His Majesty's Elephant (18 page)

Rowan did not try to explain. She was desperate to find her father up and yelling for his breakfast.

But he was doing no such thing. He lay as he had lain for these long awful days, with lamps at head and foot as if for the dead, and a lone priest praying over him.

Rowan sat in the chair by the bed, too tired even to cry.

Kerrec touched her arm. “I should see to Abul Abbas,” he said in a low voice. “The Greek cut him with that knife, not badly, but I should tend the wound.”

Rowan shrugged. Let him go. What did he matter? Her father was going to die.

Kerrec hovered, shifting from foot to foot. “Sometimes these things take time. Maybe by morning—”

“Go away,” said Rowan.

“I'll come back as soon as I can,” Kerrec said. He sounded strange, as if he was refraining from snapping at her.

“Don't,” she said. “Just go.”

He wavered for a while longer, but then he went.

Rowan stayed where she was. Her father's face was unchanged in the lamps' light. The priest stopped praying, eyed her curiously, crossed himself and mumbled something about the privy.

Bless his percipience. Rowan tucked up her feet and leaned her head against the chair's high back. Her eyelids sank under their own weight.

oOo

Rowan started out of a dream in which she rode a white elephant on the back of a white aurochs under a moon that was a demon's eye. Somebody was swearing in gutter Frankish, language that would have made a guardsman blush.

The Emperor's bed was surrounded by vultures, black-winged things that flapped and squawked. Rowan grabbed hold of the first thing that came to hand and waded in, beating off the carrion birds.

Consciousness came abruptly. She stood beside the great bed, with the flock of doctors flapping for safety, and her father bolt upright, damning them to every hell in the trooper's canon.

She stared at what she held.

It was the Talisman on its chain. But she had given it to Kerrec, and he had tied it up in Gisela's cloak and hidden it in the Elephant's house.

Without even thinking, she climbed up on the bed and dropped the chain over her father's head.

He was still consigning the whole race of doctors to perdition; he barely noticed what she did until she had done it. He blinked and came into focus.

“Theoderada?” he said.

She nodded. Her throat, for some reason, was tight.

He looked down at himself in his shirt like a grave-shroud, and around at the lamps and the room reeking of incense and medicines, and frowned. “I've been sick, I take it.”

She nodded again.

“And you let the doctors at me?”

He was building up a fine fit of temper. She halted it with one of her own. “How could I stop them? I was asleep!”

“Shirker.” But his eyes were glinting. “Very well, I forgive you.” And, somewhat alarmed: “There, little bird. There now. There.”

He never did know what to do with women who burst without warning into tears. Or maybe after all he did. Holding her and patting her and telling her “There now” was as much as anyone could do.

oOo

Dammed-up tears were the worst kind. They took forever to pour out, and they hurt. But it was a good hurt, and her father was there to make it better.

The explanations took even longer than the tears had. Rowan did not know if her father understood all of it, or believed it. He listened, at least, and did not interrupt her even when she ran out of breath and started hiccoughing, and needed a swallow of wine to get her going again.

When it was all told, Rowan sat in her father's lap like the child she no longer was, and waited for him to say something. Anything.

“That's the truth, you know,” said Abbess Gisela.

She looked as fresh as the morning, which for a fact it was: Rowan stared numbly at the grey light creeping through the windows. She was not smiling, but there was a light of gladness in her that even her stern expression could not dim.

The Emperor regarded his sister with some bemusement and a great deal of respect. “So, then. You share these moonlight fancies?”

“Moonlight's in them, certainly,” the abbess said, “but they happened if she says they did. She's Fastrada's child, Carl. Are you going to tell yourself that doesn't mean what you know it means?”

Rowan eased herself out of her father's lap and stood up stiffly. If she was to be named a witch, she wanted to be on her feet for it.

He seemed not to be aware of her, or of anything but his sister. His hand rose seemingly of its own accord and touched the Talisman, which was still hanging on his breast. It looked garish against the plainness of his shirt, its gold and jewels too bright, its crystal too large for symmetry.

