Outside the windows, the silver trumpets of the Chara announced the end of the court"s day. Lord Dean took no notice. He was at most times the least perturbed lord on a council of composed lords, but now he was drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair.

Keeping my voice neutral, I said, "I suppose that the Chara must believe there is plenty of time for marriage in the future, since he is still young."

"He is not too young to die," said Lord Dean bluntly. "His father was hardly the first Chara to die at a relatively young age from sheer overwork a it is a curse that seems to come with the t.i.tle. And leaving that possibility aside, there is always the danger brought by war in the dominions. Even with the Chara supervising the fighting from a safe distance, there is always the danger of a.s.sa.s.sins. If the Chara should lead a force into Koretia some months from now and be cut down, you know what will happen to Emor."

I was silent before saying, "It is not clear who the Chara"s heir is, as I understand it."

"He has no heir, according to the law; the council found the Chara"s nearest kinsman to be unsuitable for the throne. The Chara has no other relatives close enough within the royal line to qualify for inheritance. So if the Chara dies, this land will erupt into a war as terrible as those in Koretia, a war to determine who should take the Chara"s place."

"If a peaceful solution should be found ..."

The High Lord shook his head. "I doubt that even a successor selected by peaceful means would prove an adequate subst.i.tute. The duties of the Chara are handed down father to son; it is a role that the Chara Peter spent his life preparing for, and it is not a role that even I could walk into unprepared. With no Chara, there would be no High Judge, and with no high judgment, Emor would be destroyed."

Lord Dean"s words contained an unusual pa.s.sion, but my own voice, when it spoke, was stripped of all emotion. "I am sure that the Chara has thought of all that you have said. If he has decided that his current duties prevent him from producing an immediate heir, it is not my place to dispute the matter with him."

"Now, Andrew," said Lord Dean mildly, "that is a disingenuous statement. You know quite well that, as the Chara"s friend, you have disputed with him on far more controversial topics. Some of these topics you have raised with him on my suggestion a though only, I know, when my opinion on the subjects happened to coincide with your own. So let us have less talk of how you are the Chara"s humble servant and more talk about what you and I can do to aid him in this difficult matter."

His eyes shifted to mine suddenly, in the manner of a soldier who is trying to judge how to slice his blade through his enemy"s guard. I did not move, but I let my eyes drift once more toward the tapestry. "I am not sure how it is that I can help, Lord Dean. Friend or not, I surely do not have the right to lead the Chara to his marriage-bed. He knows that I will help him in any way I can when the time comes."

"Ah, but will you?" The tone of Lord Dean"s question was like cold metal on my skin, but a moment later he said amiably, "I know, of course, that you are always ready with help a you may be the most loyal subject the Chara has in this land. It is natural that, whenever the Chara is in need of advice or companionship, he should turn to you. But perhaps that is a danger in itself. It may be that the Chara finds it difficult to consult with one companion about a union with another companion."

I said nothing, but let my eyes drift blindly over the colors of the tapestry: red and gold, silver and black, green and blue and brown. Lord Dean"s voice grew even more gentle as he said, "I remember how, when I was young, it was hard to watch my friends part and take wives. It was like a betrayal of our friendships. I think that the only thing that made it bearable was knowing that some day I too would find a mate. But of course I"m sure that, like any other man, you understand the desire to raise a family."

My roving eye settled for a moment on the man roping the stallion. "Yes."

"Well, then." Having found his way past my guard and delivered his blow, Lord Dean settled back into a more comfortable position. His voice grew matter-of-fact again. "I"m therefore sure you appreciate the conflict of loyalties that the Chara must be feeling at this moment. That is why I suggested earlier that you might want to spend some time apart in Koretia: in order to give the Chara a chance to work out on his own what is best for himself and for Emor. So you see, I"m not asking you to mediate on my behalf as I have in the past, though I"m sure that you will discuss this matter with the Chara. Instead a I speak without formality here, since we share the Chara"s friendship a Peter may have less need this time of your advice than of your actions. I think that you ought to put much thought to this."

I rose slowly, my limbs feeling as heavy as though Lord Dean had transferred his aging body to mine. I bowed to the High Lord and said, "I appreciate your bringing this matter to my attention. I a.s.sure you that I will indeed give thought to the matter."

Lord Dean rose also, and as we walked toward the library door, he smiled at me. "I know that I can count on your loyalty to the Chara to help you in making the right decision. There is no one else in the palace who knows the Chara as well as you do, or has the ability to demonstrate to him more clearly the importance of fathering an heir."

