Hammer Of God (9 page)

Her last lethal cartwheel ended with her dropping to the floor, first to knees, then to hands, her shortsword clattering disregarded beside her. Head hanging, sweat pooling on the polished parquetry, she gasped and sobbed and prayed she was good enough to prevail. Good enough not to die.

When she looked up, Emperor Han stood before her.

He nodded, almost a bow. “Your Majesty.” “Han…” She sat back on her heels, panting, too perplexed to feel angry. “If I tell you to stop doing this I don't suppose you'll oblige?”

As before, the emperor's long black hair was pulled back from his marvellous face. Instead of black silk he wore multi-coloured brocade, gold and crimson and emerald and blue. Silver thread sparkled in the waning candlelight. His dark eyes were hooded, something unreadable in their depths.

“What is that fighting style called, that you do?”

Games, games. Always games with the Tzhung. Letting her hands rest comfortably on her thighs, she shrugged. “Hotas.”

“Mijaki?”

“That's right.”

“And you think to defeat your dukes with the warfare of Mijak?”

Another shrug. “I think it's the only kind of warfare I know. My father never taught me how to wield a longsword.”

Han smiled. She noticed for the first time his white teeth were slightly crooked. “The quaint customs of Ethrea,” he said, faintly insulting. “No army to speak of, yet your noblemen play with their longswords and dream of the dead days killed by your holy man Rollin.”

“Would you rather we had killed each other instead?” she countered, then frowned. “Yes. Of course you would. Then Tzhung-tzhungchai could've overrun this island as it's overrun so many other helpless lands. I wonder if that's not what you're hoping for now. I wonder if you expect me to die tomorrow, so you can consume Ethrea like a pickled egg.”

If Han was surprised by her acumen, or affronted by her accusation, if he felt anything at all, it was impossible to say. His amber face was untouched by emotion, his eyes flat and black. He regarded her steadily, no tension to be seen in his lean, elegant body. “Do you think you will die, Majesty?”

Her shortsword was within easy grasp, but if she reached for it she'd give him something she never wanted him to have. “No.”

This time he laughed. The sound was shockingly pleasant. “Brave Queen of Ethrea, your God chose well when he chose you.”

Calling upon every discipline Zandakar had instilled in her, she rose in a smooth single motion to her feet. The shortsword stayed on the ground but she still had a dagger strapped to her hip.

I'm tired of his games. I'm bored by men thinking I'm the pawn on their chess board.

“What do you want, Han? Why do you keep coming here?”

His eyebrows lifted, as though she'd asked a silly question. As though the answers should be obvious. “Curiosity, Rhian. I wanted to know how you fared, the night before your fateful encounters.”

“I'm touched,” she said, letting a little of insult show in her own voice. “And I can't help but notice you failed to answer my previous question.”

“Do I think you'll die?” His eyes widened. “Of course. All mortals die, Rhian. Some sooner than others, some smiling, some with a scream. But they all die.”

She looked at him in silence. They, he'd said. Not we. And what did that mean? He's trying to unsettle me. He thinks I can be twisted round his fingers like a strand of silk.

“Do you think I'll die tomorrow?”

Han clasped his hands placidly before him. “Sun-dao has asked the wind that very question.”

“And did the wind answer him?”

“The wind always answers Sun-dao.”

She felt her heart thud. Don't ask, don't ask…but she couldn't help herself. “What did it say?”

Instead of answering, Han unclasped his hands and reached out to the nearest tall candle in its wrought-iron holder. The mellow flame flared blue. Leapt from its wick to the tip of his finger where it danced like a firefly. Like magic. Like sorcery. Rhian stared, her heart pounding.

I thought such things were nursery tales and superstition. And then I met this emperor and his witch-men and now I'm not so sure.

She smiled. “Very clever. Might I invite you to the next birthday gathering of my flower children? I can't imagine a better entertainment.”

Han's smile this time was less attractive. Was it her imagination or did she feel a whisper of cold air stroking her skin?

“If I tell you the wind says you will die, Rhian, perhaps you will stay in your bed and not fight,” he said softly. “That would not bode well for the world. If I tell you the wind says you will live, perhaps you will laugh at these dukes instead of minding your sword strokes. Perhaps then they will stab you and not the desired reverse.”

She felt a flutter of heat in the pit of her stomach. This is my castle. Mine. And you weren't invited. “Have you come to taunt me with riddles and half-truths?”

