Arrows of the Sun (18 page)

They bathed him in blessedly cool water. They did not
threaten him with razors or drench him with scent. They did object to the kilt
which Godri proffered. “That will not do,” the chief of them said—safe, maybe,
because it was the squire he spoke to.

“It will do,” Estarion said.

It was a royal kilt, scarlet edged with gold. The belt that
went with it was rich, gold leaved over thickly carved leather, and he suffered
the full weight of northern ornament: rings, armlets, necklaces, earrings of
pure and heavy gold lightened with a gem or two; strings of gold and ruby woven
in his hair, and threads of gold in the curls of his beard. He was blinding;
dazzling; glorious. “Since,” he said, “after all, I am receiving the Regent of Asanion.”

“He’s not going to approve,” Godri observed.

“Alas for his grace,” said Estarion.

o0o

The hall was as cool as anything could be in this climate.
Its lofty dome held off the worst of the heat, and its many-colored stone kept
to itself the coolness of the night. A pair of servants wielded gilded fans,
cooling Estarion with their breezes.

The chair on which he sat was not too uncomfortable as
thrones went. Asanians knew the virtue of cushions, too much so when it came to
their beds, but thoroughly satisfactory under his rump. He rested his foot on
the living stool that presented itself: Ulyai, who judged herself more truly
needed where he was than with Sidani.

She was not forthcoming as to the woman’s whereabouts.
Safe
, she informed him in the image of an
ul-queen laired with her cubs. He decided to trust her. In the circumstances he
had little choice.

His own escort was present only in part. Most of the
courtiers were still asleep or amusing themselves as courtiers could in a
foreign city. His Guard was halved to those on day-duty. His mother was there,
of course, and Iburan, and one or two priest-mages. Not Vanyi. Everyone else in
that hall was Asanian.

A small shiver ran down Estarion’s spine. So many yellow
faces. So many minds turned on him, and not one level pair of eyes.

This too was his empire. These too were his people. They did
not ask that he love them, only that he rule them.

He sat a little straighter. The walls about his mind were
high and strong, but his head ached in spite of them.

He knew the pounding of his mother’s siege-engines.
Disapproval was too mild a word for her response to the sight of him in the
finery of her people. Even Iburan had taken his beard out of its braids and
abandoned his kilt for the stifling confinement of a robe.

He looked like a cave-bear in a coat, vast and ruffled and
surly. But he was proper as Asanians thought of it. He was covered in
accordance with his rank.

Maybe Asanians did not feel the heat as other people did.
They did not sweat that he could see, or grow faint. They seemed content to
stand for hours out of count, not moving, not speaking, not meeting his restless
eyes.

His grace the Regent was in no haste to appear before his
emperor. First he must come to the city; then he must be borne through it in his
litter; at last he must enter the lord’s palace and be received by the lord,
and offered refreshment, and bathed and robed with honor and conducted to the
hall. While Estarion sat fasting, sweltering, barely breathing lest he say
something unfortunate.

In Keruvarion at least he would have had a hallful of
petitioners to keep him occupied. Here he was given nothing to do but sit.

It was designed to drive an emperor mad. But he was mage and
priest before he was emperor. There were disciplines in which he had too little
practice, and exercises of the mind that prospered well enough behind full
shields. One of them was to draw all of his self inward save a sentinel behind
the eyes, and focus it, and quicken time until movement without was a blur.

In that shifted time he ran through the Prayers of Passing,
first the invocation, then the doxology, then the petition, and at the last the
praises. And as the last great singing line sank into the silence of his self,
the blur before him slowed, and the world ran level again with his awareness. A
wind ruffled the hall. An army marched in upon it.

The other face of time’s quickening was time’s slowing.
Estarion took his leisure to examine the invasion. It was not as numerous as at
first it seemed, or so headlong. It was simply determined.

He knew the livery of the Regent’s guard, armor ornate to
uselessness, lacquered and gilded till it rivaled his own finery, and all of it
crimson and silver, the colors of his lordship’s house. He knew their master,
memory as sharp as a knife in the flesh, prince of seven robes, crimson on
crimson on crimson, and the man within them aged cruelly in the years of
Estarion’s absence. But the ones who came behind, he did not remember, unless
they were the shadows of his dream.

