Of Absence, Darkness, page 14
They drew up a little, Tenai slowing her horse, and the king his—they had been riding nearly side by side, and which of them had reined back first Daniel did not know. The company bunched up a bit and then drew rein behind them.
“You have surprised me,” Tenai said to Mitereh. “I do confess it.” Her tone was neutral, but Daniel thought she was laughing that hidden laugh of hers behind her sober face. He was relieved to hear that edge of amusement in her voice.
“I made you my heir. After a year should pass,” Mitereh answered, without expression. “Did I not say so? I would not see Talasayan torn by endless ages of war, but neither would I lightly see my own murderer acclaimed to the ivory throne. This is the hand I held out of your sight, Chaisa.”
Ah. Daniel looked back at the army. The ranks of men stretched out of sight around the curve of the city’s wall. He wondered what resources the king had expected Tenai to find, that would have made an army like that necessary.
“With orders ... not to attack, I think.”
“To contain. To hold you apart from any who might be your allies. And at midwinter, to drive you back across the veil, if they could.”
Tenai lifted her hand to shield her eyes and scanned the long ranks. “They might have done it. I do think they might. A potent weapon you hid in your left hand, Mitereh, while you offered me your own life’s blood with your right. On such short notice. I am very much impressed.” She gathered up her reins. “Shall we go on, and show them what you have wrought?”
The king did not move, and Tenai checked her black mare before it could go more than a step or two forward. She turned, frowning, to study the king. Then she asked, in a tone that was not the same, “Who commands this army of yours, Mitereh?”
He answered steadily. “I left these men in the hand of Sandakan Gutai-e.”
There was a pause. Eventually, Tenai broke it. She was not laughing now. Her tone was absolutely neutral, her face blank, but now she looked dangerous. She said merely, “A wise choice, my king. No one could be more likely to succeed at the task you thought might be laid down for this army.”
“Chaisa, whose are you?”
“Yours, my king. Nothing has changed.” Tenai answered. But that cold edge of danger was still in her voice, in her manner.
“Then let us go on,” said Mitereh, ignoring that tone. He gestured to the standard-bearer, who held both his standard and Tenai’s, with hers set lower.
Sandakan Gutai-e had been more than Tenai’s most important general and her right hand during the last part of her war with Encormio. Daniel had gathered from things Tenai had said and things she had not quite said that he had also been almost like a friend; perhaps the closest approach to friendship she had managed during those last years of her war.
And then had come the ending of the war, and Antiatan.
Jenna leaned close and asked him in a low voice, “Were they lovers?”
Daniel gave his daughter a startled look. “Jen—”
“I think they were,” Jenna said. “Lovers, I mean. They met on the field of battle with swords drawn, and unable to face killing him, Tenai fled the whole world. Wow.”
“A little romantic, Jen, don’t you think?”
“Well, don’t you think so? Look at her—she’s gone awfully cold. And the king knew she was going to. Poor Tenai! I wonder if Sandakan is still in love with her? Or if she is, with him?”
If Tenai and Sandakan Gutai-e had been lovers, she’d never mentioned it to Daniel. Jenna was such a romantic: of course she would think of something like that. But it didn’t seem likely. Daniel glanced at Tenai, riding ahead of them, at the king’s shoulder. She didn’t look like a woman thinking about meeting her estranged lover after a sixteen-year absence. But Tenai wouldn’t show anything she didn’t want to show. That didn’t necessarily—or ever—mean it wasn’t there. Perhaps Jenna was right.
The actual approach to Nerinesir and the army seemed to take a long time. He’d thought they might have put their horses into a trot, at least, but no—a slow steady pace, no different from the pace they’d kept through all these mountains.
Even as they at last drew close, Daniel couldn’t distinguish Sandakan from the rest. There was a banner—the king’s banner, and another that he didn’t recognize, a red shape on a cream background. And a third, black lines on a toast-brown background. He found, at last, a dark man on a bay horse just behind the banners. The horse fidgeted, tossing its head and fussing with its feet. That horse's rider wasn’t fidgeting. He sat perfectly still. Daniel thought this might be Sandakan Gutai-e.
