Arrows of the Sun (48 page)

Within the wards, in the court of justice, men waited in
chains. They were ragged, beaten and bruised, cowering in terror or glaring
with defiance.

Common malefactors, Asanians all, and nothing to mark them
from any hundred of their like; and yet Estarion’s heart went still. Here, he
thought. Here: not south of here, not in the siege of that lesser city, nor west
where he had forborne to go. Here it came to the crux. He felt the force of it
in his bones.

The men about him, lords, scribes, judges, rose one by one
in order of precedence and returned to their places. The scribe whose stool
Estarion had taken settled without apparent discomfort on the dais, set his
tablets on his knees and raised his stylus, and waited.

The herald of the court glanced at his lord, and then
swiftly, almost shyly, at Estarion. Estarion smiled. “Read the charges,” he
said, “if you will.”

The man looked flustered, but he obeyed.

They were couched in the excess of Asanian ceremony, dense
as weeds in a garden. Estarion was learning to find the flowers in the
undergrowth, to pluck the essence of the charges from the knots of the law.

These were rebels. They had conspired against the imperial
majesty; they had raised insurrection in Pri’nai and the towns about it; they
had named themselves followers of one they called prophet and prince, lord of
the Golden Empire, son of the Lion. And the one they followed, their prophet,
their prince—he huddled among them in the wall of their bodies.

Estarion rose. The herald faltered, but Estarion’s gesture
bade him continue. His voice rang clear in the stillness as Estarion stepped
down among the prisoners.

They shrank from him. None sprang, though one looked as if
he thought of it: a young one with a split cheekbone and an arm that dangled
useless, and the eyes of a slave to dreamsmoke.

The one they sought even now to protect was a poor thing, a
huddle of torn silk and tarnished cloth of gold, crouched with his arms over
his head. Estarion lifted him by the wrists.

He came as limply as a poppet made of rags, but once on his
feet he stayed there, trembling. His hair was a brass-bright tangle, his face
bruised ivory. His eyes were gold, and enormous.

They were not lion-eyes, although to one who did not know,
they might seem so, large-irised as they were. He was as beautiful as a girl,
as delicate as girls in Asanion were supposed to be.

He looked remarkably, uncannily like Korusan. But Korusan
was steel. This was silvered glass, so brittle that a breath would shatter it.

“Who are you?” Estarion asked him. His voice was gentle, and
not through any will of his own; he should have been merciless. But it was
difficult to be cruel to such a child.

The boy trembled until he nearly fell. Estarion held him,
shook him. “I know what they say you are. You know as well as I, that that is a
lie.”

“I am,” the boy whispered. “I am. Lion—prince—I prophesy—”

“But I am the Lion’s heir,” Estarion said. “There is no
other.”

“I am,” the boy said. He was weeping, shuddering, sick with
terror. “They said I was. They said!”

“What were you before they told you the lie?”

“I—” The boy swallowed. It must have hurt: his face twisted.
“I was—he owned me. Kemuziran. He sold spices. And slaves. And—and—”

“And you,” Estarion said. “You’re a purebred, aren’t you?
The line they breed still, for the beauty and for the likeness to the Lion’s
brood. No Lion, you. You were bred to be a lady’s lapcat.”

A man, or even the beginning of a Lion’s cub, would have
stiffened at that and remembered his pride. This son of slaves dung himself
weeping into Estarion’s arms. “They made me! They said I’d die if I didn’t do
it!”

Estarion had hardly expected this armful of wriggling,
howling child. He pushed the boy away, not roughly, not particularly gently.
The boy stopped sobbing, raised great tear-stained eyes.

“‘They’?” Estarion pressed him.

“The others,” the boy said, hiccoughing. “They bought me and
they taught me. They told me what to say. They said— they said—I could be—I
could—”

Estarion held his burning hand under the boy’s nose. “Would
you want that?”

The boy shuddered and shrank away. It was not artifice, not
the sleight of the courtesan. Estarion was sure of it.

“That is what they thought to give you,” Estarion said. “Can
you clasp the sun in your hand? Can you bear empires on your shoulders? Can
you, little slave, sway the hearts of kings?”

“They told me,” the boy said. “I would die if I refused
them.”

“You will die because you obeyed them.”

