More dignitaries and important guests continued to arrive, standing then in despondent talk, grumbling about the unruliness of the common herd. Many of them seemed disheveled, their opulent cloaks fussed and rumpled.
Inos stood as close to Azak as she ever dared get, ignoring the curious stares being directed at the two of them, wondering how the paint on her face was holding up. Eigaze was pale and oddly taciturn, Epoxague was smiling and nodding to acquaintances—yet discouraging conversation and the obvious curiosity about his astonishing djinn companion. Pages circulated with refreshments.
An hour or so dragged by and noon was nigh when a fanfare announced the arrival of the regent. Inos forgot her troubles and watched in growing excitement. The limp figure in the carrying chair was obviously the old imperor himself, a wasted hank of cloth and bone, and now Inos understood Eigaze’s disgust. That pitiful relic should be dying in peace somewhere, in a comfortable bed. She wondered if he was being deliberately abused to hasten his end, but just to pose the question would be sedition.
And then came the royal family, led by Regent Ythbane himself. He was short and lean and paleskinned. His cloak was of purple velvet, trimmed with ermine, spangled with imposing orders and bright sashes. There were enough miscellaneous jewels in his osprey-plumed hat to qualify it as a crown. He moved with a studied grace, nodding and smiling to the courtiers’ bows. Even at a distance, Inos felt his charm and his authority. When he reached the inner slope of the bank and was visible to the crowd, he stopped and stood at attention for the imperial anthem. The ensuing cheer sounded thin from so large a congregation.
Princess Uomaya was a disappointment, running to plumpness, almost blowzy. She also was decked out in purple, but it did not flatter her complexion and she was not wearing the garments as well as their cut deserved. Ten years ago she might have been a wondrous beauty, or even five years ago; but she had let her face sag into a permanent expression of defeat and resentment.
The small boy with them was whey-faced and puny, his legs thin as broomsticks within his hose. He was strangely subdued and much less interested in events than seemed right for a child of his years. Now Inos saw why Eigaze had called him a “poor little prince.” Uomaya had a chair beside the throne, the boy stood on the regent’s other side, staring out blankly at the empty field.
Obviously the marquis had passed the message, for Ythbane was barely seated before his eyes searched out the senator. They narrowed ominously at the sight of the djinn.
A curly-haired page came running to Epoxague, who nodded to Azak and began working his way through the throng. Inos followed with her heart starting to pump. Every girl in Pandemia dreamed of being presented at the imperor’s court one day. She had been no exception, but she had always visualized the kindly old imperor in a great shiny ballroom, not this muddy grass and a substitute who seemed to be half regarded as a usurper, seated on a rather ugly thing of gilded wood under a low-slung leather canopy.
The closer courtiers reluctantly made way for the arrivals. Ythbane’s face was dark with suspicion. “Senator! We were advised that you had something important to tell us?” The accompanying expression was warning that it had better be good.
“Your Imperial Highnesses!” Epoxague bowed to the regent and then to his wife. The onlookers watched him with calculating eyes. “First, I have the honor to present a distant relative, who arrived at my house unexpectedly last night—his Majesty Azak ak’Azakar ak’Zorazak, Sultan of Arakkaran.”
Azak removed his hat in impish style, but then he doubled over in one of his djinn gymnast’s bows. The regent flushed angrily. “An emissary, your Eminence? This is neither the time nor the place!”
Epoxague, Inos noted with surprise, was nervous. “No, your Highness! His Majesty visits the City of the Gods merely to invoke the Right of Appeal to the Four.”
Ythbane was clearly surprised, and yet perhaps relieved that his war was not imperiled. He glanced at some of the onlookers—advisors, likely—and then made a fast decision. “That right is enshrined in our oldest traditions, your Majesty.” He relaxed his frown. Epoxague had dropped a hint earlier that a mere regent might enjoy boosting his personal prestige by showing how he could invoke the great occult council. Perhaps that calculation was going on now in Ythbane’s obviously quick wits. “We shall enjoy hearing of your petition very shortly. If it meets the requirements of the Protocol, then we shall fulfill our ancient responsibilities and facilitate your suit.”