He left me standing beside a window that, like the window in the Map Room, looked out upon the southern view. Twelve years had pa.s.sed since I had been in the city surrounding the Chara"s palace, and fifteen years since I had been there in daylight, yet still I could find in a moment"s glance the market beside the river, with its stalls and tents and the high, windy platform where the slaves were sold.

CHAPTER FOUR.

Fifteen years before, I had stood hand-bound on that platform, my back to the black border mountains, and my gaze fixed firmly on the Chara"s palace.

Summer still held sway in Koretia, but the autumn winds had begun to bite at us even before the slave-seller"s pack-train pa.s.sed through the mountains. I was dressed in a bare-backed Emorian slave"s tunic, trying not to shiver as the wind scurried up my spine, and trying even harder not to waver my gaze and chance meeting the eyes of a free-man. The slave-seller called me stubborn and senseless, but I had at least learned that lesson in my struggle to survive during the past ten weeks.

The subdued noises of the Emorian marketplace sounded strange to my ear: the fish-sellers did not shout out their wares, nor did the man running the fruit-cart burst into curses when a small girl tried to make off with an apple. Rather than handle the matter himself, as a Koretian would have done, he summoned the soldiers patrolling the market a though, to my relief, the soldiers seemed more amused than angered by the child"s actions. All of the sounds in the market were orderly and exact, like the neat stone walls and tidy fields surrounding the city.

I could not see the fields from where I stood. Towering over me was the palace of the Chara, its hard, white-marble face appearing cold to me in contrast with the warm glow of Koretia"s Council Hall. The hilltop palace was encircled by a double layer of walls, as high as the city wall we had pa.s.sed beyond that morning. On the towers of the inner palace wall, soldiers drilled in uniform motion.

"There he is!"

The voice caught my attention. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the slave-seller"s a.s.sistant was standing nearby, pointing to me. The genial slave-seller who had bought me from the previous seller had given his young a.s.sistant the day off after our hard, winding journey. From the looks of it, the a.s.sistant was spending his time with his girl.

"That"s the one who tried to kill me," he was telling her now. "Nearly choked me with his bare hands when I was adjusting his hand-bindings."

"But he"s just a boy!" cried the girl. She was dressed in a gown which, except for its heavy material, might have been Koretian, but her hair was a color that seemed to me startling in its lightness.

"That"s what I thought, and it was nearly the death of me. My master said that I should have known better. We bought this slave off of Ogier, who was selling him cheap because Ogier was nearly knocked over the head one night after he bought the boy from a soldier. Ogier said he wasn"t the sort of slave that it would be easy to find a buyer for; he was quite honest about it. My master, though, said that he knew a lord who would pay good money for him. I"m not sure it was worth it, myself, what with us having to watch him every moment to make sure he wouldn"t escape or try to kill the lot of us."

"It must take great bravery to work with these Koretian barbarians," said the girl, drawing herself closer to the a.s.sistant.

She was very pretty, and I nearly made the mistake of staring at her with open admiration. Then I heard a sound to the right of me and froze. It was the slave-seller, puffing his way up the platform steps as he led a customer toward me.

"Here he is, Lord Carle," said the seller, laying his hands on his broad belly as he caught his breath. "I tell you frankly, if it were some lords, I would keep my mouth shut about this slave until they had bought him and found out for themselves what he is like. And to other lords I might feel an obligation to give a friendly warning. But when I saw this boy, I knew that he was just the slave for you."

"Hmm." The Emorian lord stood slightly to the side. I could just see his moss-green eyes examining me. He had a ruddy face, and his reddish-brown beard was sprinkled with silver. The forehead over his thick eyebrows was knotted with concentration. "He came from their capital, you say?"

"What is left of the Koretian capital, at any rate. Now that the wars are over, the new governor has been wondering whether the city is worth the bother to rebuild. But you would know more about that than I do."

Lord Carle said nothing, but circled round me until he reached my other side. I kept my eyes fixed at a point beyond him as he pa.s.sed.

"He looks stubborn enough," said Lord Carle finally. "What is his name?"

The slave-seller appeared confused. "I"m not sure," he said. "I don"t know the Koretian tongue myself. Hugh!" He shouted this down to his a.s.sistant, who was watching the proceedings with interest. "You know their language. Does he have a name?"

"Can"t say as I"ve ever wanted to get well enough acquainted with him to find out, sir," the a.s.sistant cried out boldly, perhaps for the benefit of the giggling girl.

The slave-seller frowned at his a.s.sistant behind Lord Carle"s back, and then asked the n.o.bleman, "Shall I bring my boy up to interpret, Lord Carle?"

