use of them? The ladies can come with me. I’ll round up the
others, and we’ll all meet you in the royal quarters in about an
hour. I’m sure your explanation of your tardiness will be absolutely
fascinating.’
Sparhawk felt much better after he had bathed and changed
into the conventional doublet and hose. He and his friends
trooped on up the stairs that mounted into the central tower
where the royal apartments were located.
‘You’re late, Sparhawk,’ Mirtai said bluntly when they
reached the top of the stairs.
‘Yes. My wife’s already pointed that out to me. Come inside.
You’ll need to hear this too.’
Ehlana and the others who had remained behind were gathered
in the large, blue-draped sitting room. Sephrenia and
Danae were conspicuously absent, however.
‘Well, finally!’ Emperor Sarabian said as they entered. Sparhawk
was startled by the change in the Emperor’s appearance.
His hair was tied back from his face, and he wore tight-fitting
black hose and a full-sleeved linen shirt. He looked younger for
some reason, and he was holding a rapier with the kind of
familiarity that spoke of much practice. ‘Now we can get on with
the business of overthrowing the government.’
‘What have you been up to, Ehlana?’ Sparhawk asked.
‘Sarabian and I have been expanding our horizons, ‘ She
shrugged.
“I knew I shouldn’t have stayed away so long.’
‘i’m glad you brought that up. That very same thought’s been
on my mind for the longest time now.’
‘Why don’t you just save yourself some time and unpleasantness,
Sparhawk?’ Kalten suggested. ‘just show her why we had
to take this little trip.’
‘Good idea.’ Sparhawk reached inside his doublet and took
out the unadorned gold box. ‘Things were beginning to get
out of hand, Ehlana so we decided to go fetch some
reinforcements. ‘
“I thought that’s what Tynian was doing.’
‘The situation called for something a little more significant
than the Church Knights.’ Sparhawk touched the band of
his ring to the lid of the box. ‘Open,’ he said. He kept the lid partially
closed to conceal the Fact that his wife’s ring was also
inside.
‘What have you done with your ring, Sparhawk?’ she asked
him looking at the cover concealing the stone.
‘I’ll explain in a bit.’ He reached in and took out the Bhelliom.
‘This is why we had to leave, dear.’ He held up the stone.
She stared at it, the color draining from her face. ‘Sparhawk!’
she gasped.
‘What a magnificent jewel!’ Sarabian exclaimed, reaching his
hand out toward the Sapphire Rose.
‘That might not be wise, your Majesty,’ Itagne cautioned.
‘That’s the Bhelliom. It tolerates Sparhawk, but it might pose
some dangers to anyone else.’
‘Bhelliom’s a fairy-tale, Itagne.’
‘I’ve been re-assessing my position on various fairy-tales
lately, your Majesty. Sparhawk destroyed Azash with Bhelliom
– just by touching it to him. I don’t advise putting your hands
on it, my Emperor. You’ve shown some promise in the past few
months, and we’d sort of hate to lose you at this point.’
“Itagne!’ Oscagne said sharply. ‘Mind your manners!’
‘We’re here to advise the Emperor, brother mine, not to coddle
him. Oh, incidentally, Oscagne, when you sent me to Cynestra,
you invested me with plenipotentiary powers, didn’t you? We
can check over my commission, if you like, but I’m fairly sure I
had that kind of authority – I usually do. I hope you don’t mind,
old boy, but I’ve concluded a couple of alliances along the way.’
He paused. ‘Well,’ he amended, ‘Sparhawk did all the real work,
but my commission put some slight stain of legality on the
business.’
‘You can’t do that without consulting Matherion first, Itagne,”
Oscagne’s face was turning purple.
‘Oh, be serious, Oscagne. All I did was seize some opportunities
which presented themselves, and I was hardly in a position
to tell Sparhawk what he could or couldn’t do; now, was I? I had things
more or less under control in Cynestra when
Sparhawk and his friends dropped by. We left Cynestra,
and…’
‘Details, Itagne. What did you do in Cynestra?’
Itagne sighed. ‘You can be so tedious at times, Oscagne, I
found out that Ambassador Taubel was in bed with Kanzad, the
Interior Ministry’s station-chief. They had King Jaluah pretty
much dancing to their tune.’
Oscagne’s face went bleak. ‘Taubel’s defected to Interior?’
