They had entered the main hall of the castle, which, with the exception of the gleaming nacre that covered every exposed surface, was very much like the main hall of every Elene castle in the world.
‘The servants here are Elenes,’ Oscagne told them, ‘so you should have no difficulty explaining your needs to them. I trust you’ll excuse me now. I must go make my report to his Imperial Majesty.’ He made a face. ‘I’m not really looking forward to it, to be honest with you. Subat’s going to be standing at his Majesty’s elbow making light of everything I say.’ He bowed to Ehlana, then turned and left.
‘We’ve got problems here, I think,’ Tynian observed. ‘All this formality’s going to keep us away from the emperor, and if we can’t tell him what we’ve discovered, he’s not likely to give us the freedom of movement we’re going to need.’
‘And the antagonism of the prime minister’s going to make things that much worse,’ Bevier added. ‘It rather looks as if we’ve come half-way round the world to offer our help only to be confined in this very elaborate prison.’
‘Let’s feel things out a bit before we start getting obstreperous,’ Emban counselled. ‘Oscagne knows what he’s doing, and he’s seen almost everything we’ve seen. I think we can count on him to convey the urgency of the situation to Sarabian.’
‘If you have no need of us, your Majesty,’ Stragen said to Ehlana, ‘Talen and I should go make contact with the local thieves. If we’re going to be tied up in meaningless formalities here, we’ll need some help in gathering information.’
‘How do you plan to communicate with them?’ Khalad asked him.
‘Matherion’s a very cosmopolitan place, Khalad. Caalador directed me to several Elenes who carry quite a bit of weight with the local thieves.’
‘Do what you must, Stragen,’ Ehlana told him, ‘but don’t cause any international incidents.’
‘Trust me, your Majesty,’ he grinned.
The royal apartments in the castle were high up in a central tower. The castle was purely ornamental, of course, but since it was a faithful reproduction of an Elene fort, the builders had unwittingly included defensive features they probably hadn’t even recognised. Bevier was quite pleased with it. ‘I could defend the place,’ he judged. ‘About all I’d need would be a few vats of pitch and some engines and I could hold this castle for several years.’
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, Bevier,’ Ehlana replied.
Later that evening, when Sparhawk and his extended family had said good night to the others and retired to the royal apartment, the Prince consort lounged in a chair by the window while the ladies did all those little things ladies do before going to bed. Many of those little ceremonies had clearly practical reasons behind them; others were totally incomprehensible.
‘I’m sorry, Sparhawk,’ Ehlana was saying, ‘but it concerns me. If the Empress Elysoun’s as indiscriminately predatory as Oscagne suggests, she could cause us a great deal of embarrassment. Take Kalten, for example. Can you believe that he’d decline the kind of offers she’s likely to make – particularly in view of her costume?’
‘I’ll have a talk with him,’ Sparhawk promised.
‘By hand,’ Mirtai suggested. ‘Sometime it’s a little hard to get Kalten’s attention when he’s distracted.’
‘She’s vulgar,’ Baroness Melidere sniffed.
‘She’s very pretty though, Baroness,’ Alean added, ‘And she’s not really flaunting her body. She knows it’s there, of course, but I think she just likes to share it with people. She’s generous more than vulgar.’
‘Do you suppose we could talk about something else?’ Sparhawk asked them in a pained tone.
There was a light knock on the door, and Mirtai went to see who was asking admittance. As always, the Atana had one hand on a dagger-hilt when she opened the door.
It was Oscagne. He was wearing a hooded cloak, and he was accompanied by another man similarly garbed. The two stepped inside quickly. ‘Close the door, Atana,’ the Ambassador hissed urgently, his usually imperturbable face stunned and his eyes wild.
‘What’s your problem, Oscagne?’ she asked bluntly.
‘Please, Atana Mirtai, close the door. If anybody finds out that my friend and I are here, the palace will fall down around our ears.’
She closed the door and bolted it.
A sudden absolute certainty came over Sparhawk, and he rose to his feet. ‘Welcome, your Imperial Majesty,’ he greeted Oscagne’s hooded companion.
Emperor Sarabian pushed back his hood. ‘How the deuce did you know it was me, Prince Sparhawk?’ he asked. His Elenic was only slightly accented. ‘I know you couldn’t see my face.’
