A Fall of Princes (9 page)

Then again at night they had played together, he and she, in
the grass under moons and stars. She was insatiable. She was honey-sweet. She
was born to the high arts.

And she was treacherous. She had trumpeted his prowess to
any who could hear. If he left this tent alive, he would kill her.

Her father laughed and prodded Hirel in the most vulgar of
places. “
Sa, sa
, little stallion! Did
you leave your tongue in your bower by the water? Tell me what brings you here.
Would you like gold? Seneldi? Another woman to teach your western dances to?
Though that might not be so simple; my daughter has sharp claws, and she’s
using them on any who even hints at taking a try at you.”

Hirel’s voice astounded him; it was perfectly steady.
“Sarevan,” he said. “Sarevan would speak with you.”

Hirel had conjured rightly. Azhuran was up again at once
without question or protest, shortening his stride a little so that Hirel
needed only to trot to keep pace, seeking Sarevan’s tent amid a straggle of
curious folk.

o0o

Sarevan sat up in his bed, and the old woman stood well
apart from him. The air between them quivered with tension.

Hirel thrust himself into it. “The chieftain is here,” he
said to Sarevan. “Strike your bargains as you can, but be quick about it. You
have need of rest.”

He was certain that the witch would cast a curse on them
all. But she stood back, arms folded, and glowered in silence. Azhuran bent
over the Varyani prince, speaking in a rumble in his own tongue.

The bargaining went on for a long while. Ulan came in the
heat of it, when the old woman had added her own voice to the rest.

The cat lay down unperturbed, drowsing with one ear cocked.
Hirel settled against the warm solid body and tried to make sense of the words
that flew back and forth above his head. It kept him from remembering shame;
from resorting to murder.

o0o

“Swift seneldi,” Sarevan said when the chieftain had gone back
to his judging and the wisewoman departed in disgust, “and provisions, and
clothing for us both.” He had barely voice left to speak, but he looked
eminently satisfied.

“At what price?” asked Hirel.

“A concession or two from my father, concerning mainly the
freedom of the tribe to hunt on royal lands, and employment in my service for
certain of Azhuran’s young men.”

“I did not mean that. He could ask nothing that your father
would not happily pay. At what price to you?”

“None,” answered Sarevan. “We ride tomorrow.”

Hirel sucked in his breath. He had meant to put an end to
the old woman’s railings. Not to begin a new madness. “I see that I erred,” he
said with a twist of scorn. “I credited you with a modicum of sense.”

“I have to go,” Sarevan said.

“Send Azhuran’s young savages in your place, and follow when
you are stronger. Surely one of them can be trusted to carry your message.”

“Not this.” Sarevan sighed and closed his eyes. “Let be,
cubling. I do what I must.”

“You are a howling madman.”

Sarevan smiled thinly. He let the silence stretch; Hirel
chose not to break it.

It seemed that Sarevan had slid into sleep, until he said,
“I’ve included you in the bargain. We’ll go to Endros together.”

Hirel went rigid. “We will not. I too can strike bargains; I
will find my way to Kundri’j. I am free of you now, as you are free of me.”

Sarevan’s eyes opened. They were deep and quiet, and there
was regret in them, but iron also. “I’m sorry, cubling. I wanted to take you
home and have done with it. But now you know who I am, and you guess what I
must say to my father. I can’t chance your reaching Kundri’j Asan before I come
to Endros.”

“And what,” asked Hirel softly, as a prince must, and above
all a prince betrayed, “gives you either right or power to constrain me?”

“Necessity,” said Sarevan. “And the Zhil’ari.”

“Potent powers,” Hirel said, soft still, but never in
submission. “But of right, you speak no word, as of honor you know nothing: you
who so long deceived me, and cozened me, and reveled in your lies.”

Sarevan sighed with all the weariness in the world. “Maybe I
did take too much pleasure in it. It’s past; I’ve paid. Now need drives me, and
you must come perforce, because you are what you are. You won’t suffer for
riding with me. You’ll be treated with all honor; I’ll see that you have
occasion to speak for your empire.”

“My father will come with an army to free me.”

“More likely he’ll treat with us for your safe return.”

