I jumped back inside as Jardis entered, wearing black, gold, and a framing edge of white. The black over-robe had been embroidered with a dragon rampant.
Behind him glided two more of his imperial guards.
I remembered my bow and performed it hastily, keeping my head low because the tension in the room simmered like that molten rock deep under Mount Dragon, and with an equal sense of threat.
“Your Imperial Serenity,” Jardis said, and it seemed to me he enunciated each word with deliberate emphasis. “You were poisoned by the Most Noble Darus. It therefore your prerogative to execute justice as you will.”
“Why did you do it?” I burst out.
Darus’s beautifully chiseled chin lifted, but his gaze went straight to Jardis, who lifted two fingers slightly.
The servants bowed themselves out and shut the door.
“Darus?” I knew that tone of voice, deceptively gentle, but with pain hovering very, very near. My nerves flashed, though for once I was not the target. Yet. “It is already a capital offense, for in striking at Princess Elenderi, you are striking at me.”
“No. Never that.” Darus’s hands tightened into fists on his thighs, then flexed and flattened in an effort of will that I could feel. “It is unconscionable, after generations of work and will to master the beast natures, just to blur our blood with that.” He sent me a look of acute revulsion. “Ilhas prates all over of her beauty, Pelan mimics her dancing, Raifas—Raifas!—professes himself ready to marry her if you don’t want her yourself, and look at her. No civilization—she’d be a bird now if she could.”
Jardis smiled. “Is that true, Elenderi?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “About the bird,” I added quickly. “I don’t know anything about the rest of it. And I don’t want to be married.”
Jardis shook with silent laughter. “ Of course civilization is not to be expected of one lost to us all these years. A fact of which I took great care to inform my family, and the Chosen. What you do not comprehend, Darus, because you never studied magic, is that the Hrethan, though they do not appear to have attained the high degree of civilization that we enjoy, are very powerful. In some ways, I suspect, far more powerful than our particular form of humanity, though much of their culture remains hidden. But I have studied their influence on world events, which you, apparently, have not. Civilization can be taught. Inherited power cannot be taught, and must be governed.”
He turned to me. “The veris seed is well known for certain properties, one of which is to render those who take it suggestible for a time. It is used by healers to help those who wish to overcome some habit that they haven’t the will or the ability to master, such as fear of thunderstorms, or biting nails. Many times the suggestion, under influence of veris, will help the weak to master ill-conditioned habits.”
His voice hardened subtly, and I saw my own flinch echoed in the tightening along Darus’s shoulders. “The dose you were given was some fifty times the customary. I gather Darus thought that compounding the dose would render you amenable to his orders. What were those to be, Darus? An assassination attempt against me?”
“No, Your Imperial Serenity.”
“Then you hoped merely that she would humiliate herself for the entertainment of you and your chief confidante? Amney is on her way to Djur Pennon, where she shall serve under its governor, my elder-cousin the Most Noble Theris, as scribe for five years. With full fais control in Theris’s capable, if severe, hands. In that time I trust Amney will reflect upon the wisdom of choosing to follow stupidity and short-sightedness.”
Darus flushed.
“Humiliation, Elenderi, is a vulgar tactic. If you choose to submit Darus to one of the many vulgarities used by foreigners, I approve the elegant symmetry of such justice.”
He held out his hand to me.
When I hesitated, he gave me that amused smile that never reached his eyes. “Do you want him beaten with a club? Or flogged? What is it they do to traitors on the continent?” Darus’s face blanched with shock as Jardis went on. “Or would you prefer to administer justice yourself? Go ahead. This would be a perfect opportunity to practice your mind thrust.” And when Darus flinched, Jardis’s smile broadened, showing the edges of his teeth. “Did you not know? Elenderi could kill you with a thought if she so desired. But Elenderi, I want him to live. And learn. As you have done. So perhaps correction is the appropriate response. Go ahead. Waiting doesn’t make it easier,” he added.
