Pride of Empires (The Powers of Amur Book 3) Read online

  “Not occupied. I can take a break.”

  “That means he’s losing,” Thudra said, the slightest hint of mockery in his voice.

  Josi looked at Thudra, then at Navran with uncertainty. Navran waved it aside. “Go on.”

  Josi nodded and swallowed. She folded her hands in front of her belly and said, “Today we began enforcing the monopoly. The announcement was given yesterday, so the merchants knew it, and most of them did not object. We bought every cask of salt that existed on the docks. At the normal price, for now.”

  “Expensive?” Navran asked.

  Josi winced. “A little. A lot, actually—nearly all of our coin on hand.” The last of the money which he had received as a loan for giving up the rings of Manjur. “But it was important, at first, to change neither the buying price nor the selling price. No one lost out.”

  “Except the salt-buyers whose business has disappeared.”

  “There aren’t many of them.” Josi twisted the corner of her mouth, that typical, adorable tic of hers, and it sent Navran’s gut turning again. But she was going on, talking about business as professional as if nothing had ever happened between them. “When all of the salt casks on the dock had been brought into our storehouse, we sold them to the salt-mongers that take it to market. The usual price, as before. And we made a little profit.”

  Some of the anguish in Navran’s stomach released. So they were making money. It was possible that his desperate financial needs would soon let up. “Everything as planned?”

  “We didn’t make a lot of profit,” Josi said. “We’ll need to raise prices for that or pay the merchants who bring it up from Sadhura less. But I’d wait a month or so before changing anything.”

  “But no crisis,” Navran said.

  “No crisis,” Josi repeated. “Just a little money, with more on the way.”

  Navran relaxed into the cushions on his throne. He looked up at Josi, allowed himself to take in the roundness of her chin, the plump curves of her hips, her crooked bun of hair with frizzy strands perpetually escaping. He dared to ask a question. “And you? How are you?”

  She stiffened, and whatever pleasure had shown on her face fled. “I am fine, my lord and king.”

  Goat piss. So nothing had changed between them. “Fine, my Purse. Continue tomorrow.”

  She made a curt bow, turned, and left the throne room. Navran watched her go, feeling the anguish of uncertainty and regret as the curtain closed behind her.

  Thudra began to laugh.

  Dastha shot him a glare. Thudra looked at Navran insouciantly, ignoring Dastha’s potent gaze.

  “My lord and king,” Dastha said, “should I remove Thudra?”

  “No,” Navran said. “Finish the game.”

  “It’s your move,” Thudra said, leaning back. “And I am not the only one who laughs. First you bring in a woman to be your Purse, then she spurns your advances. Then you spend all your time mooning after her like a hairless boy.”

  Navran ground his teeth. “Why are you saying this?”

  Thudra rolled his eyes. “Like many others in the palace, I cannot figure out why you didn’t first take her for a mistress. Why you felt the urge to marry her, well, that is a mystery beyond my comprehension. And here you are after she refused you—”

  “Does everybody know this?” Navran asked.

  “Of course everybody knows. Even if we didn’t know, it’s obvious to anyone with half an eye. She comes here to talk about money, but you two can barely stand to look at each other. You ask after her like a moth chasing the moon. Chaludra’s fire, there’s plenty of servant girls with heat between their thighs if you’re that lonely. The men are starting to wonder if you’re able.”

  Navran’s cheeks flared with warmth. “I have duties,” he said. “I am a king. I am Uluriya. I can’t go off bedding any woman who strikes me. Especially not if she is Uluriya.”

  “And why not?” Thudra looked at Navran with seemingly genuine curiosity. “You’re a king, as you said. You could have a mistress for every night of the week and no one would bat an eye. Do you think the other kings of Amur go around scrupulously wringing their hands over the chastity of their lovers?”

  Navran clenched his gloved fist. The burns there throbbed with remembered pain. “I must remain clean. It’s part of my duty.”

  “Your duty,” Thudra said with a sneer. “You allow that flock of priests to lord over you.”

  “Because I am a saghada. The chief saghada.”

  “And? You cannot bend the rules for yourself?”

  Navran stood. Mingled fury and frustration bubbled in him. The priesthood and the kingship together were his duties, and he would not shirk them, but the nerve was raw.

