The nymph giggled lasciviously and dove into the seething pool. She swam to where the waterfall cascaded, then climbed the sheeting water as if it were a ladder. She was very lovely, very naked, and had white-blond hair. She also had Marán’s face. Near the top of the waterfall the nymph stepped onto a half-hidden, moss-framed ledge. She crooked an inviting finger at me, then vanished behind the waterfall, into her cave.
The nymph, or rather the foot-tall sorcerous illusion, had been a present from Marán when we’d been married for two years, one time, and forty-two days. I’d asked the occasion, and she’d said “Just because.” Just because seemed like an excellent tradition to establish, and so it was.
I sat on a stone bench, heedless of the drifting mist that cloaked the garden around me. The nymph’s slightly bawdy antics, which never seemed to repeat, generally cheered me. But nothing changed my mood, which remained as dark, as empty, as the season.
We’d left Polycittara five days after I’d been relieved, as soon as Sinait decided Kutulu could travel.
Domina Bikaner assumed my duties as well as those of the prince regent until a replacement arrived. He tried twice to bring up what had happened, but I refused to allow it. We were both soldiers, oathed to obey the lawful orders given us. He ordered the Red Lancers to escort Marán, my staff, and myself to Nicias. Once the capital was reached, I’d no longer be entitled to my bodyguards, nor any of the staff allowed by the emperor. Karjan, however, announced he’d remain in my service. I said that was impossible — he was carried on the rolls of the Ureyan Lancers and should return to the regiment and normal duties. “I said what I said,” he told me. “Y’ll have me as a so’jer or a deserter. I don’t give a shit which.” Once again Bikaner provided a solution. Karjan was detached for “special duties” to me.
Prince Reufern’s corpse, held in a stasis spell, was wrapped in dark silks, and the black-draped hearse traveled at the head of our column, behind the point riders. Behind Reufern was the ambulance carrying the still only semiconscious Kutulu.
I’d intended to ride out without ceremony, to avoid embarrassment, but that wasn’t possible. The Seventeenth Ureyan Lancers and the Tenth Hussars, in full dress, were drawn up in the main courtyard, and when Marán and I came down to our carriage, the men cheered as if we’d won a great victory, cheered and cheered again.
I swallowed hard, then went to Domina Bikaner and told him to call for a cheer for the emperor. His lips tightened, then he nodded and gave the order. The men obeyed, although I won’t praise the lustiness of the response.
There was no one on the streets of Polycittara as our wagons and carriages went down toward the city gates. The Kallians were cowering indoors, awaiting the lash they knew was coming.
The fast river packet Tauler, a ship I’d been aboard in better times, was waiting at Entotto, its usually gay bunting replaced with black mourning. We were its only passengers. We carried Prince Reufern’s corpse aboard and then sailed north, down the Latane River, for Nicias.
There was a great procession waiting at the docks in Nicias for the body of the emperor’s brother, and the whole city was draped in black. As for Marán and myself — there was no one at all. There was no representative from the emperor, no honor guard such as a tribune was entitled to, none of the friends we’d thought we had.
We had two palaces in the city — the one on the waterfront that was Marán’s, a family gift when she married her previous husband, and the enormous Water Palace granted me after I’d crowned Tenedos emperor. I was for going to our house, but Marán shook her head. “No,” she said. “Perhaps they think they can shame us like this, but the sons of bitches can’t take away what the emperor has given us! We’ll go to the Water Palace!”
I didn’t bother reminding her the “son of a bitch” was the emperor — Marán knew that full well, and if she wished to think otherwise, what mattered it?
The journey through the streets was eerie. All taverns were closed, and few people were abroad. Nicias is a city of lights, laughter, and music. But not now. As Tenedos mourned, so would his kingdom.
At first when we reached the Water Palace, I thought Marán had been right in her decision. Our staff was still at the sprawling manor and greeted us as eagerly as if we were returning heroes. If they’d heard of my disgrace, no one then or afterward gave any sign. But after a few days, I began to think Marán had been wrong.
The Water Palace is monstrously large. It was built for the amusement of the Rule of Ten. Water from the nearby Latane River was pumped into an artificial lake atop a great hill. The water coursed down in a hundred or more creeks and rivulets, over falls, up fountains, and into ponds, surrounded by huge gardens. The gardens were planted with many herbs, flowers, and trees, from the mountainous jungles near the Disputed Lands, to the hothouse orchids of Hermonassa, to the river plants of the Nician delta. Those that did not thrive naturally were kept alive by sorcerous spells, tricked into believing they were in their native land. Statuary was scattered throughout, in every style from sacred to eyebrow-raising profane.
The palace was always thronged with the beautiful ones of Numantia, eager to see and be seen. But now it appeared abandoned, the only people on its winding paths were servitors or gardeners keeping the grounds in their always perfect trim. Unpeopled, in this autumnal time, it was the ideal place for glooming.
