Jhilt could hear it.
‘You wish to be Protector of Man?’
Gendra Mitiar nodded. Her voice was very husky tonight, and it tired her to talk.
‘What can Thraish do to guarantee this?’ he purred.
‘Wait until Lees Obol dies. I will let you know. Then send a messenger. Tell the assembly the elixir will be decreased unless I am elected. In which event it will be increased.’
‘And when you are Protector, you will increase the quota of humans? You will eradicate the Noor for this?’
‘You have my word.’
‘And in return for this agreement, you will give me the person of this woman, this Pamra Don?’
‘As you like, Uplifted One. She is nothing to me. What do you want her for?’
‘To prove she is a false prophet, Dame Marshal. In ceremony before all her followers at Split River Pass. To show them Potipur will not be mocked.’
Gendra laughed, thinking of Tharius Don. ‘How may I assist you, Uplifted One?’
Jhilt heard all this, her ear tight to the tent flap.
When Sliffisunda had gone, when Gendra Mitiar was asleep, an uneasy sleep in which her heart faltered and her lungs seemed inclined to stop working, Jhilt walked out to the cage of seeker birds that every Jondarite troop carried with it. The message bone was already in her hands.
‘A message for Tharius Don,’ she said, keeping her voice bored and level. ‘From the Dame Marshal.’
The Jondarite keeper made a cursory examination of the seal. It looked like the Dame Marshal’s seal, and who else’s would it be? The bird came into his hands willingly, accepted the light burden as trained to do, and launched itself upward to turn toward the north without hesitation, strong wings beating across Potipur’s scowling face.
Jhilt shivered, thinking of what was in that message.
‘You cold?’ leered the soldier, opening his cloak in invitation.
She shook her head. ‘The Dame Marshal needs me,’ she said, turning back toward the tent. Though, indeed, if the Dame Marshal needed her at all, it would not be for much longer. Queen Fibji should be told of this conspiracy against the Noor. Jhilt had no seeker birds for the Queen; therefore she must find some Noor signal post that would have them. Gendra would not spend time looking for a slave, not now, not as weak as she was and with so much going on. Jhilt fumbled among her chains for the other key, the one that unlocked her jingling manacles. Moments later she moved off across the steppes, silent as the moons.
22
A yawning servant brought word to Tharius Don in the middle of his sleep time. ‘The general asks for you at once in the audience hall, Lord Propagator. Most urgently.’ He waited for some reply, and when Tharius waved him off, he scurried away into darkness. The midnight bell had only lately struck. Tharius had heard it in his sleep, through the purple dusk that was night in this season.
He wrapped himself in a thick robe with a hood and made his way down the echoing corridors and endless flights of stairs to the audience hall. Muslin curtains hung limp against the closed shutters, like so many wraiths in the torchlight. At the side, where Lees Obol’s niche was, the curtains were flung wide, and General Jondrigar stood there, face impassive and his hand upon his knife. Something in his stance recommended caution to Tharius Don, who approached softly, pausing at some distance to ask, ‘You needed me, General?’
‘Dead,’ Jondrigar replied. ‘I think. Dead.’
‘Dead? Who?’ Only to understand at once who it was and why this midnight summons. ‘The Protector?’
The general nodded, standing aside to gesture Tharius forward. In the niche, still overheated by the little porcelain stove which was only now burning itself out, the bed stood with its coverlets thrown back. On the embroidered sheet the body of Lees Obol lay immobile. His eyes were open. One arm was rigidly extended above him, as though petrified, pointing.
‘Telling me, go!’ Jondrigar said, indicating the hand. ‘Telling me. As he always did.’
‘Rigor,’ Tharius murmured. ‘All dead men get rigor, General. It doesn’t mean—’
‘Telling me go,’ the general repeated, his eyes glowing. ‘Rigor comes long after. He died like this. The message for me.’
Tharius moved to the bed, put his hands gently upon the ancient face, the neck, the arms. Rigid. All. Like rigor, yes. Or blight. His face darkened. So. Plots. Perhaps.
‘When was he last seen alive?’
‘You were here one time.’
