Part 41 (1/2)

'Thank G.o.d!' Stragen said with a vast sigh of relief. 'The delay was beginning to make me very, very nervous.'

'Ye made promises t' yet queen, an' y' wuzn't sh.o.r.e iff'n y' could deliver, is that it?'

'That's very, very close, my friend.'

'I'll give you the names of some people in Matherion.' Caalador looked around. 'Private-like, if'n y' take my meanin',' he added. 'It's all vury well t' talk 'bout lendin' a helpin' hand an' sich, but 'taint hardly nach'ral t' be namin' no names right out in fronta no queens an' knights an' sich.' He grinned impudently at Ehlana. 'An' now, yet queens.h.i.+p, how'd y' like it iff'n I wuz t' spin y' a long, long tale 'bout my advenchoors in the shadowy world o' crime?'

'I'd be delighted, Caalador,' she replied eagerly.

Another of the injured knights died that night, but the two dozen sorely-wounded seemed on the mend. As Oscagne had told them, Tamul physicians were extraordinarily skilled, although some of their methods were strange to Elenes.

After a brief conference, Sparhawk and his friends decided to press on to Matherion. Their trek across the continent had yielded a great deal of information, and they all felt that it was time to combine that information with the findings of the Imperial government.

And so they set out from Lebas early one morning and rode south under a kindly summer sky. The countryside was neat, with crops growing in straight lines across weedless fields marked off with low stone walls. Even the trees in the woodlands grew in straight lines, and all traces of unfettered nature seemed to have been erased. The peasants in the fields wore loose-fitting trousers and s.h.i.+rts of white linen and tightly-woven straw hats that looked not unlike mushroom-tops. Many of the crops grown in this alien countryside were unrecognisable to the Elenes-odd-looking beans and peculiar grains.

They pa.s.sed Lake Sama and saw fishermen casting nets from strange-looking boats with high prows and sterns, boats of which Khalad profoundly disapproved.

'One good gust of wind from the side would capsize them,' was his verdict.

They reached Toea, some sixty leagues to the north of the capital, with that sense of impatience that comes near the end of every long journey. The weather held fair, and they set out early and rode late each day, counting off every league put behind them. The road followed the coast of the Tamul sea, a low, rolling coast-line where rounded hills rose from broad beaches of white sand and long waves rolled in to break and foam and slither back out into deep blue water. Eight days-more or less-after they left Toea, they set up for the night in a park-like grove with an almost holiday air, since Oscagne a.s.sured them that they were no more than five leagues from Matherion.

'We could ride on,' Kalten suggested. 'We'd be there by morning.'

'Not on your life, Sir Kalten,' Ehlana said adamantly. 'Start heating water, gentlemen, and put up a tent we can use for bathing. The ladies and I are not going to ride into Matherion with half the dirt of Daresia caked on us-and string some lines so that we can hang our gowns out to air and to let the breeze shake the wrinkles out of them.' She looked around critically. 'And then, gentlemen, I want you to see to yourselves and your equipment. I'll inspect you before we set out tomorrow morning, and I'd better not find one single speck of rust.'

Kalten sighed mournfully. 'Yes, my Queen,' he replied in a resigned tone of voice.

They set out the following morning in a formal column with the carriage near the front. Their pace was slow to avoid raising dust, and Ehlana, gowned in blue and crowned with gold and diamonds, sat regally in the carriage, looking for all the world as if she owned everything in sight. There had been one small but intense disagreement before they set out, however. Her Highness, the Royal Princess Danae, had objected violently when told that she would wear a proper dress and a delicate little tiara. Ehlana did not cajole her daughter about the matter, but instead she did something she had never done before. 'Princess Danae,' she said quite formally, 'I am the queen. You will obey me.' Danae blinked in astonishment. Sparhawk was fairly certain that no one had ever spoken to her that way before. 'Yes, your Majesty,' she replied finally in a suitably submissive tone.

Word of their approach had preceded them, of course. Engessa had seen to that, and as they rode up a long hill about mid-afternoon, they saw a mounted detachment of ceremonial troops wearing armour of black lacquered steel inlaid with gold awaiting them at the summit. The honour guard was drawn up in ranks on each side of the road. There were as yet no greetings, and when the column crested the hill, Sparhawk immediately saw why.

'Dear G.o.d!' Bevier breathed in awed reverence.

A crescent-shaped city embraced a deep blue harbour below. The sun had pa.s.sed its zenith, and it shone down on the crown of Tamuli. The architecture was graceful, and every building had a dome-like, rounded roof. It was not so large as Chyrellos, but it was not the size which had wrung that referential gasp from Sir Bevier. The city was dazzling, but its splendour was not the splendour of marble. An opalescent sheen covered the capital, a s.h.i.+fting rainbow-hued fire that blazed beneath the surface of its very stones, a fire that at times blinded the eye with its stunning magnificence.

'Behold!' Oscagne intoned quite formally. 'Behold the seat of beauty and truth! Behold the home of wisdom and power! Behold fire-domed Matherion, the centre of the world!'

