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.
Of Comedy and Kings
THE TWIN BLADES FLASHED brilliantly in the light of Goddess, kissing each other and dancing away under expert mastery. For a moment, the only sounds in the great hall were the rasp of blades and the whisper of sandals on the stone floor. Then with a flourish the Rukorian sword-dancer ended his exercise, to the appreciative applause of the guests.
‘Truly a beautiful performance.’ Arstomenes of Vapio sighed, returning his winecup to the serving table that the servants might bear it away. ‘Was it of your devising, my lord?’
‘The sword-dance is an ancient custom of Rukor,’ Ampeánor answered. ‘It is intended to better breathing and coordination and allow a man to sense his weapons as if they were mere appendages of his limbs. Thus he may know even in darkness just where the blades end.’
‘In the time of my father, every noble was taught the sword-dance,’ grumbled Farnese, High Charan of the Eglands. ‘It gave them discipline. Now I daresay Ampeánor is the only member of his generation to know the art.’
‘I know not of discipline,’ lazed Arstomenes, glancing over the weapons arrayed about the walls above their heads. ‘I was considering how alluring a lady would be engaged in such routines.’
‘Indeed, my lord, her majesty knows the swords,’ offered the Chara Ilal.
Arstomenes held her look; then insolently turned his eyes to the Queen. ‘Indeed, your majesty? Is what her ladyship says true?’
‘Only in part,’ the Queen answered shortly. ‘We do not know the dance.’
‘Oh, your majesty is too modest,’ dismissed the Charan of Vapio. ‘My lady Ilal, it seems you must serve in her majesty’s stead. Do you think you could learn the dance?’
‘I am certain I could, my lord. Yet one thing doubts me: you would not have me dressed so scantily?’ The Rukorian had worn only a length of linen wrapped about his loins to give his limbs the greatest freedom.
‘Oh, far more so.’ Arstomenes smiled. ‘Such loveliness as yours, Chara, belongs to all men.’
‘I think the Charan of Rukor would prefer her majesty in such a role,’ offered the Gerso Charan. Ampeánor, who had been regarding the Queen in secret, looked at him sharply, coloring.
‘I am sure we all would that’ – laughed Arstomenes – ‘meaning no slight upon your sweet charms, Chara. Chara Fillaloial, what would the ladies of your time have said to such a proposition?’
‘It would have depended on whether it were a public or a private one, my lord,’ replied that lady graciously, yet not without a flash of warning in her eyes.
‘Well, my lord? Which would you have proposed?’
Farnese regarded him as a gerlin would a serpent’s skin. ‘We did not make idle jests of our loves then, as the present generation sees fit to do.’ Stiffly he rose, with a cough raked up from his chest. ‘Ampeánor, your majesty, if you will forgive me, I should leave now.’
‘Of course.’ Ampeánor nodded, rising. ‘You need not have stayed even so long, my lord.’
‘I fear I too must depart,’ said Arstomenes, arising gracefully from his couch. ‘I have an appointment with the daughters of the Chara Fillaloial. It seems they owe me some gaming-debts.’ He flashed his gaze to the Chara Ilal, then lightly away.
‘You have our leave,’ said the Queen.
‘They were poor fools to fall in debt to you, my lord,’ said Ilal sweetly. ‘Be sure I would never make such an error.’
‘I much fear that if ever I set my dice against yours, Chara, it would be I who would end in debt.’
Ilal smiled, and rose as if to leave with him.
‘I must be going,’ Dornan Ural broke in awkwardly. ‘I must examine the tax-receipts before the sleep. Then upon the waking I must see the petitioners, and—’
‘If you would stay to give us the list of all your duties, High Regent, I fear none of us would ever depart.’ Arstomenes laughed. Theatrically he kissed the Queen’s hand. Several of the others likewise presented themselves, after which Ampeánor saw them to the door. There they exited into the gardened courtyard, where their litters awaited. The last to depart was Dornan Ural, following the overly grateful Lornof of Fulmine. The High Regent begged that Ampeánor would soon confer with him upon the taxes. ‘Things will shortly be in a sorry state. So far, I have been able to leave the reserves in the Citadel intact, yet that grows ever more difficult. And of all the other regents only you, my lord, seem to appreciate all I do, and are willing to share the labors.’
