"What are you doing, training yourself to face danger in Koretia? What prompted you to do such a thing?"

I folded the cloth into quarters, then into eighths, before saying, "I heard him disciplining his new slave."

"Ah." Peter looked reflectively at me. "You mean Levina?"

I jammed the cloth under the bowl to keep it from being blown away by the night breeze. "All-knowing Chara, do you have the names memorized of every slave in this palace?"

"Probably," replied Peter cheerfully.

"Then you are as much a G.o.d-man as the Jackal. How do you keep them all straight?"

"Oh ..." Peter let his voice trail off. He stared up at the ceiling, paused for a moment, and then recited, "*And being as it is more grave that a slave should strike a free-man, it is declared that if any slave does so, either to his master or to any other slave"s master or to a free-man who does not own slaves, he shall be brought before the court under whose care he is placed, and the circ.u.mstances of the crime shall be determined by the use of at least one witness. Further, it is declared that, in order to be summoned on a charge of this crime, the slave must have done the following ..." Skip the next part; I always used to fall asleep trying to memorize the Definition of each law, because it required me to learn the most circ.u.mlocutory clerks" language you can imagine. *For just as it is required that the Emorian people show proper reverence toward the Chara, so also it is required that those who have been bound into slavery show proper respect toward their masters ...""

He caught my look and smiled. "I won"t bore you with the rest of the law"s Justification. It"s one of Lord Carle"s favorite Justifications, and I"m sure you"ve heard his version of it far too many times. *This being so, the law has been used in the following Cases ..." Switch over at this point to the Case volumes and spend an hour hunting up a dozen court cases and then memorize them. *And so the prisoner shall be taken to his court, and witnesses shall be brought to show what happened, and it shall be the solemn duty of the judge to decide whether the striking took place with clear understanding and without provocation... ." Ignore the next reference; an entire law book is devoted to explaining what const.i.tutes clear understanding and provocation for the various ranks, with subreferences explaining how acting with provocation is the opposite of acting willfully. I had those pa.s.sages memorized by age seven. *And then, if the judge has determined that the striking was done under provocation, he shall pa.s.s a sentence of mercy; and if the judge has determined that the striking was done without clear understanding, he shall pa.s.s a sentence of branding; and if the judge has determined that the striking was done willfully and with clear understanding, he shall pa.s.s a sentence of imprisonment. And being as it is more grave that a lesser free-man should strike a n.o.bleman-""

Peter stopped, looked over at me, and said, "Well, it goes on to the next law from there. I was required to memorize word for word the five hundred major laws, but I only had to remember the main points of the other eight thousand laws. After ten years of lessons like that, memorizing the names of a few slaves is easy by comparison."

I looked at the bowl again, then picked it up, placed it on a ledge nearby, and unfolded the cloth to place it over the top of the bowl. Peter said, "I am thinking of the right slave? The pretty Koretian one?"

"Yes."

I tried to reply in a matter-of-fact tone, but I saw Peter"s eyes flick over toward me. He asked quietly, "Would I guess right if I were to a.s.sume that your conversation with Lord Carle concerned the pretty slave?"

I was silent. Peter sighed as he rose from the couch. "No wonder Lord Carle looked guilty. Here. Lie down. I"ll bring you a drink a you probably need it as much as I do."

The reluctant corners of my mouth obeyed the command of his eyes, and I smiled and lay down where Peter had reclined. He came back after a minute, holding a pitcher and a single cup, and seated himself cross-legged on the floor beside me, pouring our wine.

"Does this mean that you"re now the servant and I"m the Chara?" I asked as I took the cup he had sipped before handing it to me.

"I wouldn"t burden even the Jackal with the sort of duties I have to undertake. Today has been the worst day I can remember in a long while. I"m actually beginning to look forward to the dangers of Koretia as a pleasant change from the dangers of this palace."

"The council was difficult?"

"The council and everyone else." Peter leaned his back against the side of the couch and stared morosely at the cup I had drunk from and then handed back to him. "I just had a four-hour discussion with my subcommander on the many nefarious campaigns he has devised to crush the Koretians. I was forced to listen carefully to all that he said, because I may need to use one of those campaigns. This morning I listened to three hours" worth of court testimony, only to finish by kissing the pendant and telling all of the people there what they already knew: that the prisoner was a council official and therefore under the care of the council, not myself, and that all I could do was to give the council judge my recommendation for the judgment and sentence."

"Will he accept the recommendation?"

"I believe so; he often does. So I suppose my morning wasn"t a complete waste of time, though it felt like it. I never had a chance for a noonday meal a what was that you were eating just now?"