‘No, your Majesty,’ Sparhawk replied, ‘but I could see Ambassador Oscagne’s. He looked very much like a man holding a live snake.’
‘I’ve been called a lot of things in my time,’ Sarabian laughed, ‘but never that.’
‘Your Majesty is most skilled,’ Ehlana told him with a little curtsey. ‘I didn’t see a single hint on your face that you understood Elenic. I could read it in Queen Betuana’s face, but you didn’t give me a single clue.’
‘Betuana speaks Elenic?’ He seemed startled. ‘What an astounding thing.’ He removed his cloak. ‘Actually, your Majesty,’ he told Ehlana, ‘I speak all the languages of the Empire – Tamul, Elenic, Styric, Tegan, Arjuni, Valesian and even the awful language they speak in Cynesga. It’s one of our most closely guarded state secrets. I even keep it a secret from my government, just to be on the safe side.’ He looked a bit amused. ‘I gather that you’d all concluded that I’m not quite bright,’ he suggested.
‘You fooled us completely, your Majesty,’ Melidere assured him.
He beamed at her. ‘Delightful girl,’ he said. ‘I adore fooling people. There are many reasons for this subterfuge, my friends, but they’re mostly political and not really very nice. Shall we get to the point here? I can only be absent for a short period of time without being missed.’
‘We are, as they say, at your immediate disposal, your Majesty,’ Ehlana told him.
‘I’ve never understood that phrase, Ehlana,’ he confessed. ‘You don’t mind if we call each other by name, do you? All those “your Majesties” are just too cumbersome. Where was I? Oh, yes – “immediate disposal”. It sounds like someone running to carry out the trash.’ His words seemed to tumble from his lips as if his tongue were having difficulty keeping up with his thoughts. ‘The point of this visit, my dear friends, is that I’m more or less the prisoner of custom and tradition here in Matherion. My role is strictly defined, and for me to overstep certain bounds causes earthquakes that can be felt from here to the Gulf of Daconia. I could ignore those earthquakes, but our common enemy could probably feel them too, and we don’t want to alert him.’
‘Truly,’ Sparhawk agreed.
‘Please don’t keep gaping at me like that, Oscagne,’ Sarabian told the ambassador. ‘I didn’t tell you that I was really awake when most of you thought I was sleeping because it wasn’t necessary for you to know before. Now it is. Snap out of it, man. The foreign minister has to be able to take these little surprises in his stride.’
‘It’s just taking me a little while to re-adjust my thinking, your Majesty.’
‘You thought I was an idiot, am I right?’
‘Well –’
‘You were supposed to think so, Oscagne – you and Subat and all the other ministers. It’s been one of my main defences – and amusements. Actually, old boy, I’m something of a genius.’ He smiled at Ehlana. ‘That sounds immodest, doesn’t it? But it’s true, nonetheless. I learned your language in three weeks, and Styric in four. I can find the logical fallacies in the most abstruse treaties on Elene theology, and I’ve probably read – and understood – just about everything that’s ever been written. My most brilliant achievement, however, has been to keep all that a secret. The people who call themselves my government – no offence intended, Oscagne – seem to be engaging
in some vast conspiracy to keep me in the dark. They only tell me things they think I’ll want to hear. I have to look out of a window to get an accurate idea of the current weather. They have the noblest of motives, of course. They want to spare me any distress, but I really think that someone ought to tell me when the ship I’m riding in is sinking, don’t you?’
Sarabian was still talking very fast, spilling out ideas as quickly as they came to him. His eyes were bright, and he seemed almost on the verge of laughing out loud. He was obviously tremendously excited. ‘Now then,’ he rushed on, ‘we must devise a means of communicating without alerting everyone in the palace – down to and including the scullery boys in the kitchen – to what we’re doing. I desperately need to know what’s really going on so that I can bring my towering intellect to bear on it.’ That last was delivered with self-deprecating irony. ‘Any ideas?’
‘What are your feelings about magic, your Majesty?’ Sparhawk asked him.
‘I haven’t formed an opinion yet, Sparhawk.’
‘It won’t work then,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘You have to believe that the spell’s going to work, or it’ll fail.’
