Lord of Emperors (3 page)

"You may practice with the surgical tools on vegetables, and then on pieces of wood, using the probes," Rustem said. "Take turns evaluating each other. Send the patients home. Close the shutters if the wind rises. You have permission to build up the fire and use oil for sufficient light."

"Master," said Bharai, bowing.

Rustem followed the soldiers out the door.

He paused in the garden and, facing north again, feet together, he plucked three shoots of bamboo. He might need them for probes. The soldiers were waiting impatiently in the roadway, agitated and terrified. The air pulsed with anxiety. Rustem straightened, murmured his prayer to Perun and the Lady and turned to follow them. As he did, he observed Katyun and Jarita at the front door of the house. There was fear in their eyes: Jarita's were enormous, even seen at a distance. She stared at him silently, leaning against Katyun for support, holding the baby. One of the soldiers must have told the women what was happening.

He gave them both a reassuring nod and saw Katyun nod calmly back as she put her arm around Jarita's shoulders. They would be all right. If he came back.

He went through the small gate into the road, taking his first step with his right foot, glancing up for any signs among the birds. None to be seen: they had all taken shelter from the rising wind. No omens there. He wished there hadn't been four soldiers sent. Someone ought to have known better. Little to be done about that now, however. He would burn incense at the fortress, in propitiation. Rustem gripped his stick and struggled to present an appearance of equanimity. He didn't think he was succeeding. The King of Kings. An arrow.

He stopped abruptly in the dusty road.

And in the moment he did so, cursing himself for a fool, preparing to go back to the treatment rooms, knowing how very bad an omen that would be, he heard someone speak from behind him.

"Papa," said a small voice.

Rustem turned, and saw what his son was holding in both hands. His heart stopped for a moment then, or it felt as though it did. He swallowed, with sudden difficulty. Forced himself to take another deep breath, standing very still now just outside the gate.

"Yes, Shaski," he said quietly. He looked at the small boy in the garden and a strange calm descended upon him. His students and the patients watched in a knotted cluster from the portico, the soldiers from the roadway, the women from the other doorway. The wind blew.

"The man said… he said an arrow, Papa."

And Shaski extended his two small hands, offering his father the implement he'd carried out into the yard.

"He did say that, didn't he?" said Rustem, gravely. "I should take that with me then, shouldn't I?"

Shaski nodded his head. His small form straight, dark brown eyes serious as a priest's with an offering.
He is seven years old,
Rustem thought.
Anahita guard him.

He went back through the wooden gate, and he bent and took the slender instrument in its leather sheath from the boy. He had brought it back from Ispahani, a parting gift from his teacher there.

The soldier had indeed said there was an arrow. Rustem felt a sudden, quite unexpected desire to lay a hand upon the head of his son, on the dark brown, curling hair, to feel the warmth, and the smallness. It had to do, of course, with the fact that he might not come back from the fortress. This might be a farewell. One could not decline to treat the King of Kings, and depending on where the arrow had lodged…

Shaski's expression was so intense, it was as if he actually had some preternatural apprehension of this. He couldn't, of course, but the boy had just saved him from the terrible auspice of having to re-enter the treatment room after walking out and taking his bamboo reeds, or sending someone back in for him.

Rustem found that he was unable to speak. He looked down at Shaski for another moment, then glanced over at his wives. There was no time to say anything to them, either. The world had entered through his doorway, after all. What was to be had long ago been written.

Rustem turned and went quickly back out through the gate and then with the soldiers up the steep road in the north wind that was blowing. He didn't look back, knowing the omen attached to that, but he was certain that Shaski was still standing there and watching him, alone in the garden now, straight as a spear, small as a reed by a riverbank.

Vinaszh, son of Vinaszh, the military commander of the southern fortress of Kerakek, had been born even farther to the south, in a tiny oasis of palms east of Qandir, a sparse, spring-fed island of greenery with desert all around. It was a market village, of course. Goods and services exchanged with the dark, grim peoples of the sands as they came riding in on their camels and went back out again, receding and then disappearing on the shimmering horizon.

