1

“Steady there, lady,” Inos said. “Steady! Now I take a look at your hoof. All part of the game.” She slid from the saddle, then tried to comfort Sesame, patting her neck and cooing. “Sorry, girl! Sorry!” Sesame champed her bit and backed away rebelliously, clattering on the wind-polished pebbles; she kept that up for several minutes before allowing herself to be soothed. She was one of the sweetest-tempered mounts Inos had ever met, but at the moment she was very mad, and with good reason.

The only vegetation in sight was thorny scrub, useless for tying reins to. Apart from that there was sand and stone as far as the eye could see, hot enough to bake bread. Heat lay on the desert like a lake of molten lead. It shimmered in silver mirages and blurred the rocky ridges, even the closest. It poached the eyeballs. The Agonistes were barely visible ghosts, snowcapped and remote.

Sesame was still fretting, perturbed by the lack of other horses, perhaps not trusting Inos to find the road home again. The last of the hunt had just topped the ridge ahead, disappearing after the hounds; the beaters and dog handlers were leagues back. Timeless silence had returned to the barren hills; the air was still and cruel, too hot to breathe, and smelling of dust.

Inos unhooked the canteen and dropped her veil to drink. She had no objection to covering her face out here in the hills, because everyone did, even Azak. She ought to pretend to inspect Sesame’s shoes, but at the moment there was no one in sight, so she could just say she had done so. She shook the canteen and scowled at it for being so near to empty. The sky was frighteningly huge, and she could imagine herself as a God might see her, an insignificant dot on a great barren expanse of rock.

She replaced the canteen, wiping her face with her sleeve. It had been a tougher day than usual—she wondered again what on earth she was hoping to achieve, broiling herself in the desert. For more than two weeks now she had been imprisoned in Arakkaran, Pandemia’s most luxurious jail, and in those two weeks she seemed to have accomplished nothing at all. Nothing for Krasnegar; nothing even for her own satisfaction, for she had not achieved that monarch-to-monarch talk with Azak that she had set out to win.

Likely it would have done her little good anyway, for Sultan Azak seemed to spend all his days in hunting, all his evenings at state dinners with his brothers and uncles and cousins. When had he ever had the time to learn anything about world politics? He was only an untutored savage, who probably knew less than she did.

“Stubborn, I am!” she told Sesame. “I just don’t want to quit! I don’t want to crawling back to Kade, admitting that I can’t even back a man into a corner when I try. Stubborn!” Stubborn as a certain mule-headed faun she had known once.

As far as she knew, Kade was not making much progress, either. She seemed to pass her days in teaching the palace women how to run tea parties and ladies’ salons, and the sorceress had been encouraging this importation of Imperial customs. There had been no change in the situation in Krasnegar—so Rasha had told Kade. Of course news took a month or longer to travel as far as Kinvale. To cross all Pandemia might take years, so what the sorceress had not heard, no one had.

“So why do I bother, lady? Tell me that!” Inos patted the pony’s sweaty neck. “I’ll tell you why I bother—because I don’t want to waste my days lounging around with Kade drinking tea and eating cake and growing old and fat!”

Sesame blew a loud breath of disbelief.

“Well, you’ve got a point,” Inos admitted, scanning all around again without seeing any change in the empty land. “It would be more comfortable, and I’m probably aging much faster out here. So you’re absolutely right—I do it because I want to show I’m as tough as any of these hairy-faced baboons.” Sesame shook her head and backed up a few steps.

“No? Well, I suppose I’m not, am I? And they don’t care now anyway, do they?”

The novelty had worn off, and the princes were mostly shunning Inos. Perhaps they resented her, and the example she was setting for their womenfolk. Some of the younger men still spoke to her, although what they wanted to discuss would have been unthinkable in Kinvale. Only one of them had actually offered to include marriage in the arrangement, young Petkish, and she had not seen him around lately. She hoped there was no connection between his marriage proposal and his disappearance.

Still, at least she had learned that a woman could get married in Zark. Marriage was unusual, and it brought very few rights, but it was possible. Nice to know.

“You’re absolutely correct,” Inos told her horse sternly. “I do this because I don’t like being snubbed by an ignorant oversize savage. He knows I want a private word with him and he’s deliberately staying out of my way, and I’m going to chase after him until he’s sick of the sight of me.”

Sesame sighed disbelievingly.

And then a horse came into view in the distance, one of the hunt returning. It was heading straight for Inos, so obviously the rider had already seen her. In a few minutes she recognized Kar’s big gray. Surprise! To see Kar farther removed from Azak than his own shadow was very rare.

As usual, Azak had outridden the entire court, vanishing over the horizon with uncles and brothers straggling in pursuit behind him. Often he even outrode his brown-clad guards, known as the family men. Kar’s return meant that the kill had been made; the others would be along shortly.

