Jarrah sprawled for leagues, its symmetrically laid streets broken by parks and small lakes, even more than graced Nicias. The boulevards were wide and tree-lined, and a river wound lazily through the city, from east to west. The city was walled, but in a rather haphazard manner. It had been planned as an octagon, with siege-proof walls nearly thirty feet thick, and onion-shaped guard towers at the angles. But the city had sprawled beyond, and each time it did, another set of walls was built. These walls, when the metropolis devoured them, had arches driven through them, so commerce could pass through.
Farther south were rolling hills, and here were the palaces of the mighty. One held the Numantian Embassy, where we were going. Beyond these estates, each set off by parklands, was Moriton, the King’s Own, a fortress enclosing many more elaborate mansions, barracks, and administration centers. Here dwelt King Bairan, and his satraps, servants, slaves, and administrators in their thousands.
Shamb Philaret had sent riders ahead the night before, so we were expected. A pavilion was raised beyond the city gates, against the occasionally spattering rain, and richly garbed dignitaries waited under it.
I wore a waist-length red cloak against the weather, black knee-high boots, white riding breeches, a white tunic with red trim, and a shako. I was armed with the sword King Bairan had given me.
Alegria wore a dark brown, almost black, silk garment with needlework, high-necked. At the waist, the suit flared into wide-legged pants, and she wore short boots underneath it. For protection against the weather, she had a hooded cloak that appeared to be no more than translucent cloth with exotic embroidery. But the garment was spellbound, so it cast off the rain and was windproof as well.
The first to greet me was Baron Sala, sad-eyed as ever. I wasn’t sure if I outranked him, but there was little harm in being the first to bow, especially since the emperor wanted peace, and a peaceful man is never arrogant. Sala looked a little surprised, bowed as well, first to me, then, to my surprise and pleasure, to Alegria, whom he greeted by name and gave the title of woizera — noble lady. She might have been no more than property, but Sala had decency.
“Baron,” I said. “You told me once you doubted if my emperor would allow me to visit your land. I’m delighted you were wrong, even though I’m deeply unhappy about the circumstances.”
“As am I, as is my king,” Sala said. “And by the way, my title is now ligaba. My king has honored me greatly.”
“And wisely,” I said honestly. Ligaba was the title of the court’s highest chancellor.
“Thank you, Ambassador. I hope to prove you right. The king has also named me to represent Maisir in our negotiations.”
“That is truly excellent,” I said, a little less truthfully. It might be good I’d be dealing with someone familiar with Nicias, the emperor, and Numantia, but on the other hand it would make it very hard to run any sort of bluff.
Another man came toward us, dressed in a very dignified dark gray tunic and pants, with many decorations on a sash over one shoulder. I knew him by portrait, although we’d never met. He was Lord Susa Boconnoc, Numantian ambassador to Maisir. He came from a very old family that had been well rewarded when they declared loyalty to the emperor a day after the Rule of Ten had given in to Tenedos’s demands. Boconnoc had always been a diplomat, and so he was named to the extraordinarily important post in Jarrah. I’d read his file, talked discreetly to others in our Foreign Service, and found he was considered no more than averagely bright, and not particularly creative. He was very good with people, particularly high-ranking ones, and moved easily among them.
One person said, frankly, that most people thought him somewhat thicker than sand, and I wondered why the emperor had chosen him. Then I realized Tenedos thought Maisir too important for anyone but himself to deal with, and had picked the ideal man for the job, someone who would obey any instructions to the letter but no further, someone who would report exactly what was going on without interpretations, someone who was utterly loyal.
Boconnoc was in his fifties, had a distinguished, carefully shaped gray beard and short hair, and carried himself with dignity. He could, depending on his choice of expressions, look like a favorite, if a bit stern, grandsire, or, when angry, or simulating that emotion — as all diplomats, commanders, and parents must learn to do — like the embodiment of Aharhel the God Who Speaks to Kings.
“Ambassador á Cimabue,” he said, “there’s a bit of a surprise. Originally you were to be quartered in our embassy. But the king determined otherwise, and requested you lodge within Moriton. This is a great honor, Ambassador, one which no other Numantian has ever been granted. I’ll see your men are well provided for.”
“The king made this decision,” Sala broke in, “not merely as an honor, but to show how seriously he takes this dispute, and how quickly he hopes to have the matter resolved … before other alternatives are forced on him. He and I both hope a peaceful solution is possible.”
“It is,” I said. “Quickly and immediately. I have explicit orders from my emperor.”
Both professionals looked surprised and a little shocked. Sala suddenly smiled. “Well … I wondered why you were chosen for this task, since I hadn’t been aware of your talents in subtle negotiations.”
“I have none,” I said. “That’s exactly why I was picked.”
“This,” Sala said musingly, “may be a very interesting time.” He hesitated. “Ambassador á Cimabue,” he asked, “may I inquire as to the state of your vitality?”
I was perplexed, then grinned. “Are you challenging me to a footrace, perhaps?”
Sala laughed. “I was instructed to ask the question, because if you feel up to it, there is someone who wishes to meet you immediately, even before you refresh yourself.”
