My head snapped up to see the Khelid, dressed all in white, sweeping across the red tiles toward the Prince. Chamberlain Fendular glided after him like a gilded boat upon a smooth river, an unending patter of self-abas.e.m.e.nt and apology dribbling from his puffy face. The kneeling messenger halted his tale when Aleksander glanced up in irritation.

"I have just returned from Parnifour," said the Khelid imperiously, "and my party was stopped at the palace gates and threatened with a search as if we were common criminals! Only the timely intervention of Chamberlain Fendular prevented this intolerable insult. I was a.s.sured by the Emperor that I was to be received here with all the respect he has shown-"

"No insult was intended, Korelyi," said the Prince curtly. "We've reports of bandit raids a short distance from Capharna, and the watch was properly alert. Now I must attend to the matter. Please allow the Chamberlain to make you comfortable and rea.s.sure you as to our continued welcome and high regard." The Prince turned away from the pale-skinned Khelid.

"Of course I would not intrude on state business, Your Highness," said the Khelid, bowing politely, his anger evaporated like dew at mid-morning. His voice was again pleasant and smooth, just as I had heard it at the dinner party. "Only grant me one moment to present you with the gifts sent by my counterpart in Parnifour. His duties prevent his attending the coming celebration, but he has sent three of the finest Khelid magicians to entertain you, and he asked me to see that you received this from my hand at the instant of my return. Perhaps it may be of use in this crisis."

On one extended hand the Khelid held out a slender case of finely polished wood. With the other hand he opened the lid to reveal a magnificent bronze dagger, simply and elegantly shaped, a smoothly curved hilt inlaid with silver but otherwise unadorned, exactly to Aleksander's taste. Its edge glinted in the firelight. As the Khelid expected, the Prince's face lit up in pleasure.

Remember, I whispered silently. Think, fool. Even without shifting I could hear the demon music from the knife. This Khelid was very serious about his dislike of Alek-sander.

The Prince took the weapon from the case, hefted it, and twirled it surely in his fingers. "Fine," he said. "Quite fine. My compliments to your countryman for his excellent taste."

As the Prince drew his own knife from the sheath at his belt and tossed it onto his chair, the Khelid stepped closer. . . closer to the chair where he set the wooden box ... then closer to the hearth, wrapping his cloak tightly about his shoulders. "A bitter night in your summer kingdom, Prince Aleksander," he said with easy amus.e.m.e.nt, and rubbed his hands together near the flames. "I think I'll s.n.a.t.c.h a bit of your warmth to carry back to my apartments and leave you to your business." He reached for a thumb-sized stick and lit its end.

Look at him, I thought. Watch him and remember what I told you. You believed me.

But the new knife was already sheathed, and Aleksander had returned his attention to the messenger. The Khelid bowed and turned to leave, pretending to warm his hand over his burning stick as he started moving the red tip in a circular pattern.

There was no time to consider consequences. I no longer had choices. I nudged the stopper loose in the ink jar, set the jar on the desk, then b.u.mped the handle of the writing case that lay beside it. The gla.s.s jar fell, shattering on the red tiles and splattering ink on the Khelid's white robes.

"Kasmagh!" screamed the Khelid in fury, for as he whirled to see what was happening, the tiny flame singed his fingers and went out. No one else likely noticed the instant of heart-stopping darkness when he spoke the curse-and I was grateful that his fire had gone out before he said it. I would have been unable to counter it and so would likely have burst into flames myself. It was a very nasty word. As it was, I dropped to the floor, making sure to prostrate myself in the ink to demonstrate my humiliation.

"Forgive me, Your Highness, for being the fool as I am. Please allow me to summon a physician. The great lord has burned his fingers on his branch. My clumsiness is inexcusable, my lord, especially after your warnings to be exceptionally careful around our guests."

Hear me, Aleksander, I added in silence. You are not stupid, so hear me. If you are what the G.o.ds have told me, then you must be able to listen with more than your temper.

"Filthy cretin of a slave," said Fendular after screaming for a chamberlain to fetch the physician. "You will need a physician for yourself when you reap your just punishment for this deed."

