Tides of Darkness (21 page)

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Authors: Judith Tarr

BOOK: Tides of Darkness
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With the first breath of spring, the shadow-warriors came back. Already in sheltered valleys, fighting men had turned farmer and were plowing the steep rocky fields. When Greatmoon waxed again, they would plant.
“Man's got to eat,” one of them said to Merian. She had ridden out of Ki-Oran to the village where the enemy had struck anew. The raiders had taken five men but injured none; the village's young mage had driven them off.
He was in his house under a healer's care, with his magic half burned away. The enemy had new shields, stronger and more deadly. Merian would speak with him when—if—he came to his senses. Meanwhile she had left her escort to walk through the fields, past the men and oxen engaged in the plowing.
It was one of these who had paused to greet her. He was not as young as some; he had a stocky, sturdy look to him, and a roll to his stride, as if he had just come off a ship. Yet he seemed at ease with the oxen and the plow, and his furrows were straight and clean.
He was not in awe of her, and he was frankly admiring of her beauty. It gave him clear pleasure to stand with her, looking out across the rolling field. “Fighting's good,” he said, “but a man's got to eat before he can fight. We can't stop farming just because there's a war over us.”
“We could feed you from the rest of the empire, if it were necessary,” Merian said. “You are our shield and bulwark. There's no need to trouble yourselves with lesser things.”
“We're proud to be your defense, lady,” he said, “but we take care of our own.
He was not to be shaken. Merian accorded him respect and let him be.
She strode on round the edge of the fields, alone for the first time in quite some while. She was a little tired, a little light-headed; it was not an ill sensation, but it was rather odd. If she stopped to think, the lightness was not in her head but in her center. She almost felt as if, if she spread her arms, she could lift and fly.
There was no more magic here than in any other tract of earth. The closest fortress in the Ring of Fire was a day's ride distant. Yet she was brimming with light, drinking the sun. The
Kasar
in her hand was burning so fiercely that she kept glancing at it, expecting to find a charred ruin. But her hand was its wonted self: slender, narrow, with long fingers; ivory skin, golden sun.
She was quite startled when her knees declined to hold her up, and even more so when her head decided that, for amusement, it would expand until it had encompassed the sun.
 
It was dim suddenly, and cool. There was a roof over her, low and thatched, and a light hand laving her face with something cool and scented with herbs. She struggled to sit up. The hands became suddenly iron-strong.
They belonged to a burly man in a leather tunic, one of the warrior-villagers. A woman appeared behind him, so like that she must be kin; she carried a wooden bowl, from which wafted the scent of herbs. She set it down beside the pallet on which Merian was lying, and looked hard into her face. “Good. You're awake.” She flashed a glance at the man. “Let her go.”
The man ducked his head and backed away. She nodded briskly and dipped a cup in the bowl. “Drink,” she said.
It was a tisane of herbs. The taste was faintly pungent and faintly sweet; it cleared Merian's head remarkably. She saw then that her escort
crowded outside the house, which must be one of the larger houses in the village. Two of them stood on either side of the door, glaring at the pair who nursed her.
“Out,” the woman barked at them.
“Out!
When she wants you she'll call you back.”
They growled but retreated. The woman returned to Merian's side as if nothing had happened, and went on pouring the tisane into her.
Merian endured three more sips, but the fourth gagged her. She pushed the cup away. “Tell me what you don't want my men to hear.”
“What, did you want them breathing down our necks? This house is small enough without those great louts in armor.”
“I am not dying,” Merian said. “I'm not even ill. I'm a little tired, that's all. The sun made me dizzy.”
“You certainly aren't dying,” the woman said. “Do you really think it isn't obvious?”
Merian did not understand her. “What isn't—”
The woman's eyes widened. “You honestly don't know, do you?”
“What don't I know?”
The woman paused, breathed deep, lashed her with a question: “Do you remember when you last had your courses?”
“Yes! They were—” Merian broke off. It had been—cycles? Since the morning that she woke and—
“Oh, no,” she said. “That's impossible.”
“So they all say,” the woman said dryly. “I've been stitching cuts and birthing babies in these parts since before my own courses came, and believe me, royal lady, it is possible.”
