“I entertained important guests! Oh, it was a fair living. But one word won’t stop you aging. I was out again when I was twenty-two. When I was sixty, I was one of the lowest-price whores on the Arakkaran waterfront. And that is low. ”
Kinvale training faltered. Inos could think of nothing to say. She could not even imagine such a life, so any sympathy she offered would be as phony as Prince Kar’s smiles. She hoped the warlock would come soon.
Rasha, too, was becoming impatient, glaring out at the stars beyond the windows, absently scratching at a cushion with a long carmine nail. “Then there was a sailor they called Nimble. He was old, like me. Older. It may just be that our words attracted each other, but he was still nimble, and I still had my genius. He had much joy of me, and he shared his scanty fare.” She seemed almost to have forgotten Inos, seemed almost to be talking to some long-forgotten invisible ghost. That was creepy enough, but to hear a young girt speak of times long ago, of disease and poverty and suffering in the seaport slums of Zark, was even more unnerving.
In his last illness, she said, Nimble had told his friend of a lucky word he had heard once, long ago and far away, in Guwush. “So he died, and I was an adept.”
“I don’t know much about adepts, your Majesty.”
The sorceress hesitated and then laughed her discreet Kinvale laugh. “I didn’t either, then. And I don’t know why I’m telling you all this now. Could that be your talent, Inosolan? Your genius—to worm out confidences? But I detect no ripples.”
“Ripples, ma’am?”
“The use of power sets up ripples in the ambience. The more power, the more disturbance. At this range, I could detect almost anything you were doing, perhaps even just using one of the sights. But your power would not work on me anyway.” She took another sip of wine and pouted again.
“Your magic casement behaved very oddly that night. When you first opened it, the whole of Pandemia rang with escaping power, and yet such devices are valued precisely because they are usually discreet. Something had charged it with power, and I don’t know what would do that. You were very fortunate that most of the sorceress were safely asleep in their shielded little beds. I was awake and felt the shock, even here.”
The ruddy eyes slid sideways to watch Inos. “I was pacing the floor, waiting for someone.”
Inos took a sip of wine. The talk was again becoming dangerous.
Rasha went back to frowning at the rug and picking her nail on a silken cushion. The noise felt like sand under Inos’s skin. “So you want to know about adepts? An adept rarely has much occult power, but give her a lesson or a few hours on her own to practice and she can become expert at any mundane skill. Like acting, for instance!”
“When I understood what I could do,” Rasha went on, “I headed for the nearest palace, which happened to be this one. I moved in.”
“No one stopped you?”
“No one saw me. At least, they didn’t see what they should have seen. You don’t know what slums are like, child, but I knew palaces. Much nicer!”
That was funny—that the harlot from the docks should walk into the royal palace and not be questioned by anyone. Inos risked a chuckle.
Even Rasha smiled. “Yes, it was amusing. I helped myself to whatever I wanted. I ate and drank, joined in the conversations, slept between silken sheets, and no one ever questioned why a toothless crone should be living among the undistributed maidens. They saw me otherwise, and assumed I was an instructor of some kind. Until I ran into the sultan one day.”
“Sultan Zorazak?”
“Zorazak.” Rasha sighed, then. “He was an adept, too, you see.”
Suddenly everything became very clear. For centuries the kings of Krasnegar had known one word of power. The sultans of Arakkaran had known two. Well, not quite everything . . . “So you didn’t fool him?”
“Not for an instant. He demanded to know who I was and what I was doing. So I told him.”
“What happened then?” Inos asked, bracing herself for some more horrors, dreading that now she would hear of some final fiendish experience that had completed Rasha’s hatred of men. “He sat down and laughed until he cried.”
In the silence that followed, Inos felt goosebumps rising on her arms and she hugged herself against the playful teasing of the wind, rich with the scents of night flowers. Two adepts in a palace, and one of them the sultan? She must not let her suspicions congeal into thoughts lest her face betray her. Which one did she trust less—Azak or Rasha?
Rasha just sat and brooded.
“They used a slow poison on him,” she said at last. “They weren’t sure about the magic, you see, but there had always been rumors in Arakkaran, and they wanted to give him time to pass along whatever he had. At best they hoped for a single word.”
And the old villain had bequeathed both his words to Rasha instead of Azak, the obvious successor. Rasha had then been a full four-word sorceress. But what had Rasha been to Zorazak? Friend? Occult companion? Or much worse? How long had she lived in the palace after the sultan discovered her, and had she used her sorcerous wiles to make the old man bequeath her his words of power? Inos wondered if she dared ask any of those questions and vacillated between them like a donkey between hay piles—and in the end she got to ask none of them.
A soldier stood on the welcome mat.
5
On one particularly bad afternoon at Kinvale, Proconsul Yggingi had cornered Inos between a spinet and a hydrangea and delivered an interminable sour-breathed lecture on military insignia. She recalled only that the color of the helmet crest was important; white for a centurion and so on. Purple for the imperor himself, scarlet for the marshal of the armies—who else but one of those two would wear a cuirass inlaid with the Imperial star in gold and jewels?
There were more gems inset in his greaves and the hilt of his short sword, but the helmet now being tucked under that muscular arm bore a crest that looked more like spun gold than dyed horse bristles.
She was on her feet and did not recall rising. Rasha was lounging back at ease on her divan, but yet she was watching the newcomer tautly. He had already saluted her. By removing his helmet he was making the visit unofficial, informal. He was smiling.
He was tall for an imp, square jawed, dark-eyed, and astonishingly young. Teeth flashed as he glanced around the big dome and made some complimentary remark to Rasha. Black curls. He looked solid, not in the least transparent.
Then he seemed to notice Inos for the first time and stopped speaking in midsentence. His bright eyes widened in wonder. Corny, yes, but still effective when well done.
“You are Inosolan?”
Inos curtsied low. When she rose, he bowed—gracefully, of course. No absurd Zarkian flourishes, either; just a good, solid, Imperial bow. Rasha had said he was old, but he didn’t look old. Bronzed and lean, and sparkling eyes . . . even Andor would not have competed with him in looks.
Or youthful charm: “They told me you were a great beauty, ma’am, but I was making allowances for the usual exaggeration. All imps cherish romantic ideals of royalty. Queens are wonderously beautiful by definition!” He grinned. “You redefine the standard!”
Marvelously done, with just enough humor to carry it off. Evil take it, but she was blushing like a child!
“Your Omnipotence is most gracious.”
He chuckled. “No, I’m genuinely impressed, and it takes a lot to surprise a warlock.” He seemed to tear his eyes away from her in order to address Rasha. “You did us all a favor, mistress, when you rescued Queen Inosolan from that rabble. God knows what might have happened!”
“I know exactly what would have happened,” Rasha said coldly.
The warlock lifted eyebrows that reminded Inos of a poem about ravens’ wings. ”Yes, I’m afraid I do, too. Well, we are grateful for what you did. And we must certainly undo the damage, and see justice done and her Majesty installed on the throne of her fathers.”
He turned back to Inos and gave another long sigh of wonder. “Tomorrow is Blossom Day in Hub and the Blossom Ball in the Opal Palace. The imperor will be there. Everyone will be there! Consuls, senators, the aristocracy of the Impire. And you will amaze them all! Queen Inosolan, would you wear that gown for me tomorrow and do me the very great honor of letting me escort you to the Blossom Ball?”