The Sacred Band

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

T hough aspects of Acacian royal culture had always been strictly formalized, one thing had remained variable. Akaran monarchs had never been required to wear a specific insignia of their rank. They had to wear something for official state functions, but just how they chose to mark their status was left to their personal inclination. Edifus had stayed a warrior, choosing to display his status purely through the deference strong men showed him. Tinhadin was often pictured with a narrow crown; but others over the years had necklaces fashioned for their coronations, earrings, even brooches like the one Corinn’s mother wore-a turquoise acacia tree set against a silver background.

Corinn had worn that piece at many a state function. She did not wear it today. She had a choice from her ancestors’ jewelry, but when her servants had offered to bring her the family’s heirlooms, she had said that it was not necessary that she examine them. She knew what she wanted. “I’ll wear Tinhadin’s crown.”

That was what she wore as she entered the Carmelia via the same tunnel through which she had run in panic just a few months earlier. She walked along the causeway at the slow, ceremonial pace the priestess of Vada inflicted upon them from the front of the processional. Corinn’s eyes flew around joyfully, taking everything in. How different this entry was from last time. Back then, she stumbled in with her garments shredded. She had been stained with her own blood, her lungs heaving, and every fiber of her body twisted in fear. A scene of carnage greeted her. Dead Marah on the field. Numrek swinging their massive swords. Mena fighting the monsters with a sword so large she looked like a child holding it. Aaden nowhere to be seen. Oh yes, things were different now.

Joyous onlookers filled the massive stadium. Thousands upon thousands of them. Agnates and other Acacian aristocrats; senators from Alecia who sported that city’s latest fashions; Aushenian royalty and chieftains from all the Talayan tribes; all the generals and officers near enough to attend; merchants from all the provinces in their respective garb, colorful, bejeweled, grinning: they all stood up and applauded the royal party’s entry. Corinn adored the colors of people’s garments and the various hues of their skins and idiosyncrasies of their cultures. Think of the breadth of rule they symbolized.

The floor of the stadium thronged with Marah officers, each of them stationed before units of troops adorned in all their finery. They were but a fragment of the army she could call on, and everyone admiring them knew as much. In the sky above, Elya’s children circled. Their wings stretched wide and glorious, beating with strength the world had never seen. Savagely beautiful. Awe-inspiring. The queen controlled the skies and the land. It would not be long before the seas were hers as well. She imagined that the leaguemen in their plush viewing boxes sensed as much.

She loved it all, even the way the sky had cleared to a marvelous blue, a mild winter day with enough of a breeze that the long banners attached at high points all around the stadium rippled with serpentine grace. She had filled the Acacian air with a mild euphoria for several days now, and she knew that the Prios vintage flowed freely. Still, the bliss that she felt came from satisfaction with what she had achieved. There was an irritation somewhere beyond the euphoria, some other song out in the world beyond the Carmelia, but she ignored at, as she ignored the visions she had of things that nobody else saw. It would not ruin this day.

The tunnel gates slammed shut heavily. They would stay that way for the duration of the ceremony.

The procession turned and began to ascend a series of five flights of stone steps toward the ceremonial dais. Corinn studied her brother. He would be king in just a few short hours. He looked marvelous. It was impossible to imagine that he had ever been removed from life. The energy in him shone from his tan face as if a sun heated him from the inside. His smile was a gift he gave out freely as he walked. He greeted people by name, nodded at others. Occasionally taking a hand offered to him, he blessed them with his touch. His flowing blue robe hung perfectly on his slim frame, the rich hue of the satin fabric radiating kingly calm, depth, and even an air of wisdom.

Corinn had been skeptical of the emblem he chose to wear as the embodiment of his royal rank, but she had to concede that there was a bit of flair in the simplicity of the gold tuvey band he wore around his right bicep. All Talay would love him for that-and fight to the death for him.

Perhaps as the years passed she would loosen the grip she held on him. No, not perhaps. She would. Absolutely, she would. She would restrain only the parts of him driven to dreaming ideals the people were not ready for. That rash side of his nature, which had cost him his life, needed to be starved out of him. At her side all his strengths would shine; his weaknesses would atrophy and fall away. He would learn the rightness of her rule and take it into his heart. Then they really would do fine things together.

