A Fall of Princes (16 page)

With all the strength that was in him, Hirel quelled the
killing stroke. He withdrew a step, two, three. He remembered who he was, and
what he was, and how he had come there. He said, “She died by her own hand.”

“Why?”

A prince did not give way to pain. Hirel was surely and
entirely a prince, but his training was not yet perfect. He had not learned,
yet, not to feel the wound. But he could speak through it with quiet that was
only cross-kin to calm. “She failed of her blood. She could not learn to be a
queen.”

“She looked within and saw only void; looked without, and
saw only a cage.”

Hirel saw her more clearly now than he saw his tormentor. He
was growing into his father’s image; in childhood he had been his mother’s.

Her softness, like his own, had been only for the eye. She
was steel beneath, but steel flawed, trammeled in the chains of womanhood and
royalty. She had wanted too much: a life of the body as well as of the mind.
She had won from her husband the training of her son. She had made him what she
herself would have been, had she been born a man.

“They say that she was mad,” Hirel said. She faced him in
his memory as she had been the day she died: gold and ivory, perfect in her
beauty, with eyes that had forsaken hope. “My father accepted the burden of his
birth. She could not. She resisted to the utmost, until she broke. She denied
even the gods.”

“Often,” said the priest, “one denies what one most fears.”

“Do not you yourself do the same?”

“I deny your thousand gods. I do not deny the One who
embodies them all.”

Hirel hissed. Memory was fading; impatience was rising to
rule him. “What has my mother to do with you, or with me, or with your god?”

“Little,” answered the priest, “and much. She could not bear
to face herself; she took refuge in death. What did she see that so frightened
her? Not prison bars alone. In extremity, she saw the truth. It slew her.”

“Truth.” Hirel’s lip curled. “I have heard no truth here.
Only cruelty.”

The priest bowed his head. It was a convincing semblance of
humility. “Truth is cruel. Your mother raised you well, prince, but not well in
all. It would have served you better to have learned somewhat from your father.
Of gods; of magery.”

“Prince Sarevadin has done what he may to fill the void,”
said Hirel.

“He has indeed. But do you believe?”

“In magic,” said Hirel, “perforce. In gods, not yet. I can
hope that it may be never. I have no desire to be bound by the caprices of
divinity.”

The temple did not quake; the priest did not rise up in
wrath. “Caprice may prove to be purpose, and chance a design beyond our frail
conception.”

“Ah,” said Hirel. “You have brought me here to convert me. A
mighty coup that would be: a servant of Avaryan on the Golden Throne.”

“It will yet be so.”

“Not while I live.”

“Swear no vows, prince, lest they betray you.”

“I swear them. I swear that I will not bow to your god. Nor
will I surrender my throne to him.”

“Even for love?”

Pain drew Hirel’s eyes downward. His nails, growing long
again, had drawn blood from his palms. He had fallen out of the habit of
allowing for them.

With great care he unclenched his fists. “I may acknowledge
that a god exists, if it can be proved to my satisfaction. It is not reasonable
to demand that I love him.”

“Love is not demanded. Often it is not even wished for. But
it comes.”

“Not to the High Prince of Asanion.”

The priest looked long at him, but not with pity. “You name
yourself truly. You do not know what your name signifies. But that will come. I
pray my god that it will not come in pain.”

o0o

Hirel escaped from that quiet wizard-priest with the
bitter eyes and the oracle’s tongue. He knew he trod the bare edge of courtesy;
he chose not to care.

The impudent novice had made herself scarce. He found his
own way of the temple—it was much simpler, he noticed, than the path by which
the child had led him—and walked slowly back through the city.

Anger pricked him. So many words, to so little purpose; and
yet they had struck deep, at wounds that would not heal. He had been tested, he
knew surely; but for what, he did not know. He did not want to know.

His mother had fled her lineage and her duty. He would not.
He had tarried long enough, both within bonds and out of them. Now he would see
what place this world had left for him: if he was a prisoner here, or if he was
a free guest; if Asanion was prepared to reject him or to have him back.

o0o

Sarevan was up. More, he was walking, with Ulan for a
prop, and after a moment’s astonishment, Hirel. He tried not to lean heavily.
Hirel could feel him trying, shaking with the effort.