Actually, this time was harder on Marán than on me. Disliking the vast country estates of the Agramóntes, she’d come to Nicias searching for knowledge, freedom, and new ways of thought. Since the Agramóntes were one of the most ancient, most respected of the aristocratic families, and Marán was both beautiful and witty, she’d become the talk of the town. Now, no one came to the Water Palace, and when she went calling, those she visited were out, or so their servants said, or the occasion was short, stiff, and formal. Even her dearest friend, Amiel, Countess Kalvedon, was supposedly away from the capital with her husband at one of her river estates. Marán wondered if Amiel had heard of our disgrace and turned away like the others. I said that was ridiculous — Amiel lived her own life, caring little about what others said or did. Marán looked skeptical.
I shared some of her hurt, not just for her sake, but for my own, for my warrior friends were also conspicuously absent. I wondered how much longer we’d remain in this gray world of nonexistence. A time? A year? Forever?
The nymph peered out and smiled. I smiled back, and suddenly realized how wet my ass was. A laugh came, not the tinkle of the nymph’s invitation, but a harsh, grating sound. I was on my feet, hand reaching for a sword that wasn’t there as a swarthy man stepped from behind a high ornamental fern. He had wild curls and beard and a nose that had been bent at birth and further mutilated in a dozen brawls. He was dressed like a border brigand. He had a sword sheathed on one side and, just behind it, a dagger.
“Ah, Cimabuean,” he growled. “Sitting there feeling sorry for yourself, eh? Serves you damned well right, trusting kings and shit like that.”
It was Yonge, perhaps the oddest tribune of all. He was a Kaiti, a mercenary guarding our embassy in Sayana when the Seer Tenedos and I met him. Like most hillmen, he was an instinctual killer, but unlike many, he knew how to command and, as importantly, how to follow.
“I heard none of your brothers-in-arms have the balls to pay a visit, for fear the never-to-be-sufficiently-kowtowed-to emperor might smack their little bottoms, eh? A long time ago, I said I wished to learn more of honor. Perhaps I’ve learned all there is to learn in Numantia. Perhaps it’s time for me to return to my hills. What say you, Cimabuean? Perhaps you’ll give up this shit, turn your back on Numantia, and become a proper warrior in my band?”
Yonge had chosen a hard way to learn about honor, marching with us on that terrible flight from Sayana, and then done this and that in Nicias, with some equally disreputable friends, until the Tovieti rose and Kallio rebelled. Then there was a place for his sly talents, and he took charge of the army’s skirmishers. He was made general and then, after our victory over Chardin Sher, Tenedos named him one of the first tribunes.
Authority hadn’t changed his ways. He’d been given a palace, as had the other tribunes, but refused it, not wanting anyone to think he was part of this damned tropic marsh that was Nicias. Sooner or later, he’d return to the mountains, he said. He lived in the barracks with his men, although he spent as little time under a roof as they did. The skirmishers were always in the field, if they weren’t fighting bandits or on the frontiers.
When Yonge was in Nicias, he was a constant scandal. Why so many women were so fascinated with the rogue no one, least of all their husbands, fathers, or brothers, could fathom. He’d fought half a dozen duels without ever taking a serious wound, and now his loves went unchallenged, Nicians preferring horns to the funeral pyre. If he were anything other than the best, no doubt he would have been cashiered. But he was Yonge, and so served on.
The smile the nymph had brought to my face firmed and grew broader. As always, I was glad to see him. “Are you drunk?”
“I’m never drunk, Damastes. I’m just drinking.”
“How’d you get into the palace? I do have guards, you know.”
“Guards? I could wear a pink skirt, have drums and bugles, and walk past them without their dull cow eyes seeing me. Guards! Your brain is going! You need a drink!”
I took him to one of my libraries and bade him wait. He slumped onto a worked-leather couch, without regard for what his drenched garments would do, and said I’d best summon a bottle, for everyone knew a Man of the Hills grows cranky when denied his pleasures. I asked if he wished to clean up, and he said, “Why? I already bathed this year,” and chortled happily. It would be a long evening.
I found Marán and asked, knowing the answer, if she wished to join us. She made polite noises. It wasn’t that Marán disliked Yonge —
I think he frightened her. She was comfortable in the presence of warriors. But as I said, Yonge was a simpler breed, a pure killer. She said she thought not, but she’d at least come in and say hello.
My majordomo, Erivan, brought a wire-sealed flask of Yonge’s favorite tipple, the raw, clear brandy made from grape skins the Varans never exported, but let their peasants swill instead; and a bottle of chilled mineral water for me. A serving man carried a tray of pickled vegetables, several varieties of olives, goat cheeses, and tiny, burning-hot olives.
Yonge waited until the door closed, then growled, “Damastes, I do not like what is going on these days.”
“I’m not very fond of it myself,” I said.
“Everyone knows you were in the right in what you did. Don’t look surprised. Of course what happened in Kallio’s all over the army and everywhere else. It makes quite a story. I think our emperor’s mind has gotten soft. Perhaps he can’t think on anything but his inability to breed a baby emperor on anyone who comes close.”
“Careful,” I warned, knowing one and most likely several of my servants would be spying for Kutulu.
