“There is blood on the neck of the Drathkin’kela. What have you done now?” she demanded of Malawaitha. Without waiting for an answer, she strode up to Linsha and examined her neck and the chain with the dragon scales. Angrily she turned on the younger woman. “I am ashamed for you. You know the rules of the Akeelawasee, yet you flaunt your desires in our faces. There are times to challenge and times to let patience rule your actions. Do you understand?”
Linsha did not entirely understand. There seemed to be layers of meaning in the Empress’s choice of words that were beyond her limited comprehension of Tarmakian. But Malawaitha understood quite well. She bowed low and stood meekly when the Empress said to her slave, “Take her to the Room of Chastising and give her seven lashes for the attempted theft,” then she swept on to the dining hall with her servants in her wake.
Linsha watched them all go until she was alone in the hallway once again. Slowly she turned on her heel and walked back to the dormitory where her sleeping cell gathered the first shadows of evening. Her appetite forgotten, she lay down on her pallet and her fingers closed around the dragon scales. A deep, wrenching longing welled up inside to see her friends again. Any friendly face would do: Sir Hugh with his blunt easy grin, Leonidas (preferably without his crossbow), Falaius Taneek, or even the healer, Danian, with his hawk and his red-haired apprentice.
But more than anyone else, she desperately wanted to see Varia and Crucible. Especially Crucible. She would not have believed it was possible back there on the fields of the Red Rose, but the big bronze had become a vital part of her life. When she rejected him without giving him a chance to explain or giving herself time to think, she had torn her life apart. She had sent him away to live or die without her, and now all she had was an aching vastness in her heart and a regret that grew larger in her mind like a cancer. She wanted so much to see him again, to sit in the comfortable, reassuring circle of his neck and tail and talk to him as they used to do. Perhaps in time she could understand why he hadn’t told her about his human shape, the shape she had known so well as Lord Hogan Bight. Perhaps. But now it was probably too late. She was trapped in this distant land where he could not find her, held hostage in a palace with a hateful rival and a promised husband she despised. Crucible, for all she knew, was dead.
Linsha lay on her pallet in the gathering darkness and silently cried for lost friends. It was a long time before she found the solace of sleep.
5
“I’m invited to a what?” Linsha said, hanging upside down from a bar. She was using the bar to strengthen her stomach muscles by doing upside down sit-ups. It was an exercise she hated, but the results were worth the effort.
“The Akkad’s initiation,” Afec said patiently for the second time. “There will be a ceremony and a feast.”
“What is this ceremony?” Linsha asked while she bobbed up and down.
“During the afternoon the Emperor, his guards, the high-ranking warriors, the priests, and certain officials of the court perform rites to prepare the dead Akkad-Ur for his journey in the afterlife. They then complete the ceremony to name Lanther Darthassian as the Akkad-Dar, the new warleader of the Tarmak hosts.”
“And I have to go to the ceremony?” Linsha inquired.
“No. Women do not attend military ceremonies.”
“Why not?” she demanded. Sweat ran down her face, or rather up her face, and dripped on the mats below. She puffed for air every time she swung her upper body upward. “I’ve been to plenty. Several initiations of rank, several knighting ceremonies, a vigil for a Legionnaire. I went to a military wedding, too, and I’ve seen my share of military tribunals.”
Afec sighed, knowing she wasn’t paying strict attention. “Women do not attend military ceremonies. That is simply Tarmak tradition.”
“Fine. Fine. I don’t want to go anyway.” She swung up again, grabbed the bar with her hands, and dropped her legs to the ground. “So what is the feast? Will Lanther be there?”
“The feast is held for the entire court. The Akkad-Dar has specifically requested that you attend.”
“Oh?” She wiped her face thoughtfully with a small towel. “And he will be officially instated as the warleader. I wonder what he plans to do about Malawaitha.”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Afec replied. “But for your sake I hope he treads carefully. He will not want to insult the Emperor.”
“I don’t suppose I could just slip out, go down to the docks, and catch the next ship back to Ansalon?” Linsha said, half in jest, as she stretched to ease her aching abdominal muscles.
Afec looked appalled. “Lady, I beg you. Do not do that. There are no ships that go to Ansalon except the military fleet. You would be caught and put to death, and the warleader himself could not prevent it.”
Linsha had been talking partly in a wishful way, but the adamant tone of the old slave gave her pause. While she had examined several ways of slipping out of the palace, she hadn’t had a way to check out the city and look for any avenues of escape from the island. The news that there were no ships that sailed to Ansalon-anywhere on Ansalon-was bitter indeed. She had given her word that she would marry Lanther, but if an opportunity to escape made itself plain, she had already decided she would take it. The mere thought of slipping away from her fate, no matter how unlikely, had stayed in the back of her mind like an escape door. As long as it was there, the impending marriage did not seem so fearsome. Now Afec had nearly closed that door. She forced the emotion from her face to hide her disappointment and picked up a ladle of water.
“So,” she said before she took a long drink. “What do the proper ladies of the Tarmak wear to a feast?”
The feast was held two nights later in the huge square before the palace audience hall. While the men were occupied with their rites, the slaves and the women of the Akeelawasee set up tables, brought in lanterns, and hauled in armloads of garlands, flowers, and greenery for decoration. A space was left open for dancing, and slaves set up a platform for the musicians.
At sunset when the setting sun streaked the sky with orange and the peacocks screamed in the gardens, the men returned to the palace square that was aglow with golden light, to tables laden with food and wine, to music, and to the women of the palace arrayed in their finery. Benches had been brought out of the audience chambers, and one of the Emperor’s gold plated thrones had been placed at the top of the stairs where he could view the feast from his exalted height. A huge awning shaded the throne, and banners bearing his crest of springing lions hung on poles on both sides.
While every person bowed low, the huge Tarmak walked ponderously up the steps and took his seat in the golden throne. Gongs sounded, drums beat, and from a side door, a dozen kitchen slaves staggered in carrying a huge platter with the entire carcass of a roast bull on a bed of green boughs. They placed the platter on a table at the foot of the stairs for the Emperor’s inspection and stood back to wait.
The Empress, resplendent in a long linen robe of red and a cape decorated with the feathers of jungle birds, strode to the table in the shadow of the stone dragon and, wielding a knife, sliced a portion off the tenderloin. After placing the steaming meat on a dish, she carried it to the Emperor and offered a taste of the most succulent morsel.
The Emperor voiced his approval with a single grunt, then he pointed to Lanther standing near the foot of the stairs. The Empress took the dish to the new Akkad and offered him the second taste. Lanther, too, nodded his acceptance. Taking the knife from the Empress, he began to carve the roast bull into large pieces that were placed on smaller platters and carried to the tables scattered around the square. The crowd watched him hungrily. At the Emperor’s signal, the musicians began their first piece, a typical Tarmak composition filled with drums, gongs, and the squall of Tarmak pipes. A shout rose from the waiting crowd and everyone made a rush for the food and wine.
Linsha stood back in the shadow of a wall and watched glumly as the Tarmaks crowded around the tables
