‘Not even for a moment?’ He longed to see the boy smile, to wash Daveed from his mind’s eye.
‘If you can answer me a riddle,’ she answered, ‘perhaps I will let you rouse him.’
‘All right.’
She sat up against the white cushions, slowly, so as not to jostle the baby. ‘The wound is spreading from Migido, is it not?’
So far this was not a riddle.
‘And soon it will pass over the Blessing.’
Again she was correct. He began to see the nature of her question. ‘So you want to know whether our river will turn to dust,’ he said.
She looked at him.
Govnan had told him there was only one mile to go before the Storm reached the Blessing. Then they would know for certain. ‘I do not know,’ he said, though his suspicions were dark.
That did not sit well with his wife. ‘The river …’ She drew her knees up to her chin.
Sarmin leaned forwards, trying to find words of comfort. Nooria had wells that led to underground aquifers; there were glaciers in the mountains … but in truth it he did not know if the city could survive without the Blessing. It was time to send her away. In the end all he could conjure was, ‘Mesema.’
She blushed and bit her lip. ‘So she told you.’
‘Who? No, this isn’t about anything like that.’ He saw relief in her shoulders and wondered; she knew he did not care about the issues of the women’s wing. ‘This is also about Migido – and the attack. Govnan is sure it was Mogyrk. Yrkmir approaches.’
‘Our scouts have seen the Yrkman army?’
‘No … only, Notheen believes it is true.’ They move through the empty spaces. He thought about those words. Of course the desert was not an empty place to Notheen: it was his home, crisscrossed by his people, lived in and loved. The headman had meant something else. ‘In any case, it has become too dangerous here. It is time to send you two away, to my mother’s people in the southern forests.’
She wrapped her arms around her knees, and he longed to hold her as she held herself. ‘I understand why you ask. Once I thought nothing would be too dangerous for me, but now I know that I was wrong.’
He breathed a sigh of relief. ‘So you will go.’
‘No. I will not.’ She met his gaze with her sky-blue eyes. ‘You know I will never leave you, not if there is a fight to be had. You promised we would work together.’
‘This isn’t a game of cards!’ He stood and paced to her window. ‘My mother must also go.’
‘She never will, not without Daveed.’ A slither of fabric as she left the bed. ‘Nor will I. Your Majesty.’
‘The skill that allowed me to best the Pattern Master has left me. I cannot fight for Daveed as I wish.’ He gripped the carved wood of the window-screen. ‘I cannot fight at all.’
‘Hush,’ she said, as if she were speaking to Pelar. ‘Listen. The pattern lies. Do you not think it can also lie through its absence?’
‘It is not hiding; it is gone. And so must you be, or—’ Or I will lose you. He could not say the last aloud. They did not speak to one another with such emotion.
She touched his shoulder and he turned to look down into her eyes, wide now with growing sadness. ‘You are a fine emperor without magic,’ she said, ‘and I will not leave you.’
‘But Pelar must.’
She blinked back tears. ‘Yes, Pelar must.’
‘We will send him on with his nursemaids and guards. Gods willing, we will see him again.’ Sarmin stood, leaned over the bed and gathered the babe to his chest. Pelar stirred in his silk wrappings. His mouth was small and round, like Mesema’s, but his dark hair and honeyed skin spoke of Beyon. The pattern had failed to capture Beyon; it had taken his memories and formed a cruel shell of what he had been. The true legacy of Sarmin’s brother lay in his arms, so small a bundle to matter so very much. ‘Here is the true emperor,’ Sarmin said, watching the rise and fall of his little chest.
Mesema glanced towards the door and whispered, ‘Do not say such things, my husband.’
‘Sometimes I must speak the truth.’ It was impossible at court – complicated even with Mesema.
Mesema said nothing, only stared at Pelar with grief in her eyes.
Sarmin placed a kiss on Pelar’s forehead. ‘What shall we do then, you and I?’
For once Mesema did not have an answer. Instead, she wrapped a bejewelled hand around his elbow and leaned over to give Pelar a slow kiss on the cheek. So the three of them stood, in an embrace of sorts, breathing in the baby’s scent, in the plain white room: his family, surrounded by a deafening blankness. An emptiness. The idea took his breath and he stepped away, Pelar still in his arms. Mesema’s hand dropped down to her side and her eyes fell into shadow though the room was sunny.