Trembling, Adred stopped reading. “This isn’t just philosophy from a book, is it?”
“No. It is not.”
“They want to overthrow the government, don’t they?” he asked Orain.
“Yes.” It frightened her, almost, to admit the obvious and say it aloud. “They do. We’ve failed them, Adred. Dursoris…saw the corruption in the palace, and he tried to fight it. So Elad and Cyrodian killed him. Now people in the streets are trying to fight the corruption, and Elad’s killing them, too. Adred, I’m not a rebel. Galvus isn’t a rebel. Neither are you. But we’re decent people, we were raised with certain values, and how can we pretend that things aren’t the way they are? This society has changed so much, and liars like Elad—he was raised with the same values! Yet he manipulates them. He’s been poisoned by it all. And the councilors, these businessmen and bankers who sit so close to the throne—they’re the poison.” She took in a breath. “But I don’t want to see anyone else hurt. I don’t want to see babies—”
She couldn’t finish. She coughed and fought back powerful emotions.
Adred moved closer to her, and he took her hands and held them tightly.
“The gods are doing something terrible to us,” she said quietly.
“Not the gods. We’re doing it to ourselves. Do you have more?” He meant the revolutionary pronouncement, the piece of paper.
“In our room, yes.”
“Give them to me,” he told her. “Please.”
She didn’t understand. “Why?”
“I’m going to Athad. I want to talk with Elad.”
“Adred, why?”
“To…tell him the truth, Orain. To tell him the truth.”
Would Elad even consent to see him? Still, it had come to this. On his own, Adred had at times tried to do good. He had seen injustice daily and had stepped forward to correct it or assist however he could. But he had never seriously compromised himself; there had been no reason to because one person alone, doing small things, could hardly correct the imbalance of an entire society. He might as well have tossed pebbles into the ocean, hoping in that way to build a mountain. Athadia, an empire, ruled from its foundation by kings and supported by lineages of powerful elites and their families—why would an empire of iron and steel and gold, an empire that held the world in its fists, ever to consider the soft concerns of the poor and the broken, the hungry and the ignorant? This is not the way of empires.
But it is the way of human beings, and it is demonstrated at every hearth, in every home, between all friends and lovers. Ideals of freedom, true freedom, the concept that society should correct the injustices it creates, the desire for each person to be treated as the equal of every other person— Impossible. A dream, a fantasy.
Or was it?
It is the privilege and the duty of men and women in a civilized society to create a cooperative community of common good for all.
A privilege and a duty.
The enormity of it, the affront of it, the conceit and…vulgarity of it—the promise of those words overthrowing thousands of years of history and custom, belief and inertia, of empire.…
Yet deep in the core of him, Adred knew that it was true, knew that it must be true. He knew that the march of history inevitably delivers such freedoms into the hands and hearts of the invisible crowds of history. He knew that the throne itself, king by king, generation by generation, had been moving closer to it.
Could the empire still be an empire, and the nation remain solvent and strong, without a king, with every person high and low, from dock to throne hall, an equal partner in managing a nation that was half the world?
The concept frightened Adred.
And it emboldened him.
For deep within him, he believed it, he knew it must come, and he wanted it to come.
PART SIX
FAR PATHS, OTHER SHADOWS
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
She was a young, slightly built girl, little more than a child, and this was the quality Nutatharis appreciated most in her. She never spoke. She had the look of a young doe, which raised in King Nutatharis emotions of both protectiveness and mastery. Whenever he looked at this serving girl, an expression of gratitude seemed to fill her face. She had found favor with the king, and this must be her only defense in the world. Nutatharis savored the thought. Of the thousand women and more—peasants, most of them—who served obediently in this palace of men, only this soft one roused in Nutatharis interest that was something more than clear lust or dominance.
The king of Emaria knew that if he brutalized this woman, she would enjoy even that, and accept the brutality with gratitude, as favorable attention from her master. This suited Nutatharis, who loved power, yet was himself a servant to his need for power.
So he was staring at this young woman with something bordering on affection as she took away trays from a table in his dinner chamber, as she hurried on small deerlike feet. Appreciatively, he watched her. The other servant there, a tall woman who took charge of the kitchens, turned her look upon her lord as she herself departed for the evening and saw Nutatharis raise a finger to the slender young woman, who nodded, understanding. The young woman left, arms heavy with empty trays and dishes, and the tall one followed her, not pleased. While Nutatharis smiled and pulled a wine cup to his mouth, and imagined the wine to be the young girl. Already he could taste the sweet buds of her dark nipples; already he could feel the silky pressure of her slender legs around him.
Eromedeus, seated nearby, said to King Nutatharis, “Give me that one.”
“The light-haired one?”
“The dark one. I can make use of her.”
Nutatharis frowned. None else in the room had overheard them, not Sir Jors, still seated at his table and at work on the final half of a roast duck; nor General Kustos, sitting alone by a window, staring at the snow and meditating over a cup; nor Prince Cyrodian, who was availing himself of two large women seated beside him. This son of the Athadian Empire, having become well acclimated to his life of exile, was busy pouring wine into the cleavage of one of the women, pushing her breasts together so that the wine rolled in the long crease like water in a trough, and then nuzzling deeply to imbibe what was there.