"Are you much injured, Lord Korelyi?" Aleksander's voice was as cool as the tiles that pressed on my feverish face. "I'll have Giezek, my own physician, see to you."

"Easily soothed," said the Khelid, his voice smooth again, but no longer pleasant. "I carry our familiar remedies for healing. I'm surprised you Derzhi permit such incompetent servants so near your royal persons. In Khelidar this one would have never lived so long as to insult a royal guest in such fashion."

"Fendular, see to our guest's comfort. If he should so desire it, bring him to the slave house in exactly one hour to witness this slave's punishment."

"As you command, my lord," said Fendular, oozing triumph and making sure to step on my hand as he pa.s.sed.

"And tell Giezek that I wish to have his personal report on Lord Korelyi's injury within half an hour."

"Of course, Your Highness."

I did not hear the footsteps approaching or see the soft leather boots until they stood right next to my head. The owner crouched down and lifted my face with the flat of a knife blade under my chin.

"The warning should have been heeded, slave. One must always carry warnings in the front of one's mind. The consequences of failure to do so are unfortunate."

The Prince stood up again and called, "Mikael, have this creature taken to Durgan. Tell the slave master fifty lashes one hour from now."

Fifty ... G.o.ds. For one moment I had thought he understood my warning. But as the guards dragged me away, I was left in complete confusion, for the new bronze knife lay abandoned in the pool of ink.

Sometime in the long, cold hour after I was stripped and bound to the flogging post to await my punishment, a modestly outfitted Suzaini gentleman came into the slave house. He had a word with Durgan, who sat grimly beside his brazier at the far end of the deserted room. Durgan nodded and the stranger came over to me. From a brown leather pouch hanging from his belt, the slight, gray Suzaini pulled a blue vial, then opened it and held it to my lips.

"Drink this. You'll be glad you did."

"Who are you?" I said, pulling my head back as far as my restraints allowed.

The stuff smelled dreadful. "And what is this? I try to avoid mysterious potions from people I don't know."

He pursed his thin lips in irritation. "I was told to give it to you, but not to force you if you didn't wish it. I was told nothing about answering questions from a slave." He yanked open his pouch to return the vial.

"Wait!" I said. "I'll take it." Faced with fifty lashes, I had to sc.r.a.pe up a bit of faith.

It tasted as bad as it smelled-something like a mouthful of sheep entrails that had been boiled with pepper pods. But even as I felt a pleasant numbness roll out from my stomach and begin to deaden my extremities, I managed a soggy grin. "Giezek, the physician. Am I right?"

He snorted and walked away.

It was a party of twenty or thirty bandits who had raided the mountain town of Erum, only six leagues from Capharna. In most years, early spring was the best of times for bandits. When the narrow defiles through the wilder mountains began to open up, travelers and caravans started moving through them again. The caravans could move faster in the summer and a few outriders sent into the hills could protect the way. But in the spring, while snow still lay deep, wagons and horses moved slowly and bogged down easily, and those who were familiar with the snow-buried terrain could have their way with them, earning a year's livelihood in the matter of a few weeks. The caravans bringing supplies or guests for the dakrah were heavily guarded, however, so that spring the raiders were forced to seek their profits elsewhere, a town that was lightly defended due to its proximity to Capharna.

Aleksander, chafing at the inactivity of the Dar Heged and the endless consultations and fittings for the dakrah, decided that he himself would lead the troop of warriors dispatched to hunt down these latest offenders. He left orders that while he was gone, all his correspondence was to come through me, and I was to determine whether it made sense to risk a messenger to forward it on to him. It was an astonish- ing responsibility for a slave, and Fendular came near exploding at the news.

His formidable jowls quivered in indignation.

"Your Highness, pardon my forward speech, but I have many excellent scribes and a.s.sistants available for your service. It is unseemly for a barbarian slave, one punished just yesterday for incompetence and gross insults to our honored guests-"

"You will not tell me what is unseemly, Fendular. I choose my servants as I please. Were I to make this slave my Lord High Chamberlain, who would dare dispute it save my father?"

"But, Your Highness-"

"This slave was chastised severely in your sight and in the sight of his victim.