"Don"t bother. I was forced by our unremitting troubles with Koretia to learn that primitive tongue myself. -What is your name?" he asked me in flawless Koretian.

He had moved again so that he was facing me straight on. I had my chin up high enough that I could have seen his face, but I took care to keep my gaze fixed on his chest. I said nothing.

Lord Carle moved back slightly so that my gaze now fell on his neck. I did not move my body or eyes. He said reflectively, "I hope that you are not trying to sell me a deaf-mute, Robert."

"The laws forbid that I should, Lord Carle!" the slave-seller protested. "He is simply a mulish rascal a you see how difficult he is to train." He paused, judging his customer, and then added, "Would you like to take on the challenge yourself?"

"That depends, as always, on the price. The last time I was here, you tried to sell me a half-dead Daxion for twice my inheritance."

The slave-seller chuckled. "Then I will see whether I can make up for it this time. To be perfectly honest, Lord Carle, if you fail to buy the boy, I don"t know what I will do with him. Not many free-men in this city have the courage to try to tame a savage Koretian like this. I will let you have him for forty gold pieces."

Lord Carle moved again, this time so that his eyes would meet mine. I waited until the moment he blinked, and then shifted my gaze ever so slightly away from him.

"A fair price for once," said Lord Carle, still looking at me rather than the slave-seller. "Which makes me suspicious. What sort of wounds does he have hidden under that tunic?"

"Do you think I would try to sell a defective slave to a council lord? I"ve no wish to be summoned to the city court on the charge of selling bad goods. I a.s.sure you, he is entirely whole in body. You may inspect him yourself, if you wish."

"It is the council"s court that you would find yourself in if you committed a crime against a council lord," said Lord Carle, "and I have no intention of sullying my hands on his greasy body." He looked at me with distaste, his gaze travelling down over my chest. Then, in an instant, his eyes rose to catch me looking at him. I froze my gaze once more, and a smile entered his eyes. Then he turned away in apparent disinterest.

"I have some tamer slaves to sell, if you prefer," said the disappointed slave-seller.

"Taming is an art," said Lord Carle, his voice smooth with pa.s.sion. "I bought a stallion off of Warren the horse-seller last year. He told me that it could never be tamed, that I was better off buying another horse that had already been broken. Three months later he visited the palace stables and saw my horse, broken in both body and spirit, and obedient to my slightest command. He has not tried to sell me any tame horses since then."

The slave-seller beamed with pleasure. Lord Carle turned slowly back to the place in which he had stood before, where his gaze met my gaze, and this time I did not dare try to shift my eyes. He said, "This Koretian dog speaks with a barbaric tongue and comes from a barbaric land, one which has no order or laws. Yet if I were to take him, in three months you would find him thinking and acting like a civilized Emorian. If you know how to discipline a slave, as I do, such transformations are accomplished with ease."

He stepped forward slightly, his eyebrows drawn down low as he gazed narrowly at me. I lifted my eyes slowly until they met his once more, and I said in Emorian, "I am Koretian. I will never be Emorian, for I have taken a blood vow to kill the Chara and bring freedom to my land."

Lord Carle began to smile again, a slow, crooked smile. So fascinating was that dark smile that I did not see his fist until it had nearly reached my cheek.

I dodged then, and the blow landed at a glance so that I was thrown to my knees rather than being flattened to the ground. I felt the platform vibrate with a thump as the slave-seller"s a.s.sistant jumped up next to me to ensure that I would not cause trouble. Shaking my bowed head in an attempt to stop the buzzing in my ears, I rose, and then lifted my eyes firmly to meet Lord Carle"s.

He was still smiling. Now something more entered his expression, like the look of admiration that a soldier might show for his enemy. He said with soft viciousness, "You have just learned the first lesson of being an Emorian, which is to show respect for your masters. If you wish to remain Koretian inside, I will not interfere with your loyalties. By the Chara"s high doom, though, you will learn how to behave like an Emorian, and you will begin by apologizing to me."

The wind was running up and down my spine now like a dagger blade, and I could feel myself begin to shiver. But I did not speak, and I did not move my eyes.

After a moment, Lord Carle turned away. "Geld him."

"Lord Carle?" said the slave-seller uncertainly.

"Have him delivered to the palace dungeon"s torturers; tell them to send him to my quarters after they have gelded him. If he dies under the knife, I will pay for his loss. But if he lives-" He turned his dark gaze my way. "If he lives, he will know who his master is, and that his master is to be obeyed."

Then he walked away, and I was left staring at the marble prison in front of me.

"What do you think you"re looking at?"

