Again he looks up at me, where I still stand atop the victory tower. I can make no gesture. I can shout no words of encouragement. There can be no hint that he’s in on it.
In the end it is his decision alone, and he knows it.
The legacy of the first Kliatemnos and Serenissima is one betrayal after the next, their descendants steeped in an ugly history. Even though his cause is just, King Kalliarkos is a betrayer too. He knows it as he speaks the words that spell the end of the royal dynasty he was meant to inherit.
“So say we, Queen Meno? and King Kalliarkos. Seeking the path of mercy rather than blood, we surrender into the custody of the gods’ judgment.”
31
As we leave the Fives court for the Temple of Justice I still clutch the victor’s ribbon. I walk with the other three adversaries alongside columns of Efean soldiers. Marching in disciplined ranks, they escort the royal household and the head of each highborn clan to Seon’s temple. The firebird veterans remain behind in the Royal Fives Court to stand guard over the thousands of highborn Saroese captives. The Honored Protector, still hidden by his mask and armor, leads the procession down the King’s Hill in a silence that contrasts with the turmoil unfurling throughout the city.
Threads of smoke rise from within Saryenia’s walls and I don’t know if it is the Saroese or Efeans who have set the fires. The city rumbles with noise and confusion. Even so, our prisoners, surrounded by a tight wall of Efean troops, might as well be in a cage. Four spiders clank along, two on either side. The only courtesy shown is toward Princess Berenise, who is carried in a litter because of her age. Even Meno? in the fullness of her pregnancy is forced to walk in the heat and the dust, the sun blasting down on her. She’s leaning heavily on Kal. His face looks dead.
Numbness has turned my heart to stone as we reach the wide staircase that leads up to the portico of the Temple of Justice. We are welcomed by a colossal statue of Seon with his stern Saroese face and his neck wreathed with flowers in the Efean manner. The hall of the Sun of Justice admits Saroese and Efeans alike even if the laws favor Patrons. Father has always preferred Seon’s worship to that of Inkos although he was not a man who prayed beyond what was socially required.
By now ordinary city dwellers have crept to the edges of the square that fronts Seon’s temple. There are far more Efeans than Saroese in this growing crowd. However fast news travels, not everyone in the city yet knows what is going on. And why would they? We haven’t won yet. There are still Rings turning that we have to leap through to reach the victory tower.
The Honored Protector halts at the base of the temple steps. The four spiders thump up the stairs to its portico, where they halt on either side of the monumental entrance. Each one is accompanied by a squad of firebird veterans detached from the main unit that remained behind to guard the Royal Fives Court with the rest of the spiders. I’m sure they’re here because Father never fully trusts anyone except men he has himself trained.
Although I’m separated from Kal by only a few ranks of soldiers, he never looks around, only straight ahead and up the stairs, awaiting the arrival of the High Priest. For the last many years, the Inkos priest Lord Gargaron blackmailed has presided as High Priest over all the temples of Efea. But it is not a man dressed in the red robe and black hat of Inkos who emerges.
Instead a woman wearing a simple linen sheath gown walks out and halts at the top of the stairs. A butterfly mask fashioned from blue, yellow, and red feathers conceals her face but her bare black arms and her hair reveal to the prisoners what manner of person this is who has usurped the priests’ territory. Despite their helplessness the men of the royal household and the captured heads of clans murmur angrily. By Patron custom, for a woman to preside over a temple is blasphemy. That she is a Commoner of course makes it worse.
“What mockery is this with which you defile our holy temple?” calls Gargaron.
“Silence!” shouts Ro.
The Honored Protector starts up the stairs. Ro murmurs into Kal’s ear like a sage steward giving advice to a beleaguered lord in a play. Ro’s part is crucial, because he has only these few moments to persuade Kal to take the biggest chance of all.
Kal says something short to Ro and, still supporting his sister, climbs the stairs in the wake of the Honored Protector. Lord Gargaron, the heads of the many highborn clans, and the Garon Palace men come next. At the back the ladies of the royal household hold hands as they follow their menfolk. Most are weeping, but nevertheless they keep their chins high. Lady Adia has fallen to the rear amid the stewards and officials, not one person extending a hand to aid her. Something about the way her body sways and her chin dips down alerts me. I shove through the ranks and dart up just as she begins to collapse with the passive invisibility of people who are drowning.
I grasp her arm in time to stop her from hitting the ground. Only then, seeing my hands on her, do the nearest stewards yank her away and hastily convey her forward out of my reach. One spits at me.
The Efean soldiers at my back break their silence, muttering furiously, but I wave them back. This is not the place. We must let the performance continue to its end.
We enter the temple, a square hall lined with pillars. A statue of four-faced Seon rises at the center, looking in every direction for, as the sages teach, justice shines in every direction. Two stone goats kneel, one by each of the god’s legs, according to an ancient custom by which the good, unblemished goat is given to the god as a sacrifice that atones for the misdeeds of the people while the other goat is expelled as an outcast into the wilderness.
“This is a farce.” Gargaron strides past Princess Berenise and steps in front of his niece and nephew to command the stage. “Only the High Priest can judge the royal clan and the highborn lords.”
“I am the High Priest,” says a yellow-robed young man sitting in the seat of judgment, which is placed at Seon’s feet between the two goats. He is the man I met at the Jasmine Inn, the one who was promised this job, whose name I never learned. He is flanked by nervous priest-wardens armed with swords and spears festooned with the colored ribbons of the holy temples. The old High Priest, stripped of his hat, cowers amid a huddle of frightened colleagues off to one side.
The young priest of Seon looks down his nose at Gargaron with searing contempt. “I and my pure-hearted confederates will restore the worship at the temples so its judgments are not bought by gifts and favors. You, Lord Gargaron, stand chief among those who have bribed the very priests who claim to be the holy servants of the gods but instead have been corrupted by greed and lust.”