"Wild-berries." I laughed at Peter"s expression. "There are some Daxion nuts by my bed. I"ll get them."

"Stay where you are." Peter bounced up and darted into my room as though he were a light-footed goat rather than the ruler of an empire. Returning with the bowl, he seated himself where he had been before and popped a nut into his mouth.

"The council meeting was the worst, of course," he said through chews. "You heard how I had to remind the lords of my full authority before I could get them even to lower their voices."

I reached down to take a handful of nuts. "After that, I imagine there wasn"t much they could say."

"You"d be surprised," said Peter dryly. "Lord Dean gave me a small lesson in logic. I felt as though I were a schoolboy again. It was offered to my attention that, firstly, the dominion governors are lords of the council. Secondly, the dominions are therefore under the care of the council. Thirdly, the Chara may therefore only interfere with the dominions when they are without governors or in wartime. And fourthly, in conclusion, as follows from the premises, propositions, and postulates, I should keep out of Koretia until war actually breaks out a at which time, of course, the law allows me to try to bring peace. In other words, my High Lord believes that I should wait until the land is half burnt before I try to extinguish the flames. I was not impressed by his logic, and said so."

"You must have succeeded in convincing him that you were right."

"Stubborn as a Chara a that"s the phrase, isn"t it? That characteristic comes in handy sometimes. At any rate, I managed to bend the conversation over to the subject of my travelling companions, so that the council lords ended up spending the rest of their time arguing amongst themselves over which of the lords would accompany me on the trip. To my mind, the most logical course would be for the High Lord to remain safe in Emor while I"m gone, lest anything happen to me. But Lord Dean insists on going to Koretia a I think he wants to keep his eye on me."

"I suppose that we can depend on him for pleasant conversation, at any rate."

"If pleasant conversation is what you"re expecting, I must crush your hopes by telling you that the other member of our party is Lord Carle."

I reached down again to the bowl and fished among the smaller nuts. "That will be tedious for you. Didn"t you have any say in the selection?"

"I could hardly refuse to bring Lord Carle. He knows more about Koretia than I do ... and bringing him saves me the necessity of bringing a conspicuous bodyguard."

"He"ll hate every minute of the trip."

"Actually, I think that he"ll receive great joy from seeing all of his worst opinions about Koretia confirmed. Andrew, are you planning to touch every nut before you choose one?"

I smiled. "They are my nuts. Be grateful that I"m sharing them with you a it"s not one of my duties as a palace guest."

"Mmm." Peter licked his fingers and stared straight forward, toward the window. "The question of your duties came up at the meeting, actually. Lord Dean and Lord Carle are travelling in their own ident.i.ties, along with their free-servants, and I am to be plain Lord Peter once more a there are about half a dozen honorary lords of that name scattered around Emor. The council asked me what disguise I planned for you. They didn"t think that *palace guest" was enough of a t.i.tle to explain your presence on the journey."

I held out the largest nut toward Peter and said easily, "If Curtis and Francis are serving Lord Carle and Lord Dean, then I"ll be free-servant to you."

Peter took the nut from my hand. "Thank you. It wasn"t something I could command of you, but it"s in fact what I suggested to the council. Since I"m to be disguised as a mere lord, I saw no reason why you wouldn"t be willing to take on a lesser rank as well. At any rate, I thought you might have a better idea than I do of what to pack for Koretia. I was going mad at noonday trying to figure out what to take."

"Are we leaving so soon?"

"We"re leaving tomorrow. I can"t depend on thirty council lords to keep a secret for long, and I"d prefer to reach the governor"s palace before the Jackal has news of my presence in his land. I"ve felt obliged to send my private messenger to Lord Alan, telling him of our trip, but I"m hoping that the various threats I wrote behind the lines will inhibit him from announcing our journey."

"Then let me see what you"ve packed so far." I rose and walked into the Chara"s sleeping chamber, leaving Peter to stay and collect the nut bowl.

He had laid a number of items out on the bed in an orderly fashion. Most of the clothes, I could see at a glance, were too heavy to wear in Koretia. I began placing to one side the items that he could not bring; in the process, I uncovered a bone-handled dagger.

I am not sure how long I stood staring at it. Presently I heard Peter say from behind my shoulder, "Lord Carle tells me that the Koretians wear their free-man"s blades all of the time a not only on ceremonial occasions, but also as a form of protection. I can"t bring the Sword of Vengeance, of course, so I thought that I"d take this."