My fingers drifted up to my collarbones, but didn’t touch the hated fais. I stared at Darus, who stared back. In spite of his court mask I could see in the flinch of his eyes and in the subtle downturn of his mouth that he felt as sick and miserable as ever I had.
I pictured him green with pain, whooping for breath the way I’d done so many times. I could do it. I was expected to do it. And I would so enjoy it.
It was that fierce expectation of pleasure that stayed my hand. Though my mother was not at all present in my mind, I could imagine her sorrow at the prospect. For all Jardis’s claim to a superior civilization, I knew even in the brief acquaintance we had had so far that my mother would never willingly hurt another.
But she had never been tortured. Or thrown to her enemies as worthless. I was angry at Charas al Kherval’s empress, court, mages, and laws, but. . . .
But. I couldn’t articulate the objection, though the anger simmering and smoldering underneath my thoughts shot up in gouting flames. Oh, I wanted to blast Darus, but after I did, what then?
I’d do it again.
And it would be easier each time I did it. Lying and stealing had certainly become easier, as had dancing, and leaping, and flying. . . .
“No,” I said.
Jardis lifted his brows. “Why not?”
I glanced at Darus, and sure enough there was the contempt I expected to see. He thought I was afraid.
I wanted so very badly to say Because it’s not civilized. “I just can’t.”
“You are still learning our customs and laws. Part of your learning is to witness the consequences of all actions when you are in a position of power. Observe now.”
He lifted his hand toward the long wall opposite the rack of staves, then turned to Darus. But instead of blasting him with fais torture, he spoke. “As your rude and offensive action against Princess Elenderi was in truth a challenge to me, I shall answer the challenge in traditional mode. Choose your wand and make ready.”
Darus rose slowly to his feet, his jaw hardening. Both men moved right hands to the silken ties tucked behind the outer flap of their over-robes. Jardis dropped his robe behind him without a glance. Darus laid his with a quick gesture over one of the far racks. Then off came the plain silk robe beneath, Jardis’s red edged with gold, Darus’s pale green edged with dark green. I had no idea what these colors symbolized, except that Jardis’s looked militant.
One more robe on Jardis’s part, and they stood in white silk, loose-sleeved shirts and flowing dark trousers tucked into boots.
They moved to the rack and chose staves, which looked pretty much like wooden swords only with thin blades. Magic snapped over them in faint green scintillation.
Then they moved to the center of the room, each bowed, and they attacked.
It was kind of like a sword fight and kind of not. As they wielded the stick with delicate precision, another puzzle-piece snapped into place: the Chosen go out of their way not to distort their faces and movements. They eat in private. They flirt in private. The empress in committing suicide (or in being murdered) dove into the sea from a thousand paces above. And this fight was not conducted in flesh-tearing, bruise-raising thwacks and thuds, but in fast, stylized movements resulting in light taps that obviously hurt at least as much as the worst fais-torture. It was pretty to look at, but obviously painful to be in.
I know as little about sword fighting as I do about writing poetry, but I am certain I saw the moment Darus decided he had nothing more to lose, for he whirled that stick in and made every effort to
strike Jardis where it would hurt most.
I wondered what would happen if he actually won, but there was no winning in this situation. Jardis could call his guards in through his fais and they would hammer Darus flat. In any case Jardis blocked with well-honed skill, even I could see that. When Darus’s strikes slowed, Jardis began returning strikes, half of which Darus blocked. But each time Jardis connected, Darus hid his reaction a fraction less well, until he’d received enough that he could not keep himself from stiffening, his eyes flashing wide, then dazed.
Wrist. Knee. Shoulder. Each tap coruscated greenish, and I have to confess that in the beginning every time Darus got hit my heart gave an angry leap of joy. I didn’t care of Jardis got it or not, I only wanted Darus to get what he deserved.
He did. Again, and again, until my angry joy vanished and I began closing my eyes each time the inexorable sword-stick touched some part of Darus, who swayed on his feet.
