Black Jade

Chapter 37

At the head of these armed men rode Lord Rodas, who was now in command of this district's magicians, alchemists, dancers, augurers and courtesans — and traveling troupes such as ours. It seemed that he had grown in power in the days since he had extorted silver from us on our crossing of the Black Bridge. Upon seeing this scrawny New Lord in his silks and gold embroidery, I gathered that he had been successful in a scheme to slander Lord Olum and see him ruined. He made his way toward our cart as if he had been elevated to lordship over all the Haralanders, and not just a few ragged outcasts. His six hirelings in their hideous purple and yellow livery accompanied him as before, but so did twenty of King Arsu's men-at-arms. They wore weapon-scarred bronze armor and bore shields and lances that looked well-used. It seemed that Lord Rodas had begged King Arsu to detach this company in his charge in order to 'escort' us to the army's encampment just outside of Orun.

Lord Rodas's gaze swept from the cart to Bemossed, now wearing a fresh tunic that hid most of his scrapes and cuts. Lord Rodas said to me: 'I see you've acquired this man since our last meeting. You must be doing well, though with the price of slaves falling so low, I suppose even poor players such as yourselves can afford one, if only a Hajarim.'

He brought out a purse full of jangling coins and bounced them in his hand.

'The King has asked to see you, and has given me coin in pledge of your performance,' he told us.

'We are honored that King Arsu requests this,' I said, feeling the sweat running down my sides, 'but our way lies opposite from Orun.'

'It is not the King's request,' Lord Rodas told me, 'but his command. And mine. As it is also my command that your way not take you out of the Haraland. Now, come! The King is returning to his encampment, and we must prepare for his arrival.'

I eyed the twenty soldiers sitting on top of their horses. Unless we were willing to fight them all and managed to kill them to the last man, we had no choice but to go with Lord Rodas into the very last place in Hesperu that we wished to go.

I nodded at Kane then, and he nodded back his affirmation that a battle at this time would be too great a chance.

And so, with ten of the soldiers riding behind us, and ten more with Lord Rodas and his hirelings out in front, we made our way onto the Ghurlan Road. A stiff wind rose up to blow away the mist from the walls of trees lining our way. The birds nesting there chirped and sang in the peace of the late morning. Bemossed sat with me on the seat of the cart, and appeared to be listening to them — or perhaps to the drumbeat of his heart. The grinding of the cart's wheels turning over worn stone reminded me that time itself was grinding on and on, and pulling us inexorably toward our fate.

By the time we passed through the rice bogs and finally reached Orun, the sun burned up the blue sky like a gout of Galda fire flung up by a catapult. We turned south onto the great road running along the Iona River. King Arsu's army had encamped in some pasturage off to the right of the road a couple miles outside of the city. Their hundreds of tents spread out in neat arrays like a little city of its own across fields of grass, all churned-up and muddy from the tramp of many horses' hooves and the boots of thousands of men.

Upon seeing this, Maram nudged his horse up close to me and muttered, 'Into the belly of the beast, once again — oh, too bad, too bad!'

'It will be all right,' I told him. 'We've only to perform as we have a dozen times already. And then we'll find a way to go on.'

'Do you think so? I'm afraid that this will be our last performance.'

'One way or the other,' I said, smiling, 'the last.'

'Don't jest, please. I can't believe that we were stupid enough to pose as players.'

'But it was your idea.'

'I know, I know,' he muttered. 'My stupid, stupid idea.'

Lord Rodas led us down through the lanes formed by the many rows of tents. Outside them stood King Arsu's soldiers, cleaning their armor or sharpening their spears or roasting meats over little fires, playing dice, or swatting at flies and grumbling, as soldiers do. They cast us curious looks as we passed by, I gazed back at them with an even greater curiosity, which I tried to conceal. My eyes drank in the length of their spears and the size of their shields: rounds of thinnish-looking wood that I did not think would hold up very well beneath the cut and sweep of steel kalamas. I looked for the weak places in their fish-scaled armor; I watched a few companies of these battle-worn Hesperuks at drill, standing too close to each other as they locked shields in a dense block of men many ranks deep bristling with iron spear points. It seemed that it would be hard to attack such an armored block — almost as hard as it would be for them to maneuver. I noted, however, that all of King Arsu's men seemed to move to a fierce and relentless discipline.