“But I have never—”
“I took the liberty of examining you,” said the woman, “and lady, you have. If you don't kill yourself running hither and yon, you'll bear the child in the summer.”
Merian sat dumbfounded. Those had been dreams. She had not gone to him in body. She had had no slightest inkling—
Had she not? That great well-being, that sense of doubled strength: was that his child in her, doubly mageborn and conceived in magery?
Impossible.
Her hands spread across her belly. Was it a fraction less flat than it had been before? Was there a spark of life within? Was it floating, dancing, dreaming, waiting for her to become aware that it existed?
She truly had not known. She had dreamed of him again thrice—gone to him, loved him, lain in his arms. They had spoken of little beyond one another. It was not for knowledge that she had sought him.
The last dream had been but a handful of days ago; he had been nursing wounds, remembrance of a lion-hunt. He had killed the lion, and been lauded for it, too; its skin had been their bed. She had kissed each mark and scar, and healed him as much as he would allow, which was not much at all.
“I want to remember,” he had said, “to remind myself why prudence is a virtue. And why I should try harder to practice it.”
“There are those who would faint if they heard you now,” she said.
He laughed. “Wouldn't they? It would almost be worth it, just to see their faces.”
She had laughed with him, and made love to him gently, to spare his hurts.
It had not been a dream. None of it had been.
But how—
She escaped the village and the sharp-tongued healer with the tookeen eyes. Her men had heard none of it, gods be thanked. She assured them that her brief indisposition was only lack of sleep and magic taxed to its limit. They pampered her, fussed over her, and tried to slow their pace back to Ki-Oran, but that she refused to submit to.
Her mind was a roil of confusion. This she had never expected or planned for. Later, yes, if he lived, if he came back to this world, if what she had dreamed was true. But not now. Not in the middle of a war.
Yet now she was aware of it, there was no denying it. She was carrying
a most royal child: heir at one remove to the princedom of Han-Gilen, and at two removes to the empire of Sun and Lion. She had done her royal duty at last, done it well and most thoroughly—and her lover had met with her mother's approval, too, which was as great a marvel as any of the rest of it.
T
HE DARKNESS HAD BEEN GONE SO LONG FROM THE VALLEY OF the river that people began to believe that it was gone forever. The gods had done it, they said: the two who were in Waset, who had come from the far side of the horizon with the sun in their hands, to drive back the powers of the night.
They tried to build temples, to worship their saviors. Estarion put a stop to that with firmness that struck even Daros to awe. But he could not stop the steady stream of people who came to leave offerings on the palace steps in the mornings, or the crowds that followed both of them wherever they went, bowing and praising their names. Nothing that they could do would lessen it, least of all any display of magery.
It was rather wearing. Dreams were no refuge:
she
was seldom in
them. Daros needed further distraction, but there was little allure in taverns or in the arms of women who were not she.
He approached the queen one morning, half a year of this world after he had come to it. Estarion was elsewhere; she was preparing for the morning audience, being painted and adorned like the image of a goddess. She smiled at him, somewhat to the distress of the maid who was trying to paint her lips, and said, “I hear that your recruits are doing well.”
“They are,” he said. He had been training young men in the arts of war, finding them apt pupils, as farmers and herdsmen went. Weapons were not particularly easy to come by; they had no steel, not even bronze, and copper was rare. But what they could do with stone and bone and hardened wood, they did well enough.
He said as much. The queen nodded. “These things that you have, it's a pity we can't get them. But we make do. You do expect the enemy to come back?”
“The shadow is still there,” he said, “on the other side of the sky. But I didn't come to speak of that. There's another thing that's struck me strangely. Traders are coming back, plying the river. People are even traveling again. But there have been no embassies. Why is that?”
“Perhaps we're out of the habit,” she said. “It's been years since king could speak to king. The enemy kept us all within our borders. Common people could travel, but embassies were always prevented in some way: slowed, stopped, killed.”
“They were dividing you,” he said, “the more easily to conquer.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Do you have spies, lady?” he asked her. “Have you talked to travelers? Do you know what's happening in your neighbors' kingdoms?”
She regarded him with those great dark eyes, as if she needed to study him. “I do have spies,” she said. “I do listen. My neighbors are holding their realms together as I am mine. None of them is strong enough yet to think of war, if that's what you fear—though they may do so before much longer, and knowing that I've allowed you to raise and equip an army.”