“It comes down to that, does it not? You but played with me
while you spied in Asanion. Now you tell the truth. You always meant me to be
your hostage. Gods, that I had killed you when I had the chance!”

Sarevan raised himself on an arm that trembled but held. “I
swear to you, Hirel Uverias, this is no betrayal. You will see your home and
your people again; you will stand again in Kundri’j Asan. But first I must
carry this message to my father.”

“
Must
,” Hirel
echoed him. “Always
must
. And what
compels you? You were not your father’s only spy. Surely one at least will not
be caught as you were caught.”

That stung: Sarevan tensed and nearly fell. But he said as
calmly as ever, “None of them has dreamed as I have dreamed. None of them is my
father’s son.”

“Speak to him from afar. Wield the magic you are so proud
of.”

“I have none.” Sarevan’s elbow buckled; he fell back, with a
gasp at the jarring of his shoulder. “I told you, it is gone. You will ride
with me. You need not try to escape. Azhuran’s warriors are instructed to guard
you.”

o0o

Not ostentatiously. But wherever Hirel went, there were a
few hulking tribesmen about, loitering, gaming, blocking every path of escape.
When he swam in the lake, half the Zhil’ari came to join him, men and women
alike, flaunting their nakedness.

One slipped up behind him and tugged wickedly; he yelped
more in startlement than in pain. Zhiani’s merriment rippled in his ear.

She wanted to play, there, in front of everyone. He
remembered that he was going to kill her. After he had killed Sarevan.

Her fingers did something exquisite. He groaned aloud, and
no one even heard. Close by, between himself and the shore, two men locked in
passion, a great grizzle-bearded man and a downy-cheeked boy; little children
gamboled over and about them.

It was unspeakable. It held him as firmly as any bars, and
Zhiani’s hands and mouth were chains, and the world itself his prison.

o0o

They were not like his brothers and their accomplices in
Pri’nai. No one was careless here, or underrated Hirel for his youth and his
prettiness and his sheltered innocence. When morning came, he was still in the
camp, and Zhiani made much of his leaving, sighing and kissing him and heaping
him with gifts.

He had decided to let her live. She was only a savage; she
could not know what she had done to him.

Perhaps he might take her with him. She was no fit wife for
a high prince, but she made a remarkable concubine. No one in Kundri’j had
anything like her.

If he ever saw Kundri’j again. But he would take her. For
comfort. For company.

She bathed him, kissing him wherever the fancy took her,
nibbling here and there, but when desire rose and he reached for her, she eeled
away.

“No more,” she said in deep regret. She dressed him with a
little less playful wantonness, and clearly she did not approve of the breeches
that he had insisted on.

“Woman,” she muttered. “Woman-weak.” But she helped him into
them, skin-snug as they were, and fastened the codpiece with rather more
pleasure, and the heavy plated belt; then settled the embroidered coat, leaving
it open so that the gold of her first gift shone clear on his chest.

Last of all she brought out the high soft boots, and in her
mind they seemed to make up for the effeminacy of the breeches. Small feet were
much prized among these broad-footed savages; his, narrow and fine and only
lightly calloused, the scars of his wandering beginning to fade, delighted her
almost as much as the golden brightness of his hair.

When she was done, he looked like a prince again, cropped
head and all. He saw it in her eyes. She brushed his eyelids with royal gold,
caressing as she did it; her finger traced a curve on his cheek. Asking with
silent eloquence. Offering paints: gold, scarlet, green.

Almost he yielded, but he had a little sense left. “No,” he
said firmly. “No more.”

She sighed, but she withdrew, holding back the flap of her
tent.

The others were waiting. Nine painted, jangling, kilted
giants holding the bridles of their tall seneldi; and Sarevan.

Sarevan on his own feet, painted and jangling and kilted
like any Zhil’ari buck, with his hair in two narrow braids flanking his face and
a long tail behind, and a red-eyed, red-maned demon of a stallion goring the
air beside him.

He turned toward Hirel; his face was a terror, painted in
barbaric slashes of white and yellow, his beard braided with threads of gold.
But his arrogance was the same, and the white flash of his teeth. “You took
your time, cubling,” he said.

“I had help.” Hirel looked about. “Am I permitted to ride?
Or must I be bundled on a packbeast?”

