He felt soiled in his triumph, he felt the God soiled in His, that it should be followed by this capitulation of honour. His only comfort - small and bare that it was, cold comfort - lay in the absence of the heretic and traitor, the apostate boy who had once worn Ransomer black. That boy was still an element in this story, camp-fire rumour placed him here, there, all over; Fulke would not be content until he had placed him squarely in a fire's heart and seen him burn. Had he been here—well, he could not have been here. Had he joined the march at any point from Surayon to here, Fulke would have burned him regardless of truce, safe-conduct or King's command. The King himself, in person, could not save that boy. There was vengeance to come against him, and Fulke held it in his heart like a treasure, but he was glad not to have spent it yet. Let the Ransomers find the boy quiedy, privately, let them deal with him in their own way, within their own strong walls; no public eye, no glare of argument, only the traitor and the men he betrayed and the God to witness where they called in His debts.
No boy, but Ransomers and Sharai and Surayonnaise had made uncomfortable companions on the slow march south, and they were uncomfortable companions still; there had been no bonding along the way. Even Imber, who had drawn together the scattered forces of Surayon and led them as an army to the battle's end - even he had drawn back from them now that the fighting was done. Besides, he was in mourning for his cousin; he could no more woo his country's enemies than he could woo his wife. He had ridden with his own, the survivors from Elessi and the preacher's band of followers, those few. He had watched his wife, he had watched the Sharai that they said she was married to, that some said she had run away to marry; he had spoken to neither one in all the days of their marching, and had been ready to do so only in protest, only if he saw her speak to the Sharai.
He had ridden with his own people, and with those he had made his own. He stood with them now and was not the only one to feel gjad of the great stretch of this platform, which gave such separate peoples space enough to hold themselves apart
They stood apart, Elessans and Ransomers, Surayonnaise and Sharai: apart and exposed, the walls of the Dir'al Shahan offering all the shade there was and none of them venturing close enough to use it. To the Sharai, in the Sands the sky was shelter enough, like a tent stretched between them and God, a veil but not a barrier; they wore its midnight colour as a sign. Here, though - on levelled stone within a city walled with stone, within and above a bewildering maze of houses, stables, markets, streets all of stone, so that they wondered why they ever would have followed their sheikhs or Hasan or God Himself into this place - they felt as though even the sky had been stolen from them, ripped away. There was nothing overhead but light and glare, which might very well be the glare of God. They crouched down on their haunches and drew up the hoods of their robes, they gripped the headropes of their horses in lieu of each others' hands, under the mocking eyes of unbelievers; they stared about them and cursed their tamed cousins the Catari who had built this place as vehemently as they cursed the Patrics who had stolen it, the imams who had ever declared it holy. As long as there were camels and sheep and water in the Sands, as long as there were men and women to be grateful for that, what did God need with more?
All the groups held themselves apart, as they had ridden here, as they had fought in the valley, as they had buried their dead. The bulk of their armies they had left in the valley, camped north and south of the river, east and west of the plain, where each could see which other broke the truce. Only these few, these watchful wary few had come to Ascariel, and the Sharai, the Surayonnaise emphatically wished that they had not.
Fewer still were going further, in through the gate of the Dir'al Shahan. Those few were meeting now, solitary walkers coming together in the shadow of the wall. The King's Shadow, who knew this place of old; the Princip of Surayon who had known it also but long ago, at the Conclave that had given him his country; the two girls, and Fulke whom they did not trust. None other. There should have been one other, the girls thought, one at least, but Marron was not here. Marron, they supposed, was with Jemel; and the two boys together - together with the Daughter, which was a different thing, a greater and a worse - they might be anywhere. They hadn't been sighted since the battle. At least no one had found their bodies, but that was small reassurance, when they had a whole other world to lose themselves in and no one to send a message home.
The girls might have been angry with the boys, if they weren't so worried. They might have been more worried still, if they weren't so nervous. The King was a mystery, he lived in closer seclusion than the strictest religious; and yet they meant to walk in on him unannounced ...
As far as they knew, they were unannounced. He could hardly be unaware that they had come; his Shadow might have warned him days ago, that they were coming. Julianne's father was maintaining a magnificent discretion, saying nothing at all of any consequence. What that meant, even Julianne couldn't guess. Perhaps he knew that they'd be welcome within; perhaps he knew that the gates would not be opened, the walls could not be climbed.
Perhaps he knew nothing, and had simply travelled in hope and with no expectations, as they had. As they had tried to do.
Five figures, but they had walked two and two and one across the wide open stretches of the pavement, coming from different directions under a white sky and a sun of burnished copper: the old men, the girls, the Ransomer. That was how they stood before the gate, grouped but not together, not one group and not at all with one intent.
'Do we knock?' Elisande asked, deliberately savage, fiercely unfunny.
'No,' Coren said. 'We wait. When the King is ready, he admits us.'