Beside him, Jenna asked Emelan, who was riding near her. The man pointed out the man Daniel had chosen. “That tall man there. That is the general.”
Sandakan Gutai-e looked older than Daniel had expected, as they got close enough to see one another plainly—but of course it had been sixteen years. Sandakan was probably in his fifties—close, in fact, to Daniel’s own age. There were lines at the corners of the man’s eyes and his thin mouth. He had the sharp look-of-eagles features common to people here, but more so, maybe. His lean, strong-boned face gave him a saturnine look.
Arriving at last before the ranks of men, with the long outer wall of Nerinesir stretching away on his right hand, the king drew up and lifted his hand to halt the much smaller company he’d brought with him.
For a long moment, the king let them all look at him, and at the tall woman who rode at his side. Everyone obviously recognized her. The silence was stunning. Not a single man anywhere shuffled his feet or dropped something. Nobody even coughed. When somebody’s horse shifted its weight so that leather creaked, the sound was startling enough that Daniel twitched. His own horse dropped her head and mouthed the bit and Daniel realized he was gripping the reins too tightly. He tried to make himself relax.
“Rejoice!” said the king, in a loud, formal voice. “I have brought Tenai Ponanon Chaisa-e to my hand. She has sworn to me in the sight of men and God. Let all men be made aware that Chaisa’s banner flies with mine on the tower! Let this word be passed to the west and the north and the south: let all men know that Chaisa-e and Sekuse-go-e ride together on this road!”
A reaction passed over the gathered ranks of men and over the face of Sandakan Gutai-e. Daniel could not read it. He thought there was relief in it, but he also thought the reaction he saw was more complicated than that. He thought the man had been glad to hear what the king said, but that maybe at the same time maybe Sandakan didn’t actually believe it. It was like being braced for news of a terrible disaster and then finding out everything was all right: It wasn’t possible to let go so fast. You would keep waiting, expecting to find that somebody had made a mistake and everything you were afraid of had happened after all.
Then Sandakan Gutai-e brought his horse forward a few paces, and bowed. “All men will rejoice to hear the words of the king,” he said formally, not looking at Tenai at all. His voice was quiet. His manner went beyond contained, to tightly controlled.
“My general, I thank you for drawing up these men in this fine display. They may now be dismissed.” the king answered, almost as expressionless. “You may accompany me now.”
The general bowed, his manner still absolutely neutral, and signaled his captains to pass this command on. The king inclined his head in return and started his horse moving forward again. Most of the men with him turned aside, moving to join this much larger company camped outside the city. A handful came with him; his young men, a few soldiers, Daniel and his daughter. Tenai, of course, and Emelan. And Sandakan, who still had not looked at Tenai, though her gaze, ironic and unreadable, had rested on him for a moment as he turned his horse to ride at the king’s side for this last little distance. Jenna gazed after the general and frowned.
“What?” Daniel asked her.
“Nothing,” said his daughter, still frowning. She added in English, “He really is good-looking, isn’t he?”
She was, Daniel concluded, probably trying to decide whether Sandakan and Tenai looked like estranged lovers. He thought, watching them, that while it was just possible that Sandakan might, Tenai did not. Sandakan had turned against her, at the end. Along with nearly everybody else. But he had meant more to her than everybody else.
Tenai had told him something about Antiatan. They had discussed forgiveness ... of herself, for her terrible mistakes. Of Sandakan? Perhaps, but Daniel remembered no such discussion. And now? Even if Tenai understood—believed—that she had herself been in the wrong in the first place, would she be able to forgive her most important, most trusted general after he had turned against her? Daniel found he could not guess.
It seemed to take forever to ride through the city—and all the longer because of the tension that rode with them. But it was a huge city. They came in by an entrance evidently called the Sunrise Gate, where the road was broad enough to let ten men ride abreast. Great gray and black stone blocks made a forbidding outer wall for the city; houses of the same gray and black stone stood in scattered clusters away down the hills below the wall.
