by Stephen Deas
'We have found nothing to implicate her.'
Hyram growled. 'A-And then B-Bellepheros disappears.'
The second lord scraped another bow. 'Taken by force. Prince Jehal reports that all his guards were found dead, most with their throats slit. Of the master himself…' Jeiros shrugged.
'P-Prince Jehal says!' Hyram spat. 'D-Don't believe a word f-from that viper.'
'Your Holiness, Master Bellepheros chose his words to the court of King Tyan with great care. Implications were presented, not in what he said but in what he did not say. He did not say that Queen Aliphera's death was an accident, Your Holiness.'
'Of c-course it wasn't!' Hyram stamped impatiently. 'D-Do what you need to f-find out who took him, Jeiros. N-Now, concerning the other matter? H-Have you got to the bottom of h-how Prince Jehal is k-killing King Tyan yet?'
Jeiros squirmed. 'Your Holiness, there is still no evidence that King Tyan is being poisoned at all.' He pursed his lips. 'We have learned, Your Holiness, that there may be some truth to the rumours that Prince Jehal has found something that improves his father's condition. It is a little…' He frowned. 'It is unclear,
Your Holiness. There are… there are hints of some potion he has acquired.'
Hyram snorted. 'I-If it's a potion, i-it's from one of you. G-Get to the point!'
'Your Holiness, that is the point. It does not come from the order. We…' He hesitated, but there was no going back now. 'We think it comes from outside the realms.'
Hyram's face went dark; he started to cough and his tremors seemed to grow more pronounced. It took a while for Jeiros to realise that the speaker was laughing at him.
'Y-you have singularly f-failed, Master Jeiros. Y-You have no answers for me, a-and now this? S-So be it. Go, M-Master Jeiros. I will summon Queen Zafir and P-Prince Jehal and I will f-find out who murdered Aliphera, a-and then I will tell y-you which alchemist is making p-potions for Jehal.'
The alchemist backed away, bowing as he went. It was a long way to the bottom of the tower, down narrow stairs and rickety ladders. Hyram found himself hoping that the second lord might trip and fall. A broken wrist or some such inconvenience – that would do, nothing more. For all his blathering, Hyram preferred not to lose his second lord as well as his first.
He sighed, alone at last, and let his eyes drift out across the plain. His legions were formed up, twenty phalanxes each of five hundred men. They would be out there every day until the dragon kings and queens gathered at the palace to see him pass his mantle on. Part of the legacy that each speaker handed to the next: ten thousand exquisitely trained soldiers, raised from birth to fight. It struck him as strange, watching them, that so many men should dedicate every moment of their lives to such perfection, and yet be content never to fight. Their loyalty, he was assured, was total and unswerving, hammered into them from the moment they could speak. Their strength and their fearlessness too was total, forged in their relentless and brutal years of training, and then quenched in the alchemical potions that emptied their minds of any doubts that might remain; in their legends, even the dragons couldn't stop them. But didn't they secretly hate him? Didn't they despise him? Didn't they look at their own potency and then look at him and wonder, Who is this fading king? Who is he to leash us?
He looked away. A year ago he'd have laughed at such thoughts; then, a year ago he'd been a different man. Still strong, still fooling himself that he was younger than his years. Still with dreams that his days as speaker might go on and on, that he might compel Shezira to wed him as the price of naming her as his successor. Or, old treaties and dusty parchments be damned, marrying Aliphera and naming her instead. Still bedding women as the fancy took him, instead of lying helpless in his sheets, stinking of his own soil after one of the fits caught him unaware, screaming for his pot-boys to clean him.
Now Aliphera was dead, Shezira wouldn't have him, and even the pot-boys kept running away. In another year or two he'd be like King Tyan, dribbling and useless. How fitting that would be, the two of them, old foes that they were, side by side, forgotten, each lying in his own pool of drool. No, he'd rather die a quick death than that. Let them chop him up and feed him to his own dragons, like the speakers of old, before Speaker Narammed clipped the dragon-priests' wings.
He heard the stairs squeak behind him and turned to see a head emerging from the belly of the tower, up into the sunlight. The head didn't have much hair left, and what there was was white. The face beneath it looked pained and out of breath.
'You called for me, Your Holiness?'
Hyram shook his head. 'N-No, Wordmaster Herlian.'
