Arrows of the Sun (40 page)

“Then let him prove it to me!” cried Merian.

Both of the others let the echoes die. When Iburan seemed
disinclined to break the newborn silence, Vanyi said, “There is something else,
my lady. Isn’t there?”

At first Merian did not answer. She looked young this
evening, young and angry.

Vanyi did not like her better for it, but it was easier to
think of her as a woman and not as a figure of awe on a golden throne: a woman
with a son whom she loved to distraction and sometimes despaired of, and a
lover whom she could not marry. When she was empress regent she could not set
any lesser man in her royal husband’s place, not without forsaking her regency.
Now that she had laid aside that office she was free to take a husband, but she
needed the emperor’s consent. And that, thought Vanyi, she was not likely to
get.

That dilemma at least, Vanyi would never need to face.
Everyone knew where Estarion spent his nights. If one of his women had not
conceived a son, one would do it soon enough.

But not, she realized with a small shock, while he rode to
the rebellion. Asanian ladies did not leave their guarded walls. They did not
ride to war, even to wait in tents for their lords to return. And they were
ladies, his concubines; not slaves or courtesans. They would remain behind.

Merian’s voice startled her out of her reflection. She had
to struggle to remember what she had asked, to understand the answer. “There is
something else. He has done somewhat to his power. I would say that he had
slain the last of it, but if he had, he would be dead.”

Vanyi’s heart clenched. Iburan spoke quietly, calmly. “He
buries it deep, but it lives. Or, as you say, he would have died.”

“When he came this morning,” Merian said, “when he stood
above us, I never even sensed him. It was as if he was not there. My body’s
senses knew him, but to my power he was invisible.”

“Shields,” said Vanyi.

“Shields leave a trace,” said Merian.

“He’s never been like anyone else,” Vanyi said. “Why
shouldn’t he have found a new way to hide himself?”

“Completely?” Merian demanded of her. “So completely that he
is not there at all?”

“Consider,” said Vanyi. “When he was here before, he nearly
died, and his power was all but destroyed. He needed years to heal even as much
as he did. Then all at once, before he was properly seated on his throne, he
came back to this place where he lost his power. You know how he is inside of
walls. These walls are higher and thicker than any he’s ever known, and his
faithful servants have taught him that he’ll never leave them again. That’s
false, even he should know that, but how sensible can he be when he’s locked in
a cage? I doubt he even knew he had the key, until this morning.”

“Did we give it to him, do you think?” asked Iburan wryly.

“You opened his eyes to something,” Vanyi said. She sighed.
“You’ll pardon me for asking, but why did you call me here? I’m not his bedmate
any longer. I can’t bring him back to hand.”

“Can’t you?”

She rounded on Iburan. “What are you asking?”

“I think you know,” he said.

“I won’t,” she said. “I will—not—take another woman’s
leavings.”

“Jealousy,” he said, “is a simple woman’s luxury.”

“I’m a fisherman’s daughter from Seiun. As,” Vanyi said with
bitter precision, “you and your lady have never failed to remind me. I am not
and never will be empress.”

“What you are,” said Merian, “is his beloved. He loves you
still. Never doubt it. If he does as his duty commands, and does it with
something resembling pleasure, who are you to fault him?”

“Maybe,” said Vanyi, “I love him too much to let you use me,
and him, as you are suggesting. You want me to lead him by the privates,
straight out of this rebellion and back to his harem and his properly pedigreed
ladies.”

“No,” said Merian without perceptible anger. “I wish you to
keep him safe: to guard him with your power, since he seems to have lost the
capacity to guard himself.”

“And lead him back to his ladies.” Vanyi pressed palms to
her aching brow. “My father warned me, you know. ‘Never get too close to the
gentry,’ he said. ‘Gentry aren’t like us. They’re cold as fish and treacherous
as the sea, and when all’s done and said, they’ll look first to their damned
honor and then to themselves, and never mind the blood they’ve shed or the
hearts they’ve broken.’”

She looked up into their faces. Iburan’s was gentle, as if
he could understand. Merian’s was eagle-fierce. “Sometimes I wish I’d married
that fat lout down by the harbor.”

“You would be miserable,” said the empress.

