“Perhaps we should invite the princess back. Maybe she could talk some sense into the griffons.”
Rashas’s glare was pure malevolence. “You should be a thousand times glad that the bitch is gone!” he snapped. “She was feeding you lie after lie, and you were too naive to see through her!”
“I enjoyed talking to her,” Gilthas admitted, feeling bold again.
“She, and your father as well, would have been the ruin of this kingdom! I should think that now you’d start to understand what that damned half-breed bastard was trying to do!”
“Sometimes I think that the ‘half-breed bastard’ has more courage and honor in his little toe than any elf left in Qualinesti!” snapped the Speaker, flushed out of his reticence by the senator’s insults.
“You’re still a fool!” Rashas raged. “Now get ready. I told you, the Thalas-Enthia meets in two hours, and you’ll be there! Don’t even think about getting one of those headaches. You should be ashamed, claiming they keep you closed in a dark room! I think they’re just an excuse to keep you from doing your duty.”
The senator stormed away, and Gilthas sighed, turning back toward the pristine view from his balcony, knowing that he had to do as he had been told.
But it was so unspeakably hard!
He thought of his last meeting with his father, probably the last time in his life he would ever see Tanis Half-Elven, who had been exiled from his homeland of Qualinesti. Only later did the son come to see what that sentence had meant to his father. At the time, the young and newly appointed speaker had been too concerned with his own future to worry about Tanis’s past. They had met at the edge of the kingdom—in fact, when Tanis had taken a step toward the border, elven sentries had shot arrows at the half-elf’s feet to underscore the rigidity of the banishment. Father and son had embraced for too short a time, and Gilthas had promised to honor the legacy that had brought him to this throne and to do what he could to block the most shortsighted and mean-spirited acts of the Thalas-Enthia.
Yet so far his presence had been almost entirely symbolic. It seemed that the senate did whatever Rashas wanted, and the presence of Gilthas Solostaran only added legitimacy to their acts.
His musings of self-pity were interrupted by a hesitant knock at the door.
“Enter.”
His mood brightened as he saw the beautiful, golden-haired wild elf who shyly pushed the door open and stood just outside the Speaker’s chamber.
“Please, Kerianseray... come in.”
With a deep bow, the young slave stepped hesitantly forward, keeping her face downcast.
“You can look at me, you know. The sight of me won’t burn your eyes,” Gilthas said gently. As always, he was discomfited by the honors shown him by the palace slaves—and by this slave in particular.
“I was told that the Speaker would be wanting his robes of office,” she said hesitantly, and Gilthas saw that Rashas, as usual, was not being subtle about pointing his young king in the direction he was supposed to go.
“I guess you’re right... I should put them on,” he said with a sigh. “But I still have a little time before fussing with all of that.”
Kerianseray looked at him in confusion. The wrinkling of her brow did nothing to diminish her beauty. In fact, Gilthas found her appearance utterly beguiling. His mind searched, groping for something to say that would keep her here.
“I slept very well last night,” he declared. “That bark tea was soothing. I was fully rested with the dawn.”
Though Gilthas didn’t want the fact widely known, his sleep had been plagued by nightmares—fierce, dire episodes of violence and tragedy—ever since he had assumed the mantle of his office. Even more than the headaches, these episodes had tormented and weakened him. So far as he knew, Rashas didn’t know of these disturbances, nor did anyone except a few of his royal slaves. He was ashamed by what he perceived as his weakness, but the images were so frightening that, when once he had awakened to find Kerianseray soothing his fevered brow with a cool cloth, he had willingly accepted her ministrations. Finally she had grown bold enough to suggest that he sip a brew before retiring, a bitter tea that she had learned to make from her Kagonesti ancestors, a mild medicine that might serve as a balm for just the kind of distress he was suffering.
For some days, he had refused to yield to her suggestion, and she had let the matter drop. The night before last, however, he had awakened with his mouth locked in a rictus of horror, his mind reeling with the image of his mother impaled on a stake of burning wood. All around him this city of crystal and gold had been crumbling, consumed by flames that swept upward from the very ground beneath his feet.
That experience had been so frightening that at last he had gone to Kerianseray and sought her help.
“I am happy I was able to serve the Speaker,” she said, casting her eyes down to the floor. “His suffering is my own,” she added, almost in a whisper.
“There is another thing you could do for me,” Gilthas said. Still Kerianseray held her eyes downcast. “Stop speaking of me as if I’m not here. Refer to me as ‘you,’ not ‘the Speaker.’ If you could do this, it would please me very much.”
“If the Spea—if you wish, I shall try,” the young slave replied. Despite her bronzed skin, Gilthas noticed that a blush was creeping up her cheeks, and this was an expression he found strangely attractive.
“Has my robe been sent for?” he asked.
“Yes. The matrons are starching it and will bring it up shortly. I shall go to help them... that is, unless the... unless you want something else.”
I do, Gilthas thought. I want you to stay here with me. But for reasons he didn’t fully understand, he dared not put those thoughts into words. Instead, he cast around for some excuse, any excuse, that would cause her to remain.
“The matrons will be able to starch the robe by themselves. Perhaps you would be good enough to brush my hair while we’re waiting?”
“Of course!” Kerianseray brightened at the suggestion, and Gilthas felt unaccountably pleased by her reaction. He arranged himself in a comfortable low-backed chair, where he still had a good view of the city sprawling beyond his window. The Kagonesti slave picked up a golden brush and slowly, carefully began to stroke the locks of his long blond hair.
He was soothed by her touch, calmed by her gentle strokes. There were times, he reflected with a sigh, when his life was not so utterly, terribly bad.
Gilthas stood upon the rostrum in the center of the Tower of the Sun. Around him, standing attentively—there were no seats in this hallowed council hall—the robed senators of the Thalas-Enthia waited for him to bring the meeting to order. Though he did not look to the rear, the Speaker knew that Rashas would be very near, standing unobtrusively off to the side but close enough that he could reach the center of the rostrum in a pace or two should events begin to develop in a way he did not desire.
Looking around the uncrowded chamber, Gilthas saw that several dozen of the younger senators were not in attendance. These, for the most part, had inherited their seats during the last forty years or so, following the untimely death of a noble parent. As a rule, they had tended to be more open to change than the staid elder members of the group, many of whom had held their seats for upward of four centuries. When Gilthas had been appointed Speaker, in a ceremony that, for all its rigid legality, had carried the taint of threat and extortion, many of the young senators had stalked out of the chamber. Some of them had refused to return.
But there were still a hundred or so elves here, more than enough to make a quorum. In truth, the only thing that the young hotheads had accomplished was to deprive themselves of a voice in these councils. Gilthas truly regretted their absence. He knew that they despised him, but he hoped that if they could but see what went on in here, they would begin to see that he could offer some real hope to the future of the realm.