‘Certainly,’ Ampeánor agreed. ‘But I would rather speak of the wars. You promised us a free hand.’
‘And it shall be yours, my lord, within the limits of our present difficulties. I was glad to hear the case is hardly so desperate as at first glance it appeared. Postio has now beaten the barbarian back into the desert; I have heard the defeat was all but complete. So long as Rukorian warships control the Sea of Elna, Ara-Karn has no lines to his bases in the North. It should not be so difficult a matter to hold him in the wastes of the Taril, and there let him bake away. Ara-Karn will never reach so far as Tarendahardil.’
‘Not if we prevent it,’ Ampeánor replied. ‘The reports I have had from Postio were not so hopeful as the ones you seem to have received.’ The High Regent nodded absently, glancing out into the courtyard, and took his leave.
Ampeánor watched the last of his departing guests clambering into their sheltered litters in silence. What vain idle fools they were! He wondered that Farnese could bear them. He wondered that he himself could have suffered them through an entire meal. Gossip, love-intrigues, and scandal were all they cared for. The barbarians seemed so superior to them. Their vices at least were honest ones, and did not comprise the whole of their lives; nor did they seek to refine lechery and drunkenness into forms of art.
He turned away, holding the risen fury tight within himself. Instructing the servants that he and his remaining guests were not to be disturbed, he returned to the dining hall attended by a pair of trusted Rukorian lancers.
§
THROUGH THE BRONZE outer doors of the courtyard of the Hall of Rukor, the litters departed one by one. Dornan Ural, stepping down into the warm sunlit courtyard, hesitantly approached the Chara Ilal before she had stepped into her litter.
‘My lady,’ he said abruptly, ‘you enjoyed the feast?’
She looked at him piercingly, her long dark-lashed eyes sparkling with the slow fire of fine wine. ‘Wonderfully,’ she answered. ‘We had no such entertainment in provincial Vapio. After all, a sweating soldier doing his training exercises is not for the aesthetically indiscriminate.’
‘My lady, I wish you had not spoken so freely to the Charan of Vapio. It might damage your reputation.’
‘Oh?’ She laughed, her soft, painted breasts moving excitingly beneath the transparent gauze of her upper gown. ‘And what is my reputation to you, sir?’
‘It is just – just,’ he stammered, blushing; then stopped. ‘Would you – would you mind if I walked beside your litter?’
‘Why not? The streets are free enough, so long as you do not intend to join me within. I do not think my men could bear both our weights.’
‘Your pardon, my lady, but that is not just what I meant,’ he muttered, looking at the courtstones beneath her sandaled, jeweled toes. ‘It is just, that I thought – rather, I had hoped – that is, in the Gardens, once, you – and I—’
She burst out laughing. He looked up sharply, blushing. ‘Oh, Dornan Ural!’ She laughed helplessly. ‘Am I to be cursed with your devotions until the barbarians lay waste the city? Hearken then my champion, and learn: what I did, and said, in the Imperial Gardens last autumn, I was under strict commandment to perform. Her majesty ordered me to it as a punishment of my insolence, though I begged her choose some other task. Little did I dream that I should still be suffering under it half a year later! Henceforth, if you must continue to pay your addresses, give them to her majesty. She was behind it all.’ She slipped quickly into her litter and let fall the silk hanging to cut short the last of his stammered entreaties. The litter of the Charan of Vapio had long since departed. Swiftly her slaves lifted her and bore her from the yard.
Dornan Ural stood still, looking after her. Then he turned, and gazed up at the stone walls of the Hall of Rukor. He wrapped a corner of his cloak about his fist, turned and strode hurriedly out of the courtyard. Behind him the silent servants closed and barred the tall bronze doors.
