Mortal Suns (31 page)

Of course, I had agreed, as I must, to go to her. I dressed with care, also putting on two or three jewels; for one of my rank to appear slapdash would not earn her approval.

Apart from the Hall, and here and there at various ceremonies, I had not seen Udrombis all those years.

I recalled, as I glided at my slow pace through the walks of the palace, how she had leaned in the shape of a bow when the monstrosity, the eagle, ripped her son up into the murderous sky. Even at such an instant, she did not evoke pity. She was a woman of power and marble.

In the passage that led towards the Queen-Widow’s rooms, I saw Crow Claw. I knew it was she, a thin, black-clad figure, coming out as it seemed from a doorway—but no door was there—and turning into an alcove from which, when I reached it, she had vanished.

What this sighting could mean I had no idea, nor was there time to ponder. Or to question Nimi, who was following me.

The doors of the royal apartment lay ahead, and a waiting woman, not Crow Claw, hurried from the alcove to usher me on.

Udrombis received me in the room with the hearth, an intimate room, for friends. Her garments were impeccable, as ever, and muted, though her rings blazed, and she wore a cache of emeralds at her throat.

The cedar chair she sat in was one of her smaller thrones. At first I did not reason anything from this, being too anxious.

I bowed to
Udrombis. She watched me and watched on when I had straightened up. Then she rose, without one word, and moving up to me, inspected me from head to toe. She felt the stuff of my dress, too, and a piece of my hair. Inevitably I recollected when I had been brought to her as a child, and she had gone over me as they did in the slave-market. But she was still the Sun Queen, Glardor’s wife had counted for nothing. Perhaps no other could.

“Calistra,” she said. “I hope you’re well?”

“Thank you, madam, yes.”

“Sit there.” I sat in a chair only by one stage smaller than her own.

“The promise of your infancy has blossomed,” she said. “I’ve long admired your ability to walk, and the elegance of the performance, which vastly exceeds that of many born with two feet. You have spirit, and cleverness.”

Again I thanked her. On the hearth the fire fluttered over scented logs. My mouth was dry, as it had been in her presence when I was four.

“But,” she said, “you dress too plainly. No, I don’t reprimand you, Calistra. That you’re modest has done you credit until now.”

Now?

She sat down. She gazed into her fire, giving me an interval to collect myself. But I lay scattered in bits, and could not do it.

In these very rooms she had administered poisons, so I had heard over the years. Or she had crushed with some more merciful blow.

“You will have heard,” said Udrombis, “Ipyra’s settled. More firmly settled than for several years. That’s Prince Klyton’s work.” My breath clenched of itself. In a motionless maelstrom, I stared into the hearth. “Klyton has written to me. He has suggested to me something that I’ve meditated on.” I was glad I was not standing up. Dizziness passed through me in a wave. I heard her say, “I will read to you a few words from his letter.” Then came the rustle of the fine Arteptan paper lifted from its box. She read me the few lines in a calm, almost inexpressive voice.

When I looked up, I saw as if for the first time: the fire quivered on the white strands of her hair, which now, like snow on obsidian, had almost obliterated her darkness. And for a second I did not know who she was. But she was Fate, as Ermias had been, entering in her yellow dress, and Crow Claw too, manifesting, vanishing.

Klyton had put
it to the Queen that my mother, Hetsa, had been the daughter of a strong king in Ipyra, a man who disdained to take up arms against Akhemony. I, therefore, half loyal Ipyran, and half the blood of the Sun House, possessed unique worth, should I be taken to wife by any Great Sun crowned this summer.

“Evidently,” said Udrombis, “the incestuous marital union of brother with sister goes unrecognized in Akhemony. However, Klyton points out that, should it be claimed instead that you are the daughter of Hetsa by Glardor and not Akreon—for which reason you were concealed briefly by your mother when a baby—you would remain the progeny of a Sun King, and the next Great Sun, when chosen, would stand as your uncle and not your brother. The union of uncle with niece is credible, in certain circumstances.” I sat like a statue, or one dead. Udrombis said, “Of course, it offends your honor to accept bastardy, where you are the legal daughter of Akreon. You must forgive me that I request the sacrifice of you, to secure Ipyra.”

