Emperor and Clown (3 page)

At
the top of the city stood the palace of the sultan, a place of legendary beauty
and blood-chilling reputation; and there, upon a shaded balcony, Princess
Kadolan of Krasnegar was quietly going insane.

Almost
two days now had passed since her niece had married the sultan, and Kadolan had
heard nothing since. Inosolan might as well have vanished from the world. Of
course a newly married couple could be expected to treasure their privacy, but
this total silence was ominous and unsettling. Inosolan would never treat her
aunt this way by choice.

Kadolan
was a prisoner in all but name. Her questions went unanswered, the doors were
locked and guarded. She was attended by taciturn strangers. She would never have
claimed to have friends in Arakkaran, but she did have many acquaintances now
among the ladies of the palace; persons she could address by name, share tea
and chat with, whiling away a gentle hour or two. She had asked for many, with
no result.

Especially
she had asked for Mistress Zana. Kadolan had a hunch that Zana’s was the most
sympathetic ear she was likely to find, but even Zana had failed to return her
messages.

Something
was horribly wrong. By rights, the palace should be rejoicing. Not only was
there a royal wedding and a new Sultana Inosolan to celebrate, but also the
death of Rasha. Arakkaran was free of the sorceress who had effectively ruled
it for more than a year. That should be a cause for merriment, but instead a
miasma of fear filled the air, seeping from marble and tile to cloud the sun’s
fierce glare.

It
must be all imagination, Kadolan told herself repeatedly as she paced, but an
insistent inner voice whispered that she had never been prone to such morbid
fancies before. Although no one outside Krasnegar would have known it, and few
there, she was almost seventy years old. After so long a life, she should be
able to trust her instincts, and her instincts were shouting that something was
very, very wrong.

She
had left Inosolan at the door of the royal quarters. Two nights and two days
had passed since then. The days had been hard, filled with bitter loneliness
and worry. The nights had been worse, haunted by dreams of Rasha’s terrible
end. Foolish, foolish woman! Again and again Kadolan had wakened from
nightmares of that awful burning skeleton, that fearful, tragic corpse raising
its arms to the heavens in a final rending cry of, LOVEI-only to vanish in a
final roar of flame.

Four
words of power made a sorcerer. Five destroyed.

Master
Rap had whispered a word in Rasha’s ear, and she had been consumed.

The
balcony was high. Over roofs and cloisters Kadolan had a distant view of one of
the great courtyards, where brown-clad guards had passed to and fro all day,
escorting princes in green or, rarely, groups of black-draped women. Horsemen
paraded sometimes. They were too far off for her to make out details, and yet
something about the way they all moved had convinced her that they were as
troubled as she. She had erred.

So
had Inosolan.

A
God had warned Inosolan to trust in love, and she had taken that to mean that
she must trust in Azak’s love, that in time she would learn to return the love
of that giant barbarian she had married.

And
then, too late ...

He
was only a stableboy. Kadolan had never even met him until that last night in
Krasnegar. She had not exchanged a word with him directly. She did not know
him. No one did-he was only a stableboy! Not handsome or charming or educated
or cultured, just a commonplace laborer in the palace stables. But he had saved
Inosolan from the devious Andor, and when the sorceress had abducted Inosolan,
he had shouted, “I am coming!”

How
could they have known? Crossing the whole of Pandemia in half a year, fighting
his way in through the massed guards of the family men, removing the sorceress
by telling her one of his two words of powereven if he had not planned the
terrible results.

The
God had not meant Azak. The God had meant the stableboy, the childhood friend.

It
was all so obvious now. Too late.

And
the boy ... man ... Rap?

At
best he was chained in some awful dungeon somewhere, under peril of the sultan’s
jealousy. At worst he was already dead, although she feared that death itself
might not be the worst.

Even
that last awful night in Krasnegar, Kadolan should have realized that a
stableboy who knew a word of power was no ordinary churl. And somewhere on his
journey he had learned a second word; he had become an adept, a superman. That
was an astounding feat in itself, but even two words of power could not save
him now.

To
and fro ... to and fro ... Kadolan paced and paced.

