About half an hour after he had left, a woman came to me from So-Ess’ wife, and minutes later the princess herself entered. She drew off her mask, and kneeled, a beautiful cold woman, well-suited by her ice-blue dress.
“Rise,” I said. “I know why you have come.”
She flushed slightly.
“Now,” I said, “tell me why the child is necessary.”
“But, goddess, unless I bear, I will be cast off.” She looked at me hollow-eyed. “I have prayed and longed for your coming to Za. You must help me—I am desperate.” Stiff proud woman, she was unused to pleading. I looked at her intently, and seemed to know her suddenly.
“You do not conceive because you do not enjoy your husband,” I said.
“It is true,” she said, and looked away.
“Enjoy him, and I promise you a child.”
She sobbed a little, and I thought of the southern people who dreamed they were the Old Race, yet still judged their women on the ability to bear, and still bred frigidity, because the act of sex to them was still such a tremendous curiosity.
“Come here,” I said. I touched her forehead and looked at her through the open eye-pieces of the cat mask. She flinched once, then relaxed.
“I will give you this ring,” I said. “Wear it whenever your husband comes to you, and you will have both fullfillment and a child.”
I touched her forehead again and put the ring on her finger. She thanked me profusely and left. It had been easy, after all, though I was not certain her belief in me was strong enough, for all her prayers.
I took what sleep I could between the strokes of the clock.
At Za I dreamed of Karrakaz many times, and they were strange dreams, not particularly frightening, but somehow desolate. My life was very empty. Yet I could not seem to break free from it. Where, after all, could I go? Nothing was left that might have belonged to me.
The Council met—So-Ess, Kmiss, Ammath, Za, Eshkorek, and Ezlann. Behind each Javhovor, an array of bodyguards and captains, behind my golden chair at the table head, Mazlek, Dnarl, and Slor. Vazkor had sent me a letter, directing me how and when to speak, and telling me the cues he would give me.
Committing the precise words to memory, I thought of Darak’s only written message to me, the misspelling and erratic formation of the letters. Vazkor’s was an elegant and scholarly hand, which gave away nothing except that it would give away nothing.
At the first meeting there was a lot of talk about the war, the campaigns to come, honor, victory, and the final amalgamation of the three alliances. At each new utterance, they would look to Vazkor. He had them already, and they knew it—his decision, the powerful aura of his iron mind, the sense of mental Power that hung about him, had quelled them utterly. By what he said, and by what he had instructed me to say, they began to edge themselves toward the election of one total overlord. It was an amazing sight.
I felt no pity for them, tangling themselves in Vazkor’s web. Except for Eshkorek, perhaps. He was not in awe—he was terrified, and there is a great difference. At the first meeting he held back, his head bowed.
At the second and third meetings he was noisy in his silence. At the fourth coming-together the lord of So-Ess voiced the opinion that Vazkor, honored of the goddess, is should take possession of the five sisters of Ezlann. I recall I thought myself naive that I had not seen before So-Ess was a friend indeed, and Vazkor’s man into the bargain. I do not know what Vazkor had promised him, or how it had been done—possibly by the Power itself. I glanced around the table, and, like a dog sniffing out rats in the walls, abruptly I knew them alclass="underline" So-Ess, Kmiss, and Za were his. Ammath was ready to fall. But Eshkorek ... even as I reached him, he rose and stood there, bowed over, a bewildered, angry, frightened tortoise, sticking out its head at a serpent.
“No,” he said, “I do not think so.”
“What, my lord, do you not think?” Vazkor inquired.
“I do not think,” Eshkorek stammered, “I do not think any of our Cities should lose her independence.”
“There is strength in unity,” Vazkor said softly.
Eshkorek shook his head. He turned around to the others desperately. Surely he must know there was no help there?
“I simply say I do not think—”
“Truly, you don’t think,” broke in Kazarl of So-Ess stridently. “Purple Valley might turn on us all in the spring, and howl around our walls all summer. One petty argument between City and City—only one—and there is isolation and collapse. No. Safer to be under one rule. I’m happy to bow to it.”
“The war has never created such a situation before,” Eshkorek said. There was silence. Abruptly, impossibly, he turned to me. “Goddess,” he said, “I appeal to you.”
I was astonished at his stupidity.
“Eshkorek Javhovor,” I said, “I am of one mind with my Chosen Lord.”
An incredible thing happened. I had seen it before, and I have seen it since, but it is always curious.
Eshkorek s fear turned to fury. He made a great lashing movement with both his hands.
“You!” he screeched at me. “Vazkor’s witch-whore! Fine goddess for an ancient line to grovel before.”
The table erupted into righteous horror; soldiers drew their swords. Eshkorek grunted, turned, and walked from the room,
“Vazkor Javhovor,” Ammath cried, deferring already and apparently instinctively to Vazkor, “let me send men after him. The insult to the goddess must not go unavenged.”
“Goddess?” Vazkor turned to me.
I did not know what to say. I was oddly shaken, for I could see the tortoise had judged me very well, despite his stupidity.
“Let him go,” I muttered.
They bowed low to me, and the meeting ended.
A little later in the day, while Eshkorek’s Javhovor was riding in the square, ordering preparations for departure from Za and the journey eastward to his mountains, a tiny piece of tile, dislodged from one of the turrets—by a bird presumably—fell and struck him. It entered the brain and killed instantly. It was a freak accident, yet none were particularly surprised that unseen forces had struck him down after his insult to me. The death had an enlivening effect on the City lords. They began to press for Vazkor’s sovereignty. Murder can be a useful lesson, and Vazkor’s men, of whom there were many, were everywhere.
After Eshkorek’s death, there was strange weather at Za. A three-day storm came from the east and blanketed the world in blackness. Candles and lamps burned in the palace night and day. In this eerie and unnatural light Vazkor was made overlord. There were various ceremonies, but I do not remember them very well, only the flicker of the false gold light on gold, and the greenish-dark sky, and the thunder. I saw less of him privately than ever before, though I saw him more often in public.
The crowds in Za were afraid of the storm. When it cleared they chanted prayers of thanks to me in the square. I do not know why they did not thank their own goddess, whoever she was, but then she had not woken yet.
There were other meetings after this, though he sent me word I need not be present. I was very tired, and glad enough not to go.
Five nights passed. On the sixth Vazkor came through that mysterious door which joined our apartments.
“Goddess,” he said, “everything has been settled for the winter campaign. We shall be riding southward in two days, by which time the bulk of the armies of Kmiss, So-Ess, and Ammath will have joined us here.”
“And Eshkorek?” I asked him.
“We shall meet them on the way to Purple Valley.”
“Who is lord there now?” I asked.