As we mounted the two steps to the gate amid its yellow-flowered emvath brambles, and the house lights shone through a tangle of ornamental shrubs and helliens, he said, “I like these door-gardens.” Crunching up the path, I whistled the Stand-to as usual. And as usual there was uproar behind the moontree fanlight, squeals of delight and cries of reproof, the pounding of small boots and lighter, larger feet, then the door flew back and two small thunderbolts hurtled across the porch with Callissa exclaiming in the rear.
“If only I’d known you were coming, there’s no dinner—no, of course it doesn’t matter, just so you’re back—you little wretches, let me to your father—thank goodness. . . .” She submerged, to resume beyond our greeting kiss. “Rema can find something, she—what did you do with the—never mind, you’ll tell me after—oh!”
I had moved. The hall light, occupying my shadow, revealed the tall shadow at my back.
“My wife Callissa,” I said. “One of these is Zam, the other is Zem. Callissa, this is—” I broke off, discomfited yet again.
“My name is Beryx.” With a tinge of amusement he brought me smoothly off the reef. “I come from Hethria.”
Callissa’s usual guest front, already shaken, fell into abject rout. “I must see Rema,” she gabbled. “Alkir, you’ll look after—see to—excuse me—I mean, please come in. . . .” And she fled.
The twins were not disturbed. They escorted us from hall to guest reception room to our living place, oversaw the deposit of saddlebags, the doffing of helmet and turban, the disposal of chairs, with silent unwinking scrutiny. I was on tenterhooks over their reaction to his scar, not to mention the rest, but there was no hope of banishing them. Not that night.
Seeming unconcerned, my guest scanned the big room under the hanging lamp, the floor strewn with boys’ debris and Tasmarn rugs, the medley of old and new furniture, Callissa’s sewing spread over a table and three chairs, my account-desk neck deep opposite. “So this is a house,” he said. “I never had one myself.”
“A palace,” he expanded as my jaw dropped. “But you inherit that. Then I shared with Fengthira.” For a moment it could have been envy. “Not like this.”
I sought for cover. “Will you drink something before we eat? Not Everran wine, but they make a barley-spirit in Morrya. . . .” Retiring on the tall dresser that housed our alcohol I was just in time to hear a small, clear, uncompromising voice enquire, “What happened to your face?”
I spun round. Zem, I think, was planted before his chair, Zam usefully posted on the right flank. Aghast, I wondered if it would be worse to call them off or let them go. But my guest had already responded, perfectly assured.
“It got burnt.”
I cringed. Sure enough, the interrogation began.
“How did it get burnt?”
He scrubbed at his hair. “You see, there was a dragon. They spit fire, you know? I came too close, and it spat on me.”
“A dragon?” The flank force discarded tactics, the frontal assault goggled as wildly as its sire. “A real dragon? With wings and claws and everything?”
“And everything,” he agreed. At which the flank guard elbowed past the van, scaled his closer knee and ensconced itself as with me, perched on the chair-arm with both feet on his thigh, to announce in a fair copy of my defaulters’ voice, “You’d best tell us all about it. From the start.”
Over their heads his eyes met mine, green chips of mirth. “We should,” he suggested blandly, “ask permission first.”
I levered my mouth shut. “Not at all—please don’t—only if they don’t bother you—”
His laughter brightened. “Don’t you,” he suggested demurely, “want to hear it too?”
“Femaere,” I said, and brought over the drinks.
He sipped, choked, and still half-smiling, began. “Once upon a time”—they wriggled ecstatically—“there was a kingdom called Everran, and I was its king. One day a dragon came. Its name was Hawge, and it had every intention of eating everything in Everran that was eatable.” They nodded. It was orthodox dragonry. “But I had no wish to see my kingdom eaten, so I declared war. No, I didn’t send a herald. The dragon would have eaten him too. I mustered troops—three hundred troops. Not cavalry, horses don’t like dragons.” A shadow crossed his face. “They wore leather because the dragon fire would have made steel armor too hot, and,” with a chuckle, “they didn’t much care for it. We marched off on the dragon’s trail, burnt houses and eaten cattle and—other things—” That memory held no mirth at all. “We found it near two farms it had just burnt, and we attacked. Yes, with a battle-order. Hollow square of spearmen, archers inside. To shoot at its eyes.” More knowledgeable nods. “Hawge woke and saw us, and up it flew.
