“I cannot speak for a king, nor even claim to have some way of knowing how the great and powerful may think,” the old man said carefully. “You must know that though I have letters from time to time from my far kindred, I was raised in Tia, and am a Tian at heart. But what I can say is that if I were the King of Saambalah, I would watch my borders very carefully and look to my warriors. It may be that the Tians, whose hunger increases with each season, will hunger for more land. It may be that they will hunger for the other precious things in the south, the gold and ivory, incense and spices. It may be that they look upon the strong men and handsome women, and desire a new kind of slave, and to have at no cost that which they now must hire. For now, they have their war with Alta to pursue, but when that war is over, what then? There will still be an army. And the Great King may turn his eyes elsewhere to employ it. If he cares not that these Magi prey upon his own people, even to letting them eat the power of his Healers, he will care even less that they prey upon outsiders.”
Lord Khumun thanked the old man, then looked at the rest of the council. “Another Altan Healer arrived this morning, and says that he has disturbing news. It was disturbing enough, evidently, that when the Bedu heard it, they put him on racing camels to get him here.”
Kiron thought that Kaleth already knew what the disturbing news was. After all, he had seen a great deal in those visions of his, and something this disturbing was something Kaleth would surely have gotten a glimpse of.
Oddly enough, though Kaleth did not look surprised, he did not look as if he actually knew anything either. It was more as if he had expected bad news, known it was coming, but didn’t know what the shape of it was.
Kaleth nodded agreement when Ari said, “Then we should see him now, if he is not collapsing of exhaustion.”
The messenger might not have been on the verge of collapse, but he was showing the effects of his journey far more than any refugees they had yet seen thus far. His long hair, left long in the Altan fashion with two small braids at each temple, was still tangled from the journey; his skin was sunburned and red, and he was clearly unsteady on his feet, but his voice was strong enough when he spoke, if a bit harsh.
And he recognized Lord Ya-tiren and Lord Khumun, who flanked Ari and Nofret. By design, something like an audience chamber had been set up where the council met, and where urgent messages were heard. Ari and Nofret sat side by side on slightly taller stools than the two Lords who sat on either side of them. It was an arrangement meant to show who the real authority was.
The messenger looked at them all in exhausted confusion, then must have decided that they were the closest thing he recognized to a King and Queen and their advisers.
“My Lords. And Lady,” he said, his voice hoarse and rasping. “I was sent by the Healers of the Temple of All Gods, for there is grave news from Alta City that you must hear. There are two new faces on the Twin Thrones. The old Great Kings are dead. And it is whispered that their deaths came neither by accident, nor illness, but by the hands of men.”
Lord Ya-tiren winced; Lord Khumun only looked angry. Ari remained as unreadable as a statue, but Nofret—
Nofret nodded with resignation, as if this was news she had long expected to hear. She was not surprised, this only confirmed her deepest fears.
As the rest of the people in the room buzzed and murmured, Kiron stole a glance at Kaleth. He expected that Kaleth would look smug or, at least, unsurprised.
He didn’t. He didn’t look surprised either, but it wasn’t as if he had somehow foreseen this happening, at this moment.
That—was interesting.
The messenger held up his hand for silence. “The Great Ladies were wed to the Twin Heirs, even before the Days of Mourning were begun, much less completed,” he continued, and the disgust and affront in his tone told how most, if not all, of the citizens of Alta must have felt at the news. “The mortuary priests had not even come for the bodies before they were wed to the men who are now the Great Kings. Magus Pte-anhatep and Magus Rames-re-bet now sit in the Great Hall and reign. Before the death of the old Kings could be proclaimed, their earlier betrothal to the young princesses was dissolved and they were wed to the Twin Queens, all in a single afternoon.”
“I cannot imagine how this could have surprised anyone,” Nofret said aloud, her head up, as she surveyed the murmuring crowd. Her dark eyes shone with some of the anger and hatred she must have been holding back all this time after Kaleth’s twin brother, Prince Toreth, was murdered. “Especially not in the court. The Great Kings set their seal upon their own death sentence the moment they allowed those men to be adopted into the Royal Houses and declared twins. Surely none of you actually believed they would wait for little Che-at-al and Weset-re to grow up and wed them to take the Twin Thrones and become the Kings? It was an excuse. And anyone who does not believe that the death of the Kings was anything other than murder is a fool!”
“I do not think you will find anyone in Alta to naysay you, Gracious Lady,” the messenger rasped. “The Magi now rule in Alta virtually unchallenged and alone; the Great Ladies are seldom seen, and never on the Twin Thrones. When they are seen, they are silent, and move like those who walk when sleeping. That is the sum of what I came to tell you.” He paused a moment, then added in a very subdued voice, “May I remain? I do not wish to return to a place so altered and so near to madness.”
It was Ari who got to his feet and said, in a voice pitched to carry beyond the room, “Never will we turn anyone away from Sanctuary, be he Altan or Tian, or half-crazed Akkadian—” the latter with a glance at Heklatis, who kept his indignation down to a poisonous glance.
Aket-ten nudged Kiron in the ribs. “That’s important!” she whispered.
“That it was Ari who said that to an Altan?” He nodded. He was starting to see how this business of being in charge of people worked. Well, more people than just a single wing of young Jousters. There were things you had to do, ways you had to deal with people. Ari might say he was unprepared for all of this, but really, he was much better at it than he thought, and he was improving with every day.
The messenger was taken off, and Ari and the rest of the council settled in to discuss what they’d learned. It was fundamentally obvious, though, that there wasn’t much that Kiron could contribute, so he excused himself, and Aket-ten followed him out.
“Are you as depressed as I am?” she asked him, in a voice full of resignation.
“Probably.” He sighed, then felt his spirits lift, just a little, when she slipped her hand into his. “I suppose I’ve been expecting it, but still. . . . I keep hoping someone back in Alta will manage to poison all those scorpions, or that they’ll turn on each other and stab each other to death—”
“That might be just what happened in a way,” she replied. “You know how Marit and Nofret told us that the Magi were always at each other’s throats. Those three so-called Advisers that turned up in Mefis just might be Altan Magi who lost some sort of confrontation.”
He groaned. “If anything, that makes it worse. They’ll never give up the war! Why should they? The longer it lasts, the greater their power!”
“And I don’t want to think about it anymore,” she said, cutting him off. “Or at least, not right now. I want to see this city of yours, and there is absolutely nothing that we need to be doing right now. If we leave now, before either Re-eth-ke or Avatre are really hungry, we can find out if dragons can hunt together when there’s no urgency to the hunt. And then you can show me the city.”