by Ellyn, Court
“No, no, just my men. They count it a matter of honor. These sons of goats do not hide. You will see, they will work well for you.”
“I fear one day your men will choke on their honor—and their blood—after they taste a bit of Aralorri steel. But if you want to send your men into battle as bare as babes, Highness, that’s your concern. As long as they cut down a sufficient number of Aralorris in the process. If not, as their prince, you will carry shame instead of silver back to your city and your brothers. I will make sure of it.”
Saj’nal sat up straight. “What is this? You think these men are not worth your silver? We are here, are we not? We braved the sea when my brothers and their men hide at home. Saj’nal fears nothing. His men fear nothing. It was my men who broke the gate of the wizier’s fortress. It was I who took the head of my uncle. And we, my men and I, Great Falcon, will bring to you the head that wears this crown you seek. This I swear!”
“I will hold you to it, Highness.”
“Yes, not to worry, great king. The armor my men wear, they will take it off the men they slay. Just like any animal’s skin.”
Shadryk’s doubt caused Saj’nal to feel it necessary to expound on his exploits for the next fifteen miles. By that time, the sun sat heavily on the horizon behind them, and Shadryk’s teeth were on edge. He knew only so many phrases of praise and would use them only so many times before he started to feel sick at his stomach.
“The fifth son, he is an idiot,” Saj’nal said, berating one brother after another. “The Father touched him at birth and made him crazy, so I might as well be the last of Osaya’s sons. My elder brothers, they are idiots, too, of their own making, so you can see my predicament.”
“Only too well.”
“Ha, yes, once my oldest brother, Jimshé, thinks he will free the countryside of the lion that is killing all the goats and the children. He failed miserably to find it, so I—”
“You will stop here,” Shadryk said.
He worried that the prince would think he ordered him to shut his mouth, but Saj’nal looked about and said, “Ah, yes, this will do nicely for these sons of goats.” He ordered his soldiers to set up camp in a wide pasture on the north side of the road. For their pleasure, Shadryk said they could butcher and roast the sheep that grazed there.
“La’od, you will stay here with them. See that they have everything they require.”
“Sire, you are not staying?” There was a hint of panic in the minister’s voice, which pleased Shadryk greatly.
“I? Certainly not. I will greet them at my table tomorrow. Have them there for the banquet by nightfall.”
La’od did not disappoint. An hour before sundown, Shadryk was sharpening his twin fighting knives, Talon and Raptor, when Cuinn appeared in the vestibule and announced the minister’s arrival. “He says he has an urgent need to speak with you, sire.”
“Bad?”
“He doesn’t look happy.”
Cuinn bowed as La’od entered the royal suite. He was wringing his hands like a nervous woman.
“What went wrong?” Shadryk asked, wiping the oil from the keen blades. Cuinn opened their velvet-lined case, and Shadryk laid them to rest. Prematurely, he considered, studying La’od’s face.
“Wrong? Nothing, sire. His Highness and his men were pleased with the barracks you had built for them and I have ushered them to the dining hall to await your leisure. Er …”
“But …”
Cuinn lowered a tray arrayed with an assortment of rings. Shadryk chose one mounted with an emerald the size of a robin’s egg, and another with moonstones.
“But there seems to be some confusion, sire. The Zhianese don’t seem to understand the concept of tables. They have stacked them against the walls and torn the cushions from the benches and are sitting on the floor.”
“The tables were set,” Shadryk said.
“Yes, sire. We did what we could to save the crystal and silver. But it’s not the cutlery that raises concern.”
Rising, Shadryk gestured at the doublet draped on the mannequin. Cuinn helped him into it, a fine thing of stiff emerald silk.
“It’s the ladies of the court, sire,” La’od went on. “When they saw what was happening, they began to worry that you will ask them to sit on the floor as well, as a show of courtesy.”
“I will not eat on the floor like a dog,” Shadryk replied, raising his chin so the chamberlain could button the doublet’s high collar. “And neither will our ladies. Have a row of tables set up again. Take the White Mantles with you, in case the Zhianese argue.”
