39
Kaden almost hadn’t recognized the refectory when he entered. Adiv described the meal as “a small, informal dinner,” and the Mizran Councillor had brought only a half dozen slaves up the mountain, but they must have been run off their feet all afternoon. Long ivory banners hung from the rafters, stitched in gold thread with the rising sun of the Malkeenian line. Someone had lugged in a huge Si’ite carpet, all swirls and patterns, spreading it over the uneven flagstone floor. The rough sconces on the wall were replaced with silver lanterns, and ornate silver candlesticks graced a lacy tablecloth ringed by six settings of Basc porcelain.
Kaden glanced warily at the empty chair to his left, wondering who would occupy it. A day ago the question would have filled him with excitement, but the odd string of visitors to the monastery had not proved auspicious, and he was reluctant to meet another unfamiliar face. The world beyond Ashk’lan, which only a few days before had beckoned so brightly, now seemed a dark place, filled with treachery and confusion, death and disappointment.
Tarik Adiv sat just around the corner of the table to his right, leaning forward slightly in his straight-backed wooden chair. The Mizran Councillor still wore the bloodred blindfold around his eyes, although at the moment he seemed to be staring directly at Kaden, as though he could see right through the cloth. Micijah Ut occupied one of the two seats across the table, his back straight as his broadblade, which leaned against the wooden chair within easy reach. As far as Kaden knew, Nin and Tan had told no one about the ak’hanath, but then, it was the Aedolian’s job to be vigilant, regardless of the situation.
Scial Nin joined them, of course; Adiv could scarcely leave the abbot out of his invitation, although the old monk in his old robe looked small and poor beside the massive Aedolian at his side. Kaden had insisted on Rampuri Tan’s presence as well, an insistence to which Adiv had acquiesced with far greater grace than Tan himself. “You should be studying,” the monk had said, “not feasting.”
The rest of the Shin had been politely asked to spend the evening fasting, a request that Kaden was sure would mean some kind of retribution from Akiil. Kaden hadn’t seen his friend so prickly for years; clearly the arrival of the imperial delegation had dragged to the surface all the old animosity that their time at Ashk’lan had done so much to bury. It was hard to know how to talk to Akiil about this sudden elevation, and Kaden worried about it almost as much as he worried about leaving the monastery and returning to Annur.
Now, however, he had to concentrate on playing the Emperor without making an ass of himself, a task he was not at all sure he was ready for. He looked over at the empty seat again.
“Will someone else be joining us?” he asked, trying to keep his tone light.
Adiv smiled a sly smile beneath his blindfold. “As I said, Your Radiance, we come bearing gifts.”
Kaden had to remind himself that, while news of his father’s death was fresh as an open wound for him, Adiv and Ut, everyone from Annur, in fact, had had months to accustom themselves to the fact. Doubtless they had done their mourning long ago, and yet still, it was hard to sit down to a festive dinner with others while his own grief—or what meager grief his years of training had not effaced—was still so fresh.
One servant stood behind each seat, and the man behind Kaden’s chair had kept his eyes downcast as he pulled it back. Kaden had taken his place somewhat uncomfortably. After eight years sitting on hard benches and fetching his own stew and bread from the kitchen, he found the habits of the imperial court alien and unnecessary. He was Emperor now, though, and certain things were expected of the Emperor.
Despite his blindfold, Adiv seemed to miss little, and a small smile played around the corners of his mouth. Kaden was beginning to think the man not only noticed his awkwardness, but enjoyed it as well. As the silence stretched out, the minister’s smile widened.
“It would be inappropriate for the Emperor to dine alone,” he said finally, spreading his hands in invitation before bringing them together in a crisp clap. The twin wooden doors at the end of the refectory swung open.
Kaden’s eyes widened. Alone in the doorway, half in darkness, half illuminated by the lanterns inside the hall, stood a young woman. That would have been reason enough to take notice. After all, Ashk’lan was a monastic community and Kaden had not left it for eight years; Pyrre had already occasioned a good deal of glancing and chatter among the acolytes, but if Akiil had seen this …
While the merchant had a certain rough elegance, the woman in the doorway looked as though she had stepped straight from a vision of opulence, a dream of beauty made flesh. She wore a long gown of Si’ite silk, the fabric red as arterial blood and supple as water. The dressmaker had known his art, cutting the cloth to emphasize the fullness of her breasts, the curve of her hip, while a separate loop of fabric ringed her neck, tied below her chin in an elaborate bow.
Even more striking than the presentation was the girl herself: the Dawn Palace had been filled with attractive women—the wives of atreps, well-known courtesans, priestesses and princesses by the dozen—but Kaden was certain he had never seen one so beautiful. Night-black hair cascaded past her shoulders, framing a pale face with full lips and high cheekbones. She might have been one of the Nevariim he read about as a child—an impossibly beautiful, infinitely graceful creature from the tales told at his bedside. Of course, the Nevariim were long dead, if they had ever lived at all, and this woman was very real. Kaden put the children’s stories out his mind.
Adiv had cocked his ear to one side, as though listening to the stunned silence. After a moment he grinned, evidently satisfied with the reaction, then spoke: “She is called Triste, and the bow around her neck is yours to untie. Although,” he added, turning to face Kaden with that disconcertingly blank blindfold, “I would leave her at least partly packaged until after the meal. The Shin are famed for their asceticism, but I fear our dinner conversation might suffer if she sat here just as Bedisa made her. Triste,” he said, beckoning imperiously, “come closer that the Emperor might admire you.”
