A Fall of Princes (20 page)

“Puppy.” Her slap was half caress. “It’s gone. There are
aching heads from here to Han-Gilen, but the Eye is broken. As you very nearly
were.”

“I wish I had been!” he cried with sudden passion. “I wish I
had died in Shon’ai. What use am I? Crippled, helpless, weak as a baby—what
good am I to anyone?”

“At the moment,” Mirain said coolly, “not remarkably much.”
He won back his hand and turned to Hirel. “Prince, are you well? That was a
great flare of power, and you almost upon it when it burst. If you will permit . . .”

Whether Hirel would or no, Mirain searched him with eyes and
hands and power. Sarevan, numb to the last, still could know that it was there,
and how it was wielded, and why.

But he was forgetting the vow that he had sworn. He willed
away the unshed tears and sat up.

This time no one stopped him. He set his feet on the floor,
gathered his wavering strength, rose.

His knees buckled. He stiffened them. He made them bear him
to the eastward window, though he asked no more of them there, but let them
give way until he half sat, half lay on the broad ledge.

Night had fallen without his knowing it; the air was cool
and he as bare as he was born. He shivered.

Warmth folded itself about him. One of his own cloaks, with
his mother’s hands on it and her arms circling him.

Her swift unthinking smile was for an old jest, of mothers
and strapping broad-shouldered sons. Her scowl was for the jut of bones in
those shoulders.

He kissed her cheek, quickly, before she could escape. “I’ll
be strong,” he said as much to himself as to her. “I will be.”

“Little whore.”

The voice came from beyond the door into the Green Court.
Sarevan knew it, as he knew the one that spoke after. “Yellow barbarian. You
couldn’t kill him cleanly, could you? You had to make him suffer.”

And a third: “But we know. We see what you try to do to him
now that he can’t defend himself.”

“Yes, catamite,” sneered the first, “try it. See where it
gets you.”

Sarevan shot the bolt, blind for a moment in the dazzle of
sunlight, forcing his eyes to see. Hirel stood at bay in a cluster of young
men, some in the emperor’s livery, others clad as the lordlings they were.
Sarevan knew them all. Some he even loved.

Whatever Hirel had tried, he had forsaken it in favor of his
imperial Asanian mask. Only his lips betrayed him; they were tight, and they
were bone-white.

Starion had spoken third and most ominously. Now he spoke
again. He sounded as if he had been weeping, or as if he were not far from it.
“I saw him yesterday in the stableyard. I saw how he had to be carried away.
Your doing, you and your devil of a father. You lured him into the trap that
almost killed him. You tricked him into bringing you here. You set your Eye of
sorcery in his very hand; and yet you found a way to crawl into the emperor’s
good graces. But we know you for what you are.”

“Spy and traitor,” said a prince’s son from Baian, his round
amiable face gone grim, “set here like a worm to gnaw Keruvarion’s heart. Is it
fools you animals take us for?”

“What’s the use of talk?” Ianyn, this massive yearling bull
of a boy, not quite the tallest but by far the broadest of them all. “He’s
Asanian; he was born with a serpent’s tongue, though he’s not deigning to use
it on the likes of us. Not when he’s got royalty to hiss in the ears of. Here,
little snake, I’ll tie your tongue for you.”

Hirel spat in his face.

Sarevan hardly heard the snarl, or saw the lunge of several
bodies at once. He was in the midst of them, striking open-handed, taking at
least one blow that all but felled him, until someone cried sharply, “Vayan!”

The circle had widened in dismay. Sarevan almost laughed to see
their faces. With great deliberation he laid his arm about Hirel’s rigid
shoulders and said, “So there you are, brother. I’ve been looking for you.”

Starion broke at that. “Don’t you know what he is, Vayan?”

“Certainly,” Sarevan answered. And to Hirel: “Come with me.
There’s something I want you to see.”

“How can you show him anything? How can you trust him? He’s
here to destroy us all, and you foremost.”

Sarevan drew a deep breath.

“He’s so thin,” someone whispered, too low to put a name to
the voice; and Sarevan would not take his eyes from Starion. “So weak. O
’Varyan!”