I placed a breech-cloth to the side, being careful not to touch the dagger in the process. "I didn"t realize you had kept it." Even to me, my voice sounded as cold as an Emorian winter.

"You said you didn"t want it any more, so I kept it for myself, because it reminded me of the night I gave it to you."

I turned then. Peter was watching me with a carefully neutral expression and guarded eyes that brought back to me a shock of memory. When I was able to speak again, I said, "It isn"t a night that I would want to forget either, so I"m glad that you kept the dagger."

Peter"s expression eased. He reached over to the bed and said, "I suppose that I can"t take the seal-ring; that would be proclaiming my t.i.tle. I will take the brooch a nothing could part me from that a but I"ll keep it hidden till we reach the governor"s palace. Tell me, how does it feel to be returning to Koretia as an Emorian?"

"Despite my frequent a.s.sertions," I said wryly, "I don"t feel very Emorian at times. If a Koretian asked me to explain the law-structure of Emor, for example, I wouldn"t know what to say a and this, despite the fact that I"ve had the best teacher on the subject."

Peter"s gaze flicked toward me and then back. Just as I never understood why he asked questions about subjects he was well versed in, so also he never asked the reasons why I made elementary enquiries. "We haven"t spoken on the topic very often," he said. "The law is the last thing I want to think about when I have a free moment with you. What is it that puzzles you?"

I went over to the sleeping chamber"s chest, pushed the lid open, and began pulling out his lighter tunics. "Nothing that"s important. Just various things that are unclear to me about the law"s division of powers between the Chara and his council. You said that the prisoner who was tried today was under the care of the council because he was a council official. But didn"t you have a case recently where you yourself handed down judgment on a council official?"

"It was a more difficult case than that: I was judging one of the junior council lords who was being tried for murder. Ordinarily, the council takes care of its own, and I have no power to do anything other than offer my recommendations when the crime takes place in the palace. But if the crime is serious, then the council judge may ask me to sit in judgment on the case. If you ever want to explain Emorian law to a Koretian, you may tell him that an entire, thick law book is devoted to the three crimes punishable by the high doom, and I"m the only one who has that entire book memorized, so I"m usually the one who takes such cases. But since I and the council judge are the only ones who try prisoners for the Great Three, I don"t suppose that most Koretians have even heard of the high doom."

The room was dark with night shadows. I could not see what lay at the bottom of the chest, so I stood up, took a stick from the fire that had blazed in the chamber all day, and reached over to light the oil-lamp attached to the wall. I said, without looking Peter"s way, "How did you decide whether to apply the high doom in this case?"

Peter was silent for so long that I thought he would not reply. Finally he said, "In this particular case, the prisoner was placed under the high doom because he had killed an unarmed man."

The lamp had finally caught fire. I stepped back and watched to be sure that it would stay lit. Behind me, Peter said, "But perhaps that"s another Emorian custom that a Koretian wouldn"t understand."

"No," I said, tossing the lighted stick back into the fire. "Killing an unarmed man is considered just as serious an offense in Koretia."

I stared at the fire a moment longer. Then, feeling Peter"s eyes at my back, I looked over at him silently. Peter turned away and carefully undid the sorting I had just made of his clothes. "I fear that I have led both of us into a pitch-black cave, without bothering to bring a light with me," he said. "Let us move on to another subject. How did you spend your day? Aside from listening to insults from Lord Carle, I mean."

"I spent my day doing absolutely nothing."

Peter continued to look down at the items he was aimlessly moving from one pile to another, but a smile crept up the side of his face. "That sounds glorious. Where did you do this nothing?"

I came over beside him and took a belt out of his hands. "In the council library, to begin with; hence my embarra.s.sing appearance at your closed meeting. I must apologize to Lord Dean tonight before he takes vengeance on the porter."

"I wouldn"t bother." Peter left the sorting to my hands and sat down on the bed near me, leaning back against the wall. "I was witness to the porter"s own apology, which was the most eloquent piece of poetry I"ve heard since I had a Daxion bard up on charges of stealing a bit of b.u.t.ter from the palace pantry."

"You put a bard on trial for stealing b.u.t.ter?"

"It"s hard to believe, but the law cla.s.sifies that as a major crime. Any use of the Chara"s goods or money for forbidden purposes is considered a crime of disobedience a though you"ll be relieved to hear that I let the bard go free. As for the porter, he has nothing to worry about; Lord Dean is fully occupied with planning this trip. Where did you go after you left the meeting?"

"Out to do more nothing. I did it under a certain tree in the garden."

