Free Restoration (Rai Kirah) by Carol Berg Page A

question as to their guilt; Zedeon brought me a Frythian dagger as his funeral gift. Whether or not anyone else believes my accusation, I have to take them down, and I have to do it immediately, before negotiations, before investigations, before the Council of Twenty convenes to crown me ... or someone else ... Emperor. If I do nothing, I’ll be admitting my own guilt or my weakness, which is much the same.”
    No wonder he needed a strong sword arm. “Have you the men to do it?”
    He shrugged and ran his fingers through his ragged hair. “Old Zedeon likely has more than a token garrison at his Zhagad stronghold. To take him I’ll need at least a thousand warriors. The bulk of my own troops are still in the desert somewhere between here and Suzain—do you begin to see the beauty of their plan? So I’ve had to call upon the other hegeds who have garrisons here in the city. I sent out the command to all of them before I came back from the rites. Shall we go inside and discover who sees fit to support their Emperor-in-waiting?”
    It would have been exceedingly convenient if I could have shifted easily into a mouse or a plant or one of the hundred cats that slunk about the royal palace. As it was, I had to face the curious stares of Aleksander’s gentlemen attendants and courtiers as I followed him into the richly furnished apartment. The floor was sand-colored tile, shot through with the deep blue of lapis. Silk cushions and couches of red and blue were positioned throughout the large airy room, with lamps of brass and crystal set on low, round tables of exotic woods inlaid with ebony. Traditional Derzhi sand paintings of exquisite artistry hung on the walls, and silver wind chimes hung beside the open windows. But the fairest decorations were the window prospects themselves. Aleksander’s apartments occupied the highest reaches of the north tower of the palace, where the slightest breeze would find its way under his high ceilings, and between the sitting rooms and bedchambers, he would command views in every direction. One window after another displayed the graceful arches of Zhagad and, beyond them, the purple and gold vastness of the desert. To the north one could see the distant shimmer of snow-caps, the mountains where lay Capharna, the Empire’s summer capital, where, on a winter’s day five years before, Aleksander had bought me for twenty zenars.
    “The scribe is on his way, Your Highness,” said a chinless, high-voiced courtier who held a silver tray stacked with small rolls of parchment.
    Aleksander, who was allowing a slight, fair-haired slave to remove his red cloak, snapped his head around to me and waggled his eyebrows. “No. I think not.” He waved off the bodyslave, who was attempting to unfasten his shirt. “I’ve engaged a new scribe. I’ve heard he is quite capable, if not particularly refined. We’ll have to induce him to clean himself, or the chamberlains will think he’s a slave and lock him up.” Indeed I was a filthy, stinking mess. “So you agree to the position, whatever your name is?”
    I bowed low, shaking my hair to the side of my face where it might help hide my slave mark.
    “Give him the messages, and show him where the writing materials are to be found. And pass him flatbread and some of these figs. I can’t bear a servant who looks as though he’ll eat my carpets.”
    Before I had broken the first seal, the Prince was naked, reclining on blue silk cushions and eating dates while the fair-haired Hessio, his longtime bodyslave, tended the angry wounds on his arms. Another soft-faced youth washed his face, hands, and feet. The position was so familiar, an echoed memory, that I found myself checking my wrists to make sure no slave rings had been sealed about them while I wasn’t looking.
    “So tell me the news, my scribe. Time gives us no indulgence, as a wise man told me quite recently. Malver here is waiting to take the message to his captains—shall we have a thousand