“Piss on care! I say the emperor is acting like he shat his brains out and is trying to think with an empty arse, and I’d say it to his face if he were here.” Yonge was telling the truth. “An idiot,” he went on, “or some kind of primitive asshole in the hills. Like Achim Fergana. You know he still holds the throne in Sayana?” Fergana was king in Kait and held the capital of Kait by cunning and violence. He was the one who’d forced us out of his city on the death trek through Sulem Pass.
Yonge saw the gleam in my eyes. “Now, there would be a task for a dozen, maybe two dozen, good men,” he said. “The emperor won’t know you’re gone. Why don’t you and I and some others slip across the border and call on Fergana? We would gain long-overdue revenge, and maybe even take the kingdom. Now, wouldn’t that be a blow to that little magician you serve, if he had to treat you as a fellow monarch?” Yonge bellowed a humorless laugh. “Don’t look so worried, Cimabuean. I know you’ll hold to your oath, even if Tenedos lets you rot in this swamp you think is a palace.”
He got up, tore off a piece of cheese, and stuffed it into his mouth while pouring another drink. “I said I didn’t like what was happening, Damastes, and I meant more than just what the emperor is doing to you.”
“Why? What’s going on now? I’ve been busy lately.”
“You should take a look at the flitter-tits who’ve joined his court. I’ve never seen a bigger pack of gold-plated fools who do nothing more than prattle the emperor’s praises and try to pry into his treasury. What worries me is that they’re succeeding.” I remembered Kutulu saying much the same thing. “But more,” Yonge went on, seeing my almost imperceptible nod. “Look at the army. Have you seen any of the new commanders? Nilt Safdur, for instance, who’s now got your cavalry. A blowhard and a fool who could lose his way behind a plow horse. Tenedos will take an officer who’s done no more than beat up a few bandits, and make him a general. Worse, he’s named a dozen, maybe more, new tribunes from their ranks. I’d piss on ‘em, but none of them are worth the water. They aren’t like we are, Damastes.”
“We” were the first six the emperor had named tribunes after Chardin Sher’s defeat: myself; Yonge; Herne, whom I liked but little for his ambition, but respected for his ability; Cyrillos Linerges, a former ranker, a patriot who’d left the army to become a peddler, a man who led from the front and had been wounded many times; Mercia Petre, humorless, dedicated, a student of war who’d devised the reorganization of the Army that gave Tenedos victory over the Kallian rebels and his throne; and Myrus Le Balafre, a swordsman, a brawler, and the bravest of the brave.
There’d been others appointed in the years since, some I knew well, others only by reputation.
“What’s he trying to do? Give more work to the gilt-makers?” Yonge complained. His voice dropped to a whisper. “I fear he is getting ready to go to war, and needs more sword-wavers to holler ‘Charge’ for him.”
“I think both of us,” Yonge went on, his voice still low, “know who it might be against.” He shuddered, a grimace of real horror. “You’ve never seen what lies beyond Kait. Maisir goes on forever beyond my mountains. Forests you could lose all Dara in. Swamps with creatures — and the sorcerers who control them — such as none of us have ever dreamed of. Plains that go to the horizon so far away your eyes hurt trying to reach it. I fear, if that’s where the emperor’s dreams lie, we might all find our doom.”
I hope I managed to cover, remembering the emperor’s words: Beyond the Disputed Lands lies the fate of Numantia.
Yonge took an olive, then put it back and drained his glass. “Do you remember, Damastes,” he said, seemingly irrelevantly, “after Dabormida, when I came to your tent, drunk?” I did. “Do you remember what I said? That I thought my men were thrown away, were slaughtered, for a reason I didn’t know then — and don’t know now?”
“Yes.”
“Think on that, Damastes,” he said, suddenly gloomy. “If we march south, march into those wastelands of that king, whatever his name is — ”
“Bairan.”
“Whatever … if we march against him, what will happen?”
“Tenedos will become emperor of both countries,” I said firmly.
“Probably,” Yonge said. “But where will you and I be? Bones, forgotten bones, scattered by the wolves of the desolation.”
A dark wind whispered across my soul. I forced a laugh. “What else happens to soldiers?”
“Especially,” Yonge said, “those who are fools enough to trust kings or seers. Double fools those who believe someone who is both!”
“I truly want to thank you for coming here, Yonge, and cheering me so thoroughly,” I said sarcastically. Before Yonge could answer, there was a tap at the door and Marán entered.
“Ah, the beautiful one,” the Kaiti said. “Your appearance is at a perfect moment, Countess.”
“You’ve run out of brandy and want more.”
“Well, not quite, but soon. No. It is time for us to talk about other things than war and such, and perhaps you’ll lead the way.”
Marán looked at Yonge skeptically, not sure he wasn’t making fun of her, but she realized he was serious. She found the pull. When Erivan appeared, she told him what Yonge wanted and added, “And bring a bottle of the green Varan first spring pressing for me.” She saw my lifted eyebrow. “Since none of my friends seem to think I’m worth visiting, the least I can do is cultivate yours. Yonge, start by calling me by my name.”