The buildings of Nerinesir were tall and crowded together, made of stone the colors of ash and charcoal. The streets were narrow, cobbled with more of the gray and black stone. The effect was heavy and somber. The wood trim was painted in sober shades of gray or green that did nothing to relieve the heaviness of the city. The people, gathered on rooftops and balconies, seemed strained and worried. They whispered to one another as the king’s party passed, a low susurrus of sound, like the sound of the sea.
“They are afraid of you,” the king said to Tenai, who rode close by his side. Nolas-ai Mikanan Chauke-sa rode at his other side, with Sandakan Gutai-e beyond Mikanan Chauke-sa.
“I know,” she agreed, her tone distant. “For us all, sixteen years gone is as a breath.”
There was a slight pause.
“Declare a day of celebration at dawn,” Mikanan Chauke-sa advised the king. “Announce to the people they have reason to rejoice.”
“Is there a reason to wait for dawn?” Sandakan asked. His deep voice was still quiet and expressionless. He went on. “Do not wait for the dawn. That is my advice, if you will hear me, my king. Everyone is afraid now. This afternoon, at once, send someone to the Martyr’s Cathedral. Have them ring the bells for rejoicing. Have the priests announce to their people at every church that all is well.”
“Well thought,” Tenai said, her tone just as neutral. “Indeed, Mitereh, I agree. This is wise advice. Let the priests pass the word that I have set my banner beneath yours. People will believe what they hear from the priests.”
“Well thought,” agreed Mitereh, and signaled Mikanan, who reined aside to give those orders.
They came to a sinuous wall of green-shot black stone, neither as high nor as thick through as the first wall. The gate to this wall stood open, but it was guarded by men with the king’s badge. Past that gate everything was black stone. Buildings here were more graceful, and set further apart than those in the outer city. Here, too, people gathered to watch the king pass. These were the wealthy of the city: they wore beautiful clothing, and the women wore intricate jeweled nets over their hair.
“This is the nobles’ city,” Apana Pelat murmured, riding near at hand. He had seen Daniel look one way and another.
Daniel had actually already guessed this, remembering Tenai’s descriptions of Nerinesir. “And there in front of us, that must be the court, surrounded by the Martyr’s Wall?” He nodded toward the intricately carved wall that swept out to either side before them.
“Yes,” agreed Captain Pelat. “It isn’t meant to guard against enemies so much as show where the boundaries of the court lie.”
The white mansions beyond this inner wall were all anyone could ask for in the way of palaces. All the stone here was white, seeming almost lit from within. The road, covered with white chips of stone, unwound ahead of them like a glowing ribbon to a final wall. This one seemed made of crystal. Jenna would love it, Daniel thought, and looked for his daughter. She was gazing up at the wall in awe. Perhaps feeling his gaze, she looked around at him and grinned, opening her hands and tossing her head back in a gesture of delight.
The gates that stood open to let them through this glass wall seemed to be made of silver. And on the other side of those gates was, finally, the true palace.
Before it, all the lesser palaces of the court seemed almost plain.
“Wow,” Jenna murmured aloud, looking up, and up, at the spreading wings of the king’s palace. “Wow. Damn.”
Daniel, though he said nothing, agreed with the sentiment.
The king’s palace was beautiful and incomprehensible: high towers made of white or pink marble rose toward the sky from among a confusion of walls and balustrades and lower towers. A broad crystalline staircase spiraled up one of the nearer towers and stretched out into a wide balcony high above the ground; the same crystal opened out in a fan-shaped patio before the main doors, which were probably fifty feet high. There were elegant people everywhere, hurrying—they all seemed to be hurrying—about mysterious tasks.
Daniel thought he would need a real night’s sleep in a real bed, and then maybe he would be able to face it. At the moment it filled him with a feeling that made him want to take Jenna, crawl into a hole and hide. He felt exactly as grubby and disheveled as nine days on horseback without a real bath could make somebody. Jenna’s obvious delight at the palace didn’t help.
