Arrows of the Sun Read online

  She could stretch her ears, if she wished. She noticed that Iburan was doing the same.

  There were no endless circling greetings and formalities. From anyone else in Kundri’j it would have been an insult, and the eunuch seemed to believe that it was. He did not know Estarion, or Estarion’s mother.

  Vanyi barely needed more than ears to hear him. His voice was high, and it carried. “The emperor bids you prepare to ride. He departs this city at sunrise.”

  The empress’ response was calm. “Inform my son that I have been ready since the sun touched its zenith. I shall await him at first dawn.”

  The eunuch seemed disconcerted: when he spoke again, his voice was less strident. “The emperor also bids you know that the priest of Avaryan in Endros will accompany him. He bade me tell you, ‘I cannot forgive. But I can comprehend.’”

  Vanyi’s eyes darted to Iburan’s face. It was perfectly blank. In the room within, the empress said, still calmly, “Tell my son that I understand.”

  Iburan began to walk as if he had never paused. Vanyi found herself swept in his wake. She could not find words to say.

  o0o

  Outside of the palace, in the empty street, Iburan said them. “Clever, clever child. And oh, so cruel. Who taught him that, I wonder? Asanion? Or his mother?”

  “What’s cruel about it?” Vanyi asked. “He said he understood.”

  “He said it through a messenger,” said Iburan, “and he said it within an imperial summons.” And when she still did not understand: “He treated her like a vassal. And more than that. He let her know that he won’t prevent us. He won’t even keep us apart. Can you see what that will do to us every time we come together? We’ll know that he knows. We’ll shrivel with guilt.”

  “I doubt that,” said Vanyi, with an eye not quite on the bulk of him beside her.

  He laughed, sudden and deep, but it was brief. “No, it won’t stop us. But it will slow us a little. Parents who disapprove, those are spice to a pair of lovers. Children in the same condition . . . they dampen the proceedings remarkably. They have such expectations; and they never, never forgive.”

  “If he knew how you laugh at him, he’d be furious.”

  “I’m not laughing,” said Iburan. “He’s dangerous, you know. I don’t think he realizes that; and the rest of us tend to forget. When he was young, before his father died, he promised to be a great mage and king. He may never be the mage now, after all that’s happened, but the king is there still. If he learns to stop running—if he accepts all that he is—”

  “And if he doesn’t do either, he’ll be deadly, because he won’t settle to anything, but will drag the empires after him wherever he goes.”

  “He’ll break them,” Iburan said. He tugged his beard. It looked naked without its plaits and its gauds. He seemed to miss them, raking fingers through it, scowling at the darkening sky.

  Suddenly he straightened. “Come now. We’ve packing to do.”

  Vanyi hung back. “Shouldn’t I tell him I’m going?”

  “And have him say no? Don’t be a fool. He’s ordered me to go; I have to have attendants, it wouldn’t be proper if I didn’t. Unless you’d rather wait on the empress.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” said Vanyi, “but no.”

  “She’s hardly a monster, child.”

  “Of course she isn’t.” Vanyi did not mean to sound so angry. “It’s only . . . we never seem to agree on anything. Except that we love that damnable, arrogant, impossibly infuriating son of hers.”

  “You are,” he said, “quite dreadfully alike.”

  “I am not—” Vanyi bit her tongue. He was grinning at her. “Sometimes I wonder who’s really his father.”

  “You should have known Ganiman,” said Iburan. There was sadness in it, but above and about that, a wry amusement. “Starion comes by it honestly. If anything, his father was worse.”

  “That’s not possible,” said Vanyi. She strode forward down the broad street. After a handful of heartbeats she felt him behind her, broad as a wall and nigh as strong.

  35

  There was one duty that Estarion could not avoid, nor overmuch wish to. He performed it toward evening of that endless day, late enough to be polite, too early to linger.

  He would have left Korusan behind, but the Olenyas refused to leave him until he came to the inner door of the harem. Estarion half expected him to pass it. He halted and crouched in a shadow as he often had before, with no more evidence of disgruntlement than he had ever shown, if certainly no less.