‘Yes. Last evening. Shavian Bossit and I met in the hall for a few moments. I didn’t look in on Lees Obol, though Shavian may have done.’
‘He did. Through the curtains. Jondarite captain reports this to me.’ Jondrigar took off his helmet and ran a trembling hand across his mane. ‘Jondarite captain looked in every hour. Served tea late, as Protector wanted. Then, at midnight bell, he looked in again. This is what he found.’
We could have a bloodbath here, Tharius thought. Better defuse that. ‘We have been surprised he has lived this long, General. We all knew he would die very soon. The elixir does not give eternal life. Only more years, not an eternity.’
‘No one killed him.’
It could have been a question, or a statement. Tharius Don chose to interpret it as both.
‘No one killed him. Age killed him. As it will all of us.’
‘But he left a message for me,’ the general said again. ‘He told me to go.’
Tharius thought it wiser to say nothing. He had no idea what was in the general’s mind and chose to take no chance of upsetting him.
‘The Noor Queen. She is coming to Split River Pass,’ the general said suddenly. ‘I need to go there.’
Tharius thought the general’s mind had slipped and said soothingly, ‘There will be a council meeting within hours. You should be here for that.’
The general nodded. ‘Yes. Then I will go to Split River Pass.’ He turned and made his way out of the hall, unsteadily, as though under some great pressure. Tharius felt a fleeting pity. Lees Obol had been all Jondrigar’s life. What would he do now?
He put the question away. There were customs to comply with. ‘Send someone to Glamdrul Feynt,’ he said to the Jondarite captain who hovered against the wall. ‘Tell him to look up what funeral arrangements were made the last time a Protector died, then come tell me what they were. Send someone else for servants. Wash the body and clothe it properly. Then get the messengers moving. Let them know at the Bureau of Towers. Tell them to get the word out to the towns. There will probably be some period of mourning. Find out who’s running things over there while Gendra’s gone, and send them to me. Oh, and find my deputy, Bormas Tyle, and send him to me as well.’
Tharius chewed a thumbnail. Should a seeker bird be sent to Gendra Mitiar? Suppose Pamra Don was just now having success with the Talkers? Suppose this message interrupted something vital? He shivered. Better let it alone. Send a message later, if at all.
He turned, catching a glimpse of a scurrying figure out of the corner of one eye? Nepor? Here? Surely not. Probably a curious servant, fearful of being caught away from his assigned duties. Well, they would all have their curiosity satisfied soon enough.
23
‘Done,’ whispered Koma Nepor, pausing at a shadowed doorway.
‘Dead? Ah. How did he look?’
‘Who can say, Jorn? I didn’t look at him. The Jondarite put the tea kettle down on the table by the curtain as he always does. From my hiding place behind the curtain, I put the blight in the kettle. The old man called for tea; tea he was served. An hour later, off goes the captain, here comes the general. Then here comes Tharius Don, much whispering and sending of this one and that one. I didn’t stay to listen.’
‘What happened to the kettle?’
‘The servants are in there now, cleaning up. They’ll take the kettle and cups away. The blight’s only good for an hour or so. All gone now, I should think. That’s what took me so long to develop, finding a strain that wouldn’t la
st.’
‘No evidence to connect you, then.’
‘No evidence to connect us, Jorn. None. Shall we go to our beds now, so’s to hear it properly, wakened from sleep?’
They went off down the twisting corridor, two shadows in the shuttered gloom, whispering, heads bent toward one another like Talkers, plotting on the stones.
‘When will you give General Jondrigar the letter?’
‘Later. There’ll be a meeting to discuss the funeral. After that.’
Their forms dwindled into shadowed silence.
Shavian Bossit was wakened from sleep to receive the news. He sent a message at once to Bormas Tyle, awaiting his arrival with some impatience.
‘Where’ve you been?’ he damanded when the other arrived. ‘I sent for you over an hour ago.’
‘So did my superior,’ the other replied, glaring at him. ‘Tharius Don. It seems we have lost a Protector. Are we about to gain another?’
‘It’s sooner than we’d planned.’
‘Nonetheless welcome.’
‘True. But we’re hardly ready. Gendra’s still alive. So is Jondrigar.’
