Turning in surprise, Gulien found not merely Baramis, but also several other magisters as well as Lord Sanric—all his father’s partisans, as he knew very well. Gulien’s stomach clenched; though he was not precisely surprised, he had to jerk his head up to keep from flinching.
Worse, they were accompanied by half a dozen guardsmen, including Erren, whom on Oressa’s advice Gulien had demoted. Now it was plain he should have dismissed the man from the guard entirely, for though his arquebus was still at rest over his shoulder—for the moment—he could see that Erren looked tense and angry and aggressive. Magister Baramis was flushed and pale by turns; it was obvious he had nerved himself for a confrontation. Gulien would have liked a little more warning to do the same, but the timing for this had never been something he could control, just has he had not been able to control the exact circumstances. But he was surprised Baramis hadn’t chosen better than this public and well-traveled courtyard.
Beriad had come back and waited now a few steps away, his expression professionally blank, but his thumb hooked into his belt right behind the hilt of his sword. Magistra Lara, who had lingered to make some more extensive evaluation of the damaged wall, turned as well, frowning. Gulien met the magistra’s eyes briefly. Then he looked thoughtfully at two hostlers and a stable boy who had been leading horses through the courtyard but had paused when Baramis had called out. At Gulien’s glance, one of the hostlers took the boy’s horse and sent him running with a jerk of his head. Three woman with the tucked-up sleeves and reddened hands of laundresses also paused. Two of them ducked their heads and hurried away when Gulien nodded to them, the third moving to join the hostlers, who bent their heads toward her, muttering.
If it came to a pitched battle here in the courtyard . . . But Gulien had no intention of letting any of this go that far.
“This farce must end!” declared Baramis. “Your Highness, I acknowledge your intentions are good, but your father the king—”
Gulien interrupted, cutting across the magister with his best imitation of his father’s flat tone. “Magister Baramis. Magisters. Lord Sanric. Whatever your concerns, this is not the place and certainly not the appropriate manner. As you know, Magister Baramis, you are due in thirty minutes for a supper meeting during which your concerns may properly be brought forward. All of you may attend.” He glanced thoughtfully at Erren. “Well, not the guardsmen; their services are required elsewhere. Captain Beriad, see to your men.”
“Your Highness,” Beriad acknowledged, and started forward as though he hadn’t any concern at all. Erren shoved forward to meet him, half raising his arquebus, but Beriad said curtly, “Enough, man. Start that kind of thing and who knows where a bullet might go? Anything happens to His Highness, you can explain it to His Majesty. Or do you think he’d thank you?”
That made Erren pause, and one of the other guardsmen with him grabbed his arm. Erren shook himself free, but his momentum had been broken and Gulien doubted he would go on with any such effort now, particularly when Beriad shook his head disgustedly and said, “Arquebuses in a crowded courtyard! I hope I won’t see guardsmen lose their heads like boys right off the farm!”
The guardsmen, even Erren, shuffled their feet exactly like boys right off a farm. Before Baramis or one of the others could rally them, Gulien took advantage of the general hesitation. “You know,” he said, striving for a tone that was merely thoughtful, “one might reasonably be concerned about the possibility of a second attack, from Estenda as likely as from Tamarist. Internal strife does not serve Carastind, as any sensible man must plainly acknowledge.”
Baramis began again doggedly, “Your father, the king—”
“His Highness is right,” Magistra Lara said abruptly, and one of the hostlers put in, “Don’t be a fool, man. Quarrels don’t serve the city, I say, nor riling the Kieba. Less you have one of them spiders in your pocket, eh?”
Baramis had clearly never expected to be answered by common folk, and by this time there was beginning to be quite a crowd in the courtyard. The stable boy had roused up not only the stable master and most of his people, but also all the townsmen who’d gathered for bread and beef after the day’s work of clearing rubble; and those laundresses had clearly passed the word to what seemed the entire domestic staff. Against the still-growing gathering of common people, the magister’s group suddenly looked paltry. Ineffectual.
“Remember them lights in the sky?” asked one of the laundresses, an older woman with strong arms and a plain face. “Takes a lord or a magister to think of spitting in the Kieba’s eye after that. Ordinary folk have more sense. No offense,” she added to Magistra Lara.
