Responding to a blown whistle, several other Marah approached, menacing, sword hands ready. Among them was a face the man knew well but did not much care for. Rialus Neptos hung at the back of the new arrivals-no fighter he, but as usual eager to observe anything he could report to the queen. He was not her chancellor, as he was rumored to think himself, but everyone knew that he shared a closeness with Corinn Akaran that none could fathom. He was a councillor she seemed to grant as much access to as she offered her siblings.
Rialus was quicker than the rest to recognize the young man. For a moment he looked just as perplexed as the guards. "Draw no swords!" he shouted, pushing forward. "Draw no swords, you fools! Do you not see this is Prince Dariel?"
The second guard-the one who had touched him but not yet spoken-sputtered, "Prince-Prince Dariel?" He glanced at the others, his face twisted in puzzlement. He moved his hand away from his dagger as if shocked that he had ever gripped it. "Your Highness, I don't understand."
"Ah, you've pegged me," the young man said, holding his mirthful expression a moment longer before breaking into laughter. "And your lack of comprehension is clear, friend! Your partners here are the more confused. Have I really been away for so long? I thought it just a few months!" He paused, but nobody had a ready response. "None of you has ever seen a prince in pauper's clothing, I take it. It's the man who makes the clothes, you know, not the other way around." He danced in, suddenly light on his feet as if fencing. Nodding toward the councillor, he added, "Rialus Neptos, it seems, understands this better than most."
The second guard continued to sputter, while his two companions begged forgiveness. Several of the newly arrived Marah bowed low to the ground. Rialus tried to form a question about his garb; seemed to sense the question was fraught with insult; and instead posed a series of queries, after none of which he kept quiet long enough to hear the answers to. Dariel mentioned casually that he was here to see the queen on matters of state. He should probably be on his way, but should Rialus prefer to interrogate him first… He sketched his indifference in the air with his hand. For that matter, he did not mind being delayed by each Marah who wished to question him. Of course, the queen might not like to be kept waiting…
A moment later Dariel was striding along. Rialus shuffled a half step behind him, signaling furiously with his hands and arms and face at any soldier or guard that might possibly think to intercept them. By the confused looks the men and women sent him, it was clear few understood his antics. Not, at least, until they recognized Dariel's face and bearing. Despite his garb the prince walked with assurance and obvious military fitness. All who might have questioned him instead stepped to the side.
"Is it true what I hear said about you, Rialus?" Dariel asked.
"What's that, sir?"
Dariel did not slacken his pace, but looked at the councillor askance, one corner of his mouth lifted. "That you've found love, Rialus. That you found marital harmony in the arms of a woman who was once your servant. I'd no idea you were so liberally minded, though I had heard you were on something of a diligent search for a… well, for a wife to complete you."
This had been a running joke for the last few years. Rialus, once he had his quarters set up in what had been a Meinish compound during Hanish's rule, had set about staffing it almost entirely with attractive young women. It was rumored that not all of them knew much about keeping an official's house in order, but most of them made up for it with a propensity toward buxomness. A few, it was said, came directly from houses of prostitution and served entirely to satisfy Rialus's considerable carnal appetite. Who could blame him-pent up as he had been in Cathgergen for so many of his prime years? Dariel really felt no superiority to him in this regard. He did not even condemn Rialus for marrying a servant girl. Truth be known, he envied him the freedom to marry whomever he chose. This was not a freedom he himself had, as Corinn had made abundantly clear.
"No need to explain yourself to me," Dariel said, cutting him off before he got fully up to speed in his sputtering explanation. He slapped a hand down on the man's thin shoulder, feeling him wince beneath it. "Be a happy man, Rialus. Plant a child in her. Become immortal…"
The prince's voice trailed off. He had just mounted one of the upper stairs and turned on the patio to take in the view. As ever, the terraced descent of Acacia to the sea was a wonder to behold. Beneath him, the land cascaded down, level on level, merging together like a maze cut by stairways and fortifying walls, with great houses in the higher reaches and smaller structures lower. Corinn had ordered new paint colors mixed to announce the return of Akaran rule and to represent the new age she believed they were entering. So the rooftops and spires and globes below him flashed in brilliant hues of sky blue and crimson and orange, of brown and silver that shimmered like sun on water.
Dariel found it somewhat garish, really. He almost remarked once that the colors suited the flamboyant tastes of a Sea Isle brigand outpost, but he had held his tongue, sure that Corinn would not care for the comparison. Still, garishly clothed or not, Acacia had weathered the changes of human fortune with quiet resilience. He wondered if the island itself would outlive all empires and go on in its beauty long after humans ceased clamoring over it. The sea would surround it then just as now. The sun would rise from one horizon and set in the other, just as now. In a way this notion of a lonely Acacia was a pleasing thought, though Dariel was not sure why that should be so. He should want his people to rule here without end. He did, of course. But a person, he had come to believe, can want two conflicting things at the same time.
After the councillor had vouched for his identity, Dariel left Rialus at the entrance to Corinn's offices. Entering the inner chambers, the prince was aware of a scent in the air that he often detected around his sister. It was something other than the fragrant concoctions that bubbled quietly in small pots throughout the room, something other than the blossoms from the flowering bushes kept in great basins on her balcony. He thought it an essential oil she must wear dabbed somewhere on her person, a scent all her own. Strange that, because he did not exactly find it a pleasant smell, sharp and dry as it was.
Corinn waited for him. She was alone, standing with her arms clasped at her waist, her face composed as if she had anticipated the exact moment of his arrival. She had developed a tendency toward always seeming completely ready, never surprised. It was yet another small thing about his sister that left him uneasy. The grin that lifted her cheeks could not have been anything but genuine, though, spontaneous. That was another characteristic he had become more aware of in the last few years. She could shift from her aloof composure to girlish familiarity and back again so completely that when she was in one state it was impossible to imagine her in the other.
"What a sight you are, Dariel!" she exclaimed. "You come to poke fun at me. Is that it? Look at you!"
"You sent me out to work among the people like a slave," Dariel said, raising his arms and spinning so that she could take his clothing in, "and so I return to you looking the part."
"Aaden is desperate to see you, you know? But if you walked in like that, he'd likely draw his sword and challenge you." She moved forward, stepped into the embrace of his uplifted arms, and hugged him briefly. Pulling back, she studied him. "Let us sit and talk."
A moment later, the two reclined in soft leather chairs, sitting across from each other, a carved stone table between them. In the center of it a small fire glowed, giving off considerable heat. A servant set two tumblers of mulled wine on the table and then retired.