Both Boconnoc’s and my eyes widened. There could only be one such person. And one such response.
“I am at your command, sir.”
• • •
I climbed into a ceremonial coach with Sala, and we proceeded to enter Jarrah. The streets were filled with people, cheering, singing. I admired King Bairan for being able to mount a spectacle so readily. The people were chanting, in somewhat rehearsed unison, for their king, for the Emperor Tenedos, for Maisir, for Numantia, and every now and then, for me.
I waved graciously and kept a smile on my face. I noted that as many faces were looking up as at our small procession, and I peered out myself. Overhead was a horde of magical figures that came and went, twisting like kites in a strong breeze. Some were mythic beings, some monsters I guessed were native to Maisir, and I even saw the swamp-slug and that spiderlike ape.
As in Oswy, the buildings were frequently stone for lower stories, fantastically worked wood on the upper, and overall garishly painted and decorated. Unlike Oswy, roofs were often metal, and as loudly painted as the wooden walls. But Oswy had few tall buildings, and Jarrah had many. Some were even eight or nine floors tall, tipped with fantastically configured domes. They appeared to be apartments, and Sala confirmed this. “Generally of the poor,” he said. “We are always building, but the people seem to have children faster than we can nail wood together. I suppose it’s because making babies is a deal more interesting than pounding nails.”
I commented on how well laid out Jarrah was. “That’s a hidden blessing Shahriya gives us with her fire,” Sala said, and explained that the city had burned three times in the last two hundred years — once by arson, once in a great fire that sprang from the forests around to devour Jarrah, once for unknown reasons.
The people dressed a bit better than in other villages and towns we’d passed through, but not much. Other than in its size, architecture, and lavish use of paint, Jarrah wasn’t as spectacular as I’d dreamed.
I heard screams of fear and shouts of wonder, and looked up again. In the sky were legions of warriors, some marching, some riding. All were fiercely armed, and their armor was worked to cause terror. They were silently shouting and waving their weapons. Who were these magical warriors supposed to impress? The crowds? Or me?
We passed an enormous temple, and I heard a chorale rising and falling from within, ever-changing. There must have been at least a couple of thousand men and women in the congregation. “What is being celebrated?”
“Nothing,” Sala said, “at least as far as I know.”
I realized they were praying to Umar the withdrawn Creator. “We’ve always worshiped him,” Sala said. “The oldest, the wisest, the one who gave all of us, men and gods, life. Perhaps, if we pray hard enough, he’ll return.”
He said this as if he actually believed it.
• • •
There were no crowds at the gates of Moriton. The grim black walls that rose before us would have discouraged anyone’s presence. There were no visible guards, no challenges, and the gates swung wide with never a sound. There was an inner courtyard half an army could have assembled in, then a second set of gates. These opened, and we were inside the King’s Own. Moriton was huge, a city within a city, except that few cities are composed entirely of palaces. Some were enormous, others merely huge, and they were interspersed with barracks and unobtrusive buildings Sala told me were the offices of the diplomatic corps and other administrators. Everyone seemed intent on his business, and no one bothered to look when we passed.
Our carriage turned onto a long drive, cobbled with stones of many colors. That led to a immense building with flanking buttresses, wings to sweep you into its stone heart.
The carriage drew up, and I waited for a servitor. None came. “Go ahead,” Sala said. “You’ll not get lost.”
I obeyed, and walked up the steps. At each step a great gong sounded, and my heart trembled as I approached. The rain hesitated, as if it, too, were afraid. Half-crescent doors more than fifty feet high opened as I approached, and I walked into a long antechamber, arching high into gloom. There were tapestries of the richest silk, gold-and silver-worked, some abstract, some showing fabulous creatures of, I hoped, myth.
Another set of doors opened, and I walked into another huge room. Its windows were covered by translucent shades against the rain and chill, and fires roared at the four corners. The room was perhaps two hundred feet long, fifty or more feet wide, and seventy-five feet high. It was evenly lit, but I saw no torches, no tapers. At the far end of the room, on a great circular rug of red and gold, stood a man whose size was almost equal to this chamber. There was a curtained alcove behind him.
I am tall, but King Bairan was a head taller. He was in his late forties, or early fifties, lean, hard, with a hawklike, clean-shaven face and a predator’s expression. He wore a simple gold diadem, with a gem the size of his fist in its center, gray pants and tunic, with thin gray leather pads outlining his muscled shoulders, upper chest, and lean waist and thighs, suggesting armor. At his waist was a simple leather belt, with an equally plain dagger on it.
He could not have chosen his costume better to suggest he was a man of war. Approach in peace, it said, or be prepared for what you shall face.
I knelt on one knee and bowed my head. I might have been familiar with one grand ruler, but this was different. I’d known the Emperor Tenedos as a young wizard, and so there was familiarity, knowledge Tenedos was all too human. King Bairan was the last in a line that had held the throne for centuries, and his kingdom dwarfed Numantia.
“Welcome to Maisir, to Jarrah,” he said. His voice was chill, firm.
I rose. “I thank you, Your Highness, for the greeting and for honoring me by welcoming me into your presence so quickly.”
