And that was that.
Whether this was because Emperor Euphrates was so far removed from the desperation of life that he had no proper appreciation for the resultant undermining of the idol-maker's profit motive by such an endorsement, was hard to tell. Perhaps instead, Emperor Euphrates actually found something to marvel in, at the very idea of a speechless young woman silently worshiping an Invisible God.
In view of recent developments, no ranking official would have dared to compel an alleged idol-breaker, and a known favorite of the Emperor himself, to attend upon the ceremonies of the gods. Unknown to Si'Wren, the very subject was what those-in-the-know at the palace considered 'an especially delicate matter'. For to lead her into some deathly blunder of etiquette, and inadvertently besmirch her newfound dignity, to which were attributed not her own, but the highest of royal graces clearly imbued by Imperial decree, was virtually to besmirch the character of Emperor Euphrates himself, and who would be so stupid as to dare risk such an awful eventuality as that?
Si'Wren daily prostrated herself on a rush mat in her private quarters and gave thanks to the Invisible God in wordless praise of both him and his perpetual blessings. For she did feel blessed, richly blessed, to know the one true God in such an evil world of scowling idols.
Si'Wren's awareness was constantly filled with the wonders of the palace, beyond the impregnable walls and outer battlements of which, stretching far and wide, existed a savage land of perpetual misery. She had grown much in wisdom, and in native understanding of the frightfully wicked ways of the world, and found nothing but evil in a society to whom such idols were a perpetual source of deliberate and intentional foolishness.
But in seeking real spiritual truth, Si'Wren could only confess to herself in private that she still knew next to nothing of the Invisible God. Free to believe in the Invisible God, she had launched herself on an inner voyage of discovery through vast uncharted realms of the spiritual unknown. It was a deep and ongoing struggle to overcome unrelenting feelings that she was as lost as ever, with only her untutored conscience as her guide.
She could only try not to mimic the false worship she had been formerly taught for idols, trusting blindly that Holy God would not find some reason to be offended at her clumsy attempts to give obeisance to Him. She sought in her heart how best to worship, but at first could only bow low upon the woven rug in her private chamber, prostrating herself humbly before an imaginary, holy countenance which she believed to be all-seeing, and speak in her heart as if to an imaginary personality that surely must be all-hearing, but she could only wonder what he truly wanted.
Silently, Si'Wren humbly petitioned this invisible, nameless God that he might accept her uninstructed worship of him. She prayed that he would never forsake her. Sworn never to actually speak, she prayed to him in silence. Unable to actually see him, she often closed her eyes. Unable to imitate him, knowingly appease him, or observe anything he might desire, she begged him to pity her and merely accept the fact that she worshiped him, the Invisible One, the only true and living God.
One thing she felt sure of. The worship of idols was an act of false, direst evil. Surely, without a doubt, the Invisible God desired true worship from her, and not evil idolatry. Si'Wren felt instinctively that in this must be found true virtue, and thought that she already had some misty idea of the proper difference between good and evil, but prayed for perpetual enlightenment in this.
That day, finished with her prayers, Si'Wren turned to an intricately woven basket on a carved wooden stand laden with ripe fruit, and began to consume some of it. Preoccupied, she absent-mindedly tilted her head this way and that as she ate thoughtfully. When she had finished eating, she sucked the pulp off her fingers, and set the beautiful basket back on it's stand. Having nothing else to do for the moment, she looked around her quarters, inspecting everything anew, for she could not help but marvel all over again every time she reentered her own private domain at all the fine things which were for her personal use, and to be considered her permanent possessions.
Imagine, Si'Wren thought to herself, having one's very own private bed chamber. It was located in the administrative section, the part of the Imperial palace reserved for the living quarters of the numerous palace civil servants, and occupied one entire wing of the imposing, rough-hewn stone fortress which contained many similar fine rooms as this, each one more glorious than the next.
All around her, in the palace, and in her own private room, were countless royal delights. The stone walls were paneled in planks of rough hewn wood, and hung with crude but richly woven tapestries and curtains.
The floors were of flat stone slabs, not perfectly flat but naturally smooth and hence very slightly uneven, being arranged so as to make a level surface, and frequently covered by rugs. Such was the slab floor in her very own personal room.
She turned to a little round side table and paused to examine anew, a polished wooden carving of an ox, dark, smooth and gleaming. The beautifully carved ox was short-legged and stout, with stubby horns, the whole artistic style being deliberately simplistic, having a tendency to look like a series of arcs fitly joined together; the horns and front legs both being arcs that went from side to side, the arcs of the hind legs, belly, backbone, tail, and head being arcs from front to back. All arcs.
She looked around, her eyes roaming the room, and admired a decorative, single-handled water vase that was flat, wide, and round at the base and gracefully slender for the upper two-thirds. Propped on a small round table, the tall vase was artfully and tastefully colored in earthtone shadings of tans and browns. Beside it was a fired clay wash basin. On the basin were to be seen engraved pictographs of the sowers, reapers and gatherers of grains. It wasn't so much a collection of idols, as a picture-script, a visual record of the entire harvesting process, above which was depicted a simple circle with lines pointing from it, indicating the rays of the sun as a source of light, and not as a false idol god.
There was, she perceived, a deep, real difference between the symbolic meaning and morally acceptable symbolism presented in such hieroglyphs, or picture-carvings, as opposed to the rank evil of outright, false idolatry. The symbolic images of honest work seemed most right, proper, and inspiring, and not at all like the false worship of mere graven things as false gods.
Hence, she perceived that the pictograph of the harvest inscribed in the sides of the water basin bore less of the idolatrous, and more of the earmarks of honest record keeping and written language, which itself comprised her new profession, rather than of the evil mysticism of idols, depending, of course, on how one looked at it. Anything could be made to be idolatrous, but some things, like these pictographs, could be viewed as mere pictures, and as just another form of written communication. Dimly, Si'Wren sensed that she was onto something new and vastly different from anything she had ever conceived of in her mind before. A whole new way of looking at things, far beyond what the idol-makers of the House of Rababull had been engaged in doing. It was good to understand this, and she wondered greatly at the clever artist who had so faithfully decorated the water basin.
Turning to reach past the polished dark wooden ox, Si'Wren retrieved the vase. In a perfectly expressionless and somber mien, she poured water into the shallow basin, filling it almost to the rim, and paused to consider it's reflection, seen by the light of a tall, narrow, decoratively barred siege window. One could easily understand that although water might reflect all things, the water was itself 'invisible' to the extent that one might see through it. Further, the water itself had no particular shape.
So might the Invisible God, she thought to herself, be seen in all things, and yet not be seen, even as one looked into the reflection of the water basin and by this marvelous result behold all mere physical things of the world. Yet one could no more touch the Invisible God than one could reach into the reflections in the water and touch them either. In spite of this, she could easily perceive what was real, and what was illusion. What great spiritual riches she had found in a bowl of water.