Finally—it seemed forever—came three sharp raps: one on either side of his jaw, then in the middle of his chest.
Darus’s stick dropped, his body stiffened, and he fell on his face, sobbing for breath. “Mercy,” he cried. “Mercy.”
Jardis smiled my way. “Elenderi?”
“No more,” I whispered, sickened.
“Kneel, Darus,” Jardis said, and when Darus had struggled to his knees, Jardis actually used the aorist imperative for the first time in my hearing. “You shall return to your Chosen duty by evening. Except that you shall not attend the Chamber of Wisdom. You shall strive to earn that privilege again.”
Darus, breathing harshly, bowed forward until his forehead touched the floor.
“Go.”
Darus rose with painful slowness as the door opened and Jardis’s four guards streamed in. Jardis held out the sword stick, which one took, as two others picked up the fallen robes. Those were swiftly slid up his arms and smoothed into place in quick motions, the ties fashioned, and except for a couple of blue-black hairs that had come loose and curved over his brow, you would never know he’d been whacking the Rue out of Darus moments before.
Darus fumbled at his robes, shaking badly, until Jardis lifted a forefinger and a servant hastened to his aid.
“Come, Your Imperial Serenity,” Jardis said to me.
The extreme formality after that deadly tension required the same from me. I jerked a bow to Darus, oblivious though he appeared to be, and the imperial bow to Jardis. Now that I was used to it, I actually preferred this bow because I could hide my face for a heartbeat or two as I steadied my breathing. I straightened up as he started walking, and I bustled to keep pace.
Outside in the corridor, he smiled—a real smile that reached his eyes as he said, “I’d forgotten the pleasure of intent. I am so accustomed to the passionless obligation of daily exercise.”
I scurried along with a sick sensation in my middle, longing for escape. But there was no escape, there would never be any escape.
“The Chosen have disappointed me. I relied on them to perceive . . . ah, if not the breadth of my vision for the benefit of the empire, at least I expected them to possess the wit to understand that I have vision. I spent too much time in private study. It is necessary, and in private pleasure, which is indulgence. It is time to reign as well as to rule. I will not be my father,” he added in that hard voice that always presaged pain for me. “Expecting compliance without rewarding it, and only exerting himself when he was displeased.”
He walked straight toward the golden doors of the Garden Chamber without a pause, and sure enough they opened from the inside. I took a moment to appreciate the smooth, silent compliance of the staff as Jardis walked and talked without rewarding them. But their entire lives were exertions in remaining unperceived.
He indicated we sit. “Perhaps we ought to try veris as an experiment.” And at the shock I could not hide, “Oh, I would never poison you. But I marked the effect the herb had on you, which was not quite the same effect as is usual. That might be your Hrethan side: perhaps a mild dose will enable you to unlock that mental block that keeps you from reaching the mental plane again. I know you have the capability. That is where we met.”
He seemed to think that funny. I could not hide my horror, and so when his amusement began to alter to question, I said, “The very thought of it makes me ill. I was very sick.”
“Ah, yes. We shall wait until the memory is less raw. There are other exercises, specifically with the scry stone, that may prove to be as useful. I can see you are still recovering from the effects, and I have all the affairs to attend to that I postponed during my investigation, which I conducted myself. Tonight Vian desires to recover her honor with another poetry reading. You must be there to lend her grace. Recover your strength so that you may enjoy it.”
With nothing truthful to say to any of that, I felt that a bow would be a good answer.
But he must have seen something in my face, for he said, “It is finished. I am not my father; I will not put all your staff and the entire kitchen to death as a warning. In any case, it proved to be a conspiracy of two. Darus used his authority to send the kitchen runner on a useless errand to fetch him new slippers so that he could enter the veris into the clean dishes being carried to your suite. Vian’s mortification was entirely due to her having accepted without question Amney’s assurance that I would not attend. So she had not ordered a place set for me.” He lifted his hand in dismissal.
I got out of there, my single thought to escape to the music room. Which I did. . . .