At last we came to the camp's center: a great square formed by the soldiers' tents with the pavilions of King Angand and Arch Uttam standing on either side of King Arsu's pavilion, to the south. Smaller tents of prominent commanders were arrayed nearby. Many banners flapped in the strong wind. A pole flying a bright yellow one emblazoned with a great red dragon had been planted in the earth just outside of King Arsu's pavilion: a vast, billowing monstrosity of purple silk sewn with gold. King Angand's pavilion was of sky blue, as was the field of the banner displaying his emblem: a white heart with wings. Of all the Dragon kings, only King Angand had kept his family's ancient arms, because only he had possessed the foresight to make alliance with Morjin freely, instead of being forced to swear fealty to him.

Across the square from King Arsu's pavilion, vendors from Orun had arrived to set up carts, stalls and small tents of their own. Most of these were food sellers, offering fresh fruits, tarts and various roasted meats. The Harlanders were fond of a strong-tasting riverfish called the katouj. It seemed we couldn't go ten yards without passing some old woman frying up this foul-smelling fish in pan of sizzling oil. The Haralanders ate it piping hot, on slices of salted bread slathered with a hot greenish sauce that looked like toad slime. It occurred to me that a people who could consume such fare could endure almost anything.

As we moved through the square, I counted scarcely two hundred of Orun's citizens standing about eating with the soldiers. If this had been anywhere in Mesh — or in Ishka, Taron or Kaash — the whole city would have famed out to greet the realm's warriors.

But most of the soldiers that King Arsu had summoned for the assault upon Avrian were levies from the south. These darker, shorter men looked upon the Haralanders with contempt even as the Haralanders did them, though of course in secret. The few Haraland contingents of this army, as I soon learned, were those who had proved themselves again and again in fanatical devotion to their king.

The arrogance of all the soldiers hung in the air like a charge before a thunderstorm. They bullied their way to the front of the food queues or charged about on their horses so that people had to leap out of their way to keep from being trampled. I thought that King Arsu had been wise to recruit mostly Haraland men for the army that had invaded Surrapam five hundred miles to the north — what better way of removing the most resentful and bellicose of his subjects without having to nail them to crosses?

Lord Rodas led us to a place reserved for us in the center of the line of carts. Here gathered the performers summoned to show their skills to King Arsu and King Angand. Lord Rodas commanded us to await the arrival of the King, who was off at the local Kallimun school to consecrate a great new statue of Morjin. The captain of the twenty soldiers in Lord Rodas's charge informed him that his men had completed their escort and had better things to do than to watch over a troupe of ragged players. Without waiting for Lord Rodas's consent, they rode off toward their tents, leaving Lord Rodas and his hirelings as our guards.

Lord Rodas, with a false largesse, bought us all servings of katouj, which we forced down with false smiles of gratitude. Although it seemed that many people in the encampment had turned their gazes upon us, common sense told me that we attracted no more attention than we should have expected as heralded players. Even so, Maram fell so nervous that he could hardly eat — for him, a rare affliction. He stood next to me, fairly gagging on the green katouj as he grumbled, 'Why is everyone watching us?'

He caught Daj staring at a mounted knight across the square, and murmured to him, 'What's the matter with you? Keep your eyes down!'

But it seemed that Daj could not help staring at this knight for a surge of hatred washed through him, and he stood trembling like a cat waiting to fight. I came over to him and wrapped my arm around him as I whispered, 'What is the matter?'

And he whispered back, 'That man killed my father and my brothers. He sold my mother and sisters into slavery. And me.'

I bowed my head at this. His suffering, I realized, burned no less terribly than did my own.