Philippa, Lord Carle"s kitchen slave, was always a beauty to look at: she had honey-colored skin, nut-brown lips, and amber eyelashes. She was not Koretian, as I had once thought; rather, she had Koretian coloring and a soft Koretian accent because she had been born in the borderland, the strip of land stretching on both sides of the black border mountains. Here Koretians married Emorians, producing light-skinned Koretians and dark-skinned Emorians. Philippa was Emorian, but I allowed this fact to be dulled in my mind whenever I caught sight of her.

She was a beauty even now that she stood frowning at me because she had noticed me watching out of the corner of my eye as she cuddled with Lord Diggory"s slave-servant Patrick. We were in the pantry, one of the few rooms in Lord Carle"s section of the slave-quarters with a reasonable amount of privacy, and a favorite location for palace slaves who wished to carry on a romance.

I had not come to the room with the deliberate intention of spying on them. I had been sent there that evening by Lord Carle"s free-servant Henry to clean the silver wine cups.

"Oh, leave him alone, Lippa," said Patrick, pausing from the act of nibbling her ear. "Have mercy on the poor wretch. It"s the most fun he"ll ever have."

My face remained expressionless as I wiped the cups mechanically with a cloth, but something about my hunched posture prompted Patrick to add with exasperation, "Oh, come on a I"m just joking."

"Look at him a look at him," said Philippa, twisting away from Patrick"s grasp so that she could rest her fists on her hips. "He"s cleaning the bottom of the wine pitcher as well. I know that Henry wouldn"t have told him to do that. It"s just another way he has found to act as though he"s better than any other slave. He"s a cold, uppity creature, and he spends half his time trying to make the rest of us look lazy."

"It won"t be hard for him to do that, will it?" said Patrick, smoothing down the front of his tunic. "You"re supposed to be washing up right now, aren"t you? You"d better go finish cleaning the dishes before Henry suspects that I have been waylaying you from your duties. Henry"s a stickler for duty, he is. And I don"t want to come by here again and find that Henry has given orders for the guards to keep me out."

Philippa gave a half-smile, half-frown, coaxing Patrick"s mouth down to her own. Once he had begun to take interest, she pushed him away and left the pantry, not looking back. Patrick sighed and turned to me. "Here, I"ll help you with that. You"ll never get those cups done in time if you take that much trouble over them."

He sat down beside me on the stone bench next to the table and began wiping the cups with a skill lesser than my own. After a few minutes he said, "Why do you take so much trouble? I"m just curious. I"ve heard plenty of stories about the encounters you"ve had with Lord Carle, so love of your master can"t be what drives you."

I wiped the lip of the cup I was holding, held it up to the light, and wiped it again before replying, "I do it for the Jackal."

"The Jackal? ... Oh, one of your Koretian G.o.ds. What does the Jackal have to do with it?"

I tossed aside the cloth I was holding and pulled over a clean one, pushing a lock of hair out of my eyes as I did so. I did not have to worry about much hair getting in my face as I worked; Lord Carle had ordered my hair cut soon after I first arrived at his quarters, while I still lay half-conscious on my sickbed. He wanted me to have short hair like any decent Emorian boy. I had not protested. It had seemed to me at that time that all my dreams of coming of age had already been destroyed forever.

"If I had to do my work for the sake of Lord Carle, I would never do it," I replied. "If I didn"t do my work, Lord Carle would kill me. So, since the Jackal is my real master, I pretend that I"m doing the work for him. When you work for a G.o.d, you want to work well."

Patrick stared at me. He was an Emorian, sold on his village court"s orders to pay a debt that his father had incurred, and he had spent most of his seventeen years at the palace. I knew little about him, since he worked in Lord Diggory"s section of the slave-quarters, farther along in the bas.e.m.e.nt. But I knew that most of the other slaves disliked him. This was reason enough for me to like him, since I shared his problem.

"You"re an odd one, aren"t you?" he said. "I"d heard that you had your own way of thinking. You would have to have a different sort of mind to get into so many arguments with Lord Carle. I hate being in the same room as that lord, even on his good days. I thought you were going to say that you did a lot of work in hope that he would free you some day."

"No," I said, taking a cup from his hand because he had been wiping the same spot for several minutes. "Lord Carle will never free me."

"You"re right about that, and it"s not just Lord Carle. I haven"t known any palace slaves to be freed the whole time I"ve been here. I think the Chara is afraid that the dominion-born ones will take secrets back to their lands and cause trouble. And, of course, what the Chara wants, every council lord wants as well. The only way I know for a palace slave to be freed is for him to be transferred to his master"s country home a that"s the route I"m planning to take. After a few years, they forget that you lived in the palace, and you have just as good a chance as any other slave in this land of getting your manumission paper."

