Hub did nothing except by ritual and tradition. The imperor’s partner was expected to reserve certain especial dances for each of the consuls, and Marshal Ithy, and some others. Inos danced with Rap and no one intruded on a sorcerer.
But even a sorcerer could not stop the sunrise. Unbelieving, she saw candles guttering in the chandeliers and weary footmen hauling back drapes to let the sickly light of morn seep through high windows. The floor was almost empty. Red-eyed musicians held the last fading chord of the final dance. Where had the time gone? She could have danced forever.
All over the hall, the couples were closing the evening with the traditional embrace. She held out her arms to Rap and lifted her lips to be kissed.
He backed off. “Rap!”
He shook his head wildly. “Rap, kiss me!”
“No!” he shouted. “No!” Then he lowered his voice to a sob. “Oh, Inos! Do you think I wouldn’t if I dared?”
“Tell me!” she said, moving toward him. “You’re a sorcerer! You overcame the strongest of the warlocks! Who are you afraid of ?”
He gulped. “You!”
“No!”
“No. Me!”
And he was gone, vanished. Plop.
Rap! How could he be so callous? Stunned, Inos walked to the door alone, and there found Kade. Kade, haggard with exhaustion. Kade who should have gone off to bed hours ago.
Kade who held her as she started to weep.
5
She met him again on Winterfest Day.
The bells were ringing, and she was accompanying the imperor to church. The morning was all faded to gray, sky and earth grown old together, and the towers of the White Palace in the distance were pearly-white ghosts. Frost flakes hung glinting everywhere, as if the air had frozen around them to hold them up. Stones and the stark, bare trees were pale with rime.
The only color left in the world was in the long procession winding across the cobbled court, ladies and gentlemen in their high-collared cloaks and soft plumed hats. Reds and greens and gold shimmered when everything else was white. The spectators were few, drab and muffled. Most folk were already at worship, or else home with their families this day, preparing whatever feast their means could supply. Anyone who chose to hang around the palace and watch the gentry on Winterfest had something missing from his life.
Inos was well back in the parade, being squired by the adoring Tiffy. His spurs clinked softly with every step. Kade and Senator Epoxague walked just ahead, and the royal family at the front had already passed through a columned arcade and entered the church. The bells pealed joyously, the frosty air sparkled, and sometimes tiny snowflakes tickled her eyelashes. In her mind she was rehearsing all the prayers she would make. For Rap. For Krasnegar. For wisdom and courage and dedication to make a good ruler. For the strength to trust in love. But especially for Rap, whatever troubled him so.
As she drew near the ancient arches, she knew he was there. Two words of power had brought her no occult abilities that she knew of, so what she felt was a sending from Rap.
She peered, this way and that, and finally located the solitary figure by one of the great weathered pillars.
She murmured an apology to Tiffy and reinforced it with the most beguiling smile she could muster. On him her smiles were hot coals on butter. Then she scurried away from the procession, holding her cloak tight against the cold, clasping its high collar up to protect her ears. She rounded the pillar.
Rap was leaning against it, arms folded, watching her with no expression that she could read. He was back to artisan work clothes, but spurning both coat and hat—a sorcerer’s ears would never freeze. His hair had recovered its moorland look, and the stupid goblin tattoos disfigured his eyes again.
“You called me!”
He nodded, looking surly. “Wondered what you thought you were doing.”
“I was going to go and worship the Gods.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” His voice was bitter as alum.
Oh, Rap! “I think you should explain that remark.” He curled his lip. “Sorcerers play games with mundanes. The wardens play games with nations. What do you think the Gods do for amusement?”
She had never heard such rank blasphemy in her life, and for a moment it took her breath away. “You met a God!” Rap said, his voice rising.
The church doors thumped closed . . .one! . . . two! The bells had stopped ringing. The knots of spectators were wandering away from the gray and white yard.
“They told me to trust in love,” she said.