“We have great business,” he said. “I assume that you, like I, wish to reach a settlement … of one sort or another … so our two kingdoms may either find a new course or continue the old one.”
“Your Majesty,” I said, “may I be so bold as to suggest a third alternative? One which my master devised?”
“Which is?” King Bairan’s voice was even colder.
“Peace, sir. A peace that will end any troubles between us, and guarantee amity forever.”
“I would settle, Ambassador á Cimabue, for something that would last your emperor’s and my lifetimes. Approach me, if you will. If we are to discuss important business, I dislike having to bellow it about.” I obeyed. “So your master wishes peace?”
“With all his heart.”
“Then I must say that I’m perplexed by certain signs from Numantia,” he went on. “For some time, there’s been growing tension. I felt we were coming to the brink of … unfortunate events, and so ordered certain measures taken. Now you say your emperor wishes peace. I am puzzled.”
“That is why I am here, Your Majesty. The emperor has granted me full powers to negotiate a full and complete treaty between Numantia and Maisir, one that will, indeed, give us the peace and tranquillity both nations want.”
The king was silent, looking hard into my eyes. “Ligaba Sala said you are a man of direct means.”
“So I would like to be thought.”
“He further advised me that you are the emperor’s closest friend, and most trusted confidant.”
“Such would be my proudest claim, sir. But I cannot know for sure that’s true.”
“Until very recently, I thought events between our two countries were on an unchangeable collision course,” Bairan went on. “But when I received word you were appointed ambassador plenipotentiary, I allowed myself a bit of hope. For know this, Ambassador Baron Damastes of Ghazi,” he said, his voice crisp, firm, each word a clear chisel stroke carving law into stone. “I do not wish war. Maisir does not wish war. I would hope you and I might reach an understanding to ensure peace.”
“Your Majesty, you have my word that I can, and will, do anything to reach that same end.”
“Then I truly bid you welcome to Jarrah,” and he extended his hand. It was the firm clasp of a warrior.
• • •
I stepped out of the carriage in front of the estate I’d been told was mine for the duration of my stay. It was certainly private — its stone walls, topped with razored metal bills facing outward, reached almost thirty feet high. There was a door in one wall, with a large ring for a knocker. I lifted it, and heard the sonorous blast of trumpets. An instant later it was opened, and Alegria stood there, in a small anteroom, whose walls, floors, and ceiling were exotically inlaid wood. The room’s back wall opened into a sprawling garden.
Alegria wore a floor-length purple gown with a low neckline, and a black floral pattern that ran asymmetrically from her navel to her right hip and shoulder. I could almost, but not quite, see through it.
“You’re damned lucky it was me,” I said, a bit acidly.
“Oh, but I could see. Look.” She bade me lift the door’s knocker once more, and I obeyed. As I did, it was as if a sorcerous porthole opened in the door’s blank exterior. “If it wasn’t you, I had this heavy robe to pull on, so no one would get any ideas.”
“By the way,” I asked, “where’s our staff, where are our retainers, if we’re such terribly honored guests?”
“I shocked the gateman by sending him away, saying I wanted to wait for you.”
“A good thing King Bairan wasn’t in the mood for all-night drinking,” I said.
She sighed theatrically and muttered, “Men!”
I looked beyond the anteroom into the garden, and saw that it was in the first bloom of spring, instead of the dankness of the last of the Time of Rains.
Alegria started laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“You’ll see.”
As she spoke, I did see. In the center of the garden was the house. But it wasn’t exactly a house. It appeared to be a huge, square tent. I didn’t believe it. “This is a sorry jest,” I muttered. “We’ve been living under canvas for almost sixty days, I’ve been sleeping in the open for longer than that, and by the king’s kindness, we’re going to do it again? This is a high honor? Better we should go back to that inn beyond Jarrah. At least they gave us a bed, even if it really belonged to a creepy-crawly.”
“I know,” Alegria gurgled, and now she started laughing hard. “But it isn’t really canvas. Look harder.”
I saw that the “tent” was actually elaborately worked wood, built to exactly resemble a campaign tent with its flies tied up for good weather. “This is what King Bairan calls his Warrior’s Retreat,” Alegria said.
“Lucky, lucky us,” I muttered.
“Actually, it’s wonderful. Come, let me show you.”
Actually, it was quite wonderful, a work of art in both wood and magic. The “tent” was enormous. The outer areas were for us to live and eat in. In the center was an area we never entered, where our servants readied meals and waited for a summons. They came and went through an underground tunnel to kitchens, stables, and quarters hidden at the estate’s rear wall.
Each side of the “tent” had four rooms — a study, a washroom, a dining area, and a bedchamber, each decorated in different, rich styles. On each side was the garden, exactly the same on all four sides, except that on one side it was in spring, the next summer, the third fall, and the last the depths of a snowy winter. It appeared as if each garden went on forever, with no high wall to end it. There were no walls, no windows, but a spell kept the rooms balmy, summerlike, with a gentle breeze coming from nowhere. When the lights were shut down, the temperature lowered as well, and a light wrap felt wonderful. Alegria showed me this marvel as proudly as if it were hers.
