“It discourages anyone from backing out of the contract is what he means,” the imperor said. “But it is not improper, Highness.”
And if the imperor said so, then it was so.
“And it is the Gods’ command!” Inos beamed triumphantly. ”Trust in love, Aunt!”
The spectators were beyond being surprised by anything now, but Kadolan sensed a bright mood of amusement and jubilation rippling out from that blissful smile on Inos’s face. It showed in the answering smiles and quiet shrugs, overriding the chill and fatigue. The imperium was restored, the war canceled, the raider dead, the succession secure . . . Why not a wedding?
“If your Majesty says so, then I certainly have no objection,” Kadolan said. She had no right to object anyway. Inos was of age now, and a queen. Suddenly Kade felt discouragingly old. Her task was finished. With Inosolan married to a sorcerer . . .
“Very well!” Emshandar said. He chuckled and heaved himself more upright on his throne. “From what Master Rap told me earlier this evening, I do not think he will have any objections whatsoever. But I do wish you would produce the bridegroom!”
Plop!
Everyone jumped as Master Rap appeared in their midst, but he was only what he had been before, a tangle-haired, oversized faun in leather work clothes. Whatever he had been doing had taken a toll, though; for a moment he just stood, slumped, dejected. Then with an obvious effort, he turned and peered blearily up at the imperor.
“If you know of any out-of-work sorcerers, Sire,” he muttered, ”there is a vacant palace to the west.” The onlookers flinched, but Emshandar nodded approvingly. “You have done noble work this day, Sorcerer. For me,— and for all Pandemia. I think few will mourn Zinixo.”
Rap had discovered Inos standing beside him. He smiled wanly at her. He murmured, “Thanks!” almost inaudibly.
“I only wish,” Emshandar said, a little more loudly, “that you would accept the Red Throne yourself!”
“Me?” Rap rubbed his eyes. “No, not me.” He went back to studying Inos’s radiant smile, almost as if it puzzled him. The imperor frowned at being so peremptorily refused.
“Sire?” Inos said impatiently.
“Mm? Oh . . . Very well!” The old man rose unsteadily, leaving the sword and buckler on the throne. He stepped down to join the others, wavering a little; but when he straightened he was taller than anyone there except Rap. ”How does it go? Are there any here among you present who know cause why this man and this woman—Shandie!”
The little prince had hurtled in from the darkness and wrapped himself around Master Rap’s legs like a blanket. “Rap! Rap! You’re all right, Rap?”
The sorcerer laughed and patted his shoulder. “Yes, I’m fine! You’re all right?”
The prince nodded vigorously. “Yes! Yes, I’m all right!”
The imperor said, “Shandie!” again, menacingly. Rap tousled the boy’s hair. “Sorry, Sire! You were saying?”
They were all so weary, Kadolan thought. They should all be in bed, and especially that exhausted old imperor. Master Rap also was as limp and haggard as if he had not slept in days. Only Inos seemed to have recovered completely, and she looked as if she were floating.
“Anyone who knows cause . . .” The imperor scowled. “Oh, never mind that bit. Do you, Rap, take this . . .”
“You like horses, Shandie,” Rap said. “Maybe you an’ me can go for a ride tomorrow, huh?”
The boy’s reply was drowned in a cry of objection from Inos and a roar from the imperor: “as your wife?”
“Wife?” Rap said faintly. “Wife?” Then he seemed to register the grouping—Inos at his side, and Senator Epoxague beyond her, as honorary father of the bride . . . Kade at her back and the imperor in front. Marshal Ithy had appointed himself best man, beside Rap.
He stared at Inos as if he had never seen her before. Certainly he could have never seen her look happier. Kadolan sensed that this awful day was about to produce another of its sickening reversals.
“Wife?” he whispered. He paled. “Wife? Oh, Inos! No! Not now!”
