Orhn ignored him. He shouted down the hilclass="underline" “Captain, get your pack into weapon drill.”
Activity answered him about the smoking fires.
“Men from more than this one village,” Orhn said. “Why?”
“Possibly the priests called them,” Amnorh said.
“Called them? Because of a girl?” Orhn cursed. “You profess to know a great deal about these Plains scum, Amnorh. What’ll they do then, do you suppose?”
“They’re known for their passivity, lord prince. Probably nothing. But under the circumstances I think you’ll agree the girl should be spared your knife.”
Orhn sneered, sheathing the blade.
“For once, your counsel carries some weight. See, I’ve put the toy away. What now?”
It was plain he had no enjoyment in deferring to Amnorh’s judgment, yet Amnorh did indeed seem to have some curious grasp of this unlooked-for situation.
“I suggest this: Tell the village of Rehdon’s death, laying no blame on the girl. Say that she will in fact be honored as the vessel of the King’s heir.”
“Heir!” Orhn spat. “Can you see any faction in Dorthar upholding such a claim?”
“That scarcely affects us, lord prince. These are ignorant people, as your lordship has been heard to mention. It’s quite probable that they’ll accept such a story. It has a certain mythological quality that should appeal to them. Once in Koramvis, let the High Council decide what’s to be done.”
“You’d take her to Koramvis?”
“It’s always best, lord prince, in the face of the unprecedented, to be as cautious as possible. Who knows what view the Council would take of any hasty action?”
Orhn frowned toward the dust cloud. He could make out zeebas now, and fair-haired men riding them.
“There’s one small problem,” Amnorh said. “The girl must be seen to comply.”
Orhn looked down at her, his dark features fraught with disgust.
“Difficult, when to all intents and purposes she appears dead.”
“Merely a trance state, my lord. Some Lowland acolytes are adept in such magics. I think, if you’ll permit me privacy with her, that I can bring her out of it.”
“I bow to your wisdom. Do as you think fit.”
Light the color of a dead leaf circled in the brazier.
Out of it Amnorh drew a flame-tipped brand, shook off candescent fire flakes that settled in the air above the girl’s naked body. She lay on his sleeping couch, where the two grooms had placed her, a white stasis in the darkly glowing tent.
“Can you feel the heat of the fire, Ashne’e?” Amnorh murmured. He bent to her ear. “Let me tell you, Ashne’e, what I’m about to do to you.” Whispering like a lover, he scorched the down about her navel, but no more. “If I hold the torch to your throat the flesh will char to the bone. But you have presumed to kill a king of the Vis, Ashne’e, perhaps I should make you linger. Begin with your breasts—”
Pearls of moisture broke on the girl’s forehead. With a sudden eruptive motion life regained possession of her. Her eyes opened and focused instantly on his.
Amnorh smiled. He had outwitted the spark of her consciousness in its blind craving for existence—once the body was threatened she had fled back to succor it.
“Did you think I’d do that? Scorch the gilded nipples from your white breasts?”
She spoke for the first time.
“You would do as it pleased you.”
“Very perceptive. I would indeed. Most recently it’s been my pleasure to save your flesh from the Prince Orhn’s knife. Can you imagine why? No, I would think not. Prolonging your life will be more difficult. It depends in point of fact on whether or not Rehdon’s child is in you. With the Am Dorthar the last male conceived before the king’s death generally becomes his heir.”
“Yes,” she said, “I am with child by the Storm Lord.”
“Your brave self-confidence inspires me to help you.”
The tent was filled with blind crimson light.
He reached out and stroked her inert body. She seemed to have three eyes as she looked at him, two golden eyes set in her face, the third eye sputtering in her navel.
“I have told you. The King’s child is in me.”
“If not, there’s still time.”
The urging of the star was on him, yet he was subtle, as in all things. But his caresses, which had pleased even Rehdon’s queen, were wasted on stone. The Lowland girl lay like a corpse beneath him, while her hair seemed to set the pillow alight. So he used her, and found her spoiled for him, and drew away, his eyes only showing how it might be at another time.
The dust cloud had settled on the fields, subsided like a swarm of insects in the grain.
The Lowlanders sat still on their zeeba mounts. Not a sound came across from them to the Dortharian camp. The hunt guard stood in formal lines, an impassive defense formation, weightily outnumbered, yet supremely confident of superior military skills. What did they face, after all, save a rabble?
“The Councilor takes his time,” Orhn remarked impatiently. The captain turned to send a man up the scarp to Amnorh’s tent, but Orhn caught his arm. Amnorh had requested absolute privacy, claiming his esoteric work to be a dangerous affair, and Orhn could do little but leave the matter in his hands.
There was an oppression of waiting in the air. The staring sun laved the Plains with its furnace heat.
“Movement from the temple, lord prince.”
Orhn glanced aside.
“A priest.”
The black muffled figure slid across the track, as if on rollers, along the slope toward the Lowland men.
“Some new scheme hatching,” Orhn said.
He watched the hooded priest make some form of silent contact with the foremost rank of riders, and almost instantly a man came out to stand beside him. Man and priest then began to walk back, crossing between the grain at a different angle, making directly toward the Vis camp. Orhn followed their progress intently. He made out the man to be young, unremarkable; tanned, muscular, gaunt-boned, a boy whose body and mind had long been exposed to unluxurious hard living—good military material had he been born of Vis stock. The priest at his shoulder glided like his black shadow.
At the outskirt of the encampment a guard stepped in the way, blocking their path.
The young man stopped, amber eyes fixed on Orhn. “Storm Lord, you have kept a woman here to please you. Let her return to her people.”
The guard struck him with contemptuous lightness on the chest.
“Kneel when you address the prince, Plains dog.”
The young man knelt immediately, not looking at the guard.
“I ask again, Storm Lord.”
“I am not the Lord,” Orhn barked. “The Lord is dead.”
“That is sorrow. But I ask again for Ashne’e.”
“Ashne’e possibly carries the King’s heir. Do you understand? She must go with us to Koramvis.”
The young man stared back at him with pale immutable eyes.
“Will you kill her there?”
“If she carries, she’ll be honored.”
“Why are you so concerned at what we do with Ashne’e?” a voice demanded, Amnorh’s voice. So the Lord Warden had at last emerged from seclusion, successfully it would seem. “She belongs to your goddess, not to you.”
“My sister,” the Lowlander said slowly, “she is my sister.”
“Very well. Follow me and bring your priest with you. You shall speak to Ashne’e. Ask her if she desires any greater joy than to enter the city of the Storm Lords.”
The statement, brusque, imperative, seemed to strike responsive, relevant nerves. Orhn saw the Lowlander accepted at once both Amnorh’s authority and his words. Amnorh went up the scarp, the boy following; at the top Amnorh let him alone into the owar-hide tent.