The Godspeaker Trilogy (142 page)

“Strike?” said Damwin. “Strike when? Strike how? Marlan, we are the only two dukes who’ve stood beside you. You owe us—”

“Nothing . The debt is yours. Your duchies will be raised high in Ethrea as the true supporters of God’s Living Flame.” Marlan tightened his grip on the chair and fixed the dukes with his coldest stare. “Be satisfied with that. Or God will turn his face from you and darkness will claim you as it claimed those who stood against Rollin in those bleak times we thought were left behind.”

“Very well,” said Damwin curtly, after a moment.

Was he truly cowed, Marlan wondered, or only biding his time? It didn’t matter, so long as his stupidity was contained until it could damage only himself.

“It’s not that we doubt you,” said Kyrin. “You are God’s prolate. But as dukes of Ethrea, men whose families are entrusted with so much, it would ease our concerns if you could share—”

“No,” said Marlan. “This is my burden, not yours. Do you think I take lightly the thought of disciplining a princess? I loved her father. I have known her since she was born. The thought that she likely now consorts with sorcerers, has perhaps sold Ethrea to a nation like Tzhung-tzhungchai, my heart bleeds within my breast. I have failed her somehow. It can only be that. This matter is between us. The dukes of Ethrea will stand aside.”

Defeated, neatly whipped to heel, Kyrin nodded. “Very well, Eminence. We will follow your lead.”

“And in so doing earn God’s love,” said Marlan. “Now I feel the time has come for you both to return to your duchies. I will send word to you once Rhian has crossed into Kingseat. Then you can raise your garrisons against her by cutting off her means of escape.” He smiled. “And we shall have her … and you shall see her thrown down.”

But his smile faded soon enough after the dukes had withdrawn. Turning again to the window, his gaze fixed unseeing upon the gardens below and the criss-crossing of chaplains and venerables about their divine business, the conversation just past played and replayed in his mind.

Rhian proves more troublesome than ever I anticipated. This business of miracles … she is ingenious in her deceits. Whether she works alone or with the Tzhung Emperor, could it be possible Damwin and Kyrin are right? Could I be mistaken, letting her journey continue?

Or should I find a swifter, simpler solution …

For Zandakar, the journey back to Kingseat woke memories of the time he rode with his mother and Raklion warlord across the wild face of Mijak with the chastened warlords who had dared to defy the god in Mijak’s Heart, and paid a terrible price for their wicked disobedience. The people of Mijak had shouted to see their warlord and their warlord’s son. They did not shout to see Hekat for she was not the empress then. But he remembered the shouting of the people when she was, and rode so proud and bold among them.

Rhian is an empress. She is Empress of Ethrea.

In those dead days it was the godspeakers and their sacrifices that showed Mijak’s people they were in the god’s eye. Here in Ethrea that was Dexterity’s doing.

He said their god is silent but it is shouting now. Their god shouts in the sunshine, it shouts with healing miracles, Dexterity is in his god’s eye even though he sheds no blood.

It was very strange. Mijak’s god did not speak through healing but through death. Mijak’s god did not speak to him, his heart stayed silent. He had promised Dexterity no more blood.

If I break my promise he will tell my secret.

Like the time before Raklion warlord, when Mijak’s seven warlords fought and killed among themselves, so was Ethrea in danger of tearing itself to pieces. If Rhian knew the truth of him, if Alasdair king and her council of dukes knew Mijak was coming, they would kill him without a thought. When Dexterity first found him he had wanted to die. Would he care now if life was taken from him?

Yes. I would care.

Even with Lilit dead, even though he was banished, even though the god was stone silent in his heart, he did not wish to lose his life.

Why this is true the god must tell me. I do not know. I wish I wished to die.

He worried for Dexterity, the toymaker was not born a godspeaker. His golden god’s power scoured him so he had to sleep in the peddler’s van when he was not making miracles. One of the dukes’ men drove it then, or Ursa if she did not need to sit with Dexterity and pour strengthening elixirs into his mouth.

