Hand of the King's Evil - Outremer 04 (38 page)

He was dead and it really shouldn't matter, but it did.

From where she stood, on the terrace of the Princip s palace above Surayon-town, she had the best sight of what she swore was the finest aspect in all the Sanctuary Land and all the world. When she'd been very little, she had thought that it was all the world; even after she'd grown bigger and hence wiser, she'd still insisted that it was all the world that mattered.

She had never seen Ascariel, and those who had would laugh at her, would call her foolish, ignorant; would talk of the Dir'al Shahan that the King had taken for his own and the walled and golden city that surrounded it on its great mount, and say that they should not speak of daylight who had never seen a sunrise. She'd not been troubled by their mockery, not even when she was small. Grown-ups understood so little; they thought that every travelled mile added to their knowledge, when really all it did was dilute what they'd known as children, thinning the rich stew of wonder to a tasteless broth.

It was always possible to go higher, of course, and so to see further. The palace itself was built into the slope of a hill so massive that she used to call it a mountain; they took her to the top of it and showed her the real mountains, but those were distant shadows and she couldn't understand how they were bigger than this, or how what was far away could matter more than what she stood upon. More importantly, she could see all of the valley of Surayon and its tributary vales, and how the principality was cupped like water in the hands, within the twisted belt of the mountain range. She nodded wisely when they told her that if they opened the borders, it would be like opening her fingers and letting all the water drain away. But she still felt that she could see the country better from her grandfer's terrace below.

She'd felt so then, and she felt so still. The air couldn't actually be clearer down here, but it seemed so; and when she stared at any particular distant thing, it seemed to come nearer and more sharply into sight. A faint smudge of movement on a track so far away that it seemed hair-thin and half imagined, only visible because she knew that it was there: a moment's concentration and she would see the bullock-cart and the dust-trail rising behind it, she could count the woman who rode and the boy who led the bullocks, she could almost say what was in the sacks that piled the cart so high. If he were with her, her grandfather would say, and she never doubted him.

At the time, she'd believed him also when he called her eagle-eyes, desert-eyes; looking back, she thought there was some magic he'd invested in the site. He'd spent long hours here all her life, gazing out across his penned princedom, watching literally over his people, guarding them she'd always thought against monsters that he could sear with a glare. He must have woven some touch of his power into the stones of the terrace or the balustrade or perhaps into the air itself, so that what lay far-off could be brought closer to the eye. It had worked for her then, before she knew it; it worked for her now, and she truly wished that it would not.

She stood on her grandfather
’
s terrace and gazed out across his country, her best hope of home; and she saw fire and death, the imprint of war all over.

She stood and saw her land in flames, her people slaughtered; and that should matter more than anything, more even than Marron still sick, still unhealed, still dying in the room at her back; so why,
why
was
it her father who so possessed her thoughts, when he was only one man and dead already, a cold waste of passion?

She stood for hours, seeing almost nothing, her true gaze turned deep inward; or else she stood only for minutes and saw too much. One or the other, she wasn't sure. Had the sun been so high, when she came out here? She couldn't say; she hadn't been aware of it one way or the other, she hadn't been thinking about time at all until she'd found herself trapped within its mazes.

Long or short, that standing had to end; and it did, she ripped herself away from it like a tree tearing itself from its deep-buried roots. She felt herself very like a tree, silent and suffering; she thought she might carry that eloquent silence a long time, years, a lifetime.
He is dead,
and the thought had nowhere else to go from there, and no more did she.

Her body could move on, that at least; She walked slowly towards the high arch of the open door, pausing to touch the rough-worked stone of the wall for luck before she passed within. She'd done that all her life, picking at lichen-flakes and loving the contrast with the smooth plaster of the inner walls. No ice-slick marble fascia here, no age-worn sandstone or brute blunt defensive rampart; like the town below, the palace was built of a creamy-pale stone shot through with veins of blue that glittered where they were cut. She'd always thought that the stone reflected the land where it was quarried, and the spirit that her grandfather had fostered here: cool and restful, but permeated with a cloaked power which could flare into life when it was needed. That fiery blue reminded her of witchlight, and of all the secret resources of Surayon. Besides which, the walls of the palace had been left deliberately rough, an open invitation for a light and nimble-fingered, nimble-toed girl to climb, all the way up to her mother's garden on the roof. How could she not love it, a private access to a private place that was entirely barred to her father?

There were several rooms that opened onto the long terrace. At the further end was the Princip's private library, where even she never dared to venture without invitation. Next came the wide audience-chamber, a space of pillars and light with many windows; then there was this, the solarium they'd always called it, a quiet bright room where

Elisande s mother had loved to sit with her ladies over her needlework and talk until the sun failed.

Now, today it was a hospital. All the furniture had been cleared to one side; soft pallets had been laid on the floor, and there lay Marron and Hasan, their drawn faces cruelly exposed by the fall of light through the casements. The one was fighting still, she thought, or being fought over, while the other simply faded. The battle raging within Marron was clear to be seen on his skin, fire and shadow surging against each other; Hasan was grey, chill, quite unwarmed by anything that man or sun could offer. The gouges on his face showed like black bars, like a fresh brand.

Julianne sat on the floor by his head, as still as her husband and fading just as fast. Elisande thought that she should be similarly sitting beside Marron, grieving as deeply and as silently, except that Jemel had claimed that place, and had a far better claim to it than she could muster. It had been his aching distress that had driven her out onto the terrace, as much as her own unacknowledged pain; she envied him his honesty, and its legitimacy.

