The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1) (16 page)

Oh, he was definitely aware of his station, Sable thought, watching him approach, and a consummate politician.  Their relationship, literally, was ceremonial.  The first words of normal conversation he
’d ever spoken to her came out as he walked up.

“
Good evening, Your Majesty.” He had a light tenor with the perfect amount of solemn respect…and self-importance.

“
High Priest Clarent,” she responded gravely.  He never said more than a few words to anybody, yet here he was to talk.  Hm.  What was his game?

“It has come to my attention that Illians have gained audience with the Council…” he began.

What a conversation piece. 
“Have they?” The North was many decades away from its primitive horror of Illians.  Well, with the possible exception of the Marekite Priesthood, she supposed.  Now she knew what his game was.

He frowned ever so slightly and she brought herself to heel at the look in his lidless eyes.  He was not a fool, nor stupid, and the power of the priesthood was still deep and extensive.  Flippancy was not the way to
assure a good working relationship between Throne and Temple.

“
I truly was not aware of this,” she offered frankly, and had the immediate impression that it was the wrong thing to say, making her look stupid and out of touch as well as thoughtless.

Clarent was
nothing but smooth tact, however.  “It would be worth your time to investigate, Majesty.  I have heard rumor that they are interested in building in Archemounte.”  It was plain he thought this so ludicrous as to be laughable…if one were to indulge in that sort of behavior.  “And, of course, to give them a foothold in the very heart of the Empire is appalling to even consider.”

Sable was about to nod her head in agreement when she stopped herself, vaguely
surprised.  He was enormously, giftedly, persuasive.  Without a little care, she would find herself agreeing to whatever he suggested.

“
Well, High Priest, we are the most educated, tolerant Realm in the world.  It would be odd if we were open-minded about everything but religion.”  She made her tone light, as if to float onto the next subject.

Clarent seemed to be nailed down to this one. 
“Your Majesty,” he persisted, with such mild rebuke it was hardly recognizable as such, “though it is excellent to be open to educating oneself, that state of being will be profoundly unsatisfactory…unless it is filled with the education itself.  I beg you to seek understanding of the threat the Illians bring to our Empire.”

There wasn
’t the faintest sense of a request there, she thought wryly, and quite a bit of convoluted sentence structure.  Did he think her witless?  Gullible?  He was so suave and smooth it was difficult to read. 

I
n a spasm of mischief, she had a devilish idea.

Two days later, it occurred to her that E
lger was about as different from Clarent as could be imagined.  The High Priest was tall and spare and pale.  Elger barely topped her own height, was stout, and had a profusion of brownness.  Brown hair, skin dark from the sun and wind, and deep, warm brown eyes that looked right at you instead of just sort of surveying you like a specimen.  His face was scarred and pocked from the spots of youth, but it was honest, forthright, and ingenuous—last seen in the Palace seven years ago, with Sable’s arrival.

“
So, Il does not demand tithe?” Sable clarified.

“
No, Your Majesty, though it is accepted and certainly encouraged, as a gift of the heart.”  Elger’s voice, his eyes, his gentle manner, all respectful, had not an ounce of flattery in them.  She was quite sure he would speak to her doorman in exactly the same tone.

They were in the Audience Chamber, a business-l
ike room with a big walnut table and several large, stately, hideous chairs, all set off by deep teal carpets and drapes.  Elger was a Shepherd, surprisingly hard to find in a city Clarent seemed convinced was being overrun by Illians.  The ‘ear of the Council’ causing so much distress to her High Priest turned out to be a reference to Elger’s defense of his presence in Archemounte.  The fact that the Council hadn’t immediately banned him from the Empire apparently made them a step away from heresy.   There’d been no talk of building a House of Worship, which is what they called their Temples.

It hadn
’t taken long to figure all this out, and now she was digging into some of the mystery of the Cult, trying to put a finger on what made it so socially deviant.  Besides, it was deeply satisfying to have a completely normal conversation with somebody.

“
What does he demand?” she asked cagily.  There was always small print somewhere in these things. 

“
Your heart,” Elger said, with a smile to show he wasn’t trying to be clever.  That was the problem, she thought a little wryly.  If he acted like he was trying to hide something, she’d be on to him in a minute, but so far all she’d gotten was quite a bit of very honest and nebulous abstraction.

“
No ‘One Great Deed,’ no ‘sober and conscientious life contributing to the greater good of all’…” she half-joked, fingers fluttering the air in self-deprecation.

Elger shook his head, smiling.  After a moment, he said slowly,
“Your Majesty, Il is a giver more than a taker.  In His great love and mercy and power, it pleases Him to grant us things—things of the Spirit, that is.  He desires only that we believe in Him.  These other, civil and social and behavioral, aspects of being Illian are simply responses to His goodness.  Outpourings of gratitude, you might say.”

“
Things of the Spirit?” This was exactly the kind of vague explanations that she’d been trying to decipher.

“
Yes, Majesty:  Peace.  Joy.  Compassion.  Hope.  Generosity.  Love.”

“
No…monetary gain?  Successful life path?  Safe and harmonious existence?” 

“
Boring.”  He looked at her gravely, but his eyes were twinkling.

She almost laughed out loud, h
er blue eyes smiling back at him.  She was no closer to understanding how such a cult had ever survived, but she liked him and his lack of dissembling ways—and she had pretty much determined Illianism was no threat to the Empire.  Nothing that unsubstantial, irrational, unfounded, and obscure was ever going to catch on with Northerners.

She stood and he rose at once, bowing from the waist.

“You’ve been most informative, Shepherd,” she said graciously.