How could anyone possibly make an idol of the Invisible God? Why, one might as well try to make an idol of the wind itself, and did not God so breathe the very wind of life into the first man, the Patriarch Adam himself?
Adam and Eve had seen God, and talked with Him, when He came walking in the Garden of Eden, before they were cast out. Was not man said to be made in God's image, according to the ancient but discredited folklore and children's fables about Adam and Eve? Hence, the form of man must resemble the form of God, although man was but man, meaning mankind, which included womankind, and God was God. Nelatha had once said that if one went to Paradise, one would see God and live, a God Who walked, and talked, and could be seen, and Who was yet spirit.
Si'Wren was perplexed, and her thoughts ran to confusion. It was then that the very real wisdom of Nelatha, which had come from L'acoci, now betrayed its deeper truths, for Si'Wren remembered at the last that it was sufficient in Nelatha's understanding as a lowly ignorant slave girl, like Si'Wren herself, to compare the Invisible God to water, which one could see, and yet remained invisible. For could not one hold pure water in one's hand, and both see the water, and yet at one and the same time, see right through it? And water, she remembered, reflected all things faithfully. Thus might a righteous and holy God reflect all men's souls to them in the hereafter, rewarding the good with more good unto life, and the evil with more of their own evil unto eternal wailing and damnation.
Thoughtfully, she turned to the window, the frame of which was overgrown by clinging vines which stretched forth their profusion of white-streaked, green ivy leaves in every direction. Looking out, she saw a collection of dirty beggars sitting by the wayside in the street. They were the maimed, the blind, the diseased, always to be found among the countless throngs of city-goers and inhabitants.
She turned from the decoratively barred window and went back to the table, where she stood gazing down at the finely carved wooden ox. To the poor beggars, it would represent a fortune in coppers. She picked up the carved wooden ox, so dark, so smooth and lifelike, and returned to the ornate window. There, she paused for a long time, looking out on the beggars.
She already thought of the Invisible God as all-powerful by his very nature. But somehow she could not help imagining that surely he must desire at least a little agreement, some form of willful participation on her part, to better the lot of her fellow creatures.
Let the beggars sell the wooden ox, for money to buy food.
So saying to herself, she looked carefully, and tossed the wooden ox out through the ornamental bars past the green ivy vines.
It turned over slowly in the air and landed unbroken in a pile of dirty straw beside a group of filthy, crippled street beggars.
As Si'Wren stepped back into the shadows of her window sill, an outcry arose below in the narrow street. The anxious voices of the beggars could be heard talking animatedly about this perceived 'miracle'.
When at last Si'Wren dared to lean once more into the deeply recessed window sill for a peek, for the stone of the fortress wall was exceeding thick, her delight was turned to dismay.
They were worshiping it.
There they all were, kneeling and bowing to the dumb wooden ox! They had it propped up on the ground in front of them, off to one side out of the way of the busy foot traffic.
Shocked, she looked down upon them and stamped her little foot in mute frustration. They were impossible!
She opened her mouth, fervently wishing to call out to them and let them know the terrible error of what they were doing.
I threw it! she longed to say. But she had to shut her mouth again, and could only watch unhappily, with useless, tightly pursed lips and flashing, angry eyes.
So this was what she was up against. Remorse filled her soul, until she felt rent in twain by her anguish.
Why God? Si'Wren implored him, dropping in despair to her knees on the carpet. Why must I thus remain silent in this evil world so full of the praise of idols? Why God? Why?
Her sorrow multiplied rapidly over what she had unwittingly done in the name of idolatry, until her eyes blurred over and the unhappy vision of the beggars happily bowing before their new ox-god became washed away in a sea of salt tears and she turned away from them in anguish.
Brokenly, she fell across her bed and sobbed herself to sleep.
* * *
The next day, Si'Wren was formally presented by Ibi to the court and officially assumed her new status as Court Scribe. Emperor Euphrates was exceeding pleased, which would have made her all the more so by turns, were it not for her so recent experience with the polished wooden ox just the day before.
After she bowed low before him, he beckoned to her to sit on his right hand, several places removed. There were other, more important dignitaries who with all their robes and finery, considerably outranked her and sat closer to the Emperor. In fact, immediately to her right stood a royal palace guard, a rough-looking fellow, with his motionless back to the stones of the wall and a fearsome-looking spear in his big hands.
Seeing that the others were seated, she sat down also, and turned to stare curiously up at the guard standing beside her, but that other worthy only blinked in irritation and refused to look back at her or so much as acknowledge her presence.
Si'Wren dropped her eyes from the guard's aloof, stoic countenance, unaware that already many in the court room were covertly watching the newly appointed Royal Scribe with shifty, appraising looks, secretly wondering if she could be induced to sell out to them and at what price, in rank opposition to her Emperor's open claim to all her loyalties.
In contrast to the others' extravagance and finery in choice of raiment, Si'Wren had wisely followed Ibi's sage advice and foregone such vain nonsense in favor of a simple outfit consisting of pantaloons, blouse, long cape, and removable head covering, all loose in the folds but tight at the cuffs and waist, and all in starkest black.
By contrast, there was easily enough jewelry on all other royal dignitaries present to assure their inevitable drowning should one of them happen to accidentally fall into the moat.
Her hair was still the same length as always, almost to the waist in back. Sometimes, she kept it in a single long braid fastened at the end with a tiny black ribbon.
She took with her everywhere now her kit, consisting of the various tools and artifacts of her trade.
This consisted of two little wooden marking sticks kept in a black leather pouch, and a small honing stick of rough-surfaced lava rock from the stone masons quarter, for resharpening the marking sticks when the moist clay softened and distorted their tips. Actually, one had to set aside the dampened one to dry and use a dry one, and when the dampened one was dry, then to sharpen. She blinked ruefully at the memory of the day she had unknowingly tried to sharpen a dampened stick, and shredded it instead, thereby incurring the wrath of Ibi. How far she had advanced since that fateful day.
Also, she carried in her writing kit three thin soft clay tablets for writing on, housed in flat split-bamboo frames fitted with more bamboo strips to make a back support and allow for greater thinness, and a small fired clay bottle of water to soften the clay with the judicious sprinkle of a few added drops as needed.
These articles might be supplied in any desired quantity by the Emperor's slaves. However, she had been rigorously instructed by Ibi in all aspects of locating and gathering her own materials in the marketplace or -escorted by a pair of palace guards- out in the wild, until Ibi was satisfied that she knew as much about her profession as those who made her supplies.
She was becoming progressively more skilled in working with these raw materials, having learned how to manufacture them at her own hand out of fresh supplies, a technique she had mastered long ago using the herbs in the spice tent, with dear Nelatha. Momentary recollection of happier times with Nelatha caused Si'Wren to suddenly realize how truly long it had been, since those long-ago days.
