“Well, you were correct there, sire! Any man who has ever seen her majesty starts having designs.”
Shandie laughed, pleased. “I expect so. But I wonder if those were real Zinixo thoughts? I wonder if that’s how he sees the world, with everyone plotting against him and no one to trust?”
“Could be,” Ylo said with a yawn.
“And you defeated him! That is a noble accomplishment.”
“It was pure luck that Eemfume was handy.”
“Or the Gods sent him. And you were man enough to see the opportunity and take it!”
Shandie sounded disgustingly sincere. Ylo felt rather ashamed of how he had treated his imperor and would prefer not to discuss it. After all, he was still planning to desert and head back to Eshiala, wasn’t he? Maybe he had better wait a day or two yet, in case the Covin tried its siren call again.
Shandie flickered another smile at him, a bashful one. “Fortunately I now know that I was wrong. I now know that there are men I can trust, and luckily one of them was with me in my hour of need. You had no need to endure what you did. You did not do it for personal gain, for I am penniless, nor for the Impire as an institution, for I am without authority. You did it for friendship alone. Ylo, from now on I am proud to regard you as my friend.”
Ghosts of a hundred ancestors whistled warnings in Ylo’s ear. Historically, the post of Imperor’s Friend was the most dangerous job in the Impire. Everyone went after him! The one thing court factions could always agree on was the urgent need to sabotage the imperor’s best friend, whoever he was.
This appointment must be resisted. Ylo stole a thoughtful look at Shandie and was annoyed by the appeal in his face. Imperors did not have real friends. Imperors were different—they learned that as children. What did the man know of friendship? Friends were for fun, and Shandie did not know what fun was.
Furthermore, Ylo himself was an imp, and imps served their imperor. Friendship would impose a different sort of loyalty. It would raise the sort of questions King Rap had asked him once, questions involving daffodils and moral responsibility. If there was one thing Ylo detested it was moral responsibility.
“I’m honored to be your friend, of course. Tonight you’ll let me pick out a wench for you, also?”
Shandie flushed scarlet. He turned his face away as if something very interesting had developed in the hedges. His ears were red.
The horses had covered a furlong before he forced his eyes back to Ylo’s mocking gaze—and nodded. He smiled nervously. “Just make sure she’s pretty. ”
God of Lust! This was more serious than Ylo had thought.
2
Gluttonous as cattle looting a grain field, the close-packed winter clouds drifted over the Sea of Sorrows. Black and bloated, they moved on into Thume and no hedge or fence impeded them; but then their way was blocked by the thorns of the Progiste Mountains. The leaders balked, but the followers pressed in behind, driving the front ranks to destruction. Day after day the slaughter continued. The turgid herd was butchered on the peaks, and none escaped to reach the desert of Zark beyond. Muddy torrents coursed the slopes.
It was the rainy season.
Thaile awoke at the first contraction, but for a few minutes could not think what had roused her. Even then, when enlightenment arrived with a little shiver of joy and excitement and fear—even then, she could not be sure. She moved her awkward shape on the ferns, seeking a long-forgotten comfort, and waited to see if there was going to be another. Beside her, Leeb stirred briefly and then sank back into deeper sleep.
From the smell of the night, dawn was near. Rain pattered doggedly on the leafy thatch of the roof as it had done with hardly a break for weeks. Leeb’s handiwork was sound, though, and water had found no chinks. Even beetles fleeing a flooded world had trouble penetrating the tight weaving of his walls, and he had completed four whole rooms before the rains began. He was planning another room also, although Thaile could think of no reason why she should need a house so huge. He made rooms much faster than she could make babies to fill them.
But maybe she had almost completed this one.
Kaif if he is a boy, Frial if she is a girl. That was what they had decided before going to sleep. Yesterday it had been Shaib and . . . someone. No matter. Hurry, Kaif, or Frial, or you may be somebody else when you arrive!
She jerked in needless shock as Leeb twitched, then realized she had been drifting back to sleep again. Leeb was dreaming. She could Feel the muddly emotions of his dreams, punctuated with wrenches of pulsing lust. Oh, my poor love! The last few weeks had been hard on him, since the baby had come between them. He needed her and wanted her so much! Leeb was such a happy, peaceful man, so gentle a lover, that she was always astonished to Feel the heat of his desire. At first it had frightened her, but now she knew him and understood that he would never loose the beast she Felt in there. She had learned to love the beast, also, and tease it a little . . .
Soon, soon, my love! She adjusted the cover over him and again tried to ease her aching back into an easier position. Alas, there was no easier position for a pixie shaped like a mango.
Kaif, she thought, not Frial. Lately she had been able to Feel some of that new little person inside her, and he had a boy’s temper. Sometimes when he kicked her, he was utterly furious. She was quite sure it was a boy, and Leeb wanted a boy very much. He wanted a boy to take fishing with him, as he had gone fishing with his father. Thaile knew she was too fidgety to be a good fishing companion, although he had never told her so.
Nine moons had come and gone since Leeb had shown her the place he had found by the river. She had never doubted his descriptions of it, though, and the journey from her parents’ house had been a torment for both of them. Even when they arrived, exhausted by the long walk, there had been a worse delay while they both ran frantically around in search of the one ideal spot to be their Place. Too far to carry water . . . too close to the river, it will flood . . . not enough shade . . .
As darkness fell, they had found their Place, among the cottonwoods, and had made it theirs forever. True, that cataclysmic moment had not been quite as joyous or soul-inspiring as she had hoped. Leeb had been too impatient and anxious, she too nervous, and the twigs on the ground very unromantically prickly, but with a little practice they had been doing it much better in a couple of days—doing it well enough to bring Kaif into the world.
Nine moons. She thought she could Feel his impatience. Definitely a boy.
Nine moons, and the recorders had never found her. It would be very sad if Kaif never met his grandparents and even sadder for Gaib and Frial never to know their grandchildren. Coming from a Gifted family, she might bear more than two babies. Leeb didn’t know it yet, but Thaile had decided that in a few years, when they had produced two—or more—children, then she would take them on a visit to the Gaib Place. Surely by then it would no longer matter if the recorders found her, no matter how strong her Faculty? Surely even they could not be so cruel as to drag a mother away from her family, off to the College?
So even if Kaif had Faculty, as she did, he would never have to keep Death Watch, as she had been required to do—never have to learn a word, as she had.
Oooo!
She had been asleep again. The window was showing gray. And that had definitely been her tummy doing something she had not told it to do, something it had never done before. Kaif was on the way.
She wanted to jump up and clean out the whole room and put in all new ferns and get out the new bed cover she had woven . . . And that was silly, because she spread all new ferns just yesterday, and the cover was in the basket in the corner. She had cleaned the whole house with her broom yesterday, twice. There was lots of time yet. Leeb would have to go and fetch Boosh from the Neeth Place, and he could not paddle a boat in the dark. The river was in spate, but that was good, because he could take a shortcut across the flooded grassland and then have a fast run home. It wouldn’t take very long, and Kaif was going to be hours yet.