First it tried to break the spears, but they were too sharp for its liking, so it spat fire instead. The troops were very good. They stood fast, just as your father’s would.” He was smiling, but I could see the memory’s grief. “Four times it spat fire, and they never broke.” The twins were enraptured, lurid visions weaving in their eyes. “Then one archer put an arrow in a wing and brought it down, so we charged. The trouble was, the worst thing about a dragon isn’t the fire, it’s the tail. When we came in range it knocked the whole front rank over. Then it spat fire and bit and clawed the rest of us, and in the end we had to give up.”
Zem and Zam did not. “But what happened to your face?”
“I,” he said lightly, “was more stupid than any commander ought to be. I took a spear and blindfolded my horse and charged it myself. No.” He grinned wryly at their idolatrous looks. “I didn’t kill it. The horse and I came off worst.”
He touched his cheek. “As you see.”
His eyes lifted to mine. “Military,” he murmured, “hotheadedness.”
They drew breath to burst. I was beyond speech, for I could put fact between the carefully edited lines. Phalanxmen, the troops must have been. Against a dragon. I knew in theory what one was like. My hair rose at thought of what had to be no bare defeat but a massacre. Hotheadedness? Sheer berserk. . . .
“Lunacy,” he supplied. “Homicidal nerve,” I corrected. He shook his head. “Desperation,” I amended. “That,” he answered dryly, “came later.” And before the twins could rend him for details he was moving their feet in readiness to rise.
“I’m sorry to be so long,” Callissa was in the doorway. “Rema’s just—”
She saw the twins. A hand flew to her mouth. “Zem, Zam,” she snapped, “come out of that. Come out!”
They gaped, amazed as I. He said swiftly, “They’re all right, ma’am. I won’t hurt them,” and she grew positively wild-eyed. The whole by-play still had me mystified when the twins took advantage of the gap.
“Mi, mi, he’s fought a dragon, we can’t go yet, he hasn’t told us the rest, we haven’t talked to Da, it’s not time, we always have supper with Da first night home—”
Two small square faces reddened, four gray eyes glistened ominously. “Halt!” I said in a hurry. “You eat with us, but you’re quiet. Quiet or the cells. Right?”
They were quiet. At least, until our guest hesitated at the lamb cutlets Rema had “found,” and Callissa intervened, too kindly for kindness. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think. Would you like them cut?”
I wished wives were subject to army discipline. He gave her a steady, unresentful look. “I can manage, thank you, ma’am. If you don’t mind Sathel manners, that is.”
The boys’ eyes were already circular. When he took up a cutlet left-handed, discipline broke. “What happened to your arm?” the nearer one burst out. “Was that the dragon too?”
“Yes, Zem,” he replied without the slightest hesitation, and I heard Callissa gasp. She too had been sure it was Zam. “It threw the horse and me up in the air with its tail. I smashed the nerve in that arm when I came down.”
“It’s a wonder,” I exclaimed, impulsive as my son, “you’re alive at all!”
“No wonder,” he answered mildly. “Just a very good friend to pick me up.”
“My husband,” Callissa observed, “has been wounded too. Was it five times, dear? Or six?”
What, I signaled, is the matter with you? She ignored me. He said, “The war with Phaxia?” She agreed, in detail. Full detail. Two-year campaign, begun as a troop-leader, promoted to squadron-leader, then wing-leader, three pitched battles, a turn with the swamp guerillas, victory pulled from the fire when an ambush commander fell, two mural crowns in the forts beyond Stirsselian, a corps commander at the peace. He heard her out. Then he said modestly, “I can hardly compete with a hero like that.”
“Da says,” Zam announced before I could retaliate, “that there are no heroes. Just dead clowns and lucky ones.”
