Ships from the West

value of compromise, but it is like trying to reason with a stone. He must have someone of experience in the darker wiles of the world beside him, to help him see that a sword is not the answer to everything.'

'You flatter me, lady. But the confidence of a king is not an easily won thing.'

'He admires competence and plain speaking. From what I have heard you possess both. But there is another thing. When I am gone there will not be a single practitioner of the Dweomer at court, save only my daughter. She also needs guidance. There is a wellspring of power in her that quite eclipses anything in my experience. I would not have her explore the Dweomer alone.' Odelia looked away. Her with­ered hands picked restlessly at the heavy weave of the cover­let. 'I would she had been born without it. It would make her life easier.

'Your people and mine have chosen a different side in this war, Golophin. The wrong side. They had little choice in the matter, it is true, but they will suffer for it. They may even be destroyed by it.'

Something astonishing dawned on Golophin.

'You are against this war.'

Odelia managed a tight smile. 'Not against it, but I have my doubts about fighting it to the bitter end. The Dweomer runs in my blood as it does in yours, and in my daughter's. I believe this Aruan to be evil, but many of the aims he espouses are not. We will not be fighting Merduks in the time to come, but fellow Ramusians - not that there is much to tell between us all now, I suppose. And I do not want a pogrom of the Dweomer-folk to stain Corfe's victory, if he should gain one. There must come an end to this senseless persecution of those who practise magic'

Golophin felt a wave of relief. He was not a traitor then. His doubts were not his alone. And Bardolin might not be the evil puppet he had feared, but a man trying to do the right thing in difficult circumstances. The thing he had so wanted to be true might well be so.

'Lady,' he said, 'you have my word that when the time comes I will be by your husband's side. If needs be I will make myself his conscience.'

Odelia closed her eyes. ‘I ask no more. Thank you, Brother Mage. You have eased an old woman's mind.'

Golophin bowed, and as he did he found himself thinking that here in Torunna he had found a king and queen who were somehow larger than the monarchs he had known hitherto. Abeleyn, who had become a good ruler before the end, even a great one, seemed now but a boy beside Corfe of Torunna, the soldier-king. And this frail woman breathing her last before him: she was a worthy consort. There was a greatness here in this country that would remain the stuff of legend, no matter how many centuries passed it by.

He laid a hand on the Queen's forehead and her eyes fluttered open, the lashes feathering against his palm.

'Hush now.'

The Dweomer in Odelia had sunk down to a smoking ember. It would never kindle into light again, but it was all that was keeping her alive. That, and this woman's indomit­able will. She might have been a mage - the promise was there - but she had never undergone the training necessary to make her powers bloom. Anger stirred in Golophin. How many others, humble and great across this blinkered world, had wasted their gifts similarly? Bardolin was right. The world could have been different, could still be different. There might still be time.

He gave Odelia sleep, a heavy healing sleep, and with his own powers he stoked up that last ember glowing within her, coaxed it into a last flicker of life. Then he sat back, poured himself some more of the fragrant wine, and mused upon the crooked course of this darkening earth.

Eleven

Aurungzeb stirred lazily with a kiss of silk hissing about his hams. ‘I like that woman. I have always liked her. As direct as a man, but with a mind as subtle as an assassin's.'

He rolled over in the bed and the sturdy hardwood frame creaked under him. The white-limbed girl who shared it with him scurried nimbly out of the way as his vast bulk settled and he sighed comfortably.

Ancient Akran, the vizier, leant on a staff that had once been ceremonial but now was genuinely necessary. He stood on the other side of a curtain of gauzy silk which hung like fog around the Sultan's monumental four- poster.

'She is . . . remarkable, my Sultan, it must be said. Making arrangements for her husband's wedding while she, his wife, is yet living. That argues a formidable degree of will.'

'He will accept, of course. But I find myself worrying all the same. Perhaps we sent out the embassy too soon. I am not convinced that he will see past the unseemly haste of the thing. Corfe is as cold and murderous as a winter wolf, but there is a stiff propriety about him. These Ramusians - well, they are not Ramusian any longer, I suppose, but our brothers-in-faith after all - they see marriage in a different light to the rest of us. The Prophet, may God be good to him, never said that a man should have one spouse only, and for a monarch, well . . . How can a man maintain his dignity with just the one wife? How can he be wholly sure of a son to follow him? Torunna's Queen may be a marvellous woman in many respects, but that did not stop her womb from proving as barren as a salted field. Or near as damn it. One child in sixteen years, and a girl at that. And the bearing of it rendered her a virtual invalid by all accounts. If he has any red blood in his veins at all, Corfe ought to jump at this chance. A beautiful young woman to share his bed and bear him sons? And she is beautiful, Akran. As fair as her mother once was.

'No, unseemly haste or not, Torunna's Queen and myself are of the one mind on this matter. And the fruit of this new union will be my grandchild. Think of that, Akran! My grandson on the throne of Torunna!'

Akran bowed, straightening with the aid of his staff and stifling a groan. 'And what of this other union, sire? The Prince Nasir is impatient to know more of his intended bride.'

Aurungzeb's grin faded into the bristling darkness of his beard. He levered himself into a sitting position, helped by the nude girl beside him, and while she leant against his back to keep him upright, he stroked his bearded chin with one plump, hairy hand, the rings upon it sparkling like a brilliant, tiny constellation.

'Ah, yes. The girl. A good match, a balancing of the scales.' He lowered his voice and peered into the grey mist of the surrounding gauze. 'They say she is a witch, you know. Like her mother.'

'It may be court gossip sire, no more.'

'It matters not; that shall be Nasir's problem, not mine.' He boomed with sudden laughter, shaking the slim, straining shoulders of the girl who was supporting him.

'The Prince has expressed a wish to see this girl before he marries her. He is in fact relaying through me a request to go to Torunn to meet this Princess Mirren face to face.' Akran licked his thin lips nervously.

Aurungzeb frowned. 'He will hold his tongue and do as he is told. What does it matter to him how this girl looks? He will plough her furrow and plant in her a son, and then for recreation he shall have a garden of concubines. The young! They hatch such absurd ideas.'

'He also would like to visit Torunn in order to—'

'What? Spit it forth.'

'He wants to see something of his mother's homeland.' Aurungzeb's eyebrows shot up his face like two caterpillars on strings. 'Does something ail the boy?' Akran coughed delicately. 'I believe the Queen has been telling him stories about the history of her people. I beg your pardon, my Sultan. I mean the people she once belonged to.'

'I know what you mean,' Aurungzeb growled. 'And I was aware of it. She has been filling his head with tall tales of John Mogen and Kaile Ormann. She would do better to prate to him of Indun Meruk or Shahr Baraz.'

With a titanic heave, the Sultan hauled himself off the bed. He struggled through the flimsy veil that surrounded it, and sashed close his silk dressing gown. Barefoot, he padded over to a small gilt table that glittered in the light of the overhead lamps. His soles slapped loudly on the marble floor, for he was an immense man with a pendulous paunch. He gently lifted the brindled length of his beard out of the bosom of his robe and poured himself a goblet of sharp-smelling amber liquid from a silver jug.

He sipped at it, his face changing. There was no trace of joviality left in it now. His eyes were two black stones.

'What do we know of the current situation at Gaderion?' he snapped.

'There has been fighting in the open country between the two defensive lines, sire, and the Torunnans may