by Judith Tarr
She held out her hand to him. “Come,” she said.
He took her hand and let her lead him away from the wide-eyed boatmen. She should have let him go once she was sure that he would stay with her, but her fingers had a mind of their own. They liked to rest within that big dark hand, with its warmth and its quiet strength.
They stayed there all the way to the palace, through the hall of audience and, with complete lack of conscious will, into her chambers. He sat where she bade him, which was more for her comfort than for his: she was not in the mood to crane her neck in order to see his expression. He was glad to be fed bread and cakes and bits of roast fowl that he shared with the cat, and to drink palm wine—the last a surprise, and a pleasant one, from his expression. She had learned from the servants that he was not fond of beer.
When he had eaten and drunk, she sat across the small breakfasttable from him and said, “Tell me why you’re alive and sane. Are you one of the walkers in the night?”
“You know I’m not,” he said, but without apparent offense. “I did see them—or one manifestation of them.”
“And yet you live to tell of it,” she said with careful lack of expression.
“A village almost under the walls was struck in the night. Were you part of that?”
His eyes closed; his face tightened. “I saw it,” he said.
“You did nothing to stop it?”
“I could do nothing,” he said through clenched teeth, “that would have made matters immeasurably worse. I watched; I don’t know that I understood, but I will remember what I saw. Lady, may I summon certain of the priests, and such nobles as are familiar with your lore of magic?”
It was polite of him to ask. She considered refusing, because after all she was the queen. But he was a god. “Do as you will,” she said. “I will give you the rod that permits a lord to wield power in my name.”
“That is a great trust,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. Her maid Tisheri, ever wise, had found the rod that Tanit spoke of, a reed staff bound with bands of gold. Tanit gave it into his hand. “Guard it well,” she said.
He bowed low. “My thanks, most gracious lady,” he said. Then after a pause “May I gather them here? Your authority will give my words more weight.”
“Do I want them gathered here?”
He knelt in front of her. She did not know where that snap of temper had come from, and his lack of anger only made her the more crossgrained. When he took her hands—again, gods help her—she lacked the will to pull free. “Lady,” he said, “I am a guest, and here on your sufferance. I ask your pardon if I’ve overstepped.”
“You haven’t,” she said. “I’m being foolish. It’s been too long since I yielded my will to a man’s. I’ve forgotten how to do it gracefully.”
“And I,” he said with a glint in his eye, “was a king too long. I give orders without thinking.”
“They are wise orders,” she said. She looked down at their joined hands. He began to draw away, but she held him fast. “My lord, we should agree before we go on, as to how we shall manage this matter of authority. I know I am only a woman, but—”
“Lady,” he said deep in his throat. “I’ll hear no more of that. In my country, the regent and ruling heir is a woman; and her heir, in turn, is a daughter and not a son. You are not ‘only’ a woman. You are a lady and a queen.”
She had never been so soundly and yet so pleasantly rebuked. “If I am a queen,” she said, “then I may command you and be obeyed. Yes?”
“Yes,” he said gravely, but with a glint in it.
“Then I command you to go, and do what you must, and come back when you are done.”
He bowed over her hands without too terribly much mockery, and kissed the palm of each, and let them go. Long after he was gone, she sat staring at those palms, as if the mark of his lips should be branded there in streaks of fire.
They were only her ordinary, long and thin, cream-brown hands. Whatever memory they held, it was not visible to the eye. Which was well—because if anyone knew what she was thinking, the scandal would keep the court buzzing for days.
She could not stop thinking it. That the command she had wanted to give was not the one she had given, at all. And that if she had bidden him do that other thing … might he perhaps have consented? There had been a look in his eye, that she had thought she could not mistake.
There was no time or place for that, not in this world. She gathered herself together and rose. There was a council to prepare for and a day to begin. It was some little while before she understood what was causing her heart to flutter so oddly. It was not only that beautiful and godlike man. It was—before the gods, it was hope. For the first time since she was a child, she began to think that the night would not always be cursed; that the walkers in the dark might, at last, be banished from the world.
The Lord Seramon had called eight priests and nobles to his council: nine, with the queen. The old priest from the temple of the Sun was there, and his son who could not in courtesy be left out, and the young one who was almost, in his dim way, a mage. There was a priest of their queen of goddesses, too, and the commander of the royal army, and two young lords who had been born at the same birth and were eerily, uncannily alike, and last and perhaps most baffled, the servant whom the chief of the queen’s servants had given the Lord Seramon. He was no slave or menial; he was a free man of good family, who won honor for his house by serving in the palace.
Tanit had had them brought to her audience chamber with escort of honor and all due courtesy. They were barely courteous in return. Only Seti the old priest seemed at ease. The rest shifted uncomfortably, and either declined refreshment or hid behind it as if it had been a refuge.
The Lord Seramon was last to appear, accompanied as usual by cats. Their lord rode regally on his shoulder. He bowed to them all, and deepest to Tanit, and took the chair that had been left for him. “I thank you, my lords and lady,” he said, “for coming at my call. I have a thing to ask of you. You may refuse; no shame will attach to it. But if you accept, the night may be a little less dark, and your people a little safer.”