The knight whom he had been regarding, I sensed, took too great an interest in us. On top of a snow-white stallion, he rode slowly along the rows of soldiers kneeling down in front of the tents as they awaited their king. He seemed to be searching the ranks for any sign of disorder, or indeed of displeasure, in any of these men who had been honored to attend the day's celebrations. He gripped in his fist a long lance, with which he pointed here or there, as if to chasten individual soldiers to hide the boredom in their eyes or sit up straighter. His bronze fish scales had been polished to a blinding sheen, as had his helm, crested with green peacock feathers. His golden surcoat showed a half-sized red dragon that proclaimed him as a lord of some importance. He wore a blood-red cape. Many of the townsfolk from Orun could not bear his gaze and turned away from him. He guided his horse over to the foodsellers' stalls, casting men and women dark looks as if he suspected them of disloyalty to the King or even of being assassins. And all the while, with dartings of his dark eyes, he kept glancing at Daj and me and the others of our company — and particularly at Bemossed.

At last he worked his way over to us. Lord Rodas, who had dismounted, saluted this man and called out, 'Lord Mansarian — this is the troupe I told you about! Here we have Kalinda, the fortune teller, and Mother Magda and Garath the Fool.'

Lord Rodas presented each of us in turn, and Lord Mansarian stared at each of us, in turn. He seemed tall, for a Hesperuk, and thick in his limbs and body. His face was like a hammer, all blunt and scarred, and his eyes drove into each of us like nails. As his gaze fell upon me, I thought that I had never seen a harder-looking man, not even in Argattha.

'Arajun,' he said, staring down at me. His voice came out all hoarse and raspy, like a wheeze of ill wind. The scars seaming his heavily bearded throat suggested that he had been badly wounded there. 'Arajun, the flute player — is that right?'

'He pipes like a bird,' said Lord Rodas, who had never heard me play. I saw that Lord Rodas had begun to sweat, whether from the hot katouj sauce or the sun or his fear, it was hard to say.

'And you, Jaiyu,' Lord Mansarian said to Daj. 'You are of the Haraland, are you not?'

Daj nodded his head as he kept his gaze on Lord Mansarian's boots.

'Where in the Haraland, then?'

'Ghurlan,' Daj said, naming the one large city in the north that had never rebelled against King Arsu. It pained him not at all, I sensed, to tell this lie.

'And how did you come to be with this troupe?'

'My mother died in childbirth,' he lied again. 'When my father passed on, too, Teodorik and Mother Magda adopted me into their troupe and took me into other lands.'

Lord Mansarian nodded his head at this as he stared at Master Juwain and Liljana. I gave thanks that he appeared not to recognize Daj, who had been very young when Lord Mansarian's men had enslaved him.

Then Lord Rodas gathered up his courage and pointed at Liljana as he told Lord Mansarian, 'Are you still looking for healers? As you can see, there are none with this troupe, and certainly no young ones — just an old potionist.'

I felt Liljana restraining her ire at being called old. I felt, too, Lord Mansarian fighting very hard not to look at Bemossed, even as Bemossed struggled to keep his eyes cast down upon the ground.

Lord Mansarian sat on his horse above us, and I sensed within him a great turmoil of anguish and hate. He seemed to keep locked inside his heart some fearful thing that he did not want anyone to see. The tension between him and Bemossed grew tighter and tighter, like that of a great weight pulling on a grappling hook buried in his chest. At last his eyes stabbed into Bemossed, and he stared at him. Then he pointed his lance at him and called out, 'Lord Rodas! The King will arrive soon, and it would be best if he did not have to look upon this Hajarim. Keep him out of sight!'

'Yes, my Lord!' Lord Rodas called back, bowing so deep that he practically scraped the ground. It seemed he had forgotten that he, himself, had been made a lord.

Without another word. Lord Mansarian looked away from Bemossed, reined his horse around and continued his patrol.

'A great man,' Lord Rodas called out a little too loudly. 'And a great Haralander, too.'

'What is his rank?' I asked Lord Rodas. 'He must be a great lord.'

'Stupid flutist — can you be so ignorant?' he barked at me. He was one of those cowards whose fear too easily transformed into ill-use of those whom he considered beneath him. 'Lord Mansarian commands the Crimson Companies!'