'If he will,' from Julianne, the most doubtful, the least determined.
'He will,' and that was her father and her friend, speaking together but still not with one intent. He meant that he was sure of his ground, of his master; she that she was sure of her own purpose and the strength of it to carry her through to where she meant to be, face to face with the man she'd come to see, whether he chose to have it so or not.
'How long does he usually make you wait?'
'Julianne, I don't usually go in by the gate.' He said it with that longsuffering tone universal among fathers. She flushed, and was suddenly glad of Elisande s heat to distract notice from her own.
'You could take us in then, couldn't you? Of course you could...'
'... But of course I won't. Quite so. I'll stand with you at his gate, for as long as you choose to linger; I won't help you break into his privity.'
'I could summon my djinni, have it carry us through.'
'You could summon it, yes. Would it come?'
'I don't know,' in a sullen mutter.
'No. Well, rather than finding out and being disappointed, why not try a little quiet patience? I've never known the King be wilfully discourteous—'
'—Unless you want to count forty years of silence,' which came from the Princip, unexpectedly taking his granddaughter's part against his friends, which has always seemed discourteous to me.' Specifically to me was how he meant it, meaning that the Kings voice raised on his behalf could have eased a generation of pain and fear.
'Was I so silent?'
'On Surayon, yes. And were you so very much him?'
'If the King chose not to speak of Surayon,' Fulke hissed, as though even the full use of his voice in this company was too much taint, came too close to a contact he could not bear, might it not be because speaking was so unnecessary, because his subjects could see for themselves what was rancid, and smell for themselves what was corrupt?'
'When the Church Fathers could see it and smell it all the way from the homelands, you mean, and so sent you to burn it out?'
'But this is his Kingdom,' Coren said swiftly, his voice just strong enough to stand between them, 'and not yours, nor theirs, nor mine. The King makes his own choices - which is why all of us' - though his glance at Fulke corrected that, most of us—'are here, to ask questions to which he if an
y man should have the answers. Otherwise we must ask the djinn, and that might prove unfruitful.'
Despite the doubts, despite the bickering, they did not in truth remain long at the gates of the Dir'al Shahan.
Slowly and soundlessly, those high gates drew back. Nothing mystical or potent in it: there were men at either leaf to open them. The men were gowned and hooded in the Sharai manner, which was the Ransomer manner also, although these pale yellow robes were no more Sharai in design than they were Ransomer in colour. Elisande was not the only one who tried to peer beneath the hanging rims of the hoods to see what manner of man it was that wore them; she was perhaps the only one who let her attempts be obvious, as was also her frustration when she failed.
As slow and as silent as the hinges of the great gates, another man came to lead them across the court beyond. He seemed to be a man at least, as the others did. They moved like men, though Julianne for one found herself wondering once more where the King found his servants, and how, and why they came to serve him. They might be slaves, they might be devotees; they might be lords of the Kingdom giving secret service in some undeclared bond of brotherhood They might equally well be men of clay, animated by magic.
Had it still been a place of faith and worship, the Dir'al Shahan must have been the most striking, the most overwhelming of man's work on the earth. Within its walls it was a complex in itself, and all its complexity was a wonder that spoke more and more loudly to the glory of God. There were stairs and archways, lesser temples and rising platforms, all of a golden stone with veins that glittered under the sun; all leading the eye onward and upward to the grand consummation that it sought, the great domed temple with its spiring minarets, needle-fine and sky-piercing. If there were another such dome in the world, none there had seen or heard speak of it.
And the King sat there, or so rumour said and his Shadow had never denied it: crouched like a toad beneath a stone some said, or poised like a spider at its web's heart, waiting or simply still as a rock, purposeless, stretching an overlong life still longer, and to what end?
To this end, perhaps, the end that they had all pursued this fan to answer the questions of his own generation and another, to bring at least some sense of ending to a terrible adventure. The Princip’s country was in ruins, many of his people were dead and the survivors were dreadfully exposed; he trusted the Ransomers' truce precisely as far as he trusted Fulke. And he believed in causes, here in the Kingdom; he believed that whatever happened had its reason and that very likely, that reason was the Kings. The 'ifrit had invaded his little land, which was unheard of; they had let the Ransomers in first, and the Sharai had been there to take advantage, and he did not believe that any of this was coincidence. His son also was dead amongst his people, and he had come to ask for explanations. The Princip had all the claims of an old comrade, of a history shared, of hurts taken and gifts received; his granddaughter and her friend had the claims of youth and vulnerability, the rights of the world to come, fresh candies lit from dying flames.
So they broached the Kings privity, his sanctity, his dome. His servant seemed almost to invite them, leading the way not to the great closed door but to a long arch, almost a tunnel at one side. In the blackness of its shadow, they found another door; this one stood open, and there were lights beyond.
The servant gestured them through. The King's Shadow was first, and would have entered then but that the Princip delayed him with a word.
