuls and Shandie had agreed. It was time to start working some of his own people into the administration. The imperor might not have noticed; he passed the scroll on to be sealed.

  Umpily sat at the foot of the bed, with Sir Acopulo and Marshal Ithy. They had a table also, littered with papers. When Shandie had doubts about a document, he would refer it to his advisors. Thus was the business of the Impire transacted, in the dying time of Emshandar IV. Thus was the Impire governed. One day Umpily’s memoirs would reveal it all.