“
It’s my pleasure,” he said calmly, not mentioning there’d never in recorded history been a Shepherd invited to the Palace.

And with that, the casual interview was over.  Sable thought no more about it,
being busy beyond belief with the day’s normal routine and overloaded with the requirements of the pending Royal Departure.  She certainly wasn’t expecting the terse message that reached her just as she was swallowing a snatched supper.

It was from the High Priest, and she stared at it stupidly for a moment before irritation began to smolder into life.  This couldn
’t be what she thought.  Surely she was misreading it.  Technically, she was the highest power in the Empire.  In actuality, this man was as close to an equal as there was, and the only individual that would ever dare suggest that was true.  Even so…surely he did not
dare
to summon her. 

She beckoned the messenger over, keeping her face impassive, and scribbled a quick response—a cool, courteous explanation of her busy schedule.  Any
‘urgent meetings’ deemed necessary would have to take place at the Palace.  After sunset.

It simmered in her guts the rest of the night, so that by the time a page alerted her to High Priest Clarent
’s presence in her Audience Chamber, she was more than ready to exchange a few words with him.  Outside, day was fading to its late dusk as she strode down the still-busy corridors, her land bathed in the deep, ruddy glow of the sun.

She went to the Throne Room.  And plunked her royal self down on the Throne.  Clarent could come to her, here.

The page scurried away to fetch the High Priest while she tapped one slender, agitated finger on the arm rest.  She was hot and flushed from the busyness of the day, and well aware the simple, sleeveless gold gown did not put her at her best, but this needed to be settled.  She was not one to approve of outraged histrionics, but as a monarch she required peace—boundaries needed to be drawn here.

Perhaps a reminder of the r
espect due one’s monarch, as well, she thought grimly, as Clarent entered and marched towards her without a sign of either apology or deference.  His long white robes flowed around him, simple and understated so as not to detract from the Diamond on his chest.

He stopped at the foot of the d
ais.  It was impossible for him not to be aware of the setting—she on the Throne of Empire, seated, he standing several steps below.  For all that, there wasn’t an ounce of the supplicant in the cold face looking up at her.

“
Your Majesty,” his smooth, controlled voice rolled out, rich with haughtiness.  He didn’t even dip his head, which was the only obeisance required of a High Priest.

She forced a frosty voice out of her hot and seething insides.

“What do you wish, Clarent?”  There, see if a similar lack of courtesy would bring him up a little.

For a moment his control slipped
, and she saw…fury.  A faint sense of curiosity peeked around her own anger.  Figuring out what drove people was instrumental in handling them, she’d found; she’d had no idea he could even
get
agitated.

“
You’ve been entertaining Illians,” he stated, newly calm, so that what was obviously an accusation came out more like a comment on the grain market.

“
High Priest, you advised me to educate myself,” she answered, but the impulsive response to their last conversation now seemed vaguely unwise.  Queens did not toy with their subjects.  Especially not powerful subjects with no sense of humor, a vaulted sense of self-importance, and a profound influence over the entire Realm.

He stared at her, cold and pale and still.  She knew she could not make an enemy of this man, but she had never cared so
little about politics. 
Entertaining Illians
?!

“
I have warned you of the dangers of this cult.” Again, it was spoken almost without emotion, a casual comment, but her blood pressure soared.  He did not
dare
to censure her.  Surely.

“
The Empire does not fear differences in people, and neither does their Queen.  The Illians pose no threat to the North—the determination of which was the purpose of my INTERVIEW with the Shepherd.  We are the greatest source of knowledge, of learning, of tolerance and acceptance in the Realms.  I see no reason to change that for a perceived historical threat that, really, no longer exists.”  That last might have sounded like a taunt, but was she Queen, or was she Queen?

The reptilian eyes went tight.  His smooth face took on a look of almost predatory dislike.

“Do you never wonder why, as an
Empire,
we are ruled by a mere Queen?”  His voice had dropped to one of soft animosity, insidious with implied meaning.  It was his turn to deliver insult, she recognized angrily. 

“
The last Emperor was the last of the Northern Royal Line,” she said evenly, “if that’s what you mean.  The Council at the time voted not to extend the Imperial title to the rulers that followed.”  Now was she to be patronized?  And where was this going?

“
The last Imperial ruler was, like you, a woman.  She became enthralled with Illians and
was forcibly removed from the Throne.
”  He didn’t even bother to hide the threat, in fact had taken a step up towards her, lidless eyes narrowed with antipathy.  “Do you think Marek will tolerate an Illian on the Throne?  You have no idea of the magnitude of the things you play with.”

Infuriating,
conceited, self-satisfied—he would try and intimidate her!

Icily furious, her voice rang out across the Throne room
in summons to a page.  He came at a full run, eyes wide in alarm. 

“
I am not playing with anything, High Priest!” she snapped, directing her words once more to Clarent.  “I have no intention of converting to Illianism or anything like it, and I find your paranoia and overstatement of facts particularly distasteful.  Thank you for your visit.  It has been most enlightening.” She was proud of that cool and well-ordered speech for many weeks, especially in light of the positive repugnance roiling in her guts.  Of all the insufferable arrogance!

He looked at her for a long moment after she dismissed him, once again the impartial
and self-controlled politician.  “That is my only goal,” he finally responded, so balmily that she had trouble believing he could be the same man.  Dipping his head politely, he turned and flowed imperturbably back across the room.

She almost leaped off her throne once he was gone, pacing a minute before remembering through the haze of
her un-Imperial antagonism that she had things she had to be doing.