Winter King

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  “He has not stirred,” Danica said.

  Andrion turned to her. She sat by the bed, separating fragrant herbs into small parcels. The sharp odor of thyme cleared his head, and he frowned. “But you turned the evil spell away.”

  “This one, yes. But the first spell had ample time to eat at his will, his strength; now I hold him in a life he might no longer choose.”

  “No, no, death would be too easy; he never shirked duty, no matter how distasteful . . .” Andrion’s thought spun away and disappeared. Mutely he held out his wounded arm.

  “So,” said Danica. “You escaped lightly.” She reached for a bandage. “To think I should condone your boldness, to think I should condone your life itself. To think I should allow this man to bring the troubles of the world here.” She chuckled in dry resignation, turning to laughter, apparently, because grief would be useless. “The goddess sets us into a game, as she did before you were born.”

  “Do we choose our fates, Mother? Or does the goddess order fate, allowing us to believe we choose?”

  Danica cleaned his arm and snugged the bandage around it. She looked up at him, eyes uncannily clear jade. “Once I carried the power of Ashtar, and yet even then I did not know who directed it. When the power left me, when you were born, I was not left empty but changed. I wanted to heal, to kill no longer. Perhaps it is all the same game.”

  “I would like to believe it is.” Andrion flexed his arm. “Thank you. I shall sleep now. Dreamlessly, I hope.”

  “And alone,” smiled Danica, brows raised in gentle admonition.

  “Gods, yes,” Andrion swore. He settled himself on the pallet by the shield, looked up at it, touched it lightly. But the shield was quiet, only a great disk gathering golden motes of dust, supporting the abandoned diadem of the Empire and the dull empty sheath of Solifrax.

  He watched Danica bend to her task, her veined hands moving purposefully. He saw her hands, young and firm, lifting the shield, lifting a tiny infant. He saw Bellasteros, clean-shaven, dark-eyed, touching her with a heart-hunger that he could only now comprehend. Ah, Dana. I had so many romantic fancies about you and me, he thought. But the truth of it hurts: No man can ever truly touch a Sabazian.

  Andrion’s sleep stirred with the slow phantoms of nightmare. The great stone sarcophagus of Gerlac waited, dust-rimed but not quite silent, in Sardis.

  Chapter Ten

  Waves of heat shimmered above the plain as if it burned. The sky was clear, infinitely high, washed of color by the glare.

  The throng of Khazyari warriors shouted in delight. Ponies raced in a great golden dust cloud down the field, stopped with many protesting rearings and whinnyings, turned and raced back again. A small bloody bundle bounced ahead of the scrum, was overtaken, disappeared under thrashing hooves.

  The watching warriors shouted again, some urging one team in the game of pulkashi, others another. The women sang wild songs of mockery and encouragement.

  Tembujin leaned low from his speeding pony, reached precariously far, seized the bundle. He sat back into his saddle, rising high in his stirrups and flourishing the bundle with a laugh. His eyes and his teeth glinted, black and white, beneath the patina of dust on his face; his tail of hair floated behind him like the tail of his pony as he swung the beast about in a tight circle. Leading the pack, he galloped wildly to the goal line and flung the bundle to the feet of Baakhun.

  Baakhun, seated cross-legged on a raised dais under a canopy, saluted his son with his drinking skin. He gulped and threw the skin to Tembujin. The prince caught it and drank while his pony curveted under him. The bundle, burst open in the dust, emitted a mangled, severed head.

  The slave’s only crime had been his reluctance to serve. With a sigh Toth turned away from the spectacle and shuffled behind Baakhun’s dais to the one occupied by Raksula. Hilkar squatted before her, his scrawny neck out thrust like that of a gabbling vulture. “Yes, my lady, my kinswoman Shurzad is the wife of the governor of Sardis, Patros, the closest friend of Bellasteros.”

  “And what god does she worship?” Raksula asked rather too casually. She held a horsehair whisk, brushing the flies from her face; she did not look at Hilkar but at the game before her, and her eyes glittered, hard, like two shards of obsidian. A slave restored the grisly trophy to its bag and flung it onto the field again. The watchers cheered. The ponies neighed. A few tethered camels screamed their approval.