“Da,” replied my guest with feeling, “is right. When you get your first command, Zam, remember it.”
Their eyes met across the table, in equality, harmony, perfect understanding. Then Zam said, so quietly I knew he meant it, “Yes, sir. I will.”
“You’ve had your supper.” Apparently unable to tolerate even this minor apostasy, Callissa used the tone that meant no appeals. “Now you’ll come to bed.”
Meekly they left their chairs, came for my goodnight hug, went out, hanging back from her hands for a last look. He watched the door close. He did not have to tell me he would have given his magic, probably his former kingdom, for just one son of his own.
Before I could hide my pity he had turned and was smiling, so quickly I wondered if I had imagined the rest. “Well, Fylghjos?” A brow cocked. “That’s what the escort call you, you know. Granite-eyes.” Mischievously he let me consider its present delicious inappropriateness, until Callissa returned, and he was all formality again.
“You got on so well with them,” she said as we all sat down. “Quite surprising, really.”
I tried not to gasp. Inept in noble company she might be, insecure enough to boast about her husband, but this was clean out of character.
He replied with perfect courtesy, covering the lapse, negating the spite.
“I’m sure anyone who took the trouble would get on with them, ma’am. Their manners are a credit to you.”
“Oh, that’s Alkir. I just bandage the knees and patch the pants.” She donned her social voice. “Are you married, my lord?”
His face shut like a door. He said, “Once.”
I tried to kick her under the table, and missed. Brightly, she charged on. “Then you’ve no children of your own?”
If you are unlucky, you may see such a face in battle, as your spear strikes home. He said in a low voice, “No.”
“Oh, such a pity. I’m sure you’d be good with them. . . .”
How, I thought in furious unbelief, can she have missed it, can she go on trampling over what even I can tell was not just a pity but stark tragedy? Wildly I sought words, something to drop, to overset. But my brain was numb, the table cleared. Callissa was prattling still. “Children make your life I always feel, they’re troublesome at times, but all the same. . . .”
In a moment she would be pitying his wife. He took a breath I heard. Then, looking full at her, he said, “She has—had—children afterwards. Not . . . mine.”
I could no longer offer so much as the paltry aid of keeping rank, pretending to see nothing wrong. Kicking the chair back, I said, “Let me show you your room.
“You can see clear to the harbor.” I shoved the window wide in some fuzzy idea of comfort, amends, knowing his silence for the voice of the unsealed wound.
He came to lean on the sill. I blurted, “She’s never like that. I don’t know what’s got into her.”
“Mothers.” The sadness held no grudge. “She doesn’t know what I am. She doesn’t have to. She just feels I’m dangerous to them.”
What could make amends for that? And the full sense of that last cruel confession, its sequel in questions no man could possibly ask, was still racketing round my head. She had children later. . . . There is no more terrible way to be maimed. In my extremity I actually hoped that he would read my thoughts and extract the speech I could not muster, for the solace nothing could give.
“Just sterile. Not impotent.” He not only read my thoughts, with paralyzing candor he answered the question I could not ask. “Don’t upset yourself, Fylghjos. After all”—the tiny quiver of amusement was the bravest thing I ever heard—“it could have been worse.”
With shame I admit myself unable to match it. I said goodnight and fled.
* * * * *
Next day I sent breakfast to his room to ensure the twins would be off to school and Callissa to the markets before he emerged. Despite her tearful protests that “I never meant to upset him. How was I to know? I don’t know why I said it, he just—made me,” I was convinced he would go on striking truth from her as he did from me, and I had been scarified enough. So it was well into second watch before we set out for Ker Morrya.
He scanned our route with his usual bright-eyed interest, quite unconcerned by his own effect on passersby. I asked if he wanted to inspect the mare, stabled at the post-house with orders to “Wait here for me. And behave yourself.” He merely narrowed his eyes, shook his head, replied, “She’s all right,” and resumed his study of carriages, sightseers, officials, workers, people of every trade and province surging by, while I thought yet again that his eyes had a freakish life of their own.