§
‘WELL,’ said Fentan Efling dourly, ‘that was a fine dinner. But I’m at a loss to see what we have to celebrate.’
In the great central dining hall, the few remaining guests awaited their host’s return. In the time of Ampeánor’s father, this ancient hall had been the setting for scenes of the most unbridled indulgence, and had been festooned with vile tapestries, brutish mosaics, and the now-infamous frescoes of Jarili Melstath. Now those things were gone: and in their place was fixed a collection of weapons of hunt and war, knives, swords, lances, clubs, shields, throw-stones, helms and more, reputed to be the finest in the South – which is to say, the world.
‘It would have been merrier had Qhelvin been here,’ muttered Bistro. ‘How can you wonder all our work is stultified, now that he is dead?’
‘The petty principalities headed by Pelthar will never join us now,’ agreed Tersimio. ‘Delba is ours, but what good? Those cities are so near the fighting now, they are more likely to ask aid than provide it.’
‘And where does it all lead?’ swore Bistro. ‘Now that his highness is no more, all our labors will go for nothing unless the High Regent admits the threat of Ara-Karn. Can no one convince him?’
‘Perhaps he is convinced now,’ replied Fentan Efling. ‘Yet I will credit that only when he acts, and assigns to her majesty or the Charan of Rukor full war-making powers.’
‘For myself, I doubt any of our labors will mean anything now,’ said Kornoth. ‘The Pelthari ambassador has told me that the war is over, and Ara-Karn as good as slain.’
‘He will return,’ said the Queen, in such a tone that none would dare argue.
‘There has been no news from Postio since the tale they threw the barbarian back into the Taril; and that was too long ago,’ Bistro said. ‘And my lords, we were better to speak of Belknule here. What did the messenger say? “His Supremacy Yorkjax announces the death by impalement of several treasonous lords, who had been plotting with a foreign court to overthrow the rightful rulers of the sovereign state of Belknule.” And think not he failed to inform other cities of Tarendahardil’s part in it! That alone has set us behind where we were at the beginning!’
‘Something foul has been passing among the foreign ambassadors as well,’ said Fentan Efling. ‘Early autumn they were all smiles and openness; now they are just civil enough to see me, and regard my every word with distrust. Yet at winter’s end they were all in a panic over the news of Postio. At least when Qhelvin was alive he had them all tamed to his hand.’
‘Oh, enough of Qhelvin!’ snapped the Queen. ‘Can you not leave his spirit in peace?’
From the corner the Gerso, Ennius Kandi, laughed recklessly. ‘Well, for my part I thought it a most amusing party.’ The Queen gave him a fiery look, which he blandly returned; the others fell into an uncomfortable silence. It was in the face of this silence the Charan of Rukor and his attendants returned.
‘It’s clear what you have been discussing,’ he said. ‘Well, we must begin anew. If these intrigues, which ever seemed doubtful to me, promise poor harvest, we must look to the military side. There at least I have good news: Dornan Ural has just now confirmed to me that he is prepared to sign the documents naming me her majesty’s General. And my messengers have returned from Tezmon. Gen-Karn still holds the city, and has agreed to deal with us. In another month, we shall have the bow!’
The agents were unanimous in their congratulations upon this success; all but the Queen, who stood silent. Even Fentan Efling came near to a smile. After some further conversation a round of wine was drunk, and one poured for the blessing of dark God. Then they departed, each with some word of praise to Ampeánor. The last to go was the Gerso, who merely smiled ingenuously at the Rukorian’s hints, and went on looking at the weapons.
‘My lord, if you will excuse us,’ Ampeánor said at last, ‘her majesty and I—’
‘What, more secrets?’ asked the Gerso, his brow arched. ‘Or did your lordship have something other than business in mind?’
‘These are private matters,’ replied the High Charan, flushing to the neck. ‘Your majesty, will you not—’
‘Let him stay if he will, Ampeánor,’ she said shortly.
