They died that way, surrendering, as six more arrows sang.
Pardos realized he was standing quite alone now, in the section reserved for the artisans. He felt utterly exposed. He didn’t leave, but he did sit down. His palms were wet, his legs felt weak.
‘I do apologize,’ said Eudric smoothly, looking up from the dead men to the three clerics still standing before the altar. Their faces were the colour of buttermilk, Pardos thought. Eudric paused to adjust the collar of his tunic and then the heavy golden necklace he wore. ‘We should be able to restore order quickly enough now, calm the people, bring them back in. This is a political matter, a most unfortunate one. Not your concern at all. You will carry on with the ceremony, of course.’
‘What? We will not!’ said the court cleric, Sybard, his jaw set. ‘The very suggestion is an impious disgrace. Where is the queen? What has been done to her?’
‘I can assure you I am far more anxious to know the answer to that than you are,’ said Eudric Goldenhair. Pardos, watching intently, had Agila’s words still ringing in his head: We did this together.
‘One ventures to guess,’ added Eudric smoothly, to no one and to all of them left in the sanctuary, ‘that she must have had some word of Agila’s vile plot and elected to save herself rather than be present at the holy rites for her father. Hard to blame a woman for that. It does raise some . . . questions, naturally.’ He smiled.
Pardos would remember that smile. Eudric went on, after a pause, ‘I propose to restore order here and then establish it in the palace-in the queen’s name, of course-while we ascertain exactly where she is. Then,’ said the yellow-haired Chancellor, ‘we shall have to determine how next to proceed here in Varena, and indeed in all of Batiara. In the meantime,’ he said, in a voice suddenly cold that did not admit of contradiction, ‘you are under a misapprehension of your own, good cleric. Hear me: I did not ask you to do something, I told you to do it. The three of you will proceed with the ceremony of consecration and of mourning, or your own deaths will follow upon those you have seen. Believe it, Sybard. I have no quarrel with you, but you can die here, or live to achieve what goals you have set for yourself and our people. Holy places have been sanctified with blood before today.’
Sybard of Varena, long-shanked and long-necked, looked at him a moment. ‘There are no goals I could properly pursue,’ he said, ‘were I to do as you say. I have offices to perform for those slain here and comfort to offer their families. Kill me if you will.’ And he walked from the raised place before the altar and out the side door. Eudric’s eyes narrowed to slits, Pardos saw, but he said nothing. A smaller Antae nobleman, smooth-chinned but with a long brown moustache, stood beside him now, and Pardos saw this man lay a steadying hand on the Chancellor’s arm as Sybard passed right by them.
Eudric stared straight ahead, breathing deeply. It was the smaller man who now gave crisp commands. Guards began mopping with their own cloaks at the blood where the woman and the mute had died. There was a great deal. They carried their bodies out through the side exit, and then those of Agila and his slain men.
Other soldiers went out into the yard, where frightened people could still be heard milling about. They were instructed to order the crowd back in. To report that the ceremony was to proceed.
It amazed Pardos, thinking of it after, but most of those who had rushed out, trampling each other in terror, did come back. He didn’t know what that said about people, what it meant about the world in which they lived. Couvry came back, Radulph did. Martinian and the two women did not. Pardos realized that he was glad of that.
He stayed where he was. His gaze went back and forth from Eudric and the man beside him to the two remaining clerics before the altar. One of the clerics turned to look back at the sun disk, and then he walked over to it and, using the corner of his own robe, wiped at the blood there and then at the blood on the altar. When he turned around and came back, Pardos saw the smeared blood dark on his yellow robe and saw that the man was weeping.