“Ah! That is good, Marán. You are right to want to be friends with men like myself. We are not only charming and handsome, but entirely trustworthy.”
Marán grinned. “I’ve heard stories.”
“Mostly lies. I shall tell you, Count — Marán, a Man of the Hills can be trusted in all ways, at all times, as long as there is not a woman, a horse, gold, pride, or plain boredom involved. Then no one can tell what might occur.”
Marán laughed loudly, and I realized it was days since I’d heard that silver cascade of happiness.
• • •
Two days after that, Amiel rode up to the palace. She had, indeed, been away, and Marán’s fears ill-founded. Countess Kalvedon was my age and very beautiful — tall, well built, with dancer’s muscles and black hair cascading down about her shoulders. The two greeted each other and burst into tears, and I found business in my library, having, like most many men, not enough understanding of women to be skillful with their problems.
I found out what was wrong that night. Amiel and her husband had withdrawn from Nicias to deal with a problem — her husband, Pelso, was having an affair. I puzzled, since the two had an open marriage and went to bed with anyone who caught their fancy, with no guilt or blame. Marán told me, though, that their understanding was based on an agreement: They could take any lovers they wished, so long as the attraction was purely physical. Pelso had shattered the arrangement by falling in love with his current bed partner. She was the sister of the governor of Bala Hissar, a coastal province to the far west, and was unmarried, with a lineage almost as noble as the Kalvedons'.
Amiel and Pelso had spent two weeks together, the situation getting more and more grim, then had a blazing row. He’d returned to Nicias and gone straight to the other woman’s apartments. Marán said Amiel tried to make light of what had happened, saying no doubt Pelso would come to his senses, and refused to talk about it any longer. They spent most of her visit trying to figure out what they could do to slap the faces of these Nician bastards who’d dropped Marán. I admired the woman, as I admire anyone who can set aside his own problem to help another.
Amiel became a very frequent visitor, often spending the night at the Water Palace. I thoroughly approved, since it seemed to help Marán’s feelings. At any rate, her smile came back, and her wonderful laugh was no longer a stranger to me.
• • •
“Damned if I’d let a coward into my house like you’re doing,” Tribune Myrus Le Balafre growled.
“I’d hardly call you that, sir.” Le Balafre had arrived at the Water Palace in a carriage quite fitting for him — a practical, high-wheeled vehicle like an ambulance that had been gold crusted and enameled. With him was his wife, Nechia, a quiet, rather plain, small woman, who looked as if she should be minding a sewing stall at a town fair.
Le Balafre had tied his own sash of rank around me when I’d been promoted to domina and given command of the Seventeenth Ureyan Lancers. He was a hard and brilliant general of infantry, who’d led the right wing of our army in the Kallian war and, since then, had led expeditionary forces against the always-raiding Men of the Hills.
“But I am,” Le Balafre went on. “You came limping back into Nicias with your colors reversed, the emperor ignoring you, and what do I do? I listen to my gods-damned aides about how it’d be impolitic for me to go calling on you, for fear the emperor’d think it amiss. Fuck the emperor! I’m his servant, not his gods-damned slave!”
Marán looked shocked.
“Myrus,” his wife said gently. “Such talk is not gentlemanly.”
“Nor terribly safe,” I added, trying to hold back a grin, remembering Yonge’s snarl of a few nights before. The emperor’s best followers didn’t seem very good at bending their knee.
“Safe? Pah! Safe is not something I’ve worshiped in this life. Well, don’t just stand there, young Tribune. If I’m not a craven, invite us in!”
In a few moments we were sitting in one of the solariums, looking out over a small wind-rippled lake, while servants fussed around serving small sweetmeats and herbal teas. Le Balafre drew me to one side, while Marán chatted with the tribune’s wife, who busied herself with what I thought to be a sewing sampler.
“As I said, Damastes, I’m not proud of myself. Will you accept my apologies?”
“What is there to apologize for?” I lied. “I just thought you were busy.”
“I am that,” Le Balafre said. He waited until the servants withdrew. “As are we all. The emperor’s built up the garrisons in Urey and Chalt, and he sent your friend Petre off to recon the pass into Kait half a time ago.” That explained why I hadn’t seen Mercia — I may have been the humorless strategician’s only friend, and knew he wouldn’t care a lout’s curse for who was in or out of favor. “And we’ve got over five million men under arm or about to be sworn.”
I whistled. That was more than double the number of troops we’d had at the height of the civil war against Kallio.
“But let me return to something I said earlier,” Le Balafre went on. “About this matter of cowardice. I like it little that I hesitated before coming here. This army of ours has changed, Damastes. It’s gotten so … so damned political! We might as well be speechifiers and arm wavers as soldiers.”
I thought of my assignments over the last eight years, and how few of them had to do with real war or soldiering, even though most ended in blood. But the plowman is always the last to notice the spring flowers. “You’re right,” I said. “But I don’t see how the army could be anything else than political.”
“I don’t follow”
“We put Tenedos on the throne, didn’t we?”
“Better him than those idiots who drooled around it before!”
