The Usurper's Crown (13 page)

Well, soon the world would change. Soon, all the worlds would change.

For the moment, however, there were appearances to be maintained.

The smallest side chamber of Yamuna’s apartment was lined with shelves, and the shelves were lined with jars of all shapes and sizes: tall, narrow jars of glass filled with smoky liquids; thick, squat alabaster jars that were impossibly cold to the touch; jars of red clay sealed in red wax; small obsidian jars the size of a child’s hand that gleamed in the light; jars of cut crystal from the far north; jars of pure white porcelain from Hung Tse.

No slave tended these shelves. Yamuna had warned them all away years ago. No hand touched the jars save his own.

The jar he reached for today was on the middle shelf; a graceful carafe carved of cinnabar, corked tightly and sealed with beeswax imprinted with three sigils known only to a handful of living men. Yamuna carried the jar to the center of the chamber and set it on the floor. Beside it he set a piece of blank parchment. Then, he cracked the beeswax seal, breaking the sigils, and pulled the stopper.

Yamuna stepped back. “Your master calls you forth!”

There was no billow of smoke, nor any flash of light or peal of thunder. Such details were for children’s tales. There was only silence, and cold, as the chill of death seeped from the jar where it had been confined. Slowly, it cocooned the room with cold. Only then did the dead man crawl forth.

Agnidh
Harshul climbed painfully from his prison, cramped and crabbed, suffering from his cold confinement and having no choice but to suffer. In life, he had been a tall man, strong in his body and comfortable in his power. Pleased with his role as
Agnidh
to Prince Kacha, he had sought nothing beyond his service, a loyal son of the Mothers and a loyal scion of the Pearl Throne.

Kacha had killed him on the voyage to Isavalta, and Yamuna had supplied the poison and the locked box into which Kacha had placed his tongue, his seal, and one of his fingers to return to Yamuna so that Yamuna might conjure his soul into service, as he did now.

The dead man shivered before Yamuna, his raw hatred plain on his pained features. It meant nothing. He was bound and he must serve Yamuna’s will. He had no choice.

“You will give me a letter,” said Yamuna to the dead man. “A report of your activities in Isavalta. You will report on Kacha’s satisfactory progress in his relations with the Imperial ministers. You will describe the coronation and how well he played his part in it.”

Death should have severed Harshul’s bond with Kacha, but Yamuna’s sorceries had reestablished it. Even trapped as he was, Harshul touched Kacha, and he knew enough to compose what was needed, a false letter to lead the emperor to believe that Harshul was alive and keeping his watchful eye on Kacha. Emperor Samudra must have no cause to question what was happening in Isavalta. He must be kept in ignorance as long as possible. When the war finally erupted, he would have to admit to one of two things: that he had lost control of a mere boy, or that he had been party to a coup.

Either admission would badly damage the emperor’s reputation, and make it that much harder for him to maintain his rule.

The dead man fought Yamuna’s order, of course, but his struggle was as meaningless as his hatred. In the end, he knelt, as he must, and he shuddered with the effort of reaching across the veil that separated the solid and the ethereal. He breathed, if a dead man could be said to have breath, across the parchment, and the parchment filled with tight lines of words written in a precise hand the emperor would recognize as Harshul’s.

The ghost straightened, trembling. Yamuna retrieved the parchment, glancing over it to be sure the missive seemed complete enough.

“You may speak,” he told the ghost as he examined the missive. In life, Harshul had been gregarious. It pleased Yamuna to allow him speech now and again.

In death, Harshul’s voice was as thick and cold as mist over the water. “When you die, the Mothers will give you to me. I will be a demon and I will feast on your soul for eternity.”

Yamuna folded the false missive with care and let himself smile at his slave. “When I die you will be a shade, as impotent as you are now. You will never touch me. For I will never die.”

“You are mad, old man.” The bound spirit lacked the power to even name Yamuna’s name. “All men return to the Mothers.”