Chapter 24.

'It's been that way since the twelfth century,' Amba.s.sador Oscagne told them as they were escorted down the hill toward the gleaming city.

'Was it magic?' Talen asked him. The young thief's eyes were filled with wonder.

'You might call it that,' Oscagne said wryly, 'but it was the kind of magic one performs with unlimited money and power rather than with incantations. The eleventh and twelfth centuries were a foolish period in our history. It was the time of the Micaen Dynasty, and they were probably the silliest family to ever occupy the throne. The first Micaen emperor was given an ornamental box of mother-of-pearl-or nacre, as some call it by an emissary from the Isle of Tega when he was about fourteen years old. History tells us that he would sit staring at it by the hour, paralysed by the s.h.i.+fting colours. He was so enamoured of the nacre he had his throne sheathed in the stuff.'

'That must have been a fair-sized oyster,' Ulath noted.

Oscagne smiled. 'No, Sir Ulath. They cut the sh.e.l.ls into little tiles and fit them together very tightly. Then they polish the whole surface for a month or so. It's a very tedious and expensive process. Anyway, the second Micaen emperor took it one step further and sheathed the columns in the throne-room. The third sheathed the walls,' and on and on and on. They sheathed the palace, then the whole royal compound. Then they went after the public buildings. After two hundred years, they'd cemented those little tiles all over every building in Matherion. There are low dives down by the waterfront that are more magnificent than the Basilica of Chyrellos. Fortunately the dynasty died out before they paved the streets with it. They virtually bankrupt the empire and enormously enriched the Isle of Tega in the process. Tegan divers became fabulously wealthy plundering the sea floor.'

'Isn't mother-of-pearl almost as brittle as gla.s.s?' Khalad asked him.

'It is indeed, young sir, and the cement that's used to stick it to the buildings isn't all that permanent. A good wind-storm fills the streets with gleaming crumbs and leaves all the buildings looking as if they've got the pox. As a matter of pride, the tiles have to be replaced. A moderate hurricane can precipitate a major financial crisis in the empire, but we're saddled with it now. Official doc.u.ments have referred to 'Fire-domed Matherion' for so long that it's become a cliche. Like it or not, we have to maintain this absurdity.'

'It is breath-taking, though,' Ehlana marveled in a slightly speculative tone of voice.

'Never mind, dear,' Sparhawk told her quite firmly.

'What?'

'You can't afford it. Lenda and I almost come to blows every year hammering out the budget as it is.'

'I wasn't seriously considering it, Sparhawk,' she replied. 'Well-not too seriously, anyway,' she added.

The broad avenues of Matherion were lined with cheering crowds that fell suddenly silent as Ehlana's carriage pa.s.sed. The citizens stopped cheering as the Queen of Elenia went by because they were too busy grovelling to cheer. The formal grovel involved kneeling and touching the forehead to the paving-stones.

'What are they doing?' Ehlana exclaimed.

'Obeying the emperor's command, I'd imagine,' Oscagne replied. 'That's the customary sign of respect for the imperial person.'

'Make them stop!' she commanded.

'Countermand an imperial order? Me, your Majesty? Not very likely. Forgive me, Queen Ehlana, but I like my head where it is. I'd rather not have it displayed on a pole at the city gate. It is quite an honour, though. Sarabian's ordered the population to treat you as his equal. No emperor's ever done that before.'

'And the people who don't fall down on their faces are punished?' Khalad surmised with a hard edge to his voice.

'Of course not. They do it out of love. That's the official explanation, of course. Actually, the custom originated about a thousand years ago. A drunken courtier tripped and fell on his face when the emperor entered the room. The emperor was terribly impressed, and characteristically, he completely misunderstood. He awarded the courtier a dukedom on the spot. People aren't banging their faces on the cobblestones out of fear, young man. They're doing it in the hope of being rewarded.'

'You're a cynic, Oscagne,' Emban accused the amba.s.sador.

'No, Emban, I'm a realist. A good politician always looks for the worst in people.'

'Someday they may surprise you, your Excellency,' Talen predicted.

'They haven't yet.'

The palace compound was only slightly smaller than the city of Demos in eastern Elenia. The gleaming central palace, of course, was by far the largest structure in the grounds. There were other palaces, however glowing structures in a wide variety of architectural styles. Sir Bevier drew in his breath sharply.

'Good Lord!' he exclaimed. 'That castle over there is almost an exact replica of the palace of King Dregos in Larium.'

'Plagiarism appears to be a sin not exclusively committed by poets,' Stragen murmured.

'Merely a genuflection toward cosmopolitanism, Milord,' Oscagne explained. 'We are an empire, after all, and we've drawn many different peoples under our roof. Elenes like castles, so we have a castle here to make the Elene Kings of the western empire feel more comfortable when they come to pay a call.'

'The castle of King Dregos certainly doesn't gleam in the sun the way that one does,' Bevier noted.

'That was sort of the idea, Sir Bevier,' Oscagne smiled.