“Agreed,” I said, very unsure of where I was going, since politics was always a mystery to me, “but I’m afraid, Myrus, our political virginity vanished when we stayed in Urgone after the fighting, and stood with him against the Rule of Ten.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Le Balafre said grudgingly.
“I think I am. Another thing. I remember what the army was like before Tenedos. I was with one of those gods-damned parade units here in Nicias when the Tovieti rose. Remember those days, when it mattered more how polished your helmet was and how well connected you were to some lard-assed aristocrat than how well you soldiered? Remember going to the field with the generals and their whores and aides and servants and cooks and bakers? Remember how we changed all that?”
“I don’t think you’ve been around the army lately,” Le Balafre said grimly. “At least not in Nicias.”
I hadn’t, of course.
“It’s changed yet again, and this change is back to the bad old ways. There’re a lot more parades these days, and more than a few spit-and-polish soldiers who do nothing but prance nobly about the streets and bang boot heels together guarding imperial offices that don’t need guarding. Our emperor is getting very fond of flash and filigree,” he went on. “As are the people he’s got dancing attendance on him.
“Another thing,” he said, looking at me carefully. “Did you know the emperor offered me your post in Kallio, after you refused his orders and he relieved you? You know what I told him? I said you’d done the only right thing, and I wasn’t a butcher any more than you. He could name me to the post if he wished, but he’d have to relieve me even faster than he had you if he gave me the same orders. He got red in the face, then told me to go about my duties.”
“Who ended up with the hot potato?” I asked.
“It wasn’t a soldier. That warder of his, Kutulu, who’s up and about again, more’s the pity, had him name somebody named Lany, who used to be chief warder for Nicias. Word has it he went out with very different orders than the ones you had, and is supposed to try to settle the situation, instead of slaughtering everybody in sight. Wonder who talked sense into the emperor. Sure as hells couldn’t have been the Sleepless Snake, now could it?”
I’d never known Kutulu to feel mercy for anyone or anything.
“At any rate,” Le Balafre said, “don’t get your guts in an uproar about what’s going on. The emperor’s no fool. Sooner or later, he’s bound to take his head out of his ass and realize you saved him from himself.”
“I surely hope so,” I said fervently.
At that moment, Marán squealed in delight, and Le Balafre and I craned to see. In Nechia’s lap was a circlet about the dimensions of two hands joined at forefinger and thumb. But it wasn’t a sampler, it was a living diorama of a forest scene. I saw a tiny tiger hiding behind brush, while three gaurs grazed, not aware of the lurking death, in the glade in the center. I peered more closely. Now I saw minuscule monkeys, silent, waiting for the drama to play out, and heard the chitter of unseen birds. “I … can only keep the spell going for a second more,” Nechia said, and then all she held was a hoop with brown cloth attached to it. There were arcane symbols on the cloth, and, between them, tiny fragments of hair, fur, and leaves. “This is a new one,” she said. “Our son’s a wandering priest, and sends me things I might find of interest. He wrote me about witnessing this in his travels, and gathered a bit of tiger fur stuck on a thorn, monkey fur, mud where the gaur scraped against a tree, flowers, and so forth.”
I was amazed. “It reminded me of things I’ve seen in the jungles beyond Cimabue,” I said, suddenly homesick for my homeland.
“When I get the little spells stabilized,” she went on, “then I cast another spell over the entire thing, and I can hang it on the wall, or in a cabinet, and whatever action I chose will repeat itself over and over. I have street scenes, some boating displays, but this is the first time I’ve tried to do something I’ve never actually seen. Of course,” she said primly, “the tiger never gets the oxen. A monkey gives the alarm, and they run off before he can charge. He swats at the monkey, then pouts away.”
I marveled again, as much at Nechia herself, who was the last person anyone would imagine as a tribune’s wife; and Le Balafre’s son, whom I’d never been told of and, if I had, wouldn’t have imagined to be a mendicant priest. Truly, none of us are as we seem.
The evening went late, although from then on we talked about inconsequentia. After his visit, I allowed myself the hope Le Balafre was right and my banishment wouldn’t last forever.
One visitor became thoroughly unwelcome shortly after arrival, a young domina named Obbia Trochu. He said he’d served under me, as a captain of the Lower Half, at Dabormida. I rather sheepishly confessed I didn’t remember him at all. I’ve always admired those great leaders who, so the story goes, see someone on the street and remember the man as a private they once shared a meager meal with twenty years ago. Admired, but never quite believed …
At any rate, I invited him in and asked his business. He looked about mysteriously, then closed the doors to the study we were in. “I decided to call on you, Tribune, because I’m utterly appalled at how you’ve been treated.”
“By the emperor?”
Trochu inclined his head slightly.
“Sir,” I said coldly, “I don’t think it’s your — or my — place to question what the emperor chooses to do. Both of us have taken his oath.”
“Meaning no disrespect, or insolence, sir, but you did question your orders, didn’t you?” I didn’t answer. He was right. “I represent a group of … of concerned citizens, shall we say. Perhaps some are in the army, perhaps more are among the best thinkers of Nicias and Numantia. We’ve followed what’s happened to you very closely.”
