The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1)

by Kari Cordis

  “It has come to my attention that Illians have gained audience with the Council…” he began.

  What a conversation piece. “Have they?” The North was many decades away from its primitive horror of Illians. Well, with the possible exception of the Marekite Priesthood, she supposed. Now she knew what his game was.

  He frowned ever so slightly and she brought herself to heel at the look in his lidless eyes. He was not a fool, nor stupid, and the power of the priesthood was still deep and extensive. Flippancy was not the way to assure a good working relationship between Throne and Temple.

  “I truly was not aware of this,” she offered frankly, and had the immediate impression that it was the wrong thing to say, making her look stupid and out of touch as well as thoughtless.

  Clarent was nothing but smooth tact, however. “It would be worth your time to investigate, Majesty. I have heard rumor that they are interested in building in Archemounte.” It was plain he thought this so ludicrous as to be laughable…if one were to indulge in that sort of behavior. “And, of course, to give them a foothold in the very heart of the Empire is appalling to even consider.”

  Sable was about to nod her head in agreement when she stopped herself, vaguely surprised. He was enormously, giftedly, persuasive. Without a little care, she would find herself agreeing to whatever he suggested.

  “Well, High Priest, we are the most educated, tolerant Realm in the world. It would be odd if we were open-minded about everything but religion.” She made her tone light, as if to float onto the next subject.

  Clarent seemed to be nailed down to this one. “Your Majesty,” he persisted, with such mild rebuke it was hardly recognizable as such, “though it is excellent to be open to educating oneself, that state of being will be profoundly unsatisfactory…unless it is filled with the education itself. I beg you to seek understanding of the threat the Illians bring to our Empire.”

  There wasn’t the faintest sense of a request there, she thought wryly, and quite a bit of convoluted sentence structure. Did he think her witless? Gullible? He was so suave and smooth it was difficult to read.

  In a spasm of mischief, she had a devilish idea.

  Two days later, it occurred to her that Elger was about as different from Clarent as could be imagined. The High Priest was tall and spare and pale. Elger barely topped her own height, was stout, and had a profusion of brownness. Brown hair, skin dark from the sun and wind, and deep, warm brown eyes that looked right at you instead of just sort of surveying you like a specimen. His face was scarred and pocked from the spots of youth, but it was honest, forthright, and ingenuous—last seen in the Palace seven years ago, with Sable’s arrival.

  “So, Il does not demand tithe?” Sable clarified.

  “No, Your Majesty, though it is accepted and certainly encouraged, as a gift of the heart.” Elger’s voice, his eyes, his gentle manner, all respectful, had not an ounce of flattery in them. She was quite sure he would speak to her doorman in exactly the same tone.

  They were in the Audience Chamber, a business-like room with a big walnut table and several large, stately, hideous chairs, all set off by deep teal carpets and drapes. Elger was a Shepherd, surprisingly hard to find in a city Clarent seemed convinced was being overrun by Illians. The ‘ear of the Council’ causing so much distress to her High Priest turned out to be a reference to Elger’s defense of his presence in Archemounte. The fact that the Council hadn’t immediately banned him from the Empire apparently made them a step away from heresy. There’d been no talk of building a House of Worship, which is what they called their Temples.

  It hadn’t taken long to figure all this out, and now she was digging into some of the mystery of the Cult, trying to put a finger on what made it so socially deviant. Besides, it was deeply satisfying to have a completely normal conversation with somebody.

  “What does he demand?” she asked cagily. There was always small print somewhere in these things.

  “Your heart,” Elger said, with a smile to show he wasn’t trying to be clever. That was the problem, she thought a little wryly. If he acted like he was trying to hide something, she’d be on to him in a minute, but so far all she’d gotten was quite a bit of very honest and nebulous abstraction.

  “No ‘One Great Deed,’ no ‘sober and conscientious life contributing to the greater good of all’…” she half-joked, fingers fluttering the air in self-deprecation.

