Mortal Suns (39 page)

I said nothing.
I had not spoken, nor asked him anything. He had simply begun to tell me.

“The Queen,” he said. Then he said, “I mean, Udrombis. I had to go to her of course, and explain what went on. I’ve never known her fumble. She was magnificent, what I’d expected. That’s good. It’s enough to make her ill, such a tale, this madness. She mourned him and knows him to be dead. I wish Stabia were alive,” the first I had ever heard him say this. “Udrombis loved my mother, and confided in her, I think. It would have been a consolation. She’s like a goddess in metal, but under it—this must make her sick.”

He stopped. He stood in silence, not moving. The dog wagged his plume of tail, then left off. Some minutes passed. I said, softly, “Won’t you lie down, and sleep?”

Why did I say this? Oh, my training, I imagine, as a virtuous and careful wife. As a woman. Adjunct and servitor, the rose upon the way which must have no thorn.

He only said, “Sleep? Yes. Later. Could it be, Calistra, that it
is
him—are such horrors conceivable? I had my signs, Calistra, portents of pure gold. The God showed me it would all be mine, but not how—would I have tramped up over his back to get it? He would have been the King and I his right hand. That was enough—I thought it was enough. But how could I serve—
that
—how could the Sun Lands hold together in the grip of
that
?”

I said then, “Did they ask it of you? To give it over to—Amdysos?”

“He is not Amdysos. If he were, do you think I could resist? But no, the priests took him out of harm’s way, to examine him. By the light of the God. By use of their tricks and sorceries, too, I suspect. They can only reveal he isn’t Amdysos. I’m content with that. Let them do it. Then the crowd can see. Would you believe—enough people for a festival—most of the town it looked to be. Were they so ill-content with me? Yes, those very ones that threw you flowers and brought you lambs. Howling about the curse of the God. As if I—
I
gave him to the eagle.”

He turned.
The lamp fluttered and I saw, lit on the buckle of his belt which he had tossed aside, the eagle of red gold that had been his blazon since he was a boy.

He said, “I dreamed I was an eagle, Calistra. Before the Race. But he forgave me all that. Could I speak openly at his shrine, if he wanted vengeance?”

Klyton sat down on the bed. “My brothers, the princes, how they argued. Only Adargon kept steady. A few others. They can all see some stake in it. It would tear Akhemony apart. Lektos gathered five hundred men and went over to the temple. To guard the doors. But what does that mean? I let him go. To make a rumpus could do worse. Calistra, it wasn’t Amdysos.”

“No,” I said.

He lay down beside me. He said, his eyes hooded and untransparent, “How can I sleep?” And, slept, gone as the dead sometimes are, before the lids of his eyes could close.

I lay next to him, and the dog stole up light as a breeze, and rested along my side. I stroked the dog, but in my mind saw only the temple at Oceaxis, the under-room where I had been taken before my coronation, to swear my oaths to darkness, to the shades, to Thon, for a Queen remains a Queen even in death. They were strange chambers, those, not hideous as Thon’s Temple had been at Koi, yet filled for me with ominous mysteries, and a weird shiver like black wings.

So intrusive was my picture, on that night, of this spot and what went on there, that, even from the landfall of my old age, I can fashion or detect no other.

Ancient stone, pillars ringed by gold and brass, a floor painted with the maps of the Lands Below, into which Tithaxeli flowed, the River of Death. By a leaping brazier like a fever, I saw the priesthood, black clad there, interview the smashed thing from Airis. Even Torca I saw, in my imagined vision intransigently clothed as when first I saw him, in my youth, in leathers, his wooden leg clacking, coal-black, the black beard grown again down to his waist.

But the deduction of the priests I did not conjure. So abruptly it had come, this storm. It was not real, and could alter nothing.

When I woke at Sunrise, Klyton had left me already.

The room was
not of great size. A prince among the priests sat to one side, and nearby, with his slate, a scribe. The light was artificial, from tall open lamps, fitful therefore, yet not really misleading. Less so than daylight, for one took more care. The Ipyran had come in, Elakti, in her hill dress. She had danced about, and then one of the brown young women had led her aside, and the guard got both of them out of the room.

Then Torca was able to concentrate upon the man.

Torca had previously asked various things, to none of which had the man—and a King, too, was a man—replied.

