Free Arrows of the Sun by Judith Tarr

“She is. She says she’s
ninety at least.”
    “A hale seventy,” Vanyi judged. “Sixty, more likely. Or
less—the road is hard on aging bones. See? She tells stories. Keep her for
that. But don’t trust her, or anything she tells you.”
    “Not even if it’s true?”
    She hit him, but the blow turned to a caress.
    He would have made it more. She pulled away. In time, just,
to appear decorous when his mother stepped into the tent, and in her shadow as
always, the high priest of Avaryan in Endros, lightmage to her dark as the old
tales said. But they were not twinned mages. Not in any way the Guild would
have understood, though it might have understood that they were lovers. It was
obvious to anyone with eyes to see.
    Vanyi was expected to leave. That was the coward’s part, and
the prudent servant’s. She was neither. She busied herself about the tent,
keeping to the dimmer places, for the little good it did, and cursing his
squire for the perfect order he kept.
    “Oh, come,” said Iburan at last, half weary, half amused.
“Sit with us, priestess. We’ll not be flaying him alive quite yet.”
    She felt the flush rise to her cheeks, and knew they saw it.
Her chin came up. If it was defiant, then so be it. She set a stool by
Estarion’s right hand, and sat on it, and waited.
    For a long while no one spoke. Estarion seemed content to
rest his eyes on the lamp, letting it fill them, and him, with its little
light.
    Again it was Iburan who spoke, who said what had to be said.
“Suppose we consider the matter disputed: that you left the camp unseen. That
you took a truant’s liberty, and nigh caused a scandal by your absence. Suppose
it argued, and the matter settled as well as it ever may be, at no great profit
to any of us.”
    “And no great disadvantage,” Estarion said. “Are you telling
me that I’m to be forbidden any more such escapades?”
    “We can hardly forbid you,” said Iburan. “You are the emperor.”
    Estarion laughed, brief and bitter. “When has that stopped
you? No, I wasn’t wise in what I did. I didn’t mean to be wise. Maybe the god
led me. Have you thought of that?”
    “Certainly,” said the god’s priest. “And which god, my lord?
He of the east, who is light and truth, or he of the west, who is darkness and
the Lie?”
    “Aren’t they both, in the end, the same?”
    “Not in their consequences.”
    “You may argue theology until the stars fall,” the empress
said, clear and cold, “but it changes nothing that is. Estarion, mere error we
can forgive. Idiocy, never. What if you had been killed?”
    Vanyi kept her eyes scrupulously on her feet. One of her
boots needed mending. Tomorrow, if there was time. If tomorrow came.
    She felt the heat that burned in her lover’s body. Heat of
the sun, and heat of temper banked, flaring to sudden brilliance. Yet he kept
his voice low. “If I cannot walk alone in my own empire, by my own river, under
my own sky, then god and goddess forbid that I call myself emperor.” He drew a
breath so sharp it must have cut. “This is Keruvarion, Mother. In Asanion, yes,
I’ll walk low and I’ll walk soft, and I’ll never walk unguarded. Here at least,
while I walk in my own country, let me walk free.”
    “Very pretty,” she said. “Very foolish. Is a border a wall
and a warded fastness, that no assassin should pass it?”
    “Not here,” he said, lower yet, and fiercer. “Not in
Keruvarion. I’m not an utter fool. I have an art or two here and there. I can
guard myself.”
    “So your father said,” said Merian.
    Estarion started, then went still. Those were cruel words,
Vanyi thought, but—yes—necessary.
    He looked rather more angry than convinced. But he did not
argue further, nor say much at all, until his mother was gone. And then he only
said, low, as if to himself, “He never died in Keruvarion.”

8
    “Oh aye,” said Sidani, “I sailed the seas with Chubadai.
He was never quite the pirate that they say, but he took