THE ARD RHI'S FEAST
~*~The feast that night was of Archos Zyan's making. He could nae begin to equal the Ard Rhighan's splendours, therefore he did nae try. No more did he try to make a Folcuthae banquet out of it. He served simple dishes in Guernian style.~*~
~*~Galen Servi, had seen how they met after their day apart: cool courtesy, fair words, and a heat beneath that burned him from half the hall's distance. Tonight his Queenes were simply dressed in Siveni silks and topaz regalia. Taliennse was nae among the attendants. He managed to ask, and to get an answer from a man reclining near him. The Ard Rhighan's chatelaine--so the man called her---was occupied in some rite of her priesthood. "She's the Voice,"he said,"after all. Sometimes the Goddess rides her hard."~*~
~*~Galen found himself annoyed with the Folcuthae Goddesses. The Goddess could hath let her servant have an evening's respite. He reined himself in before he said what he was thinking. His companion took his silence for a polite disbelief, and said with a touch of heat,"Thou Ferenghis do nae belive in gods?"~*~
~*~Of course we do,"Galen said mildly."I've heard the goddess speak through her priestess. Tis rather disconcerting."~*~
~*~"Rather,"said the other, softening slightly, but nae enough to carry on a conversation.~*~
~*~Galen was left to himself, as he preferred to be. He found himself missing his companion of the night before, the light on her face, the sharpness of her wit and the sheer unexpectedness of so much that she said. He wondered if the little cat had taken well to life on shipboard, and if Timoleon and the Teirs had forgotten their promise yet.~*~
~*~E'en as distracted as he was, he could nae mistake what went on at the head of the hall. There was as little conversation between the quuenes and the High King as there had been the night before, and as little need of it. Twas as if they looked at one another and knew all that there was to say.~*~
~*~Some might think it sudden. He, having heard Archos Zyan speak of his Queenes, knew that it was years in the doing: their utter enslavement. They were nae what one might imagine Archos Zyan falling blind in love with. Unless one had seen them, and heard them speak;felt the force of their presence. And Edain had more than beauty,more e'en than allure. She had had two crowns and Folcuth.~*~
~*~Folcuth gave itself to Archos Zyan. Archos Zyan took, and taking, was conquered. Galen Servi the Augur saw it as clearly as if he stood in the bed chamber, watching the oldest of dances. Was this, maybe, the rite that the Ard Rhighan's friend was making? Did the Goddess wield her Voice to seduce the Godslayer?~*~
~*~Nay,he thought with supernatural clarity. Edain needed no rites nor magick. She was sufficient in herself.~*~
~*~He roused with a shiver. The hall was warm with wine and revelry,but he was cold. He muttered an excuse to no one in particular, and stumbled out into the clearer air of the garden. The stars were bright tonight, no haze of cloud to soften them. The air was warm and cool at once, sweet with the scent of green things. Galen Servi made his way to the wall and climbed the steps, and paused by the bench at the top. The city was silent, buried deep in shadow, save here and there where a lamp was lit above a door, or a group of late revellers made their way home by torchlight.~*~
~*~Out in the harbor the water was full of stars. Lanterns hung from the prows of the Ard Rhighan;s ships, and a whole jeweled necklace of them on her flagship. Galen saw no one on the decks. No doubt those who were nae at the Ard Rhi's banquet were asleep.~*~
~*~All but Taliennse. He knew that as he sometimes did,with a surety that owned nothing to rational thought. It was the same gift that made it so simple for him to perform the sacrifices that were part of his priesthood, to read the entrails or the omens and render their meaning in words that others could understand. They were nae always the omens that he had been asked to provide. That was a difficulty. One day, maybe, it would be his ruin.~*~
~*~Nae tonight. Tonight was his own. Dimly he was aware that his body had seated itself on the cold marble bench. His sight,fixed on the ship of lights,blurred and dazzled.~*~
