“Ten horses worth of silver,” the autarch said. “Generous payment for the honor of bringing your daughter into my house, is it not?”
The men with the money chest had already started back across the throne room. Qinnitan’s parents scrambled awkwardly after it, trying to keep it in sight but not daring to turn their backs even slightly on the autarch.
“You are too kind, Master of the Great Tent,” her father called, bowing and bowing. “You bring too much honor on our house.” Qinnitan’s mother was crying again. A moment later, they were gone.
“Now,” said the autarch, then somebody coughed again. The autarch’s lean face writhed in annoyance. “Who is that? Bring him up here.”
Three more Leopards sprang down from the dais and out into the room, their polished, decorated guns held high. The crowd shrank back from them. A moment later they returned to the dais, dragging a frail young man. The crowd drew even farther back, as though he might be carrying a fatal illness, which in fact he probably was, since he had drawn the angry attention of the god-on-earth.
“Do you hate me so much, that you must interrupt me with your braying?” the autarch demanded. The young man, who had fallen onto his knees when the Leopard soldiers let go of him, could only shake his head, weeping with terror. He was so terrified his face had turned the color of saffron. “Who are you?”
The youth was clearly too frightened to answer. At last the paramount minister cleared his throat. “He is an accounting scribe from my ministry of the Treasury. He is good with sums.”
“So are a thousand merchants in Bird Snare Market. Can you tell me any reason I should not have him killed, Vash? He has wasted too much of my time already.”
“Of course he has, Golden One,” said the paramount minister with a gesture of infinite regret. “All I can offer in his favor is that I am told he is a hard worker and very well liked among the other scribes.”
“Is that so?” The autarch stared up at the famous tiled ceiling for a moment, scratched his long nose with a long finger. He already seemed bored with the subject. “Very well, here is my sentence. Leopards, take him away. Beat him and break his bones with the iron bar. Then, if he is to survive, these so-called friends of his in the Treasury may take care of him, feed him, so on. We shall see how far their friendship truly extends.”
The large crowd murmured approvingly at the wisdom of the autarch’s sentence, even as Qinnitan suppressed a shriek of horrified fury. The young man was taken away, his feet dragging on the floor, leaving a wet track like a snail. He had fainted, but not before emptying his bladder. A trio of servitors scurried to wipe the flagstones clean again.
“As for you, girl,” the autarch said, still angry, and Qinnitan s heart suddenly began to beat even more swiftly Had he tired of her already? Was he going to have her killed? He had just bought her like a market chicken from her parents and no one would raise a finger to save her. “Stand before me.”
Somehow she made her legs work just well enough to carry her up the steps and onto the dais. She was grateful to reach the spot before the Falcon Throne, grateful to be able to slump down onto her knees and not have to feel them quivering. She put her forehead against the cool stone and wished that time would stop, that she would never have to leave this spot and find out what else was in store for her. A powerful, sweet scent filled her nostrils, threatening to make her sneeze. She peered from half-opened lids. A group of priests had surrounded her like ants on a crumb of cake, blowing incense on her out of bronze bowls, perfuming her for the presence of the autarch.
“You are very lucky, little daughter,” said Pimmmon Vash. “You are favored above almost all women on the earth. Do you know that?”
“Yes, Lord. Of course, Lord.” She pushed her forehead harder against the stone, felt the area of cold spread on her skin. Her parents had sold her to the autarch without even a question as to what might become of her. She wondered if she could hit her head against the tiles hard enough to kill herself before someone stopped her. She didn’t want to marry the lord of the world. Just looking at his long face and strange, birdlike eyes made her heart feel as though it would stop beating. This close, she almost thought she could sense the heat of his body coming off him, as though he were a metal statue that had sat all day in the sun. The idea of those thin-fingered hands touching her, the gold stalls scraping her skin as that face came down onto her own…
“Stand up.” It was the autarch himself. She got to her feet, so wobbly that the paramount minister had to put his dry old hand under her elbow. The living god’s pale, pale eyes moved over her body, up to her face, back down over her body. There was no lechery in it, nothing really human: it felt as though she hung on a butcher’s hook.
“She’s thin but not ugly,” said the autarch. “She must go to the Seclusion, of course. Give her to old Cusy and tell her that this one must have special and very careful treatment. Panhyssir will tell her what is expected.”
To her astonishment, Qinnitan found herself raising her eyes to meet the autarch’s, heard herself say, “Lord, Master, I don’t know why you’ve chosen me, but I will do my best to serve you.”
“You will serve me well,” he said with an odd, childlike laugh. “May I ask one favor, Great Master?”
“You will address the Autarch Sulepis as ‘Living God on Earth’ or as ‘Golden One,’ “ the paramount minister said sternly, even as the assembled throng murmured at her forwardness.
“Golden One, may I ask a favor?”
“You may ask.”
“May I say good-bye to my sisters in the Hive, my friends? They were very kind to me.”
He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. “Jeddin, send some of your Leopards to take her back for her farewells and to bring with her anything she needs from her old life.Then she will enter the Seclusion.” His pallid eyes narrowed a little. “You do not seem happy with the honor I have given you, girl?”
“I am . . overwhelmed, Golden One.” Fear had gripped her now. She could barely make her voice loud enough for him to hear a few paces away; she knew that to the rest of those assembled in the vast room she would be unheard, not even a murmur. “Please believe that I do not have the words to describe my happiness.”
The contingent of Leopards marched her through the long passages of the Orchard Palace, a labyrinth that she had only heard about but which, it seemed, would now be her home for the rest of her life. Thoughts swirled in her head like choking incense.
The Leopard band’s captain, the muscular, serious-faced soldier called Jeddin, was watching her again. He seemed as if he had been doing it for more than a moment, but she had only just noticed. “Mistress, I apologize,” he said, “but I cannot give you long for your farewells. We are expected at the Seclusion in a short time.”
She nodded. He had fierce eyes, but his glint seemed decidedly more human than the animating force behind the autarch’s bottomless stare.
When they came to the Hive, all the girls seemed somehow to have known Qinnitan was coming.
High Priestess Rugan bade her farewell with pride but little sentiment.
“You have brought great honor to us,” she said, and kissed Qinnitan on each cheek before returning to her chambers and her accounts. Chief Acolyte.
Chryssa, on the other hand, seemed genuinely sorry to see her go, although there was a powerful pride in her face as well. “No one has ever gone from the Hive into the Seclusion,” she said, eyes glowing with the same light of religiosity that filled her when the bees spoke. Qinnitan could believe that Chryssa might be dreaming of how wonderful it would have been if she instead of Qinnitan had been chosen.
Qinnitan was doing the same.
“Do you really have to go?” Duny was crying, but she seemed almost as excited and pleased as Chryssa. “Why can’t you live here until it happens?”
“Don’t be foolish, Dunyaza,” the chief acolyte told her. “Someone who is to be the autarch’s wife cannot live in the Hive. What if someone… what if she… ?” Chryssa frowned. “It just would not be right. He is the Living God on
