Transformation (8 page)
Authors: Carol Berg
The winter Dar Heged was held for twenty-three days in the first month of the year. Every Derzhi House in the northern Empire would send representatives to present the Emperor with their tax revenues, to hear what levies of men and horses and food would be needed for spring campaigns, to resolve disputes with other families, and conduct whatever business needed the attention of their sovereign lord. The streets of Capharna were teeming with warrior nobles and their retinues, grim-faced soldiers guarding the tax-levy wagons, excited families reunited with distant kinsmen or children who had married out of their House, street vendors and shopkeepers and innkeepers raking in revenues from the influx of visitors, fights breaking out between parties to land or property disputes. Dar Heged was a time for marriages and betrothals, treaties and alliances, trades, bargains, and negotiations of all kinds.
I did not observe any of the activity in the streets, only the business brought before the Prince. He sat in the lesser of two huge gilded chairs at one end of the smoky Hall, flanked by ten counselors representing the ten oldest Derzhi families. The counselors were only for show. The Emperor, or in this case his son, had the final and only say in any matter. The line of taxpayers and petitioners stretched across the cavernous room, and the walls were crowded with observers: families, servants, and whomever else had managed to get themselves past the door wardens.
My table was just to the Prince’s right, close enough and angled such that I could see and hear both the Prince and the petitioners who faced him. Just beyond me was another table arranged with scales and balances and an array of gleaming brass weights. It was manned by the Emperor’s chief redyikka, the magistrate of weights and measures. Every village large enough to have a marketplace had a redyikka to keep traders honest with their measures and to ensure proper coinage and fair dealing.
The daily session lasted from early morning until well after the usual dinner hour. My hand cramped from so much writing, and my fingernails turned black from all the ink. Every judgment had to be recorded in a large, leather-bound ledger, and many of them involved additional letters or writs to be sent to other parties not present at the Dar Heged.
The presence of a foreigner and a slave was an affront to the Derzhi, and as they passed behind me or waited for me to finish a paper they needed, they made sure I knew it: some whispered curses and some extremely rude and unlikely suggestions for physical abuse. I wondered if Durgan was right that I was on view for a purpose. I could always tell from the quick intake of breath when one petitioner told another of my role in Lord Vanye’s fall and Lord Sierge’s execution. When the Prince scowled at the disturbance, the Derzhi stopped for a bit, but would start up again once Aleksander was distracted.
Despite all that, I enjoyed the days well enough. The giant hearth fires were well stoked, there was a variety of people to watch, and though most of the disputes and petitions were mundane, occasionally there were matters of interest or consequence to observe. Best of all, when I returned to the slave house on the first night, Durgan had received orders that I was not to be returned to the underground cell. Though Zeroun had soured my reputation thoroughly among the slaves and no one of them dared speak to me, it did my soul good to feel the breathing of other human beings in the room as I slept. It made it easier to put away fears that I could do nothing about. Easier to strengthen my barricades against dreams that came creeping back from where I had banished them.
Aleksander, on the other hand, detested the whole business. From the first moment of the first day he snapped at every comer, even if they were presenting a chest of riches to be transported back to the treasury at Zhagad. “What crime did I commit to be trapped in this hateful chair?” he fretted on the third morning, just before the doors were opened to the line of opulently attired Derzhi. He tugged and jerked at the heavy red robe attached to his shoulders. “If Father is to have the privileges of being Emperor, then he must take the duties with it. Why do I care that the House of Gorusch has usurped three grainfields from the House of Rhyzka? What interest have I in some Hamraschi girl’s marriage portion? She’s an ugly wench, and I’d not have her in my bed for triple the dowry. I’d like to tell them to burn the cursed fields and throw the maiden into the fire.”
The stewards cringed at the Prince’s ranting and groveled appropriately when it was time to open the doors and let the people come. Though he was rude and uncivil, the Prince seemed to maintain somewhat better judgment in public than he did in private. He knew when to use his authority and when to keep himself out of it and induce the warring parties to settle things between themselves. In major disputes he would yield to the suitor who paid the most taxes or brought the most men and horses to his father’s armies or had the most beautiful daughter in tow. Not an arguable position, unless you were the one who happened to be wronged or had some insane notion of justice. The Emperor would probably feel that his interests had been properly looked after.
