Ylo inspected his surroundings. “And walk?” A couple of sails had appeared on the western skyline.
The faun chuckled contentedly. His doublet and hose looked no warmer than Ylo’s, he wore no cloak or hat. Jotunn blood in him, obviously. “No, we can hail a boat and put you on. We’d pick one going north, probably, and you’d have to make your own way home. But that shouldn’t be hard.”
Ylo pulled his skimpy cloak tight and studied the faun’s innocent expression, remembering that this blunt, seemingly open man was actually a sorcerer. ”And what happens when I get home?”
“That I do not prophesy.”
And where was home? Ylo had no home, no family, no real friends, even. ”What’s the alternative? Where are we going?” He steadied himself with a hand on the rail. The ship had a new motion that he did not approve of, although it had not started to affect his insides yet.
“I won’t tell you that,” the faun said, eyes narrowing. “Not until you declare. But we need a hiding place where the impress and her daughter can remain—a sanctuary, and headquarters. Countess Eigaze had suggested a spot that sounds promising. We’re going to see.”
If he would answer questions so willingly, then Ylo had a bushel of them ready. “Shandie still wants to get his impire back?” That one got a nod. “How?”
The king smiled, but suddenly there was threat in that smile, or at least a hint that walking on lakes was unhealthy. “That also I won’t tell you yet. Are you with us or against us, Signifier?”
“With you, your Majesty. Of course.”
“Of course?” the faun mused.” `Of course,’ you say? Why `Of course,’ though? What ties you to Shandie now? He’s lost his throne. He can’t shower wealth and power on you. What holds you to his cause? A sense of justice? Loyalty to the Impire? Friendship?”
“Hadn’t thought about it. Gratitude?” That felt safest.
The king did not look very convinced. He pursed his lips. “If this proposed refuge is satisfactory, then the impress will remain there while the rest of us go off to reconquer the world. Someone will have to stay and guard her.”
“I suppose so.”
“The imperor mentioned you for that job.” The iron-gray eyes stabbed straight into Ylo’s heart.
Or it felt as if they did.
“Face the other way, Signifier,” King Rap said harshly. “If Shandie looks out and sees that blush, he’s going to wonder what provoked it. ”
“Are you suggesting that I am not a man of honor?”
“You’re blushing, not me. She’s incredibly beautiful. I don’t blame you at all. If I weren’t happily married and she wasn’t, I might dream myself.”
“What are you hinting?” Ylo demanded. “There is nothing between the impress and me!”
“No?” The faun chewed his stubbled lip for a moment. “But that’s not quite true, is it? Not yet, you mean?”
“You’re rooting around in my mind!”
“No, I’m not! I don’t do that! But I can read your face like a dog’s tail, and you’re guilty of something. The preflecting pool, was it?”
Ylo nodded angrily. “Doing what?”
A hot retort died stillborn before that metallic stare. “Lying on a blanket, on grass. Smiling at me.”
Unexpectedly the faun grinned. “An intriguing prophecy! It would certainly inspire a man. But you haven’t . . .”
“Not yet. There were daffodils.”
“What’re daffodils?”
“They’re a spring flower.”
“I see.”
“They bloom about third or fourth moon. So four or five months from now.”
The faun nodded thoughtfully. “Forgive my prying, Signifer. Shandie saw my son in that pool. I wanted to know all about it. You’ve told her?”
“No one else, though.”
“Wise of you.” The sorcerer fell silent, either studying the distant sails, or just lost in thought. Ylo waited, shivering. “Tell me something,” King Rap said eventually. “What do you think of Shandie himself ?”
“He’d make a great imperor.”
“As a man?”
“Courageous. Dedicated. Honorable.”
“You’re evading the question. I swear that this is just between the two of us.”
Oddly, Ylo decided he trusted this rustic king, although he couldn’t imagine why. “He’s decent. I admire him.”
“You’d like to be like him, you mean?”