His face was grim. “Once more,” he gritted when they had
struggled from bed to wall and back again. Hirel swallowed the words that came
to him, and steadied the lunatic with an arm about his waist.

Sarevan fell into his bed, grinning like a skull, panting as
if he had run a race. “Every hour,” he said with all the strength he could
muster. “Every hour I’ll do it.”

Hirel kept his face expressionless, spreading the coverlet
over the wasted body. It shifted, restless already, though it must have been a
great labor even to raise a hand, to catch Hirel’s wrist. “I’m mending, infant.
I’m sure of it. I’m stronger already than I was this morning. Tomorrow I’ll be
stronger yet. Two days, three—I’ll ride.”

Hirel’s mouth wanted to twist. Such a creature, this was.
Not only did he cherish hope; he clutched it with both hands.

He let Hirel go and shifted again, lying on his side. His
grin had shrunk to a wry smile. “I bore you to tears, don’t I? Why do you keep
coming back?”

“I am still your prisoner.”

Hirel had not wanted it to sound so flat, or so bitter. Nor
had he meant to wipe the smile from Sarevan’s face. Not so completely.

“You are not,” Sarevan said with as much heat as his
weakness could muster. “I promised you. As soon as we came to Endros—”

“We have been four days in Endros.”

Sarevan closed his eyes. He looked weary beyond telling.
“You are free,” he said just above a whisper. “You were free the moment you
faced my father.”

Hirel voiced no thanks. He owed none. As he turned, the thin
hand caught his wrist once more. He looked down into a face that had willed
itself to life.

“What are you going to do?” Sarevan demanded.

“Nothing unduly treacherous,” answered Hirel. The dark eyes
shamed him with their steadiness; he said more reasonably, “I had in mind to
speak with the Asanian ambassador.”

“Is it wise?”

“That is what I intend to discover.” Hirel sat on the bed.
Sarevan reclaimed his hand, turning it so that the
Kasar
caught the light. Hirel slitted his eyes against the flame of
it. “Will you stop me?”

“Of course not. Old Varzun is safe enough; he’s impeccably
loyal to his emperor, and my father says he’s been mourning you with honest
grief. But some of his people may not wish you well.”

“I do not doubt it,” said Hirel. “I would send a summons
worthy of his rank. May I borrow one of your guards?”

“Avaryan! You’re slipping. You actually asked.” Sarevan
grinned at Hirel’s scowl. He raised his voice and called out with surprising
strength, “Starion!”

The guard burst in with a mighty clatter, armed for war.
Once again Hirel met hostile eyes over the glitter of a spearpoint.

“Cousin,” said Sarevan mildly. The spear lowered a fraction;
the glare abated not at all. “Cousin, if you can spare a moment from your
heroics, we have a task for you.”

The young Gileni flushed dark under the bronze. He did not
look well in the scarlet of the emperor’s squires: it clashed abominably with
his hair. Yet he was a handsome young man, and he acted as if he knew it.

He grounded his spear with a flourish that came close to
insolence, but that was for Hirel; his eyes on Sarevan were a roil of love and
grief, anger and anxiety and simple worship. “Is he troubling you? Is he
sapping your strength with his nonsense?”

“Not as much as you are with yours.” Sarevan’s smile took
some of the sting out of the rebuke. “Do you think you can bring yourself to be
civil to Asanian?”

The boy’s thought was as clear as a shout:
If only it
need not be this one
. Aloud he said stiffly, “Stop chaffing me, Vayan. What
do you want me to do?”

Sarevan glanced at Hirel, who told him. He listened;
repeated his message word for word; bowed with perfect correctness and left.

Sarevan contemplated the emptiness where Starion had been.
“Bless the boy,” he said, half amused, half dismayed, “he’s jealous. And he’s
the one who prayed for the day when I’d find someone else to play elder brother
to. Or is it—” He laughed suddenly. “I have it! He’s afraid you’ve displaced
him as the beauty of the family.”

“That,” said Hirel, “is not possible. Not while you live to
outshine both of us together.”

“Ah now, I’m nothing much. This nose of mine . . .”

Hirel snorted. Sarevan wisely fell silent.

“Iduvarzun InKeriz Ischylios,” the servant announced with
proper dignity and passable accent; then shattered it with a grin and a wink
that, by fate’s own mercy, the ambassador did not see. Hirel set himself
sternly to be as blind.

