'This dralkosh,' said Lord Alagrace. 'She worked magic on many men… deluded their senses. Turned them against the law. Made them mad. And you… you were one of the victims.’
'But the princess?’
'You drugged her. People will believe that. But even so
'I know what the punishment is,' said Haveros. 'I can live with that.’
Even for a man seduced from the righteous path by the occult arts of a dralkosh, there was still punishment in store. Otherwise men would constantly have yielded to such seduction without a struggle. Ruefully, Haveros rubbed his left ear, which would soon be missing: then he gave a little grin. He was going to live: he could not subdue his high spirits.
'An exile's life is a hard one,' said Lord Alagrace.
'Oh, I'll survive,' said Haveros.
He already knew where he would go and whom he would turn to, but he had no intention of telling Lord Alagrace, who would have been extemely alarmed to know that Haveros planned to seek help from the Lord Emperor Khmar.
'Done, then,' said Lord Alagrace. 'Done,' said Haveros.
And they bowed to each other, and Lord Alagrace departed to attend to the necessary business. The dralkosh was extracted from the mob; after negotiations, she confessed to bewitching Haveros, among others; the baby was put into the care of a good family, and the dralkosh was stoned to death.
Haveros admitted succumbing to the madness engendered by the dralkosh; his left ear was cut off and he left the city in an ignominious fashion, with whips chasing him as he rode out on a broomstick like a child riding an imaginary horse. The law allowed him twenty days of grace in which he could flee without hindrance; after that, every man's hand would be against him, and it would be death for him to be caught within the boundaries of the empire until ten years had elapsed.
For the Princess Quenerain, there was a special Ceremony of Cleansing, at the end of which she was once more officially a virgin, and free to continue as head of the Rite of Purification.
Yen Olass escaped without punishment: her involvement in the scandal did not become public knowledge. Haveros and the Princess Quenerain had nothing to gain by naming someone privy to their intimacies, while Lord Alagrace dared not risk an inquiry that might find he had suborned an oracle for his own political purposes.
Lord Alagrace dispatched a report on the affair to the Lord Emperor Khmar, requesting direction regarding the vacant position of Lord Commander of the Imperial City of Gendormargensis; that duty done, he was free to brood about his own failings, among which he numbered fear, indecisiveness and a small but undeniable degree of ineptitude.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Midsummer's Day initiated a new year, Khmar 19, which did not get off to an auspicious start. Drought fostered forest fires and brought a water shortage to the surrounding region; stones fell from the heavens, and then a comet appeared in the northern sky, causing an outbreak of dralkosh hunting; the Yolantarath River fell below memory's lowest level; there was a rumour of cholera, an outbreak of equine enteritis and a plague of mice; a child was bitten by a mad dog and died of rabies, and a cat by the name of Lefrey succumbed to a virulent form of influenza and passed away, a tragedy which greatly distressed an oracle by the name of Yen Olass Ampadara.
Things could have got worse, but improved instead. Rain fell; the river rose; a new holy man appeared, and had some success in persuading Gendormargensis that the habit of stoning women to death had got out of hand; the leader of a long-standing slave rebellion was captured and crucified, and his remains fed raw to some of his followers who had been detained in the starvation cages; from the south came news of success, conquest and victory.
Then, when all seemed to be going well – the autumn promised a bumper harvest – dispatches arrived from the Lord Emperor Khmar. Lord Pentalon Alagrace was ordered south to the newly conquered port of Favanosin, where the emperor would be waiting for him. General Chonjara and the Princess Quenerain were to travel with him. Khmar did not say why he wanted these three, but Lord Alagrace could guess. Doubtless Khmar, unhappy with the administration of justice in Gendormargensis, was ordering all three south for punishment.
What else could it be?
Khmar specifically ordered Lord Alagrace to 'leave your tame league riders in Gendormargensis', which was ominous, to say the least.
Lord Alagrace informed Chonjara and the princess of the emperor's wishes, then revised his will. Khmar, who was not the world's most responsible administrator, had failed to make two vital appointments, so Lord Alagrace nominated two of the more sober-headed high-born Yarglat clansmen to act as Lawmaker and Imperial Commander of the city until further notice.
While a staff officer organized a convoy for the journey south, Lord Alagrace completed his personal business then conferred with Yen Olass Ampadara. He explained his position. He was going south; he would have to face the emperor; Khmar was a ruthless and unpredictable judge. If faced with the prospect of immediate death, Lord Alagrace planned to ask the emperor to listen to a reading. It was known that Khmar did not travel in the company of oracles; would Yen Olass consent to go south to Favanosin to give a reading?
Yen Olass once again advised Lord Alagrace to flee the empire; when he refused, she agreed to travel south with him to risk Khmar's anger.
Any mission to the emperor was dangerous, because Khmar was given to extravagant outbursts of rage and violence. Nevertheless, he was capable of generosity, and sometimes indulged his own sly sense of humour in remarkable ways. It would be difficult for an oracle to manipulate Khmar, but not impossible; he could never be led by the nose, but ways might be found to give him a little nudge in the right direction. It was, in a way, the ultimate challenge; the thought of it made Yen Olass afraid, and that was one reason why she accepted.
Her actions were also conditioned by her awareness of discreet enquiries which the Sisterhood was making about her activities. Her Midsummer Report, detailing her activity for Khmar 18, had come back to her with lists of questions; after many days of waiting, she was not yet certain if her answers had proved acceptable. All things considered, it seemed a good idea to get out of Gendormargensis.
Lord Alagrace was, in many ways, her protector; if he left, then Yen Olass would lose many of her privileges, and would be vulnerable to any investigation which challenged her behaviour. If he died, she could seek some other protector in the south; if he was exiled, perhaps he would take her into exile with him. Yen Olass began to wonder what Lord Alagrace would be like as a lover, a bedmate, a husband. He was old, yes, but he would be better than what she had at the moment – which, since Lefrey died, was nothing.
Yen Olass quit her quarters in Moon Stallion Strait, and moved into Lord Alagrace's residence for her last few days in Gendormargensis. She spent whole evenings in the stables, packing and repacking her saddle bags. Her klon, her dreamquilt and a few other oddments went into a storeroom under lock and key, and Yen Olass made the housekeeper swear to guard those valuables with her life. Yen Olass wheedled a sabre out of the armoury, and cut herself three times sharpening it.
She was leaving Gendormargensis!
She extracted some money out of Lord Alagrace and bought new boots, new foot bindings and a lightweight coat of rabbit skin which she could wear over her fleece-lined weather jacket when it was too warm to wear a snow-coat. There was more than a little money left over – Lord Alagrace had only a vague idea of what things cost, and Yen Olass was ferocious when in pursuit of a bargain – so she indulged herself outrageously by spending some of it on a piece of a cone of sugar, which came from the south and was extremely expensive.
Since she might never return to Gendormargensis, Yen Olass now, for the first time, actually got round to visiting the Velpliski Statue Gardens, famous throughout much of the surrounding territory, but patronized by few of the inhabitants of the city itself. It was a quiet place, full of grass, moss, sunshine, flowers, olum trees, groves of grey sprite bamboo, plum trees, and, of course, statues – of men, of women, of children and of animals. Including bears.
The largest statues were those of a dragon and a whale. The whale looked like a bulbous log with a few half- defined excrescences growing from its body. This monster was said to live in the sea, a ship-length of quiescent