In a moment he flowed up effortlessly beside Inos’s stillrestless mare and simultaneously slid from his saddle with a grace that suggested descent from a thousand generations of horsemen. He dropped his own reins brashly, snapping a word of command at the gray. Then he reached out to stroke Sesame’s neck, and she stilled as if soothed by magic. Azak had the same knack. It wasn’t quite Rap’s magic, but it was almost as impressive.

“It was just a rock,” Inos said. “Then I thought I’d give her a rest.”

“Which foot?” Kar inquired, with a smile.

Kar always smiled. Kar had probably been born smiling and most likely slept smiling and would be acting out of character if he did not die smiling. Alone among the full-grown princes, he was clean-shaven, his face round and boyish. He was shorter and slighter than most of the others, probably in his late twenties, a little older than Azak. He was another ak’Azakar, either brother or half brother to the sultan. His eyes were wide and innocent, as red as any, and yet the coldest eyes Inos had seen outside a fish market. There was something sinister about Kar that she could not place, and yet she had never heard him raise his voice or even seen him frown. Or stop smiling.

“Right front,” she said.

“It looked more like back left.” The smile grew broader, buckling his cheeks without touching his eyes at all. “But it doesn’t matter, does it?” He stooped to run his hand down Sesame’s fetlock and then lift her hoof. “It was quite realistic.”

“Who is telling lies about me? You could not have seen it yourself.”

“I see everything.”

Inos had preferred not to watch the antelope being pulled down and torn apart. Coursing was low on her list of favorite sports.

“It fooled most of them,” Kar remarked to the hoof he was studying. “The Big Man didn’t notice, luckily. But this frog does seem a little tender. Did she have any trouble earlier? Real trouble?” Even when he was bent double, there was something very irritating in Kar’s manner.

Tempted to lash out with her boot at so profitable a target, Inos regretfully refrained. “Not that I noticed. I mean, no! She was fine.”

He grunted, released the hoof, and went for another. Sesame tossed her head as he ducked below it. “Don’t ever try it when he might see.”

“I have more sense than that.”

“I thought you had more sense than to try it at all. You think your sex would protect you?”

Inos rejected her first choice of response and framed a more civil reply. ”Certainly not. I expect I should receive much the same lecture as Prince Petkish did.”

Kar made a scoffing noise. “Lecture? You think that was all Petkish got, a lecture?”

As huntmaster, Azak was a fanatic. Princes who muffed a chance at game or displayed anything less than total mastery of their mounts were certain to receive royal reprimands, which were usually long and invariably savage. No matter how senior the culprit, or how many lowborn attendants might be within earshot, Azak would bellow out his scorn and contempt for all to hear. He wielded an enormous vocabulary without pityridicule upon humiliation, insult upon sarcasm-irony, scorn, and scurrility. Frequently the tongue-lashing would continue until tears dribbled down the victim’s cheeks, and days might then pass before he dared come again into the sultan’s presence. A public flogging would have been kinder and less feared.

Azak, in short, treated the princes with undisguised contempt. He was reasonably patient with the lowborn—with grooms, falconers, and other attendants—but he made no allowance for human fallibility in royalty. It was not a style of leadership that appealed to Inos. The third or fourth time she witnessed one of his brutal tirades, the victim had been young Petkish, just two days after he had started inserting marriage into his frequent offers of cohabitation. His horse had balked at jumping a wadi, a very nasty little gully, rocky and deep, its edges crumbling. Azak had somehow seen what happened behind his back and had returned to berate the culprit with a fury of invective that continued until the lad dismounted and threw himself on the ground before Azak’s horse, rubbed his face in the dirt, and begged for forgiveness. He had then been sent home, and Inos had not seem him since.

Within a few minutes, Azak had been leading the remainder of the hunt at full gallop over terrain that would have caused any reasonable man to dismount and proceed on foot. The remaining princes had clung to him like fleas, with Inos in their midst, heart in mouth—if mere princes could do it, then a queen must not fail. By a miracle no horse or rider had come to grief, but that night she had awakened several times sweating and shaking; and understanding a little better.

She understood, also, that such leadership did not permit Azak himself ever to fall below perfection. His mount must never stumble, his arrows never miss. And apparently they never did. It was small wonder that the younger men worshipped him, and even the oldest cowered below his frown.

But now she felt a stab of alarm. She had liked Petkish. Almost alone among the princes he had seemed to appreciate that a woman might be human once in a while. “What else happened to Petkish, apart from the lecture?”

“He was banished.”