Now I require him to serve me and repay my trouble in allowing him to live."

Fortunately Fendular was not bright enough to question how I was able to walk or kneel after fifty lashes, or he might have guessed that the good Giezek had kept me well supplied with his blue vials throughout the previous night and morning. The physician had also given Durgan a salve that quickened healing, and though I was not comfortable, neither was I crippled, as I might have been otherwise. Mercifully I had felt little of the lashing itself, and I suspected that Durgan had been told to modify his strokes to make more show than true damage.

Fendular bowed stiffly and left the room, glaring at me as if I had eaten his children. I did not look forward to the next time I would be required to submit to his direction.

The guard captain, Sovari, was strapping Aleksander's sword belt about the Prince's waist. I wondered what had become of the Khelid knife. I had spoken no private word with the Prince since the incident. There were always two dozen people around him, and to summon me from the bare attic room I now shared with twenty other house slaves was difficult to do discreetly with a slave handler always posted at the door. The Prince must have noticed my glance, for he drew his knife and turned it in the lamplight. "I suppose I'll have to make do with my old knife. Unfortunate that the blade the Khelid brought was unbalanced. I had the smith melt it down. Perhaps he can do better."

After some seven or eight days, Aleksander returned from his successful foray, leaving the heads of twenty-three bandits hung on the charred walls of Erum. The Prince was ebullient. "Athos' b.a.l.l.s, it felt fine to be on horseback again with a sword in my hand," he said to a party of young priests three days before the dakrah was to begin. "The magistrate of Erum said I should execute only the leaders of the bandit troop, that the others were only hungry, desperate men. But I've been idle too long and could not stomach mercy. The villains picked an unfortunate time to be hungry."

While my own stomach turned in disgust, the five shaven-headed servants of the sun G.o.d nodded in sympathy. They had come to plan a footrace to the top of Mount Nerod for one day of the dakrah. It was a sacred custom in Capharna. I wondered if the sun G.o.d would shine on top of the cloud- shrouded mountain on the day of the race, for surely he never did any other day. Perhaps that's why he didn't notice the despicable habits of those who governed his Empire.

"Surely your swift and forceful retaliation will make the pa.s.ses safer for the dakrah guests," said one of the priests. "Many of the new arrivals tell of the boldness of the raiders."

"At least three parties have reported attacks in the western pa.s.ses," chimed in another priest. "Two of them lost guards to the villains."

The mention of dakrah guests dimmed Aleksander's sunny mood. "Seyonne, has there been any word from Dmitri?"

I shook my head.

The Prince scanned my face. His eyes narrowed, then he shoved me from the stool and told me to get out of his apartments. "They asked for it," he shouted after me. "They should not have burned my town. And it is not your business." I had said not a word.

In the last days before the ceremonies were to begin, Aleksander went back to his auditioning, this time for magicians. He spent an entire day watching one Derzhi magician after another demonstrate elaborate creations of colored clouds, fountains of light, flowers, sultry maidens, monkeys, and birds.

"Druya's horns," he shouted, after a trio of women magicians made yet another flock of birds appear from behind a mirror. "Is there not a decent magical entertainment left in Azhakstan? Could you devise nothing at all unique for your prince's dakrah? My Ezzarian writing slave could come up with something more exciting."

I wanted to stuff Aleksander's mouth with my writing paper. Ezzarians needed no more animosity from the Derzhi Magician's Guild. It was the Guild who had called Ivan's attention to the fertile hills off his southern borders, and convinced him that the secretive Ezzarian sorcerers were dangerous. And it was the Magician's Guild who had paid or tortured or coerced an elderly Ezzarian scholar named Balthar into devising the way to strip an Ezzarian sorcerer of melydda.

"Perhaps if we showed you more, Your Highness," said one of the magicians, a tall, anvil-chinned woman with protruding cheekbones. "This is only the beginning."

"Perhaps we should ask the Ezzarian what he would suggest," hissed another woman. It was the women of the Guild who were the most brutal in administering Balthar's Rites. Perhaps they were jealous of the status of Ezzarian women, equal in all things to men save in the matter of governing, where we had deemed it best they hold sway. Only in Ez-zaria, of all the lands conquered by the Derzhi, had a woman held a throne.

