Path of the Eclipse (62 page)

“If you would rather have it otherwise, let me tell you what I shall have done to your servant.” Her step became bouncy, girlish, and she tangled the fingers of one hand in the skull-shaped beads of her necklace. “Your servant will be brought to the altar. That much you must allow us if you will not give yourself for sacrifice. We will have to bind him, because otherwise too many would have to hold him.”

“No,” Saint-Germain said softly.

“We will burn off his skin, bit by bit, and each little section will be offered to the Black Goddess. We will start with the fingers and toes.” She turned at the end of the room and came back toward him. She seemed unaware of Guristar now. “You would have to watch. That would be required. And then Padmiri. If you deprive us of you, we must use her. That, also, you will have to watch.” She stopped before Saint-Germain. “After seeing what we do, creature of Shiva, you may wish to be sacrificed. It might be more pleasant, the death I offer you, than living. Don’t you think?”

“Let me see my servant depart and hear the vows of those who escort him that he will be taken safely to the border of this abattoir.” His tone had thickened with revulsion.

Tamasrajasi bowed her head respectfully. “That will be done, Lord Shiva.”

“I am not Lord Shiva,” Saint-Germain said vehemently.

“You stand in his place, and you will be honored as he is,” Tamasrajasi replied with the assumption of humility. “You will be taken to a place of state and wreathed in flowers and praised. You will be given sacrifice, too, so that you are the more holy.”

The hideous absurdity of her proposal nearly drove Saint-Germain to laughter, but he stifled it in his throat, as he supposed it presaged madness. But what else was there, if not madness. Padmiri, he thought, Padmiri, flee this place. Go far away, as far as you can. And he hoped fervently that she would never learn how he died. He did not know if this hope was born of shame or love, and he wasted no time in questioning it. “Tamasrajasi,” he said as reasonably as he was able, “I am not Lord Shiva. I am not, in any way I understand it, one of his creatures. Yes, I am a vampire, but I am not what you think me. I don’t know what you seek to gain from my death, but I warn you, it will not happen.”

Her smile was seraphic. “Those who worship Kali seek nothing. Nothing. We wish to be free of the Wheel forever, to be burned out of this life and all lives to come. You know that Kali promises us destruction, creature of Shiva, and an end to all things.”

Saint-Germain had no answer for her. He watched her, seeing her youth and her voluptuous body, seeing the bloom of life in her, and could not imagine what it was that made her long for oblivion. Those who were wretched might desire to trade their youth for an end to their torments, but Tamasrajasi was powerful, in excellent health, wealthy and all but adored by most of her people. Her father had cherished her and made her his heir. And she yearned for the ultimate dissolution.

“Come,” she called out happily, holding her hand out to him as she walked away from him. “You must be robed. When you have been made ready, you will see your servant ride away with men vowed to deliver him unharmed to my border.”

“Great Mistress!” Guristar burst out. “What of me? I have brought this sacrifice to you. You have said that I may take you. Tonight.” He had meant it for a demand but it came out a question.

“Yes, Guristar, my Commander, tonight you shall have me. I have said it.” There was that illusory quality of play about her, as if she were still a child. Saint-Germain started after her, asking himself if it might be that riancy which made him unable to think of her as a woman grown, though her body was richly mature.

As Tamasrajasi reached the door to the chamber, two robed men stepped out of the deepest shadows and stood on either side of Saint-Germain. “These are the men,” she announced without turning to look at them, “who will guide your servant. They will do everything I ask of them, and they will not fail.” She went down the corridor with lithe steps, and listened to the steps behind her. The two men had a soft tread as their sandals scuffed the stone floor. Saint-Germain’s boots made a sharp report. Tamasrajasi decided that it was an excellent omen.

The room she led them to was on the far side of the sanctuary. It was ornate, filled with murals in bright gold and reds, and redolent with that peculiarly unappetizing incense. The floor was made of vari-colored alabaster, and at the far end there was a pearl-encrusted throne within the arch of hammered brass almost wholly covered with gold leaf.

“See?” Tamasrajasi said merrily. “Here you will be elevated and revered. You will be dressed as a god, your face will be painted so that it will shine.”