His stink was horrible, reminding one of rottenness, even after all the salves and bathing. Torca had breathed it in, grown used to it. It was no worse, probably, than a tent of the wounded in war. These, too, were injuries which would kill. A wonder they had not already done so. In itself, you could say there was something in that.

The man’s one eye had not fixed on, nor followed Torca. It seemed to gaze inward, perhaps did so, to some unnatural sight.

Torca touched the man lightly, on his right arm. Torca was prepared for any reaction, even to having to defend himself.

But only the eye revolved now, and looked full at him. In the eye was a core of lucency. Before it went out.

“Tell me,” said Torca, “about the eagle.”

To his surprise, the man spoke at once.

“Eagle is God.”

“Why is that?”

The man sat back in his chair. Everything was changed. His face was grave and thoughtful. Torca made himself keep very still. The priests had administered herbal tinctures and these too might mislead.

“Up to God we go,” said the man, “on wings. On anvils of fire God beats at us. To smooth us. Then plunged in flesh and blood we are, to cool the fire.”

Torca held his breath. Not from the stink.

The man said, consideringly, “Fell before done.”

After a long wait, Torca asked, “You fell, before the God was done with you?”

But the
being had lain back in its chair. It stared upward at the ceiling of the chamber.

Torca felt time washing over him in waves, minutes, hours, days, years. He coaxed now, almost a mother’s tone. He took hold. Once he lifted the inert element of the being into his arms, held it eye to eye.

But
its
eye was asleep now, perhaps. And it would not speak again.

After many hours—days, years—still would not speak. It had said all it had to say.

These words Torca read again and again from the slate, afraid the scribe had scribbled them wrongly, or that he, Torca, was forgetting.

The higher priest, standing up, spoke to Torca.

“Cease now. It’s enough. We know. We have the other evidence.”

Torca shook himself. Yes. They knew. There was other evidence. But almost, this did not matter. Lord or offal—truth had been given voice. It was truth that counted.

Yet later, waking from brief slumber Torca put all that away. God had sent them to live on earth. And there was enough in hand.

The tall room was as Torca recalled, not from his own experience but the descriptions of others. The Widow-Consort had not given over her apartments to a now High Queen. Udrombis kept her state here, as she had since her thirtieth year, when Akreon first had these rooms furnished and painted for her. Perhaps, although they said he had stayed faithful to her for longer, he had lost some of his heat. In the years before, she had slept always in his bed, having only a tiring room apart.

Torca composed himself. He had put on ordinary dress, not clad himself as a priest. She had summoned him. He wanted to display he did not, with her, have to represent the temple, that he had chosen to. Nor for that matter, was he solely a priest.

She in turn, when she entered—had she delayed for a purpose? Most of what she did had one—was dressed very simply. She wore only one jewel, the circlet of peal that supported the mass of black and white hair. She seemed to acknowledge he would not be impressed by glamours, and that this she knew.

They sat.

She offered him wine. A young woman poured it then left the jug and went away.

Udrombis, even
at sixty, reminded him of the basalt lions crouching at her desk. The reality of the world was very real.

“You were thoughtful,” she said, “to attend me so swiftly.”

“Naturally, madam, I’ve come as soon as I was able. I would have sent word to you, in any case. As I have to the Sun, Klyton.”

“The Great Sun,” she said.

Torca put down his cup.

“Yes, madam, the Great Sun, Klyton. But there is this problem.”

“The creature taken to the temple. What are the priests doing there, to be so long over it?”

Torca said, “They’re working to be sure. It would be unforgivable to fail this trial the gods have set us all.”

Her face was very still. In her eyes he saw the tips of swords, and black drops of fatal medicine.

“Madam, I knew Prince Amdysos—as well, that is, as I have known Prince Klyton, before his coronation.”

“Then you can have no doubt,” she said.

“I have none.” He waited. He met her eyes, knowing that she would read him.

“What are you saying?” she asked.

“I have no doubt, madam, or rather, as slight a doubt as is inevitable, given the circumstances. His appearance and condition, the fact,” he paused, searching selected the words that would do, “the fact that his wits are tainted, perhaps only temporarily. We must hope so.”

“Torca, I think you find something in this that makes a joke.”