“Not at all. Quite right,” the magistra said, and frowned sternly at the magisters with Baramis.
“Lights!” said another woman, even older and less impressed by the group of challengers than the first had been. “Remember the plague this past spring? I ask you!”
“And us without our cannon to see off Tamaristan ships,” added a townsman whom Gulien faintly recognized—one of the bakers who supplied the palace and noble houses, he thought. “Who let that happen under his nose while His Highness was away getting the Kieba’s attention, eh?”
Gulien lifted his hands. He meant merely to quiet the gathering, say something that would give Magister Baramis and Lord Sanric and the rest a chance to back down gracefully. Then he would have to speak to the people. He hardly knew what to say beyond expressing his gratitude for their trust, his hope to earn it—but he was rendered speechless as a falcon plummeted unexpectedly from the sky to perch on one upraised hand. Its talons pierced his thumb and wrist, the pain so unexpectedly sharp that Gulien just barely managed to convert a startled cry to an unvoiced gasp.
Though a casual glance would have taken it for a real falcon, one of the little ones that hardly took anything larger than a mouse, it was heavier than a real bird, and its eyes were smoky crystals that glittered red in the light of the setting. Everyone knew that when the Kieba wished to send one of her servants to a Madalin, she sent a falcon, symbol of the Madalin family. The bird-golem ducked its head and mantled its wings, and when it snapped its beak, the sound was clear and distinctive in the sudden profound hush.
Gulien straightened his shoulders, lifted his chin, and deliberately met Baramis’s eyes. He said, his voice pitched to carry, “The Kieba herself told me to set Caras in order. You know that, Magister. You were there. Don’t now persuade yourself into folly while the rest of us work to defend Carastind. No one will follow you.”
Indeed, Lord Sanric and the others were edging carefully away from Magister Baramis, who—give him credit—made no excuse for what he had tried to do, but held his head up and met Gulien’s eyes with credible directness.
Gulien found he had no heart to draw out the confrontation and only nodded dismissal to Baramis and his allies . . . not so many as had seemed at first, really. There were many more common people gathered in the courtyard. Indeed, he didn’t think that he had needed the falcon at all. That made him wonder at it all the more, of course. It had meant to demonstrate its presence, but to Gulien’s opponents, or to Gulien himself? He asked quietly, not quite knowing whether he hoped for an answer or not, “Kephalos?”
But the falcon flung itself into the air again without a word, beating its way into the sky until it was quite invisible in the fading light, leaving Gulien with only thin trickles of blood running down his wrist from his pierced thumb and wrist and the knowledge, both reassuring and disquieting, that the Kieba—or the kephalos, perhaps—had him under her eye, and wanted not only him but everyone to know it.
The sunset seemed to be creating bursts of light that swelled and faded around the edges of Gulien’s vision, and he was ashamed to discover that his knees felt shaky. His injured hand stung and ached, the pain ridiculously intense for such small wounds. He knew all this intensity of reaction must surely be due to the shock of the confrontation—for it had been a shock, even though Gulien had also expected it. But he
was humiliated to find himself so shaky. He moved a few steps so that he could lean, he hoped unobtrusively, on what was left of the nearest wall. If the rest of it tumbled down because of his weight, he would surely look a complete fool. But if he were stupid enough to faint right here in the courtyard with all these onlookers, that would be a thousand times worse.
Trying to shake off his shameful unsteadiness, he said to Beriad, pretending to a confidence he was far from feeling, “Well done. See to your men. Dismiss Erren if you think it wise; or keep him on the rolls if you think that better. The same with the rest of them, all that lot. Do as you see fit.” Then he smiled as one of the laundresses brought him a cloth with which to wrap his injured hand. The weakness was passing off, which was a great relief, and in a moment he would stand up again and go to speak to the others, the hostlers and the other laundresses and townspeople, and Magistra Lara, of course, whose support was at least as important. He was perfectly well, the confrontation with Baramis was behind him, his authority in Caras was secure, and if there would be no less to do tomorrow than today, at least he knew he had little need now to beware of active rebellion.