“How far do the gardens actually go?” I asked.
“Not as far as it appears. When you walk toward the end, all of a sudden you lose all desire to go farther, and find yourself turning back.”
“All right,” I conceded. “It’s wonderful. But a gods-damned tent!?”
“I quite like it,” Alegria murmured. “Each night we can sleep in a different time. That way, it’ll seem as if we’re being together for a very, very long time, instead of …” She didn’t finish the sentence, but turned, and looked out as a bird splashed down in a fountain.
I put my arms around her, nuzzled her hair.
“And,” she said softly after a while, “I can pretend there’s no world beyond ours.”
I said nothing, not knowing what to say. I was beginning to come alive, but there was still the shadow of the past, the shadow of Marán, between us. Sooner or later … but I wasn’t here to worry about one man or one woman; I was here to worry about my country. Sooner could come later. First was King Bairan.
• • •
The next day, with Ambassador Boconnoc, I began preparations at our embassy. It was almost deserted. When the troubles began, Boconnoc had sent all Numantian women and children north to Renan, to safety.
Boconnoc was full of ideas about diplomatic niceties, and how we should spend the first day discussing what we should discuss. I was a bit — well, more than a bit — rude to him.
“The king said he wished to discuss peace, and to settle matters as rapidly as possible. This was also what the emperor ordered me,” I said in a I-wish-no-discussion tone.
Boconnoc looked down his nose at me and said, “Very well then, Ambassador. What shall we begin with?”
I told him, and his eyebrows crawled toward the top of his head. He dearly wished to call me either a young fool or an idiot, perhaps worse. But whole generations of terribly discreet ancestors cried out. He finally heaved a great sigh and said, “Very well. This is hardly regular … but it will serve as an interesting lesson.” He couldn’t resist adding a jab, though: “For one or another of us.” He sighed again. “Do you wish me to ask if there’s a representative from that kingdom here in the capital?”
“If you wish,” I said. “But if there’s no one … so be it.”
I think the walls moved out a bit on that second gust of wind.
• • •
“Where shall we start?” King Bairan asked, with some bemusement at my lack of ceremony. We were in a small conference chamber in his palace. There were six of us — the king, Ligaba Sala, Ambassador Boconnoc, myself, and a small, worried-looking man introduced as the Patriarch of Ebissa.
“At the beginning, Your Highness,” I said. “You said two days ago you were confused by the signals Numantia is sending. First war, then peace.”
“Yes. We are.”
“Let us begin, then, by not only clearing the table a bit, but possibly showing our sincerity,” I said. The Patriarch, hardly looking like a representative of his warlike and barbaric people, was sitting very straight. “The country of Ebissa has announced claims on a certain amount of Maisirian soil,” I said. “Some time ago, the Emperor Tenedos announced that Numantia would support those claims. I now affirm that the emperor was misunderstood. In fact, all he wished to say was that he hoped you, King Bairan, would deal with their claims in an honorable manner, as the benevolent monarch you’re considered.”
“And if I simply renounce them?”
“You have never dictated to the emperor how he should rule,” I said. “How, then, should we have any right to presume?”
The king regarded me solemnly. “Continue.”
“There’s nothing more to be said, at least not from the viewpoint of Numantia,” I said coldly. “Ebissa is, and remains, an independent kingdom, with well-defined borders that have been agreed upon by mutual treaty between your two lands. If you wish to change them, that is a matter between you and Ebissa.”
The Patriarch was goggling. “Perhaps, Ambassador,” I said to Boconnoc, “you would assist the Patriarch from this chamber, as the matters to be brought up next no longer concern him.” The man rose by himself and, trembling, shambled from the room. For an instant I felt a twinge, but steeled myself. Ebissa, an unknown jungle, or Numantia? There was not even the shadow of a choice.
The king sat quietly for a time. “You’ve certainly cleared a bit of air,” he observed.
“I’d like to deal with more, in just as direct a manner, in the days and weeks to come,” I said. “First is the matter of our mutual borders. Second is the always-vexing matter of the Wild Country on your borders, and the Border Lands on ours. Some time ago, you suggested we should reach some sort of mutual agreement and possibly jointly deal with the bandits of those lands.”
“That’s a complex issue,” he said.
“It is. Perhaps, though, it’s only complex because we’ve allowed it to be so. Your Majesty, I’ve spent time in those lands, and with those people. They are not fit subjects for Numantia or, if you will allow me the liberty, for Maisir. They prefer to spend time cutting each other’s throat when they’re not slitting the weasands and purses of any merchant or wayfarer passing through their domain.”
“True.”
“This is foolish, and expensive,” I went on. “It seems there should be an easy solution, if two great nations wish there to be one.” The king nodded. “Thirdly is a very old matter, but I might as well bring it up. For centuries, since before your father, before your father’s father, Maisir has claimed a certain part of Urey, which is generally considered a state of Numantia,” I said. “When you consider that Urey has the kingdom of Kait between it and Maisir, not to mention the most rugged mountains in the world, it seems this claim should be questioned by all parties.”
