Chronicles of the Last Days Chapter 9

Chapter 8

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C

alar of Tiadun,” the treasurer announced.

Iola crossed her arms over her chest. “Did the Aralel approve this?”

The treasurer shrugged. “The Aralel is busy, and surely you must take offering from Tiada’s realm.”

The treasurer was either unaware of or indifferent to the fact that Tiada had been sent to the deepest stream by a Cerean mining expedition that Calar himself had led into the dragons’ hills. No one much probably talked about it outside of the inner circles of those who knew the dragons, those few who could see the winged ones. The treasurer priestess might not have ever seen a dragon herself, outside of festival times, so the fact that Iola could no longer see Tiada would mean very little to her, if anything.

“Tell him to come back if he succeeds at this tribunal,” Iola said.

The treasurer shook her head. “He’s given his offering.” She turned on her heel and bustled away before Iola could reiterate her objection. She sighed and went inside to make ready to bring the murderer himself into the dragon’s presence. It would be better if Darna were there, and Sunna. Iola didn’t think that she could kill a man, but she did half hope that the statue of Anara would come to life and fry Calar like a pig’s tail over a cookfire. Chances were better that Sunna would return. Anara had never entered that offering chamber in the flesh, and her dragonlets passed through petitioners as if they were nothing more than a trick of the light.

It was almost midday and Iola’s breakfast sat like a lump in her belly. She did not feel ready to make the rite, especially not with a man who’d had his realm dragon destroyed. Especially not when she’d lain beside Thorat so recently and only slept in his arms. Of course, the treasurer couldn’t know about that. She hadn’t felt strong enough to risk common lovemaking this time, though she had done it before with him, once or twice, even though it was forbidden. She knew that nearly everyone else did it, but as she was ambassadress, they would, rightly, expect her to uphold the traditions better than a common peresi.

The rite was her work, she told herself sternly. She could always take a petitioner to the dragons, even if he was unwilling and Calar would be there at any moment. She had to at least put on the robes of her office. He would be walking across the peresi’s garden, loincloth loose around his hips, probably leering at her fellow priestesses. Iola put on her plainest tunic and went to the door. She stood at the top of the steps up to her own inner temple and watched him come, guided along by the treasurer who had an even heavier-than-usual purse in her hand.

As Calar came closer, she could see little that she liked about him. He was a tallish man – not as tall as some, but taller than most – and well built, with only a little paunch at his middle, and he walked with a swagger that seemed borrowed from someone else. Maybe he’d taken on the Cerean custom of wearing high-heeled boots and felt uncomfortable in his bare feet. His skin was pale, except for his sunburned face and hands. He had the same complexion as Darna, only in male form and worn down by more years. She could see some family resemblance. Darna wasn’t a beauty in the classical sense, but she had a kind of magnetism that her uncle clearly lacked. Iola resolved not to give Calar any strength. She would deal with the treasurer’s displeasure later if she had to. She probably didn’t care as long as she got the petitioner’s gold.

The treasurer made Calar wait at the garden gate and hurried in to Iola. “What are you about? You’re not prepared.”

“I’m as prepared as I need to be, Honored One,” Iola said.

The treasurer frowned. “I’ll return with his tray, your tray, set for the midday meal.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Iola said. “Send only tea.”

The treasurer clearly did not want to follow that order, but Iola stood firm. “Very well, Most Blessed One.” She paused on her way out to mutter something to Calar.

Calar sauntered up the path as if nothing at all were amiss, as if he shouldn’t be boiled in dragons’ blood. Iola shuddered to look at him, but he smiled as he reached her. He bent down to touch her feet with his clammy hands.

“Pretty,” he said. “I had heard that you were a beauty, and I see that it’s true. A bit thin for my tastes, but I won’t let that trouble me.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Iola said.

“Pardon? Aren’t you supposed to say, ‘Welcome to the rite,’ or some more ornate form of that?”

“I need not take you to the rite. I won’t.”

“Don’t be silly.” Calar pushed past her and into her sanctuary. He sat down on the offering place as if he were lounging on a common tavern bench.