His stomach tightened. “Lady, that's for the shadow, not for them.”
“One may hope they understand that,” she said.
“Lady,” he said after a pause, “I came here to ask your leave to mount an embassy, to visit the kings and talk to them. The enemy divided you out of fear—because an alliance was in some way a threat. While the enemy is gone, if you can unite in common cause, he'll come back to find you much stronger and far more ready to stand against him.”
“That is so,” she said. “I have considered it. But there's been no one I can trust to send, who has the skill to speak as an envoy. My lords are as closed in upon themselves as my brother kings. We all are—we've forgotten how to speak to one another.”
“I haven't,” he said. “I was raised and trained for this.” As was Estarion, but he did not say that. Estarion did what he chose, as he chose. Daros did not pretend to understand him.
She was still studying him. “You think you can do this?”
“I know I can.” He hoped he did not sound excessively cocky.
“I will give you a boat,” she said, “and boatmen, and a retinue suitable to your rank and station. Waset's good name will be in your hands.”
“I'll not harm it,” he said.
“I think you will not,” said the queen.
 
Later that day, as Daros instructed the latest band of recruits in the rudiments of archery, Estarion happened by with casualness that was just a fraction too studied. He distracted the recruits rather excessively. Their awe of Daros had begun to wear off; he was familiar, if terrifying. The queen's consort was an eminence so lofty that he stole away their wits.
Daros called a halt to the proceedings before someone put an arrow through his neighbor, and dismissed the recruits. They withdrew with dignity, but well before they were out of sight, they scattered like the boys they still were, whooping and dancing across the field to the city.
Daros would have liked to run with them, but he had an accounting to face. It was taking its time in coming. Estarion had wandered across
the field to inspect the line of targets, taking note of the bolts that clustered in the center of one or two. “Good shots,” he observed.
“They grew up hunting waterfowl,” Daros said. He set about retrieving arrows, both those in the targets and those that had flown wide. Estarion lent him a hand.
When every bolt was found and put away in its quiver, they walked slowly back toward the city. Daros almost dared hope that there would be no reckoning after all; that Estarion had come simply for the pleasure of his company.
That was foolish, and he knew it even as he thought it. A moment later, Estarion said, “You're not a bad general of armies. Will you be trying your hand at diplomacy next?”
“You don't think I can do it?”
Estarion smiled thinly. “Why, lad. Don't you?”
“Isn't that what a prince does?”
“The general run of princes, yes. Is it a custom in your country to conduct the affairs of the realm in brothels and alehouses?”
Daros stiffened. “I haven't touched a woman of this world since I came to it, nor set foot in a tavern. I've been the very model of a prince.”
“So you have,” Estarion said blandly. “It's a remarkable transformation. I commend you.”
“Yet you have doubts about this venture.”
“No,” said Estarion. “In fact I don't. I'm jealous. I can't go—I'm needed here.”
“You want me to stay, so that you can go.”
“No,” Estarion said again. “It's only …”
Daros waited.
“We can ill afford to lose you. Promise me something. If one or more of the kings is hostile, promise that you won't try to force an alliance.”
“I won't do anything dangerous,” Daros said. “I'll swear to that.” Estarion's glance was less than trusting. “What you call merely dangerous, the rest of us would call lethal.”
“I'll pretend I'm my father,” Daros said. “Would that content you?”
“You're not capable of that much prudence.”
“How do you know?”
Estarion cuffed him hard enough to make him reel. “Curb the insolence, puppy. If you can be wise and circumspect, and speak softly to these kings, then you'll do much good for this land. But if you grow bored or lose your temper, you may harm it irreparably. Do you understand?”
Daros set his teeth. He deserved this; he had earned it with his years of useless folly. And yet … “Surely I've at least begun to redeem myself since I came here. Have I been feckless? Have I been foolish? Have I been anything but dutiful?”
“You have not,” said Estarion, “and that is a matter for great admiration. But one would wish to be certain.”
“What? That I'll be resentful enough to prove you right?”
“Prove me wrong,” Estarion said. “Because if you don't, I'll deal with you as painfully as I know how.”
