The Seven-Petaled Shield (54 page)

“You may tell my son that
I
am in no danger from the loyal servants of the glorious Ar-King, may-his-strength-never-falter, and certainly not from an uncivilized barbarian sorceress out of nowhere. I have powerful protection against all such malevolent influences, do you hear me?”

Not knowing what else to say, Zevaron murmured, “I understand.”

“The properly respectful address for Lord Jaxar’s wife is
gracious lady
.”

“Gracious lady.”

She sniffed, raised her chin, and turned away. “Nevertheless,
I cannot leave matters to chance. My enemies are cunning and resourceful. I must seek counsel immediately.”

Throwing off her filmy shawl, Lycian got to her feet. She displayed surprising energy for a woman who, only a short time ago, had been carried prostrate to her bed. In response to her orders, the maidservants brought a basin of petal-strewn water, scented oils, and cosmetics. Lycian dismissed Zevaron from the room, but he remained outside the door, prepared to accompany her when she departed.

Zevaron had seen the work of Denariyan courtesans, the skill with which they painted and perfumed themselves. On several occasions, he had even had the funds to avail himself of their favors. So he was not surprised when Lycian emerged, immaculately groomed and clad in a different gown. She carried the dog, which seemed to have recovered its peevish temper. It had been combed, the hair over its eyes tied back with a pink ribbon. When it saw Zevaron, it yipped and squirmed to be put down.

Lycian clutched the creature even more tightly. “If Danar has ordered you to protect me, then I suppose you must,” she said, clearly meaning,
That way, I can also keep an eye on you.

Zevaron was not happy about leaving the compound. News of Tsorreh might come at any moment. On the other hand, he had agreed to prevent Lycian from interfering with Danar’s work, and she certainly could not do that out in the streets.

A servant brought up a pretty little onager mare, white with only a hint of a dorsal stripe, harnessed in red leather with silver bells on bridle and saddle pad. Lycian handed the dog to the servant. Then she settled herself on the onager’s back, took up the reins, and proceeded through the gate. She did not speak to Zevaron or acknowledge his presence. With heels and short riding whip, she kept her mount to a brisk pace, leaving Zevaron to trot after her.

Zevaron took careful note of their route through the city. Fortunately, his time at various ports in Denariya had trained him in identifying landmarks, the sense and pattern
of any city. As they passed between two hills, Zevaron expected they were headed for Cinath’s palace. Surely the building before him, set like a jewel of silver-white columns at the intersection of broad avenues, could be nothing less. Surrounding it were smaller, less ornate, yet obviously important buildings. Statues glinting with gold leaf adorned some of them. Colored banners, streamers, and flower garlands created a riot of color. People, most of them on foot, moved through the streets. The city patrol stood aside, bowing to Lycian.

She turned away from the direct route to the palace and followed a major avenue. They came to a halt in a courtyard outside a structure like a grander, newer version of the Qr temple in Roramenth. The man running forward to take the reins of the onager could have been a twin of the Roramenth priest. The cloth tied around the man’s smooth-shaven head bore the now familiar scorpion image.

Lycian slipped to the paving stones, adjusted her gown, and proceeded up the wide steps to the entrance. The doors swung open, revealing a dimly lit chamber.

Zevaron hesitated, caught between reluctance to go inside, his duty as Lycian’s bodyguard, and curiosity about her mission here. Tsorreh said that the priests of Qr had the ear and confidence of the Ar-King. Had Lycian come to ask them to intercede for her husband? Just how much influence did they have over Cinath?

Lycian disappeared into the shadowed interior, and the doors closed behind her. Zevaron, fighting a wave of repugnance, reached for the latch. The door opened fractionally and a priest stood there, not the young one who had led the onager away, but another, older man with fiery dark eyes.

“Can I help you, my son?”

“I serve the Lady Lycian. She—”

“She is in no danger here, under our protection. Indeed, there is no place in Aidon, or in all the wide world, where she would be safer than in Qr’s holy temple.”

