“I have heard this man has incredible fighting skills.”
“Have you seen him fight?”
She lowered her gaze modestly. “I am sure you realize, Lord Sien, that I have not been permitted to attend the games.”
“Of course. Naturally his reputation as a swordsman is formidable. But he is only a—”
“Is it not true that he defeated a Madrun savage in combat this week?” she asked.
“I—yes.”
“Is it not true that he is said to fight like a trained member of the Imperial Guard?”
“Yes.”
She shrugged as if to say, Why not?
Lord Sien frowned at her. “The man is a slave, a gladiator, a ruffian. He could not be trusted in the palace. Certainly he could not be trusted with the life of the empress sovereign.”
She thought of Caelan, with his intense blue eyes. She thought of his steely fingers closed about her throat. She thought of his rudeness, his impatience, his stubbornness. No, he was not suitable at all.
“Still,” she persisted, enjoying her game, “he is said to have an unnaturally strong loyalty to his master. Is that his quality, or perhaps it is the prince himself who inspires such dedication in his men.”
Sien studied her a moment, then allowed himself a very faint smile. “Interesting,” he said softly. “I think the empress will make her choice with great prudence according to precedent. The slave is, after all, a condemned man, and not available for the position, even if Prince Tirhin could be persuaded to sell him.”
She was not certain she heard him correctly. “Condemned?” she echoed.
“Yes, Majesty. In the dungeon at this very moment, being tortured for his confession.”
She was appalled. Had the fool tried to denounce Tirhin after all? Was this his reward? “Why?” she asked. “Only a day or so ago, he was being praised by everyone. Half my guardsmen won money on him. What has happened?”
“Have you not heard?”
She was suddenly impatient with the slyness in Sien’s voice. “Obviously I have not heard.”
“Then your informants need better training.”
She made an impatient gesture. “What has happened?”
“You saw how unwell the prince looks.”
“Yes.”
“He was attacked by this slave. Beaten grievously before the attack was stopped by the other servants.”
Her mouth opened. She tried to imagine such an event, and remembered again the brutal crushing of her throat by those strong fingers.
“Yes, Majesty,” Sien said. “His highness has been much shaken. He trusted this slave, dispensed favors to him, granted him much more freedom than he should have. Only to be turned on viciously, like a mad dog.”
Sien was almost smiling as he spoke. Satisfaction radiated from him. She could not understand how he could derive so much pleasure from a horror like this.
“Therefore,” the priest continued, leaning toward her, “do not toy with the idea of acquiring the brute. His head will be adorning the spikes over the city gates soon enough. Look among your own loyal guardsmen for your protector, and do not delay. Kostimon has lived a long time thanks in part to the diligence of his Hovet. If you value survival, on the advice of your esteemed mother, you will heed my counsel in this matter.”
She bowed her head. “Thank you. Lord Sien, for your trouble and for your wisdom. I shall pay great heed to your advice.”
He left her soon afterward, and Elandra stood up to dance with her father. Her head was spinning. She did not know whether to believe Sien or not. Perhaps the Traulander slave was mad. Perhaps he had invented the story of his master’s treason, planning this attack all along. Or perhaps none of it was true.
She felt too confused to sort it out.
Lord Albain was not a good dancer. He stumbled through the intricate steps, red-faced and swearing under his breath.
She would have laughed, but she knew he would misunderstand her amusement and be hurt by it.
“Father, please,” she said at last, out of pity. “Let us step out of the line and watch.”
“By Murdeth, I won’t!” he replied stubbornly, hopping against the beat of the song. “If my daughter wants to dance, I’ll be hanged if I don’t see that she gets to.”
He was endearing, but so miserable she shook her head. “But I am too tired to dance, Father. Truly. Let us stand aside and talk.”
Grumbling and mopping perspiration from his face, he followed her from the dance floor. The music faltered and died, and everyone stopped.
Mortified, Elandra signaled hastily for a chancellor. “Please instruct the musicians to play on,” she said. “I am too fatigued to dance and shall retire soon, but the festivities must continue as long as the guests wish. That is my command.”
The man bowed deeply. “Yes, Majesty.”
He hastened away to confer with the musicians. The tune struck up again, and slowly the couples resumed the reel.
Elandra took her father’s arm and walked with him toward a shadowy alcove, where they might have a small amount of privacy.
“I have longed to talk to you all day,” she said.
He gripped her hand in his large, calloused ones. Now he raised it to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “My little Elandra,” he said gruffly. “Empress of the land. I am proud, very proud.”
“Thank you. Father, about—”
“You must take care, Elandra. Guard yourself well, and do not form alliances within the court too hastily. Consider situations from all sides before you become involved.”
“Yes, Father. But—”
“Intrigues are a nasty business. But they can’t be avoided, not here. The place is rife with them.”
“I have learned.”
“Have you? Good. You were always a clever girl. You will show good judgment now.”
“Yes, but, Father,” she said, gripping his sleeve. “I need to ask your advice—”
He shook his head. “No, child.”
“But—”
“No. I am not the man to advise you. I am just an old warmonger. Fighting is all I know about. The ways and wherefores I leave to others.”
