the skin of a girl. Who are you here to fuck, hufsan? You tell me true, and you may yet leave here with those pretty little balls still attached.’
‘I — no-one. There is no-one, may Bel hear me. I just — I just wanted to see the trees, the stars.’
A laugh. But then the Honai tensed, and straightened. Kurun looked up to see more massive shapes looming over him, more bright eyes shining in the night. There was a slap of flesh on bronze. ‘My lord!’
‘Easy, Banon. What is it that’s so important you have me dragged from the King’s side?’
‘A spy, lord. I found him lurking in the trees. He claims to be from the kitchens. The other posts have been alerted.’
Perfume in the night, a taut, bracing smell of sandalwood.
‘Stand up.’
Kurun did so, his hands instinctively clasped over his nakedness.
‘If this boy is an assassin, then he’s the prettiest I’ve yet seen. What’s your name?’
‘Kurun, master.’
‘Who is your superior in the kitchens?’
Kurun hesitated. ‘Auroc, master — but he knows nothing of this. I just — ’
‘Shut up. Banon, go down to the kitchens. I know of this Auroc. Bring him in. I will question him later.’
‘The slave says he wanted to see trees and stars, my lord.’
There was a general rustle of amusement among the Honai. The one who smelled of sandalwood leaned close. Kurun could smell the wine on his breath. ‘Trees, is it? How would you like to be nailed to one, little Kurun?’
Kurun said nothing. The enormity of it all was chilling his flesh, turning his tongue to wood.
‘What shall I do with him, lord?’
‘Take him to the cells — and mind he gets there in one piece, Banon. It’s not your job to work on him. Prince Kouros will want to handle this. No need for the King to know.’
A hand fell on Kurun’s shoulder, gripped the bone. ‘As you wish, sir.’
Sandalwood leaned close again. The violet eyes stared into Kurun’s face. ‘I hope the sight of the stars was worth it, hufsan.’
Kurun was dragged away, limp as a child’s doll in the grip of the Honai.
THREE
I have been lucky, he told himself. He looked out on the great cedars, which were as old as the very line of his family, and exhaled silently, the happiness nothing more than a passing brightness across his face. No more. A king must always think of who might be near, even when they were those he loved best in the world.
And those he loved best must never be aware of their position, for that would mean their lives were cast into the Game. The unending game, of who does what to whom in this world.
I am past sixty, an aged man. A monarch past his prime.
I am the most powerful person in this world.
And yet. He looked out across the gardens, past the assembled diners and the hordes of courtiers and attendants who flitted across the grass in the lamplight, beyond to where young voices could be heard under the deeper shadow of the woods.
Look at these children, playing beneath the stars. They are my sons and daughters, and I know them not. They are to be reared like blood stock, brought to maturity and then winnowed out, until I can find one worthy to hold all this in his hands. His hands.
Bel, Lord of sunshine and song and fruitfulness, look upon me now. Your brother, Mot, has brought a second great storm into my world, and I need you now. I need a way to look into the hearts of my enemies.
He stared out, impassive, at the night-time garden, the quiet river, the playing children who were his and yet not his. He strove to hoard the memory of it, to set this scene in amber, or imperishable crystal, and set it aside in some untwisted portion of his mind. He knew how to do this. He had practised it for many years. As long as he had been a king.
Give them time. Give me time. Lord of us all, lend me your patience.
‘Majesty.’ It was Dyarnes, faithful as a hound, ever beside him. His father Midarnes had died at Kunaksa, leading the Honai, and now the son stood in his place.
God-of-all, Ashurnan thought — has it really been thirty years since that day?
‘Yes, Dyarnes.’
‘There is an intruder in the gardens — my men have him. Will you give me leave to see to it?’
‘Of course. You will miss the best of the wine, Dyarnes. I will have Malakeh keep you a cup.’
Dyarnes bowed deeply, then fastened his komis about his face and strode off.
Kouros paused with his cup halfway to his beard. ‘Is something amiss, father?’
‘Dyarnes has it. Enjoy your wine, Kouros. Smell the stars. Drink with your brother and let me see you be civil to one another.’
Kouros was one of those known across the empire as a Black Kefre. His hair was dark as a crow’s back and he was heavily built, but he had the eyes of the high castes. His mother was not here tonight — she disliked dining out of doors — and he had inherited her colouring.
Beautiful Orsana, whom Ashurnan had taken as First Wife some thirty-five years before. She came from Bokosa, capital of the vast, rich satrapy of Arakosia. Back in the half-mythic past before the Great Wars, her ancestors had been kings, and Ashurnan’s union with her had bound the proud Arakosans ever closer to the imperial family.
Ashurnan remembered the first few years of their marriage. It had been like coupling with a panther, and he could not help but smile at the memory.
His gaze travelled down the table. Rakhsar and Roshana, the twins borne by his second wife. They had their mother’s looks, as fine and graceful as the thoroughbreds her country reared. Ashana had been a beautiful, willowy girl, a gentle soul. Ashurnan had married the spitfire Orsana out of political necessity and pure lust, but Ashana had taken his heart. A Niseian princess, she had seemed too good for this world, and so it had proved. She had given Ashurnan the twins, and then died soon after — of a fever. Or so it had been decided. Ashurnan had not gone back to his First Wife’s bed since, for the rumours had tallied too closely with his own suspicions.
After that there had been minor wives, countless concubines, a garden of beautiful faces. But Orsana remained First Wife, his Queen, and she vetted them all. There would never be another Ashana, another woman to share his heart with. He had been lucky, that once.
The Great King raised his cup, and tilted it first to Kouros, his eldest son, and then to Rakhsar and Roshana, the twins whose mother he had loved. The three siblings returned his salute, and up and down the long tables the other guests let their conversations wither into the warm air, and watched.
He held their eyes one after the other. Kouros, dependable, thin-skinned, eternally suspicious and yet always on fire for some word of affection or commendation. Roshana, whose face seared something in Ashurnan’s heart, so that it was sometimes hard to look upon her beauty for the memories it evoked.
And Rakhsar, mercurial, sardonic, the brightest light of the three, and the most dangerous. Ashurnan loved his younger son, but did not pretend to himself that he knew him at all. Rakhsar’s flashing wit turned aside any attempt to know him. Roshana understood him, perhaps, but Ashurnan did not believe he ever would.
And there was the pity of it.
The Great King drained his cup, barely tasting the wine. Beside him the Taster sipped, and then nodded, and the royal cupbearer refilled it from the jar.
The three royal siblings drank their own wine, Kouros and Roshana barely sipping theirs, Rakhsar emptying his cup with a flourish and a grin. He had about him the air of a condemned man who is intent on savouring every morsel of his life, whereas Kouros was like a priest wedded to duty and penitence.
