CHAPTER ELEVEN

The temple bells on the near side of the capital clearly rang out the first hour of dusk as night came down. Adred had just finished eating alone in his palace apartment. Orain had convinced him to move from the Indura, his lodging house, to some of the empty rooms in the enormous state palace, and he had done so, eager to be close to her and Galvus and others, as well—to be of assistance however he could.

Now he paced and nervously tugged at what was becoming a fairly strong beard. Opening a win­dow, he restlessly tapped his fingers along the sill. He leaned out, looking for any sign of the three princes, but his view gave upon one of the palace gardens, and he could not even see the street or the eastern courtyard. The myriad of lights burning in every building in the city cast a halo high against the starry darkness, like a crowd of can­dles in a black room.

Sighing, Adred closed his shutters—just as a commotion came from somewhere in the palace. He hurried to his door and pulled it open. Down the corridor, a crowd of servants had gathered near the stairs that led to the first floor, and Adred saw Cyrodian’s large, crested helmet coming up the stairs, rising above the heads of the servants.

“Call Sotos!” came Prince Elad’s voice. “Quickly! One of you get Sotos the physician!”

Adred hurried toward the crowd. Behind him, he heard Orain’s door open; he turned and saw her.

“What’s happened? Adred?” She hastened toward him.

Adred looked back at the stairs. Cyrodian, pushing his way through the servants, supported the head and shoulders of a man in his arms, while Elad struggled with the feet.

Orain’s sandals slapped on the polished marble. “What’s happened?” she nearly screamed.

“Out of the way!” Cyrodian warned everyone in the corridor.

“Prepare his chamber!” Elad ordered the servants. “Go on! Prepare his—”

The crowd was moving down the hall. Orain, reaching Adred, clutched his arm as her husband and Prince Elad came past, carrying the bloody figure slung between them.

Orain gasped.

Adred reached to press her face away, even as he himself stared in shock.

“It is Dursoris!” Orain screamed, digging her nails into Adred’s arm.

“Get…Sotos!” grunted Elad, as he and Cyrodian shambled past her. “Get water and clean cloths! Hurry, damn it!”

“Oh, gods, no, no,” Orain whispered. “No…no…no…!”

Adred held her. Orain struggled weakly and stared.

Dursoris. A ruin. Blood caked on his mouth and cheeks and throat. Blackened stumps of wrists—charred flesh, hacked bone—dangling from his sides. Body swaying like some broken buck’s between his brothers as they carried him.

“What happened?” Orain shrieked at them.

“Bandits!” Cyrodian called back, glimpsing for a moment the burning intensity of his wife’s stare. “Bandits!”

“Gods, I—” She fought to go, but Adred’s grip was tight.

“Wait,” he told her in an awed, low voice. “Wait. Let Sotos look at—”

“But it’s Dursoris!” Orain cried, straining now, with her arms pulled behind her, to run after him.

“Orain! Or—”

Halfway down the corridor, as hovering servants held back, Elad and Cyrodian hauled the body into a chamber from which the orange glow of torches seeped. Sotos, the court physician, bald and overweight, dressed in his blue and gold robes, came huffing up the stairs; he hurried past Adred and Orain, not saying a word.

Orain, shivering, stood.

Adred felt the tension in his arms weakening. He released his hold on Orain, touched her shoulders, and turned her around.

She faced him silently with a wet, damp face, golden hair in disarray.…

And such a look of personal horror in her eyes.

The chamber door closed.

“Wait,” Adred whispered, watching where the orange glow had vanished from the floor.

Such a look of horror in her eyes.…

Now Galvus came up the stairs, confused. “What’s happened? Mother? Adred? What is it?” Boots shuffling, robes whisking by. “What—?” at the stare of his mother’s eyes.

* * * *

Beneath the covers of his bed in the center of the chamber he lay, white and damp, flesh waxy in a ring of candle flames. Orain was standing at his side, staring at his mouth, his nostrils, his closed eyes. The stumps were hidden beneath the covers. The mouth, cleansed, was partially open and gasping in air.

