Chapter Thirty-four

The courier, passed by the guard and Venkatna's advisors, eyed the emperor hesitantly.

"Well, go on!" Kleber whispered hoarsely. "Deliver your message!"

"Your majesty," the courier said, running his words together as if he hoped they would prevent him from seeing what he thought he saw. "Duke Justin informs you that the Mirala kings are marching with hundreds of warriors maybe a thousand they're looting as they pass but they seem to be making for the capital Duke Justin thinks six days maybe less."

The man was no court messenger. He wore back-country garb, the cape of a dire wolf and aurochs-hide chaps stained by the froth of the ponies he had ridden hard enough to reach Frekka in a day and a half.

Venkatna's audience hall was like nothing the courier had ever imagined.

The Web's sweeping curves were meaningless to anyone who hadn't been told of the device's purpose. The courier's first thought was that it was a cage, a prison, for the two emaciated women who sat on benches within the construct. They were being fed milk and soup by palace slaves who reached within the glimmering loops. Though the Web had gaps through which those within could exit, the women looked barely able to stand, much less flee.

Other slaves cleaned with mops and rags the women and the benches on which they sat. The women had not been permitted to leave the enclosed area to relieve themselves.

That was disconcerting to find in a palace . . . and the fear which marked the imperial advisors made the courier uncomfortable too, though it was a normal enough attitude among those forced to stand very close to the great. Neither of those things bothered the courier as much as the emperor and his companion did.

"Your majesty," said Duke Bontempo. The fat old man faced Venkatna, but his eyes were almost closed. The clerestory windows had faded to gray bars and the lamps were as yet unlit. "Do you wish to accompany your forces to meet these . . . ?"

Bontempo spoke softly, as though afraid of rousing the emperor from his—reverie?

Venkatna sat in a cushioned armchair. A robe of marmot skins lay over his legs. His hair had been left untrimmed longer than had the courier's own, and the stringiness of the imperial beard indicated why Venkatna had always before gone clean-shaven.

He held his wife's hand and stroked it gently. The Empress Esme's cheeks were sunken and there was a bluish pallor to her skin. She was obviously dead.

Venkatna's eyes focused on Bontempo, then flicked to the courier with a frown, as if wondering who he was. The courier stood perfectly still. He stared at a point on the far wall, just above the emperor's shoulder.

The audience hall contained three broad fireplaces connected to flues and chimneys. No fires were lighted. The courier began to tremble at his first experience of the imperial court.

Venkatna looked at Duke Bontempo and said, "We'll meet them here at Frekka. Order the forces to marshal at the palace barracks."

"They're in poor order, the Mirala troops," Trigane offered. He based his statement as much on past experience as on his hurried questions to the courier at the door to the hall. "A bunch of farmers, really. I could lead the frontier levies in a night attack and settle matters quickly."

"No!" shouted Venkatna with unexpected violence. He half rose from his chair, and his left hand tightened on that of his dead wife. "I'll lead the army. It was while meeting that Mirala scum at Heimrtal that my Esme took cold, you know. She hasn't been right since."

Duke Bontempo's eyes squeezed firmly shut. From his expression, one might have thought the old man was being disemboweled.

The emperor settled again on his seat A look of ordinary concern passed quickly across his face. He glanced—barely an eye-flick—toward the corpse on the bed beside him.

"That will give us the greatest time to gather our forces," Venkatna went on in normal tones. "We shouldn't be overconfident, even against Mirala farmers—"

His voice rose. Tendons began to show in his throat.

"—who will die to the man and the slave—"

He was shouting.

"—and the very beasts that they bring against me in their pack train! Die! And I will kill them!"

No one spoke or moved.

Venkatna relaxed again. He even managed a faint smile. "I . . . ," he said mildly. "Well, there's no advantage to us in stunts and night attacks. We will win as we've always won, through training and discipline. Until I've fulfilled my destiny. And laid the whole world at my darling's feet."

His hand stroked Esme's cold cheek, but he did not look at her.

Duke Bontempo bowed. "I'll see to gathering our forces, your majesty," he said. He strode out of the room, calling for his aides before he was through the doorway.

The courier winced. If he had been ready for it, he could have left the hall in Bontempo's wake. Now he wasn't sure if he dared walk out without asking permission. He was absolutely sure that he didn't want to open his mouth without a direct order to do so.

Venkatna suddenly lifted his hand and stared at the fingertips. He looked over at Esme. His complexion sank through sullen pallor before flooding back in an apoplectic flush. "Mold!" he shouted. "They've let mold grow!"

The emperor jumped to his feet. The fur slipped, tangling his legs but ignored. For the first time Venkatna seemed to notice that the women within the Web were awake and the device's fabric did not glow with its own power.

"Get back!" Venkatna screamed. "You're letting her—you're—get back!"

"Excellency . . . ?" one of the women begged. Some of the milk she had drunk dribbled from the corner of her mouth. "Please, we must have rest, just a little rest."

"So cold . . . ," whispered the other woman. Her eyes were glazed and unfocused.

"Get back to your work!" the emperor cried. "I order you! I order you!"

The face of the woman who had been able to plead slackened. "Your orders are our fate," she said. Her voice was so soft that the courier would not have been able to hear except for the breathless silence in which all others in the hall held themselves.

"Your orders are our fate," repeated her companion. They lay down on the benches as though they were entering their tombs.