Domes of Fire Part 19

'What's the problem?' Kalten asked him.

'She makes it seem as if the light in her eyes is the sun streaming in through the hole in the back of her head. I know she's far more clever than that. I hate dishonest people.'

'You?'

'Let it lie, Kalten.'

The throne-room of King Alberen of Astel was filled with an awed silence as the eminence of the visitors was revealed. King Alberen himself, an ineffectual-looking fellow whose royal robes looked a size or so too large for him, seemed to shrink with each new t.i.tle.

Alberen, it appeared, had weak eyes, and his myopic gaze gave him the fearful, timid look of a rabbit or some other such small helpless animal which all other creatures look upon as a food source. The splendour of his throne-room seemed to shrink him all the more, the wide expanses of crimson carpets and drapes, the ma.s.sive gilt and crystal chandeliers and marble columns providing an heroic setting which he could never hope to fill.

Sparhawk's queen, regal and lovely, approached the throne on Amba.s.sador Fontan's arm with her steel-plated entourage drawn up around her. King Alberen seemed a bit uncertain about the customary ceremonies. As the reigning monarch of Astel, he was ent.i.tled to remain seated upon his throne, but the fact that his entire court genuflected as Ehlana pa.s.sed intimidated him, and he rose to his feet and even stepped down from the dais to greet her.

'Now has our life seen its crown,' Ehlana proclaimed in her most formal and oratorical style, 'for we have, as G.o.d most surely must have decreed since time's beginning, come at last into the presence of our dear brother of Astel, whom we have longed to meet since our earliest girlhood.'

'Is she speaking for all of us?' Talen whispered to Berit. 'I didn't really have a girlhood, you know.'

'She's using the royal plural,' Berit explained. 'The queen's more than one person. She's speaking for the entire kingdom.'

'We are honoured more than we can say, your Majesty,' Alberen faltered.

Ehlana quickly a.s.sessed her host's limitations and smoothly adopted a less formal tone. She abandoned ceremony and unleashed her charm on the poor fellow. At the end of five minutes they were chatting together as if they had known each other all their lives. At the end of ten, he'd have given her his crown had she asked for it.

After the obligatory exchanges, Sparhawk and the other members of Ehlana's entourage moved away from the throne to engage in that silly but necessary pastime known as 'circulating.' They talked about the weather mostly. The weather is a politically correct topic. Emban and Archimandrite Morsel, the head of the Church of Astel, exchanged theological plat.i.tudes without touching on those doctrinal differences which divided their two Churches. Morsel wore an elaborate mitre and intricately embroidered vestments. He also wore a full black beard that reached to his waist.

Sparhawk had discovered early in life that a scowl was his best defence in such situations, and he customarily intimidated whole rooms-full of people who might otherwise inflict conversational inanities upon him.

'Are you in some kind of distress, Prince Sparhawk?' It was Amba.s.sador Fontan. 'Your face has a decidedly dyspeptic cast to it.'

'It's entirely tactical, your Excellency,' Sparhawk replied. 'When a military man doesn't want to be pestered, he digs a ditch and lines the bottom and sides with sharpened stakes. A scowl serves the same purpose in social situations.'

'You look bristly enough, my boy. Let's take a turn around the battlements and enjoy the view, the fresh air and the' privacy. There are things you should know, and this may be my only chance to get you alone. King Alberen's court is full of inconsequential people who would all die for the chance to be able to manoeuvre conversations around to the point where they can a.s.sert that they know you personally. You have quite a reputation, you know.'

'Largely exaggerated, your Excellency.'

'You're too modest, my boy. Shall we go?' They left the throne-room un.o.btrusively and climbed several flights of stairs until they came out on the windswept battlements. Fontan looked down at the city spread below.

'Quaint, wouldn't you say?'

'Elene cities are always quaint, your Excellency,' Sparhawk replied. 'Elene architects haven't had a new idea in the last five millennia.'

'Matherion will open your eyes, Sparhawk. All right, then, Astel's right on the verge of flying apart. So's the rest of the world, but Astel's carrying it to extremes. I'm doing what I can to hold things together, but Alberen's so pliable that almost anyone can influence him. He'll literally sign anything anybody puts in front of him. You've heard about Ayachin, of course? And his running dog, Sabre?' Sparhawk nodded. 'I've got every imperial agent in Astel out trying to identify Sabre, but we haven't had much luck so far. He's out there blithely dismantling a system the empire spent centuries creating. We don't really know very much about him.'