  “The law is the law of Ulaur, recorded by Ghuptashya. No one may bend it.” He gestured to the jaha board at the foot of the dais. “Why do we play this way? Because you are unclean. The Heir may not even touch an unclean thing. So Dastha touches the pieces for me, or I might accidentally brush one of your fingers. And you know,” he said, pacing rapidly from one edge of the dais to the other, “it’s not easy to rule and be holy at once. If I were a typical Uluriya, not a saghada, not the Heir, then I could go into unclean houses, so long as I didn’t stay past sundown or eat unclean food. But the Heir is holy. He cannot enter an unclean house at all. I cannot visit the khadir who hold station in Virnas unless they convert. They cannot enter the inner rooms of the palace—”

  “You brought me into the inner rooms when the soldiers rioted,” Thudra interrupted.

  “And then it was purified, and me as well. Two saghada took three hours to render it fit for me! The only people who can eat with me are other Uluriya. And the khadir? The khadir are overjoyed by this. The merchants as well. I’ve heard the grumbling sound of their happiness.”

  “I’m sure,” Thudra said. “But none of this tells me why you haven’t taken Josi into your bed.”

  “She is clean!”

  “Clean, meaning Uluriya, which means she can go into your inner chambers. Unless I’ve misunderstood something about the purity obsession of your cult.”

  “No,” Navran said. “I mean yes. If we are not married, it would render us both unclean. And there would be scandal in the Uluriya.”

  “Scandal,” Thudra said with amusement. “What a peculiar problem. I think there would be more scandal in my court if I didn’t have a mistress.”

  “This is not your court.”

  The mirth evaporated from Thudra’s face. “I know.”

  Navran settled himself atop the cushioned throne. The heat of the blood pounding in his veins made his scars hurt. Thudra looked down in silent contemplation, then up at Navran with a bland expression. “But I don’t know why she refused your advance.”

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “Because in the absence of fact, rumor grows wildly. If you want the men to stop speculating about your wilted rice stalk, you should offer a better explanation.”

  Navran closed his eyes and rested his forehead in his hand. “I don’t know,” he said quietly, painfully.

  “See,” Thudra said, “it’s this which makes people think that you are a weak king. You suffer strange scruples, and when something goes wrong, you sit idly by rather than striking hard to gain your goal.”

  Navran was quiet. It was all true. He needed a bowl of beer.

  “It’s your move,” Thudra said finally.

  Navran looked at the board. What had he been doing? He saw his position with new eyes, and the strategy he had been pursuing before suddenly seemed pathetic to him. It was cautious and defensive, while a few moves of initiative could destroy Thudra’s position. He called out a move to Dastha.

  Thudra responded. Navran announced his next move immediately. Thudra paused and looked up at Navran with a strange look. He made a cautious response.

  Over the next several turns Navran put together a counterattack where Thudra had not expected it. Thudra’s own offensive faltered. Navran recaptur
ed his lost tower and the third tower beside it. With only a single tower remaining, Thudra offered jahaparna.

  “Not bad,” Thudra said after a pause. “I think you’re getting better.”

  “I’ve always been good at jaha,” Navran said quietly.

  “Good doesn’t mean you can’t get better. But I would still be careful. Bold play may stun an unready opponent but won’t often succeed against someone prepared for it.”

  “Are you giving me lessons in jaha, now?”

  Thudra gave Navran a milky smile and stood. “I should go back to my unclean room now. Unless you demand another game.”

  “Go,” Navran said. He waved Thudra aside, and Dastha sent a guard to escort Thudra to the room he shared with his family. Navran leaned against the arms of the throne and let his mind wander.

  A weak king. He was a weak king. Or perhaps he was just a weak man and needed to add a bit of bronze to his bones. Play boldly. A prepared opponent might defend against bold play, but a weak play would lose every time. So who was his opponent?

  Josi.

  No, not his opponent but nonetheless the locus of his weakness. She couldn’t remain in the palace under current conditions, and he couldn’t maintain a Purse whose presence sent him spinning. He should resolve the problem or send her away.

  He flinched at the thought of being away from her.

  But then, Josi had told him what to do. “Dastha,” he said, “call a messenger. I will go see Veshta at the House of the Ruin as soon as arrangements can be made ready. Let him know that I am coming.”

