Dark Empress (33 page)

Even from here, where she could only make out the basic details of the soldiers, all in Imperial green, she could feel the animosity being projected at the black and steel clad soldiers. The Pelasian military, despite Prince Ashar’s excellent relations with the new Emperor, were not a popular sight in beleaguered and oppressed M’Dahz. The people had enjoyed only two weeks of freedom since the Pelasian withdrawal and here were a unit of that land’s elite cavalry at the gate. Unpleasant memories would rise, unbidden, to the fore in every citizen who saw them.

There was a brief discussion at the gate and the great wooden portal swung ponderously open. Asima sighed. In her youth, the walls of the town had fallen into disuse due to the uninterrupted centuries of peace. Now, even the gates remained shut.

Irritably, she ducked back inside and pulled across the curtain as the coach began to roll slowly on once again. Throughout the interminable journey across the barren landscape between central Pelasia and the borderlands, she had pondered and thought, planned and schemed. There was no way she would settle back in M’Dahz, but the current situation in Pelasia for her was untenable. Ashar had forbidden her from returning.

And so the plan had been born. It was ambitious; probably Asima’s most ambitious plan of all time. It would take a few years and a lot of planning, sprinkled with a judicious topping of luck. But it could work. King Ashar only maintained his hold on power in Pelasia through the respect and fear of the other nobles. The coup of the three satraps had changed things there forever. The ruler was no longer unreachable and immortal, and Ashar knew it.

So she would find a way to return to Pelasia through a different noble house. Half a dozen powerful satraps had lands stretching east toward the Imperial border and Asima knew that, if she had nothing else in the world, her looks and her brains alone could carry her to the top. She would find a way back across the border, entice and entrance one of the powerful nobles and use him to ingratiate her way back into court in Akkad. Ashar would never dare order one of his more powerful satraps to lose a wife.

The first thing to do would be to settle back in M’Dahz and wait for around half a year, living quietly and unobtrusively. She may even change her name; it might be expedient and give her an edge when she broke the rules and returned to Pelasia.

As she pondered, she heard the change in tone when the wheels of the carriage passed from the dusty, rocky sand of the desert road to the flagged streets of M’Dahz. Despite the fact that she no longer considered this flea pit her home and wanted nothing more than to be away from it and back to her beloved Akkad, she would have to spend some time here and had to admit that curiosity was getting the better of her. She pulled back the curtain.

They had passed through the Akkad Gate and were trundling along the main street toward the centre of town and they became the focus of attention to all as they passed. The evidence of M’Dahz’s return to Imperial control was everywhere. Imperial banners flew over the towers of the town. The propaganda for the reign of Ma’ahd on the walls to the town was being removed carefully and painstakingly by the citizens. Colour was returning slowly but surely.

But every face turned as the coach with its escort passed by. Every worker stopped in the middle of their task; every child or mother exiting a side street came to a halt. And every face hardened; every eye took on a look of intense hatred. Asima fumed. She could understand why they felt what they did, but it was so futile. These weren’t the same men who’d conquered this town. The man responsible for their misery was dead, by her hands no less. These miserable wretches should be thanking her; throwing petals before her. She had avenged them all!

The more she looked out, the more irritated she became. She had been forced into exile back in this dismal place and the people here were going to hate and resent her. Her anger rose to a climax as they reached the end of the long and level street and turned right, heading up the hill inland. On the corner, between the streets, stood the Pelasian temple with its tower. The building had been a landmark in M’Dahz as long as Asima could remember and had figured in their rooftop chases as children.

At some point in the past few days, revenge for the Pelasian occupation had been carried out on the temple. The white plastered walls were charred where the flames had licked out of windows and doors. The entire building had been gutted, and heavy wooden beams propped up the tower, which was leaning at a precarious angle.

She growled quietly to herself and settled back into her seat. From the directions the coach was taking, they must be heading for the palace complex of the town’s governor. Remembering the day she was taken from here, she found herself wondering who was in charge of M’Dahz now. Still grumbling unhappily, Asima sank back into the seat and walked herself through her plans once more as the carriage trundled on up the uneven street.

Several minutes later, she heard the cataphracti rein in their horses and the carriage rolled to a halt. There was conversation nearby and, curiosity getting the best of her, she pulled back the curtains once more. The small party had stopped in the plaza before the gate of the palace complex. The escort captain was speaking to a small group of well-dressed men by the entrance and, from the sound of the rising voices, there seemed to be a problem.

Everything else and now another problem? Asima ground her teeth. She’d been thrown out of this place and sent to an unfamiliar country, only to be then sent back once she’d become so thoroughly native to Pelasia that she would never fit in here again and now there was another problem?

Before she had time to decide whether it was a good idea or not, her anger had driven her to fling open the coach door and storm out into the bright sun, directly toward the group.

The Pelasian captain, his helm clutched beneath one arm while his other hand was busy making argumentative gestures, turned in surprise at the sound, as did the others with him.

“My lady. Please return to the coach. I am dealing with matters.”

Asima snarled at him and turned the most vicious glare she could muster on the tall, thin and elegant man in his silks and satins; clearly the new governor and, from his paler skin tone, just as evidently an Imperial import from across the sea.

“Be quiet, captain. I have had enough of this” she barked without looking at the soldier.

Ignoring the blustering noises from the startled captain, she narrowed her eyes at the governor.

