Restoration (9 page)

By the time I finished reading the replies, Aleksander was standing up, half dressed in leather breeches, white shirt, and thick leather vest. His fists were clenched, his face a storm of humiliated rage. But when he spoke, his voice was controlled, marred only by bitter irony. “We must assume that my Denischkar troops will not arrive from Suzain in time. By my tally we have two hundred sixty warriors, give or take a pittance. If we strip the palace garrison and use the damned Thrid hirelings, we might muster five hundred seventy men. See them ready, Malver.”

The dark wiry man was about to explode. “But, my lord, that's nowhere near—”

“Do not question me, Commander! I said see them ready. We ride for the Hamrasch stronghold in one hour. The Emperor will have his justice, whether his subjects think it fit or no.” Slaves were waiting with Aleksander's boots, sword belt, and a white cloak, embroidered in gold. A Derzhi prince did not wear the haffai—the all-encompassing desert robe—lest his enemies mistake him for a common man and hold back the ferocity that was his due.

Malver bowed and withdrew. Behind his back, where no one but I could have seen it, his right hand made the village-bred man's sign against ill luck.

The two bearded warriors and the rest of the attendants hovered about Aleksander. “All of you, get out of here and see to your own preparation. I'll be down when I have my boots on. The assassins will not win this day.”

I dawdled long enough, cleaning up the broken wax and stack of papers, that only Hessio was left. Aleksander stood stiff and silent while the bodyslave buckled on his weapons and fastened the cloak to brass rings on the shoulders of his leather vest. As the slender man finished his work, he knelt, bending his head toward the blue-veined tiles. Aleksander touched the slave's shoulder, stopping his obeisance before he could get all the way down. “You've done me good service, Hessio. Since I was ten years old, I think.”

“It is and will ever be my honor to serve you, Your Highness.” The soft, high-pitched voice expressed surprise. Bodyslaves were rarely spoken to. They lived their unending degradation in silence, always gentle and courteous, required to know what needed to be done and to do it with minimal intrusion ... always afraid, for such intimate service lent itself to danger. Naked royalty was prone to irritation.

“You remember Seyonne, do you not?” An unsettling note charged the Prince's casual words.

“Yes, my lord.” The slave's eyes shot toward me, a hard glance that nearly knocked me off the stool. Hatred. The bitter, unrelenting hatred of one who wore slave rings for one who no longer did so. Aleksander saw it, too, and he nodded ever so slightly. I didn't understand.

“Do you know that you are the only man in the palace who also served me in Capharna three years ago?” said the Prince. “The only man in Zhagad, save my cousin Kiril and Captain Sovari, who knew the name of the Ezzarian slave who saved my life or could describe him to another. The only man in all the world who could have heard me tell my wife where my friend Seyonne could be found if she needed him ... and I never breathed that secret to another soul, and she the same.” The hand on Hessio's shoulder gripped tight. The colorless slave winced and tried to shrink away, but the hand would not allow it. “This is the day for justice, Hessio. And it shall begin here.” With a movement unimaginably quick, the Prince's knife ripped Hessio's throat. Skillfully Aleksander pushed the dead slave away, so that the blood pooling darkly on the sand-colored tiles did not stain his white cloak.

The Prince wiped his knife on Hessio's garments, and then sheathed it and walked to the window without looking at me. “You disapprove.”

I resumed breathing and chose my words carefully. “The man who died for me had only one leg. The Hamrasch assassins cut off his hands to make him tell where I was. There is justice and there is mercy, and when I think of Gordain, I can see only one of them.” Of course, none of that had anything to do with the fate of a slave whose manhood had been stolen along with his freedom. The sweet flavor of justice so often sours into vengeance. I wished he had not done it, and he knew it without my saying so.

“It's likely the only battle we'll win this day. Pitiful, eh?”

“The gods will have their say in that, my lord.”

