by Adam Corby
Prisoned within the saffron canopy pulled close to keep out biting flies she opened her eyes, which were the color of still pools below a cloudy sky. She drew a slender forearm across her eyes, as if to recapture the sweet unrest of her dreams, but sleep remained apart. Wearily she rose, and stood before the canopy in her satin couch-shift, languorous, elegant, bitterly desirable.
Listlessly she ascended the steep stone steps. Just beneath the arched and painted ceiling, she arranged herself before the narrow window. Despite the chill of the great stone chamber, the weather without was fine and warm: distantly she could see the harbor far away, and the narrow purple band that was the sea. She leaned forward somewhat into the window, wondering what ships would ride to harbor this waking. So she sighed. Messengers had come from Ampeánor about the failure of his mission. She felt the coldness of the stone between her legs, and thought of Ennius. She had not realized how much she had come to depend upon him.
Far below her Emsha entered, a rounded shape in a well of shadow.
‘We are bored, Emsha.’ She sighed down into the chamber. ‘Have any of our agents returned yet?’
‘No, majesty.’
‘Well, we must have something to occupy us. Are there any performances scheduled at the theaters? What of that troupe of musicians arrived from Vapio? We would even enjoy the spectacle of the arena now.’
‘Majesty … the theaters and the Circus are closed, by order of the High Regent. I sent the musicians away.’
She frowned. ‘What is this? Is there some news of which we are unaware?’
‘Majesty, could you have forgotten? It is the very pass! The High Regent has ordered all to be mourning – they would have been celebrating had it not been for the envy of Him who should not be named! This was the very pass of his birth. Had he lived, Elnavis would even now be preparing to ride in procession to the Hall of Kings, to take up the Ivory Scepter.’
She leaned against the cold stones. ‘It is true,’ she murmured at last. ‘How could I ever have forgotten?’
‘There has been much on your mind, majesty. The work of the Empire, the negotiations… It is not easy to remain a mere woman when you are the Divine Queen…’
‘Be still, Emsha.’
So she was bathed not in luxuriant heated waters, but cold rainwater from the palace cisterns. No paint was applied to her face, and no perfume sprinkled in her golden hair. In robes of simple black linen, barefoot, she went without state into the summer-scented sea of the Gardens. There she knelt in the dirt and gathered with royal hands armfuls of black chorjai flowers. Herself she worked them into wreaths of mourning, mindful of the funeral rites of her son. And the memory of the pleasures she had drunk in the arms of a foreign adventurer, when the ka of her son was not even departed from the city, made her feel only the more wretched and guiltful.
She passed by the stables on naked feet, not even turning at the hopeful whinny of Kis Halá. Past the black-draped statues, out of the double gates of the Citadel she went; under the soaring Pillar of Victory, not even glancing up. She did not see through her tear-streaked eyes the attendants following her, nor the bystanders kneeling along the great Way of Kings. In the great crowded square an avenue opened silently before her, through which long hush she passed unknowing.
Beyond the tomb of her parents stood that of her son, still glittering as if new-mortared. She held the wreaths in her arms, not feeling the scratches of the thorns on her flesh. The blossoms in her arms were damp with her tears. Gracefully she knelt and placed them before the sealed doors of stone.
She made sacrifice then, aided by the holy virgin priestesses, and saw for the first time the milling crowds below. They had come uncommanded by the crown. They, the common people, had remembered the prince, while she had forgotten the son.
* * *
Among them, unnoticed in the midst of those multitudes of faces peering up, was the barbarian servant of Ennius Kandi.
He had come down into the city, but found it hushed and darkened. Whenever his master did not require him or was gone to foreign lands upon a mission for the Divine Queen, Kuln-Holn would leave the Citadel and go down into the city. He did not go there to meet some secret lover, as his master had suspected; he did not go to hire the services of the painted languorous women, or game or drink wine in the dens, or to see horse racing or mock battles in the Circus. But he went into the city.
