Meanwhile, the gambit got Raldnor out of Karmiss, where he had been building far too high on his good luck. Appointing a temporary Warden in Raldnor’s stead was sensible tradition, no more. Such an authority must at all times be resident in Istris. To investigate Raldnor’s affairs in his absence was also a tradition Raldnor himself might have anticipated. Kesarh had found everything scrupulous, and this was strange. One knew what men like Raldnor were liable to do with power. To uncover no tiniest indiscretion gave one to suspect the whole garden had been tidily raked over, to hide some larger blemish.
The reprimand was decided, and lay to hand. With certain tools, one was aware, from the moment of taking them up, that they must eventually be discarded.
Raldnor, like many others, was induced by the snow to hibernate. And the sea was between them. He would reckon on nothing.
Kesarh spent an hour with his council, during which he established Raldnor’s removal from office in Lan. There was no adverse debate. Nor had any of them met a Lannic-looking adventurer on the back stairs leading from the royal apartments. Kesarh had never forgotten the use of such stairways.
Altogether, he forgot little. He had preserved the face of the Outlander far better, for example, than Suthamun had preserved the face of Vis participation. But the Shansarians, Vardians, Vathcrians who occupied key positions in Kesarh’s army, council and court, had been carefully purchased. Bought to a man, they were always ready to recall the King, too, was half their blood.
Even the goddess, despite what Free Zakoris was encouraged to suppose, had not been cast down. In the days of his regency Kesarh had restored Her and that house which She Herself had struck in her wrath against the line of Suthamun. The second statue resembled almost exactly that which the Shansarians had set up. She was just a touch smaller, more eloquently female. Being a woman god, it was not, surely, so curious she had become more of a deity for women. Her naked breasts, hinting at carnal pleasures, had finally reconciled Her with Yasmais, whose temple She had so long inhabited; this was not strange. By the third year of Kesarh’s reign, the lower city had got to calling her Ashyasmai. Emboldened, other gods had reclaimed their dwellings in Istris. Kesarh, who believed in none of them, gave them all gifts. To Ashara-Ashkar-Anackire-Ashyasmai, he gave black pearls. Woven so thickly in her gold hair, it seemed from below she had become a brunette.
Though Lan was sluggish, by midday dispatches had come from those who scanned the west. They had less to say of Yl, the Leopard’s guts, than of its Alisaarian brain. It had only been viable to treat with Free Zakoris since the advent of Kathus.
From Dorthar there was nothing of note. The ships which had sailed from Thos for the Sister Continent, might get home before the snow’s end, for the southern seas were milder. Then, there could be news. Kesarh had sent his own envoy that way, having maintained spurious brotherhood with Shansar for years.
Under the dispatches lay a closed letter without a seal.
She had written to him before, half a month ago. Her writing had not been like his sister’s, but upright and bold, growing wilder at the finish. She had asked him again to return her to Raldanash. As if Raldanash would accept her, now.
Kesarh took up the letter. He was older, and had learned. At no point had he sent word to her.
At no point had he taxed himself with why he must have her. She belonged to him and so she was here. The rest was only interim.
He slit the wax and read.
He seemed for an instant, then, almost to be searching within himself, as if trying to locate some distant memory, something he had felt, or thought to feel. But either it eluded him, or it had never existed. This much, since he was alone, might be told from his face.
It needed two-thirds of a winter’s day to reach the village, an hour more to gain the house. It was a villa, high-walled and well-appointed, with a garden courtyard. It had been one of Prince Jornil’s many country nests.
They had cleared the road, but the snow was falling again, and the wind had risen. When he left the zeebas and his men and went into the upper house, he did after all think of Ankabek, the lamp trembling in the wind above the door, the black passageways beyond. And suddenly of the dying flower he had given her, on her pillow, scented with her fragrance not its own.
He waited in the salon while the servant ran to fetch her.
In less than three minutes, she came down.
He recollected the previous occasion, the ruined dress and unpainted face. Now, all had been arranged, even to the colored lacquers on her nails and the diamond stars in her hair.
They were nearly identical—but not the same. The more like Val Nardia, the less she was Val Nardia. The flower from Ankabek crumbled.
The wine came in before she had greeted him. She did not greet him at all, but said, “Is the room warm enough for you, my lord?”
He replied, “We’ll be in your bed.”
She looked at him for the first time, in terror, and said, “Wait. Please, wait.”
“I’ve waited. You informed me the wait was over.” He picked up the wine flagon, and walked across the floor. She was between him and the stair. He took her elbow almost in passing, bearing her with him. She did not resist, but she caught his arm with her other hand.
“Give me time.”
He stopped, one foot on the bottom stair, which was of elaborately veined marble. He had never seen the house before. He turned from it to her, that he had seen almost all his life, one way or another.
“What did your message say to me?”
“That—I was alone here.”
“A single sentence, like a pining trull.”
“Yes,” she said. “I am ashamed of it.”
“But it was set down with ink.”
“I’m afraid,” she said. She looked away, beyond him. “Let me explain myself,” she said. “Let me talk to you.”
“No.”
He went up the stair, and she went with him. No servants showed themselves. She walked before him into the elegant room, hearing the firm shutting of the door behind them.
He had chosen the house for her, no doubt randomly, yet it was so apposite—secluded, charming—that she had been soothed. She persevered, in the beginning, constructing letters to him asking to be let go, refusing the glory of being jointress to his empire, which she was certain, she said, he had mentioned merely to pacify and entertain her, not to be believed. Only one of these letters had she sent. And then regretted it. Raldanash would never claim her again. Nor could she escape to Xarabiss. Her father, whom she hardly knew, would not receive her.
During this time, however, she regained her self-esteem. She might hold her abductor off until he grew bored, and forgot her.
But she sensed this would not happen, that therefore she was safe to consider it.
She saw that she must not, herself, give in. And so, sequentially, she did give in.
There came an evening when the snow seemed to have lasted a year. She had drunk an extra goblet of the white spirit they fermented on the estate, and she had written a different letter—I am here alone—and they had carried it to him. Why should she fear him? She desired him, fiercely. It might as well be Zastis. What did she fear? That his dead would come back and haunt her? But she was not wary of ghosts.
When it was too late, the letter in Istris, she was appalled, as she had foreseen—mocking herself, then. She thought he might not leave the capital. But each day she prepared herself for his advent. When he did not come she watched herself languish. He was here, and she shook with horror.
There was one defense left to her, had always been, and she assumed it. Unfastening the clothes that had been put on her not two hours before, she let them drop to the floor, and breaking the ribbons of her sandals, stepped out of them. Clad solely in jewels, she went to the bed and lay down on it. She looked at the ceiling all her sleepless nights had made familiar. She said, “Then I’m to be quiet and have only one function; I’m your doxy, my lord, as you said. Your harlot. The price you paid is on my wrists and knotted in my hair. Commerce. Do what you want.”