“For what reason?” I asked, a bit angrily.
“All of us are completely loyal to the emperor, of course, and were among the first to applaud when he took the throne. But we’ve become increasingly concerned with the events of the past two years or so.”
“Oh?”
“At times it seems the emperor’s policies aren’t as clearly defined or carried out as they once were.”
“I’ve not seen any hesitation,” I said, thinking of how over-quickly he’d moved in Kallio.
“Of course not,” Trochu said smoothly. “You’ve been his strong right arm, very close to the events of the day. But sometimes, when people are a bit removed from the tear and turmoil, they can get a better perspective.”
“True,” I said.
“The group I represent believe it might be time to offer their services to the emperor, in the hopes he might see his way clear to letting them advise him. There is the old cliché about the more minds the better on a problem.”
“There’s also the one about the ship with too many captains,” I retorted.
“I don’t think that would be the problem in our case,” Trochu said.
“What good would I be to such a group of great thinkers?” I allowed a bit of irony to creep in.
“Frankly,” Trochu said, “most of us are not well known, and have spent little time in the public eye. We all know that, ultimately, the masses must have their idols — men to respect, men to follow. That is where you would be of service to Numantia.”
I kept my expression bland, mildly interested. “Let me pose another question,” I said. “Let us say your group decides a certain policy would be beneficial to the country, and then let us say the emperor violently disagrees. What then?”
“I would hope we would have the same courage you have, and stand up for what we know to be right for Numantia. There is the advantage to our group. You were but one man, so when you did what you did, the emperor could brush you aside easily. But if there were ten, a dozen, a hundred or more of the Empire’s best standing firm …”
I was on my feet. Anger boiled within me, but I tried to hold it back as best I could, which was not very much. “Domina, you had better hold your tongue. I’ll remind you once more of your oath. What you’ve just suggested is ignoble. You, I, all of us, exist to serve the emperor. Not to ‘advise’ him, not to override him if he happens to have his own plans. Your words smack of treason, and your own behavior is dishonorable. I must ask you to leave this house immediately and never appear in my presence again.
“Perhaps I should notify the proper authorities of you and your little group. Perhaps I shall not, for I mightily despise a tale-teller. I don’t think the empire or emperor is in jeopardy from a pack of fools such as you, however. You remind me all too much of those yammering do-nothings I was proud to help the emperor overthrow.
“Now, get out of here, or I’ll have you tossed into the street by my servants!”
Strangely, Trochu showed no sign of anger. He rose, bowed, and left unhurriedly. I fumed for a time, then, when I thought I’d calmed myself, I sought Marán and told her what had happened. She exploded, and I had to calm her, feeling my own anger return through her.
“That little rat bastard! We ought to call Kutulu’s warders and report this pissheaded domina and his shitheels! The emperor’s got enough troubles without having dungeaters like them plotting.”
My wife was noble, but could swear as well as the hardest drill master. I repeated what I’d said to Trochu about not being, or liking, a tell-tale.
Marán’s lips pursed. “I know,” she said. “I don’t, either. But this is different. This is the emperor!” She broke off and looked at me strangely. “Damastes, a thought just came. A very odd thought. I’ll ask it slowly, so you don’t get angry. Right now, the emperor is mad at you, correct? Maybe even wondering how loyal you are?” She waited, probably expecting me to snarl something.
“Go ahead” was all I said.
“Maybe you’re wondering just as I am. If I were the emperor, and I had someone who’s known as the Serpent Who Never Sleeps at my beck, someone who’s supposedly got an agent in every tavern, eating place, and public spot in Numantia, and another agent to watch the first, would I maybe have my serpent send to see if my disgraced tribune could be tempted into foolishness?”
“Such as joining a conspiracy that really doesn’t exist?” I said.
“Or maybe it does, but only to keep track of possible betrayers?”
Marán said.
I shook my head, not in denial, but in perplexity. “I don’t know, Marán. I just don’t know.”
“Nor I. But Laish Tenedos and Kutulu are more than subtle enough to come up with such a scheme.”
“So what do we do about it? Even if he is a double agent, I still don’t like the idea of informing.”
“We’ll have to think about it,” she said.
But we didn’t have to. The next morning Kutulu came calling.
• • •
He was even shyer than usual and clutched a paper-wrapped parcel as he perched on the edge of a leather couch. Marán greeted him, then said she’d join us later in the green study. That was a code between us — that particular room had a secret alcove with a spyhole, entered from the neighboring linen closet, and Marán and I used it when one or another of us wished to hear something our presence might prevent being said.
Kutulu refused refreshment and said that he could only stay a few minutes.
“I see your wounds have healed,” I said.
“Yes, at least partially,” he said. “I still have some stiffness in this side. But my brain has returned to working order. For a long time I kept going in and out of fogs, and wasn’t able to remember things, and lost track of conversations. I think … I hope … that’ll never happen again. My memory, being able to add things together, is my only real talent.” He might have said weapon.