‘I might be able to make myself believe,’ Sarabian said just a bit dubiously.
‘That probably wouldn’t do it, your Majesty,’ Sparhawk told him. ‘The spells would succeed or not depending on your mood. We need something a bit more certain. There are things we’ll need to tell you that will be so important that we won’t be able to just trust to luck.’
‘My feelings exactly, Sparhawk. That defines our problem then. We need an absolutely certain method of passing information back and forth that can’t be detected. My experience tells me that it has to be something so commonplace that nobody will pay any attention to it.’
‘Exchange gifts,’ Baroness Melidere suggested in an offhand way.
‘I’d be delighted to send you gifts, my dear Baroness,’ Sarabian smiled. ‘Your eyes quite stop my heart, but –’
She held up one hand. ‘Excuse me, your Majesty,’ she told him, ‘but nothing is more common than the exchange of gifts between ruling monarchs. I can carry little mementos from the queen to you, and the ambassador here can carry yours to her. After we’ve run back and forth a few times, nobody will pay any attention to us. We can conceal messages in those gifts, and no one will dare to search for them.’
‘Where did you find this wonderful girl, Ehlana?’ Sarabian demanded. ‘I’d marry her in a minute – if I didn’t already have nine wives – oh, incidentally, Sparhawk, I need to talk with you about that – privately, perhaps.’ He looked around. ‘Can anyone see any flaws in the baroness’s plan?’
‘Just one,’ Mirtai said, ‘but I can take care of that.’
‘What is it, Atana?’ the excited emperor asked.
‘Someone may still have suspicions about this exchange of gifts – particularly if there’s a steady stream of them. He might try to intercept Melidere, but I’ll escort her back and forth. I’ll personally guarantee that no one will interfere.’
‘Excellent, Atana! Capital! We’d better get back, Oscagne. Subat misses me terribly when I’m not where he expects me to be. Oh, Sparhawk, please designate several of your knights to entertain my wife, Elysoun.’
‘I beg your Majesty’s pardon?’
‘Young, preferably handsome and with lots of stamina – you know the type.’
‘Are we talking about what I think we’re talking about, your Majesty?’
‘Of course we are. Elysoun enjoys exchanging gifts and favours too, and she’d be crushed if no one wanted to play with her. She’s terribly shrill when she’s unhappy. For the sake of my ears, please see to it, old boy.’
‘Ah – how many, your Majesty?’
‘A dozen or so should suffice, I expect. Coming, Oscagne?’ And the emperor of Tamuli rushed to the door.
CHAPTER 25
‘It’s a characteristic of people with a certain level of intelligence, your Majesty,’ Zalasta advised Ehlana. ‘They talk very fast because their ideas are spilling over. Emperor Sarabian may not be quite as brilliant as he thinks he is, but his is a mind to be reckoned with. The amazing thing is that he’s managed to keep it a secret from everybody in his government. Those people are usually so erratic and excitable that they trip themselves up.’
They were all gathered in the royal apartment to discuss the previous night’s startling revelation. Ambassador Oscagne had arrived early, bringing with him a diagram of the hidden passageways and concealed listening posts inside the Elene castle which was their temporary home. A half-dozen spies had been rooted out and politely but firmly invited to leave. ‘There’s nothing really personal involved, your Majesty,’ Oscagne apologised to Ehlana. ‘It’s just a matter of policy.’
‘I understand completely, your Excellency,’ she replied graciously. Ehlana wore an emerald green gown this morning, and she looked particularly lovely.
‘Is your espionage system very well-developed, your Excellency?’ Stragen asked.
‘No, not really, Milord. Each bureau of the government has its spies, but they spend most of their time spying on each other. We’re far more nervous about our colleagues than we are about foreign visitors.’
‘There’s no centralised intelligence service, then?’
‘I’m afraid not, Milord.’
‘Are we sure we cleaned all the spies out?’ Emban asked, looking a bit nervously at the gleaming walls.
‘Trust me, your Grace,’ Sephrenia smiled.
‘I didn’t follow that, I’m afraid.’
‘She wiggled her fingers, Patriarch Emban,’ Talen said dryly. ‘She turned all the spies we didn’t catch into toads.’