He was not able to sit with Dexterity, he was warlord of Rhian’s bodyguards. No. Not warlord, he was their shell-leader. Rhian’s bodyguards were his shell. Every highsun he trained them, they were not warriors, these soldiers chosen by the dukes. The least of his warhost would have killed them in a heartbeat but they were improving. Too slowly ever to save themselves from Mijak’s warhost, but if a man of Ethrea thought to bare a blade near Rhian that man would soon die screaming in his blood.

For safety they did not sleep in buildings, they camped on open ground or by the side of rough roads. Each newsun and lowsun he danced the hotas with Rhian. She was skilful now, she was sleek and quick. If she had learned them as a child she would be as fierce as Yuma, if she’d had as fierce a heart. Rhian was not fierce, like Lilit she was gentle. He worried she did not have a fierce, killing heart.

Their training sessions were his favourite part of the day. Dancing hotas with Rhian he felt at peace. Rhian had danced into his hollow heart, where there had been Lilit now there was Rhian.

But he must never tell her that.

In between the hotas there was the travelling. He loved his horse he had called Didijik. He felt like himself again, riding a horse. He felt like a warrior, like a warlord, like Zandakar.

The lowsun before they crossed the border into duchy Hartshorn they camped at the edge of a tangled woodland. He trained his shell even harder than other times. Rhian was nervous crossing into that place. Alasdair king was nervous, the dukes were nervous also. Hartshorn’s duke was an enemy. So was the Duke of Meercheq.

He knew how it felt, to have enemies wanting you dead.

When he finished training his shell they were sweating and exhausted. He was sweating also but his strength was not gone. Rhian came to dance with him, Alasdair king and the loyal dukes came to watch.

“Do you mind?” said Rhian as she stretched her body slowly in the first hotas, her blue eyes gazing at her sharp straight blade.

“Wei,” he said. “Do you?”

“Well …” She sighed. “A little. Dancing the hotas is time for myself. Time I needn’t worry about being watched. And now …”

He snorted. “You queen, Rhian. You sun in sky for your people. You always watched. You wei like?” He shrugged. “You wei be queen.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, warming her muscles, making them fluid. “Of course I’m the queen.”

“Then you be watched.”

“I know that!” she said, her eyes angry. “I was a princess before I was a queen. I grew up being watched, Zandakar. But at least in Kingseat I had the castle, I had my own room where I could be alone. I haven’t been alone and unwatched since I set foot in the clerica. All I want now is a little time for myself when I can take off my mask. Tcha . Anyone would think I was asking for the world.”

He frowned. “Mask?”

“It’s the face you wear when people are watching.” Abandoning her hotas, she stood up straight, head high, shoulders back, and her expression changed from frustration to pride and confidence and strength. “The face you wear when you want other people to believe in you. Zho? ”

Yuma had always loved being watched. She loved dancing in the god’s eye and where the people could see her. She was never truly happy unless she was seen. As the warlord’s son, and then the warlord, he had been watched too and he had enjoyed it. Rhian was strange, not to like being watched.

“Zho . But face not make people believe, Rhian,” he said, and turned a slow cartwheel. Upright again, he looked at her. “They believe when you smite enemies.”

“How often must I tell you?” she said, and turned her own slow cartwheel, hand … hand … foot … foot, she did not drop her knife as once she always did. He had not slapped her in training for many highsuns now. When the cartwheel was finished she pressed her forehead to her knees. “I’m not smiting anyone .”

Alasdair king and the loyal dukes stood at a distance, talking softly, waiting for the fast hotas to start. “Enough stretching. Striking snake,” he instructed. They were here for dancing, they could not talk until night.

“Bully,” she said, and positioned herself opposite him for the hotas that strengthened legs and back and heart.

As she raised and lowered her arms above her head, focusing her concentration, he said, “Then they are not your enemies? Marlan? Damwin? Kyrin?”