“Get off of the altar.” Iola wished that the treasurer would return, even though she’d be no help. Why was Sunna off chasing after Darna? Where was Darna, for that matter?

Calar got up lazily. “I expected better reception,” he said. “Or do you want to wait until I am officially crowned, as I must be?”

“You are not the prince of Tiadun.”

“Technically, no, not yet, but I’m the closest thing there is, or will be for a long time.”

“I’d rather take Darnasa,” Iola said. “She at least honors the dragons.”

“You priestesses pleasure each other?” Calar said. His eyes gleamed beadily as his lip curled. “You’re a hypocrite, too. Look at all this around you! This doesn’t come from the dragons or even from your fellow priestesses; this is the work of men.”

“And of women. It’s also the work of the dragons, whether you can see that or not.” Iola remained standing in the doorway, where the passing peresi in the outer garden and the one standing guard at the gate could see her. She didn’t want to be alone with Calar. She wasn’t particularly afraid that he would abuse her, but without witnesses, she might lose the strength of her conviction and let him in after all, or else that he would lie about it later and say that she

had

accepted him into the rite, even when she hadn’t.

“I’ll bow down to you if you like,” he said, as if that were making some great concession. He walked back toward her. “You do like your dragons, they say.”

“They’re not my dragons. I’m theirs, and so are you.”

“This is a temple,” Calar said, “but I’ll have you know that I’m freed from them. Come on, you’re supposed to take all the rulers. You haven’t had a prince of Tiadun in years.”

Iola couldn’t deny that, unless Darna counted, but she had only kissed Darna when perhaps she should not have. Still, that small touch had made the dragons’ power flow better than the rite did with most of the princes.

“My brother never came to you?” Calar asked, twisting his loincloth around his finger. “I wasn’t sure of that. I thank you for confirming it. I wondered if he might have, despite his devotions to Farseer. A pity. He should have enjoyed women other than his mistress more often, or we would not have come to this impasse.”

“An impasse. Is that what you call murder?”

Calar waved the accusation away. “He would have despoiled our land with his Enomaean allies. It was the same, with me taking it. At least I could sire a boy child.”

“If that’s all you have to your credit, I don’t think that’s enough.”

The gate rattled – the treasurer, returning with the tray of tea. She’d brought meat pies and cakes too, though Iola had asked her not to.

“Most Blessed One?” she said as she came up the steps.

“Put it down inside. I will stand here,” Iola said.

Calar stood awkwardly just inside the door. “You will leave now with the lady treasurer,” Iola told him. “You may take a pie if you are hungry. I will not take you to the rite.”

The treasurer’s neck muscles tensed but she said nothing. She knew as well as any of them that any priestess could refuse a petitioner, and that the ambassadress was a priestess more than she was anything else.

“What about the offering from Tiadun?” the treasurer said at last.

“Calar and his allies sent their dragon to the deepest stream, the closest thing to killing a dragon. I cannot take Tiada anything; she is beyond my reach,” Iola said. “This, in any case, is no prince.”

Calar had untied his loincloth when he’d first crossed her threshold, exposing his flaccid member. Now he tied the cloth back on, yanking the knot tight. “You’ll pay for this,” he said. “You’ll pay for this when I’m prince.”

“And that, say the dragons, will never be.”

The stones went cold beneath Iola’s bare feet as she spoke. Calar, oblivious to the shift in the dragons’ power, scowled at her once more before the treasurer led him away, his gold secure in her pouch, with or without the rite. Iola shivered and hoped that Darna would be back soon.

#

Darna spent all day at the Defenders’ secret training hall. It was a little bit like being back in the mountain valley, except that she could sense the reassuring presence of the city all around her. It comforted her to be back in Anamat, even if the city was sinking and full of knives and arrows aimed at her back. Her belly didn’t trouble her much while she was in the hall, but after all the drills Sunna and Sovara ran her through, every other muscle in her body shook with exhaustion.

Thorat had to hurry off to the palace as soon as the early-morning training session was done and said that he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to return that night. Sunna left to attend Iola just before the midday training session. Darna stood at the back of the room to watch the others practice their art, lifting their swords in salutation when the shrine doors slid open. It was as ceremonial as anything in the temple and as reverent, if not more so. The symmetry of their movements was astounding at times, ragged tunics and all. It was not quite like watching a dance, but here in their hall, she could see parallels with the priestesses’ dances that had been invisible to her in the mountain valley. She would have to ask Sunna about it sometime.

