Egrin shifted slightly and began to mutter. “Killers… Silvanesti…” was all Tol made out before the marshal jerked awake with a gasp.
Tol put a hand on his shoulder.
It took Egrin a moment to recall his surroundings. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. You were talking in your sleep.” Tol told what he’d heard, then said, “Reliving an old battle? I guess elves are the one enemy none of us can outlive.”
To his surprise, Egrin stood abruptly and walked out of the room. Tol followed. In a room across the entry hall, on the villa’s north side, Egrin stood before a large window, staring out at the cloudy night. Old Rumbold had been rich enough to afford real glass, and the window opening was filled with individual panes, each no bigger than the palm of Tol’s hand, held together by narrow strips of lead.
Egrin was rubbing one ear absently, a sure sign he was lost in thought. Tol seated himself on the carved arm of a heavy wooden chair, and waited. The villa was so quiet he could hear the faint hiss of the misty rain collecting on the windowpanes, yet he nearly missed Egrin’s first words, so softly were they spoken.
“The harder we run from the past, the closer it comes.” After a moment, he added, “I haven’t had that nightmare in a long time. I must be feeling my age, or perhaps it’s a reminder of my mortality.”
He turned to face Tol at last. “I’m very proud of you, you know. You’ve surpassed any dreams I ever had for you.”
The old warrior had never spoken in such direct terms. Tol was deeply moved, but before he could reply, Egrin went on.
“And because I’m proud of you, because there should be no lies between us, I need to tell you something about myself.”
Slowly, the marshal pushed his thick, gray-streaked auburn hair behind his left ear. Tol frowned. In the dim light it was difficult to make out, but there seemed to be something wrong with the ear. Its top was oddly flat, the skin puckered. A painful wound, Tol was certain, yet he had seen worse battle scars and said so.
“These came from no battle,” Egrin said. Lifting his other hand, he revealed his right ear was identically scarred.
“Then what-?”
“I was born in the forest. When I was very young, my mother was killed. My father, unable or unwilling to care for a small child, left me with a couple in a nearby village. They were kind enough, in their own fashion. They told me this”-Egrin brushed an ear-“was for my own good, to protect me from the kind of people who had attacked our settlement and murdered my mother. It was necessary, they said. A necessary lie.”
Tol sat frozen. Egrin rarely mentioned his past, and Tol was keen to learn whatever he might share. However, the implication of his words suddenly struck like cold water on a chill morning. When Tol spoke, his voice was hoarse with shock.
“You’re a half-elf?”
Egrin’s hazel eyes were direct. “My mother was human; my father Silvanesti.”
Tol’s mind reeled. He had met only two or three half-elves over the years. Shunned and reviled by Silvanesti society, viewed with suspicion by their human families, they lived on society’s margins like the former pirate Wandervere, captain of Quarrel, who’d brought Tol to Daltigoth. For Egrin, a Rider of the Great Horde, discovery of his true roots would mean exile from the Empire, perhaps even death.
Tol had never suspected a thing.
Suddenly, his eyes narrowed, his fists coming up to rest on his hips.
“I knew you didn’t look that much older!” Half-elves aged more slowly than humans, though they were not quite as long-lived as full-blooded Silvanesti.
Egrin blinked in surprise, and Tol grinned suddenly. “Did you honestly think it would matter to me?” he demanded.
Relief coursed through the marshal. He sat heavily on a low table. Tol gripped his shoulder, and Egrin rested his hand briefly on Tol’s.
As they walked back to the banquet room, Tol leaned close. “So,” he whispered, “exactly how old are you, old friend?”
From time to time Tol was summoned to the imperial palace to give advice to the emperor and his councilors. He greatly valued these visits, not only for the access it granted him, but for the chance to glimpse Valaran.
