Mist & Dawn, page 3
“Dear Gerinius, if being listened to is what they want, they can come to the doga in the regular ways. I’m not in the habit of stopping our business for any group on the street or a rebel army. If they have grievances, they know how to bring them to our attention.”
“They can’t, because—”
“Because their arguments and so-called proof are overblown or just plainly fabricated. If, as you say, you or anyone else, have clear proof of transgressions by the military, the doga is more than happy to investigate. You know that, and it has always been like that. We’re a civilised country and will deal with disputes in a civilised way. We do not bow to thuggery.”
Ravi backed away from the door.
It sounded like his father was losing the argument, and probably the proctor would leave soon, and his father would go into the living room and discuss the visit with his mother.
It would not be a pleasant discussion, probably yet again about some disagreement in the doga that, according to his father, no one in town understood about.
And according to his father, they didn’t understand it because the vast majority of senators were old people who had sat in their cushy seats for far too many years, and even some of those representatives barely visited the districts they professed to represent.
Blah, blah. He didn’t care.
His father said he was too young for this stuff and, in this case, that was probably a good thing.
A small noise drifted from the end of the hall, so, before a servant turned up with tea or something, Ravi quickly crossed the entrance foyer and slipped out the front door, doing up his sandal on the doorstep. He was free. For the first time in his life, he was going somewhere that had nothing to do with study, and nothing to do with his family.
If growing up and being responsible was anything like this, he liked it.
CHAPTER 3
Kotori stopped in the hallway in front of the elaborate wooden door that led into the King’s private room. He checked his bag and straightened his astrologer’s robe to mask the fact that he was quite out of breath after having walked up the stairs. One couldn’t let appearances slip. People might think he was too old for his position.
The palace guards that stood on either end of the corridor watched his every movement. They were big beefy men, younger than him by about fifty years. Straight-backed compared to his bent posture, with big shoulders and muscular arms compared to his kindling sticks.
They watched him because it was their job, but probably also because they took a keen interest in who entered the king’s rooms for purposes of gossip. Few people saw the king anymore.
Kotori knocked.
A voice responded inside the room.
Kotori couldn’t make out the words, because the king’s voice was not as strong and clear as it used to be, and Kotori’s ears were also not as good as those of the young guards.
But he was sure the king would have told him to come in, since the king had asked for his attendance, so he pushed open the door and went into the room.
The first thing he noticed was the abundant warm light that flooded in to the king’s private sitting room. He also noticed how warm it was in here compared to the coolness that the chill of autumn had brought to the stone and tiled halls of the Citadel.
A fire burned in the hearth, even if no other fires had been lit anywhere in the Citadel this early in the season.
The king sat in his chair by the window that overlooked the city of Kadrish.
From his position by the door, Kotori could see the domed roofs of the halls of the Citadel, the walls where the parading guards walked backwards and forwards carrying long spears, and beyond them, the roofs of the city across the hilly country that sloped towards the harbour, where he could see a boat come in on the glittering water of the western ocean. At the horizon billowed the clouds of the Mother’s Veil, ever present, but never reaching the shore. Those clouds were blindingly white in the early afternoon sun.
Kotori walked across the room and stopped next to the couch that faced the king’s chair.
The king’s servants would put this couch here when a visitor came, but would take it away when the visitor left again, because the king did not like facing empty chairs. It made him feel lonely.
“Your highness,” Kotori said, and he bowed.
From the top of his eyes, he could see the king’s old knotted and wrinkled hands that lay on the spread that covered his legs.
“Don’t be silly, Kotori. You are one of the few people I still want to see in this place. You’re my family. Rise and make yourself comfortable.”
Kotori did, taking his spot on the couch.
The last time he’d seen the king was not that long ago, although he struggled to remember when that had been. He didn’t come up to the king’s tower room so often anymore. The king looked old, his skin paper-thin and sallow, with deep wrinkles and spots of age.
The king met Kotori’s eyes with his cloud-rimmed irises that had seen much good and evil in a long lifetime.
“You can say it out loud, brother of mine. I look terrible.”
“I wasn’t going to say that at all,” Kotori said.
Making a comment like that would acknowledge his own age, and he was actually older than his brother the king, but for some mysterious reason, his health had remained much better. People joked behind his back that he was indestructible and would probably live until he was well over a hundred years old.
Kotori wasn’t sure if he wanted to live that long.
“I am old,” the king said. “And I am ill, and I probably won’t last much longer.”
“Don’t say such terrible things,” Kotori said.
“Don’t perpetuate any lies,” the king said. “We all know that it is true. No one lives forever, not even me. I’ve had a good life, but I sense in my bones that it won’t last much longer.”