Around sunset, Eppie and one of the bandit men fetched an evening meal from a nearby tavern. They set it on the rough table at the back of the hall, and the bandits and Defenders lined up to fill their battered bowls and take their rounds of bread. Darna sniffed. It was better than what they’d eaten in the mountains, but not very good by Anamat standards, but she was hungry enough to eat almost anything. She was looking for a place to eat when Vigda waved her over.

“Come sit over here by me,” she said. As Darna followed her, she noticed the Enatel coming to join them too.

“So, what will we do about this tribunal?” Vigda asked Sovara.

Sovara looked to Darna. “You were at the palace last night. What’s the best way to get in and out without getting killed these days?”

Darna considered the question. “I wouldn’t worry about getting killed there, ordinarily, and if all goes well, lots of people will be watching Calar, but he must have some allies, and I don’t know who they all are. I’ve never been to the council chamber myself, but I know more or less where it is. It’s about half the size of this hall and faces on a courtyard. The corridors leading up to it are narrow, easy to get caught in.”

“Easy to defend, too,” the Enatel said.

Vigda nodded. “I don’t like closed-in spaces, but they have some advantages.”

“Thorat would know more about it than I do,” Darna said. “With any luck, he’ll have a good idea of who’s on Calar’s side, too.”

“That old mistress of Terenet’s would know better than anyone,” Vigda said. “You should ask her about it.”

Sovara shook her head. “I won’t go to the temple. There’s enough treachery in there to make an Enomaean blush.”

Darna frowned. She counted at least one Enomaean as a friend, and their horses weren’t even that bad, for all that they were terrified of dragonlets. At least they weren’t dragon-blind. She wondered what Nolerin was doing, if he was still in Theranis or if he’d gone back to Calandria. Either way, he probably couldn’t help much.

“I could send a message to Gallia,” Darna offered. “There must be some place we can meet, and I’ll have to get up to the tribunal somehow, and so will she.”

Sovara nodded and signaled to Eppie. “We need you to carry a message down to the temple and bring one back if you can,” she told Eppie. “What’s your message?” she asked Darna.

“I was going to write it, but –”

“Keep it simple,” Vigda advised. “She’ll know who it’s from and we don’t want it intercepted.”

They were all looking to her. “There’s a place just east of Guild Bridge where there’s a blind alley that we can probably wait in and talk without being overheard. If she comes in a palanquin, she’d be hidden.”

“Or you could be. You’re the one with a price on your life,” Vigda said.

Sovara looked around the room. “Some of us can act as bearers. Will she trust who we send?”

“I don’t know,” Darna said. “She might. If she has her own guardsmen, I haven’t heard of it.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Eppie said. “I can get into the temple without much trouble. Sunna’s brought me there a few times, says I’m from another temple.”

Vigda tipped her head at Eppie. “You don’t look like much of a priestess, girl.”

Eppie smiled. “I’m not, but I can get past the gates.”

“Do that, then,” Vigda said as she shooed Eppie away. Sovara, the Enatel, slunk off to her private corner, where a dim flicker of lamplight filtered out through the curtain as her hammer tapped on metal. Darna found a bedroll and fell into a deep sleep.

#

The next thing Darna knew, it was almost dawn and Eppie was shaking her awake.

“I found that place you were talking about,” Eppie said. “Ferrent and Forlan have gone down to carry the palanquin up from the temple with Vigda. Sunna’s got it in the Landing’s back courtyard, and we’ll meet her at the alley.”

Darna rolled up to a sitting position. Her stomach hurt. “Where are we going?” She was too sleepy to piece it together.

“Up to the palace. The governor’s mistress is giving you one of her rooms to use until the tribunal tonight.”

Darna shook herself awake a little more. “Tiagasa? What’s she thinking?”

“I don’t know, but Gallia said it would be all right.”

“I hope she knows what we’re getting into. I know I don’t.”