“No,” the boy said, weeping again. “Please, no.”

The recitation of the charges had died away some time since.
The boy locked arms about Estarion’s waist and clung, burying his face in
Estarion’s cloak.

Estarion sighed and let him be. The rest of the prisoners
watched, slack-jawed or frozen-faced. Guilt was as sharp as a stench, and hate
with it, and fear.

“You,” he said. The dreamer spat, aiming for Estarion’s
face, but the spittle flew wide. Estarion smiled, sweet and terrible. “I might
forgive you your sedition, but this I do not forgive. A man will do anything at
all, who stoops to the corruption of children.”

“Such an innocent,” the dreamer drawled. His patois was
broad, his inflection an insult. “They say a king can be an idiot where you
come from. Who set the coins in your eyes? The were-bear who follows you
about?”

“No,” said Estarion. “My father. And his father before him.
And before them all, the Lion’s cub, the Golden Emperor. I’m of his blood.”

“Traitor’s blood,” the dreamer said. “No Lion’s get, you,
but liar’s. Barbarian, outlander, stealer of thrones: you should have stayed in
your own country.”

“This is my own country,” Estarion said. He gripped the
chain that locked the dreamer’s collar, and hauled him up. “You are a fool and
a teller of lies. Your dreams are the smoke’s children. You know nothing of
your own.”

“And what are you?” the dreamer mocked him. “Not even a
mage, and barely a king.”

Estarion dropped him. He fell in a clatter of chains.
Estarion faced the lord of Ansavaar and swept his arm around the huddle of
prisoners. “Take these,” he said. “Lock them in prison. In the morning, flog
them. Then set them free.”

“Majesty?” Shurichan frowned. “Majesty . . .
free them?”

“They do not deserve death,” Estarion said. “Death is for
the great; for renegades, for traitors, for destroyers of thrones.”

“And these are not traitors?” Shurichan demanded.

“These are fools and children. I will not ennoble them with
death, or make them martyrs.”

Shurichan blinked. He did not understand. His way was more
direct: and there was irony in Asanion. Treason won death. Life in
disgrace—that, Estarion thought, he had never heard of.

“That is . . . very cruel,” Shurichan said at
last, dubiously, as if he thought that he should approve, but could not bring
himself to it.

“I call it justice,” said Estarion.

“And that?” Shurichan asked.

Estarion looked down at the child who clung still,
convulsively. “Him we keep. He’s too great a temptation, with those big eyes of
his. Ready a room for him. We’ll keep him in comfort.”

“But—”

That was great daring, to protest even so much. Estarion
smiled at it. “Look at him, Shurichan. What can he do but seduce his guards? He
won’t want to be free. He’ll welcome the safety of prison. No one forces him
there; no one threatens him with thrones.”

Shurichan bowed, veiling his eyes.

Estarion pried the boy loose and gave him over to the
Olenyai. He shrieked at sight of them, and struggled, till Estarion laid a hand
on his head. “Hush, child. They won’t hurt you, or let you be hurt. Go with
them, let them protect you.”

“I want to stay with you!” the boy wailed.

It was great pleasure to see the faces of the men who would
have made this child their puppet: to know how perfectly they were nonplussed.
“The next time you make an emperor,” Estarion advised them, “choose a woolbeast
in fleece. It will serve you better, and cover your backsides, too.”

o0o

The prisoners were guarded as the emperor himself was, by
both Varyani and Olenyai. Korusan did not find it difficult to take a turn of
the watch, the one which happened to coincide with the nightmeal, nor did his
companion object when he took charge of the feeding. That gained him the key to
the cells, which he omitted to return.

Sentry-go with a Varyani could be interesting if the
foreigner was hostile, or if he was inclined to chatter. Often he was both.

This one, as luck would have it, was silent for one of his
kind. He did not seem to object to the existence of Asanians, nor did he shy
from Olenyai veils. He accepted the place of outer ward, granting Korusan the
inner duty, which was to pace slowly along the passage, glancing at intervals
into the cells.

The prisoners were kept apart lest they conspire to escape,
and there were mage-bonds on them: Korusan’s own wards itched in response.
After several revolutions he glanced toward the corridor’s end.

