“Clever and dependable man,” she said to him. “I would have died without you,” at which the clown blushed and mumbled. “Will you take care when I have gone?”
“I’ll be safe,” he promised her. I thought him a wretched idiot and her a wicked one, either to dream he could escape suspicion after all this connivance with decoy carriages, drugged guards, and the like. But I did not mar their touching farewell.
About an hour later than we had planned it with Sorem, Yashlom and I escorted three women up the slope, by the snoring Crimson guards, and finally edged down the pitchblack stair under the mimosas.
To be just, our charges were serene as ice and nimble as three mountain goats. And somewhere in the dark, as we waited for Yashlom to work the stone door into the well, a pair of smooth arms came around my neck, and a wine-sweet mouth with sharp teeth gnawed gently on my lower lip. I thought it was she, for one mad second, but it was the Masrian girl, who whispered in my ear some promise for the future. I heard Malmiranet laugh at her antics, and I thought to myself, Do you care so little for me, lady, that you must laugh aloud to prove it?
Everything was well, no hint of vigilant patrols, pursuit, or altercation till we reached the temple half a mile down the terraces outside the great walls. Here the two horses had been tethered, enough for two men and one slim woman, but not enough for a couple of extra girls.
“No matter,” said Malmiranet. “We may get horses here. The priest has a small stable and is amenable. If one man will stay to protect me, the other can see my girls safe to the Citadel.”
“Madam,” began Yashlom.
I asked myself when he would leave off these polite beginnings and tell her to do as he bid her.
“Isep is a matchless horsewoman,” averred Malmiranet.
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“Nasmet shall ride behind the man on the second horse, which should be a joy to both of them.”
“Lady,” I said, “our purpose is to conduct you to your son, not half your retinue. How do you know the priest will give you horses?”
“He has done it before,” she said. “Are you afraid to stay with me here? I heard the sorcerer could overcome multitudes.”
She was adamant as any woman used to obtaining her own way. I looked at Yashlom.
“Do as she says. Take the girls and get them to the Pillar, I’ll follow as swift as I can with this one.”
“Sir-” he began. Now he was starting his tricks with me.
“Remember the ten men on the Lion’s Field, Yashlom, the ten I killed? Do you? Good. I am better protection for this lady than any army, and if she has sense in nothing else, she has the sense to recognize that.”
She had got me to blustering and boasting like the cockerel in the farmyard. But Yashlom, taking the words at their basic value, nodded and mounted up with the Masrian, while the bronze swung into the saddle like a young warrior and trotted off down the jagged scarp toward the gem-lamps of the Palm Quarter.
Shortly I stood alone with an empress outside the temple portico.
She draped her cloak around her, and said, “I look enough like a boy in this dark; I’ve fooled the priest before. Tell him we’re lovers and that my father will whip me if I’m late home, and he finds I’ve been out again playing Hare and Dog with you in the terrace groves.”
“Will that work?”
“It will. He has a soft spot for boys and their men, particularly when a silver cash or two comes with it,” and she tossed me a purse, which I tossed her back before I went in at the leaning entrance.
The instant I was in the door, I felt the trap and spun about.
Too late. A hand came on my arm, and a voice said, “Placidly, Vazkor. A man already has your companion in his charge. You would not like her to die, I think, after such measures to protect her.”
Then the dark was erased by a flourish of torches, each lighted with its muttered invocation; religion before all, even murder.
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I kept quiet and glanced about. I was not amazed to discover some fifteen men packed in the dilapidated fane, the iron-wrapped brands glaring on their weapons and on the black and yellow livery of Basnurmon. The voice behind me spoke again.
“If you’re looking for me, sorcerer, I’m here. I came in person this time.”
Thus I faced around on the Emperor’s heir, with whom I had had such a quantity of invisible dealings.
He was oddly familiar, which disconcerted me, until I grew conscious of the likeness of all Masrians with their curled hair and beards. Even I, who had taken up the fashion, would slightly resemble Basnurmon. I had been expecting I do not know what, for we tend to model the faces of our enemies before we regard them in certain ugly, infantile ways. To confront this ordinary object, handsome, clothed in fine dandified garments of cream and gold, unremarkable, grinning like a fisherman who has caught two fish on the hook when he anticipated only one, was curious. And the more curious when I acknowledged that he would kill both her and me, or worse, because he, too, registered enemies when he beheld us.
“You called me sorcerer,” I said. “Do you believe it?” He let his grin sour as if he ate lemons. “Oh, I believe it. The wild priest from the north who slays men with light. But if you will turn your head, you will see the mother of your beloved. Malmiranet’s life, for Sorem’s sweet sake, is incomparably dear to you. You won’t risk her.”
Two of his devils had her by a pillar, one with a long-knife against her neck. She looked amused, tolerant, and she said direct to me, ignoring the rest of them, “There is a foul smell in this shrine. I wonder what it can be.”
The guard without the knife raised his hand to strike her, and Basnurmon barked at him to be still. He wanted unspoiled goods to present to the Emperor, or for some private revelry he had in mind. Yet I could see that whatever move I made in here would cost her life or mine. A struggle had begun inside me, too. Despite my boasting of my armory of Power, Bzt-Hessee had left me fearful to use it.
I tried for Basnurmon’s eyes but he was shifty in that, maybe cognizant of tales other than rays of light. He walked over to Malmiranet instead and put his hand on her breast.
“I shall have to inform the Emperor, my royal father, how I caught you with your lover. That’s very treasonable. It may
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merit the Mutilation of Cuts; first these,” and he squeezed what he held, “and later that fine nose which, for too many years, has been thrust into matters that did not concern it.”
“Little boy,” Malmiranet said, “I comprehend you could not help coming out this dirty, from the dirty silly bitch who whelped you.”
“Shut your mouth!” he shouted, cowering like a whipped puppy, like the thing she had named him. When he came away from her his face had fallen in strange, petulant lines. She had been his earliest gall, no doubt, but I did not reckon she would have stooped to attacking him as a child, if he had not begun it at his mother’s urging.
I thought, This woman is as brave as any man, and as sharp. She guesses he will take her to her death, or does she hope I can save her? She has had weaklings around her since her father’s passing, that much is obvious, and even Sorem is more gold than steel. My fear left me at that, the sepulcher fear of Old Hessek. I felt a pride come up in me like Masrimas’ dawn, for she was worth a battle, and I due for one.
They herded us out into the night. Probably they had removed the priest, or he was in hiding; I got no glimpse of him. Horses stood behind the fane, and the wasp men mounted up. They had found a spare horse for me, but not, it seemed, for Malmiranet. Basnurmon told one of his cutthroats to tie her hands and take her up behind him, and I recognized what I must do.
The city gleamed through the trees; there was even a nightingale, as ever, speckling the dark with chimes.
The man with Malmiranet had drawn the rope that tied her wrists through his belt. I called out to her, “It may be a bumpy ride. You had better hold on tight, Empress.”
I saw from the flash of her eyes that she took my meaning, and then I let the energy from me in a molten burst that sent my guards squealing and tottering down on either side. Basnurmon yelled with a scared puppet face, and the bastard who had her roped to him swung around with his dagger raised. I caught him in the breast with the white ray that had brought two thirds of my fame in Bar-Ibithni, and kicked my horse in the side. It ran into his, and, even as he fell, I slashed the rope free of her hands with the energy in my fingers that I had used to light lamps. I leaped from my mount onto his, before her, as his place became vacant, and gave the beast, too, a touch of fire to start it off.