“I’ve heard Urey is very beautiful,” the king said.
“It is,” I said. “But what are the chances of you taking a summer sojourn there any time in the near future?”
The king looked hard at me, then a smile moved under the beak of his nose. “Very well,” he said. “Let us concede I’m not likely to go, what, three hundred leagues, then weave my way through a trap of bandits, to see any countryside, no matter how lovely. I’d say the matter of Urey could be resolved.” He went to a window, then turned. “This brief meeting has been very interesting. I’m starting to feel that something other than words will be exchanged, Ambassador.”
“Such is my hope as well.”
“This is a beginning,” the king mused. “A good beginning indeed. The future is starting to brighten in my eyes.”
• • •
The signals went north, somehow made it across Kait in record time, then were heliographed on to Nicias. We had a reply within sixteen days. The emperor agreed Numantia had no reason to support Ebissa, and papers to that effect were being drawn up. He also said the Border Lands should be settled at once, in whatever manner King Bairan and I deemed fit.
He’d announced two feast days throughout Numantia, when sacrifices and prayers would be made for peace.
To further ensure his good faith, he was ordering the staff of the embassy to return to Jarrah.
The best thing was last: The units in Urey that had been built up to wartime footing were to be reduced to peacetime strength. All recently formed units were to begin demobilizing as rapidly as possible.
In a personally coded message for me, he said:
You’ve done it, Damastes, or so it appears. Both Numantia and I owe you the greatest debt. Peace now, peace forever.
T
“There was an incident some time ago,” Ligaba Sala began delicately, “between some of our soldiery, supposedly in the province of Dumyat.” He’d asked for a private meeting, and I’d wondered what it would be about. Now I knew, and decided to use truth as my first weapon.
“You’re somewhat incorrect, Ligaba,” I said. “There was great confusion in Nicias about the matter. We investigated, and found our patrol was across the border, well into Maisir, not far from the Maisirian town of Zante.”
Sala hid surprise. “That was not what we thought you believed. We understood you thought your forces were ambushed.”
“As I said, there was confusion. I’m sorry, but to speak personally, your soldiers were punished for defending their terrain, although perhaps they might’ve reacted too quickly.”
“Such might be the case,” Sala said. “None of their officers are alive to debate the matter, however.”
“Might I ask why you chose to bring it up? I thought the matter was settled.”
“The king wanted me to ask about it and, depending on what you said, either to have no response or to make the one I’m about to present: It is terribly early in the proceedings to sound optimistic, but King Bairan wishes there to be no impediments to the process of peace. For this reason, he’s once again withdrawing all Maisirian troops three days’ travel from the border until negotiations are complete. This should ensure that no new problems, whether overreaction or whatever, occur in the next few times.
“I can also assure you that, if negotiations continue as begun, the king will be releasing the classes we recently called up for military training. If there’s to be no … trouble, what these men cost the state could be best spent elsewhere.”
I felt happiness and, yes, pride swell within me. In spite of my fears, perhaps I would do a great service for my country. “Thank you, Ligaba.”
“If things continue at this rate,” Sala said, “we’ll be quickly back to Damastes and Khwaja, eh?”
“Let us hope.”
• • •
Word of this also went north, and, in fifteen days, the emperor responded: He, too, would withdraw Numantian units from the border. The only soldiery allowed in these lands until a treaty was made would be those on hot trod, pursuing bandits. We’d taken another step back from the chasm.
• • •
Waiting for two to three weeks between each step, as messages went back and forth between Nicias and Jarrah, could have been maddening, but it wasn’t as if there was nothing to do. Alegria and I became the center of the Jarrah social whirl, Something New.
The nobility in the capital were as stultified as their country cousins. Everyone knew, and was somewhat related to, almost everyone else, and they’d gone to the same parties with the same people, and ended up drunk and in bed with the same wrong people, year after year, decade after decade. It was no wonder the grand balls presenting the pubescent noblewomen and -men were so well attended. I went to one, and it reminded me of a pack of vultures, waiting around a dying gaur to swoop on her calf.
It became fashionable to grow one’s hair long and even, in some cases, to use harsh minerals to bleach it as blond as mine. Alegria suggested that I should be ashamed of myself, being responsible for a new spurt of baldness among the older men who miscalculated the strength of the bleaching potions. I said I was no more guilty than she, for the women were dressing as she did, in clinging, body-revealing garments. This was fine when the woman was younger. But when she was a waddling behemoth, I had to repress the urge to wince and turn away.
The Time of Change ended, the Time of Storms began, and arctic tempests crashed in from the south.
• • •
There’d been a party planned, a masked rout, that had to be canceled because of the weather. Jarrah was paralyzed by the storm, so there was nothing to do but fall back on our own resources. I was quite content, lying on pillows in our “tent.” We were on the “summer” side, and birds were chirping in the garden, bees buzzing in the warm stillness.
I was studying maps of the Border Lands, trying to determine if an idea of mine made any sense at all.