“It probably won’t,” I advised. “Most people think a clout on the head just knocks you out. In reality, it takes a while to come back to normal.”
“Who did it to me?”
“Some woman, who then tried to cut your gullet.”
“I hope you dealt with her.”
“Cut off her head, in fact.”
“Good. I’d wondered. I was told you dragged me back inside our keep, but no one said what happened to my assailant. That’s why I’m here,” he went on. “To thank you, once again, for saving my life. I suppose it’s become a habit.”
I was slightly astonished. “Kutulu, are you making a joke?”
“Oh. Yes. I suppose I did, didn’t I?”
Now I really began laughing, and a smile came and went on his face.
“At any rate,” I said, “it’s certainly good to see you. And I’m quite surprised you’re here.”
“Why? You’re one of my few friends. I’m just sorry I was laid up for such a long time. Why wouldn’t I visit you?”
“For one thing, the emperor isn’t thinking fondly of me.”
“What of that? I know — and so does he, really — you’re not a threat to the realm, in spite of your differences in Kallio.”
“I wouldn’t think he’d be pleased to see you visit anyone who’s in disgrace.”
“Perhaps not. But I didn’t choose to serve a man who’s ruled by his emotions. If the emperor uses a moment of logic, he’ll dismiss the matter.”
“Well …” I let my voice trail off, then slightly changed the subject. “Does he still have you chasing thus-far-invisible Maisirians?”
Kutulu frowned, nodded.
“And have you found any more evidence than you had before of King Bairan’s evil plots?”
“None. But the emperor persists in his belief.” Kutulu shook his head. “Now, does that make what I said a few minutes ago, about imperial logic, meaningless?”
“As you said once before, the emperor’s mind moves in ways we’re not privy to,” I said.
“I did, didn’t I?” Kutulu hesitated. “Actually, there was another, more important reason I came. And even though it’s somewhat threatening, I think your wife should be aware of what I’m going to say.”
I went to the door.
“Never mind,” Kutulu said, with that wisp of a smile. “I’ll call her.”
He walked to the waterfall painting concealing the spyhole and spoke to it. “Countess Agramónte, would you join us?” There was a hiccup of surprise from behind the picture, and I turned red. Marán’s face was even redder when she came into the room a few moments later.
Kutulu shook his head. “Why you should be embarrassed is quite beyond me. Why shouldn’t you have, and use, a device such as that? I would.”
“Because,” Marán managed, “it’s considered the height of rudeness to eavesdrop.”
“Not in my world,” Kutulu said. “Not in my profession. At any rate,” he went on, “I don’t know if Damastes told you that our friends the Tovieti are on the rise once more.”
“No … Wait, yes he did.” Marán remembered. “In Kallio. But I didn’t pay much attention. We had … more pressing worries, as I recall.”
“Well, they’re as active now as they were when the emperor sent me to Polycittara,” Kutulu said. “In fact, busier. That’s what’s worrying the emperor. He’s had me drop my other concerns to concentrate on them, specifically whether they’re being financed by Maisir.” Maisir again! Kutulu saw my expression. “He’s wondering if King Bairan is their paymaster, just as Chardin Sher was for a time. By the way, of course everything I’m saying must not be repeated. I haven’t found any evidence yet. But it would be logical.”
“I don’t see why this pertains to us,” I said.
“Two weeks ago, I arrested a cell leader, and she had greater knowledge of the organization and its plans than any one I’d interrogated before. She told me the Tovieti’s offensive is divided into two prongs. The first, and longest-ranged, is to continue murdering in the hopes that the emperor will tighten the screws and enact repressive laws. That will anger the populace, the anger will feed off the repression — back and forth until there is another rising, which won’t fail.
“Their second, more immediate plan is selective assassination of the emperor’s leaders. I asked her for names, and she said the campaign was still being discussed. But she did say the Tovieti targets would be men like, and I’m quoting her precisely, ‘that gods-damned yellow-haired devil Damastes the Fair, the one who rode us down before and helped the emperor slay Thak. He’s one, and so’s his, pardon me, countess, solid gold bitch of a wife.’ ”
“But … but why? Why us? Why me?” Marán said, trying to keep her voice from shaking.
“Because you’re better, richer, smarter than they are, maybe? I don’t know. Doesn’t the peasant always hate his better?”
“Not necessarily,” I said, remembering the peasants I’d labored with as a boy, not much richer and at least as hungry as they were.
“I wouldn’t really know,” Kutulu said. “My parents were shopkeepers, and I don’t remember anyone hating us, or us hating anyone.
“But that’s another matter. I thought I’d best warn you. I wish the emperor would change his opinion of you and restore your Red Lancers. This palace is hard to defend properly.”
“We have watchmen.”
Kutulu was about to say something, but I shook my head slightly, and he kept silent. “Be careful, both of you,” he said, instead. He got to his feet, then realized he was still clutching the parcel. “Oh. Yes. Here’s a present. For both of you. No, please open it after I’ve left.” He seemed in a hurry to leave, and we escorted him out. He had only two warders to escort him.
