Transformation (6 page)
Authors: Carol Berg
“Aye, my lord.” To his credit, the guard captain’s voice did not falter as his sudden pallor might warrant. “I would assume that no word is to be spoken of this, even in the palace itself, until the deed is done.”
“You are perceptive as always, Mikael. At the same moment that you are arresting Sierge, two of your finest officers will be extending my gracious invitation to our Khelid guest, Korelyi, to witness an event of great import. He will be escorted to the square, where I will await him. I wish him to be at my side to witness this execution before I entertain him at dinner.”
“As you wish, my lord, it shall be done. May I suggest doubling the watch this night? The House of Mezzrah has a large standing force and owns at least five assassins.”
“No. No doubling of the guard. We are not afraid of an honorable family of such long and distinguished service to the Emperor. You will make this clear to those at Sierge’s house and to the guard and to all who may inquire or be concerned. I have judged that only the two men, Vanye and Sierge, have been involved in treason. No one else in the family. Even their wives and children will reap no ill harvest from their deeds.”
“Yes, Your Highness. Four hours from this.”
“Go with the gods’ protection, Mikael.”
“You are Athos’ priest, my lord, and his wisdom guides your hand.”
As the man bowed and left the room, I sincerely wished that I believed enough in a god—whether the Derzhi sun deity or some other—to think he or she was taking an interest in Aleksander’s plotting. The Prince was either an inordinately brilliant strategist or the maddest fool ever to wear a coronet. I suspected the latter. I suspected he was starting a war over an ugly face and a twenty-zenar slave.
Once the guard captain was gone, I hastily resumed my cleaning, suspended by the extraordinary events I had witnessed.
“What is your name, slave?”
I had hoped he would not care to know it. I should have known better than to hope. It was the ultimate expression of subjugation—to be forced to give up the most personal, the most private self to one who had no claim, no right of friendship or kinship or guesting, to one who had no idea of the power of names or the dangerous entry they gave to the soul. “Seyonne, my lord.” No violation of body or mind was so bitter, save the rites they used to strip us Ezzarians of our power.
“You are a lucky man, Seyonne.”
I paused with my hands full of broken porcelain and feathers, trying to keep the foot I had just punctured with a shard of glass from dripping blood on the carpet. I kept my eyes averted and tried not to break into hysterical laughter.
“When I discovered that the contents of my letter had found their way to Khelid ears ... and thus to my father’s ears, I presumed it was you had done it. The death I planned for you was an artwork.”
I swallowed my rising gorge.
“But Durgan and his men convinced me that you had been locked up securely since the day you scribed my words, and therefore, of all the inhabitants of this city, only you were proven innocent. Ironic, is it not?”
“As you say, Your Highness.” It had been half a lifetime since I had considered myself at all lucky.
“I’ve heard that you Ezzarians claim you can see the future. Is it true?”
“If we could see the future, my lord, how could we not have prevented our own destruction?”
“You asked a question. You did not answer mine.” So he was not a total fool.
“No man can see the future, Your Highness.”
“Pity.”
Aleksander dispatched me to fetch wine, and other house slaves to clean up the mess, and his body slaves to bathe and dress him. Once I located what he required and poured him a fresh glass of wine, he sent me back to the slave house. I was to clean myself and report to the kitchens, where I was to learn the customs for serving at the Prince’s table ... to begin that very night.
Chapter 4
The Summer Palace of the Derzhi Emperors had dominated the misty valley of the Ghojan River for some four hundred years. Built on the site of an ancient fortress that had guarded the mountain passes from barbarians to the north, it had been expanded by one after another of Aleksander’s forefathers. The farther north the boundaries of the Empire stretched, the less fortified and more luxurious the palace became. By the time I was taken there, the sprawling palace walls encompassed some ninety hectares of buildings and courtyards, workshops and barracks and armories, butteries and gardens and stables. The city of Capharna itself was scarcely larger.
