Dave Duncan – The Living God – A Handful of Men. Book 4

“No, I had no idea! I never guessed . . . You fooled me!” He grinned sheepishly. “I hate them, too, you see—rather fight a battle any day! I suppose I was always in such a cold sweat . . .”

“You?”

They stared at each other, and very slowly they both began to smile.

“Yes, me!” Shandie said “All that dressing up, standing around . . . But we shan’t have to worry about sumptuous parties for quite a while! Even the richest families have been battered to the ground”

Truly, as the priests said, there was some good in every evil. Without that awful burden, the palace would not hurt so badly. “Which reminds me,” Shandie said “Count Ipherio? You sat next to him at Ishipole’s one night . . . Would he make a consul, do you think?”

“You are asking me?

He blinked. “Well, you had to listen to him for three hours. Did he make any sense?”

“No. He was drunk before we sat down and got drunker as the meal went on.”

“Trash him then,” Shandie said offhandedly.

Had he been testing her judgment or had she really just ruined a man’s political career? Did the king and queen of Krasnegar sit around on the long winter nights, tossing affairs of state back and forth across the great hearth like this? And Shandie was still talking

“You know there are packs of starving people running like wild dogs in Julgistro? Reports of feral children! Gods, what a mess! I must do something about the children, but what? If I order the army to round them up, they’ll use dogs or nets or something and throw them in cages . . .” He paused. “I’ll have to put someone on it right away, but who can I trust to deal with children?”

Perhaps he wasn’t really asking her, but she answered. “A woman.”

He pouted. “Good idea, but I’m no judge of women! Name one!”

“Lady Eigaze.”

He grabbed. “Is she competent?”

“Extremely. She and Ylo ran circles around her husband and the centurion to get me away, but I think she did most of it.” Shandie’s smile was almost a smirk. “Excellent! Wonderful! Well, that’s one thing settled, That leaves two million, nine hundred thousand et ceteras! Ylo would surely be useful now!” he added wistfully. He moved as if about to pull himself out of the chair.

“If I can help—”

He sank back. He studied the fireplace and chewed a knuckle, which was a very exuberant gesture for him. “Help? Of course you could help! I can think of a hundred things you could do. Make a list of the competent and incompetent people you know, for instance. Organize a relief fund for the homeless, nurse your sister back to health . . . but . . . if you wouldn’t mind . . . Umpily’s already picking up rumors of coups being plotted, you see, and at the moment sorcery’s completely out of control, which is something our predecessors never had to worry about . . .”

She had never heard him so hesitant. “What are you getting—”

“If you wouldn’t mind . . . I honestly think you could help best just for the next few weeks, at least—by staying right where you are, darling! I know you’re safe, then, and Maya’s safe. I can announce that you’re paying a state visit. And you’re pregnant, of course. Great excuse.”

“I won’t mind.” Marvelous! Stay in Krasengar? Peace to heal after all those months of flight! This must be Inosolan’s doing.

He smiled looking relieved. “Good. I am very grateful! But I shall come and visit you every day. Or at least I shall come and visit Maya, because I want to get to know my daughter before I march her down the aisle to marry some chinless aristocratic miracle. If you choose not to see me, then I shall just visit with Maya.”

She stared.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his eyes twinkling.

“Nothing. I mean, of course there’s lots of things wrong, but . . . Nothing.”

Shandie chuckled, looking pleased. “Not quite the old Shandie? I have changed, Eshiala! I really have! Ylo started it. He lectured me about taking life too seriously. Maybe the bar girls helped, too. I certainly learned a lot of surprising things about, well, you know.”

The bar girls were starting to irk.

“About what, my lord?”

He colored again. “All right, I’ll say it! The first woman I took to bed called me a clumsy, impatient, inconsiderate oaf!” After a long silence, Eshiala said, “Gracious! Did she really?”

Now the imperor’s face burned as red as any schoolgirl’s. “I don’t suppose Ylo was, was he?” he said through his teeth.

“Ylo was a revelation.”

Shandie nodded grimly. “Very well. I deserved that. I learned! I learned quite quickly, I think, although I’ll never come up to Ylo’s standards. I kept thinking of you. I don’t mean . . . What I mean is, then the goblins caught me. For two days I was sure I was going to die very horribly. Believe me, please, but one of my greatest regrets was that I had never made love to you as you deserved! Maybe one day . . . And then I met Inos.”

“No!” Eshiala exclaimed.

“No,” he admitted. “I was tempted to try a time or two, though. Amazing woman, that! But Inos taught me some things, in a less intimate way. Ylo taught me how men could be friends. Inos taught me how a man and a woman could be friends.”

His dark eyes gazed solemnly at her as if that were an earthshaking revelation. Maybe it had been, for Shandie. He had had a very strange childhood. And why was he telling her all this? Inos had warned her that he was a very clever man. Shandie rose, gesturing to stop Eshiala when she would have risen. He walked over to the bell rope and tugged it. Then he came to her and sank down on one knee.

“Inos said to ring if I needed food. I haven’t eaten all day. You won’t mind watching me guzzle? And I have a request to make.”

“Request?” She tried to pull her wits together. They refused to come. “You have only to command, Sire.”

He shook his head impatiently. “Request. Petition. Plea. I know you are in mourning for the man you loved. I respect that. I mourn him, also, dearly.”

Those could not be tears in his eyes, could they? Shandie’s eyes?

“But, after the baby . . . In a year or so? When you have had time. No hurry! No hurry at all! I know it sounds callous to say this, but time does heal, Eshiala! When it does—I want your permission to pay court to my friend’s widow.”

“I don’t understand!” she cried. Nothing had happened as she had expected.

It’s quite simple. I don’t deserve you. I never wooed and won you. The contest was never fair. Do you suppose your mother learned who I was by accident? Oh no!—I cheated! Now I want to play by the rules and win on my own merits, as a man, not as prince or imperor. You married Ylo for love and I respect that. Ylo won you! Ylo died saving you from the Covin. You need time to adjust, I know. Lots of time! But you are a young woman yet. I ask only that I may be your first suitor, when you are ready to consider suitors. That is all I ask of you. And if I cannot win your hand honestly, then I do not deserve you. May I hope for that? And until then, may we be friends?”

It was the most generous offer he could have made, and far beyond her dreams. It was too good to be sincere.

“You mean that for the first time in my life I would actually be free to make a decision for myself?”

He winced, then nodded.

She felt Ylo’s presence. She felt him at her side.

She felt as she had when she rode the horse at the hedges in Qoble, fleeing the soldiers, knowing that she was risking her life and the life of her daughter. She had survived that—she could survive this.

What would Ylo say now? Ylo would ask what was in it for him.

Her mouth was almost too dry for speech. “And what if you do not win me, my lord? Do we go back to rape? Do I get to choose between that and giving up my children? Do I also have a chance to win something?”

Shandie stood up. He went back to the big chair opposite and sat down, stretching out his legs. He smiled lazily, confidently. She noticed that his fists were clenched, though.

“Inos warned me that the kitten was growing tiger stripes. Name the stakes, ma’am.”

“Divorce.”