There had been other details. Perhaps, as with the more recent seeings, they had to do with his connection to Raldnor Am Anackire. His—father.
But the vision at Ankabek had told him already who he was. He had been shown the three women who had carried Raldnor’s seed. White-haired Sulvian of Vathcri, mother of Raldanash the Storm Lord. Ebony-haired Lyki—Rem’s own mother—had she not surely identified herself with a blow! And thirdly, the red-haired woman of his former sighting: Astaris.
How many knew that she had lodged in her womb the third child of Raldnor? In all the mythos, there had never been a word of it.
Even Yannul had not known.
The child had been lost, so much was sure. Raldnor and Astaris were gone. Their progeny, if it had survived, had had long years to reveal itself. And had not. And yet somehow the worshippers of Anackire at Ankabek had guessed at its being, its loss of being, looking for the balance to be set right. They had searched for some resembling conjunction of flesh and race. Maybe grotesquely, predictably, they had perceived it in Val Nardia and Kesarh. Blood of the blood peoples mixed with Vis, the sorcerous affiliation of twins, and one other thing, omen of omens—
No wonder Ankabek had held Val Nardia’s corpse in stasis, brought the child to term—
Do I give credence to any of this? Do I even acknowledge the engineering of a holy mystery? No. It’s lust gone sour, insomnia. How could they breed her for that, and their magic let her end a wolf child?
Since the night he had seen the attack on Ankabek through the body of the Xarabian ship. Rem had kept the amber ring among his slight baggage, carefully not easy of access. To take out the ring now, hold it, wear it, might clarify these things. He did not want them clarified.
After all, he had been given a sign, if he must rest this craziness on proofs.
She had come to the banquet, her last night in her father’s palace. Beforehand, the whole place had been murmuring about how beautiful she was, this late daughter of the royal line. How nearly like Astaris, the most beautiful woman in the world.
Rem had not looked to be impressed in any way. As a rule he did not like women. If they were beautiful, he saw it with a grim detachment, or missed it altogether.
Ulis Anet entered the hall with her maidens.
She was lustrously red-haired, as foretold, and her gown was the exact red of her hair with a girdle of red-gold. At her throat shimmered a necklace of polished amethysts, a Xarabian jewelry pun, for the amethyst was the jewel closest in looks to a Serpent’s Eye.
She was slim and graceful. Then he realized her figure and her walk reminded him of another’s.
And then, she was near enough he saw her face.
Ulis Anet, said to resemble Astaris, was also a replica of Val Nardia, the mistress-sister of Kesarh.
Yeiza, her skin fragrant from the grasses she had lain among with Lur Raldnor, knew better than to make a sound beside the doors to the Princess’ bedchamber. She did, however, pause a moment to listen.
Two voices, but not vocal in love.
Shaking her head, as one party to affairs of great importance, Yeiza, unable to make out a syllable, crept away.
Beyond the doors, Iros stood, fully clothed in his elegant attire. A single lamp was burning and Ulis Anet was seated beneath it, robed for the bed she had not sought.
“Then I’ll leave you, madam,” he said coldly. “And this is the end of it.”
“You should never have come here.”
“The secret passage remained unlocked and unguarded. If you’d wanted to keep me out you should have left men there. They might have killed me. Then you’d have been rid of me for good.”
The girl sighed. The sigh caught a flare of purple at her throat where the amethysts still lay.
“You know I don’t wish you anything but well, Iros. But you should have had more sense than to visit me tonight.”
“I should have waited till we were on the road? Come swaggering into your tent for all to see? Or waited for Dorthar, till your white-haired High King tires of you? From what I’ve heard that will be swiftly. If he even troubles to bed you at all.”
Ulis Anet rested her forehead on her hand. She was exhausted. They had had this discussion over and over during the past months.
“Even if,” she said, “I am to live as a virgin in Dorthar, there can be nothing further between us.”
“I’m so dear to you.”
Her temper snapped suddenly, and she rose.
“Don’t be a fool. Do you think I want this match? I’ve no choice, and neither have you. You’ve given me no peace—”
“What peace have I had—”
“What else can I do? Run away with you like a peasant girl married off against her will to some farmer? I’ve been given to the Storm Lord. You knew of it and all that it meant before ever you saw me.”
His eyes blazed with hatred.
“I love you!” he shouted.
Had Yeiza been at the door, this much she would have heard.
“Love. Well, you’ve a choice in lovers. I have none.”
“You chose me, once,” he said, more softly.
“Yes.” She closed her eyes.
“And if Whitehair takes you, he’ll find as much.”
“It seems it doesn’t matter,” she said, “providing there has been adequate interval.”
“He values you so highly.”
Ulis Anet turned. She walked to a mirror and stared it at her beautiful face, the mellifluous lines of her body. And behind her the handsome and furious demon who had invaded her unsympathetic world. She did not love him, but she had been amorously and tenderly fond of him. She doubted now if she had ever meant as much to him. If the bond with Dorthar had not claimed her, she might have been made Iros’ wife, to mark his father’s standing. He would have valued her royalty and her looks, and been frequently and blatantly adulterous elsewhere.
Getting no reply from her, he strode to the drapery that hid the secret door. He wrenched the curtain off its rings and flung out into the stone passageway.
Straight-backed, she crossed to the door and closed it. Then she sat at her window, watching the sun begin to come, since it was too late now for sleep.
12
The princess’ caravan wandered through the heart of summer, slow, dreamlike. They seemed to make no speed at all. Plains gave way to hills and hills to plains, beneath skies powdered by dust or stars. One impressive city enveloped them, then let them go. At night, another would appear far off before them in a valley, haloed with lights.
For Rem it was a time of timelessness. Lur Raldnor was not often nearby. After dark he was with his Yeiza, the Princess’ youthful chief lady. By day, the boy was taken up by the royal circle. Ulis Anet had noticed and liked him. Perhaps that was a further move to anger her commander Iros, or further to keep Iros at bay. Xaros’ son rode at the head of his column of men, stony-faced. His behavior toward his royal charge was ostentatiously correct, so impeccable as to be suspect. There was now hardly anyone in the entourage, down to the last groom or page, who had not fathomed what had been the relation of the commander of the King’s daughter’s guard to the King’s daughter. One day a soldier was flogged a hundred yards from the camp, and left out half dead all through the heat of noon. Apparently he had been overheard by Iros whistling some song invented upon some matter.
At night the commander entertained lavishly and grossly in his pavilion, or organized torchlit chariot-races, making the darkness raucous. In the cities, he picked out the lushest available women and paraded his lust all through dinner.