  Once past the door in the scented quiet, Estarion drew a shaking breath. There was a word in Keruvarion for what he was. Soldiers gave it to women who sold themselves in the street. In Asanion it was prettier. Here he was lord and emperor, and duty-bound to sire sons; and when duty did not bind him, he was permitted his body’s pleasure.

  His ladies were waiting. Tonight, he thought, he would choose Haliya, and damn the proprieties. When he came back—if he came back—he would return to the round of his duty.

  They were all together in their usual silence, but the undercurrent was odd. Not rancor, he did not think, or jealousy. But tension certainly, and the salt bitterness of tears.

  He kissed each one of them, taking his time about it. It was not, surprisingly, little Shaia who had been weeping, but Igalla with her elegant bearing and her queenly manners, and Eluya. Almost he chose one of them, but there was Haliya, dry-eyed and stiff-backed, and Ziana looking rarely unplacid.

  He did not delude himself that he was loved. But they were fond of him, maybe, and they fancied that he owned them. He never had been able to talk them out of that. If he should be killed or if he should fail to come back, they could look for little mercy from an empire that had defeated him.

  He had been steady, or so he thought, until he found himself leading both Haliya and Ziana to the inner room. He had not meant that at all. A choosing, yes, for courtesy, and a farewell as brief as he could decently make it, but nothing more than that. He ached even yet from Korusan’s fierce embraces.

  Or maybe he had been clever. He could hardly be expected to take them both at once, or to take one while the other watched.

  They seemed to think otherwise, it was true, and not to be discommoded by it. Maybe he should have chosen all nine at once, and escaped while they untangled themselves.

  Neither of the sisters reminded him that he was being improper, or that he should have chosen Eluya or Igalla. Ziana fetched him wine spiced and warmed as he liked it. Haliya eased him out of coat and trousers, found his knots and aches, and set to work. Some were patently not practice-bruises. She did not remark on them.

  He had not known how tired he was until those clever fingers stroked away his tautness. He had not slept since—when? He could not remember. His eyelids drooped in spite of themselves.

  Ziana had his head in her lap. He heard her voice as from far away. “You cut your beard. I like it so, like a fleece, curly and thick.” She combed fingers through it, lightly, making him shiver.

  Haliya stroked the lighter fleece of his body, breast and belly and loins. The rest of him was all but asleep, but his banner rose valiantly to greet her.

  This was whoredom, harlotry, weakness of body and soul. A priest should master his passions. A Sunlord should rule them.

  A Sunlord should sire sons. That was all he was meant for, when it came to it. If he died tomorrow, or if he never touched a woman again, there would be no heir to rule after him.

  Necessity. That was the name of it. Very pleasant, lying here, with beauty beneath his head and brilliance at his middle.

  Korusan would not be amused. He was jealous, that one. Asanians did not train their men as they did their women, to accept what must be accepted. Men owned. Women were owned.

  Korusan would ride with his lord. These ladies would not. The voice of guilt was growing faint. Shame he had never had. He was blessed in his lovers.

  o0o

  He said so, later, when Ziana la
y on one side and Haliya on the other, and he was renewed as if he had slept the night through. Ziana smiled from the hollow of his shoulder. Haliya said, “Will you say that when you’ve had a thousand lovers?”

  “I’ll never have so many,” he said.

  “You said you’d never have more than one. It’s a longer step from one to three than from three to a thousand.”

  “Not likely,” said Estarion. “I can be as Asanian as this, with you to show me the way. Even nine of you—that’s within the realm of possibility. But no more.”

  “I would like it, of course,” said Ziana, “if there were never more than nine. I’d see more of you then.”

  He kissed the smooth parting of her hair. “I should hate to see less of you than I do.”

  She mercifully did not point out that he had not visited her in a hand of days. First there had been obligations. Then evening Court. Then Korusan.

  He sat up abruptly, startling them both. “I have to go,” he said.