The Varyani, a plainsman with a suggestion of Gileni red in
his dark hair, stood facing outward, still as a stone. He glanced back when he
heard the scrape of the key in a lock, but Korusan ignored him. Boldness, he
had been taught, could be better concealment than stealth.

The plainsman did not protest as Korusan opened the door and
slipped within. Nor did he leave his post.

Korusan stood in the dimness of the cell, waiting for his
heart to cease hammering. The only light came from the cresset without,
slanting through the bars onto the recumbent figure of the prisoner.

The man was asleep, twitching in the fashion of one too long
forbidden dreamsmoke. He snapped awake as Korusan knelt by him. His eyes were
bloodshot, blinking rapidly until he gained control of himself.

“You know me,” said Korusan, soft and cold.

For once the dreamer was not smiling. He looked greener even
than his condition might account for, as he stumbled up and then flung himself
flat.

“Why did you lie?” Korusan asked him.

He raised his head, but kept his eyes fixed on the floor. He
seemed to swell as he crouched there, gaining color and force. “For you, my
lord. For you I did it.”

“What? Found a slave’s brat and called him emperor? Set him
up to supplant me?”

“No!” the dreamer cried, but softly, as if he had sense
enough not to rouse the Varyani’s suspicions. “No, my lord, it wasn’t like that
at all! We needed a diversion, you see. A feint. A target for them to strike
at, and be complacent, and think that that was all we had.”

“None of them guessed,” said Korusan, more to himself than
to the fool on the floor.

The fool heard him nonetheless, and answered him. “They
didn’t, did they? I’m a good liar. I should be: I was a player before I became
your servant.”

Korusan curled his lip at the thought of this man as his
servant. “You could have been the worst liar living, and still the mages would
have shielded you. They would not wish their plots known to their enemies.”

“But I lie well,” the dreamer insisted. “I do. They said so.
They hardly needed to put a magic on me. Just to keep me safe, they said. To
free me to be your sacrifice.”

Korusan recoiled. “I do not want a sacrifice.”

“Why, bless you, my prince, of course you don’t. But you
shall have one. It’s needed. The people will follow you all the more gladly
once they’ve seen how we were willing to die for you.”

This creature was unbearable. He actually shone, he was so
full of his own glory.

“You are all idiots,” Korusan said fiercely. “If you die,
and I come to my throne, I will repudiate you. You lied in my name. You turned
my honor to dust.”

There was no quelling the dreamer. “Oh, yes, you have to
deny me. I can’t besmirch your brightness. But I die happy, knowing that my
death helped to make you emperor.”

“You are not going to die,” snapped Korusan. “He will flog
you and let you go. Fool, I thought him. Now I know him wise.”

“I’ll die,” the dreamer said. “I’ll make sure of it. Wait,
my lord, and see.”

Korusan restrained an urge to thrust him down and set foot
on his neck. He would have welcomed the humiliation, and worshipped the one who
did it to him. Korusan left him instead, shut and locked the door with
taut-strung care, returned to his post and his silent companion.

To whom he said, “I thought I might get sense from him, once
the drug had worn off. He utters nothing but lies and lunacy.”

“His brain’s well rotted,” the Varyani agreed, “and the rest
are witlings. It’s a piss-poor excuse for a conspiracy, this one.”

“But it suffices,” said Korusan.

“It does, at that,” the Varyani said. “And tomorrow we put
an end to it.”

Tomorrow, thought Korusan, it would hardly have begun.

“Full of yourself, aren’t you?”

Estarion paused. He was clean, warm, and about to be fed; he
had rid himself of servants and won a few moments’ solitude. The rebels’ puppet
was asleep, with one of Iburan’s mages seeing to it that he stayed so. The
rebels were in much less comfort, and under strong guard.

Sidani nudged a squalling ul-cub toward its mother. Ulyai,
having laid claim to his lordship’s bed, was amply content to nurse her young
ones in it. She blinked lazily at Sidani, yawned, set to washing the he-cub’s
ears.

Sidani leaned against the doorframe, eyebrows cocked. “You
think you did well in milord’s court.”

“I think I had no choice but to do what I did.” Estarion
scowled at the robes laid out for him, and looked longingly toward his baggage.
The coat, maybe, embroidered with gold. Or—

“You should have killed them, and done it then. Not dragged
it out till tomorrow.”