He sighed. ‘Very well. We only need arrange transferring the gold from the Citadel to the ship. Then I’ll sail for Tezmon.’
‘Why must it be you who goes?’ she asked.
‘My Queen, the barbarian will trust no one else. They are a moody, superstitious people. And I gave him my word. I cannot break it, even to such as him.’
‘Oh, certainly not,’ said the Gerso slyly.
‘My lord, I do not like your tone.’
‘Well, I like your parties,’ Ennius lazed in return. ‘I found the sword-dance especially enjoyable. I had the honor of instructing her majesty some small measure in those matters during the weeks we were together this past winter. I found her an extremely able and willing student.’
‘Cease this, both of you,’ Allissál ordered sharply. She walked back to the sunlit end of the hall, shivering a bit at the chill in the stones, feeling the long skirts brush uncomfortably against her legs. She had been more at ease in the soft leather hunting breeks. Riding down off the snow-clad roof of the world, she had found the lowlands already bursting with spring. Yet somehow it had only dismayed her. Even intermitted with sea-breezes, the heat oppressed her. The heavy scents of the innumerable blossoms of the Imperial Gardens only cloyed and sickened. Ennius had changed, becoming wilder, more reckless and savage. She sighed bitterly. Nothing had been right since her return.
‘My Queen,’ said Ampeánor softly beside her, ‘this is the chance for which we have waited so long. With Gen-Karn occupying her, Tezmon is more secure than either Armand or I could have made her. If Ara-Karn did not attack the city during the winter, it was because he dares not. It would mean the end of his grand alliance. It is his only weakness. I should depart as soon as possible.’
She turned from him, seeking another corner.
‘Allissál, will you not give me leave to depart?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
What was it, she wondered, that set her so on edge? Why did she ask such questions when she knew the answer full well?
‘My Queen, can you not see I must go?’ She glanced back. Ennius stood examining the weapons at the far dark end of the hall. She relented a bit. ‘Why must it be you who goes? You will be needed here, when Dornan Ural confirms your appointment as our General Extraordinary. Tezmon is a clouded city. I do not want to lose you again, Ampeánor. Cannot Ferrakador go in your stead? Surely he can be trusted.’
‘My Queen, I have given my word.’
‘Let him go,’ said the Gerso. ‘Can your majesty not see he is set upon his little jaunt? All little boys have their dreams of glory. My lord, do not fear her majesty will be bored while you are away; perhaps I may have the pleasure to instruct her in more variations on the art of swords. In the meantime, I am sure you will have your fun – what was it you told us of these nude slave-girls Gen-Karn keeps about him?’
Ampeánor swung on his heel and strode the length of the hall, bristling. ‘My lord, I think you were best to watch your filthy tongue,’ he said in tones of ice. ‘Qhelvin is no longer here to champion your cause.’
‘That reminds me,’ said the Gerso. ‘I have a gift for you.’
‘For me?’ Ampeánor asked, startled.
‘Yes, I left it with your servants when I arrived. If you would be so good to call them…’
The summoned servants bore in a long package and leaned it against a wall. The Gerso, with the same faint smile, approached it, and removed its black wrappings.
‘My portrait!’ Allissál exclaimed.
It was indeed that painting over which Qhelvin of Sorne had labored so long. The woman in the portrait, imperial, ideal, infinitely desirable, shone like a splash of gold against the gray stone of the walls. Ampeánor regarded it wordlessly, dazzled.
‘How did you come by it?’ she asked. ‘We thought it had been lost.’
‘It was my secret,’ Ennius replied easily. ‘Qhelvin gave it to me just before he died.’
‘But it is unfinished.’
He smiled into her eyes. ‘Perhaps he had a premonition of his death.’
Ampeánor still stood before it in silence, hearing none of their words.
