The Temple Road Read online

  That was plain speech, if he’d ever heard it. He wondered if Jochi was trying to frighten him into changing his mind. No, he decided. He means it. And if anyone tries to harm me, Margun’s going to have enough men for a bloodbath.

  Scarlet sighed heavily in defeat. “You gods-damned people are insane, you know that? You live on a block of ice in the middle of a frozen sea and you scatter like a hill of kicked ants at the sight of anyone who doesn't look exactly like all of you.” He waved his arms. “Unless they look like a big walking tree! That’s just fine. A snow bear could charge you and you'd say Oh my, a gigantic fucking bear has come to eat me. Wherever did I leave my spear? But one look at my face and there's screaming about magic and doom and the end of the thrice-damned, cocksucking world!”

  Margun stared, his eyes round as moons, and then he threw his head back and laughed so loud that Scarlet could feel the vibration through the floor.

  Scarlet crossed his arms. “I'm glad I amuse you so.”

  Margun held his middle and burbled laughter. “I'm sorry, ser.”

  Even Jochi was smiling. Scarlet pushed Jochi’s shoulder, his mouth twitching. “And what are you smirking about, want-wit?”

  Margun wiped tears of mirth from his eyes. “If ser Keriss will only wait a little, I think I have a way that he can see as much of the city as he wishes, and attract no attention.”

  “I’VE TRIED THIS BEFORE,” Scarlet declared. “It didn't work out like I’d planned.”

  Margun hummed as he painted Scarlet's skin. “I've heard that story.”

  “I know. Probably ten times by now. I have little enough stories of my own to tell.”

  “That's not true, ser,” Jochi said. “I find the tales of your wanderings in Byzantur and Morturii fascinating. I've never seen these places, so they seem very exotic to me. Souks, bhoros houses, and the little swords the Morturii people make.”

  “Long-knives,” Scarlet corrected, wrinkling his nose. His skin was heavy with the cream Jochi had smeared on it. “They don't look so little up close.”

  “And the... what do you call them? Fates?”

  “Yes. Or Hands of Fate, Fate Readers. It changes.” He held back a sneeze. “I'm almost afraid to ask where you got these things. Margun.”

  “A gentleman must guard his secrets.” Margun put the array of little jars and pots away in a lacquered box. “Ready to take a look?”

  “No, but I will anyway. What would... oh!” He stared at himself in the polished mirror. “That's me?” He made to touch his face but Margun grabbed his hand gently.

  “It's not dry yet, ser. Give it a little.”

  “Will this come off?” Scarlet turned his head to the side and stared at his reflection in wonder. His skin was painted dark amber, his black hair tied back and hidden under a fine wig like silver silk, soft as feathers against his cheeks. The ends of the wig brushed his collar and the curling hairs framed his face.

  “It will when you wash it, though you may have to scrub. Just pray it doesn't rain.”

  Scarlet grinned and was almost startled when his reflection grinned back. He looked so unfamiliar to himself. “My own mum wouldn't recognize me. Are you sure this will work?”

  Margun put the mirror away. “It will work well enough for our purpose. You will appear to be a nobleman's young son. People will be curious, but they won't be alarmed or afraid, and the royal banners and swords will do the rest. They’ll keep a respectful distance.”

  Jochi nodded, evidently satisfied. He stood with his arms folded and watched while Scarlet donned a black and silver cloak over his virca.

  Scarlet turned to him. “How do I look?” he asked, adjusting the silver brooch.

  “You will pass for a Rshani boy. Just try not to look anyone in the eye. Margun’s eyes are darker than most, but there are none as black as yours.”

  “Shuhshira,” Margun said, repeating a name Scarlet had often heard associated with his own.

  “Eyes of a shark,” Scarlet translated. “I have some fearsome names among your folk, but I've always found that one funny, as if I swam through the snow chomping you giants off at the ankles.”

  Margun chuckled as he fastened his cloak over his shoulders. “Some of us could use it. Well, Jochi, are you content?”

  “I feel much better about this excursion than I did, I admit.”