‘Well, not exactly,’ she amended, ‘but if there are any spies left hiding behind the walls, they can’t hear anything.’
‘You’re a very useful person to have around, Sephrenia,’ the fat little churchman observed.
‘I’ve noticed that myself,’ Vanion agreed.
‘Let’s push on here,’ Ehlana suggested. ‘We don’t want to overuse our subterfuge, but we will want to exchange a few gifts with Sarabian just to make sure that no one’s going to intercept our messages and to get the courtiers in the hallways accustomed to seeing Melidere trotting back and forth with trinkets.’
‘I won’t really trot, your Majesty,’ Melidere objected. ‘I’ll swish – seductively. I’ve found that a man who’s busy watching your hips doesn’t pay too much attention to what the rest of you is doing.’
‘Really?’ Princess Danae said. ‘I’ll have to remember that. Can you show me how to swish, Baroness?’
‘You’re going to have to grow some hips first, Princess,’ Talen told her.
Danae’s eyes went suddenly dangerous.
‘Never mind,’ Sparhawk told her.
She ignored him. ‘I’ll get you for that, Talen,’ she threatened.
‘I doubt it, your Highness,’ he replied impudently. ‘I can still run faster than you can.’
‘We have another problem,’ Stragen told them. ‘The absolutely splendid plan I conceived some months ago fell all to pieces on me last night. The local thieves aren’t going to be much help, I’m afraid. They’re even worse than Caalador led us to believe back in Lebas. Tamul society’s so rigid that my colleagues out there in the streets can’t think independently. There’s a certain way that thieves are supposed to behave here, and the ones we met last night are so hide-bound that they can’t get around the stereotypes. The Elenes in the local thieves’ community are creative enough, but the Tamuls are hopelessly inept.’
‘That’s certainly the truth,’ Talen agreed. ‘They don’t even try to run when they’re caught stealing. They just stand around waiting to be taken into custody. It’s the most immoral thing I’ve ever heard of.’
‘We might be able to salvage something out of it,’ Stragen continued. ‘I’ve sent for Caalador. Maybe he can talk some sense into them. What concerns me the most is their absolute lack of any kin
d of organisation. The thieves don’t talk to the murderers; the whores don’t talk to the beggars and nobody talks to the swindlers. I can’t for the life of me see how they survive.’
‘That’s bad news,’ Ulath noted. ‘We were counting on the thieves to serve as our spy-network.’
‘Let’s hope that Caalador can fix it,’ Stragen said. ‘The fact that there’s no central intelligence-gathering apparatus in the government makes those thieves crucial to our plans.’
‘Caalador will be able to talk some sense into them,’ Ehlana said. ‘I have every confidence in him.’
‘That’s probably because you like to hear him talk,’ Sparhawk told her.
‘Speaking of talking,’ Sephrenia said, ‘I think our efforts here are going to be limited by the fact that most of you don’t speak Tamul. We’re going to have to do something about that.’
Kalten groaned.
‘It won’t be nearly as painful this time, dear one,’ she smiled. ‘We don’t really have the time for you to actually learn the language, so Zalasta and I are going to cheat.’
‘Could you clarify that a bit for me, Sephrenia?’ Emban said, looking puzzled.
‘We’ll cast a spell,’ she shrugged.
‘Are you trying to say that you can teach somebody a foreign language by magic?’ he asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ Sparhawk assured him. ‘She taught me to speak Troll in about five seconds in Ghwerig’s cave, and I’d imagine that Troll’s a lot harder to learn than Tamul. At least Tamuls are human.’
‘We’ll have to be careful, though,’ the small Styric woman cautioned. ‘If you all appear to be linguistic geniuses, it’s going to look very curious. We’ll do it a bit at a time – a basic vocabulary and a rudimentary grammar right at first, and then we’ll expand on that.’
‘I could send you instructors, Lady Sephrenia,’ Oscagne offered.
‘Ah – no, thanks all the same, your Excellency. Your instructors would be startled – and suspicious – if they suddenly found a whole platoon of extraordinarily gifted students. We’ll do it ourselves in order to conceal what we’re up to. I’ll give our pupils here abominable accents right at first, and then we’ll smooth things out as we go along.’