With the sunny street making his pupils pinpoints, his irises had the constant swirl and variegation of light in flowing water, mint, bayleaf, laurel, sea and moss and royal jade-green, changes swift and bewitching as his moods. . . . I lost sight of the city. I even forgot to ask how he knew about the mare. But then he nodded at some Gjerven tribesmen with wooden spears, bones in their noses and towering feather helmets, saying, “Imagine charging in one of those—and the chinband breaks.” So we were laughing as we reached Ker Morrya’s gate.
No steward was there. Passing the sentries I felt a sudden need for support, and nodded to the guard officer, saying, “I’ll take the four on stand-by.” Their boots made a solid, reassuring clump behind us on the marble steps.
The court was in the central gallery. Its hexagon is big as any temple, one side giving on the forecourt, the rear wall a backdrop for the Lady’s white-gold throne inlaid with onyx moontrees, under the canopy which is the boast of Assharral: a single mighty rock crystal cut and polished to transparency, shimmering above the dais like a curve of visible air, a foil for the flamboyant walls and floor and roof.
The walls are of alabaster so thin the sun shines through them, turning the stone-grain to huge whorls of sunset rose and tangerine and gold, the floor is black marble spanned by a moontree of silver: flowing boughs, voluptuous orb. The ceiling is yellow amber imlann wood, coffered in geometric mazes whose woven triangles prison the eye, an ebony star at each one’s point.
I had never felt at ease there. Today I found myself reflecting that a tenth of this ostentation would have fed my troops properly in Phaxia. Among it, perfectly at home, chattered and postured the rainbow of silk, satin, jewels and outrageous fashions that composed the court.
Nor did I ever like the court. They are nobles, I am a farmer’s son, yes. I am a soldier, they were play-people, yes. But to me there was something immoral in the sight of Assharral’s wealthiest, wittiest, best-bred and most beautiful frittering their days away in empty ritual and squabbles over trivia, while a few governors, a horde of scribes and a couple of generals turned the Lady’s chariot wheels.
I watched the latest favorite, a willowy gallant in royal purple with sleeves that brushed the floor, thillians in his shoe-heels, scented to smother you at a spearlength, orange and scarlet-dyed hair in two horns above his temples, fooling with a gold stave of office he could barely lift while he changed frivolities with two ladies whose costumes are beyond my description. I saw other heads turn, the arch of painted brows, could imagine the catch-word repartee at our expense.
Then it struck me like a thunderclap that I did not merely dislike them, was not merely afraid my charge would disapprove of something Assharran, but was feeling actively defensive. Of him.
“It’s been nothing but surprises,” I grumbled under my breath, “since I ran into you.”
“Surprises can be healthy,” he replied blandly. He scanned the gallery. “Handsome.” His eye gave me his opinion of the fops. “None of the Council here yet, I see.”
“Council?” I was off-balanced again. “What council? We’re not at war.”
“Advisers.” He grew surprised too. “Doesn’t she have advisers? Nobles—elders—province delegates—people’s representatives?”
“No.” I felt shame, as over Gevos’ corpse, for some elusive defect that had never seemed so before. “The Lady . . . sees what’s happening. Everybody just . . . does as she says.”
I sensed he was as deeply shocked as at Bhassan, but less surprised. “Ah,” he said. Then a steward reached us, murmuring, “The Lady is by the fountain, sir.”
The guest suite had become a picture gallery, dove-gray walls and cream ceilings with primitive daubs from Axaira glaring out at us. At the last stair’s foot he broke stride, sniffing. “Rivannons! I’ve not seen them since. . . .” The chance-met joy faded. “Up there?” he said, non-committal, and we began to climb.
Los Morryan’s clear music filled that balcony of light and air. The escort clumped sheep-like at the stair head. From the nearer side of the fountain, disposed sidelong on the onyx seat in a flame-scarlet silken dress with huge frothing skirts, the Lady Moriana said in her soft, inherently mocking voice, “What have you brought me, Alkir?”