  “Qem,” said Hilkar. “A local deity here, whose idol she took with her to Sardis. There she had herself proclaimed high priestess. She is full of herself, you understand, my lady.”

  Raksula laughed shortly. “A fitting trait for your kinswoman, yes.” And with a slow, thoughtful sweep of the whisk, “So she worships Qem. I know that name, the cat god . . .” She snapped her lips shut as securely as if she sealed a secret missive, muttered something in Khazyari, and darted a sharp, suspicious look at Hilkar. But his face was eagerly obsequious. Toth stared into the distance, as if hearing and caring nothing.

  Tembujin tossed back the skin of kviss and bowed to his father. He spun his pony about, organized his milling warriors, and led them in a swift descent onto the bundle. The other team rushed forward. Vlad, kicking his fat pony in a vain attempt to gain the lead, leaned out to seize the bundle. He overbalanced and hung screeching to the girth as the pounding hooves sprayed dirt into his face.

  Tembujin spun his horse expertly about, plucked Vlad from his precarious perch, and flung the boy like a slaughtered sheep over his saddle. He galloped to the edge of the field and with a sneer dumped Vlad at his mother’s feet. Baakhun howled with laughter.

  Raksula snorted in disgust, and the look she sent Baakhun would have stabbed him deep, if he had seen it. She threw Hilkar her whisk, rose, brushed by him. She picked up Vlad, shook him like a cat would shake a rat, and wiped his dust-smudged face with her skirts.

  Toth, frowning, left the edge of the field and retreated toward the white-feathered standard. Sita sat on the Mohendra rug, supposedly mending one of Tembujin’s tunics, but the stitches straggled sloppily across the cloth. Her face was so pale as to be a sickly green, her eyes half-closed, hidden by her lashes, and sweat trickled down the sides of her face. She plucked fitfully at her thick clothing. Toth quickened his step. “Are you well, my—” He caught himself.

  The mass of horses and men seethed like maggots in a rotting carcass. The voices of the Khazyari crashed through the encircling yurts and rolled like thunder across the land. The plain was an oven, the sky a lid of blue-glazed tile; the mingled odors of sweat, dust, and lathered ponies hung heavy in the air.

  Sita grimaced weakly. “Indigestion, I hope. Spoiled food; they do not know how to cope with the heat, do they?”

  “Indigestion?” repeated Toth warily.

  She threw down her work. “I think I am with child,” she said between her teeth.

  “It is the will of the goddess,” Toth said quickly, blanching almost as pale as she.

  “Is it?” Sita glanced toward Tembujin’s distant figure. He again leaned low from his pony, swept up the bundle, sped away. Her eyes glistened, and she dashed away any suggestion of tears. “He could die playing that foolish game. What would happen to me then? He uses me, and yet he cares for me; he protects me from those who are much more the barbarian than he. How can I hate him? But he seeks to kill my father and my brother, and he brought about my stepmother’s death; how can I like him, even if he is the father of my child?”

  Toth listened, his pale, translucent eyes resting on her face, seeing more, somehow, than just her sickly features.

  “Is it the will of the gods?” continued Sita. “Do we choose our fate, or do they order fate, allowing us to believe we choose? Do they use me, do they care for me?”

  “Whom the gods love they test,” said Toth. “Ashtar moves in subtle ways.”

  Sita looked at him, skeptical, and yet wanting to believe. “That night the city fell. Who held me back, took my hand from Chryse’s in that moment when sh
e and her handmaiden leaped? The doors were broken and the palace burned, and we ran, the three of us, with the servant carrying my jewels, as if my jewels were important. We had thought at first to escape, but there was no escape, so we ran to the roof, and the screams of abused women followed us. We must choose between our lives and our honor, Chryse said; she leaped and the girl leaped, but at that last moment my courage failed me and I fell back. The pavement was . . . unforgiving. I could not look to see their bodies so far below, mortal flesh and blood and bones; Chryse’s love for me, for Andrion, gone.”

  She gulped, but again suppressed her tears. She whispered, “It must have been my choice to live, and suffer the indignities of living. Even now, Toth, even now.”

  “If only I had known you yet lived,” said Toth, “when I showed the emperor and the prince and Miklos the old tunnel. But I had seen Chryse, and beside her a young woman carrying your jewels; I found you too late.”

  “I understand, Toth.”

