Samples from books that we have published under the Eartherean Press imprint.
This is another in a series from the second book in the 4-book series The Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn: The Divine Queen.
© 1982 by A. Adam Corby
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. The license is included as an appendix to this work.
The Court of the Divine Queen
IN THOSE HONEYED PATHWAYS, among the other festive courtiers, Arstomenes, High Charan of Vapio, laughed lazily, his violet eyes twinkling.
‘Arstomenes, will there never be a bridle on that tongue of yours?’ the Chara Fillaloial asked sternly.
‘Oh, all fine-bred steeds will want a loose rein.’
‘Dornan Ural, what know you of this?’
The paunchy, ill-dressed man whom the chara had addressed looked on them absently, as though his mind had been elsewhere. As chief of the Council of Regents, ruling Tarendahardil in Elnavis’s name until the prince should come of age, Dornan Ural was the most powerful man in the Empire. His father, however, had been no more than one of the old Emperor’s freedmen; and Dornan Ural’s every act and manner betrayed that parentage. ‘Of this?’ he said absently. ‘I had not heard – what was it your ladyship referred to?’
Arstomenes laughed. ‘Chara, you will never pour more than a philton out of a philton pitcher.’ The chara laughed, her voice melodious for all her years.
Another now joined them, bowing gracefully before the venerable chara, kissing elegantly the proffered hand. ‘Qhelvin,’ she inquired, ‘what do you know of her majesty’s purpose for this party?’
‘Why, the answer seems plain enough to me. Ampeánor, the High Charan of Rukor, departed some passes ago, to oversee some estates he has in the port-city of Tezmon, across the Sea of Elna. Now doubtless her majesty has grown bored in his absence.’
‘Ah, here she is,’ said Arstomenes, as a flourish sounded from above, turning all the lovely, painted, bewigged heads grouped about the floral terraces gracefully toward the stair. ‘And just in time, too; I grow positively ravenous for the latest delicacies of the royal cooks!’
The Chara Fillaloial laughed beautifully, and offered her arm to Qhelvin of Sorne.
Descending the broad marble steps past statues of nude youths and maidens of excellent proportions, the Empress of Tarendahardil made her appearance before the assembled court. At every thirteenth step, a pair of flanking guardsmen offered her the Imperial salute with rigid backs, their gold-chased armor gleaming even under clouded skies. Behind her majesty her attending ladies followed, arrayed in loras of deep blue and yellow green. Before her, at the bottom of the steps, was the upper terrace of the Gardens, three circles of brilliant green sward bordered by low marble walls upon which were beds of flowers and herbs and still-green bushes. There in the largest, central circle, were gathered the lords and ladies of the court. Beyond them, between two statues of the Emperors Ilazrius and Porekanin, other steps led down into the middle terraces and the shadowed groves beyond. From those depths a riot of autumnal scents born of herb and ripening fruit swelled to greet her majesty, like the fathomless surge of the sea’s azure tide.
Passing among them, the Queen spoke aesthetics with poets, antiquities with historians, politics with ambassadors from foreign lands. Especially charming was she with these last, discussing the state of the wars against the barbarians in the North, and inquiring after news of their homelands, Pelthar, Postio, the cities of the Delba, and others, including Carftain, whose walls were even then beleaguered by the invading barbarians of Ara-Karn.
The charanti and charai then formed partners and passed down to the next lowest terrace. There, among the statues and artful flowerbeds, they prepared to array themselves upon the couches. First the beautiful palace slaves bent to unfasten the sandals and slippers, that the highborn might recline in greater ease without sullying the couches. For those couches were of the most exquisite workmanship, embroidered with scenes of surpassing loveliness. In order of importance they would settle themselves upon each broad couch with the lesser holding head to the breast of the greater and so advancing on either side up to the Queen herself. She stood before the royal couch, alone and above the others. The maidens with garlands in their soft hair set aside her sandals, and Allissál leaned back upon the soft couch, her left elbow propped upon soft cushions. And seeing this the others all did likewise.
From behind her couch, slaves brought forth a low, three-legged table spread with grapes and succulent sliced fruits, nuts, sweetbread, and a golden goblet for the wine. A gleaming silver ewer filled with the lustral water was presented for her majesty to dip her fingers, and an accompanying towel to dry them. The serving-maid poured a measure of the purple wine of Postio and springwater in proportion to her majesty’s taste.