Chalil had often said that only a fool would argue with a man on the threshold of his own castle, so Zevaron bowed
politely and withdrew. He found the place where the riding animals of those nobles attending the service were kept. Lycian’s onager was one of a half-dozen, all of excellent quality and richly harnessed. A boy brought them handfuls of grain and stroked their long ears, singing tunelessly to them. Zevaron hunkered down beside the watering buckets and waited.

In a surprisingly short time, Lycian emerged. Her face was flushed, her breath as rapid as if she had been running, and her eyes gleamed. Zevaron decided she had gotten whatever she had come for, a favorable omen or assurances her prayers would not go unanswered, or whatever the priests thought she wanted to hear.

Perhaps, a poisonous thought wound through his mind, she had told
them
what
they
wanted to hear.

Back at the compound, Zevaron saw Lycian safely back to her own chambers. He found Danar in the atrium, talking to two somber-looking older men. From the understated richness of their clothing and the way they carried themselves, they seemed men of importance. That they had come so quickly and in person indicated how serious they considered the situation.

Silently Zevaron took up a position just inside the inner doorway. He met Danar’s gaze with the merest flicker of acknowledgment.

“Who’s that?” one of the nobles said, glancing at Zevaron.

“My new bodyguard,” Danar said. “Denariyan, you know. Fierce in combat, but doesn’t understand a word of Gelone.”

Zevaron tried to look stolid and uncomprehending.

“Cinath means to move quickly, while public sympathy for the death of Prince Thessar remains strong,” one of the men said.

“The question remains whether the Ar-King, may-he-someday-attain-wisdom, will adjudicate the charges himself, or turn Lord Jaxar and the Meklavaran woman over to the priests of Qr,” the other said.

Qr.
Where Lycian had gone this very morning.

“Surely,
they
have no jurisdiction over my father and his guest,” Danar protested.

“We must not underestimate their influence. After all, was it not at their instigation that Cinath issued the order to arrest any Meklavaran without legitimate business within the city? Understandably, they also claim sole authority to prosecute any cases of sorcery.”

“I beg you, do whatever you can to make sure that does not happen,” Danar said.

“Would Cinath listen to you, as his close kin?” the second man asked.

Danar looked stricken. Zevaron thought,
He has passed his life in the shadow of his father. He has no voice of his own.
Or perhaps he has not yet found his voice.

“It might be better if you stayed out of sight, to avoid reminding Cinath of the loss of his own son,” the first man said. “Some consider Prince Chion unfit to rule, and there is sufficient historical precedent for excluding him from the succession. The Lion Throne has not always passed to the next son, but sometimes to a more competent nephew. Especially the first-born male heir of the older brother,” referring to Jaxar’s seniority and the accident of his birth that barred him from the throne.

Danar’s mouth tightened. “Neither my father nor I have any aspirations—”

“Do you think the Ar-King believes that?” the older man demanded.

“Enough of such talk!” the other said, clearly nervous. “We must not meet again. If Cinath suspects a plot, he will bring us all down.”

And that, Zevaron thought, ends any hope that they will help Jaxar or Tsorreh. He caught the faint shift in posture of the two nobles, the hint of withdrawal.
No, they will let Jaxar hang, or burn, or however they execute people here, before they risk their own skins.

For Tsorreh, they would do nothing.

He waited until they were gone before approaching Danar.
Danar looked wrung out, torn in a dozen different directions.

“They will do what they can.” Danar struggled for a hopeful tone.

“As long as they themselves are not placed in jeopardy,” Zevaron said. “Danar, what about Tsorreh? What will happen to my mother?”

“I know that, so far, we have concentrated on my father’s fate,” Danar said, raking back sweat-damp hair from his forehead. “Since she is legally in my father’s custody, he himself must act as her advocate, and for that, he must be free.” He lowered himself to the bench where, only hours ago, he had sat at breakfast. “Do not fear, he will not forsake her.”

“I am not worried about his good intentions,” Zevaron said, “only his ability to carry them out. If Cinath has turned against his own blood-kin, who then will stand up for my mother?”

“I will.” Danar turned to look him full in the face. Zevaron saw a dozen shifting emotions behind those sea-gray eyes: terror, resolution, denial, courage. Which were real, and which the reflections of his own desperate hopes?

