He arrived quietly, ascended the steps behind the shop, and unlocked the door. It was not yet sunset, miles of time between him and a new day. He thought of it in this manner. He did not know what should be done with the night, with Zastis, with all the burden of terrible surprise, of feeling, that had not had the space to become for him recognizable, to fade to an irrelevance, or spur to any height—Dawn, his superstition told him, would wash at least the doubt away. Or night itself, submerging him, would be his teacher. He almost feared to learn. Yet he had come here to aloneness, in order to do so. He had not lived so long in Daigoth’s courts through bandaging his eyes.
Rehger had been in the room less than the third of an hour when someone scratched on the door. He supposed the slave had come, or the armorer’s wife, to see if he wanted anything brought, supper or wine. Inclined not to answer, he delayed, but to give a churlish response displeased him, so he went to the door and opened it. No one was there. The shadows lay in place along the yard from the well tree and the trellised creepers. While from the yard’s far side the hammer and anvil thudded on the forge like an angry heart.
By the room’s threshold, a square of reed paper lay, rolled and corded, with a pebble set inside to weigh it down.
Some girl, maybe . . . But the retreats of champions were respected. Love-letters came to the stadium, or the wine-shops.
He took this letter up. Going back inside, he sat, the paper in his hand, looking at the lilies in the final sunlight.
Then he untied the cord.
The stadium educated its children, but there had never been much occasion to read anything. It was often so with the Swords, acrobats and dancers, wedded to the body not the mind. As for love-notes, they were short, or if copious, did not need to be scanned. , The paper was fully covered, by a fine and beautiful script.
It began: “To Rehger Am Ly Dis, son of Yennef son of Yalen: A prince of the Royal House of Lan, and of the bloodline of Amrek, King of Dorthar, Storm Lord of All Vis.”
Only one other knew to address him in this way—this extraordinary way. She who had risen in the center of night, leaving his arms to search by sorcery the drak of bronzed gold. She, like an icon of ivory before the one lamp that had not yet burned out, turning the coin, in a while telling him of his mother that she had never seen, of his father that neither she nor he had ever looked on. And of that father’s father. Of bastardy and foolishness, of births and wanderings, of a frivolous search she could not properly decipher—She had described the wretched farm at Iscah, and the city of Amlan. She had spoken of a priestess, Amrek’s daughter—And in the end he had only left the couch and gone to bring her back against his flesh. It was Zastis. Let the past and future wait.
“Dear Friend,” the letter continued, “when this comes to you, I will be dead, and you will know it. I think that you have some care for me, but not enough that this can wound you deeper than a little scratch might do. Salve the hurt, and may it heal swiftly and well. For myself, I loved you, from the moment I saw you I believe. I have never told you of my circumstances, but, like you, I was taken from my kindred early. And so to love, at last, was a gift She gave me. To be requited was not needful.
“She that brought you this, my servant, had disguised herself on my instructions, in the same way that she was instructed to take my jewels. She knows what she must do, though they will hunt her for my murder if they can. She is guiltless, of course. While the one that is culpable will in due season be punished, if even punishment is wanted.
“Only two things more to say, and quickly. By those means you have termed sorcery, I can banish pain. But there are not many minutes. A vanity—I refuse to die uncouthly. They will find me lying on the couch composed as if for sleep. And unless some unforeseen mistake occurs, so you will find me also. I regret we had no more together. But since there is no true death, I believe we will meet again.
“Having had communion with the coin, I have, as I cautiously promised you, been able to uncover something further: When you are able to seek your father, you will find him in the Lowland province of Moih. It really asks no larger information. You are, I think, destined to know him. The sons of the hero Raldnor never met their sire; his own was dead at his conception. That which the Vis call Chance, and we, Anackire, tends always to a balance where allowed. It will come at the correct hour, knowledge, and to both. I must be brief—
“Thus. I invite you to my funeral obsequies. Though it is perhaps irksome, nor joyous. To see me to my black stone bed on the hill. The Ashara temple will have charge of me. But I shall lack followers. Do it for kindness’ sake, Rehger. I set it on you, that you must.
“And now I shall seek the couch and lie down there.
“Prosper. And, perhaps, remember me sometimes. Or how else will you know me, when next we meet?”
The letter was signed, without any of the flourish which had begun it, Aztira,
The madam arrived in person to oust Chacor. Her wide hips filled the doorway and her scent the chamber.
“So soon,” he said.
“We’re a good-class house, and hygienic. Money goes farther in the stews, but a Corhlish prince wouldn’t want those, ”
“And I see I’ve fallen from favor with my last coin.”
“Fallen? Scarcely down than up, from what I heard. And you’re pretty enough to ruin all my girls for the other trade. And my best, my Tarla, so taken with you she’s left out her petal, and Yasmat knows, now the silly tart’s probably womb-full of something the doctor will have to see to. Unless you want it brought up to help you rule Corhl.”
“If I had any cash left, I’d give it you in recompense,” said Chacor. Cheerfully he placed a squashed marigold in the madam’s hand and kissed her well-powdered cheek. “But I’ve only enough for a cup of bad wine.”
He descended the brothel stairs whistling, the girls leaning over the galleries to reprove him for leaving, or for whistling, or to wish him luck.
It was getting dark, and the lane outside was murky. Farther down it forked, plummeting toward the fish market on one hand, up toward Gods’ High Gate on the other. He had been thinking a while, once Tarla had gone, (lamenting over the springy “petal” of softened cow gut, that should have been inserted within her before their congress, and which eagerness had made her leave lying in the washbowl. The Way of Women, in rustic Corhl, was normally effected by a leaf pasted over the navel.)
That thing which had happened in the stadium arena—the wild rumors—these were a three-day wonder and would have run themselves out by now. Nevertheless, it was the right moment, maybe, for the rover to be on his way. Corrah showed the path by different means. He had kept enough to buy passage on some roughish ship. Destination was not so important. He would take the fortune of the draw.
Best get round to the harbor, then. Before all-night shut down and the cutthroats came out to pluck the price of supper.
As Chacor started toward the market fork, a woman screamed piercingly not far ahead.
Yells of various sorts were not so uncommon, particularly here. But then, out of the gathering dark, the screamer pelted up the lane toward him. Chacor immediately suspected some thief s trick. He braced himself, but the woman, hair and cloak flapping, rushed past him and was gone. Her eyes had looked properly scared. That established, Chacor now stepped back against a windowless house wall that here fenced in the lane. He expected a gang of men or women to be in pursuit of the first runner. What came, however, was not human.
Initially, he thought it was some evening revel, carrying lamps. But in fact, the lamp was alone, and carried itself.
A pale blue sun, transparent, yet glimmering so fiercely it colored the house wall, and the hand Chacor involuntarily raised to mark himself for Corrah’s protection. The ghost-sun drifted up the lane, after the running woman. He watched it come level and go by, and when it had done so put his hand to the knife in his belt. But a knife was no use.