I tried my best to pretend that nothing had changed since the execution feast, but as the days passed, I found my eyes skimming the crowds for the demon Khelid and watching in uneasy curiosity as he insinuated himself into palace life. It was not so strange for a rai-kirah to come hunting in Capharna. A Derzhi palace would offer succulent opportunities for a demon, and even if one of them yet lived, no Ezzarian Searcher would dare venture into a Derzhi stronghold. It was surely no more than odd coincidence that a demon happened to come to a place where one who knew what it was—perhaps the last living person who could recognize it—-existed powerless to do anything about it. But I could see no overt signs of demon possession in the Khelid. No extraordinary cruelty. No wild madness. Only smooth charm and polite interest in the proceedings. Why? Fifty times I dismissed such musings, but they lingered in my mind like the taste of rancid meat.
Late on the afternoon of the fourth day, the proceedings were disrupted by an unusual excursion into the city.
The Fontezhi Heged was possibly the most powerful Derzhi family in the Empire save the Emperor’s own Denischkar family. The Fontezhi holdings included a sizable portion of northern Azhakstan, plus millions of hectares in the conquered territories of Senigar and Thryce. Unlike most of the hegeds who owned large palaces in Capharna, but whose land holdings were elsewhere, the Fontezhi claimed about two-thirds of the land on which Capharna stood. Merchants and householders of the city worked diligently to keep rents flowing into the Fontezhi coffers.
The Jurran Heged, on the other hand, was a minor house, not one of the Ten who sat on the Emperor’s Council, nor even one of the Twenty who held the bulk of lands and the traditional Derzhi titles. The Jurrans were closer to being a merchant house than a warrior clan. They needed no sympathy, however. They had a stranglehold on the spice trade and were very rich. But as all their holdings were in gold and spices rather than land and horses, they were dismissed as unimportant.
On that afternoon, when Aleksander was quite obviously bored to insensibility with a succession of minor disputes and tedious speeches, Baron Celdric, the head of the Jurran Heged, came before him with a protest over the Fontezhi decision to burn a crumbling district of Capharna that lay southwest of the river. It was the poorest district of the city, populated by maimed and diseased veterans, elderly people who had no kin to care for them, widows without resources, and all manner of thieves, dead-handlers, lepers, and mad-men. The Jurrani spice warehouses were situated right in the heart of the district.
Aleksander yawned through Baron Celdric’s presentation, then sent for a representative of the Fontezhi Heged to answer it. The outcome was foreordained. The Jurrans could never prevail against so powerful a heged ... except that the Fontezhi made a serious mistake. They sent their most junior dennissar, someone’s cousin’s nephew’s son, to appear before the Prince.
“And where is Lord Pytor?” the Prince snapped at the quaking, bewildered eighteen-year-old whose appearance had sent him into a froth. “Does the lord of the Fontezhi believe he is too important to appear at his Prince’s summons? Perhaps he expected me to wait upon him.”
“N ... no ... Your Highness. Lord Pytor is out riding this afternoon.” The downy-cheeked young man did not know when to keep his counsel.
“And have the Fontezhi no messengers, no aides, no horses available to contact him? And perhaps every first-, second-, and third-degree noble of your house is similarly occupied? I cannot believe that such a quailing fish as yourself could have attained even fourth-degree status.
“Of course not, Your Highness ... I mean, it was just thought ... as it was only the Jurrans and it was not the Emp—” The youth almost swallowed his tongue. “The district is nothing, Your Highness. A filthy, plague-ridden haven for thieves and beggars. Lord Pytor wishes to make it beautiful ... worthy of the Derzhi summer capital.”
“And how does he plan to make it beautiful by burning it?”
Recouping a bit of his confidence, the junior dennissar puffed out his chest and tugged at his purple satin vest. “He plans to build a shrine to Athos—your own patron, Your Highness.”
“But that would take only a small part of such a tract. What else has he planned? Tell me truly, now, or I’ll have it from you less pleasantly.”
Less sure now. “Only a residence ... for his son ... a small palace ... that’s all.”
“Well”—Aleksander jumped up from his chair—“as this is so unimportant a matter as to send a puling child before the Emperor’s representative, I had best go look at this disputed land myself. Perhaps I may have some use for it.”