She took her kit daily with her to the court and carried it openly before all, as an outward sign of the integrity and mastery of her trade, justly proud of the way her knowledge of its use and upkeep demonstrated to everyone that she rightly deserved her appointment to her office as Royal Scribe. Few could boast half as much, and although she was not the type to do so anyways, she felt herself to be beyond all need of boasting.
Ibi did all of the regular and customary record-keeping. Or rather, one of his shaven-headed underlings sat behind him and did it for him.
Si'Wren was there more than for show, to perfect herself as a studious worker before her Emperor Euphrates. She was Ibi's most beautiful, and indeed his only, female Scribe. It was a memorable day spent in service to the Emperor, and Si'Wren adapted readily and willingly to the routine.
Afterward when court was recessed for the day, Si'Wren was called to a private consultation with Ibi, who examined her in great detail and gave her further instruction in all that he felt needful pertaining to what she had seen that day.
So was her Royal routine established.
* * *
"If you'll just stand before me, Si'Wren…" said Ibi one day, mysteriously but calmly enough.
Ever obedient, Si'Wren complied and waited to see what was up.
Ibi turned and waved an arm to signal someone unseen just beyond her range of vision in the next room, and an exceeding rough-looking character stepped in. The newcomer, with as many fighting scars on his skin as any other might have had tatoos, was dressed in a leather skirt supported by wide, criss-crossed leather straps across his hairy chest and over the tops of his bulging, heavily muscled shoulders.
He had a leather thong across his dark, thick, unkempt hair, and sandals fastened by calf-straps like a soldier or professional sojourner. He carried a sword in his right hand, and the presence of dirt and grime on him was self-evident by the smell.
The newcomer entered and greeted Ibi formally, and -at Ibi's bidding- turned and looked upon Si'Wren with bold, appraising eyes that were unusually bony across the brows, while his blunt, step-ladder nose looked as if it had been broken and rebroken many times, and his ears had been boxed so many times they scarce resembled ears anymore. The newcomer was clearly not a man to be fooled with.
He also stank like an animal. His odor filled the room, but she was used to being around animals from having spent her earliest years as a slave, so that she really didn't mind that nearly so much as she might have, had she been noble-born instead. It just made him that much more imposing and disquieting to be around.
His face was hard and unflinching, and his eyes were openly appraising of everything he saw as if he were already preparing for the battle. She felt his eyes on her, sizing her up. Not that there was all that much of her to be sized up, she being so small for her age.
"You want to give spurs to this chicken?" the newcomer ventured, with an skeptical look that Si'Wren found somehow insulting.
"Aye," Ibi sighed with a studious nod of his haggard, hoary old head and long, flowing white mane. "Do what you can, Mearch. It is our Emperor's desire that she should learn to do more with horses than to look at them. I'm getting too old to ride along with his Majesty on the odd excursion, so a competent replacement has been wanting for some time. I have any number of young male understudies, but his majesty has taken a fancy to the girl. Anyway, you're to set her up with her own mount, and see that she learns how to handle herself on four legs as well as two."
Si'Wren's eyebrows quickly raised in astonished hope, disbelief, and anticipation.
For her—a horse?
"She is also to be given ivory marking sticks," Ibi remarked significantly, "and knows how to make proper use of them, too. You're looking at a lady of station. We're having them carved now."
"It's your show," Mearch shrugged. "I can give her no ivory, but we can definitely take care of the horse. If that will be all—"
Ibi paused, looking up at Mearch with a serious expression.
"No, that will not be all. I've seen your negligent attitude toward outfitting junior officers of the court in the past, and it was entirely too careless for my liking."
Ibi rose up off his seat suddenly and leaned forward, propping both bony arms firmly and authoritatively on the workbench as he regarded the other intently eye to eye, with a look of menace.
"Mearch, listen well. I was given an ill-mannered, ill-treated ruffian-girl straight from the slave fields, when she came to me. She was as fresh as the clay on the banks, and it was my job to train her up in all ways needful until she was found fit to present in court as a royal officer. I worked hard on polishing her coarse ways, and she has repaid my efforts beyond all expectation, which pleases me greatly as I do not relish the prospect of being made a public spectacle by having fools for underlings.
"Furthermore," Ibi went on, "she is still of tender years, and has taken a vow of silence for life, and I will not stand for her being given the customary business-as-usual rough handling at the coarsened hands of your cocky young studs. If she cannot speak, she cannot protest, but it would be a fatal mistake to think she is as easily intimidated as all that. The Emperor himself failed to get a word out of her, in spite of Borla's ready sword held close under her pretty little nose. I saw it myself, and it was most impressive."
Whether it was Si'Wren's beauty or her fearlessness that he found so impressive, Ibi did not elaborate, although a fondly doting Mearch seemed to have his own ideas already.
"She has since found favor in his Majesty's eyes," Ibi went on dryly, with an acid look for Mearch's wayward eyes, "and gives better reports in fresh clay than others seem to manage out of so much bad breath! Am I getting through to you?"
Ibi held Mearch's eyes for a long, hard moment of utter silence, while Si'Wren stood self-consciously with eyes downcast, trying to appear as if the last thing on her mind was to get in anybody's way.
Mearch nodded with an off-handed ease of manner, avoiding Ibi's hard stare as he examined his dirty fingernails, which smelled as if they had horse hoof diggings under them, a distinct possibility.
"I will train her personally."
"Mearch—"
Mearch dug at his fingernails momentarily, persisting almost to the point of disrespect, and finally looked up, to fully meet Ibi's jaundiced eyes again.
"What?" said Mearch.
"I'll stand for no nonsense!" said Ibi, making the bench clatter as he pounded it once with a bony fist for emphasis. "She's no plaything. I expect regular reports on her progress, and her personal safety will be on your head."
"I hear and obey," said Mearch, somewhat sarcastically, bowing obsequiously with a formal fist clap to the chest as he turned away, to the end result that he bowed to the side wall instead of to Ibi, who sniffed loudly in open disdain of either acknowledging or censuring such mockery.
Mearch stepped in front of Si'Wren, his massive arms hanging straight down at his sides as he towered over her. He stood there and stared down at her expressionlessly for a moment.
Si'Wren merely stood her ground, respectfully avoiding his eyes like any proper woman, but neither did she try to shrink back from him.
"She is young," said Mearch, a remark which, in an age of penta-centurions, adult human beings of 200, 400, and even 700 or more years old, was no idle comment.
"She is that," Ibi mused, staring idly past Mearch at the crudely hewn stones of the far wall. "Well, Master Royal Armorer? Will you get on with it?"
Abruptly, Mearch turned to Ibi and hesitated significantly, before saying to the old Scribe, "How much?"
Ibi stared blankly back at him a moment, until enraged comprehension filled his features.
"Forget it, Mearch," Ibi rasped in a gravel voice fraught with caustic skepticism. "She's royal property, and if you so much as petition the Emperor for her hand, you'll find there are bureaucratic punishments against which you shall find no proper shield or defense. I have no intention of losing her services so soon after training her up. She is brilliant."