Rowan's breath caught. There was nothing there but gold and jewels and a splinter of relic. No magic at all.

“We broke it,” she said, almost ready to cry again. “We took the demon out of it, but we didn't know to put the magic back.”

“It's still a relic,” Abbess Gisela said, “and valuable. Do you think he'll need it again as it was?”

“The sorcerer's still alive,” Rowan said. She turned toward the door, ready to run and make sure that he had not suborned his guards or wrought a spell and escaped.

“He's alive, is he?” said the Emperor. “I'll see him, then. And then we'll see.”

“But,” Rowan said. “You've been ill—you can't—”

oOo

He most certainly could. A man who had been ill for days should have been weak and helpless, but Carl had fallen victim to sorcery.

Magic had brought him back, and magic made him strong. He had his breakfast as he liked to have it, to his servants' astonishment and deep delight, good plain food and plenty of it, and then he swam in his baths, to be clean. And when he was entirely restored to himself, he dressed as he liked to dress, in the good plain clothes of a Frankish nobleman, and put the Talisman back on again.

He did not care that it had lost its magic. It was holy enough by itself, and would protect him. Rowan wished he had been that sensible when it was first given to him.

So cleaned and clothed and protected, he had the sorcerer brought to him.

oOo

The Emperor had taken it into his head to address the malefactor in the place where he had worked his sorceries.

The grass of the orchard was still stained and trampled with the marks of the night's struggle. While he waited for the prisoner to be brought out, he paced, taking note of the charred and broken circle, the impress of bodies in it, the deep marks of the Elephant's feet.

Away under the trees he stooped and lifted a knife with a blade like black glass, a wicked-looking thing even in the sunlight. Rowan cried out to see it in his hand.

Even as he brought the knife back to the circle, the Talisman seemed to drink the sun, casting sparks of gold and red and blue and green. No magic left, no, but power enough of its own kind.

Rowan was slightly comforted; and more so when her father handed the black knife to one of his guards. The man took it gingerly and held it for a while, until he got over his fear of what it was and thrust it into his belt.

Through all of this, there were other people there, as always where the Emperor was: his guards, a clerk or two, the priest who had kept vigil in the night. They were all as close to singing as they dared come, Rowan suspected; the younger or brasher ones kept breaking out in grins. Only Abbess Gisela seemed perfectly in control of her face, sitting serenely under a tree, greeting with lifted brow the arrival of two newcomers.

They were impossible to miss. The Elephant paced among the trees, with Kerrec riding on his neck.

Abul Abbas was wearing his golden harness in the Emperor's honor, and the golden knobs on the tips of his tusks, but not the house that lordlings liked to ride in. He looked impossibly splendid.

He was also still more white than grey. His hide was silvery rather than ashen pale, with a sheen that maybe only Rowan—and Kerrec—could see.

Wonder unfolded in her. Here, she knew all at once, was where the magic had gone. She liked it much better embodied in Abul Abbas than in the cold metal of the Talisman.

The Emperor paused on the charred edge of the circle. He was always delighted to see the Elephant, a delight like a child's. When Abul Abbas offered the tip of his trunk, Carl took it and bowed.

“My Lord Elephant,” he said. The Elephant dipped his great jeweled head. Everyone stared, except Kerrec, who was looking smug.

Rowan wanted to drag him off the Elephant's neck and demand to know what he thought he was doing. Since she could not reach that high, she settled for a smoldering stare.

Kerrec was up to something. It had to do with the Emperor, and with the sorcerer, and it was probably reprehensible.

She was thoroughly startled when, having paid his respects to the Emperor, Abul Abbas turned toward her. His trunk was around her waist before she knew what he had done, lifting her in a giddy arc and depositing her, breathless and just beginning to shake, on his neck in front of Kerrec.

There was just room enough for both of them. It was not dignified at all. And it was a long, long way to the ground.

Now everyone was staring at her. Her cheeks were burning hot. She did not know what expression Kerrec wore, but she could feel him behind her, as stiff as she, and quite as nonplussed.