Sarevan swallowed bile and spoke as evenly as he could.
“Kinsmen, your concern warms me. But I would thank you to reserve your
righteous passion for those who truly mean me harm. Of whom this prince is not
one. Touch him again, threaten him, speak one ill word of him, and it will be I
who call you to account.” He drew Hirel forward. “Come.”

o0o

“That was not wise,” Hirel said.

Sarevan laughed lest the pain lash him into shameful tears. “What’s
wise? I’ve pulled rank on that pack of idiots before. Though not,” he admitted,
“quite so viciously as that. I’m afraid I’ve not done you much good with them.”

“Or yourself, either.”

“That’s nothing. They’ll mutter a little, they’ll
cold-shoulder me for a while, and then they’ll come back as if nothing had ever
happened. They always do.”

“Unless they are driven too far.”

“Not yet,” said Sarevan with more confidence than he felt.
He opened a locked door, passing again from dimness into the heat and glare of
noon in full summer, and had his reward: the catch of Hirel’s breath. “This is
my own garden. My father and mother made it for me with their power. It’s not
as big as it looks.”

“The pool seems as broad as a sea,” Hirel said, sounding for
once like the boychild he was. “A sea, and a forest, and a green plain. What
mountain is that?”

“The palace wall, painted and ensorceled to look like the
peak of Zigayan as it rises over Lake Umien.” Sarevan shed his kilt and waded
into the water. After a long moment Hirel followed. Sarevan struck his shoulder
lightly, challenging. “Race you to the island.”

Hirel won, but only barely. They lay on the grass, getting
their breaths, back, grinning at one another and at the brazen sky.

Hirel’s grin died first; his frown came back. “Sun-prince, I
was in no danger, and I was about to escape. You had no need to go to war for
me.”

“No? It looked as if they were going to war for me.”
Something in Hirel’s face made Sarevan tense, rolling onto his stomach, raising
himself on his elbows. “What is it? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie, cubling. You’re no good at it.”

“Very well, mongrel. I will tell you. They are indeed going
to war for you. And not they alone. It is noised abroad in your empire: my
father and I between us fomented this plot to destroy you, and through you your
father and all his realm. Your people are crying for vengeance. Your lords and
your princes are arming for war. Your wise men are calling for calm, but no one
heeds them.”

Despite the sun’s heat, Sarevan was cold to the bone. He had
come to Endros for his father’s sake, with warning of war in Asanion; with
hope, however frail, that he could hold it back. And he had failed more utterly
even than he had feared. Coming as he had come, on the very edge of death, he
had fanned the spark that he had meant to quench. Now it was a full and raging
fire; and all for his own invincible folly.

“No,” he said. “Not yet. My father has a little sanity left.
He will stop it.”

Hirel laughed, short and bitter. “Your father could ask for
nothing better. He has you, alive and well enough, and he has the war for which
he has waited so long. By next High Summer, he has sworn, he will sit on the
Golden Throne.”

“No.” Sarevan could not stop saying it. “Not for me.”

The boy’s face hovered close. He looked frightened.

As well he might. Sarevan was losing what little wits he had
had. He lurched to his knees; his fists struck the ground. He flung himself
into the water.

o0o

He must have remembered to dress. His hair had worked out
of its braid, but it was drying; and for the first time since he left Shon’ai,
his body had forborne to betray him. It carried him he cared not where.

To his tower, in the end. To court dress and the massive
weight of his torque and a feast to which he had not been bidden.

Because someone—Shatri, damn his diligence—had made him rest
a little, he was late. They were all seated. Emperor, empress, Lord of the
Northern Realms, Lord Chancellor of the South, their ladies, their servants,
certain of their children. And in the place of honor, still as a golden image,
Hirel Uverias.

Their eyes weighed him down. Most were seeing him for the
first time since he came back. He read horror in them, and dismay, and pity
swiftly veiled. And anger, deep and abiding, most strongly marked in the
youngest, who were his kin and his friends.

He gave them his whitest, wildest grin, and said, “Good
evening, my lords and ladies. I hear you’re having a war without me.”

No one spoke. He did not look at his father, or at his mother,
although he knew she had half risen. He sat beside Hirel and reached for a
brimming cup. He raised it. “To death,” he said.

o0o

He paid for that, and not cheaply. Not that Mirain dealt
him a reprimand. The emperor said nothing, which was infinitely worse. And
Sarevan must sit, eat, drink, prove to them all that he was still Sarevan
Is’kelion.