My lips parted. Having lost my mind, I got out one name. “Elakti—” Even though I had forgotten who Elakti was.

“Elakti’s kindred raised the sword in this war, against Akhemony. Besides, the woman is crazed, running about the hills like a wild cat, with a train of servant girls, rending live rabbits with their teeth.” I shivered. She thought, or pretended to think, it was for that. “One is disgusted. But she carries the seed of Amdysos, it seems, and must be safeguarded, as best we can.” There was no mark on Udrombis’s face. I suspected, disorderedly, she believed Elakti’s pregnancy a lie, or some hysterical sterile swelling. God-like Amdysos could have had nothing to do with it.

Someone came in, just as when I was four, and brought me a reward, on this occasion premature. Wine in a fragile goblet, slices of candied winter fruit, transparent, too exquisite to eat.

To manage the cup without spilling it took all my skill. The wine tasted bitter and cold, like the milk of iron.

“Well, Calistra you must reply. To be the Sun-Consort, wife of the Great Sun. This is an enormous mountain all at once before you. But to a woman who has learned to walk without feet, perhaps, a little thing?”

I said, or some creature inside me used my voice to say, “Whatever you want of me, madam. Whatever is best.”

“Answered wisely. I expected no less.”

To this day,
I judge her dealings with me then were as simple as she had presented them to me. But even I had seen how she prized Klyton, and now I know that, without admission, she prized him also as a man. Yet she had no jealousy, no edge. For Udrombis, the honor of the house came first. And I truly believe she did not know I loved him—she truly could not imagine that one such as Calistra should so have
dared
. Note then, this strand of naïveté woven in her robe of dominant power.

But I was not, even then, quite unaware. I saw her sip her wine, and I wondered, what was its taste for her? Doubtless also bitter, always bitter now, as her hair now always would be white.

Again, everything alters, in Calistra’s world.

We are to be moved. We rise.

Lost to me, the garden of Phaidix, the room with the snake-topped pillars in which I was born. Lost to my turtle, her pool.

And to Ermias, her status as Maiden. She is to be only a lady attached to a princess, for Udrombis has selected and sent me a new Maiden. Ermias says nothing to me. Does it not matter, after all, seeing that she will come to be the lady of a Sun-Consort, all of whose women are named Maidens, higher than any ordinary Maiden could reach?

There are so many women, now. Women to see to garments, and to see to bathing and anointing, to the hair and the nails. And slaves—countless girls—to wait on every whim. I search for Nimi in their crowd, and locate her, finely clad, with little jewels in her ears. We have all gone up, lifted by the Queen’s disinterested hand.

But no. She has an interest in our value. We serve the House of the Sun. For the diadem of which she has chosen Klyton.

We are physically higher too, in the upper storys of the palace.

I have five great rooms which open off the central chamber, and a set of luxurious cells to content my chief women.

This, the central chamber, amazes me.

A terrace looks towards the Lakesea, between long, mulberry pillars. At night shutters and draperies are pulled close, but on the fine days, this side of the room is all a heaven of atmosphere and light. Below, the palace gardens, and then those other ancient gardens which cascade to the shore, where long ago, as a child of twelve, I sat, and Klyton found me.

Because my turtle
is mine, they make for her a new pool. This pool is much larger, and its floor is laid with leaf-green tiles. A statue of Gemli, taller than I, poises on the rim. She is painted and lovely, and nearby is an enormous cage with six pale pink doves. Once the doors are secured, the doves are let out, and fly around. Any droppings are wiped away at once by one of the slaves, whose name I have not learned.

Somehow I keep Kelbalba. I have explained it was she who helped me to walk.

She and I, then, one afternoon, staring, in the room with mulberry pillars. From the gardens beneath breathe the scents of tamarind, the myrtle, the marroi, on an orchestra of crickets, and with that, the sea, which has now a louder voice.

“Whose rooms are these?” questions Kelbalba.

“Calistra’s rooms.”

We smile. My smile dies the first.

I have new dresses. One a ripe, deep red blood-color, the blazon of the Sun Kings. There is, among the ornaments, a headdress like a great wreath. It is formed from the petals of gold flowers, the gold traceries of leaves, and golden wheat-ears, symbol of fruition, of the earth mated to the solar sky.