“I thought I just said that, You might want to run a quick
evaluation of your other embassies, too. Interior Minister Kolata’s
been very busy. Anyway, I threw Taubel and Kanzad along
with the entire police force and most of the embassy staff
_ into a dungeon, declared martial law, and put the Atan garrison
in charge.’
‘You did what.?
‘I’ll write you a report about it one of these days. You know
me well enough to know that I had justification.’
‘You exceeded your authority, Itagne.’
‘You didn’t impose any limitations on me, old boy. That gave
me carte blanche. All you said was to have a look around and to
do what needed to be done, so I did.’
‘How did you persuade the Atans to go along with you without
written authorization?’
Itagne shrugged. ‘The commander of the Atan garrison there
is a fairly young woman – quite attractive, actually, in a muscular
sort of way. I seduced her. She was an enthusiastic seducee.
Believe me, Oscagne, she’ll do absolutely anything for me.’ he
paused. ‘You might want to make a note of that in my file something
about my willingness to make sacrifices for the
Empire and all that. I didn’t give her total free rein, though. The
dear child wanted to give me the heads of Taubel and Kanzad
as tokens of her affection, but I declined. My rooms at the university
are cluttered enough already, so I don’t really have the space
for stuffed trophies on the walls. I told her to lock them up
instead and to keep a firm grip on King jaluah until Taubel’s
replacement arrived. You needn’t hurry with that appointment,
my brother. I have every confidence in her.’
‘You’ve set back relations with Cynesga by twenty years,
Itagne.’
‘What relations?’ Itagne snorted. ‘The Cynesgans respond only
to naked force, so that’s what I used on them.’
‘You spoke of alliances, Itagne,’ Sarabian said, flicking the tip
of his rapier. ‘Just exactly to whom have you committed my
undying trust and affection?’
“I was just coming to that, your Majesty. After we left Cymestra
we went on to Delphaeus. We spoke with their chieftain,
the Anari – a very old man named Codon – and he offered
his assistance. Sparhawk’s going to take care of our side of the
bargain so there’s no cost to the Empire involved.’
Oscagne shook his head. “It must come from our mother’s
side of the family, your Majesty,’ he apologized. ‘There was an
aunt of hers who was always a little strange.’
What are you talking about, Oscagne?’
‘My brother’s obvious insanity, your Majesty. I’m told that
things like that are hereditary. Fortunately, I favor our father’s
side of the family. Tell me, Itagne, are you hearing voices too?
Do you have visions of purple giraffes?’
‘You can be so tiresome sometimes, Oscagne.’
‘Would you tell us what happened, Sparhawk?’ Sarabian
asked.
“Itagne covered it fairly well, your Majesty. I take it that you
Tamuls have some reservations about the Shining Ones?’
‘No,’ Oscagne said, “I wouldn’t call them reservations, your
Highness. How could we have any reservations about a people
who don’t exist?’
‘This argument could go on all night,’ Kalten said. ‘Would
you mind, Lady?’ he asked Xanetia, who sat quietly beside him
with her head slightly bowed. ‘if you don’t show them who you
are, they’ll wrangle for days.’
‘An it please thee, Sir Knight,’ she replied.
‘So formal, my dear?’ Sarabian smiled. ‘here in Matherion,
we only use that mode of speech at weddings, funerals, coronations
and other mournful events.’
‘We have long been isolate, Emperor Sarabian,’ she replied,
‘and unmoved by the winds of fashion and the inconstant tides
of usage. I do assure thee that we find no inconvenience in what
must seem to thee forced archaism, for it cometh to our lips
unbidden and is our natural mode of speech – upon such rare
occasions when speech among us is even needful.’
The door at the far end of the room opened, and Princess
Danae, dragging Rollo behind her, entered quietly with Alcan
close behind her.
Xanetia’s eyes widened, and her expression became awed.
‘She fell asleep,’ the little princess reported to her mother.
‘is she all right?’ Ehlana asked.
‘Lady Sephrenia seemed very tired, your Majesty,’ Alcan
responded. ‘She bathed and went directly to bed. I couldn’t even
interest her in any supper.’
“It’s probably best to just let her sleep,’ Ehlana said. ‘I’ll look
in on her later.’
Emperor Sarabian had obviously taken advantage of the brief
interruption to frame his thoughts in a somewhat studied
archaism. ‘Verily,’ he said to Xanetia, ‘thy mode of speech doth