“No, madam. He is Amdysos. I am as sure as I can be of this, or I wouldn’t burden you. For it must be a burden of great grief and immeasurable distress. To see him so brought down.”

“I haven’t seen him,” she said. “I have never seen this man.” Her face remained still.

“Perhaps you would know him too, better than any other. He is your son.”

Then she rose. She moved away two or three steps. Her robe hissed as it passed over the tiles, like a warning to be wary, but wariness had no part in this, could have none. He, too, got to his feet.

“My son was blessed, mighty, clean, and wise. He would have made a fitting King. But he died.”

“The gods have sent him back to you.”

She turned slowly.
His belly grew cold from her gaze, but he held her gaze.

He said, “Pardon my words, great lady. I can’t lie to you. You wouldn’t thank me for it later.”

Then for a second, she put her hand up over her mouth, and through her hand he heard her say the name of her last, lost son … “
Amdysos.
”

“I have to tell you,” Torca said, “the temple will give voice as I have done. Yes, many of the priests are sceptical. Some have even railed against the others for bringing a deformed man into the holy precincts. But most have seen—”

“How are you certain?” she said. She had no expression now. “How can you be? I was told of his state.”

Again he must pause. The god revealed, but also silenced. “A sword, bent and blackened in a fire, may still bear its insignia, which, if one knew it quite well, can be deciphered. A turn of the head, a way of standing, yes even as now he must stand. There’s an authority about him that comes from old training, and out of history itself. How else did the captain from Airis know him? And then, there are—the things he says. He talks … of an eagle, and of a high place. He speaks of the Sun.”

“A madman!” she cried.

She had lost all her boys. In her youth, also, three male children died in the birthbed, one before she had borne Glardor. Did she see ghosts, the greater, and the smaller, all pulled in with this one? However she appeared, whatever her strength, she was a woman, too. But never had he known or heard of her without control. It was only for a second, as before when she spoke the name. It was enough. She, too—she, too, had a
belief
in this.

“He has let go the full grasp of language, madam. But his remarks are pertinent, to the miraculous facts.”

“Someone has somehow taught him then,” she said, “how to speak, how to go on.”

“The God,” said Torca.

Udrombis flashed her face aside. She resumed her chair and waved him back into his. He was not quite sorry to sit down. His leg of wood was hurting him as if it gnawed at him to run away.

Torca hauled himself the other way, up on to the firm and rocky ground.

“Madam,
allow me to tell you why I know it is the God. Allow me to excuse to you my avowal that this is the Prince Amdysos, your son, who should have become High King.”

“If you can,” she said. She put her arm on the arm of the chair, and rested her chin on this hand. Was it possible she trembled? Her eyes bored into him.

“You recollect the spear-bride Amdysos took, Elakti, the Ipyran.”

“Yes. She vanished in the hills.”

“Elakti bore Amdysos a child, a girl, who I think has been cared for here in the palace. This child was quite normal.”

Udrombis raised her brows. “Yes. An ugly girl, but without other blemish.”

“Elakti was again with child at the time of the Sun Race, in the year Amdysos was lost.”

“She was. But I have said, no one could find her since she ran away. The child may have been born dead, up there.”

“The child survived. She brought it with her when she returned to Oceaxis.

“I heard she had returned. I heard nothing of a child.”

“It is barely that. Barely a child. The women hid it. Only in the Sun Temple did it come to view.”

Udrombis said, “What significance does that have? You imply this child is deformed? Amdysos needed a woman of beauty to make for him fair children.”

“Elakti’s second child, Amdysos’s child—Madam, the child is deformed in the same way that the sire is crippled. Its arms and legs are of unequal length, its body twisted, and though it has both eyes, one is malformed, the same one as is missing in the man. The child is a mirror to the ordeal your son has undergone; the gods have forced the child to stand as proof of it.” Udrombis drew in breath. He heard this. Torca said, “But there is another thing, a difference.” He waited, but she did not speak. He said, “Tufts like feathers grow in places on its body. And it has a head like that of a bird. The head of an eagle. This is no exaggeration, lady. I saw it close. It had the smell of an eagle too, as he has, now. What has happened is a hideous and awful event. But there’s no avoiding it, no chance to escape from it.” He got up again and bowed low. She did not move. “I’ll go from your sight, madam. You will be glad to see me gone.”