CHAPTER SIX

By deferring his response to her demand, Egmar had regained the initiative. Shansi retaliated the only way she knew how to: looking him in the eye, she retorted “You cannot put Pemmel in command of the escort because he is a foreigner; a Kroyan. What do you suppose I am? If a Kroyan is fit to be your queen, why should a Kroyan not be fit to command your escort? By insulting my countryman in this way you insult me. Is this my reward for bearing you a son - insults? Was Morvina ever treated thus by your father? I sometimes wonder that I am allowed to share the King of Sair Jisenner's bed! Pemmel will be put in command of our escort or Chaldez and I shall not accompany you to Sembfrid. I shall let that be known so that if you insist on taking him everyone will know that you are acting against my wishes."
Egmar pursed his lips. He was bewildered and unsure of himself. He said, authoritatively, he hoped, "You know perfectly well there is no comparison to be made between your position here as my queen, and Pemmel's as my servant. Nevertheless, for your ease of mind I am prepared to break with all convention, and put Pemmel directly under Creal as his second-in-command."
Shansi said "thank you." She knew it was the best she could hope for.
Later that day she had occasion to leave the inner enclosure of the royal compound to inspect a horse which had been presented to her as a gift. She was accompanied outside the gates by the Lord Skripshi, a gnome-like little old man who for many years had been the late king's grand counsellor. He had a few long wisps of white hair on the top of his head , a wrinkled face, with dark pouches beneath his eyes, a wide mouth with loose, purple lips, and from his chin a few straggly hairs that tangled together to form a sort of beard. He was not quite as tall as Shansi.
Some years before Volkis died he fell from favour and was, in fact, exiled. But the king relented when he discovered that he had been the victim of a conspiracy to discredit him, and although the old man was not restored to his former pre-eminence he was made a counsellor and admitted to the court, where he had continued to live in the quarters provided for him.
To Shansi he had seemed the very image of a goblin. She was repelled by his apparent eagerness to befriend her. His smile - she interpreted it as a leer - sent shivers down her spine; even after her father's fall from power and she had become an outcast at the court she refused to give him the slightest encouragement.
It was Reela who eventually changed her mind about him.
Shansi had made a remark about how repulsive she found him, and how she wished he would not grin at her, but Reela, who usually agreed with everything her mistress said, this time plunged into a spirited defence of the old man. He might be ugly, she said, but he had a heart of gold; if Shansi ever needed a friend, she could find none more loyal, more shrewd or more generous.
Shansi did not immediately alter her opinion of Skripshi, but what Reela told her did make her think, and eventually she started to return the old man's smiles, and although they had little to say to each other she began to think of him as a sort of guardian. Now, as she passed through the gates of the inner enclosure, she was by no means displeased to find him stepping along beside her.
The horse was brought up by a groom for her to inspect. Skripshi, standing at her elbow all the while, began talking about the business in Sembfrid. He advanced the view that it was entirely unnecessary for her and Chaldez to make the journey there. He even doubted that there was any real need for the king to go either.
Shansi raised her eyebrows. She told the groom that the horse would do, and dismissed him.
Skripshi waited until he was gone, then he said that the threat which Egmar thought to deflect by his visit was non-existent. The Sair Jy-Din prince who was supposed to be interfering with Sembfrid was an imbecile, and in imminent danger of being deposed. He was incapable of managing his own affairs, let alone of meddling in other people's.
Shansi made no attempt to hide her astonishment. Skripshi then went on to explain that he had his own sources of information about what was going on, and that they were more reliable than the king's.
What, then, where the king's sources, Shansi asked?
Skripshi told her that he was being advised by his council, but that he believed the council to be less interested in promoting his interests than those of Morvina.
The name cropped up like a bad coin; Shansi repeated it, in the manner of an exclamation. Skripshi gave her a wry look, and then told her that the dowager queen had many friends on the king's council, where her chief ally was the Lord Garapu. It was he, especially, who had been pressing the case for the royal visit, and in support of it, had produced letters from Rilt of Sembfrid, which spoke of the province being in dire peril.
Shansi asked if the letters were forgeries; the old man thought not. It was the information they contained that was false, he said. There was no question of Sembfrid being in danger.
Shansi had met the Lord Rilt both at her wedding and the at the naming ceremony; he was a young man, and she had been impressed by his courtesy; why, she asked, would he seek to mislead the council?
Skripshi smiled at her; if Garapu had asked him to he would have obliged, for he was married to Garapu's daughter.
Shansi would have liked to ask Skripshi more, but by now they had reached the gates of the inner compound. Her companion bowed formally, and took his leave.
Shansi's mind was in turmoil. Morvina had constructed the perfect trap for her, Egmar and their child. She had no need to speculate on its precise mechanics; she knew only that it would be sprung during their travels in Sembfrid.
As the certainty of this gripped her, she felt overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness, staggered and collapsed in a faint.

* * * *

She recovered to find Egmar standing beside her couch; he was most solicitous.
The only explanation Shansi could offer for passing out was that she was weaker than she had thought; too weak, perhaps, to undertake the journey to Sembfrid. Could it not be postponed?
Impossible, said Egmar; the arrangements were all made.
Shansi pleaded, but she pleaded in vain. Eventually Egmar ran out of patience; he turned and strode towards the doorway. As he reached the heavy curtains which were drawn across it he stopped. Then he turned slowly, thoughtfully. All right, he said, the tour was postponed. Shansi stared at him, dumbfounded. After he had gone she let go and cried, anxiety and tension escaping with her tears. She was left with a sense of euphoria, but it was short-lived because as she examined her triumph it melted to nothing before her eyes. They had been granted a temporary reprieve, that was all.
Egmar's change of heart did give her some hope, however.
That night he came to her, and was tender and loving, and she was reminded of a time - a hundred years ago it seemed - when he had showered her with caresses and endearments in the pleasure-drenched nights of their early marriage.
The next day she was up and about, and she said nothing to him about the postponement; but the following day she met him when he came in from a hunting expedition. As they walked away together from the inner gate to the great hall she told him that a postponement was not sufficient. She believed they would be in mortal danger whenever they undertook the journey, and that he must therefore cancel it, for all their sakes.
As she spoke, he stopped walking, disengaged his arm from hers and burst out into a loud, artificial laugh, holding his sides and throwing back his head. She looked at him, frightened.
Little had he realised, he said, recovering his breath, what a devious, deceitful and malicious-minded women the daughter of Taigram was! So; her fainting fit had had nothing to do with her being weak from child-bearing. It had been a sham. She had abused his trust and exploited his sympathy by pretending to be ill! And for what reason? Because she was obsessed with the insane notion that "someone" wanted to kill them all. She would be telling him next it was Morvina! People might indeed want to kill her, he said. But no one wanted him dead, for was he not the king? Then he repeated her pleas, mimicking her voice, and bursting into laughter, he walked away.
Shansi stood where he had left her, stunned and humiliated. his entire speech had been loud enough for everyone around them to have heard it.
Egmar stopped when he got to the entrance of the great hall and clapped his hands, summoning his attendants. They scurried to him and he announced, his voice raised imperiously, that he no longer wished to be pestered by the mad woman who called herself his queen. Unless he specifically summoned her, she was to be kept away from him. Then the heavy door was swung open for him and he went into the darkness beyond.
Shock gave way to anger, and at her first opportunity Shansi sent for Lewvin and Pemmel. They met together in the herb garden, in a corner which was partially obscured by bushes.