She lifted up the goblet against the gray damp skies; and all the others imitated her.
‘To the glory of our son and the future splendor of Tarendahardil,’ she proclaimed; and murmurs of assent passed round the graceful scene, as courtiers and lovely ladies sipped their delicious wine. Only a sip did they take of this first, the God’s cup; the rest, according to the ancient tradition, they spilled into the earth.
Now, the feast having begun, the charai and charanti reached forth with their free hands to the tables, the surfaces of which were for convenience somewhat below the level of the couches. The field was divided, in general, into the various nationalities of the Empire, with a special section, near to the royal couch, given to the foreign ambassadors and those foreign courtiers who were among the Queen’s favorites.
At the end of the field, the Fulmineans faced the Vapionil. The Fulmineans were rather plain in their looks and apparel. In this they were outdone by their lord Lornof, High Charan of Fulmine, a small, mouse-faced man who wore his courtly robes ill. With him at his couch, Lornof dined with two women whose beauty and skills perhaps were greater than their families’ histories. Charan Lornof drank rather deeply, and from time to time could be heard calling out wagers with the men and women of his court.
Across from these, the Vapionil were led by Arstomenes, whose insolent beauty was augmented considerably by the crafts of the expert female slaves of his household. Most exotically and richly garbed, the Vapionil wore sometimes the aspect of strange creatures of an intoxicated painter’s most extravagant fantasies. About the kohl-streaked eyes of their charai and charanti alike was such sly, jaded wisdom, it was impossible for an observer to conceive that there existed avenues of pleasure or vice these noblest of people had not fully explored. Vapio had been the seat of an empire a thousand years before Elna had killed his first man: even then in those but dimly remembered times, the attitudes and pursuits of the Vapionil had been notorious.
Nearer to the Queen, the men of the Eglands faced those of Rukor. Long-legged and bronze-faced were the Eglanders, their eyes set as if upon the distant ends of the grassy plains of their home. These were men famous for their skills with horses: men whose ancestors had once been among the greatest cavaliers of the world. Even their charai seemed a sort apart from the charai of the other provinces. Their couch of highest honor, reserved for their High Charan Farnese, remained empty, however: Farnese, ancient, stern and of ill health, scorned to attend such functions of the court as this.
The Rukorians sat in face to the Eglanders. Their lord’s seat was also vacant, for the High Charan Ampeánor was absent from Tarendahardil. Mostly the Rukorians there were men, and all of them wore the military tunics of commanders of lancers instead of courtly robes. They were for the most part silent, except for when they would utter some comments or boasts upon matters military, as the progress of the wars against the barbarians in the North, across the Sea of Elna.
So all in their own manners, adorned with enough wealth to found a city or put a sizable army in the field, these greatest of this greatest city and Empire dined at their pleasure, reaching for cheese sprinkled with flour, sow’s-vulva fried in oil or any of the other seventeen delicacies served that pass. The Queen’s favorites spoke at length and jested with the foreign ambassadors; the wits of Vapio engaged poor Dornan Ural, and challenged Lornof to several drinking-bouts; the tall Eglanders and strong-armed Rukorians debated the relative glories of their provinces’ respective military past, giving boast for vaunt like blows.
From time to time a damp cloud passed over the mountain-top, and chill northern winds pierced even the sheltering lower groves. Then the discourse and merriments dimmed while those ladies and lords with more elaborately styled wigs looked suspiciously to the lowering sky. But then the Charan of Vapio or Qhelvin of Sorne, in obedience to the Empress’s conceit, broke the mood with some scandalous pleasantry, and the buzzing and laughter would resume. And over it all, the Empress Allissál wore the mask of a studied pleasure, while her eyes were active.
At the close, the feasters wiped their fingers clean upon the special pieces of bread. Then the signal was given for the entertainment. First a troupe of Vapio dancers, one of the most famous in the Empire, performed several tableaux; and it was generally agreed that seldom had a finer or more skillful performance been seen. The diners applauded eagerly the scantily clad dancers, those tall youths with sinews like finely spun wire, and those girls lithe and lovely enough to have been nobly born. Their bare feet trod softly on the lush emerald lawn, all in perfect and cunning rhythm with the music of the players beyond the logia flowers. At the close, the chief youth and maiden came before the royal couch, before which they suddenly dropped to within a hand’s breadth to the ground; at which the Queen laughed, delighted and surprised. She gave them praise, and crowns of garlands with her own hands. The pair bowed with their fellows as one, and wandered among the couches beneath the ancient statues, there to receive gratefully the gifts and favors of the highborn. Avidly they accepted the draughts of exquisite cooled wine after their heated movements.
