Chapter Twenty-Four Minister to the Family
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Minister to the Family
“This is a foolish song,” said the prime minister.
“Perhaps the song seems foolish because you don’t understand it,” suggested Merel the minstrel, as sharp-tongued as he was sweet-voiced.
“Why didn’t they simply—”
Merel put aside his instrument. “Why are songs sad? Because they tell the truth. Everybody wants to believe they would be clever enough and brave enough to escape the tragedy. But they wouldn’t.”
Time of Lies, ANONYMOUS
A young lady in silver walked the abyss path. Blasts of heat from the abyss flames buffeted her from below, hitting as hard as ocean waves and making her sway dangerously. Andras Pio pitied her. Clearly, nobody in this girl’s family had warned her to dress for the occasion.
She had dressed to catch the Emperor’s eye, from her gleaming silver-and-white gown down to her embroidered and pointed silver slippers.
The flames leaped, and the girl trembled like a silver candle-flame. In certain places the path was as narrow as a tightrope made of stone, and the depths yawned like a hungry mouth below. You couldn’t put a foot wrong on the abyss path.
She put a foot wrong. The girl lurched, knees buckling. Going low, she managed to steady herself. Half crouched, she shuffled forward, then cast a look over her shoulder at the Emperor and Andras’s niece. She straightened, and took another bold step forward, standing tall.
It was her last step. A silver slipper turned, and the bright girl vanished into the fiery depths without even a scream. Andras hoped she died before she knew she was falling.
He could hear Ninell telling a charming anecdote. Her friend Calpurnia loyally laughed on cue. When Pio checked to see if the Emperor was amused, he followed the Emperor’s gaze to the empty place on the abyss path where the silvery girl had stood a moment ago.
The Emperor did look rather amused.
Surely by Ninell’s jokes, Andras told himself, studying the young god’s eerie, ever-changing face.
No time to feel horror. The prime minister had his duties.
“Alas, the lady has fallen,” announced Pio formally.
One of his duties was to care for his family.
His lovely, intelligent niece had secured a place by the Emperor’s side by keeping up a casual conversation and not seeming too eager.
It was a good start, though Pio was concerned by the lady on the Emperor’s other arm.
The Emperor was paying her a surprising amount of attention.
Lady Glacia, was it? From Shroud Valley, not near the rich mines but the seashore, with Tagar blood in her veins like many from the shore.
She was a noble, so not raider-born. Lady Glacia looked pale and serious enough to be related to the Starosts.
A distant cousin to the Starosts might marry a minor baron of Eyam.
A very distant cousin. Andras would know of Lady Glacia if either side of her family had real wealth or influence.
Not clever for a humble girl with icelands blood to put herself forward in a time of war, and get in his niece’s way.
Still, the Emperor showing interest in women other than Lady Rahela was promising. Rahela had run away as soon as she discovered Ninell was Pio’s niece. If Rahela never returned, she would no longer qualify as a candidate to become the Emperor’s bride.
One down, one to go. Later, Andras would find out more about Lady Glacia. They would deal with her then.
“I’m sorry, Glacia, we’re keeping you chatting.” Ninell gave her a friendly smile. “Is it your turn?”
The girl blinked with a sweep of trembling pale lashes, a frightened rabbit in the face of a grinning cat. “If you say so.”
Ninell laughed. “I do.”
“Lady Glacia will walk the path,” intoned Pio.
Finding out more about Lady Glacia might not be necessary. It was possible her path would end here.
The frightened girl took a shaky breath. For a moment Andras thought she might renounce her candidacy, but instead she stepped forward.
“Captive Goddess, guard me,” she whispered, further betraying her heritage.
The Captive Goddess was one of many deities worshipped in east Tagar. A heathen, Tagar queen wouldn’t be welcomed by the people. Andras must spread the word about Glacia’s faith if she survived.
Under the gaze of the court, Glacia crept along the abyss path, as grey and timid as a pale, faltering shadow.
Deeper shadows leaped with the abyss flames, eager to catch her.
The lady trembled and inched forward. She was trembling so much, Andras thought she might shiver herself off the path and into the pit.