"Seyonne, a proclamation." The Prince yanked me out of my wandering thoughts. I dipped my pen and nodded, having an uneasy conviction that whatever Aleksander was going to have me write, it was going to be a mistake.

"No Derzhi magician will perform at my dakrah or at a dakrah in any n.o.ble House for twenty-three years. Perhaps by the time I have a son coming to his majority, they will have thought of something new."

"Your Highness! Surely you can't mean this." The three women were aghast.

I hesitated before committing ink to paper. "My lord, I want to make sure I get the wording correct," I said. "I dare not insult you or the honorable Magician's Guild by misinterpreting your saying."

Perhaps if the women had been quiet, Aleksander might have reconsidered, but they would not leave it.

"Your Highness, this is unthinkable."

"What will the Houses think to have no magic for their most sacred celebrations?"

"You must recant this proclamation."

"You insult our Guild."

"We will carry our protest to the Emperor. He has ever shown respect for our profession. He'll not hear of our being forbidden to pursue our craft at the most significant events of the n.o.ble Houses."

"Silence, all of you," said Aleksander, leaping from his chair and sweeping their paraphernalia from a long table, "or I'll forbid you to practice your craft on any occasion whatsoever. Return to your towers and vaults and learn your business. And protest to the Emperor at the peril of your necks. He favors Khelid magicians at present. Perhaps we'll not have need for you at all in the future."

The three withdrew with such hatred boiling on their faces that I wondered if I should attempt to warn Aleksander. Could he have no idea what he had done? Even those with so little true power could be dangerous.

All further consideration of the matter was erased by the announcement of the arrival of Lady Lydia and her party from Avenkhar. The servants quickly cleared the room of the grumbling magicians when the Prince said he would be d.a.m.ned if he would move to the formal reception rooms to receive the woman his father had chosen as his bride.

"I'll not move a step to see her. Curse it all, why could the witch not have fallen prey to bandits?" growled Aleksander to the Chamberlain's back. "I won't marry the she-wolf. I'll hang myself first." He straightened his shirt of fawn-colored silk and flopped down in his chair by the hearth, while servants bustled about bringing chairs and footstools to set close to the fire and setting a pot of steaming wine on a table.

I continued writing out his proclamation, adding all the formalities that were required to make it law. If I was quick I might make my obeisance and escape before the lady entered, lest I be unable to get permission to leave and thus miss my evening rations.

From Aleksander's horror of the woman, I expected a horse-faced, pockmarked Derzhi harridan twice his age, someone from a rich and powerful family that no one else would have. Every female under the age of forty seemed to fawn over the Prince-whether he scorned her or bedded her. I supposed they believed that there was always a possibility that the strong- willed heir would convince his father to allow him to marry whomever he fancied, and the chance to be Empress of the Derzhi was too tempting to risk.

But my first glimpse of the Lady Lydia of the House of Marag told me she didn't care whether or not she was the Empress. She would do it if required, and do it well, but she would take not one step out of her way to make it more likely. In that and in every important way, she completely confounded my expectations.

She was no older than Aleksander, and as tall as I, taller if one counted the scarcely tamed red curls piled atop her head. Though slender and well formed, with long, elegant bones, she was neither fragile nor delicate. She was not exquisitely beautiful. Her short, straight nose, her prim lips, and somewhat narrow, angular face might even have been called plain. But her long, graceful neck could have driven a sculptor to madness, and her green eyes, stark beneath pale brows and lashes, caught wicked fire when she raised up from her deep curtsy and laid them on Aleksander. I found her breathtaking.

"Welcome, my lady," said the Prince, pointedly remaining seated at her entry, much as if he was staking out a position on a battlefield. "I trust your journey was uneventful."

He motioned her to a chair, and she slipped out of her dark fur-lined cloak and into the soft cushions in one fluid motion. Without fuss, disruption, or command, one rosy-cheeked serving woman had a footstool under the lady's feet, another held her cloak, gloves, and fur m.u.f.f, and another was pressing a cup of hot wine into her slender hands. The three servants were not slaves.