"But—" Mearch faltered. "She would become my most favored wife, and I have but six now!"
"What you ask is unthinkable! She is not for sale and you are not to molest or entreat her in any disrespectful manner, or you'll be hacking your way out of a dungeon cell with your fingernails, if they're not pulled out by the roots first. Is that clear?"
"Aye," said Mearch, looking back at Si'Wren with eyes which were curiously lacking in their customary boldness. "Such beauty." There was another long pause. Then he said, "Me, I know weapons, but this one has slain me already."
Nervously, Si'Wren avoided meeting his eyes. She was ready to listen and learn, but he was so fearsome to look upon that she found it difficult to face him. Besides, for a woman to meet a man's stare too openly was to appear wanton.
Yet, for some odd inexplicable reason, she somehow already felt agreeable to fierce Mearch's tutelage. He was fittingly warned by Ibi, and his treatment of her should not be too harsh. Although still very much unsure of him, Si'Wren fully expected him to behave himself, in view of Ibi's stern admonishments that she should remain safe from all harm or harassment in his care.
"Why has the Emperor not taken her for himself?" Mearch asked, in a disdainful and skeptical voice.
"His Majesty is fond of praise, whereas this one finds talk a bit too cheap for her liking, even to please an emperor. Anyway she has found special favor by virtue of her uncommon vow, and has shown iron resistance against breaking it in the face of honed steel. As Royal Scribe, she is sworn under oath to strictest secrecy and loyalty."
"She'll never talk, eh? And what better way to keep the king's secrets? A great pity. But, seeing she shall never speak again, how did she swear her oath of loyalty to his Majesty?" Mearch asked smugly.
"She can give the nod, and that with a true heart, which is more than most so-called honest witnesses are called to testify with their lying lips. That will be all, then, I trust?"
"Aye," Mearch said. "I get the idea. Even so, from what you have said of her, I still say one could not give in equal trade one's best stallion for such a woman. But I have a stallion, my best, that she may have, for to ride upon. Send her down to me at the stables in a week. No, better make it two weeks. My men only just caught this one particular horse recently, and I still have to break him in, if I can."
"What are you saying? Do you mean, an unbroken, ungelded stallion?" Ibi asked in disbelief.
Mearch shrugged.
"He has already broken three of my best trainers' numbskull heads, but never -never!- have I seen such a fine creature," he barely glanced at Si'Wren, and added, "or woman. But I, Mearch, can break him to ride without ruining his spirit. It takes much strength, courage, wisdom of the heart, and patience, and one dares never use too heavy a hand in the matter. Yet it is possible, I think, but only by me. That girl and that horse; they are the same. I feel it. It will be right. You will see."
Mearch turned for the door.
"No harm will come to her," he called over his shoulder on the way out.
Ibi studied the surface of his desk until Mearch was safely gone.
Then he glowered down at his withered old hands, and said, as if speaking in Mearch's presence instead of Si'Wren's, "It had better not, Mearch."
* * *
Si'Wren sat at court every day, whether her Emperor appeared or no.
When Emperor Euphrates did not show, Borla usually heard the cases. Any problem which he did not feel himself adequately competent or suitably authorized to deal with, he literally bound the suspect over for Emperor Euphrates to dispose of later at his convenience.
Si'Wren learned the complex, elusive ebb and flow of court politics, the petty social concerns, the lawsuits, the drastic and petty religious differences, and a host of other lost causes.
For practice, she always had to record everything, even if one of Ibi's shaven-headed underlings was present making official copies. Si'Wren did not write it out word-for-word, which would clearly have been impossible, but only took down names, dates, and a few crucial details about any complaints or petitions.
Then, tiredly, she would retire to Ibi's quarter, and knock the clay filler from the frames, kneading the used clay with a little water until she had worked it soft and pliable again. Then she would prepare the boxes by refilling them and wiping their outside frames clean of dried-on clay dust and leaving them covered with moist cloth of flax weave. She would also set her dampened wooden marking sticks neatly laid out to one side to dry at day's end, and also saw to various other details of her daily chores. Finally, exhausted, she would retire and sleep soundly until the cock crew in the early predawn darkness to signal the start of a new day.
Upon arising and finishing with her toilet, she would take with her a set of dry sticks to sharpen with a small piece of honing stone, and lift the dampened linen from her restored clay tablets to find them looking fresh and soft with a dull smooth gleam when she took them up to bring along with her for the day.
Mearch appeared one time in Ibi's shop, equipped with a wooden staff. Advising her that he was still working on his assignment for her, the Master Armorer made crude knife marks on the rod with a stubby but wickedly sharp flaying knife as he measured her height, the length of her limbs, and some other proportions, accomplishing all with a swiftness and unconscious poise that betrayed long practice at this sort of thing.
"I shall go, and do, and then I will return, and then you will see," he finally said. Then his face briefly illuminated with a cheery smile.
Shyly, Si'Wren bowed, and smiled briefly in return. Although she had no desire to become his next wife, she found him to be well-mannered and likeable enough, in spite of his crudeness. "Do not fear," he said, all businesslike again. "When you come to the royal stables, I, even I, Mearch, Chief Armorer to the Emperor himself, will not suffer you to come to the slightest harm."
Si'Wren slowly bowed low to him again.
Mearch grinned, and turned to go back to the stables.
* * *
Si'Wren continued to increase in knowledge and wisdom as she observed her astute Emperor in court, learning intuitively from the inevitable daily exercise of her mental faculties how to sift truth from lies, and how various evils and perplexing situations were to be properly adjudicated.
There were several ways that crimes were judged. One was by the severity of the crime itself. Another way was to judge the criminal by his or her own attitude and intentions. Equally important were the question of whether the suspect was high born and wealthy, or low born and bondable, or a beggar, or—most unfortunate of all, a mere penniless slave.
To Si'Wren, they were all human beings first and foremost, but she was no judge and could not voice an opinion regardless. However, she was well aware of the fact that high station was no proof of good character. In fact, there was very little to call good in any of the people she saw. They all seemed intent upon doing evil to their neighbors, and were only sorry to be caught, not for doing wrong.
* * *
One day, Si'Wren was finally given her new ivory marking sticks. They were beautiful, with different-shaped ends at the tips, for greater writing versatility, and she felt as if she had been given a gift from heaven.
Si'Wren was learning how to snatch up her marking sticks and write swiftly when called upon, mimicking her mentor Ibi and copying the flood of new words she heard by seeing what he wrote and duplicating it exactly in clay with the white ivory marking sticks. They were marvelous. The beautifully carved marking sticks did not grow soft from her almost ceaseless jabbing of the moist clay when at court, and never needed resharpening.