Nutatharis observed these antics as he said to his minister, “Here is my concern, Eromedeus: when I give you young women to make use of, they are never returned to me, or if they are, they are so mindless that they are of no use to anyone. I assume there to be some important reason for this—just as I assume that my decreasing population of sheepherders’ daughters and other stray lambs has much in common with my loss of servant girls.”
“There are,” Eromedeus reminded the king, “mystic avenues that strong men attempt by their wills to travel.”
“Your sorcery,” Nutatharis nodded. “Yes. I understand. You are my man of shadows, Eromedeus.” Servants had told their king months earlier of Eromedeus’s peculiar nighttime habits, his particular use of some of the cellars, his creation of odd incenses and mixtures of fluids, and his orders for the metal smiths to fashion for him a variety of strange implements.
“Not sorcery,” his man of shadows corrected him. “Sorcery is foul. My concern is with far greater things.”
“Ah. Greater things.”
“Do you make mock of me, lord king?” Nutatharis asked scornfully.
The king of Emaria could be diplomatic. “I seldom make mock of other men’s ambitions,” was his answer. “I respect ambition too much. Each of us has his calling in this sad world, and strong men must respect one another, in their faults as in their achievements.”
Eromedeus tilted his head to acknowledge the sentiment.
“I presume that, since I have given you shelter for the past half a year, and comforts of many kinds, and even a place at my table—not to mention these missing young women—I presume that these efforts of yours, Eromedeus, in some way connect with my own ambitions.”
“That which I hope to accomplish is very vague and even
personal,” his minister told the king. “I may yet help you by encouraging your own ambitions. But I seek in no way to confound or interfere with any of your plans as I advance.”
“Were that the case, minister, I would have known of it long before now and put an end to it, and likely to you.”
“Then—as to the young woman?”
Nutatharis turned his head on his hand and glanced about the room. “Singular, isn’t she?” he commented. Sometime you and I must…compare techniques, Eromedeus. I have heard your young women shrieking. They shriek when I bugger them myself.” The king laughed. “If you can gain great insights from that, then, by the gods! you are welcome to them!”
Eromedeus was, in fact, disgusted by the coarse remark, but let Nutatharis think what he would. “I cannot have the young woman, then?”
“She fulfills my own lust, Eromedeus, and is only just beginning to understand my ways. Do you know how that is—to have a simple young child like that, as slim as a twig and so beautiful, anticipating every urge, delaying and conniving with her fingers and her mouth?” He stopped then. Eromedeus was not one of his soldiers, not a confidant. “I am becoming too drunk. No, you may not have her. But she has a sister.”
“I have seen that one. She is common to many of the men here.”
“Take her. Use her. Or take someone else for your…mystical buggerings.” The king set down his wine cup, and the cup tilted, almost falling on its side.
True. He was becoming very drunk. Nutatharis stood, looked around the room again and out the tall windows at the night and the snow, and said then to his minister, “Whatever cult you have sold yourself to, Eromedeus…no matter. I admire you for it. I am a simple man. You work in the shadows and you hunger for the stars, like every mystic I have ever seen. I am merely gross beside you, aren’t I?”
“I would never say that,” Eromedeus replied.
“No, no. I am gross, and I am a soldier, and you and your.…” Unable to think of what he meant to say, Nutatharis, swaying on his feet, let it go. He left the room, hailing good night to the other men there, and removed to his sleeping chamber and the doe-eyed creature that anticipated his every urge.
Eromedeus wondered frankly, then, if his situation were becoming dangerous for him in Lasura. Perhaps he should move on. Perhaps a king that admired him as Nutatharis claimed to was one more king too close to the truth.
He sat back and looked upon the tableau of human excess in the hall, he thought of what Nutatharis had said, and his heart was stirred to revulsion, a mighty contempt that reached back through the ages.
* * * *
Late toward morning, Cyrodian awoke. It had become his custom, since coming to Nutatharis’s palace, to rise before dawn, urinate into his chamber pot, and then leave his room to wander—to spy—discerning privately whatever Nutatharis had not yet shared with him or never intended to share with him. And whenever servants or guards or other early risers encountered him, Cyrodian engaged them politely in proper conversation or excused himself with, “I could not sleep. Fetch me tea,” or “Let me sit and think.”
He surmised that Nutatharis must know of these excursions—Cyrodian would think less of the Emarian king, were that not true—but this exercise had, perhaps, become an unspoken game between them, an usto match. I do not care where the prince goes, Nutatharis likely had told his guards. But keep him away from this room or from that place. Still, let him think that I trust him.
Thus, Cyrodian had been engaging in these early morning excursions in a methodical manner. His chamber was on the second floor of the west wing of the palace, so he had begun by exploring that floor of the palace, and then had moved on to the east wing, and the north and south, and from there, the lower floors. Now he was exploring the subterranean rooms of the palace. Eventually, he would move on to the upper levels.