Kar was still doubled over, but Inos kept her face schooled anyway, hiding her distaste. Banished—for a single refusal, or because he had been too friendly with the visiting royalty? Poor Petkish and his tiny ginger beard! Either way, he had learned a hard lesson.

Azak couldn’t banish Inos, because she was Rasha’s guest, but if he learned that she had faked a lame horse in order to avoid the sight of blood, then she would no longer be one of the boys. She would be back doing flower arrangements with Kade.

“You were misinformed, Highness,” Inos said. “My horse did pick up a stone. Had I known I would be doubted, I should have saved it as evidence. Surely you are too much of a gentleman to tell tales?”

Kar completed his deliberate inspection of the second hoof, then straightened up. He rested one hand on Sesame’s withers and turned to Inos with quiet amusement.

“I always tell tales,” he said. “I tell everything. I am his chief of security. Did you not know?”

“No. I didn’t.”

Kar shrugged. “He trusts me. I am the only man he trusts.” Inos felt very much aware of being alone in an empty desert with this smiling, baby-faced enigma. She had never spoken with Kar before, and he made her scalp pucker. She wished the rest of the hunt would come into view. “The only one he trusts completely, you mean? He must trust some of the others somewhat?”

“How can you trust anyone somewhat?”

“Well.”

Kar’s smile widened. He moved around to check Sesame’s rear feet. “Why do you wish to speak with him?”

Ah! So this was business? She should have guessed! Obviously the straightforward approach was suspect and she was supposed to do things in devious ways. Faking a lame pony might be the correct form of address when seeking audience, and now Azak had sent Kar to open negotiations.

“I wanted his advice, as one monarch to another.”

“Why should he give you advice?”

Nonplussed, Inos snapped, “Why should he not?”

Kar was scratching at the hoof with the quillon of his dagger and he spoke without raising his voice at all. “You are in league with the bitch sorceress. She brought you here for some purpose of her own. Your aunt spends half her days drinking tea with her, spreading dissent and sedition among the women of the palace.”

“I bear no malice toward Arakkaran!”

“What evidence do you offer, apart from your own word?”

Idiot! She should have expected this suspicion. She had not been thinking about local politics at all, only her own.

This was not the Impire. It most certainly was not Kinvale, and she had been playing games. Azak might indulge in sport, but he would never play games. ”Do I look like a threat to Arakkaran?”

Kar straightened and regarded her with less smile than usual. “You look like an imperial spy.”

“That is rubbish! I no more look like an imp than you do.”

“There is a scent of war in the wind.”

“Yes, there is. The imps stole my kingdom!”

“So you have been telling the women. You have also been asking questions,” Kar said softly. “Strange questions. You asked how the sultan is chosen, for example.”

“Yes! How is the sultan chosen? That can’t be a state secret, yet no one will tell me. Azak has many older brothers. Why him? In Krasnegar, and in the Impire—”

“In Zark it is done otherwise.” Kar bent to the fourth leg. ”By election.”

“Very democratic!”

“Yes. When a sultan dies, then the imam calls the princes to assembly. ”

“Bishop. He asks who is to succeed. If more than one steps forward, the imam dismisses them. The next day he calls them, again.”

She felt sick. “Until there is only one claimant?”

“Exactly.”

Election by elimination? “And how many stepped forward with Azak?”

Kar completed his inspection and straightened. He was still smiling, if redder-faced than usual. “How many would you have expected”

“I think I understand.”

“That is good. Lead the mare around.”

“I’m sure she’s all right.”

“Do it! You never know who may be watching.”

Did he mean mundane eyes or occult? Inos led Sesame around in a small circle, wondering if the sorceress had driven the whole palace mad or if all Zark was like this. Even Kade had become strangely tight-lipped and jumpy lately.

“She is fit to ride,” Kar said. “The previous sultan—”

“Zorazak. Our grandfather, of blessed memory.”

“And how—”

“Extreme old age.” Djinn eyes darkened in bright sunlight, and Kar’s were now the color of dried blood. “Very sad.” Despite the brutal heat, Inos shivered. Now she knew why no one had been willing to discuss this. “How old?”

“Almost sixty. His passing was slower than we expected, but quite painless.”

“I am greatly relieved to hear that.” Honest as a djinn! Now she knew what it meant.

Kar nodded. “The sultan said to tell you that you have made your point, and your continuing presence on these hunts is no longer necessary.” The smile grew more loving. “And I give you some advice from myself. Stay out of politics, Inosolan. They are an art too dangerous for women—even queens regnant!”

Slender and lithe, Kar strode across to the gray, which had hardly moved a hoof since he left it. He vaulted into the saddle without using the stirrups and instantly was gone, cantering away over the gravel, leaving Inos standing beside Sesame. Sesame snickered loudly.