‘Well, my lord, how does it please you?’ murmured the Gerso in his ear. ‘Is she not exquisite? I thought Qhelvin inspired so to leave just the one shoulder bare to view, enticing us with a maddening desire to see what other glories must lie beneath the gown. Perhaps you can take it with you on this heroic voyage of merchantry. I felt I could spare you the painting, possessing the woman in the flesh.’
Ampeánor broke his stare at the painting, looked up and struck him on the mouth.
The Gerso shrugged, smiling still, and gestured to the weapons on the wall. ‘Well, my lord, if you insist…’
‘Cease this, both of you!’ Allissál commanded. She had not heard what words Ennius had poured into Ampeánor’s ears, but had seen his manner. ‘We forbid this petty quarreling. Have you both forgotten the larger affair we are engaged in? Was Qhelvin’s death not enough of a setback? We cannot afford so much as a wound between you. Are you both mad?’
‘There was no reason to fear a wound here,’ Ampeánor said, his face pale as dried grass. ‘This Gerso is too much in the habit of running from battles.’
‘Charan, did you not hear us?’ she said icily. She walked to the couches and wearily sat down. ‘Well, if you cannot be dissuaded, we will permit you to go to Tezmon once again, though it displeases us greatly. Yet we insist that you bring enough men to protect you against any possible treachery on this barbarian’s part.’
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘What if I take our Gerso along with me?’
Ennius’s dark flashing eyes widened. ‘I, my lord?’
The charan barked a harsh, short laugh. ‘I believe it would be prudent. Gerso, you are not afraid to meet the barbarian face to face, are you? It is not treachery from Gen-Karn I fear, but from a rather closer source.’
‘What is this of treason?’ she demanded angrily. ‘Ampeánor, explain yourself.’
‘Very well. I had meant to speak of this in private, lest I offend any of our loyal friends, who have left. At the end of last summer, the formation of the League was a thing assured by the end of winter latest. Now all our work has come undone. Orolo, the ambassadors, now Belknule. Why?’
‘Because Elnavis died, and I myself broke the negotiations in my grief,’ she said flatly. ‘And later Qhelvin was murdered by thieves in the lower quarters. Ampeánor, I do not like this talk of treason.’
‘I would hear from our friend here on the matter,’ he said. ‘Surely so clever a man has likewise perceived this?’
Ennius smiled lazily, and resumed his examination of the weapons on the walls. ‘You have a fine collection here, my lord,’ he said amiably. ‘This, for example, looks interesting. Are you aware of what it is?’ In his hands he held a murderous broad knife of polished black stone, honed and chipped to the sharpness of a silk-cutter’s knife.
‘It is supposed to be the sacrificial dagger of the Madpriests. That is what they plunge into the breasts of their naked female victims in the Death-Rite of Conjugation; the Book of Skhel has all the details. It is very old and valuable: be careful what you do with it. You have not answered me, Charan Ennius Kandi of Elsvar in Gerso. What think you of this traitor?’
‘Oh,’ he said casually, ‘I am sure that if there is a traitor among us, the Charan of Rukor will find him out in time. Yet, my lord, beware, lest he should find you first.’
‘And will you be so brave as to go with me to Tezmon?’
‘I will come,’ the Gerso answered carelessly, snapping the blade back into its scabbard on the wall.
The Queen sighed her relief. ‘Now let us have some wine, to pray for success,’ she said.
Ennius looked at her oddly. ‘Whose?’ he asked.
§
AT LENGTH Dornan Ural arrived at his hall, which sat upon the edge of High Town, atop a steep slope too precipitous for building, overlooking the lower quarters of the great City. It was his office and his home.
He opened a little door set into the stone wall and entered the little garden in the rear courtyard. It was his refuge away from the court, the officials, his labors and his troubles. His eyes wandered over the neat dirt rows of the plantings he had made this spring, of his vegetables and home-spices. One row had sprouted weeds – he stooped, and plucked them up. The weeds were already in flower, their purple and golden-streaked petals things of beauty. But they stole the virtue of the soil, and one could not eat blossoms. Dornan Ural wiped his coarse fingers upon the hem of his robes and went upon the stoa, whose cool recesses were striped with the shadows of the many pillars.