Valaran’s prestige had suffered since Amaltar ascended to the throne. As long she was married to a crown prince, her status depended only on her husband’s interest and goodwill. Now that she was an emperor’s wife what mattered most was child bearing-bringing forth sons and daughters to ensure the continuation of the imperial line. Amaltar had no special love of children, nor was he an especially ardent lover, but all his wives except Valaran had borne him children. She was ostracized by the household, now run with total authority by the emperor’s first wife, Thura. Likewise, Valaran found herself belittled in the Consorts’ Circle; her bookishness as a girl had made her the subject of gossip, but this situation was far more serious: the dire word “barren” was even being whispered.
Tol had thought this would be unimportant to Valaran. He learned the true state of her feelings during a brief conversation in an anteroom of the audience hall.
Seated in an ornately carved chair, she was splendidly attired in a midnight blue gown trimmed at neck and shoulders with lapis lazuli. She’d discarded her fashionable headdress and her chestnut hair was tied back from her face with a simple length of ribbon.
She looked up suddenly from the scroll she was reading to find him standing there, staring. A smile curved her lips, and Tol’s throat went dry at the sight. He crossed the room to her and bowed.
They exchanged bland public greetings. “What brings you here this day, Lord Tolandruth?” she said, letting the scroll she was reading coil shut.
“A consultation with your imperial husband, lady,” he replied. “There’s some dispute about how best to employ Admiral Darpo’s squadron of warships.”
The flare of interest on her face faded. “Sounds deathly dull. Like everything else around here.”
When he politely inquired what she meant, he got an earful of her long-held rancor over her treatment by the other consorts.
“And all because I haven’t given Amaltar a child,” she fumed. “Doesn’t he have enough brats as it is?”
“It’s only an excuse,” Tol said. “An easy stick to beat you with because you’re an outsider.”
“Me? Outsider? I’ve lived my whole life in the Inner City! Not one of those other nags can say as much!”
He reminded her to keep her voice down, then added, “That’s not what I meant. You’re not like them, Val. You never have been. You’re a thinker and scholar, not a flighty court decoration.” He smiled. “How many books have you written?”
Her eyes flashed. “No one’s supposed to know that!”
“How many?”
“Four, counting the critique of Silvanesti poetry I finished last spring.”
Her pride was evident and he nodded. “That was a good one,” he said. “I liked it better than the history of the gnomes, or your biography of Ergothas II.”
“You read my books?”
He shrugged. “I needed to hear your voice, even written on a roll of foolscap.”
Valaran looked away, blinking. She muttered something about deceitful men.
Before he could ask what she meant, a herald arrived, telling Tol the emperor would see him now.
Reluctantly Tol started to take his leave of her, but Valaran caught his hand. The unexpected contact startled him.
“Thank you, Lord Tolandruth.”
The urge to sweep her into his arms was frighteningly strong. He had to settle for a brief caress of her hand.
The emperor’s council was contentious. The former Blood Fleet, now reconstituted under Admiral Darpo as the first squadron of the Ergothian Navy, had chased most of its former piratical comrades out of the Gulf of Ergoth. Trade was flowing across the bay in startling strength, and bulging coffers of tax money arrived daily from Lord Tremond in Thorngoth. Excited by the flow of gold, Ackal IV’s advisors wanted to send the fle
et west to suppress the pirates prowling the seas between Sancrist Isle and Hylo.
“If I may speak, my lords!” Tol all but shouted over the wrangling warlords. It was poor manners, and a bad sign that he should have to shout at all. Ackal IV could not control these sessions. He sat in his father’s chair saying little, face gray, eyes squinted against his constant pain. Although propped up by his stiff court robes, he still leaned slightly to one side.
Tol repeated his request. Rymont, Valdid, and the rest slowly fell silent. “My thanks,” Tol said ironically. “I feel it would be a grave mistake to send the fleet out of the gulf.”
“Why?” Lord Rymont demanded.
Tol gestured to a heap of scrolls on the table. “From Tremond’s reports, it seems the pirates in the gulf have been suppressed, not wiped out. Send Admiral Darpo away, and they’ll fall upon the merchant shipping like a pack of starving wolves.”
“This fleet costs the imperial treasury 3,000 gold pieces a month,” Valdid complained.
“And how much in taxes did Lord Tremond send this last time?”