“Did you know that the last time it rained in Zhagad was the day of my birth?” Aleksander swung around, gazing bleakly into my eyes, seeking answers I could not give him. “My father said that to my uncle once, on a day when I was showing off my sword work for my father and accidentally killed my sparring partner. They'd had me stripped naked and beaten in front of them for my poor control. I heard Dmitri answer him, ‘I think the gods were weeping for the Empire on that day. Tell me, brother, do you think they were tears of grief or tears of joy?' ”

“And what did your father answer?”

Aleksander turned his back to the window, leaving his face in shadow. “I was fifteen and angry. I didn't listen to his answer.”

The battle was lost before it was begun. By the time Aleksander approached the Hamrasch stronghold, a massive fortress set atop a rocky bluff an hour's ride from Zhagad, he had no more than three hundred fifty warriors, half of them the despised Thrid mercenaries. Some of the promised heged levies never appeared. Some melted away in the noonday heat—groups of five or ten, riding west or east instead of south toward the confrontation. Some laggards complained of tired horses or lack of water or insufficient time to prepare, and returned to Zhagad as soon as the main body of the troop moved on. Fortunately it was still spring, else the desert would have taken its own toll upon the rest.

Aleksander had not come to lay siege to the fortress. He stopped well before the gates and sent his challenge to the heged lords, naming them guilty for the crime of regicide, offering no terms but death in combat or execution. To accept his challenge meant that only the warriors of the heged would fight and die—a mercy he was willing to offer because of the untimely death of their beloved daughter Nyamot. To refuse the Prince's challenge was to admit Hamrasch guilt in the Emperor's murder, leaving every member of the heged liable to his judgment—forfeiture of all property, execution or enslavement of every man, woman, and child. It was a prideful challenge for one whose army was outnumbered five to one.

The messenger returned with a bundle of nyamot, tied with a red ribbon. The Prince wheeled his mount and returned to confer with his commanders and to wait patiently in the blazing sun for the sortie from the fortress.

 

I did not ride with Aleksander. We had walked together from his apartments down to the bustling yards where the palace garrison was preparing to ride out, and he had pointed to a burly Manganar who was commanding a legion of scurrying armorers. “Fredovar can give you a sword. I'll tell him to find one that pleases you. And you can have your pick of horses. Whatever nag you're riding, I doubt it's good enough for this.”

“My lord.” I stopped on the last step, forcing the Prince to turn back to hear me. “I've been trying to tell you. I cannot go with you today. Anything else ...” I suspected what was going to happen with the levied troops, and he did, and I knew he would see my refusal as but the first betrayal of the day.

Aleksander's face burned scarlet. He had humbled himself to ask for my help, but hadn't bothered to listen to my reply. “Ah yes. I forgot. Ezzarian Wardens fight no one but demons ... and you don't even do that anymore. I misunderstood your offer.” The Prince strode toward a groom who was holding his prized horse, Musa.

I could not let Aleksander go into battle believing I had deserted him. “My lord, please listen. I
will
be there.” Just not at his side.

The Prince did not slow down or even turn his head. “You can write the story of it then.”

Aleksander gave me no time to tell him of my unhealed injury, I told myself. And yet how long would it have taken to say I was no longer the man he had seen defeat the Lord of Demons? That I could not fight beside him because I was afraid my weakness would endanger him? No words are more difficult for a warrior, and before I could force them out, the sea of Derzhi warriors had parted to let him pass, and then closed up again behind him. “I'll be there, my lord,” I called after him, but I couldn't tell if he heard me.

I stood watching the mustering troops without seeing them, my desire to run after the Prince and tell him that of course I would stand with him, battling with my need to come up with a sensible alternative in a hurry. But as my eyes drifted over the teeming crowd, a patch of bright green drew me out of my thoughts—the woman in green again, an island of stillness in the center of fifty warriors who were checking saddle girths, attaching waterskins to their saddles, settling weapons in sheaths, donning padded leather vests under their haffai. As if drawn by enchantment, I jumped down the steps and hurried toward the woman, determined to find out who she was and why she was watching me.