The young woman kept her eyes fixed on the rough stone floor as she approached, but there was nothing bashful about her stride, a languorous swaying of the hips that arrested Kaden’s gaze. He stood hastily, almost knocking over his chair in the process, grabbing at it with his hand to keep it from falling and cursing himself silently for an idiot as he did so. From the length of the hall, the ripeness of Triste’s body had led him to believe she was older than him, a woman grown. This close, he could see how young she was—sixteen at the most. He wondered absently if someone had lit a fire in the hearth. He was sweating beneath his robe as though he had been running for hours.
“You should greet the Emperor, Triste,” Adiv urged. “Be thankful you have been given to a great man.”
She raised her head slowly, and Kaden saw that her round violet eyes were full of fear.
“It is an honor, Your Radiance,” she said, the hint of a quaver in her voice, and suddenly he felt shame mixed with his desire, shame for drinking in the sight of her so fully and shame for thinking that she might be his, packaged up and delivered like a new suit. He bent to free her from the bow at her throat, and her perfume, a concoction of sandalwood and jasmine, made his head reel.
He fumbled with the simple knot for what seemed like minutes, uncomfortably aware of his knuckles pressing into the girl’s firm flesh and the eyes of the small dinner party on his back. He didn’t dare look at her face again, fixing his gaze instead on the tiny, intricate tattoo of a necklace that circled her neck.
“Go on,” Adiv urged. Even the man with that infernal blindfold could sense his awkwardness! Ae only knew what Tan and Nin were thinking. “She won’t thank you for keeping her standing much longer.”
Kaden’s face burned, and all the exercises he had studied over the past eight years to still the mind and slow the pulse fled. Pain was one thing, but this … this was something else altogether. He thought he might never be able to look Tan in the eye again. Finally the silk fell away.
He went to pull out her seat and found that one of the slaves had already done so. Awkwardly, he gestured for her to sit down. Adiv clapped his hands together again in good humor.
“I understand from his silence that the Emperor is not used to such … luscious gifts. You will soon become accustomed to the trifles that befit your exalted station, Your Radiance.”
Kaden risked a glance at the other guests. Micijah Ut sat ramrod straight in his chair, arms folded across his chest. The two monks watched Kaden with blank expressions. He looked away, turning to Triste in desperation, casting about in his mind for something to say. The normal monastic subjects of conversation, the things he had talked about day after day, night after night for years, seemed suddenly drab and pointless. This woman didn’t care about the level of snowmelt from the Triuri glacier or the sighting of a crag cat on the Circuit of Ravens. He tried to imagine his father or mother entertaining guests in the comfortable opulence of the Pearl Hall, their easy manner as the servants poured the wine and arranged the plates.
“Triste, where are you from?” he asked at last. The words had sounded all right in his head, but as soon as they were out of his mouth, he felt ridiculous. The question was at once pedestrian and awkward, the kind of thing you might ask a merchant or a sailor, not something you put to a beautiful woman moments after she had joined you at the table. Triste’s eyes widened and she opened her mouth to respond, but before she could speak, Adiv interceded.
“Where is she from?” The councillor seemed to find the question amusing. “Maybe she’ll tell you tonight, over the pillow. Now, however, it is time to eat.”
Triste closed her perfect lips and for a sliver of a moment Kaden saw something flash through her eyes. Terror, he thought at first, but it was not terror. Whatever it was felt harder, older. He wanted to look closer, but the girl had dropped her eyes, while at Adiv’s command the servants, who had left the table after everyone was seated, glided in through the side door, carrying delicate plates of artfully arranged food.
After setting up the refectory, the Mizran’s men had taken over the kitchen, going to work with a stock of ingredients carried all the way from the markets of Annur. Kaden couldn’t begin to recognize all the flavors and smells. There were battered locusts and duck with plum sauce, some kind of delicate cream soup that reminded him of summer in the south, and noodles mixed with sausage so hot, it made him sweat. Each course came with a different kind of bread or cracker, and between plates the servants produced tiny silver bowls filled with mint or lemon ice or essence of pine drizzled over rice to cleanse the palate.
Each plate arrived with an accompanying wine, delicate whites from the Freeport hinterland, and rich, heady reds from the plains just north of the Neck. Kaden tried to take only a sip or two of each, but he had spent years drinking only tea and water from the mountain streams, and he quickly found the alcohol dizzying. Triste, on the other hand, drained every glass the slaves set in front of her until Kaden worried she might be sick. After a while, Adiv directed the man to stop pouring for her with a curt motion of his hand.
When the whirlwind of the first few courses had finished, a silence settled over the table and Kaden took a deep breath, steadying himself to ask the question that had been tugging at his mind since the men first fell to their knees before him and recited the ancient formula, the question he had somehow forgotten to ask.
“Councillor,” he began slowly, then threw himself into it, “how did my father die?”
Adiv put his fork down, lifted his head, but did not speak. As the silence stretched, Kaden felt himself growing dizzy with a sort of vertigo, as though he stood at the lip of a great cliff and stared down countless fathoms at the surf pounding the rocks below. He dropped his eyes from Adiv’s face, focusing on the plate in front of him, and only then did the minister answer.
“Treachery,” he said at last, his voice edged with anger.
Kaden nodded, his eyes still fixed on the table in front of him, suddenly fascinated by the grain of the wood, its intricate twistings and unravelings. It had been possible, of course, that Sanlitun had choked on his food, or fallen from his horse, or simply died in his bed, but somehow Kaden had known—maybe it was Ut’s grim transformation, or the alacrity with which Adiv wanted the retinue to depart for Annur—he had known that his father did not die a natural death.
“A priest,” Adiv continued, “Intarra’s High Priest, in fact. Uinian the Fourth, he styles himself. We departed before his trial, but no doubt his head has been taken from his shoulders by now.”