Realm of Light (31 page)

The room stood
silent now. Their eyes were all on him. They listened, despite themselves, to
his scorn and condemnation.

“She has come to
you, people of Gialta, for help against the darkness that would take this
empire and crush it. For days she has spoken of little except the bravery of
her native province, of the valiant warriors who live here, of the continued
loyalty she expected to find.”

Caelan paused, and
a sneer curled his lip. “But because she did not come home riding on an
elephant, dripping in jewels, and surrounded by an army of Imperia’s finest,
you have looked at her as though she were an oddity. Those filthy, half-savage
Thyzarenes who made it possible for her to get here swiftly,
without walking
the entire distance, have shown her more deference and respect than any
finely garbed courtier in this room.

“Was there one bow
given to her, your crowned sovereign? Yes, a single bow from a servant. Was
there one curtsy? Yes, from a lady forced to speak to her. But what of the rest
of you? Because the empress has come here in the manner of a refugee, does that
absolve you from courtesy? I have now seen the people of Gialta, and I am most
certainly
not
impressed.”

A furious babble
of voices rose up. Several surged toward him, but Pier still stood in the way,
thumbs hooked in his belt, his dark head slightly tilted while he listened and
studied Caelan.

“Pretty speech,”
he said, and the others quieted reluctantly. “But what was she doing consorting
with you while her husband lay dying?”

The jeers rose
again, and Caelan’s face heated. At that moment he hated and despised them even
more than before. They were so stupid, so petty, so small. But most of all, he
was furious at himself for having put her in this position.

“Aye!” shouted
another voice from the back of the crowd. “Where has she been? There’s a reward
for her return. Did you carry her off, or did she go willingly to pinch those fine
muscles?”

Enraged, Caelan
stepped forward, but Pier blocked his path.

Caelan glared at
him. “Step aside, that I may choke—”

“You’ll make no
move,” Pier said.

The man’s eyes
were light brown, steady, dangerous. Caelan tried to beat down that gaze, without
success.

“To insult me is
one thing,” Caelan said hotly, “but to insult her is another!”

“You have no right
to defend the lady,” Pier said in sharp rebuke. “You are a slave and an army
deserter. The empress will be judged by her own people, but you—”

“Judge me by
this!” Caelan snarled. He drew his sword, and even as Pier reached for his own
weapon Caelan was already bending low to place Exoner on the polished stone
floor. He sent it sliding over to Pier’s feet. “Do you know what it is?”

Frowning, Pier
stared at the sword, then at him, as though at a loss. Slowly he allowed his
own weapon to drop back in its scabbard. “It is a very fine-looking sword,” he
said after a moment.

Caelan was
boiling, but he managed to control his voice. He gestured. “Pick it up. Handle
it. Test its balance.”

“Why should I?”
Pier asked. His eyes raked Caelan up and down. “When a rich city falls to
invaders, any man may steal a good weapon.”

Caelan jerked
slightly, finding it all he could do to control himself. Pier smiled in thin
satisfaction, and Caelan understood the man was trying to goad him into making
a mistake that would get him killed.

“The sword is
mine. I did not steal it. If you doubt that,” Caelan said quickly as Pier
opened his mouth, “pick it up.”

Frowning, Pier
stared at the sword, then bent to grab it. Before he could touch it, however, a
child-sized creature with green translucent skin and pointed ears came whirling
up to cling to the warlord’s arm.

“Touch not,
master!” it said in urgent warning.

Pier drew back.
“Why? Is it enspelled?”

“Perhaps it’s
poisoned,” another man said. “It’s a trick to kill you.”

Caelan was staring
at the creature. He had never seen anything like it before. “What is this
thing?”

“Have you never
seen a
jinja
before?” Pier asked. The creature bared its pointed little
teeth and sent its master an adoring gaze. Pier patted its head, and the
jinja
sneezed and scratched its ear.

“The sword is not
poisoned,” Caelan said. “If you’re afraid to touch it, let the
jinja
tell you what it is.”

Another
jinja,
this one garbed in silk pants and a short, sleeveless vest, sped up to them,
zigzagged around Caelan almost too fast to see, then retreated to a safe
distance. A third joined them, bright-eyed and plainly fascinated by the sword.

