Kouros, and Rakhsar, blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh. One will be King, and one must die. That is the way our world works.
An image lashed through his mind — his brother’s face at Kunaksa as his own scimitar opened the throat below it. Ashurnan closed his eyes a second. Thirty years. He was an old man now, and in his dreams his dead brother’s face was always the same. He could still smell the dust of that day, kicked up in vast clouds by the horses. He could hear the Macht death hymn as they advanced.
He had witnessed a dozen battles since then, but always, Kunaksa was foremost in his mind. It had been his first, and though the imperial records might say otherwise, he knew it had been a defeat.
And now they come again.
God, I am too old. I do not have the strength. I am no longer sure I even have the wit to choose the right men to fight for me any more.
The wine smote him — he had eaten almost nothing. The sour suspicion that his Queen was trying to poison him cut the appetite. That cat-eyed bitch. How much of a hold did she have over Kouros? Could he be his own man?
And Rakhsar — would the cruelty in him ever bloom into full, disastrous flower?
I must stay alive, he told himself. There is no time for this. I am Great King, and it is I who will take on this fight, as I did once before.
He raised the hand which had killed his brother and stared at it. The liver-spots on the golden skin, the blue-wormed veins thick about the knuckles. Then he looked down the table at Kouros again. Imagine the empire ruled by those knotted brows, that thick-boned forehead, and behind him his mother, whom the palace slaves lived in terror of. Not fear, or respect, but stark terror. She had once bade the Honai rape a pretty little Bokosan noblewoman to death, because the girl had refused her beloved son’s advances.
Power is cruelty, in the last examination, Ashurnan thought. But for some the pain is an end in itself.
Kouros was an adequate leader of men, and he had a following in the army. The Arakosans provided the best cavalry in the empire, and they would follow him to the death, for his mother’s sake. If Kouros were to be discarded, it would mean something akin to civil war, here in the heartland itself. There was no other option.
And yet, watching Kouros’s powerful jaws champing his food, Ashurnan’s heart sank. The empire, clamped in those dour jaws. At any other time, it would knuckle under the Black Kefre and his mother, go on as it always had; but this was not any other time.
Malakeh leaned close, leaning on his ebony staff of office. Gaunt as blackthorn, the old Vizier had run the clockwork of the court for a quarter of a century.
‘Lord, the western messengers have been fed and are waiting.’
‘Where are they?’
‘On the Ivy Terrace. They have spoken to no-one.’
‘Good. I will go to them, Malakeh, alone.’
‘Lord — ’
‘Alone, Malakeh. We are not to be disturbed — no Honai. But tell Dyarnes.’
The Vizier bowed. Ashurnan almost thought he could hear the old man’s spine creak. He rose, holding out a hand to keep the assembled diners in their seats. Even after all these years, he still felt a flash of impatience at the protocol of the court. He had pruned away as much of it as he dared, but a Great King needed some pomp and mystery about himself, even among those who knew him well.
Kouros stood up despite the gesture, setting down his cup. Ashurnan hesitated a moment, and then motioned his eldest son to follow. He did not have the strength or the patience to put Kouros in his place in front of the whole table.
Or did he? Ashurnan turned, and said to Malakeh, ‘Have Prince Rakhsar join us.’
The Ivy Terrace was on the northern edge of the gardens, half a pasang away under the starlit trees. Ashurnan’s father, Anurman, had built it, as a place to sit and drink wine with his friends, his comrades-in-arms. Anurman had been a fighting king, a man who made and kept friends with an ease Ashurnan could only marvel at. He had drunk under the ivy there with Vorus, the Macht, and Proxis, the Juthan, both of whom had loved him like dogs, both of whom had betrayed his son. Proxis had taken Jutha out of the empire and now it was an independent kingdom. Vorus had let the Juthans leave at Irunshahr when the utter destruction of the Ten Thousand was teetering in the balance.
There were charcoal braziers lit on the terrace, and a few lamps. The three figures rose from their seats at the Great King’s approach and went to their knees. Ashurnan studied their faces. All three were Kefren of high caste. Two, he did not recognise, but the third was a familiar face.
‘Merach,’ he said. ‘It has been a while.’
The grey haired Kefre smiled and looked him in the eye. Merach had been his personal bodyguard. They had ridden side by side at Kunaksa. There were few people in the world Ashurnan trusted more, for Merach was utterly devoid of ambition. He was a soldier, simple and pure. But he was also an Archon of the western army.
‘Despatches?’
Merach looked at the ground, opened his palm and gestured to a leather-topped scroll-bucket on the table.
‘Enough to keep a man reading for a month, lord.’
Kouros was already breaking the seal on the bucket and rifling through the scrolls within, like a pig rooting for truffles. Rakhsar stood to one side, face in shadow.
‘Suppose you tell me yourself, Merach,’ the Great King said, though it was already written across the Kefre’s face, which was as grey as his hair.
Merach looked up. There was weariness carved bone-deep in his features, and the grease of a hungry man’s meal on his chin.
‘The Haneikos River was a disaster, Lord. He came at us through the water with his line and we held him on the bank. We had good ground, as good a position as I’ve ever seen men hold. But his cavalry broke the left. He has five thousand armoured horsemen — he calls them his Companions, and they are both Kefren and Macht. Lord, he has Kefren of our own caste fighting for him!’
Kouros looked up from his scroll. ‘Impossible! You are overwrought, Merach.’
‘Lord, I saw them myself. They destroyed our flank — ’ Here Merach’s voice sharpened. ‘We had Arakosan cavalry stationed there, but he blew through them like a gale.’
Kouros threw the scroll at the kneeling Kefre. ‘That’s a lie!’
Merach went silent, bowing his head. It was Rakhsar who retrieved the scroll, rolling it up on its spindle. ‘Brother, you might want to hear the fellow out before you begin throwing things at him,’ he said with a smile.
‘Go on,’ Ashurnan said. He fumbled for a chair, and it was Rakhsar who slid one behind him.
‘I bear the official despatches from satrap Darios himself — you can see his seal on the scrolls.’
‘Why send you as his messenger?’ Kouros demanded, undaunted. ‘You’re an Archon of the western army, not some despatch-rider.’
‘He hoped that my presence would give weight to what he had to tell,’ Merach retorted.
‘Mind your tone, general. I am a royal prince.’
Rakhsar poured himself some wine from the table, smelling it before sipping. ‘Father, despite my brother’s luminous presence, shall we let these men get up off their knees? The stones are hard on the bones.’
Ashurnan nodded. He looked at his younger son, and immediately Rakhsar gave him the winecup. ‘I shall be your taster,’ he said. ‘It’s not the best, but I’ve had worse.’
‘General Merach shall speak now, without interruption,’ Ashurnan said tiredly.
‘And with some wine to loosen his throat,’ Rakhsar said, handing the grey-haired Kefre another cup.
There was a quiet. The wind moved in the ivy, and there was the hoot of an owl off in the trees. Not another sound. They were in the midst of the greatest city in the world, but the ziggurat lifted them far above it, and the wind here was night-cool, as though they were in the foothills of the mountains. The scent of the honeysuckle which wound through the ivy came and went with the breeze, too sweet, too heavy for the charcoal- warmed dark.