'Then I shall take myself back down into the shade, Your Holiness, and you may tell our dear second lord that I shall corner him when he's sitting down one day and rap his ankles with my stick. I am too old to be climbing these stairs. He seemed to think you wished to issue a summons or two.'
'T-To Prince J-Jehal and to Queen Z-Zafir, but it could have waited. S-Since you're here, though, come and stand with me.'
'If I must, Your Holiness.' The wordmaster struggled out onto the roof. 'But you'd better tell me what there is to see. My eyes are as old as the rest of me.'
'I-I want to know, W-Wordmaster. What will your b-books say of me?'
'Ha!' Herlian's cackle sounded like the snapping of old dry twigs. 'If I write them, they'll say you were a foul-tempered little boy who never attended to his lessons, didn't listen to a word his elders said to him and made his tutor's life an endless sea of misery.' The wordmaster hobbled to the edge of the tower and looked down. 'Long way. Heh. I suppose I might also mention how a headstrong dragon-knight took on the duty that should have fallen to his brother. I know you didn't want it. I don't mean being the speaker, either. I mean being the eldest.'
'H-History, Wordmaster, that's all.'
'History is all I am, young Master Hyram. If it's flattery you want, get yourself a flatterer to walk up all these stairs. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that there are books and books full of the stories of Vishmir and other speakers of old. Heh. I don't forget, you see. I still remember how your eyes used to light up when I'd finally consent to read to you about them. Your story will be much shorter, Your Holiness. Ten years of peace and prosperity in which nothing of any great significance happened to the realms, and all the little people were left to live their lives and get old and fat. That is what the story of a truly good speaker should be. Let that be enough.'
'I-Is it, though?'
Herlian shrugged. 'It is for the rest of us. If it's not enough for you, then tell me what is. I'll write wars for you if you want. Great victories, epic quests, strings of princesses fawning at your feet. Whatever you like. As much glory as you want.'
'N-No, Wordmaster, that won't b-be necessary.' Hyram shook his head, trying to push away the suffocating weight of hopelessness that seemed to press down on him these days. That's it, is it? I'll be remembered as a fine speaker, because no one has bothered to write anything else? But then why remember at all? He sat down, knowing that doing so would allow Herlian to sit as well. 'D-Do you have your q-quill? Let us start with a summons to P-Prince Jehal. M-Maybe you can add an execution as a f-footnote to my reign.'
30
Queen Aliphera's Garden
'I have a gift for you.' Jehal put on his best smile. Zafir glanced at him through her eyelashes. They were walking together, side by side, among many-coloured shrubs and rainbow flowerbeds. The summer sun was bright and warm and a faint breeze ticked Jehal's nose with strange scents, a heady mixture of perfumes and spices.
'Do you like my gardens?' asked Zafir. 'My mother grew them.' They walked just far enough apart to be sure they didn't touch, even by accident. Behind them a little knot of Zafir's ladies followed them around, not too close but never so far away that they were out of sight. In case they were needed to testify that nothing improper could possibly have happened.
'Indeed, Your Holiness.' He hated that, having to call her Holiness just because she
was a queen now, and he was a mere prince. That would have to change. 'Queen Aliphera's Gardens are justly famous throughout the realms. Even as far north as…' He let that hang.
'You mean even dear Princess Lystra has heard of them? It defies imagination.' Her words had edges like razors. 'Is she well, your wife?'
Jehal pretended not to notice Zafir's venom. 'When I left, she was a picture of health and very bored.'
'You should have brought her with you. It would have been a delight to welcome her as a guest within my walls.'
Yes. Especially now that she's carrying my heir. Of course, he didn't know for sure that Zafir knew this; in fact he didn't even know for sure himself, but the signs were there, and as far as he could tell Zafir's spies were making sure that she was at least as well informed as he was. I should probably ask her whether it's going to be a boy or a girl.
He smiled again. 'She would have been overjoyed, I'm sure. Given her condition, however, I have had to order that she be confined to the palace. It is concern for her health, you see. The risk of miscarriage.' Zafir didn't blink. So that's that, then. She knows.
Zafir sniffed. 'I'm told that my mother was still flying three days before I was born. Queen Shezira probably gave birth to one of her daughters while still in the saddle.'
