“Is there anything you require?” Vash asked him.
“No. I am enjoying the wind on my skin, and for now that is enough. But you could answer a question for me.” He gestured toward Prusus in his shelter. “I asked him, but the… scotarch, I believe you call him… is not much of a conversationalist.”
“No, Highness, you are correct.” He is a pitiful freak who should have been put down at birth. Only a woman as rich as his mother could have got away with keeping him. It was foolish to let it bother him, but having Prusus’ watery, wandering eyes on him always made Vash fretful. “I will tell you what you wish to know, if I can.”
“Very well. What is a scotarch? I gather that this fellow is, in some way, the autarch’s heir.”
“Yes, I can see how that might seem strange to you.” Vash’s legs were beginning to ache from standing so long. He moved to the opposite end of the bench from the northerner and sat down. “They say that it goes back to the old days of our people, when we lived in the desert and traveled in nomad clans. We would draw together once in a year around the xawadis, the place where the water never completely disappeared, a very holy spot, and we would choose a chieftain of all the clans—a Great Falcon. But we also chose a Kite, the high-flying vulture of the desert. This was usually an older clansman, responsible and wise and thought to be without ambition. He would go with the Falcon’s clan and he would become Falcon if anything happened to the chief of the clans.
“Over the centuries, as we moved into the cities, the relationship became more subtle and more complex, and sometimes the Falcon and the Kite, now called Autarch and Scotarch, were almost at war with each other, each with his own adherents, clans, and armies. After the first Xixian empire collapsed, the surviving clan leaders came together in the place where the city of Xis now stands and made the Laws of Shakh Xis. The most important of these set out the roles of the autarch and scotarch. Or am I telling you things you already know, Highness?” he finished amiably.
“Oh, no, please continue.”
“Good. So, the Laws of Shakh Xis set forth that the autarch shall always choose a scotarch, and that scotarch will never rule the Xixians unless the autarch dies, and then only until a council of the noble families can come together and approve the next autarch, who is almost always the heir of the autarch who just died.”
“That doesn’t seem too unusual,” said Olin. “We have similar laws in some of the March Kingdoms.”
“Ah, but it is when things are the other way around that the interesting part begins,” explained Vash. He glanced quickly at Prusus, but the scotarch seemed to have fallen asleep; a thin line of drool connected his lower lip and his collar. “If the scotarch dies, the autarch also must step aside until the nobles can gather and decide whether he is fit to continue his rule. During that time, he no longer has the gods’ protection. He may be deposed and executed by the nobles. It has happened more than a few times.”
Olin raised an eyebrow. “If the scotarch dies, the autarch can be deposed? Why on earth would that be?”
Vash shrugged. “It was a way to make sure none of the jealous clans could grab at power. There is no point being a scotarch if you only seek power, because when the autarch dies, you rule only until a new autarch is chosen. And there is no point murdering an autarch, especially if you are an impatient heir, because the scotarch will step in and you may not rise to the throne.”
“And each autarch chooses a new scotarch,” said Olin, looking over to Prusus, who was snoring now but still quivered gently even in his sleep, hands waggling like poppies in a strong breeze. “But if the autarch is always at least temporarily deposed when his scotarch dies, would it not make sense to choose the youngest, healthiest scotarch you could find?”
“Of course, Highness,” said Vash, nodding. “And in the past, autarchs have held great ceremonial games of wrestling and running and martial feats simply to find the healthiest, strongest candidates from among the noble families.”
“But this autarch did not, obviously.”
Vash shook his head. “The Golden One is unlike his predecessors in many ways, may his life be long.” He lowered his voice a little so the guards couldn’t hear him. “At the ceremony where Prusus received the Kite Crown, his great majesty Sulepis said to us, ‘Let any who doubt me watch whom the gods take first—this man Prusus, or my enemies.’ ” Vash sat up again. “So far many of the Golden One’s enemies have left the earth, but Prusus still lives and breathes.” He lifted himself off the bench, not without effort. He felt better now. Telling the story to the foreigner had clarified his earlier thoughts and worries. Surely it was the gods’ duty to decide whether Sulepis was to be stopped, not Pinimmon Vash’s. If heaven wanted the Golden One struck down or even just hindered, the gods had only to snap the slender reed that was the cripple Prusus’ life. For the gods that should be no more difficult than swatting a fly.
“One more question, please,” Olin said.
“Of course, Highness.”
“If somebody—may the gods forbid—simply pushed Scotarch Prusus over the side, would the autarch then lose power?”
Vash nodded. “Others have had that thought. And it is possible.”
“Possible? I thought it was the law of your country.”
“Yes, but it is also well known that Sulepis is a law unto himself. Also, there is another reason no one has dared to try it, I suspect.”
“And that is?”
“Whatever else happened, the murderer of a scotarch would be punished, and the punishment is a very cruel one—throwing a man’s guts into a lion’s cage while he is still alive and attached to them, if I remember correctly. Thus, no one ever murdered a scotarch even before Sulepis came to the throne.”
“Thank you,” said Olin. “You’ve given me much to think about, Minister Vash.”
“I am pleased to have served you, Highness,” he said, and bowed before turning back to his cabin. After an unexpectedly busy morning and the depressing company of a doomed man, Vash suddenly felt the need of a little food and sweet wine.
The man who never smiled stood in the doorway of the cabin. Pigeon, who in almost any other situation would have thrown himself in front of Qinnitan like a loyal dog, retreated behind her making little wordless noises of terror. Qinnitan did her best not to show that she felt much the same. “What do you want?” she demanded.
The unsmiling man glanced at her only briefly before letting his eyes roam around the small cabin, swelteringly hot despite the cool weather because its shutters had been nailed closed, foul with the smell of their unwashed bodies and the chamber pot, which was only emptied once a day.
“I am going into the town,” he said at last. “Do not think to play any tricks while I am gone.”
“What town?” That might at least give her some idea of where they were, how far they had sailed. She knew from the changes in the ship’s motion and noises that they had dropped anchor and had been terrified for the past several hours that they had caught up with the autarch’s ship. Perhaps something else was going on, though. She tried not to let hope get too strong a hold.
He didn’t answer her question, but only took a last look around. “If I am not back by sunset, you will be given your meal by one of the crew. I have told them they may not kill you, girl, but if you play up or try any tricks they should feel free to torture the boy.” He turned his pale, dead eyes on Pigeon. “That is why he is here. To make sure you do what you are told. Do you understand?”