“And what did that mean? You didn’t know, did you? Andor, you thought. Then Azak, you thought. Now Rap, you think. `Yes, he is only a common coachman, but the Gods have given me special dispensation—’ “
“It meant that I must rescue you from the fire, my lad.”
He shrugged. “Did it? You’re still not sure. Not certain. You don’t think an ambiguous command may reflect on the competence of the commander? Or reflect on Their sincerity, maybe? Cause a little confusion and watch the fun, perhaps?”
“Rap, you stop this! I won’t listen!”
He shrugged again. She spoke quickly, before he could. “You told me you were only a mage, but the next morning you were a sorcerer. Where did you get that fourth word, Rap?”
“Can’t tell that.”
“Kade told me where you got the third word, and I saw you get a fifth, but where did you get your fourth? You begged a word from me, but I didn’t have one. Who else had a word to share, Rap? What did you pay for that word?”
He flinched, and her suspicions swelled to horror. “Bright Water!” she whispered.
“Nonsense!”
“I think so! Maybe not one of her own, but she made sure you got one. She’s very fond of that goblin monster, and—”
Rap shook his head and her tongue stopped like a balking horse.
“She had nothing to do with it! Not that I know of. Yes, Little Chicken did. But don’t worry about that.”
“Tell me what you paid for that word]” she shouted, banging her fist against the frosted stone of the pillar. There was no one else in sight now. “How can a goblin torture a sorcerer unless the sorcerer agrees to be—”
“That’s true.” For the first time a faint hint of a smile touched Rap’s eyes. “And probably not even then. I’d find it awfully hard not to lose my temper when he began breaking things.”
Relief! That nightmare had haunted her for weeks.”It isn’t going to happen then? The third prophecy?”
“Not prophecies—I told you. But, no, I don’t think it is. It isn’t quite, absolutely, completely certain, and you mustn’t talk about it with Little Chicken if you see him. But no, I don’t think he’s going to insist. Never mind that! When do you want to go to Krasnegar?”
“ ‘Insist?’,” she queried.
“Forget Little Square-Eyes! When do you want to go to Krasnegar, and what are you going to do when you get there?”
“What do you advise?”
“You want to be queen, then you’ve got to learn to make your own decisions.”
“Rap!” Inos said crossly. “Stop playing silly games. You’ve been there?”
He nodded, looking just a tiny bit shamefaced. “I’ve glanced around. No one saw me.”
“Then report. You can’t expect me to decide when I don’t know the situation.”
He pulled a face. “It’s worse than I thought at first. This Greastax is just a young lout—he even looks like a younger version of Kalkor. His `men’ are mostly not much more than boys. Greastax is no thane, and the whole thing was an irregular prank. He heard about the inheritance, took a ship, and came to claim it in his brother’s name.”
“What would Kalkor have said?”
“Said?” Rap scoffed. “He’d.have slaughtered the lot of them for impudence.”
“How many?” she asked, trying to remember Krasnegar in winter dark, when the streets were choked by drifts and peat was precious as gold, when fresh air was deadly and white bears might roam the harbor.
“Greastax and forty.”
“Holding the whole town?” What sort of sheep did she have for subjects? “Boys, you said? And only forty-one of them?”
Rap shook his head. “It’s easy to laugh, Inos. But you’re not there. You have no wife and children, no sisters and parents. Some of the Nordlanders have died, yes. just youths, but they’re big, and they’re armed, and they are ruthless! The imps took away all the weapons, and these young brutes came sailing in the next day. They kill any man who talks back. Six or seven of them stirred up more than they could handle and died, but then the others slew babies and burned houses in retribution.”
It seemed all wrong that so few could tyrannize so many, but Krasnegar had no history. of any warfare worse than barroom brawling. As long as the invaders were armed and united and the citizens were neither, then resistance would mean suicide or the massacre of innocents. She could see that when she remembered how Kade had been used against her in Arakkaran.