“But I shall not remain a man.” Yamuna savored the words that he had so seldom spoken aloud. There was none to whom he could trust them. None but shades and slaves who could not utter a word unless it be by his own will. “When Chandra is bound to the Northern Empire, so will I be bound, and its earth will know me, and the creatures of that earth will know me, and they will reveal to me the secrets of that land’s wild heart, and how those barbarians can rise to divinity on their own wings when we must remain in the mud and dust, groveling at the feet of the sluts who call themselves the Seven Mothers.”

The shade said nothing, for Yamuna did not wish it to. But even dead and bound as it was, it recoiled from him, and Yamuna took pleasure in the sight. It was a foolish pleasure, he knew, like a little boy tormenting insects, but it was there all the same. He would have to retreat for a series of days and do sacrifice to worm this petty pride from his heart. It was unworthy of one who would soon become a god, and as an impurity it hampered his power and must be done away with.

But there were other matters to attend to first.

“Return to your prison, slave,” said Yamuna. “I have no more need of you.”

The dead man would have screamed if he could, but Yamuna held him silent. So, he turned, shaking violently, and crawled back into the jar. Yamuna returned the stopper to its place and, in his workroom, applied fresh beeswax and remade the sigils before returning the jar to its place on the shelf. There also, he sealed the missive with red wax and Harshul’s own seal.

According to the most ancient sagas, the Seven Mothers bound together the souls of sorcerers so that they might preserve the life and order of the lands in their care. In exchange for power, place, and extended life, sorcerers were guardians, protectors, and advisers to all who might have need of them. Their very footsteps would weave spells of protection across Hastinapura. Still, they must forever remember they were servants, not rulers. They might strive for any earthly power they could reach in service of their magic, but power beyond that was forbidden. Royalty was forbidden them. Immortality, divinity, these were never to be theirs.

Most sages said that such a transference was impossible. It was outside the order of nature.

But, reasoned Yamuna, if it was impossible, why was it forbidden? Why forbid a thing that could not be done?

Did not the Nine Elders of Hung-Tse work transformations of their own, turning their members into spirit powers? Did not the barbarians of the north have ones of divided souls who could turn themselves into gods through sacrifice?

No, it could not be impossible, only difficult. Perhaps it could not be done here in Hastinapura where all powers were catalogued and treated with and for. But in the wild north, where the powers did as they would, where disorder and chaos swirled together, what power might he not harness? What might he not become? Worlds would come within his compass and not even the Mothers could forbid him anything his heart desired.

He smiled and tapped his fingers against his false letter. After dark, he would give the missive to one of his slaves, who would in turn go down to the city and find some Isavaltan captain or sailor who could be bribed to give the missive to one of the palace servants and say it had come from Vyshtavos for the emperor. It would be delivered to the mountains where the Emperor Samudra waged his latest war, and Samudra would read the words and believe all was well in Isavalta.

Yamuna smiled out at the rain. In truth, all was well, but not in the manner which the emperor believed.

“And where are the Mothers in all their power to tell you otherwise?” he asked the rain. When the rain had no answer, Yamuna laughed softly, and set about his other works.

“I am beginning to believe,” said Medeoan, rubbing her eyes, “that either all my lords master are idiots, or they think I’m one.” She looked across the wide desk to Kacha who sat behind a pile of his own letters and papers. “Listen to this.” She adjusted her voice to a fair imitation of an eastern accent. “And I must further beg to inform Your Majesty Imperial that due to the unusual number of spring lambs born this year, additional pasturage has been allotted to nineteen shepherding families.” She lowered the paper and sighed in exasperation. “Now why would I possibly need to know that?”

“Does Your Majesty Imperial wish to make any reply?” inquired Senoi, her fussy, officious, but very efficient first secretary. Even Kacha, who took such care in the appointment of her staff, agreed he was the very man for the job.

Medeoan opened her mouth, but Kacha spoke first. “Her Majesty Imperial will answer that one in the morning,” he said, before he smiled across their desk at her. “You’re exhausted, Medeoan. Why do you not retire? I will finish what is needful here.”

She shouldn’t, she knew. Attention to detail was important, and she could not pay attention to details if she did not know what they were. But even as she thought that, an enormous and undignified yawn forced its way out of her throat.

