by Kirby Crow
The sleigh was moving with astonishing speed, far faster than any cart Scarlet had ever ridden in. It jolted suddenly and he drew back from the window with a hiss.
“Do not be afraid,” Liall said, and for a moment he was back all the way, his eyes focused on the present, not looking into whatever memories possessed him. “It was a bump in the snow. We shall not overturn, these are balanced well.”
“I’m not afraid,” Scarlet said with dignity, which was partly true, “Only startled. We’re moving so fast!”
Liall nodded and sank back into his thoughts. He ignored Scarlet after that, and Scarlet settled into the far side of the seat and looked out the window. They had moved past the tenements and into an area of small shops crowded together in tall buildings. He watched and noticed that everyone went heavily dressed in woolen coats and boots and none neglected to wear some manner of hat or head covering. He stared at the conical fur hats that most of the people wore. They had long flaps to cover the ears and odd little flaps on the top, which folded down and were decorated with many kinds of stitching and beads. Mostly, Scarlet was amazed at the lights: torches, lamps and candlelight were everywhere, a glittering city of light. He wondered at his surprise. Obviously, the winter darkness would necessitate the need for light even in the hours that were marked as day, but these folk seemed to love light and revel in it. He saw that in the way they decorated their lamps with colored bits of glass and dressed up their street lanterns with wrought iron and cut crystal and panels of painted paper. Scarlet had a hundred questions about the city, but Liall brooded silently on his side of the couch and Scarlet did not want to risk treading on whatever was haunting him.
They traveled so quickly, it seemed hardly any time at all until they were in a wealthy part of the city. Sleighs passed them on the road, some open and plain, with men and women bundled in wool and sheepskin. But most of the sleighs were closed, the exteriors richly painted and decorated. They left the city soon after that, and the heavy traffic gave way to almost none as they moved into the countryside surrounding the port and began to pass great mansions fairly glowing with light, and surrounded by snowy expanses.
Scarlet could not see what lay before them on the roadway, but after a time, he noticed that nothing but snow and trees filled the landscape. And such trees! No plain brown or black trunks here, but pale like the petals of white roses, or Linhona’s clean linens. The tall, slender trees, barren of leaves, were all of a ghostly white color, whip-stroked here and there with black. They were nothing like the weather-blasted junipers and pines he was familiar with in Byzantur, and the lack of familiar plants just seemed to highlight how alien this land was, and how alien he was in it.
Scarlet turned to Liall to ask him about the trees, but he seemed to be dozing, his eyes closed and his arms crossed over his chest. It occurred to Scarlet that he might try to do the same, not knowing what awaited them or how much energy he would need, but the landscape, the new sights and smells, fascinated him so. Despite all that, in less than an hour he was fighting to keep his eyes open. The movement of the sleigh lulled him until it finally won and he slept.
Scarlet woke with a start some time later and found he was lying curled on the wide seat under a layer of furs, his cheek against Liall’s shoulder. Liall was peering out the window. “We are nearly there,” he said without looking at Scarlet.
“Liall?”
Liall gave Scarlet an unconvincing smile.
“What is wrong?”
Liall hesitated. “Nothing,” he said finally. He sighed. “Do you remember when we sparred on the deck of the Ostre Sul? It is like that with me now. I am only remembering. It happens to the best of soldiers.”
Scarlet was not reassured.
“Please do not worry,” Liall said. “Whatever comes, I am with you.”
Scarlet squeezed Liall’s hand, his heart going out to the man. “Don’t vex yourself on my account. I’ll be fine, like always. Just do what you have to do.”
Liall nodded absently.
The sleigh turned sharply, and Scarlet gasped at the new vista beyond the window. He had thought the city was beautiful, but the castle fortress before him was ten times that. Blue light from lanterns of the same color, lights and spires and towers, all laced with icicles and snow, beautiful carved domes of blue and silver, and battlements that seemed to reach into the very sky, all twinkling with that luminous blue light.
“My home,” Liall said. “The Nauhinir.”
Scarlet stared, his mouth dry. Before he could summon the wits to mouth the questions drumming in his brain, the sleigh began to slow.
