A Fall of Princes Read online

  “Thereby beginning a riot indeed,” said Ziad-Ilarios.

  “They’ll see sense soon enough. You named your heir. Once the shock wears off, they’ll be content with him.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I know so,” said Sarevan. He was not as confident as he hoped he sounded.

  “And you? What will they say of you?”

  “The truth. I come indeed of my own will, lord emperor. I make a gift of myself to you.”

  Ziad-Ilarios was neither startled nor dismayed. Of course not. Halid was his man. He knew everything; had known it, most likely, from the beginning. “There are two edges to that sword, Sun-prince. I can use you as a pawn in my game. I can barter your life for your father’s empire.”

  Tension contracted to a knot in Sarevan’s middle. He smiled. “Don’t trouble. He won’t play. Alive I can keep him from you. Dead I can give you your war. Keruvarion you’ll never get, from either of us.”

  “And if I desire war?”

  Sarevan tilted his head back, baring his throat. “I’m yours, old lion. Do as you please.”

  “You are young,” mused Ziad-Ilarios. His tone excused nothing. “I am not a man who whips his sons. But were you mine, I would consider it.”

  Sarevan sat bolt upright. Ziad-Ilarios regarded him sternly, yet with a spark beneath. “Young one, your folly has placed me in a very difficult position. I have considered returning you forthwith to your father—”

  “You can’t!” Sarevan burst out.

  The emperor’s brows met. He looked more than ever like Hirel. “Do not tell me what I can and cannot do. Your father suffered my son to return to me, great though his advantage would have been had he held the boy hostage. For that, I stand in his debt. I might choose to repay in kind. Or,” he said, “I might not. I do not know what use you may be, save to cause dissension in my court. You may be better dead or in chains.”

  “So be it,” Sarevan said steadily.

  Ziad-Ilarios looked long at him. For all his fixity of purpose, for all that he had had long days to firm his will, Sarevan had all he could do to sit unmoving, his face calm, his hands quiet on his thighs. His heart beat hard; his mouth was dry. A cold trickle of sweat crept down his spine.

  The emperor said them, the words he dreaded. “Do you propose to betray your empire?”

  “No!” cried Sarevan, too swift, too loud, too high. Grimly he mastered himself. “No, Lord of Asanion. Never. I propose to save it.” He spread his hands, letting Ziad-Ilarios see them both, the one that was human-dark, the one that was burning golden. “I offer myself. Hostage. Peace-bond. A shield against my father’s war.”

  “Are you so certain that he cannot win it?”

  “I know he will.”

  “Why, then? Surely you have no love for Asanion.”

  “I know what that victory will cost.” The emperor raised his brows. Sarevan swallowed. His throat seemed full of sand. “I was never the seer my mother is. But I have seen what my god has given me to see. War, Lord of Asanion. Red war. Two empires laid waste, the flower of their manhood slain, the strength of their people broken.” Sarevan was on his feet. “I will not have it. If I must die to prevent it, then let me die. I will not be emperor if that empire is ruin.”

  “That,” said Ziad-Ilarios, soft after Sarevan’s passionate outcry, “is the heart of the matter. You will turn traitor rather than face what you fear will come. Even in Asanion we have a name for that. We call it cowardice.”

  “Old lion,” purred Sarevan, “I am young and I am a fool and I have no courage to speak of, but you cannot test my mettle by twisting the truth. My father let your son leave Endros because he has no intention of keeping peace and no taste for cold murder. He never dreamed that I would go as far as I have.”

  “Do you believe that I cannot have you put to death for my realm’s sake?”

  “I believe that Mirain An-Sh’Endor will hesitate to invade Asanion while you hold me hostage. I am, after all, his only son. His father has decreed that he may never have another.”

  “But if war is inevitable, your death may move him to act in haste, before he is well ready. Then may I claim the advantage.”

  “He was ready when I left Endros. I may have delayed him by escaping his vigilance, but if I die at your command, he will fall upon you at once and without mercy.” Sarevan rose and stepped back, freeing Ziad-Ilarios from the weight of his shadow. “Lord emperor, I came willingly, in full knowledge of the consequences. I am yours to hold. I will serve you, whether you use me as prince or slave, guest or prisoner, if only you do not ask me to turn against my people.”