She
had been Inosolan’s chaperon and counselor. She should have given better
advice.

She
had tried, she recalled. She had been inclined to trust Rasha, where Inosolan
had not. What better things might then have happened? Who now could know?
Kadolan had warned against the flight into the desert, which had ended so
ignominiously, in defeat and forced return. But Kadolan had not been insistent
enough.

So
Inosolan was doomed to a life of harem captivity, bearing sons in an alien
land. Her kingdom was lost, abandoned by the impire and the wardens to the
untender mercies of the Nordland thanes.

And
the boy Rap was dead or dying, and that guilt tortured Kadolan worse than
anything.

Love
or mere loyalty, neither should be so cruelly repaid.

She
had never put much stock in magic. She was not a very imaginative person, she
knew, and she had never quite believed in the occult-not even when she had
sensed the death of Inosolan’s mother and gone racing back to Krasnegar,
fleeing from Kinvale at three days’ notice to catch the last ship before
winter. In retrospect, that had been a miraculous premonition, and yet she had
refused to believe, she had never told anyone. Holindarn had accepted that her
arrival was a merely a fortunate coincidence. Inosolan had been too young to
wonder about it at all.

The
balcony had grown insufferably hot below the weltering sun. Reeling with
weariness from her endless pacing, Kadolan tottered indoors and sank into a padded
chair.

By
the palace standards, her new quarters were almost an insult-old and shabby,
absurdly overfurnished with ugly statuary in the style of the XIVth Dynasty,
which must be loot from some long-forgotten campaign. It was almost as if she
had been locked up in a boxroom until someone figured out what to do with her.

Why,
oh, why would Inosolan not answer her messages?

Had
they ever reached her?

Farther
down the hillside, in the middle of the city, evening shadows lay cool and blue
across Sheik Elkarath’s jeweled garden, and the air was fragrant with jasmine
and mimosa. The earliest stars twinkled, fountains tinkled.

Master
Skarash was definitely tipsy now. He reached for the wine bottle and discovered
that it was empty. He tossed it into a hibiscus. How many did make? What did it
matter? What was the cost of a few bottles of wine against the profits to be
made from a major business partnership? Opportunities like this came rarely in
any merchant’s lifetime, and Grandsire was going to be enormously proud of him.
Of course the details were still somewhat obscure and extremely complex, and
would have to be worked out very carefully in the morning, when both parties
were more alert, but there was no doubt that this evening’s jollity would reap
huge wealth in the future for the House of Elkarath. It would be the first coup
of a very long and successful career.

Skarash
bellowed loudly for one of his cousins to fetch more wine. He peered blearily
at his drinking companion.

“You
did say exclusive license, sir?”

“Absolutely,”
said the visitor. “The Imperial court prefers to deal with a single supplier
for each commodity-or even several commodities. It saves superfluous
bookkeeping, you understand.”

Skarash
nodded wisely, hiccupped, and shouted again for wine. How wise Grandsire had
been to leave him in charge until his returnl “How many commomm-odities would
you expect?”

“Many!
But enough of tedious business. Let us talk of lighter things. I understand you
have only recently returned from Ullacarn?”

“Thatsh
absholutely correct. How did you learn that?”

“On
the same ship as the sultan?”

Skarash
nodded again as a shrouded maiden-a cousin or one of his sisters, perhaps-scurried
out from the house with more supplies.

“From
Ullacarn?” the stranger inquired, smiling. For an imp, he was extraordinarily
handsome. Very cultured and likable. And he had the polished accents of a
high-class Hubban. Skarash had been listening carefully to those rounded vowels
... not lately, though.

“Yesh,”
he found himself explaining, “I went directly. By camel. Not that we traders go
directly, you unshersand ... understand ... because we wander. Right?”

“Of
course,” the stranger agreed with another winning smile. “And the sultan?”

“The
sultan and Grandsire made a small detour.”

“Detour?”

“Through
Thume!”

“No!
The Accursed Land? Now you have really intrigued me!”