They would fight off the attacking horde. The Auldek could not stand against her command of the song any more than the Numrek could. After that, who knew the extent of what she and Aliver could do? Wash the sin of the quota away from reality and from memory? Put the league in its place, humbled and obedient? Extend the empire right across the Gray Slopes to Ushen Brae? Of course! That was why a double monarchy was so perfect. Aliver would eventually rule in the west as she would rule in Acacia. The possibilities were endless.

After them, Aaden would be there to inherit it all. He walked just behind her, beaming, bubbling with excitement. Already, she found herself concocting the wonders that would mark his coronation. By then she would speak the Giver’s tongue as if it were her first language. And he will, too. Aaden will, too.

The queen sat with all this humming within her as the priestess opened the ceremony. She watched as Elya’s children dropped out of sight, to rest until after the coronation. She listened without listening as the sect’s purple-robed scholars read through the entire chronology of monarchs since Edifus. She greeted the procession of representatives offering gifts from around the empire: a pair of mating cranes from the Aushenian marshes, dining bowls of blue glass from the Ou family of Bocoum, a silver and turquoise necklace from Teh, a clutch of large crimson ostrich eggs, some delicacy of the Bethuni that the chieftain claimed made them more valuable by weight than gold.

The league’s offering was elegant and understated. Sire Grau himself presented it to them, both he and Dagon with their heads bowed. It looked like a marble bowl, wide based, with a gold-framed glass dome over it. Closer inspection revealed a specially constructed version of one of their navigational instruments. Inside the dome a carved metal serpent floated in a clear liquid. Beneath it, a map of the Known World. At Dagon’s urging, Corinn cupped the bowl and moved it. The serpent rotated.

“It always,” Dagon said, “stays faithful to the one direction it loves above all others.” Aliver, too, tested it, grew pleased, joked that he would have the royal scholars make a study of it. The engraving across the gold rim read: Whether My World Be Large, I Always Know My Place in It. Corinn smiled her acceptance of it.

The gifts went on: a suit of armor in the Senivalian style, a heavily bejeweled diadem from the Creggs of Manil…

After the gift giving, a poet from Aushenia recited long, grandiose verses from one of the Aushenians’ rhyming epics, modified at key points to make it all a tribute to Acacia. It took hours to get to the actual moment of coronation, but Corinn did not mind. She was not the girl who had hated sitting through state functions anymore. No, she thought, I’m not that girl at all.

The priestess of Vada was not the old crone that Corinn remembered from her own coronation. Youthful, she was almost attractive, even with the sides of her head shaved to the skull and the hair on her crown bound into a large knot. She took far too much satisfaction in her brief role of importance, intoning with the same ostentation as her predecessor, cutting others with her dark eyes as they brought her the ritual items she washed and blessed. She submerged an old tunic-said to have belonged to Credulas, the fourth king-in soapy water, squeezed it, and then hung it on a frame to dry. There was a story in that, Corinn knew, but she had never learned what it was. Nor was she entirely sure what the Vadayan sect’s function was, other than as scholars of Akaran lineage. They had once had a more defined religious practice, although it was dead now.

When all is settled again, Corinn thought, I’ll make a study of them. And of other things. There is so much to know.

And then, finally, it was time. The priestess called Aliver before her. Corinn did not really register the words she was saying or the replies that Aliver was giving. She knew them by heart and had been through the same oath herself. What she focused on was the way Aliver’s handsome face managed the perfect balance of deference to the priestess’s duties and ultimate authority. He already was a monarch. That was what his visage and upright bearing said. He knew his authority, but he had the patience and confidence to see through the customs into which he had been born.

“You’ve trained him well,” Hanish’s voice said.

Corinn stopped the inhalation of breath that the voice caused before the air had passed her tongue. She fought the instinct to turn toward it.

“Look at him. He’s playing his role perfectly and doesn’t even know it. You may have chosen correctly,” Hanish said, “in bringing him back instead of me. You could have your way with me in bed, but I wouldn’t have been so easy to control in other matters.”

He stood beside her, in the small space in front of a Marah guard and beside Sigh Saden. She could feel the brush of him against her shoulder, the touch of his skin when he nudged her. She did not glance at him or acknowledge him in any way. None around her did either. He was a figment of her powers over life and death, that was all. Nothing more. She blew the breath out again.