  Elger shook his head, smiling. After a moment, he said slowly, “Your Majesty, Il is a giver more than a taker. In His great love and mercy and power, it pleases Him to grant us things—things of the Spirit, that is. He desires only that we believe in Him. These other, civil and social and behavioral, aspects of being Illian are simply responses to His goodness. Outpourings of gratitude, you might say.”

  “Things of the Spirit?” This was exactly the kind of vague explanations that she’d been trying to decipher.

  “Yes, Majesty: Peace. Joy. Compassion. Hope. Generosity. Love.”

  “No…monetary gain? Successful life path? Safe and harmonious existence?”

  “Boring.” He looked at her gravely, but his eyes were twinkling.

  She almost laughed out loud, her blue eyes smiling back at him. She was no closer to understanding how such a cult had ever survived, but she liked him and his lack of dissembling ways—and she had pretty much determined Illianism was no threat to the Empire. Nothing that unsubstantial, irrational, unfounded, and obscure was ever going to catch on with Northerners.

  She stood and he rose at once, bowing from the waist.

  “You’ve been most informative, Shepherd,” she said graciously.

  “It’s my pleasure,” he said calmly, not mentioning there’d never in recorded history been a Shepherd invited to the Palace.

  And with that, the casual interview was over. Sable thought no more about it, being busy beyond belief with the day’s normal routine and overloaded with the requirements of the pending Royal Departure. She certainly wasn’t expecting the terse message that reached her just as she was swallowing a snatched supper.

  It was from the High Priest, and she stared at it stupidly for a moment before irritation began to smolder into life. This couldn’t be what she thought. Surely she was misreading it. Technically, she was the highest power in the Empire. In actuality, this man was as close to an equal as there was, and the only individual that would ever dare suggest that was true. Even so…surely he did not dare to summon her.

  She beckoned the messenger over, keeping her face impassive, and scribbled a quick response—a cool, courteous explanation of her busy schedule. Any ‘urgent meetings’ deemed necessary would have to take place at the Palace. After sunset.

  It simmered in her guts the rest of the night, so that by the time a page alerted her to High Priest Clarent’s presence in her Audience Chamber, she was more than ready to exchange a few words with him. Outside, day was fading to its late dusk as she strode down the still-busy corridors, her land bathed in the deep, ruddy glow of the sun.

  She went to the Throne Room. And plunked her royal self down on the Throne. Clarent could come to her, here.

  The page scurried away to fetch the High Priest while she tapped one slender, agitated finger on the arm rest. She was hot and flushed from the busyness of the day, and well aware the simple, sleeveless gold gown did not put her at her best, but this needed to be settled. She was not one to approve of outraged histrionics, but as a monarch she required peace—boundaries needed to be drawn here.

  Perhaps a reminder of the respect due one’s monarch, as well, she thought grimly, as Clarent entered and marched towards her without a sign of either apology or deference. His long white robes flowed around him, simple and understated so as not to detract from the Diamond on his chest.

  He stopped at the foot of the dais. It was impossible for him not to be aware of the setting—she on the Throne of Empire, seated, he standing several steps below. For all that, there wasn’t an ounce of the supplicant in the c
old face looking up at her.

  “Your Majesty,” his smooth, controlled voice rolled out, rich with haughtiness. He didn’t even dip his head, which was the only obeisance required of a High Priest.

  She forced a frosty voice out of her hot and seething insides.

  “What do you wish, Clarent?” There, see if a similar lack of courtesy would bring him up a little.

  For a moment his control slipped, and she saw…fury. A faint sense of curiosity peeked around her own anger. Figuring out what drove people was instrumental in handling them, she’d found; she’d had no idea he could even get agitated.

  “You’ve been entertaining Illians,” he stated, newly calm, so that what was obviously an accusation came out more like a comment on the grain market.

  “High Priest, you advised me to educate myself,” she answered, but the impulsive response to their last conversation now seemed vaguely unwise. Queens did not toy with their subjects. Especially not powerful subjects with no sense of humor, a vaulted sense of self-importance, and a profound influence over the entire Realm.

