Most found the banquet hall unpleasant unless it teemed with diners, but Empress Valaran relished it. In the vast open space, she could tell she was not being spied upon. Her every whisper in the palace was heard frequently by the wrong ears. In the echoing emptiness of the banquet hall, she almost felt free.
Clad in a white dressing gown quilted with red thread, the Empress sat at the head of the long table. Her son, Crown Prince Dalar, sat on her right. The only other occupant of the hall was a single female servant, standing a few steps away by a wheeled sideboard.
Dalar slurped loudly at his soup. The empress rapped her pewter spoon once on the rim of her golden bowl. Chastened, the five-year-old prince swallowed his next mouthful more decorously.
Twenty rooms and three floors away, the Consorts’ Circle was celebrating the birthday of Princess Consort Landea, the emperor’s fourth wife. A well-fleshed, vain chatterbox with a fondness for sweetmeats, Landea followed her husband’s example: the news of Lord Breyhard’s defeat did not interfere with her merrymaking. Her suite rang with shrill laughter, as sweet wine and honeyed confections were consumed in staggering quantities. The festivities would go on all night. Never mind that Breyhard’s army lay dead along the Dalti shore. Never mind the city seethed with discontent, riots, and murder. Not even the execution of Breyhard’s young wife dampened the spirits of Landea and her idiot friends.
A clang of metal on metal echoed lightly in the hall, pulling Valaran out of her dark thoughts. Dalar had tapped his spoon on the rim of his soup bowl and was looking up at her with a glint in his green eyes.
“Mama,” he said, “you’re fidgeting.”
Valaran realized she’d been drumming her fingers on the tabletop, just the sort of restless behavior for which she always chided her son. The look on his face was so endearing she couldn’t help but smile, but she thanked him quite seriously.
The boy returned his attention to his soup, pleased at having caught her. His mother never fidgeted. She could sit unmoving through even the longest, most boring speeches and ceremonies.
Her own dinner had congealed by this time, but Valaran didn’t notice. She continued eating mechanically, her thoughts once more on the terrible situation in the city.
Since word of the debacle at Eagle’s Ford, Ackal V had been on a rampage. Enraged beyond the point of reason, he ordered the families of the leading warlords in Breyhard’s hordes punished. Labeled as weaklings unfit to serve the empire, the warlords’ adult sons were beheaded. Their wives, sisters, and daughters were condemned to slavery on imperial estates far from the city. Any councilors or courtiers known to have favored Breyhard were likewise punished. The headsmen had been at it for days-another reason Valaran supped in the banquet hall. Here she was spared the sickening sound of the executioner’s axe.
The doors at the far end of the hall burst open. Two Wolves entered, one announcing, “His Majesty, the Emperor of Ergoth!”
Valaran touched her lips with a snowy napkin, and stood. The servant stepped forward to shift the heavy chair for the young prince, and Dalar hopped down.
Ackal V stormed in. These days he was perpetually furious. No richly bedecked councilors or warlords in glittering panoply dogged his heels. He was surrounded, as always, by his brutal, loyal Wolves. A black bearskin cape of prodigious weight was draped over his shoulders, and he had taken to wearing gloves, even indoors, but never could seem to keep warm.
“Lady, why are you here?” he rasped. Out of breath from his continuous tirades, he was disheveled, red hair and beard untrimmed and wildly awry.
Valaran replied calmly, “For dinner, Your Majesty.”
“I can see that! Why aren’t you with the Consorts’ Circle? Your absence is an insult to Landea!”
Valaran bowed her head. “I wished to dine with our son, sire. My heart is too heavy with recent events to pass an evening in idle pleasure.”
Ackal V plucked a morsel of bread from his son’s plate and chewed it rapidly. “You always have a glib excuse, don’t you?” She said nothing, as he glared at her. “Someday I’ll have your head, lady.”
“Your Majesty has my head any time he desires it,” she said, gazing steadily at him.
The Wolves, lounging casually around their master, exchanged startled looks. Few dared to speak thusly to the wrathful emperor, but Ackal V reacted with dark amusement.
“By the gods, you’re the only man in the whole palace, besides me!”
The emperor’s mercurial mood had turned remarkably affable. Perhaps it was all the bloodletting in the plaza. Dispatching underlings always cheered Ackal V.
Dalar had been edging slowly toward his mother since the emperor’s arrival. He stood now half-concealed by her dressing gown, pulling nervously at a red thread hanging from its silky surface.
Ackal V approached his son’s chair. The servant moved quickly to pull it back but was forestalled by a glaring Wolf. The emperor seated himself. His lip curled as he regarded the meal before him.
“What is this filth you’re feeding the boy? Carrots? Milk soup? A man needs meat!” He sniffed the pewter cup. “Fruit juice? He should be drinking beer!”
“He’s only a child.”
“I’ll make a man of him,” Ackal said, and bawled for a libation.
The servant filled a tall goblet with beer. The emperor drained it. The servant refilled it, and Ackal ordered Valaran to sit. Dalar stood by her chair, on the side farthest from his father.
“Have some beer, boy.” When Dalar didn’t move, Ackal V grabbed the boy by the back of the neck and shoved a brimming cup to his lips. Dalar swallowed once, then coughed convulsively. Disgusted, his father took the drink away.
A snicker came from one of the Wolves. The emperor looked to the giant he called “my Argon,” and snarled, “No one laughs at my son and lives!”
From beneath the silvery wolf pelt he wore, the giant drew a dagger in a lightning-swift motion and plunged it into his hapless comrade. The fellow dropped to the black granite floor and lay still.
Valaran was so proud of her son. Although Dalar’s hand clenched convulsively around hers, the boy made no sound at all.
Ackal finished the last of his son’s meal, drained the goblet of beer again, and jumped to his feet. Valaran stood as well.
“I’ve ordered the raising of a hundred new hordes from the western provinces,” he said. “They will form at Thorngoth under Lord Tremond. Our ships will carry them across the bay to the far shore and land behind the lizard-men. That will put paid to the beasts!”
Lord Tremond was one of the few warlords remaining from the reign of Pakin III. He was an honorable man, and had been a redoubtable warrior, but as governor of Thorngoth and Marshal of the Bay Hundred he hadn’t taken the field in ten years. New hordes would take time to gather and train. An aging commander in charge of green troops could have little hope of success against the wily bakali. The emperor was doing nothing less than sending thousands more to certain death.
“Do you intend to defeat the bakali by drowning them in blood?” Valaran asked, voice rising.
“If necessary.” He smiled. “Whatever succeeds is right-isn’t that what your ancestor Pakin Zan always said?”
“Pakin Zan was a cunning warlord, not a butcher!”
Ackal V kicked over his chair, face white with sudden fury. “Take care, lady!” he shouted, spittle flying from his lips. “You are useful, but do not task me! No life is sacrosanct in my realm-displease me, and yours will be forfeit!”
She’d heard similar threats so many times before, they no longer held any terror for her. She knew she could be killed at any time, but when the emperor was stomping about, shouting, she wasn’t much concerned. Only when he was still and quiet did she become frightened. Quiet meant Ackal V was thinking, and the thoughts of such a vicious, pitiless man were terrifying indeed.