Yet for the old Master of Rhetoric, who followed the dancers, the applause was less than it might have been. For one thing, he was blind, which deformity was affront enough by itself; for another, the style of his Scertic robes was a good twenty years out of date. Seated upon a low stool before the Empress’s couch, and leaning with knotted hairy hands upon his ivory staff, the old man recited an ancient piece indeed: ‘Elna’s Wisdom’ as it was called, a heroic passage from the old Epic of the Bordakasha, known to every schoolchild. Allissál sat enraptured, for there was nothing she liked better than to hear of the heroic feats of her most famous ancestor; yet the younger nobles did not attempt to conceal their boredom – and among them was the Charan of Vapio.
He, stepping to the center of the lawn when the old man had but scarcely finished, bowed theatrically before Allissál. ‘Are we gathered here, your majesty,’ he said lazily, ‘to hear nothing better than dreary tales of death and earnest politicking? With your majesty’s permission, I shall render a more modern piece, which perchance will bear more meaning to the charanti, and especially the lovely charai here assembled.’
At this there was a marked rise in attention. Arstomenes nal Elagaryan let none of the city’s gossip escape him, from High Town to the low docks; his compositions were famous both for their subtle underside of meaning and the liberal allusions to real and well-known people with which he sprinkled them.
‘How could we refuse you, my lord,’ Allissál replied courteously enough, ‘when there is such popular demand? Yet we would ask you to keep your narrative something this side of the openly scandalous.’
‘Then to begin,’ he said, laughing insolently. ‘Once, when Goddess was young and God gave to Elna His sword of jade, and all the lands were undivided (as the formulae go), there was a certain high lady of the court: young and lovely, and consumed by such venereal fires that her husband, a dullard rarely if ever to home, was quite unable to quench them. So the lady took a lover; and not being satisfied with but one, took a second as well! Fie, lovely charai, are you all so insatiable in your lusts? And what are morals and public decency then, when even so respected a dame as our heroine, the model of her age, would greedily take on two bravos in addition to the husband who was her lawful share? Yet she would defend herself by saying she needed two lovers because she was of twin moods, and would choose between them as became her momentary mood. Pah, then: for I know of certain charai, including two who are ever to the forefront, whose moods must be changeable as the rainbow!’
‘Listen to them,’ the Chara Fillaloial said in an undertone to Qhelvin of Sorne. ‘The eagerness to solve Arstomenes's clues comes near to bursting them. Scandal and pleasure are all the highborn care for now.’
‘Her majesty is little pleased by it,’ answered Qhelvin.
‘That is but the result of her own youth and nature,’ said the reverend chara, shaking her head sadly. ‘Yet Arstomenes uses her as he will, and she but smiles and flatters him in return.’
‘Well, but that is only politics,’ said Qhelvin, looking at the Queen as if he measured her for a portrait. ‘She needs Vapio’s votes in the Council Hall.’
At that the sound of hoofbeats burst suddenly in the languid airs of the Gardens, and from up the shadowy avenues of the lower groves there broke upon the scene an armored horseman, sword held menacingly aloft, upon a neighing black warhorse. Arstomenes turned, for once in an awkward manner; while the foreign ambassador from Mersaline in the North rose to his feet with a loudly proclaimed oath. Three guardsmen started forward to protect the Queen. The horseman, however, was quicker. Laughing scornfully at the disorder he had wrought, he leaped from his steed’s back and ran directly for the royal couch. There, casting aside helmet and sword, he fell to one knee before the Queen’s feet.
‘Greetings, mother,’ he said casually.
The guardsmen, recognizing the youth, put up their lances and offered him the military salute. The Queen frowned, as if to scold; but the frown broke helplessly into a smile under her son’s look. She laughed, kissed him, and bade pour him wine.