  His plump face attempted a smile. “Console yourself then, my lady, by thinking of Bellasteros and Andrion, safe in Sabazel.”

  “Sabazel,” Sita repeated, her tongue lingering over the name. The color returned to her cheeks. She clasped her hands in her lap and sighed deeply. “I have seen it only in the eyes of Dana, in the faces and voices of Ilanit and Danica herself. They never condemned me for a life trammeled by men’s customs, as some would condemn them for their freedom.”

  A slight breeze stirred the air, bringing a brief, elusive freshness and coolness to the afternoon’s stench. The racing warriors clashed again. Someone fell off and was trampled. Horses squealed, women screamed. Sita gasped, her hands to her mouth; Tembujin emerged from the scrum, laughing again, and trotted his pony to the sidelines. There he dismounted, allowing the nuryan Obedei to take the reins. The two warriors stood close together, sharing some confidence.

  Sita exhaled shakily and spoke, so softly Toth had to lean forward to hear her. Or perhaps she was not really speaking to him. “Dana would scorn me for what I do now, submitting to a man because that man preserves my life.”

  “The goddess saves you for some purpose,” insisted Toth.

  Her voice was still quiet, abstracted. “And Andrion would be ashamed of me, child of the moon that he is.” She stopped, looked sharply at Toth.

  He met her look with a self-conscious nod. “Yes, I know who his blood mother is. You need conceal nothing from me, my lady.”

  “So it seems.” She summoned a smile. “It is a comfort to have you with me, Toth. Someone before whom I need have no pretense.”

  He bowed to her. “With all respect, my lady, only the gods see all.”

  Sita tightened her lips resignedly and picked up the needle again. Tembujin clapped Obedei on the back and started through the throng. The people parted before him, bowing, and he nodded graciously to all.

  “You are most accomplished,” Sita said to him under her breath. “You would like to excite me, but I will not let you. The bow and smile of Miklos, the guard at my door, meant more to me . . .” Her voice trailed away, and she flushed.

  With a tactful nod Toth vanished. A whorl of dust stirred the sides of the yurt. Tembujin swept by, calling for water, and ducked inside. Sita followed. “Are you well . . . my lord?”

  “Of course. Why not?” He peeled off his tunic and his shirt, shook the dust from his hair, turned to Sita with a grin. “Our games are too rough for you?”

  “I am not accustomed to such games. Athletic contests, certainly. Sword duels. But not outright battle.”

  Sita proffered a full water jar, awkwardly and with more than a tinge of resentment. Tembujin picked up a dipper of water and splashed it over his face and shoulders. The water gilded his supple body, and Sita looked away. Tembujin turned her face back to his. “You were concerned about my safety? May I assume I am no longer quite so distasteful to you?”

  She could not move her face, held firmly in his damp hand, but she averted her eyes. “Is it your concern that makes you so pale?” he murmured. She closed her eyes, refusing to reply. “Stubborn,” he chided. “Hiding, always hiding. One would think you had something to hide.” With a short laugh he released her, leaving a muddy fingerprint on her chin, and dried himself. As he reached for his clothing, he said, “I shall be leaving tonight to scout the pass at Azervinah. You disavow all knowledge of Sabazel; I do not suppose you have been to Farsahn?”

  “No,” she replied. She opened her eyes, but they were still averted, staring into some distance far beyond the walls of the yurt.

  “So be it then. I shall question our tame traitor yet again and hope that he does not have the courage to betray me.”

  “Who would?”

  “Ambitious and arrogant folk,” Tembujin said, a sudden sharp edge cutting the smoothness of his voice.

  Sita glanced around at him warily. “And what of me?” she asked.

  “Hm?”

  “While you are gone. To whom will I belong?”

  “Ah, so that was your concern then, your own lovely body.” Tembujin tossed his tail of hair behind him, like a spirited beast before a race, and settled his shirt over his chest. “You are still mine, Sita. You will stay here with my household, and if the other women tease you, you will bear that as nobly as you bear my embraces.”

  Sita flushed and looked down at the ground. “You would mock me?”

  “I would like to see you smile,” he said acidly. “But then, you must have something to deny me.”

