Salia faced him. “What do you mean? Is there some problem?”
“The ghen is—” He searched for words, uncertain how to phrase what he meant in the moments before Agors’s servants reached them. “Be…honest with him. Confound him, my queen, with your honesty.”
Salia smiled. “Do you mean to tell me that mere honesty and truth will perplex this man?”
“Yes.”
Salia would have made some reply, but the court servants stepped before her and bowed low.
Thomo and Sirom watched as she was led to the ghen’s dais.
Sirom whispered, “Well, she is not a fool, at least.”
“Perhaps our trust would be better consolidated,” Thomo admitted, “if she were a little more foolish.”
As Salia was taken to Agors, the men of the court seated around the hall all rose to their feet, attentive and properly respectful—although it annoyed many of them to see this woman of the West treated as though she were the equal of any man of state. It was apparent, however, that Agors was proffering Queen Salia every benefit and assistance that a chief might allow a visiting potentate.
Salia smiled at Agors and thanked him as she was seated to his left. The ghen made pleasant talk as trays of fresh fruit and cool wines were brought around. The entire hall relaxed as new, lighter diversions came onto the floor. The first was a group of trainers with trick animals.
Salia watched as the dogs jumped through hoops of fire, as the chirping monkeys—dressed in miniature clothes—swung back and forth on trapezes and climbed up and down ladders.
Agors, fingering his wine goblet, commented, “I understand that you brought with you some animals of your own?”
Salia faced him, eyes bright. “Oh, yes. My pets.”
“You enjoy animals?”
“Oh, yes. Animals, King Agors, are like innocent children. And they’re very pretty. They’re…perfect. Haven’t you ever noticed that?”
Agors didn’t answer; he moved his eyes from Salia to the entertainments. But as the queen did likewise, the ghen looked back at her and slyly studied her profile, and he wondered about her. Why did she seem able to laugh so easily? The wine?
As the animals were taken away and the floor given over to a troupe of musicians, Salia’s humor lessened and she began to ask Agors more pointed questions. “I don’t mean to offend,” she explained, “but you must understand that only open talk between our two thrones can eliminate any misunderstandings.”
“I quite agree,” Agors told her.
“Could you explain to me, then, why your father felt it important to dismantle our Temple here, in Erusabad?”
Agors was momentarily taken aback; he took a sip of his wine, then thoughtfully replied, “Are you religious, Queen Salia?”
“Religious enough to understand that your action has caused great concern in my empire.”
“If I tell you that…we did not mean to offend you by that action, I would be untruthful. But we did it less to hurt you than to elevate ourselves. Remember that we took great care in relocating everyone living in the Temple, we moved the icons and religious tools to a new location, we did not loot it, and we kept the path open for all visitors and pilgrims.”
“That still doesn’t answer my question.”
Agors was very interested in this woman. By way of further explanation, he reminded Salia of the Salukadian concept of the world’s sympathetic relationship with human society: sharu-n’ ghen har nh owni—”as the king, so the world.”
“That is why you desecrated our Temple?”
“It was looked upon, this ‘desecration’ you speak of, simply as an ornamental thing, a symbolic act, done for its effect upon our people. In this way, my late honored father could show the people of Erusabad that our claim upon this city was an actual one, and complete.” He was surprised that Salia was not more upset with this conversation than she was; was it only an impartial inquiry for her?
“But then, with the death of your late honored father—”
“We made obeisance to his shade for a period of one month, yes,” Agors finished for her. “Symbolic, if you will—but true in the way that symbols are true. And with my welcoming you here, you see, my people are very much aware of another aspect of the sharu-n’ ghen—I accept the West and do not mean it any harm. In fact, my world accepts your world, and harmony can be maintained.”
Salia smiled, gratified, and sipped her wine.
Agors asked her, “May I now speak frankly with you?”
“Yes, of course, by all means.”
“Without intending any disrespect, may I tell you that I suspect your king sent you here to—perhaps ‘ridicule’ is too strong a word. Is that the word?”