“I can assure you, Excellency, that I have no more wish to be here than you have for me to be. However, I need a comfortable place to bide my time until I can get out of your hair once again. I will cause you no trouble and stay almost completely unnoticed as long as you can provide me with a few things. Firstly, I need to see my father.”

The governor, far from being taken aback and meekly acquiescing as she’d expected, straightened and looked down his nose at her.

“Young lady, I do not care how you were trained in Pelasia, but here we expect a modicum of manners.”

He watched her intently for a moment and squared his shoulders.

“I checked into matters very thoroughly prior to your arrival and I’m afraid your father passed on a number of years ago of an illness. Secondly, as effectively a foreigner with no familial connections in M’Dahz and no property here, I am not particularly disposed to putting myself out for you. In the spirit of cooperation with King Ashar, I have agreed not to turn you back at the border but, as I’m sure you would soon notice, Pelasians are not well regarded in M’Dahz at the moment and I cannot guarantee your personal safety while in the town.”

Asima frowned. For some reason, the news of her father’s passing had hardly touched her at all. She found herself more concentrating on the other focus of the conversation.

“Then may I ask what you intend to do, governor?”

The man folded his arms and nodded.

“You cannot stay here, young lady, and you are clearly not welcome in Pelasia, so I have made alternative arrangements for you.”

Asima’s frown deepened and she pursed her lips.

“Other arrangements?”

The governor nodded and gestured to the leader of the cataphract unit.

“Your task is complete, captain. I will take responsibility for your charge now.”

The captain saluted and turned with, to Asima’s shrewd eye, just a little too much relief for her liking. She glared at him as he strode to his horse and climbed slowly into the saddle under the weight of the heavy armour. Ignoring the escort as they wheeled their horses and trotted away, she eyed warily the small unit of white-clad governorial guards as they marched out purposefully toward the carriage.

“Explain” she said flatly. The governor shrugged, unconcerned.

“You are a courtier, so I am sending you to court. In a little less than an hour your ship leaves for Velutio and the Imperial capital. You will be both safe and comfortable there, and may find a number of other Pelasians there at any given time.”

Asima’s mouth fell open. She was, for the first time she could remember, completely at a loss for words. Conflicting emotions and ideas raced through her mind. She knew nothing about life in the Imperial court. Certainly they wouldn’t have such things as harems and concubines there. And it was cold. They said it was so cold sometimes in Velutio that the rain came down in lumps. Asima hadn’t experienced rain in her life until she settled in Akkad and even there it was a gentle, warm and refreshing thing.

Of course, Velutio was, if anything, a more powerful place full of influential people even than Akkad. There could be possibilities, but it would require a complete readjustment of her thinking, and she would have to start from scratch.

She realised she was standing like an idiot, her mouth flapping open and closed. Angry with herself, she shut it and tried not to grind her teeth. The look in the governor’s eye was resolute. She would be on board that ship whether she accepted it or not and so, as had always been her way, she grasped the situation and made it her own.

“Very well, your Excellency. I can see that you have covered every angle and have my safety at heart. Would you ask one of your guards to make sure that my luggage is transferred from carriage to ship carefully? I have a number of breakable things with me.”

The governor nodded.

“I hope that Velutio sits well with you, young lady. I have spent many happy years there and for a young noblewoman with money, there are many entertaining diversions.”

Asima nodded and turned toward her carriage to see a new group of men alongside the governor’s guards, busily checking over the carriage. For the second time in as many minutes, Asima’s jaw dropped.

“Asima?”

Ghassan blinked.

“Is that really you?”

Asima found that words just wouldn’t form on her tongue. She was silent as she stared at the tall, muscular naval officer before her. There could be no doubt that it was him. The floppy black curls that fell over his brow took her straight back to those days of running over rooftops and sneaking into warehouses.

“Ghassan?”

The young man nodded, still staring at her. She suddenly became aware that the governor had stepped forward next to her.

“Captain? You know the lady Asima?”

Ghassan shook his head in wonder.

“I knew her many years ago, Excellency, yes.”

The governor nodded.

“Then if your ship is ready for the tide, you will have plenty of time to become reacquainted.”

Asima continued to stare as the ghost of her past formed up his men.

In which a journey is undertaken

Asima frowned as her eyes ran up and down Ghassan once more. It was so clearly him, and yet at the same time he had changed so much. The serious, tall, curly haired boy had grown into his look and suited the uniform of a naval officer, for certain. And while she couldn’t fathom what series of events had led him from the streets of occupied M’Dahz to captaincy in the Imperial navy at Calphoris, he was obviously born for this life.

He seemed at ease and had acquired that natural rolling gait of the practiced sailor. Moreover, he appeared to know every peg and rope on the ship personally and every man aboard, even those three times his age, looked up to him and treated him with respect and trust.

But then, she would have changed as much to his eyes.

She dropped her gaze to the aperture in the wooden hull and the water rushing past outside and chided herself for even beginning to get sentimental over her childhood friend. They had hardly had a chance to exchange a dozen words in these first few hours out of port, with Ghassan constantly occupied on duty. Now, however, he’d come back to the room set aside for her in the covered housing at the rear of the Wind of God, poured two glasses of high-quality wine and sank into the seat opposite, silently waiting for her to initiate conversation.

The problem was that she just had no idea where to begin; wasn’t even sure she wanted to begin. More than half of her life had passed since she had last set eyes on the brothers and she had changed beyond measure. In other circumstances, she might have considered reaffirming an old friendship, but not now.