In the Princip's absence, other men had come to tend the patients: old men, wise men, helpless men. They had touched and probed, had laid hands on Marron and Hasan individually and then by twos together, then all at once. And had shaken their heads, spoken in soft voices, advised patience until their lord's return.

Patience was a slow, grinding torment to them all. A table in the far corner had been laid with refreshments, quite untouched; Elisande went over there to pour a beaker of well-watered wine, and carry that to Julianne.

'Here, sweet. You won't eat, I know, and I won't press you to it; but you could drink, at least, you still remember how to swallow.'

'You're not eating either.'

'No. But I'll share your drink.'

Julianne sipped without interest, then looked a little surprised at what she tasted. 'I thought it would be
jereth,
to tempt my appetite?'

'No. Not for this. We'll drink
jereth
later, when they're well. And I won't share a drop of mine with you.'

The badinage was unthinking, meaningless except to say
we have a friendship that goes deep, deeper than pain, and we will recover it. Later. When they're well...

Julianne shook her head. 'When they're well,' she said slowly, borrowing Elisande's determination only to show how weak it was, 'we still won't want to celebrate. Only to weep together, for how much we've lost.' But her eyes moved to the view of the far horizon, the far side of the valley, and suddenly she sounded weak herself, weak as a child's arguments, as though she had completely misunderstood herself. 'He will come, won't he?'

'Of course he'll come, sweet. He lives here, this is his home.' She wrapped her arms around her friend, chin on shoulder for a tight hug and said, 'He will come, Julianne, I promise.
He
promised. As soon as he can. But he doesn't have the King's Eye,'
though he has the next best thing out on the terrace there, whatever spells he's woven on the wind to bring far-sightedness,
'and all his country is under attack, he had to go out to see .
..'

'Of course he did,' on a sigh, reaching a faltering hand out to stroke the bitter cold of Hasan's brow and then snatching it back, as though to touch him hurt as much as not to touch him. 'And perhaps he also had to go out to be alone an hour, after the other news you brought him. Rudel was his son, as well as being your father. You can
’
t mourn him properly, you're so tied up inside. I can't, because -
because of Hasan, I can't feel anything clearly. Someone has to.'

Men should not outlive their children,
she was saying, though old men did it as a matter of course in time of war or famine or disease, which meant in Outremer and in the Sands. Not in Surayon. Julianne was right, of course, or partly right, and Grandfer might indeed prefer to shed his tears ahorseback, hidden behind a riding-veil or a visor. But Elisande could be mulish, even now.

'He was a soldier before he was — well, what he is now. Princip, sorcerer, philosopher, what you like. As your own father was, Julianne. Coren kept his tears back and would use Rudel's body if he could; my grandfer would have done the same. Of course they will mourn, but not yet. Not when there's fighting today and a battle tomorrow, and all this country lies beneath the sword.'

If Julianne thought her cold or hard, so be it; at least it would give the girl something fresh to think about. Elisande might crave such a heart-whole pain as Julianne was feeling, but she knew too the exhausting weight of it.

By the same token, she supposed she ought to welcome her own distractedness, her fear for Marron offset by her fear for Surayon, and both of them outmatched by the unexpected ache of grieving for Rudel. She couldn't do it, though, she could find no sense of balance. Any one of them would have been enough, too much to carry; the three together she thought would crush her. She yearned to be like Julianne, like Jemel, utterly absorbed in their distress; and was not, and couldn't fake it even to herself.

Restl
ess anxiety dragged her to her feet again, away from her friend. She barely glanced towards Marron and his attendant Sharai, she couldn't take a step
in
that direction. Instead she went back to the doorway and on to the terrace again, desperate and driven.
He will come,
but she needed him, they all needed him to come soon; and yet he had the defence of all this land to organise, against forces too powerful for a peaceful people to resist. Their troubles were small and individual, his were vast and overmastering. They shouldn't be so selfish as to look for him; and yet they were, she most of all. He might be Princip of a state that stood on the very edge of destruction, but he was still her grandfather, her beloved Grandfer who had been her secret treasure, her sustaining family all these years. And now when she wanted him most, she couldn't have him; and that knowledge detracted not one grain's weight from her wanting.

She gripped the parapet with both hands, glad of roughness against her skin, something to rub against, something to feel. She stared out across the valley, scanning, searching. There were fires on the flanks of the northern hills, and when she squinted she thought she could see terror beneath the smoke, running men being ridden down. When she stretched all her senses, she thought she could smell burned flesh and hear screaming that was not the screams of men.

She drew back suddenly, letting that extended awareness slip rather than bear witness to the unbearable. It must have been imagination, surely, she was fantasising, turning nightmare tales into truth in her foolish, stupefied head. Or else that had been the screaming of horses, perhaps, trapped in a burning barn. Not women, no, surely not children
...

The preceptor had burned children at the Roq, she remembered bleakly, chillingly. But these were her own people here, and their own people too, they were all Panics. Even the most devout Ransomers would not burn their own. Would they
...
?

She remembered Marshal Fulke's preaching against Surayon, and couldn't doubt it longer. And turned, shuddering, to look eastward for her grandfather; and saw instead - or thought she saw - the tribes of the Sharai spread out from wall to mountain wall, doing wicked work with scimitars for the greater glory of their God.

And didn't want to look any more, westward or anywhere; didn't want to go back inside either, to face the other tragedy of the day and try to persuade herself again that it was lesser, when it hurt as fiercely and as deeply. So she stayed, she stood where she was and closed her eyes against the terrors before her, and found no rest and no hope of evasion there either, only her father's dreadful death played out freshly behind her lids, a tragedy too many.