“Take off that coat,” Liall said, meaning the heavy overcoat he had found for Scarlet on the ship, now frayed and white-patched with salt. Scarlet removed it, keeping only his red pedlar’s coat on, which was also travel-worn but still better than the coat. The crimson color was fading from exposure to the salt air, but it was still deep and brilliant.
“And the cap, and your weapons,” Liall added, drawing off his own coat and pulling a long cloak from his pack. It was deep blue with some sort of curling silver design splashed over it in long slashes. It looked very fine. Scarlet wondered where he had gotten such a cloak. Such a garment would have spoiled fast at sea if Liall had worn it on the ship.
Scarlet removed his Morturii knives from his belt with misgiving, pulled his cap off and tried to comb his tangled hair with his fingers. It had grown longer on the voyage. “Where’d you get that cloak? It’s grand.”
Liall did not answer, and before he could ask again, the sleigh came to an abrupt stop and the door opened.
Liall rose and stepped out, whipping the blue cloak around his body, and then turned to hold out his hand for Scarlet. It seemed an odd thing to do, helping him out of the carriage as if he were a lady or invalid, but he was in Liall’s land now. For all he knew, this was a proper custom. It was not until they were standing in the snow under the blue lamplight that Scarlet saw there were men and women outside the great fortress, waiting for them on the wide steps of a stone gatehouse that was larger than the army barracks in Patra. Everyone here was taller than him by yards and yards, it seemed.
“What is this place?” Scarlet whispered.
“The Nauhinir, as I have said,” Liall answered tightly out of the side of his mouth, which told him nothing more than a name.
The people were dressed in furs and bright fabrics, as if they could deny the bleak landscape simply by the colors they adorned themselves in. Brilliant jewels glittered on the ears and throats of both men and women, and many wore the same kind of conical fur hat Scarlet had seen in the city, though richer and more heavily decorated. He stared at the broad stone steps that led upward, intimidated by the sheer size of everything, and the men and women surrounding him were like pillars of gold, tall and unapproachable. He smoothed his hands down his red jacket, knowing that his boots and shirt were mended and he looked poor and uncouth beside Liall.
Liall took his arm. “Now I must ask you to remain silent until we are alone together. If I nod at you, deliver your best bow.”
Scarlet nodded, painfully aware of the many pale eyes on him. Never more keenly had he felt the differences between him and Liall. Liall turned to the men who waited. They bowed to him. Liall did not bow back, but kept hold of Scarlet’s arm as he guided him up the stone steps that were so deep that Scarlet’s legs ached by the time they reached the top.
Two enormous iron doors—gates, really—opened inward, pulled by several men in blue and silver livery. Scarlet wondered briefly if they were servants or soldiers as Liall swept him in, past the great gates and past glittering folk in silks and heavy velvets and furs, into the largest hall Scarlet had ever seen. The gates closed behind them with a muffled, booming noise that rang throughout the hall like muted thunder, and Scarlet thought that this place must hold great treasures indeed, for surely not even an army could breach those gates.
Liall continued to lead them forward. Scarlet had to practically
bite his tongue to prevent more questions from falling out, but he decided that to mimic Liall was probably the best course of action. From the edge of his vision, he could see everyone bowing low, men and women alike, but Liall strode with his head high and his eyes forward, not returning the proffered respect. Suddenly, though he had always been at ease around strangers and new surroundings, Scarlet was frozen into some inner stillness and fear. There was something here that he did not understand.
A man dressed as richly as the rest approached and bowed low. Liall spoke to him clearly and loudly. The man flicked a glance at Scarlet, and Scarlet immediately sensed danger. The man spoke a few words in the rapid Sinha dialect, and Scarlet looked up at Liall.
“He is only greeting me,” Liall explained. His dislike of the strange man was plain.
“Who’s Nazheer... Nazur...” Scarlet’s tongue tripped on the unfamiliar sounds. “What he said?”
“Nazheradei,” Liall supplied. “It is me, it is my name. Prince Nazheradei. Now be silent.”
Scarlet stared at him, frozen in that odd stillness. He heard nothing but a rushing sound in his ears, felt nothing but the cold.
