“Come with me,” Chantmer said. “I have another plan.”
#
The concentration spell was gone, but Chantmer had grown adept at moving about the palace undetected, and it was no trouble to deepen the incantations shielding him and his companion from unwanted attention. They passed a stout, dark-skinned eunuch from the sultanates, armed with a spear and a curved, sheathed sword—a holdover from before the palace takeover—and entered the women’s baths.
Chantmer had never been inside before, although he’d spotted the princess entering and leaving most evenings, and didn’t know precisely where to find her, but guessed Sadira wouldn’t be found in the common baths up front. So he only glanced in at the initial chambers, where ten or twelve women at a time washed in large steaming basins while others dressed or groomed themselves to one side. The next room back was larger, and also shared, but by only four women, these ones attended by servant girls who scrubbed them with soap and pumice stones, or rubbed them down with oils.
Farther back lay the private chambers, small and intimate, with no outside windows, but lit by oil lamps, and perfumed with burning incense. From these chambers came the murmur of women speaking to servants and the soothing trickle of running water. The water from these initial basins would be reused by the servants in the latter chambers.
The companions passed all the way to the farthest of these rooms without being detected. Narud distracted a eunuch with a small spell, and they entered the final chamber unchallenged. A nude young woman was stretched out on a small table above a stone basin of steaming water. Two fresh-faced slaves, one a boy and the other a girl, dribbled olive oil onto her back, buttocks, thighs, and calves and rubbed vigorously at her muscles.
“Are we safe?” Narud asked. Neither Sadira nor her servants looked up at his voice.
“I feel nothing except the magic we’ve brought with us,” Chantmer said. “Do you?”
“No, nothing.”
“Still, we might have been followed.”
“I can put up a ward,” Narud said. “It will warn us if one of the dark acolytes approaches.”
Narud returned to the doorway to work, and Chantmer approached the princess, still undetected. He would let the spell fall in a moment, but first wanted to study Sadira and her slaves to better understand what he was dealing with. The pair attending her seemed to have been chosen for aesthetic purposes. The girl was dark skinned, of a complexion found only in the southernmost of the sultanates beyond the desert, and the boy had flaxen hair, pale skin, and blue eyes. A barbarian. Both were beautiful in appearance, as was the princess herself. Chantmer recognized this in a distant, objective way, as if he were observing the skill of a craftsman carving a chair or a sculptor working his stone.
Had he ever experienced such animal desires as another man might feel looking upon the naked princess Sadira and her two beautiful young slaves? He couldn’t remember, but if so, those impulses had long faded.
Sadira’s long black hair was already wet, so she must have bathed already, but she would likely enter and leave the water several times before she was finished. The servants would bathe her, massage her with oils, then bathe her again, before finally rubbing ointments and perfumes into her skin. The whole process could take two hours, based on Chantmer’s observations of her coming and going. A pampered, spoiled child.
And she was hardly alone in her appetites. The ruling families of the east were a decadent lot, spoiled by generations of wealth and privilege. None of these ruling families had seen personal hardship, and their wars had largely taken place in foreign lands: clashes with the barbarians, expeditions against Kratian nomads, or skirmishes with sultanate troops on the Spice Road. It was no wonder that a few punishing years of drought had crippled the khalifates and allowed King Toth to sweep them into his growing empire.
Chantmer unfastened the clasp at his throat, which opened his robe slightly, and thus unveiled him to the three people in front of him. The slaves massaging the princess drew back with startled exclamations. Neither was armed, and neither shouted for the eunuch at the door, who wouldn’t have been able to hear the warning against Narud’s spell anyway.
“I would think, Princess,” Chantmer began, “that any slave of yours in these troubled times should double as a bodyguard.”
Sadira turned her head and looked up at him. Her eyes widened slightly, but she controlled her reaction, and Chantmer could only guess at what she might be thinking.