~*~When it cleared, he seemed to stand face to face with the priestess from Folcuth. She was clad in white of a stark and ancient fashion, her hair concealed beneath a heavy wig and a tall headdress like plumes of lapis and gold. The room in which she stood might have been small, a ship's cabin, yet it seemed as wide as the world. Its walls were alive with painted creatures, the writing of the old priests who worked magick ere his land was bairn. She sang in a pure Voice. He could nae understand the words.~*~
~*~E'en without understanding, he knew that she sang a hymn to her Goddess. She was nae working magick here. This was worship, tribute. She had companions: the cat that had followed her from Terestai, and what at first Galen took for a man in a mask. But if it was a mask, twas remarkably real and lifelike,with lips that curled as a living jackal's will, to bare white fangs in a grin. Its eyes were the colour of sulphur burning.~*~
~*~Galen Servi shivered, though he had no flesh to feel either cold or fear. Gods, true gods, did nae wear living faces. They were shadows full of power, ancient,numinous..in his world. Of squabbling flocks of divinities he took little notice. But this was real. This was alive in the world, standing guard on a slender priestess and a small peculair cat.~*~
~*~The priestess offered gifts of wine and honey and white barley, and a mouse with the marks of sharp cat-teeth in its neck. Her hymn rose to a crescendo and faded. She sank down before the sea-chest that served as an altar, and lay there, until Galen was sure that she had fallen asleep.~*~
~*~But then she raised herself,looking straight into his eyes."Good evening, ba-spirit,"she said. "What brings thee here tonight?"~*~
~*~Galen Servi started, nearly falling back into his body. But something held him within those painted walls, and made him answer. "My eyes brought me here. Thy pardon if I trespass."~*~
~*~"Nay,"she said. "I only wondered. I did nae know a Ferenghi augur of Aurak could fly on the wings of his Spirit to visit other people's altars. I give thee welcome."~*~
~*~I am...no' spying,"he said.~*~
~*~"I didnae think thou were."She took off her headdress and her wig and unbound her hair. It rippled down her back and o'er her shoulders. She rolled her head on her neck, sighing. "Ah, that's better. I donae know which is heavier, the wig or the crown."~*~
~*~There was something utterly charming about a concern so trivial in a place so full of strangeness. Galen was nae e'en there, nae in his body, and yet she addressed him as if he had been standing in front of her. Maybe in Folcuth such meetings were common.~*~
~*~"If I appeared to yea so in mine homeland,yea would be convinced that I was dead and bearing omens."~*~
~*~"But of course thou art nae dead,"said Taliennse."The ba can leave the living body when it wills. Now if I saw your ka too,your twin-of-the-Soul, I wouldst be running to be sure that yea had nae fallen dead where yea sat. A person can nae release too many pieces of himself at once;tis perilous."~*~
~*~"I do no' understand yea at all,"Galen said.~*~
~*~"People often donae,"she said, serene. "Thou art alive. Believe that. And very talented, too. That's a very complete ba thou art showing me. Thy spirit is a falcon, I see. I rather hoped so."~*~
~*~"Why?" he asked. Nae that he expected to understand that answer, either. But he seemed unable to withdraw, and questions were better than the gibberings of fear.~*~
~*~"Why,"Taliennse said,"if thou hadst been a vulture, I'd know I'd misread thee. Nae that Ferenghis and mortals are nae mostly vultures, feeding on the carrion of elvyn Nations. Thou just semed to me cleaner, somehow."~*~
~*~"Thank yea,"he said dryly.~*~
~*~She stroked the cat, who had come to curl in her lap as she sat cross-legged by the altar. It was an odd cat,truly,brindled black and gold, with a mark like a flame on its forehead. Glaen Servi had no doubt at all that it belonged to a goddess.~*~
~*~It seemed content to conduct itself like any common lapcat,purring as Taliennse rubbed its chin. Its eyes blinked lazily at Galen. Taliennse's own eyes, dark though they were and nae green-in-gold, had the same feline tilt, the same deceptively mild expression.~*~