At the stables, where she went almost every day during her free time in the afternoons, she was learning to ride, but not on the horse Mearch had chosen for her. He refused even to tell her yet which one it was that he had chosen to be her personal mount. Mearch had chosen instead to pursue her training period on a gentle mare, to give her a chance to develop a proper background in horsemanship. Later, he began to put her on other horses, to give her a greater diversity of experience.
He had every horse in the stable to choose from, and only withheld the most unpredictable, hostile, or otherwise dangerous animals, which he would never change his mind about. He reserved those for his hardened men-at-arms, to be their battle mounts.
However, he did not fail to notice which one caught her eye most often. It was the one he had secretly chosen for her, a dark, lustrous, highly-spirited black stallion which the men were afraid to even think of riding. Mearch believed that the stallion, so wild and untamed, only needed to have it's trust and cooperation gained, and to be given a chance to develop a sense of mutual trust and respect for it's rider.
In her other rounds, although no man or woman in the palace went deliberately out of their way to show any special respect for her, Si'Wren was not actively persecuted. As Royal Scribe, her appearance anywhere in the palace might mean nothing but idle curiosity on her part as an inexperienced member of the palace staff, or it could be that she was acting in official capacity, and how were the others to know? To deliberately impede or interfere with her could mean death to an offender, if she were on official business. Thus none dared lay a hand upon her or bar her path for the slightest reason.
She got her share of incidental looks, though. Some accepted her, some despised her, some merely took a good look to see who she was and then left her alone.
Meanwhile, rumors flew like birds on the wing, telling of Kadrug and giants, Kadrug and Conabar, Kadrug and this, Kadrug and that, and so on and so forth.
Si'Wren watched Emperor Euphrates prostrate himself once in private prayer services to the sun god, beseeching deliverance from Kadrug and his giants. Emperor Euphrates seemed very worried, though she could not imagine why. His army certainly seemed large enough to handle any possible enemy, giants or no.
* * *
One day, Mearch marched into Ibi's private chambers, and returned Si'Wren's polite bow and Ibi's imperious look with equal aplomb as he delivered to them both a careless greeting with a wordless wave of the hand.
Si'Wren's eyes were riveted upon Mearch's other arm, in the crook of which was tucked an oiled chamois skin wrapping, which was carefully folded and tied around something rather bulky.
Mearch had only come calling, in Si'Wren's rather short-lived experience, with a direct regard to the pursuit of her education with horses, and as she looked on with no small degree of excitement and anticipation, she suspected that today was to be the day she had been awaiting anxiously for so long.
"Si'Wren," Mearch beckoned, his face impassive.
Si'Wren had long since discovered that Mearch had a deep and subtle sense of pride and good will, in spite of his frankly ugly features. She felt curiously safe with him, as she still could not with so many others who never smiled at her, and had come over time to count Mearch as an unspoken ally, until it seemed that the less either he or she acknowledged it, the more each became aware of this secret bond of trust between them. Today, with his flashing eyes, he regarded her with a look of satisfaction and unvoiced promise, for he was, she suspected, come to fulfill his duty to Ibi on her behalf, and it evidently gave him great pleasure, though he dared not show it lest Ibi misunderstand his motives and give him another chewing out.
"Today, little one, you shall ride the horse I have promised," saidMearch. "Behold."
With a flourish, he flicked his razor sharp stone knife through the binding of thongs and swept aside the chamois skin, and revealed a stunning black leather harness and saddle, intricately trimmed with ivory and silver.
Si'Wren looked on with astonishment, as he held it out to her.
This, she reflected, clutching the riding gear with both hands and smelling the fine black leather, was for a horse. A horse of her own! She held the saddle as she smiled at Mearch, and shut her eyes momentarily in thanks to the Invisible God.
The following year passed uneventfully, with Si'Wren on an endless course of private study and practical exercises both in and outside of court, during the course of which she found little time to think on other, less pressing concerns.
Emperor Euphrates declared one day that he had decided to review his kingdom and would greet his loyal subjects openly in the city streets, and so a date was set.
On the appointed holy day, the royal criers carried out the decree with much pomp and ceremony and fanfare. There was a large turnout of the citizenry in the narrow streets. Attendance from the palace was made up of a long procession of court officers, underlings, self-serving hangers-on, and peons of every station and calling in life. The display of royalty was to be immediately followed by a military parade.
It was a grand and wonderful procession.
There were the royal wives and concubines, Fatoo the Sorcerer, Borla the Royal Adviser, with many beautiful young girls to act as flower bearers and dancers.
There were the Captains of Fifty with their long lines of soldiers marching four-abreast with their shields, spears, swords, and bows carried openly in their hands, together with the lines of proud and haughty horse and camel soldiers riding two-abreast.
Long lines of filthy slaves in filthier rags, captured in war or sentenced for various crimes against His Majesty's Kingdom would also be forced to march in the parade, mercilessly chained together in long lines at their necks, and with their elbows tied tightly together behind their backs, and compelled to stagger with their heads bowed agonizingly.
A single-file of elephants bore close on the heels of the slaves, causing them to roll their eyes frequently in terror, lest any should stumble, or the riotous throng stampede the beasts and cause them to be trampled without warning.
Following after all of this was a loose-knit crowd of stragglers who had found any number of excuses to follow behind the royal procession.
Every manner of self-styled high-born and social climber showed up to be in the parade or at least be seen cheering it. They took great relish and delight in hurling garbage and dung as accurately as possible at the cringing slaves, who found it difficult to duck what was thrown at them.
There was much prestige involved in this sort of thing, and it was well worth the effort to participate with a great deal of obvious show and personal public visibility.
Natural intoxicants were not in short supply, nor red wine, nor coarse behaviors, nor physical altercations, but all such were to be seen at almost every hand, and in almost every direction one chose to look.
* * *
First came the conch-blowers, appointed by Ampho, Royal Crier at Court. By the time the whole procession got lined up and under way, there really was no need of criers, but it was all part of the act.
Then came the dancing girls, followed by bamboo woodwinds, and a line of steadily pounding drummers.
Then came the Royal Guards, all with long pikes or flashing swords in their grasp.
Then came the litter upon which Emperor Euphrates sat in royal splendor.
On the front of the royal litter stood a pair of live peacocks. A tame spider monkey rode in the Emperor's lap and skittered restlessly about, chattering animatedly on it's braided tether leash.
The spider monkey made lewd faces at the crowds lining the streets, pleasing and entertaining them as they called loudly and repeatedly to the Emperor, "Peace! Peace!" and "Long live Emperor Euphrates!"
The royal litter was followed by a small flock of ostriches tended by several boys with switches. One boy had already had to be taken back on a litter for treatment by the Royal Physician. He had been kicked in the side of the head by one of the huge birds, but word had it that he seemed to be doing fairly well, and it was taken as a good omen that he had only been stunned and not killed instead.
