Finally he stood and looked out over the courtyard where the great men were taking their leave. His proclamation had caused a stir and he saw many aggressive postures in the crowd, turban-feathers bobbing, heavy rings glinting in the sunlight with every emphatic gesture. He wished he could hear their words. At last the courtiers climbed into their shining carriages, surrounded by more bodyguards than stood with Sarmin himself. They were frightened, and not without reason; between the rebels, the pattern attacks and the approaching Storm, the city was no longer safe for them. Sarmin’s window faced west, not north, but even so he could sense a darkness at the corner of his vision, a gathering cloud a thousand times larger than the one that had surrounded his brother’s tomb.
When the last courtier passed through the Elephant Gate, his carriage of polished wood catching the afternoon sun, Sarmin turned from the window and summoned his sword-sons. One came forward, a tall man with a bit of vanity in his oiled ringlets, his beard shaped carefully below his lips.
‘What are you called?’ Sarmin at last pushed aside his fear of asking for a name. His death would be no less meaningful for the lack of it.
‘Ne-Seth, Magnificence.’ The sword-sons kept the names given to them in their training – not Cerani names but names of power, telling who they had been and who they had become when born again into the service of empire.
‘Ne-Seth.’ The name meant nothing to Sarmin. ‘Come.’ He left his apartments and made for Mesema’s room. High above in the Great Hall workmen had already replastered the dome and were preparing for artists to press new legends upon it in gems and glass: Uthman versus the Parigol Army, Ghelen the Holy versus the southern sorcerer – perhaps even Sarmin the Saviour versus Helmar the Pattern Master. As he walked, it occurred to him that the new women’s wing was too far from where he slept and conducted his business – or Mesema at least was too far.
Tarub answered the door, but quickly made her obeisance and disappeared into the corridor. Mesema paced in the room beyond, a spyglass clutched in her hand. When she saw him she cried out and rushed forwards, her arms wide, and he caught and held her, breathing in the scent of her hair.
‘It’s your mother,’ she said, pulling away, but he caught her hand, keeping her close. ‘She left the palace – I saw her from the spyglass. It was too far for me to call to her. I don’t know where she could have gone, and there are fires in the city!’
Sarmin frowned and thought about the places his mother might go. ‘The White Hat barracks are outside the palace compound,’ he said. ‘Perhaps she has gone to her lover Arigu.’
Mesema gasped. ‘She would be so bold? But she told me—’ She faltered and turned away. ‘I did not think such a thing was allowed.’
‘It is not allowed, but my mother is twice widowed and nobody will take her to task as long as she’s discreet.’ He turned her face back to his and pressed his lips against her forehead. ‘I will speak to her when she returns.’
She pulled away again, frowning. ‘But are you certain? It was so strange – the guards did not see her …’
The more he thought of it, the more certain he was: his mother would want information about the duke, and Arigu would have it. He took the spyglass from her hand and set it on the cosmetics table, then lifted her up and set her beside it. The mirror wobbled as he leaned in for a kiss, and pots of paint and pieces of jewellery scattered to the floor. ‘I am certain.’
And then she kissed him back, putting her hand in his hair, pulling him closer.
‘I saw Duke Didryk before he went into the throne room,’ she said as he kissed her neck. ‘What was he like?’
Sarmin thought of the events in the throne room and afterwards, when Banreh’s beaten body was thrown before him, and his passion cooled. He sat on the bench and faced the mirror. Beside the blue of Mesema’s dress he saw his own face, thin and wide-mouthed. What did that face say about him? He remembered Duke Didryk’s expression when he made his announcement about the Mogyrk faith. ‘His cousin Kavic was easier to read. I wish I knew for certain that he wanted peace.’
Mesema slid down beside Sarmin and he watched her profile as she spoke. ‘Will he help us?’
‘That is what he says.’ He looked at their reflections. It was just the two of them, with no ghosts and no brother looking out from behind his eyes. ‘Is that what I look like?’
She laid her head on his shoulder and watched him in the mirror. She answered him carefully. ‘I do not know what you see, my husband.’