~*~"They make the Great marriage again tonight,"Taliennse said suddenly. Her expression had nae changed. Her tone was as soft as e'er. And yet Galen knew that she was nae speaking entirely for herself; that a goddess was there, speaking through her priestess.~*~
~*~Nor did he need to ask who "they" were. Only two in Terestai would make a Great Marriage, a mariage of Gods and nae of simple mortals.~*~
~*~"There was no rite,"he said, knowing as he said it what she would think o fhim, and how she would answer.~*~
~*~As she had when he spoke of rites and proprieties,she said,"They are the rite. They need no more than themselves. She is the Isis and Venus;he is theOsiris and Dionysus and Bacchus,Father Liber of the wyne and the holy madness. Do yea hear the earth singing? It knows, Ferenghi. It knows that the gods walk upon it."~*~
~*~Galen heard only the silence, and the lapping of water on the ship's hull, and the murmur of voices in the city. No gods anywhere but here.~*~
~*~"Ah,"said the Goddess through her priestess."Yea see;yea do nae hear. Look, then. See."~*~
~*~He was nae given to choose. The Goddess commanded;his eyes obeyed. He saw the god in the goddess' arms, and the light that wrapped them about.~*~
~*~The light was lamplight, pale gold in a room neither Guernian nor Folcuthae but something of both. Its walls were painted with nymphs in a strange sea-garden, dancing skeins of them about a Danu as she was borne from the foam. The floor was a pattern of tiles:vineleaves weaving endlessly , and clusters of grapes. Under the couch with its carved lion-feet lay the wine god with his rod of ivy. There was armor on a stand near the Goddess's wall, its martial glitter strange beside her foam-pale loveliness, and a soldier's chest, much battered and scarred, and half-flung o'er it, half trailing on the floor, a cloak the HIgh King had worn to the feasting.~*~
~*~The two on the couch had come to a haven of sorts after the storm that had scattered garments from one end of the room to the other. The High Queene's pallium was tangled with the Ard Rhi's tunic;his outer vestments lay in a knot that would win shrieks from his bodyservants in the morning.~*~
~*~He said as much,lying in her arms, tracing lazy circles round her breast. It was full and firm despite her having borne six children, the nipple large and sweetly dark, rising to his touch. But she was calm, evidently unmoved, smiling down into his lifted face. "Let the concubines wail,"she said."They live for the trouble thou cause them."~*~
~*~Archos Zyan laughed in his throat. "Donna they?And donna yea,too? E'en when you were Corinth's woman, and nae for a moment did thou let anyone forget it, thou could knock me down with a look."~*~
~*~"I was ne'er Corinth's "woman","she said with cool precision. "I wast his Queene. And here--he wast but mine Consort and NE'ER Ard Rhi----no matter what the Eastern realms said to that. I chose him;he was mine long before he knew it."~*~
~*~"So was I,"said Archos Zyan,but nae as if he minded it. "But when I called thee, thou came. Why dinna thou try to make me come to thee?"~*~
~*~"Because I ne'er do the same thing twice,"she said. "Corinth came to me. I chose to come to Archos Zyan. But when I pulled into port, thou dined at mine table first;for that night, thou were in Folcuth first."~*~
~*~"And now where art thou?"His hand travelled lazily down her belly to rest on the mound that she plucked and oiled smooth. "Thou doth hath a beautiful body."~*~
~*~"Like mine face?"~*~
~*~He traced her cheek with a finger. "Thou art beautiful to me,"he said.~*~
~*~"Flattering philanderer,"said the Ard Rhighan.~*~
~*~"They say yea live for flattery,"he said.~*~
~*~She laughed with a touch of surprise. "Why, Archos! That was witty!Should thou ruin thy reputation so?"~*~
~*~"E'en a blunt-tongued soldiering king can turn a phrase now and then."~*~
~*~She kissed his crown where the curling hair was thick. "So he can. He's nae half the fool he seems, nor e'er has been. Yea were a brilliant commander and King, mine dear. But can thy sons rule?"~*~
