She shrugged slightly and turned her attention back to the parade, but not before giving him a smile that caused a comfortable warmth to grow in his groin. When they had permitted Zunhilix and his attendants back into their apartments, the chamberlain's emaciated features had crawled with horror and his hands fluttered like agitated white birds when he saw the dishevelled condition his charges were in. He had only a half hour before the investiture ceremony to patch up the damage. Nonetheless, he had rapped out brisk orders to his underlings, and by the time the brightly-plumed officers of the Life Guards had arrived to escort them to the Plaza, they both looked as good as new. Zunhilix might have been effeminate and prone to twitter, Fost reflected, but he got things done. All things considered, he might do a better job commanding the Imperial armies than the officers now in charge.
Fost glanced to his left, where Teom and Temalla sat side by side, a particolored parasol shading the stinging sun from their pasty white skins. The Emperor and his sister-wife smiled and waved at the marching troops from the midst of a flock of courtiers and dignitaries, all as brightly hued as so many tropical birds, and chattering as loudly. Temalla noticed Fost and favored him with a lewd wink, at the same time dipping one pale shoulder slightly so that her milky gown exposed an ample, burgundy-tipped breast to his view. He swallowed and looked across the square, over the heads of the marching troops.
A detachment of the Watch tramped by beneath. These were special riot troops, as well-trained as the regulars and vastly more experienced, given the Medurimins' penchant for rioting. They sported burnished blue plate armor, short swords at their hips, small spiked target shields on left forearms and over each right shoulder lay a halberd with an eight-foot ironshod haft.
'Weren't these the men who killed your parents, dear Fost?' came Ziore's tentative, curious, soft words.
He glanced at the satchel resting on the bench by Moriana's hip. All had agreed, Erimenes with the worst possible humor, that it would be best for the genies to remain out of sight today. The city was feverish with talk of magic; to have a ghost hovering in the bleachers would do nothing to calm the dangerous passions of the anti-Moriana faction and might even incite to violence those favorably disposed toward her. Fost shrugged.
'I don't really know,' he said in a voice equally soft, but laden with emotion. 'I was only eight when it happened. I never got a clear account of how they died. It was during festivities like this, only grander. Teom was being crowned. The mob caught the rumor that their dole would be reduced to pay for the celebration and rioted. But who killed my parents? The guard, the mob, what difference?'
Lacking telepathic skills, Fost was unable to read any unstated response on Ziore's part, and she made no attempt to broadcast it. He guessed the cloistered genie was shocked at his apparent callousness. But the death of his parents had been history for twenty years, and he had cried all the tears he had for them long since.
'One thing the death of my father and mother taught me,' he replied to the still silent nun, 'later, when I had the chance and maturity to think it over. The fact that a group is oppressed doesn't mean it's any better at core than its oppressors. If the rioters killed my parents, they did so no less heedlessly than the guardsmen would have done.' He flicked sweat from his forehead where it threatened to bead and roll into his eyes. 'This transition from guttersnipe to noble of the Empire makes little impression on me.'
He looked around at the panoply of fabulous costumes, a profusion of gilt so extreme it transcended bad taste and achieved silliness. He thought of melting down any five hangers-on and getting enough gold to keep the entire Imperial Navy afloat for a whole year. He smiled mirthlessly. He knew how things were done in High Medurim. The state of their army showed that all too clearly. All things considered, the gold was probably better off where it was. At least, it wasn't going to finance further bloodthirsty follies on the Northern Continent.
Off to the south, slate-blue clouds hung over the foothills of Harmis. Flashes of yellow heat lightning played among them with a dull rumble. Fost thought he caught the scent of ozone mixed with the aromas of the day. Nearby vendors fried sausage and sold it wrapped in paper with hot mustard and sweet seaweed. The men and women around him were drenched in the rarest perfumes, some sweet, some tart, only a few exotic and elusive, wordless. Intermixed with these heady odors came the rank smell of war dog droppings, the heavy smell of farmed land south of the city, the pressing intrusive odor of unwashed bodies. They kept Fost's memory turning ever backward to his childhood, for smell is the most reminiscent sense of all.
A heavy gonging rattle like giant coins shaken in a sack drew him back. Sensing a shift in the crowd noise, a note of subdued hostility like the warning hum of a beehive when an intruder nears, he looked down at the street. A strange, outlandish sight greeted his eyes. A full troop of Highgrass Broad dog riders rode by at a trot, colored streamers flying from the spires of their helms, their scale armor ringing to the tempo of their war dogs' gait.
'I've heard of these,' Fost murmured to Moriana, seeing her puzzled frown at the presence of the Highgrass mercenaries. 'They just got back from serving out a contract in the Sword Kingdoms, battling the southern Northern Barbarians.' The Sword Kingdoms lay above the equator, in the northern half of the Northern Continent. 'Teom heard about them when their ship landed here in Medurim and hired them for the city's defense. Wise move, too.' Moriana looked skeptical.
'They do have an impressive collection of trophies,' Erimenes said. Fost's companion had been unable to stay in his jug like Ziore, but in the babble of the crowd no one was likely to notice either words or a partially exposed blue head peering from the satchel.
The genie was correct. Every other dog rider held lance couched in a stirrup with one hand and a captured banner or insignia proudly aloft in the other. There were bicolored, slender pennons of rival Highgrass units, flags worked with the devices of a score of small cities and minor nobles, and the beaten-brass plaques the Northern Barbarians used in place of banners.
'There,' gasped Moriana, pointing. 'See that white, spiralled staff hung with human skulls? It's the tusk of a thunderflash. That was the sacred war totem of the Golden Barbarian horde we fought in the savannas west of Thailot six years ago.' She shifted her hand, now pointing to other units. 'Red and black streamers – that would be Captain Mayft's troop.'
'The Gryphons,' Fost added. 'It's easy to see why they call themselves that.' It was indeed. Like their riders, the big, thick-legged Grassland war dogs were all encased in scale armor. Each beast's head was covered with a steel mask worked in the shape of a beaked, sharp-eared face which gave the animals the appearance of wingless gryphons. Most of the riders had mask visors as well, but rode with them raised to reveal the typical broad, sun- and wind-tanned Grasslander features.
'They're a free company, aren't they?' asked Moriana, with a trace of distaste. At Fost's affirmative, she shook her head. 'I don't see how one can hope for discipline from such as those.'
There were dozens of bands of Grasslander mercenaries, from small squads up to regimental size. They were formed to a dizzying array of models. Some were based on clan affiliations, others on village of birth, still others on religious creed. Some were wholly communal, sharing rations and booty and bodies, as well, in great orgies. Others were stern and abstemious. Captain Mayft's Gryphons were one of the least interesting varieties, a purely volunteer company raised at its commander's own expense.
'Obviously one can,' Fost replied dryly, 'since here they are, still together six years after you first encountered them. And they've done pretty well for themselves. I doubt they paid klenors for those trophies.'