For the first time since they'd met, she sensed disquiet in him. A baffled irritation that not even his formidable self-control could stifle.

“You are the riddle here, Rhian. I am the emperor of an ancient people, master of more lives than you can know. Men breathe for my pleasure…” He pinched his fingers together and the dancing blue flame was extinguished. “Men die on my whim. What are you by comparison? A little girl in wool and linen, amusing herself with the tricks of a barbarian race, a race that drinks blood, bathes in blood, will turn the seas to blood if the wind cannot blow them back behind their deserts.”

She refused to be intimidated by this man. “I must be something more than a little girl, Han, if the wind blows in my direction and not yours.”

His face turned ugly then, just for an instant. Beneath the smooth urbanity roiled such resentment. “Sun-dao says this is so.” He smiled, his eyes savage. “Sun-dao says many things.”

She lifted her chin. “I'm not Tzhung, Emperor Han. I have no care for what some tricksy man claims to hear in a passing breeze.”

“So you say, little queen,” said Emperor Han. “I wonder if you will say the same once the wind has finished blowing through your stone castle and into every Ethrean life.”

A sudden gust of air swirled the length of the gallery. It snuffed out the candles, plunging her into darkness. But she didn't need light to know that Emperor Han was gone.

Trembling, and resenting that, she picked up her shortsword. She was far too weary to sharpen and polish it now, and that wasn't a task she wished to pass to the armoury. Before she led her court to hear Litany in the morning she would tend her sword. It would do her good. The task was like a meditation, calming and helping her to focus.

And God knows I need focus. I need faith that God hasn't made a mistake.

Carrying her shortsword she left the Long Gallery. The guards waiting outside leapt to attention as she emerged. She bade them good night and returned to her apartments, uncomfortably aware that they trailed her discreetly. Oh, how she resented that. Resented being hemmed about, considered unsafe in her own home.

Alasdair was awake and waiting for her, a lamp lit, his eyes so troubled. “Are you mad?”

Carefully she laid her sword on their chamber's padded settle and began the limbering stretches she would have done had Han not imposed himself upon her. Her cooled muscles creaked and groaned in protest. “I couldn't sleep.”

“Then you should've asked for a soothing tea,” he retorted. “Look at you, Rhian. You're so used up you can barely stand. You were awake before cock crow and it's past midnight now. In scant hours you face Kyrin and Damwin. You should've spent the afternoon resting but no, you had to train another session with Zandakar. And now you're training again?”

“Not for very long,” she protested. “I told you, I couldn't sleep. Dancing the hotas settles my mind.”

“You could've woken me. We could've—”

“Both suffered my restlessness? That's not the act of a loving wife.”

He sighed. Smiled. Reached out his hand. “Come to bed. You need to sleep.” In his eyes, the dreadful words still unspoken. This could be our last night. Come to bed. Come to me.

She stripped off her shirt and hose and joined him beneath the covers. Lost a little more sleep soon after…but considered the sacrifice well made.

Late the next morning, after preparing her shortsword in the armoury and enduring Helfred's well-meant sermonising, she stood naked in her chamber and watched as Dinsy fussed over the clothing made specially for this occasion.

Dinsy was the only personal servant she'd recalled after taking back her castle from Marlan. The other ladies-in-waiting, sent home during the recent upheavals, remained with their families. She'd have to bring back some of them at least, for politics' sake, but for now she had neither desire nor need for female fripperies about her. No intelligent woman required fourteen other women to help her through the day. Dinsy was enough…and at times like this more than enough.

“Deary me, Majesty,” Dinsy fretted. “I don't know what your dear mother would say and that's a fact. I can't think that outlandish costume's proper. You should be in a dress. You're a queen, Majesty, not a huntsman.”

She shook her head. “Wrong, Dinsy. Today I'm both.”

The doublet and leggings were of thin, supple black leather, cut and stitched to fit her form and move with her like an extra skin. No braiding, no jewelling, no ornamentation of any kind. Only her House badge on the doublet's left breast, above her heart: the triple pointed gold crown, threaded round with a spray of snowdrops, pierced by a single blood-red rose.

On seeing that Alasdair had frowned. “What, you think you should present the dukes with a target?”

But this was no fencing match, where a foil might pierce with exquisite precision. The dukes with their longswords would strive to cut off her head.