And then he noticed Inos. No djinn, she! His eyes narrowed again.
“`First’, you said, Senator?”
“Second, your Majesty. . .” Epoxague drew a deep breath and glanced around as if to make sure than Inos was still there and had not been magically transported to some far corner of the world. “Your noble predecessor was badly misinformed. This lady is the wife of Sultan Azak, Sultana Inosolan of Arakkaran . . .”
Ythbane began to shape a formal smile, and stopped abruptly.
“. . .and also a distant relative of mine . . . and also the rightful Queen Inosolan of Krasnegar.”
“You are joking!” the regent said flatly.
“I fear not, your Majesty. She is, as you can see, very much alive. Reports of her death appear to have been ill-founded.”
The regent, his wife, the courtiers within earshot . . . stunned silence . . . shocked glances . . . Ythbane was the first to recover. “Can you prove your claim, ma’am?”
Inos rose from her curtsy and faced him squarely. “I will make it before the wardens, should your Highness so desire. Or before any other sorcerer who can detect falsehood.”
Ythbane’s lips moved in silence. Then he turned his head and bellowed, ”Ambassador Krushjor!”
An elderly, massive jotunn shouldered his way through the crowd. He wore a metal helmet and a long fur cape, clasped at the throat and gaping to display the silver-furred chest below it . . . Nordlanders spurned shirts. His blue eyes were blazing with fury.
“Your Highness?”
“Thane Kalkor must be advised that there is a third claimant to the throne of Krasnegar.”
The jotunn put his fists on his hips and the cloak gaped wider to reveal a jewel-encrusted belt buckle and crude leather breeches. “The Reckoning must proceed. Once a challenge has been uttered, there is no way to withdraw it.”
Ythbane’s pale cheeks flushed again. “But Duke Angilki may very well wish to recant his claim.”
“He made it falsely. He must suffer the consequences. “
Epoxague said, “But . . .” and then fell silent.
The regent turned to look at the vast crowd ringing the field. It was growing impatient, its voice a menacing undertone of anger, like some restless sea monster wakening in the deeps.
And at that moment a man in a red cloak emerged from one of the tents and raised a trumpet to his mouth.
“Stop him!” the regent shouted.
“I can’t and you can’t!” the ambassador said. “With all due respect, your Highness, here you are merely another spectator at a sacred ceremony.”
The brazen notes of the challenge came drifting over the campus, and the crowd noise died. The mounted patrol cantered to the far end of the field, then lined up to watch the action.
Ythbane shot a glare of fury at Inos, and she stepped back hurriedly. The senator took her elbow and led her aside. He looked shaken. “Didn’t work!” he whispered.
“I am sorry,” she whispered. “Your kindness has brought you trouble.”
He shook his head angrily and muttered, “Never mind now.”
The Reckoning was going ahead. Was that good news or bad news for Krasnegar?
Everyone was watching the field. Another man emerged from the other tent to repeat the process. Red cloak flapping in the wind, he blew an answering refrain. Then they both stepped back inside.
“Is this what you saw in the casement?” Azak whispered, somewhere above and behind Inos. “Roughly.” Why was there no rain, though? The sky was dull enough, but in the prophecy there had been rain falling.
The two contestants emerged simultaneously, each wearing only a fur wrapped around his loins. Kalkor was too far off for Inos to recognize, but his silvergold hair and pale bronze skin were unmistakably jotunnish. The other was grotesquely bulky, with skin of a muddy mushroom shade, and he seemed to have a woolly beard, although she could not be certain at that distance. It was only when she compared him to the spectators on the banks nearby that she saw he was a giant, as meaty as an ox and perhaps even taller than Azak.
Behind the two contenders, the attendants reappeared, each bearing an ax. A painfully angular lump grew in Inos’s throat as she watched the ritual of transfer. She had foreseen Kalkor’s part of this ceremony in the magic casement’s vision.