Peter smiled and pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his interlocked hands around them as he leaned further back. "I"m glad that you found a good use for my birthday present. You"ve no idea the trouble I had in convincing the gardener that Emor would not crumble if he planted a Koretian tree in the palace grounds."

"Is it a Koretian tree? I didn"t know."

"It turned out to be less expensive to bring a sapling over the black border mountains than to buy one of Emor"s few remaining trees. I hope you won"t stop using it, now that you know its barbaric origin."

I didn"t bother to reply, but tossed a tunic at Peter. Laughing, he prevented it from landing in his face. "If you"ve spent an entire afternoon doing nothing, then you must have had a particularly terrible morning. I hope that our talk in the Map Room wasn"t what drove you to seek pleasure ahead of duty."

I shook my head and knelt down to pull Peter"s travel pack from beneath his bed. I knew that it was there only because I had cleaned the floor around it during my time as his slave. Over ten years had pa.s.sed since it was last put to use.

As I stood up, I saw that Peter was still watching me expectantly. I said, "Lord Dean saw me in the council library before the meeting. We had a talk on marriage."

"Ah." Peter let the word drop like a heavy pebble into water. When the ripples were beginning to fade, he added, "Well, you needn"t pa.s.s on to me what he said. I"m sure it"s the same that was said to me at the meeting. That was what the council spent most of its time discussing: my ill-considered decision to visit a dangerous land when I have no heir. Fortunately, the lords did not insist that I beget an heir tonight, before leaving Emor."

I began to fold the tunics in the tidy manner which had never come naturally to me, but which pleased Peter. After a while, Peter said, "It seems a curious topic for Lord Dean to discuss with you. Did he say why he chose you as the messenger of his views?"

I noticed that his voice had taken on a note of quiet authority, but I ignored this and said simply, "He has asked me to mediate for him in the past."

"That isn"t what I asked." He waited. When I did not reply, he said, "Andrew."

I continued to stare down at the tunics, but my hands were checked in their motions. Peter said, "Andrew, it is my duty as Chara to know what methods my council lords are using to try to influence me. Do not make me have to command you in this matter."

I stared at the items I was packing and took a moment to still my heart before saying, in the neutral voice that the Chara"s clerk adopted when reporting the words of a witness, "Lord Dean said I would be able to demonstrate clearly to you the importance of fathering an heir. He also said he was sure that, like any other man, I understood the desire to raise a family."

I did not look up at Peter, but I heard him slowly let out his breath, as though he himself had taken the blow. "May he die a Slave"s Death," he said. "He actually told you that?"

I did not reply. His voice dangerously low, Peter added, "High Lord or not, he can be summoned on a charge of insulting a free-man. I would request such a charge if you wished."

"No." I reached over and picked up the dagger without thought, and then placed it hastily in the pack before reaching for the tunics from the chest. Finally I said, "He probably just forgot."

"Lord Dean never forgets."

The bitterness in Peter"s voice made me look up. Peter was staring into the distance as though peering at an invisible scene. "When I was four years old," he said, "Lord Dean took me to see some kinsmen of his in his hometown of Busedge. It was the first time I"d ever left the palace, and it was one of the happiest periods of my life. The High Lord let me have my way in everything; he wasn"t strict with me the way my father always was. Toward the end of the visit, I confided to Lord Dean that I had once tried on the Pendant of Judgment to see what it felt like. Lord Dean promised to keep my secret a and he did, for many years. Then, one day about a year before my father died, I was talking with my father and Lord Dean a you may remember, for it was on the night when we first spoke. Suddenly, to gain a trivial point in an argument with my father, Lord Dean mentioned what I"d done. I"ve never forgotten the look my father gave me, and I"ve never trusted Lord Dean since then."

He pulled his gaze away from the past, reached to his tunic, and unclasped the emblem brooch in order to toss it to me. "You"d better pack this now... . It was perhaps unwise of Lord Dean to reveal his true nature so clearly to the Chara To Be. These days, if I were about to be cut down in battle and needed the help of either Lord Carle when he was being his most brutal or Lord Dean when he was being his most amiable, Lord Carle is the one I"d turn to."

"It"s not a choice I"d want to make," I said, wrapping the brooch carefully in a face-cloth before packing it. "At any rate, Lord Dean does have a point in what he said to me."

"Lord Dean"s points are like dagger points; they can only kill. Listen to me." Peter pulled himself forward so that he was kneeling on the bed close to me. "If I ever need advice on who to marry, it is you I will go to, not a man like Lord Dean. You know me better than anyone, better than even my father knew me, and nothing of what you are to the world changes what you are to me."