  “What surety have you that I will not keep you and turn against your father? He has no child of mine in his power.”

  “In that,” Sarevan said levelly, “I trust to your honor. And to the size of my father’s army.”

  The emperor stood. “Asuchirel,” he said. “Judge. Do I keep him? Do I put him to death? Do I send him back to his father?”

  Hirel was slow to answer. Not for surprise, Sarevan could see that. He looked as if he had been expecting the burden of judgment; and it was heavy. Perhaps too heavy for his shoulders, however broad they had begun to be.

  At last he said, “Death would be wise, if we would consider the years to come and the enemy he must inevitably be, but he has warned us clearly against such foresight. If we send him to Endros, it must be in chains, or he will not go. I counsel that we keep him. We may gain time thereby, and we will certainly discomfit his father.”

  “And you can always kill me later,” Sarevan pointed out. He bowed with a flourish. “I am your servant, my lord. What will you have of me?”

  “Respect,” replied Ziad-Ilarios, with a glint that might have been laughter.

  “And now,” he said, “I would speak with my son. My captain will guide you to a place of comfort.”

  o0o

  It was indeed very comfortable: a suite of princely chambers, with slaves for every need, and a great bath, and its own garden.

  Halid, having guided Sarevan there, was not disposed to linger. Sarevan did not try to detain him. There was no tactful way to ask a captain of guards if he had intended to murder his charges.

  When the man had gone, Sarevan rounded on Zha’dan with such fierceness that the Zhil’ari leaped back. His hand was on the hilt of his sword; but he had not drawn it.

  “Truth,” Sarevan spat out. “What is the truth?”

  “I don’t think there is any,” Zha’dan said.

  Sarevan paced, spun, paced. “That was Halid, laughing at us. If he is the emperor’s man, why did he plot to kill us? If there was no plot, why did Aranos tell us there was? What is this web we’re trapped in?”

  “I don’t know,” said Zha’dan. “I can’t read these people. Even when I think I can. They keep thinking around corners.”

  Sarevan stopped short. Suddenly he laughed. “The sword and the serpent! And what does the sword do when the serpent coils to strike?”

  Zha’dan caught the spark of his laughter. “It strikes first.”

  “Straight and steady and clear to the heart. We’ll master this empire yet, brother savage.”

  They grinned at one another. It was sheer bravado, but it buoyed them up.

  o0o

  They were still grinning when Hirel found them, the two of them and the ul-cat, nested most comfortably in the mountain of white and golden cushions that was the state bed of Asanion’s high prince.

  He stopped in a cloud of slaves and hangers-on, motionless amid the dropped jaws and outrage. Sarevan watched him remember with whom he was quarreling, and with whom he was not, and why. Watched the mirth swell, perilously.

  “Good evening,” he said in his beautifully cadenced High Asanian, “my panthers. Are your chambers not to your liking?”

  “Good evening,” said Sarevan, “brother prince. Our chambers are very much to our liking. But we had a mind to explore. I see you have your place again.”

  “It was in
evitable. It is my place.” Hirel raised a finger. His following scattered. Not without dismay; but perhaps there was something to be said for Asanian servility. No one argued with a royal whim.

  When they were well gone, Hirel dropped his robes and stood in his trousers, drawing a long breath. His shoulders straightened; his eyes sparked.

  He grinned. He laughed. He leaped.

  It took both men to conquer him. He had not their strength, but he was supple and lethally quick, and he knew tricks they had never heard of. And some they had, and called foul. Loudly.

  He laughed at them. Even with Sarevan sitting on him and Zha’dan pinning his hands.

  “Beard-pulling,” Sarevan told him severely, “is not honorable.”

  Hirel sobered. Somewhat. “It is not? Groin-kneeing, surely, but that . . . it is so irresistibly there.”

  “I didn’t pull your hair.”

  “Ah, poor prince.”

  Sarevan growled. Hirel lay and looked almost meek.

  After a moment Zha’dan let go his hands. He flexed them, sighing. Sarevan gathered to let him up.

  The world whirled. Hirel sat on Sarevan’s chest and laughed. His fingers were wound in Sarevan’s beard. “Never,” he said, “call an Asanian conquered until he yields.”