There he stopped. His wife had emerged, dressed in a bright green lora.
‘Greetings, Khilivirn,’ he said.
She eyed him in return. ‘Greetings. I had not expected you so soon. How went Ampeánor’s feast to welcome back her majesty?’
‘Were you going out?’
‘Yes, there is to be a tragedy performed at the Tarinx theater, with Baring Ghyl in the lead. My head feels better now.’
‘And where are my sons?’
‘Where but the gaming-dens of the Vapionil? Or if not there, they will be at Rina’s house with the rest of their cup companions.’
Dornan Ural nodded. Rina’s was his sons’ favorite couching house. He could well imagine the bills that would later be presented to him. Dornan Ural watched his wife as she entered the litter the slaves had brought forth. Fifteen years he had been married to the Chara Khilivirn now: since the first year of his term as High Regent. She had been the daughter of an impoverished charan of Fulmine; he had been wealthy, and wished a wife to oversee his sons. Her blood and standing in the old court were to have won Dornan Ural’s acceptance among the charanti of Tarendahardil.
Within the house, his clerks attended him, their wax pads and styli at the ready. Others held the parchments-racks filled with the tax lists of this year. But Dornan Ural shook his head, dismissing them. ‘I cannot attend to work now,’ he said wearily. Surprise and concern were large in their eyes as the clerks departed.
Dornan Ural passed on silently through the house. He came to the forward section and stood in an archway opening on a great hall, its floor dirty from the tread of thousands of poorly shod feet. Once, in the time before Dornan Ural, this had been the banqueting hall of an idle aristocracy who had spent their creditors’ last denas in brutish festivities before drinking venomed wine. Now it served as Dornan Ural’s hall of audience. Here he saw the petitioners, ambassadors, dignitaries and many officials of the huge Empire he administered. There, might have stood poor men in patched cloaks, complaining of the injustices of great lords; there, the insolent nobles in their litters, protesting that the High Regent’s men had again intruded upon the prerogatives of the highborn. Along the walls Imperial Guardsmen would be positioned, ready to keep order and enforce the will of Dornan Ural. All eyes would be upon him as he made his entrance, and all hands out-reached to him. And he, tireless and vigilant, would sit before them and hearken to the petitions one after another, with a hundred wearying decisions great and petty to be adjudicated and enacted.
When Dornan Ural had assumed the Regency, the state had been in debt some three hundred and seventy thousand silver denas, and there had been jests upon all men’s tongues about the corruptness of the Seven Ranks of Imperial officials. Now in the treasure in the depths of the Citadel were a hundred thousand denas of gold; and twelve new laws had been enacted to curb the excesses of the Imperial tax-gatherers. The pestilential swamps of Faliaril in Fulmine had been drained, and replaced with fertile farmland. Seven thousand fastces of new roads, three new dockyards, and twenty-five new public buildings had been designed and constructed, at costs less than anyone but Dornan Ural had expected. He had traveled the roads of the provinces a dozen times. He had labored while others slept, heard petitions while others ate, and regarded the public good as if it had been his best-beloved son. In all those years, he had received nothing in return, not even so much as a word of thanks; while in the meantime all men spoke with wonder and desire of the Divine Queen’s beautiful hair, and Elnavis grew to become the people’s darling. What were you then, Dornan Ural, what have you ever been, but a servant? O Dornan Ural, was your father granted his freedom so that his son should become a slave?
Slowly, with the heavy weary movements of an old man, Dornan Ural emerged from the shadow of the archway. At the far end of the hall a chair stood upon a dais of marble. Beside the chair was a low desk strewn with a bundle of furled parchments and one unfurled. The chair was a plain and simple wooden chair, not half so large or ornate as the seats in the hall of the Council of Regents. It was the modest chair of a man whose authority needed no imposing props. It was the chair of Dornan Ural, High Regent of Tarendahardil in the name of her majesty Allissál nal Bordakasha.
