“Kivara,” he growled inwardly, “what are you doing?”
“Nothing,” she replied with a tone of innocence.
Krysta began gently rubbing her foot against his calf.
“You are only encouraging her,” he said. “Stop it.”
“Why? It feels nice.”
“You are interfering with me,” he said angrily. “I will not have it!”
“Some braised z’tal would go nicely with these vegetables,” she replied.
“Kivara!” said the Guardian. “You are shameless, and this is not the way we function!”
“Oh, very well,” Kivara said in a sulking tone.
Sorak pulled his leg back.
“What were you thinking just now?” asked Krysta.
“That if we are going to be spending time together, we had better be certain that we understand each other,” Sorak replied. “I cannot give you what you desire.”
“Cannot, or will not?” she asked, with a mocking smile.
“Is there a difference?”
There is to me,” she said. “Would you welcome my advances if it were not for your vow?”
“I am certain that part of me would,” he replied, with a wry inner grimace at Kivara, “but part of me would feel an obligation to another.”
Krysta raised her eyebrows. “Another? So then there has been a woman in your life?”
“Not in the way that you might think,” said Sorak. “She is someone I grew up with. A villichi priestess.”
“Ah,” said Krysta with a smile. “I see. Passion can be no less intense for being chaste. Or was it chaste?”
“It was. And I would prefer not to discuss it any further.”
“Very well,” said Krysta. “I shall respect your vow, despite the challenge posed by tempting you to forsake it. But tell me, if you had not taken a vow of celibacy, would you still refuse me because of this young priestess?”
“It is not that simple,” Sorak said. “But if I were free to respond to you in the way you wish, I would not hesitate to do so.”
“A most diplomatic answer,” Krysta said, “and not entirely satisfying. But I suppose that it shall have to do.” She glanced down at the table and shook her head. “It is almost funny. I cannot count the men who have desired me, but the one I want the most, I cannot have.”
“Perhaps that is why you want him,” Sorak said.
She smiled, “Perhaps. Would you care for some dessert?”
9
Timor stood on the balcony on the third floor of his palatial estate in the templars’ quarter, gazing out at the sun’s rays gleaming off the Golden Tower. Kalak’s palace had stood empty ever since Tithian had disappeared. No one resided there, not even the slaves who had kept it clean, tended the lush gardens, and seen to Kalak’s slightest whim. The slaves had all been freed, and the Golden Palace now stood merely as a monument to the days when the city had a king, rather than a democratic council. It was such a waste.
Tithian would not be coming back. Timor was certain of it. By rights, he was next in line. Tithian had ascended to the Golden Throne because he had been Kalak’s senior templar. Tithian himself had appointed Timor senior templar, and now that Tithian was gone, Timor felt the right of succession should have passed to him. Except that Tithian had not been declared dead. His fate remained unknown. The council ruled in his absence, but there had never been any formal move to settle the question of a new king for Tyr. Sadira and Rikus had seen to that. They had always been conspicuously silent on the subject of Tithian’s disappearance.
Timor had not pressed the issue. He knew the time was not yet right. Both Rikus and Sadira had a great deal of support among the people of the city, and most of the council members, sensitive to the prevailing winds, had supported them, as well. However, the overwhelming popular support they had enjoyed as the heroes of the revolution was beginning to erode. They had slain the tyrant and they had freed the slaves, and with each passing week, they had consolidated the power of the council, passing edicts in Tithian’s absence that granted more freedom to the people of the city and would make it more and more difficult for Tyr to return to a monarchial form of government. That was, of course, their plan. Bit by bit, they intended to legislate the monarchy out of existence. They were waging another revolution, one that was much more subtle, but no less effective. The longer Rikus and Sadira remained in power as the dominant voices on the council, the more difficult it would be for Timor to supplant Tithian as the king of Tyr.
Difficult, thought Timor, but not impossible. Time worked for him, as well as for Sadira. Since the new government had been instituted, Sadira had consolidated her power on the council, in that, she had been quite successful. But while she was a clever female, she had no experience in government, and she had made one very big mistake. In her rush to free the slaves of Tyr, she had failed to take into account the devastating impact that would have on the city’s treasury and trade.
There was not enough work for all of the new citizens, and as a result, the ranks of the city’s beggars and thieves had swelled dramatically. Wages had fallen as more people competed for fewer jobs, and there were frequent mob brawls in the warrens and the elven market, even in the city’s merchant district. Mobs of beggars attacked recently freed slaves, whose presence in the streets threatened their own livelihood. Bands of thugs roamed the city at night and even during the day, attacking citizens and robbing them. In the warrens, in the elven market, and in the merchant district, vigilante groups had been formed to dispense summary street justice to protect their neighborhoods. The city guard lacked the manpower and the resources to deal with all of the unrest, and they were frequently attacked themselves.
Already, there had been several large fires in the warrens as the angry and frustrated poor people of the city vented their rage on their own neighborhoods. The fires had all been brought under control eventually, but entire city blocks had burned to the ground, and many of the merchants who had their businesses there had left the city in disgust With each caravan that departed for Altaruk or Gulg or South Ledopolus, there were wagonloads of people who had decided to leave the city and make a new start elsewhere, despite the uncertainty they faced. All this worked in Timor’s favor.
During Kalak’s reign, the templars had been hated by the people of the city, who had seen them, quite correctly, as oppressors enforcing the will of the tyrant. But with Kalak’s death and Tithian’s ascension to the throne, that attitude had gradually begun to change. While Tithian had struggled to consolidate his own power, Sadira and Agis, another hero of the revolution, had moved quickly to ram some of their progressive new edicts through the council, and Tithian had been forced to approve them. Timor had seen to it that the templars went along with the new edicts, and that they assisted as much as possible in their implementation. He had made certain his templars were conspicuous throughout the city, keeping order and mediating disputes, functioning as diplomatic liaisons between the people and the council and the city guard. He had waged a subtle campaign of public relations to change the image of the templars from that of oppressors enforcing Kalak’s will to that of Kalak’s helpless victims, trapped in the thrall of the king and forced to do his bidding.
Day by day, the attitude of the people toward the templars became more and more favorable, while their attitude toward the council grew worse and worse. The heroes of the revolution were starting to be looked on as the inept managers of a city on its way to ruin under their stewardship. People were starting to talk among themselves, recalling the days of Kalak’s reign, when things had run more smoothly, when the templars had been in control. Perhaps, they said, Kalak was a tyrant, an insane defiler obsessed with his mad lust for power, but the templars were the ones who really ran things, and the city had fared much better under their efficiency. Timor had spared no expense to start this whispering campaign, but it was paying off. The people were no longer whispering. They were now openly speaking out against the council and blaming them for all the city’s woes.