“How can you be sure, though? Perhaps he’s playing you for a fool.” Hanish laughed and stepped toward Aliver. “He is about to become king. He did come back from the dead. One wonders…”

Corinn’s gaze darted around, trying to see if anybody else noticed him. No one seemed to. The priestess slid the tuvey band down Aliver’s bicep, around his elbow, and off. Hanish had to draw his head back as she swung around with the band, lifting it high so that the audience could see it. He stood at Aliver’s shoulder now.

“Looked at from another perspective,” he said, “our dear Aliver has pulled off an amazing correction of his misfortune. You think it all a gift you gave him, but what if he’s outmaneuvered you? Just consider it a moment. That’s all you have left, anyway.”

The fact that only she could see or hear Hanish should have been a relief of sorts, but it was more an aggravation. She had a thousand retorts for each of his comments but could offer none of them. He seemed to know this, and to take pleasure from it. She tried to find a spell within the song, something with which she could erase him. It was not easy, for she had first to explain to the magic just what he was. Only then could she find the necessary spell. As she was not sure what he was, her mind drew circles in the song, the head of the spell chasing a tail it could not catch.

“What if he learns what you’ve done to him?” Hanish asked. “Do you imagine he would still love you then?” He rested a hand on Aliver’s shoulder, thrummed his fingers. Aliver extended his arm as the priestess slid onto it the tuvey band-adorned with a blessing in the form of a short length of crimson ribbon. Hanish acted as an aide would, touching the band when it was in place and then smoothing the fabric of the monarch’s upper sleeve. The ceremony was almost complete. All that was left was the recital of the final sanction. Corinn had a part in this, which the touch of the priestess’s eyes reminded her.

Hanish made a show of stepping out of her way when she took her place beside Aliver. At a signal given by touching Aliver’s hand, the two siblings began. “Hear us, Acacia, empire of the four horizons, of the tree of Akaran, of the six provinces…”

They spoke loudly, but as the Carmelia was far too large for everyone to hear, designated speakers took up their words and repeated them. The speech cascaded down from the dais and around the high ranks of benches like a song in the round.

“Edifus was the founder,” both Akarans said, repeating words that had first been drummed into them as children working with their tutor. “You know this to be true. He was born into suffering and darkness in the Lakes, but he prevailed in a bloody war that engulfed the whole world. He met the Untrue King Tathe at Galaral and crushed his forces with the aid of Santoth Speakers. Edifus was the first in an unbroken line of twenty-one Akaran kings…”

Hanish said, “Unbroken until I came around. Don’t forget that. You haven’t written me out of the histories already, have you?”

Corinn fumbled the words of the sanction. She tripped over them for a moment, trying to remember them and to match her timing to Aliver’s. She felt him glance at her. A bead of sweat broke loose from her forehead and ran down her left temple and cheek. “Are the living con… We are the continuation of those who came before, Akaran all…”

“You probably have,” Hanish said. “You’re capable of anything. Two monarchs! What a strange idea, Corinn. I hope you are half as crafty as you think yourself. I really do. For the sake of our son I do.”

He is nothing but a distraction, Corinn told herself. Control yourself! Divide your thoughts. Make them whole but doubled.

She did. Her lips found the words of the sanction. Her face maintained its calm. Her mind danced with the spell that would wipe this phantom Hanish from the world forever. She thought she had the substance of it. She bunched up her malice toward him into one seething ball of song. She held it in the back of her mouth, needing only a break in the sanction to release it.

Because of all these things, Corinn was as jolted as any of the others by the sound. Perhaps more so, though at first she kept on as if she had not noticed. A bang echoed across the stadium, a sound like a battering ram against a mighty door. Another.

“Oh, something is knocking,” Hanish said.

Aliver stopped speaking. He turned toward the tunnel through which they had entered.

Corinn kept on speaking for a moment, but with Aliver’s gaze went the turning heads of the crowd. A third boom rocked the place with a force that shook the foundations of the stadium. Something broke. She realized what the sound was. The iron gates through which she had entered had been bashed open. The rush of air was palpable from where she stood. It tore at the hats and garments of those near it. That’s impossible, she thought. The gates could not be flung open. They were always locked for the ceremony. No one in her service would even think of it, and if they did it would not be possible, not as heavy and secure as they were.

The words finally fell from Corinn’s lips-and the song dissolved in her mouth-as figures strode through the tunnel and into the stadium. “Take the prince away,” she said. “Rhrenna, do it now.”

“Not just knocking,” Hanish whispered, suddenly at her ear again. “They’ve let themselves in.”