Alegria lay on the floor on three gigantic pillows. She wore no more than a tie around her breasts and another around her loins, and was reading some very fat tome, a work that portrayed the gods and goddesses as being as goatish as the men and women they created. Of course the work was banned by the Maisirian priesthood, so naturally those who could read couldn’t get copies fast enough.
She saw I was looking at her, smiled at me, and returned to her reading.
Suddenly I realized something. I was falling in love, perhaps was even in love, with her. Now I wonder why it took me so long to recognize this, but I know the answer. It was of course Marán.
There were still unfinished feelings, words I longed to say to my wife, or ex-wife, whichever she was by now. But why did that matter? The past was past, dead and gone. Why didn’t I get up, go to Alegria, kiss her, and let what should have happened happen? I didn’t know, and I don’t now.
• • •
I finished a dispatch and the courier took it away. I suddenly realized I was exhausted, and could stand neither the embassy, my quarters, nor a city any longer. I needed to get out, to spend a few hours in the country. I told Alegria, and she winced, then bore up bravely. “Very well, my lord. We’ll go out into the tempest, and if I freeze anything off, you’re to blame.”
An hour later we were muffled, cloaked, and shivering in the stables. Alegria mounted her horse and looked down plaintively. “So where are we going to go to die?”
“Hells if I know. You’re the Maisirian, not me.”
“Permitted out of my order into the capital no more than a dozen times. This is idiotic,” Alegria said.
“I know … but isn’t it fun?” Indeed, the sharp wind from the north was freshening my mind, my spirit.
“Shall we go to the embassy and get some outriders for security?” she asked.
“Why bother? Doesn’t everybody in Maisir love us? No, I don’t need any other company than what I’ve got,” I replied.
Alegria sat indecisively on her horse for a moment. “I have an idea. But it’s an hour, maybe more, away. And I’ll have to ask the way.”
“I am yours to obey, woizera.”
“So when we’re found as frozen corpses, it’ll be all my fault in the eyes of the gods.”
“Of course. Don’t you understand men by now?” I offered. She hmmphed, and off we went.
No one paid us the slightest notice in the streets, intent as they all were on finishing their own business before the storm made the streets impassable. No one but one — and the well-aimed snowball smacked into the back of my neck and sent my shako flying into the ditch. I cursed, turned, and saw an urchin dash into an alley.
“How dare he,” Alegria said, trying to keep a grim countenance. I didn’t answer, but dismounted and picked up my helmet — and something else. The boy, and his three coconspirators, stuck their heads out as I remounted — and hurled the wad of snow I’d surreptitiously molded. It struck the wall next to them, but was close enough to spatter the boys with icy fragments. They yelped surprise and fled.
“If you mess with the bull,” I said, quoting an old Cimabuen proverb, “you shall get the horns.”
Alegria shook her head in despair, and we rode on.
We stopped twice, while Alegria asked directions from passersby, then went on. We reached the outskirts of Jarrah in an hour.
“Now what?”
“Ride on, you weakling,” she said. “We’ve only just begun.”
In truth, I was feeling a bit chill, and dreams of our nice summer garden were floating in front of me. “This woman’s going to feed me to the wolves for neglect,” I said mournfully, but I obeyed. The snow grew deeper, but the road was wide. We passed through open country, then a small village, then were in the country once more. I was about to whine again, when we rounded a bend.
Sitting on a high bluff was a dark stone castle, walls carved from the solid rock. It wasn’t the largest I’d seen, but one of the most forbidding, with tiny barred windows and a gate with guard towers on either side. A road curved up the bluff to the gate.
“Here we are,” Alegria announced.
“Which is where?”
“My home. This is the place of the Dalriada.”
“Great gods,” I mused. “How could something this grim produce anything but muttering monks and sourpusses?”
“Come on. I’ll show you.” We made our way up the winding road, and were challenged by four guards, two in each tower. Alegria identified herself, and me, and one guard went inside.
I leaned over to her. “A question, milady. If you — and the rest of the Dalriada — are as, well, pure as you say, what keeps the guards honest? Or did they have an unfortunate encounter with a very sharp knife and now sing in upper registers?”
“You mean are they eunuchs? No. They used to be, but the order stopped that.” She giggled. “We girls heard stories that sometimes the eunuchs weren’t as eunuched as they were supposed to be. Now volunteers from the army serve for two years here. There’s maybe three hundred of them, and they guard all approaches to the Dalriada. They’re quartered beyond the walls on the far side. During their service, they’re under a spell that renders them not only incapable, but not interested.”
“What a wonderful life,” I said. “Let’s spend two years sitting around talking about … about turnip planting and shining our armor.”
“Better than dying on the border with a bandit’s arrow in your chest.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not.”
The guard came back, saluted, and said we were welcome. He would take our horses. We dismounted and went through the gates. A woman was waiting. She was in her forties, and very beautiful, almost as lovely as Alegria. Alegria yipped with glee and fell into her arms. The two babbled happily for a time, then I was introduced. The woman, whose name was Zelen, bowed.
“Alegria has indeed been given great fortune,” she said. “And we are honored by your presence.” She led us through a courtyard. A door came open, and seven little girls tumbled out, shrieking laughter. All were unutterably lovely, little dolls of various hair and skin color. They pelted snowballs at one another, saw me, screamed in mock horror, and darted away through another door. We entered a building and started up a long flight of stairs. Zelen was about ten steps above us.
