The colossal apparition had not completely solidified. She was translucent. Despite that, She was not as they had heard or ever been shown Her. Her skin was dark, a Lannic skin of brass. Her hair was black, and the great tail black-scaled, with a coiling gold design across it, stammering and alive. But her eyes were amber, and fixed upon them, from out of the sky.
Her eyes did not blast them. Her eyes turned them.
It was not unpleasant now, merely easy. They moved about, and those that needed to remounted their animals, which had become docile. They rode away.
They had gone three miles back along their route at a serene unhurried pace, before the leader, trotting now to the rear of his soldiery, came to himself with a violent start.
Only then did he hear the dying rumble of the avalanche, which had blocked the pass, between the rebels and themselves.
16
When the figure hurried out at him from the colonnade, Rarmon reacted faster than his own guard. But the man dropped to one knee, bowing, an obeisance of Visian Karmiss.
Rarmon’s guard was standing in close, hand to sword, by then. He nudged the man.
“Get up.”
“When,” said the man, “the Lord Rarmon tells me.”
The guard looked inquiringly at Rarmon.
Rarmon said, “Get up, then. And say what you want.”
The man rose. He was Vis and very dark. More than that. Though he had none of the accent, he had a look of Zakoris.
“What do I want, my lord? A word in private.”
Rarmon had been coming from exercise, across the courts of Anackyra’s Storm Palace. This spot was a thoroughfare, a hub of much of the palace’s traffic. The fountain and the scented vines also ensured aristocratic loiterers. For a sudden meeting it was in itself far from private. Without looking about, Rarmon knew their tableau was already well-observed.
He said to the guard, “Step back.” To the man he said, “What nation are you?”
“Yes, lord Prince. I have Zakorian blood. But I’m half Dortharian to sugar it. I feel the war councils of the Storm Lord. A paid informer against Yl.”
“A traitor, in other words.”
“No, lord Prince. I was born in Vardian Zakoris. My King’s Sorm of Vardath, Dorthar’s ally. And I serve Dorthar.”
“Who sent you to me?”
“One you, lord Prince, betrayed.”
Rarmon looked at him. The man’s eyes flinched away, but returned. “Who would that be?”
“A mighty lord, who’d not forget your worth, though you forget his bounty.”
“I see. You are then a Vardish Zakorian, aiding Forthar, and acting for Kesarh Am Karmiss. Does all that never make you dizzy?”
“My lord. I carry the messages of those who pay me.”
“What’s the message?”
“None, as yet. I’m to sound you. Would you gladly receive a messenger from the Lord Kesarh?”
“He knows not. I told him so. Then why are you here? To display the bastard brother in conversation with a Zakorian spy?”
The man took one perfectly coordinated backward step.
“Wait a moment,” said Rarmon. The man waited. “Since this will be going into the annals of court gossip, I must try to cleanse my reputation. Go to Kesarh for recompense if I loosen your teeth.” Moving forward with the swiftness of a cat, Rarmon struck the man and sent him staggering. Pitching his voice to travel, Rarmon called: “That’s all I have for Zakoris.”
Not looking back, Rarmon continued into the colonnade and so to his apartments.
Vencrek, the suspicious and unliking Warden, might have primed the man. A test on all fronts—current loyalty to Dorthar, past loyalties to Karmiss. One trusted it was a test, not simply the machinery of discredit.
Discussion of war had been continuous all month. Kesarh, in possession of Lan and Elyr, and received delicate offers without response, offering in turn only cordial and empty communications. He seemed abruptly disinclined to be wooed, after all. Dorthar already attempted to reconstruct her campaigns, in the likelihood the east must now simultaneously be dealt with too. Both the oratory and the military deployments had acquired a muddled and bombastic ring. Raldanash’s composure began to look like indifference, the old passivity of the Lowlands.
For the Lowlanders themselves, you saw them sometimes, passing through the palace or the streets, just such pale all-indifference to everything. Men stepped aside, bowing, keeping a distance. Children were prevented from playing outside Amanackire houses in the suburbs. They were not only respected, but plainly feared. More, or less, than the Black Leopard of Free Zakoris, Rarmon could not be sure.
It rained. The leaves rotted. Anackyra was full of gloomy forecast and idiotic bravura.
Last year at the end of the hot months, Rarmon had been Rem, riding hills that were then Lan’s own, looking for Kesarh’s child. . . .
Dorthar had given Rem very little, that was his. The luxury and the title and the apparent power were ultimately weightless and meant nothing. In the war, he would have an honorable and exalted command and maybe die. Nothing, again. Dorthar had given him nothing.
Once or twice he wondered if Yannul’s son had got home. But Yannul, and Lur Raldnor also, inhabited the land of the past.
The man who waylaid Yeize, chief lady to Ulis Anet, was not a Zakorian.
He stole upon her as she, with other women of the connubial courts, was hastening down the Imperial Hill from the Anackire Temple. It was early twilight, and dry, though a brisk wind ran from the northern mountains, rattling the forest trees above. But the man murmured to Yeize, whose heart was full of romance, and she was quickly drawn aside. The others, deeming in an assignation, went on.
Some hours later, preparing her mistress for bed, Yeiza snipped a small lock of blood-red hair, under the plea it grew awry. Later yet, when the Queen withdrew to her inner chamber, Yeiza was able to appropriate one of the silver ribbons plaited into the red hair at dinner.
Initially, the girl had been outraged at the idea of stealing anything from her lady. However, the go-between was very charming and persuasive. After all, his master, who had sent him on this mission, could be expected to return a trinket with interest. While, as long as the token was something recognizably the Queen’s, it need be of slight significance.
The ribbon was, Yeiza thought, an apt and artistic choice. Even if the go-between had not forced payment on her, to do this service for her poor neglected mistress and the elegant lord Prince Rarmon could have been a pleasure.
Since Lur Raldnor’s departure, Yeiza had been frankly bored. Her mood was further soured by a growing disconsolation that Iros was now seldom in person about Ulis Anet’s courts. Yeize had decided, with great poignancy, that she was in love with Lord Iros. She was sure she could win him—had he not often shown himself attracted? But not with the Queen as a rival.
On the other hand, here was Ulis Anet, pining for want of attention. Yeiza, who oversaw the appointments of the bedchamber, knew quite well that, though he had been closeted with his new wife, Raldanash had not lain with her. After the hunt at Kuma, Ulis Anet grew strange, withdrawn and listless. She seemed not to know herself or care what went on, observing form, but no more. She was like someone recovering from a debilitating illness. Except that she did not recover.
Since the night Lord Rarmon had saved her mistress from disgrace, Yeiza had astutely guessed he loved Ulis Anet. Had he not already heroically rescued her from her runaway chariot after the earthquake? Had he not banished Iros from her vicinity? As for Ulis Anet herself, it was equally obvious she had conceived a passion for Rarmon. She had trusted him with her life, allowing him to find Iros in her bedchamber. She had come back from Kuma, where she had so often seen him, like a creature without a soul.