The risk of miscarriage that would come from letting you anywhere near her. 'Dear Queen Zafir, it should be plain to you that I've been seeking an excuse to lock my darling wife away since before I married her. Would you deny me my freedom?'
For a moment Zafir didn't answer. Then she stopped and turned to face him, and her face lit up. 'Is marriage so unhappy for you?'
'Deeply.'
'I'll help you get rid of her then,' she said quietly. 'I have a debt of that sort, after all.'
'In time, my love.' Jehal glanced back at the ladies-in-waiting. They were twenty, maybe thirty yards away, chatting among themselves, casting the occasional glance towards their queen. Well out of earshot.
'But not before she gives you an heir?'
'It does keep her out of the way, my sweet.'
'I suppose you, of all princes, can find a way to make sure she never gives birth. What a string of tragedies she has to look forward to.'
'Actually, I was thinking of birthing them in secret and then sending them away with the Taiytakei to be raised in secret in some far-off foreign land.'
She smiled. 'To come back in twenty years and challenge you for your throne? How romantic. And stupid. Get rid of them, Jehal. Them and her.'
'As soon as I can, my love. When I find the right potion.'
She drew a little closer, almost close enough to touch. 'Where do you get them from? Do you have a pet alchemist? He must be very good.'
Jehal bowed. 'Why, I make them myself, Your Holiness.'
'No you don't!' She laughed.
'I have a new one now. Something that makes my father's illness subside, at least for a while. I have a few flasks of it with me to dangle under Speaker Hyram's nose. Doubtless he intends to accuse me of killing your mother yet again, though without a shred of evidence. He's going to start sounding quite foolish soon. When he's done, I shall let him taste a little of my bottled salvation so that he can see how much better he might be, and then he'll never, ever taste any more.' He shook his head and laughed as well. 'Well, unless he makes me speaker, but I can't see that, can you?'
'I think he'd rather hand himself over to the dragon-priests.'
'Yes.' Jehal scratched his chin. 'Would he rather go slowly mad, though? I suppose he would, but it will be fun to find out.'
'Make him suffer. After he crowned me, he took me aside and asked if I'd killed her. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. And then he asked whether it was you.'
Jehal put on a face. 'Well I hope you told him no.'
'Of course I did. Still, I think he had rather more of a secret desire for my mother than I realised.'
'I don't think it was that secret.' Not that secret at all. Just not reciprocated. 'Don't worry, my sweet, it's me that he wants to hang, not you. Smile him a pretty smile and he'll melt like butter.'
'Like this?'
'Exactly like that. I feel my blood quickening already.' He glanced back at the watching courtiers and sighed. 'Is there some way we could…' he whispered.
Zafir's smile faded. She shook her head sadly. 'No. Not until this is done. That's what you said.'
'I know, but…' He grinned and bared his teeth. 'Now I'm here, it is a physical pain that I can't touch you.'
She blushed and looked at her feet. 'Do you like this dress?' she asked.
'On you, it's perfection.'
'It was my mother's. I think she wore it on the day she first met Speaker Hyram. I had to make some adjustments, of course. I spoke to some of my mother's old servants and learned how she carried herself, how she dressed herself, how she wore her hair. When Hyram sees me, it won't be me he sees – it will be my mother, as she was when he fell in love with her. I shall drive that dagger in deep and then twist until the blade breaks.'
'Oh, that's cruel.' Jehal grinned. 'Between the two of us, we should have him weeping on his knees.'
Zafir shrugged. 'He accused me, moments after he crowned me.'
Jehal grinned some more. 'Well, he was right.'
She peered at him and pouted. 'You said something about a gift and then wandered off into all sorts of unpleasantness. Is it a nice gift? Shall I want it?'
'Oh yes, I think you shall want it very much.'
She wagged a finger at him. 'We agreed, remember.'
'My love, it's not me I'm offering. Well I am, but not here and now. Although…' He glanced back at the courtiers again. 'I have a steel sword as well as the one you're after. I could butcher them all and then we could-'
'Jehal!'
'I'm sure they're all very tedious.'
Zafir laughed, and Jehal felt a tension inside him ease and fade away. He still had her. That was what mattered. However much she hated him for marrying Princess Lystra, he still had her. He handed her a strip of black silk.