“There were more than a hundred men in the palace guard, and they couldn’t protect my brother,” she said. “What use is a pair of slaves? I am still here by the grace of King Toth, may he live forever, and my existence depends on the good will of the king’s pasha. A noble, enlightened man, I assure you. No, I have no need of guards.”
Was that irony in Sadira’s tone? It wasn’t obsequiousness, as he might have expected.
“What about the eunuch at the door?” he asked. “Isn’t he a guard of sorts?”
“For show. So that the palace gossipers will not question my virtue.” A slow, languid smile. “Except for with my beautiful slaves, but that is to be expected.” Sadira reached out and caressed the hand of the young woman, who was kneading the small of the princess’s back. Then her voice turned demanding. “Remove the oil—I wish to enter the bath again.”
The two slaves took a pair of wooden paddles and scraped the oil from her skin. Narud returned as they were finishing, but the princess merely glanced at him before she slipped into the hot water with a gasp that turned into a sigh.
“I am Chantmer, and this is Narud. We are representatives of the Crimson Path.”
“I am aware of who you are. Nathaliey Liltige’s companions. The traitor’s daughter.”
“Is that what they call the vizier? A traitor?” Chantmer looked down on the princess with disdain. “A strange choice of words for one who risked his life to defend the khalifate from enemies.”
“Kandibar fought the high king. That makes him a traitor in the deepest sense of the word. And from what I understand, you are traitors, too.”
“We don’t serve the so-called high king, and we never will. The Crimson Path never bent its knee to Omar, either, so there is nothing and nobody we could have betrayed.”
“Why are you here?”
Chantmer hadn’t known whether Sadira would prove to be a half-wit, a cunning striver, or something else entirely. He hadn’t answered all his questions, but she was not stupid, that much was clear.
“You know why we’re here. Or you are clever enough to guess, at least.”
Sadira laughed and slipped lower in the water until it rose to her chin and steam enveloped her head. “You are fools, the both of you. Don’t you know they’re hunting you? Why stay in the palace? Flee to your gardens and prepare yourselves for death. My king will find you and end your little order of pretend wizards soon enough.”
Narud tugged on Chantmer’s sleeve. But he wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Send away your slaves so we can speak frankly.”
“I am speaking frankly, you pompous excuse for a man. But if it will make you leave me alone more quickly, so be it.”
Sadira snapped her fingers and made a waving motion toward the private door behind them. The slaves bowed and backed their way out of the room. When they were gone, the princess lifted herself to the stone lip of the basin, and water ran down her skin, which still gleamed from the oil.
“They are beautiful,” she said, “but I didn’t choose them for their appearance. I needed them simple—that was intentional. They’ll relay what they heard, how loyal I seemed. How I rebuffed you in clear terms.”
Chantmer nodded. “I thought it was an act.”
“But was it?” Narud asked him. “You haven’t proven otherwise.”
“No, he hasn’t proven it,” Sadira said. “And he won’t, either.”
“Is it true that you’ll marry the pasha?” Chantmer asked.
She didn’t answer the question. “Would either
of you like to enter the water? That work you do—hunched over books, skulking about—must leave you stiff and aching.”
“Thank you, but I just arrived from the gardens this morning,” Narud said. “We have baths there. Water from hot springs—it is cleaner and more refreshing.”
“And you, tall proud one? Chantmer, is it?”
The truth was, Chantmer hadn’t bathed properly since leaving the gardens, and wouldn’t mind a good soak while they continued to talk. But he’d been wary since his encounter with Zartosht a few days ago, and there was no way he would lower his defenses here. The two slaves might not be so simple as the princess claimed, or the eunuch might wake from the stupor Narud had left him in. Or the dark acolytes might sniff their way down here looking for them.
“Very well,” Sadira said when he didn’t make a move. She slid back into the water. “As to your question, why wouldn’t I marry him?”
“The pasha is old, fat, lame, and blind in one eye, for a start,” Chantmer said.
“Very true, but I wouldn’t marry him out of love or passion. What do you mean, for a start?”
“He also had your brother killed.”
