It felt much better than killing Kalkor.
“And who is that young man?” The imperor was alert enough to see that he must be important. Ythbane was beyond speech, and some anonymous courtier answered for him. “He is a sorcerer, your Majesty.”
“Ah.” He seemed to understand instantly. “What day is this?”
Someone told him, but Rap’s attention was distracted by Inos’s aunt, who came pushing through the crowd to him, shoving roughly, making up in determination what she lacked in size. Her kindly face was ashen with worry.
“Master Rapt Is this your doing?”
“It is, ma’am!” He wanted to laugh aloud at the consternation he had created. Pompous parasites! The look on the regent’s face . . .
The princess wailed. “But isn’t that a violation of the Protocol, using magic on the imperor?”
“And if it is?” Rap demanded, his anger flaring again.
She cringed back, .a frightened little old lady. “Rap!” Inos had arrived also, looking even more worried than her aunt. “You didn’t!”
“I certainly did!” He lowered his voice. “And I don’t care! They’re going to burn me for killing Kalkor, so now they can burn me in a good cause. You don’t prefer that horrid little merman regent do you?” He had gotten loud again. Oh, well . . .
“Rap! You idiot!”
“Who are you calling an idiot?”
Inos stamped her foot, but wet turf was not satisfying for foot stamping. ”You, of course, you idiot! Blundering nitwit! Numbskull! Clown!”
“Oh? And who are you to criticize? Who went and jumped into marriage with a man who gives her gooseflesh when he—”
Rap bit his tongue. The big djinn was following his wife through the crowd, dodging his fancy hat around the water-loaded bulges of the awning. He had heard and he was not very pleased. Other people were listening, also, and they looked both scared and amused at the same time.
They could surely see the anger in Inos’s scorching glare, well matching her angry words. What they would not see was the underlying fear, which was much stronger, although it was not fear for herself. At the moment she was only concerned about Rap. She was far more worried about him violating the stupid Protocol than she was about the way he’d cured her husband’s curse and made her marriage possible—and yet she really didn’t want to be married to the djinn at all, since even the thought of kissing him nauseated her. So at the same time as she was shouting names at Rap, her face was sending him different messages altogether. It was very confusing, even for a sorcerer. It could be mind-smashing wonderful if there was any future to it.
But it didn’t go anywhere. He was doomed, and she would just have to adjust to married life. Her husband could touch her now and obviously intended to do so immediately.
As Azak put a hand on her shoulder, Inos flinched but did not look around. The signal her eyes were sending to Rap became a plea for help and rescue, even while she continued to shout insults at him.
“You always were a blundering chucklehead! Gullible, Rap! That’s what you are! You never would think out what other people really wanted. You always accepted anything anyone said and took it at face value . . . No one else could ever possibly believe for one minute that the wardens would ever punish anyone for killing that Kalkor horror! In fact, that’s obviously what Warlock Zinixo meant last night and the reason why they wouldn’t listen to the regent then, because they wanted you to go ahead and kill Kalkor. But you couldn’t see that! Oh, no! You had to go and slap them in the face by meddling with the imperor and no one’s allowed—”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about! Wardens eat sorcerers!” She hadn’t been to Faerie and she didn’t understand the politics.
“Eat them?” Inos said blankly, stopping her tirade to breath a little.
“They give their words to a votary and then kill them. Do you think they’re going to pin a medal on me?”
She pulled free from Azak’s grip and lurched at Rap in fury, trying to pound at him with her fists. “Then what are you waiting around here for? Go away, you idiot! Run! Run!”
He took hold of her wrists and she was helpless. No sorcery required. He lowered his hands so she was pulled against his chest. “It won’t do,” he said softly.
She looked up at him in dismay. “Not do! why? What?”
He shook his head: too long to explain. Her face was very close to his. Red lips. Green eyes, full of fear and longing. Scent of roses.
And then he became aware that people were staring at him expectantly. The imperor in his chair was peering along an avenue of people. He wanted Rap. Rap released Inos reluctantly. He’d been really enjoying that last bit. He walked over to the old man. Emshandar had been tall for an imp. His bones were still large, but now his flesh was so wasted that the dusky, spotted skin hung limp. His neck looked like a fishnet hung on a hook to dry, and his face had fallen in around his teeth. Streaks of white hair hung limply from his scalp. The nose was a knife blade, yet there was fire in the eyes still, and Rap had not put all of that there. Even huddled under a wool rug the old man bore an aura of authority.
Behind the beaming faces surrounding him, most of the courtiers were in a state of panic. All their fine calculations had been spilled in the mud by the unexpected sorcery. Who was in charge now? How long would this remission last? How long till the old man died anyway? His daughter-in-law, who was now the regent’s wife, was standing very close, trying not to be visibly ill, trying to keep her usual pout turned up in a smile.
It was very satisfying—and yet very unsatisfying, too, because when Rap had been a mundane he had hated the way the sorcerous seemed to play games with ordinary folk. Now he was starting to do it himself. He’d been a sorcerer only a few hours.
He sank to his knees on the grass by the imperor’s toes. “Your Majesty?”
“It seems that we have been ill for several months, and today you healed us with sorcery. Is that correct?”
“It is, Sire.”
The dark old eyes were filmy, but as shrewd as any. They appraised Rap carefully and then flickered vaguely over the watchers and listeners. He wanted to know why, and he wasn’t going to ask; not here, not now.
He brought his attention back to Rap. “We shall reconvene this meeting in warmer and drier climes. We can command the rest—” Yet the old fox knew that his authority was now far from settled. “—but you can only request!” He glanced up. “Marshal Ithy?”
“Sire?”
“How many legions will you need to bring in this man?”
The soldier was a hard man, and a worried one, but he had a sense of humor. ”More than your Majesty can readily muster, I fear.”
“We fear the same. Sir Sorcerer, will you graciously agree to ride with us in our own coach?”
He wanted a private chat, of course, but his eyes were also saying that there were mundane means to undo what Rap’s sorcery had wrought. He was vulnerable. He wanted protection! That seemed very amusing, when Rap considered it.
“I shall be greatly honored, Sire. I am at your Majesty’s service.”
“Are you, indeed?” The imperor was relieved. “Very well. Consul?”
With murder in his heart and a smile on his face, Ythbane said, “Me, Sire?”
“You. Sorcerer Rap will accompany us in the great coach. We require everyone else here to attend us in the Emerald Hall an hour before sunset. Yourself we may summon sooner.”
Ythbane bowed, but Rap could not understand how he expected his face to deceive anyone at all.
As Rap rose to his feet, he saw one person who was in no doubt how he felt about the imperor’s recovery. Squeezed between his mother and the side of the old man’s chair, the little prince was gazing at his grandfather with a joy so great that he had even forgotten his own pain. The pinched features were still mantled to Rap’s occult senses by that mysterious, unholy cowl, but there could be no mistaking the boy’s relief and happiness. He sensed Rap’s gaze, looked up at him in alarm—and ventured a wistful little smile of thanks.
And Rap’s temper flashed up again. Someone must pay for what had been done to that child!
5
The great coach was great indeed, emblazoned in bright enamels and gold fittings. It had big windows of clear crystal draped with muslin; the door carried the Imperial arms picked out in gems; the interior was upholstered in purple silk. Four stalwart Praetorian Guards supported a canopy over the imperor’s chair as he was borne to this stupendous vehicle, and others lifted him in. Rap did not know which impressed him more, the coach itself or its eight white geldings with their jewel-encrusted harnesses and shiny plumes. If he was going to his funeral, as his aching premonition suggested, then he was certainly going in style.