Eternal Sky 01(73)
And there was a barbed arrow to the heart. There had been no answer to her note—but in reality, she expected none. What could she do? With one mountain-sick plainsman and a Cho-tse, mount an assault to free him? People did not escape the dungeons of the Black Palace.
“I will come,” Samarkar said, setting herself forward, telling herself that the sense of portent that accompanied the words was nothing but her own overnurtured self-image. Though it was bitter in her mouth, she said, “There are ways I mollify him. Though they may do my dignity no good.”
She made a point not to glance at Temur, not to make this about him. But she was unsurprised when his shadow nodded on the ground at her feet, and he said, “I too will come.”
* * *
The palace was as it always was, but this time Samarkar was aware of her companions’ reactions to its endless corridors and intricate stoneworks. As they trailed behind a doorman—not Baryan, this time, but a young man Samarkar did not know—she heard Hrahima’s deep sniffs. The Cho-tse was memorizing and categorizing every scent. Samarkar was aware, too, of Temur glancing about—not as wide-eyed as she had anticipated, but rather considering, calculating. Assessing the place as a warrior, Samarkar realized, with an eye to its frailties and strengths.
All men fancy themselves warriors, and all warriors are the same. Possibly that was not fair to men, but Samarkar had already worked herself into a lather of irritation at her brother, and it was spilling over to others.
Because it was Hrahima’s audience, she followed closest behind the doorman, with Samarkar and Temur sweeping behind her like the wings of a cloak she was not wearing. The footman showed them into the antechamber that had been her father’s privy closet. That was a good sign, as was the platter of tea and sweets set waiting.
She also knew that this room was replete with cunning hides and blinds where an emperor could have his closest advisors crouch behind the very stone walls and hear and see clearly what was said and done within. That suggested that Songtsan-tsa was taking his strange inhuman emissary seriously.
Whether he meant to give her a fair hearing, or whether he had already made up his mind what to do, was anybody’s guess.
The doorman gestured them within the antechamber and shut the door. Into the ensuing silence, Hrahima muttered, “What now?”
“We wait the bstangpo’s pleasure,” Samarkar said. “At least there is tea.”
Hrahima’s brow wrinkled. “What is the protocol?”
“We stand,” Samarkar said, moving to the sideboard. “Until the Emperor-in-Waiting graces us with his presence. We stay on this carpet; the emperor will stand on that one.” She gestured to where two carpets, one red and one white, lay separated by half the height of a man on the dark stone floor.
It turned out they had not long to wait. Samarkar had barely filled the cups when the door on the far side of the room opened, allowing her to smoothly fill a fourth and have it ready to present to her brother as he entered. She knelt at the edge of the white carpet, the cup upraised; he leaned out to take it, and touched her wrist with his other hand to bid her stand. Two guards who had entered with him set their backs against the wall beside the door and made of themselves statues, whose tassels could only be seen to flutter slightly when they breathed.
“You need not wait on me with your own hands, aphei,” he said.
“I am here not as a wizard,” Samarkar said, rising, “but as your sister, and so I do you what duty a family member may.”
His eyebrows arched, but that was all, and as Samarkar passed out tea to the others present, he deigned to sip his. At least he does not suspect I would poison him. Or possibly he’d just resorted to philters. There was enough jewelry hung about his body that a wizarded pearl would go unnoticed, and Samarkar was not about to risk entering a trance state now to see if she could detect the presence of such an enchantment.
“You support the Cho-tse ambassador’s story?” he said.
She nodded, glancing at Hrahima. But Hrahima held out a beseeching hand—the one unburdened by tea—and said, “Your Magnificence must understand that I am not an ambassador of the Cho-tse. Rather, I come as an independent emissary of the wizard Ato Tesefahun of Ctesifon, on a matter of great concern to all nations.”
“Proceed,” Songtsan said, every inch the apparent emperor.
Samarkar cupped her own tea bowl and watched quietly while Hrahima recounted her story for Songtsan—a story in almost all respects similar to the one she had told Samarkar and Temur on the road. For Songtsan, she went into more detail about the Rahazeen fortifications, stressing how impressive they were, how mountain-fast, and that it would probably take siege machines or companies of wizards to breach them.