“I want to see my servant first,” Saint-Germain said. While he walked to this chamber, he had resigned himself to what lay ahead of him. “I wish to see him now.”

Tamasrajasi frowned, pouting, then cocked her head to the side. “Why not? I will allow him to aid you in preparation. He
is
your servant, and he should be pleased to help invest you for worship.” She spoke to the men beside Saint-Germain. “Go and bring the other foreigner here. Do it at once. It is my will that he be here.”

Neither man spoke, but both turned and left the room. Saint-Germain heard their steps retreating. “How long will this take?”

“The dressing? A fair time. There is a ritual to it.” She was teasing him again, for she knew he was not asking her about the matter of dressing. “After you are dressed, there are invocations to be said and a number of chants to sing. You will be anointed and wreathed in flowers. Then the real ceremony will begin. Most of those who will come here to worship will not enter the temple until the darknest part of the night; in honor of Kali. Then they will see what I will do with Guristar”—here she giggled with the unfeigned mirth of a child—“and then they will give themselves for worship and sacrifice, and when that is done, then you will be brought to the altar. It will depend on how quick you are to spend your seed in me as to how long that will be. I hope that you will not be too quick.”

“It may not happen at all,” Saint-Germain warned her. “What then?”

“By dawn,” Tamasrajasi went on as if she had not heard him, but there was an irritated line between her brows, “it will have ended and those who have been here will depart. Pyres will be made for the dead, and the men who keep the altars here will throw the ashes into the cold waters of the Kudri.”

“And you?” He was more puzzled by her than before. “What will you do, Tamasrajasi?”

“I will return to my palace and prepare for war,” she said serenely. “My army will rise and we will take back the lands that the Sultan at Delhi has stolen from us.”

“But your army…” He had seen the palace guard and knew from his conversations with Padmiri that Dantinusha had reduced the number of his soldiers to a minimal level as a token of good faith to Shams-ud-din Iletmish.

“I have six thousand war elephants. And they will be ridden by archers and spearmen. There are nine thousand horsemen in my cavalry, and they will trample the invaders beneath them. Ten thousand warriors will follow on foot, and everywhere they go, they will destroy all that they find in their path.” She was radiant. “I will ride on the foremost elephant. I will be in armor of black stone and my spears will be of darkest iron.”

Over the centuries, Saint-Germain had seen many sorts of madness, and he had learned both fear of and compassion for those so afflicted. Yet her visionary rapture filled him with bitterness and pity.

“Great Mistress,” said one of the men in the door as he abashed himself. “The foreigner.” And he thrust Rogerio into the room.

Saint-Germain went down on one knee to aid his servant, and whispered to him in Frankish, “Do nothing to interfere.”

Rogerio looked up, mildly dazed. “They came to the house in the afternoon,” he said in Greek.

“Speak Frankish!” Saint-Germain rose and held out his arm to Rogerio.

Tamasrajasi was scowling. “I do not know what you are saying to him,” she complained.

“If you had troubled to ask the slaves at Padmiri’s house, you would have learned that my servant has a poor command of your language. He needs to know that he is in no danger from your men, who will escort him to the border.” He added in Frankish, in almost identical inflections, “Do not let them know you understand more than one word in ten. You are in gravest danger.”

Rogerio scrambled to his feet and gave Tamasrajasi a bemused smile. “I will do as you wish, my master,” he said in Frankish.

“I will tell him that the men who brought him to this room will be his guides and that he is to trust them,” Saint-Germain said to Tamasrajasi, then went on to Rogerio, “You are to get away from them as soon as you may.”

“And you?” Rogerio’s blue eyes were apprehensive. “When will you leave here?”

“When I can,” Saint-Germain said gently.

“No.” Rogerio’s voice rose slightly. “Give me your sword and we will fight them until death.”

Saint-Germain held up one hand. “Rogerio, old friend, do as I tell you.” He turned toward Tamasrajasi and explained, “My servant does not know where he is to go, and it frightens him. He will obey me now.” This time he did not meet Rogerio’s eyes. He pulled the scabbard-and-katana from his belt and held it out to Rogerio. “For all the forgotten gods, Rogerio, do as I tell you.”