The newer rooms of the main keep had large windows and high ceilings, elaborate columns and arches and elegant carvings, a splendor of decoration that seemed misplaced in the harsh mountain setting. For six glorious weeks a year, the sweetest airs of the Empire wafted through the graceful archways, and the gardens exploded in an ocean of flowers. But on almost every other day the bitter winds rattled the huge windows and gusted through the desolate courtyards. In the long winters thick rugs and tapestries were hung over every opening, making the short daylight hours nonexistent for those who didn’t venture out of doors. Unending wagon loads of wood had to be carted from the thick mountain forests to keep the hearths blazing. Even so, the heat all drifted upward to hang in the ceiling vaults, and the residents ... and certainly the lightly clad slaves ... were forever cold.
This palace would be the entirety of my universe until the Prince decided to dispose of me. Only rarely were Derzhi house slaves permitted beyond their master’s walls. We were always chained at night and closely supervised during the day. As universes went for slaves, though, the Summer Palace would be quite fine—with a variety of interesting people and events to observe.
Zeroun, the slave commanded to instruct me in the customs of the Prince’s table, was sure that some dreadful mistake had been made. “An Ezzarian, a branded runaway, serving the Prince and his table guests? Impossible. His Highness would never reward such deviance with his favor, and would never tolerate a scarred face in his sight. You don’t even wear fenzai ...” He pulled at my tunic and peered at my back. “As I suspected ... a disobedient barbarian. Impossible. Scandalous impertinence.”
Three times he sought confirmation of the orders, until he was at risk of stripes himself. His problem, of course, was that he was a Basranni, which meant that he considered himself far above the level of an ordinary slave. The Basranni were a horse-worshiping desert clan, who’d had the misfortune to slay a Derzhi prince when they were trying to assassinate their own tyrant some fifty years previous. Though related by culture, blood, and intermarriage, and allied in war for three hundred years, the Derzhi had leveled every Basranni town and village and killed or enslaved every Basranni man, woman, and child. Still, Basranni slaves believed they were part owner of every Derzhi household, and were more concerned with upholding Derzhi tradition than were the Derzhi themselves.
“Derzhi table customs are quite refined and quite specific. What concept could you have of the graceful presentation of delicacies? How could you know of hand-washing rites or how to pour—”
“Zeroun, I have served in four noble Derzhi houses, most recently that of an excessively traditional baron of the most traditional of the noble houses, the House of Gorusch. I know how to lay the meat on top of the loaf. I know how to kneel just behind the cushions, yet serve without touching the guest. I know how to pour the nazrheel on top of the lemon, rather than drop the lemon in the tea. I know never, ever, to offer meat, cheese, or eggs if the guest’s knife is laid crosswise. Just tell me how the Prince’s table differs. If I do something wrong, we will both suffer the consequences.”
That seemed to stifle his objections, though he took special care not to touch me and to point out to every other slave that passed by us that I was the lowest of the low and could not be trusted. I supposed that would make no difference if I was to be kept forever in the slave-house dungeon rather than join the other men who slept chained to the walls above my head every night. Trust among slaves was a fragile thing; once lost it was hard to recover, and one could find oneself a pariah among pariahs. I didn’t blame them. Trust had been bled from me long years in the past. But Zeroun was a good teacher. By the time the female slaves had laid the richly patterned cloths and gold plates on the low tables, set out the carafes of wine, and spread the freshly aired cushions alongside, he had crammed my head with every nuance of the Prince’s preferences.
I had no thoughts to spare for Aleksander’s scheming. When the hour struck, the hour the Prince had set for his plot to unfold, I was trying not to drop a tray of twenty-one small basins of warmed, scented water between the kitchen and the Prince’s table. There were three tables set up in one of the small dining rooms. The Prince’s table, set for twenty-one, was elevated above the other two tables on a low dais. It looked like sixty or seventy people would be at the lower tables to witness whatever the Prince had in mind. A cold draft made the candle flames waver, and a servant stoked the great hearth in the corner of the room behind the dais. Whoever sat at the Prince’s far left would bake; whoever sat at his far right would freeze.
