Rhin turned from him and played his warrior while Lord Falen glanced up and told Elad, “We’re afraid, your throne, that your nephew is causing dissension in quarters where that would be inadvisable.”
Elad colored. “Under all the gods, Falen, I hope I misapprehend what you say. Are you threatening him?”
The councilor looked away. “No, King Elad.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No, King Elad, never. My fear is for the empire and those who love it.”
“Your fear seems to be that I’m allowing things to be said that will make your bankers and business friends uncomfortable.”
Falen frowned and returned his attention to the usto board.
Lord Rhin faced Elad. “We feel it is impolitic of you, your crown, to allow these people any actual control over our destiny. They are already responsible for jeopardizing our economic structure. Sire, these are working people; they have functions to perform; we do not actually disapprove of their earning wages to contribute to the marketplace. But they are not financiers, they are not bankers or accountants, they do not truly understand business—”
“The rules of a game,” Elad interpreted, “as we have devised them.”
Rhin nodded strictly. “Competition between the competitors, yes. It’s unwise to allow these workers in every trade, in every shop—millions of them, your throne!—to, to rewrite the rules of a system that has served us well for so long.”
“Those rules aren’t serving us so well, now, Lord Rhin. We both know that our economy is in danger.”
“True. And the danger must be dealt with by men with experience, not by…shopkeepers and fish merchants. Do we let children supervise their own frolics? Do we allow the uninitiated to become priests? Is every man who buys a sword a swordsman? Is every commoner a king, now, or to be admitted into our homes as one of us? Allowing these sirots to federate themselves under one banner so that they can enter into our council’s economic decisions is one thing, King Elad. I would allow that. But to actually permit workers to organize businesses themselves outside our general authority is perilous. They will undermine the progress of the empire.”
Elad nodded appreciatively. “You operate several very successful businesses, don’t you, Lord Rhin? You ship and wagon your paper and oils and many manufactured goods made by thousands of pairs of hands in your workshops. Isn’t that right?”
Rhin replied, “Of course it is. It is what I do.”
“I understand the benefits you and your associates have brought to the empire. But put yourself in my position. You are king of your workshop; I am king of an empire. You’re in business to create profits, not to employ workers. If you could produce what you’re producing now with half your labor force, you’d remove half your employees tomorrow, wouldn’t you?”
“That’s simply business,” was the answer.
“Where, then, should those workers go? Can the government, or money from the guilds, support enormous numbers of unemployed people? Or what if the number of these workers grows so great that you and other businessmen can’t employ them all? There are only so many squares on the board, Lord Rhin. What shall we do when we have more pieces than there are squares? What will you do then?”
Rhin did not reply.
“Shall we discard those extra pieces, Lord Rhin? They are good playing pieces. We can use these playing pieces. I say we drill more holes in the squares of the board,” Elad told him. “The aristocrats, the businessmen, the bankers, the traders, the mercantilists—these men sit isolated in their squares and manage the business of the empire. But the workers—we place them four or five or ten to a square. Do you begin to understand?”
“I believe so, your crown.”
“Trust me when I tell you that I don’t intend to undermine the benefits we’ve accrued. But if I do nothing, then these workers and extra playing pieces will indeed undermine those benefits for us. You admit it yourself. Yours is the same attitude of fear that prevailed when the guilds were originally established—don’t deny it. ‘If the workers are allowed to create their own organizations, they will turn against us.’ Wasn’t that the concern? ‘If they work fewer hours, our businesses will not survive.’ And nothing of the sort has happened. They have not become our enemies; they have come to cooperate with us for the ultimate good of the empire.
“Do you know why? Human nature, Lord Rhin. Human natures. Many desires asserting themselves. And now we have workers who want to try to establish their own small economies and try to manage things differently, or separately, or by new methods. Do you know what the outcome will be of these exercises, Lord Rhin? Human natures. When two strong business interests collide and one cannot buy the other, what is done? Do we resort to cannibalism? You, sir, and your competitor sit down over a cup, you converse, and you divide your potential markets so that neither is excluded, and the rules are followed, and the competition continues. You control your businesses in the capital; another man like you controls them in Sulos. Or you sell the red ones while he sells the blue ones.
“These populist temper tantrums,” the king concluded, “must be expected from time to time. You feel threatened by them; I see them as essentially healthy reactions. But only authority and organization can survive in the long run, and all organizations, my friend, have more in common with one another than their individual members have with one another. What I’m saying is this: These populist sirots and workers’ collectives that my nephew is eager to establish will either fraction and fall apart in time, or they’ll come to see the world as we know the world to be. Idealists always forget that the power they fight is the same power they themselves hunger for. Once they are successful—if they are successful—they will no more continue to throw their lives away on profitless dreams and unsatisfactory causes than we would. And then you and your partners continue to exercise as competitors. The gaming board, Lord Rhin, is of sufficient size to accommodate many variations on the game, but it does have a limit. There are only so many squares before we run out of squares. There is a limit to what can be done. Am I understood?”
Remarkable speech. Rhin kept his eyes on Elad for a long moment.
