'Bought with blood and life,' cackled Erimenes from his satchel. 'Obviously. Oh, what battles they must have fought!'
Moriana turned away. The dog riders clattered on past, lance heads winking in the sun, heavy unstrung bows riding in dogskin cases beneath the skirt of each saddle, to take their place in ordered ranks among the other troops assembled at the far end of the broad avenue. The native soldiers drew away from them; the foreign mercenaries were little loved by their ostensible comrades in arms.
Fost smiled grimly. With the exception of a few truly tempered units such as the Imperial Life Guards, the Grasslanders were unquestionably the finest troops on hand. For precisely that reason they were hated. He would not have ridden in Captain Mayft's saddle for anything, and not only because he was a poor dog rider.
Diplomacy had failed, so Fost had finally come out and flatly refused Teom's offer to become Grand Marshal of the Imperial
Armies. Moriana would have made a better commander; she was trained to war and well seasoned in battle strategies both physical and magical. In High Medurim, women fighting masters were accepted out of necessity, since many masters of the first quality hailed from locales in which women were not raised as docilely as they were within the Empire. For that small concession, the City States reckoned Medurim decadent. Certainly, they would accept no woman as general over them.
As for Fost, he had no desire to commit suicide. He had been resented enough when Teom had named him mere marshal, and that was a position without power or influence. The lords of Imperial arms would sooner have a foreign barbarian from the North or a hairy, uncouth wild man from the Isles of the Sun placed over them than a commoner bred in the gutters of their own city.
Finally, the parade was over. The great gates – gilded, of course – of the temple across the Plaza swung open. Out marched the bull-necked, heavily bearded Patriarch, Spiritual Protector of the Empire, clad in vestments of cloth of gold. On his head he wore the tiara, a three foot, gem-encrusted golden cylinder, surrounded by flying buttresses and less functional protrusions of silver. After him in bright array came the lesser prelates. Last of all came the Sexton, more profoundly bearded than the Patriarch, his whiskers as white as sea foam and stuffed into his girdle to keep him from stumbling over them.
He was a full one hundred thirty-eight years old, emaciated, and somewhat befuddled by all the hoopla around him this day. He had an uncanonical pushbroom propped over one skinny shoulder, not knowing what all these people were doing tracking up his pristine Plaza but sure that a broom would be needed before the ceremony was over. An alert acolyte relieved him of the implement after only a brief scuffle, and the ceremony resumed.
Ignoring the byplay, the Patriarch launched into his benediction in a voice remarkably shrill and thin for one so stoutly built. His voice reminded Fost of a mosquito's whining as he went through the liturgy. Fost was thankful for the annoying voice; it was all that kept him from falling asleep. A half-dozen spearmen had collapsed in ranks from heat and ennui before the Patriarch, with a final flourish of his golden staff, announced his blessings on High Medurim and the proceedings.
Temalla's sharp elbow nudged Teom awake. He blinked and shook his head, confused as to his surroundings, causing Fost to reflect that truly rank hath its privileges. The Emperor stood, cleared his throat, then fumbled for his notes stashed away in the front of his immaculate gold-trimmed robe.
'Thank you, Holy One.' He clapped his hands. At once, a stream of nearly naked dancing boys and girls poured into the streets from beneath the bleachers, strewing flowers and marring the mood of chaste piety, though by the way the Patriarch's black eyes glittered beneath beetling black brows it was clear he didn't take the interruption amiss.
Teom paced down the tiers of bleachers with a servant trotting at his heels keeping the parasol between sun and Emperor. Though the Imperial party sat at the midpoint of the bleachers, Teom didn't have to fight his way through a horde of notables. A broad, clear swath ran down the center of the stands, with the nobles seated on either wing. He had made it down only one flight of steps when it became apparent to all that the Emperor had been taking counsel with a bottle, and the Imperial tread, while grand, was none too steady.
In the center of the wide wheel of the Plaza, a small kiosk had been assembled hurriedly after the troops passed in review. An avenue crossed the Plaza left to right, running between high, stately, marble edifices. The troops were drawn up in armed array to either side. The hewn granite walks flanking the street were thronged with thousands of Medurimins, jostling, shouting, haggling with vendors. Young boys and girls dressed in identical white robes circulated throughout the mob, their skirts hiked high to reveal plump, rouged buttocks. As Teom wove through the bleachers, a cry rose from the crowd. The Emperor acknowledged it with a fond nod and a wave of his pale hand. But something in the sound caused Fost to tense.
'My word, this is tedious,' grumbled Erimenes. 'When do we get to the good part?'
Teom mounted the dais where he was being embraced and kissed on both cheeks by the bristly bearded Patriarch. 'This is as good as it gets, I'm afraid,' Ziore answered peevishly.
'Perhaps there'll be a riot,' Erimenes said hopefully. 'Medurim is famous for the fine quality of its riots, I understand. Sometimes they rage for weeks, with considerable looting, burning and raping. Now that would be a sight to see, especially after this.'
Fost shivered despite the heat that sent rivulets of sweat steaming down the back of his armored shell. 'Don't say that,' he muttered.
Preliminaries over, Teom began to announce the names of those who should step forth to be recognized. Though this ceremony had been decreed expressly to honor those who had distinguished themselves in battle, Fost didn't know most of the names called out by the red-faced herald at the Emperor's side. Not even their faces were familiar. He did recognize Foedan, a tall, knobby man with high-domed forehead and deeply sunken brown eyes. And Ch'rri, the mutant cat woman, who at the call of her name shook out her broad wings with a thundercrack and glided down to stand before the dais, her long hair streaming behind. A rumble rose from the crowd. Whether in approval for her voluptuous nudity or out of superstitious dread of her strangeness, Fost couldn't tell.
Fost ran a finger around the inside of his linen collar beneath the cuirass. The armor sweltered fearsomely.
'I know more of those who aren't here,' he said in an aside to Moriana, who nodded, busily mopping her own brow with a cloth from a bowl of scented water brought by a page.
Harek was absent, the small argumentative Assemblyman from Duth; he had fallen under the blades of the Zr'gsz. The immense bulk of Magister Banshau of the Wirix Institute of Magic was conspicuously absent, fortunate in the light of the bleachers' continuing threat to collapse. He still lay recovering from wounds received during the abortive coup. Nor was the Dwarven Jorean Ortil Onsulomulo on hand. The half-breed captain was on board his ship making preparations to sail with a cargo of Medurimin patricians who were less than optimistic about the outcome of the new War of Powers and thought this a propitious time to relocate to Jorea or the Sword Kingdoms.
Also missing was the gaunt old knight, Sir Tharvus, last of the three Brother Knights of the Black March. He had disappeared after the victory in his home country. Dark, dire rumors were whispered about his current doings.
The first to the platform were duly honored. Ch'rri accepted the rank of marquessa by seizing Teom's head with both hands and kissing him deeply, so that he flushed red from lack of air. Lascivious hoots rose from the crowd. This being High Medurim, such doings were not wholly alien even to the elaborate Imperial punctilio, so proceedings were not delayed, though it looked as if Teom wished they could be to pursue Ch'rri's further gratitude.