'You came south. You followed the same road as Alagrace.’
'Did I make the chase too easy then?' said Yen Olass. 'Should I have gone to east, or to west?' Khmar grunted again.
'You talk of Losh Negis, but when you get here, it's Alagrace you've chosen as your master.’
'A woman must have a man to serve,' said Yen Olass. 'Since Losh Negis will not master me to his purpose, I must serve what man demands me.’
'You are not a woman yet,' said Khmar. 'Just a girl. Perhaps you feared to be made a woman.’
Yen Olass lowered her eyes.
'I hoped with fear. I will not say I was not afraid. This filly feared, yet hoped for a stallion. She has not been gratified.’
'Losh Negis,' said Khmar, 'has sat by the fire too long. There is a disease. Men call it civilization. He has begun to suffer. He needs something wild enough to cure him. I'll send you north, and he can face the consequences. If he really needs me to break his women to service, there's something wrong with him.’
And Khmar reached out, and touched her. His hand was warm against her cheek. Yen Olass did not know what emotion was appropriate, and therefore showed none.
'A man should have had you sooner,' said Khmar. 'In my grandfather's day, you would not have waited so long. There was no Sisterhood then. No sewing up.’
'The empire was smaller then,' said Celadric, his voice oboe-smooth. 'Simplicities sufficed.’
'Then and now,' said Khmar.
'We are faced with the case of a slave who ran away from the Sisterhood,' said Celadric. 'From Losh Negis.’
'From the Sisterhood,' said Celadric. 'She had not been handed over to the Ondrask when she fled.' 'A quibble,' said Khmar.
'No,' said Celadric. 'A point in law. You have seen the correspondence. It is the Sisterhood which demands that she go under the spikes.’
Khmar grunted, and glared at his son. He had not, of course, read any correspondence on the matter, though he might have had some read out loud to him.
'The law is my law,' said Khmar. 'The Sisterhood obeys me.’
'You can enforce your law in Gendormargensis as you wish,' said Celadric. 'But at what cost? The Sisterhood serves us in many ways. Since the Blood Purge, who else can we rely on for order in Gendormargensis? If this slave can challenge the Sisterhood, others will surely try it.' 'So?’
'So kill this worthless female inlet, otherwise you may one day have to kill people you value.’
Yen Olass by now had conceived a murderous hatred for Celadric. As she listened to the cool, elegant young man writing her life off, she wished she could tear his face off.
For a moment, her life hung in the balance. Khmar was undecided. He did not like being lectured by his son. Nevertheless, there was some truth in what Celadric said.
'In my youth,' said Khmar, 'I rode females as you ride horses. The filly is far from worthless. The fault lies with Losh Negis. With some speed for the hunt, he would have made her his woman. If he chose to sit in his yashram poking his fire, he can't hope for my sympathy. He loses his woman.’
'But the Sisterhood-’
'I declare the slave sold to Losh Negis,' said Khmar. He hunted for one of the foreign words introduced into Eparget to express legal terms necessary for ruling an empire, yet lacking from the language of the Yarglat. He found what he was looking for. 'Retrospectively. A word which alters history, yes? I did not believe it, but my son once told me it was just so. Yes. Retrospectively.’
Yen Olass saw that Khmar was poking a little fun at his son, and enjoying it. Dragging out some more ponderous legalese, savouring its alien flavour, Khmar continued:
'The Sisterhood's claims to the slave are null and void. It is Losh Negis who owns her. And it is I, Khmar, who takes the woman from him. Because I love him. Because I wish to stir the man in him. Because I wish to remind him that he is too young to squat by his fireside – and to remind him what happens when he does. The woman can stay with Alagrace, as his oracle.’
'She cannot be an oracle,' said Celadric, 'for an oracle, by definition, is a servant of the Sisterhood. She-’
'She's sewn up tight enough,' said Khmar. 'That makes her oracle enough for me. Yen Olass – you will be Khmar's oracle. Khmar's own Sisterhood in the south. Till I'm dead. Then my son will kill you.’
Khmar hawked, and spat on the floor.
'You think I hawk and spit because I'm a barbarian,' said Khmar, addressing Yen Olass. 'Well, I am. And proud of it. I'm my own man, not like my son, owned by a thousand weightless talk-talk men, castrated dancing boys the lot of them.’
He glared, and pointed at Celadric.
'I can see what's coming when I'm gone. Perfume-farting hairdressers made ministers of state. Shit-soft little law-voicers snuggling up the emperor's ear, pleading discretion. Well, not till I'm dead. That's for certain. That's something.’
He turned his attention to Lord Alagrace.
'Oh, Alagrace will love it when I'm dead. Old woman-breasted Alagrace. He's waiting for it.’
'My lord-’
'I never said you'd hasten it! Only that you waited for it. Isn't that so? Well? Tell me? Is he waiting for it?’
The question was for Yen Olass. She sensed that the question was a test of some kind. She had to presume that her life depended on the answer. For the moment, Khmar had granted her life. Yet, if he executed Lord Alagrace – as a traitor, perhaps? – he might slaughter her as well. Had he planned it that way? Was he amusing himself, by giving her a hope of survival, just so he could take it away?
'Well?' said Khmar.
'The question,' said Celadric, 'is not rhetorical.' 'Who is it who asks me to play politics?' said Yen Olass. 'Is it you?’
Her question was directed at Celadric. She was hoping that whatever answer he gave would entangle father and son in an argument, distracting attention from her. She desperately needed time to think. But Celadric did not get a chance to speak.
'I do!' said Khmar.
'Am I the road or the traveller?' said Yen Olass.
Now all her training and experience as an oracle was being brought into play. She felt as if she observed the proceedings from a staggering height. She felt lucid. Weightless. She saw everything with hallucinatory clarity: Khmar's predatory eyes, Celadric's cool disdain, the relentless scrutiny of the bodyguards, the intense blue of the sky framed by a flap-window, the sharp pinpricks of sunlight stabbing through the leather of the tent where a seam was tearing apart.
'You are both and neither,' said Khmar.
Her feint had been deliberately cryptic, sounding out his intentions. By the way he had parried, he had refused to hint at the answer he wanted.
'Khmar is dead,' said Yen Olass, slowly. 'Lord Alagrace and Celadric meet in conference. They had once thought to inherit an empire which they could shape at will. Now they find they are locked in a struggle of life and death with the powers of Argan. The struggle will last out their lives and beyond. They find they have not inherited an empire: they have inherited Khmar.’
There was silence. Yen Olass conjured up an image of amber. Contemplating the everspan peace of encapsulated light, she meditated.
'Who tells you of Khmar's wars?' said Khmar, frowning; the invasion of Argan was a long-standing part of the empire's policy of expansion, but the imminence of that invasion was not supposed to be common knowledge.
'The whole waterfront talks of it,' said Yen Olass. 'It is said that soldiers talk because they have tongues. That suggests a remedy, if I could name the culprits: but I cannot.’
'And what were you doing on the waterfront? said Khmar.
The question caught Yen Olass off balance. Unable to conjure up a plausible lie – she had lied so often to save her life that by now the truth seemed lethal – she told the bare facts.
'Finding out where the gaplax come from,' said Yen Olass.