In this gown and this crown, I go first to the Hall, and sit, as she has told me to, close by Udrombis.

I see myself like a beautiful doll, near to the Widow-Queen’s chair. And how, every so often, she confers with me or sends me some sweet or fruit to try.

None of this is overlooked.

Disgraced Nexor had taken no High Queen. Glardor’s widow is gone. I notice instead, Klyton’s Sirmian wife, Bachis, her tawny hair plaited with Bulos pearls, her belly like a bladder under pale silk. Once she raises her eyes to me, flits them away.

She is to be my little sister, if I am to be his … I think you are looking at me now, asking of yourself, and me, what then I felt. From the air, I gaze down and see Calistra. For her heart, imagine the constrained turmoil of a waterfall. Her mind is the river in spate. Nothing stays.

In my land of shadow I had began to debate. Now I was woken quite roughly from my shadow, into a brilliant dream. There was no place to find my balance. I felt a strange terror, and more than glad, I was finally rebellious. If I, so little, was to be made Queen of the World, I was at last entitled to anger.

He
returned in the late spring. He had been busy in Ipyra, settling her in his own fashion, visiting the chiefs and kings, taking them gifts, and letting them see the smart soldiery of Akhemony for themselves. But what had started as a war had become a progress. Adargon went with him—Lektos had come home to speak volumes of Klyton’s worth, in the councils at Oceaxis. The Karrad, my grandfather, Hetsa’s sire, traveled with Klyton, too. Ipyra had not often had so much trouble taken with her. Like a groomed horse or a human cunningly flattered, she began to show her friendly side.

The blossoms of the gardens had made way for green. The troops marched in through the town, and the first roses were torn out to award them a carpet.

No one said I must go to shower Klyton with flowers. As once before, I stayed in my rooms.

Akhemony had by then decided. It was all settled. From the Sun Temple uncurled the thick pall of the offerings, visible to me from my terrace over the trees.

I had a new tutor. He was a skinny, squeaky-voiced priest; his task was to teach me the manners of my ascension—the religious duties and day to day behaviour of a Sun-Consort.

But I was used to learning. I had learned such a lot.

Klyton, his formal reception over, went first to see Udrombis, and next, his mother.

I was conscious Stabia must be ill. She had not come to the Hall for more than two months. Ermias no longer gossiped to me, and my Maiden was a perfect icon, her slim mouth closed on anything but the platitudes of her service to me. It was Nimi, burnishing my turtle’s shell, who whispered that Klyton had only just been in time, for Stabia was near to death. An exaggeration, as it happened. Or rather, a prediction.

Even in my tumult, this checked me. Stabia had been, for a moment, a guide in my desert. More, she had seemed my friend. There was a shrine for the most royal women on the upper roofs, that now I had access to, and so I went there and made an offering of perfume for Stabia. Squeaky, my priest-tutor, had told me exactly which substance must be employed in every circumstance. But as the jam-sweet odor of the scent drifted with the smoke, and melted in the sky, and birds sang carelessly in the gardens, I knew how useless this was, and how redundant. Never before, I think, had I detected the true distance of the gods, their inattentive quality. Passionately, in all my tribulations, I had kept some faith. Was it perhaps curious or apt, that as my wish came home to me, I lost it?

The
Squeaker had decorously hinted that I would be the next person Klyton should call upon. My closemouthed Maiden also intimated that I must get ready.

So I, like the offering, was laved in perfume. I was dressed in white and wound with gold. Over my hair, they set a golden net with silver stars, and into this were fastened flowers pink as the caged doves. I thought of the flowers cast before Klyton on the street. I, too, was to be his carpet, something fragrant and pliable for his glory to step on.

The day had passed. They were kindling my lamps. This procedure had taken a few minutes in my former apartment. Now it was a great business.

As the hollow familiar caves of rooms blushed into light, Klyton arrived at my door.

I received him in the outer room, where all the lamps were burning. Two of his servants appeared first, and put down a pinewood chest bound with brass. This they flung open as though before a market crowd, to reveal a heap of shimmering cloth and tinsels, while ropes of purple gems spilled artfully on the floor.

Then came another servant, leading forward a milk-white hound on a gold leash, which moved daintily up to me, ignoring the turtle, who drew in her head under her shell.