His grey eyes had flared into life. His Normannic was perfect as he replied, “To punish me.”
“Why would he want to punish you?”
“Because I am my father’s son, and he thinks my father failed him before this fortress.”
“Your father is dead, then?”
“No—I don’t know. He disappeared into the mountains rather than return to court to be… to answer for his actions.”
She switched back to Merduk. “Your Normannic is better than you think.”
“I am no spy,” he repeated. “Even the Sultan would not ask me to be that. My family have served the House of Ostrabar for generations. I will not fail the Sultan’s trust—nor yours, lady. I swear it. And besides”—here a glint of humour pierced his sternness—“the harem is full of spies already. The Sultan has little need of another.”
She actually found herself liking him. “Have you family of your own?”
“A wife and two daughters. They are in Orkhan.”
Hostages for his good behaviour, no doubt. “Thank you, Shahr Baraz. Now please leave me.”
But he stood his ground stubbornly. “I am to remain with you at all times.”
“All times?” she asked with one raised eye-brow. Shahr Baraz flushed.
“Within the bounds of propriety, yes.”
She felt a pang of pure despair, and abandoned the game. “All right.” The prison walls were still intact, then. She might be able to order about a flock of flunkeys, but her position was essentially unchanged. She had been a fool to think otherwise.
Heria turned to regard the view from the lofty window once more. The pain was there of course, but she kept it at bay, skirted around it as a man might avoid a bottomless quagmire in his travells. Somewhere over the horizon in the east the ruins of Aekir stood, and somewhere in those ashes were the remains of another life. But the man with whom she had shared that life was still alive. Still alive. Where was Corfe now, her one and only husband? Strange and terrible that the knowledge he lived and walked and breathed upon the earth was a source only of agony. She could take no joy in it, and she scourged herself for that. She bore another man’s child, a man who now called her wife. She had been ennobled by the union, but would live what remained of her life behind the bars of a jewelled cage. While her Corfe was alive—out there somewhere. And leading the fight against the world she now inhabited.
She wanted to die.
But would not. She had a son in her belly. Not Corfe’s child, but something that was precious all the same—something that was hers. For the child she would stay alive, and she might even be able to do something to aid Corfe and the Torunnans, to help those who had once been her own people.
But the pain of it. The sheer, raw torment.
“Shahr Baraz,” she said without turning round.
“Lady?”
“I need… I need a friend, Shahr Baraz.” The tears scalded her eyes. She could not see. Her voice throbbed with a beat like the sob of a swan’s wing in flight.
A hand touched the top of her head gently, resting there only for a second before being withdrawn. It was the first touch of genuine kindness she had received for a very long time, and it broke some wall within her soul. She bowed her head and wept bitterly. When she had collected herself she found Shahr Baraz on one knee before her. His fingers tapped her lightly on the fore-arm.
“A Merduk queen is not supposed to weep,” he said, but his voice was gentle. He smiled.
“I have been a queen for only a morning. Perhaps I will get used to it.”
“Dry your eyes, lady. The kohl is running down your face. Here.” He wiped the streaked paint from her cheeks with his thumb. Her veil fell away.
“A man who touches one of the Sultan’s women will have his hands cut off,” she reminded him.
“I will not tell if you do not.”
“Agreed.” She collected herself. “You must forgive me. The excitement of the morning…”
“One of my daughters is about your age,” Shahr Baraz said. “I pray she will never have to suffer as I believe you have. I would rather she lived out her days in a felt hut with a man she loved than—” He stopped, then straightened. “I will have your maids sent in, lady, so that you may repair yourself. It is inappropriate that I should be here alone with you, even if I am an old man. The Sultan would not approve.”
“No. If you want to do something for me, then have the little Ramusian monk sent here. I wish to speak with him. He is imprisoned in the lower levels of the tower.”
“I am not sure that—”
“Please, Shahr Baraz.”
He nodded. “You are a queen, after all.” Then he bowed, and left her.
A queen, she thought. So is that what I am now? She remembered the hell of Aekir at its fall, the Merduk soldier who had raped her with the light of the burning city a writhing inferno in his eyes. The terrible journey north in the waggons, John Mogen’s Torunnans trudging beside them with their necks in capture-yokes. Men crucified by the thousand, babies tossed out in the snow to die. All those memories. They made part of her mind into a screaming wilderness which she had walled off to keep from going mad.
She was alone in the room. For a blest moment she was alone. No gossiping maids or spying eunuchs. No gaggle of concubines intriguing endlessly and bitching about petty slights and imagined neglects. She could stand at the window and look at what had once been her own country, and feel herself free. Her name was Heria Cear-Inaf and she was no queen, only the lowly daughter of a silk merchant, and her heart was still her own to bestow where she pleased.
“Beard of the Prophet, what does this mean? Are you here alone? God’s teeth, this will not do! Where is that scoundrel Baraz? I’ll have him flogged.”
The Sultan of Ostrabar strode into the chamber like a gale, accompanied by a knot of his staff officers. He was dripping with jewells and gold once more, and a rich, fur-lined cloak whirled about him like a cloud. Silver tassels winked on the pointed toes of his boots.
Heria refastened her veil hurriedly.
“Shahr Baraz is off running an errand for me, my lord. Do not blame him. I wanted to see if he were truly mine to command.”
Aurungzeb boomed with laughter. He bristled a kiss through her thin veil that bruised her lips. “Well done, wife! That family needs humbling. They take too much of the world’s troubles upon themselves. Have you tumbled to my jest, then? The officers’ quarters are buzzing with it. A Baraz as a lady’s maid! Keep him on the tips of his toes—it will do him good. But you are still in your bridal gown! Get those ancient rags off your back. Tradition is all well and fine, but we cannot have my First Wife looking like a beggar off the steppe. Where are your attendants? I’ll kick Serrim’s fat arse next time I see him.”
“They are preparing my wardrobe,” Heria lied. “I sent them all off to do it. They are so slow.”
“Yes, yes, you must be firm with them, you know. Have a few of them flogged, and they’ll start to jump right smartly.” Aurungzeb embraced her. The top of her head came barely to his chin, though she was tall for a woman.
“Ah, those beautiful bones! I do not know how I shall keep myself from them till the babe is born.” He nuzzled her hair, beaming. “I must be off, my Queen. Shahr Johor, hunt out those damn maids. My wife is here alone like a mourner. And get the furniture sent up—the things from Aekir we had shipped.” Aurungzeb looked around the room. It had been part of Pieter Martellus’s chambers in the days when the dyke had been Torunnan, and was as bare as a barracks.
“Poor surroundings for a woman, though it’s better than a tent out in the field. We’ll have to prettify the place a little. I may just let this tower stand, as a monument. I must be off. We are to dine together later, Ahara. I have invited the ambassadors. We are having lobsters sent up from the coast. Have you ever tasted a lobster? Ah, here is Shahr Baraz. What do you mean by leaving the Queen alone?”