Close behind the ostriches came Si'Wren, riding on her magnificent black stallion, which, not having been gelded, was, in the hands of any but Si'Wren, about as controllable as a wild cat on the scent of blood. The contrasting light as he constantly moved cast his black coat with a rippling purple-black sheen of dark hues.
Many called out as Si'Wren rode past them, and she rode aloofly, nodding to whoever seemed dignified enough to merit it, and infrequently waved back when others waved first. Clearly, many of her would-be admirers knew nothing of her scandalous reputation as an idol-breaker.
Bound by her oath of silence, she might as well have been one of those pathetic, pitiable lunatics who constantly drooled and were ofttimes possessed, and were either utterly as speechless as idiots, or spoke the language of the moon, isolated in the midst of all.
She knew that it was really demons which afflicted the minds of men, and not the moon. However, lunatic or no, she followed the calling of a different god, and felt as one moonstruck in broad daylight. It was an odd sensation which persisted steadfast, that somehow she no longer spoke, spiritually in her heart, the same language as they who worshiped wood and stone.
Her head elevated above the multitudes, Si'Wren pretended not to notice as more than a few openly ogled her. The tirelessly prancing black stallion was clearly of noble lineage, and had the lines of a thunderer and was blessed not only of classic lines but also of an inordinate swiftness which, with little Si'Wren on him, made the combination of horse and rider as swift as a rushing rapids and left the Emperor's horse-messengers perpetually envious.
Si'Wren's raiment consisted of a long-sleeved blouse and leggings, tiny slippers, and a riding cape. Every item was absolute, total jet black, and tight at the cuffs of wrists and ankles and at the waist, but free to ripple over her slender limbs in the sun and wind. Attached to her black saddle, chased with silver trim, were her official writing kit packed in wrapped punk moss in a saddlebag, and a few other items.
Upon Ibi's strict orders, she was forbidden to use berry juice to stain her lips, or make use of any other form of makeup, or any sort of adornment or jewelry, because it would have detracted from the appearance of royal dignity and absolute asceticism in her calling as Royal Scribe. It was bad enough, decried Ibi one day, that she was only a female. Worse, she was small even for her age and sex. On top of that, Si'Wren, born into a world of penta-centenarians, men and women of five hundred or more years of age, was, at a mere seventeen, so infernally young.
What was needful, said Ibi, was for her physical appearance and wardrobe to convey a sense of royal station. Instead of bearing the appearance of a junior scribe, she needed to carry about her some sort of outward dignity as a signal to all who observed her, of the terrible sense of majesty which her high station demanded. She desperately needed to personify somehow, with but her mere appearance, the fearsome aspect of sheer awe and awfulness of her high station in Imperial service to his highness, the Emperor Euphrates, said Ibi.
With that in mind, Ibi had exactingly prescribed and appointed her formal court uniform, under strictest guidelines, and had put her totally in black to signify before all and sundry that she was no mere plaything, but a Royal Officer of the Court.
Never, said he, was she ever to appear in any other color. Else, how could she possibly expect to be taken seriously by her peers at court, not to mention the coarse and disrespectful public at large?
Her hair, he observed, must never be cut, neither broidered except according to his strict guidelines. When actually in court or appearing in public, she was to braid it in one or more long braids, which she had permission either to wear straight down the middle of her back, or coiled up in any one of several formal designs according to his precise dictates.
He forbade the artifice of vanity in any way, shape, or form, and no color was to be added to her face. She must not pluck her eyebrows—which were not that heavy anyway.
That she should only wear black was an agreeable but meaningless edict to Si'Wren at first, but she was beginning to understand. One must keep an unflinching eye to the practical business of court. Many unlettered buyers went to market to look upon the wares of the merchants like so many red-eyed judges, and they drove exceeding hard bargains. Such covetous types were everywhere, with a true talent for the sneer kept ever just below the surface of their gladdest smiles. Such sneers could be her undoing, Court Officer or no.
Without such unthinking respect on the part of others, how could she effectively conduct herself, how pursue her royal duties, if held in perpetual scorn by palace peers and the public? Without the unthinking esteem of the crowds, the common masses of peoples who thronged daily to the Emperor's court, how could Si'Wren face up to such coarse souls as would just as soon laugh in her face and make sport of her meager person?
It was one thing for the whores to mock a laughing soldier by parading around half-naked in his armor. No one took them seriously, and the soldiers enjoyed it.
But such was not to be the case for Si'Wren, declared Ibi sternly.
Si'Wren strove always to follow Ibi's orders, and as time passed she had learned to appreciate the shrewd wisdom of his directives, and in the end, Ibi's peculiar ways had somehow come to actually inspire her willing and enthusiastic devotion and loyalty, where before he had but only commanded it.
Si'Wren was appearing solo in public for the first time today. That was because Ibi had not been feeling well lately, and had remained back in his private palace chambers to try and rest. His body, he complained, could not 'get heat'. Si'Wren gave him a look of sympathy. She would be fine by herself.
And she was. Today the roaring crowds cheered her on with the rest of them as she paraded past. Behind her, a twin-column of murderous mounted camel soldiers, cut-throats all, brought up the rear and she felt quite safe in their immediate presence—in public at least. In private, she would not have permitted herself the extreme risk of being left alone in the same room with a single one of the filthy scum.
When they came to the outer walls of the city, Si'Wren was already engaged in turning repeatedly from one side to the other as she waved grandly at the noisome, chaotic sea of faces, and chanced to look down upon a cluster of elders, sitting in the city gates.
She smiled and gave the nod in cursory fashion from her perch high up on her prancing mount, and started to look away…
And looked back suddenly, for there in their midst, sitting by the wayside in the city gates and clothed in a robe of coarse burr-lap, was Habrunt!
Si'Wren's heart pounded like thunder as she abruptly pulled the reins suddenly, halting and wheeling her black steed as she turned him out of formation and walked the high-stepping stallion skittishly up in front of him. Then she adroitly slipped a leg over the top of the saddle and plummeted down with a sudden rush of air to alight on her feet and stand smiling impishly down at him with her little fists on her hips.
Habrunt peered narrowly at up her, and she bowed ceremoniously to him, an unprecedented gesture of respect from such an exalted member of the Emperor's royal court to a mere beggar, which caused no small commotion among the other elders sitting around them.
Habrunt's dull eyes grew slowly wide as he took her in disinterestedly at first, and suddenly stared at her in dumbstruck disbelief. All of a sudden, he was struggling with his walking stick to rise to his feet.
"Si'Wren!" he said in a hoarse voice. "Can it truly be you?"
Si'Wren nodded vigorously, and stood beaming cheerfully at him as Habrunt wrapped his burly arms around her with an inarticulate exclamation of joy, and suddenly Si'Wren found herself weeping, crying and laughing all at the same time, heedless to the sea of faces surrounding them cheering the Emperor in a continuous deafening roar.
Realizing that she had something she must show to him, she pulled free of his embrace and wiped quickly at her tears with one rippling silken black sleeve and turned to the black stallion.
