The Gathering Storm (18 page)

Zacharias yelped out loud, too terrified to move. The crowd surged around him as people fought to get out of the way of the frenzied horse, now bucking and kicking like a demon.

“Fool of a groom!” Wolfhere, emerging from the mob, grabbed hold of Zacharias’ wrist. “He should have waited until evening and peace—” The next word lodged in his throat. Only a croak came out. “God help us!”

Screaming, the stallion reared. It had cleared the space around it, although a dozen people lay on the ground, some stirring and crawling away, others lying motionless where they had fallen. Blood smeared the stones. The groom was shouting to his fellows on the ship, and they had brought rope, but they didn’t leap into the fray quickly enough.

Because one bold soul strode forward to confront the gray stallion. One person was eager to test herself against the wild creature that now terrorized the docks. One small, stubborn, and recklessly foolhardy child too spoiled to understand the
meaning of caution or the strength of an animal many times her size and vastly more powerful.

“Blessing!” Wolfhere was trapped behind a brace of brawny sailors loudly laying bets on whether the girl would go down under the horse’s hooves.

“Brother Lupus!” cried a voice triumphantly from behind Zacharias. “I have tracked you down at last!”

TO Sanglant’s surprise, the Arethousan governor did not greet her visitors at the marble portico to the governor’s palace house but made them wait in the sun without offering them even the shade provided by the colonnade that ran along the forecourt. A smooth-cheeked eunuch, declared—in Arethousan—that he had to properly learn their names and titles before they could be announced to the Most Exalted Lady Eudokia.

“We’re being snubbed,” murmured Sapientia, her skin flushed either from heat or annoyance. “Treated as if we’re impoverished supplicants! Made to stand out in the sun like commoners! The governor should have met us personally and escorted us in!”

“Hush.” In truth Sanglant did not know what to make of the eunuch’s supercilious attitude, looking them over as though they were a prize lot of horses brought in for the master of the house to consider buying. Sapientia quieted, still fuming. “Heribert, I pray you, do what you can.”

While Heribert haggled with the eunuch in Arethousan, Sanglant glanced at the other companions he had chosen to accompany him: Lady Bertha, because she had insisted on coming, Captain Istvan because he had traveled to Arethousan towns before, three young lords who had the sense to remain silent, Hathui, and twenty of his most levelheaded soldiers. All sweated profusely. It was nearing midday, when the sun’s hammer seemed doubly strong. Bertha winked at him. She alone seemed to be enjoying herself.

No doubt the heat accounted for Heribert’s rising anger as he and the eunuch, looking cool in his linen robe and jeweled slippers, descended into a snappish disagreement. It ended when the eunuch retreated through the doors.

“What were you arguing about?” Sanglant asked when Heribert returned to him.

“The title by which you and Princess Sapientia will be introduced to the governor, my lord prince. The chamberlain insisted that the word meaning ‘lord’ and ‘lady’ will do, a title I refused to accept. We struck a bargain. The soldiers will remain outside, in decent shade, within shouting distance, and you and Her Highness shall be referred to as ‘princeps.’”

“Ah.”

“Do not trust the Arethousans, my lord prince. They are devious, greedy, and will flatter you while they steal your purse. Rank means everything to them. Bargain where you must, but do not give way in any matter that will make you seem low in their eyes.”

“Why do we accept these insults?” demanded Sapientia. “We should just leave!”

“We’ll need the assistance of the governor to fully equip ourselves for a trip into the grasslands,” said Sanglant, rather tired of having to point this out to Sapientia once again. “We’ll need guides as well.”

“Don’t we have Bulkezu for a guide?” she retorted. “Is that not why you spared his life?”

“I would not put my trust in him alone, but I promise you, Sister, he
will
serve us in the end. As for the governor, we must travel as diplomatically as we can. Better we leave no trouble in our wake that we must deal with on our way back.”