I said nothing, did not even look his way, but let my smile be my reply. After a moment, Peter pulled himself back to his place against the wall and said, "Well, you had better tell me everything that the old fox said to you this morning."

I told him, and when I was through, Peter said, "Some of what he says is true. He"s wrong, of course, to think that I wouldn"t marry for fear of hurting our friendship. You and I both know that it"s possible to love more than one person at a time. But he"s right in thinking that our friendship has affected the way I look at marriage. It is just that it goes much deeper than Lord Dean sees."

I tossed the pack to one side, drew myself up onto the bed, and sat down beside Peter, sharing the same wall as my backrest. "How deep?"

Peter thought for a moment before saying, "Masks. Do you remember that we discussed masks this morning? And I mentioned the slave-masks that you told me about when we first talked. Since that time I"ve had experience wearing an even more rigid mask, and it isn"t the terrible bondage that I once thought it would be. It"s a burden, of course, being the Chara and subsuming my own person in the role that I was born to play. But this is something I"ve chosen of my own free will to do, and I love to do it a sometimes. There are times, though, when I tire of being the law"s embodiment and need simply to be myself. You"re one of the few people with whom I can be myself, and that"s one reason I"m grateful to know you. If I were married-" He stopped.

"You might find a wife with whom you could take off your mask," I said.

"Perhaps I will, but I haven"t found her yet. And I couldn"t bear to spend the entire day as the Chara, and then return to my quarters in the evening and be forced to continue that role. I want to remove my mask then, as I do with you. I think ..." He paused, and then said deliberately, "I would never willfully neglect my duty, of course. But if my duty required me always to be the Chara, I think that I would become unbalanced."

I remained silent a moment, balancing in my mind what he had said and what Lord Dean had said. Knowing what I did by now of Peter"s burdens, it was not a hard judgment for me to make. "Well, then, you are right not to marry yet. And you should place Lord Dean under the high doom if he tries to change your mind."

Peter smiled, the lines of pain in his face disappearing like scratches on the earth fading under rain. "I knew that you would understand. So will you promise me something, please? If you go back to Koretia and find that it"s truly your home, of course you must stay a I"d be angry with you if you didn"t. But will you please not stay in Koretia out of some misguided sense of duty that Lord Dean has tried to impress upon you?"

"I promise you, unless we discover some unknown law that requires me to stay in Koretia, I will remain with you as long as you need me."

"You"ve just given me a reason never to read the law books again," Peter said. "Lord Carle will be annoyed with you for interfering with my studies."

"I don"t suppose that Lord Carle lacks reasons to be annoyed with me," I said. "But in any case, you needn"t worry about Koretia. Emor is my home, and the dagger I just packed is proof of it."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Long before he arrived, I heard the cheering of the slaves lining the corridor to receive a glimpse of him as he walked back from the Court of Judgment. I had arrived at his quarters two hours before and had found that the guards were so overcome with excitement that they did not even question why a slave would be entering his master"s quarters at so late an hour and on such an evening.

I stood with my head resting against the jamb of the southern window as the cheers intensified, and then the door opened and the acclamations died down as Peter entered the room and closed the door.

His cloak had become tangled in the chain holding the Pendant of Judgment. He brushed the cloth free with a heavy, stylized gesture, and his head turned with slow dignity as he began to look around the chamber. He caught sight of me before I could see his face, and by the time he had turned his head he was grinning. He looked no older than his sixteen years.

"Thank the spirits of the dead Charas that it"s you," Peter said, tugging at his sword sheath with a fumbling grasp. "If it were anyone else, I would have to go on pretending that I was immortal and invulnerable, rather than ready to drop from exhaustion." He placed the sheathed sword on the writing table, pulled impatiently at the clasp holding his cloak, and hissed softly as the pin bit into his finger. Flinging his cloak onto the chair next to the fire, he stood smiling at me for a moment without moving, as though drawing upon my silence after the music and cheers of the court.

I did not bother to move to collect the cloak. "Did the ceremony go well?" I asked.

"The ceremony went very well. I, on the other hand, was terrible. Lord Dean has been drilling me for three days on where to stand, how to move, what to say a and when the time came for me to act, I simply forgot everything that he had told me. I am not at all sure what I did, and I"m certain that I"ve offended a or amused a all of the elder lords and officials who were at my father"s installation." He threw himself onto the couch, letting one of his legs dangle off the side and pressing the back of a wrist onto his forehead. For a moment he stared at the ceiling, and then with the quirk of a smile he said, "I wish that my father had been present to show me what to do. He always used to glare at me whenever I was about to make the wrong move at ceremonies."