She started as though he had slapped her. “What? But, Rap, Azak’s gone! I’m free now! I love you, and I know you love—”
“No! Inos! I can’t!” He recoiled in horror, bumping into Marshal Ithy without seeming even to notice him. “We mustn’t!”
“Why not?” she cried angrily.
He was shaking his head. “Because . . . because . . . The words . . .”
“I don’t care if you’re a sorcerer, you dummy!”
“But . . . that’s it! I’m not] I’m . . . I’m . . . Oh, Gods! No! No! No!”
Master Rap spun on his heel and raced off into the darkness, following the path Azak had taken. The sound of his footsteps faded into silence.
Inos turned to Kadolan with a wail. “Aunt? What happened? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know, dear! I don’t know!”
Obviously something was wrong, though. Very wrong. It had to be more than Master Rap’s obvious dislike of weddings.
2
I loved a young man,
Young man, Oh . . .
I loved a young man,
Long ago . . .
I gave him gold, and rubies, too,
I gave my all, his heart to woo.
Young man, young man, young man,
Oh . . . Long ago . . .
The weather had changed, as if to acknowledge the imperor’s return. Late-afternoon sunshine made a brave effort to gladden the palace gardens, where a last few battered roses were a lament to lost summer. The branches above them were bare, and sodden heaps of yellow leaves lay on the damp earth by the little boxwood hedges. It was not winter yet.
Inos’s voice floated out through the windows of the music room. Her fingers raced over the keys of the spinet, wringing skeins of melody from them in complex arpeggios and glissades and counterpoint.
Jalon, weep your eyes out!
She stopped with an ear-stabbing discord and spun around on the stool. An audience of about thirty men stood there with their stupid mouths agape—secretaries, flunkies, even legionaries. She slammed down the lid and jumped to her feet. Quailing before her anger, they started to back away, then all turned tail and stampeded out of the room.
Idiots!
It was two days since she had become an adept.
It was already beginning to pall. She could ride anything in the palace stables. Sketching had always been one of her talents, and now she could dash off a likeness in half a dozen strokes. Poetry, needlework . . . no problem. She had even attempted a little archery, and there was certainly nothing to, that anymore. She had extracted a bushel-basketful of military secrets out of Marshal Ithy without him even realizing, and the previous night she had danced that brainless (but rather cute) young Tiffy to utter exhaustion. There was nothing to anything any more!
But where in the names of all the Gods was Rap? Slipping her feet back into the shoes she had recently kicked off, Inos set her jaw firmly and departed in search of the imperor.
Finding the antechamber was easy. Getting past it was not, even for an adept—there were just too many heralds and footmen and chamberlains. By the time she had reduced the sixth or eighth to sweating, blushing, stammering cooperation, the first was starting to recover. Trouble was, they might lose their heads if they admitted her without permission, and the fear of death was a powerful antidote to charm.
Eventually she yielded to their terror-filled pleas, and sat down alongside the other forty or so men and women patiently waiting. She started up a conversation with the mousy bureaucrat next to her and discovered he knew nothing at all that she would ever wish to know. He was concerned about a problem with public water supply in some Gods-forgotten little town in North Pithmot, and that was about the extent of his existence. He expected to linger in the antechamber for another month at least before being admitted to the Imperial presence.
Inos certainly did not. She had a kingdom to rescue. She had a lover to find. After all that she had endured since leaving Arakkaran, she was not going to settle for being an ornament in a waiting room.
However, a senior herald soon appeared in a tabard so laden with gold thread that it must have weighed a hundredweight.
“His Imperial Majesty regrets that he can receive no more of you today and bids you return on the morrow. . .”
Nobody moved.
The herald consulted his slate. “Except for the following . . .”
He pursed his lips, turned the slate over, then lowered it. “. . . her Majesty Queen Insolan, her Highness Princess Kadolan, or Doctor Sagorn.”
Inos rose and glanced around, but she would certainly have noticed either of the others, had they been there. She advanced to the door as everyone else began gathering up briefs and petitions and reports, preparing to depart.