She emerged onto the street, into light that blinded her as well as the milling crowd. Igraine’s procession was already past. She hesitated, wandering about on the wide walkway beside the street, loathe to head back inside. In doing so, she learned something she would never have guessed had she not been among a crowd of merchants and commoners.
Not everyone, it seemed, supported the council’s decision to question Igraine. It was a revelation to her, for she had been raised never to question the rulings of the leaders. How naive she’d been to think she was the only one who supported Igraine!
She collected her horse and started back for the castle immediately. In the stables and yard, even in the hallways, there was almost as much of an uproar as there had been at the stadium. It took only a little detective work to discover that Igraine was being housed as a “guest” in Enna’s wing, and just a small bribe allowed her to slip down a small hallway and into the suite of rooms assigned as his quarters.
Igraine was seated before a roaring fire, his hands and booted feet stretched toward the flames. He looked up as she slipped through the door and smiled sadly. “I’d forgotten how drafty the castle can be.”
The room had the chill feeling and damp smell of having been unoccupied for a long time. The furnishings were as lavish as anything to be found in the castle, the huge bed piled with blankets, covered trays of food standing on a side table, but still it evoked visions of a cell.
“You shouldn’t have come, Khallayne.” Igraine stood and accepted her quick bow with an incline of his head.
“I had to come. I had to…”
“You had to what, child?” He came forward, caught her cold fingers, and drew her closer to the fire.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, surprised that she really didn’t know why. “I want you to know I told one of the council members that I didn’t see anything I regarded as treasonous.”
“Thank you.” He patted her hand. “It’s not treason to try to increase production in one of the state’s provinces. It’s not treason to try to save your people.”
“Then why did you kill the messengers?”
“I didn’t.” He dropped heavily back into the chair. “My slaves did, with the permission of some of my family. I didn’t know until the third one came.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Then it’ll be all right. All you have to do is tell them, and-”
The sadness on his face deepened. “You have understood nothing, have you? Nothing of all that I told you those days in Khal-Theraxian.”
Of course, she had, but…
“I can’t sacrifice my slaves to save myself! If I do, then what I believe is as nothing!”
“But they’re only slaves. You can always get more.”
Igraine erupted from his chair, his face contorted, and she saw for the first time since she’d met him the strong and terrible Governor of Khal-Theraxian, whose province was the most trouble free in all the mountains.
“The slaves are the innocents in this, despite their killing!” As quickly as it had come, Igraine’s temper waned and his sadness returned. Suddenly he looked very old.
“Khallayne, don’t you see what our world is becoming? Don’t you see that if we don’t make changes now, we’re doomed?”
He held out his hand for her to come closer. “Our civilization was once vital and innovative. Our citizens were warriors and thieves. We took the best from over the whole continent. Now we do almost nothing for ourselves. Our warriors have grown soft and useless, our people decadent. Our cruelty insists on the suffering of others.”
Khallayne dropped to her knees before him, mesmerized by the power of his voice, hypnotized by the sweet reason of his words.
“Igraine, Governor of Khal-Theraxian, you have been charged with treason and heresy, with endangering the lives of your neighbors and friends by inciting the slaves to insurrection.”
Khallayne kneeled as before in Igraine’s room, only this time, she was squeezed in between Jyrbian and an Ogre female she didn’t know. And Igraine was pleading his case before the council.
“It is not treasonous for me to increase the production of my holdings tenfold,” he argued. “It is not heretical to treat my slaves with kindness if they work twice as hard.”
“And this is the philosophy of ‘choice’ you espouse?” Narran prompted. “What you call ‘free will’?”
“We have grown hard in our ways,” Igraine responded, loudly and proudly enough that no one doubted his belief in his words. “We are selfish while espousing order and obedience. Enslaved by our needs. In doing so, we have grown cold and hollow. We decay day by day, and the ugliness that fills begins to show outside.”
The audience gasped. Some hissed softly between their teeth, but that didn’t stop him.
“It is time we decided for ourselves who we will be and what will be our destiny. We are the firstborn of the gods, the brightest, the best. The most beautiful. Is it not time we lived up to our potential?”
Khallayne shifted imperceptibly. The heat was stifling, the scent of perfumes and bodies thick. She longed for fresh air, a clear head.
Igraine’s words, which had seemed so reasonable the day before, in the bald light of a council hearing bore a tinge of the lunatic. Even so, as she looked around, she could see that not all of the others thought him mad. A few, a very few, were gazing at him as she had the day before, enthralled by the power of his voice.
Igraine ended his impassioned speech by turning his back on the council and opening his arms as if he would embrace the whole audience. “I’m sure there are many who agree with me, who believe as I do. Join me. Show your council that we mean no harm.”
Khallayne’s breath caught in her throat. Several of Igraine’s neighbors and family were in the audience, and they stood, joining him before the council.
Igraine’s eyes swept the room, urging more to come forward, lingered on her. His scrutiny reminded her of the pain of Lyrralt’s healing.
Her muscles tensed, wavering. Just as she started to rise, Jyrbian placed his hand on her forearm. It appeared an innocent gesture, but his fingers bore the weight of his body.
“I think it’s going to go very badly for him,” Jyrbian whispered, leaning very close, his lips barely moving. “And very badly for any who can’t distance themselves from him.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Khallayne tiptoed into her place a few moments before tbe judgment was to begin. She craned her neck and peered down the aisle toward the front of the audience hall, where families knelt near the throne platform.
Only the families and allies of the Ruling Council were allowed to kneel in the presence of the king. The rest stood in rows, ranked by order of their importance and heritage. As she did, others in the depths of the audience hall shifted from foot to foot and craned for a glimpse of their sovereign.
That the king was putting in a rare appearance was probably not a good sign for Igraine, she reflected.
The huge chamber looked very different in the light of day, in the midst of controversy, than it had the last time Khallayne had been there. The ceiling was lost in shadow and without the sparkle of candlelight; the walls were once again cold granite that reflected the slightest whisper or scuff of boot.
There was no singing of the History. Khallayne felt a pang of remorse. How odd to begin an official function without the reminder of whence they had come.