I think I stepped aside. Or something moved me. My eyes vouched that neither of them stirred. My inner senses claimed everything was moving, up in a tightening spiral as if the Morhyrne itself were coiling to explode. The sun was too bright, its rays shivered, overcharged. The Lady Moriana’s eyes had grown enormous, black lakes shot with motes of brilliant gold that flew with dizzying velocity, a comet shower in space. Flashing through them ran a quicksilver sparkle of green, hot white green, dragonflies that taunt as they elude your clutch, and unlike the meteors they had their life and origin in unquenchable merriment.
I blinked. A man and a girl confronted each other, one seated, one standing, one the epitome of luxurious, lethal sovereignty, the other a landless vagabond whose mind was dominion enough. But something was still happening. I had a sense of thrust and riposte too swift for thought to pace, of duelists engaged with weapons so subtle my very mind found them invisible.
Then it was over. He put up his hand, shaking back his turban. That faint smile said he had not come off worst.
He said, “He brought you this.”
No one has ever seen the Lady Moriana in a rage. And lived to tell of it, that is. I could only deduce from the arch of her fingers, the tiny hint of color in her cheek. But her voice was an indubitable purr.
“You are somewhat prodigal with my guards, Alkir.”
He put up his brows. “Unworthy.” The hidden laughter had slid into his voice.
Infinitesimally, her eyes widened. His mouth corners pucked. He said, “You brought the audience.”
One nail drew a tiny click from the parapet. He nodded. The swarms of golden meteors stilled.
“You disapprove,” she said.
“It is very beautiful.”
“And rotten to the core.”
“Only in the head.”
“But then, you were only a king.”
“I knew my place.”
“Not well enough, it seems.”
“Seeming’s in how you see.”
Her head tilted just a fraction. Her eyes held a fleeting, triumphant smile, a chess player noting a future vantage point. “As in . . . A’sparre, perhaps.”
“We all make our own mistakes.”
“I do agree.” She drew it out. Taunt. Riposte. Threat. “Welcome to Assharral.”
“How kind of you. It’s pleasant to be among kin.”
“You astonish me.”
“You astonish me. Moontree. Obviously a descendant of Lossian and Fengela. You don’t know the Moontree’s roots?”
“All commoners are fanatic about history.”
“Ah, my blood goes back to the Flametree itself. Lossian’s own line. A little later, of course, than yours.”
“And, of course, so worthily.”
His eyes danced. “I never heard Lossian went in for marrying.”
“So little point. For those who can get children, that is.”
I caught my breath. But he had his shield today. “Or those who can but won’t.”
“Some of us,” she stretched, a lazy cat, “have no need.”
“Fountains do run dry . . . eventually.”
Again that tiny, triumphant glitter. “And now you are here, what will you ask of me?”
He let his eye travel down her body’s length. The glitter brightened. “I am, unhappily . . . fastidious.”
“And that place is occupied.”
“Temporarily.”
“In his case, at least.”
“In every case, I find. But perhaps it’s different, in Hethria?”
He gave a sudden spurt of laughter. “Very different!”
“Then I should warn you. Assharrans respect their beasts.”
I think I gasped. He merely grinned. “Pouring the lees already?”
“Dressing to fit my company.”
“Dear, dear! Madam, you seem to have wounded you.”
“I can forgive myself.”
“That must be easy, for a—divinity.”
“Divinely so. One sees everything.”
“I daresay,” he murmured, “that you do.” There was a tiny stress on the “you.”
“You wonder that I expected you?”
“One hardly expects an enchantress to boast of prentice arts.”
I had a fleeting impression that he had caught her out, forcing a deflection of the attack. “How is Fengthira nowadays?”
“Happy. A rare thing, I find.”
“I daresay it’s easy to be happy with a—horse.”
“Easier than with men, it would seem.”
“One does grow bored with them.”
“I daresay a—divinity—does.”
“Ah, then you’ll be lucky, won’t you?”
“So I think. And Fengthira too.”
Her eyelids drooped. “Her age is showing, I expect.”