*   *   *

The next few days passed in a whirlwind of comings and goings. Zevaron continued to accompany Lycian on her twice-daily visits to the Qr temple. In between, he kept up the pretense of being Danar’s bodyguard. Danar went throughout Aidon’s rich hill districts, where Zevaron would occasionally be admitted to a meeting with one important man or another. Usually he waited in the entrance chambers. Danar explained that it would be considered a serious insult to require a bodyguard inside the private compound of a noble.

Danar emerged from these meetings looking increasingly more somber. Zevaron did not understand Danar’s explanations of what had transpired. The Gelonian legal system, a complex and often contradictory blend of tradition,
formal laws, and royal decrees, seemed capricious and arbitrary. There had been Kings as well as Ar-Kings in Gelon’s past, and apparently the latter had the power to take any action they pleased.

“So the fate of my father and your mother becomes one of jurisdiction,” Danar explained as they sat together in the rooftop observatory. Evening was drawing nigh and the compound lay around them, cooling in the darkness. From one of the manicured fruit trees, a bird sang, then fell silent.

“You mean whether it is a judge who hears the case or Cinath himself,” Zevaron said. “A savage arrangement.”

“What, did you not have Kings in Meklavar?” Danar replied sharply.

“Of course, as you very well know. But our holy texts tell us that no one man should have the power of life and death over others in more ways than one. If a King is to command in battle, he cannot also judge criminal cases.”

“That’s very odd,” Danar said.

Overhead, the stars glimmered in a milky swath. His mother had sat here, watching the fiery star grow brighter and then disappear into the northern horizon. Jaxar had entrusted her with his instruments, and together they had studied the heavens.

“No, not odd,” Zevaron said, regretting having provoked a quarrel with his one ally. After all, if Tsorreh and Jaxar could become trusted colleagues, or even friends, he and Danar should strive to do the same. For the moment, their interests worked toward the same goal. “It’s just different.”

*   *   *

After four or five days, Zevaron’s desperation grew even more urgent. Danar had told him there were no facilities in the royal palace for holding prisoners for any length of time, and it was unusual for a trial to be so long delayed. Danar’s efforts seemed to be having a small effect. Jaxar’s friends had presented daily inquiries to Cinath regarding his health and welfare, and a few had made speeches in the
public spaces calling for a speedy disposition of the case and disclosure of the facts.

“If there is proof of sorcery in Gelon, whether it be from Meklavar or Azkhantia or Southern Firelands, we have a right to know it!” one of the speechmakers had thundered, shaking his fist at the palace. The crowd had responded with such an uproar that the Ar-King’s Elite Guard came out to restore order.

Lycian and Zevaron were forced to detour around the area on their way back from yet another visit to the temple. It was late in the day, and the sun dipped toward the western hills. Lycian broke her usual silence to grumble about the inconvenience for the entire rest of the journey. By the time they arrived, twilight had almost faded.

Danar was not at home, although it was unusual for him to prolong his meetings into the evening. The steward, looking worried, said that Danar had been summoned to the royal palace.

“I must go after him, then,” Zevaron said.

“You will do no such thing,” Lycian said. “All will be well, I am certain of it. I have prayed to Qr, and I have been granted guidance. Do not interfere with the ways of the gods.”

She strode from the entrance hall to the colonnade that led to the household chambers, then paused. “Do not stand there like a witless savage, even if you are one. Make yourself useful in the kitchen if you cannot find anything else to do. I specifically forbid you to leave this compound and stir up trouble where none exists.”

“Come on, boy,” the steward said kindly. His voice betrayed his worry. “There’s naught to do but keep ourselves busy until the young lord returns.”

If he returns
, Zevaron thought.

Zevaron was sitting in the kitchen, helping the cook chop onions and garlic, when he heard voices from the front gate. He could not make out words, except for Lycian’s bird-like shrieking, but the clamor had the wrong rhythm for a fight. Excitement, certainly…

He put the knife down on the work table in a pile of chopped onions and bolted for the entrance hall.

Jaxar stood there, flanked by Danar, who was grinning broadly, and Lycian, the steward, the two bodyguards, and most of the household staff. The cook had followed Zevaron and now let out a cry of celebration. Everyone was talking at once, hugging each other.