The heavy doors opened silently, hauled back by unseen figures, and the eunuch reappeared, his jade-green robes swirling about his legs as he indicated that they could follow him. Once within the palace, the heat became bearable. Marble floors graced the colonnades. The palace had the appearance of great wealth considering its location in a frontier trading town. They passed several courtyards with fountains running merrily and glimpsed chambers fitted with gold-and-ivory ornamentation and jewel-studded divans. Finally, they entered a shaded arbor overgrown by thick grapevines and
screened off by cunningly worked, lattices. A dozen soldiers stood at guard, holding spears. A trio of eunuchs whispered in one shadowy corner beside a table laden with wine and fruit. Two slaves worked fans on either side of a couch, whose occupant reclined at leisure, eyeing them as though they were toads got in where they did not belong. She was past the prime of life, with gray showing in her elaborate coiffure and two coarse black hairs growing out of her chin, but the precious rings on her stubby fingers and the gleam of gold weighing heavily at her neck indicated her rank. A simple gold circlet crowned her head.

Sanglant could get no good idea of her height or shape because of the light blanket draped over her form. For all he knew, she could have been a lamia, hiding a serpent’s body where her legs were supposed to be. Certainly she had no welcoming smile in her expression, nor did her tiny molelike eyes examine him with interest, only with contempt.

Two rickety stools had been placed before her, the kind of seat a stable boy might sit on while milking his cows.

“Are we meant to sit on
those
?” hissed Sapientia.

“Surely there is another couch,” said Sanglant to Heribert before he turned to the eunuch who had led him in. He knew how to edge his smile into a threat. He knew how to step forward in a manner that was not aggressive but made best use of his size. He knew how to loom. “I cannot sit on such a humble seat, but I can stand over my dear cousin, the Exalted Lady Eudokia, if need be.”

Of course, it did not do for him to seem so large and threatening and the governor to seem an invalid in his presence. A pair of servants lugged in a second couch and set it down at a discreet distance from the governor.

Sapientia sat first, at the head. Sanglant waited until Bertha and Captain Istvan took the stools, on either side, and the others ranged behind him in an orderly half circle appropriate to their respective stations before seating himself at the foot of the couch. It was so low that he had to stretch out his long legs, an obstacle for the eunuchs hurrying forward to offer wine.

Despite his thirst, he could barely drink the noxious combination
that tasted like pitch, resin, and plaster mixed into a nasty brew.

Abruptly the governor spoke. She had a remarkably mellow voice, quite at odds with the unpleasant lineaments of her face, and it was impossible to tell from her tone what manner of words she uttered. Heribert flushed, hot color in his cheeks.

“So speaks the Most Exalted Lady, Eudokia,” he said, stalwartly forcing a placid expression onto his face. “‘I am duty bound to give a courteous reception to those of noble blood who come to my province. I know you are the daughter of Princess Sophia, my cousin, who was exiled to the barbarian kingdoms because of her sins. Yet how can I entertain in good faith the children of a master who has most impiously invaded lands in Aosta long sworn to serve the Most Just and Holy Emperor of Arethousa, my kinsman? This hostile invader has captured the holy city of Darre which rightfully belongs to those of us who profess the true faith. He has forced my countryfolk into exile. He has burned cities who pledge their faith to the Most Just and Holy Emperor, he has massacred loyal citizens. He sends his heretic priests to roam in our westernmost province of Dalmiaka, plotting what manner of evil and mischief I cannot guess.’”

Sapientia had got so red that she looked fit to swoon, but Sanglant laughed curtly, laying a steadying hand on her arm. “If that is to be our welcome, Heribert, then I pray you let her exalted ladyship know our response.” A eunuch bowed before him, offering him more wine, but he waved him away. “My father did not invade Aosta. The embattled citizens begged him to save them from murderers and bandits. The rightful queen was assaulted in her own palace by usurpers, so it came to my father to restore to her what had been stolen from her by rebels and traitors. Your most exalted emperor would have done the same thing to lords who had sworn fealty to him and then revolted against him. Furthermore, it is well known that all of Aosta once knelt before the Emperor Taillefer, whose greatness is known even into the east. It is only in later years that it came under the hand of the east. The folk of the south speak the same language as those of the north. They belong as one kingdom, not sundered into many.”

The Most Exalted Lady Eudokia raised her thick eyebrows.
She had rouge-reddened cheeks, not enough to disguise her age, but her hands were as soft and white as a girl’s, as though she had done nothing more strenuous in her life than dip them in rose-scented baths.