There was no tea to be had and Eppie was in a great rush, so they hurried out of the hall in only the time it took for Darna to strap on her sandals. They rattled down the stairs and out through the dark passage in the gray light of early morning, landing on a narrow side street that Darna had passed from time to time. Looking behind her, she could see no trace of the passage to the hidden courtyard.

Eppie hurried her on, so she couldn’t poke around to figure out how the Defenders’ passage was hidden. They slipped through another hidden way and over to the blind alley by Guild Bridge just as the palanquin was coming into view on the far side of the canal. Ferrent was carrying the front set of poles and Forlan took the rear. Four women in priestess robes walked alongside, veils hiding their faces.

Ferrent paused at the mouth of the alley and set the palanquin down.

“In you go,” Sunna said from behind one of the veils.

Darna looked at the other three veiled priestesses. One of them was Gallia; the other might have been her girl at the palace who’d helped Darna get her temporary maidservant position. Vigda was the other one – she still smelled a bit like a bandit despite her borrowed robes. Vigda and Sunna both wore swords, as did the two men. It was as strong a phalanx of guards as most princes had.

“Could I walk?” Darna asked.

“No,” Sunna said. “Get in.”

“Safer that way,” Vigda said, “and more suited to your station.”

“Are you coming?” Sunna asked Eppie.

“Not now; I’ll see you back at the hall,” Eppie said.

“Wait, Eppie?” Darna said. “Would you go tell Myril where I am? Ask her to come, if it’s not too hard for her.”

Eppie agreed to that, then she slipped away down what was left of the canal bank as Darna climbed into the palanquin. She had carried a palanquin pole before, when Iola went down to the harbor to fly to the other realm, but she’d never ridden in one before. This one was a bit smaller that the ambassadress’s ceremonial chair, but it was also filigreed around the arches and draped with brocade curtains, altogether too ornate for a guildswoman.

“I’m supposed to be the one who’s in there,” Gallia whispered as they started up the street. “I told that upstart Tiagasa that I didn’t know where you’d gone. She said she hoped you’d turn up alive.”

“I hope we can manage that, for her sake,” Darna grumbled. It was strange to think of Tiagasa as an ally, but they hadn’t spoken to each other in a very long time. Maybe the governor’s mistress had changed, but Darna doubted it.

“Stop chattering,” Vigda scolded. “Let’s go on.”

The palanquin rocked like a small boat on a harbor’s stormy waves. Despite the warmth and lack of damp, Darna thought of Slaradun and how different things had been a year earlier. It felt like years had passed, not just a moon-round and a half, since Hedrin had attacked her in that lonely keep on Theranis’s western shore. It was stupid to think that she would step willingly into the affairs of princes, but there she was, riding in a palanquin. She’d rather measure a harbor’s depth and choose stones for a foundation.

As they approached the palace, Darna heard Gallia complain. “Where did that old woman go?”

Sunna shushed her. A few steps farther along, the sound of Vigda’s labored breathing let Darna know that the old bandit woman was back.

“What happened?” she whispered.

“Archer. Sitting in a tavern window. Gone now,” Vigda said.

Darna mumbled her thanks. She tried to sit back so as not to show her profile when they entered the palace market square, brightly lit by the rising sun. At the palace gates, Gallia’s girl at the palace presented a letter to the guard and said something about “Her Ladyship,” meaning Tiagasa. From there, Darna was carried into the central part of the palace and the area of the governor’s private rooms, which adjoined the main council chamber. At long last, Ferrent and Forlan set down the palanquin at a chamber door

“May I get out now?” Darna asked.

“Hold a moment,” Sunna said. Darna could hear her walking away down the corridor, probably checking to see if anyone was lurking nearby. She came back and declared the way clear.

Gallia squeezed past the palanquin, through the door.

“Her Ladyship isn’t awake,” said a young woman’s sleepy voice. “She’s not receiving visitors.”

“She’s given me the use of her lily chamber for the day, to prepare for tonight’s tribunal,” Gallia said. “She would be most displeased if I were kept waiting.”

“Oh. She said it was for the Tiadun ladies. Are there more of you?” The young priestess looked out. “All priestesses?”