  “Good.” Margun moved to open the door for Scarlet. “After you, ser.”

  Scarlet looked at Jochi apprehensively, at a loss for how he was going to stop Jochi from accompanying them, but Jochi hadn’t moved. “You’re staying here?”

  “Margun seems to have the situation well in hand. And you need to practice doing without me, ser.”

  “I don’t want to,” he groused. Even though his plans could not include Jochi, he felt a little uneasy about venturing into the city without him. He realized how much he had grown to depend on Jochi’s good sense and guidance in this strange land. “Liall’s an idiot.”

  Jochi shook his head and smiled. “Untrue, as you well know. Be safe, ser.”

  “You’ll still be here when I get back?”

  “I will. We can have che together when you return. I’ll wait for you in the Queen’s solar.” Jochi smiled encouragingly and squeezed Scarlet’s shoulder. “I have every confidence in you, ser Keriss.”

  You wouldn’t say that if you knew where I was going, he thought. But there was no help for it. He’d resolved to lie and he either had to follow through on that plan or admit he was out of his depth and confess everything.

  Bugger that.

  He made himself smile.

  THE PORT OF SUL BY daylight was nothing like Scarlet remembered. When he had first set foot off the Ostre Sul those months ago, it had been dark, the wind stole his breath, and his eyes had been dazzled by lamps. He barely recalled saying farewell to Captain Qixa. Jochi had been there that night, along with many more scowling Northerners. The land under Scarlet's feet had felt disturbingly solid after four months at sea, and his memory of Swan Harbor was a haze of blue lights, snow, and swift motion. He hadn't even realized how large a city Sul was.

  Beyond the wooden docks and the buildings of timber and brick lay the fortifications of Sul: a long, buttressed wall of giant stone blocks with the iron snouts of cannons poking through its battlements. In the distance, Scarlet saw towers of the same gray stone rising up over the land into the misty sky.

  A dim yellow sun spread its scant light low on the horizon as they rode the cobblestone streets, their armored escort on foot, carrying the fluttering royal banners of Camira-Druz. The busy crowds parted before them with ease.

  Scarlet turned to Margun. “Why does the sun not set, but only sail low across the sky? Is it going around us?” He found that hard to imagine.

  Margun smiled. “It is us who go around the sun, ser. It has to do with the tilt of the world. The sun is a fixed orb, but the world is always in motion. This time of year, it is canted so that the sun appears low in the sky. By summer, the sun will be a little higher and the air will be warmer, and we in the south shall have a brief season. Greentide, it’s called in Kalas Nauhin, because the crops grow so fast, eager to be harvested. In the far north, the sun returns for only one hundred days of the year.”

  “That’s all?” Scarlet found it hard believe that anyone or anything could live without the sun for so long. “What do people find to eat?”

  “I did not say there were people there, ser.” Margun’s face was closed.

  “But Liall says—”

  “Here we are,” Margun interrupted, reining his horse up gently. He called out in Sinha for their escort to halt, and the soldiers stopped. He patted her mane. Margun's mount was a big gray mare with sooty spots on her flank. He seemed inordinately fond of her.

  Scarlet looked at the building they had come to. He saw dyed gowns hanging on racks in the interior of the shop, and in the small glass window were an array of jeweled combs and the fur hats he saw many people wearing. “Why are we stopping here?�
��

  “You told Jochi you needed boots, ser. If we return without them, he will wonder why.”

  He blushed in embarrassment. Of course, why hadn’t he thought of that? A fine spy I make.

  “Strictly speaking, a cobbler would take days to fit you with a custom boot,” Margun said. “This shop carries boots for smaller feet.”

  Scarlet made a wry mouth as Margun dismounted. “You mean women.”

  Margun shrugged. “Women's feet are smaller than men's. Your feet are small.”

  Scarlet looked at the window the shop and sighed. “All right, then.” He slid off the back of his horse and landed lightly. Margun made a startled movement to catch him, then stood staring.

  “Did you think I would fall off?”

  Margun put his hand on the saddle of Scarlet's horse and adjusted the mount's reins. It was a big black like Argent—Liall's horse—with a long ebony mane flashing silvery-blue in the streetlamps.