As the stallion shook his dark head and long shaggy mane, and neighed and snorted loudly and lifted and clopped his hooves on the street with a series of heavy thuds, Si'Wren steadied him with her hands, and swung her arm back to sweep her flowing cape out of her way, and reached up to pull from one of her saddle bags the ivory cuneiform writing sticks, and a used clay tablet already covered with writing, in a bamboo frame.
Turning to Habrunt, she smiled her most radiant as she held these up for his appraisal.
"Aha!" said Habrunt, taking and examining everything carefully."You—wrote this?"
Si'Wren nodded vigorously.
Habrunt could not seem to believe his own eyes, as he looked alternately at Si'Wren and her clay writing tablet.
"I see," he said, and Si'Wren saw that his astonished eyes were full of surprise and incredulity. "I too, can read and write. Your scribner's style is well-practiced and most admirable! Of a truth, the Invisible God has worked a mighty work in your life! Because of your selfless example of faith before all, Si'Wren, I have been mightily uplifted in spirit, and inspired to speak the more boldly again of the Invisible God myself before all!"
Full of astonishment, Si'Wren stared up at him as her eyes lit up in round-eyed wonder, shocked to the roots by this startling and unexpected revelation.
"Now as for this writing," said Habrunt, "this is most amazing. I know not what this surprising series of events may portend, Si'Wren, but verily is the Invisible God the Almighty. For look here who it is that I have with me."
Habrunt turned, and Si'Wren looked down at an old, old man, who was totally ignoring the crowds as if they had all gone mad.
"Bassdag!" said Habrunt loudly.
The aged one, who was almost entirely bald-headed, stirred as if shaking himself out of a fitful slumber.
"Eh? Who is that?"
"How can you sleep at a time like this?" jested Habrunt. "It is the Royal Scribe of the Emperor, who rides in his procession, and has dismounted to pay us a visit!"
Habrunt kept his voice loud, to be heard over the river of noise from the tumultuous throngs that crowded them in at every hand.
"So you say, Habrunt," scoffed the bowed and weary-looking old Bassdag."Royal Scribe to the Emperor, eh? Well, where is the illiterate snob?"
Quickly, Si'Wren knelt down on both knees and dipped her head in a perfunctory bow before the ancient, as she smiled with a merry look to a proudly grinning Habrunt.
As she bowed low before old Bassdag, sensing her presence, he peered up at her.
"Your face is awfully girlish, young man," said Bassdag. His speech was very slow and deeply pitched. "No beard yet?"
"That is because she is no man at all," laughed Habrunt, "but a woman!"
At this astonishing revelation, Bassdag said nothing at first, but only lifted up his great old white-bearded countenance to stare at her disbelievingly.
A smiling Si'Wren peered narrowly back at Bassdag, whose eyes surveyed her critically from under snow-white bushy eyebrows, and she felt the power of his keen mind, especially in the sharpness and incisiveness of his voice.
"A girl?" said Bassdag.
Si'Wren kept smiling, but held her peace.
"Why do you mock her," said Habrunt soberly, "seeing she has taken a vow to the Invisible God never to speak, on her life?"
"Eh?"
"I said," Habrunt went on pointedly, "that one Si'Wren, who kneels before you now, is no empty-headed minstrel, or some plaything in the Emperor's harem, but a Royal Scribe in the palace court. She sits before kings. She prays to the Invisible God."
Bassdag's keen, intelligent frown seemed to bore powerfully through Si'Wren to her very soul, when the aged man turned his eyes upon her again.
"Oh!" said Bassdag, with a quick raise of his eyebrows. He seemed to be genuinely impressed. "That changes everything."
Then Bassdag rose with difficulty, using the assistance of a shepherd's crook and Habrunt's helping, steady hand.
"Come here, girl," he said.
Timidly, Si'Wren took a step closer, and Bassdag reached up and tookSi'Wren's slender forearm in his large and knobby old hand.
"This old man," said Habrunt, "who is older than anyone I have ever met, invented—writing."
Si'Wren stared up at the white-haired old face, and was awestruck.
"Aye," said Bassdag, nodding in the affirmative. "Verily I thought I had created something with which to enrich men's souls. But since inventing it, much has happened to cause me to believe otherwise. Sometimes, I think it was all just a waste of time."
Then Bassdag, in a tired, quavering voice, went on, "Tell me, Habrunt. Is this one sincere soul all that remains in all the world, to follow after the one true God now, besides ourselves? Just one soul, and that but a youth and a mere girl? Hath God in truth sworn to love the whole world, but settled in the end upon only this one soul, but not the rest?"
Habrunt shrugged.
"I know not, old one," he said, "but methinks you have spoken the truth in this."
Bassdag stared owlishly at Habrunt, and seemed shaken by the admission.
The shrieks of many in the crowd suddenly increased wildly for no reason which Si'Wren could discern, the inherent madness of the outcries making her uneasy as she sought to ignore them and focus on Habrunt and his friend.
"Surely, Habrunt, these maddened, screaming multitudes, which surround us at every hand and froth madly at the mouth in the name of sanity; are they with their voices then to be counted more blessed than she in her silence?"
Bassdag squinted up at Si'Wren.
"Ye who can read and write, are the only remaining true believer besides ourselves, and on top of this, thou art sworn never to speak? This is a mystery! Look around you, girl! Look how they have forgotten! Aye, they have forgotten all, even unto their one true God who is the foundation of the world, and the judge of their very souls!"
Bassdag paused, and looked around, his eyes searching the souls of individual faces in the deafening throngs. Si'Wren felt insignificant compared to old Bassdag, because she was so much younger and less-imposing in appearance than he. His frowning, wrinkled countenance appeared all the more impressive and terrible for it's lack of a singular target to fasten upon because of his half-blindness.
Continually assaulting Si'Wren's ears were the screams of the crowds at every hand, as they loudly proclaimed their praises to the Emperor. The torrent of noise made it difficult for her to listen to the two men without craning her ear constantly.
Tilting his great white-haired old head to one side at her open young face, Bassdag said to her in a quavering voice, "Si'Wren, you must never, never stop serving the Almighty Lord God."
"She does," assured Habrunt confidently, "and she shall!"
"That is good!" said Bassdag, with a slow, ponderous nod of his tired head and stooped shoulders. "May the Almighty bless you, Si'Wren, and may your name be remembered forever in Heaven."
He patted Si'Wren on the shoulder. Then, he let fall his arm, and awkwardly, lowered himself back down again with the use of his shepherd's crook and seemed not to see her anymore.
"You must come see me again," Habrunt said to Si'Wren. "I am always to be found here, sitting with the elders in the gates of the city."
Then, Habrunt's face became more serious as he put his hands gently upon both of her shoulders and looked down into her upturned, questing eyes.