He went on to tell something of Lord Mansarian's fearful pan Some years before, it seemed, when King Arsu had sworn fealty to Morjin, Lord Mansarian had taken up arms against the King in protest, along with other Haralanders. He had fought with great cunning and savagery, killing many. At last, however, the Red Priests had found a way to his heart, and they persuaded him to turn traitor to the rebellion — and to pledge his undying loyalty to King Arsu. King Arsu had then tested him, in many ways and in many places. Lord Mansarian always proved himself, and more, like many converts to a new cause, strove to serve his king with zealousness. He requested permission to form a force of other Haraland nobles and knights who opposed the rebellion.

These two hundred men — they were called the Crimson Companies, after the red capes they wore — soon wreaked a bloody terror upon their kith and kin. They hunted down rebels through every part of the Haraland. When they drove the last of them behind Avrian's walls, King Arsu had then led the main body of his southern army in siege against the city. After it finally fell, he gave the surviving errants to Lord Mansarian and the Crimson Companies for justice. It was Lord. Mansarian who had suggested and taken charge of crucifying them all along the Avrian Road.

'The Red Capes did their work well,' Lord Rodas told us, 'as you will see if I decide that your troupe should try its fortunes up around Avrian. The errants' corpses are to be left on their crosses until they rot and the vultures pick clean their bones.'

I turned to watch Lord Mansarian riding along the lines of kneeling soldiers as he stabbed his lance at them. There was a coldness about him, as if the evil of his dreadful deeds had turned him to stone.

Lord Rodas went on, 'It is said that now the King will have him hunt down those who have taken false oaths of loyalty — as well as counterfeiters, enchanters, false healers, and the like.'

At the mention of the word 'healer', I tried not to look at Bemossed, standing next to me. Lord Rodas turned away, saying, 'See that your Hajarim removes himself from sight, as Lord Mansarian commanded!'

Lord Rodas scowled and strutted off, leaving us under the supervision of his hirelings.

I walked with Bemossed over to the cart. In a low voice, I said to him, 'This Lord Mansarian recognized you?'

'Yes,' he said.

'And you recognized him.'

'Yes,' he said again, nodding his head. 'The lord who brought his daughter to the Master to be healed — it was Lord Mansarian.'

And with that, he went inside the cart and shut the door. Could it be, I wondered, that the pitiless Lord Mansarian might be protecting Bemossed out of gratitude for curing his child? Or was he only waiting to betray both Bemossed and our company to the King at a key moment for his own gain? I watched Lord Mansarian all stiff and stonelike on his great horse, but he did not look back at us.

My other friends came over to me, and we all stood in front of the cart looking at each other. Maram bit at his moustache and then said, 'Ah, I need good quaff of brandy.'

'Well?' I said, looking at him. 'Are you waiting for me to try to stop you?'

'I wish that was my only obstacle. Haven't you heard? King Arsu has banned all spirits from his encampment. It's said that soon he'll ban them throughout his realm.'

I thought that Maram might try to steal off and drink in secret. But it seemed that he had other plans.

'Ah, Mother Magda,' he said to Liljana. 'O great keeper of our company's coins, I don't suppose you have a few silver pieces to spare?'

Liljana shot him a quizzical look and asked, 'What for?'

'I thought I would make the acquaintance of the ladies in that tent.'

He smiled as he pointed at the nearby tent of some courtesans.

Liljana stared at him with such scorn that any other man would have reddened with shame.

But Maram, being Maram, only threw up his hands and said, 'Well, I had to try, didn't I? As I think I shall try my charm, since I haven't anything better. It has sufficed before.'

He took a step toward the courtesans' tent, and I held out my arm to stop him. I said, 'Don't you remember what happened with Jezi Yaga?'

'Do I remember? I do, I do, my friend, and it is precisely that memory that moves me. I've learned too well, ah, just how fragile I really am. And so, since I've likely only a few hours left on earth, I don't want to spend all of them waiting for this king to arrive while I stare at his ugly soldiers.'