~*~He stiffened at that, drawing himself up level with her, face to face across an expanse of crimson silk. Crimson was nae his colour---it clashed with the ruddiness of his complexion. But it was hers, with her long dark grey eyes. She smiled lazily, as a cat will.~*~
~*~There was a pause,with blades in it. THere was nothing absurd about it,though they were naked on the couch, flushed as much from lovemaking as from anger.~*~
~*~Now look,"said Archos Zyan at length. "I canna give ya Sabaea. Nae yet. But I hath the eastern borders. THe whole of it. We hold power where it matters."~*~
~*~"Only thy own ambitions matter to thee,"said Edain.~*~
~*~He shook that off."Ne'er mind that now. "~*~
~*~"Ah,"said Edian."Now we come to it."~*~
~*~He nodded."Amrothvia has defied us from the beginning,just as it defied thy father ALexandros. He conquered it. I shall conquer it too, and make the conquest stick. Twas a thing he ne'er did. He died in the Great Epoch ere he'd sewn it all up tight. Then Sabaea."~*~
~*~"But before mine Father took Amrothvia,Talleria and the tribes gave themselves to him. They lay under the human yoke;he freed them from it. Dost thou imagine that we need freeing from anything but our own freedom?"~*~
~*~"I think I need Folcuth,"he said,"and Folcuth needs me. Yea can help me conquer Amrothvia and Sabaea."~*~
~*~"How so?"she demanded.,as if she did nae know.~*~
~*~"Ships,"he said. "Sailors. Crystal Dragondom hath ne'er been much of a sea power. E'en when we art winning battles afloat, we art lubbers and windborne to the bone. With thine ships, I could take the whole coast and hold it till the moon came down."~*~
~*~"Should I want thee to do that?"~*~
~*~"If thou held it with me--if Folcuth remained a sovereign state in alliance to Crystal Dragondom. "~*~
~*~Art thou threatening me?"~*~
~*~He looked into her narrowed eyes and shivered. But he was god to her goddess, and he ruled strongly,whoever might share that honour in his capitol city itself. Here, he WAS Crystal Dragondom;there was no other. He said,"Is it a threat to tell the truth?How long can thou hold Folcuth if I wield mine power against yea?"~*~
~*~"Longer than thou might possibly imagine,"she said.~*~
~*~"So, then,"said Archos Zyan."Yea want to bargain. What will it cost me to win thy alliance--and thy ships?"~*~
~*~"I hath a sister,"she said promptly. "She wrested the queenship of Castlethorne when Eden wast weaker than she likes to admit. She escaped and ran for Avernus. Kill her."~*~
~*~"Kill..?"Archos Zyan shook his head as if to clear it. "Thou art bloody-minded."~*~
~*~I am Ard Rhighan,"she said,implacable,"and that little one thought herself capable of contesting Eden as Rhighan. I'd kill her mineself if I couldst get mine hands on her. Give me her heart in a casket, or thou shalt get no ships from the Skyron Shipwrights."~*~
~*~"I shall think about it,"he said, crisp enough,all things considered. "I donna suppose that twas all yea want?"~*~
~*~"Of course nae,"said Edain. "There is the high priest at Salque, who sheletered her when she ran crying to him. He shall die too. And the governor of Salque--he betrayed Eden Grey-Eyes for the girl. He is in Tyra now, or thereabouts, repenting his sins from what the Barith scouts report. And in Aradus,perhaps worst of all, is a blathering idiot who calls himself thy brother-king. Fools and liars wilt believe a boy who calls himself the king come back again. Rid thy wives of them all."~*~
~*~"And?"said Archos Zyan, now past surprise,past e'en horror,perhaps;or simply biding his time.~*~
~*~"I'll need more lands,"she said. "For the shipyards and for the wood to build the ships. For thou shalt nae cut the Groves."~*~
~*~"And?"he said again.~*~
~*~She smiled and combed her fingers through her hair. "That wilt do for a while."~*~
~*~"Yea donna come cheap,"he observed.~*~
~*~Her smile widened."If I did,would thou want me?"~*~
~*~"Probably nae,"he said."I shalt think about it."~*~
~*~"Think about it quickly."She raised herself o'er him,letting her hair veil them both. Twas beautiful, and bright with lights, fragrant with musk and frankincense. He breathed in the scent of it, and gasped as she mounted him. Eden Grey-Eyes then quietly moved from the shadowed corner to stroke his face.~*~