  Neither protested. That piqued him a little. Surely if they loved him they would beg him to stay.

  Ziana brought him his coat, Haliya his trousers. They did not play with him, not much. Not enough to tempt him to linger.

  But as Ziana fastened the last jeweled button, as Haliya set his foot in her lap for the boot, they both paused. Golden eyes and amber met, parted, fixed on him.

  “Take us with you,” said Haliya.

  He did not think that he looked angry. He even laughed.

  Ziana flinched. Haliya went stiff, and her hands on his foot tightened to the edge of pain.

  “You know I can’t,” he said. He took care to be gentle. “You gave your word,” said Haliya.

  “I promised that I would take you to Keruvarion. I’m not going there. I’m going south, and then maybe west, wherever need takes me.”

  “You will go to Keruvarion,” Ziana said. “Once you’re away from Kundri’j, nothing will stop you.”

  “Nothing but duty and necessity,” said Estarion, “and a matter of rebellion in the provinces.”

  “I can ride,” said Haliya, “and shoot. I won’t encumber you. Your mother is going. She has women with her. Would one more be so great a burden?”

  Ziana, who could neither ride nor shoot, was silent. Estarion spoke to her. “I promise you. When at last I go to Keruvarion, I’ll take you, or send for you.”

  Her head bent. She did not weep. Tears were not a weapon she would use, if others served as well.

  He caught her hands that smoothed his coat, smoothed and stroked it. “You can’t ride to war, my love. We’ll all be on seneldi; the wagons will be only for baggage, and those we’ll leave behind if we must.”

  “I ride,” Haliya said at his feet. “I can fight. Take me with you.”

  Oh, he had trapped himself neatly, with Ziana to melt his heart and Haliya to bend his will. Ziana at least had sense to see the truth. “If you promise,” she said, too low almost to hear. “If you send for me when you come to Keruvarion.”

  “On the Sun in my hand,” he said, raising it to her cheek. She bore the touch of it, though her eyes went wide with terror.

  Maybe she feared that it would brand her. He kissed the cheek where it had rested, flushed over pallor, unmarked and unscarred.

  Haliya was not so easily put off. “Take me,” she said.

  “Why?” he demanded with deliberate brutality. “What can you do that a dozen others can’t? I don’t need you for my bed. I don’t need you in my army.”

  He had struck, and struck deep, but she had her fair share of steel. Most of it was in her spine, and some in her voice. “Maybe you need me to remind you of what you’re fighting for. Of what you have to come back to.”

  “I can’t be trusted to remember it?”

  “No.”

  His teeth clicked together. He could flatten her with a blow. Or he could laugh and pull her up, and keep his hands on her shoulders, and say to her, “You are impossible. And so is your whim. What will it do to your honor if I take you with me to war?”

  “My honor is your honor,” she said steadily. “I want to go, my lord. I won’t make trouble for you.”

  “Your coming with me isn’t trouble?” He lowered his brows. “If you come with me, it won’t be as my bedmate. You’ll ride in my mother’s company, and you’ll answer to her, and wait on her if she asks. If she bids you ride without a veil, you obey her. Do you understand?”

  “Perfectly.” She met his capitulation with admirable restraint. Her breath came quickly, but that might only have been discomfort.

  He unclamped his fingers from her shoulders. She kept her eyes level with his: one of her more interesting arts. “Is that the price, my lord? Not to see you at all?”

  “You’ll see me,” he said. “I’m leading the march. But you ride with my mother.”

  She bent her head, but not her eyes. “And if you ask for me and she refuses, I am to obey her?”

  “I could still leave you behind,” he pointed out.

  That quelled her, for the moment. She would whoop, maybe, when he was gone, and dance round the room. Or maybe not. There was Ziana still, watching and listening and saying nothing.

  Haliya was the bolder, no question of it. Ziana, he suspected, was the braver. She accepted what she could not change. She had his promise, which he would keep. Her hand rose to her cheek, where he had sealed the vow.