They knew the figure as well as he did. Twenty thousand crowns of gold and silver had just arrived in Daltigoth under heavy guard/Eight days earlier another twelve thousand had come, and before that, eight thousand. Tol admonished them not to endanger the stream of money by sending the fleet away.
Some were in favor of doing just that. The arguments went on until the light of the setting sun slanted into the council chamber at a sharp angle. Rymont, stubbornly insisting the fleet would secure even more money by making sea trade safe in the north and west, was arguing with Valdid, who’d come around to Tol’s point of view. The chamberlain noticed Ackal IV was nodding and broke off in mid-sentence. Rapping on the polished tabletop, he announced the council session was over.
The noise woke the emperor. He sagged back wearily, breath rattling in his chest. Oropash quietly offered to summon healers from the temple of Mishas, but Ackal IV waved the suggestion aside.
“It is only a congestion of the lungs,” he said hoarsely. “It will pass.” No one believed that. The “congestion” had lasted half a year.
He dismissed his advisors without asking for a final decision on the dispensation of the fleet. As the warlords, wizards, and officials rose to go, Ackal IV asked Tol to stay. Lord Rymont and his faction departed slowly, unhappy to concede the emperor’s ear to their rival.
When only Tol and Valdid remained, the emperor dismissed his chamberlain, too. Surprised, Valdid obeyed.
“Sit by me,” said Ackal IV, patting the arm of an adjacent chair. With a bow, Tol seated himself at the emperor’s right hand.
“You are right about the fleet,” Ackal said, letting his head rest against the padded wing of his chair. “Tomorrow I will issue orders confirming Admiral Darpo’s stay in the gulf.”
“I believe that to be the wisest course, Your Majesty.”
Tol waited. The emperor hadn’t asked him to stay to tell him about the fleet.
“I think I must be dying, Tolandruth.”
The announcement was not wholly unexpected. “Your Majesty has his choice of the finest healers in the empire. Can they not find the root of your strange illness?”
Ackal shook his head. “There is a broken strain in the dynasty, a thread of madness and decay. I fear it has found me this time.”
“Surely not, Majesty! You always enjoyed good health as crown prince. Why-”
Tol stopped, but his expression plainly showed he had more to say. Ackal urged him to speak freely.
“Majesty, there are those who would like your reign to be a brief one. Some… some are very close to the throne.”
Ackal laughed, provoking a fit of coughing. “Nazramin? He’s been undermining me ever since we were children.”
There were many safeguards in place, the emperor explained, to protect him from poison, and the palace was heavily warded against malign magic, more so than any other place in Ergoth.
Still, it was possible that a subtle chink could exist in the emperor’s magical armor, some tiny hole in his defenses that might allow a small spell to penetrate. Ackal IV admitted this himself.
Tol related how he’d found Nazramin at Mandes’s mansion late one night. The prince and the sorcerer were in cahoots, he said.
“Mandes is gone,” the emperor replied, waving a thin hand. “His influence is over and his spells dispersed. Oropash has seen to that personally.”
Oropash was a wizard of wide experience, but overly trusting. Although he knew little enough about magic, Tol was certain that a cunning rogue like Mandes could evade his counter-spells.
Even as they talked, Tol was waging a silent battle with himself over one question: should he give the nullstone to Ackal IV? If the emperor was indeed the target of malign magic, the Irda artifact would soak it up like blotting paper drinking in spilled ink.
If he loaned it to the emperor, it might save him, but would Tol ever get it back? Years ago, Yoralyn had warned him nullstones were so rare and so powerful that ruthless villains would raze entire cities to possess one. He had kept his secret a long time.
If Ackal IV took possession of it, knowledge of its existence would spread quickly. The emperor of Ergoth lived his life like a carp in a fishpond, under the eyes of hundreds every day. The secret would be a secret no longer.
Ackal IV might be saved from his sickness, but then what?
The nullstone was no defense against a knife in the back. By adding the Irda artifact to the equation, Tol might encourage outright assassination of the emperor. For the chance to capture such a prize, the ambitious and the greedy from every level of Daltigoth society would line up like buyers in the meat market. Blood would flow. It could mean civil war, and the end of the empire.