He broke away from me and strode off toward the tent. One of Lord Rodas's hirelings moved to intercept him. But when he discovered that Maram did not intend to flee, he let him go. The young tough in his ill-fitting livery might have no sympathy for love of freedom, but he certainly understood well enough raw lust.

A short while later there came a commotion from the western part of the encampment, and someone cried out, 'The King! The King is coming!'

I looked towards the lines of soldiers in front of the tents there. The lines were broken, I saw, for no one stood or knelt to block the very wide center lane leading into the square. Down this lane rode a company of fifty of King Arsu's knights in burnished bronze armor, bearing blue plumes upon their helms and blue capes upon their shoulders. Their shields and surcoats showed quarter-sized red dragons. Then came the smaller escort of King Angand, whose knights bore their own individual arms: black boar's heads, golden eagles, red lions rampant, and the like. Their armor, being partly of steel plate, shone brilliantly. King Angand rode at their center. Although he seemed a smallish man, his renown was vast; in all the realms of the south, no other king had done such great deeds in war or possessed so fine an army. His strange emblem — the white, winged heart — gleamed from the banner that one of his knights bore and from the silken surcoat covering his own chest. His great ease with his mount hinted at a lifetime of long, hard marches and battle.

The same could not be said of King Arsu. To begin with, he rode no horse. Indeed, he did not ride at all, if that meant guiding the beast that bore him. Rather, he sat within a sort of canopied and gilded fort perched on the back of an elephant. Until that moment, I had wondered if the drawings that I had seen in books might be pure figments. But this huge beast was as real as the earth that shook beneath its treelike, driving legs. Its swaying nose, seven feet long, hung down from a fearsome face festooned with two great curving tusks that could have impaled a man and left him hanging high in the air. It was said that the Hesperuks captured elephants in the wild, in the south, and then armored them and trained them for battle. If true, then I hoped never to meet such a raging mountain of flesh at work. Strangely, its handler — a small man sitting on the elephant's neck in front of the King — controlled it with the well-timed tappings of a little stick.

King Arsu seemed himself an elephantine man. As the elephant stepped and swayed, the layers of fat beneath King Arsu's bronze armor seemed to flow and swell out one portion or another, and spill out over the neck in a cascade of fleshy chins. Despite the armor, I could see that he was no fighting king. So huge were his arms and labored his motions that he would have difficulty wielding a sword or drawing a bow. No spatter of blood, I thought, had ever marked the bright yellow surcoat that ballooned over him. This silken fabric, of course, showed the three-quarter sized red dragon that Morjin made all his subject kings to bear. Perhaps wisely, though, Morjin had left King Arsu the one glorious trapping of the Hesperuk monarchs: a great, flowing cloak sewn with ten thousand parrot feathers, in brilliant colors of red, yellow, green and blue. King Arsu's golden crown — set with three great emeralds — seemed almost dull in comparison to this fantastic garment. The two kings and their guard entered the square and made their way toward King Arsu's pavilion, where a raised dais, covered in a silken canopy, had been built. Five heavy chairs had been set out upon it. I wondered that his army should burden itself hauling the supplies needed to construct such a box, but it seemed that King Arsu's soldiers never traveled without a good supply of wood. King Arsu came down from his kneeling elephant, and with a great groaning effort, managed to climb the few steps leading up to the box. He wheezed as he stood behind the long table at its front. Then he settled his great bulk down into the centermost and largest of the chairs: an ornate work of teak and gold encrusted with gems. A short, dark woman perhaps thirty, years old came out of the pavilion behind the dais and sat down on the chair to his left. Her name, I learned, was Lida: the King's cousin and consort, who went everywhere that King Arsu went, even to war. An old man wearing the red robe of a priest of the Kallimun claimed the chair to King Arsu's right. I overheard someone call him Arch Uttam: the highest of all Hesperuk's priests and the most terrible. His flesh seemed to cling like a tight glove to his skull. King Angand sat next to him, at one end of the dais, while Lord Mansarian came up and took the chair beside Lida at the other end.