'He's an adolescent, your Excellency,' Sparhawk said. 'No matter what his age, he's profoundly juvenile.' He briefly described the incident in the forest.

'That's helpful,' Fontan said. 'None of my people have ever been able to infiltrate one of those famous meetings, so we had no idea of what sort of fellow we were dealing with. He's got the n.o.bility completely in his grasp. I stopped Alberen just in time a few weeks ago when he was on the verge of signing a proclamation which would have criminalised a serf if he ran away. That would have brought the kingdom down around our ears, I'm afraid. That's always been the serf's final answer to an intolerable situation. If he can run away and stay away for a year and a day, he's free. If you take that away from the serfs, they'll revolt, and a serf rebellion is too hideous a notion to even contemplate.

'It's quite deliberate, your Excellency,' Sparhawk advised him. 'Sabre's agitating the serfs as well. He wants a serf rebellion here in Astel. He's been using his influence over the n.o.bility to persuade them to commit the exact blunders that will outrage the serfs all the more.'

'What's the man thinking of?' Fontan burst out. 'He'll drown Astel in blood.'

Sparhawk made an intuitive leap at the point. 'I don't think he really cares about Astel, your Excellency. Sabre's no more than a tool for someone who has his eye on a much bigger goal.'

'Oh? What's that?'

I'm guessing, your Excellency, but I think there's somebody out there who wants the whole world, and he'd sacrifice Astel and every living person in it to get what he wants.'

Chapter 12.

'It's hard to put your finger on it, Prince Sparhawk,' Baroness Melidere said that evening after the extended royal family had retired to their oversized apartment for the night. At the queen's insistence, Melidere, Mirtai and Alcan, her maid, had been provided with rooms in the apartment. Ehlana needed women around her for a number of reasons, some practical, some political and some very obscure. The ladies had removed their formal gowns, and, except for Mirtai, they wore soft pastel dressing gowns. Melidere was brushing Mirtai's wealth of blue-black hair, and the doe-eyed Alcan was performing the same service for Ehlana.

'I'm not sure exactly how to describe it,' the honeyblonde Baroness continued. 'It's a sort of generalised sadness. They all sigh a great deal.'

'I noticed that myself, Sparhawk,' Ehlana told her husband. 'Alberen hardly smiles at all, and I can make anybody smile.'

'Your presence alone is enough to make us all smile, my Queen,' Talen told her. Talen was the queen's page, and he was also a member of the extended family. The young thief was elegant tonight, dressed in a plumcoloured velvet doublet and knee-britches in the same shade and fabric. Knee-britches were just coming into fashion, and Ehlana had tried her very best to get Sparhawk into a pair of them. He had categorically refused, and his wife had been obliged to settle for coercing her page into the ridiculous-looking garments.

'The plan is to make you a knight, Talen,' Melidere told the boy pointedly, 'not a courtier.'

'Stragen says it's always a good idea to have something to fall back on, Baroness,' he shrugged, his voice cracking and warbling somewhere between soprano and baritone.

'He would,' the Baroness sniffed. Melidere affected a strong disapproval of Stragen, but Sparhawk was not so sure about that.

Talen and Princess Danae sat on the floor rolling a ball back and forth between them. Mmrr was partic.i.p.ating in the game enthusiastically.

'They all seem to secretly believe that the world's going to come to an end week after next,' the Baroness went on, slowly drawing her brush through Mirtai's hair. 'They're all bright and brittle on the surface, but once you get beneath that, there's the blackest melancholy, and they all drink like fish. I couldn't prove this, but I really think they all believe they're going to die very soon.' She lifted Mirtai's hair speculatively. 'I think I'll braid a gold chain into it, dear,' she told the giantess.

'No, Melidere,' Mirtai said firmly. 'I'm not ent.i.tled to wear gold yet.'

'Every woman's ent.i.tled to wear gold, Mirtai,' Melidere laughed, 'provided that she can charm it out of some man.'

'Not among my people,' Mirtai disagreed. 'Gold is for adults. Children don't wear it.'

'You're hardly a child, Mirtai,'

'I am until I go through a certain ceremony. Silver, Melidere-or steel.'

'You can't make jewellery out of steel.'

'You can if you polish it enough.'

Melidere sighed. 'Fetch me the silver chains, Talen,' she said. At the moment, that was Talen's vocation. He fetched things. He didn't like it very much, but he did it-largely because Mirtai was bigger than he was.