“Yes, sire.” Bowing a departure, La’od looked relieved that the king hadn’t raised his voice.
Shadryk called him back. “As penance for being disgracefully ill-prepared, you will dine on the floor with our guests. And while you eat in their manner, however that may be, you will learn firsthand everything you should already know about our allies. Then you will report to me.”
The light in his face dimmed. “Yes, sire. Thank you, sire.”
The matter of the tables warned Shadryk that more confusion was to come, though he couldn’t possibly anticipate the way it would manifest. He sat in the center of the high table with Prince Saj’nal on his right and Ki’eva on his left. He knew his sister well enough to understand that her silence was not meekness but a cover for her horror. When she entered the dining hall on her brother’s arm, her eyes had gone wide, and she said through her teeth, “Oh, Goddess, a room full of Goryths. And what is that smell?”
Had the Zhianese bothered bathing after their sea voyage and march from the shore, or was this odor typical? Goats came to mind, and sweat, along with something Shadryk couldn’t quite name.
Ki’eva’s reaction to the prince was little better.
Saj’nal approached her, arms wide as if he would embrace her, saying, “Ah! What beauty. We will return to our country with tales of your exquisite loveliness, princess.”
“I am sure tales of your exuberant … kindness … will be told in my country for generations, Highness,” she replied.
“What a price she would fetch, great king, in my country. Such eyes, such skin.”
Shadryk expected his sister to rake her nails across the prince’s adoring face, but she merely grinned, eyes narrow. “Once, a man was willing to pay that price. Now, I’m happy to say that he’s ashes on the wind.”
The prince laughed uneasily at that and refrained from seeking further discourse with the Princess Ki’eva. She made a pretense of eating, raising and lowering her spoon while wafting a perfumed kerchief in front of her nose. Saj’nal, on the other hand, tried every dish with ravenous eagerness. “So strange, this food,” he cried. “So delightful. And this wine!”
At the tables set up along the south wall, the lords and ladies of the court were far more interested in the men reclining on the floor than in dining. They stared and covered laughter under linen napkins. The Zhianese were boisterous while they ate, squabbling on occasion over choice portions and flasks of wine. They denied the squires who attempted to serve them, insisting instead that their eunuchs perform the task. Shadryk could tell that the butlers, near the doors to the kitchens, were becoming frustrated trying to communicate with these scantily clad slaves. The carefully coordinated routine of presenting each course quickly crumbled. Not long after the soup was served, a soldier sent his slave scurrying for meat, but the meat was three courses away. La’od, sitting near this soldier, tried to explain, but the slave ran for the kitchens regardless, likely fearing his master’s anger more than impropriety. He returned in just as great a hurry with a burnt haunch of elk still on the spit. The head butler must’ve instructed the cooks to do as the soldier asked and heat up the fire under one of the roasting haunches. When the soldier found the meat raw on the inside, he clubbed the slave over the back with it. His comrades roared laughter and divided the bloody fare between them.
Saj’nal didn’t ask his men to abide by the etiquette of their hosts, but laughed alo
ng with them. “These sons of goats,” he lauded. “So barbarous.” After he finished a course, he tossed his leftover portions over the table to this favored soldier or that, a heel of bread, a leg of duck with a scrap of meat attached. The soldiers scrambled for these leftovers like dogs. Their prince’s favor was considered divine, Shadryk learned from La’od later.
Once their appetites for food began to wane, things got worse. At the far end of the tables, Lady Alinda, one of the king’s cousins, leapt from her chair with a squeal. Lord Southyn, her husband, roared a threat over the laughter; he and a Zhiani rose to their feet, pacing off for a fight.
Shadryk stood. “What is this?”
The court rose as well, with a rustle of chairs and gowns. The Zhianese apparently didn’t follow the rule to stand when a king stands; they remained on their pillows and stared at him mutely, nor did he demand they perform this gesture of respect.
“Lord Southyn?” he asked.
Red in the face, the young lord jabbed a finger. “This animal just … propositioned my wife!”
Saj’nal stood at last. “Wait, wait, wait. Great king, I beg you to explain. These women, they are wives?”
“They are, Highness,” Shadryk said.