The first time Dornan Ural had beheld the Queen, he had stood upon the altar before the Hall of Kings. Before him had been the High Priestess of Tarendahardil, and around him had stood all the noble houses, and below him all the populace and the foreign dignitaries gathered in the square. The High Priestess held the holy symbols, and looked him sternly in the eyes. It was the finest moment of his life. He was to speak the Oath before Goddess, undertaking to uphold the good of Tarendahardil and the interests of the last member of the Imperial house, Goddess incarnate, the daughter of the man his father had loved and worshiped, who had granted his father his freedom. And thinking this, Dornan Ural had stolen a brief glance at his charge, the mysterious princess raised in seclusion, about whom there was such speculation. None else could see her then: she was to be revealed when the Oath had been uttered. She smiled at Dornan Ural, lovely beyond telling for one so young: then thrust out her tongue and made a face. It had so unnerved him he had thrice stammered the Oath before he could repeat it properly, a thing some took as an unpropitious omen, but most took as the occasion of many a jest and sarcastic reference. Never had Dornan Ural forgotten that moment, or the shame that had burned within him throughout all the subsequent ceremonies.
He burned even now as he stepped closer to the dais. From without, sounds of revelry distantly entered the huge, barren hall, part of the welcoming festivities he had ordered for the Queen.
Ever since that first meeting, Dornan Ural had thought of her as a mere child, wayward and spirited, but harmless in her play. He had not minded her jests and malice, for children would have their games, and must be smiled upon and guarded from their follies. Now, this very waking, he had learned she was a woman after all, and could wound with a woman’s strength. And now – Dornan Ural cast his eyes up and over the high ceiling of the hall; and at length his eyes came to rest again upon the little chair, as if it were a charm upon them.
‘And now,’ he murmured very softly and gently, as a single dark tear gathered in the corner of his eye, ‘and now, I must resign my office. Someone else must be High Regent of Tarendahardil.’
There was a silence in that hall upon the speaking of those words. Was as if all the assembled multitudes of petitioners who stood behind the bowed back of Dornan Ural, but existed only in his memory, had been utterly taken aback.
‘It is clear enough they never wanted me to hold it,’ he continued. ‘I did not even desire it myself. The great lords all clamored for it, but not I. And the dying Emperor chose me, because he knew my worth and had loved my father; but also because he distrusted the ambitions and the loyalties of all those great ones. While there would never be any danger that Dornan Ural, the son of one of the Emperor’s lowly freedmen, would attempt to usurp Imperial power. Oh, no! And the gracious and noble charanti, after bickering with and checking one another, finally assented for the same cause: I, with the blood of slaves in my veins, would never pose any threat to their own interests. Ask them now, why don’t you, if Dornan Ural would not hesitate to oppose them in the name of justice! Ask her divine majesty, if there is not a head on the shoulders of Dornan Ural, or if he merely carries out the foolhardy schemes of her girlish fancies!
‘No,’ he said, his voice ringing loudly off the stones of the hall, ‘I shall not resign! And if she loses a bit of her precious Empire, then let it not be said that wanton monarchs may disport without cost. Will they have their pleasures and their jests? Then let her and her noble lover laugh at this jest of mine.’
Dornan Ural turned, and faced the hall, and with the greatest dignity took the wooden arms firmly in his hands and seated himself in the chair. By now, that little chair had come to know well the shape of Dornan Ural. Upon the desk at his right hand were the bundle of furled parchments and the one lying open.
Thereon it was granted the High Charan of Rukor the office of General Extraordinary in the Queen’s name, with all war-making powers to raise and arm troops, and order them in the field.
The High Council had agreed to it, and all the forms were properly observed. Now that scrip of parchment required only the seal of Dornan Ural as High Regent and Administrator of the Seven Ranks, and the Empire nal Bordakasha should be at war with Ara-Karn.
Dornan Ural took up the parchment in his coarse hands, and slowly tore it down the middle.