“My misery would be simple,” Vanyi said. “It wouldn’t be
this hopeless tangle.”

“You would have flung yourself into the sea.”

Merian’s lack of sympathy was bracing, in its way. Vanyi
hated her with hate so perfect that it lacked even heat. “I’ll force myself on
him. I’ll ride with him. Will that be enough for you?”

“Certainly,” said Merian. “His heir must be of Asanian
blood. I bid you remember that.”

“I never forget it,” Vanyi said. “Not for one moment.”

o0o

Iburan followed her out of the empress’ receiving room.
She ignored him, difficult as that could be.

In the outer chamber a eunuch trotted past them. He wore
white and gold: emperor’s livery, with the shoulder-knot of a messenger.

Vanyi paused. Everything in her wanted to be out of this
place, back to her temple and her duties and her peace, but instinct held her
where she was.

She could stretch her ears, if she wished. She noticed that
Iburan was doing the same.

There were no endless circling greetings and formalities.
From anyone else in Kundri’j it would have been an insult, and the eunuch
seemed to believe that it was. He did not know Estarion, or Estarion’s mother.

Vanyi barely needed more than ears to hear him. His voice
was high, and it carried. “The emperor bids you prepare to ride. He departs
this city at sunrise.”

The empress’ response was calm. “Inform my son that I have
been ready since the sun touched its zenith. I shall await him at first dawn.”

The eunuch seemed disconcerted: when he spoke again, his
voice was less strident. “The emperor also bids you know that the priest of
Avaryan in Endros will accompany him. He bade me tell you, ‘I cannot forgive.
But I can comprehend.’”

Vanyi’s eyes darted to Iburan’s face. It was perfectly
blank. In the room within, the empress said, still calmly, “Tell my son that I
understand.”

Iburan began to walk as if he had never paused. Vanyi found
herself swept in his wake. She could not find words to say.

o0o

Outside of the palace, in the empty street, Iburan said
them. “Clever, clever child. And oh, so cruel. Who taught him that, I wonder?
Asanion? Or his mother?”

“What’s cruel about it?” Vanyi asked. “He said he
understood.”

“He said it through a messenger,” said Iburan, “and he said
it within an imperial summons.” And when she still did not understand: “He
treated her like a vassal. And more than that. He let her know that he won’t
prevent us. He won’t even keep us apart. Can you see what that will do to us
every time we come together? We’ll know that he knows. We’ll shrivel with
guilt.”

“I doubt that,” said Vanyi, with an eye not quite on the
bulk of him beside her.

He laughed, sudden and deep, but it was brief. “No, it won’t
stop us. But it will slow us a little. Parents who disapprove, those are spice
to a pair of lovers. Children in the same condition . . . they
dampen the proceedings remarkably. They have such expectations; and they never,
never forgive.”

“If he knew how you laugh at him, he’d be furious.”

“I’m not laughing,” said Iburan. “He’s dangerous, you know.
I don’t think he realizes that; and the rest of us tend to forget. When he was
young, before his father died, he promised to be a great mage and king. He may
never be the mage now, after all that’s happened, but the king is there still.
If he learns to stop running—if he accepts all that he is—”

“And if he doesn’t do either, he’ll be deadly, because he
won’t settle to anything, but will drag the empires after him wherever he
goes.”

“He’ll break them,” Iburan said. He tugged his beard. It
looked naked without its plaits and its gauds. He seemed to miss them, raking
fingers through it, scowling at the darkening sky.

Suddenly he straightened. “Come now. We’ve packing to do.”

Vanyi hung back. “Shouldn’t I tell him I’m going?”

“And have him say no? Don’t be a fool. He’s ordered me to
go; I have to have attendants, it wouldn’t be proper if I didn’t. Unless you’d
rather wait on the empress.”

“Thank you, my lord,” said Vanyi, “but no.”

“She’s hardly a monster, child.”

“Of course she isn’t.” Vanyi did not mean to sound so angry.
“It’s only . . . we never seem to agree on anything. Except that
we love that damnable, arrogant, impossibly infuriating son of hers.”

“You are,” he said, “quite dreadfully alike.”