'You have to put this on,' he said, 'like a blindfold. No! Not here!' He lowered his voice until he was absolutely sure that no one else would hear. 'But it's not a blindfold, my love. When you put it on, you will see things. You won't want anyone else to know, so do it when no one is watching you.' He offered her a box. It wasn't as pretty as the one the Taiytakei had given him, but it was close. This one, though, only had room for one little golden dragon with ruby eyes.
Zafir ran her fingers over the carved wood. He could see the hunger in her eyes. 'What is it?'
'Open it when you're alone. Take a good look at it, and then put on the blindfold. When you do, you'll understand. I could tell you a lot more, but where would be the fun in that?' He winked and his voice dropped even lower. 'Anticipation is often the greatest pleasure.'
'Oh really?' She was almost purring. 'Will you be staying in the City of Dragons after you've finished taunting poor old Hyram?' He could see the desire flashing through her. A real shame that we can't- He bit his lip. Not yet, not yet. Not while Hyram's watching us so closely.
'Of course. Though no one will know of it.'
'How can you be sure?'
'Leave that to me. Do you trust me, my love?'
He wasn't sure what to make of the look she gave him, but decided to take it as a cautious yes. He smiled as he felt the hairs prickle on the back of his neck. They'd dallied for too long, and the queen's chaperones were drawing closer. Slowly and cautiously and giving plenty of notice of their advance, but nevertheless with the same relentless purpose as a hostile army.
Later, when everyone was supposed to be asleep and he was alone in his carefully guarded and watched bedchamber, Jehal opened the shutters on his windows, slipped out the second strip of black silk and wrapped it across his eyes.
So, my love, let's see how far you've got.
31
The Adamantine Guard
Watching Zafir play with he
r new toy was far too much fun, and of course the first thing she did, as soon as she discovered she could make the little dragon fly, was to send it to spy through his window. He took off the black silk and then let her watch him for a while, tossing and turning in his sleep, then pretended to awaken. The tiny dragon flew up to his face as if to announce its presence. He tried to look sheepish.
'You are very wicked,' he whispered in the dragon's ear, 'and if you were here, I would show you how wicked you are.'
The tiny dragon danced around him, taunting him, and then darted back towards the window.
'Zafir,' he hissed, and the dragon paused and hovered. 'Nothing I've given Lystra comes near to this. Send it to watch us, if you want, and you will see.'
The dragon paused and then left. Jehal shuttered the windows behind it and then put the black silk back across his eyes.
Both of them rose late the next morning, and as Zafir rode with him to her eyrie, she seemed to glow.
'I'm sure you have another one,' she whispered in his ear as he prepared to mount his dragon, Wraithwing. 'We could watch each other when we're apart.'
Or I could tell her about the second silk, he thought. Tell her that I can share the eyes of her little spy with her, that I can watch her through its eyes whenever I want, if she keeps it near.
Tempting, very tempting, but that wasn't why he'd given it to her. 'Wait for me, my love,' he said thickly. 'I'll find you, after we're both done with Hyram.'
'Hmmm.' Her eyes flashed. 'You'd better.'
He climbed into the saddle and wiped his brow. Maybe the Taiytakei can get me some more. That made him laugh as he watched Zafir and her courtiers back away from his dragon. For all I know, these are the only two such creatures ever made, and I ask for more simply so I can watch my lover when she's not in my bed? Not that they'd know, of course, but still.
'Fly!' he shouted, and immediately felt the huge muscles of the dragon stir beneath him. Wraithwing lifted his head, rose onto his hind legs and began to run across the flat ground. Jehal closed his eyes. He could feel every stride as the dragon accelerated. He knew exactly when it would make one last bound and unfurl its wings. He felt himself grow heavier as it rose up into the air, and he sighed. Nothing, but nothing, compared to that moment, the second that the ground let go. Such a pity that it only lasted for an instant; then it was gone, and everything that followed was tame and flat. He thought about getting out the black silk again and letting his eyes ride with one dragon while his body rode on another, but that was just a quick way to lose the silk to the wind. He tried to think about Hyram instead, but Zafir kept getting in the way. He wondered sometimes if he should have spurned Princess Lystra and taken Zafir to be his bride instead, but that would have ruined everything. It was a shame, though, because one day, because of what he'd done, Lystra was going to be in the way. Maybe he should have turned them both away. He could have done that. Rejected Lystra because Queen Shezira hadn't brought the perfect white dragon that she'd promised him.