None of them brightened at his words. Seti spoke for them all, gently. “My lord, what can we do that you in your divine power cannot? Surely you can cause the sun to shine all night, and keep the darkness forever at bay”
“If I am a god,” the Lord Seramon said, “then I am a minor one. The Sun is my forefather, not my servant. I could set a dome of light over this city, but I would have no strength left for any other working, or for defense against the attack that would come. The enemy that devours your children shuns the light. But the enemy’s servants can endure it, even wield it if they must.”
“You … saw the enemy’s servants?” Seti-re made no effort to conceal his disbelief. “Yet you live; your body is whole. You seem sane. Are you certain that it was not a dream?”
“It was quite real,” the Lord Seramon said. “I saw another thing, too, that interested me greatly. Because of it, I should like to ask that you yourselves, and such of your servants as are both brave and strong of will, may dispose yourselves like an army, and take turn and turn about in the villages.”
“Indeed?” said the priest of the Mother. He seemed no more enamored of the Lord Seramon than Seti-re. “Are we to be a sacrifice? Or will we be given a weapon?”
“You will have a weapon,” the Lord Seramon said, “and a comrade in arms.” He bent his gaze toward the door. The others, as if caught by a spell, did the same.
A company of cats trotted purposefully into the hall. Being cats, they did not march in ranks, nor did they match pace to pace. Yet they were together, there was no mistaking it, and they had about them the air of an army. There were twice nine, and not all palace cats; some had the lean and rangy look of cats from the city.
They advanced two by two, and chose each a lord or a priest, and two gold-earringed beauties lofted lightly into Tanit’s lap. She knew them; they were often
to be seen about her chambers, and were much spoiled by the servants.
“These are the nobility of their kind,” the Lord Seramon said. “Their cousins and kin will come to those whom you choose to fight in this army. Listen to them, my lords and lady. Let them guide you. They have power against this enemy that besets you.”
The priest of the Mother laughed. “This is your great plan? These are your weapons? The gods do love them, lord, but what power can they raise against the walkers of the night?”
“Great power,” the Lord Seramon said. “Did you never wonder why this city has not been attacked? It has walls, yes, but walls are nothing to this enemy. Your cats guard those walls. They take their strength from the sun, but the night is their mother. They rule on both sides of the sky.”
Tanit shivered lightly. The cat in her lap seemed no more divine than ever, if no less; she was coiled, purring, blinking sleepily at her kin. Lightly Tanit laid a hand on her back. She arched it, bidding Tanit stroke it, yes, just so. Her purring rose to a soft roar. She reminded Tanit suddenly, vividly, of the Lord Seramon.
“I do believe you,” Tanit said. “And yet, my lord, I ask you: If the cats have such power, why have they never defended the villages?”
“Because, lady,” said the Lord Seramon, “they, like me, have limits to their power; and, being cats, they seldom think of gathering forces. It’s their nature to hunt alone.”
“Yet they guard our city together,” she said.
“Each protects what is his,” he said. “It happens that, in so doing, they protect all. They’ve agreed to ally themselves with your people; their power is yours to use. In return they ask for free rein among the mice and rats in the storehouses, and a tribute of milk and fish.”
One of the twins snorted as if he could not help himself. “My lord! Pardon me, but that’s absurd. You’re a god; you may talk to a cat. What of us? We’re only human.”
“Listen,” the Lord Seramon said. One of the cats at Kamut’s feet rose on its hindlegs, stretching its long body, and flexed claws delicately, terribly close to his shrinking privates. The cat met his stare with one as golden and as steady, and quite as full of intelligence, as the Lord Seramon’s own.
Kamut gasped and stiffened, but it seemed he could not look away. The cat yawned, splitting its face in two, curling its pink tongue, and raked its claws gently, ever so gently, down Kamut’s thigh. Four thin lines of red stained the white linen of his kilt.
To his credit, he did not flinch or cry out. The cat sat once more, tail curled about feet.
“I … am only human,” Kamut said after a long pause. “But she is a cat.”
The Lord Seramon smiled that white smile of his. “Yes, young lord, you do understand. Will you be a captain in this army? I count a score of living villages within a day’s walk of the city. All have been raided; but their houses still stand, and their people are holding on. Even one of you, with your allies, should be able to raise wards that keep the village safe, though the fields may be more than your strength can manage.”
“It is a risk,” Seti said. “If the dark ones fail to gain their sacrifice, they may strip the fields in revenge.”
“The fields could be guarded,” Tanit said.
“No man will leave the safety of walls at night,” said the Mother’s priest, with a slant of the eye at the Lord Seramon.
The Lord Seramon’s mouth curved upward briefly. “No man will, but cats have no fear of the dark. The fields can be guarded. But you might wish to consider that wards of such size and extent may attract the very thing they’re meant to repel. If I were to be asked, I would counsel that your people decide among them what they can spare—which fields, which houses—and withdraw from those.”
“This is all very well,” said the captain of the guard, “but defense only serves for so long. There comes a time when attack is the only wise course. Can this enemy be attacked? Can he be fought? Or will he wear us away until there is nothing left?”
