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enough to inherit the crown."
Fyana stopped and turned to him. "Before I go farther, tell me something: Will
I make deadly enemies if I am able to help the king? It will have no effect
upon my treatment, but I wish to know."
Osha said nothing for a while. Fyana and Ansa watched him closely.
"You will have friends who are stronger," he said at last.
"Very well," she said. "Lead on."
They came to a door guarded by men of yet another new race. These were short,
burly men with fair hair and beards, their faces heavily tattooed. They glared
suspiciously at the approaching strangers. At a word from the courtier they
drew aside. The guards wore colorful, padded armor and bore fearsome polearms.
Each had a four-foot wooden shaft topped by a broad, curved steel blade two
feet long. A small, circular handguard separated blade from shaft. These were
the first large steel weapons Ansa had seen since arriving in Gran. Their
bronze caps were embossed to resemble the scaled hide of a reptile.
"Bamen," Lord Osha said, "men from far northeast of here. They have formed the
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royal bodyguard for generations. They are savages, but their loyalty is
unshakable."
He said this with pride, but it seemed to Ansa a poor thing that a king should
have to hire foreign primitives if he
THE POISONED LANDS
167
wanted loyal men near him. Foreigners would be less likely to be involved in
the intrigues of rival nobles, naturally enough. That, too, said something
about the nature of this court.
They encountered servitors and other courtiers. Even the most bejewelled and
richly robed of the latter bowed deeply to Lord Osha. AH were silent or
conversed in low voices, and all wore mournful expressions. The women wore
makeup that made the corners of their eyes and mouths appear to turn downward,
with dark circles drawn beneath the eyes. They even appeared to have applied
an irritant to their eyes to make them red. The impression was that they were
all hi a prolonged fit of weeping. Had it not been so bizarre, Ansa would have
found it comical.
They stopped before a closed door heavily plated with gold. The courtier spoke
a few quiet words to an elderly, bearded man who entered the room and closed
the golden door behind him. A few minutes later, a handsome woman in her later
thirties came out. Her skin was pale, her hair dark. Strikingly in these
environs, she wore no heavy makeup. Lord Osha lowered himself to one knee
before her, bowing his head.
"Your Majesty, I present the visitors of whom you have heard: Lady Fyana of
the Canyon and the noble Ansa, her escort."
Fyana bowed gracefully and Ansa somewhat less so. He was unfamiliar with the
practice of knee-bending and made no effort to emulate Lord Osha. The queen
seemed satisfied.
"My deepest gratitude to you both for assenting to come here today," she said.
Her voice was warm and infinitely gracious. It was so well done that Ansa
could not tell whether it was sincere or just well practiced.
"I hope that I may be of some aid," Fyana said. "Is this the patient's
chamber?"
"It is. Please come with me." The queen took Fyana's
168
John Maddox Roberts hand and led her inside. Ansa followed closely, before
anyone could have the opportunity to forbid him. He had no intention of
letting Fyana out of his sight in this strange place.
The chamber was large, but the air was murky with incense smoke. Hangings
covered the walls, completely blocking any windows that might have been there.
A sizable crowd jammed the room, berobed men and elaborately gowned women
hovered around a bed on a dais hi the chamber's center. The lugubrious
expressions on their faces did not bode well for the chances of the bed's
occupant.
The queen led them to the dais and they mounted its three steps. In the bed
lay a man whose age was difficult to guess. His hair and beard were lank,
brownish. On his face, the skin lay thin over prominent bones. His pale blue
eyes stared upward at nothing. Lavish bedclothes covered him to the chest. His
arms lay outside the bedclothes, his hands protruding from the sleeves of his
robe to lie pale and motionless atop embroidery of gold and scarlet thread.
Except for the faint rise and fall of his chest, the man made no motion at
all. Even his fingers did not twitch.
"He has been thus for ten days," the queen said.
"How did it happen?" Fyana asked. She made no move to touch the king. Ansa
studied the others in the room. Some looked at Fyana with haughty resentment.
Others had no expression at all.
"There was a banquet. The king was just as always^ in the best of health. He
had gone on a hunt that day, riding in the forest, and none of his companions
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or attendants noted anything unusual in his behavior. In the middle of the
banquet, he grew pale and told me he would retire early, that he did not feel
well. He left, but it was so unlike him that I quickly followed. I found him
lying on the floor, unable to move or speak, as you see him now.'
"You found him?" Fyana looked up sharply. "Did none of the servitors, none of
your palace attendants see him
THE POISONED LANDS
169
collapse?" This seemed strange to Ansa as well, but he had agreed to let Fyana
do all the talking here, unless he was directly addressed.
' "There is a passage connecting the public rooms and the royal apartments. It [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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