fee, which was exorbitant, that he had come, for the sake of those interests in
the Rankan capital who underwrote him – those who hated the Emperor so much that
they were willing to back such a loser as Kadakithis, if they could do it
without becoming the brunt of too many jokes. It was not for the temple, though
he was pleased to build it. It was some old, residual empathy in Tempus for a
prince so inept as to be known far and wide as ‘Kitty’ which had made him come.
Tempus had walked away from his primogeniture in Azehur, a long time ago,
leaving the throne to his brother, who was not compromised by palace politics.
He had deposited a treatise on the nature of being in the temple of a favoured
goddess, and he had left. Had he ever, really, been that young? Young as Prince
Kadakithis, whom even the Wrigglies disparaged?
Tempus had been around in the days when (he Ilsigs had been the Enemy: the
Wrigglies. He had been on every battlefield in the Rankan/Ilsig conflict. He had
spitted more Ilsigs than most men, watched them writhe soundlessly until they
died. Some said he had coined their derogatory nickname, but he had not, though
he had doubtless helped spread it…
He rode down Wideway, and he rode past the docks. A ship was being made fast,
and a crowd had gathered round it. He squeezed the horse’s barrel, urging it
into the press. With only four of his fellow Hell Hounds in Sanctuary, and a
local garrison whose personnel never ventured out in groups of less than six, it
was incumbent upon him to take a look.