He woke as inevitably he must, in a bed not his own. Hirel
slept in a warm knot against him. “Damn them,” he whispered. “Oh, damn them.”

“Damn whom?”

He started up, winced, clutched his stomach, fell back, torn
between anger and mirth. “Cubling! I thought you were asleep.”

“Obviously not.” Hirel settled more comfortably, head on
folded arm. His eyes were soft still with sleep. “Damn whom?” he asked again.

“Everyone!” Hirel raised his brows. Sarevan had better
fortune in his second rising. He spread his arms wide. “They’ve made me an
object of rage and pity, a banner for their war.”

“I know,” said Hirel. “It amazes me that you did not. That
you came as you did, when you did, in my company—how could it have ended
otherwise?”

Sarevan’s own thoughts, bitter to hear from a stranger’s
mouth. His hand flew up to strike; with all his strength he willed it down.

“You should be rejoicing,” the young demon said. “You are
getting a war. A chance to look splendid in armor and brandish a sword and win
a hero’s name. Is that not the heart’s desire of every good barbarian?”

“Barbarian I may be,” gritted Sarevan, “but I will not be
the cause of this war. I will not.”

“Is it not a little late for that?”

“It may not be.” Sarevan stopped short. His teeth clicked
together. “It is not. I will not have it!”

For a miracle, Hirel was silent. Sarevan’s chin itched. His
fingers rasped on stubble; he grimaced, rising slowly.

His knees were steady. A wave of sickness passed, and it was
all wine. No weakness. He stretched each muscle, and each responded,
remembering at last its old suppleness. As close to rage or madness as he was,
he could have sung.

He availed himself of Hirel’s bath and servants, and sent
for his own clothing, and ate while he waited for it, for a mighty hunger had
roused in him. Which was an excellent sign, better even than the ease with
which he moved.

When he dressed, he dressed with care, contemplating his
image in the tall bronze mirror. Clean, smooth-shaven, his hair tamed as much
as it could ever be: yes. And the princely plainness of his boots and trousers,
and the understated elegance of his coat, and the rich red gold of the torque
at his throat: excellent.

His eyes were too large and bright in the hollowed face, but
that he could not help; though he had a moment’s regret. If he had had all his
wits about him, he would not have sacrificed the concealment of his beard.

He sighed and shrugged, and smiled at Hirel whose reflection
had come to stand beside his own. Hirel looked him up and down, eyes glinting.
“Are you plotting to seduce someone?”

“Keruvarion,” Sarevan answered.

The boy tilted his head and vouchsafed one of his rare
smiles. He looked like a cat in cream.

Sarevan swallowed. It hurt. “Hirel,” he said with great
care, “last night. What did I—”

“You were remarkable,” said Hirel. “You were the life and
soul of the gathering. You were a light and a fire, and you held each man and
woman in the palm of your hand.”

“Of course I did. That’s what I went for. But why was I—”
This was hard, and Hirel was making it no easier, going all warm and supple and
melting-eyed. Playing some game of his own, and enjoying it much too much. “How
did I end in your bed?”

“You do not remember?”

His astonishment was well played, but not well enough.
Sarevan fixed him with a grim eye. “All right, cubling. What did I do, and what
are you up to?”

Hirel dropped the mask of the courtesan for that of the
spoiled princeling, a little sulky, more than a little offended. “You did
nothing. Except drown yourself in wine, roister everyone into a stupor, and
fall into bed. Mine. Because, you said, two hundred steps were too many, and
people were talking, and you were minded to give them something to talk of.
Surely you remember.”

“Vaguely,” Sarevan admitted. “Now answer the rest of it.”

“No.”

Sarevan gripped that stubborn chin, forced it up. It set
against him. With a rush of temper, he bent and seized a long, thorough kiss.
Thorough enough to bruise, and long enough to heat them both.

He let go so swiftly that Hirel swayed. “Is that what you’re
angling for?”

Hirel bared his teeth. It was more grin than snarl. “It will
do,” he said, “for a beginning.”

Sarevan’s temper subsided; he took Hirel’s shoulders, but
gently, shaking them a little. “They’re only a pack of jealous children. For
all their prattle, they know the truth as well as we do.”