Танит Ли - Anackire

The first of Suthamun’s heirs, his eldest legal son, waked in his love-bed and kicked the nearer girl into communication.

“What’s that din?”

The girl did not know. Nor did the other, when he kicked her.

Prince Jornil rose from the bed, petulantly furious. He was clear Shansar from both parents, but birth and growth in Karmiss the Lily on the Ocean had caused him to be a twining plant rather than a tree. He had never had a moment’s doubt of himself or his future. Only his father’s wrath could make him blink.

He stood, goldenly handsome in the window, listening incredulous to the uproar out in the streets. He knew nothing about it. It was not for him or his.

When a servitor informed Jornil the hubbub sprang from a crowd, gathering to watch the return of the Prince Am Xai into Istris, Jornil laughed aloud.

Paid word-mongers had prepared the way. Then genuine rumor and real truth had augmented everything. Making camp in the eastern hills above the city, the returning heroes had paused, sending some ahead to collect and bring them out their finery for a processional entry. Somehow Prince Kesarh had persuaded them that Suthamun would countenance acclaim for the victory. Even the single lost ship would be forgiven. Because he had been clever, the three captains and their ship-lords thought themselves clever, too, and were not difficult to convince.

In fact, Suthamun Am Shansar had had no intention of drawing the public gaze to their achievement. Having received the official messenger Kesarh had sent, the King had had prepared a slight speech of commendation to be delivered in council, by the Warden. The King himself would, after an interval, extend a fairly private audience to the Prince Am Xai, thank him, give him some small gift; upbraid him gently and with magnanimous brevity for the loss the galley. As for an entry into Istris, Kesarh and his twenty men might come in at any time. The ships might also make free of the harbor as they wished.

The going-out had been stagy, to display Suthamun’s excessive care for clean shores. He had himself reckoned the Free Zakorian menace less than it was, or he would have sent his own captains in Shansar-built ships, and under the command of his brother, Uhl.

Suthamun, though, had reckoned without Visian Istris. Men in Shansar had a weakness for show, but it was show of a different sort, magic or mystic often, generally significant. Little events were seldom blown up to gales with hot air. When the crowds came out to cheer him home from a hunt, the King had failed to see it was the pleasure of event they rejoiced in, not his royal self.

There had, additionally, been the touch of organization. Men who, at sun-up, had stationed themselves about, stating which streets should be kept clear, therefore encouraging the crowd to pile up on either side. The women who had gathered or purchased flowers, declaiming on the lord they would cast them to, garlands for his greatness. And there were the others, who had spoken from the beginning—At last, a dark man who would safeguard their honor and their security.

By midday there was expectancy, press of people and loud sound throughout all the wind and stretch of streets and avenues from Istris’ White Gate to the palace. Banners had been hauled from chests and hung out of windows. Hawkers sold colored streamers, bells and squeaky trumpets, with the wine and sweets. Only the Ashara Temple, last bastion on the route before the palace was reached, gave evidence of extreme uninterest.

A few minutes after noon, the word of an approach began to fly.

On the heels of this faultless rabble-rousing forerunner, the Prince Am Xai came through the White Gate from the Ioli road, in the midst of his cavalcade.

Drummers marched in first, six of them, in black burnished mail, setting a brisk solid tempo. Directly after these came bronze horns and rattles, and then the Lily banner of Karmiss borne high on the music. After the Lily banner prowled two nubile girls, dressed in ribbons and little else, with lilies in their hair. They led by ropes of flowers two black gelded bulls, docile and obliging. The crowd was quick to see the analogous joke, or perhaps they were helped. “Free Zakoris!” the cry went up. Free gelded Zakoris, led by the dulcet Lily. The girls flirted and blushed. They were wenches from the hills, earning money beyond their dreams. The bulls, too, were from the hill farms.

Ten soldiers rode by, and two soldiers walked in their trotting wake, carrying between them the outspread banner of Kesarh’s blazon, the Salamander in gold on a scarlet ground. The overall approving noise winged into cheering. The crowd started to call his name, as men had on the ships at Tjis: Am Xai! Am Xai!

They could already see him, standing in the brazen chariot. He wore red today, the color of the wine with which he had made dupes and corpses of the pirates. His team of zeebas was black, black as his hair. Despite the uproar, he held the team in perfect check with one hand. The other rested almost idly on the chariot rail, loosely holding in its grasp a gold-handled whip. The symbols were exact. Not many missed them, though most would not have given them a name. The stance of facile strength and grace, the warlike masculine beauty which seemed to encompass Kesarh, surrounded by his men in their dark mail, in control of all things, so it seemed. The image of a king. A Vis king.

They were bawling now, and the flowers were coming down like rain.

He turned now and then, acknowledging them. None of Suthamun’s riotousness, or the heirs’ simpering or smiling contempt. Kesarh was different. His courtesy and his arrogance enthralled them. They felt they had been noticed, as was their right, by a god.

Such was Kesarh’s presence, which he understood, and used so plainly and so well, having waited so patiently for a chance to use it.

Behind Kesarh rode twenty more of his men, all the Twos and all the Fives of his one hundred. Altogether, almost forty of his personal guard were on view through the procession.

The heroes of the ships, who rode after, were more gaudy, and the crowd made a fuss of them, naturally. But they tasted the vinegar on the honey. Even the blond, dark-skinned captain named—along with many others—for his looks: Raldnor, even he on his costly horse knew he was not that day’s darling.

By the time the Prince reached the Ashara Temple, the crowd was thunderous and the incense of broken flowers hid the fact that no sacred incense rose from the holy terrace.

People burst across the square as Am Xai reined in. His guard held them back good-humoredly, for they were good-humored themselves, wanting only to come closer to their focal point.

The black bulls were led by their floral chains across to the temple and up the steps, the Prince and his guard following, and the crowd spilling after.

The priests, who had been watching from eyelets, were doubtless perturbed. None came forth.

Kesarh stood, with unflawed poise, calmly waiting, demonstrating that the fault was not his, but he would overlook it. The crowd, however, began to shout and yell at the temple. Eventually a solitary flustered priest scurried from the porch to be greeted by abusive applause. He was a Shansarian, or at least enough of one to fulfill the rigid strictures of the Ashara Temple.

He hurried to Kesarh, but before the priest could speak, as if he had been asked, Kesarh said, in his carrying actor’s voice: “I’m here to sacrifice to the goddess, in the sight of the people, for my victory at Tjis.”

The priest looked about him, decided, and ran away.

The crowd cat-called, protested. Then fell quiet, anxious to see what Kesarh would do.

What he did was to hesitate an instant, as if in thought, then walk directly up to the marble altar on the terrace.