When I sat down, the music came readily to my fingers.
But my mother was not there.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Nor was she the next day. Or the one after that.
So far, I’d had various experiences that I had thought the worst yet, but here was the darkest of the dark, and it was all inside me.
On the surface, things could not have been better. The Chosen were assiduously polite to me. Ilhas was more than polite. I think he was hoping to be invited to dinner, which I’d finally figured out was to the Chosen a step toward flirtation.
He wasn’t the only one. I was scrupulously polite to Raifas at concerts and play readings when he singled me out for a light compliment or question, but I never made any gesture toward him. And I turned down his invitation to return to Ardam Pennon again—his wishes were straight-forward enough, but I knew if Jardis let me have that relative freedom, it was only because he would scry me when we flew to Mount Dragon. I dared not go back.
In any case I was more interested in visiting Raifas’s great gryph, which never failed to make me feel terrible. I needed that, for reasons I’ll get to.
Pelan—without the scornful influence of her sister now that Amney was gone—became more friendly. She was friendly with everybody. It was her natural state, like Hlanan’s, and don’t think that reminder didn’t hurt.
Which brings me to below-the-surface.
First, the pain of abandonment. Three more times I tried the harp, but it hurt so much to hear silence beyond the music that I stopped going altogether. I will skip over recording the agonizing through nights about why my mother had turned away from me. Of course I deserved it, because Princess Elenderi was a lie being honed into a weapon and Lhind was merely a thief. Who could blame her for not wanting either of them?
Second, Darus continued to attend Chosen entertainments as always. He was meticulously courteous, but I could feel his hatred, far, far more intensely than his previous dismissive disdain.
And third, Emperor Jardis Dhes-Andis kept his promise to be more involved. He was there at every evening court gathering, and made time for me every morning for magic lessons and to test me on what I had read of the history of Sveran Djur. And I found myself doing my utmost in order to avoid the pain of correction.
I felt genuine relief when each session was over, because at no time did I trust him not to attack me. And yet the relief sometimes mixed with gratitude after his words of genuine praise. Sometimes
the gratitude was closer to pleasure when he talked about art and the highest striving of the human mind. Once I even found myself lying in my hammock midway between wakefulness and sleep, thinking ahead of his reaction once I mastered the mental control for snapping heat from air.
That jolted me awake. I punished myself by getting up to memorize another load of courtly records about the greatness of Sveran Djur until I reflected that studying the doings of emperors was something Princess Elenderi would do.
I loathed myself for that. I knew very well that pleasing Jardis meant Princess Elenderi gained another measure of control over my identity, a measure Lhind lost.
And so I was drawn to the aviary to visit the gryphs. These were not happy communications, as I said. Images and emotions streamed from the birds, expressing pain, longing, grief. The best I could get from them was the glassed-in sense of indifference caused by long-established control. Yet I could not stay away. Their distress was real, was true. It was also emblematic of my own imprisonment, and I wanted—no, I needed to find a way for them to be free.
Because, the chill whisper in my mind insisted, I would never be free.
When the weather permitted, I stole down the mountain into the town. Though it was nearly always cloudy the snow storms had begun to mix with rain. I didn’t mind rain as long as I remembered to wear linen when I wandered about listening to the music of the silk spinners.
Sometimes I practiced my magic by clearing slushy snow, and once I was followed by a shy group of children. I kicked and stomped water into the air, and flashed the heat out of it so that it fell in tinkling ice shards. They loved that.
Before the end of midday trine I always bounded back up the mountain by pushing myself to my limits, because then I all I had to think about was reaching the next platform, and then the next step.
Finally, there were the magic lessons.
I’d learned that spells and wards were like recipes—you gather the ingredients, mix for a given time, bake for a given time, then you get a result. An enchantment was a combination of spells or wards, like first baking bread, then cooking meat, then grinding and combining a sauce, and finally assembling them all as the ingredients for a spectacular dish which in turn had to be mixed and baked for a given time.