  He stared at her, cold and pale and still. She knew she could not make an enemy of this man, but she had never cared so little about politics. Entertaining Illians?!

  “I have warned you of the dangers of this cult.” Again, it was spoken almost without emotion, a casual comment, but her blood pressure soared. He did not dare to censure her. Surely.

  “The Empire does not fear differences in people, and neither does their Queen. The Illians pose no threat to the North—the determination of which was the purpose of my INTERVIEW with the Shepherd. We are the greatest source of knowledge, of learning, of tolerance and acceptance in the Realms. I see no reason to change that for a perceived historical threat that, really, no longer exists.” That last might have sounded like a taunt, but was she Queen, or was she Queen?

  The reptilian eyes went tight. His smooth face took on a look of almost predatory dislike.

  “Do you never wonder why, as an Empire, we are ruled by a mere Queen?” His voice had dropped to one of soft animosity, insidious with implied meaning. It was his turn to deliver insult, she recognized angrily.

  “The last Emperor was the last of the Northern Royal Line,” she said evenly, “if that’s what you mean. The Council at the time voted not to extend the Imperial title to the rulers that followed.” Now was she to be patronized? And where was this going?

  “The last Imperial ruler was, like you, a woman. She became enthralled with Illians and was forcibly removed from the Throne.” He didn’t even bother to hide the threat, in fact had taken a step up towards her, lidless eyes narrowed with antipathy. “Do you think Marek will tolerate an Illian on the Throne? You have no idea of the magnitude of the things you play with.”

  Infuriating, conceited, self-satisfied—he would try and intimidate her!

  Icily furious, her voice rang out across the Throne room in summons to a page. He came at a full run, eyes wide in alarm.

  “I am not playing with anything, High Priest!” she snapped, directing her words once more to Clarent. “I have no intention of converting to Illianism or anything like it, and I find your paranoia and overstatement of facts particularly distasteful. Thank you for your visit. It has been most enlightening.” She was proud of that cool and well-ordered speech for many weeks, especially in light of the positive repugnance roiling in her guts. Of all the insufferable arrogance!

  He looked at her for a long moment after she dismissed him, once again the impartial and self-controlled politician. “That is my only goal,” he finally responded, so balmily that she had trouble believing he could be the same man. Dipping his head politely, he turned and flowed imperturbably back across the room.

  She almost leaped off her throne once he was gone, pacing a minute before remembering through the haze of her un-Imperial antagonism that she had things she had to be doing.

  How ridiculous. The official histories tended to gloss over the end of the Blooded Emperors, granted, but it was clearly recorded that much of the reason for the change in title was the fact that the days of expansion were over. Heady as it had been to think of a limitless, vast territory under Northern control, they had unfortunately run into the Bay of Baeroon, the Dragonspine, and the essentially impassable Crown Mountains. The last of the Royal Line having died out at the same time these boundaries impinged on Northern dreams, it was decided ‘Empire’ smacked of rather unseemly arrogance (Northerners obviously had a different genetic make-up back then, one since corrected). They had settled for ‘Realm’ and ‘King’—it was only the last few centuries they’d taken it longingly up again. But for the love of clinking coins, the last of the Line was gone within a century or so of the Four Brothers’ Going Out! This was literally thousands of years ago! He was bringing it up now as some critical turning point in the history of the Realms, the diminishment of the monarchy because a ruler converted to Illianism!?

  She swished around a corner in such high choler, servants tripped over each other trying to avoid her. And how was it a man commanding so much respect, prestige, and patronage throughout the Realm as Clarent could be so insecure? It wasn’t even rational. She sat down with a vengeance, starting to sign the pile of parchments on her acreage of desk without even reading them. Could there be something here she was unaware of? What exactly was the story of the last of the Royal Line? She’d already been through every vestige of Ancient History she could find chasing down Melkin’s daydreams; she knew there was nothing more there. She paused, lifting the quill and dripping ink over the Act to Investigate Corn Weevil Infestation, thinking of the mouldy bookshelves in the cramped relic room in the Library.