"Is 'uneventful' the best you can wish me, Your Highness? I should think you could at least hope for satisfactory, or perhaps even pleasant, as we've known each other so long." Her voice was as low and melodious as the stringed viols the Kuvai played.

"Of course. Those, too." The Prince recovered well from the first a.s.sault.

"We've had bandits six leagues west and heard reports of attacks on our traveling guests, so uneventful is perhaps a greater hope than it seems."

The lady nodded seriously. "I've heard likewise, but I was a.s.sured that you had shed enough blood to make us all safe again. Is it not true?"

"I did what was necessary." The Prince was picking at the threads of the brocaded chair, not quite squirming under her steady gaze.

"Of course." She smiled serenely. "Uneventful well describes my journey. The Lord Dmitri took great care to ensure it would be safely so. I've never been better guarded. Perhaps Derzhi women have guardian spirits as Derzhi warriors do? Is it heresy to say so? Being both priest and warrior you must surely know the answer."

Aleksander ignored the jab and abandoned his defensive position when his uncle's name was mentioned. He straightened and moved to the edge of his chair. "Did my uncle accompany you, then?"

"Alas, no. He said he had another commission that would delay his journey."

The morose Prince settled back in his chair, tapping a half-closed fist on the chair arm. "But he was well when you last saw him?"

"Very well. I was honored by his attentions-and yours to send him. We rode out hawking only a few days before I left. He was most gallant and charming, though I'll tell you in confidence, I don't know that he believes making ladies'

travel arrangements is quite up to slitting throats and ripping bellies. I'm surprised you would use him so. You will have to explain it to me."

I found myself trying to smother a smile, and even a murderous glare from Aleksander could not subdue my moment's enjoyment. No wonder he railed at her. Even with no more evidence than this, I knew he had never gotten her to his bed. He had not found any way to conquer her, and it was driving him wild.

"My uncle is happy to serve the Empire in whatever way he is asked."

The Lady Lydia did not deign to counter such a paltry feint. Instead she followed Aleksander's glance and discovered me.

"Who is this pleasant fellow, my lord? Have you got someone to write for you?

I remember your dissatisfaction with the scribes in Capharna. You always used it as an excuse not to correspond with me. Shall I find that you have acquired the means, but not the taste for it?" Her attention did what Aleksander's could not. My skin grew hot, and I dropped my eyes.

"The slave is just leaving," said Aleksander. "He can finish his work later."

I slipped off my stool, genuflected to the Prince, and rose to leave.

"Hold one moment," said the lady, jumping up from her chair. I paused and crossed my hands on my breast to await her pleasure. "No. Please turn around again."

I turned my back to her, wishing I could do almost any- thing else. Fifty lashes, no matter how they are dealt, leave an untidy mess. I don't know that I had ever felt so embarra.s.sed about my circ.u.mstances. At least I wore a tunic so she could not see it all.

"You are an exacting taskmaster, my lord. Did he blot a paper or stumble over a word?" Her playful edge had grown hard.

"My slave is not your concern, my Lady." The Prince was very polite, but had regained his self-a.s.surance for the moment. "You may go, Seyonne." I had come to believe that Aleksander, in some indefinable way, had some sense of the difference between his true authority and his fretful temper. It would explain why, though disgraced and mutilated, Vanye was living as a free man, while his brother-in-law Sierge was dead. I believed it was why I yet lived and why he had not let me suffer beyond necessity from his mistake with the demon's knife. I had no other explanation for it. "Come, my lady," he said. "I see Rakhan telling us that dinner is served, and I've friends enlisted to play ulyat tonight. Perhaps you'll win a wyr-falcon to replace the one you lost to Kiril last year. Do you still maintain the fantasy that women can compete at games of strategy?"

The lady flushed to a color that matched her hair, but her voice held nothing of defeat. "Perhaps this year our game will not be interrupted by state business just when I'm starting to win."

I bowed and retired, for once wishing I could remain behind so I could witness the next skirmish between the Prince and the lady. It could be a most interesting war.