A silence now fell over the square. King Arsu gazed dismissively at the bowls of apples and the pitchers of lemon squash and various nectars set out on the table. Then a slave hurried up to bring him a goblet full of mother's milk sweetened with honey, his preferred drink. He sipped from it, and then looked out to address the hundreds of people assembled there. His voice seemed incongruent with his massive form, for it came out of his throat all high and squeaky, like that of a mouse: 'Soldiers of Hesperu! Citizens of Orun! We are met today to celebrate our victory — as well as Lady Lida's birthday, only two days hence!'

He turned toward Lida, and the two small, piglike eyes embedded in his fleshy face seemed to warm happily. Then he looked back out over the square and announced: 'We are told that we shall have entertainments! Dancers and singers — and the finest traveling troupe in all the north! So sit and enjoy yourselves! The most valorous of soldiers that a king was ever honored to lead have more than earned this day's revelries!'

His words, I thought, fairly shrieked with bravado and insin-cerity. And yet his many soldiers looked upon him with a real reverence lighting up their faces. Their king had once again led them to victory. He had bestowed upon them honors, loot and captured women. More than this, however, he had given them great purpose. From the sheer heat of enthusiasm that passed from soldier to soldier like a flame, I knew that they believed utterly in the crusade on which King Arsu led them. Surely, in the war that must soon come, they would die fighting with great fervor for King Arsu — and for their King of Kings whom they called Morjin.

'Has everyone eaten?' King Arsu called out. 'Good! Good! Then Arch Uttam will lead us in a recitation, and then our sport will begin!' As Arch Uttam stood up from his chair, so did everyone else assembled around the muddy grass — even King Arsu. A dozen Red Priests dressed in flowing scarlet robes now entered the square and positioned themselves among the soldiers at intervals of forty paces. They looked toward Arch Uttam to begin reciting from the Darakul Elu. This he did, without having even to open the black book that he clutched in his veiny, cadaverous hands. In a grinding, unpleasant voice he intoned a long passage that he had committed to memory, as he had many others of this dreadful book:

'Warriors who carry within their hearts the ineffable flame of the One, who bear inside their souls the seeds of angels — go forth to victory against those who have turned away from the Light! Face death with courage, and you yourselves will never truly die! Master your fear! Make sacrifice of your blood that others may know greater life! Be strong and take dominion over the weak. .'

Arch Uttam spoke on and on in a like way for what seemed forever. I noticed that many of the soldiers in their ranks raised up their eyes toward him as they moved their lips in echo of the words that he recited.

At last, he finished. Then he beckoned toward two of his priests standing off in front of Arch Uttam's pavilion. They held between them a young woman perhaps of an age with Atara. She wore a tunic of lamb's wool as white as snow. They had to help her walk out into the square in front of the box, for her glazed eyes suggested that they had given her some sort of potion that robbed her of her will. Her head kept nodding forward toward her chest. Arch Uttam came down from the dais then. A third priest stepped forward to give him a bowl fashioned from a human skull while a fourth priest handed him a knife.

'No,' I whispered, 'it cannot be!'

It nearly killed me that I could not move or cry out in protest, but only stand there raging silently. I wanted to gouge out my own eyes. Then one of the priests clamped his fist in the woman's hair, and pulled back her head, exposing her throat. With a quick, practiced motion. Arch Uttam sliced his knife across it, even as he positioned the bowl to catch the blood that pumped out of her. It did not take very long for the woman to die. More priests appeared holding up a bier trimmed in satin and gold. They laid her gently upon it. Arch Uttam stood above her, raising high the blood-filled bowl for all to see.

'A virgin with all her life to live,' he called out, 'has freely given her life so that we might be stronger! An innocent girl who in her sacrifice has become the greatest of warriors! We bear her body away to lie in glory. But she will live on, forever, in us! This is the Way of the Dragon!'

So saying, he put the bowl of bone to his lips. I watched in horror as he took a few sips of living blood, his preferred drink. Then he passed the bowl to the priest nearest him, who likewise drank from it, and so it went with other priests until the bowl had been emptied.

I did not want to believe what I had seen. I bowed my head in shame. Atara stood next to me stricken as well Estrella buried her face in Iiljana's side as she began weeping without restraint. Kane stared out into the square as his hand convulsed in a death grip and he muttered, 'So, damn them forever — so, so.'

