Valdemar Anthology - [Tales of Valdemar 02] - Sun in Glory and Other Tales of Valdemar (39 page)

Hansa made a sound between a purr and a cough that sounded like a laugh, and Solaris bent her golden gaze upon her Firecat. “And you, also,” she added, with a touch, a bare touch, of sharpness.

:I am a cat,:
Hansa reminded her with supreme dignity.
:And a cat is nothing if not mysterious. It is our charm.:

To Alberich's surprise it was Dirk who chuckled weakly. “Well, Radiance,” he said, having learned the proper forms of address from Alberich and Karchanek, “we're used to this sort of behavior out of our Companions.
They
seem to have a proper mania about keeping secrets from us mere mortals.”

That relaxed Solaris; Alberich read it in the lessening of the tension of her shoulders. “When divine intervention requested is, and received it is, then churlish is must be to cavil at how it comes, one supposes,” she offered.

Talia uttered a ladylike snort, and Solaris hid a smile behind her hand. “If God understandable becomes, need Him we no longer should,” Solaris observed after a moment. “For we would be as He. . . .”

:An interesting observation, and an intelligent one,:
Kantor said with approval, but no surprise.

Alberich could only wonder how this woman had managed to survive in the cutthroat world of Temple politics with a mind like that.

“Well, tell us about this ceremony,” Talia said after a moment of silence, in lieu of any other comments, and Solaris hastened to tell them what she could.

 

When Talia and Dirk retired, Solaris motioned to Alberich to stay. “I would like to introduce you to my chief friends and supporters, aside from Karchanek,” she said, switching to Karsite with obvious relief. “And I wish to learn to know you, Alberich, and through you, the land I wish to make our ally.”

He resumed his seat warily as she continued, after summoning a silent servant with a double clap of her hands and issuing orders for food and drink.

“You have been a Herald of Valdemar for longer now than you ever lived in Karse,” she observed shrewdly. “Would you return to dwell here—permanently—if you could?”

He shook his head. He head already considered his from the moment that he was convinced Karchanek could be trusted. “No, Holiness,” he replied with all respect. “Even if I were to be accepted by those who called me traitor. I am a Herald.”

He half expected her to be insulted, but she smiled as if she understood. “Then from time to time, Karse will come to you,” she said, and at that moment the servant entered with another, both bearing trays.

Now, scent—as Alberich well knew, since he had now and again used it as a weapon—is the sense that strikes the deepest and at the most primitive parts of a man. And he had not realized just how much he missed his homeland, until the scents of the foods of his childhood arose from the dishes that the servants uncovered, and briefly—briefly—he regretted giving the answer he had.

She must have read that in his expression, for she laughed. “Now you see how fair I am with you,” she told him, and at that moment she showed her true age, which was less than this, and perhaps less than Selenay's. “For had I wished to have my will of you, I should have asked you that question with the scent of spiced sausage, dumplings and gravy, and apple cake in your nostrils!”

The servant handed him a filled plate, which he took eagerly. “This is not the fare I would have expected in the Palace of the Sun, Holiness,” he said, prevaricating, for she had come
far
too close to the truth with that comment.

“Hmm. Larks' tongues and sturgeon roe, braised quail, and newborn calf stewed in milk?” She gave him a sardonic look. “My cook is appalled by my tastes, but my people know that
I
eat what
they
eat, and I have made it certain that they have heard this from the Palace servants. There has been far too much of larks' tongues on golden plates, while babies wail and children have the pinched faces of hunger on the other side of the Temple wall.” She took the plate that the servant offered her; Alberich observed that both plates were of honest ceramic. “The golden plates went to replenish granaries; the furnishings and precious objects I found in these rooms bought new herd-beasts to strengthen bloodlines. Oh, I hardly gave
all
away,” she admitted, and paused for a hungry mouthful herself. “Much has gone into the decoration of the Temple and I will not strip the Sunlord's sanctuary of its glory. But the wealth that I did was the loot of centuries come straight out of storehouses, and has restored, if not plenty, then at least sufficiency to my land. Plenty will come in time, Sunlord willing, and with the work of the people.”