“With what force of ships will your master defend the south?” she asked through Heribert. “Last year he rode south from Darre with his wife and all his army, his Wendish and his Varrens, with Aostans and Karronish, yet he could not take one small city. His soldiers are gluttons and drunks. They run from mice. What will they do when my cousin the Most Just and Holy Emperor sends troops against your master to take back what he has stolen?”

“Well, then, you shall see the worth of Wendish soldiers, will you not? I have fully eight hundred of good, tried soldiers at my back, encamped outside the city. We will willingly take the field against your own troops if you are impatient to test our strength.”

She gestured to her servants, who hurried forward with a platter of peeled grapes. She chose among them, popping the most succulent into her mouth. As she chewed, her cunning gaze flicked from Sanglant to Sapientia and back again. No wind stirred the arbor except that created by the slaves, who were dripping with sweat. The heat was bearable mostly because he was not moving. Oddly enough, his irritation with his host’s arrogance made him patient, although Sapientia shifted restlessly, gulping at the wine and then wincing at its wicked bite.

“Let me speak bluntly.” Lady Eudokia waited for Heribert to translate before she went on. “Why are you here? If you had wanted another princess for your master, you would have traveled to Arethousa, for it is only the Most Just and Holy Emperor who can dispose of his cousins and sisters and daughters. In any case, it is well known that your master married the Aostan widow. I have not heard that your people follow the idolatrous Jinna custom of marrying more than one spouse at a time, or is it possible that you are still as barbaric as the Ungrians?”

Captain Istvan snorted audibly, but said nothing.

“Perhaps it is you who wish a princess for your own bed,”
she went on, confronting Sanglant with her gaze but still refusing to use his name or dignify him with any kind of title.

“I am already married,” he said sweetly, “or else surely I would ask for your hand in marriage, Lady Eudokia.”

Was that amusement or anger that made her lips twitch? She beckoned for the servant and ate another dozen grapes before indicating that the man should offer the platter to her guests. Sapientia ate eagerly, but Sanglant waved him away.

“Then what brings you here? Have you come to embrace the true faith and cast aside the apostate heresy that the Dariyan clerics preach?”

“Outrageous!” exclaimed Sapientia, a grape poised before her lips.

“Do you not suppose,” Sanglant murmured, “that there stand among the servants one who can understand Wendish? Do not be incautious.”

“Oh!” She studied the attendant servants as if she could puzzle out their linguistic skills simply by the cut of their faces.

“How do I respond, my lord prince?” asked Heribert.

“Say this, Heribert.” Battling with wits he found himself nervous, palms damp. He smoothed his tunic over his thighs, the movement draining off a sliver of his tension, and continued. “Most Exalted Lady Eudokia. What do you know of sorcery?”

Sapientia turned to him, startled, and grasped his wrist, but Eudokia, amazingly, chuckled. She clapped her plump hands. A eunuch bowed before her while she whispered into his ear. He left the arbor by a side door.

They waited in silence while the servants brought around grapes, figs, and sliced apples, still moist. Sanglant touched nothing. A sense of foreboding crept along his spine like the brush of venomous fingers. He shifted, marking Lady Bertha and seeing that she, too, sat erect, watchful, ready, as did Captain Istvan. The Eagle, Hathui, dipped her chin to show that she was alert. Sapientia nibbled anxiously on grapes, frowning between bites.

The eunuchs returned. One waited in the corner while the other knelt before Lady Eudokia, pale golden robes rustling into folds around him. He held a lidded ceramic pot. Lady Eudokia
began to hum, slipping sideways into a wordless chant, as she removed the lid and slowly lowered her hand into the pot. Was that a bead of sweat on the eunuch’s face, trickling alongside his nose? Probably it was only the heat.

“God Above!” whispered Sapientia, hand tightening on Sanglant’s wrist as Lady Eudokia removed her hand from the pot.

A banded asp twisted upward to encircle her wrist. It reared its head back, hood flaring, and struck the hapless eunuch on the forearm.

Sapientia gasped. One of the lordlings shrieked.

The pot slipped from the servant’s hands and shattered on the floor, shards scattering everywhere. He cried out, choking, as he slapped a hand over the bite, but already the flesh swelled horribly, a red mortification creeping onto the offended hand. Lady Bertha and Captain Istvan leaped to their feet, but Sanglant raised a hand to caution them, and they paused with knives half drawn, unwilling to sit down again but respecting Sanglant’s command.