When he had come into Tarendahardil for the first time, the time his master bore the news of Carftain’s fall, Kuln-Holn had been fearful of it all. More than once he had found himself lost in the labyrinthine streets, more helpless than he had been in any forest in the far North. He had been awed by the monumental statues overlooking the Way of Kings, and their painted carved eyes unblinking, like those of deathless, wakeful sentinels. But in the end he had come to love her as only an outlander who neither belongs nor understands can love.
It had happened to others before this one, that they were smitten by the wonders of Tarendahardil, a land unto herself ever-fresh with surprises, a place beyond other places, the greatest legacy of Elna’s genius. Some she took with the revel of colors, opulence and odors of her bazaars, awash with vendors’ cries, bickering between buyers and stallkeepers, and slaves trotting between the tables and silken litters from whose curtains soft imperious hands would issue, beringed and dark-nailed. And some she took with the twisting alleys of the Thieves’ Quarter, where nothing was forbidden one well-stocked with coin. And others still she took with her great harbor where the standards of many cities waved, and captains dickered with merchants in many tongues over ladings heavy in the deep-bellied ships, and the smell of fish and salt and fortune was a reek intoxicating. But most of all she took with the naked splendors of her High Town, that high plateau of palaces and fanes; and so it was with this one. All the quarters enchanted and disturbed Kuln-Holn; but High Town left his mouth dry.
And now he stood with all the others in the huge square of the Way of Kings, and peered up at the mourning Queen where she made sacrifice, aided and surrounded by the holy virgins. And he felt the grief of the many thousands pressing round him, and their deep-wrought, implacable hatred for Ara-Karn. With them he followed the Queen as she went unseeing across the Way of Kings into the Brown Temple and abased herself before Goddess.
Kuln-Holn stood in the forefront then, driven there by destiny or the chance of the crowd’s tides. He gazed long upon the forlorn figure of the Queen as she knelt and laid her body forward, her naked, scratched arms outstretched. She did not hold her hands in fists before her brow in the manner of a suppliant, but rather lay them open and yielding upon the stones before the altar of the inextinguishable fire. Surely the heat must have been great upon her body there, swathed in the harsh black linens. Little globes of sweat grew upon her long arms, and darkened the long hair where it flowed like a cascade to conceal her face and shoulders.
At last she lifted her face and gazed up at the serene countenance of Goddess above the fire. Kuln-Holn looked from her face to the mysterious face of the carved idol – and save for the tears staining the one, and the shuddering heat veiling the other, those two aspects were the same. Others at the forefront of the crowds saw this too; and the awed whisper of it fled rustling back among the multitudes. The face of Kuln-Holn darkened then, as if with shame at what he felt; and he struggled backward until he vanished down the steps into the thick of the crowds like a drowned man dragged down by unseen things into the deep.
* * *
When Allissál finally rose, her hips and knees were stiff with pain. A young maiden stood beside her, regarding her with awestruck eyes. The steps and street without were clear. Long since the last of the crowd had departed.
‘O Divine One,’ the maid whispered timidly, ‘I bear greetings from the High Priestess. Will your majesty deign to visit her?’
‘Your face is unfamiliar to us. How are you called?’
‘Divine One, they call me Alsa here. In the old tongue, the tongue of the r
ituals, it means “the Pointed Brightness.” ’
‘You are young to be a priestess, Alsa. How many summers have you, child?’
‘Oh – fourteen, Divine One. My parents were too poor to support both me and my brother, so they dedicated me to Her service.’ It was the age Allissál had been when she had come to Tarendahardil the first time, with Elnavis growing within her. How long ago that seemed!
At the end of a long corridor of stone was the cell of the High Priestess, a small, low chamber half-buried in the ground. The wall toward Goddess was broken in a long row of openings above a small humble garden. The High Priestess sat in a small chair. She had been High Priestess when Allissál’s father had been born. The ancient woman rose to a bent stance, leaning heavily on the staff of her office, in token of abasement.