Growing up as a merchant's son, Vinaszh came to know the nomadic tribes quite well, both in times of trade and peace and during those seasons when the Great King sent armies south in yet another fruitless attempt to force access to the western sea beyond the sands. The desert, at least as much as the wild tribesmen who shifted across its face, had made this impossible, again and again. Neither the sands nor those who dwelled there were inclined to be subdued.

But his childhood in the south had made Vinaszh-who had chosen the army over a merchant's life-an excellent, obvious choice to take control of one of the desert fortresses. It represented a rare measure of clear thinking on the part of officials in Kabadh that he was, in fact, appointed to govern Kerakek when he attained sufficient rank, rather than being given command of, say, soldiers guarding a fishing port in the north, dealing with fur-clad traders and raiders from Moskav. Sometimes the military succeeded in doing things properly, almost in spite of itself. Vinaszh knew the desert, was properly respectful of it and those who dwelled there. He could manage some of the dialects of the nomads, spoke a little of the Kindath tongue, and was unruffled by sand in his bed or clothing or folds of skin.

Still, there was nothing at all in the background of the man to suggest that the soldier son of Vinaszh the trader might have had the rashness to speak up among the mightiest figures of Bassania and offer the uninvited suggestion that a small-town physician-one not even of the priestly caste-be summoned to the King of Kings where he was dying.

Among other things, the words put the commander's own life at risk. He was a dead man if someone afterwards were to decide that the country doctor's treatment had hastened or caused the death of the king-even though Great Shirvan had already turned his face to the fire as if looking in the flames for Perun of the Thunder, or the dark figure of the Lady.

The arrow was in him, very deep. Blood continued to seep slowly from it, darkening the sheets of the bed and the linens that had been bunched around the wound. It seemed a wonder, in fact, that the king still breathed, still remained among them, fixedly watching the dance of the flames while a wind from the desert rose outside. The sky had darkened. Shirvan seemed disinclined to offer his courtiers any last words of guidance or to formally name an heir, though he'd made a gesture that implied his choice. Kneeling beside the bed, the king's third son, Murash, who had covered his own head and shoulders with hot ashes from the hearth, was rocking back and forth, praying. None of the other royal sons was present. Murash's voice, rising and falling in rapid incantation, was the only human sound in the room other than the laboured rhythm of the Great King's breathing.

In that stillness, and even with the keening of the wind, the sound of booted feet was clearly heard when it finally came from the corridor. Vinaszh drew a breath and briefly closed his eyes, invoking Perun, ritually cursing Azal the Eternal Enemy. Then he turned and saw the door open to admit the physician who had cured him of an embarrassing rash he'd contracted during an autumn reconnaissance towards the Sarantine border towns and forts.

The doctor, trailed by Vinaszh's obviously terrified captain of the guard, entered a few steps and then paused, leaning on his staff, surveying the room, before looking over at the figure on the bed. He had no servant with him-he would have left in great haste, the captain's instructions from Vinaszh had been unambiguous-and so carried his own bag. Without looking back, he extended the linen bag and his walking stick and some sheathed implement, and Vinaszh's captain moved with alacrity to take them. The doctor-his name was Rustem-had a reserved, humourless manner that Vinaszh didn't really like, but the man had studied in Ispahani and he didn't seem to kill people and he
had
cured the rash.

The physician smoothed his greying beard with one hand and then knelt and abased himself, showing unexpectedly adroit manners. At a word from the vizier he rose. The king hadn't turned his gaze from the fire; the young prince had not ceased his praying. The doctor bowed to the vizier, then turned carefully-facing due west, Vinaszh noted-and said briskly, "With this affliction I will contend."

He hadn't even approached-let alone examined-the patient, but he had no real choice here. He had to do what he could.
Why kill another man?
the king had asked. Vinaszh had almost certainly done just that by suggesting the physician be brought here.