This morning, Cyrodian explored the farther end of the lowest level of the west wing; previously he had only partially investigated the central corridor and some adjacent halls, and he had found some doors barred to him. Like any good scout he might send ahead to reconnoiter in the field, then, Cyrodian meant to be persistent and check those doors again. Sooner or later, one of them must be left unattended.
Such was indeed the case now.
The main central corridor was a very wide gallery with few doors opening upon it—unlike the halls upstairs, which let into rooms and chambers every few steps. There were sconces with torches on the walls, but these were lit intermittently. Further, no guards were about down here, although Cyrodian knew that they patrolled (or claimed to patrol) all of the major passageways of the palace. This oversight struck him as being very curious. Were Nutatharis’s private prison cells in this wing, and his places of torture and secret execution? If so, why no guards or overseers?
Even more curious were the dull, faintly echoing voices that he heard down here this morning. He had never overheard speech on his earlier visits to these isolated passageways. As Cyrodian walked on, the voices came louder. They were muffled, however, by the heavy stone walls. He continued moving in the direction of the sounds, trying to ascertain inflections by which he might identify the speakers. One certainly belonged to a woman; the other, perhaps, to Nutatharis himself, or perhaps General Kustos.
Far down at the end of the corridor, a wavering pattern of light showed on the wall opposite a large door: torchlight or lamplight streaming through the barred window of the door. Cautiously, Cyrodian approached, easing his booted feet down carefully with each step so as to make no noise.
Now the voices were distinguishable. The woman’s voice was very distinct. She was pleading for release, pleading for mercy.
Cyrodian came to the door. Stepping up to it carefully, he pressed close and peered through the open bars. He looked into a very large room, lighted in its center with torches and hanging lamps. Chains hung upon the walls, and instruments of torture. In the center of the chamber, seated in a tall wooden chair, hands folded upon his chin, sat Eromedeus. He was facing a dark-haired young woman who had been tied, naked, to a large stone block; she was whimpering and pleading with Eromedeus to free her, explaining to him that she did not understand what he meant.
Cyrodian saw that her arms were strapped against her sides, roped tightly there; and one arm—at least the one that he could see—had a long incision in it from wrist to elbow. Blood from this incision was dripping into a bronze bowl just beneath her hand.
“There would be no need to continue this,” Eromedeus was telling the girl in a calm, reasonable voice, “if you would simply agree to—”
“But I, I don’t understand,” she sobbed. She rolled her head from side to side; her face was wet from all of her tears.
“—simply agree to give your life to me.”
“I don’t—don’t—”
“Say it! Will your life to me, and I won’t bleed you anymore.”
Collecting her blood? Why? Cyrodian did not understand.
A distant bell tolled, far outside. Cyrodian started when he heard it. At its sound, Eromedeus sighed heavily, stood, and walked to the girl. He produced a roll of bandages and a bowl of ointment or jelly. With these, he treated the wound and dressed it, wrapping the linen around the length of the arm. Untying the girl, Eromedeus helped her sit upright.
He told her, “I will bring you food.”
Weak, helpless, she slumped and moaned.
Cyrodian, not waiting to be discovered, eased himself away from the door and hastened back down the corridor and upstairs toward his chamber.
* * * *
Late that morning, General Kustos departed the capital to inspect border outposts along the northern frontier. He and his men were expected to be gone for twenty days. At the behest of King Nutatharis, General Cyrodian accompanied Kustos on this excursion, so that Cyrodian might better acquaint himself with the rank and file of soldiers he would be commanding when the time came to move into the Low Provinces.
The opportunity presented itself, late in t
he afternoon, as they were approaching a small fort, for Cyrodian to ask Kustos about this strange man in the palace. He drew his horse near the veteran’s and said, “There is a man at court who intrigues me.”
“And which is that?” inquired Kustos, guessing already.
“This one, Eromedeus. I’ll tell you frankly, General, I could not sleep last night, just before dawn, so I went looking for wine and began to explore the size of the palace. No one bothered me, so I helped myself. Down in your cellars, I saw Eromedeus torturing a young woman. He was bleeding her.”
“Is it your concern that he bleeds our servants?”
“Should it be? is my question to you.”
General Kustos chose his words carefully. “Lord Cyrodian, you and I have nothing to do with Eromedeus, and he has no effect upon our work. Therefore, I think it best that we discuss him not at all. He has been in that palace half a year’s time. What passes between him and Nutatharis, I do not know. The king admires the man’s intellect. That Eromedeus has Nutatharis in his grip, I do not believe for one moment; but no one speaks against him to the king. That Eromedeus from time to time passes his nights by torturing young women is known. Why he does it, I do not know. Nor do I wish to know. He may be a madman; he may be a sorcerer. To me, it is unclean and smells of witchcraft. I let it be.”
Many words, each chosen to emphasize Kustos’s refusal to open the barred doors in King Nutatharis’s underground rooms.
Cyrodian was abashed; he hardly expected to encounter such an attitude in a general of the Emarian army. “Then,” he ventured, “there is something you do know, General Kustos, that you aren’t telling me. If Nutatharis doesn’t trust me—”
The West Is Dying Page 27
