They set out. Tol found himself at the rear of the party, next to Kiya. “Are you certain you can trust the half-elf?” she murmured. “She could be lying.”
Tol looked ahead at Tylocost and Egrin. The former marshal of Ergoth and the former general of Tarsis were rehashing the tactics of some old battle, each animatedly defending his point.
“We travel with old friends and old foes, so why not liars?” Tol said.
Bells tolled across Daltigoth. The city held its breath as the tidings spread street by street, through each quarter.
“Victory! Victory!” the heralds cried. “Lord Breyhard has crossed the Dalti at Eagle’s Ford and smashed the invader! Victory! Victory!”
Valaran stood on the roof of the imperial palace and listened to the joyous celebrations that spread through the streets. No such relief eased the knot of worry in her stomach. She’d read the general’s dispatches to her husband. With one hundred and eighteen thousand warriors at his command, all Breyhard had done was force a crossing against light bakali resistance. Ackal V had ordered the bells rung and the news proclaimed in the streets as a great victory.
Valaran returned to a small bench sitting in the lee of two life-sized statues of Emperor Pakin III, the father of the current emperor. The statues were poor likenesses and had been mutilated by drunken Wolves, hence their exile to this rooftop corner. Valaran had been pleased to find them, however. This aerie offered her at least the illusion of freedom, with no walls pressing in, and the great statues acting as shields against the ever-present wind. Besides, old Pakin III had always been kind to her.
Kneeling, Valaran unrolled a detailed map of the Dalti bend. She noted the positions of Breyhard’s hordes and the locations presumably now occupied by the bakali. The general had a small hook in the enemy’s flesh, but the question was, could he exploit it?
She pushed the scroll open further, revealing Caergoth and the Eastern Hundred. Valaran touched a fingertip to the town of Juramona. It seemed a ridiculous gamble now, sending a lone tracker to find a single man somewhere in the hinterlands beyond the empire. She had tossed a pebble in the ocean, hoping to hit a whale. Still, the gamble had to be taken.
The current celebrations notwithstanding, Daltigoth was awash in fear and doubt. There were daily executions of food hoarders, street thieves, and those who made treasonous utterings against the emperor. Ordinary folk were hanged. Well-born victims of the emperor’s justice lost their heads. The spikes atop the Inner City wall were never empty. Courtiers, warlords, and mages rose to prominence by the sudden death of their predecessors, only to fall themselves when they failed to give satisfaction. Valaran wondered who would ruin Daltigoth first, the emperor or the invaders.
One of her attendants-she never bothered to learn their names-appeared at the cupola door and called for her. The woman’s expression showed her dismay at finding the Empress of Ergoth sitting on a dirty stone bench, her wine-colored silk gown creased and soiled.
Valaran knew the woman would bleat on and on until she acknowledged her, so she let the large map spool shut and asked the woman what she wanted.
“Gracious Majesty, the emperor has sent for you!”
Valaran rose and tucked the scroll under her arm. “Where is he?”
“His private quarters, Majesty.”
Gods, give me strength. The emperor in his private rooms might want anything, from her opinion on a banquet menu to his conjugal rights. Ackal V wasn’t especially fond of her company. As a husband he was little more demanding than his brother, her first husband, Ackal IV. Ackal IV had been of a scholarly bent, and frequently preoccupied with various projects. This emperor’s pleasure sprang more from terrorizing his people than making love to his wives.
Three more attendants were waiting below. They curtsied, their bowing heads topped by fashionable starched headdresses. Rising, they swept away in a crackle of heavy cloth, clearing the hall ahead of her. By law, no male could come within ten steps of the empress unless the emperor was present. Male servants and courtiers were expected to disappear when her attendants materialized, as they heralded her approach. As a result, Valaran’s excursions through the heart of the palace were attended by crashing crockery and slamming doors as various males rushed out of her path.
Ackal V’s private quarters were in the palace’s lower floors. The suite formerly had been occupied by Emperor Ergothas II, whose interest in architecture had led him to design an airy living space devoid of interior walls. A double line of columns bisected the room. In Ergothas II’s day, hanging tapestries divided the vast chamber into smaller private spaces. Ackal V had ordered the tapestries removed and the large windows bricked up. He slept in a great bed in the very center of the suite and, save for a few pieces of furniture, the rest of the hall was empty. The emperor’s favorite hounds ran free in the space, and his Wolves often staged rowdy revels in the side passages.
The Wolf standing guard at the suite’s door was a favorite of Ackal V, who had dubbed him “my Argon,” after the god of vengeance. The fellow was a giant, well over two paces tall. He bore a tattoo of a horned deer on his cheek skull and wore an especially large and smelly wolf pelt that was silvery gray in color. Like all the Wolves, he was unwashed, unkempt, and willing to do anything his patron requested without hesitation. Wolves were the only males not required to retreat at the empress’s approach.
As Argon opened the doors, she glided past without acknowledging his existence in the slightest.
The chamber reeked of smoke and spilled wine and dogs. It was also stiflingly hot. The emperor’s peculiar susceptibility to cold seemed to increase every month. Any room he occupied for more than a few moments had to have a roaring fire, even in summer.
The twin rows of columns stretched ahead of her. Each was decorated with a gilded sconce holding a flaming torch. The floor between the columns was covered by a golden carpet. Valaran’s slippered feet made no sound on the woven pile. In the shadows on each side of the lighted path shapes stirred. Some were hounds. Others were not. She did not look at any of them.
As Valaran drew near the heart of the chamber, the warmth increased. A fire blazed in an open hearth and a bell-shaped copper flue drew in the smoke and sparks, carrying them off to the roof. Straight-backed chairs were arrayed before the fire, but Ackal V was sitting on his high bed, scrolls lying on his lap and piled around him.
“Your Majesty sent for me?” Valaran halted at the foot of the bed, hands folded at her waist.
“Yes, some time past,” he said, not looking up from the scroll he was perusing. After allowing some moments of silence to pass, he lowered the document and asked, “Where were you?”
“On the roof, sire. Listening to victory bells.”
His lip curled at her sarcasm. Although a captive wife, Valaran used her considerable wit to annoy her husband. It was a delicate dance, their marriage. The emperor left much of the mundane, day-to-day work of running the household to his wife, freeing his own time for personal amusements. In return, he tolerated a certain small amount of insolence from her. Not a week went by that he didn’t remind her he could kill her-or worse-any time he chose.
“The only victory Breyhard gained was not getting his men slaughtered crossing the river,” Ackal said. “He has elements of twelve hordes on the east bank, with more crossing all the time.”
Valaran said nothing. The last time she had remarked on military matters in the emperor’s presence, he’d slapped her hard enough to bruise her jaw.