  That, when he left Kundri’j Asan, was what he would choose to remember: Ziana straight and still in the harem’s heart, holding his heart in her hand.

  IV

  Meruvan Estarion

  36

  It should have felt less like flight; and Estarion should have felt less like an earthbear dragged out of its burrow. He was persuaded to sleep, if briefly. As he woke to a raw cold dawn, a palace in tumult, and for all he knew, armies gathering to cut him down, he reflected that maybe he had moved too soon.

  It was winter, the feast of the Long Night well past and the sky closed in with clouds and cold. Armies would go if he sent them, to put down the rebellion. He had no need to go with them. On a bare day’s notice, none but his own outland Guard and his Olenyai were ready: tenscore of each, and the hundred of his mother’s guard, pitifully small for an army, barely enough to defend him if he was beset. If he waited a hand of days, he could have ten times that number; a full cycle of Brightmoon, and ten times that would follow him, out of the imperial levies.

  There were armies where he went, under lords who were his vassals. And he was not going to fight if he could help it. They said that Sarevadin alone, without her consort, could ride from end to end of the empire with a company of guardsmen, and no one would touch her or offer her harm; and everywhere she went, her people learned to love her.

  He was arrogant and more than arrogant, to dream that he could do the same. He was not Sarevadin but the last and least of her descendants. And when she rode, she had left a son under guard in Kundri’j, and a consort of impeccably Asanian lineage.

  The consorts he had, eight of them, and the ninth ready, no doubt, and waiting for him to ride. The son he would get, god and goddess willing, when he came back.

  He was not going to his death. He was going to preserve his empire. And, he admitted, here alone in the dark, to save himself.

  Asanion had lost its horror. Its people were people to him now, lovers, even—maybe—friends. He could not rule in this palace as the old emperors had ruled, as prisoners of their own power. But he could rule this half of his empire.

  He had gained something, then, from his sojourn in the Golden Palace. Even his magery seemed a little less blunted by the walls about him, his mind a fraction less blind.

  He lay in something resembling content, counting his aches and bruises. Korusan had not been there when he came out of the harem. He had been disappointed, enough almost to snap at the Olenyas who waited to fill his shadow, simply because it was not Korusan.

  He had held his tongue. It was as well, he told himself as h
e calmed. He had much to do still, and then he should rest.

  But if the boy had grown angry at the time Estarion spent with the women, if he had gone and would not come back . . .

  Nonsense. Korusan had gone like a sensible man to prepare for the march and then to sleep. Estarion would find him in the ranks of the Olenyai, one pair of lion-eyes amid the simple human brown and amber and gold.

  If his captain allowed it. If he was not commanded to remain in the palace.

  He would come. He did as he pleased, that one. And he would please to ride with his emperor to war.

  o0o

  Korusan was not asleep, nor was he resting. He was facing the Master of the Olenyai yet again, for once without the mages or their master.

  Master Asadi had done an unwonted thing when Korusan entered his chamber, offered him food and drink to break his night’s fast. He took them, aware of what they signified. From master to brother of the second rank it was high honor. From Olenyai commander to emperor in exile, it was the seal of an alliance.

  Korusan was hungry, but he ate carefully, and drank sparingly of the well-watered wine. He was aware of Asadi’s eyes on him. The Master was eating as lightly as he, and with as much sense of ceremony.

  Custom forbade that they speak of anything but trifles until the bowls and cups were taken away, the wine replaced with a tisane of spices and sweet herbs, hot and pungent, to warm the blood for the cold journey ahead of them. Korusan sipped gingerly but with pleasure.

  At length he set down the cup. He kept his hands wrapped around it, for warmth, and looked into Asadi’s bared face.

  “Do you approve of what the Sunlord does?” Asadi asked him.

  He nearly laughed. “I disapprove of his existence. As for this, I think that he may be wise.”

  “To leave his guarded palace? To walk into the net?”

  “Better to walk into a trap than wither in a cage.”

  “You love him.”

  Korusan kept his face expressionless. “You can judge that?”

  “I can judge my Olenyas.”