This was all part of the ritual they went through whenever Kotori visited. The king had repeated different versions of those same words for over twenty years, but somehow the words had a real bite today.
“You called for me?” Kotori said. He pulled his bag onto his lap. “I’ve brought my star map and stones.”
“You can put it away. I don’t want a prediction. Heaven knows we’ve all put far too much stock in those in my lifetime.”
Kotori’s heart jumped. This was it. His brother had finally decided to appoint a new court astrologer, one who subscribed to the modern take on astrology: that it merely described the positions of objects in the sky, and not their meaning to daily life. This was the position held by the queen, who—
“I want you to help me keep the kingdom safe.”
Total reset. Kotori jolted out of his thoughts.
Kingdom safe? “But I think we’re pretty safe already,” Kotori said.
“We are for now, but Chevakia is stirring. The great ruling body of the doga in Tiverius is a pale shade of what it used to be. They’re old men, bickering over irrelevant matters. They don’t control their own youth. The Chevakian youth is stirring, spoiling for fights. The army is out of control. Chevakia is facing difficult times. As their neighbour, we’re facing difficult times. We’ve had no wars for over twenty years. Our soldiers are soft and no longer hungry for victory, or even to stand up in defense of the kingdom. What do you think will happen when I die?”
“Well, your daughter will become queen, as was enshrined in the new constitution.”
Those words still felt unfamiliar on his tongue. Queen. Until recently, nobody in Arania had ever spoken that word. It used to be that the major princes, those who had risen through the ranks of the king’s many, many sons, would battle for the position on the throne, but with one wave of his hand, King Orik had done away with those—admitted bloody and cruel—contests of power and now he wanted to put his daughter, yes, his daughter, on the throne.
“Yes, we changed the constitution, but I am not crazy,” the king said. “I have heard all the rumours. I know that people in the Citadel and out are not happy, especially those who saw their influence greatly diminished when we stopped feeding our surplus of princes to the army and started giving money to the sciences and arts. They find the thought of having an artist in charge of this country galling.”
“Well, it is galling, because a ruler needs to do so much more than playing pretty music.”
“And do you think, dear astrologer, that is all my daughter does?”
Kotori desperately wanted to say yes, because that’s what the princess did, but that would be rude, and he’d tried that avenue of discussion before, with little success. The king had made many efforts to educate the airhead. Private classes, visits to Chevakia and Peria to talk about statecraft had shown little effect.
The princess was only interested in playing music.
At least her mother had some useful skills, like calculus, that had some use. Even if he also very much disagreed with her conclusions, and her insistence that women be allowed to study.
The king continued. “My daughter has taken many classes on statecraft and is well-prepared for the task ahead. However, she is but a lone woman and I’d be a fool to suggest that she has the support of all the people she needs to support her. Like many in the armed forces, like—”
“Why don’t you send your son to look after them?”
“Harek is only fifteen, and he needs to settle into sensibility before he can be trusted with a position of influence.”
Ha. That was a diplomatic way of putting it. Harek was a spoilt brat who made it a point to always disagree with everything.
The king continued, “Anyway, Harek is too young. The men attached to the old ways are not happy about the impending ascension to the throne of my daughter. I worry that they will make use of the inevitable period of mourning and chaos after I die to further their interests.”
“We have disposed of those ambitious princes,” Kotori said.
He’d lived through that great purge, when people thought the king was about to announce he’d step down, and the three most powerful princes manoeuvred themselves into the most advantageous positions. Instead, he’d taken up with a new woman, married her properly, and it had been many generations since the king had married. In one fell swoop, he had sidelined and then murdered all the princes—his adult sons—in favour of the first child born from his new relationship.
Of course people had not been happy.
“Dear Kotori. Have you ever known men of power to give up so easily?”
Kotori shook his head. He had not.
“Right then. I want you to help me protect my daughter and my wife. When I die, which won’t be too far away, I want you to make sure that my daughter can take up the throne and that those who wish to threaten her stay away.”
Kotori met his brother’s eyes. “How am I supposed to do that? I’m too old to carry arms and I was never any good with them, anyway.”
Orik laughed. “Dear brother of mine, you never fail to impress me with your delicious combination of stupidity and cunning. It’s quite an astonishing thing. If I wanted a man of arms, I would only need to call the guards in from the corridor. If I wanted a man of arms, why would I call for the court astrologer? In fact, why else would I call for the astrologer other than to make astrological predictions?”
“But you just said you didn’t want—”
“Not for me, dear brother. You’ve known me long enough to be aware of what I think of the reliability of your astrological predictions.”
Kotori’s cheeks flushed. Yes, it was as bad as he suspected. The king didn’t want him anymore. “I can make sure—”
“Be quiet. Listen, before you fill your head with nonsense. Which of the men of arms still consult you for castings of the stones?”