“Some of us do it gradually,” he sounded equable. “Some wait a long time, then do it all at once.”
Her lips curved up. I wanted to shout, as to a careless swordsman, Watch out, it’s coming now!
“Some of us never do it.”
“Some have imagined so.”
The thillians in her bracelet spurted blue-white fire. She had shifted, reaching for something in the seat corner. Her hands rose. The great dew-globe glistened between them, shimmering against scarlet silk, shattering the sun, its own depths unmoved, profound and colorless.
“And some of us”—the ambush was sprung, the triumph blatant—“need not imagine it at all.”
His eyes had shot wide. He went stiff all over, his face blank. Not control, but shock.
She caressed the globe, looking under her lashes, savoring the foretaste of victory.
“You know what it is.”
He sounded breathless. “I know.”
“You thought it was the fountain, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t use Pharaone.” Though he spoke sharply, the word war was forgotten. “It would have made no difference. That”—he gestured with his eyes—“wears a Ruanbraxe. No aedr would realise till he saw.”
Again I had the sense of incomprehension matching mine, bypassed as irrelevant. “And you know what can be done with it.”
His face changed again.
“You,” he said flatly, “do not.”
Her fingers stilled.
“Immortality?” He was not teasing, nor on the offensive. His face was stern, grim. “Tyranny? Godhead? You have no idea. It shows in every move you’ve made.”
“Of course you know so much better.”
“Enough to know what I wouldn’t do.”
“Castrated,” she said sweetly, “by morality.”
The shaft bounced straight off. “You do know what it is. And you abuse it. Play with it! Using that for Pharaone, imsar Math! Practicing Wreve-lethar to keep yourself young! Who was your teacher, in the Four’s name! Or were you blinded in the nursery?”
In anyone else that tiny shift of brow might have signaled a frown. Then it was gone.
“Oh?” she was purring. “So what should I do?”
“Something about Assharral?”
Her voice was flat. “It’s mine.”
“Mine!” He tossed his hand up. “There speaks a true Morheage. Just leave it mine, and who cares what else happens to it? Mine! You don’t know the meaning of the word!” He had quite forgotten he was in combat, and I knew she had not. “Rule it! Exploit it, tyrannize it, terrorize it, batten on it, play your piddling tricks—rule? It’s pure shameless incompetence!”
She had not been drawn. She watched him, contained, poised, and again I wanted to cry, Look out!
Then she smiled. “Here, then,” she said. And held out the globe to him.
His hand jerked away as from a snake. He very nearly recoiled.
“Don’t you want it?” she purred.
His face moved. Not in shock or wrath or any other emotion he had shown. This time it was vulnerable. Naked, as in physical desire.
He swallowed. Then he said harshly, “No.”
“But I’m incompetent.” She knew she had the whip hand, and was showing it. “You could do so much better than I.”
He took a quick hard breath and licked his lips. I did not understand the fence. I simply knew he had lost his guard, and was being pressed beyond hope of recovery.
“No,” he said fiercely. “I don’t want it.”
She merely looked at him. We both knew it was a lie.
“You’re not . . . competent?”
The light writhed in his eyes, the pupils flared, they were turning black. His hand lifted, and was wrenched violently back to his side.
“Just think,” she murmured, “what you could do for Assharral. From the court to the painted savages. No more terror. No more tyranny.” He choked as if hands had him by the throat. “And not only Assharral. Hethria. Everran. The Confederacy. You know what this is. You know you needn’t stop at that. You could change the entire . . . world.”
He shut his eyes. That one small act was a bitterly contested, cruelly expensive victory.
“That is not Math.” His voice shook. He was not stating a belief but reciting a prayer. “Math isn’t doing. It’s doing only what you must.”
“But surely you know it must be done? You were—are—a ruler too.”
“No.” Sweat ran down his jaw. The scar glared purple. He clenched his fist.
“No.” It came on a longdrawn, struggling breath. “I . . . will. . . .” His voice cracked, I barely heard the clinching whisper. “. . . not.”