“I am
not
—” Vanyi
bit her tongue. He was grinning at her. “Sometimes I wonder who’s really his
father.”

“You should have known Ganiman,” said Iburan. There was
sadness in it, but above and about that, a wry amusement. “Starion comes by it
honestly. If anything, his father was worse.”

“That’s not possible,” said Vanyi. She strode forward down
the broad street. After a handful of heartbeats she felt him behind her, broad
as a wall and nigh as strong.

There was one duty that Estarion could not avoid, nor
overmuch wish to. He performed it toward evening of that endless day, late
enough to be polite, too early to linger.

He would have left Korusan behind, but the Olenyas refused
to leave him until he came to the inner door of the harem. Estarion half
expected him to pass it. He halted and crouched in a shadow as he often had
before, with no more evidence of disgruntlement than he had ever shown, if certainly
no less.

Once past the door in the scented quiet, Estarion drew a
shaking breath. There was a word in Keruvarion for what he was. Soldiers gave
it to women who sold themselves in the street. In Asanion it was prettier. Here
he was lord and emperor, and duty-bound to sire sons; and when duty did not
bind him, he was permitted his body’s pleasure.

His ladies were waiting. Tonight, he thought, he would
choose Haliya, and damn the proprieties. When he came back—if he came back—he
would return to the round of his duty.

They were all together in their usual silence, but the
undercurrent was odd. Not rancor, he did not think, or jealousy. But tension
certainly, and the salt bitterness of tears.

He kissed each one of them, taking his time about it. It was
not, surprisingly, little Shaia who had been weeping, but Igalla with her
elegant bearing and her queenly manners, and Eluya. Almost he chose one of
them, but there was Haliya, dry-eyed and stiff-backed, and Ziana looking rarely
unplacid.

He did not delude himself that he was loved. But they were
fond of him, maybe, and they fancied that he owned them. He never had been able
to talk them out of that. If he should be killed or if he should fail to come
back, they could look for little mercy from an empire that had defeated him.

He had been steady, or so he thought, until he found himself
leading both Haliya and Ziana to the inner room. He had not meant that at all.
A choosing, yes, for courtesy, and a farewell as brief as he could decently
make it, but nothing more than that. He ached even yet from Korusan’s fierce
embraces.

Or maybe he had been clever. He could hardly be expected to
take them both at once, or to take one while the other watched.

They seemed to think otherwise, it was true, and not to be
discommoded by it. Maybe he should have chosen all nine at once, and escaped
while they untangled themselves.

Neither of the sisters reminded him that he was being
improper, or that he should have chosen Eluya or Igalla. Ziana fetched him wine
spiced and warmed as he liked it. Haliya eased him out of coat and trousers,
found his knots and aches, and set to work. Some were patently not
practice-bruises. She did not remark on them.

He had not known how tired he was until those clever fingers
stroked away his tautness. He had not slept since—when? He could not remember.
His eyelids drooped in spite of themselves.

Ziana had his head in her lap. He heard her voice as from
far away. “You cut your beard. I like it so, like a fleece, curly and thick.”
She combed fingers through it, lightly, making him shiver.

Haliya stroked the lighter fleece of his body, breast and
belly and loins. The rest of him was all but asleep, but his banner rose
valiantly to greet her.

This was whoredom, harlotry, weakness of body and soul. A
priest should master his passions. A Sunlord should rule them.

A Sunlord should sire sons. That was all he was meant for,
when it came to it. If he died tomorrow, or if he never touched a woman again,
there would be no heir to rule after him.

Necessity. That was the name of it. Very pleasant, lying
here, with beauty beneath his head and brilliance at his middle.

Korusan would not be amused. He was jealous, that one.
Asanians did not train their men as they did their women, to accept what must
be accepted. Men owned. Women were owned.

Korusan would ride with his lord. These ladies would not.
The voice of guilt was growing faint. Shame he had never had. He was blessed in
his lovers.

o0o

He said so, later, when Ziana lay on one side and Haliya
on the other, and he was renewed as if he had slept the night through. Ziana
smiled from the hollow of his shoulder. Haliya said, “Will you say that when
you’ve had a thousand lovers?”

“I’ll never have so many,” he said.