“That was King Toth.” None of that “may he live forever,” nonsense now. “Izak wasn’t even in Syrmarria when it happened.”
“But Izak was complicit,” Chantmer said. “Once Pasha Malik fell, Izak became Toth’s general in Aristonia, and that means that the torturers work under his command. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that Izak is a gentler soul than his predecessor.”
Sadira let out a bitter laugh. “How could I think that? If I stand on my balcony, I can see my brother’s skin flapping in the wind. They brought me to the dungeons once, and let me see the vizier in chains.”
“Oh, yes, the vizier. The traitor. Isn’t that how you put it? And how did his screams sound to your ears?”
“They terrified me, wizard,” she said. “What else would they have done?”
Chantmer glanced at Narud, who stood silently with his hands clasped in front of him. He couldn’t tell if his companion had already given up hope on the princess, or if he was thinking other thoughts.
“It didn’t arouse any compassion?” Chantmer pressed.
“Compassion is a virtue I cannot allow myself. If I feel compassion, then I start thinking about how to free the man. And then maybe I talk to someone—maybe the pasha, maybe only my slaves—and then what do you suppose happens?”
“I see.”
“They’re going to kill Kandibar Liltige,” Narud said. “He’ll be dead in two days if we don’t free him.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Why would they do that?”
Chantmer lifted an eyebrow at the naivety of the question. “As an example to others, of course.”
“My brother Omar is example enough. You can’t enter the city without seeing what’s left of him. The vizier is a different sort of example.” Sadira rose from the water and took a folded towel from the edge of the table where her slaves had left the oil and combs. “They want him down there languishing, with occasional reports of his pain and suffering, for as long as possible. Weeks, months. Maybe years.”
“Even if you’re right,” Chantmer said, “you’re still abandoning him to suffering at the hands of the enemy.”
“Your enemy, not mine.”
“What is wrong with you?” Chantmer asked. “Don’t you want the vizier freed?”
“The pair of you came here hoping to bend me to your will. You would make me promises of the kind that could never be fulfilled in return for my help. That I would organize a palace uprising, or maybe step forward when you brought Syrmarria to revolt. We’d free the vizier from the dungeon, and with a loyal minister at our side, the people of Aristonia would rise in righteous fury. Somehow they would accomplish what the whole of the khalifates haven’t yet managed, and that is to defeat King Toth—his pashas, his armies, and the gray-skinned warriors who make people afraid to leave their homes whenever they are in the city.”
Chantmer had no response. This was, in fact, more or less what he and Narud had discussed, what they had hoped to accomplish.
“Against this plan of certain and catastrophic defeat,” the princess continued, working the towel at her hair to absorb the excess moisture, “I have been given the option of marrying the pasha, lending legitimacy to his rule as a loyal servant of the high king in return for a life of ease and pleasure in his palace.”
“A coward’s path,” Narud said in a low voice.
She twisted the wet towel between her hands. “They’ve turned my brother’s skin into a kite, damn you. A banner to flap in the wind. They skinned him so slowly and lovingly that he was still alive when the last of it came off. They made me watch—did you know that?—and I heard the torturers chanting their evil spells to keep him from dying. I wouldn’t be surprised if his skin was already flying in the wind before he finally died.
“Now go,” she snarled. “Leave me and never come back. If you do, I swear by the Brothers that I will tell the pasha and do everything I can to make sure he catches you. Then maybe it will be your skins flapping in the wind.”
This time, when Narud pulled on Chantmer’s sleeve, he didn’t resist. They retreated from the presence of the princess, who muttered angrily as they left. The eunuch sat at the door with his legs pulled up and his head between his knees, snoring lightly, and they pushed past without waking him. A few minutes later, they were outside the baths in the open air. Night had fallen, and crickets chirped from their cages.
“I think she wants to help,” Narud said, “but she’s just afraid.”
“Sadira is a spoiled child who has never sacrificed for anything or anyone,” Chantmer said. “The part about not killing Nathaliey’s father was her excuse, nothing more. A way to ease her conscience.”
