All three jerked to attention and parroted "My lord is kind!" in unison.
"Don't you know him?"
One by one they recognized the likeness and muttered oaths. The man Benard had recalled was not the creature who had been whirling around his satrapy in a chariot last sixday, celebrating his youngest son's initiation. Perhaps these three apprentice monsters had not fully appreciated what battle hardening could do—and would eventually do to them if they fought enough. This was the first summer Benard could remember when Horold had not been away campaigning. Werists could survive incredible wounds, but every healing left them less and less human. This was their corban.
"He really look like that?"
"That he did," Guthlag snarled. "What'ch goin' do with that, boy?"
"Show it to him," Benard said. "It's an excuse to ask a favor, is all."
"You're out of your mind!"
"Why?"
The flankleader shook his head in disbelief. "You think he wants to be reminded?"
Benard thought about it. "Why not?"
The old Werist growled low in his throat, like a true watchdog. "Better you than me, lad. And in court?"
"Court? Today?" If the satrap would be holding assize and giving audience, Benard must catch him first, or there would be no chance of a private chat before Cutrath found him.
In the distance, horns blew.
"Oh, gods!" Benard grabbed up his sketch and raced out the door.
♦
The great court of the palace was pentagonal, with a covered balcony all around and a center open to the heavens. The walls were formed of panels of brightly glazed tiles depicting people and gods in red, black, white, and green, separated by massive steles inscribed with the laws of holy Demern. Benard had once been friendly with a member of the scribes' guild who had tried to explain to him all the complications of writing: signs that stood for names, signs that meant grammatical elements, signs that meant sounds, and signs indicating how to interpret other signs. It had given him terrible headaches. Add to that, the oldest tongue was so obscure that the meaning of the written law could be deciphered only by Speakers of Demern, who knew it all by divine inspiration anyway.
Until the coming of Stralg, Kosord had been ruled by the consort of the hereditary dynast, who was always a pyromancer—a Daughter of Veslih. The state consort had always been chosen from among the Speakers of Demern, but Horold had banished the cult from his satrapy because a Speaker would automatically denounce him as a usurper. Consequently, although only Speakers were supposed to make legal rulings, Horold acted as his own judge, holding an assize every first-day he was in the city. After distributing justice, he would receive petitions—merchants seeking contracts, landowners wanting to register titles, citizens with disputes to be arbitrated, officeholders aspiring to promotion, and a swarm of miscellanies—until his patience ran out. Humble folk might return every sixday for half a year before he found time to hear their pleas.
Benard reached the door as the second horn call was sounded, meaning the satrap was on his way. With the courtyard so crowded, his chances of receiving a hearing today were remote, and his quarrel with Cutrath could not be presented in public anyway. However, this was the last place Cutrath would think of looking for him, and not even he would dare to commit murder here.
Benard stepped boldly up to the scribes at their high desk to give his name and rank and show his seal. He knew most of the people around the palace, but the chief scribe was new since his day. He was portly, sumptuously robed, piggy head shaved hairless. He waited expectantly, mawkish professional smile slowly fading toward contempt.
"Er..." Benard said. No one would ever be allowed to see the satrap without offering a bribe or two, and he had nothing to offer. "Um. A sketch of your beautiful children? Or your lovely wife?"
A couple of the lesser flunkies were seized by coughing fits. The fat man scowled and colored. "I hardly think so," he said in a shrill soprano. "Wait upstairs."
Benard scurried off, shuddering at his own clumsiness. How could he have been so inept as not to see that? Obviously the gods would die of old age before his name was called now. Tonight he would ask Ingeld to arrange a private audience. Up in the balcony, he located an unoccupied pillar, leaned plank and self against it, and prepared to endure the rest of the day. His hangover deserved to be set in glazed bricks, immortalized in the chronicles of Vigaelia.
As the final blare of horns died in echoes, priests in garishly tinted robes trooped in, chanting psalms. Benard could participate in public rituals like this, which were very different from the carnal sacrifice Hiddi had expected in the temple of Eriander. Even now the slightest thought of Hiddi was enough to send quivers through his groin. He wondered hopefully if he might have been too strict in his interpretation of the rules and made a note to ask Odok, who was head of his lodge and the light of Anziel on Kosord.
Dusky male Florengians, prisoners of war with the cropped ears of slaves, were carrying in baskets of tablets, placing them behind the throne. The pyromancer who brought in the sacred flame was another Florengian, a hostage named Sansya, a few years younger than Benard. He recalled her as a terrified child, arriving at court very shortly before he went off to Odok; now she was a striking young woman, drawing every man's eyes. In Benard's opinion, the flame-colored robes suited her nut-brown skin better than it did the Vigaelians' pink. The jet hair he remembered had turned a rich auburn, but that was a result of her initiation into the Daughters of Veslih. If Ingeld had chosen to stay away and delegate today's augury to a deputy, then no important business was scheduled.
The priests fell silent. Sansya had stopped at the hearth, where logs of fragrant honeywood were stacked ready. She spoke the invocation to Veslih, then knelt to tip the coals from her firepan onto the pyre. Flame and oily smoke spouted up so suddenly that she recoiled and almost overbalanced. A universal wail of surprise dwindled into a worried buzz.
The outburst was fortunately timed, for it muffled Benard's yelp of pain as the point of a dirk jabbed into his left buttock. He spun around to face Cutrath. He should have realized that the first thing the satrap's cub would do would be to ask Guthlag if the hostage had reported in yet today. A major war could not have produced as much blood as there was in young Horoldson's eye, but then, his hangover was working around a badly swollen jaw and no doubt a pounding lump on the back of his skull. Although no one else seemed to notice the confrontation, the space around them expanded as spectators wandered away to greet more distant friends.
"I am going to kill you before the day is out, turd."
"My lord is kind." That wonderful phrase could mean anything, or nothing. "The noble lord understands that his slave was wretchedly drunk."
Useless. Apology was a display of weakness and no apology could excuse an offense as enormous as Benard's.
"I will break every joint in your body, ending with your neck."
He probably could. Benard was beefier, but he lacked the training and the bloodlust. Even if he won at rough-housing, the kid would just battleform or call for help. "My lord is kind."
"No." Cutrath shook his head and winced at the result. "As unkind as possible. Enjoy your last morning, vermin. I'll be waiting outside to begin." He kicked Benard's ankle and stalked away.
Benard sagged back against the pillar again. He had survived the first encounter. The worst danger had always been that Cutrath would come after him in battleform; one warbeast could massacre a whole platoon of extrinsic swordsmen, let alone a solitary sculptor.
The satrap was standing in front of his throne, almost directly below Benard. From that angle Horold did not appear too grotesque, only very large and hairy. An ominous hush had fallen over the court, for Sansya was still kneeling at the fire. It seemed to Benard's untutored eye to be blazing normally now. Someone had primed it with too much oil—that was all, surely?