  “What happens if I won’t yield?” Sarevan demanded, not easily. His chin had too keen a memory of anguish.

  Hirel bent close. “Do you wish to know?”

  Sarevan twisted. Hirel clung like a leech. His fingers tightened. “I won’t,” gritted Sarevan.

  Hirel swooped down. He did not kiss like a woman. He did not kiss, for all Sarevan knew, like a man. He was simply and blindingly Hirel.

  When Sarevan could breathe again, Hirel was on his feet, wrapping himself in a simple linen robe. It was voluminous enough, but a good handspan shorter than it should have been.

  Hirel looked at it, and Sarevan forgot anger, outrage, fear that was half desire. More than half. He struggled in the endless clutching cushions.

  Hirel tried to pull the robe down over his feet. It yielded a bare inch. He raised his eyes to Sarevan. “I am not the same. I am—not—”

  Sarevan could not touch him. Dared not.

  He bent, took up the first robe of his eight. It was silk, and rather more elaborate than practical, but it fit him. He put it on slowly, discarding the other. He straightened, working his fingers through the wild tangle of his hair. “I am not the same,” he said again. “I can laugh. I can—I could—weep. I am corrupted, Sun-prince.”

  “And I,” Sarevan said, barely to be heard.

  Hirel laughed, not as he had before. Short and bitter. “You are purity itself. A kiss—” His lip curled in scorn. “That was vengeance. For what you gave me. Now do you understand? Now do you see what you did to me?”

  “But it was only a kiss.”

  “Only!” Hirel jerked tight the belt of his robe. “My father warned me. It is a Gileni magic. It has nothing to do with mages, and everything to do with what you are, your red-maned kind. A fire in the blood. A madness in the brain. You do not even know what you do. You simply are.”

  “But you did the same to me!”

  “Did I?” Hirel smiled slowly. “So, then. It can be given back in kind. Perhaps, for that, I may concede the existence of gods.” He drew himself up, settled his robe and his face. “Enough. I have been remiss; I have let myself forget who I am. Go, be free. I have duties.”

  “What sort of duties?”

  Hirel bridled. Sarevan refused to be cowed. He lay and waited and willed the boy to remember who he was.

  Hirel remembered. He eased, a little. His outrage faded.

  “Prince,” he said. It was an apology. “My father gave me a gift. A judgment. I must make it tonight.”

  “Your brothers?”

  The faintest of smiles touched Hirel’s mouth. “My brothers.”

  Sarevan regarded him, long and level. “I don’t like what you’re thinking,” he said.

  Hirel tilted his head. There were diamonds in his ears; they could not match the glitter of his eyes. “What do you think I am thinking?”

  Sarevan stretched the aches out of his muscles and yawned. His eyes did not shift from Hirel’s face. “You’re contemplating revenge. Sweet, isn’t it?”

  “Sweeter than honey,” said Hirel, standing over Sarevan. “Would you make it sweeter? Linger as you are, half naked amid my bed.”

  “Hirel,” Sarevan said, “don’t do it.”

  “Can you forbid me?”

  “Believe me, prince. The sweetness doesn’t last. It turns to gall, and then to poison.”

  “How wise you are tonight.” Hirel’s smile was bright and brittle. “But I am wiser than you think. Watch and see.”

  “Hirel—”

  “Watch.”

  o0o

  They came boldly enough. Only the two: Vuad and Sayel, without attendance of their own, escorted politely but ineluctably by half a dozen of the emperor’s Olenyai.

  They were putting on it the best faces they might. Sarevan was not half-naked in Hirel’s bed; he sat with Hirel, robed like the other, his hair free and his brows bound with gold, with his ul-cat and his Zhil’ari mageling at his feet. They played at draughts upon a golden board.

  Zha’dan straightened, at gaze. Ulan raised his head from Sarevan’s knee.

  Hirel pondered the board. He was losing. He was not frowning, by which Sarevan knew that his mind was not on it.

  Sarevan made no such pretense. He turned to regard the princes; they stared back in a fashion he was learning to name. High indignation that a dusky barbarian should presume to conduct himself as their equal. He belonged, the curl of their lips declared, in the slave-stables with the rest of his kind.