“And our guardsmen,” Gallia said.

“I’m afraid they’ll have to stay outside. We don’t want to play favorites, so only the palace guardsmen are allowed in.”

“Very well. I’ll send them back to the temple with the chair, and I’ll speak to Tiagasa about that when she wakes. Show us in.”

Darna slipped out through the palanquin’s curtains into a gap between Sunna and Vigda, who hastily threw a veil over her head. Tiagasa’s attendant did not look pleased to have been woken so early, or to be seen with the mark of bedsheets still on her face. She curled her lip at the sight of Darna.

“I’d heard that Tiadun had fallen on hard times, but one must wear better robes at the palace,” she said.

“That will all be taken care of, as you will see,” Gallia said smoothly. “Now show us to the lily chamber and have our breakfast brought.”

“As you wish, Honored One,” the young woman said. She scurried ahead of them and down another short, narrow corridor to a high-ceilinged room with frescoes of enormous lilies painted on the walls, reaching up taller than any of them in a sort of forest of flowers. The effect was…soothing, Darna decided. The room had only two small, high windows. If she guessed right, they were at one side of the garden that faced onto the main council chamber. There would be a tile roof outside those windows that covered the walkway around the garden. It was not perfectly safe – someone might be able to look in on them from above if they climbed onto that roof – but it would do.

Tiagasa’s attendant didn’t linger. As soon as she’d gone out, Darna asked if a watch could be kept on the roof outside.

“I’ll ask Thorat what he thinks as soon as I can find him,” Sunna said. She yawned and looked around. Apart from the paintings and a mosaic at the center of the floor, depicting more ordinary-sized lilies, it was a plain room, furnished only with cushioned benches along the walls and a couple of small, low tables. Sunna lay down on one of the benches and closed her eyes. Gallia gestured to Darna to sit in the far corner with her, away from Sunna. Vigda removed her veil and took a seat beside the door. She let her sword hang out of the gap in her priestess robes.

“And who would you be?” Gallia asked her.

“I have an interest in this matter,” Vigda said. “Also a good sword arm, which no one suspects of an old woman.”

Gallia raised her eyebrows. “For all your white hair, you’re not so very old, are you?”

“Older than you are by five years and a half, more or less.”

“I see,” Gallia said. “I’ll have to get better robes for you, too.” She looked pointedly at her girl at the palace, who had shed her priestess robes and looked like an ordinary serving girl again. “See to getting robes for these two appropriate to their station.”

The girl at the palace gave a little bow to her mistress. “I’m sorry,” she said hesitatingly, “but what station would that be?”

“Heir to the prince of Tiadun and… What would you call yourself?”

Vigda tipped her head to one side, considering. “You may dress me as a village chief or his wife. I’ve been something like that.”

“That will do,” Gallia said. “Off with you, and see to it that they send their best breakfast. Terenet’s heir must get used to her position.”

Darna wasn’t so sure about that, but she saw no need to argue with Gallia. She, at least, knew her way around the palace, which was more than Darna could say for herself. Over breakfast, her father’s old mistress had filled her head with names and places, bits of geography and intrigue, everything she thought was most essential to the management of Tiadun.

“You know the keep itself,” Gallia said, “and of course I’ll go back with you for a little while, but after that, I’d like to visit my home province again.”

“Which province is that?” Sunna asked from her bench.

“Helanum, young lady, and I’ll have you know it’s unacceptable to lie down like that when a prince is keeping court.”

“I’m not keeping court,” Darna said. “And really, I don’t mind.”

“You’ll have to learn a thing or two about keeping up appearances, then,” Gallia said.

Vigda sprang to her feet, sword drawn, as someone appeared at the door. It was Tiagasa.

“Do put that down,” the governor’s mistress said testily. She gave Gallia a nod and looked skeptically at Darna. “Your father’s mistress is absolutely correct. You will have to learn something about appearances. I’m shocked that you never did, for all your years as a novice priestess.” She shook her head at the state of Darna’s dress, which was her serving-woman garb from two nights before.

Vigda let her sword drop but did not re-sheathe it, and Sunna stopped pretending to rest. She got up to greet Tiagasa with a low bow.