The Zhiani soldiers glowered and shifted their cushions farther away from the tables. A wide aisle now separated the diners. Saj’nal exclaimed, “Men of Fiera honor their wives in dining with them! You do this everyday?”
“Of course.”
“Ah-ha!” he crowed. “These sons of goats have never seen this. In my mother’s country, is insult to wife to dine in public with men. Only prostitutes eat where men eat. My men think you give them great gift of women. Now we understand one another, great king.”
Barely, Shadryk thought and bade Lord Southyn and his lady be seated.
The prince thought this misunderstanding hilarious and laughed on and off for the next hour. The court’s amusement died, however. Plates of each new course, if they were touched at all, were pushed away in haste. Shadryk could imagine the conversations being conducted behind soft perfumed hands, and part of him delighted in the scandal. These fawning fools needed something on occasion to rock their gilded little boats. They would rally to their king, their protector, all the more.
On the other hand, even he was unable to swallow what followed. The Zhiani whose proposal to Lady Alinda went unsatisfied was the first to grab a slave. The eunuch made not one sound of protest, so accustomed was he to this treatment. Shadryk didn’t notice what was happening until Ki’eva made a sound like a mouse in distress and grabbed his forearm, nearly overturning his wine glass. Only then did he see the soldier using the slave as dog uses dog. Inevitably, cries went up from the tables. Several ladies covered their faces, and Shadryk decided enough was enough. He stood. The court stood, and he dismissed them with a flick of his fingers. Their relief was so tangible that he could have gathered it in a bottle.
He gave Ki’eva the nod as well, and she fled with all the grace she could muster. The Zhianese barely noticed the nobles filing out in awkward silence. Prince Saj’nal asked, “There is trouble with this?”
“The dining hall is not the appropriate venue, Highness,” Shadryk replied, resuming his seat.
The prince chuckled. “If I tell them this now, they will be most unhappy. They are men of great appetites.” Several more Zhiani soldiers had decided that the short break before the dessert course was the right time to satisfy these appetites. Any slave within arm’s reach was game. Only Prince Saj’nal was spared the trouble of hunting down an available slave. The eunuch assigned to serve him throughout the banquet delivered dessert to the high table, then bowed and crawled under the linen cloth.
With a tight grin, Shadryk rose a final time and said, “I’ll leave you, then, Highness. Only, tomorrow, remember to keep this activity to the barracks. Or I will send you all home as eunuchs. Tell your men that.”
As he might’ve expected, Ki’eva was waiting for him in his suite, her eyes blazing. “Did you see? What kind of barbarians do … that … in front of everyone?”
“Better to do it in private, eh?” Cuinn was on hand with the tray for his heavy rings. “They are men of great appetites,” Shadryk added, though decided it best not to joke about Ki’eva’s own appetites when she was drunk and alone with her brother.
She made an indelicate sound of disgust and pounced on another complaint. “They’ll freeze come winter. Is their prince aware of that?”
Shadryk laughed. “Oh, come now. Don’t tell me all that naked skin doesn’t arouse you.”
She made a good show of looking embarrassed and angry, perhaps for the benefit of the chamberlain, but Shadryk knew her too well. If she could find one cultivated member among them, she would have a Zhiani lover for the duration of their stay.
“Really, brother,” she said, “couldn’t you have hired less indecent men?”
“Men more like myself?”
She groaned with impatience.
“These men will be far more effective on the battlefield, beloved. And more importantly, their practices show us how they will deal with our enemies. They are without mercy. They demand utter surrender. And those qualities will help us conquer Aralorr.”
“Hnh!” she said. “I’m beginning to feel sorry for the Aralorris.”
~~~~
He wasn’t yet finished with breakfast when La’od sent a note saying that the Zhianese had mustered for his inspection. Their eagerness to show off their martial prowess pleased him, so he decided not to keep them waiting for more than an hour.
Two hundred Zhiani warriors, with their muscled shoulders and mismatched animal trophies, made an impressive display in the drilling yard. Their lines were straight, their stance so still and disciplined that they looked like elaborate statues. Only Prince Saj’nal, surrounded by his personal guard, drummed his foot impatiently. He dropped all sign of having been inconvenienced when Shadryk emerged into the yard, however. Goryth accompanied him, along with half a dozen White Mantles.
