Танит Ли: Anackire

But he had been mellower in the past decade, more concerned to be known for what he was, aristocrat and master. The old title of “Pirate-King,” which had made him merry years back, could now cause him to scowl and shout. He had married only with his own kind, and his few Vis mistresses bleached their hair and painted pale their flesh.

Entering the palace, they took their noise in with them. Feet tramped and weapons clanked; there was the barking of dogs and hissing of hunting kalinxes, and over all the uproar of men intent on enjoying themselves. Suthamun liked noise of almost any type. In the long and glittering hall, minstrels came running and strings and drums struck up.

Suthamun, in the midst of a bellowed laugh, broke off. His blond brows drew together.

Into the hall had walked Kesarh Am Xai, one of his guard at his back, a pair of matched black kalinxes stalking on leash before him.

Kesarh, cursed by the Vis blackness of his hair, had arrogantly seemed to make a feature of that black. His guard, of whom everyone knew there were far more than ten, wore dark mail on ceremonial occasions. He himself, as today, was most often seen in black clothing, relieved only by the fine pectoral on his breast showing in gold and scarlet the fire-lizard Am Xai had taken as his personal blazon. Amrek, the damned tyrant and genocide of Dorthar, had worn black, as if to flaunt his preference for his own race. And Kesarh—even the kalinxes were black. Also, of course, splendid. Where had the cash come from to purchase or breed such beasts? The mother had had little to leave him and the Shansarian father had not bothered.

Suthamun studied the kalinxes, their cold blue eyes spitting malice, but the hand on the leash ruling them utterly. They had run with the rest, and taken the first kill, working together, and separately from the pack, a thing one rarely saw. Suthamun had instantly wanted them, but to demand anything from this lesser prince would be uncouth, ungenerous. Somehow, Kesarh would make him sweat.

The King was very aware of Kesarh, and did not like him. For one so lowly to attract so much attention was in itself an indictment.

Kesarh had reached the end of the hall where his lord was standing among his brothers and favorites. A little attentive quietness had come with the prince, and it was all at once possible to hear the tune the musicians were playing. Kesarh looked full at the King, a leisurely, blank, immovable look, and then followed it with a short graceful bow.

The two kalinxes, stopped like stone on their plaited leash, laid flat their tufted ears. The vicious things had responded to the vicious mood of the king, and were now showing it off to everyone.

Suthamun laughed.

“The hunting was timely. Did you have pleasant sport, Kesarh?”

“Yes, my lord.” Kesarh smiled. They both spoke the tongue of Suthamun’s home, the current language of the Karmian court.

“Your cats there, they won you that.”

“True, my lord. Dortharian kalinxes are often the best.”

Suthamun stared at them greedily. By Ashara’s Amber Nipples, why should this nothing own such animals?

“Dortharian, eh? They must have strained your purse.”

Another smile.

“Somewhat, my lord. But they weren’t bought as an indulgence of myself. I wished to try them today, to see if they merited their praises. Since they do, I’d rejoice if I might present them to your majesty, as a gift.”

The crowd in the hall rustled, gave off a bird-flurry of little laughs, and then clapped.

It would have been ungenerous to demand. It would now be ungenerous to refuse.

Suthamun himself now smiled. He snapped his fingers and a groom ran to take the double leash from Kesarh. Trained to perfection, the cats made no demur, even their ears rose. They were led magnificently away. Suthamun steeled himself, went over to Kesarh and embraced him.

The court clapped again.

Vathcrian wine came, and Kesarh drank with the King and his brothers. Uhl leaned to Suthamun’s ear. The King nodded.

“I hadn’t forgotten. A day’s sport, an evening’s work. Gentlemen, follow me upstairs. You also, Am Xai. You can leave your guard here.”

Up the stair, they passed into one of the council rooms. Lamps were already alight. On a wall, in exquisite mosaic, was a map of the world, including the outlines of the second continent. The place names of all the mighty areas had been put in with gold, Shansar most prominently. Mosaic fish frisked in the seas between, and marine volcanoes bled cinnabar.

Suthamun strode directly to the map, and stood gazing at it. When he turned back his face was self-consciously kingly and portentous. He glanced quickly about at them all, as if to be sure they would not mock him. But none of them was such a fool. Even the arrogant Kesarh maintained that polite blankness which would alternate in such company with his polite smile or his polite solicitous frown of attention.

“Your sister rode for Ankabek today,” said the King.

“Yes, my lord.”

“We were pleased to grant her desire to devote her life to Ashara, the one true goddess.”

Kesarh bowed.

“Val Nardia was agleam with her gratitude. Sire.”

Suthamun checked, but the young man’s demeanor was faultless.

“And you,” said Suthamun, “what shall we do with you?”

“My King knows I am his own to order to anything.”

Suthamun flung one arm back toward the map.

“Zakoris,” said the King. “We remember, do we not, how my brother of Vardath took black Zakoris, and how Zakoris collapsed? And then, how the defeated lords of Zakoris made inroads on Thaddra. And there they roost around the north sea edges of Thaddra, and from there they make reavers-war on Dorthar. My brother of Dorthar, the King Raldanash son of Raldnor, has sent to warn me how his northern coasts are harried by these pirates. The guardians of the northeastern towns of Karmiss have also sent me word that so-called ‘Free Zakorian’ raiders have been sighted, and smoke on the beaches of Dorthar.”

Suthamun, Pirate-King, paid homage to his past neither with word nor gesture. Fifteen years ago, he himself might have found this funny.

“For the safety of Karmiss,” he now said weightily, “and to demonstrate my concern for the Storm Lord’s lands, I’ve been thinking to dispatch a force of men and ships to rout the pirates. I myself was in the sea battle at Karith when the Vis put light to the water and the waves rattled with the bones of yellow-haired men.”

It seemed his brothers recalled this, too. Their faces were set. The few Vis councilors who were in the chamber lowered their eyes.

Only Kesarh in his black did not look away, and so the King’s eyes met his at once.

“The captaincy of this force I mean to give into the hands of a man with youth and vigor on his side, a man not yet famous in Karmiss, but that through no failing on his part.” If this was sarcasm, the King did not stress it. “A Prince of the old royal house, with the blood of the goddess’ own people—Kesarh Am Xai, I offer this command to you. Do you take it?”

Kesarh showed nothing. He simply continued to meet the King’s eyes.

“You honor me, Sire.”

And the King shook his hand, while the haphazard council congratulated him heartily.

The stinging bees of Free Zakoris sailed in small swarms, but it was sure Suthamun would send an equally small portion of the Karmian fleet against them. It was, besides, a fleet soft from easy times, and mostly Visian, for mainly those Shansars who had wanted to remain under sail had gone home. Add to that unpreparedness and lack of size, indolent ship lords, then place in charge a prince without kudos and with no more experience of a sea-fight than the fire animal of his blazon, the salamander.