“I see you’ve left the temple,” Tiagasa said to Sunna. “You must think that your protégée here has a chance.”

“I’m only here until the tribunal,” Sunna said. “And yes, I think Darna will prevail. If you thought that she wouldn’t, then we wouldn’t be here, would we?”

Tiagasa smiled. “No, you would not. Now, Darna, or Darnasa, let us see what we can do to make you look like less of a disgrace to your bloodline.”

#

While the day at the Defenders’ hall had been physically exhausting, it had also been companionable and interesting, with quiet moments here and there. The day in Tiagasa’s borrowed chamber was an unrelenting barrage of exactly the kind of things Darna had always disliked about Tiagasa and her kind, namely their obsessive attention to fashion and constant social maneuvering. She bore with it, though. She was coming to like Gallia, and Vigda seemed to have taken a strangely strong interest in the trial, for a bandit chief who despised the lowlands.

In the late afternoon, Tiagasa accompanied the delivery of a pile of excessively embroidered robes, but no jewels. Darna still had her stone from Slaradun and wondered if she should wear it outside her robes or inside. She was contemplating that question as Tiagasa discussed the robes with Gallia.

“Now, Darna,” Tiagasa said suddenly. “I’d like to see you prevail. If you don’t, we may have to turn you over to your uncle’s care, and there’s no telling what he might do.” Her voice was chilly.

Darna immediately thought of Hedrin, his boot on her neck on the cold floor of Slaradun keep in the darkest hour of the night. If Calar found out that she and Ivanat had left Hedrin imprisoned there, he would want revenge for his son’s life. If she’d let him kill her, he might have walked free and escaped the flooding and ruin of Slaradun. But then, she would be dead. She shuddered to think what would happen if Calar had charge over her. She would not live long, or if she did, he would make her wish she was dead.

“You’d better do well,” Tiagasa said. “You and I may have some work to do.” There was menace in that, too, but not as much as there had been in the earlier threat. Darna forced a tense smile onto her face.

“Now,” Tiagasa said lightly, “you ladies will want to rest before the evening. I’ll see you in the council chambers.” With that, she made her exit, smiling coldly.

The brief rest did revive Darna’s energy. As she walked across the garden to the council chamber, she tried to convince herself that Calar could not prevail. Her head was packed full of Gallia’s lessons about Tiadun, which village chiefs were loyal to Calar, which had been her father’s most ardent supporters, and what she should do to secure their loyalties if she was successful in unseating Calar. Gallia did not discuss what would happen if she failed. She had a little more delicacy about that than Tiagasa did, but there was a grim set to her jaw.

“It’s no use pretending that there’s any doubt,” Gallia had said at last. “Even if you’re not his daughter – and I believe you are – you’re our best chance of defeating Calar.”

“I’m not even sure that I want to go back to Tiadun,” Darna mused.

“Anamat is sinking, Tiadun isn’t,” Gallia pointed out, “and someone has to put Calar off the throne.”

Darna could agree with that much. Gallia led on. Sunna had gone back to the temple but Vigda had stayed with her, and Forlan and Ferrent had rejoined them. The guardsmen were only allowed to watch from outside, in the garden, along with the guardsmen of the other princes.

For someone who was supposed to be seizing the throne of a province, Darna felt rather like a bundle of goods. She’d never wanted to be a princess, always being bundled around on some political errand or other, and it felt like that already, even though the tribunal hadn’t yet begun. She tried to imagine Calar groveling but couldn’t get a firm image of him in her mind, despite having seen him only two nights before. What was her remaining cousin’s name? Renar, that was it. Gallia said that he wasn’t quite as vile as Hedrin had been, but only because he was more dull-witted. She was glad that she hadn’t grown up among them. It had been far better to run free on the streets of Anamat, however briefly. Even when the other princesses had sneered at her in the temple, she’d had more friends than she would have in Tiadun. She wondered where Myril was.

Darna wore blue-and-orange robes, Tiada’s color. She looked the part of a noble challenger, thanks to everyone but herself. There would be no more scurrying around trying to find her freedom in the hidden ways. She missed her old life.

#