All this was true. But even so, that night the sting of his pierced thumb and wrist followed him into sleep, and he dreamed that he was a mouse, hiding in terror from an enormous falcon with eyes that were sometimes the yellow of a living bird and sometimes gray crystal, but always fixed on him with cruel, inhuman intent.
CHAPTER 9
Oressa didn’t know who was more surprised at that meeting, but she knew who was most horrified by it. The Tamaristan soldiers—there was a whole company of them—realized almost immediately that there were only seven Carastindin guardsmen. Worse, they immediately realized who Oressa was, because the man in charge of the Tamaristan company was the very same addat she had met before.
“Incredible,” he said, staring at her. “Your Highness.”
Oressa rolled her eyes, hoping she looked exasperated rather than frightened. “Laasat, isn’t it? I thought you and your prince and all the rest of you would all be halfway across the Narrow Sea by this time.”
“And I’m sure we all thought you’d be climbing about on the roof of your palace, overseeing repairs,” the officer told her. He didn’t quite smile, but his eyes crinkled at the corners. “What, by all the dead and absent gods, are you doing here?”
“She came to speak with the Kieba, of course,” said Prince Gajdosik, when his men brought Oressa and the rest of them into the main house. “Whom else should her father send? One imagines he and Prince Gulien are otherwise occupied at the moment and yet require to consult with their ally.”
“She’s a girl,” objected the officer.
Gajdosik dismissed this objection with a brief, impatient gesture. “A woman grown, and a Madalin. And she’s clever.”
Oressa’s eyebrows rose at this. She said nothing, not even to correct Gajdosik’s idea about who now ruled in Caras.
Tania’s parents, and her brothers and their wives, her sisters and their husbands, and her cousins and all their children, were gathered in the main farmhouse of the sprawling family compound. No one seemed to have been harmed. None of the Tamaristan soldiers even had a weapon drawn. Their presence was all the threat they needed, Oressa supposed. Farmers were hardly going to do battle against hardened Tamaristan soldiers, even if their children hadn’t been implicitly taken hostage for their quiet behavior. Tania looked anxiously around the room at her family and then, her eyes wide, at Oressa, clearly expecting the princess to do something. Oressa tried to think of something clever, but Prince Gajdosik’s opinion aside, her wits seemed to have deserted her entirely.
Gajdosik said to Oressa, “In Caras, your brother was plainly controlling the Kieba’s autajma.” Only he didn’t pronounce the Kieba’s name right. As she had noticed before, he said “Keppa.” He went on. “If your brother is capable of claiming the Keppa’s power, well”—he nodded to the black-robed magister standing by his side—“Djerkest should certainly have no trouble. Which is just as well, as I have a dire need for the gods’ power.”
“To conquer Carastind, I know!” Oressa said scornfully. “Because you hadn’t the nerve to stay in Tamarist and fight for your father’s throne!”
She had thought the Tamaristan prince would become angry, perhaps scrambling his own wits a trifle and giving her some small advantages, but Gajdosik only shrugged. “It’s quite true I daren’t return to Tamarist without an artifact of great potency. My brother Maranajdis is too powerful there. Nor could I hope to hold Caras against my other brother Bherijda without such an advantage. So I will acquire one.” He slanted a warm sideways look toward his magister. “Or Djerkest will, on my behalf.”
“Really?” said Oressa in her haughtiest tone. “Who is Djerkest, to dare trouble the Kieba’s privacy?”
But Gajdosik still did not seem offended, and the magister only said, amused and scornful, “Oh, the Keppa’s privacy.” His Esse, though competent, was much more heavily accented than either Laasat’s or Prince Gajdosik’s.
“Oh yes, that’s right: you think the Kieba is dead,” said Oressa. “You ought to know better, after seeing Gulien’s golem! Gulien met her, you know! He told me all about it. Believe me, you don’t want to challenge the Kieba. Surrender to me now and I promise I’ll speak to my brother for you.” Parianasaku’s Capture felt heavy and obvious in her pocket. She tried not to think about it, in case she somehow gave away its presence to Gajdosik. Or to his magister.
