‘You eat like a bird anyway.’ Rakhsar tapped the cage, a beautiful, golden-wrought affair that was chased with enamels and inlays of lapis lazuli, bloodstone, ruby. The little brown bird inside went silent, and cocked its head to look at him.
‘I think he likes me,’ Rakhsar said with a grin.
‘Leave him be. I’d rather listen to him sing than hear more of your stories.’
Rakhsar leaned back from the cage and reclined on the silk-cushioned couch that they shared. The sun fell on his face, and as the wind moved in the branches of the tall trees above so the shadows came and went, back and forth across his features. His skin answered the passing sunlight, a pale gold, almost translucent, and blue as a bruise in the hollows of his temples and nostrils. His eyes, bright and violet, seemed to catch the waning light and reflect it back at the evening. His long, rufous hair was tied back from his face in a topknot fastened by a silver ring. Gold thread was woven through his robes, and his slippers hung swinging from his toes as he lay back, studying the patterns the cedars made against the sky.
His sister was his twin, as long-limbed and golden-skinned, but more delicate, with darker eyes. And there was less of a hawkish cast to her face, for all that it was the mirror of his. In Rakhsar’s face there was wit, humour, a flashing intelligence and curiosity. In Roshana’s there was a gentleness entirely lacking in her sibling. And she did not have the hint of cruelty that dwelled in her brother’s bright eyes.
‘Cages,’ Rakhsar said. ‘Some are bigger than others, but in the end they all fulfil the same function. At least the bird can expect a long life, so long as he remembers how to sing. You and I, Roshana, our lives hinge on the whims of an old man. At any moment, the Honai could come for us. For me they will come, one day. I know that. I have known it since I was a child and saw the way our father looked upon my brother.’
Roshana said nothing. The truth could not be argued away.
‘In the meantime we spin out our little lives here, like your bird, passing the time as pleasantly as we can, indulging in our petty little intrigues, hoping to catch his favour. Our father.’ He raised a hand and grasped at the air. ‘We might as well reach for the shadows in the sky. He has settled upon Kouros, my reliable elder brother. And even before Kouros is King, I will die, and you — if you are lucky — will be married to some functionary who is owed a favour.’
‘Our father is a good man,’ Roshana said quietly.
‘Yes. He is that most dangerous of things, a good man who is doing what he sees as right. He indulged his own brother, and look what it cost him — Jutha gone, Artaka in endless rebellions, the monsters from across the sea marching towards the Middle Empire under the usurper’s banner. Kouros will not make the same mistake. Father will not let him.’
Rakhsar sat up in a rush of movement, scanning the bushes around them. ‘Did you hear that?’
Roshana sighed. ‘There is no-one here but us, brother. Unless the birds can eavesdrop, we are safe.’
‘Kouros has his spies too, you know. He has begun recruiting a new corps.’
‘Where did you hear that?’
‘From a spy of my own.’ Rakhsar grinned.
‘You are impossible today, Rakhsar. I will go in. It will be time for the dinner soon, and I should change. There are guests from the west.’
‘Yes, but I doubt they’ll have much of an appetite once father gets through with them.’
‘Why? Rakhsar, what have you heard?
‘What do you care? You have your nightingale to listen to.’
‘Brother, I swear — ’
Rakhsar stood up. He paced about the little manicured clearing as the shadows went back and forth across his face, the ancient trees above him creaking in the breeze.
‘What have I heard? I hear everything, Roshana.
‘I have heard that all is not well in the west. The enemy were given battle at the Haneikos river, and our troops were routed. The satrapies of Gansakr and Askanon are wide open to the invaders — all the land between the Haneikos and the Sardask is theirs now, right up to the city of Ashdod.’
Rakhsar paused, eyes gleaming, as bright and hard as shards of glass. ‘There will have to be another levy — a real one this time. And if I know anything, I believe the Great King himself will lead it.’
‘Our father, off to war? But he’s an old man, Rakhsar.’
Rakhsar smiled sourly. ‘He has my brother’s broad shoulders to carry some of the load for him. In any case, the preparations have already begun. They’re moving cattle west to Hamadan. It’s my guess he’ll take the Honai, too. And if they want to cross the Magron before the first snows, then the thing must be got under way very soon.’
Roshana shook her head in disbelief. ‘How many years has it been?’
‘Since Kunaksa? Thirty. A generation, since Ashurnan the Great won his empire and killed his brother. Now he must do it again.’
‘And what of us?’ Roshana’s dark eyes widened. ‘Are we simply to be left here?’
‘That is my point, sister. The Great King leaves his capital. He takes with him his eldest son and heir. Do you really think he will leave me behind? He would be a fool to even consider it. No.’ Rakhsar looked down at his slender fingers. His hands began to clench in and out of one another, as if he were washing them. It was as though he could not bid them to be still.
‘No. This is my time. Kouros will have me killed before they leave for Hamadan, and our father will not interfere. That is the way it will be.’
A low chime carried through the air, a shimmering echo of noise that carried through the gardens like some tremor set off by the sunset.
‘We are called,’ Rakhsar said. ‘Our beloved father bids us dine with him.’
‘Do you really believe all this, brother?’ Roshana asked. She offered Rakhsar her hand and he helped her up from the embroidered couch. He smiled down at her with real affection, but there was still that hard light shining in his eyes.
‘You’ve lost one. Here, let me.’ He knelt before his sister and placed her slim foot within the thin, scarlet leather of the slipper. Then he straightened, and took both her hands in his own.
‘I am certain enough to act on it, and to risk death to avoid death,’ he said in a low voice. ‘For you, it is not the same. You have no stake in this — be married, have children, try to be happy. I will speak no more of these things to you — it is not your concern — but I wanted you to know, Roshana.’
‘You’re leaving,’ she said. ‘But how can you? Rakhsar, they have you watched night and day.’
‘I have the thing in hand.’ He bent and kissed her. ‘I should not have told you, but I wanted to say goodbye. I had to let you know.’
‘Take me with you — ’
‘Impossible. Do you know what it would mean? You have never left the city, Roshana. You do not know what the world is like.’
‘Nor do you.’
Rakhsar’s mouth curved in a scimitar sneer. ‘I have a pretty good idea.’
Again, the low chime of the gong, carrying over the birdsong. They heard footsteps on the flags of the path, and turned as one. Into the clearing stepped a small girl, a dark hufsa in the livery of the household.
‘Great ones,’ she stammered, eyes downcast, ‘I am sent to beg you to come to table.’ She went to her knees and then bobbed up again.
‘One of yours?’ Rakhsar asked.
Roshana shook her head. ‘She’s one of Kouros’s slaves, I think.’
Rakhsar strode over to the girl and kicked her in the ribs, sending her sprawling. ‘Get you gone, and tell your master Prince Rakhsar comes when it suits him.’
‘Yes, lord,’ the girl gasped, and hobbled away, holding her side.
‘She did you no harm,’ Roshana said quietly.
‘He sent a hufsa to fetch us, as though we were tenants in his house. While our father lives, Roshana, our blood is as high and royal as that of the mighty Kouros and the bitch-mother who whelped him.’ He offered his arm. ‘Shall we go, sister? Shall we smile and bow and eat and drink with our family?’
Roshana clicked up the latch on the nightingale’s golden cage and swung open the door. Then she took her brother’s arm.