“The raiders can be fought,” the Lord Seramon said, “but how and with what numbers, I don’t yet know.”
“A minor god,” Kamut muttered to his brother.
The Lord Seramon laughed. “Very minor! But strong enough, I hope, to be of some use. So, then, my lords. Will you join with us? A wall is the first defense. An army within the wall—that comes after. Will you be the wall?”
“As weak a stone as I may be,” Seti said, “I will hold up my part of the wall.”
“And I,” said Kamut, rather surprisingly; his brother Senmut echoed him.
They all agreed, even Seti-re, and the Mother’s priest, whom Tanit would have expected to refuse. It was a spirit of rivalry: they were not to be outdone.
The Lord Seramon left them to plot their strategies. She could admire the skill with which he did it. They were not even aware of his silence or, after a while, his absence. He withdrew so quietly that even she hardly knew when he was gone. One moment he was there, watching and listening. The next, he was not.
It took this new and strange guard a rather long while to settle on how it would begin. Tanit was very weary when at last they scattered to the duties they had agreed upon. Her head ached; there was a dull pain in her belly, where so many children had grown and died.
Her maids would have put her to bed with a cool cloth on her brow and a potion to make her sleep, but she was in no mood to rest. She went hunting a minor god.
He was on the palace roof, where the maids spread the linens to dry on washing-day. It was bare now but for the pots of herbs that rimmed it. He stood on the edge as if he would spread wings and take flight, gazing out over the city and the fields and the river.
In the bright light of day he seemed both more mortal and less. The sun caught the threads of silver in his hair. There were scars on his back and side, down his arm, cleaving his face from cheekbone to chin. Scars of battle, worn almost to invisibility. She tried to imagine battles among the gods. Were their weapons like the ones she knew, or did they wield bolts of fire?
He glanced at her. “We have swords and spears,” he said, “and bolts of mages’ fire.”
A shiver ran down her spine. “Do you know every thought I think?”
“Only the ones aimed like an arrow,” he said.
Not only her cheeks were hot; her whole body flushed. If she could have sunk through the floor, she would have done it.
His hand was cool on her cheek, shocking her into a shiver. “Dear lady,” he said so tenderly that she could have wept, “you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“No?” She looked him in the face. “Am I such a child to you?”
“Never,” he said.
“I am no goddess, my lord.”
“And I,” he said, “in my own world, am no god.”
“It has been so long a while,” she said through a tightening throat, “since—and I cannot—a queen may not—”
“May she not?”
“Will you corrupt me?”
“I might seduce you,” he said.
She gasped. His effrontery was astonishing. And damnably charming, because he did not care, at all, for the ways of men in this world.
“The ladies of your court are free of their eyes and their favors,” he said. “Surely a queen may make what laws she pleases.”
“What if she does not please?”
He tilted up her chin and kissed her softly on the lips.
She should have struck him. Not held him when he began to straighten, and deepened the kiss until she was dizzy with it.
He tasted of strange spices. There was a quality to him, like leashed lightning, or sparks that flew in the air when the hot winds blew out of the red land. Magic, she thought; divine power. And yet he was as warm as any mortal man, solid, real to the touch; he did not vanish like a vision or a dream.
“You swore that you would never harm me,” she said to him.
“I shall keep that oath, lady,” he said.
“Then why—”
&nb
sp; “Lady,” he said, “there are gods above us all. Maybe it amuses them to bring us together across the worlds; maybe they have a purpose for us, which our wits are too feeble to understand.”
“Maybe this was never meant,” she said, but she did not believe it even as she said it. She did not want to believe it. She wanted—she yearned—
“Why are you afraid?” he asked her. “Am I so terrible a monster?”
“You are beautiful,” she said.
“And you,” he said, “were married to a man whom you admired and cherished, but for whom your body felt nothing.”
“I am not young,” she said as steadily as she could. “I have borne ten children. None lived long enough to walk the black earth. Now I have a thousand children, and they need my loyalty undivided.”
“Would a king divide his loyalty by taking a wife?”
“A king is a man,” she said.
“A queen is a woman.”
He was seducing her. That soft rich voice, those luminous eyes—they cast a spell. She had known him two days, but every one of her several souls reckoned that a lifetime.
“Gods are quick to love,” she said, “and just as quick to leave. Mortals, who have so much less time to waste, are slower with both.”
“Many things have been said of me,” he said, “and not all have been to my credit, though they may have been true. But one charge has never been laid against me: that I was light in love. A king must marry well and often. So I did. But when I left the throne, I left that behind me. My bed has been solitary since long before you were born.”
Then it may remain so, she meant to say, but the words would not shape themselves on her tongue. “I may take a consort,” she heard herself say. “I will not take a lover. That would dishonor my husband’s memory, my family’s reputation, and my own good name.”
Once she had traveled with her husband to the cataract of the river, where it roared headlong through a wilderness of stones. She had seen how flotsam, caught in the torrent, whirled and dived and for long moments vanished, but then suddenly reappeared an improbable distance downstream. So her heart felt now, hammering in her breast. It had spoken, not she. Half of it wanted him to recoil in horror and go away and let her be. The other half wanted him to say what in fact he said.