Sotos had gone. Four Khamars in full armor guarded the closed door. Elad was gone—to his own chamber. Cyrodian yet remained in a dark corner of the room, watching Orain as she watched her silent, dying lover.

Adred, with Galvus, stood behind Orain, in the shadows, away from the half-circle of bright candles above Dursoris’s bed.

A servant girl knelt, wiping Dursoris’s wet brow with a damp cloth. Periodically, the only sound in the room was the tinkle of water in the bowl as the girl dipped the cloth, rinsed it, wrung it, and applied it again to Dursoris’s hot forehead and cheeks.

Orain looked up. Adred watched her. He could not see her eyes, but her golden hair, caught in the candlelight, glowed with a nimbus, and her robe, pale pink, bound with a silver cord about her waist, rippled with movement.

Orain was staring at Cyrodian, whose eyes burned in the gloom. “You slew him.”

The servant girl stopped what she was doing.

The Khamars looked up, alert.

Cyrodian’s armor, bronze and leather, creaked in the cor­ner. “What?”

Voice of shadows, voice of candles. “You slew him.”

Adred’s stomach began to twist.

“You slew him—” in the same unchanged tone, flat, hol­low, true “—because you knew we were lovers.”

A moment of eternity. And sudden cold in the room.

Adred felt himself beginning to step forward.

Cyrodian’s voice came across the room with such force that the taper flames bent beneath the roar of his anger. “What are you saying?”

“You slew him because you knew we were lovers.”

Huge footsteps, crushing the stone. Huge arms, reaching out as if to burst from their sleeves. Terrible eyes, white with rage. Cyrodian hulked to the bedside and stared across at his wife. “What are you saying?”

“You’re not my husband. You never were my husband—not in your heart. You slew Dursoris because you knew we were lovers—we loved one another, and you knew it. The oracle was only a pretext because— Elad must have known it, too—” The words, tumbling.

Cyrodian’s breath came in gusts of wind. He said, “Bandits—” and shook his head. “I never —” He seemed to lean back, and his hands, hairy paws, lifted on the air. “Lovers?”—in a wholly perplexed, disbelieving voice.

Orain shuddered. Her knees gave and she dropped to the floor. She threw her arms upon Dursoris’s breast. “Why didn’t you just kill him?” she shrieked at Cyrodian. “Do you hate me that much? Did you have to mutilate him? Did you have to torture him?”

“What are you—?”

“Did you have to torture him?”

Swaying on his feet, Cyrodian let out a massive roar. “Lovers!” he bellowed.

“Stop him!” Adred yelled to the Khamars. “Name of the gods!”

Cyrodian was around the bed in a lunge. Orain, her arms across Dursoris, head bent, cackled with laughter. Cyrodian’s hands settled on her head; with a powerful wrench, he forced her face up.

Adred winced, expecting to hear him break her skull.

“Lovers?”

Sorrowful, half-mad cackle of laughter.

Now Galvus moved, and Adred flung out a hand to keep him where he was.

The Khamars came on, hands on swords. “Prince Cyrodian—”

“Lovers!” And to his wife’s sobs: “Whore! Whore! Whore!”

“Prince Cyrodian!”

He twisted her head; Orain gurgled and fell back. Cyrodian grabbed for her hair. She shrieked.

But as the prince lifted his arms and made fists, a Khamar moved straight at him and pushed a longsword between him and Orain.

“Run!” Adred urged Galvus. “Get Elad! Hurry!”

Cyrodian faced the Khamar, ignoring the dangerous blade. “Whore!” he yelled into the guard’s face.

The other three Khamars surrounded him and coaxed him away from the princess.

Galvus threw open the door and hurried down the hall with quick, receding footsteps.

Each Khamar now drew his sword and held it out at Cyrodian.

The first said, “You will not touch her, my lord.”

“She’s a whore!” Cyrodian yelled at him, bending forward.

“Stand away!” the Khamar ordered him. “Prince Cyrodian! Stand away imme—”

Cyrodian, more than a head taller and twice the soldier’s bulk, swung his fists and caught the guard on the side of his head. The man fell backward, grunting and dropping his weapon. The steel skipped on the stone floor as he landed on his back, his armor clattering.

