A man does not eat with a woman. A master does not eat with a slave. And the emperor most certainly does not eat with a female slave. Yet this happened.
The kitchen did not talk of this. The kitchen talked, instead, of the gaplax. What if Khmar developed a taste for them? What if he called for a gaplax when he was a thousand leagues inland? How many chefs' heads would it take to teach him the difficulties of transporting live gaplax as far as Locontareth or Gendormargensis?
Khmar was usually content with horsemeat, and that was the way the kitchen liked it. This Yen Olass had a lot to answer for.
Halfway through the meal, the kitchen had other things to worry about. Khmar's bodyguards burst into the kitchen tent, seized the entire staff, dragged them outside and bound them to execution posts. Khmar's foodtaster was writhing on the ground, vomiting his heart out. If the same happened to Khmar, heads would roll.
Fortunately, Khmar did not suffer. The foodtaster had proved allergic to seafood, but the emperor suffered no ill effects, to the great relief of the kitchen.’
Even at the best of times, the incident with the foodtaster would have spoilt the meal. Yen Olass had a very uncomfortable time. Khmar always seemed on the point of saying something – and always withdrew. What was he afraid to tell her? Perhaps he wanted to ask for a reading, yet was too… too embarrassed to?
The day and the danger were not yet over. On the principle that it is always best to die with a full stomach,
Yen Olass ate her way through four gaplax. She had invented the principle on the spur of the moment, to justify making a pig of herself.
'You have strong appetites,' said Khmar.
'I was born biting,' said Yen Olass.
And that was as near as they came, to small-talk.
After the meal, Khmar resumed his audience with Lord Alagrace, with Yen Olass in attendance.
'Not all your actions have pleased me,' said Khmar to Alagrace, opening his attack without ceremony.
'I have done my best in accordance with the law,' said Lord Alagrace, stiffly.
It was exactly the kind of opening Khmar was looking for. If Alagrace had not given it to hirn, Khmar would have created it.
'I know all about your version of law,' said Khmar. 'Warming your hands with your arse while voices clock the sun to the western horizon. That's your law – now you see mine. Bring in the pirates!’
Armed guards brought in four swarthy-faced men who were forced to the ground in front of the Red Emperor.
'They claim to be ambassadors,' said Khmar, 'going to see Ohio of Ork. Do you hear that? Ohio of Ork! Some pirate pretending to be a king. There'll be no pirates in my waters, not once I'm finished with them. We have to build seapower. Wipe them out. You've seen what they've made of my son, Alagrace, but a grease-arse diplomat like him could never get rid of the pirates. This is the way to do it!’
So saying, Khmar grabbed one of the men – scooped him up, lofted his body toward the roof of the tent, then hauled it down from the air, breaking the spine across his knee. Then he tore out the throat with his teeth. Then grinned: blood and sharpened ivory.
One of the three remaining men got to his feet and charged. He died before his second step – nine pieces of metal sticking into him. Six knives, two spears, one tomahawk. Khmar's bodyguards were the best. That left two men.
One cowered down on the floor, but the other spoke rapidly.
'What is that rabble speaking?' said Khmar.
'He is speaking one of the southern languages,' said Celadric. 'The Galish Trading Tongue. It is one in which I have acquired some fluency. He asks for the oracle to give him a reading.’
'A reading!' said Khmar, displeased at this interruption to the outright slaughter he had planned. 'Who told him about oracles and readings? You? No, don't answer, I've no time to listen to any lies. Well – is he entitled to a reading? Yen Olass?’
'No,' said Yen Olass. 'He is an outlander. He is not entitled to a reading.’
'So what should we do with him?’
Nobody answered.
'Yen Olass? I asked you a question.’
'I am a woman,' said Yen Olass, cautiously. 'I do not dispose of the lives of men. It is not for me to say.’
Truth to tell, Yen Olass believed that girls can do anything, but she told her emperor what she thought he wanted to hear.
'Oh, most excellent of liars,' said Khmar. 'Yen Olass, you can be emperor for a moment. More: you are emperor. Decide.’
Yen Olass hesitated. What kind of game was this? She did not dare presume that the meal Khmar had given her was a sign of favour: he might turn on her in a moment, and butcher her, then joke about how he had been fattening her up for the table. As.she hesitated, Celadric spoke:
'Since when did you take instruction from a female?’
'I want to see how a female rules,' said Khmar. 'Then I will know how things will be when my dear Celadric comes to power.’
Why did Khmar dart such insults at his son? Perhaps he wanted Celadric to attack him, and die in the attack. Perhaps he wanted Celadric to try and kill him – and to succeed. Celadric himself understood Khmar's bitter words as the last sport left to a dying man, and perhaps he was right.
'Speak, Yen Olass,' said Khmar. 'Silence, all. Hear the woman emperor.’
Yen Olass now held in her hands the lives of two men. She doubted if she could save them both. One of them, perhaps? Perhaps.
'Certain acts unthink certain thoughts,' said Yen Olass, pointing to a fresh-killed corpse. 'A man lies dead. Another man hears of it. His destiny was to be an assassin of great fame; instead, he earns his fame by knifing wood for block prints. This is necessary. Power must be manifest – but likewise mercy.
'A ship confronts the navy. If captured, all die. They have heard of this. With no hope, they fight to the death. Men die for no purpose. If there is the possibility of mercy, hope will disarm trapped men. Victory comes easy. Mercy is a potent weapon in the arsenals of a great power.
'Yet the emperor lives by strength. The emperor must show mercy, but must not cherish weakness. So preserve the survivor. As a free man or as a slave – by your judgment. Let them fight for the privilege.’
Khmar laughed.