Before I could get near her, five warriors rode through the courtyard gates in a spurt of red dust, pulling up at the side of the yard not twenty paces from me, ready for the Prince to assign them a position. Their leader was short in the saddle, but broad shouldered and hard muscled. His braid was blond, and his square face was dusted with freckles, making him appear much younger than his twenty-seven years, even with his current severe countenance—Lord Kiril Rahilezar Danileschi zha Ramiell, Aleksander's charming and honorable cousin.

Aleksander walked past the young lord without a glance, stopping to speak to Malver for a moment. Then the Prince strode briskly among the assembled garrison, inspecting their arms as they stood beside their horses. As he nodded his approval at each warrior, the man would mount up. Malver rode over to Kiril and bowed his head respectfully.

“I've brought a levy of my personal guard,” said Kiril coldly, “though the Prince's summons seems to have gone astray. I'll not have it said that I failed in loyalty to my fallen Emperor.”

“Your warriors are not needed, Lord Kiril,” said Malver.

“Not needed?” blurted Kiril. “Has Prince Aleksander such a surfeit that he can pick and choose? I
will
fight for my uncle's honor.” Kiril urged his horse forward, as if to force himself into the Derzhi column, but Malver positioned his own mount across the young noble's path. “You will not, my lord. The Prince says he will have women carry swords at his side before he will permit you to do so.”

Kiril flushed the color of a desert sunrise. Setting his jaw, he jerked on the reins and spoke a single harsh word to his men. The party started toward the gates. I slipped around the edge of the yard and caught Kiril's ankle before he could follow his warriors out of the gates. He snapped his head around, his hand flying to his knife.

“Keep moving, my lord,” I said. “And look away.”

“By Athos' head! Seyonne!” Even in his surprise Kiril kept his voice low, and he quickly averted his eyes, fixing them on his warrior's backs and holding his horse to a walk. I moved alongside him, keeping out of sight between his horse and the wall.

“He's going to lose today, my lord. You know it.”

“Damned prideful donkey.” The young man's voice was near breaking. “He won't let me go with him. If he's going to die anyway...”

“Prince Aleksander will not die,” I said. “I'll see to it. But his men ... whoever is left ... they'll need someone to handle their surrender. I must be able to tell him that they are not abandoned. Do you understand me?”

Kiril glanced down at me, his blue eyes wide. “I think so.”

“I'll send news when I can.”

Kiril nodded thoughtfully, and I saw the beginnings of strategies play across his face. “Who's with him?”

Quickly I recited the results of Aleksander's summons. “I'm uncertain of one,” I said, glancing at the woman in green who remained an island of stillness in the shifting crowd. “Who is the woman standing next to the Fontezhi warriors? The handsome one in the green veil. She seems to be everywhere today.”

“I see no women but the water carriers. None in green and none near the Fontezhi. Wouldn't expect it; they don't allow women near their horses.”

I glanced up at Kiril, who was scanning the crowd with a puzzled frown, and then whipped my eyes back to the Fontezhi. The woman was gone, not a glimpse of green anywhere in the yard. Prickling unease danced across my skin.

“Tell Zander I'll find out who's loyal after today. And I'll be waiting for his word. Go with Athos, Seyonne.” After giving me his hand, Kiril kicked his horse and tore out of the courtyard.

Aleksander had finished his inspection. With a motion to an unbraided youth to raise the Emperor's banner, he threw himself onto his warhorse. Then, with a bellowing war cry, the Prince of the Derzhi led his pitiful army into the desert.

I put the mysterious woman out of my mind. Events were moving quickly. I considered shifting to bird's form and flying over the battlefield to get a clear view of what came about. But the day's outcome would not depend on positions or flanking maneuvers or reinforcements. A bird could not do what I needed to do. I needed a larger form, and because my shifting was too slow and too debilitating, I couldn't afford to shift twice. As soon as the troops had ridden out, I prevailed upon the arms-master to provide me the horse and weapons Aleksander had offered, and I raced out of the city after the warriors.

 

As the Derzhi stood poised before the Hamrasch fortress awaiting an answer to the Prince's challenge, the heat shimmer rising from the iron-hard plain, I sat atop a nearby outcropping, fighting to keep my head and stomach intact while I shaped wings. Not a falcon's wings this time, but my own.