The doctor turned to look at Vinaszh. "If the commander of the garrison will remain to assist me I would be grateful. I might have need of a soldier's experience. It is necessary for all the rest of you, my revered and gracious lords, to leave the room now, please."

Without rising from his knees, the prince said fiercely,'I will not leave my father's side."

This man was almost certainly about to become the King of Kings, the Sword of Perun, when the breathing of the man on the bed stopped.

"An understandable desire, my lord prince, "said the doctor calmly. "But if you care for your beloved father, as I can see you do, and wish to aid him now, you will honour me by waiting outside. Surgical treatment cannot take place in a crowd of men."

"There will be no… crowd," said the vizier. Mazendar's lip curled at the word. "Prince Murash will remain, and I myself. You are not of the priestly caste, of course, and neither is the commander. We must stay here, accordingly. All others will depart, as requested."

The physician simply shook his head. "No, my lord. Kill me now, if you wish. But I was taught, and believe, that members of the family and dear friends must not be present when a doctor treats an afflicted man. One must be of the priestly caste to be a royal physician, I know. But I have no such position… I am merely attending upon the Great King, at request. If I am to contend with this affliction, I must do so in the manner of my training. Otherwise I can avail the King of Kings not at all, and my own life becomes a burden to me if that is so."

The fellow was a stuffy prig, greying before his time, Vinaszh thought, but he had courage. He saw Prince Murash look up, black eyes blazing. Before the prince could speak, however, a faint, cold voice from the bed murmured, "You heard the physician. He is brought here for his skills. Why is there wrangling in my presence? Get out. All of you."

There was silence.

"Of course, my gracious lord," said Mazendar the vizier, as the prince, mouth opening and closing, stood up uncertainly. The king had still not taken his eyes from the flames. His voice sounded to Vinaszh as if it already came from somewhere beyond the realms of living men. He would die, the doctor would die, Vinaszh, very probably, would die. He was a fool and a fool, near the end of his days.

Men began moving nervously out into the corridor, where torches had now been lit in the wall brackets. The wind whistled, an otherworldly, lonely sound. Vinaszh saw his captain of the guard set down the doctor's things before quickly walking out. The young prince stopped directly in front of the slim physician, who stood very still, waiting for them to leave. Murash lifted his hands and murmured, fierce and low, "Save him, or these fingers end your life. I swear it by Perun's thunder."

The physician said nothing, merely nodded, calmly eyeing the hands of the overwrought prince as they opened and closed and then twisted before his face in a sudden gesture of strangulation. Murash hesitated another moment, then looked back at his father-it might be for the last time, Vinaszh thought, and had a swift, sharp memory of his own father's deathbed in the south. Then the prince strode from the room as others made way for him. They heard his voice rising in prayer again, from the hallway.

Mazendar was last to leave. He paused near the bed, glanced at Vinaszh and the physician, looking uncertain for the first time, and then murmured, "Have you instructions for me, dear my lord?"

"I gave them," said the man on the bed quietly. "You saw who was here. Serve him loyally if he allows. He might not. The Lord of Thunder and the Lady guard your soul if that is so."

The vizier swallowed." And yours, my great lord, if we meet not again."

The king made no reply. Mazendar went out. Someone closed the door from out in the corridor.

Immediately, moving briskly, the physician opened his linen bag and extracted a small sachet. He strode to the fire and tossed the contents onto it.

The flames turned blue, and a scent of wildflowers suddenly filled the room like an eastern springtime. Vinaszh blinked. The figure on the bed stirred.

"Ispahani?" said the King of Kings.

The physician looked surprised. "Yes, my gracious lord. I would not have imagined you-"

"I had a physician from the Ajbar Islands once. He was very skilled. Unfortunately he courted a woman he would have done better not to have touched. He used this scent, I recall."

Rustem crossed to the bedside. "It is taught that the nature of the treatment room can affect the nature of the treatment. We are influenced by such things, my lord."

"Arrows are not," said the king. But he had shifted a little to look at the physician, Vinaszh saw.