“I’m not so sure.”
Chantmer stopped Narud in the middle of one of the courtyards. “What should we do about him? Trust the princess and let him languish down there?”
“I’m not sure what else we could do. We can’t get through the enemy’s wards, and we can’t turn Sadira.”
“We could probably poison the vizier’s food,” Chantmer said. “Put him out of his misery.”
“That’s . . . hard.”
“So is letting them torture him over an extended period of time. We poison the food and release him from his suffering. Then you return to the gardens and tell the master what we did.”
“I’m supposed to stay here and help you strengthen the library against fire.”
“The library isn’t going to burn,” Chantmer insisted. “It would take dragon fire, and one could never squeeze through the corridors to the vaults.”
“Nevertheless . . .”
“I won’t be defeated,” Chantmer insisted. “Zartosht and his ilk are fighting us—they’re the ones who put those wards outside the dungeons. If we can’t get through, if we can’t rescue the vizier, they’ll bring the fight to us instead. And that will be far more dangerous to the library than any risk of fire.”
“And how is poisoning the vizier going to help with that?”
Chantmer waved his hand. “We’re not going to poison him. That was me thinking aloud. I have a better idea.”
“Very well,” Narud said after a long moment of hesitation. “What do you propose?”
“I propose we find these dark acolytes and crush them.”
Chapter Seventeen
It was midmorning on the third day after the fight at the stone circle when a flock of griffins attacked. Markal and Nathaliey were up front with Captain Wolfram, with the rest of the company strung out on foot behind as they followed a ridgeline, the mountain heights frowning down on them from their right.
Nathaliey seemed to have an instinct for finding the gentlest paths, for carrying them wide of ravines and impassable ledges, while Markal had the better eyesight, and so it was his duty to watch the skies, while the paladins kept vigil for threats from the groun
d.
And yet the griffins seemed to come from nowhere. One moment Markal was staring up at blue sky, shielding his eyes against the sun, and the next, huge winged shapes the size of horses came hurtling downward. He could only think that they’d been lurking near the mountain heights, approached with the sun at their backs, and used its brilliant light to hide their approach until they swooped for an attack.
There were more than a dozen griffins in all, wings tucked into a dive, and as they dropped, they opened their beaks and screamed in unison, a long, terrifying cry that sent a shudder down Markal’s spine.
On every griffin was a rider, men and women with lithe muscular bodies and long braided black hair. Some clenched slender swords, others spears. Cords and tethers held them in place. At first, they flattened themselves to the backs of their mounts, but as the griffins pulled up, they leaned, acrobat-style, for maximum reach.
Wolfram shouted at his paladins, who drew into four distinct knots of defenders rather than waste time trying to gather into one force. The paladins around the edges of each group raised their black shields, while those in the middle worked at crossbows or raised swords to form a hedgehog-like thicket. Wolfram had drilled his forces every morning before setting out, and the Blackshields had nearly formed ranks before the first griffins fell upon them. Markal and Nathaliey found themselves in the center of the forward company.
The lead griffin rider, a woman whose fierce glittering gaze matched that of her mount, gave a sharp whistle, followed by two short blasts, and the entire company changed course just before they slammed home. They blasted overhead with a rush of wind from flapping wings, and charged the second collection of paladins, who were slower in gathering. The lead paladin in this group was Marissa, who seemed to be Wolfram’s closest confidant among his lieutenants, and she gave a warning shout just before the enemy struck.
Griffins slammed into her shield wall. There was a flurry of swords from both sides, coupled with talon and claw attacks from the half-lion, half-eagle beasts pressing down from above. And then, as quickly as the battle had begun, a whistled signal had the griffins pulling away. The whole thing had lasted ten seconds, no longer. The griffins had knocked several paladins from their feet, and one man had an ugly gash across his cheek, but miraculously, nobody had been killed.
The Red Sword- The Complete Trilogy Page 44