The remaining three moved in, their points aimed at the prince’s chest.

“Get her!” one of them called.

Adred reacted. Incredulous, watching himself as though he were someone else, some outside observer, he instinctively bent low and scuttled to Orain. He grabbed her by the arms and pulled her away. Stood her up. Leaned her against a table.

She drew in a long breath and stared at her husband.

He said, “Whore!” and to the guards: “Stand away from me, I’ll kill you all!” But he didn’t challenge the points of their weapons.

Adred held onto Orain and pressed her face into his shoulder. He stared, frightened, at the immense Cyrodian, at his rage, huger than the rage of gods.

Noise, now, and a shadow in the doorway. Adred looked. Cyrodian, growling, turned his head, expecting more guards.

“Brother.… Cyrodian.…” And drunken laughter.

Galvus held behind, moving only when Elad advanced on unsure legs, a wine jug swinging in his right hand.

Cyrodian watched him with hot eyes.

But Elad ignored him and instead crossed the room to Dursoris’s bed and stared down. He hiccupped and smiled, still swaying.

Orain trembled against Adred as though she were broken, the life draining from her, running out.

“What?” Elad asked Cyrodian, looking up with a flushed face colored by the candlelight. “Have they named you, brother? Did they discover the blood on your sword?”

“Liar!” Cyrodian roared.

“Hold him!” Elad cried out to the Khamars. “I want a thousand swords on him! A thousand guards!”

“Coward!”

But already more Khamars were coming down the outside corridor. The thunder of their boots grew and the metal noise of their armor, and then they appeared in the doorway, a blotting crowd of shadows, watching. Some drew weapons.

Elad’s head dropped low. He hiccupped again and sniffled, whispered to himself, then looked up to face Cyrodian’s anger. “Murderer,” he whispered, irrevocably.

Orain sobbed.

“Murderer,” Elad said again. “Oh, gods, brother, what crimes have we done? What crimes have we done?”

One of the Khamars glanced at him.

“Take him,” Elad ordered the guards. “He drew the knife. Now take him! I want him in chains! Remove him to the prison!”

“Liar!” Cyrodian howled. “Traitor!”

His arms shot out; one Khamar, surprised, was caught in the throat by a heavy fist and fell, gasping.

Those in the wide doorway moved in, swords up. In a moment, they were crowded around Cyrodian, their blades aimed at his face, throat, heart, belly.

“Both of you, whores!” Cyrodian yelled, spittle flying. “I gave you the throne, traitor!”

Chains—brought by the Khamars summoned by Elad. Chains—looped over Cyrodian’s head, wrapped tightly to pin his monster arms. Chains, binding his wrists and chest, though he struggled and, struggling, moved into three sword points; though he bellowed of liars and bandits, whores and traitors.

Chained, and driven from the room, spurred with swords.

“Liar! Liar! Murderer! Whores!”

Bellowing, he was moved down the corridor and down and down, into the ancient prison beneath the palace of his mother, to make his place with sewer rats and all of the decay there, to wait with the ghosts there, in darkness.

The whisper of candles.

The sobs of Orain.

Adred, shaking, continued to hold her.

Elad fell to his knees, crouching, dropping the wine jug to the floor so that it spilled. Elad, sobbing—mouth agape, tears running down his face—and moaning. “I did not want this!” He clawed at the blankets of Dursoris’s bed. “Brother—live! Live! I did not want this! I do not want this throne!” Gasp­ing, sobbing in a man’s naked voice: “Brother, live! I did not touch you! I did not touch you! Come awake and live! Let me touch your—hands! Oh, gods, I do not want this throne!”

* * * *

Dawn, gray at the window.

Tapers burned low, some extinguished.

The servant girl crouched above the bed, still applying the damp cloth to Dursoris’s brow.

Sotos, alone with her in the stillness, watched.

Watched.

Listened.

Placed hand to forehead, neck, breast, mouth.

Sotos, tired, pushed away the servant’s hand. “No more. He is past all that.”

Dawn, gray at the window.

Tapers burned low, some extinguished, smoking.