Around them lifted a wild thunder of applause and cheers from the spectators in the kirgo, but neither Elad nor Rhin looked to see what had caused it. Above them, brilliant lights abruptly opened in the darkness: arena attendants were making their way around the upper stories and galleries, lighting torches and lamps against the deepening dusk.
Lord Rhin showed a provocative smile. “I just wanted to be certain,” he said quietly, “that what I hoped to be true, and what I believed to be true, were actually the facts of the matter.”
“Do you think me a fool?” Elad asked him coolly. “Do you think your king a dangerous fool? And I resent your requesting me to attend these games on the pretext of an evening’s entertainment to deduce my motives.”
Rhin bowed his head slightly. “Council was…concerned,” he explained, and any apology was confined to the tone of his voice.
Around them, then, the crowd booed loudly and angrily. Elad looked up, as did Rhin and Falen. An athlete, a boxer, had fallen to the boards of the stage, and he waved his right hand in the signal of defeat. The match was over.
Elad faced Lord Rhin. “Council should be busying itself creating guidelines and statutes for the establishment of the workers’ sirots,” Elad reminded him, “not worrying about their king’s allegiances. You men have much to debate.”
Rhin seemed consoled—his apprehensions allayed, his doubts mollified. “Well, after all,” he said, looking down to his usto board and glancing at Lord Falen, “it is, actually, only a game, isn’t it?”
* * * *
Unable to sleep, Orain slipped out of bed, pulled a loose robe about herself, and lit a small lamp. Her window was open; a cool breeze came in, and Orain moved to the open shutters to refresh herself and look outside. Beneath foaming purple clouds, the capital by night was a huddle of a millio
n lights. From far off, she heard a bell tolling the sixth hour after sundown. Dawn, soon. Still, she could not sleep.
She decided she was hungry. Not wanting to disturb a servant at this hour, Orain pulled on her slippers and left her apartment. Her footsteps echoed absently around her. In the corridor outside, one of the Khamars on night duty casually saluted her and asked in a whisper, “Can’t sleep, my lady?”
“No. Not a wink.” Orain indicated that she was going down to the kitchens to settle the growl in her stomach.
The Khamar shifted his tall halberd from his right hand to his left and leaned it against the wall behind him, then produced from a pouch at his belt a wrapped slice of brown bread coated with honey “I get the nibbles, too,” he confided to the princess, “in the middle of the night. Have some.”
Orain chuckled and took half the slice, munched on it, thanked the guard, and returned down the corridor toward her room. But as she came to her door, the open balcony farther down caught her attention. The curtains had been pulled wide and the doors propped ajar so that she felt (now that she recognized it) a long cool breeze coming down the hall, fragrant with the scents of the palace gardens. Orain continued down the corridor and stepped out onto the balcony.
She leaned upon the low wall and looked beyond the garden to the city, then was startled when someone behind her spoke. Orain turned quickly, throwing one hand to her breast in a gesture of alarm.
“I’m sorry,” Salia apologized.
“I didn’t even…see you…there,” Orain panted, smiling.
The queen stepped out from the shadows; Orain saw that Salia was wearing only a very sheer shift that concealed nothing of her. No doubt it was cooler than the robe Orain wore—but the immodesty of it seemed an almost premeditated affront.
Yet Salia appeared unconcerned. She leaned on the wall beside Orain, propping herself on her arms as she swallowed a deep breath. Orain watched her.
“It’s all mine, isn’t it?” the queen said quietly. It seemed a wonder to her.
“The capital, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“If…you want to think of it in that way,” Orain allowed, “yes, I suppose you could say that.”
“Athad must be ten times the size of Sugat,” Salia continued, staring out at the lights and the tall buildings shouldering the purple clouds, touched by the shimmering of all the many stars. She glanced at Orain. “I couldn’t sleep. Elad’s curled up like a baby—” she shrugged “—but I couldn’t sleep. Restless. Excited.”
“Excited?”
“Just thinking of all this.” The queen turned around and held herself against the low wall so that she was nearly sitting on it. “I’m sorry,” Salia apologized, “about my father’s remark this morning at breakfast.”
Orain needed a moment to recall it. “Oh…that. Don’t be concerned, please.” She dismissed it as she drew a hand through her hair.
“He tends to do that. Say something before thinking about it.”
“He’s a king in Gaegosh, isn’t he? I mean,” Orain added, self-consciously, “I do know that.”
“Imbur. That’s the title. It means the same thing as a king, yes.” And then, abruptly, Salia asked Orain, “You love your Count Adred, don’t you?”
Orain was surprised at the frankness of the question. Facing the queen, she admitted, “I suppose I do, yes. Yes.”
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I understand that it’s personal. But I can tell that you love him.”
“Can you?”
“He’s nice,” Salia admitted. “I like him a lot. He seems to act so seriously and yet, sometimes he’s like a nervous little boy, isn’t he?”
Orain laughed mildly, and Salia smiled.
“I like your son, too,” she remarked. “He’s very handsome.” She seemed to ponder that for a moment. “Are you and Adred going to stay in Athad now?”
