Part 2 (1/2)
Sarn, Jamornid, and half the lesser landchiefs began a gabble of protest, cut off by the king's lifted hand.
”Is that what is being said about me?”
Glances flashed around the room like birds caught in a windstorm. A lot of them, Summerchild noted, touched Mohrvine.
It was Lord Jamornid who spoke. ”Your Majesty has never sent these women who claim power-these women who bow to the commands of one in Your Majesty's household”-it was the closest a well-bred man could come to discussing another man's concubine in public-”out to our compounds, to use their magic to control the teyn.”
Silence in the pavilion, broken only by the musical twitter of the green-and-yellow finches in the trees. Summer-child saw the glances flick toward the lattice where they all knew she sat.
Wariness. Resentment.
And in some-whose eligible daughters they fancied had been pa.s.sed over in matrimony, despite the fact that no king in five hundred years had dared to formally wed a daughter of one of his landchiefs-hate.
”My dear Lord Jamornid . . .” Oryn's beautiful voice was now deadly soft. ”If I do not dispatch members of my household to the compounds that house your teyn it is out of regard for the penury you pled moments ago, lest you should be obliged to entertain these ladies to no purpose. The magic of women has proven so far to be unlike the magic of men. Believe me, if the Sisters of the Raven were capable of controlling the teyn with spells of awe, as my lord Hathmar and the Sun Mages for so long did”-he inclined his head toward the three Sun Mages, sitting on their cus.h.i.+ons in their robes of white, gold, and blue-”we would have far fewer problems with teyn workers disappearing from the aqueduct than we do. It is one of the problems upon which they are working.”
Reluctantly, Summerchild added in her mind-knowing as she did that those ”spells of awe” were in truth spells of terror and pain. The labor of the teyn was essential to the aqueduct, to the fields, to bringing water to the city. But every time she pa.s.sed through the gates of a teyn compound and felt the ancient stink of the acc.u.mulated fear spells whispering in the walls, her heart cringed.
”Teyn workers disappearing from the aqueduct,” said Lord Sarn drily, ”is precisely the reason we are unwilling to send yet more of our teyn out there, under inadequate guard-”
”Not to speak of the curious fact,” added Verth, the landchief of the lesser Ma.r.s.ent branch of House Jothek, ”that far fewer teyn do escape from the royal enclosures than from those of lesser men.”
”That is absolutely untrue,” said Oryn, startled, and Summerchild saw a dozen pairs of eyes slew again to Lord Mohrvine, who a.s.sumed the pained expression of a parent hearing a child claim to have slaughtered dragons and settled a little further back on the divan. ”And if that is so-”
”My lords.” Lord Akarian rose from his place on the divan and spread his skinny arms wide like the priests of Darutha the Rain G.o.d did when blessing the soaked crowds in the temple square in the first downpour of spring. Summerchild guessed that it was the old man's wealth and wide acres, more than awe, that quieted the room.
”Have we not all seen how a man lost in the desert will chase mirages of safety and water, running now one way, now another? Are we not all aware that in doing so he loses even the little life he has left in these foolish quests?” His reedy voice had a gentle, rather dreamy note, like a grandfather speaking to unruly and frightened children. ”Do we not all know that if he would but follow a single course, he would come to safety at last, no matter what dreams the sands cast up to lure him to death?”
Barun sighed, and a smile of relief gleamed whitely through his golden beard. ”At last a man who speaks the truth!” he cried, obviously thinking he could see where his lords.h.i.+p was headed.
Summerchild-and Oryn, too, to judge by the stiffening of his ma.s.sive shoulders-had heard far too many of Lord Akarian's half-baked schemes to do more than wait uneasily for what would follow that hopeful preamble. House Akarian had lost far too many teyn and cattle to the aqueduct project for there to be any hope that the ”single course” he spoke of was going to lead anywhere useful.
”My lords,” continued Lord Akarian, ”is it not clear to us all that the G.o.ds have deserted our land? In the days of our ancestors, in the days when the kings of House Durshen ruled the Realm of the Seven Lakes, there were none of these troubles. When the lords of House Akarian were kings over the Seven Lakes in the time of our grandfathers, the rains fell and magic lay healthy and strong in the hands of the wise men of the realm. Is there no man in this room-no man in this city-who has the wit to ask himself, What changed?”