All the soldiers and townsfolk of Orun bowed their heads as well, not in shame but to honor this young woman, whose name was Yismi. I overheard an old woman say that Yismi's betrothed, Olas, had been killed in the siege of Avrian, and that she would now find happiness in joining him in death.

After that, Arch Uttam returned to the dais and sat back down. So did everyone else. And then King Arsu signalled for the entertainments to begin. From out of nowhere, it seemed. Lord Rodas hurried up to us. He seemed to have taken no more notice of Yismi's sacrifice than he would a chicken slaughtered for supper. I contemplated setting my hands around his neck and breaking it. Instead I looked down at the ground as he called out, 'Where is that fool who calls himself Garath? Well, we still have time. You are to go last, after the pairs from Avrian, but you should be ready all the same.'

We retired one by one to our cart, where we donned our costumes in Bemossed's silent company. Then we stood together outside and watched as forty youths from the nearby Kallimun school paraded out into the square. They wore golden tunics gathered in with bright red sashes. After forming up facing the King on the very spot where Yismi had been put to the knife, the priest leading them motioned with his hand for them to bow to King Arsu. Then the priest cast them a stern look and motioned for them to begin singing.

They sang like angels. Their voices rang out high and sweet I too sweet and too high for youths who were almost men. I had never heard quite such a lovely pitch and tone pouring from male throats before. But then, in the Morning Mountains, no one would ever think to geld a boy like a horse just to preserve the beauty of his voice. It shocked me to learn that many of these youths had not only submitted to their castration without complaint but had actually volunteered to be mutilated, 'offering up their manhood to the Dragon,' as they put it.

The father of one of these youths stood nearby beaming proudly, even as my father once had when I had competed with the sword at tournaments. I overheard him say to his wife: 'Who would ever have dreamed that our Dyrian would sing for the King?'

And another man a few paces away exclaimed, 'What a day this is! What great days are to come!'

I sensed in them the same passion that stirred many of those throughout King Arsu's realm: a great dream for the future, in the coming Kariad and the march into the Age of Light. But with their longing for a better world came a great fear as well, for they dreaded being left behind in the glorious crusade that Morjin led. And so they were willing to sacrifice the most precious of things to see this dream made real: not only their freedom and their children's wholeness, but their very lives.

The youths sang five songs, and it seemed that they strove for a purity of voice like that of the Galadin. Then they cleared the square for dancers wearing bright green silks and little cymbals on their fingers. I watched them gyrate, leap and jangle in front of King Arsu's box for a while. They were quite skilled in the maracheel and other traditional dances of Hesperu. After they had finished and knelt gasping for breath, King Arsu cast out gold coins to them with his own hand. Then they ran off happily, clanging their little cymbals and whooping with joy.

It came time for the pairs from Avrian to entertain the King. But before his soldiers could bring them out, a lathered horse bearing a blue-caped rider galloped down the center lane into the square. He drew up in front of the King's box. He dismounted and bowed to King Arsu, who beckoned him forward, up upon the dais. I watched as this messenger, or so he seemed, bent low and cupped his hands around King Arsu's ear. King Arsu nodded his head and smiled. Then the messenger hurried off the dais. He gathered up his horse's reins and disappeared into the throng of soldiers standing about guarding King Arsu.

King Arsu held up his hand as he cried out in his whipsaw of a voice: 'We have had great tidings! King Orunjan has journeyed from Uskudar at our invitation, and is even now journeying up from Khevaju. A master priest sent by Lord Morjin rides with him: the renowned Haar Igasho. We are to meet soon, in a conclave of kings such as has not been held for an entire age!'

