The Emperors Knife - By Mazarkis Williams Page 0,11
the prince take Dirini?” The question burst from Mesema without permission. “She’s proven. She has her children to speak for her.”
“The Cerani have strange ways,” Banreh said. “Dirini’s children would always be considered a danger.”
“Are they mad?”
“Different.” Banreh rubbed at the golden stubble on his chin and looked out over the grass. “The prince has no younger brothers—they were all killed when the eldest took the throne. Why he was spared, I don’t know. The Cerani general has reasons, but he doesn’t tell me the truth.”
“I should ride away from here,” Mesema said. “I should ride and join the clanless. Chasing deer on the brown-land would be better than going to Cerana.” Banreh started to reply, but she spoke over him. “Don’t talk to me of duty. The Felt won’t suffer if one daughter rides away.”
Banreh shrugged. “When the horse fell on me I thought my life was over. I heard my leg break and I knew all my dreams broke with it.”
Mesema watched him. He had a faraway look. His eyes held the green of the spring.
“I would have made a middling Rider,” Banreh said. “I was never a natural, not like your father or your brother. I would have got by, but I’d always have been third-best in any group of four. Maybe I’d be dead by now, killed last summer when we fought the Red Hooves.
“Instead I found a new world, a world of strange tongues and the stories they conceal. I found writing, and in it a trail to a dozen lands beyond our own—whole new worlds, Mesema, places no Felt has ever been. Places your father could never conquer though he had ten times the Riders.”
“What are you saying?” Mesema asked. “That this Cerani prince is my broken leg?”
Banreh turned to face her. “Your horse has fallen. How you get up again is a matter for you.”
“Don’t think to instruct me, Banreh.” Mesema found her anger again. “I am not a child and you are no Elder.” She met his gaze and challenged it. “Is there nothing you regret, not being a real man?”
Banreh met the challenge. “Had I been a Rider, I would have ridden to your longhouse and set my spear. But I am not, and even if I had been, the Cerani prince would still have beaten me to your bower. We are the Felt, Mesema. We carry on.”
Banreh turned his horse and rode slowly towards the camp. Mesema looked once more towards the setting of the sun and the distant marches of the clanless, then she too began the ride back.
We are the Felt. We carry on.
Tuvaini passed through the royal corridors. On his right, a recess held a mosaic, bright in purple and white. He had hidden there as a young boy, hoping his uncle wouldn’t find him and force him back into his lessons. He recalled the feel of the cool agate against his bare legs, the way he had held his breath, sure that the slightest sound would betray him. He is lazy, he prayed they would say. A poor student. Not promising. Then they would send him home to the seaside. That desire faded once he came to know Emperor Tahal.
Tuvaini passed under the carving of the god Keleb. Here, just outside the imperial suite, he used to place the Robes of Office around the shoulders of the late emperor. They had walked to the throne room together, Tahal and Tuvaini, thousands of times. Tahal had spent more time with him than with his own sons. He had known all save one would die.
All save two, as it turned out.
Tuvaini turned a corner and left the royal chambers behind. Here lay the doors to the treasuries and scriptoria. In between them all, handsome tapestries concealed plain tiled walls. The officers of the quill and coin were mere men of tribute, chosen from the villages and farms of vassal lands and trained for a lifetime of shifting papers. It was better to fill such rooms with men of limited ambitions, men like Donato who took joy in building monuments to failures.
Tuvaini walked on. As he neared the servants’ chambers, he yawned. Sometimes Lapella made him sleepy. It wasn’t her fault; she relaxed him. He found her door and turned the key in the lock. Whenever he entered her quarters, he had the sensation of stepping into his home province. He hadn’t been there in more than ten years, but Lapella held for him all the voices and scents