He was looking straight at Oryn as he spoke. Taras Greatsword, Summerchild knew, would have crossed the pavilion in two strides and smote the old lord to the floor with the back of his hand-if he didn't simply run him through on the spot-before calling his guards to haul the traitor and his sons away.
”A good question, my lord.” Mohrvine, after one moment when startled shock widened his turquoise eyes, recovered his composure a split second before Oryn did and spoke into the dumbfounded hush in the room. ”Now that you speak of it, a great many things have gone amiss since the death of Taras Greatsword.”
All eyes went to Oryn-n.o.body really wanted the Akarians back on the throne-and it was too late, Summerchild perceived, to unsay the suggestion or to simply silence one half-mad landchief, powerful though he might be. By speaking the name of Taras Greatsword, Mohrvine had deftly s.h.i.+fted the ground of the accusation away from the House Jothek and onto Oryn alone.
”We know the G.o.ds are with you, my lord,” declared Lord Sarn, leaping to his feet in order to fall to one knee. In his dark-red robe and pantaloons he resembled a brick kiln on whose top a thin crop of gra.s.s had grown, yellowed, and died. ”How else, when you put yourself into their hands at your consecration? But if indeed a curse is withering our land . . .”
Later, Summerchild reflected that Oryn should have reacted like a despot and simply yelled, ”Guards!” Though at this point that might not have saved him. Not without killing every man in the room.
Instead he said what was clearly the first thought that came to his mind: ”That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.”
”My lords of the Realm of the Seven Lakes!” Lord Akarian flung up his scrawny arms to heaven. ”I call for the Ceremony of the King's Jubilee that he may reconsecrate himself to the G.o.ds! For the G.o.ds alone can save this land!”
Mohrvine was on his feet as if his cus.h.i.+on had bitten him. ”A Ceremony of Jubilee!” He, too, stretched his powerful arms to the heavens; and his voice, the trained boom of a battlefield commander, re-echoed in the carved cedar rafters. ”A jubilee!” His landchiefs and the deep-desert sheikhs who had pledged him allegiance sprang up as well and took up the shout. They were unprepared for this, thought Summerchild, aghast, noting automatically that it was the Akarian landchiefs who ran from the pavilion to carry the news abroad and that Mohrvine had to gesture to his tall son Sormaddin to get him to follow them out with a half dozen of their own men in the general rush.
He followed this up by striding immediately to Oryn's dais-Oryn was on his feet by this time, speechless-and falling to the floor before him to press his lips to his nephew's embroidered slippers. ”We know the G.o.ds are with you, my lord,” he cried, and Lord Sarn-secure in the knowledge that his niece was married to Oryn's heir, Barun-fell at his other side and grasped Oryn's other foot. Lord Jamornid-who'd been gaping stupidly at the whole business-scrambled to his feet, dashed forward, and joined them, careful to keep a cus.h.i.+on in hand lest some infinitesimal speck of dirt from the marble floor be ground into his purple pantaloons.
”We know the G.o.ds are with you, and when the G.o.ds show to all the world that you are their own choice, all the evils that beset us will melt as shadows melt with the coming of day!”
The pavilion's polished pillars s.h.i.+vered with the cheering of the lords. Even Lord Akarian seemed swept up in the general delight, though his sons had drawn apart to confer in a corner. Cries and cheers began to be heard from the direction of the Golden Court that lay immediately outside the palace's main gate. With only the slightest extension of her hypertrained senses, Summerchild could hear the news being called out from the Marvelous Tower's red-and-golden heights.
Men shouted thanks for the King's Jubilee, making it impossible for Oryn to accuse Akarian or the respectful Mohrvine of any ill will.
Or, in fact, to do anything but thank his murderers for their loudly expressed loyalty and wonder what the h.e.l.l he was going to do.
FOUR.
They can't really proclaim a jubilee this early in your reign!” protested Summerchild, the moment the king-having received the final bowed oblations from the last departing landchiefs-stumbled through his private doorway back into the latticed and curtained nook. ”Can they?”
”They evidently have.” Oryn sank down onto the divan as Barun's ma.s.sive shadow appeared in the archway that led in from the terrace. ”Enter!”