“Ehh.”
“Colonel Betaro, right?”
“Yes. He’s very traditional.”
Kotori liked the colonel. He was another prince who had escaped the bloodbath following the king’s changing of the constitution by virtue of having been only fifteen years of age at the time. But he’d grown up in the children’s house, being led to believe that he would once have his own mother’s house, only for mother’s houses to become outlawed as soon as he was old enough to start his own.
“What about Leschek?”
“He moved to the country.”
“And Pertak?”
“Yes.”
Well, at least Orik’s agents were still giving him the right information. Those two were Kotori’s closest acquaintances, a brother and half-brother who had stuck by him for years.
“That’s a decent start. Tell them that good fortune will come to those who support the queen and the princess.”
“But’s not how castings work—”
“Nobody knows how they work, least of all you. You cast a bunch of stones on a piece of fabric and make predictions based on where the stones land. How hard is that? Tell me how that has ever not been subject to a high level of imagination?”
Kotori’s ears glowed. Just what was the king suggesting with these inflammatory remarks? That he, who had studied long and hard, simply made things up when people asked for predictions?
He stared at Orik, and Orik stared back.
They’d maintained this uneasy relationship for many years. Orik would needle him, and Kotori would always try to do the right thing.
“I’m not going to lie to men I trust,” he finally said.
“I’m not asking you to lie.”
Kotori breathed out. He thought the king was asking him to lie.
“I’m asking you to strengthen the position of the queen and princess in their minds. I know these men think little of women, and I want you to tell them that they should support the queen, because prosperity will come to them if they do.”
“But you just told me not to lie—”
“Anyone can see that great prosperity will come to the ruler who recognises the value of knowledge over blunt force, of trade over war, of nurturing a few and nurturing them well over trying to raise many and failing them all. I don’t need your star maps and pretty stones for that, but go ahead and use them if you think that gives your words greater authority.”
Kotori opened his mouth, and shut it again. His brother was taunting him and making him into a fool.
“I only give predictions to those who ask for it.” He knew that he sounded prim. So he added, “That is the tradition, handed down from the great Sizek.”
“And yet you regularly give your opinions to everyone for free. Don’t fool me with your statements of purity. You would not have made it this far if you were as pure as your words suggest.”
Kotori found a seed of resilience. “I don’t like your insinuations.”
Orik laughed loudly. “No, I don’t like them either, but that is the place we find ourselves in. I will die within the year. My wife will continue her quest for a fair country, but even with her support, my daughter faces a struggle against the men who won’t give up their power and yearn for a return to the old ways. Men who would put my beautiful daughter in a mother’s house to be violated nightly by those men and their friends, and instead of furthering knowledge, her time will be taken in pushing out a quick succession of brats that this country would need, under traditional rule, to wage wars to make sure that few enough powerful men survive so they can have mother’s houses themselves. We have done away with that cruelty. We no longer need to train our young men to kill each other and let our young women believe that the best they can do is live in servitude to their master. I need you to plant the seed in the heads of these men that those who will continue the path I’ve set will lead prosperous lives.”
“Ehh.” Kotori could do no such thing. Why wouldn’t his brother understand how castings and predictions worked? Why didn’t his brother see that the princess had no interest in being queen, but only wanted to play music? That she had never uttered a word about what she would do with the country once she sat on the throne? That she would not inspire the people because she had no interest in doing so?
“Yes, I can see you want to protest, but dear astrologer, certainly you would have a foot to stand on if at least half of your predictions had turned out to be correct? So these are my words: you will tell these people what I said, because it’s for your own benefit. Don’t forget who pays for all your finery.”
CHAPTER 4
The last strains of music faded away in the hall and through the tiers of seats in the audience.
For a few heartbeats, the musicians sat like statues and all those hundreds of people in the audience were quiet. Then the sound of applause broke out and reverberated through the hall. The musicians on the stage got up from their seats and bowed to the audience, including Loriane, in her sea-green dress, still holding her flute.
Lana’s heart swelled with pride. That was her daughter down there. Neither she nor the girl’s father, King Orik of Arania, professed to having one skerrick of musical talent, but Loriane had been different from birth. Graceful, talented, beautiful.
The members of the audience in the lower part of the hall were now getting up from their seats, some cheering with their hands raised. Lana recognised some of Loriane’s friends from the music academy.
Even people on the balcony were getting to their feet, cheering, clapping, shouting.
As the first lights in the hall came on, Lana looked around, checking the faces of all those she hadn’t been able to see during the performance.
Within a few moments, her pride turned to anger.
Where was Harek? He said he’d be there. He promised, this morning at breakfast.
“Wasn’t that a beautiful performance, your majesty?”
