The Emperor drew in a deep breath. ‘Yes, Ehlana, I think I am.’ His voice was firm, but very quiet.

‘Issue the order, then. Declare martial law. Turn the Atans loose.’

Sarabian swallowed hard. ‘Are you certain your idea will work, Atan Engessa?’ he asked the towering warrior.

‘It always has, Sarabian-Emperor,’ Engessa replied. ‘The signal fires are all in place. The word will spread throughout Tamuli in a single night. The Atans will move out of their garrisons the following morning.’

Sarabian stared at the floor for a long time. Then he looked up. ‘Do it,’ he said.

The difficult part was persuading Sarabian and Ehlana not to tell Zalasta about what was happening. ‘He doesn’t need to know,’ Sparhawk explained patiently.

‘Surely you don’t mistrust him, Sparhawk,’ Ehlana protested. ‘He’s proved his loyalty over and over again.’

‘Of course he has. He’s a Styric, though, and this sudden move of yours is going to turn all of Tamuli upside down. There’s going to be absolute chaos out there. He may try to get word to the Styric communities hereabouts – a warning of some kind. It’s a natural thing for him to do, and we can’t afford to risk letting that information get out. The only thing that makes your plan workable at all is the fact that it’s going to be a total surprise. There are Styrics, and then there are Styrics.’

‘Say what you mean, Sparhawk,’ Sarabian said in a testy voice.

‘The term “renegade Styric” means the same thing here in Tamuli as it does in Eosia, your Majesty. We almost have to assume that if we tell Zalasta, we’re telling all of Styricum, don’t we? We know Zalasta, but we don’t know all the other Styrics on the continent. There are some in Sarsos who’d sign compacts with Hell itself if they thought it would give them a chance to get even with the Elenes.’

‘You’re going to hurt his feelings, you know,’ Ehlana told him.

‘He’ll live. We only have one chance at this, so let’s not take even the remotest of risks.’

There was a polite tap at the door, and Mirtai stepped into the room where the three of them were meeting. ‘Oscagne and that other one are back,’ she reported.

‘Show them in please, Atana,’ Sarabian told her.

There was a kind of suppressed jubilation on the foreign minister’s face as he entered with his brother, and Itagne’s expression was almost identical. Sparhawk was a bit startled by how much alike they looked.

‘You two look like a couple of cats who just got into the cream,’ Sarabian told them.

‘We’re pulling off the coup of the decade, your Majesty,’ Itagne replied.

‘Of the century,’ Oscagne corrected. ‘Everything’s in place, my Emperor. We left it sort of vague – “general meeting of the Imperial Council”, that sort of thing. Itagne dropped a few hints. He’s been planting the notion that you’re considering having your birthday declared a national holiday. It’s the sort of foolish whim your Majesty’s family is famous for.’

‘Be nice,’ Sarabian murmured. He had picked up that particular Elene expression during his stay in Ehlana’s castle.

‘Sorry, your Majesty,’ Oscagne apologized. ‘We’ve passed the whole thing off as a routine, meaningless meeting of the council – all formality and no substance.’

‘May I borrow your throne-room, Ehlana?’ Sarabian asked.

‘Of course,’ she smiled. ‘Formal dress, I suppose?’

‘Certainly. We’ll wear our crowns and our state robes. You wear your prettiest dress, and I’ll wear mine.’

‘Your Majesty!’ Oscagne protested. ‘The customary Tamul mantle is hardly a dress.’

‘A long skirt is a long skirt, Oscagne. Frankly, I’d prefer doublet and hose – and, given the circumstances, my rapier. Stragen’s right. Once you get used to wearing one you start to feel undressed without it.’

‘If formality’s going to be the keynote, I think you and the others should wear your dress armor, Sparhawk,’ Ehlana told her husband.

‘Excellent idea, Ehlana,’ Sarabian approved. ‘That way they’ll be ready when things turn ugly.’

They spent the rest of the day supervising the moving of furniture in the throne-room. The Queen of Elenia, as she sometimes did, went to extremes. ‘Buntings?’ Sparhawk asked her. ‘Buntings, Ehlana?’

‘We want things to look festive, Sparhawk,’ she replied with an airy little toss of her head. ‘Yes, I know. It’s frivolous and even a little silly, but buntings hanging from the walls and trumpet fanfares introducing each of the ministers will set the tone. We want this to look so intensely formal that the government officials won’t believe that anything serious could possibly happen. We’re laying a trap, love, and buntings are part of the bait. Details, Sparhawk, details. Good plots swarm with details.’

‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

‘Of course I am. Is the drawbridge raised?’

He nodded.

‘Good. Keep it that way. We don’t want anybody slipping out of the castle with any kind of information. We’ll escort the ministers inside tomorrow, and then we’ll raise the drawbridge again. We want to be in absolute control of the situation.’

‘Yes, dear.’

‘Don’t make fun of me, Sparhawk,’ she warned.

‘I’d sooner die.’

It was nearly dusk when Zalasta came into the throne-room and took Sparhawk to one side. ‘I must leave, Prince Sparhawk,’ he pleaded, his eyes a little wild. ‘It is a matter of the gravest urgency.’

‘My hands are tied, Zalasta,’ Sparhawk replied. ‘You know my wife. When she starts speaking in the royal “we”, there’s no reasoning with her.’

‘There are things I must set in motion, your Highness, things vital to the success of the Emperor’s plan.’

‘I’ll try to talk with her, but I can’t hold out much hope. Things are fairly well under control, though. The Atans know what to do outside the castle walls, and my Church Knights can handle things inside. There are ministers and other high-level officials whose loyalty is in doubt, you know. We don’t know exactly what the questioning of the Minister of the Interior is going to bring out. We’ll have those people in our hands, and we don’t want them running off to stir up more mischief.’

‘You don’t understand, Sparhawk!’ The note of desperation was clearly evident.

‘I’ll do what I can, Zalasta,’ Sparhawk said, ‘but I can’t make any promises.’

Chapter 19

The Tamul architect who had designed Ehlana’s castle had evidently devoted half a lifetime to the study of Elene buildings, and, like so many with limited gifts, he had slavishly imitated the details without capturing the spirit. The throne-room was a case in point. Elene castles have but two purposes – to remain standing and to keep out unwanted visitors. Both these purposes are served best by the kind of massive construction one might consider in designing a mountain. Over the centuries, some Elenes have sought to soften their necessarily bleak surroundings by embellishment. The interior braces intended to keep the walls from collapsing – even when swept by a blizzard of boulders – became buttresses. The massive stone posts designed to keep the ceiling where it belonged became columns with ornately carved bases and capitals. The same sort of strength can be achieved by vaulting, and the throne-room of Ehlana’s Tamul-built castle was a marvel of redundancy. It was massively vaulted and supported by long rows of fluted columns, and was braced by flying buttresses so delicate as to be not only useless but actually hazardous to those standing under them. Moreover, like everything else in fire-domed Matherion, the entire room was sheathed in opalescent mother-of-pearl.

Ehlana had chosen the buntings with some care, and the gleaming walls were now accented with a riot of color. The forty-foot-long blue velvet draperies at the narrow windows had been accented with white satin, the walls were decorated with crossed pennons and imitation battle-flags, and the columns and buttresses were bandaged with scarlet silk. The place looked to Sparhawk’s somewhat jaundiced eye like a country fair operated by a profoundly color-blind entrepreneur.

‘Garish,’ Ulath observed, buffing the black ogre-horns on his helmet with a piece of cloth.

‘Garish comes close,’ Sparhawk agreed. Sparhawk wore his formal black armor and silver surcoat. The Tamul blacksmith who had hammered out the dents and re-enameled the armor had also anointed the inside of each intricately wrought section and all the leather straps with crushed rose-petals in a kind of subtle, unspoken criticism of the armor’s normal fragrance. The resulting mixture of odors was peculiar.

‘How are we going to explain all the guards standing around Ehlana and Sarabian?’ Ulath asked.

‘We don’t have to explain things, Ulath.’ Sparhawk shrugged. ‘We’re Elenes, and the rest of the world believes that we’re barbarians with strange, ritualistic customs that nobody else understands. I am not going to let my wife sit there unprotected while she and Sarabian calmly advise the Tamul government that it’s been dismantled.’

‘Good thinking.’ Ulath looked gravely at his friend. ‘Sephrenia’s being difficult, you know.’

‘We more or less expected that.’

‘She might have an easier time if she could sit next to Zalasta.’

Sparhawk shook his head. ‘Zalasta’s an advisor to the government. He’ll have to be on the main floor with the ministers. Let’s keep Sephrenia off to one side. I’ll have Danae sit with her.’