Not only his younger brother took up this invitation but the three Sun Mages crowded in behind. The part.i.tioned end of the Cedar Pavilion began to be extremely full.
Barun's hand was on his sword hilt-its perpetual position when not occupied with one of his concubines or his brother's guardsmen. ”Shall I take a squadron and arrest them?”
Summerchild wondered if her lord's brother really thought he could lock up all the great landchiefs of the realm without the whole countryside rising in revolt, and concluded that Barun probably did think it. He was handsome as a G.o.d and could crush walnuts in his fists, but he couldn't outthink the kitchen cat.
”Word has gone out by this time,” Oryn explained to him. ”We'd succeed only in making fools of ourselves, if nothing worse. When one is dealing with doubt that we have the G.o.ds' mandate to rule, that's a dangerous thing.”
The younger man nodded, brows knit together as he digested this. At last he said, ”Then the matter should be simple. The G.o.ds led you through the ordeals of consecration once; they will do so again. Perhaps Lord Akarian has the right of it, for once. If you undertake the ordeals again, perhaps they will even relent and bring back true magic. . . .”
He glanced at Summerchild and cleared his throat hastily. ”Of course, they will leave the magic of women in place as well, we hope.”
”One never knows, with G.o.ds.” Oryn held out his hand to a.s.sist old Hathmar down to the divan; the aged Sun Mage's eyesight had been maintained for years by the finely graded spells of healing worked almost subconsciously on his own eyes. These spells, like all others wrought by male wizards over the centuries, had failed; and even the thick-lensed spectacles he and others of his order had devised over the past few years did not help him now.
”I have always had the teensiest, tiniest suspicion, however,” Oryn went on, looking back at the other two mages, whom Summerchild had risen to lead to seats, ”that it wasn't entirely by the efforts of the G.o.ds that I got through the ordeals of consecration when I was crowned twelve years ago. And that leaves me feeling a little . . . concerned. Have I call to be?”
Barun looked completely uncomprehending. Yanrid the crystalmaster glanced at his colleagues from beneath his s.h.a.ggy brows.
”The King's Jubilee,” stated Rachnis shadowmaster in his high, scratchy voice. ”Thank you, child, that's very kind of you but I'm perfectly capable of getting up and down myself. In ancient times the Ceremony of the King's Jubilee was proclaimed whenever a king reached the forty-ninth year of his reign, for it was judged that at that age he became a new man, and therefore, a new king. As a new king, he must pa.s.s through all the ordeals of his consecration again, to grant the G.o.ds their chance to say whether they wished this new king to reign or not. The Jubilee was held in the first new moon of the forty-ninth year. No Akarian king ever achieved forty-nine years of rule, and precious few of the Durshens, and to further complicate the records, kings of old sometimes changed their names after a Jubilee, so we can only guess at how many of the Durshen or Hosh Dynasty kings were in fact continuing to rule under a second name. But the number cannot be large.”
The old man tented his skinny fingers, and like a good Pearl Woman Summerchild knelt to him holding the exquisite platter of fresh fruits, candied rose petals, moonjellies, and those exquisite wafer cones of beaten cream called gazelle horns. Aside from its being better manners to serve one's own guests, there were some matters it was better that servants did not hear.
”Upon his deathbed”-Oryn pulled up a low stool usually reserved for the slave who wielded a fan-”my father a.s.sured me several times that 'Everything will be all right,' a statement Soth repeated on a number of occasions in the week between my father's death and my own consecration as king-my father having died in the moon's last quarter. By the way, my darling, you had probably better get in touch with Soth and summon him back here. I have the dreadful feeling we're going to need his advice rather badly. And in fact everything was all right, though I still have nightmares about the crocodiles, not to mention the pit of cobras and being chased by that d.a.m.ned lion. Did someone drug the lion?”
Barun looked shocked to his soul at even the suggestion that anyone would tamper with the ordeals of consecration, but Hathmar's thin mouth tugged in a smile. ”The lion was drugged, my lord.”
Oryn heaved a sigh of relief. ”I'm glad to hear it. I shouldn't have liked to think of a beast that slow trying to make a living on its own in the wild, poor thing. And I suppose one can simply selectively wet down the kindling on the route one walks through the fire: straw damp with water looks pretty much like straw damp with oil. But the crocodiles . . .”