This news caused the hundreds of soldiers and townsfolk gathered around the square to let out a great cheer. It caused me to want to retrieve my sword and cut down every Kallimun priest that I could before falling upon Arch Uttam. If Haar Igasho had gained renown, it was only through betraying our own people and bringing shame upon all the Valari. I wanted to slay him for the atrocities visited upon Mesh almost as badly as I burned to cut down Morjin. Prince Salmelu of Ishka: this was who Igasho had once been, before resentment and poisoned pride led him to try to put an arrow in my back. Ra Igasho he had been called at our last meeting, after he had been made a full priest of the Kallimun. And now it seemed that Morjin had elevated him once more in reward for helping to crucify my grandmother and mother. I could only wonder why Morjin had sent Haar Igasho into Hesperu. It must be, I thought, that Morjin wished to warn the priests of King Arsu's realm to look for us in case we journeyed this way. And to aid them in identifying us and hunting us down.

I traded a quick, dark look with Kane and then Liljana. Our circumstances, already perilous, had suddenly grown deadly.

I tried to think of how we might possibly slip away from under Lord Rodas's watchful eyes and steal out of the encampment No means of escape suggested themselves to me. It seemed that we must somehow get through the day and hope that we could ride fast and far before Haar Igasho met up with King Arsu and Arch Uttam.

The next 'entertainment' made it difficult to get through half an hour. Lord Mansarian's men, in their blood-red capes, brought out the first of the pairs from Avrian: two naked men, among the last of the captive errants. Lord Mansarian had kept these defeated rebels alive in order to inspire the Haralanders along the road down to Gethun and Khevaju. Lord Mansarian's soldiers gave each of them a razor-sharp short sword, then quickly backed away. These

two men, once brothers in arms, were to fight each other to the death. If they refused this final degradation, or turned upon the soldiers guarding them, their children held hostage would be crucified.

I forced myself to look out into the square, for I wished to gauge the Hesperuks' skill with weapons. The combat was bloody and quick; in only a few moments, the taller of the two men lay fallen on the muddy grass, disembowelled and nearly decapitated. The soldiers drawn up in their ranks cheered with gusto as they had for the young singers. I hated them for that. I thought that I would never understand human beings. Perhaps we would do better simply to free Angra Mainyu from Damoom, and then to perish down to the last man, woman and child in a holocaust of flame. Three more pairs of men Lord Mansarian's soldiers brought out to fight for the pleasure of the King, pair by pair, until four men survived the first round of this deadly competition. Then they paired off these men together, and made them slay each other in another vicious round, until only two remained. These two — now bloodied and barely able to stand up — faced each other in the final combat. A rumor going around the square had it that they were best of friends, but I had no way of confirming that. If friends they truly were, then they fought with a rare passion to rend and slay. Lord Mansarian had promised the sole survivor his freedom. At last, only one of them stood, looking down over the body of his opponent. He cast his sword upon the bloody grass. He bowed his head. Then Lord Mansarian's soldiers closed in upon him to grab his arms and take him away to be crucified. He would find his freedom from his errors in excruciating agony over several days, as so many had before him.

Now Lord Rodas paced back and forth with a nervousness eating at him. Just as he was readying himself to charge into the courtesans' tent and call out once more for Garath the Fool, Maram marched out of it. He came straight over to us. His face, I saw; had fallen a sickly white as if he had met up with a ghost. 'What's wrong?' I whispered to him.

'Ah, nothing,' he whispered back. He looked over at Lord Rodas, who fairly clung to him like a tick. 'Nothing I can tell you now.' 'Was it the girl?' I said, remembering what Arch Uttam had done to Yismi.

'Ah … what girl?'

I stared at him as I shook my head. I did not know whether to rage or give thanks that Maram's pursuits had spared him witnessing Yismi's murder.

'What's that?' Lord Rodas snapped at us as he rushed over. His angry eyes took in the traveling tunic that Maram wore. 'Fool of a fool! I told you to be ready — and now we'll have to keep the King waiting.'

'Be at ease!' Maram snapped back at him. 'Or you'll give yourself apoplexy. No one is going to keep anyone waiting!'

So saying, he cast me a troubled look and hurried to go inside the cart. We moved it out into the center of the square then, facing it toward King Arsu's box. Kane, barechested and wearing his billowing silk pants, hung his painted target from its side. By the time he had made ready his chains, the cart's door flew open and Maram burst out into the square.

Then it was our turn to perform for the King.