Yet instead of falling, she inched forward.
Inch by inch, she gained ground, until she was past the narrowest point, from which the girl in silver slippers had tumbled.
Andras hadn’t expected determination. If Glacia kept inching forward like this, she would make it back alive.
Then Glacia froze like a mouse under the shadow of a hawk’s wing. At first Pio thought it was a cloud. Then he looked up, and realized it truly was a wing.
A vast vicious roc had escaped from the menagerie.
A doomed woman hung onto a single fraying leather rein from the monster’s neck, soon to fall and be consumed either by the bird or the abyss.
She was screaming for help, some plea for her mother or her life, but her fall was certain.
From the roc’s hungry circling about them, reptilian head tilted and sharp gaze focused on new prey, it appeared that the dangling woman would not be its last victim.
The shadow of wings spread, blotting out the pale, faraway circle of the sun entirely and turning the whole world grey. The crowd froze like Lady Glacia holding still with terror on the abyss path.
All save the young god.
The Emperor ran down the abyss path as though it were a summer field with grass on all sides instead of flames. He whirled the woman Glacia off her feet, throwing her across the fiery chasm, directly into the arms of one particular guard among his gold-masked legion.
Then he leaped, higher than a mortal man could.
If Pio had been asked to picture a god ascending, he would have imagined the god’s rise to be as easy and insubstantial as light.
Instead, there was a sense of coiled muscle, real mass powered by furious strength.
Force as tremendous as an earthquake, turned into something almost human. But not quite.
The Emperor ascended in a black tower of rage to catch his bride in his arms. His black cloak flared, caught by the hell-hot winds of the abyss, blue lining lit by the blue tongues of the flames. Though fire leaped to engulf him, he did not burn.
She of snow and flame was wrapped about by darkness in the shape of a man, the only light about him those awful, lambent eyes. In her white and red dress, Rahela looked like a flower tossed up into the night sky. If the night sky had seized and meant to keep her.
When the Emperor landed, Lady Rahela held tight to his chest, the earth cracked beneath him like a line running through a mirror under the blow of a fist. The gigantic monster’s scream silenced all thought, leaving only panic behind.
The roc slammed into the abyss path. Its narrow stone structure snapped like a twig, raining dust and chunks of stone into the abyss.
The impact rocked them all. Scarcely had they regained their balance when the roc swooped, so close overhead they felt the wind from the passage of its wings.
The crowd scattered. Pio ran to cover Ninell, who ducked her head against his chest as though she were a little girl again.
Ninell’s friend Calpurnia lost her head and ran wildly towards the abyss, then pulled herself up short at the last moment before disaster. She stilled on the crumbling edge of earth, green gown flying, saved just in time.
The roc’s jaws closed on Calpurnia with a crunch of bone. Blood sprayed across the crack in the earth, bright as flowers. Ninell gave a scream into Andras’s doublet. Feeling sick, he stroked her hair.
“It’s all right,” he murmured, even though it wasn’t. You had to lie to children you loved, selling them life like a dishonest salesman with a dyed horse. You had to tell them the world was fair, and they would be happy.
The Emperor set Rahela behind him and whirled on the roc, drawing his sword. The abyss’s light raced a red path down the blade. Longing for Revenge seemed a burning steel torch.
“Don’t kill the roc!” shouted Rahela.
A horrified murmur rose from the survivors. What evil was the harlot scheming now?
“You can still use her,” continued Rahela. Pio might have admired her ruthless cunning, if he didn’t still feel ill.
He flinched at the sounds of gristle giving way beneath teeth, the monster dining on a girl’s remains. Rahela flinched too. At least she felt some pity.
The Emperor did not flinch as he contemplated the monster, its tucked wings bigger than the eaves of a mansion house, its dark eyes avid in search of more prey. Blood dripped from its maw to the crack in the earth.
As the Emperor advanced, the pair held each other’s gaze. Neither showed fear. Neither ever did. Fire wakens fire, and knows its own. The monster’s eyes gleamed red. So did the beast’s.
Pio could not think of his ruler this way.
This was all Rahela’s fault.