Fortunately the guards came before anyone could say anything, bringing a draggled figure wrapped in chains. Michael Phokias by daylight was not imposing to look at, with his clothes torn and stained and his arm bound up in a sling, his face bruised above the matted beard and his head bare of its perennial hat.

He was bald on top. He seemed to be ashamed of that; he kept turning as if to hide it.

The Emperor sat on a stool that one of the guards had brought, throne enough for any battlefield.

And so this was. The Emperor sat as victor, the sorcerer faced him as the vanquished, and whatever mercy there might be was for the Emperor to bestow.

The guards brought the prisoner to face the Emperor, and stood back in a circle. Rowan, high up on the Elephant's neck, saw easily over the heads of the tallest.

Carl began mildly, conversationally, without flourishes. “I hear alarming things of you, sir ambassador.” He gestured round about. “Is this your work?”

Michael Phokias went down on his knees. If he had thought of groveling on his face as Byzantines did in front of their emperors, one of the guards prevented it, pulling his chain up short and holding him where he was.

He sighed, shrugged, as if to say that it did not matter. “My lord of the Franks, is there any defense that you will hear, or am I tried and sentenced in my absence?”

Rowan's fingers tightened on the stiff embroidery of the Elephant's harness. Before she could open her mouth to protest, her father said, “No, no Greekeries here, sir ambassador. We're Franks; we speak bluntly. Did you do this?”

“I did not,” said the Byzantine, brazenly bold.

“Then,” said Carl, “who did?”

Michael Phokias pointed with his chin, since his hands were bound. “Those, my lord of the Franks. The elephant and its keepers.”

Rowan was mute with fury. Kerrec, perhaps unfortunately, was not.

“Certainly we did the worst of it, sire,” he said. “The circle, however, is his. Likewise the reason for the rest. He worked magics to destroy you and your daughters.”

“You would know of magic, would you not, young warlock?” said Michael Phokias, all sweet poison.

“Oh, I am a Breton and a witch,” Kerrec admitted freely, “but I never worked black magic in my life.”

Rowan tried to kick him, but it was too awkward with him behind her. He went right on digging his own pit.

“You won't talk your way out of this one. Your magic is gone; his majesty is immune to it in any case, and his patience has its limits.”

“And who are you,” the Byzantine inquired, “to speak for the royal will?”

“I could ask that myself,” the Emperor said. His mild voice was a relief after the other two, which had been clashing like blades. “I knew my elephant had a boy to tend him, but not that the boy was Breton. Who was letting me think that you were one of the Caliph's people?”

Of course Kerrec had to answer him directly. “Why, sire, I did, if you mean that I made no effort to enlighten you. I didn't see that it mattered. I'd be the Elephant's boy if I were Breton or Frank or Greek.”

“Magic,” somebody muttered.

“Why, yes,” said Kerrec. “He's a very magical beast, is Abul Abbas. Elephants are. It's their nature.”

Carl was intrigued, but his patience was not infinite. Just before Rowan expected him to erupt, Kerrec shut up.

So, for a miracle, did the Byzantine. Carl working himself into a temper was a fearsome sight.

“I see,” he said at length, his voice as soft as ever, but Rowan shivered. She prayed that Kerrec would stay quiet and let the Byzantine hang himself.

“I see,” the Emperor said again, “that there is much that I've been omitting to observe. My fault, I'm sure. Is there a particular reason why an ambassador of the noble Empress Irene would be wishing to dispose of me by means as foul as they were unusual?”

“The Empress is dead,” said Michael Phokias. “I serve the most sublime and noble Emperor Nikephoros, may he live ten thousand years.”

“Ah,” said Carl. There was a world of understanding in the word. “Poor Irene. Was it poison? Or a knife in her sleep? Or maybe a bit of magic?”

“That is not given me to know,” Michael Phokias said stiffly. Rowan realized that he honestly did not know, and that he felt it as an insult.

“Ah well,” the Emperor said, sighing. “Whatever the cause, she's dead, and your putative embassy is no longer possessed of its excuse. Is there any reason why I shouldn't have the lot of you whipped naked from my empire?”