‘We have made the sacrifices and auguries concerning your son, majesty. Shall we then commence the process of granting his divinity?’
Allissál sat wearily upon another chair. ‘Elnavis, a god?’
‘Truly he was godlike in his life. The people loved him dearly. It would cheer their hearts to see his shade exalted.’
She shook her head. ‘It is too soon. Would it really be so simple? Give us time to think.’
‘As pleases your majesty.’ The old woman looked about her at the low, sun-filled cell. ‘Here I have spent my life, since before I came into womanhood. My mother before me, whom I can scarce remember, dedicated me. But I can still recall the first time I gave my vows to Goddess: vows of love, chastity and obedience.’
‘And you have kept them? You have never known a man’s love?’
The wrinkled face smiled at her wonder. ‘I will not say it was easy. But it was my duty to remain chaste, even as it is your majesty’s to produce sons. We all have our duties to observe. When I was first brought here, I hated this chamber. Then I saw only how small it was. Now I wonder at how large it is. This is my city, majesty. I knew your illustrious father well. We consulted often together on the business of state.’
‘Then you are more fortunate than I. He had me raised at the Summer Palace,’ Allissál said flatly. ‘I saw very little of him.’
‘Nor did I know my parents. They say my mother was a woman of the couch. Your father was a man who knew his duty well. Whenever he saw where his duty lay, he did not pause or complain, but acted. Did you ever learn the reason he had you raised apart from the court? I myself gave him some counsel on it. He had ever been sorrowful he was no Elna, to reverse the fading fortunes of his realm. Yet he realized that none brought up in luxury among the courtiers would ever be a man of great will or ambitions. So, after you were anointed in the Temple in Bollakarvil, he sent you away to that hidden rustic castle, to shelter you from the vices of the court.’
‘We were lonely there and bored. And we missed our parents.’
‘Think you they did not miss you? You were the darling of your father’s eye; your mother adored you more than life itself. It was the hardest act of her life to let you go.’ The little cell was quiet for a while, until the Priestess spoke again.
‘So it is said, that Elna gained his first victory over the barbarians with the aid of women. All the armies of the League he had gathered in secret: nor were they, callow youths and herders, eager to do the barbarians battle. It happened that the barbarians were then guesting in the city of Vapio, and feasted there and did outrages upon the inhabitants, but for fear none opposed them.
‘Elna went before the many kings and captains of the barbarians where they sat at table: and he went in the guise of a pander and took with him fifty women. These women were all young and exceedingly beautiful – also every one had lost sister, brother, husband or father to the barbarians.
‘They were found pleasing by the barbarians, who seated them on the benches, one woman for every man. Then the women smiled and poured the men wine, while Elna went into a nearby cavern outside the city where his armies were hidden. The barbarians grew drunken, whereat, a certain signal being given, each woman drew from her robes a broochpin and thrust it deep into the shoulder of her man. The barbarians, seeing the women begin to unclothe themselves, took these pricks in good humor, as though they had been rough love-games; yet soon a mist darkened their eyes and they fell writhing on the tables. For each of those pins had been dipped three times in the most venomous of poisons.
‘The bodyguards of the kings beheld their lords dying on the floor and, immediately guessing what had occurred, drew their swords and slew the women. Then the palace resounded with the death-screams of the women, whereat Elna called his men to the attack and drove the barbarians out of Vapio. And thenceforth, though they battled fiercely, the barbarians never again had the victory, unless the dismal survival of the last handful of them at Urnostardil be termed one.
‘The bodies of the women were treated with all honor: they were the first Fifty. It is from them we take our names when we are dedicated upon the altar. So it may well be said, your majesty, that from their blood and courage the Empire nal Bordakasha was begun. Yet it is an old tale, one surely well known to your majesty.’
‘You need not lecture us, reverence. Did we not raise Elnavis with all our heart? What then would you have us do?’