‘That might help. Your daughter’s presence seems to calm Sephrenia. I wouldn’t seat Xanetia with them, though.’

‘I hadn’t planned to.’

‘Just making sure. Did Engessa get any kind of acknowledgement of his signal? Are we absolutely sure his order got to everybody?’

‘He is. I guess the Atans have used signal fires to pass orders along for centuries.’

‘I’m just a bit doubtful about bonfires on hilltops as a way to send messages, Sparhawk.’

‘That’s Engessa’s department. It won’t matter all that much if word hadn’t reached a few backwaters by sunrise this morning.’

‘You’re probably right. I guess we’ve done all we can, then. I just hope nothing goes wrong.’

‘What could go wrong?’

‘That’s the kind of thinking that fills graveyards, Sparhawk. I’ll go tell them to lower the drawbridge. We might as well get started.’

Stragen had carefully coached the dozen Tamul trumpeters and the rest of his musicians, concluding the lesson with some horrendous threats and an instructional visit to the carefully re-created torture chamber in the basement. The musicians had all piously sworn to play the proper notes and to forgo improvisation. The fanfares which were to greet the arrival of each minister of the imperial government had been Ehlana’s idea. Fanfares are flattering; they elevate the ego; they lull the unwary into traps. Ehlana was good at that sort of thing. The depths of her political instincts sometimes amazed Sparhawk.

In keeping with the formality of the occasion, armored Church Knights were stationed at evenly spaced intervals along the walls. To the casual observer, the knights were no more than a part of the decor of the throne-room. The casual observer, however, would have been wrong. The motionless men in steel were there to make absolutely certain that once the members of the imperial government had entered the room, they would not leave without permission, and the drawbridge, which was to be raised as soon as all the guests had arrived, doubly ensured that nobody would grow bored and wander off. Sarabian had advised them that the ‘Imperial Council of Tamuli’ had grown over the centuries. At first, the council had consisted only of the ministers. Then the ministers had included their secretaries; then their undersecretaries. By now it had reached the point where sub-sub-assistant temporary interim undersecretaries were also included. The title ‘Member of the Imperial Council’ had become largely meaningless. The inclusion of such a mob, however, ensured that every traitor inside the imperial compound would be gathered under Ehlana’s battlements. The Queen of Elenia was shrewd enough to use even her enemies’ egotism as a weapon against them.

‘Well?’ Ehlana asked nervously when her husband entered the royal apartment. The Queen of Elenia wore a cream-colored gown, trimmed with gold lame, and a dark blue, ermine-trimmed velvet cloak. Her crown looked quite delicate, a kind of lace cap made of hammered gold inset with bright-colored gems. Despite its airy appearance, however, Sparhawk knew – because he had picked it up several times – that it was almost as heavy as her state crown, which was locked in the royal vault back in Cimmura.

‘They’re starting to drift across the drawbridge,’ he reported. ‘Itagne’s greeting them. He knows everybody of any consequence in the government, so he’ll know when our guests have all arrived. As soon as everyone’s inside, the knights will raise the drawbridge.’ He looked at Emperor Sarabian, who stood near a window nervously chewing on one fingernail. ‘It’s not going to be all that much longer, your Majesty,’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t you change clothes?’

‘The Tamul mantle was designed to cover a multitude of defects, Prince Sparhawk, so it should cover my western clothes – and my rapier. I am not going in there unarmed.’

‘We’ll take care of you, Sarabian,’ Ehlana assured him.

‘I’d rather do it myself, mother.’ The Emperor suddenly laughed nervously. ‘A bad joke, perhaps, but there’s a lot of truth to it. You’ve raised me from political babyhood, Ehlana. In that respect, you are my mother.’

‘If you ever call me “mommy”, I’ll never speak to you again, your Majesty.’

‘I’d sooner bite out my tongue, your Majesty.’

‘What’s the customary procedure, your Majesty?’ Sparhawk asked Sarabian as they stood peering round the edge of the draped doorway into the rapidly filling throne-room.

‘As soon as everybody gets here, Subat will call the meeting to order,’ Sarabian replied. ‘That’s when I enter – usually to the sound of what passes for music here in Matherion.’

‘Stragen’s seen to it that your grand entrance will be truly grand,’ Ehlana assured him. ‘He composed the fanfare himself.’