  “I had heard you could ride well, but this is not the horse for a king's consort. He is trained for battle. You need something gentler, ser.”

  Scarlet made a rude noise. “Why?”

  “Because a warhorse is trained in ways you are not familiar with.”

  “So train me.”

  Margun gave him a carefully flat look. “If the king gives his permission, of course I will train you, ser. I’m also proficient with a sword, should you wish to learn that skill.”

  “You might want to ask Nevoi what he thinks about my skills first,” Scarlet said darkly. “For now, show me the boots.”

  The way the shopkeeper kept her eyes down and put as much distance between them as possible made Scarlet suspect Margun had forewarned her. Margun Rook did not seem to be a man who left many matters to chance.

  The shop contained much to choose from, but Scarlet found it hard to concentrate. He selected a pair of sturdy gray boots trimmed with white fur, and another of black leather with silver buckles that were a particularly good fit. He peered through the small window and tried to get a glimpse of the water while Margun paid the woman, but the angle was wrong.

  “It’s strange, I can feel the time passing,” he said to Margun as they exited the shop, “but I don’t know what to call it. There’s no night if the sun never sets. How do you say “tonight” or “this afternoon” if you don’t have the sun’s arc to go by?”

  “We have clocks, ser, but you must remember that day and night as you knew them are strange concepts to us. Here, the sun has always shone without setting for half the year, before the long night comes, and we do not find that odd or difficult.”

  Scarlet cheek’s colored. Of course! He should have realized that before opening his mouth.

  “But I think you mean something more general?” Margun said kindly, sensing his embarrassment. “We call the waking hours dusken, and the hours that would traditionally be your night—the hours that we sleep—are called dimmet. That’s how you say night and day during Greentide. When winter comes and there is only the blue twilight, we say the same.”

  “I’m sorry. I just didn’t think.”

  “Don’t apologize. If I journeyed to your land, where the sun rises and sets like a cork in the water, I would be just as confused.” He paused to think. “But there are forty days after Greentide has ended, where every day there is a gray haze above the horizon that dims the stars for several hours before all grows dark. The stars shine very brightly then. We call this time the Nightshore, because the heavens seem like a gray shore with an ocean of stars at the zenith.”

  “That’s beautiful,” Scarlet said, realizing that he almost missed the lovely blue of the Rshani winter. It seemed a bit easier if he didn’t have to say night when he could still see the sun. He heard gulls crying from the harbor and changed the subject. “Does the Ostre Sul make port here often?”

  “This is the trading season for mariners, when the currents are in their favor. Since Qixa lost his first mate, the good captain tends to make his journeys long and his landfalls infrequent. If I did not know better, I would say he was grieving.”

  “I knew Mautan,” Scarlet said quietly. “He was a joker, that one. I liked him.”

  “If you say so, ser.”

  “You don’t agree?”

  Margun led Scarlet's horse to him. The mount was immense, bigger than any horse he had ever ridden in Byzantur. He took the reins and vaulted easily into the saddle.

  Margun nodded approvingly. “I did not know Mautan very well,” he said, “but I suspect you saw a different side of him than I could have witnessed. Mariners and soldiers do not commonly mix.”

  “Why is that?”

  Margun mounted up as well. “It is a very old rivalry, but some of it is because soldiers defend the land while mariners leave it. The army fights to keep our lands safe from outlanders and their influence, while the mariners breed with foreign women and raise their bastards on the Kalaxes Isles.”

  “How is that possible when you don’t allow foreigners?”

  Margun shrugged. “Kalaxes is high on the north coast, where the eyes of the crown do not see. The islands have not been counted a true part of the kingdom for many years. It is a... how do you say it in Bizye? A vassal princedom.”

  Scarlet wondered who the prince was. He had never heard of one. “But still, you need the mariners,” Scarlet pointed out. “Without the ships, there’s no trade.”