Of course, my crown makes that a target too.

Although today that was a simple, slender gold circlet laced with sapphires, rubies and amethysts: her royal colours. One of her mother's dragon-eye ruby earrings had been unset from its hook and strung on a gold chain. She'd wear it round her neck, beneath a white silk shirt and the black leather doublet. On her right forefinger her father's personal ring, heavy gold set with a cabochon emerald. In her left ear, Ranald's favourite pearl-and-pewter stud. On the little finger of her left hand, Simon's majority ring: obsidian carved with a stooping falcon.

My family, dancing into battle with me.

Though mollified, Dinsy was tut-tutting under her breath. “Well, Your Majesty, I suppose if you must fight these dreadful dukes you can't do it properly in a dress.”

“No, I really can't.”

“No,” said Dinsy, mournful. Then her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Majesty,” she whispered. “This is dreadful. I'm so afraid for you.”

Not as afraid as I am for myself. She clasped Dinsy's hand and squeezed it, briefly. “There's no need to be. I'm well trained. My cause is just. Right will prevail, you can depend upon that.”

Dinsy gulped. “Yes, Majesty.”

“Yes. Now help me dress, for pity's sake, before I catch cold.”

Dexterity knew, of course he knew, the importance of this day. How could he not, with all his neighbours a-twitter? With the air of Kingseat itself flying thick with rumour? Rhian intends to slay Damwin and Kyrin both…no, no, she's going to offer them exile…no, no, life in prison…no, no, the crown.

As if she'd offer one of them her crown, after all we went through together to win it.

Other, darker whispers spread less harmless gossip. He'd heard them in the harbour tavern where once he'd drunk a slow pint of cider in a dark corner, a shapeless hat pulled low to shade his eyes and hide his face. She's in league with the Tzhung emperor, wasn't he seen at the palace? She's thrown in with foreign sorcerers, you saw that man with blue hair. You heard what happened to Marlan. Wasn't there a toymaker? What was his name? Something peculiar happened to him, didn't it?

“Jones!” a familiar voice called. “Jones, are you out here?”

Surprised, Dexterity thrust aside his disturbing thoughts, put down the puppet's arm he was whittling and sat back on his bench beneath the hasaba tree. With summer drawing to an end its scented blossoms were spent, their petals drifted to the ground.

“Here, Ursa,” he replied. “At the bottom of the garden.”

She stumped through the unkempt grass towards him, remarkably well-dressed for her. But of course she would be, today of all days. She was Rhian's royal physick now. She'd be on show with the rest of the court. She'd be needed, surely, given what was about to happen. He felt his mouth dry and his palms slick with sweat, thinking of it.

Oh, Hettie. It's monstrous. How could you let things come to this?

Hettie didn't answer. He'd not heard or seen her for so long. He thought he was abandoned, and had almost resigned himself. So many had turned their backs on him. Why not Hettie, too?

“Jones,” said Ursa severely. “You're scruffy and ill-kempt and so is your garden. I think it's time you roused yourself from this slough of self-pity and put yourself to better use.”

He indicated his whittling knife and the partially carved puppet's arm beside him. “I'm working, Ursa.”

Hands fisted on her hips, she shook her head. “On the outside, maybe. But on the inside you're sulking.”

“Ursa…” He closed his eyes and tilted his face to the sun. “Must we have this argument again? You side with Rhian. You think I betrayed her. We don't agree, but we've argued that to death, too. If you've come to poke at me, then I'll ask you to leave. I'm weary of arguments. I'd like to sit in the sun and finish my puppet, if you please. It might fetch a few piggets at the next harbour market and I sorely need the income, with my shop closed for business and the castle denied me.”

Disgruntled, Ursa dropped to the other end of the bench. “Aren't you even going to ask me how she does?”

“Why should I? I doubt she asks after me.”

And yes, it was a petulant answer. Didn't he have the right to feel petulant? Hard done by? Unfairly chastised? She wouldn't be queen if it weren't for him.

“No, she doesn't,” said Ursa quietly. “But she would, if that Havrell pride of hers would take off its spurs and stop its pricking.”

“I'll ask you how Zandakar does,” he replied, still too raw and smarting to talk more of Rhian. “When will she relent and let him out of his cell? She owes her life to him, Ursa, twice. Is she so mean and short of memory that she'd keep him locked away in the dark until he dies?”