Liall led him forward again and Scarlet allowed it, moving woodenly. A set of tall, carved doors opened and they entered together.
Dozens of delicate lamps made of gilt and glass hung from chains suspended from the ceiling, scattering golden light on the walls, which were covered with large panels of polished, inlaid woods. An older woman with pure white hair sat at the far end of the high- ceilinged, opulent room, jewels glittering at her throat, her gown like a cobweb of silver. She wore a circlet of clear crystals—surely they couldn’t be diamonds!—binding her brow. Though she was a woman and much older, the angular shape of her face was very much like Liall’s, and Scarlet realized with a shock who she must be.
A crown, he thought numbly, and stopped when Liall stopped. Behind the crowned woman was another, younger, woman: the coldest, most beautiful woman Scarlet had ever seen, with pale gold hair and eyes like chips of ice. Her name, Scarlet learned later, was Shikhoza.
His gypsy chief was a prince. The prince and the pedlar. If Scarlet could have made any sound at all, he would have barked laughter like a madman.
8.
Nazheradei
Liall pointedly did not place his foot on the lowest step of the dais, claiming a prince’s status, but instead stayed on the main platform, watching and waiting.
“Welcome home, my son.”
“I thank you, my mother.”
There were no courtly speeches. Rshan greetings were swift and to the point. This saved time for later, when Rshani were disposed to better carving each other up. At Liall’s side, Scarlet had gone deathly still, and he gripped Liall’s hand tightly, as if afraid he might be eaten by all these giants. Liall drew him forward and presented him to Queen Nadiushka.
“This is Scarlet of Lysia.”
Her silvery eyebrows under her diamond crown rose slightly.
“My t’aishka,” Liall finished, and her eyebrows went higher still. Liall nudged Scarlet with his elbow. The pedlar jumped and looked at him with round, frightened eyes. “Bow,” Liall muttered, knowing the boy had forgotten. Scarlet could hardly be blamed for that. A surge of guilt nudged his conscience.
Scarlet took a deep breath and looked up at the mistress of the Nauhinir Palace, queen of Rshan na Ostre, then put his hand over his heart and sketched a brief, old-fashioned bow.
Liall glanced to Nadiushka and saw the corners of her eyes crinkle with amusement. When had she acquired those wrinkles? Ai, my mother, despite your vow, you have grown old after all.
The amusement that rippled through the glittering court was less kind, for Scarlet’s greeting was far less than should be rendered to a queen, but Scarlet was oblivious to all of it.
Liall, however, was not. He lifted the edge of his cloak and draped it over Scarlet’s shoulders along with his arm, then pulled the Hilurin closer to his side. Now there would be no mistakes, since he had publicly claimed Scarlet. Liall could feel his trembling through the cloak, though he hid it well enough.
Then his mother did something that surprised Liall. She rose from her throne and descended the three steps down to where they stood. She looked at Liall for a long moment, and from this distance there was no mistaking her age. No amount of powder or jewels could hide the deep lines around her mouth and the dull, gray strands threaded carefully through her hair. Rshani did not age in quite the same way as the other races, but she had grown elderly in his absence. He saw it in her skin and in her hands and most of all in the tears that glimmered in her pale blue eyes, so like his own. And Nadei’s, a silken voice seemed to hiss in Liall’s mind.
She put her hands on Liall’s shoulders and placed a kiss in the center of his forehead: an extraordinary greeting from a queen. Liall thought nothing she could do now would astonish him further, but then she turned to Scarlet and kissed him in the same manner, and he, knowing no better, briefly touched her arm in return. She was not offended, though well she might have been once. Liall, too, had a prickly sense of pride, and he had learned it from his mother. Liall had never known King Lindolanen, his father, for the young king had had been killed hunting a snow bear while Nadei was still toddling. Nadiushka had been pregnant with Liall that year, and he had been born to a widowed mother, a matter thought to be an ill-omened thing in Rshan.
Well, Liall thought, they had not been wrong.
She turned and motioned, and from behind the throne came a sturdy boy of fourteen or so with a look of her about his mouth and eyes. Liall had had no reliable news from Rshan in ages, but he could guess who the boy was. He was tall, handsome, but not overly so, and he looked at Liall with wariness and more than a little suspicion. Liall found a moment to be desperately thankful that the boy resembled Nadei not at all.