“Ah, come see, come see, great king, what your silver buys you.” Saj’nal paced off proudly before his men and turned with a flourish to present them officially to Shadryk.
Keeping his approval to himself, he walked the lines. Though the sun had yet to break over the eastern wall, the soldiers’ skin glistened as with sweat. Shadryk swiped a finger over the bald pate of the nearest. “Highness, what is this?”
“Olive oil. Every morning, we wake for our cleansing ritual.”
Ah, so that explained the smell Shadryk couldn’t identify. Goats, sweat, and cooking oil. He wasn’t sure how cooking oil purified a man; finding out sounded like a task for his oh-so-knowledgeable Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Shadryk resumed his inspection. In his wake, one of the soldiers made a rumbling sound that suspiciously resembled laughter. Shadryk gave it up to his own imagination until he heard it again, from another soldier farther down the line. Risking a glance at Goryth who faced the lines at attention, he found the Warlord glaring at the offender. The men were laughing. At the White Falcon. Had he put on his shirt inside out? Was there a moth hole in his pants? He’d never experienced concerns like this, for none had ever dared laugh at him. The third time it happened, Saj’nal was close enough to hear. His quirt blurred and popped. The soldier sported a swelling welt on his arm and grit his teeth against the sting. No one else risked so much as a grin in Shadryk’s direction.
After the Zhianese were dismissed to mess, Shadryk called the prince aside and said, “Tell me what they were laughing at before I have Goryth remove their heads.”
Saj’nal squirmed and stuttered before finally spitting it out. “Forgive these sons of goats, great king. They think you smell too sweet to be all man.”
The Warlord growled an indistinguishable oath to murder them all.
“Is that so? Too sweet, eh? ” Shadryk glanced over the drilling yard, found a squire emerging from the garrison barracks, arms full of training equipment. Beckonin
g the boy close, Shadryk whispered very specific instructions, then sent the boy running for the keep. Turning to the prince, he said, “Join me for breakfast, Highness. Goryth, you too.”
“You do not take offense to this?” asked Saj’nal.
Shadryk just smiled.
While they feasted on glazed ham, boiled eggs, and pastries in a small dining parlor, the squire entered with a low bow and held out a small bottle of amethyst-colored crystal.
“Ah,” said Shadryk, “a gift for His Highness.”
The squire set it next to the prince’s platter, then fled. Word of the debauchery these Zhianese indulged in had traveled fast. Indeed, Shadryk had sent out the order that all squires and servants of a tender age were to keep far away from the foreigners.
Saj’nal popped the silver lid and sniffed.
“Bath oil, Highness.” And not just any bath oil. This came from Ki’eva’s collection and smelled of lilac. “I suggest you use it. Immediately.”
The prince cleared his throat and sidled out the dining parlor followed by a chuckle from the Warlord. Forcing the prince to smell like a woman might stop the laughter but it wouldn’t earn the foreigners’ respect. Shadryk didn’t like the idea of silver alone binding these mercenaries to him. How to win them?
~~~~
That evening, Ki’eva refused to dine with him, insisting she entertain the ladies of the court in a separate dining hall. Shadryk approved but said, “Warn them that their escape won’t last forever. We’re Fierans not Zhianese. We won’t fall into line with their customs. Besides, after tomorrow, our three days of hospitality are over. The prince alone will be dining with us while his men eat in the barracks as soldiers ought.”
Saj’nal, smelling of spring flowers instead of cooking oil, was more subdued that night at table. His men were rowdier than ever, depleting the wine supply more quickly than anticipated. Shadryk picked at his food, no longer able to stomach the mingled smells of sweat and bread. He sought any excuse to leave gracefully. Just before the meat course was served, Cuinn appeared on the threshold, and for the first time Shadryk was happy to see the bent bearer of bad news. Discreetly, Cuinn displayed the corner of a folded parchment, then tucked it away again and bowed a departure.