There was a polite knock at the door, and Talen veered over to answer it. Amba.s.sador Oscagne entered. He bowed to Ehlana. 'I've spoken with Fontan, your Majesty,' he reported. 'He's sending to the garrison at Canae for two Atan legions to escort us to Matherion. I'm sure we'll all feel more secure with them around us.'

'What's a legion, your Excellency?' Talen asked, crossing the room to the jewellery cabinet.

'A thousand warriors,' Oscagne replied. He smiled at Ehlana. 'With two thousand Atans at your disposal, your Majesty could conquer Edam. Would you like to establish a toe-hold on the Daresian continent? It won't really be all that inconvenient. We Tamuls will administer it for you for the usual fee, of course-and we'll send you glowing reports at the end of each year. The reports will be a tissue of lies, but we'll send them anyway.'

'Along with the profits?' She actually sounded interested.

'Oh no, your Majesty,' he laughed. 'For some reason, not one single kingdom in the whole empire ever shows profit-except Tamul itself, of course.'

'Why would I want a kingdom that doesn't pay?'

'Prestige, your Majesty, and vanity. You'd have another t.i.tle and another crown.'

'I don't really need another crown, your Excellency. I've only got one head. Why don't we just let the King of Edam keep his unprofitable kingdom?'

'Probably a wise decision, your Majesty,' he agreed. 'Edom's a tedious sort of place. They grow wheat there, and wheat-farmers are a stodgy group of people all obsessively interested in the weather.'

'How long is it likely to be until those legions arrive?' Sparhawk asked him.

'A week or so. They'll come on foot, so they'll make better time than they would on horseback.'

'Isn't that the other way around, your Excellency?' Melidere asked him. 'I thought horses moved much faster than men on foot.' Mirtai laughed. 'Did I say something funny?' Melidere asked.

'When I was fourteen, a man down in Daconia insulted me,' the giantess told her. 'He was drunk. When he sobered up the next morning, he realised what he'd done and fled on horseback. It was about dawn. I caught up with him just before noon. His horse had died from exhaustion. I always felt sort of sorry for the horse. A trained warrior can run all day. A horse can't. A horse has to stop when he wants to eat, so he's not used to running for more than a few hours at a time. We eat while we're running, so we just keep on going.'

'What did you do to the fellow who insulted you?' Talen asked her.

'Do you really want to know?'

'Ah-no, Mirtai,' he replied. 'Now that you mention it, probably not.'

And so they had a week on their hands. Baroness Melidere devoted her time to breaking hearts. The young n.o.blemen of King Alberen's court flocked around her. She flirted outrageously, made all sorts of promises none of which she kept-and occasionally allowed herself to be kissed in dark corners by persistent suitors. She had a great deal of fun and gathered a great deal of information. A young man pursuing a pretty girl will often share secrets with her, secrets which he should probably keep to himself.

To the surprise of Sparhawk and his fellow knights, Sir Berit devastated the young ladies of the court quite nearly as much as the Baroness did the young men. 'It's absolutely uncanny,' Kalten was saying one evening. 'He doesn't really do anything at all. He doesn't talk to them, he doesn't smile at them, he doesn't do any of the things he's supposed to do. I don't know what it is, but every time he walks through a room, every young woman in the place starts to come all unraveled.'

'He is a very handsome young man, Kalten,' Ehlana pointed out.

'Berit? He doesn't even shave regularly yet.

'What's that got to do with it? He's' tall, he's a knight, he has broad shoulders and good manners. He's also got the deepest blue eyes I've ever seen-and the longest eyelashes. '

'But he's only a boy.'

'Not any more. You haven't really looked at him lately. Besides, the young ladies who sigh and cry into their pillows over him are quite young themselves.'

'What's really so irritating is the fact that he doesn't even know what effect he has on all those poor girls,' Tynian observed. 'They're doing everything but tearing their clothes off to get his attention, and he hasn't got the faintest notion of what's going on.'

'That's part of his charm, Sir Knight.' Ehlana smiled. 'if it weren't for that innocence of his, they wouldn't find him nearly so attractive. Sir Bevier here has much the same quality. The difference though, is that Bevier knows that he's an extraordinarily handsome young man. He chooses not to do anything about it because of his religious convictions. Berit doesn't even know.'