‘My daughter, it ill becomes you to use anger with an old shell of a woman. I am but a woman humbled in Her service, while you bear Her blood in your veins. Do but consider the claims of that blood, the last on earth partaking of the spirit of Elna: and consider too that you are a Queen who has no child.’
Allissál rose, and looked out the little window-openings. In the full light of Goddess, the small cell was warm as an oven. ‘You wish us to marry and bear another son.’
‘Is it not past time? It had been your parents’ plan to bring you to court when you had attained your sixteenth year, and a suitable match arranged for you. Chief among potential suitors was the young heir of Rukor, a dashing youth fresh from his triumphs over the pirates of the Isles. But your father refused to arrange a match without your full consent. There at last he erred: for had you been betrothed at the traditional age of twelve, the tragedy of your parents’ deaths would have had less meaning.
‘Of your youthful weakness I will not speak. Goddess Herself is most sorely tried at times by Her need for Him who is not to be named. Yet She is ever called back by Her love for us who worship and depend on Her. Well, some said your child should not live; that it should perish in your womb by the herbal potions some good-wives know of. But I held out against this, for the child had royal blood and divine, no matter who its father might have been. Then others said you should be swiftly allied to the most likely candidate, and a story spread that he had visited you in the Summer Palace and you had fallen in love there. This was the course I favored.
‘But Dornan Ural stood clean against it, saying it would be a fraud. And Farnese said such a marriage would be ignoble, having begun with a lie. So I relented; and it cost the realm dearly. And in the end they trumped up this tale of your ritual seduction, though it was one I detested in my heart. Still it was tolerable so long as Elnavis lived.
‘Now that purpose is done. The realm requires an Emperor before the barbarian draws too near. In that which he knows, Dornan Ural is a wise and loyal counselor; yet he knows nothing of warfare. The people will understand; I will answer for the rituals. Your majesty is still young enough to bear many children: your hips are broad and strong; and late birthings are no more troublous than early ones.’
The old woman’s words were potent in the small cell. Almost against her will, Allissál recalled how lonely she had been during her first years in Tarendahardil. Even in the midst of the splendors of the court, even with Ilal and her other ladies, even with the spectacles and the many entertainments of the courtiers, she had felt alone at times. Then she would come here to the Brown Temple, and sit and talk with the High Priestess, and lose for a time that loneliness. There were so many matters of policy upon which this woman had advised her. Since she had embarked upon the
secret and illegal negotiations with the other cities, however, Allissál had avoided the Brown Temple, lest the High Priestess should find out the truth of what she was doing. It had been long since they had talked like this.
She looked back, and saw how the old woman was regarding her. ‘Whom would you suggest?’ she asked at last.
The old priestess smiled. ‘No doubt your majesty has already made your choice, as you did before. You were ever a willful girl. Yet I think I may say that to choose as your parents would have speaks highly of both their wisdom and yours. The High Charan is certainly more of a man than any other noble of this age.’
‘And now, Your Reverence, have you said all to us you wished?’
‘Yes, child, if you will promise to consider my words with your queenly, and not your willful side.’
‘I will consider them.’ Thereupon she left the confinement of the cell, and rejoined her attendants in the outer vestibule.
Allissál went riding on Kis Halá that pass, garbed even in her mourning robes. She allowed none of the court or her attendants to accompany her. Across the martialing field, round the city’s outskirts and up into the hills to the bright horizon she rode, where the land fell like a pitched stone into the froth of Elna’s Sea. The mare, overjoyed to be freed after so long a confinement, galloped like a filly.
She reached at length the hill of the necropolis, upon whose barren slopes were set all the city’s dead. In the cool woods at the summit of the hill, she stopped to allow Kis Halá to breathe. Kis Halá munched on the fresh clover, while Allissál wandered barefoot over paths of soft clay. She sat upon a rock at the fringe of the wood and looked to the dark horizon, shading her eyes with a bough of aromatic laol leaves.