“No.” Shandie took life much too seriously. The gray eyes drilled into Ylo again. “He’s not your imperor at the moment. Would you say he was your friend? No—would you say you were his friend?”
“I suppose so. I’d like to help him.”
A shadow of a grin curled the big faun mouth. “Then how can you plan to seduce his wife?”
What use to lie to a sorcerer? “I said I’d like to help him. I can’t give him lessons. I can teach his wife, though.”
The king looked startled, then he laughed. “So you all benefit?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, that’s the finest rationalization I’ve ever heard!”
“It’s true, though,” Ylo protested. “I’d gamble my life that they were both virgins when they were married. With women he’s blind, and deaf. I’ve heard them practically ask him outright, and I’d swear he hadn’t a notion what they wanted. Not just in bed. He has no idea how to treat his wife as a human being. He never talks to her as if she had a brain at all. He thinks she loves him because he gives her presents. In the Imperial Library—”
The king snapped his fingers. “That’s it! Ever since I saw her, I’ve been trying to remember. The middle statue!” Astonished, Ylo could only nod.
The faun shook his head sadly. “He pointed it out to me when he was ten years old!” He fell silent again, frowning. After a moment he added, ”His mother was a bitch, you know. He had a wretched childhood.”
What had that to do with anything? What had any of this to do with Zinixo, or the Protocol? Furthermore, why need Ylo stay out on this snowy, freezing deck when the king was obviously so much better qualified to handle the wheel? The sorcerer might be occultly sensitive to the emotions on people’s faces, but he was strangely blind to Ylo’s convulsive shivering.
“So you’ll do them both a favor?” the faun said, showing his wry grin again.
“Certainly! I’ll show her. Then she can show him. What harm in that?”
The faun chuckled. “What harm indeed? So if Shandie leaves his wife in your care, you’ll seduce her?”
“Yes.”
“Think you can?”
“Know I can.”
“What happens if she conceives your child?”
Ylo shrugged. “Women have ways of dealing with that problem.”
King Rap studied him thoughtfully for a moment. “You enjoy life, Signifer.”
“I try to. That’s what it’s for, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” the king said sadly.
3
The big Jotunn sailor emerged as Ylo reached the door, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. He felt her eyes on him as they passed, but he ignored her. Too tall, not young enough.
The deckhouse felt warm after the windy deck. He stripped off the stinking cloak to let himself thaw out. Shivering, he chose the best-looking vacant chair, then sat and blew through his fists while he summed up the mood of the room. No one paid any attention to him except the dwarf, who was standing by a window, peering over the sill. He turned round to stare at Ylo with an aggressive glower on his rocky, rough-hewn face.
There seemed to be no deliberate pattern to the group, and yet the imperor’s chair was nearest the center. Impress Eshiala was down on the floor at his feet, helping her daughter pile a set of red and green wooden blocks. Where had those come from? Shandie was still engrossed in thought. How could he ignore such a beauty? In civilian clothes, he seemed very unremarkable for an imperor. Of course that was not inappropriate for an imperor with no impire.
Seated in a very irregular halo around him, everyone else brooded in silence—or perhaps they were listening to the little voices of the ship itself, the wood and water noises, the rhythm of creaking and swishing. The only exception was Countess Eigaze, chattering cheerfully to Centurion Hardgraa as if unaware of the misery all around her.
Fat Lord Umpily seemed to be in a deep sulk. Old Count Ionfeu was slumped on a sofa, nodding. Stretched out in a soft chair, the ancient scholar Sagorn stared at the roof and sucked his knuckles, lost in thought. Sir Acopulo was scowling at nothing in particular or everything in general, frustrated by his inability to frame a brilliant solution to the problem.
So far as Ylo could see, there was no solution; the case was hopeless. He was very glad that strategy was not his responsibility. No one expected him to come up with answers.
Cold air swirled around when the door opened again to admit the faun, and closed. A shimmer ran through the company, as if a pebble had dropped in a still pond.