He was not jesting. Daros was torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to hit him. He settled for a baring of teeth. “I'll prove you wrong,” he said. “My word on it.”
“Good,” said Estarion.
They were almost to the walls, but their pace had slowed. Daros had meant to be silent about another thing, but he was feeling spiteful. “I know you wish you could go. But your heart wouldn't be in it, would it? It's been a long while since you waited on the birth of an heir.”
Estarion stopped short. He did not knock Daros flat, which rather surprised him. The emperor's voice was mild, almost alarmingly so. “I should have known you'd see that.”
“Should it be a secret?”
“She's lost ten children, six of them sons, either miscarried or dead at birth. She's terrified of the omen if she dares celebrate this one.”
“Yes,” said Daros. “But she won't lose this child. Will she?”
“Not while I live,” Estarion said.
“Nor I,” Daros admitted. “I … laid a small wishing on her this morning, when I went to see her.”
He braced himself, but Estarion only sighed. “Of course you did. So did I. She's wonderfully well protected.”
“It's a son,” Daros said. “Have you thought about what he will do to the line of succession in your empire?”
“He will do nothing,” Estarion said. “Daruya will rule after me in Keruvarion and Asanion. This is the heir to Waset, son of the queen and her consort.”
“Do you think Waset will ever understand what blood has come into its royal house?”
“Waset understands that its queen is mated to a god. And maybe,” said Estarion, “this is proof that we will overcome the darkness. Sun-blood continues itself when it's most needed—always. Even here, it seems, on the other side of the horizon.”
Daros bowed his head to that—not a thing he did often, at all, but he had a modicum of respect for the god who had begotten Estarion's line. “She is worthy of that blood,” he said.
Estarion was not a jealous man. He smiled, by which Daros knew that he was in the royal good graces again. “Come in to dinner,” he said. “Then don't you have an expedition to plan?”
“By your leave,” Daros said.
“You'd do it regardless,” said Estarion, “but I'll give it, for my vanity's sake.” He flung an arm about Daros' shoulders and pulled him through the gate.
 
That was when the moon was halfway to the full. When it touched the full, the queen's own golden-prowed boat waited at the quay of Waset, with her picked men in it, and the best of Daros' recruits. There was also a deputation from the temples of the city, led by none other than the high priest Seti-re.
Daros would infinitely have preferred another companion, but it seemed that this was to be his first lesson in the art of being politic. Seti-re wore his accustomed slightly sour expression, although he lightened it considerably for Daros' benefit. For some unfathomable reason, though he did not like Estarion at all, he was in awe of Daros. Almost Daros would have said that he was infatuated, but it was not quite as fleshly a thing as that.
He was not the most comfortable companion for an embassy, but Daros had too much pride to object. He bade farewell to the queen and the queen's consort, not lingering over it; he hated endless good-byes. They had little to say to him that was not the empty form of royal show. All the things that mattered, they had said to one another in the days before this.
It was a strange sensation to ride the river away from Waset. It was all he knew in this world, and the one man of his own world was there, standing on the bank, unmoving for as long as he was in sight. The shadow of him remained in memory long after the river had curved, carrying the boat away from the city and the people in it.
The current was rapid in this season. The great flood of the river had passed, leaving its gift of rich black earth for the farmers to till, but the river was not yet settled fully into its banks again. Between the current and the oars, the boat seemed to leap down the river.
Daros should have sat under the canopy amidships with the rest of the embassy, but he had no great desire for Seti-re's company. He found a place near the high prow, leaning on it, watching as they skimmed through the black land. The fields were full of people and oxen, plowing, planting, tilling. Sometimes they paused to stare at the golden boat. Children and dogs ran along the banks, calling in high excited voices.
It was the same cry, as long as the boat sailed through this kingdom: “The god! The god is on the river!”
He thought of hiding, or at least effacing himself on the deck, but it was somewhat too late for that. He smiled instead, and called greetings
to those who were close enough to hear. They answered, sometimes incredulous, sometimes delighted.
It was two days' swift passage to the border between Waset and Gebtu. The first night they stopped and moored near a town that offered them the best of its hospitality: a roasted ox, the inevitable bread and beer, and singing and dancing and a remarkable number of lovely women.

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