  Sadja

  The Rice Gate opened. The embossed bronze stalks of rice split to admit a steady trickle of courtiers, merchants, supplicants, and servants. The banners of the Emperor, a red field blazoned with a rice stalk crossed by a spear, hung over the gate. Beside them fluttered the personal marks of Praudhu, a moon over an open hand on a field of black. Sadja cursed the moon and hand when he saw them.

  Praudhu was not supposed to have entered the Ushpanditya.

  Bhargasa walked beside Sadja with a small constellation of soldiers surrounding them, and a herald in Sadja’s green livery marched ahead of them. The herald called out, “Sadja-dar the king of Davrakhanda comes to make obeisance to Praudhu-daridarya, the Emperor of all Amur, whose name we say with fear and trembling.”

  Every three paces the man called out their errand. Commoners bowed as they passed. The doors of the Rice Gate creaked open a little wider to allow their soldiers through without breaking formation, and Sadja strode beneath the matching red and black banners, tasting another curse on his lips.

  Yet he swallowed the acrid hatred in the back of his throat, cleared his mind, and touched the inner stillness to purge himself from treasonous thoughts. The advantage of travel was that it gave him an excuse to practice fasting and self-denial, bringing him closer to the stillness which was the thikratta’s power. In Davrakhanda he let himself sleep with mistresses and enjoy rich food. Coming to Majasravi was a time to eat nothing and spurn women, to practice what little training he had received in Ternas.

  And the news in Majasravi was that Praudhu had appointed a Lotus. If there were a true thikratta in the Emperor’s court, then his thoughts might be seen from afar. Best then to be a thikratta himself when he arrived.

  Just inside the door to the Ushpanditya, the herald met a pair of imperial door-keepers, who pointed them to the right. A cohort of red-clad Imperial guards watched the entrance hall; they demanded that Sadja’s men surrender their weapons, which they did. Sadja watched in silence. Bhargasa’s eyes roved over the interior of the Ushpanditya, glancing from the clothes of the servants to the weapons of the Red Men to the chips in the marble pillars holding up the vaulted stone roof.

  A good spy, Bhargasa. Sadja saved his attention for the verbal duel with Praudhu, so he let Bhargasa handle the practical work of spying out the inside of the Ushpanditya. Not that he expected Praudhu would leave much of consequence in plain sight, but Bhargasa was very perceptive. He might bring back unexpected insights.

  A moment later they arrived at the Green Hall. Bhargasa and the rest of Sadja’s soldiers were stopped outside, waiting with a small escort of the Red Men. Sadja entered only with his herald. He had been here once before, at an imperial feast during the waning years of Jandurma, before the old Emperor’s senility and Ruyam’s rise. But it had been years.

  The size of the hall stunned him: a sea of green marble on the floor, white veins rolling across the tiles like waves in the ocean, and at the far end of the hall the gold-clad imperial throne rising upon the dais of seven steps, one for each of the Seven Kingdoms which had been fused to create the Empire. A colonnade opened along the right side of the hall, looking out over the orange garden, where a cool breeze entered carrying the hint of flowers. And atop the golden throne sat Praudhu in the Moon posture, one hand on his ankles, the other pulling idly at his beard.

  Hatred burned in Sadja’s throat.

  The herald prostrated himself before the throne and repeated his announcement: “Sadja-dar the king of Davrakhanda comes to make obeisance to Praudhu-daridarya, the Emperor of all Amur, whose name we say with fear and trembling.”

  Praudhu nodded. And now, the distasteful deed. Sadja approached the foot of the dais and prostrated, pressing his forehead against the cool marble. “My Emperor,” he said. “I fall down with fear and trembling.”

  “You may rise,” Praudhu said. Sadja rose to his knees, looking up the marble steps to the fat, self-satisfied face of Praudhu atop his golden throne. “So, Sadja-dar. I have corresponded with you many times, but I don’t believe we’ve seen each other since—when was it?”

  “Six years ago,” Sadja said in a moment. “I came to Gumadha to visit the imperial household there and to give my greetings to Yasma-dar.”

  “That long?” Praudhu stroked his mustache. “Well, we’ve corresponded. How is Amitu? I’ve heard little from him since coming to Majasravi.”

