On the steps, there were more Elissian lords awaiting their turn.
“I wasn’t told this was going to happen,” Rhillian said in a low voice.
“No surprise,” said Kiel, sounding almost amused. Kiel usually expected the worst from humans. Today, his expectations were met.
Across the platform, at General Zulmaher’s side, Captain Renard gave Rhillian a seething look. Several of the councilmen, too, looked uncomfortable. Rhillian returned Renard’s stare for a long moment, pondering. Her stare moved to the general. Zulmaher stood oblivious, square shouldered and proud, watching as his accomplishments unfolded in all their glory. He did not spare her so much as a glance. Doubtless he knew what she thought. Equally doubtless, he cared not a bit.
The Mahl’rhen smelled of perfume and lavender. Errollyn walked the paths between courtyards, and saw coloured silk scarves blowing in the breeze, and heard windchimes and music. The talmaad had returned from Elisse-victorious, though the decoration would have remained even if otherwise. Serrin, not big on grand human ceremony, did enjoy their little celebrations.
In the northern complex, he found the baths. With a squeal of delight, a small, blonde woman leapt to her feet and ran to him bare footed. Aisha hugged him hard, and Errollyn hugged her back.
“Errollyn! Are you well? How is Sasha?”
“We’re both well.” Errollyn pulled back to look at her. There was no visible scar to the side of her head, beneath her hair. Aisha’s loose robe afforded him the opportunity to examine her shoulder, and then her calf, where injuries he had previously treated seemed well healed.
“That’s the most interest you’ve shown in my body for some time,” Aisha teased. “There was a time you did show more.”
“I’m with Sasha now,” said Errollyn with a grin. “If not restrained by human custom, I assure you I’d take you aside for a good fuck.”
“Oh poor Sasha,” Aisha sighed, hugging him once more. “One day we should really broaden her horizons.”
“She’s human, Aisha. It’s more complicated than that.”
“I know, I know. I’m half human too, I do remember.”
About nearby pools, conversation was fading. Serrin turned to look. Errollyn walked amongst them, removing an arm from Aisha’s shoulders to hop across a joining stream. Once across, Aisha replaced his arm, defiant in the face of serrin stares.
Seated half submerged in the warm water, relaxed and disinterested, was Rhillian. Wet robes floated in the water, revealing bare skin on hard muscle. Errollyn could see no new scars, yet she looked changed. Hardened. Her face, when her green eyes found him, seemed to bear a grimmer expression than it could previously show. Although her skin bore as few lines as ever, she now seemed somehow weathered, her brilliant green eyes darkened in shadow.
Conversation ceased entirely. Rhillian looked at Errollyn.
“What do you want?”
“Many things,” said Errollyn. “None of them brings me here.”
In Saalsi, it was well said, dismissing selfish intentions and claiming broader purposes. Six months ago, Rhillian might have snorted at the clever words. Now, she did not bother even that. Emerald eyes flicked from him to Aisha and back.
“What does?” she said blandly.
“I have news of Lady Renine’s intentions,” said Errollyn. “Before I share them, I’d ask more of yours.”
“Amusing,” said Kiel from his seat from the poolside, “that you feel you have the right to ask.” Errollyn ignored him. Rhillian just looked at him.
“I’ve not decided,” she said. “General Zulmaher has made allies of our worst enemies in Elisse. They flock to him mostly for fear of us. He promises them retention of feudal powers. Should they use them to retain power in Elisse, they would in turn provide a safe haven for feudalism in Rhodaan. Wealth, marriage prospects, trade, all according to feudal custom, and with no concern for the Rhodaani Council. It would be as though Maldereld had never raised a sword against feudal power in Rhodaani.”
“You can’t just remove feudalism from Rhodaan, Rhillian,” said Errollyn, his eyes narrowed. Had Rhillian learned nothing from Petrodor? “This cancer cannot be cut from the body, not without removing heart and lungs with it.”
“Errollyn speaks sense,” said an elderly serrin, seated on a cushioned chair in the wading pool. His skinny shins were half submerged in the water, his long hair white like Rhillian’s, but with age. “Rhodaan is a three-legged stool. The feudalists and the Civid Sein make two legs, the majority uncommitted population the third. Remove one leg, and it shall fall.”
“Saalshen makes a fourth leg, Lesthen,” said Kiel. “We can hold up any stool.”
“For a time,” said Lesthen. “For a time, perhaps. But we are not the pillar of foundation in Rhodaan we once were. Human civilisation grows rapidly. Serrin civilisation, slowly. When I was a young man, Saalshen had great power here. Today, our power remains the same, but Rhodaani power has increased tenfold. Today we are small, the strong child whose younger siblings have grown to manhood, while we remain children still.”
“I’m not planning to remove feudalism,” said Rhillian. “But neither can it be allowed to sabotage Rhodaan from within. What news do you have for me, Errollyn?”
Errollyn examined her. Dare he tell her? Most serrin would have felt compelled by the vel’ennar to be here. Unlike them, he had a choice. If he granted her this information, it would not be for unreasoned compulsion, but for judgement, and logic. That, at least, was what he told himself. Or did he not truly fantasise that perhaps, one day, he would do something to demonstrate his love of Saalshen, and win them all back to him?
Maybe he was fooling himself to think that he had a choice. Saalshen’s power here was a reality, as was Rhillian’s control over it. He could not afford to see Family Renine’s plans come to fruition any more than Rhillian could. Even if she chose a poor course of action, surely that was better than the alternative?
“There has been a courier. Between Lady Renine, and, I suspect, Regent Arosh of Larosa. I do not know how many messages. Perhaps several. Perhaps many, dating back years.”
There was silence in the chamber. Rhillian stood up. She looked suspicious, though whether at him or the facts he revealed, Errollyn could not guess. “Treachery?” she asked.
“Assuredly. She may claim she was demanding his immediate surrender, but that is already the Council’s demand. If she believed that, she’d simply support the Council. To go behind their back suggests other intentions.”
Kiel was smiling more broadly by the moment. “Errollyn. This good turn you do us is most unexpected.”
“I try to do what is right, Kiel,” Errollyn said coldly. “What is right, and what serves your purposes, are not always the same thing.” He looked at Rhillian. “What shall you do?”
Rhillian was gazing past him. Her emerald eyes were alive with possibility.
The amphitheatre was a marvel. Sasha sat cross-legged in her spot, midway up the slope, eating grapes and handcakes she’d bought from a vendor, and watched the play with intrigue. Daish, Beled and some other friends from the Tol’rhen sat on the stone seats, sharing food and exchanging murmured critiques of the dialogue. Occasionally Daish would murmur some important point of plot to Sasha, for the play was mostly in Rhodaani, with an occasional smattering of high-class Larosan. The theatre seated perhaps a thousand, mostly wealthy, fine evening clothes aflicker in the light of a hundred torches. The stage below was ringed with fire and lantern, to lend an unearthly texture to the actors’ costumes, beneath a black and starry sky.
The atmosphere of the theatre amazed her. A thousand people, all gathered together to watch the telling of a story. In Lenayin, tales were told to friends and family by the hearthside, and acting was not a profession respected by the majority of Lenays. Yet here, it seemed a matter of some seriousness. Furthermore, the play was quite intricate, and very recent, in the time of its telling. A commentary on society. Sasha found the concept intriguing, and a little unsettling, especially when so many of the Tol’rhen’s most precocious students insisted upon attending, and knew most of the playwrights’ names, and argued frequently over the merits of each. Culture, in her experience, existed to affirm one’s beliefs and values, not to challenge them.