I pushed the finished wine cups to one side and began wiping the water cups once more. "There are benefits to living in the palace. Some day I may meet the Chara."

"What will you do if that happens?" replied Patrick with a laugh. "Ask to touch his pendant? Tell him what he should do in Koretia? Or you could just kill him and solve all the problems of your land."

Again I said nothing, and again something about my posture caused Patrick to exclaim, "You"re not serious! Don"t be a fool, boy; it has been tried before. It never works a the palace guards always catch the a.s.sa.s.sin beforehand, and you know what would happen to you then."

I put down the water cup I was holding, staring at the reflections on it. The mirrored colors were as dull as my surroundings: grey from the windowless walls of the slave-quarters, brown from the tunics that Patrick and I wore, and black from the shelves around us. I said, "To die for the sake of the G.o.d would be better than spending the rest of my life serving Lord Carle."

"Well, if your G.o.d has ordered you to do this, tell him that he should reconsider the matter. Do you have any idea what they do to a slave who has been placed under the high doom? He doesn"t get his head cut off with a sword as though he were a free-man. If I ever have to die, you may be sure that I"ll arrange for it to be in a quick and painless manner."

I stood up and went over to the shelf, where I pulled out a gold tray. As I began placing the cups and wine and water in careful order on the tray, Patrick lowered his voice. "Listen, you take my advice and don"t tell anyone else about this. You can"t trust slaves a they"d give word to their master what you were up to, just to get on his good side. You don"t want to have to fight off all the palace guards before you even get to meet the Chara. It will be hard enough killing one person."

"Two people," I said. "The Chara and the Chara To Be. They are both the Chara."

"Have you been sneaking a look at Lord Carle"s law books? For sure, you"d have to kill the Chara"s son too, but you"d have even less chance of doing that. The Chara keeps Lord Peter locked away in his room, reading book after book, and only brings him out for the occasional ceremony or court case."

I did not reply. Patrick opened his mouth to say more, and then rose quickly as Henry opened the door to the room.

"What are you doing here, Patrick?" he asked, looking hard at the slave-servant.

"Message for Lord Carle, sir," said Patrick smoothly. "Lord Diggory said that I was to deliver it personally, but I understand that Lord Carle is at dinner."

Henry held out his hand, and Patrick placed the wax-sealed letter there. The white-haired free-servant glanced at the seal briefly, then handed the envelope back and said, "You will have to wait until later this evening. Not here, where you will be in the way of the other slaves. There is food left from the dinner in the kitchen a you can wait there."

Patrick bowed his head in acknowledgment and thanks of the order, waited until Henry had stepped past him, and then winked at me before leaving the room.

Henry"s composed gaze took in me and the cleaned cups. "Well done. Is that the best tunic you have?"

"It is the only tunic I have, sir."

"We will have to find you a better one soon. That one will do for now. Lord Carle has dinner guests, and while it was my understanding that the chief guest would bring his own free-servant to help pour the wine, he has not done so. Lord Carle told me to send for you, since he knows you to be circ.u.mspect in your manner and not the type to gossip about what you overhear while serving."

Lord Carle, I was sure, had phrased his command in a far less complimentary manner, but Henry had served the council lord for many years and had a special talent for covering up his master"s brusqueness. I asked, "Do I come right away?"

"Yes, bring the tray now; they have finished their dinner. I will serve the wine, and you will serve the water. You do know which is the water cup, do you not?"

"The larger one, sir."

"Mind that you remember." Henry strode out of the room, his head held high with the dignity of a favored free-servant. I followed, cradling the heavy tray in my arms.

We walked through the slave-quarters, up the stairs, through the bas.e.m.e.nt door that Henry opened with a key (since the slaves were now locked in for the night), past the guards stationed outside, down the short stretch of corridor that was the only part of the palace I had seen during my time there, through the door to Lord Carle"s quarters, up a pa.s.sage to the door of the dining chamber, and stopped there. Henry gave me a sharp look and opened the door. For a moment, his body blocked my view of the chamber. Then he stepped inside, and I looked straight into the eyes of the Chara"s son.

He had changed much in the three-and-a-half years since I had seen him last, tugging at the cloak of his father. He had the lankiness of a boy on the edge of manhood a he was now nearly fifteen, just over a year from his coming of age. The open eagerness I had once seen on his face had altered to a more caged look, as though something had either frightened him or matured him. Only his eyes remained as I remembered them: grey as the Emorian sky on a winter"s day, filled with curiosity and depth.