Salia was hurt by this; her eyes narrowed and her tone was now cold. “Such was not the case, honored Ghen.”
There was no tone of apology in Agors’s voice as he told her, “I would trust not. But regard this from our perspective, if you will. My people do not, as a rule, look upon your sex as being equal in political matters with our men; our men have traditionally dominated our way of life.”
“Perhaps,” Salia replied, still irritated, “you may begin to change your ways.” She watched Agors as she said this, and it came to her that she should modify her intent. “I mean no disrespect, honored Ghen, but I assure you that my husband sent me here, not to ridicule you because I am a woman, but to impress upon you that, as a woman, and as the queen of Athadia, I am as competent as any court minister or diplomat to accomplish what is needed.”
“I understand this. I can understand that King Elad would mean for us to understand it in this way. But we must be honest with each other. I want to show you all graciousness, and I want to remove all doubts from my mind. You see, for Athadia to send a woman here as an official diplomat—such a thing may be accepted in the West in a certain way, but it is understood differently here. This must be taken into consideration.”
“As true as that may be, you must take into consideration our intentions—just as we must allow for your customs.”
Agors nodded politely. “I agree. To be frank…King Elad could have been aware that he was committing a possible offense, and deny it, yet still accomplish it. You understand? Two men, practicing with their arms, may declare that they do not wish or intend to wound each other, and yet realize that, despite their denials, quite obviously they will wound each other when they engage with their weapons.”
“I understand,” Salia replied slowly.
“To deny it is to deny only the apparent intent, not the possibilities of the act. A man can be dishonest about his honesty—say no, but mean yes.”
“But I, King Agors, can say yes, even if my husband says no.”
Agors stared at her. He wondered if their conversation had suddenly slipped into another area; looking into Queen Salia’s eyes—
She turned to watch the musicians.
—he decided that it was not entirely impossible.
“Please do not be offended by my honesty,” he reiterated.
Salia swallowed a breath and eyed him once more. Her look softened. “I am not offended,” she assured him.
“This puts my mind at ease.”
Salia’s look lingered. Agors was quite handsome, very proud and imperial, betraying none of the vacillating characteristics that sometimes marked Elad’s own personality. She nodded at the ghen’s wine cup, saying to him, “Drink, honored Ghen. Why don’t you smile? My father, too, is a king, and he taught me that to smile in a desperate situation, or an uncomfortable one, is to conquer it.”
Agors’s reaction was immediate; the insight of this, and the sincerity of Salia’s trust in it, worked like a wine on him. He showed his teeth in an open grin and chuckled so loudly that his brother Nihim, bin-Sutus, and others nearby glanced at him, wondering what Salia could possibly have said to so enliven the young ghen’s usually mirthless solemnity.
Salia returned her attention to the musicians—but she felt Agors’s eyes upon her
.
* * * *
Agors ko-Ghen had expressly requested of Lord Thomo that Khamar guards be placed in that wing of the Salukadian palace where the Athadian visitors were to reside—this, to allay any suspicions, to allow the westerners the privilege of their own guardians in a foreign palace. It was a gesture that Salia found comforting that evening when she returned from the feasting hall to find four palace guards dressed in Athadian gold-and-scarlet standing erect just outside her apartment door.
Agors, too, had ordered three servants to Queen Salia, and she found them waiting for her when she came into her spacious chambers. Two were menials, young women who hovered like butterflies, ready to help Salia undress, eager to pour her tea or dim her lamps. The third was a middle-aged woman, educated, well-dressed in silks and jewels—one of the palace residents who in her younger years had serviced courtiers but had now graduated to a more responsible position. It was this woman who greeted the queen of Athadia as she entered and inquired as to what Salia might desire for the evening.
“A bath. And then, if you aren’t too tired, perhaps you and I could converse for a while in Hasni?”