“And the border?” Alberich dared to ask. “There are still bandits there that prey on Karse and Valdemar alike.”

She smiled grimly. “I have recalled the corrupt troops, put Guild mercenaries in their place until I can train young fighters who will serve and not exploit,
and
—” she paused significantly, “—I have distributed arms to the Border villages.”

Alberich was in significant shock over the news that Karse had hired Guild mercenaries. He wondered how she had managed to convince the Guild that Karse was to be trusted, and had winced at the thought of the size of the bond she would have had to post. But to hear that she had distributed arms to the common people—

“I doubt that they will be effective; it is more a matter of improving their morale and bolstering their courage,” she continued. “They'll likely be frightened of the Guild fighters until they realize that they are trustworthy, and being armed will make them feel more secure. Still, one never knows. They might surprise me, and take over their own defense.”

Arming the villagers—
If nothing else,
this
was the clearest indication that the Fires of Cleansing had been extinguished. No Red-robe Priest would
dare
to enter a village on a mission of Cleansing where the villagers were armed.

She ate in silence until she had cleaned her plate, then set it aside, accepted a cup of good—but common—wine from the servant and sat back. “Let me tell you the rest of my reforms, in brief. The village priests have been reassigned to new villages, unless
all,
or almost all, the villagers themselves protested and demanded that their priest remain with them. It might surprise you to learn that a good two thirds did just that.”

Alberich shrugged; he hadn't seen that much widespread corruption among the village priests when he'd been a Captain. Those who abused their authority were attracted to the
real
seat of power in Sunhame.

“There are no more forays by troops and priests into the villages to Cleanse or to test and gather up children. If a parent
wants
a child tested, they must take the child to the village priest, who will call in a Black-robe Priest-Mage.” She sipped her wine. “I surmise you already know that there are no more Red-robes, and no more demon-summoning.”

“And you suppose these changes will endure past your lifetime?”
Which may be a short one,
he added mentally.

“Change is generational, but I intend to outlive all those who oppose me until there
are
no Sun-priests in Karse that
I
have not overseen the training of,” she retorted. “I am young enough; Sunlord permitting, there should be no reason why I cannot do this.”

If you survive assassins—
he thought, when Hansa coughed politely, and he met the Firecat's sardonic gaze.

:That is why I am here,:
the Firecat replied, with casual arrogance.
:I believe that the Sunlord plans to ensure that the Son of the Sun survives assassins—and everything else,:
Kantor observed.

Since he had quite left that consideration out of his calculations, he felt a wave of chagrin, which he covered by handing the servant his empty plate and cup. The servant left with the dishes and her orders to see that Talia and Dirk were also offered a meal.

With her attention no longer on her meal, Solaris proceeded to—“interrogate” him was too strong a word for what she did, since she was polite, interested, and deceptively offhand in her questions and remarks, but “interrogation” was what it amounted to. He had been prepared for it, and answered with all due caution, wondering if she, Hansa, or both might not consider putting the equivalent of a Truth-Spell on him.

They didn't, though, or at least not that he could tell, and Kantor didn't say anything about it.

She only broke it off when the servant returned with three more Sun-priests, one older than Alberich, two young, all male. “Ah, good, you managed to get away,” she said genially, as the three bowed to her before taking seats at her wave of invitation. ‘This is Herald Alberich; I wanted you to meet him without the other two in attendance. Alberich, this is my dear friend and mentor Ulrich, and my fellows in the novitiate, Larschen and Grevenor.”

The older man, Ulrich, smiled broadly and nodded; the one that Solaris had called Larschen widened his eyes and said, so seriously that it could only have been a joke, “I expected someone taller. With horns. And hooves.”

