Outside the village in any direction Sterren could see scattered farmhouses, built in the same way as the village’s structures, strewn unevenly across the plain.
The castle itself was a stark contrast to these humble dwellings; it was an immense and forbidding structure built of dark red stone. An outer wall topped with iron-braced battlements stood more than fifteen feet high, with no opening anywhere in it save the gate by which Sterren’s little party entered.
As they passed through this portal, Sterren saw that the wall was roughly twenty feet thick and the gateway equipped with three sets of heavy doors as well as a spiked portcullis and openings overhead through which assaults might be made on anyone trying to enter uninvited.
It was not, perhaps, as overwhelming a piece of engineering and defense technology as Ethshar’s city walls and gate towers, but it had its own grim power, certainly. Sterren was quite sure that he would not care to try to pass that wall and gate without a very clear invitation.
Of course, his escort, now numbering fifteen in all, clearly constituted an invitation.
The castle within that outer wall was vaguely pyramidal in its overall shape. Low wings, a mere two stories in height, stretched out to either side of the central mass, which stood some six stories, and was in turn topped by a great central tower whose peak was, Sterren judged, fully a hundred feet from the ground upon which the castle stood. A few turrets protruded here and there, ruining the stepped outline. Window openings were nonexistent at ground level, but grew steadily from narrow slits on the second floor to broad expanses of glass under graceful stone arches on the uppermost level of the tower.
The strip of ground between the curtain wall and the keep was entirely taken up with paved walks and close-packed patches of garden; Sterren was a bit surprised to see no inner line of defense there. The gap between Ethshar’s walls and its outermost street, he knew, was carefully kept clear of trees and permanent structures of any sort, to allow for the deployment of troops and military equipment in the event of siege or assault; in times of peace, such as the past two centuries, this area filled up with the city’s criminals and homeless. Semma Castle had no equivalent of this infamous Hundred-Foot Field.
He had little time to look at the gardens, though. As soon as the last of the company had passed the outer-most gate, the trumpet fanfare ended with a final flourish, waiting guards slammed the outermost pair of the heavy doors, and servants in red and yellow garb leaped forward to take charge of the horses. Sterren was quickly lifted from the saddle and lowered to the ground by half a dozen of the men in his escort, as his mount was led to the stables beside the castle’s inner gate.
This assistance was welcome, since he suspected he would be too stiff, after so long in the saddle, to have dismounted under his own power.
He was whisked past the stables and into the castle proper. The main door was, like the outer gate, equipped with a full range of defenses, but on foot, and alerted by the intervening greenery, he looked a little more closely this time and saw signs of disuse, dust on the hinges, a spider web across one of the overhead openings. Forty years of peace, he guessed, had naturally had an effect.
He had expected the party to stop and disband once they were all inside, perhaps leaving him in the charge of servants, or a guard or two, but instead the whole contingent marched on down a broad, marble-floored central corridor. The soldiery kept him carefully centered in the group.
“Where are we going?” Sterren demanded in Semmat.
Lady Kalira glanced toward the commander of the honor guard and whispered a question Sterren could not catch. The soldier nodded in reply, and Lady Kalira called back to Sterren, “The king is waiting to meet you.”
“The king?” Sterren wasn’t certain he had heard the word correctly; he did know its meaning, as it had come up in discussions with Alder.
“Yes, the king, his Majesty Phenvel, third of that name, by right of succession King of Semma and lord of the southern deserts.”
“Oh.” Sterren had never met a king before and was unsure how to react.
A pair of heavy, gold-trimmed doors swung open, and Sterren found himself swept into what he immediately identified, despite a complete lack of previous experience with such things, as a throne room. A broad red carpet stretched from the door to the base of a dais and up three steps to the feet of a portly man in scarlet robes, seated on a large black chair. To either side of the carpet stood a small crowd of people, all well dressed, of all shapes and sizes.
Lady Kalira stopped at the foot of the dais; the soldiers stopped at the same instant she did and gracefully stepped away to either side, with the exception of Alder and Dogal, bringing up the rear, who remained on the carpet.
Sterren, not having known what was coming, took a step or two forward before he stopped himself, coming uncomfortably close to walking into Lady Kalira’s back.
Kalira bowed deeply, going down on one knee before her sovereign. Hesitantly, and awkwardly, since he had never made such an obeisance before, Sterren copied her actions.
Lady Kalira rose, and Sterren stood again.
The hall was almost, but not quite, silent; Sterren could hear a steady hiss of whispering among the watchers.
“Your Majesty,” Lady Kalira said, “may I present your servant Sterren, Ninth Warlord of Semma.” She gestured toward Sterren and stepped aside, turning so that she stood on the edge of the carpet, her back to the audience and able to speak to either monarch or Ethsharite.
Thinking some action was called for, Sterren bowed again, from the waist this time, wishing somebody had seen fit to coach him a little.
“Hello,” the king said.
“Hello,” Sterren replied nervously. He tried to judge the king’s age and guessed it at something over forty, but almost certainly still short of sixty.
“Are you really Tanissa the Stubborn’s grandson? It’s hard to believe.”
Sterren, still unfamiliar with the language, needed a moment to puzzle that out and phrase a response. This was not the sort of question he had expected from a king in what he took for a formal audience. “Yes, I... Yes, your Majesty, I am,” he replied. He was grateful that Lady Kalira had provided him, in her introduction, with the correct form of address.
“I never met her,” the king said, “but I heard about her when I was a boy, especially from her brother, your great-uncle, that is, the old warlord. She ran away with that merchant a couple of years before I was born. And you’re really her grandson, are you?”
Sterren nodded.
“There’s no need to be shy, lad,” the king said, smiling. “After all, we’re all family here.”
“We are?” Sterren asked, puzzled.
“Oh, certainly; didn’t you know? You’re my seventh cousin once removed. I looked it up.” He gestured expansively, taking in the crowd of observers. “And these,” he said, “are the collected nobility of Semma. And all of us, lad, are descended from Tendel the First, first King of Semma.”
“You are?”
“You, too, lad,” Phenvel corrected him, gently.