  “Contact with outlanders is a two-edged sword, ser. It is true that trade gives us all manner of luxuries we could not otherwise have, and feeds us during the hard months when crops do not grow. But we have become dependent on these comforts and it has weakened us. Our population is now larger than we can feed without imports, even with the greenhouses and our machines and knowledge of growing. We were stronger when we relied upon no one but ourselves.” Margun looked away. “If the Blackmoat were ever to fail, I dread what would happen.”

  Scarlet frowned. “That place again.”

  “All the great wealth of our kingdom stems from the Blackmoat.”

  He nodded. “So Liall said. Why is it called a moat?”

  Margun looked at him. “Has no one told you? A tremendous machine pumps black oil from beneath the ice, but at times the oil spills and forms a ring around the towers.”

  That had not been in his dream. “I once saw whale oil offered for sale in the Ankar souk. The beasts winter in the deeps of Harborgate, where no ice forms. It was only a small bottle, but ever so dear.”

  Margun smiled. “The black oil would not cost so dear, I think. Our oil has many uses, and there is much of it. Rshan’s hidden riches are vast. It is said one could purchase the rich continent of Artinia many times over with what lies beneath the ice of the Blackmoat.”

  “Oh.” Scarlet felt a little foolish. “And Liall owns all this?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can folk eat it?”

  Margun laughed and looked at him with merry gray eyes. “No, ser. The oil is poisonous to humans and animals alike.” He tilted his head. “We shall have much to speak of, you and I. Rshan is a great kingdom, but we are the midst of change. Only the king can decide if the change is good or bad, and it is to him we must look to make things right.” He gave Scarlet a measuring look. “You could guide him in those decisions.”

  Scarlet shook the strands of the wig out of his eyes. “Liall knows his own mind. He doesn’t need my help.”

  “I disagree. It’s not only the king who has changed in his years away. His people have changed, too. The queen was a reformist in her final years, and not everyone agreed with her policies. I don’t say that the old ways were best, but they kept us alive for untold centuries.”

  “Prince Cestimir used to talk about men who think like you.”

  Margun seemed amused. “Did he call us backward isolationists?”

  “He never said backward.”

  Margun grunted. “Like his mother, the late prince had many new and alarming ideas. Even if Vladei had not murdered him, Cestimir
may not have held the throne for long. Many had called for the return of Prince Nazheradei years ago, before...” Margun trailed off. “Perhaps we should not be speaking of these things, ser.”

  Scarlet shook his head. “I expected you to shut up much sooner. Liall doesn't like it when his courtiers talk politics to me. He's afraid they'll try to use me for their own ends.”

  “I'm a soldier, ser, not a courtier.”

  “Something much more dangerous,” he answered.

  “Known many soldiers, have you?”

  He got the feeling Margun was mocking him. He shrugged. “I knew them in Ankar when I traveled in the caravans, and I trusted them about as far as I could throw them. Nothing I’ve learned about soldiers since has changed my mind.”

  Margun clamped his mouth tight as if to keep words from flying out.

  Scarlet smirked. “I think Qixa might have cared for Mautan,” he said, graciously changing the subject.

  Margun lifted an eyebrow. “Such bonds are common between men. On a ship, even more so. Is it not the same in Kalaslyn?”

  “I don't like that word.”

  “It is our name for your country. Kalas, meaning south. And lyn for—”

  “Lenilyn,” Scarlet finished. “The land of Southern Non-people. It sounded a lot prettier when I didn’t know what it meant.” He reined his horse a little closer to Margun. “And no, it's not common in my lands,” he answered lowly. “Men loving men. In Ankar, it’s a crime, punishable by flogging or worse.”

  Margun’s eyes were sympathetic. “That must be a terrible burden, for some.”

  “For some,” he agreed. “Perhaps for all of us, in ways we don’t see.” Scarlet was silent for a moment. “We have a name for your land, too, but we don’t call you non-people. We don’t believe in you at all.”

  Margun looked at him curiously as the horses continued their slow progress through the cobblestoned streets. “How can that be? Our mariners make port regularly at Volkovoi, and they trade with the Morturii. Surely you had heard of us.”

  “I’d heard of Northmen, never of Rshani. Our name for your land is Norl Udur.”