CHAPTER SIX

Sakkuth, Isembaard

A xis was almost as astonished at the size and complexity of Isaiah’s forces as, had he known it, were Maximilian and his party.

He’d never seen anything like it.

For the past week they’d ridden from the Lhyl where they’d left their riverboats, across territory undulating with soldiers. Their encampments had stretched as far as the eye could see.

Axis had been as impressed with the tight discipline of the horde as much as he was with its size. After what Ezekiel had told him about the chaos that had ensued after Isaiah had been kidnapped on the Eastern Independencies campaign, Axis had more than half expected a mass of undisciplined and slothful soldiers.

But perhaps they sank to such depths only once a tyrant’s throne was vacant, for the army that Axis saw was under tight control and exhibited extreme discipline.

His admiration for the Isembaardian generals, as well as for Isaiah, notched up yet another degree.

Sakkuth was everything Axis had expected. It was a stunningly beautiful, walled, and multispired city constructed predominantly of pink and cream stone quarried in the FarReach Mountains. As they rode through the main gates and into the wide avenue that led through the heart of the city to Isaiah’s official palace, Axis wondered why Isaiah didn’t spend more time here. Axis had been with him for a year, and yet not once in that time had Isaiah left Aqhat.

What kept him in Aqhat? The serenity of the river…or DarkGlass Mountain?

The avenue was crowded with people, mostly ordinary city dwellers going about their daily business.

Soldiers had crowded people back against the buildings in order to give Isaiah room to pass, and in order to give him the room to pass in splendor.

Axis noted their response to Isaiah and his two hundred strong escort with as much curiosity as he’d marked the army beyond the city’s walls.

Generally the crowds displayed a mix of deference, genuine awe (or perhaps fear), and a decided reluctance to look directly at the face of Isaiah, or any of his closest companions—among which included Ishbel, who rode directly behind Isaiah, the pair of them kept closely guarded by several squadrons of heavily armed men.

This morning, when Axis had gone to mount his horse, he’d noted that Isaiah and Ishbel, who had regained all her strength and vitality after the baby’s birth, had attired themselves in great majesty. Both wore great golden and bejeweled collars that draped over their shoulders, robes of fine embroidered silks, and two or three golden bands on each of their bare arms.

Isaiah appeared calm and relaxed, Ishbel a little less so, and Axis thought he saw slight lines of strain about her eyes and mouth.

Axis was ambivalent about their relationship. He knew they were now sleeping together, and was honest enough with himself to admit there was a small kernel of jealousy there. But he didn’t know what Ishbel wanted. Did she truly wish to be Isaiah’s wife? Was she just marking time until she could manage a means to leave him? How did she actually feel about arriving back in her homeland on the tide of a massive invasion and on the arm (and in the bed) of the invader?

To none of these questions did Axis have an answer, and he hadn’t had the opportunity of asking Ishbel.

He’d not seen her alone for weeks—a situation he realized was fully managed by Isaiah as well as by Ishbel herself—and any time he did spend with her was in the company of Isaiah, who deflected any conversation away from Ishbel if he felt it too personal.

Ishbel was now clearly out of bounds to Axis.

Ah! What did it matter to him? Ishbel was her own woman, and old enough to know what she was doing with her life.

But still…Axis wondered if she had really thought through what she did.

He dismissed the thought the next moment as ungenerous and undoubtedly born of his own jealousy.

Stars, would he have refused if Ishbel had come to him?

No. He wouldn’t.

Axis sighed, looking about. He was some four or five riders behind Isaiah and Ishbel, and enjoying not being the center of attention for once. It gave him so much opportunity to observe freely.

He looked at Isaiah, sitting his horse with such confidence and such natural arrogance that it appeared he could fear nothing.

Axis suddenly thought of the assassination attempt on Isaiah at Aqhat and, his heart thudding in his chest, glanced upward at the roofline.

Straight into the eyes of his father.

Maximilian had been transfixed by the sight of Ishbel. She looked so beautiful, and very obviously no longer pregnant.

His eyes quickly scanned back through Isaiah’s column, looking for the nursery litter, a wet nurse cradling the child, anything, then decided that perhaps the baby would come into the city later, when everything was calmer, or that, gods forbid, Ishbel had left it behind from wherever she had come.

Would she have done that? Why?

Then, four or five horsemen back from Isaiah, a man had looked up directly at the roof where Maximilian and his party stood, and StarDrifter had cried out, softly and heart-achingly, “Axis!”

Maximilian acted instantly. He grabbed StarDrifter, now stepping forth to the very edge of the building, and hauled him backward toward the trapdoor that led from the flat roof down into the bakery.

“Everyone back, now!” Maximilian hesitated. “Save you, Serge. Watch as carefully as you can. Let me know if you think Axis has reported us.”

“Axis will keep his mouth shut!” StarDrifter hissed.

“Yes?” said Maximilian, angry with frustration at being so near Ishbel and yet so damned distant, and angry also that he hadn’t thought to use either his power or that of Venetia and Ravenna to cloak them from prying eyes. Gods, what had he been thinking? Had the thought of seeing Ishbel so addled his wits?

And where was their child?

“Really?” Maximilian continued, his grip tightening about StarDrifter’s arm. “He’s been living in Isembaard with Isaiah for many months at the least, and he didn’t look a reluctant captive to me just then, eh? Downstairs. Now!”

Axis couldn’t think. He could not manage a single, damned coherent thought. He sat his horse in a state of shock, riding forward with Isaiah’s train automatically, trying to marshal some sense from his brain.

StarDrifter. StarDrifter. Stars, his father was here in Sakkuth!

Axis had not thought of StarDrifter in many, many weeks. To see him now, here, of all places, left him breathless not merely in shock, but in joy as well.

His father.

Oh, gods…what should he do?

Axis managed to glance behind him again, trying to see the roof where he’d seen StarDrifter, but they’d ridden forward too far, and around a slight curve in the avenue, for him to be able to make it out.

His brain, finally, managed to send out a few cautious observations.

The darker man who had grabbed at StarDrifter, pulling him away.

“Oh no,” Axis whispered, knowing intuitively who that must be. He had no reason at all to know it was Maximilian, but somehow he just knew. Axis’ hands, which to his amazement he discovered were trembling, tightened about his reins, making his horse jitter a little.

What should he do?

He looked ahead.

Isaiah had turned on his horse and was smiling at Ishbel, then laughed at something she said.

Axis’ face lost all expression. Isaiah and Ishbel had underestimated Maximilian. Very badly.

He glanced upward again, although he knew he had no hope of seeing StarDrifter.

What should he do?

Nothing. Watch. And wait for his father.

Axis knew StarDrifter had seen him as well, and he knew his father well enough to know that StarDrifter would seek him out.

And what was Maximilian going to do?

He looked ahead once more to Isaiah and Ishbel, revising his opinion that he should say nothing. But what to say? If he told Isaiah that Maximilian was in Sakkuth, would Isaiah then close down the city while soldiers searched door to door? Was that fair to Maximilian? To StarDrifter?

Was it fair to Ishbel not to tell her that her husband was in town?

“Stars,” he muttered, “what should I do?”

Once more safely ensconced in the storerooms under the bakery, Maximilian finally let StarDrifter go and turned to Ravenna.

“Tonight,” he said. “You and me only. Isaiah’s palace.”

“Maxel—” StarDrifter began.

“Ravenna and me only,” Maximilian snapped, and such was the expression on his face that no one argued the point.