The Summer of the Swordsman

Chapter XXVII

I was riding to meet Prince Hethra an hour later, dressed in the cleanest clothes I could find on the ship, shaved clean and astride a borrowed horse. I had never been to Timras before, having only passed within hailing distance once or twice, and so I looked around withcuriosity tinged with apprehension. So much depended on the impression I made on His Highness. And our meeting was only moments away.

The palace of the Varan princes is one of the grandest I have ever seen, with wide battlements of granite and then a magnificent structure of green marble that glows like an emerald when it catches the light of the sun. I drew in my mount and stared, and there must have been a glow to my expression quite unlike the usual glint of greed of a soldier who eyes a fortress with the hope of looting it sometime in the future, for Admiral Prince Jemail reined his horse in beside mine and pointed toward the north.

I followed the line of his arm and gasped in unabashed awe, for stretching away into the distance were great swathes of rock, rising seven hundred feet above the dark blue ocean to towering, green‑clad cliffs. The heights of Timras. We had passed beneath them just that morning, but they had lost their beauty from that vantage point.

This view‑‑I let my eyes travel up the sweep of the hills from the cliffs to the proud stone fortress‑palace overlooking the ocean‑‑this was more beautiful than anything I had seen before. I sighed and caught Jemail's suddenly good humored expression.

We entered through the great gateway, and I looked up at the arch above me as we passed beneath it. Lions glared down at me, massive and graceful, curved along the arch, gazing with inset yellow eyes. I almost expected to see their tails lashing. I lowered my eyes to Mourner, who was riding a little behind me.

He had insisted on accompanying us, though the ride must have cost him a great deal of pain in his wounded leg. Now he, too, was looking up at the lions and smiling. The smile remained as one of the guardsmen flanking the gateway took his reins, eyed his bandaged thigh, and reached up to help him dismount. Another guard was at my horse's head; I slid to the ground and relinquished the reins to him.

We were taken within the palace after a hurried conference between Prince Jemail and one of the few blond Timrasians I had seen thus far. The admiral turned to me after they had finished speaking and said, "His Highness will see you now, Captain Oristides. He has been expecting you."

I nodded, moistened my lips, cast a glance back at Quinquius and Mourner, who suddenly looked more grimly determined than I had ever seen him, and followed him inside.

I, who have seen the Villa of the Viceroys of Byzantium, the fortress of Ainhault, and the palace of the Turannos of Artanis, have seen nothing to match the palace of the Varans. We passed through beautiful, sunlit corridors, over carpets of wondrous, bright colors, past fountains and along seemingly endless galleries filled with the sound of music and laughter.

** ** **

Hethra must have been close to his sixty‑fifth year at that time, but the only part of him that might have betrayed his age was his graying hair and his garment, which was the long, belted robe of a man who considers himself long past youth. He seemed quite vigorous, and if his garments were those of an aged man, they were nevertheless rich and deeply colored, the holly green of the royal Varans, embroidered with gold.

He gazed at us with an expression of courteous interest, and his brows contracted when he saw that Mourner was wounded. He leaned forward and spoke quietly to one of his pages, who hurried off to return with three servants bringing chairs for us.

To the Prince's right sat a younger man with the golden hair, bright blue eyes and severely handsome face of the Rus clan of Verheim. I knew him without having to be introduced: Ghurthai of the Rus, Northane of Verheim, foster‑son to Hethra of Timras.