A
little later Skarash found time to wonder if he had been wise to mention that
Grandsire was a mage, and now votary to Warlock Olybino himself, but the imp
poured out more wine himself and proposed a toast or two, and the conversation
continued without significant interruption.

Talk
droned; insects hummed.

“But
how on earth could even a mage have tracked them down in such a wilderness?”

“Ah!”
said Skarash, being mysterious. He really ought to call for some food, to mop
up all this liquor slopping around in his insides. Djinns were notoriously
susceptible to alcohol and tended to shun it for that reason. He never normally
indulged in it himself. “Well, the sorceress had given Grandsire a device to
trace the use of magic, you see . . .”

“Aunt?”

Kadolan
blinked her eyes open. The room was dark. Her head felt thick and a nasty taste
in her mouth told her she must have been asleep. Then she made out the shrouded
figure standing in the moonlight.

“Inos!”

“Don’t
get up . . .”

But
Kadolan struggled to her feet and reached out, and they came together and
hugged.

“Oh,
Inos, my dear! I have been so ... er ... concerned! Are you all right?”

“All
right? Of course, Aunt!” Inosolan broke away and turned toward the window. “Of
course I am all right. I am the most cherished, tightly guarded woman in
Arakkaran. Perhaps in all of Zark. How could I not be all right?”

Kadolan’s
heart shattered at the tone. She moved forward, but her touch caused Inosolan
to edge away.

“What
are you doing all alone, sleeping in a chair, Aunt? Have you dined yet this
evening?”

“Tell
me, dear!”

“Tell
you what?”

“Everything!”

“Really!
You want the details of my wedding night?”

Kadolan
gulped and said, “Yes, I think maybe I do.”

Slowly
Inosolan turned to face her. She was swathed from head to floor in some
sweeping white stuff. Only her eyes showed. “Why, Aunt! That is not a very
ladylike question.”

“Don’t
joke, Inos. There is something wrong.”

“Intruders
have been breaking into the palace and killing guards.”

“Inos,
please!”

“There
is Rap. He is in prison.”

“Yes.”

“Because
of me. That is wrong-that a faithful friend should suffer for trying to aid me.”

“In
a few days, when the sultan has had time to repent of his anger . . .”

Inosolan
wrung her hands. “Do we have a few days?” Her voice quavered, then steadied. “What
are they doing to him, Aunt? Do you know?”

“No,
dear. I have asked.”

“I
dare not. Azak promised no more bloodshed, but he is insanely jealous. I never
knew what that phrase meant before. It’s a cliché, isn’t it, insanely jealous?
But in this case it’s exact. He forbids me even to think of another man. To
plead for Rap again would doom him instantly. And what he did in the Great
Hall. . .”

“We
shall do what we can, dear.”

“Little
enough, I fear.”

Silence
fell, and the two stared at each other in the diffuse glow of the moon beyond
the windows while Kadolan heard the pounding of her heart. “There is more, isn’t
there?” she said.

Inosolan
nodded. “I never could deceive you, could I?” Then she raised a hand and
removed her veil.

Oh,
Gods! Kadolan closed her eyes. Not Not “Rasha died too soon,” Inosolan said.

“She
had not removed the curse!”

“No,
she hadn’t. She’d said she would, but she hadn’t got around to it. He was going
to kiss me.” Even in that spectral glow, the marks were plain. Two fingers on
one cheek ... the print of thumb on the other. And the chin! Burned into the
flesh.

How
frail was beauty! How fleeting!

Gone
now. Gone! Hideous, scabbing wounds! Shocked, stunned, Kade staggered back and
tumbled into her chair. She stared up at Inosolan in shivering, impotent
horror.

“The
pain is bearable,” Inosolan said. “I can live with that.”

But
the marriage ... Oh, Gods! The marriage?

“He
still cannot touch a woman,” Inosolan said bitterly. “Not even his wife.”

The
room seemed to blur, and Kade wasn’t sure if that meant she was about to faint
or if her eyes were just flooded with tears. “What can we do?” She had not
dreamed that things could get worse, but they had-Inosolan condemned to a
chaste marriage, doomed to lose even Azak’s one-sided love, for he would surely
turn against a woman he craved and could never possess.