She stared at the mounds of paper still to be worked through. “Perhaps I will retire,” she said sheepishly. “But I’ll expect you to review the remaining business with me thoroughly in the morning,” she added as she stood up.

“That I gladly will.” Kacha gave a half-bow.

Medeoan rounded the desk and bent to kiss her husband good night. “And I expect you to attend me in my bed when you are finished,” she whispered into his ear.

“That I gladly will,” he replied just as softly and Medeoan smiled again at the mischievous light in his eyes.

Ladies and house guard behind her and pages scurrying before with lamps to light the way and herald her arrival, Medeoan traversed the corridors from her private study to her private apartments. She was tired, but cheerful. Another day successfully negotiated, thanks to Kacha’s unflagging support and energy. As he promised, together they were the autocrat of Isavalta.

She had been so frightened! Medeoan smiled now to think of her dread. Before her, the page girls opened her chamber doors and her ladies hurried in to light the lamps and coax the fire into more vigorous life. Had it not been for Kacha, she was certain she would not have even managed the coronation. Hours of ceremony, hours of standing and sitting and bowing and having the heavy golden regalia handed to her, taken away, blessed, anointed, kissed and handed back, and all the time she could think of nothing except her parents watching her from the Land of Death and Shadows and frowning at their reluctant, trembling child. But there was Kacha, beside her, more solid and more real than her fears. Kacha to attend with grave dignity, and to breathe such salacious comments in her ears about the ceremony’s other participants that she could barely keep her countenance. That night, he had held her close and whispered reassurances to her, stroking her hair until her fears eased and she could sleep in peace.

In the weeks that had followed, all continued as it had begun. Kacha remained always at her side, ever ready to help her plow through the endless petty work of empire. His counsel was always sober, and there was no point of her comfort, ease or service that he was not ready to oversee.

Medeoan sighed contentedly as she and her two head ladies moved behind the bed screens so that they could undress her for the night. She was happy. She had never imagined she would be happy as empress, but so it was, and it was because of Kacha.

Chekhania and Ragneda divested her of her outer coat and set to work on the laces of her dress and the catches of her jewels. They were competent, if inclined too much to giggle. She did miss Prathad and Vladka some days, but Prathad had been found in the hay barn with a sergeant of the house guard and had to be dismissed in disgrace, and Vladka had been found taking bribes from one of the court lords to bear him tales of Medeoan’s doings. How could she keep such a one with her, no matter how many years she had served? Vladka did not even have the strength of character to own her guilt in the end. She had just cried and begged and tried to say it was not so, even when she knew Kacha and Chekhania had brought Medeoan all the proof.

Medeoan raised her arms so Chekhania and Ragneda could pull her nightdress over her head and lace it up. The covers on the bed were already turned down and the warming pans had been applied. Medeoan laid herself down and the ladies covered the braziers and drew the curtains, wishing her good night and departing to get themselves ready for bed.

Despite being tired, Medeoan found she was unable to compose herself to rest. She stared up at the shadowy canopy overhead, listening for Kacha’s entrance into the chamber. But there were only the sounds of her ladies talking softly among themselves and making up their beds and changing into their own nightclothes. A restlessness to have her husband beside her took hold of Medeoan. It was becoming a familiar sensation, and a not wholly unpleasant one. She imagined him walking down the corridors, wishing good night to those whose business kept them up late. He would return to his own chamber, where his waiting gentlemen would ready him for bed, and then he would come through the connecting door, and pull back her bed curtains, and then, and then …

A thought struck Medeoan, a happy bit of mischief. Always, Kacha came to her. What if, this time, she went to him? He would come behind his bed screens, thinking he would need to come find her, and there she would already be.

The idea pleased her, making her smile in the darkness. She decided at once to put thought into action and supped out of her bed. The floor was chilly under her stocking feet She padded around the bedscreens, and the ladies immediately sprang to their feet and ceased their activities; plaiting and brushing their hair, laying out their clothes, gossiping. Chekhania ran up to her at once, pale in her nightdress, but Medeoan waved her away.