“Well, for the time being, at least.”
“Not going to travel anymore?”
“Oh…we’ll probably do our share of traveling, certainly.”
“He loves you, too,” Salia told Orain. “I can tell.”
Orain was very intrigued by the queen and her peculiar comments—yet mildly disturbed by this one-sided interrogation. “You can tell?”
“Oh, surely. And I think it’s wonderful. Are you going to marry him?”
“Well, I don’t know. That—depends.”
“Oh, yes. Of course.”
“We’ve known each other,” Orain said, “for some years now. But I never— We’re friends. It’s developed slowly, I suppose.”
“Of course, of course,” the queen agreed. “It’ll be that way with Elad and me, I’m sure.”
Orain began to feel chilly, so she crossed her arms over her breasts. She shook her head thoughtfully. “It occurs to me,” she remarked, “that he’s probably my best friend in the world right now. Odd, isn’t it?”
“I think that’s very nice,” Salia told her. “For you to feel that way.”
Orain smiled.
“You’d probably do anything for him, wouldn’t you?”
Orain was unsure what was meant by that.
“I mean…because you love him so much.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
Salia turned around and stared at the city again. In a doubtful voice, she commented darkly, “I wonder if I’ll ever love anybody that much.”
“Don’t you think you’ll come to feel that way about Elad?”
Salia didn’t look at her. “I imagine so,” was her reply. “Yes…that’s very possible. But I’ve never thought of myself that way. Loving someone that much. It’s such a personal thing.”
Orain swallowed and looked at her: the queen, an extremely young woman, and obviously unaware of a great many things. Was it difficult for her to hold a conversation? Where did this come from, her wandering thoughts? Perhaps she was used to speaking with servants and no one else? Or only her tutors, perhaps?
She stifled another yawn and shivered again, rubbed her arms, and told the queen, “I’m going to go back and try to get some sleep.”
Salia didn’t reply. Orain waited a moment, then started to cross the balcony.
The queen turned to face her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you. Did you say something?”
“Just— I’m going back to bed.”
“Oh. Good night.…”
“Yes, good night.…”
When she reached her door, Orain glanced back and saw Salia still standing there at the end of the corridor, leaning on the balcony wall, naked, alone in the cool night, and staring at her city.
PART FIVE
THE PRISONING HEART
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Tapping his foot impatiently and ignoring the plates of food that grew cold on the table before him, a pallid and very tired Nutatharis stared at the large maps covering the wall across the room. Long needles held round bits of leather to various points on the map: sixteen bits of leather, each one numbered, representing the placements of Emarian legions, regiments, and companies.
Or their last known placements.
Four legions were situated in the Low Provinces at the edge of the Tsalvian Forests; a fifth, to the south, sat just across the border from Athadian-controlled Omeria. The remaining regiments and companies, even platoons, were scattered on both sides of the border dividing Emaria from the Provinces. A small cluster of five leather circles—five regiments—was pinned close to the painted crown marking Lasura.
As he stared at the map, Nutatharis imagined the lowlands half-drowned, the encampments of his legions inundated, the survivors picking their way through sinking fields and eating whatever they found—leaves, roots, serpents, rats—the corpses of their own dead.
If he had believed in the gods, he would have considered that the gods had abandoned him.
There came pounding at the tower door—the great brass knocker being slammed down four, five times.
“
Majesty!”
“Enter!”
He watched with angry eyes as Sir Jors stepped in, closed the door behind him, and advanced to the long table. Jors removed his gloves, dropped them, and helped himself without asking to the wine that was there. He poured a cup, swallowed most of it in one breath, then fell into a chair, exhausted, as though he had not sat in days.
“Anything?” Nutatharis asked.
“It is as we feared.”
“The Second?”
“A rider—a scout for the Third— He found what was left of their camp—there.” He pointed to the map.
“Attacked?” Nutatharis inquired, disbelieving.
“He thinks not. The lowlanders seem inactive; if they’re doing anything, it’s what our men are trying to do—survive the floods.” He shook his head. “It’s all swampland, now. The rider reported that the hillsides are waterfalls—torrents. It’s been that way for weeks, and no one can say how long it’ll continue. The Second couldn’t move. The stream a league north of them flash flooded. If anyone got out, we don’t know it.”
“Five thousand men!” Nutatharis slapped the table. “Five thousand men don’t drown in the middle of a forest!”
“They do in the Low Provinces,” said Sir Jors gravely. “The Third found locals who reported flooding a century ago. Wiped out half of them. Half their grandsires died. It’s what their land does.”
“The crops wiped out?”
Sir Jors silently ducked his head. “Not a seed left. Not a single bud.”
“And the others?”
“No word from the First since late Grem. North,” he reminded Nutatharis, “of the Second. The Fourth is low on rations, but they can take care of themselves. They may be breaking into storehouses in some of the villages there, but they’re managing. The Fifth—”
Nutatharis glanced at his map.
“—is treacherously close to the swamplands right across from Omeria. The land there sits quite low; the farmers are having a rough time of it, but we haven’t had any reports from our men stationed there.”
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