About fifteen minutes past the striking of the hour, finely dressed, bejeweled Derzhi men and women began crowding into the dining room, jockeying for places at the lower tables. The Baron did not entertain, nor did the master before that, a less than prosperous merchant who could not afford to do so, so it had been on the order of five years since I had been in the midst of so many hostile people at once. It made me uneasy, but I distracted myself by listening for any snippet of conversation that might reveal what had transpired with the House of Mezzrah. Surely there were rumors of the execution or the summoning of the Mezzrahn lords. But I heard nothing beyond curiosity as to who would sit at the high table, what lady did the Prince fancy this month, and when was he ever going to get down to the business of the Dar Heged, the winter joining of northern Derzhi families, the business that had brought Aleksander to Capharna in the first place.
I wondered if Aleksander planned to kill the eighteen nobles. Surely he was not that big a fool, though his own father had done something similar on more than one occasion. Hostages were another favorite Derzhi tactic, but it seemed too obvious. The nobles would not be naive enough to lay down their arms when entering the palace, and if Aleksander threatened them, they would fight. Unless ... I glanced at the elegantly laid head table with its twenty-one seats. The Derzhi had very strict guesting customs, drawn from their origins in the desert. When water was life to all, deprivation of water was seen as a crime unworthy of a true warrior. The bitterest enemies could share a well peaceably on one day, even while planning to slaughter each other on the battlefield the next. Guesting ...
The great double doors behind the dais were thrown open and a line of fur-clad men—all wearing the orange-striped silk head scarf of the House of Mezzrah—began to file in and take places at the head table. They were glowering suspiciously, but seemed to relax at the sight of the table, the other chattering guests, and the feasting dishes being carried in by a parade of female slaves. They didn’t know. These powerful, ruthless warriors had no idea that their kinsman’s body hung lifeless and freezing in the public square of Capharna, executed less than an hour past by the smiling, red-haired Prince who graciously followed them through the doors, honoring each man with his special attentions. If they drank only water, they would not betray themselves, but the moment they ate Aleksander’s meat or drank his wine, they would become his guest-friends, all past disputes, all grievances settled and forgotten ... whether they knew of them or not. They could not take revenge for the hanging without betraying a thousand years of Derzhi tradition, because they would have shared Aleksander’s table after the murder was done.
Breathless with astonishment at the Prince’s brazen stroke—and the enormity of the risk he had taken—I took my place at the back of the table and helped arrange cushions and swords and boots and cloaks until the guests were as comfortable as they could be in Prince Aleksander’s house. The sourest of all of them was Lord Barach, Vanye’s father, his gray braid hanging well below his bare shoulder, who sat in the place farthest from the Prince. From the look of him, he was there only at his House elders’ command.
It was time to put aside my distracting speculations lest I be noticed. Derzhi nobles had been known to cut off a slave’s fingers or scald his hands in boiling tea if food was dropped or spilled or improperly served. Carefully I filled the crystal wine goblets and doled out the hot flat loaves of herbed bread, then offered the platters of succulent roast lamb and savory brown-crusted pork. There were fruits to be sliced or peeled, pickled eggs, sugared dates, and tiny salted fish to be laid out for those who wanted them. Nazrheel, the bitter tea, to be poured. More wine. Zeroun’s lessons and those of other forgotten teachers repeated themselves continually in my head—the sum of a slave’s scholarship.
Always kneel just behind. Never allow your body to touch the guest. Always offer to the Prince first. If he points at it or nods his head—the gesture can be so slight as to be almost undetectable—give the taster, the shivering slave who sits in the shadows behind him, a portion first, then arrange the remainder on the Prince’s plate. Do not breathe while serving the Prince, lest your breath offend him at dinner. Never let the guests run out of meat, lest the Prince appear ungenerous. Never let them run out of nazrheel, as this is seen as a bad omen. The gray-haired lord has his knife across his plate. He is in the middle of the ephrail, the purification fast. No meat, cheese, or eggs—nothing from a beast can cross his lips. No wine or spirits. Only fruit and tea. When the Prince is finished, nothing more must be served to any guest. The hand washing must be done before....
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