“Choven made,” Pier’s
jinja
said, scratching its ear again as though it had fleas. “Choven make
for one only. Others no touch.”

A strange
expression crossed Pier’s face. He bent and tried to pick up the sword, but
dropped it immediately.

Several women
cried out.

“I am not hurt,”
he said to the inquiries around him.

A courtier beside
him gave one of the
jinjas
a shove. “What evil magic does he bring into
this court?”

The three
creatures raced around Caelan, darting close, then speeding out of reach. One
ran at him and touched his arm, then fled, shrieking, “No magic! No magic!”

Pier snapped his
fingers, and his own
jinja
ran over to jump onto the broad sill of a
window. It perched there and started cleaning its ears with its fingers.

Pier studied
Caelan a long while. “Your sword would not let me hold it,” he said at last.
“When my fingers tried to close around the hilt, some force pushed my hand
away.”

“It is magic,”
another man said.

“The
jinjas
say not,” Pier said sharply.

“Jinjas
can
be wrong.”

One of the
creatures howled angrily at this comment, but was ordered to be silent.

Pier went on
studying Caelan, and finally nudged Exoner back to him with his foot.

Caelan picked up
the weapon, feeling it nestle in his hand the way a dog might thrust its head
into its master’s palm to be stroked. Caelan slid the sword into its scabbard,
and let his hand rest there, drawing strength and confidence from the weapon.

“Only kings can
carry Choven swords,” Pier said finally.

“That’s the
legend,” Caelan replied.

The round-faced
courtier gasped and nudged his neighbor. “He claims to be a king.”

“Outrageous!”

The murmurs rose
again, but suspicion was darkening Pier’s face like a cloud.

His eyes bored
into Caelan’s. “What are you up to?”

Caelan said
nothing.

“You abducted the
empress—”

“I saved her
life,” Caelan corrected him. He had Pier thinking now. He felt that was
progress toward turning the man into an ally.

“Clearly she feels
herself in your debt.”

“No.”

“Would you prefer
I called it something offensive?”

Caelan’s face
burned again. He realized he had been optimistic too quickly. Pier was far from
being on his side.

“You think that
because you have the empress in your power, and you have paid the Choven to
make you a sword worthy of a king, that
you
can take over the empire and
set yourself on Kostimon’s throne?
You?”

Caelan said
nothing. Pier’s contempt was like a hot brand, burning him.

“Well, well,” Pier
said in mock appreciation. “How interesting to see what high ambitions arena
trash aspires to these days.”

Humiliation rolled
over Caelan. It was exactly as he had feared it would be. He stood there,
forgetting all that Moah had said to him about destiny and ability, while these
highborn men jeered in his face.

Pier’s face
creased with disgust. He gestured at Handar. “General, see that this fool is
thrown out.”

Handar, a man
almost half Caelan’s size, drew in a resolute breath and started his way, but
Caelan was not finished with Pier yet.

“And whom will you
give your new oath of fealty to, Lord Pier?” he asked in a ringing voice that
carried clearly over the noise in the gallery. “Will it be Tirhin the Usurper,
who turned the Madrun invaders loose on his own people? Who was so anxious to
have the throne that he could not wait a few days more for his father to die
naturally?”

Pier’s face darkened.
“We know of Prince Tirhin’s actions. We know he has proclaimed himself emperor.
We also know he has driven the Madruns from Imperia, and now they rape and
pillage the countryside, a problem for each province to cope with as they march
homeward.”

“Who named
Kostimon emperor?” Caelan asked them. “Who can remember the legends? His father
did not give him the throne.

No, he took it for
himself. If you do not want Tirhin, whom will you name instead?”

Shouting broke
out, but Pier held up his hand for quiet. “That cannot be decided now.”

“When will it be
decided? When Tirhin is finished dividing the empire into weak halves? When the
treasuries are completely looted and the army revolts? When the darkness that
is coming decides there is nothing to stop it? When will there be a council?”

Pier said nothing.
Tight-lipped, he glared at Caelan, then looked at Handar. “I told you to put
this man outside.”