Exasperation rose in her. If he would just listen for a moment, but then he never had. “I need a jinja,” she said hastily before he could cut her off again.
That got his attention. His single eye narrowed at her. “A jinja? Why?”
“There are strange portents,” she said wearily. “You’ve seen the cloud on the horizon.”
He sighed. “All have seen it. An era is ending, child. We all know that.”
“Yes, and I feel the need for protection, for help.”
Albain’s craggy face grew fierce. “Albain blood flows in your veins. Have you forgotten that? Are you afraid?”
She wanted to scream at him to drop this pretense that there should be no fear, ever. She wanted to confess that she was afraid, horribly afraid. She wanted to be held in his arms and reassured. She wanted to find a place where she could feel safe.
But his scorn stiffened her spine. She flung up her head and looked him in the eye. “I have forgotten nothing,” she said, making her voice haughty. “But if the emperor walks nowhere without a man at his back, whom am I to have at mine?”
“Ah. I see. But you need a flesh-and-blood protector, girl, not a jinja.”
“I want both.”
He considered it, pursing his lips. “You know jinjas are forbidden here. I have left mine at the city gates, squalling in a cage in the care of my baggage handlers. It is hard to walk about, feeling the magic that shifts through these halls, and have nothing to sound the alarm.”
“Exactly.”
“Would you defy the emperor?”
“Will you defy me?” she retorted.
He grew very still, his gaze arrested. Then slowly he smiled. “Your mother would have spoken to me in just that way, sharp as a spear, cutting to the heart of the matter. I will see what I can do.”
She smiled at him in grateful relief. “Thank you.”
He held up his forefinger. “There is one problem. You must return to Gialta to claim it.”
“But I do not think I can.”
“It is the only way. There must be the bonding, or a jinja will not serve well, not the way you require.”
“Can there not be a bonding here?”
He shook his head. “It would not work.”
Disappointment filled her. Frowning, she hissed a moment through her teeth. “Then the jinja must wait until I can come.”
“All the more need to select a protector.”
She nodded. “Lord Sien recommends I do so quickly. And he says I should not choose a Gialtan.”
A slow smile spread across Albain’s face. “But I think you do not always listen to this priest, do you?”
An identical smile appeared on her face as she looked up at him. “I listen. I may not heed.”
Albain chuckled a moment, then sobered. “Be careful, girl. He makes a bad enemy.”
“I know. He advises me to choose among my guardsmen, but they have not proven themselves yet. How can I test the one who will best serve me?”
“You are the daughter of a warrior, and the granddaughter of a warrior,” Albain said gravely. “Your mother’s house is very fierce. Listen to what sings in your blood, Elandra. Put your trust in your lineage, in the courage and good sense we have bequeathed you. Don’t listen to the whispers of men. Listen inside.”
She bit her lip and nodded, wishing he could tell her something more tangible. Instinct and guesswork were not always the most reassuring qualities to depend on.
Albain gave her cold hand a squeeze. “By Gault, you have confounded the world already. My girl an empress in her own right. My girl on the throne.” He broke out in an unsuppressible chuckle, wheezing a little. “By Gault, I used to think myself poorly favored, with two girls and no sons, but now ... Ha, ha! Show them what you’re made of. Show them, Elandra! Let your mother’s fire blaze forth. Do what you damned well please, and don’t stand aside for any of them.”
She wanted to. With all her heart she longed to seize the world with both hands and make it her own. Yet she was so afraid of making a mistake.
It was like standing on the brink of a cliff. If she spread out her hands and believed in herself, she could soar like an eagle. If she clung to herself in doubt and worry, she would plummet like a stone.
“I will tell you this, and then I must go,” he said, bending close to her ear. “The best course to confound the intriguers is to hew to your own truth. Do what they least expect and never back down. Remember you have the upper hand. And for the sake of Gault, do not offend the emperor. He has promised me extra lands on my western boundary.”
She could have snapped in frustration. What good was his advice when he contradicted himself? Do as she pleased but don’t offend the emperor? Still, what had she expected? His advice was better than anything else she’d been told.
“Will you send me your armies should I ever need them?” she asked in a very quiet voice.
Albain froze. His one good eye narrowed, and his jovial mood vanished. For an instant he was like a hawk sighting prey, still and dangerous.
“I swore an oath to you today. What more do you seek?”
“The oath was sworn to the throne,” she replied, taut with nervousness at what she was daring to ask. “I ask you now for more than that.”
“You mean when the cloud descends and you and the prince will fight for what’s left of the empire?”
“Yes,” she said.
Her senses seemed to heighten. She heard the music, glimpsed the dancing and laughter, but her being remained focused on him and his answer. Time came to a halt around her, and she almost ceased to breathe. She must have one piece of solid ground, one true assurance to count on for insurance against what might possibly come in the future. Even if it was only refuge.
Albain drew in a deep breath and glanced around slowly and openly to make sure they were out of earshot. He put his back to the company so that no one could read his lips.
“Elandra,” he said in a quiet voice, “if ever you have need, I will unleash my armies and rend the empire from one end to the other. Merely send me word, and my sword arm is yours till death.”