“Zelen,” Alegria explained quietly, “was one of my teachers.”
“Teaching what?”
“Muscle control,” Alegria said, and her face turned even redder than the icy wind had made it.
“Ah.”
“She was very lucky, and very unlucky,” Alegria said as we climbed. “She was given to a lij, a prince, who’d been recently widowed. They fell in love, and he proposed marriage to her. Before they could wed, he was killed in a hunting accident. So Zelen came back here.”
The next few hours I found very interesting. There were perhaps a hundred, maybe a hundred fifty girls and young women being trained, and about an equal number of Dalriada who’d returned to the castle to teach and serve them. It was like an exclusive girls lycée. Sort of. I saw girls being taught to speak correctly, to sew, to do mathematics. One group listened to a woman poet read, then discussed, as skillfully as any scholarly gathering, what they’d just heard.
There were other rooms I was forbidden to enter, and neither woman told me what the course of instruction within was. I glanced into one deserted room as we passed. Inside, instead of study tables there were cots, and reposing on each of them was a dummy of a naked man with a full erection. I pretended I’d seen nothing.
We ended by having herbal tea and some freshly baked buns with the mistress of the Dalriada. She was in her sixties and, while lovely, was somewhat forbidding. She must have gained that manner after she returned, or else her “master” had been one of those who prefered to take orders rather than give them. It was interesting, but I was very glad to walk out of the gates.
“So that’s where you came from,” I mused, looking back after we’d reached level ground.
“Yes.” Alegria waited for a time. “What do you think?”
“What is there to think? I wouldn’t want to live there,” I said, trying to choose my words carefully.
“Ah. But you have a choice,” Alegria said. “I did not. And,” she said, bitterness in her voice, “there are worse places.”
“You said you came here when you were seven,” I said. “Do you remember anything of your life before that?”
“I do,” she said, her voice fierce. “I remember being hungry. I remember being cold. I remember being hit by one or another of the drunks my gods-damned mother stumbled back to our hut with. I remember when she sold me to the Dalriada.”
I felt like taking her in my arms, but wisely didn’t.
“Now do you see,” she asked. “Now do you understand?”
It was a question that didn’t want a response. We rode on in silence. I should have known most of the girls and young women would’ve come from situations like Alegria’s. All of them would be from the poorest, or unwanted in other ways. I remembered, years earlier, when I was a legate on my way to his first post, a peasant had tried to sell me his waif of a daughter, a starveling who couldn’t have seen her tenth birthday. People complain about the evils the gods wreak on man, and wonder how they can be so cruel. But when I think of the cruelties man does to his fellow man, particularly if she’s woman or weaker, sometimes I wonder why our creators and lords don’t permit even greater barbarisms.
By the time we returned to Moriton, Alegria had regained her blitheness. Or, more likely, painted the mask back on. I, however, was in the blackest of moods, but had the sense to cover my bleak humor.
• • •
A few days later, to everyone’s surprise, the embassy staff returned. They’d left Renan as soon as word reached them, and made swift passage through Kait. The last of the Time of Change had been mild, and storms had passed them by as they traveled through Maisir. They’d thought they were trapped by the winter twice, but those tempests passed quickly, after freezing the roads but not burying them in snow, so they made good speed.
Now the dark embassy was filled with the chatter of women and the laughter of young men, which lightened everyone’s mood considerably. I noted — but said nothing — that none of the wives had brought their children back. Peace portended, but wasn’t guaranteed by any means, and the women of the diplomatic corps were at least as perceptive as their husbands or lovers.
Almost as welcome was what they’d brought with them: preserved Numantian delicacies, letters from friends, and as wrappers, broadsheets for news from home. These were ironed, and passed from hand to hand. Here in a distant land, it was warming to find out how much Varan wine was selling for, what merchant had a special order on Wakhijr lace, and so forth. I was spending an idle hour reading these meaninglessnesses, and picked up a new sheet.
The leading story was the marriage of Tribune Aguin Guil, commander of the First Imperial Guard, to the emperor’s sister, Dalny. I thought it must’ve been quite a ceremony, and indeed, scanning the list of notables, I saw that I was correct.
Then my mood shattered:
Our Imperial Highness not only graced the occasion with his presence, but generously chose to officiate at the ceremony itself. He looked perfectly splendid in imperial scarlet with black leather. He was accompanied by Marán, Countess Agramónte, equally stunning in a green and white lace gown, as exciting as it was gorgeous …
A man is a gods-damned fool to pursue certain matters when he should leave things alone and accept the black doubt instead of looking for the certainty. I was, perhaps am, such a fool. I asked, and found that one of the secretaries had newly joined the embassy staff in Urey, having come upriver from Nicias. As were most diplomats, he was of minor nobility, and his duties would be to handle Ambassador Boconnoc’s social calendar. I asked for a moment of the man’s time.
“Of course. How may I serve you, Ambassador?” the young man, smoothed by many generations of nobility and behind-the-arras service, asked.
