half-armour, which took time to take off and put on again.
Since Haveros, Chonjara and the Princess Quenerain were all high-born Yarglat, Lord Alagrace himself had to decide their fate. Only the Lawmaker could pass judgment on a high-born Yarglat. He did not want to avoid his duty – but his situation was impossible.
Only a fool would have brought the Rite of Purification into question by laying charges against the Princess Quenerain – who was, besides, Khmar's daughter. Haveros was high in the favour of the Lord Emperor Khmar, who had made him Lord Commander of the Imperial City. Khmar did not love Chonjara so much – but Chonjara's protector was the Ondrask of Noth, who had more influence with Khmar than anyone else in the empire.
What was Lord Alagrace to do?
As a descendant of the High Houses of Sharla, the ancient enemies of the Yarglat, Lord Alagrace was hated by virtually everyone of any importance. The Blood Purge, which had claimed most of his friends and relations, had destroyed his power base. The Lord Emperor Khmar, finding that a competent bureaucrat was necessary to run a city of a quarter of a million people, had summoned Lord Alagrace out of his self-imposed exile in Ashmolea – but it remained to see whether Khmar would back Alagrace against a high-born Yarglat.
Lord Alagrace consulted with Yen Olass, who gave him direct and honest advice, telling him to flee to Ashmolea. He refused. He had come to Gendormargensis because he knew he still had high standing with one person: Celadric. At the moment, Khmar's eldest son was powerless, but on Khmar's death Celadric would become emperor. If Lord Alagrace managed to survive that long, there was a good chance that he would become Celadric's chief minister, and would effectively end up running the Collosnon Empire.
For such a prize, he was willing to gamble with his life. It was, besides, the only prize that would justify his life: the only prize that would justify his service to the emperor who had killed the people who were dearest to him. Granted control of the empire, Lord Alagrace could found a high civilisation in Tameran, and end the barbaric rule of the Yarglat.
It was the last dream which remained to him.
Lord Alagrace, in his wisdom, did as little as possible. He cautioned the Princess Quenerain to maintain her silence; he exiled Haveros and Chonjara to hunting lodges north and south of Gendormargensis; he assumed the title of Lord Commander of the Imperial City, and in his own name made all those administrative decisions which he had previously made for Haveros; he let it be known that he would not permit rumour or innuendo relating to the personnel of the Rite of Purification; he drafted a despatch to the Lord Emperor Khmar and sent it south on the long and difficult journey across the snowbound land.
The reply came back in the spring, brought by boat to Gendormargensis which, as always, had been turned into an island when the thaw caused the river to flood.
This was the reply:
'Greetings, gaplax. The masters fight and the dogs are punished. Did you think you could silence rumour? You'd be the first. Half the army knows already. Give the dogs their show, Quenerain's head on the battlements, if you see fit. Are you Lawmaker? Are you even lord of your own lice? I can see you now, standing in your own shit, shivering. As I say. Write it down. Every word. Melish. That's all.’
Lord Alagrace only had to read the message once to know it was, indisputably, a communication from the Lord Emperor Khmar. The obscenity at the beginning was definitely intended for him; that at the end might have been intended for him, or for the scribe taking dictation from the illiterate horse lord, or for both of them.
A temperate ruler would have smoothed over the scandal by exiling Chonjara and Haveros to different parts of the empire. However, Khmar was obviously prepared to accept even the death of his daughter – and the destruction of the Rite of Purification, an institution which Khmar had never really liked. What had roused Khmar to fury was the fact that his Lawmaker had come running for help, instead of settling the matter himself.
Lord Alagrace realized that he had been out of the company of the emperor for too long. Khmar had been raised by his grandmother, in the far north, far from the civilizing influences of Gendormargensis. He was as reckless as his grandfather Nol Umu, and had never learnt to prefer compromise to the joys of chaos.
Now, at least, Lord Alagrace had a clear statement of Khmar's position. It seemed Khmar would back him to the hilt, whatever he decided to do. So who should he move against? Haveros or Chonjara? To strike a blow against Chonjara would be, indirectly, to strike a blow against the Ondrask. The more Lord Alagrace could diminish the Ondrask's prestige now, the easier it would be to get rid of him when Celadric came to power.
By the next day, Lord Alagrace had given Chonjara an ultimatum: accept this judgment or die.
The judgment was that General Chonjara should make public penance for slandering the Princess Quenerain. If Chonjara pleaded guilty to slander, that would do something to quell the rumours now abroad in the wide world. Chonjara deserved punishment in any case, for spying on the Princess Quenerain and intruding on her quarters in Karling Drask: Lord Alagrace did not look kindly upon such lavvbreaking, even in the name of vigilante justice.
After an interview in which Lord Alagrace converted his own fears into anger – and Lord Alagrace, when angry, was a formidable force – Chonjara accepted his fate.
The judgment was made public, and so, on a warm spring day when the floodwaters were receding, General Chonjara, his body stripped naked, presented himself at the Enskandalon Square, where a fully laden manure cart was waiting for him. There was also a large audience out to enjoy the fun.
Chonjara, his face frozen, did not seem to hear the jeers and catcalls. Among the Yarglat, public nudity was taboo, yet Chonjara showed no shame; he carried himself with arrogance, if not with pride. His chest was matted with black hairs; Yen Olass, who would not have missed the occasion for anything, thought he looked rather like a bear. Since most of the game within easy riding of Gendormargensis had been killed out, she had never seen a bear, and this was one of the minor sorrows of her life.
Chonjara turned to face Lord Alagrace.
'My lord,' said Chonjara.
His voice was flat, heavy, expressionless. Was he going to ask for a reading? Yen Olass, standing beside Lord Alagrace, had already been briefed, and had prepared a reading that would bring Chonjara more shame than any physical humiliation possibly could. Her reading began like this: 'A bear. A honey pot. Bear looks at the honeypot. Little bear. Can't have. Angry now…’
She waited. She was ready.
'I will remember this.’
So spoke Chonjara. And that was all he said. He turned his back on them, and Yen Olass saw the muscles rippling under his skin. He was a strong man – yet once he shouldered the heavy yoke, even he had trouble in getting the manure cart to move. His procession through the city took half a day, and the worst part came when he went past the fishing wrorks.
At the fishing works, young yerkels on the roof poured out a barrel of sluck, and down it came, a cascade of greasy water, floor scrapings, fish heads, disintegrating bits of flesh and bone, decayed rags and rotten sawdust. Chonjara walked on, like an animated statue, his face immobile, his eyes fixed on horizons elsewhere.
And Lord Alagrace, hearing of it – he had not followed the procession past its beginning – remembered Chonjara's words. And began practising his swordplay.
CHAPTER SIX
In the early days of spring, when the city of Gendormargensis was still talking about the public humiliation of General Chonjara, a patron asked Yen Olass Ampadara for a reading. The patron was Volaine Persaga Haveros.
'I want to know my fate,' said Haveros.
'I am not a fortune teller,' said Yen Olass.
'But you will tell me what I want to know,' said Haveros, and laid before her a fragment of blue tile.
Yen Olass knew exactly what it was. On taking the twenty-five tile map to the text-master Eldegen Terzanagel, she had found him excited, his face lit by the avid, shining greed of a newly married husband about to lay hands on his virgin (or, to be precise, his face had worn the expression Yen Olass imagined such a newly married husband might display). But when the carrier box had opened to reveal the wreckage inside, Terzanagel had been dismayed, then furious. Only six tiles had been broken, and only four were incomplete, but Terzanagel had made it seem like