Cold reason named their kind. Bred warriors. Olenyai.

Black robes, black hoods, black veils shrouding faces to the
eyes. Twin swords, baldricked one on either side. Hands ivory-pale, eyes gold
or amber, and none of them taller than any other, and that was small in any country
but this; but even that smallness was deadly.

Asanion had bred its princes for a thousand years and more,
for beauty, for subtle wit, for impeccably civilized viciousness. These were
its warriors, bred as carefully as princes, reared and trained in secret,
forbidden ever to reveal their faces. They were the dogs and slaves of the
emperors, the soldiery of its warlords, bought and sold in captains and
companies, bound to their lords by oaths and gold and, it was said, deep-woven
sorcery.

Estarion had seen none of them since he came to Asanion. The
armed men whom he had seen were men like any other, guards as he knew them in
Keruvarion, free men taken into lordly service. There were no wars where he had
gone, no emperor but the one, and that was himself. There had been no need of
Olenyai.

He had all he could do to force his eyes away from them, to
hold his face still while the Regent performed the nine prostrations of the
Asanian homage. His following performed them with him, concerted as a dance.
But not the Olenyai. The shadow warriors did not sacrifice vigilance even for
the emperor’s majesty.

The pain behind Estarion’s eyes was near to blinding. He saw
as in a broken glass, a thin glittering shard that held a remembered face. “My
lord Firaz inShalion Echaryas,” he said. “Well met again, and welcome.”

“My lord Meruvan Estarion Kormerian Ganimanion iVaryan,”
said the Regent, stumbling not even once, “well met at last, and welcome.”

Tidily put, thought Estarion. He did not remember that he
had been fond of this man. One was not fond of Asanian high princes. One hated
them, or one admired them, or both.

This prince was as high as any but the highest, and he paid
the price of his blood and breeding. He had been beautiful once as his kind
could be. Now he was all gone grey, worn and ravaged with the years. And yet he
was younger than the empress, whose hair had not begun to whiten, whose beauty
was just coming into its prime.

They blossom young
,
said a voice in the deeps of his mind,
and
they wither soon. They’re all the more deadly for that
.

Memory; but when or where, or who spoke, he could not tell.
Nor had he time to hunt it to its source. Lord Firaz was speaking: long elegant
phrases of greeting, gladness, judicious flattery. But there was a barb in the
tail.

“My emperor will know that he is now in my domain, under, of
course, the imperial majesty. Those of the east who accompany him are freed to
return to their places. Henceforth he will prosper in the hands of his western
servants.”

Estarion drew himself up slowly. He cut across a further
spate of nonsense, but carefully, in High Asanian as perfect as he could make
it. “Is my lord Regent implying that I should send back my escort?”

“Its task is done,” said the Regent, “majesty. Your
majesty’s servants have been sent to your majesty’s chambers. Your majesty’s
guard stands before your majesty. Your majesty’s regent—”

“My servants? My guard?”

“As your majesty sees.” The Regent’s hand gestured slightly,
gracefully. The Olenyai bent their shrouded heads. It was not humility. Not in
the least.

“And if I wish to keep my own people?”

“These are your majesty’s people.”

Estarion closed his eyes, opened them again. His mother
listened in unmarred serenity. He shot a bolt through the walls of his mind.
You knew!

She inclined her head a fraction.
Wait
, the gesture said.
Be
patient
.

He was in no mood for patience. “Suppose,” he said, “that we
compromise. I keep my own Guard, and suffer your servants.”

“These are your guard,” said the Regent.

“We shall consider this,” Estarion said, “later.” He rose.
“You are most welcome in our presence. But the sun approaches its zenith; the
heat likewise comes to its height. Be free now until evening. Rest; seek what
coolness there may be.”

o0o

“That was peremptory,” said the empress. There was no
censure in her tone; simply observation.

“It was scandalous.” Estarion prowled her antechamber. Her
servant—as much a northerner as she, and blessedly silent—had rid him of his
gauds and cooled him with a cloth dipped in water and herbs.