"Si'Wren, I would speak quickly of a certain matter, before you go. We no longer have the Master Rababull to worry about. It is possible for us to hope of living to the Invisible God, and—to ourselves…"
Si'Wren studied him as if seeing him for the first time, marveling at his strange manner of speech. But Habrunt was so involved in putting together his words that he was already going on, as if oblivious to the way she suddenly changed her expression from one of attentiveness to one of wonder while still looking up at him, her wide-open eyes fastened upon his so intently.
"I have convinced many of those whom you see here, these wise ones whose custom it is to sit in the gates of the city, that they must give up their blind idols and worship the true and living God," said Habrunt.
"All," Habrunt went on, "except Bassdag, who was already a true believer. But they would never listen to him, until I came along, and sat with them, and spoke of the same God. Then, when they saw that Bassdag and I were in agreement, each separate from the other, then they finally began to believe both of us. While I have not been entirely successful in convincing them all, I have managed to save some.
"It is you who inspires me, Si'Wren. I have never forgotten you Si'Wren. Si'Wren, listen to me! Should I be forced to— to continue without you a day longer, now that you are of proper age and we have found each other again, I— I mean—"
Si'Wren had been staring up at him with eyes full of amazement, and when he faltered, she blinked, and came to a full, sudden realization of what had been happening between herself and this beaten-down wreck of a man called Habrunt, who though he be of ordinary stature, had a heart that would dwarf a giant's.
Overwhelmed, she nodded earnestly up at him. She reached up with her writing implements still in her hands, to carefully wrap her slender arms around his whip-scarred neck and pull him down to her. He held her, half leaning on his stick, and trembling as he kissed her proudly on the forehead, and then, after gazing deep into her eyes, he kissed her again -ever so tenderly- upon the lips, a long, burning, unbroken contact, putting a lifetime of pent-up passion into one searing eternal moment. If broken in body, he was still yet noble in spirit. Then they broke apart, and stood looking long into each other's faces with a newfound understanding such as rendered all of Si'Wren's lifelong torments but a chaotic dream.
Habrunt held her in his strong, gentle hands and looked at her, really looked at her. He searched her eyes again, desperately seeking something, and finally, crinkled his own in a willing expression of deep inner rejoicing.
"Do not fail to come back to me, Si'Wren," said Habrunt, becoming more serious. "If your heart has not cooled these many years apart from me, let no meddlesome soothsayer tell you that mine has done otherwise. Remember; if I do not hear from you soon, I shall come and petition the Emperor myself, and your own hand as Royal Scribe shall record it."
Si'Wren, still looking straight into his eyes, did not move in the slightest degree, and her face became luminous and radiant as she finally nodded, her eyes utterly lost within his.
"Good!" Habrunt said heartily, grinning self-consciously in spite of himself, and showing to Si'Wren a totally different side to the man whom she had always known before as being perpetually so stoic, just, and reserved. "It is good, Si'Wren! As your husband, I shall exercise my right as a free man to redeem you from your vow of silence. But for now, I think the royal procession is about to leave you behind!"
Si'Wren started as she looked suddenly around at the receding lines of the procession, and then looked back at him with eyes that lived for promises to come, of a new world with Habrunt together with her, and of vast far-flung visions of new life and of laughter, and yet in her eyes she also showed the apprehension of eternal loss already looming, and of anguish beyond the torments of the utterly lost, lest there be the remotest possibility of more than this one final separation.
Yet as he had said, it was time to go. Just like Habrunt, to be always so dutiful!
She put her things back in her saddlebag, and then turned and reached up to embrace him quickly. He swept his arms around her again, and held her tight, and she longed for the moment never to end. Then Habrunt let go again, and turned to her horse, to hold out a helping hand to her. Habrunt's back might be weak, but he gripped the saddle for support and showed that he intended to help her up. Si'Wren flashed a quick smile at him, and dipped down and gave a little hop as she got the sole of one tiny foot into one of his large hands like a makeshift stepping stone, and as he curled his biceps and lifted her in this manner she eeled herself up in one smooth, perfectly timed motion and swung her leg over.
Remounted as lightly as a butterfly, she beamed down at Habrunt, and then looked up and swept the narrow, jam-packed street a fleeting glance. Then she flicked her reins and kicked her heels in lightly with a hand-slap on her horse's neck.
The black charger responded instantly, and surged forward in a hurtling motion of buried muscle as she cantered him down the narrow street past the noisome throngs. His hooves clomp-clopped the ground in a heavy rhythm as she caught up to her proper position in the royal procession and slowed to rejoin them again.
She could not stop herself breathing heavily as her heart continued to pound. The memory of his scent and the lingering sensation of his kisses had sent her blood to singing.
* * *
It was a grand procession. Every so often, Emperor Euphrates would cast a handful of gold coins to the crowds, and their cheering would be transformed to lunatic crescendos as the throngs dived together in a sudden concerted rush to get at the coveted coins.
There were people with grievous impairments and afflictions at every hand, and they were also caught up in the mad scramble for coins. Some of them were trampled shamelessly by those more able, who should have known not to be so abusive and unfair.
Si'Wren was aware of all this, yet, brushing tears from her eyes, she could not help looking back in the direction of Habrunt. But she could not pick him out now, although she knew he was still there, sitting with the elders in the gates of the city.
How her heart yearned to see him again—and soon!
Then her eyes noticed something, and she looked far to the rear of the long line of the procession. There, far behind her, she saw a boisterous crowd of evil men, bringing up the rear behind the long lines of battle-hardened camel soldiers.
What were they doing there, she wondered?
Just before they turned a corner to begin heading back into the city by another route, she heard a loud commotion, angry shouts and wild screams amidst the cheers, far back at the gates of the city. She turned in her saddle to look, but could not see what was happening, and dared not break ranks and turn her horse out of the procession again, lest she risk incurring the displeasure of Emperor Euphrates or some other senior dignitary.
Anxiously she craned her neck to see better, but it was no use, and she finally turned away again, for she must go on.
* * *
Scarcely had they returned to the palace, when word was passed around that a respected trader had come with important news for the Emperor's ears only. Such was his nobility and reputation with the Emperor that the sweating and dust-caked trader was escorted directly through by two armed guards to an inner chamber for an immediate private audience with his Majesty.
Soon after, Emperor Euphrates sent word that an emergency session was to be held in his private chambers, and, with Ibi lying ill, Si'Wren was called to attendance.
Anxiously, Si'Wren delivered her horse to the stables, and stopped by Ibi's workshop to retrieve fresh writing supplies. With a proper kit in hand, she hastened through the royal gardens and made her way through the crowded palace passages toward the meeting chamber. Around her as she approached the meeting, the palace dignitaries were still celebrating, for it had been declared a day of feasting, and the sounds of continual merrymaking were on every hand.
In a private chamber just large enough to hold them all, Si'Wren took her seat several positions to the right of the Emperor, and when all officers of high position had arrived, the wizened-looking old trader was invited to retell his story.