He received his father’s envoy in a chamber small enough for
intimacy, large enough for dignity; seated in a tall chair, not quite a throne,
with attendants about him and the sun ablaze on his golden robes. Seven of
them, one atop the other, and the eighth, the one that marked his rank, pouring
over the chair and pooling on the floor about his bare and gilded feet. Its
sleeves flowed over his hands, permitting a glimpse of gilded fingertips; its
collar rose high, his face within the frame of it almost stark in its
plainness: barely touched with either gilt or paint, ornamented only by a
single earring, vivid against the darkened skin.

Still though he held himself, his heart thudded painfully as
the man appeared upon the heels of his name. Hirel knew him. He was a kinsman,
and the old blood was strong in him; age had bleached his hair to the ivory of
his skin and brought out the fine proud bones beneath, but the eyes in deep
sockets were keen as a falcon’s, the gold of them rimmed just visibly with
white.

Even as he went down on his knees, he stretched the limits
of protocol. The face of a high prince was to be stared at, scrutinized,
committed to memory, as an emperor’s was to be hidden forever behind the golden
mask; but this stare endured for an eternity, edged with doubt and shock and
slowly dawning hope. “My lord?” Varzun whispered.

Hirel beckoned. The ambassador came forward on his knees,
with much grace for one so old.

At two paces’ distance he halted and held up his hands. They
trembled as Hirel touched fingertip to fingertip, the greeting of close and
royal kinsmen. Varzun looked long at the thin brown fingers with their blunted
nails, and up into the altered face. “My prince. What have they done to you?”

Hirel rose and signed a command. Varzun resisted but obeyed,
rising also.

He was a little the shorter. He blinked, then found a smile
to brighten the sudden tears. “Little one, you have grown. But this”—his hand
sketched a gesture toward Hirel’s hair, toward the sharpened cheekbone—“this is
unpardonable. Who has done it?”

“No one in Keruvarion,” Hirel answered him. “I owe my life
to the Varyani prince. He found me where my flight had cast me, and preserved
me from the hounds that would have torn me, as from the men who would have sold
me gelded into slavery.”

With each word Varzun paled further; at the last of it he
nearly toppled. “My prince. Oh, my prince!” But he mastered himself; he stood
straight and spoke clearly. “Your brothers?”

“The slaves’ whelps: Vuad and Sayel. And no doubt,” said
Hirel, “Aranos from amid his priests and his sorcerers, although he would never
stoop so low as to take part openly in the plot. That might jeopardize his
claim to my place.”

“It is rumored that Aranos will be named high prince when
the time of mourning is past. It is also rumored that the princes are
quarreling over the spoils.”

“They are very certain that I am dead. What tale do they
tell of that?”

Varzun lowered his eyes, reluctant. Hirel waited. Slowly the
old man said, “It was sickness, they say, my prince. Something swift and
virulent, that made imperative the burning of your body and your belongings.
They gave you a great funeral, with many sacrifices.”

“My slaves? My senel?”

“Sent to bear you company in the Ninth Heaven.”

Hirel stood still under the weight of his robes. He was
dimly aware of the ambassador’s concern. Old fool, the High Court reckoned him,
loyal enough and dimwitted enough to suffer exile of honor among the
barbarians, blind enough not to perceive that, while he represented the soul of
peaceful honesty to the mages of Keruvarion, his servants spied and intrigued
and did what harm they might in the heart of the empire.

He was much too direct in his speech to make a courtier,
though what Hirel had seen of this court made him seem as subtle as any serpent
in Kundri’j. And he had a glaring flaw: he dared permit himself to love his
emperor and his high prince. Either of whom would calmly slay him if need
demanded.

As Hirel’s brothers had slain his servants, that they betray
no perilous secrets. And his golden stallion, that they should not seem
overeager to usurp the privileges of the high prince. Not that the creature was
a great loss; for all his shimmering beauty he had been as placid as a
plowbeast. The slaves were only slaves, hands that served and legs that ran.
Though Hirel would miss the little singer, and the eunuch whose hands were so
clever when he needed easing and had neither time nor inclination for a woman,
and Sha’an who alone had ever been able to comb his hair properly and
painlessly, and—