The sharp green scent followed him as he paced. At the far
wall he spun. “Mother, I’m not going to let him rule me.”

“Are you clever enough to stop him?”

“You are.”

She sighed. “Estarion,” she said, “have you considered that
it might be wise to yield? In body only. In spirit you remain yourself.”

“I won’t wear all those robes in this heat.”

She frowned, but then, as if she could not help herself, she
smiled. Here where only he and Zherin could see, she had yielded to simple
sense and discarded her robes. Her beauty was garment enough in his reckoning,
that and the pride that never forsook her, even when she slept. “I am not about
to abandon you,” she said, “if that’s what you fear.”

He would not admit that he had. “I don’t want to lose my
Guard. Or my squire.”

“And your court?”

“They might be happier away from here.” He began to pace
again. “Mother, I can send them back. Most of them will be glad to go. But not
Godri. And not my warriors.”

“You do know,” she said, “that under the compact of the
empires’ union, the heart of Asanion is Asanion’s own. Firaz is doing no more
than his duty—and granting you ample grace in demanding it no sooner than this.
He could have met you at the border and not at the gate.”

“He could have waited till I came to Kundri’j.”

“He was wise to wait so long, but wiser to come so soon.
Easier then for you to accept it, and come to the city in proper estate.”

“If that’s what he wants, then I’ll ride in like a wild
tribesman, and damn him and all his works.”

Her gaze on him was level. He flushed under it. “Will you,
Estarion?” she inquired.

“No, damn it.” Her doubt stung him; her glance at his kilt
and his braids. “Mother, I’m not a complete fool. I’ll behave myself tonight:
I’ll even wear a robe. But he has to know that I’m not his puppet. I’ll be as
proper as I can be. I’ll promise him no more than that.”

“And me? Will you promise me to be more circumspect? Here
they find it in themselves to endure your outland fancies. Kundri’j Asan
endures nothing that is not Asanian.”

“I’m not Asanian.”

“You must learn to be.”

His jaw set against her. “Maybe it’s time they learned to
see the world as it is and not as they would have it. The Golden Empire is
gone. The Blood of the Lion is here, in me, blackfaced bearded barbarian that I
am. I am not ten robes and a wig and a mask. I am living, breathing, human
power. And I rule them.”

“Do you?”

Testing, always testing. He would hate her if he loved her
less. He swooped down, set a kiss on her brow. “Can I do less than try?” he
asked her.

She caught him before he could straighten, and held him with
her hands on either side of his face. Her eyes were ages deep. The goddess
dwelt in the depths of them. He was light and fire, Sun’s child, bright noon to
her deep night, man to her woman, son and emperor as she was mother and queen.

“My beautiful bright child,” she said. The words were
tender, but their edge was fierce. “I’ll never call you wise. But neither will
I stop you.”

“Will you help me?”

“Only if there’s wisdom in it.”

“Then I’ll try to be sensible.”

“Sensible is even rarer than wise.”

He grinned between her hands. “If I fall short of sense,
then maybe I’ll reach wisdom.”

She cuffed him hard enough to bruise. “Puppy! Go, torment
your servants, give me a moment’s peace.”

The battle royal between Godri and the Regent’s servants
was a ladies’ walking-party to the war that Estarion found at the door of his
chambers. The scarlet livery of his Guard held the way against the black
regiment of the Olenyai. When Estarion came upon them, they were close to drawn
swords.

His temper had, he thought, been holding up remarkably well.
But this, after all the rest that he had had to endure, snapped the fragile
cord of his patience. Just as a scarlet-liveried hothead went for a little
snapping beast in black, Estarion let his temper go.
“Hold!”

His battlefield bellow brought even wild Alidan up short,
sword half drawn.

Estarion drew a very careful breath. “Put away your swords,”
he said.

Alidan obeyed him. The Olenyas glanced at another of his
like, his captain maybe. That one lowered lids over yellow eyes. The blade
snicked into its sheath.

Estarion noticed, but he forbore to remark on it. “Now,” he
said. “What is this?”