A scene had ensued on the hill between Lur Raldnor and his recriminatory Lannic girl. The usual sentences were said. They parted, their irritation unassuaged by love-making. Medaci was gentler. She did not weep, though her eyes were fashioned out of tears. It was Yannul whose eyes were wet.
Rem did not overlook any of these things. He had waited for his fellow travelers in the city. Distance both geographical and psychological.
10
Amlan was buzzing with news before they rode out of it. It seemed to be the one sort of news that did travel fast, since it came straight in off the sea-lanes with such marine traffic as still risked the port. The Black Leopard of Zakoris-In-Thaddra had been prowling the shores of Karmiss and Ommos. Kesarh Am Karmiss had gathered his fleet at Istris, and was preparing to meet the swarm of Free Zakorians. Now thick on the water as a fleet themselves, the pirate vessels were reckoned to be nearly fifty strong, though such assessments were certainly exaggerated. They lay off Karmiss’ southwestern coast, basking in the sack of Ommish Karith, which once Vathcri had tried for and not taken.
Kesarh’s navy, built on past Vis tradition and sound Shansarian knowledge of sea and ships, had also grown in stature and magnitude. It seemed, for the past seven years he had been preparing for such a day, while Dorthar, the hub of Lowland-won Vis, had lain dreaming.
Generally, in the manner of men, these reports were taken as alien to the life of Lan, or else dressed with forebodings. A sea battle of the size now in the wind seemed close to war. Close in other ways. There were dire predictions of the sequel. Karmiss, Ommos, even eastern Dorthar would take the brunt of this, but might not Zakorian strays fare over the water to Lan? Her seas had been unsafe for a long while. Buoyed up with victory or primed to vengeance by defeat, the port of Amlan could prove a tempting titbit with, which the pirates might follow the feast. It was a fact, a convoy of King’s guard had marched out of the city at dawn, making for the port, watchmen rather than defenders. The harbor and the port road had been shut at noon.
Rem got most of this thesis at the inn before he left. He did not discuss it beyond a sentence or so with Raldnor when they met. The boy appeared informed, and so far only mildly troubled to be leaving in the storm-light of such events. He, and even the servant riding with them, claimed to share Rem’s opinion that the battle fleet of Istris would complete its task very ably, and that the routed Free Zakorians were more likely to hit out at the eastern tip of Dorthar in their long flight home, if still capable of hitting out anywhere.
Rem’s conviction, succinctly conveyed, was that Kesarh Am Karmiss would not take on such business unless he was sure of success.
Hearsay had it the King would command his fleet himself.
He had some qualifications for the work.
The storm shadows of war seemed lifetimes away on the incandescent days, high-ceilinged nights of the journey south. As they progressed, the shadows paled altogether. When they entered Lanelyr, the tidings of imminent battle evolved only with the caravan they themselves had joined, more garbled and fantastic than ever by then, and so infinitely less believable.
An unforeseen fresh nuisance fell on them when they broke the journey at Olm.
Rem’s duties as outrider had brought him into the small town on a couple of past occasions. Five years ago he had spent some days riding about the mountain foothills. There had been one of the false Berindas reportedly living in the area. When he found her she was a mix, and her child too. A brooding sense of the Zor had disturbed him in those hills, that old lost kingdom with its black-haired Vis version of Ashara-Anackire.
Olm he had barely noticed. Nor would have done so now, save that Olm had mysteriously been given word that the son of Yannul had ridden in at her gates. No sooner were they settled at the inn than a messenger arrived, and everything must be moved over to the more than modest palace of the guardian.
It was a thundery velvet-textured night, stars like sparks, the Zastis moon a blown rose.
They ate in the palace hall, vanes in the roof hauled back to show the night, and invite nonexistent air.
Rem realized with slight astonishment that his true identity was making itself known to him, for it struck him as funny to be placed far lower down the long table than Lur Raldnor. The female they had partnered with Rem was the guardian’s younger, somewhat illegitimate daughter. She was a strange creature, stiff-backed and fluidly opaque by turns, as if in the process of some curious aesthetic change. Someone had whispered she had aristocratic Dortharian blood, but her mother had been lowly, some Lanelyrian freedwoman. Her thoughts seemed happier elsewhere, and Rem was happy to indulge them.
While comprehending what had been said to him on Yannul’s fire-fly burning terrace, and lured by it to an attempt at self-collection, he was made uneasy trying to be easy. He had been told what the name of the country was not. He had been told, as yet, it had no name, but that a name might arrive for it, perhaps unexpected. He had been told he was valued as a man and a friend.
The goal of Dorthar was also in front of him, filling the empty horizon where had been the oblique dawn promise of his quest for Kesarh’s child. Dorthar disconcerted him, but it promised something, too, if only the recompense of anger.
He paced out all his ground carefully. The dull dinner and the unsociable Lady Safca were actually a relief.
Before they were shown to guest chambers, there was an entertainment.
It was an embarrassing flung-together allegorical re-enactment of Raldnor Am Anackire’s victory over the Storm Lord Amrek, full of gods and fates who did not know their lines.
The son of Yannul had been seated with the guardian’s attractive legal daughter. They were intent on each other, to everyone’s gratification, and paid little heed to the awful proceedings. The Lady Safca, rather to Rem’s surprise, did pay heed.
Presently it came to him that all her attention was centered on one person, a mix girl about twelve years of age.
It was thought blasphemous to impersonate Anackire Herself, and so the girl represented the Idea symbolically, sitting all this while on a little gilded throne borne about by porters. She was dressed as a Lannic priestess, veiled all over in milky cloth, only a high forehead showing, and eyes described by paint. He was too far from her to see if they were light or somber eyes, but the hair escaping under her head-veil was dark. The interesting thing was the fact of the snakes—two of them, wound one each about her bare white arms; live snakes, twisting and coiling, neither they nor the girl demonstrating any wish to escape. The Vis, even mix Vis, even goddess-worshipping Vis, were usually allergic to the touch of serpents. It was obvious why she had been chosen.
Maybe Safca was concerned for this reason. The girl must be a favorite, whatever that might mean. He had noticed, too, a ring gleaming on the snake-girl’s thumb, gold or amber.
At length the theater ended. Soon after, they were allowed to go to bed.
Rem bade his female uncompanion good night. He was not, hopefully, significant enough to be saddled with a bed-girl.
However, on the way to his allotted chamber, the servant going ahead up the lightless corridor with a torch, Rem was given cause for doubt.
Suddenly from a by-way another lesser light appeared. It was a hand-held bronze lamp, and the glow of it lit up the underplains of a slender white face, its eyes downcast but still smudged with paint. She had no snakes about her, though her arms and feet remained bare, and now her head and face were also uncovered.
She was a servant on somebody’s errand, he thought, and gave her no further glance. Then, as they passed each other, he felt her fingers brush across his palm. His hand closed involuntarily on some small object.