“You ride,” Sarevan said. He gestured; a boy led forward a
tiger-striped mare.

She was not as tall as the others, though still no pony, and
she was no great beauty. Her like would never have been suffered in Hirel’s
stables in Kundri’j. But she moved well, and she had a bright wicked eye in her
narrow head, and when Hirel took the bridle she snorted and stamped and
threatened him with her teeth.

He laughed. He liked a senel with a temper.

He vaulted into the odd high saddle with its softening of
fleeces, its festoons of straps and rings and bags. But there was a senel under
it all, lightly bitted and gathering to test him, and if there was anything he
could do, it was ride. Shorn, captive, and thrice betrayed, in this at least he
had come home.

The others were mounting. Azhuran had come while Hirel was
absorbed in his mount, and Zhiani was close by her father, watching him speak
to Sarevan.

Hirel nudged the mare toward them. Sarevan ended his
colloquy and mounted lightly, favoring his wounded shoulder only a little.

Azhuran saluted Hirel. “Good morning, little stallion,” he
said.

Hirel inclined his head. “You have been most generous. I
thank you; if ever I can repay you—”

“It was nothing,” Azhuran said. “We did it for the prince.
If anything, we’re in your debt. My daughter asks me to thank you with all her
heart. You’ve taught her more than she could ever have hoped for, even from a
yellow dwarf.”

Hirel would ignore the insults. He would remember who and
what these people were. He would—

The chieftain’s grin was abominably lewd. “Yes, you’re the
best teacher she’s ever had. Come Fall Gathering, when she spreads her girdle
in front of the tent, she’ll win a high chief’s son; and he’ll give a whole
herd to lie in her bed.”

Zhiani stood beside her father, and she was smiling
luminously, not a tear to be seen. Hirel’s teeth locked on the words he would
have said.

That he was more than a high chief’s son. That she could be
a queen; or as close to it as her barbarian kindred might ever come.

She had never loved him, only the arts that he could teach
her, which every Asanian nobleman learned from his early youth. He was nothing
to her but the passport to a rich husband.

“May you wed as you wish,” he said to her in his court
voice, that could mask anything. Anger. Hurt. Reluctant relief. “May your
husband give you many sons.”

The mare fretted. Hirel let her dance about, away from
Zhiani’s heartless smile, toward his captivity.

It would, he vowed, be brief. As brief as wits and will
could make it. He did not look back. The company sprang whooping into a gallop;
he kicked the mare after them. She bucked, squealed, and set herself to outpace
the wind.

“He kills himself,” said the smallest of the nine Zhil’ari,
who stood hardly taller than Sarevan.

They were camped by the southernmost of the Lakes of the
Moon. Hirel eyed it longingly. If only this great lanky creature would go away,
he could bathe and swim and loosen his travel-wearied muscles. But Zha’dan had
caught him alone, and was not inclined to sacrifice the opportunity.

Hirel took off his coat and hung it tidily from a branch.
With equal care he said, “Sarevan looks well enough to me. He rides without
falling. He eats well. He—”

“He keeps the saddle because he refuses to fall. He pretends
to eat, but the demon cat eats for him. He paints himself not for beauty as is
proper: he hides what the riding does to him.”

Hirel loosened his belt. The savage watched with interest.
Hirel let his hands fall. He was not ready to strip in front of this glittering
meddler; no matter that the whole tribe had seen all of him there was to see.
There was no logic in modesty.

Nor in Sarevan’s weakness, if it came to that. “His wound is
healing. It was healing before we left the village. His wizardry—how can he be
dying of that?”

Zha’dan regarded him as one would regard an idiot. Hirel
watched tolerance dawn behind the paint.
Ah
,
it said.
Foreigner
.

Zha’dan took care with his words, stumbling a little with
the roughness of tradespeech. “Mages are very great, like gods. But they are
not gods. They are men. They pay for their magics. Small magics, small prices.
Great magics, prices sometimes too great to pay. The body pays, always. And the
power itself pays more. The great one—he fought great mages, and he won, but he
killed one. A stone, you throw it, it strikes down the
kimouri
, but
maybe it comes back. It strikes you, too. It puts out your eye. So with power,
and mages who use it to kill. Death’s price is power’s death.”