The Oldorandan court was known for its stifling formality. Sayren Stund had done his best to soften court etiquette on this occasion, but there remained a line of advisors and church dignitaries, many of them in flowing canonicals, drawn up severely as they waited to shake JandolAnganol’s hand and kiss his cheek.
The Eagle stood with his party of captains and his hunchbacked armourer, surveying them challengingly, the dust of his journey still about him.
“Your parade would do credit to a museum, Cousin Sayren,” he said.
Sayren Stund was dressed, as were his officers, in a severe black charfrul to express mourning. He levered himself out of his throne and came to JandolAnganol with arms extended. JandolAnganol made a bow, holding himself stiffly. Yuli stood a pace behind him, sticking his milt up alternate nostrils, otherwise motionless.
“Greetings in the name of the All-Powerful. The Court of Oldorando welcomes you in your peaceful and fraternal visit to our capital. May Akhanaba make the meeting fruitful.”
“Greetings in the name of the All-Powerful. I thank you for your fraternal reception. I come to offer my condolences and my grief at the death of your daughter, Simoda Tal, my bride-elect.”
As JandolAnganol spoke, his glance, under the line of his eyebrows, was ever active. He did not trust Sayren Stund. Stund paraded him along the ranks of dignitaries, and JandolAnganol allowed his hand to be shaken and his grimy cheek to be kissed.
He saw from Sayren Stund’s demeanour that the King of Oldorando bore him ill will. The knowledge was a torment. Everywhere was hatred in men’s hearts. The murder of Simoda Tal had left its stain, with which he now had to reckon.
After the parade, the queen approached, limping, her hand resting on Milua Tal’s arm. Bathkaarnet-she’s looks had faded, yet there was something in her expression, in the way she held her head—submissively yet perkily—which affected JandolAnganol. He recalled a remark of Sayren Stund’s which had once been reported to him—why had that lodged in his memory?—“Once you have lived with a Madi woman, you want no other.”
Both Bathkaarnet-she and her daughter had the captivating bird faces of their kind. Though Milua Tal’s blood had been diluted with a human stream, she presented an exotically dark, brilliant impression, with enormous eyes glowing on either side of her aquiline nose. When she was presented, she gazed direct at JandolAnganol, and gave him the Look of Acceptance. He thought briefly of SartoriIrvrash’s mating experiments; here if ever was a fertile cross-breeding.
He was pleased to gaze on this one bright face among so many dull ones, and said to her, “You much resemble the portrait I was sent of your sister. Indeed, you are even more beautiful.”
“Simoda and I were much alike, and much different, like all sisters,” Milua Tal replied. The music of her voice suggested to him many things, fires in the night, baby Tatro cooing in a cool room, pigeons in a wooden tower.
“Our poor Milua is overcome by the assassination of her sister, as we all are,” said the king, with a noise which incorporated the best features of a sigh and a belch. “We have agents out far and wide, pursuing the killer, the villain who posed as a Madi to gain entrance to the palace.”
“It was a cruel blow against us both.”
Another compendious sigh. “Well, Holy Council will be held next week, with a special memorial service for our departed daughter, which the Holy C’Sarr himself will bless with his presence. That will cheer us. You must stay with us for that event, Cousin, and be welcome. The C’Sarr will be delighted to greet such a valued member of his Community—and it would be to your advantage to pass time with him, as you will realize. Have you met His Holiness?”
“I know his envoy, Alam Esomberr. He will arrive shortly.”
“Ah. Yes. Hmm. Esomberr. A witty fellow.”
“And adventurous,” said JandolAnganol.
The band struck up. They proceeded across the square to the palace, and JandolAnganol found Milua Tal by his side. She looked up brightly at him, smiling. He asked her conspiratorially, “Are you prepared to tell me your age, ma’am, if I keep it a secret?”
“Oh, that’s one of the questions I hear most often,” she said, dismissively. “Together with ‘Do you like being a princess?’ Persons think me in advance of my age, and they must be right. The increased heat of the present period brings younger persons on, develops them in every way. I have dreamed the dreams of an adult for over a year. Did you ever dream you were in the powerful irresistible embrace of a fire god?”
He bent to her ear and said in a ferocious whisper, playfully, “Before I reveal to you if I am that very fire god, I shall have to answer my own question. I’d put you at no more than nine years old.”
“Nine years and five tenners,” she replied, “but it is emotions, not years, which count.”
The facade of the palace was long, and three storeys high, with massive polished columns of rajabaral rising through the marked horizontals of the upper storeys. The roof swept flamboyantly upwards, tiled with blue tiles made by Kaci potters. The palace had been first built over three hundred and fifty small years ago, after Oldorando was partially destroyed by phagor invasion; although its timbers had been renewed since, the original design was adhered to. Elaborately carved wooden screens, protected the unglazed windows. The doors were of the same type of carving, but veneered in silver, and backed by wooden panels. A tubular gong was struck within, the doors opened, and Sayren Stund led his guests inside.
There followed two days of banqueting and empty speeches. The hot water springs for which Oldorando was famous also played their part. A service of thanksgiving was held in the Dom, attended by many high-ranking dignitaries of the Church. The singing was magnificent, the costumes impressive, the darkness in the great underground vault all that Akhanaba could desire.
JandolAnganol prayed, sang, spoke, submitted to ceremony, and confided in no one.
All were uncertain of this strange man, all kept their eyes on him. And his eyes were on all. It was clear why some called him the Eagle.
He took care to see that the First Phagorian Guard was suitably housed. For a city that hated phagors, they were well provided for. Across the Loylbryden Square from the Dom was Whistler Park, an area of green entirely surrounded by the Valvoral or its tributaries. Here were preserved brassim trees. Here also was the Hour Whistler of continent-wide fame. This geyser blew with a shrill note at every hour, with the greatest accuracy. Days, weeks, tenners, years, centuries, went by; still the Hour Whistler blew. Some said the hour’s length, and the forty minutes which divided the hour, had been decided by this noise issuing from the earth.
An ancient seven-storey tower and some new pavilions stood on the margins of the park. The phagors were billeted in the pavilions. The four bridges into the park were guarded, by phagors on the inner and humans on the outer side, so that no one could get into the park to molest the ancipitals.
Crowds soon gathered to watch the ancipital soldiery across the water. These well-drilled, placid-seeming creatures were far different from the phagors of popular imagination, where they rode godlike on great rust-red steeds, travelling at godlike speeds to bring destruction among men. Those riders of the icy storm had little in common with the beasts marching dourly about the park.
As JandolAnganol left his cohorts to return to Sayren Stund, he noticed how restless they were. He spoke to Phagor-Major Chzarn, but could get from her only that the guard needed a while to settle into new quarters.
He assumed that the noise of the Hour Whistler caused them some irritation. Giving them words of reassurance, he left, the runt capering along at his side. A sulphurous volcano smell filled the air.