  It was hard to pity them. Even when, at long last, Hirel condescended to notice them.

  Their bravado shuddered and shrank. “Good evening,” said Hirel, “brothers. I trust that my summons did not inconvenience you.”

  “We are always at your disposal,” Sayel said. “My lord.”

  Hirel smiled. Sarevan thought of beasts of prey. “No expressions of joy, brothers? No hymns of thanksgiving that I am returned safe to my kin?”

  “Hirel,” said Vuad, dropping to his knees and catching at Hirel’s robe. “Hirel, we never meant it.”

  “Of course you did not mean to let me escape. Your guardhound was fierce. Would you like to see my scars?”

  Sayel sank down coolly, with grace. He even smiled. “Surely you understand, brother. We were forced to it. We did not intend to slay you.”

  Hirel looked at them. The one who clung to his hem and sweated. The one who smiled.

  “I loved you once. I admired you. I wished to be like you. Fine strong young men, never at a loss for a word or a smile, never ill or weak or afraid. You never fainted in the heat at Summer Court. You never fasted at banquets lest you lose it all at once and most precipitately. You never paid for a few days’ brisk hunting in thrice a few days’ sickness. You were all that I was not, and all that I longed to be.”

  Sayel’s smile twisted. Vuad’s tension eased; he raised his head.

  “You do understand,” he said. “After all, you do. We knew you would. It was circumstance; necessity. There was no malice in it.” He managed a smile. “Here, brother. Send your animals away; then we can talk.”

  “We are talking now.” Hirel stared at Vuad’s hands until they let go of his robe.

  “At least,” said Sayel, “dismiss the beast with the firefruit mane.” He was easing, falling into a manner that must have been his wonted one with Hirel: light, familiar, subtly contemptuous. “Rid us of it, Hirel’chai. Our council has no need of Varyani spies.”

  Hirel laughed, which took Sayel aback. “I am not your Hirel’chai, O Sayel’dan, my brother and my servant. Bow to the lord high prince, who is my guest and my brother-above-blood. Crave his pardon.”

  Sayel looked from one to the other. His brows arched. “Ah. Now I see where your ma
nners have gone. Is it true that his kind ride naked to war?”

  “On occasion,” Sarevan replied. “Our women especially are fond of it. Beautifully barbaric, no?”

  “The beauty is questionable,” said Sayel.

  “Bow,” Hirel said very softly. “Bow, Sayel.”

  Vuad, less clever, was relearning fear. Sayel was still rapt in his own insolence. “Come now, little brother. Am I, a prince of the blood imperial, to abase myself before a bandit’s whelp?”

  Hirel was on his feet. No one had seen him move.

  Sayel fell sprawling; Hirel’s foot held him there, resting lightly on his neck. “You are not wise, Sayel’dan. The Prince of Keruvarion was inclined to intercede for you; but you have shown him the folly of it.” Hirel beckoned to his guards. “Take them both. Rid them of their manes; chain them. Bid the gelders wait upon my pleasure.”

  o0o

  “I watched,” Sarevan said with banked heat. “I saw nothing wise in what you did.”

  “You did not speak for them,” Hirel pointed out coolly.

  “You never gave me time.”

  Hirel said nothing, only looked at him.

  He rose. “Go on, then. Take your revenge. But don’t expect me to condone it.”

  “And what does your father do with those who betray him? Embrace them? Kiss them? Thank them for their charity?”

  “You keep my father out of this.”

  “I will keep him where I please. We do not love him here, but we fear him well; we know how he deals with his enemies.”

  “Mercifully,” snapped Sarevan. “Justly. And promptly, with no cat-games to whet their terrors.”

  Hirel tossed back his hair, eyes narrow and glittering. “Is that your measure of me?”

  “You are High Prince of Asanion.”

  “Ah,” drawled Hirel. “I break my fast on the tender flesh of children, and beguile my leisure with exquisite refinements of torture. There is one, prince; it is delightful. A droplet of water upon the head of a bound prisoner: one droplet only at each turn of the sun-glass. But sometimes, for variation, no droplet falls. It drives the victim quite beautifully mad.”

  Sarevan’s teeth ground together. “If you’re going to kill them, at least kill them cleanly.”