  No. No, she had a better idea.

  She’d doubtless disturbed him this late at night, so she started with an apology.

  Elger waved it away. “For an Illian to be summoned to the Royal Palace—twice in one day, no less—is more honor than inconvenience, Majesty,” he chuckled.

  Sable felt herself relaxing, which a cool bath and quick change of clothes hadn’t been able to even touch.

  “I was told something this evening that I wonder if you could shed some light on,” she began casually. He murmured something accommodating.

  “The High Priest is under the impression that the last of the Royal Line was actually a woman, and was removed from her throne for converting to Illianism…” she said lightly, as if wasn’t that the funniest thing?

  But a shadow crossed his face—the first time he’d ever looked uncomfortable—telling her that firstly he knew what she was talking about, and secondly…that he probably was going to be reluctant to comment. Correctly guessing that he wasn’t going to want to discredit a Marekite High Priest by even appearing to contradict him, she added, “I know the facts of this matter are lost to time, and that of course the details will be forever hidden, but I wonder if the Illians have any knowledge of this…?”

  He hesitated for a long time, eyes absorbed with the detailing of the carpeting, until she thought he was going to make some excuse and remain out of the controversy. It was almost a surprise when he began to speak.

  “Her name was Karmine. Like all the generations since High King Kendrick, she traveled much in Addah. At that time, the Wolflands were the accepted northern Imperial border, and consort between Addah and the Empire was necessary, with grateful cooperation on both sides. The Ways of Il were well-known and quietly believed in by many Emperors.”

  He glanced at her composed face.

  “Karmine chose to make an issue of it, courageously, for it cost her the Throne. She was deeply affected by the Addahites, having spent much of her life there with her father. When the Emperor was killed—the border was a continual battlefield in her day—she returned to Archemounte to be crowned. It was not long before she was accused of apostasy. The Marekites, who were more powerful then, demanded she either renounce Il or her right to rule. She abdicated.”

  Sable felt herself withdrawing, felt her liking and trust
ebb immediately. It was deeply improbable, what he was saying. No Northerner would ever do that. Duty, responsibility, order…these were pounded into the national brain pattern from its earliest signs of activity. Especially those of Royal Blood.

  “That simply wouldn’t happen,” she said quietly. It was said Illians didn’t lie, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t honestly believe a story that was no nearer to the truth than Clarent’s. “There is nothing that could take the place of such a duty, such an honor in a person of the Line.” He wasn’t Royal, wasn’t even a Northerner. Maybe he simply couldn’t understand this.

  He glanced up from the floor. “Unless there is something more important, even, than a Realm.”

  She shook her head at him, re-emphasizing, “There is nothing more important. It goes against every ingrained teaching of the North, denies the single most paramount concern of Royalty…and there would have been no reason to do it. It was politically inexpedient, personally disastrous…”

  “She did it for love of Il.”

  Sable stared. Was he being deliberately obtuse? Throwing out these intangibles again? Love was something for children, an emotion, a sentiment to be guarded against for its ability to skew perception, to bias good judgment. It certainly couldn’t be applied to theology, and definitely not to politics. Perhaps there were unknown variables back in the days of the ancients, but this was so discordant with Northern thought processes that it had no ring of truth to it.

  She stood slowly, disappointed, and bade him a courteous evening.

  Undressing for bed a few moments later, she mused pensively over the day. Her anger had evaporated. Her concern over whatever was causing Clarent such palpitations had been laid to rest—she wasn’t going to wander into Illian apostasy. It was the Shepherd’s words that bothered her. He had seemed so guileless…she wanted to believe him. But, the Emperors of old, their few generations buried in the Histories alongside the Ages of War, were not foolish men. Nor were the women. Their lives were short and brutal, ending almost without exception on the battlefield. The women were usually widowed early, their sons dying around them. Personal entries were practical, no-nonsense reports of horrific events, atrocities even. She hadn’t even been aware there were female rulers back then, though orphans like Karmine would probably have held the title before they could marry.