‘So they’re still alive. For a few weeks, perhaps. Support one of them for the post.’
‘The general? Ha!’
‘Well, Gendra, then. In her absence. Elect Gendra as Protector, which will vacate the position of Marshal of the Towers. Feynt will take over there, as we’ve planned, and that will give you two votes. Meantime, the general will not last long. I will take his position when he dies. Last, Gendra will fade away, you will have Feynt’s vote, my vote, and your own. Enough, Bossit.’ Bormas Tyle slid his knife in and out of its holster, a whisper of violence in the room. ‘A few weeks or months more and we will have succeeded.’
‘I suppose. Still, something’s bothering about all this. The servants are whispering about Obol’s death.’
‘Did you expect them not to?’ Bormas snorted. ‘Servants whisper about everything.’
‘Just the way he died. As though he’d been frozen. One arm pointed out like a signpost.’
‘Some deaders do that.’
‘I suppose,’ Shavian said again. ‘Very well. We proceed as planned. The council will meet in the morning, an hour before noon. And what about the funeral?’
‘I don’t know. Tharius has our old charlatan in the files looking up what happened last time. I can’t even remember who the Protector was before Lees Obol.’
‘His name was Jurniver,’ Shavian said, abstractedly. ‘Jurniver Quyme. He lived four hundred and sixty-two years. He came to office in his two hundredth year. He made fifteen Progressions. He died long before I was born. Feynt knows all about him. It’ll be in the files.’
‘Old faker.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘He pretends to be ancient and crippled whenever anyone wants anything. Watch him, though, when he thinks no one’s looking. He moves like a hunting stilt-lizard, quick as lightning.’
‘It’s a game he plays for Gendra’s benefit.’
‘It’s a game he plays for his own. Keep it in mind, Bossit, when he’s Marshal of the Towers. Feynt’s no fool.’
‘Would we be planning together if he were?’ Shavian made an impatient gesture. ‘Get on with it. I’ll have to see what happens at the council meeting. If you can find Feynt, tell him we’ve talked.’ And he turned away across his room, groping his way to the shutters and throwing them wide. The sweet breezes of summer dawn immediately raised the muslin curtains, flinging them like perfumed veils into the room, where he struck at them impatiently. Outside in the plaza the trees’ leaves had unrolled to their fullest extent, glistening in the amber sun, a bronzy green light that covered everything like water, flowing and changing, rippling along the stones and over the walls in a constant tide. ‘Riverlight,’ it was called. ‘Summer Riverlight,’ created by the wind and the trees.
The fountain played charmingly, the little bells hung in its jet tumbling and jingling. On the nearest meadows the weehar lowed and the thrassil neighed, gentle sounds. With the wind in this direction, one could scarcely hear the axes, far off in the hills.
At the center of the plaza, near the fountain, Tharius Don and Glamdrul Feynt stood in the midst of a crowd of servants and craftsmen, hands pointing, voices raised. Funeral arrangements, Shavian told himself, yawning. Evidently there was to be a catafalque in the ceremonial square prior to entombment. Respected members of the Chancery were not put into pits on their deaths. It was presumed the Holy Sorters would take them directly from their roofless tombs into Potipur’s arms. Shavian yawned again. The truth of which would be easy to ascertain, he thought, if anyone wanted to climb over a tomb wall and look. Since he was reasonably certain of what he would find – considering the number of small birds and vermin that congregated around tombs – Shavian was not tempted to do so.
He rang for his servants. There was time for a bath and a massage before the meeting of the council. He ordered perfumes for his bath and others sprinkled upon his clothing. The chamber of meeting would stink of death.
When they met, the body of Lees Obol had already been removed and there was no smell at all. They sat about impatiently, waiting for Jondrigar to arrive. Jorn and Nepor were side by side, pretending no interest in one another, though usually they were collusive as heretics. Shavian watched this, mildly amused. They were up to something. Across the table, in the secondary row of chairs, Bormas Tyle and Glamdrul Feynt bore similar expressions of disinterest. No doubt if Gendra had been present, she would have looked the same. Shavian adjusted his face to one of polite alertness. Why not break the mold, behave somewhat differently, confuse them all?