“Kutulu,” I said, “perhaps I should return the warning. You’re a finer target for those madmen than I.”
“Of course,” he said. “But who knows what I look like? Or remembers my face?”
“A question for you,” I said. “Have you ever heard of a certain Domina Obbia Trochu?” I described him.
Kutulu’s face blanked, and he furrowed his brow, as if in deep thought. “No,” he said blandly. “I don’t believe I have. Should I?”
“Not necessarily,” I said dryly. “Not unless you want to.”
Kutulu didn’t ask for an explanation, but climbed into the saddle. “I really like your home,” he said. “Perhaps, one day, if the emperor decides …” His voice trailed away. He tapped his horse’s reins and went off down the winding road to the street beyond the gates.
“That is a truly odd little man,” Marán said.
“He is,” I agreed. “Shall we see what present an odd man buys?”
It was an expensively worked wooden box. Inside were a dozen differently scented bars of soap.
“Oh dear,” Marán said. “Has he no social graces? I’ve known men challenged to a death duel for such an insult.”
“Would you challenge the Serpent Who Never Sleeps?” I asked. “Besides, perhaps he’s right. Maybe we do need a bath.”
Marán eyed me. “I suspect you, sir, of having ulterior motives.”
I rounded my eyes and tried to look innocent.
• • •
One of the more secluded parts of the Water Palace was a series of falls, ponds, and rapids running through small glades and mossy gardens. Some of the ponds were icy cold, others sent steam roiling into the chill night wind. All were lit with various-colored lamps, hidden in glass-fronted underwater alcoves.
“Why do we start up here, instead of where it’s warm?” Marán said. “This is arctic!”
“Sybarite! Do you want to always do things the easy way?”
“Of course.” Marán wore a soft cotton robe, and I had a towel around my waist.
“Ah, my love, you’re such an ascetic sort,” she murmured. “Here I am, freezing my tits off, and you have nothing but that towel.” She opened her robe, and, indeed, her dark brown nipples were standing hard and firm. “See?”
I quickly bent and bit one. She squealed, then took a bar of Kutulu’s soap from the pocket of her robe. She’d had one of her maids drive a hole in it, and tied a silk cord through the center. She hung the soap around her neck. “Now, you filthy creature, you’ll have to work for your bath,” and she dove into the pool. An instant later, she surfaced. “Shit, it’s even colder in here than out there,” she yelped.
I plunged after her. It was cold, as frigid as any stream cascading through a mountain valley in Urey. I surfaced, shivering and treading water, and slowly moving closer to her.
“Ah-ah. I see your treachery,” she said and dove, swimming hard. I went after her, following the foam and the flail of her feet. I was reaching for her ankle when I realized she’d made it to one of the falls, and then the current took me and sent me tumbling over the lip. I fell five feet and splashed into another pond, this as warm as the other was cold.
I let myself drift to the bottom, then languidly swam back to the surface. Marán floated on her back, looking up at the sky. The hard diamonds of the stars shone down. The steam from the water twined white serpents around us.
“I guess … most times … this isn’t that bad a world,” she said softly.
“There could be worse,” I agreed.
“Are we possibly doing something wrong?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
“I’m serious. Maybe we shouldn’t be mewed up, here, sulking as we’ve been since we got back from Kallio.”
“That’s what Yonge accused me of doing. Do you have a suggestion?”
“Well, the Time of Storms begins next week. Should we have a grand party? Invite everyone who’s anyone — including the emperor?”
I thought for a moment. “I don’t know. But that’s one way to take the battle to the enemy.”
“Let’s try it, then. Stupid soldiers,” she added. “They can’t find any other analogy besides whacking people with swords.”
“That’s not true. I’ve got other whackers around.”
“Oh?” She swam to me, and we kissed, friendly at first, then our tongues twined together. Finally I broke away, swam to a submerged rock, and sat on it, the water coming to mid-chest. Marán lazily followed, and put her head on my shoulder, the rest of her body floating.
“Sometimes we let the world be too much with us,” I said.
“I know. I love you, Damastes.”
“I love you, Marán.”
Words that had been said again and again, but always sounded new.
“Come on,” she said. “Otherwise we’ll just sit here until we melt, and never get around to serious fucking.”
I waded after her, then we slid down a narrow chute into a small lagoon, this one blood-warm with a mossy ledge, illuminated by small tapers. Marán handed me the soap, and I began lathering her, first her back, down her legs, then she turned, and I slowly soaped her stomach, her breasts. Her breathing came faster and she lay back on the moss, her legs parting.
I turned her on her side and put her right heel on my right shoulder. I soaped my cock, then slid it into her. She sighed, and I began moving, slowly, deeply inside her, as my hands caressed her soap-slippery breasts and back. She arced back and forth, her leg trying to pull me down on her.
She turned, until she was lying on her stomach, pillowed her face on her arms, and I bent over her, feeling her soft buttocks move against me, her feet on the ledge, pushing up, as we moved in a common rhythm, harder, faster, and the small tapers blossomed into twin suns.