Though the Prince Elnavis was but fifteen summers, his build and stature were already those of a man fully grown. The golden down upon his cheeks not yet stiff, he had held his own against many a veteran in mock combats staged in the Circus. He had been taught generalship by Ankhan of Ul Raambar, horsemanship by Klipsir of the Eglands, and swordsmanship by Ampeánor of Rukor. With kings and the sons of kings he had grown to manhood; and as for affairs with the gracious ladies of the court, it was said there were few wells at which he had not supped at least once.
Now he turned to face his people, youthful joy growing in his eyes. ‘Let us play the Blind Man’s Game!’ he proclaimed with a laugh.
The younger nobles approved the notion immediately. The men consented to be tied about the head with gauzy bandages, while the charai ran gracefully down into the groves of the lower terraces, laughing tauntingly as they went. After them stumbled the charanti to see who could catch whom – or who would allow herself to be caught by whom. The golden-haired prince, leading the men, did not hesitate a moment, but swiftly followed the trail left by the delightful Chara Ilal.
‘Very charming, to be sure,’ proclaimed Dornan Ural with a measured sternness at the side of the Queen. ‘But your majesty, is it fitting for the future sovereign of the largest nation of the world to occupy his time in mere playing of games? Were I king I should treat the office with a somewhat greater gravity.’
The High Regent stood rather shorter than the Queen, a balding man with a few gray hairs, two chins, and a round pot of a belly. His indelicate features, unsure manner and thick fingers all betrayed his low birth.
‘You may leave our son’s upbringing in our hands, High Regent,’ Allissál said with a smile, signing to the maidens to bind her sandals about her ankles. ‘Let him play: for well we know what it is like to be young and denied it. Besides, what could be more apt than a prince at games? What is kingship, after all, but a series of games – the Great Game, even? Yet did you not see whom the prince chose to pursue? Perhaps you should have undertaken this game yourself. And how is your intimate friend the Chara Ilal this pass?’
He flushed, looking away and rendering some reply, which Allissál had not quite the cruelty to make him repeat. But it was enough to assure her that her lady had suffered the penalty prescribed. ‘Is it any wonder that Elnavis grows wild at the sight of an uplifted skirt, when you yourself, his most trusted mentor, have been chasing after one of the most wanton charai of our court? Yet how does your good wife bear up under such a thing?’
Gracefully she linked her arm in his, smiling as she heard his stammered explanations and denials. She led him unattended through the clusters of conversing elder nobles, down to the groves below. He was reluctant to go that way; she laughed and compelled him.
When they were well into the spice-scented groves, they heard a startled, joyous giggle in a familiar voice issuing from beneath the fringes of a bush pruned in the shape of a rearing bandar, as of a lady who had allowed herself to be captured and was obviously enjoying every moment of it. The High Regent averted his blushing face, at which the Queen laughed.
‘Come, my good man, it’s only the Chara Fillaloial’s eldest daughter: surely you have seen her thus before? Yet if your maiden modesty is so overpowering, let us pass down the avenue somewhat. Now you may relate in confidence what you wished to tell us.’
‘Your majesty, how did you know I had something on my mind?’
‘Because there is so little else there, of course. An idea shines like lamplight here. Truly, sweet Dornan, if you wish to conceal such treasures you must either wear a cap, as the barbarians are said to, or adopt a wig.’
‘Oh, I have never liked the fashion of men wearing wigs, your majesty. They are too womanly for me. Or perhaps it is that they are too much of the fashion, and I am not a fashionable man. My father was bald, and never wore a wig. Yes, on the whole I lean toward this explanation. Perhaps it is merely my own humble origins, but I have never felt it wise to conceal what one lacks, but rather admit it in all honesty; for—’
‘A truly commendable policy in one who has so many opportunities to practice it,’ she said, drawing him closer. ‘Now, before it bursts through, perhaps you should tell us what is so stuffed into your dome.’
He began, ‘It has come to my attention, your majesty, that officials in charge of the city’s waterways have been derelict; some even having taken monies for repairs never effected. As a consequence the pipes beneath several streets have burst. I have walked there myself, not three streets from the Farusial amphitheater, and—’
‘Sewers!’ she burst out. ‘So this is what has been gleaming through that gray dome? Your abiding interest in the city sewers? Really, good Dornan, we are amazed how you can surprise us still!’