The older woman bowed her head as the two younger ones hurried to prepare the small bathing area in an adjacent room.
Salia moved to a low table set against the wall beside her bed; on it she noticed a silver tray and, on the tray, a single yellow rose. These had not been there earlier in the evening, before she had gone into the feasting hall. As she set upon the table the gifts that had been given to her by the Salukadian courtiers, Salia asked her servant woman, “Why is this rose here?”
“Queen of Athadia, I believe that my lord, the honored Agors ko-Ghen, had it sent here for you.”
“How very nice of him,” Salia smiled, and began to undress.
“It is a compliment, honored lady. The yellow rose,” the woman told her, approaching to help Salia undo her various pins and buttons, “is significant.”
“Oh?”
“It is a symbol, to us, of strength in beauty…beautiful strength.”
Salia smiled more fully—and reconsidered the lingering looks Agors had lent her all evening in the feasting hall.…
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Watching him in the light of early morning, as he slept, had become one of the great joys of Orain’s life. This morning, as she lay beside Adred, she playfully blew on his face and watched as he twitched and blinked in his sleep. Looking at him, she was reminded of Dursoris—Dursoris, as he had looked asleep, gentle, with great good in him, full of hidden woes and truths, a man to challenge what others refused to confront. A man like that, sleeping as comfortably and openly as a child.… Orain smiled, feeling complete and reassured in her love for Adred, and in his for her.
But it was time for her to leave. It had become a habit of hers every morning, whether she spent the night with Adred in his rooms or he slept in hers—in the morning, just at dawn, she would return to her own bed, or awaken him and remind him to return to his own apartment. He had often made gentle fun of her for this, but Orain refused to compromise or apologize for her little virtuous quirk.
She threw back the covers, swung her feet to the floor, and crossed to the chair where last night she had deposited her robe and slippers. As she pulled them on, she heard Adred mutter from the bed, “Lovely. Simply…lovely.”
Orain grinned at him. “Shhh, you. Go back to sleep.”
“Go back to sleep?”
“You need your rest.”
“I do, do I?”
“You were tossing and turning all night.”
“Was I?”
“You were,” she told him. “You can’t call that sleeping.”
“Then how come you don’t need your rest if you were watching me toss and turn all night?”
“Just roll over and close your eyes.” Orain drew on her slippers and moved through the dimly lit room, heading for the antechamber that led to her apartment.
“Breakfast?” he called.
“When you get up.”
“I am up.”
“Oh, Adred.…”
He listened to her open and close the door, then rolled over and dozed again. When he awoke the second time, it was to the sounds of birds outside and to bright sunlight patterning the thick glass squares of the lifted window.
Adred washed at his stand, dressed in his cool, loose-fitting trousers and a linen shirt, pulled on his boots, and made his way out into the hall. When he knocked on Orain’s door, one of the servants informed him that she was breakfasting with her son in his room. Adred continued down the hall; Galvus had his door open to take advantage of the breeze coming through the open balcony.
Adred was in a good mood, but faces were glum around the small table where Orain, Galvus, and Omos were seated. Adred helped himself to the hot tea and a piece of freshly baked brown bread and honey before commenting, “I see the sun rose again this morning. What do you think? You think that’s a good reason not to be so grumpy this morning?”
But no one at the table smiled. Adred glanced at Orain, then faced Galvus as the young man told him, “If you listen very carefully, you can hear most of the First West Legion marching down to the docks, getting ready to board ship and sail east.”
Adred neglected his tea. “Emaria?”
Galvus nodded. “They’re to meet the Seventh West in Herulia and join some other regiments already on the border. It’s gotten very serious, very fast—just as we knew it would.” When Adred didn’t say anything: “King Nutatharis is dead.”
“What?”
“It’s not substantiated—but that’s the report from the field. It could be a lie, or a trick. It could be wishful thinking. But it’s likely true. And Elad’s acting upon it, just to be certain.”
“Dead?”
