“You upstart slime of Karmiss, do you dare—”
Iros faltered in mid-cry. One did not serve with Kesarh and learn nothing.
“Try to remember,” Rarmon said, “who I have become here, and what you have remained. You’re a braggart and a clot, but you live. I can and will alter that condition if you persist in your folly.”
Later, in the North Walk, they met again for the briefest of conversations. It seemed by then Iros had begun to remember what Rarmon had become.
When at length the commander strode off through the topiary, Rarmon leaned on a pillar and watched the moon go down, and eventually the blazing heat of the amber ring went out. It had been burning from the instant Yannul’s son spoke to him in the corridors. Why? Some new warning? But one could not think of this and not think also of the child.
Eight years, nine years of age, she had shown herself as a woman of fourteen to him, in the flesh at Olm, a ghost in the ruins of Koramvis.
Where was she? No longer among wolves. What did she want from him? She had vanished when he moved toward her, the spell after all broken by proximity or outcry. Yet still there was the sense of something asked. Or to be asked. And the binding of the ring.
Strange, for he did not truly now believe in her anymore. He had no faith in her goddess.
14
After the king had left her, Ulis Anet sat a long while under the dying lamps, still as any other object in the tent.
It was a hilly road, to Kuma, and she had begun it in her bridal finery, the wedding flowers still fresh against her cheeks. When they settled their tents for the night on the rim of the hills, a scene spangled with torches and stars, to which she was becoming inured, a wedding gift arrived. A collar of golden kissing birds and clusters of fruits in rose-quartz and sapphire, with heavy earrings to match. It was all very proper, and more than adequate. She knew then he would be bound to come to her, and so he did.
The lamps had dimmed, the perfumes been sprinkled and the flagons of wine put to hand. Her women had arrayed her for the nuptial bed.
He arrived with an escort, men with torches, singing the marriage songs of Dorthar, perhaps of Vathcri, too, for there were foreign words mixed with the bawdy ones.
When they had gone, and the women gone, Raldanash was alone with her for the first time, in the closed and perfumed tent.
She had seen his beauty in the first chaotic moments on the Imperial Square. Instinctively, she had not responded to the beauty, as to anything positive. There could be no allure in it, it offered nothing. She knew he had not come here to make love to her, and she was right.
“I see you comprehend, Ulis,” he said at last.
She might have reigned her tongue, but she was angry, not specifically with him, with everything, a restrained courteous anger.
“No, my lord, I don’t. But I know what is required of me.”
“Nothing.”
“Yes, nothing.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, “if that dismays you. It was never my choice, to bring you to a sterile pairing. We are both victims of policy.” He seated himself then, and said with no show of concern, “Because of policy, I must spend some time with you tonight, and for most of the nights of this journey. It would be thought odd if I did not, and might disgrace you. I realize such a sham may be offensive, but I think you appreciate the need. When we return to Anackyra, you’ll be able to make such arrangements as you prefer. Providing you are discreet, I shan’t tax you.”
“You’re telling me I may take lovers, my lord?”
“If you wish. That’s only fair, Ulis, since I will never be your lover.”
She marveled, even while she anticipated nothing else, at his coolness.
“You’re contravening every conjugal law and tradition of Dorthar,” she eventually said.
“Perhaps.”
“Is it,” she said, “that you cleave only to your fair women, the Queens of Shansar and—”
“I cleave to no women.” He almost smiled. He added, “And no men.”
Without warning she shuddered. She felt herself to have moved beyond her depth, and yet something prompted her to go further.
“You’ll think me impertinent, my lord,” she said, “if I ask you why.”
“You’ve every right to ask. Since all I shall offer you for these hours alone will be conversation, I can at least be honest with you.” He paused. He said, “There is a custom of the lands over the ocean, limited usually to priests, a giving of oneself to the goddess. It entails chastity, and chastity of the emotions. One does not make love, one does not love—anything—save the goddess and the earth which is Her expression. This offering was also demanded of me. I don’t mean that I was asked or instructed to do it. I mean that I knew in myself I belonged to this persuasion. In Vathcri, such men are called Sons of Ashkar. They are considered holy, and can sometimes work sorcery.
“Conversely, the moment I could reason, I grasped I was to leave my homeland and become High King here in the north. I was taught the responsibilities of kingship. To continue the dynasty my father founded was a necessary part of these. But it makes no difference. The voice within is always stronger than any cry without. One has only to listen. Raldnor’s line ends in me.”
“You could,” she said, “never bring yourself—”
“I’ve felt desire,” he said. “At Zastis, I was often tormented by desire. That’s past. I have mastered it, now.”
She could not contain her astonishment.
“This is some riddle, my lord.”
“No. The Vis have no organized cult of celibacy as a source of Power. The Lowland people, the Amanackire, have always had it. To some extent, my people also. To repress the sexual energies of the flesh is not some horrid fruitless penance, such as a Vis priest might set a wrong-doer. Libido is a power that may be transmuted, stored, used as another power. The Amanackire have long been famed for secret carnal temple love. Time out of mind they knew how to structure the act of sex and wield the pleasure-spasm as a lightning bolt of magic energy. Contained and channeled, such energy is equally valuable. Is it so curious that the mechanisms employed in generating life itself are also capable of generating an alternate force of creation?”
The nakedness of his speech, coupled to his impassivity, disturbed her. She said nothing else on the subject and he, surprising her again with his social abilities, guided them into a discussion of Xarabiss. During the two hours he spent with her, he also mentioned the true purpose of their journey to Kuma. She had known there must be something.
When he left she was numbed, but as the numbness wore away Ulis Anet was repelled to find herself aroused and tingling, as if at Zastis. The very sexual power he had described seemed conjured in the tent, a hungering cheated elemental.
Kuma too had been sacked in the War. Smudges of old conflagrations were bandaged by flowers and streamers. The town was almost as much amazed to see royalty bursting in upon it as Anackyra had been amazed to see her Storm Lord riding out. On the second day, a hunt was arranged in the eastern hills. The guardian protested, distraught. Last year there had been something of a drought in the region. Game was scarce. But the Storm Lord proved adamant in his fancy that game abounded and in his wish to pursue it. A third of the wagons went off with the hunting party, the royal pavilions, even the Queen, with a scatter of her Xarabian guard, and various ladies. If Kuma guessed itself a base for other more important adventures, the guardian remained unenlightened.