To his surprise, while his daughter whisked off in one direction with Tenai, when he took a step to follow, Captain Pelat turned up at his elbow and indicated a different direction.
“You are in the king’s household,” he said, to Daniel’s querying look.
“But ... isn’t Jenna?”
“Yes,” the man said, with evident surprise. “Thus the king shows he favors Chaisa-e.” He must have seen Daniel’s confusion because he then added, “It is more proper for your daughter to go among women. The king might give her into the keeping of women of his household, but he shows his favor for Chaisa-e by sending her into her hand. And doubtless,” he added, “the king considers the young lady of his household will be more comfortable with Chaisa-e, with whom she is familiar.”
She would. Daniel would have preferred Tenai’s company himself, in fact. But he didn't argue, just nodded and went where he was directed.
There were doors and hallways and more doors and the occasional room that looked like a museum gallery. Captain Pelat turned suddenly through one more doorway and into a set of luxurious rooms that sprawled along the west wall of one level of the palace.
Late sunlight poured through wide windows, giving a golden tint to the rooms’ fittings; appropriate, Daniel thought, to their opulence. Rugs in brilliant blues and greens covered tiled floors. Furniture was ornate: rich fabrics and wood carved and inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
And everywhere was the bustle of dozens of men about urgent and mysterious business, none of whom Daniel knew and none of whom acknowledged his presence with more than a distracted glance.
Captain Pelat might have recognized Daniel’s pause as the sudden attack of nerves it was. “Here,” he said kindly, “this way. You will want to bathe.” He separated one of the hurrying men out the crowd with a jerk of his head and showed Daniel a luxurious bathing room larger than his own generous living room at home. “Tipana will help you,” he told Daniel, indicating the young man he’d pulled out of the other room. Tipana dipped his head, shy, but smiling in a way that seemed friendly. “You need not hurry, Nola Danyel,” Captain Pelat continued. “The king is also bathing. There will be a supper later, I am certain. I will see that appropriate clothing is sent to you.”
“Thank you. I know you must be busy.”
“The comfort of the king’s guests is also my duty,” the captain answered, inclining his head in a formal nod that was almost a bow.
Tipana fetched fragrant soap and warm towels for Daniel, and laid out an outfit of brown and ivory. Daniel was not at all comfortable having servants hover around while he bathed and dressed, but on the other hand, the outer garments involved some mysterious ties he would not have figured out without help. Mitereh’s spiraling blue sigil was embroidered on the collar of the shirt. Daniel fingered this, thinking about identity and affiliation and how clothing might indeed, in some circumstances, make the man.
-9-
Mitereh, when Daniel found him again, was pacing. The king was ignoring the attendants who tried to adjust his embroidered vest and braid his still-damp hair. Daniel knew no one in the room except the king himself and stood to one side, trying to sort out who might be whom. He found his eye caught particularly by one man who had settled comfortably in a chair to one side, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle, chin propped on his palm, watching with a wry amusement as the king impatiently waved away a man with an ivory ribbon in his hand. “Let it be,” he snapped.
The man with the ribbon snapped right back, “And let you go out among your court like that? I would die of shame. Will you stand still for one beat of time?”
Mitereh made a little sound of impatience, but he actually did stand still, allowing the ribbon to be threaded through his hair. The attendant rapidly braided his hair in a way too complicated for Daniel to follow, then said, “Thank you, my king,” in a surprisingly sarcastic tone.
Mitereh, far from taking offense, grimaced and answered, “Forgive my impatient manner, Perau.”
“Yes,” said the attendant, much more gently. “You shall honor your household, Mitereh.”
“If I do, it is all to your credit, Perau,” said the king and resumed pacing, although not with quite so much energy this time.
The relationships between the king and his guards, and now between the king and his servants, was well outside the normal American experience. But the complete lack of, for a better word, servility, made the whole concept of staff and servants less uncomfortable than it might otherwise have been. Still, Daniel wondered whether he might possibly be able to find a Talasayan version of Miss Manner's Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior or something similar that would explain how people were expected to behave toward one another.