The Fontezhi youth gaped and turned pale. It was not a wise thing to lose your heged lord’s lands by virtue of your incompetence.
Lord Celdric bowed deeply. “My lord Prince, the Jurran Heged will, of course, accept whatever judgment you see fit. We are honored by your hearing.” His expression was properly solemn and respectful. But I was sitting to the side of him, and I could see his gleeful grin of satisfaction as he bowed.
So it was that I had to pack up my writing case and ledger book and hasten barefoot through the city streets after Aleksander. He set off walking, sending his hastily saddled mount back to the stables. It was unheard of for royalty to walk the streets rather than ride, and I wondered if the Prince wanted to shock the staid palace staff. Or perhaps it was just to stretch his legs and wake himself up after four days of boredom.
It was not a quiet journey. Ten hastily mustered torchbearers lit the way through the afternoon gloom, the smoke settling heavily about us in the cold, still air. Fifty guards, an equal number of attendants, cloak-bearers, boot wipers, and every manner of dennissar were still scurrying about, deciding on positions and precedence long after the party passed through the palace gates and into the town.
Townspeople gathered quickly along the road, gaping at the fabled young prince most of them had never seen. At first it was well-cloaked ladies and children who watched, merchants, shopkeepers, drovers, and clerks who deserted their posts for the chance to catch a glimpse of royalty. They cheered and waved at the flesh-and-blood manifestation of the Empire’s glory. Aleksander did not acknowledge them. They would not expect it. Out of perverse habit they would most likely lose respect for him if he looked pleasant or waved in return. Rather he strode vigorously through the afternoon, talking only with Sovari, the captain of his personal guard.
After we crossed the arched Ghojan bridge, the lanes grew narrower and muddier and the onlookers not so well turned out. They were thin and ragged, quiet and fearful. Hollow-eyed children hid behind their bony mothers, and crippled old men gaped toothless. In an attempt to mask the growing stench, one of Aleksander’s attendants began swinging a censer that emitted a cloying smoke, but Aleksander shoved the man aside and made him douse the burning herbs in a mud puddle. “That makes the stink worse. Do you think I am some woman who has never smelled the back end of a horse?”
But I don’t think Aleksander had ever seen the dregs of his cities—and certainly not from his own feet where he could look at them eye-to-eye. His gaze did not remain fixed and ahead as before, but darted from one pitiful sight to another. He wrinkled his nose in disgust at three scabrous beggars who were wallowing in the river of mud and excrement, fighting over a whimpering mangy dog. He drew away from a gaunt-cheeked, rheumy-eyed old woman who was kneeling in the mud with her hands outstretched, wailing in mindless misery. He peered curiously into alleys where groups of rag-wrapped men, women, and children huddled listlessly around pitiful fires, too weak and cold to pay him any mind.
Two whores pushed aside ragged customers and gaped brazenly at the Prince. One of them, a buxom young girl with long curly hair grinned and wagged a finger at him. Aleksander laughed, and the girl blew him a kiss, lifted her skirt, and went back to her business.
As the Prince’s procession rounded a corner, a woman with a squalling infant bound to her back was shoved out of a dark, rag-draped doorway, two grimy children clinging to her skirts. “There’s no work here and no bread,” bawled a harsh voice from behind the door. “Die somewhere else.” The woman tripped over a torchbearer and fell right at Aleksander’s feet.
The young Fontezhi dennissar, thinking, no doubt, to redeem himself in his prince’s eyes, screamed at the woman to give way and kicked at her viciously, sending her sprawling in the filth of the street. One of his bodyguards grabbed the two terrified children by the necks and flung them to the side into a crusted heap of dirty snow. The two little ones burst out wailing and tried to run back to their mother, but I was standing nearby and grabbed hold of them to keep them out of harm’s way. In horror I watched as Aleksander drew his sword. I believed he was going to slay the stunned woman for daring to touch his feet. But instead he laid the tip of the blade at the Fontezhi youth’s throat and fixed his eyes on the youth’s disbelieving face, while extending his other hand to the fallen woman. She stared at him blankly, mud dripping from her lank hair, her starvation-dulled eyes asking only from which direction the blow would come.
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