Grevenor
tsk
ed. “What a disappointment! His teeth aren't even pointed!”

“And after I spent all that time filing them flat so I wouldn't alarm you!” Alberich replied, with the same mock-seriousness, and was rewarded by a smile from Solaris and a withering glance from Hansa.

:A typical feline,:
Kantor observed.
:He only appreciates jokes when he makes them.:

The atmosphere relaxed considerably now that Solaris' friends were here, and even though more questions came at him, he was able to ask as many as he answered, and within a candlemark or so, he had a very vivid picture in his mind of the first days when Solaris had come to power. It seemed that many of those in the temples outside of Sunhame had rallied to her after the miracle of her coronation. But before the miracle she had spent years in garnering the support of her contemporaries; Solaris was no Reulan, to come to the Sunthrone without opposition.

And that was intensely interesting. She had been prepared for this miracle, and when it came, she had everything in place to ensure that she simply wasn't escorted off and quietly done away with so that the running of Karse could go back to “business as usual.”

Yes, that was interesting.
Very
interesting. So she had known, for years, that she was going to be the Chosen One, but instead of biding her time quietly, she had created a support base that ensured she could not be gotten quietly out of the way, and which gave encouragement to others to fall in with them.

She was remarkably quiet about
how
she had known, however, and Alberich could only wonder. For all that she was amazingly down-to-earth among her supporters, there was still something about her, a sense that she probably
did
spend the hours in meditation and prayer that the Son of the Sun was popularly supposed to do. And that she probably always had . . . that here was a person for whom the service of Vkandis truly
was
a vocation.

Alberich was not overly familiar with the aura of sanctity, but he thought that it surrounded Solaris.

And therein lay her greatest difference from Selenay, although in many, many ways the two were very much alike. Selenay was warmly and completely feminine; Solaris was warmly and completely—neuter. It was very much as if some cloak of power lay lightly on her shoulders, and sent out a wordless message:
I am for no man.

In that, she was not unlike the Shin'a'in Swordsworn; Alberich had met one, some distant relative or other of Kerowyn. Whether that was by choice, natural inclination, or necessity mattered not. That Solaris would have cut her own breasts off if Vkandis had required it of her was something that no one who sat in the same room with her for a candlemark would doubt.

And perhaps, after all, this was
why
she now sat in the Sunthrone. Perhaps this was why Vkandis had taken so long to manifest Himself to His people. Someone like Solaris was rarer than someone with the special Gift that qualified her as Queen's Own.

Someone who had that much raw faith and still remained human and humane was rarer still.

Only a God would have the patience to wait for such a servant to be born—but a God could afford to take a very long view indeed.

 

Alberich and Dirk sat silently, side by side, high above the crowded sanctuary, in a concealed alcove that no one below would guess existed. The cunningly pierced carving gave them an excellent view without revealing that there was anything behind it. The air in here was cool and a little dank, enclosed entirely in stone as they were. Even the cunningly-pivoted door was stone. It was also dark; any light would show through the stone lacework of the panel behind which they sat. The Temple sanctuary beyond that screen was a blaze of white, red, yellow, and precious gold. Sun gems winked from the centers of carved Sunflowers, gilding was everywhere, and there were so many windows (besides the great skylight over the altar) that the place seemed as open as a meadow.

Down there, arrayed in a semicircle in front of the altar, were the Novices about to be made Priests. Only a few were ever endowed with their holy office standing before the Sun Throne. Fewer still were granted the honor of one of the major Festivals. And of hose few, only the highest took their vows on the Summer Solstice, the day when the sun-disk reigned longest in the sky. Four and twenty of those stood down there today; Talia was the last, and the others—who knew each other by sight at least—must surely be wondering who she was and why she was among them. Censers fuming incense—perfectly harmless, undrugged incense of a pleasant spice scent—stood at either end of their semicircle. The incense drifted up to Alberich's hiding place, relieving the slightly stale scent of the air.