“Cestimir,” the queen called, drawing him to her. He was almost as tall as she. “This is your elder brother, Nazheradei.” She smoothed Cestimir’s hair, which was like silver silk and curling at the ends. “This is Cestimir, my son.”
No bows were necessary between them, blood prince to crown prince, being from the same wellspring, but Liall sensed deep currents flowing around the court. There was anger here, which was nothing new, but also a sense of urgency that he had not felt since...
Don’t think about that day. Not now. Not here.
Led by instinct alone, Liall touched his forehead and bowed low, nudging Scarlet to follow his lead. Scarlet did, and when Liall lifted his gaze, he saw the suspicion fade from Cestimir’s eyes. Too quickly, for a courtly bow costs nothing and meant nothing. It made him suddenly afraid for him, and for his mother.
What have I walked into? Is this a homecoming, or a prelude to an assassination? He would know soon enough.
A prince. Liall was a prince.
Scarlet was quiet in the corridor after they were given leave to withdraw, a silence made up of sheer amazement, shock, and a growing sense of anger. Liall was equally silent, but his reasons were unknown to Scarlet.
A prince. Liall was a prince! I’m a pedlar, a petty merchant who sells pins and silk ribbons and perfume and cheap jewelry from town to town, and he... we....
It made Scarlet feel faintly sick.
Liall curtly gestured that Scarlet should follow him, and he started off confidently into the depths of the palace, the crowds of jeweled onlookers parting for them like the sea. Scarlet followed, staying close to Liall’s side.
“These are my apartments,” Liall said some endless time later, when they had walked what would have amounted to a long evening’s stroll in Lysia. “Or they were, when I was a boy.”
Scarlet had followed him in a daze, past gilded doorways and glittering stairs, and finally they had arrived at an enclave that could have safely held four or even five houses of the size he had grown up in, and Liall called it ‘apartments’.
In merchant caravans, Scarlet had seen rare and costly things, but just the little ante-c
hamber of Liall’s apartment put those wares to shame: richly patterned carpets and woven tapestries, crystal vases and beaded curtains, and inside there was more. There was a sitting area, like a common room back home, furnished with a green couch with deep cushions and several large chairs, each big enough for a grown man to curl up in like a baby. Tall chests paneled in dark-tinted wood lined the walls, and there was some type of game table surrounded by a set of chairs. Small, potted vases of red flowers, in appearance almost like roses, were placed about the room, but their scent was decidedly unfamiliar. Scarlet peered to the right as they walked in and saw a wide table and delicate, carved chairs set up in an alcove lit with candles, a private dining nook of some sort, but filled with furniture far costlier than any he had seen before.
Liall signaled Scarlet to follow as he entered through an open archway into a bedroom that seemed to be made simply to house the enormous curtained bed within. The outer layers of the bed curtains were velvet, and the inner veils were of a light-spun material like gauze or spider webs. The sheets on the bed looked like silk and were dyed crimson with crushed carilla shells. The deep, red color with its characteristic shadings of black and purple was unmistakable, and there was much of it scattered around these rooms. Carilla was the most expensive of dyes, imported from far across the sea, and Scarlet used to wonder where it came from. Now he knew.
However dark it was outside, it was bright within these rooms, with the light of many lamps chasing back the shadows and a fire roiling in the hearth. The blue crystal lamps looked like gigantic sapphires hollowed out to hold oil, and there were heavy woolen draperies that extended from ceiling to floor. A very large, curved casement with a glass window was behind the bed, its heavy draperies flung open to reveal a dim landscape of ice and drifting snow. The sheer size of it made him feel slightly sick. There were only two glass windows in all of Lysia. Or there had been.
A very old man, blue-eyed with a shock of wiry silver hair, and with the kindest face Scarlet had seen yet, came into the bedroom and greeted Liall. Liall took both the old man’s hands before embracing him for several long moments. Scarlet saw the glisten of tears in the old man’s eyes and wondered who he was. They exchanged more words and the old man lifted his chin.