“Hello there, you wild, wicked thing,” murmured the Emperor.
If nobody else would point out the obvious, Pio must. “The roc just ate a woman, Your Majesty.”
“Yes, I saw,” said the Emperor. “You wanted to hold the Queen’s Trials, didn’t you? Two women got killed trying to walk the abyss path.”
“That’s different.”
The Emperor shrugged. “Is it? All the women seem equally dead.”
His armoured claw toyed with the roc’s reins.
Each seemed intrigued by the other’s lack of fear.
There was a tilt to the roc’s scaled and black-eyed head that reminded Andras of a dog from his lord brother’s kennels, able to tell on sight which guest might be persuaded to sneak him scraps under the table.
The Emperor might feed more subjects to his creature soon.
Incredibly, Rahela smiled.
“Congratulations, Lady Rahela. You utterly wrecked the first round of the Queen’s Trials,” Pio snapped.
He was pleased to see her smile fade.
“Your Imperial Majesty, Lady Rahela insulted sacred tradition, caused extensive damage to your imperial palace, and stole a beast from the imperial menagerie. She must be removed from the ranks of prospective brides and exiled from the tower.”
Astonishingly, Rahela nodded. “Harsh but fair.”
Pio stared in disbelief, until he followed Rahela’s gaze to Lady Glacia. The true nature of her schemes became clear. She was more cunning than he had supposed.
Clearly, the lady intended to be the Emperor’s Oracle, the woman who he wanted and listened to, while maintaining a safe distance. Considering how Rahela eyed Lady Glacia, Rahela had already chosen a grateful and submissive future queen.
Time would tell who installed their choice of consort. Pio believed his niece’s charms were bound to sway even his strange ruler.
The Emperor didn’t appear swayed. He was not looking at Ninell or Glacia. Or even Rahela. His scarlet gaze was fixed, like the door of hell opening in a personal invitation, only on Andras himself.
“My evil chancellor. It would look bad if I maimed both chief counsellors within my first week as Emperor. So I won’t do that. Stop hurling accusations at Lady Rahela, or I’ll just kill you.”
“I meant no insult,” Pio protested.
“Of course not,” murmured the Emperor. “You’re too wise.
Blame Rahela for the Queen’s Trials? Then you and every minister who wished for the Trials is a hypocrite.
Blame Rahela for destroying the abyss path?
Then did you wish more women to die upon it?
Blame Rahela for unchaining the roc? If the roc shouldn’t be here, who brought her to this land?
If your accusations are aimed at Rahela alone, you have no interest in justice.
You have only a strange fixation on blaming my lady. ”
His cloak flared like darkness breaking into the light of day as he turned to Rahela and rested a clawed hand on her waist. When the lady looked up, seeming startled, the Emperor’s eyes lingered an instant on her face. Then he took her hand and lifted it high.
“At the risk of her own life, my lady brought me a steed on which I can meet Tagar’s dragon in the skies.
” The Emperor’s harsh voice sounded from dark cloud to burning abyss.
“Who can equal the courage of her black heart? The Beauty Dipped In Blood wins the first round of the Queen’s Trials.
Tonight we honour her bravery, in a grand procession through the city. ”
Seeing the disappointment on his niece’s face, Pio felt sick to death of this day and its disasters. He had not known he could feel so sick.
“Oh,” murmured Lady Rahela, in a faint, stunned voice.
The Emperor abruptly dropped her hand. “Are you not pleased?” For once, the Emperor was not watching Lady Rahela. His gaze was fixed elsewhere. “If you are grateful, then show it, my lady.”
“How?”
“Tell me all you know about the Lady Glacia.”
There was a silence, in which the odds changed. The whole attention of the court turned to where their Emperor’s attention was already fixed: upon the shy young woman clinging to the Emperor’s arm. Lady Glacia blushed.
Rahela did not sound like a woman triumphant in her successful scheme. “My bringer of destruction. Do you feel mysteriously drawn to Glacia?”
“Yes,” murmured the Emperor. “I believe I do.”
No matter how sick Pio felt, it was some consolation to him that, in this moment, Lady Rahela looked sicker.