As they rode toward the twisted metal pillars that marked the gateway of the palace, Lur Raldnor said to Rem, “I begin to understand why my father left Dorthar.”
Thann Xa’ath was King in Xarabiss now, the oldest of Thann Rashek’s eleven sons.
They were assured an audience, then left kicking their heels for two hours in a nicely appointed room with a fountain. Plainly, this was not Olm. At last a servant came to conduct them to a larger room with a larger fountain. The King was sitting at ease, flanked by a couple of guards, a couple of minstrel girls, a scatter of courtiers. There were two Lowlanders. They were not as ice-pale as the woman in the Market, but they sat apart under an ornamental indoor tree, watching, seemingly unresponsive.
The King welcomed the son of Yannul the Lan and his traveling companion.
The portion of court clapped.
Rising, the King took Lur Raldnor over to the Lowland men. After sufficient pause to demonstrate amply they had no need, they got to their feet and greeted Lur Raldnor. One spoke. “We remember keenly all our allies, those who fought beside us. Your father’s name is unforgotten.” Thann Xa’ath bore this without a murmur. The implication was not veiled. Xarabiss, who called herself the ally of the Plains, had in fact stayed neutral.
“You’ve arrived at an opportune season,” Thann Xa’ath said to Yannul’s son. “The son of Raldnor Am Anackire’s second most famous captain—our own Xaros—is at court.”
Nor was this veiled. The King saw fit to remind the Lowlanders not all Xarabiss had skulked at home.
Thann Xa’ath began to walk about the room, his hand on Lur Raldnor’s shoulder. One guard moved smoothly, almost negligently, behind them.
A woman said to Rem, “Do you go to Dorthar, too?”
He told her that he did. She smiled, and said, “I also. In the Princess’ train. A tiresome long journey. Didn’t you know? Where have you been? In Lan? Oh, naturally, there’s never any news in Lan. The King’s daughter is just now to be sent to the Storm Lord. Etiquette generally dictates even a High King should come to claim his bride from her father’s house. But Raldanash must remain in Anackyra, with all this talk of war—” Her patronizing smile grew more intent; she widened her charcoaled eyes at him. “They’ll have missed Zastis for their consummation. But I think that may not matter. Raldanash is cold, they say. The hero Raldnor’s son! Do you think it possible?”
“As you mentioned,” Rem said, “we get no news of any sort in Lan.”
He excused himself and went to remind a wine-server of his existence.
But it turned out to be the truth they were now expected to join the cumbersome bridal caravan that would be wending to Dorthar in five days’ time.
Xa’ath’s daughter had been betrothed to the Storm Lord of six years. It was form. Raldanash, entering Dorthar at the age of thirteen, accepting his first three queens a year later, already had a bevy of wives from almost every country of Vis, and out of Shansar and Vardath also. Xarabiss, lacking daughters old enough for bedding, young enough for wedding, had lagged behind till now.
But it seemed Ulis Anet Am Xarabiss was worth awaiting. She had Karmian blood on her mother’s side, that fabled part-Xarabian part-Karmian mixture which had produced the legendary Astaris.
“Well, she’s red-haired at least,” said Lur Raldnor, leaning on a parapet two evenings later. “And with very light skin. That much I got from her lady. You know, the young one I—”
“I know.”
“I heard something more.”
“You’re getting to gossip just like a Xarabian,” said Rem, tickled.
“What else is there to do here, apart from the other thing? This Iros son of Xaros we’ve not yet met. He’s been given the command of Ulis’ personal guard. To attend her to and in Dorthar. Which may be unwise.”
“Because.”
“Because Iros is her lover.”
“I thought custom decreed the bride of a king went to him with her seals intact.”
“He needn’t have deflowered her to have shared her bed.”
“If he’s so restrained,” said Rem, “he’ll be able to control his jealous rage in Dorthar, presumably.”
“Or Iros may have had her. She’s only a subsidiary wife, not chosen to be High Queen. So long as she’s not with child, she’s acceptable.”
Iros was on view that evening. He sat at the King’s side through dinner, and afterwards was noted dicing familiarly with two of Thann Xa’ath’s sons.
Dressed in the casual wear of a high-ranking officer, Iros was exceptionally handsome, as his father had been in his youth and still was, reportedly. The son’s personality, however, was his own. Xaros’ reputation was that of a mercurial opportunist, who had won a decisive stroke of the Lowland War with one fortuitous trick. Iros, though he laughed and jested and gave evidence of wit, had the peacock’s other side of arrogance and anger. Introduced to Lur Raldnor, Iros’ junior by several years, the Xarabian flashed a smile and said, “And are we supposed to hang on each other’s necks all night for our fathers’ sakes? Or can I simply go back to the dice with a clear conscience?”
“Please,” said Lur Raldnor quietly, “return to the dice. I wouldn’t dream of detaining you.”
Iros flushed under his Xarabian skin. His mouth curled and he said, “I’m glad you understand a soldier’s pleasures. But you’re not a soldier, are you? You anticipate something in Dorthar?”
Lur Raldnor looked at him out of advantageous Lowland eyes, then said, “Courtesy?”
Iros scowled. “You’re saying—”
“I’m saying your dice game is pining for you.”
Iros sneered, but could do nothing else but go. He went, and lost the next three throws, as they heard all across the chamber and even over the dancing girls’ music.
So, they had seen Iros. Rem did not see Ulis Anet until the night before the bridal caravan set out.
“What’s the matter?” said Yannul’s son, coming out on the balcony.
“I thought you were with your Princess’ lady,” said Rem.
“I was, earlier. It’s nearly morning now, not worth taking to bed here. We’ll be leaving in a few hours.”
Rem spoke of the perfidy of timing involved in royal progresses.
“You still didn’t say what the matter was. Is it—”
“No,” said Rem. “Zastis is finished, and besides, half the palace carries on like an Ommos Quarter. Go to bed.”
Lur Raldnor nodded, waited, vanished.
The air was fresh and cool in the last spaces of the night. The unlit darkness made an all too perfect slate on which to draw again the pictures, and the thoughts.
To try to recall the first time it ever happened. The lancing pain through the skull, and then the image within the skull, shutting out all else.
Late adolescence. He recollected exactly the hour and the place—Istris, behind the wine-sellers on Jar Street—he had been drunk. He had put the vision away as a thing of the drunkenness, could not now remember what it had been. Nor the others, the two, three, that had fastened on him. . . . Had they borne any relation to his life or to anything? They must have done. For in the end, prescient, empathic, whatever they were, they had all had meaning. Even the mirage which shut his eyes outside Kesarh’s door and earned him a lashing.
He could evoke that one easily. The red-haired woman standing like a stone. And in her womb, the beginning of another life.
And then Kesarh going by on his way to bid stormy farewell to his sister—the sister he loved carnally, Val Nardia, that he would make his mistress at Ankabek. Mistress, and mother of his child.
And at Ankabek itself, in the blind circling corridor of the temple which was now a burned-out husk, the second mirage. Three women, white hair, blood hair, ebony. And the three embryos like wisps of silver steam—