She had missed the pivot point. She still sounded soft. Concerned. Pitiless.
“You’ll turn your back? On all that? Even on Assharral? Is it Math to see something so evil and to . . . walk away?”
He opened his eyes. The irises were bleached, the sockets looked bruised, evidence of a fight that had taken every atom of strength. But the exhaustion was at peace.
“Moriana,” he said. “Give it up. Please.”
Her eyes went blade sharp. “To you?”
“Not to me. Not to anyone. I know you don’t understand Math, but even an imbecile knows Ammath when it touches him. And this is Ammath. You’re not a Sky-lord, however much incense they burn for you. Do you taste all those butchered sheep? Four, of course you don’t. You’ve perverted something like—that—” He gestured at it, not looking. “And for what? What pleasure is there in playing morsyr to ten lives’ favorites?” I knew he meant the black spider who eats her mates. “Working some bastard form of Fengthir on poor clowns like those?” He jerked his head at the guards. “Terrorizing decent soldiers, emasculating your nobles, toying with an empire? Believe me”—the plea deepened—“it might do for a while. It won’t fill an ‘eternal’ life.”
She bent her head away, a swan’s pure curve. A little, willful smile played on her lips.
“But,” she cooed, “it amuses me.”
“Amuse—!” He caught his breath and wiped sweat off with a jerk. “Moriana, there are other, more amusing things for an aedr to do. Four, you’ve never been prenticed! When I talked about Pharaone you didn’t know what I meant.” It was pity, rigorously concealed. “You rot away by your little fountain, abusing something that—well, never mind that—and you think there’s the rest of time to do it in. When it may already be too late.”
She leant back, feigning consideration. Her voice half-teased, half-protested, a flirting woman’s denial that she is ready to yield. But I knew this No was real.
“If I left this . . . I’d turn into a hag.”
“For Math’s love! You’ll come down a girl, you just won’t stay that way. Women! It’s your head that matters, not your face!”
“Oh.” Blandly demure. “But . . . what would I do—out there?”
“You could begin,” he answered grimly, “with amends to Assharral.”
Her eyelids lifted. She gave him a long, silent stare.
“So,” he said after a moment. “That may be true. It wouldn’t matter. Not if—”
“Not matter?” Her fingers arched on the globe. “I’m to leave my palace, renounce an empire, give up ‘eternal’ life. And then, when my ‘loving subjects’ hound me into exile, probably hunting my blood, when I’m out in the road, growing old, ‘ignorant,’ ugly, not to mention penniless—then just what becomes of me?”
The grimness shattered, burst by spring-light that was all too familiar, all too inevitable. I never had time to bellow, No! Not here! Not now!
“Welllll,” it came in a drawl. He cocked his head, appraising her like a tavern wench. “Even then . . . I’d probably marry you.”
Her eyes spat. Her cheeks flamed. In a flash she was not merely aged but hideous.
“You ape! You oaf! You limping hobbledehoy! You—” Her eyes slashed past him. “You gaping ninnies, take him! Truss him up! Cripple him!”
He spun on the advancing guards, I felt some blind compulsion seize me and found I was advancing too, sword out lest he resisted, mind aware of what he was and that I was a friend to him, limb and muscle refusing to hear and will accepting it.
He whirled back to me. I saw his eyes flare, green-white, blinding, and knew he would use A’sparre, in a moment I should be dead as Gevos. I had no way of preventing it, and no fear. Whatever impelled me did not care.
His back arched, his breath drew in. Then, like a bough breaking, the intent snapped.
As my sword-point touched his ribs he said, “I won’t fight, Alkir.”
I could not feel relief, let alone thankfulness. Something was appeased, I knew that. I also knew where we were to go. Down into the city, to the Treasury, whose vaults had once been the imperial prison for rebels of common blood. There were still chains riveted into those clammily weeping walls, their key in the Vault-keeper’s custody. I would lock them on, and restore the key to its rightful guardian.
The guards about-turned and fell in on either side. Without protest he swung and started to walk.