  Her look darted upward, and she met his eyes with the wide lapis lazuli of her own. He stepped forward, interested, watching her keenly. Something moved in the depths of those eyes, some determination; she blinked, breaking the moment, and turned away again.

  Tembujin shrugged. “I have asked Obedei to watch you. I hope you enjoy your respite from my company.” He turned on his heel, picked up his bow and quiver, and was gone.

  Sita stood unmoving. “I cannot hurt you,” she whispered under her breath, trying to memorize a difficult lesson. “I am only a toy to you, and I could not hurt you if I tried.”

  Tembujin strode glowering back through the crowd, his mouth crimped tight and unyielding with irritation. He threw himself down on the edge of his father’s dais and watched an archery contest begin. The sun slanted into the west, its light burning gold on the planes of his face, and a soft breeze played with his hair.

  Baakhun handed over the skin and Tembujin drank deeply of the kviss. Hilkar’s thin figure scurried like a furtive insect down the sidelines; the prince hailed him.

  Bobbing and bowing, Hilkar asked, “My lord, may I serve you?”

  “I suppose you can tell me nothing more of Sabazel. Odd, how no one has been there!” The skin was as flaccid as Hilkar’s face; Tembujin threw it down. “So tell me again of the Royal Road to the north, beyond the place of battle. Tell me of the pass at Azervinah and the cities of Farsahn and Sardis.”

  “Farsahn is not as great as it once was. It was burned by the Sardians. Accidentally, the usurper Bellasteros always claimed, but I know better. It has now been rebuilt, and is, as I was telling your lady mother, governed by one Nikander—”

  Tembujin’s alert eye darted to Hilkar’s face and stopped his words in his throat. “Raksula, who is not my mother, asked you these same questions? “

  Hilkar’s face wavered among several possible expressions, trying in vain to gauge Tembujin’s mood. “Er, yes. Questions about Sardis and my kinswoman Shurzad, the wife of the governor. She even asked for something of hers. I found an amulet of Qem, a small bauble.”

  Tembujin’s eyes narrowed. “Ah. I see.”

  A shadow fell on him, and he concealed a start. Raksula, trailing Odo and Vlad, brushed Hilkar aside and jogged Baakhun’s elbow. She trod upon Tembujin’s foot and he kicked surreptitiously at her, succeeding only in rustling her skirts. She stepped on him again. With a snarl he rose. Raksula stood shoulder to shoulder with Odo and Vlad, leaving no opening; Tembujin thrust his chin out
ward and stepped to the side in scorn of their association. Hilkar made little sallies left and right behind them all, jockeying for position.

  Odo handed Vlad a full skin. Vlad, with a bow, passed it on to Baakhun. One of the archers made a remarkable shot and the crowd cheered. Baakhun opened the skin and drank. He smacked his lips. His mighty bulk shifted, wove an uncertain circle, settled back again clasping the new skin. “A different flavor.” he pronounced. “Tasty, though.”

  “Herbs to increase your stamina, my lord,” Odo grinned.

  “Ah. My thanks. The heat is indeed tiresome for us all.”

  Raksula smirked, but her eyes were flat, like tightly shuttered windows, watching enspelled as Baakhun drank again. Vlad stood self-absorbed, his finger thrust up his nose in an apparently successful quest for something of interest.

  Tembujin’s eyes narrowed farther, but Hilkar gabbled on, going so far as to grasp at the prince’s sleeve. “Shurzad and Patros have a young daughter, my lord. See, her name is also engraved on the amulet I bring.”

  Raksula whirled. Her fingers, curved like the talons of some predatory bird, seized the amulet dangling from Hilkar’s hand. The chain caught around his fingers as she yanked it away, causing him to gasp in pain. Tembujin caught a glimpse of the stylized slanted eye of a cat, carved of glistening green nephrite, about the size of his palm. And yes, tiny letters coiled like a kohl rim around the eye: Shurzad and Valeria humbly beseech the favor of mighty Qem.

  Raksula waved the amulet before her face and exchanged a triumphant look with Odo. “Surely Khalingu orders the world for our victory,” she said.

  “Surely,” repeated Tembujin loudly. His eyes were now gleaming slits. “Father, shall I shoot for you?”

  “Yes, yes, show us your prowess, my son,” bellowed Baakhun. He drank again and wiped his mouth on the bulging muscles of his arm.