'Is it true what the rumours say, Alagrace? Is it true you let this woman help you rule your city?' 'No,' said Lord Alagrace.
'Then more fool you,' said Khmar. 'Celadric – tell them. Trial by unarmed combat.' Celadric hesitated.
'He flinches,' said Khmar. 'He'd have a woman killed, that was easy enough. But he falters when it comes to men. Celadric, you'll have three men to kill when I'm gone. York, Meddon, Exedrist. When I'm gone.’
So saying, Khmar raised his voice to a battlefield bellow:
'Do you hear that, Exedrist? Are you listening, you soft-brained vermin? Do you hear me? Do your spies hear me?' He coughed then, and spat.
'Otherwise, civil war. You'll find out, soon enough. Soon, I'm dead. No – don't say otherwise. Soon I'm dead. I'm a sick man already. Shitting blood and leaking water. You'll have your test soon enough, Celadric. Now tell them! Combat!’
Celadric spoke, and the two remaining pirates squared off. A moment later, one lay dead. The survivor withdrew his blade: a vicious little boot-knife with an oosic handle. Not much of a weapon, but still lethal in the right hands.
'Who gave him the knife?' said Khmar. 'Was it you, Celadric? Was this animal your assassin? You don't want to answer? I'm not surprised. No matter. I'll be dead soon anyway. But when we leave tomorrow for Gendormargensis, you'll be leaving some of your skin here, that's for certain.’
Celadric showed no emotion. He had excellent self-control. Khmar pointed at the surviving pirate:
'Celadric. Tell your assassin that a man who takes orders from a woman is only fit to be the slave of a woman. And the slave of a slave woman, at that. Tell him he belongs to the oracle. From now on, she is his god, and he will obey his god in ail things – or die.’
Celadric translated, and thus it was that in the autumn of the year Khmar 19. the oracle Yen Olass Ampadara acquired a slave, an Orfus pirate from the Greater Teeth, a man by the name of Draven (Bluewater Draven, not to be confused with Draven the leper or Battleaxe Draven or with Draven the Womanrider, even though he'd done a little of that in his time.)
But that was not the end of the day's business. Khmar was fatigued, but he was not finished.
'Alagrace, now – I had so many, many things to say to you. We were going to have a very interesting conversation here. There were so many things you had to explain. But now… now I don't care for the answers.’
That was as close as Khmar could come to admitting that he was exhausted. When he said he was sick, he was telling the honest truth. He knew his own mortality.
'So let me tell you your duties. Your orders have been written down for you, in detail. You always were the best at logistics, weren't you? Argan is yours. Chonjara will help you take it – you need a good fighting general to give you some fire in your belly – but overall command, that's yours.’
Khmar held up his hand.
'No, I don't want to hear it.’
'But my lord-’
'Do it,' said Khmar. 'It is finished.’
When Khmar used that formula, everyone knew better than to argue. Lord Alagrace, granted leave to speak, would have argued for hours against the invasion of Argan. Alagrace had always argued that any move south of Tameran must be preceded by a campaign against the Ravlish Lands, which would secure ports from which the Collosnon Empire could project seapower into the Central Ocean. However, Khmar – who could not swim – had planned this war between continents by looking at a map and seeing where there was the smallest gap between landmasses. Khmar, the Master of All the Cavalry, the Horse born of the line of Horse, was not amenable to argument.
The audience was at an end.
The next day, Yen Olass saw Yerzerdayla at a distance, comforting Celadric after his public punishment. She realized Celadric had bought Yerzerdayla, and at first she was horrified at the thought of such a cold-blooded monster owning such a warm, generous woman.
But then, when she thought about it, what better fate could Yerzerdayla have hoped for?
Yen Olass sensed that Yerzerdayla would organize Celadric, and that he would appreciate her incisive intelligence, her poise, her elegance. They might never love each other, but their relationship might, in time, become an alliance of powers: in time, Yerzerdayla might make herself empress.
Now, if Yerzerdayla had been bought by Khmar… that would have been a disaster.
What kind of woman would Khmar want?
Yen Olass lay awake at night, thinking about it. Thinking about the way Khmar had denied Losh Negis the right to claim the flesh of the woman he had bought from the Sisterhood. About the strange meal they had had together. About the way he had let her decide for the pirates.
The emperor could scarcely take Yen Olass to bed. Whatever her legal status, she was of the Sisterhood. The most powerful men in Khmar's empire were those from the Yarglat clans which had followed him out of the north, and those men tended, like Chonjara, to be true to the old ways. Such men might tolerate oracles, and even make use of them on occasion – but to have their emperor succumb to one? That would be a different thing again.
Everyone remembered the reign of terror of the Witch-lord, Onosh Gulkan. An oracle who captured an emperor might all too easily remind men of the wiles of the dralkosh, Bao Gahai of evil memory. In the popular imagination, the gap between an oracle and a dralkosh was not so terribly wide. A great warrior, Haveros, had recently been seduced by a dralkosh. An emperor could not be presumed to be immune…
Yen Olass realised Khmar had chosen the path of discretion for good and sufficient reasons. But she could not help thinking that she was better equipped to live as an empress than as a slave.
Lord Alagrace knew why Khmar had put him in charge of the invasion of Argan. Logistics was his speciality, in which no Yarglat clansman could match him; the invasion across the waters of the Pale was going to need an enormous amount of planning and organisation, which made Lord Alagrace the inevitable choice as supreme commander. He accepted his fate.
But one person who did not accept her fate was the Princess Quenerain. Her father had told her she was going to go to Argan in her capacity as head of the Rite of Purification. She was appalled at the prospect. In effect, she was being exiled from Gendormargensis. She thought her father was punishing her – and she was right.