“To your brother,” Prince Gajdosik said thoughtfully. “Not to your father?”
He was clever, too, Oressa thought. One little slip and he started figuring things out. “My father, too, of course,” she told him. “But Gulien is the one who knows the Kieba. It seems quite likely you’re going to need him to intercede for you with both!”
Magister Djerkest snorted, glanced at his prince for leave to speak freely, and said to Oressa, “The Keppa never was a god. You say Kieba; in Markand they call her the Kebba. In the lands of Gontai, they say Gebba. Everywhere she is the same: the immortal woman who used to be the goddess of healing, who banishes disease and esteems physicians. Everywhere she hates slavery and piracy; everywhere she is powerful but slow to act. But my people”—it wasn’t clear whether he meant the Tamaristans or his own school of magisters—“have come to suspect this is not quite the truth.”
“Oh? So what is the truth, then?”
The magister glanced at Gajdosik once more, who turned a hand palm up in permission. So the magister said, “You see, it’s all the same word. It’s a corruption of ‘Keeper.’ The Keppa was a servant of the old gods, the keeper of the old magic after the gods destroyed themselves in their war. But she was never a god herself. She seems powerful to us, but she holds only a shadow of a true god’s power.” He paused. Oressa didn’t say anything, and the magister, looking faintly disappointed, went on. “The Keppa is a mortal woman, or mostly mortal, and the power she commands can be commanded by anyone.” He paused again, then added dryly, “As your own brother has demonstrated.”
Gajdosik looked expectantly at Oressa. She said, with all the sincerity she could muster, “I think you have no idea how powerful the Kieba is. I think you’re going to find out the hard way, and then you’re going to wish you’d stayed in Tamarist after all—or accepted my offer to speak for you.”
The prince said equably, “Perhaps that is so. But if the Keppa is still so powerful, then one wonders why she has not acted herself to protect your people. I think she cannot. Her power has waned. I think it has greatly waned. I think she is afraid to face Magister Djerkest.”
Oressa could hardly believe he was serious. “One of her golems gave my brother the strength to cast you and all your people out of Caras! Just one. And so you came here, so your magister can challenge her in person?”
“Some risk attends every great endeavor,” Gajdosik said gravely. “If I had taken Caras and then Carastind, I might not need the Keppa’s power so badly,
or at least I might not need such haste to seize it. Now I must hope that you are mistaken, Your Highness, and your friend the Keppa not quite so impervious as you believe her.”
Oressa glared at him. “There’s risk and then there’s madness. You won’t succeed, you know.”
“Ah, well. You may tell me everything about your brother’s visit to this Keppa. Perhaps I might change my mind.”
“Nothing will change your mind,” snapped Oressa. “It’s not just that you’re unbearably arrogant. No, the truth is, you don’t dare change your mind. You need a powerful artifact before you go back to Tamarist, or else you need it so that you can conquer Carastind after all and stay here. So either way, you have to have Magister Djerkest’s story be true.”
There was a pause. Prince Gajdosik said at last, “Then I shall certainly be delighted to find it is true.” He looked searchingly at her. “How did your brother get into the mountain?” he asked. “You do know how, I’m quite sure. Tell me everything your brother told you.” When Oressa hesitated, he leaned forward, adding, “I would not like to have to threaten you, Your Highness. Or any of your people.” He glanced thoughtfully at Kelian and the other guardsmen, then around at Tania and her family, making it clear what threat he might employ if she was stubborn. Then he raised his eyebrows at Oressa and tilted his head inquiringly.
“No,” Oressa said grimly. “I’ll tell you. But it won’t matter. The Kieba will just send a golem to destroy you all, and you’ll deserve it, too.” She only hoped the Kieba could tell the difference between a Madalin princess who had a right to be here and an arrogant Tamaristan prince who emphatically didn’t.
Except Gulien had told her how the Kieba intended to dispossess the Madalin line and let Prince Gajdosik conquer Carastind. So she might decide his right was better than hers, which was ridiculous, but she might. But Oressa couldn’t do anything about that. She lifted her chin and gave Gajdosik a cool look, refusing to let her doubts show on her face.
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