‘I would never have brought it to your majesty’s attention, except that it was my idea your majesty wished a greater hand in the governance of your Empire,’ he said, confused by her continued laughter. ‘Has your majesty not in the past demanded I consult you and his highness upon matters of state?’
‘Matters of state, yes: but sewers were not uppermost in our mind, good tutor! Suchlike are for clerks and slaves to mull over, not kings.’
‘Nothing in a kingdom should ever be below the notice of its sovereign. The sewers are indeed a matter of grave concern, your majesty. If these men have stolen from the Treasury, they should be made to repay the sums with interest. And if the waterways clog or break then, quite apart from the inconvenience and the odor, there is a danger to the public health. For in those pools of filth are breeding-grounds for noxious insects and vile diseases – of this I have been assured by the most prominent of physicians. And surely even so merry a wit as your majesty must admit it is no laughing matter to those who must live and work amid the filth, lowborn though they may be. Already my office is plagued with—’
‘No doubt, no doubt; yet peace, darling Dornan. Is this a speech you will give from the steps of your office? We are certain such matters are well within your proper domain; they are so trifling, after all. Can you imagine divine Elna worrying himself over sewers?’
‘Why, yes, I can imagine it. As I have often said, your majesty, there are many details of sovereignty of which both you and your son are in ignorance.’
‘And happily so, aged tutor. Yet now we grow weary of such exalted, if odorous, subjects. You may have leave to go. We will see you again at the next meeting of the High Council, and there you may regale us on sewers to your dear heart’s content.’
Alone now among those scentful trees, she took a turn or two more, smiling now at the memory of the High Regent’s words and manners. As she walked, the breezes played sport with the light fabric of her gown and the loose coiling tresses of gold about her brow and exquisite shoulders. From above, the melodies of the players stole faintly down; and behind her sounded a burst of excited laughter. She smiled wistfully, and resumed her solitary walking.
At length she came again to the open terraces, where the elder nobles were still conversing in little groups, about the latest performance at the Theater of Mersalis, the charan who had taken his own life after gaming away his estates, and the newest scandals of the High Charan of Vapio. The Queen passed by, acknowledging absently their salutations, to sit alone upon the royal couch. The maidens served her golden Delba wine, into whose depths she peered, until Qhelvin of Sorne, ascending from the lower walks, came up to bow before her. The Queen nodded, but kept her eyes within the limits of the cup, as if debating whether or not to take it; yet all her food was tasted.
‘How useless it all is,’ she muttered at length.
‘Yet it serves to cloak our true business,’ he answered, standing beside her so that she might have clear view of the lawn below. ‘And also offers us many opportunities to converse with the foreign ambassadors here in the open, the only truly hidden place in the court.’
‘And what is the mood of those ambassadors?’
‘Good, your majesty. Ampeánor will be pleased when he returns: I think things go well enough now, that we shall have all the secret pacts and treaties by the end of the winter. And Carftain alone might hold off the barbarian till then – or, if they do not, then surely Tezmon, fortified as the Charan intends to make it, will withstand them.’
‘Pray your words are prophecy,’ she sighed, gazing down to where the young couples were severally emerging with disarrayed robes from the lower walks. ‘Is it not lovely to see them enjoying themselves so happily?’
He regarded her lowered face for a moment in silence; then said, ‘They are like children playing in their parents’ bodies, your majesty. You are an Empress of the Bordakasha. And your son shall be king.’
She looked up, caught his eye, looked away. Only she took his hand in hers and pressed it. ‘Thanks, dear Qhelvin. Yet now it were better for us to be alone awhile.’
He bowed gracefully, kissed the elegant hand and returned again to the lawn. There the Chara Fillaloial greeted him, saying, ‘Her majesty was melancholy for a space, yet now looks every bit the Queen. Qhelvin, what was it you spoke to her of?’
‘Minor matters,’ he said, gazing at how the Queen sat, with her head uplifted, her elegant smooth throat bared, lips slightly parted and gray-blue eyes searching the unbounded sea of the heavens, like one thinking of a dear departed, or awaiting an arrival. ‘Still, I wish I had my brushes and my paints now.’
And while those gracious lords and ladies fell to their pleasures, far away across the Sea of Elna men swore and strove and fell bloodily to the earth, and yet another city fell to the barbarian armies of Ara-Karn.