“This is in the nature of a personal favor.”
“You have but to ask, sir.”
“You probably know my wife petitioned for divorce some time ago.”
“Y-yes, sir. I do.”
“Do you happen to know if that was granted? I’ve heard nothing.”
“It was, sir. Very quickly, sir. Since you were absent, and had lodged no protest, it seemed expedient … or so I heard, at any rate.”
“I see.”
So I had no claims whatsoever on what Marán did. Nor did I have any reason to be certain of my suspicions.
“I understand,” I went on, “she accompanied the emperor to his sister’s marriage.”
“Yes, sir. Or, so I was told. I don’t have sufficient stature as yet to have warranted an invitation. But one of my uncles went, and said it was truly the affair … of the season.”
If I hadn’t been listening closely, I might’ve missed the way he hesitated after using the word affair. As if it were a poor choice of words, considering the context?
“As a matter of curiosity,” I said, in as dry a tone as I could manage, “and since I wish my ex-wife as well as could be expected, did the emperor honor her with any more such invitations to other events?”
“I … I really can’t say, sir. I wasn’t paying that much attention to what was going on in Nicias before I left. I was busy studying Maisir and its customs.” If this man were going to continue as a diplomat, he’d have to learn to lie better than that.
I thanked and dismissed him, and sent for all the broadsheets that had come in. I arranged them in order, and read all of the gossip sections carefully. Marán and the emperor at this review … at that costumed ball … and then, a separate item that Marán, Countess Agramónte, had canceled her plans for the remainder of the season, including two masquerades, and would return immediately to Irrigon and busy herself rebuilding the ancestral home.
From first mention of the two to the last — just about a full time. Long enough for a seer to realize a woman wasn’t pregnant and send her away, as he’d sent others.
I was red with foolish rage and barely held myself under control. Questions boiled within me. Did the bitch do it deliberately? I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt — she’d always idolized the emperor. With the divorce, what reason did she have not to … to see him? I stepped back for a moment. Could I be imagining things? Maybe, but I didn’t think so. Perhaps it wasn’t betrayal, but it was certainly a shitty thing to do.
Next I thought of the emperor. How in the hells could he do that to me? Didn’t he know? Or didn’t he care? Again I remembered the line, “Kings may do what others only dream of,” but it was no comfort. I’d thought Tenedos a friend as well as my ruler. Friends, at least where I came from, didn’t fuck each other’s lady. Or did they?
I came back to myself and realized the short winter day was coming to an end. Now what? There was nothing to do but go on, I thought dully.
I went out to my carriage, barely seeing and returning the salutes of the guards. I didn’t want to return to the mansion and Alegria, but there was no place else. I ordered my driver to go straight to the stables, and went through the underground passage to the servants’ area, and slipped into the house. I didn’t see Alegria.
I wondered if drink would numb me, let some of the pain wash over. Perhaps it would let me sleep, or at least find some ease. I found a bottle of wine, opened it, and went to the winter portion of the tent. I sat on the floor, staring at the magically created gale outside in the garden, and felt the echoing storm within.
I lifted the bottle, then set it back down. Maybe I’d have a drink in a moment or two.
The snow blew hard against the flickering stone lanterns, and ice grew on the reeds of the ponds. The door behind me opened.
“Damastes?” It was Alegria.
“Yes.”
“What is the matter?”
I didn’t answer. She walked up beside me, and I smelled the sweetness of her perfume. She sat down, cross-legged in front of me, looking into my eyes. “Something is the matter. Something big,” she said.
I’ve always practiced the rule that a warrior stands on his own. But I didn’t this time. I couldn’t. I told Alegria what I’d discovered — or what I thought I’d discovered. Halfway through, I realized I was blinded with tears. She went into the bath chamber and came back with a soft, moist rag.
“Hells,” I said. “Maybe I’m just imagining … maybe it never happened.”
Alegria began to say something, then stopped.
“What?”
She took a deep breath. “May I tell you something?” I nodded. “Three days ago, when you took me to the embassy and introduced me to the newcomers, you left me for a meeting?” I remembered. “Well, I roamed around, talking to people, making sure I’d remember their names. I know they say that people who eavesdrop deserve to hear what they hear.” Alegria gulped and started crying. She made herself stop, then went on: “I’d just left one woman — I won’t say who she is — then remembered there was something I wished to ask her. I went back and was about to knock on her door, when I heard her talking to a man.
“They were talking about me. The man said something about how pretty I was, and the woman said she guessed I was attractive enough. Then she said, and these are her precise words, ‘This certainly shows the high and mighty do things different than we do. Guess they don’t take life as seriously as I do, anyway. Damastes’s wife tells him to go away, and he bounces back with this lovely almost as fast as his countess crept up the emperor’s back stairs.’
“The man laughed and said that you seemed to be a decent sort, so he hoped I’d be in your bed longer than your wife was allowed to pleasure the emperor.
“Someone came along the corridor then, and I hurried away. Oh, Damastes, Damastes, I’m so sorry.” Tears welled once more in her eyes, but she held them back.
The emperor had betrayed me.