'No, wait, Coren. I would see this man's face, before we go further.'
'Does his face matter? He serves the King; what more do you need?'
'I saw—' He was not sure what he had seen, but he thought it might have been the faintest gleam of red in the darkness beneath the hood. At any rate, 'I should like to see his face.'
'Well.' Coren raised no further objection, only seemed genuinely bemused. 'If he is content to show it to you, I am quite content that you should see it. If the King objects, no doubt he will let us know.' He turned to the man and said, 'Of your courtesy, sir? Would you lift back your hood?'
The man said nothing, but his hands did what the Shadow asked.
The girls gasped, and so did Marshal Fulke; it was he who said the name, which meant nothing to the older men.
‘Blaise...’
His eyes were dully red, which made the girls gasp, draw back, press closer to each other.
'Blaise,' the man repeated. ‘I served you once, when I was Blaise,' spoken slowly, as if the truth of this were buried deep, drowned deep in memory's well and must be grappled for in darkness, 'and called you Magister.'
'You did; nor did I release you from my service,' though Fulke's memory of it at least was fresh and bitter.
‘I was released. I served you too,' the man who had been Blaise went on, turning to Julianne, 'and called you my lady'
'You were my sergeant,' she murmured, willing him to remember it, only hoping that her voice and this little information might give him an easier path back to what had been his life. 'At Roq de Rancon, and on the way there. Do you remember?'
‘I remember Roq de Rancon. I served the God there once, till my brothers drove me out. Now I serve the King. Will you go in to him?'
Julianne may not have been the only one there who thought for a moment that his red gaze fell more balefully on Fulke, when he spoke of the Ransomers; for certain she was not the only one who hoped that his current service was happier than those he had known before. That could almost seem to matter more than how his eyes were red, or why, or how it was that the King came to have such a man as servant, and in such a condition.
But then the Kings Shadow strode through the brief darkness and into light, and the others followed him; and now for a while they could forget Blaise entirely if they chose to, as they had chosen before.
This place had been holy to the Patrics since their God had blessed it, choosing this of all the places of the earth to set His foot when He walked as a man. It had been holy to the Catari long before that as the seed of all creation, the first place their God had made and the source of all the rest, the last of the rough rock from which the world was moulded. Before them there had been others, other faiths - as witness the pavement where this temple stood, wide monument to a forgotten worship - and each had known something different about the Mount of Ascariel, but each had known it holy.
The Patrics who owned it now, who owned or claimed possession of all the Sanctuary Land, maintained that possession by strength of stone as much as strength of arms; they had built massively up and down the land, castles and walls and fortifications. Their architects understood power and endurance and resistance, none better. It took the Catari before them to build for beauty; and here at least, that beauty had been let live.
Fulke would not have had it so; Fulke saw the heresy in every curving line, in every gilded word he could not read. He had been offered tutors, but he would not learn the tongue: 'We have the language given us by the God; what would I need of another?' In his heart, he had been afraid. There were those who said that to understand all was to believe all; here especially, in this cradle of faith where men could run mad from a simple excess of belief, he feared to find it true. Serving a God Divided - and serving as he had, as inquisitor and judge - he knew the dangers of a divided soul. Better to be ignorant and safe, not to offer his intellect as hostage ...
Now, in this dim and smoky lamplight after so much sun, he gazed around him, he gazed up and up and was afraid again. He could not understand the messages on the walls, but he could read beauty, he could feel its influence. More subtle perhaps than a sword, but no less powerful in time: and the King had spent years and decades here, had chosen to make his home amid the strictures of a forbidden faith, and the King could surely read them. Like Fulke, he had been a monk before ever he was a warrior; report said that he had been damnably curious even as a novice, always reading, reading, asking questions and reading more. Fulke didn't believe that any man could live among so much beauty and not be swayed
, not be tempted into falsehood. This must be why the King lived in seclusion, apart from all his priests and ministers; this must be why he had so tolerated the heresies of Surayon. Fulke had not come to the Kingdom in expectation of smoking out the King himself, but he was ready for it. He'd denounce the man here in his own palace if it proved necessary, and would not fear for himself although he died for it. It was the Sanctuary Land that he feared for, if its King were turned from the true religion.
To Julianne the beauty was a tangible thing, as solid as the tiles of the floor beneath her feet, as fixed as the colours in those tiles, as calculated as the patterns in which the tiles were laid. Men had made this, and her soul rejoiced at their skill. She supposed that they had been devout, inspired; it seemed not to matter any more. There was no worship here now, no habitation for their God or any. Rather it was a man who lived here, and she didn't understand why he would want to, how he could bear to clothe himself in such a wonder or to hold himself alone beneath its majesty.
The Shadow had as many questions as the others, or more perhaps: half a lifetime of questions dammed up behind a stubborn determination not to ask, never to ask.
Hand of the King's Evil - Outremer 04 Page 62