“No. Well, Marlan is,” she said, and began her first long, slow lunges, knife extended in her hand as though she would pierce him through the heart. “And Damwin and Kyrin certainly don’t support me. But I don’t believe they’re truly enemies. They’re just misguided. They’ve let themselves be blinded by Marlan and foolish ambitions they have to know will never come to anything.” Limber now, she began to lunge and thrust more swiftly, demanding greater effort from herself. “They may try to bluster me, but they know the law. They know they’ve no basis to challenge my accession.”

“Alasdair king thinks this?” he said, lunging in time with her now, letting her set the pace, letting his knife-tip stop a whisper from her breast.

“Alasdair ?” Sweat was beading on her brow. “Alasdair thinks I’m being naïve. Alasdair says I can never trust them. He wants me to tear down their Houses, to disinherit their sons, to—” She breathed out hard. “And I won’t do it. I won’t be that kind of queen.”

“What if Alasdair king is right?”

“He’s not,” she insisted, eyes narrowed with concentration. “Why? Do you think he is?”

“I think Rhian is stupid to trust enemies. Dukes must die if not loyal to Rhian.”

“There’s a word for people who rule with fear and brutality. I’m a queen, not a tyrant. I’m not killing anyone !”

He shifted the angle of his blade, and its tip scored a shallow groove across the back of her hand. “Then Rhian not be hushla for long.”

“Zandakar—” Snatching her hand back, she pulled out of her lunge and sucked the welling blood from the cut. Then she turned and waved to Alasdair king, who was staring. “It’s all right!” she called out. “I’m not hurt! I just wasn’t paying attention!” Turning back, she stabbed him with a glare. “You did that on purpose!”

Shifting into a deep sideways lunge, he absorbed her anger without flinching. “You not kill, you not queen. You think enemies listen to weak word please? Rams fighting hotas, zho? ”

“I think any ruler who rules by fear and bloodshed is a wicked tyrant who should be thrown down,” she said, the new hotas flowing from her like sweet breath. “My father never ruled with violence, nor his father before him, nor his father before him. Not since the time of Rollin has a king ruled Ethrea by the sword. I won’t be a queen who rules with blood and terror, Zandakar. I won’t shame the House of Havrell like that.”

He knew enough Ethrean words to understand she still did not grasp what it meant to be a ruler. She thought her proud face was enough to stop her people’s wicked defiance. She was wrong.

Without a god like Mijak’s god, and godspeakers who can hurt as well as heal, the people of Ethrea can defy her if they want to and she is powerless to stop them. They will defy her if she pretends she has no knife.

It made his heart hurt to think of her pretending.

“I know our ways seem strange to you,” she said, as they danced the pattern of the hotas . “I can only imagine how harsh life must be where you come from if you believe I must rule with fear. But if it’s the only way to keep my crown, then … I’m not sure I want it.”

Aieee, the god see him. She was so like his Lilit! Gentle and compassionate, overflowing with love.

She stumbled out of the hotas, he did not correct her. Her eyes were distressed, her pain was his. “Marlan wants to rule with fear,” she said, standing straight and catching her breath. “He wants to terrify the people with the threat of God’s anger if they don’t do what he tells them. He wants to use God as a whip and beat them with his mean interpretations of scripture. I have to be different. I have to be strong, I know that, but I can’t be like him . And I won’t kill in God’s name, just for a crown.” She shook her head. “I may not be the most devout person in the kingdom but if I did that I’d lose my soul for sure.”

And if you do not fight to keep your kingdom you will lose it to this Marlan or someone like him and then what will happen when Yuma and Dimmi come with the god?

The thought terrified him, and terror edged his tongue. “Then why you dance hotas ?” he demanded. “Hotas teach Rhian how to kill.”

She looked away again to where Alasdair king and the dukes watched them. Were they admiring her? Or did they disapprove? She should not care for them. She was queen. They were beneath her.

“They teach more than that, Zandakar,” she said. “And they help keep me fit. Now shall we continue? Or is it your opinion that I’m wasting your time?”

She was angry, she was hurt. He was sorry for that. He was afraid she would learn he was right too late.

He nodded, sharply. “Zho, Rhian. We dance.”