Moreover, Kade had been spending her days nibbling cookies with a sorceress. Could she have become so used to the situation that she saw nothing sinister in this odd development with the gown? Or was it Inos who was missing the point? Kade had never been a gossip and in their few brief chats she had volunteered little information about Rasha. Possibly this mysterious appointment would turn out to be just an innocent get-together.
And yet . . . a full formal ballgown for a private chat? It made no sense. It was wrong for Zark, it was out of character for Rasha. Rasha was quite capable of magicking Inos to a grand Imperial ball in Hub itself in that gown, or she might be planning a ball of her own under the great alabaster dome, a coven of sorcerers and sorceresses from all over Pandemia.
Why bother with a real gown when sorcery could make Inos look like anything or anyone? That question suggested a possible explanation for tonight’s activities that roused whole legions of internal butterflies.
“She didn’t say what she had in mind?”
“She wants you to meet someone, I believe.”
But that time Inos heard a wrong note. “Aunt!” she challenged.
Kade laughed and reached out to squeeze Inos’s hand where it rested on the balustrade. “I’m sorry, dear! I just couldn’t resist teasing. You are to be presented! Such an honor!”
The butterflies took flight again. “Presented to who . . . whom?”
“His Omnipotence Warlock Olybino, my dear! Warden of the East.” Kade began exuding copious ladylike excitement. “There is news of Krasnegar! Not all good news, I’m afraid, but now the imperor knows what has been happening, and the Four do, of course, even if the capital itself has not officially been informed—mundanely informed, that is—or so her Majesty tells me. Just think, Inos, you and I, here in faraway Zark, know things about Krasnegar that even the Senate in Hub hasn’t heard yet!”
That had been true ever since they arrived. Inos listened with half an ear to the preliminaries, while running her mind’s eye over the possibilities. Surely the warlock would not be coming here? So she must be going to Hub.
Escape from Zark!
Why did that prospect make her feel so uneasy? It should be good news!
Kade was at last getting to the point.
“. . . Hub yet, not by post, but apparently there is a sorcerer somewhere in northwest Julgistro, and he, or perhaps she, reported what was going on to one of the wardens, Witch Bright Water, because that area is within her sector. She’s North, you see? So the Four met with the imperor.” Kade lowered her voice and glanced around. “His Imperial Majesty is very upset! It’s never happened before in the history of the Impire, the sultana says.”
“What hasn’t?” Inos inquired sweetly.
“Goblins, dear! They’ve burned Pondague and they’re raiding over the pass! Raiding inside the Impire!”
“Good for them!”
The odious Proconsul Yggingi had not only taught the goblins how to ravage, he had moved the entire Pondague garrison to Krasnegar. He had left the door unbarred.
“And of course the imperor . . . Inos? Inos, did you say—”
“The goblins want revenge, Aunt. Wouldn’t you? If you’d been burned and pillaged?”
Kade blinked uncertainly. “I suppose so. I hope they don’t do any serious damage!”
“I expect they’ll try. Now, what of Krasnegar’?”
“Well, no real change, dear. No signs of the jotnar yet. The ice is not out of the bay yet.”
“And what exactly is the sultana planning for tonight?”
A faint hesitation . . . Kade gazed for a moment at the other bay, the harbor of Arakkaran, a bay that would never know ice. “Just a meeting with Warlock Olybino, dear, to discuss how you may be restored to your throne.”
Kade was clearly holding back now, and yet what she had said was enough to stir the tiny hairs on Inos’s arms. “What is there to discuss? He has two thousand men in the town, doesn’t he? The warlock of the east controls the legions, doesn’t he? He need do no more than send me back there with a letter to Tribune Oshinkono. Need he?”
“That wouldn’t solve everything,” Kade said firmly.
No, of course it wouldn’t. Not with Kalkor and his raiders due any day, a population divided and perhaps disloyal, a queen who could certainly not be trusted to choose herself a husband.
Now it was Inos who scowled out at the exotic city below her, the waving palms, the moon wakening to silver as day retreated in somber tones of mauve. She ought to be enjoying this adventure at the far end of the world. She ought to be excited at the thought of accompanying the sorceress to great Hub itself, to play the royal role, a queen making a state visit. Or at least she ought to be sighing for the safety and comfort and peace of Kinvale. But instead she was merely very homesick for dowdy little Krasnegar—Krasnegar as it used to be, without invading imps and the looming threat of Nordland. Without sorcery!
Father dead. Rap dead. Possibly many others dead now, if there had been fighting. But it was Krasnegar that stuck to her heart. Like a molasses sandwich, Rap would have said.
“A visit to Hub?” Inos mused. No more need to fret about Azak and Kar and family men. That should be exciting—why wasn’t it?
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Kade enthused. “I have dreamed all my life of visiting the capital, as you know, dear. And you are very fortunate to have a powerful sorceress like her Majesty to act on your behalf like this!”
Again a wrong note. Inos peered hard at her so-cheerful aunt. “What gown will you be wearing?”
A momentary flicker of worry crossed her aunt’s face and disappeared. ”I’m not invited. Just you.”
So that was what Kade was hiding!
Inos turned and hugged her, tightly. “I’m not going anywhere without you, Aunt! Absolutely not! After all, you are my chancellor and chamberlain, and so on!”
Kade gave an almost imperceptible sigh. “That’s very kind of you, dear, but of course you must be guided by her Majesty.” Meaning that a mundane could not resist a sorceress. Whatever Rasha wanted, Inos would have no choice but to comply. Why was Kade not included in the invitation?
Inos released her, suddenly remembering that she was not in a state for closeness, not even polite company. She must certainly wash up and make herself presentable before she was presented to a warlock.
Kalkor the fearsome thane of Gark . . . Foronod the factor . . . imps and jotnar . . . even the imperor himself . . . none of those mattered now. If the wardens wanted Inos to be queen of Krasnegar, then she would be queen of Krasnegar.
And if they refused to support her, then. nothing in the world would help.
4
At the third hour of the night, Inos draped her revealing gown in a voluminous cloak, covered her face, and set off across the palace grounds, escorted by four grim family men. They were all fierce, husky types bedecked with things for slashing, stabbing, or throwing; one bore a battle-ax slung on his back. They looked collectively capable of dismembering an Imperial legion, but when they came to the entry to the sorceress’s quarters, they stepped aside to let Inos pass without even trying to conceal their relief that they need not accompany her farther.
She acknowledged their salutes with a regal nod, lifted her skirts, and started to climb the long stone staircase, her heavy train rustling over the treads behind her. She went quickly, so that she could attribute the thumping of her heart to exertion. At the top, she paused to discard the cloak, then set off along the wide corridor, her progress lighted by the restless flames of torches in golden sconces. She must have come this way on her first day, but she had no memory of doing so.
The voluminous samite gown was heavy and awkward, and yet a comforting reminder of similar, lesser gowns she had worn at Kinvale. She felt much more assured in it than she would have been in a Zarkian chaddar.
This was not a game, she reminded herself. This was not like calling on the fearsome Ekka, dowager dragon of Kinvale. This was politics, an affair of war and death.
But how to deal with the sinister Rasha? Kade had reported what little information she had been able to glean about the sorceress. Rasha had been the only daughter of poor fisherfolk in a tiny coastal village. At twelve she had been married off. Sold had been the word she had used to Inos herself, that first day, and a poor family with seven sons and one daughter had probably needed money to feed those more—valuable sons. Small wonder that Sultana Rasha hated men!