“I fear you,” I answered before I thought.
“You fear me?” He accented that last word as if he were incredulous. “Why?”
“Because of what might happen.” Then all I had been thinking by the fire spilled out of me—that through him my mistress courted the danger of attracting the adverse notice of those who could and would act against her.
“I see,” he said slowly. “Kynrr spoke of such things as the jealousy of the Great Houses and their secret ways of dealing with those who gained their ill favor. You think then that such might be turned upon her whom you care for, if by some unusual range of favor I do gain the crown?”
I nodded.
“The Emperor has all power, does he not?”
“Subject to the advice of the Chancellor,” I corrected him.
“But he can take under his protection whomever he wishes—
“If he may desire to do so.”
“So.” I had him frowning now. He favored me with a hint of wry smile. “I think you may see only shadowed future, Allitta. I have yet to claim the crown. Nor do I think that my chances are so fair. But this much I say to you: Your mistress is one who knows more than either of us. I would back her against a war band, without even a spear to hand, and yet see her a victor. She is far more than she seems.”
Chapter 28
RAVINGA DID NOT SHARE our morning meal nor did Allitta do me such a favor. Murri and I ate alone, and it was not an easy meal, for I waited for the summons and waiting has never been easy for me. As it never is for one who can reckon in his mind all the evils which may lurk ahead. How long that wait would be I had no way of telling.
Allitta packed two large baskets with lesser products of Ravinga’s skill, or perhaps her own, and I loaded these on a hand cart for her. I would have taken my place at the push bar of that and seen her to the market but she told me plainly that it was my place to stay under cover as I had already flaunted custom by choosing to shelter with the dollmaker. My appearance as co-vendor of wares in the marketplace would only draw such attention as I must not court.
Thus I faced a long day with nothing to do. After the activity of the last period of travel and effort, that seemed a burden. The old man took over the shop and fussed about, moving Ravinga’s doll people here and there on shelves and muttering under his breath, now and then peering at me from under his eyebrows as if he found me a disturbing sight. So at last I was driven into the long room which was Ravinga’s workshop.
I moved about that, as careful not to touch as a child who had been sternly forbidden to do so, eyeing her work from its beginnings to the near finished figure at hand, marveling at how no two of the small faces were alike. It was as if she looked upon her art even as did my sister and had no desire to repeat any design.
There was one shelf before which I paused to give longer study to what stood there. Within me was a chill I could not account for as I looked upon the likeness of two women and a man, and beside them—the snarling figure of a rat! Why Ravinga would wish to use her talent to fashion such a creature I could not imagine.
The women had the silver hair of Vapala, but their skin was a darker shade than that of those I had seen on the streets. Their garb was not ordinary robes or even court finery, but rather the scanty covering of cat dancers. Their faces were painted, and the fingers of their tiny, well-fashioned hands had the nails elongated into claws. Also they were posed as if prepared to leap forward in one of the intricate twirls of the hunt dance.
Their companion was a much more somber figure. His head was covered by a tight-fitting hood, so drawn on his skull as to suggest that no hair sprouted under it, not even the common top lock. He had been dressed in a sleeved robe which fell open on his breast and the body portion so displayed there was patterned with a device which was etched into the skin itself or so it would seem.
For the rest he had the full breeches of a Kahulawen and below those, boots fringed about the tops with black oryxen mane hair. There was no sword belt with ready weapon, no spear to hand. Rather his carven fingers were looped about the shaft of a staff of honor and that was topped by the likeness of a creature I had never seen nor heard described—but something which suggested great malignity.
The rat—it was a rat—but in scale with the three figures beside it, it was overlarge—more like one of the monsters which had been recently appearing, the like of which I had myself slain among the rock isles.
“You are interested in my people, Hynkkel?”
I was so unaware of all save the dolls that I started. Ravinga stood by my side.
“The cat dancers—I once saw a small company of those. But the man—and the rat—?”
“The man you could never have seen, nor even have heard of— not in your far outlands. There are no keepers of old knowledge there—
“We have our Rememberers for the feasts,” I protested. This implied judgment that we were indeed barbarous pricked me more than it ever had.
“Yes, and they are well trained—in the history of your people. But there were others before you, and of those none of your lore makes mention. He,” she pointed to the man, “was a seeker of strange knowledge who once crossed the Plain of Desolation— before the first Emperor was crowned.”
“But no man—nor beast—can dare the inner heart of the Plain!”
“The rats do,” she returned. “There is much lost knowledge, Hynkkel. Some of it purposefully lost. There is also a belief that to think on things of darkness in curiosity may awaken more than one wishes. Yes—that one was a master of much power which had nothing to do with spear or sword. And the rat was his symbol!”
That any living person might use one of those loathsome creatures to stand as his House badge sickened me. Yet now I could see truly that the sign etched on what was meant to be a bare breast was the outline of a rat head, even as I wore that of the leopard on my palms.
“How do you know of him?” Perhaps the question was an impertinence but it was one I could not forgo.
“I am a Guardian, Hynkkel. From generation to generation, from reign to reign, certain women have carried the old knowledge. Perhaps not without taint or misunderstanding, for knowledge passed from mind to mind may sometimes be unconsciously altered by the very personality of he or she who holds it. I cannot be sure how true is that I myself now hold—but it is enough to warn me.
“That is Ylantilyn, once of the House of Borse.” Again she indicated the figure. “His very name was a curse in its time. He reached for much, gained some, and sundered House from House, land from land, to try for more. Even the beasts, except those horrors he herded as his own, were caught up in his warring. As a result, they, too, suffered change.
“Hynkkel,” now her attention moved from the figure to me and there was that about her which was like unto my father’s stance when he spoke about some fault of mine, “the lives of all of us move in circles. We are born, we labor to our wills, or our needs, we come again to death. The Great Essence takes us up and once more molds us and sets the pattern afresh. Only we do not carry with us the memory of what lies behind, thus often the same mistakes are ours. Just so is the life of our queendoms, we follow patterns and in times those patterns become twisted.
“For long now have we lived in a semblance of peace. We train warriors but they have naught to raise spear against, save outlaws or the animals they hunt. We have the hardship of our lands, the sandstorms, the mountain fires, the treachery of the salt pans. Yes, all these represent danger, and many of us die of the very nature of our surroundings.
“But in the past were greater wars, and our lives were shaped by those. Such will come again, and if we are not prepared we shall be as yaksen at the coming of Murri’s clan—near helpless.”