“Think of it,” Galvus said grimly. “His whole country’s starving. All that’s left are peasants and the army. They’re fighting one another for food, and the refugees are beginning to move into our territories. Lots of them.”
“Surely someone’s on the throne. Some aristocrat or—”
“Emaria was a military state; any aristocracy or nobility were members of the army. Nutatharis kept them loyal with regular purges. We’re talking about a country that’s very small in leadership: what fills one office here ran that entire nation. Power mongers. If someone is in authority, we don’t know yet who it is. And if there was a takeover—well, given the nature of the men of rank in Emaria—”
“Gods!”
Orain shook her head and reminded Adred sadly: “Your bread’s going cold.”
Galvus leaned to one side and pulled from his vest pocket a letter; he passed it over the table to Adred.
Adred took it, opened it, read it—and paled. “Not…Bors.”
Galvus nodded. “Convenient, isn’t it?”
“Galvus, you bought that land, you own it! Vardorian promised us that he’d protect everyone invol—”
“Vardorian has enough troubles of his own; keep reading. See what he says? Sulos,” the prince said dully, tapping a fist on the table. “Sulos, Sulos, Sulos!”
“And—” Adred got a frightened look in his eyes. “And Elad? What’s he done about it?”
“Believe it or not, he hasn’t sent in the army. Yet. So far, he trusts Vardorian to continue mediating.”
“Thank the gods!”
“I don’t think the gods really care very much, Adred,” Galvus smirked. He looked at his mother. He was thinking of a morning of terror and blood, and days and nights of hunger and cold and loneliness in wide fields, while people complained, while armor gleamed in torchlight, and human beings screamed as they died.…
* * * *
In Lasura, mounted soldiers chosen by Sir Jors led thirty cartloads of grain out of the capital and down wide dusty roads into the countryside, where weak people unable to crawl waited, and waited, for the rumors of fresh grain and new bread to take life—grain and bread to be delivered by the king whose name they did
not know, whose face they had not seen.
Thameron, humorless and humble, stood that morning on a balcony of his palace and looked down at the desolate streets. Memories swelled. A knock on the door announced Sir Jors; the man entered with word of conditions to the east.
“Kurus approaches?”
Jors nodded curtly. “He must move quickly, with whatever men he has. The rumors are spreading that Nutatharis has been deposed and his throne usurped by a nobleman who is feeding the people.”
“How soon will he reach Lasura?”
“Difficult to say. At last report he was tens of leagues to the east. But he’s continuing to try to raise more arms. At the pace he’s been moving, it may be three or four weeks before we see his steel.”
“Send word to him—” Thameron moved to a desk, took out a length of parchment, dipped a pen in an ink gourd, and scribbled a message. He signed it with his name, titleless, but pressed both palms onto the empty margin beneath his scrawl: his palms left the imprint of his marks, the intertwined crescent moons and the inverted seven-pointed star, just as though Thameron had applied them with a heated metal seal. He rolled up the parchment, tied it quickly with a purple ribbon, and approached Sir Jors.
“Your fastest rider,” he commanded, “with a standard of truce.”
Jors slapped his chest. “Done already.”
“And if Kurus rejects this,” Thameron continued, “and will not meet with me to discuss terms—have we an army large enough and loyal enough to confront his rebel forces?”
The minister smiled. “Enough,” he assured the sorcerer. “Enough—and, I’m sure, enough men and women with filled bellies to help our soldiers.”
“Perhaps…,” Thameron allowed. “Now—find your rider.”
Sir Jors saluted him again, hastened to the door, and exited loudly. Thameron, alone again in the angled sunlight of the tall chamber, stood quietly. He lifted his hands and stared at his palms while a thousand thoughts rode through his mind. He strode to a table whereon sat wine and fruit, cheese and bread and sweetmeats.
Deep in thought, he did not hear the movements behind him or sense the quick muffled sounds that breathed in the small archway across the room. Thameron sipped his wine, then gasped as something punched him in the back.
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