The Tower Broken(46)

‘Your Majesty—’ Govnan began, but at that moment Nessaket entered the room and cried out. She ran to Sarmin and fell to her knees, hands reaching for the child.

‘It’s not him.’ Sarmin felt as if he had looked into the Great Storm and let it take him whole.

‘But it is.’ Nessaket lifted the boy and examined him, her voice hushed, reverent. ‘It is my son.’ Mesema came in from the side door and smiled at the scene. He frowned at her – why did her visions show her nothing? If she could not see this boy was a stranger had she been blinded, the way Ashanagur said Mogyrk blinded the Tower?

‘There is some evil design in this,’ he warned as the women cooed over the child. Mesema looked up at him then, doubt crossing her eyes at last, but Nessaket touched her arm and murmured, and she turned away. Against all reason he felt it a betrayal.

His mother looked up at him, the false princeling wriggling in her grasp. Her face did not look joyful – only content – but she smiled as she spoke. ‘I will take him to the women’s wing, with your permission, my Emperor.’

‘What else is there to be done with him?’

She reproved him with a shake of her ink-black hair. ‘This is happy news, my Emperor, the best we might have wished for.’ She gestured towards Rushes. ‘I will take my servant Rushes with me. She has ever served me well. I wish to discuss her reward at a time of your choosing, Magnificence.’

‘Of course.’ None of this was Rushes’ fault.

Nessaket took her leave, taking the child who was not his brother with her. But Mesema stayed, smelling of jasmine, as she always did of late. When he first met her she smelled of the outdoors and horses and things he had experienced only through being Carried – but now she smelled of the palace. She knelt beside him as his mother had and took his hands in hers. ‘I am so happy for you, my husband. In all the trouble we have had there is a hole in the clouds where the sun can shine through.’

He liked her metaphor, from another place where the sun did not beat down, where clouds changed the light and brought cool rain. But he must tell her the truth. ‘That was not my brother.’

She looked at their joined hands, some thoughts warring within her, but then she looked up at him again and her eyes were clear as she spoke in a voice so low only Govnan, standing beside them, might hear it. ‘Your mother believes he is. The high mage believes he is.’

‘Some spell … some trickery …’ Just as the pattern had created a false Beyon, so had it created this false Daveed. He looked to Azeem, squeezing Mesema’s hands in his as he spoke. ‘The Blue Shields accomplish nothing in the Maze. Tell Herran to send his Grey Cloaks. Every house will be searched. My brother will be found.’

‘Very well, Magnificence.’ Azeem dipped a quill in his inkpot, his calm as cold and distant as mountain snow.

Mesema stared into his eyes. ‘My husband, if you find later that this child truly is Daveed, then only harm can come of this. The people of the Maze already suffer poverty and Mogyrk attacks and now they will find assassins among them.’

Startled, Sarmin glanced around the room. She had corrected him in court, where all must take him to be infallible – but his concern was for her, not himself. To his relief he saw that only the trusted high mage could have heard her. ‘I will not find that he is truly Daveed.’ As for the rest of what she had said, it reminded him of Grada’s warning. Do not make them hate you.

Mesema pressed on, in a lower voice. ‘May I speak of another issue that may have some bearing on the Mogyrk situation?’

‘You may always speak to me!’ He glanced up at Govnan, who made a show of creating distance – but not enough. He meant to listen. With annoyance Sarmin turned back to his wife.

She cleared her throat. ‘I am working to find proof that General Arigu betrayed my people during the Fryth war.’

He listened, though he knew it did not matter what new betrayal Arigu had committed. If the general ever returned, Sarmin would sit him in a place of honour, not disgrace. Arigu was the White Hat Army’s favourite general, and he needed the White Hats, especially now. In laying out their gambit Chief Banreh and Duke Didryk appeared to understand that, while Mesema, with her guileless expression, did not.

‘Arigu took Felting slaves, in violation of our ancient agreement.’ Her eyes spoke of urgency. ‘They are here, somewhere in the palace compound, or nearby. Once I find them, we can prove—’

The sharp thing inside Sarmin twisted. First she had not believed him about the boy and now she had sneaked away to Banreh. He cut across her with a harsh tone. ‘You spoke to the prisoner?’