  Amitu was Praudhu’s emissary, the representative of the imperial household in Davrakhanda. He was also a spy, as imperial emissaries always were. Sadja had sent him back to Gumadha before coming to Majasravi. Fortunately, news of this had not yet reached Majasravi. “Perfectly well, my Emperor,” Sadja said with a smile. “In fact, I come to plead with you for a cause which I have previously discussed with Amitu.”

  “Oh,” Praudhu said, his voice dropping. He knew the topic.

  “I discussed the matter of your daughter Basadi-dar with Amitu. I come to beg your imperial favor that we should be allowed to marry.”

  Praudhu sighed. “And Amitu told you I would approve the marriage.”

  “Our discussions led me to believe the marriage was of mutual benefit, and that you approved of it.”

  “Benefit is a thing which changes by the day,” Praudhu said with a sour grimace. He rose to his feet. Alarmed, Sadja bowed his forehead to the ground again. “Rise,” Praudhu said, his heavy footfalls descending the steps of the dais. “I want to go into the garden.”

  Sadja stood and followed the Emperor through the colonnade and down the white stone steps which descended into the orange garden. Praudhu stopped next to a pool of lotuses and raised a hand to feel at the unripe fruit hanging above the water.

  “I have promised Basadi-dar to Lushatha-kha. Do you know him?”

  “I do not,” Sadja said. He folded his hands behind his back, smiling mildly and wishing to kill Praudhu where he stood.

  “He was one of my father’s only true supporters during his last years, when his senility grew grave. When that mad thikratta killed him and took over the Ushpanditya, Lushatha-kha left the city, unwilling to give obeisance to the monster. He deserves to be rewarded.”

  “With the daughter of the Emperor?”

  Praudhu shot Sadja a sharp glance. Sadja lowered his eyes, as if he were abashed by the Emperor’s glare.

  “Yes, with the daughter of the Emperor,” Praudhu went on, his voice grating with irritation. “My elder daugh
ter Jasthi-dar is already married to Yasma-dar of Gumadha, and my son Kundir-kha is married to Yasma’s niece. So the Kupshira lineage is all tied up with the house of Gumadha. Basadi-dar is a loose end, a bauble, nothing to do with the Empire. And so I give her away wherever I see fit.”

  “I understand,” Sadja said, nodding gravely. “You speak rightly in your imperial wisdom.”

  If Praudhu thought this was too much flattery, he didn’t show it. Sadja snickered inwardly, then snuffed out the flame of mirth. He was being sloppy with his careless thoughts. If the Emperor’s Lotus were somewhere using farsight to examine Sadja, any of these thoughts might be fatal to him. He reached into the inner stillness and let his emotions and ambitions dissipate into the void.

  Praudhu continued down a path between banks of scarlet rhododendrons, crushing the wilted petals on the path beneath his feet. “I’m glad you understand. I’m sure there are majakhadir near Davrakhanda eager to give their daughters to you with ample dowries. Better to shore up alliances near your own home. Or else seek a deeper alliance with Virnas. I’m sure the sisters and daughters of new king there—what is his name, the Uluriya—”

  “Navran-dar,” Sadja said.

  “Yes, him. I heard the report of it from Chadram of the Red Men. I’m surprised you didn’t take one of their women given that you basically put him on the throne.”

  “Navran-dar is unmarried, so he has no daughters to give. His sister Mandhi is extraordinary in many ways, but she is not a suitable bride. She was already married once, to begin with. Besides, they only marry among themselves, and I am not about to become Uluriya.”

  “Ah,” Praudhu said. A shadow of concern passed over his face. “I should go to Virnas soon, or demand that Navran-dar come to me and make obeisance. We Emperors don’t meddle in the internal affairs of our vassal kings much, but the circumstances of his accession were so unusual that I am a little disturbed by it.”

  “Don’t go in the summer, the heat is terrible,” Sadja said quickly. The less attention Praudhu paid to circumstances in Virnas, the better. He sought a subject more to Praudhu’s liking. “But what of your own accession? I haven’t heard the tale told well. I only came to Majasravi to find your banners alongside the imperial symbols on the Ushpanditya. But I had heard that Dumaya of the Red Men was holding out in the Dhigvaditya.”