nightmares to even his cruelest soldiers.
The chief of the witch queen's eunuch guard greeted him, twitching his head in a perfunctory bow and asking him to wait while Rhodes was announced to his mother. The eunuchs were all enormous men-the chief guard was almost as large as Rhodes-thick slabs of muscle beneath even thicker slabs of fat.
Except their muscles were diligently exercised, whereas Rhodes had done nothing at all for a long time except eat, drink and shed tears over his starving treasury.
When he was granted permission to enter, Rhodes walked into his mother's salon with some trepidation.
Mighty ruler of Hanadu though he might be, his mother was a powerful influence over him. She wasn't exactly the power behind the throne, but what she wanted she generally got. And her son lived in fear for her favor. Something he had been out of for a long time now. Specifically, since he'd lost his first battle with Palimak.
Queen Clayre had been his father's third wife-taken to seal an alliance. Big as she was, she was perfectly constructed in proportion: long shapely legs and arms, a marvelous bosom and an hour-glass form. When Princess Clayre had wed his father that beauty-flowing out of such a large package-had made her a rather exotic bride and his father couldn't get enough of her in their early days. At least, this was what Rhodesa€™ mother frequently told him, as her body slaves gathered round to make her up and clothe her in robes which fairly flowed over a still near- perfect form.
Rhodes doubted that she exaggerated very much. To this day Queen Clayre was considered one of the most beautiful women in Syrapis. She was also renowned for her lusty appetites and took young lovers frequently and casually. She was quite discrete, however, surrounding herself and her ladies in waiting with eunuch guards whose loyalties were fierce and unquestioning.
It was one of those guards who greeted the king as he entered the chamber. He was quickly turned over to the chief eunuch who led Rhodes into her presence. He didn't announce the king, instead putting a finger to his lips to ask the queen's son for silence. Rhodes looked across the ornate chamber and saw his mother bent over her spelltable that was littered with ancient scrolls which were piled next to little jars filled with magical potions and powders.
Only the center of the table was clear. Although Rhodes couldn't actually see, what was there, he knew very well what it contained. Set into the table was a large area with tiles of pure gold, all encrusted with gems and arranged to form a pentagram.
Clayre seemed to be studying one of the parchments, glancing once in a while at the pentagram, then nodding as if to confirm her speculations.
She was dressed in the finest robes, all decorated with the magical symbols that declared her the High Priestess of Charize. Around her neck was a many-layered necklace made of black pearls. Some years before, six men working from tide to tide-day in and day out-had shortened their lives by many years to gather the pearly parts that made up his mother's necklace.
As Rhodes dutifully waited for his mother's attention, he saw sparkling red lights leap from one strand of the necklace to the next and back again, as if the pearls were alive with some inner force. Which, of course, they were, since Queen Clayre was a powerful witch.
Rhodes worried at a hang nail, thinking about his mother. Daughter of a minor king, she should have had little influence over his father's court. But she had proved to be a genius at harem intrigue. Within a few years of her only son's birth she'd removed her two rivals.
One by hired assassination-or, at least, that was what palace rumor said. Rhodes knew for a fact that his mother had used magic, plus her feminine charms, to work her will on one of her rival's sons. And it was that son who had slain his own mother, then committed suicide after he'd come out of his trance and seen what he had done.
The other rival she'd killed herself, smothering the woman with a pillow while the rest of the harem watched. Even the big eunuchs guarding the harem didn't dare interfere, because by then everyone feared his mother.
The two murders had made Rhodes crown prince, although this claim was disputed by his half-brothers and half-sisters who had been borne by his father's other two wives. But Rhodesa€™ mother worked hard to ensure his succession.
She put together a salon that welcomed the best athletes of the time. And she spent her money freely to buy the wisest scholar-slaves available in Syrapis. These athletes and scholars Rhodes teachers for his body and mind throughout his young years. And their wise words were backed up by his mother, who taught her son everything she knew about court politics.
At six, Rhodes could lift the fifty-pound stone shot that was favored for the mobile catapults. At eleven, he'd stalked his twenty-year-old half-brother-and his main rival to the throne-from one trysting place to another. His rival had a weakness-a fatal weakness as it turned out-for other men's wives. As a matter of fact, Rhodes had finally caught his brother at the very seaward wall he'd perched upon to spy on Palimak.
Just to the right of the base of the catapult was a little alcove. A sheltered altar to some minor god, whose name no one could remember. It was also a favorite meeting place for lovers.
As Rhodes waited nervously, he thought about that fateful day. Drawing strength from the memory. He grinned as the image rose up of the honey-tongued weakling who had opposed him so long ago. The mother of Rhodesa€™ princely rival had been an ambitious second wife. She'd named her son Stokalo after the legendary Syrapian prince who had been banished by his cruel father but who had eventually returned from the sea to win back his rightful throne.
Stokalo was strong, but not so strong as Rhodes. He had an agile mind, a mind schooled in warfare by Rhodesa€™ father, who favored Stokalo even after the life had been choked out of Stokalo's mother by the offending pillow. But he was not so smart as Rhodes, who as a boy used to humiliate him in games of chess.
Rhodes thought of that day when his sibling, angry over a defeat, had laid himself wide open for elimination. He'd sent a message to his most recent lover-the young wife of a great general. The message said that they were to meet at the seaward wall where the fun would commence. Naturally, a spy who favored Rhodes had gotten a glimpse of that message and had passed on the news.
So the thirteen-year-old Rhodes had raced to the alcove ahead of the sinful couple. Lurked in the shadows until Stokalo was fully engaged-his lover pinned against the wall, gown hoisted above her hips-and then had crept up behind them.
A meaty hand grasped his brother's neck and a heavy knee jammed into his backbone, breaking it as easily as if it had been a twig in a drought forest. The woman had been too panicked to scream and had only moaned, cowering against the wall, as Rhodes lifted up his brother's dead body up and hurled it over the side.
He had thought about killing the woman on the spot-eliminating the only witness to the murder. Instead, he'd given her a chance to live or die and she'd chosen the wiser course.
First, by servicing the young Prince Rhodes. Second, by claiming that she'd inadvertently witnessed Stokalo's suicide while taking an evening stroll to catch the air.
Rhodes stirred a finger in his dirty beard, aroused by the memories of the means he'd finally used to eliminate Stokalo's former lover not many months later.
But before he could relax into that treasured memory, his mother coughed. He glanced up, starting when he saw her beckoning him.
As he approached, she said, 'I have news, my son. Both fair and foul.'
Her eyes were glowing, full of witchy power-making her appear even more beautiful than usual. 'The foul news,' she went on, 'is that Queen Charize is dead. Slain by Palimak Timura.'
As that disaster smacked him in the gut, Clayre waved it away as if it were nothing. Chortling in her rich, deep, earthy voice.
'The fair news,' she said, 'is that I've found someone better to replace her. Several someones, actually.
'And what they hate, above all things, is anyone named Timura!'
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