'Maybe one of us should take him aside and tell him,' Ulath suggested.

'Never mind.' Mirtai told him. 'He's fine just the way he is. Leave him alone.'

'Mirtai's right.' Ehlana said. 'Don't tamper with him, gentlemen. We'd like to keep him innocent for just a while longer.' A hint of mischief touched her lips. 'Sir Bevier, on the other hand, is quite another matter. It's time for us to find him a wife. He'll make some girl an excellent husband.'

Bevier smiled faintly. 'I'm already married, your Majesty-to the Church.'

'Betrothed perhaps, Bevier, but not yet married. Don't start buying ecclesiastical garb just yet, Sir Knight. I haven't entirely given up on you.'

'Wouldn't it be easier to start closer to home, your Majesty?' he suggested. 'If you feel the urge to marry someone off, Sir Kalten is readily at hand.'

'Kalten?' she asked incredulously. 'Don't be absurd, Bevier. I wouldn't do that to any woman.'

'Your Majesty.' Kalten protested.

'I love you dearly, Kalten,' she smiled at the blond Pandion, 'but you're just not husband material. I couldn't give you away. In good conscience I couldn't even order anyone to marry you. Tynian is remotely possible, but G.o.d intended you and Ulath to be bachelors.'

'Me?' Ulath said mildly.

'Yes,' she said, 'you.'

The door opened, and Stragen and Talen entered. They were both dressed in the plain clothing they usually wore when making one of their sorties into the streets. 'Any luck?' Sparhawk asked them.

'We found him,' Stragen replied, handing his cloak to Alcan. 'He's not really my sort. He's a pickpocket by profession, and pickpockets don't really make good leaders. There's something fundamentally lacking in their character.'

'Stragen!' Talen protested.

'You're not really a pickpocket, my young friend,' Stragen told him. 'That's only an interim occupation while you're waiting to grow up. Anyway, the local chief's named Kondrak. He could see that we all have a mutual interest in stable governments, I'll give him that. Looting houses when there's turmoil in the streets is a fast way to make a lot of money, but over the long run, a good thief can acc.u.mulate more in times of domestic tranquillity. Of course Kondrak can't make any kind of overall decision on his own. He'll have to consult with his counterparts in other cities in the empire.'

'That shouldn't take more than a year or so,' Sparhawk noted drily.

'Hardly,' Stragen disagreed. 'Thieves move much more rapidly than honest men. Kondrak's going to send out word of what we're trying to accomplish. He'll put it in the best possible light, so there's a very good chance that the thieves of all the kingdoms in the empire will co-operate.'

'How will we know their decision?' Tynian asked him.

'I'll make courtesy calls each time we come to a fair-sized city,' Stragen shrugged. 'Sooner or later I'll get an official reply. It shouldn't take all that long. We'll certainly have a final decision by the time we reach Matherion.' He looked speculatively at Ehlana. 'Your Majesty's learned a great deal about the subterranean government in the past few years,' he noted. 'Do you suppose we could put that information on the level of a state secret? We're perfectly willing to co-operate and even a.s.sist on occasion, but we'd be much happier if the other monarchs of the world didn't know too much about the way we operate. Some crusader might decide to smash the secret government, and that would inconvenience us a bit.'

'What's it worth to you, Milord Stragen?' she teased him.

His eyes grew very serious. 'It's a decision you'll have to make for yourself, Ehlana,' he told her, cutting across rank and customary courtesies. 'I've tried to a.s.sist you whenever I could because I'm genuinely fond of you. If you make a little conversational slip, though, and other monarchs find out things they shouldn't know, I won't be able to do that any more.'

'You'd abandon me, Milord Stragen?'

'Never, my Queen, but my colleagues would have me killed, and I wouldn't really be of much use to you in that condition, now would I?

Archimandrite Morsel was a large, impressive man with piercing black eyes and an imposing black beard. It was a forceful beard, an a.s.sertive beard, a beard impossible to overlook, and the Archimandrite used it like a battering ram. It preceded him by a yard wherever he went. It bristled when he was irritated, which was often, and in damp weather it knotted up into snarls like half a mile of cheap fishing line. The beard waggled when Morsel talked, emphasising points all on its own.

Patriarch Emban was absolutely fascinated by the Archimandrite's beard. 'It's like talking to an animated hedge,' he observed to Sparhawk as the two of them walked through the corridors of the palace toward a private audience with the Astellian ecclesiast.