Tharius Don brooded, but then he always brooded. He had not sent a message to Gendra. He hoped no one else had, though there was no guarantee someone in the Bureau of Towers had not. Or Bormas Tyle, perhaps. Tharius had no illusions about his deputy’s sense of loyalty. Bormas Tyle had none, except to himself.
A clatter of feet in the hall, more than one. The doors at the end of the great chamber were flung wide, and General Jondrigar entered at the head of a company of troops. The others stared. Ezasper Jorn bit off an exclamation, throwing a sideways glance at Nepor. What was this?
Shavian, no less surprised than the others, decided to treat it as a normal occurrence. ‘We have been waiting for you, Jondrigar. Do you wish to sit down?’
‘I’ll stand,’ he boomed. ‘There is little time to do what must be done. I have received the message Lees Obol meant for me. “Go,” he said to me, and go I must. He wishes me to finish the work he could not finish. He desires I take upon myself the title of Protector of Man.’
There was a stunned silence. Into that silence crept the sound of Bormas Tyle’s knife, sliding in its scabbard. Shavian Bossit swallowed, tried to concentrate, torn between laughter and shock. What had he and Bormas Tyle said only that morning? Support either the general or Gendra for the position of Protector. Soon both would be dead. He swallowed his surprise and found his voice.
‘I would support you in that, Jondrigar.’ He turned to find two faces frozen upon his own, Jorn’s and Nepor’s. Ah, so they had been up to something. ‘Tharius, you would support Jondrigar’s accession to the title, would you not?’
‘I would,’ said Tharius in a strangely husky voice. It was another sign. A sign from heaven. From the God to man, if one cared to say it that way. From Pamra Don. ‘I would support General Jondrigar. He knows what is needed to protect mankind.’
‘I have already begun,’ the general boomed. ‘When I returned with Pamra Don from the pass, I sent commands to all the mines that slaves should be released and taken over the mountains to their homeland.’
There were gasps from around the table. Shavian bit his tongue. Tharius looked upon the general with loving, glowing eyes.
‘Now I must go to the place Queen Fibji is, to beg her forgiveness. And when that is done, I will return to take up this great office, which Lees Obol intended from my birth.’
He turned away, strode away, the feet of his troops drumming behind him, the chamber echoing with sound. Behind him was silence.
‘No slaves in the mines?’ Bormas breathed at last.
Shavian shook his head warningly. ‘There is metal in the warehouses. Enough for a very long time. We can bear a hiatus.’
‘Queen Fibji will have evidence of slavery when her people come home.’
‘Cross that stream when it splashes us.’
Ezasper Jorn and Koma Nepor said nothing. They were frozen with shock.
‘Let be,’ said Tharius Don. ‘It may be we are entering a new age.’ Jondrigar had not said anything about the fliers, but if he had truly understood Pamra Don, it would not be long before he moved in that direction as well. First the Noor, then the fliers. First those close by, then those more remote. Tharius Don placed his hand over his eyes, covering the weak tears that gemmed the corners. Almost he could see through those hands, so thin they were, so translucent. He should eat. He should. There were things he had to do. His stomach turned at the thought. No. No, he would eat after everything was done.
And everything would soon be done. After which he could die – die in thankfulness that it had not been necessary to invoke the strike, in gratitude that Pamra Don would be safe in the general’s care ….
As would the world of man.
24
Seeker birds had been bred originally by the Noor. On the vastness of the steppes, messages could be sent, as they were from the signal towers of the Chancery, by heliograph during the day or by reflector lantern at night. Information was exchanged in these ways on a more or less regular and formal basis among Queen Fibji’s guards and outliers. For more spontaneous sharing of information or to carry greetings among near-kin, seeker birds were used, flying back and forth between their two masters, sometimes over enormous distances. Possession of a seeker bird was no longer considered de facto proof that the owner was a Noor or Noor sympathizer, though that had once been the case. Many merchants used them now. Medoor Babji had taken half a dozen Fibji seekers with her when she sailed away on the Gift. Every troop of Melancholics had two or three home seekers, imprinted to seek some near-kin on the steppes. And, of course, Fibji’s spies had seeker birds.