“Yes, my master,” Rogerio said, bowing slightly, taking the proffered Japanese sword. “Is there anything else, my master?”

Saint-Germain looked at the pearl-covered throne but in his mind he saw Rome on a rainy day. The Flavian Circus was not complete and the beggars who lived under its half-finished arches were amusing themselves by tormenting a dying man. There were other images that came swiftly: enormous triangular sails flapping in a hot wind, and below them, Saint-Germain, miserably ill, Rogerio waiting patiently beside him; two horses racing out of the ruins of Milan, men clinging to their backs, pursued by shouting mailed knights on lathered mounts; a garden in Tunis on a spring night, torches burning, and two companions lost in talk for most of the night as neither of them required sleep; the wild cliffs near Ranegonde’s castle, where, under a pall of clouds, two men stood off the attack of a famine-crazed rabble; an afternoon in Lo-Yang amid the chaos of packing, chests open and waiting for garments, vials, bedding, treasures, and the moment of departure. He imagined a sandy-haired man with the appearance of early middle age tied to a stone altar, screaming as his flesh was slowly burned away. Saint-Germain put his small, beautiful hands to eyes that had not wept in more than three thousand years. “No,” he said. “Nothing else.”

A notice from Sudra Guristar to all the guardsmen under his command.

To those who have the honor to serve and guard the person and possessions of the most glorious Rani Tamasrajasi, be vigilant, for there are enemies who seek to endanger the well-being of this Great Mistress and disrupt the propriety of the country. It is your duty and privilege to prevent any such happening.

The sister of the late Rajah Kare Dantinusha, who recently died at the hands of a slave he had brought into his household, has been revealed as a dangerous and insidious spy. For many years her various eccentricities have been regarded as the diversions of a woman without husband or children to fill her hours, and for that reason much was tolerated that ought not to have been, for it has been learned that she is deep in the toils of demonic influences. It is quite possible that she is allied to the agents of the Sultan at Delhi for the purpose of bringing the entire country of Natha Suryarathas under the Muslim rule. Doubtless an attractive marriage has been offered her by the men of the Sultan. Not an instant too soon were those perfidious men struck down by the courageous, pious men who battled with them not so many days ago. So lost to all respect, devotion and honor is the woman Padmiri that she has given housing and hospitality to a creature of Shiva whose influence the Rani Tamasrajasi has but recently discovered.

Padmiri is to be found. Our Great Mistress orders it be done. Padmiri is to be brought before her for judgment and punishment. There have been men searching for this sister of our fallen Rajah but their efforts have not been sufficient. The woman, crafty in her wiles, eluded us when the first attempt was made to apprehend her. Doubtless she was guarded by the spirits given her by the creature of Shiva she has taken as her lover. Yes, she did not hesitate to do this, in spite of all her praised learning, and her supposed love of the truth. She surrendered herself to the embraces of one who uses her foully, who perverts her, respecting neither her woman’s nature nor her age. Who among you would be so lost to his sense of propriety that he would presume to make love to a woman of fifty-two who had never borne him a child? Think of the enormity of this and let it inspire you to be persistent in your search for Padmiri so that her contamination shall not touch us all.

It was noted that there were three horses gone from Padmiri’s stables. It is known that Padmiri herself, most properly, knows nothing of riding horses, but there are those around her who would doubtless be blind enough to follow any order she might give, for slaves are known to have only the will of their masters to rule them, and therefore think nothing of performing reprehensible acts.

When Padmiri is found, she must be brought at once to Rani Tamasrajasi, either at the palace or at the temple on the Kudri where she performs sacrificial rites. It is appropriate that Padmiri, so lost to religion, should be made to realize the extent of her failings in the temple, and those who succeed in bringing her to the temple will be doubly rewarded. There is great merit in apprehending this woman, and greater merit in making sacrifice at the time Padmiri becomes a captive.

It is the will of Rani Tamasrajasi that this be done.

Sudra Guristar

Commander of the palace guard

for the Rani Tamasrajasi

in the first year of her reign