Chapter Fifteen
A dash of cold water in his face brought Caelan back to consciousness.
Suppressing a groan, he slitted open one eye and found that nothing had changed. He was still hanging by his shackled wrists from a hook, his feet swinging above the floor. His dripping hair hung in his eyes. He was naked to the waist and freezing cold. His amulet pouch still hung safely around his neck, untouched in this dungeon hell where only superstition received respect.
The blurred face of his torturer peered up at him, a pale orb of flesh with merciless eyes bobbing above a brown leather jerkin stained with dried blood and grime.
“Man ready speak some?” the torturer asked.
His voice was a ruined croak, as though his throat had been crushed long ago. His accent was strange, his words barely understandable. He seemed to speak an odd mixture of Lingua and pidgin. And although the man was no longer quite in focus, Caelan would never forget his first sight of him. The torturer’s ears came to slight points that jutted up through his greasy hair. His fingers had delicate webs between them.
A shudder ran through Caelan. This was some kind of demon-spawn, a creature half human and half of shadow, as horrifying in its way as a moag or a lurker. To find it here in the heart of the city, clothed and employed, had shocked Caelan deeply.
Yet why should he be surprised at anything in Irnperia? After all, the gladiators consorted with the monstrous Haggai—female creatures with siren voices and the bodies of huge, slug-like worms. The Vindicants exercised an official religion for the public, and a very different kind of blasphemous observance for private ceremonies. The empire was based on hypocrisy, and the emperor himself lived only through some kind of unholy bargain with the darkness itself.
But such things were hidden away for the most part, not talked about openly, concealed from all except those who actively sought them.
The torturer, however, was an official of the palace— no matter how lowly his status. Corruption was spreading; truly the end of the world must be nigh.
Even to look on the creature’s pallid face filled Caelan with revulsion. As for the torturer, he knew Caelan was afraid and why.
Baring his teeth, the torturer laughed softly in Caelan’s face, close enough for him to feel the creature’s warm, fetid breath on his skin. Caelan averted his face, but the torturer gripped his jaw with viselike fingers and wrenched him back.
“Speak some!” he said angrily. “Man die slow. Man die hard way. Speak some, man die not. No speak, man die hard.”
Caelan met the thing’s eyes. They were human eyes, green and round, fringed with lashes as thick as a woman’s. But the light in them was madness. Gathering himself. Caelan spat in the torturer’s face.
“Gah!” Howling, the torturer struck him across the mouth.
Caelan’s head rang, and the world melted into dizzying colors, shapes gone crazy against his half-closed eyelids. He swung back and forth by his shackle-chain, and his wrenched shoulder sockets screamed in agony.
A sharp command rang out, and the icy water dashed over Caelan, bringing him back yet again. Coughing and shivering, he sputtered and squinted against the water dripping into his eyes from his matted hair.
Time had become lost to him. He did not know how long he had been here. As yet they had not put him on the rack or in the glove, a large wooden vise that could crack him like a nut.
The dungeons were a foul, gloomy maze of holes sunk in the floor and fitted with iron grates. The unfortunate inhabitants were dropped into the holes like rats down a well, and left in the dank coldness and filth until they were dragged out for questioning or until they died. Food was dropped in on top of them. They lived without light
or warmth or hope, miserable wretches forgotten by all save their jailers. Their wailing went on all the time, an eerie, primal sound of raw anguish that never diminished.
Overlaying that were the screams of the tortured. A man currently lay stretched on the rack, babbling in delirium. A woman, recognizable as such only by her long, matted hair, sobbed in a cage that swung high from another rafter on the other side of the forge. The round stone pit glowed a dull red, hot with hissing coals, the smoke curling forth to blacken the ceiling. A short time past, some convicted thieves had been brought in, kicking and screaming for mercy, to be branded with the hot iron.
The torturer had picked up one of the irons, its tip white-hot fading to a dull red higher up the shaft, and he had held it close to Caelan’s face, so close Caelan could smell the hot metal, could hear it singing and hissing, could feel its scorching warmth against his skin.
“Want this?” the torturer asked, moving the iron back and forth.
Caelan could not help watching it, his eyes shifting back and forth, mesmerized with horror.
“Man eyes, gone far!” The torturer grinned and let his tongue flick back and forth across the edges of his teeth. “Blackness, hot blind. All time blackness. Speak some!”
Sweat broke out along Caelan’s temples, but he didn’t flinch. After a few moments when the iron began to cool slightly, the torturer growled in disappointment and flung it back in the fire.
Now he returned, pacing and rubbing his webbed hands together. “Man think smart, but not smart. Think, master maybe change, maybe say torture not man. Maybe not!”
He laughed in Caelan’s face, then drew back sharply as though afraid Caelan would spit at him again. “Speak some, or many hurts. Here!”
Drawing a flat, wide strap of leather from his belt, he swung it back and forth. One end was perforated with numerous holes. He brought it around with a rapid flick of his wrist. The leather struck Caelan’s arm with a smack of fiery pain. He drew in his breath sharply, biting off a cry.
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