Tol asked himself if his reasoning was fair. Were his fears justified, or did he simply seek excuses to keep the nullstone to himself?
Ackal was still talking, but only when he coughed, spattering the front of his robe with tiny drops of blood was Tol jerked from his tangled thoughts.
“I am Your Majesty’s Champion. What can I do to help you?” he said earnestly.
Ackal dabbed at his lips with a swatch of white silk. “Was I not just saying?” Though not an old man, the emperor smiled like one, lips tight together, wrinkles piling up around his fevered eyes.
“Stay by me, Tolandruth. Take rooms in the palace. I feel that with you close by, my powers will soon return.”
Tol’s heart beat faster. Here was an admirable compromise. His presence might ward off dangers, magical and temporal. And he would be near Valaran-
The emperor’s next words shocked Tol to his very core.
“My wife would be glad of your company.”
Tol couldn’t speak, could barely control his expression. At last he said, “Wife, Majesty?”
“Yes, Valdid’s daughter. You two are old friends, are you not? She will be happy to have you about. My other wives are not kind to her, despite my admonitions.”
Tol could think of nothing at all to say, but fortunately the emperor was going on.
“You two have been friends a long time, I know. She taught you reading, yes?” Tol nodded dumbly. “Yes. In spite of what most people think, there is nothing that goes on in the Inner City about which I do not know. From charming secrets to vicious gossip, I hear it all.”
At that moment Tol realized Ackal must know about him and Valaran; he knew and was not outraged. Tol’s heart was pounding so hard, he felt it must be audible to the emperor.
“Sometimes I believe the gossip,” Ackal said quietly, “and sometimes I don’t. When I assumed the mantle of Ergoth, I learned a most important fact.”
Prompted, Tol said, “What is that, Majesty?”
“What the emperor wishes to be true is true.”
Their eyes met, and Tol understood. He’d always blamed his ten-year exile on Mandes’s lies and Nazramin’s treachery, but the truth, it seemed, was more complicated. The sorcerer had sto
len his honor for the destruction of XimXim, and Nazramin had undermined his glory for winning the war in Hylo-but it had been Crown Prince Amaltar who kept him away from Daltigoth for a decade. Away from the city, and away from Valaran. He could have had them both punished for their infidelity, but he needed Tol, needed him the way a warrior needs a fine sword to battle his enemies, and Amaltar was genuinely fond of Valaran.
Now the stakes were higher than a husband’s honor. Ackal IV needed Tol to keep him alive and on the throne of Ergoth. If that meant turning a blind eye to the fact his wife and his champion were lovers, so be it. It was cold-blooded reasoning, but Tol didn’t care. A tremendous burden had been raised from his soul. He knelt before Ackal IV.
“I am your man, Majesty. Body, soul, flesh, and blood, I am yours,” he said, lowering his head.
“Your soul you may keep. The rest I can use.”
The Rumbold Villa was soon vacant again. Egrin and his men had departed for Juramona, and Tol and Kiya took a small suite in the palace’s south wing.
The transition was not an easy one. Kiya’s melancholy over her separation from Miya deepened. She took to drinking too much and sleeping too little, haunting the kitchens and servants’ quarters, where she felt more at home than among the haughty courtiers. As for Tol, access to Valaran and the emperor’s tacit approval did not guarantee a new blossoming of love. Resuming their affair, once a secret and dangerous passion, seemed somehow sordid and selfish. When they met, talk was difficult, the atmosphere awkward and strained.
“I’m not that impetuous girl any longer,” Valaran confessed. “I’m not seventeen and full of fire.”
She and Tol were seated on a marble bench in one of the many gardens, large and small, scattered throughout the imperial dwelling. This one was tiny, located on a narrow terrace, but a favorite of Valaran’s for the autumn crocuses blooming there now.
Staring down at the purple flowers in her hand, she added, “For ten years I tried to purge you from my thoughts, to forget how it felt to love you, to touch you. I can’t in the space of a few score days go back to the way I was long ago!”
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