~*~"Blackmail,"he managed to say.~*~
~*~Eden Grey-Eyes finally spoke with laughter. laughed."Anything that we Sisters Siveni can do--anything at all--to win advantage for Folcuth and our kith and kin, we wilt do. Did yea e'er think we would nae?"~*~
~*~"Nay,"he said with the last breath he had for coherent speech.~*~
~*~"Good, Ninaste,"the sisters said in unison.~*~
~*~Galen Servi the Augur plummeted out of dream into vision, and thence into his own body,cold and stiff, lying on the wall of the Ard Rhi's villa. There were no words for what he felt. If the Ard Rhi e'er discovered that he was watched in his lovemaking and frolicking with his Queenes--such lovemaking,half politics and half war----he would rage fiercely. Or, thought Galen,he would laugh til he wept. Archos Zyan had the ability, often unheard of in a Crystal Dragon, to laugh at himself.~*~
~*~Galen lacked any such gift. He got himself somehow into the villa, to the room in which he slept,and dropped down onto the couch there. His body ached as if with bruises. His head felt as if it were made of glass, and was about to shatter.~*~
~*~The worst ofit,perhaps, was that he had performed no rite. He had willed and it was so:Vision of the Ard Rhighan's flagship,dream of the Royal lovers. Twas all so highly improper to his Fereghi sensibilities.~*~
~*~Taliennse would laugh at him. He did nae want to think of Taliennse.~*~
~*~He tried to sleep as he had willed the Vision, but sleep was no docile servant. He lay awake until cockcrow, while thought pursued thought in a fruitless round.~*~
~*~Taliennse, for her part,slept the sleep of One who has laboured long and wrought well. Of the High Queene's methods she might nae wholly approve,but if they succeeded, then well indeed for Folcuth. She slept wrapped in the goddess' arms, with the cat in the hollow of her body. And she woke warm and rested and wondering for a moment why she was so richly content.~*~
~*~The Siveni Sidhe and the Crystal Dragon made no secret of their alliances both in love and politics. The worlds saw that Aphrodite was come to Dionysus, and the sun their brother smiled on their unions. The Great Mariages were made. The Ard Rhighan's prices were paid: blood sacrifice on the altar at Salque,in the temples of Melqart in Tyra, in the precinct of Cime,and built ships in Skyron Shipwrights of cedar from the Avernian borders.~*~
~*~Dionysus--Archos Zyan--gained ships for his wars. Yet once he had the promise of them, and his Queenes again in his bed,he seemed to forget that he had wars to wage.~*~
~*~But the Queenes did nae. They dined with him as they had made a custom of doing, one evening on her flagship,one in the Ard Rhi's villa,turn and turn about. A month nearly to the day after she sailed into Terestai, they dined on shipboard, with the curtains drawn back to admit what breeze there was, and slaves and concubines with fans to raise such wind as they might. The usual revelry was muted,drowsy in the unusual autumn humidity. They drank bloodwyne cooled with snow,or cold clear water from the sources of the Cydnus and the Fylorn Rivers,brought in earthen jars and kept cold by sinking them in the harbor.~*~
~*~The Ard Rhi pressed his cup to his sweat-streaming cheek."Ah,"he said."Cool." One of the slaves brought the jar of snow wrapped in its blanket of straw, and dipped a spoonful into the cup. He filched another,rubbing it on his cheeks and caressing the slave's breast with his free hand. "They say there is snow still on the Karvish Mountains. I'd give anything to fly there now and roll in it till my balls went numb."~*~
~*~"Would thou?"Eden Grey Eyes raised a brow. "Then why do yea nae?"~*~
~*~"I donna have wings at the moment," he chuckled.~*~
~*~Thou hath the ships,"Grey-Eyes said.~*~
~*~"What ship tis fast enough to take me there this night?"~*~
~*~"Why, none,"Edain interrupted. "But one could be in port tommorrow, and fast horses waiting to carry thee to the mountains shouldst thou remain in thy elvyn form."~*~
~*~"Are yea trying to get rid of me?"~*~
~*~He was laughing,but she was nae. "Nay,"she said,"but yea lie idle,and the worlds go their way without thee. So too doth Folcuth without me. I move to the Emerald Palace on the morrow."~*~