“Put me outside
yourself,” Caelan said, too furious to care what he said now.

Anger leaped in
Pier’s eyes. “Are you challenging me?” he asked in astonishment.

“Does that insult
you?” Caelan taunted him. “I am so low, and your lineage is so pure. I am arena
trash, as you have said, and therefore I have not even the right to look at
you, much less talk to you, least of all challenge you.”

Pier shook his
head in disgust. “I will not fight you.”

“Afraid?” Caelan
said softly.

Pier’s face
darkened. A muscle worked in his jaw for a moment before he finally answered.
“The master of this house is dying. In my respect for that man, I do not brawl
while his soul departs his body.”

The chastisement
stung as though he had actually struck Caelan across the face. Caelan frowned
and said nothing. In his anger, he had forgotten the circumstances. He was
ashamed of himself, and yet he also knew Pier had goaded him to this point,
deliberately pushing him too far. Now he had lost whatever chance he had to win
respect from these onlookers. Like an idiot, he had fallen into Pier’s trap.

It had been his
goal to win these men, to improve things for Elandra. Instead, he had only made
matters worse. If the faces had been hostile and judgmental before, now they
were contemptuous.

He could
apologize, and make himself look more like a weak fool than ever. He could
leave, and have them despise him for running. He could stand here among them
and bathe in their scorn. No matter what he did, it wasn’t going to help
Elandra.

Granite-faced, he
wheeled around and walked down that long, long gallery to the portico beyond.
Rain poured down in drenching sheets of water. Sighing, Caelan leaned his
shoulder against a pillar.

Footsteps caught
his attention, and he straightened up, looking around just as two burly men
pounced on him without warning. Caelan’s anger surged hot. He swung at one, but
the other came at him from behind and slipped a thin noose around his neck. A
deft yank of the man’s wrist, and the cord bit into Caelan’s throat, nearly
strangling him.

“Don’t struggle,”
the man said.

Caelan froze
there, his neck stretched high as he tried to breathe. He might be able to kick
the man behind him, but he would be choked to death before he could free
himself.

The other one
unbuckled his sword belt and relieved him of his weapons. Caelan stood there,
helpless and steaming.

“Now,” said the
man who held the cord around his neck. “You will go down the steps, quietly.
You will cause no more trouble. We will teach you better manners.”

Furious, Caelan
hooked his fingers around the cord to pull it, but the man jerked and twisted
the noose so hard that blackness swam in front of Caelan’s eyes.

When he came to, a
few moments later, he was on his knees. The noose had slackened enough to allow
him air. He sucked it in, his lungs burning, his throat on fire.

“You will not try
that again,” he was told. “Get on your feet and move.”

There were times
to fight, and times simply to stay alive. Caelan did as he was commanded.

Elandra was given
the state apartments, reserved for visits of the very highest rank. The tall
windows were hastily thrown open, letting in rain-dampened air that did little
to dispel the mustiness of the rooms. As Elandra entered, she could hear the
scurrying footsteps and muffled giggles of fleeing maidservants. The room was
in order, but barely so. It had that hasty, put-together look of crooked
cushions, a coverlet not quite smooth, flowers imperfectly arranged, and the
suspicion of dust in the corners.

The lack of a
woman in charge of this household was evident. Whatever her faults had been, at
least when Hecati lived here there had been no dust, and no staff ever caught
by surprise.

Scented bathwater
was carried in to fill a tub of marble lined with copper. While Elandra soaked,
fighting the urge to cry, the seamstress arrived with three gowns over her arm
and a mouthful of pins. Food and drink were brought in on a tray, but Elandra
gestured everyone away.

“Leave me,” she
said.

The noblewoman
herself closed the doors on the bathing room and shooed out all the servants.

It was several
minutes before she returned, knocking discreetly on the door before she eased
it open. “Majesty?” she called.

Elandra was
sitting on a stool at the dressing table adorned with fresh flowers and a row
of alabaster jars. Swathed in a robe, she was rubbing scented lotion into her
hands. Her wet hair hung down her back, still dripping a little onto the floor.
Her reflection in the mirror showed her to be pale but composed again.