CHAPTER THREE

The Sairish summer that year was unusually warm and dry, and Shansi, after resting through the hottest part of the day would often go out to the small area within the walls of the royal compound which was set aside for herbs and fruit trees. At one end was an ancient walnut tree with an old bench beneath it, and here she would sit, attended by Lewvin. Then Morvina took to joining her there, and it was during their conversations - one-sided affairs since Shansi hardly got a word in, and did not attempt to - that she heard how Sigmar had been named marshal of all Laifya which was nominally part of the distant Sei Empire ("Nwodek" was the imperial term, Morvina explained) and was now engaged in a successful military campaign to enforce his authority.
The inscrutable crust of Morvina's rigid self-control crumbled when she spoke of it. The intensity of her pride and excitement was only too apparent. Sigmar was all she wanted to talk about, and Shansi was well aware that in reciting his great deeds she was inviting a comparison between him and the dissolute, ineffectual Egmar. Shansi looked forward with mounting impatience to the time when she could decently leave Felewith and escape the suffocating attentions of the Dowager Queen.

* * * *
The baby, a boy, was born a few weeks before the spring festival of Sara Noc the following year.
At Felewith Egmar issued a proclamation, announcing the birth of an heir who was take the name Chaldez. And he sent a messenger to Shansi at her lodge in Fromond instructing her to bring their child to the great hall in the royal compound at Felewith as soon as she was fit for the journey; he intended, he said, to hold the naming ceremony immediately after Sara Noc.
Shansi did as she was bid, but brought with her to Felewith two of her Kroyan retainers: Lewvin and the soldier Pemmel, whom she had put in command of her escort.
Egmar promptly ordered Pemmel's arrest.
When Shansi heard of it via Lewvin she ceased to be the meek little woman whom she thought she ought to be when in her husband's presence. "Do you wish it to be known," she stormed, "to what dangers you exposed your son when you insisted he come to the court at this time?"
Egmar was momentarily taken aback, but recovered quickly. "What dangers?" he demanded contemptuously.
"Histek is at large. You must know that. Yet you sent an escort commanded by an imbecile."
Once more Egmar was thrown off balance; he was unable for the moment to recall who, exactly, had been detailed to command the escort, and as for the bandit leader Histek, he knew him to be dead. "How dare you accuse me of such a thing!" he roared.
"I doubt that Morvina would believe you entrusted our safety to that man Gorn," Shansi responded hotly.
Egmar recalled now that he had put the matter of the escort in the hands of his friend Creal, whose sister, incidentally, was the voluptuous Killini, one of his favourites among the several women who had helped compensate for the absence of Shansi. Their attentions, combined with his daily hunting expeditions, frequent feasts and bouts of heavy drinking, had left him with insufficient time to attend to the more humdrum business of the court. He was not even sure who this Gorn fellow was. "You may be sure," he said pompously, "that Gorn was selected because he was the right man for the job. And what's this nonsense about Histek? I happen to know we are rid of him. Byrat's men chased him into Morden Mire and wiped out his entire band. Byrat himself told me."
"Byrat told you? You believe that man!" Shansi was scandalised. "Surely you remember how he insulted you? Of all the great nobles of your realm he alone absented himself from your wedding, with the excuse, if I remember rightly, that he had an in-growing toenail and was unable to undertake the arduous journey to your court!" She might have added that her Kroyan friends attributed her father's overthrow to him, for was he not uncle to the man now occupying Taigram's throne? She said instead: "In Fromond it is said that he and Histek are in league. Histek attacked a village within a day's journey of the Lodge only four days before we left to come here. Travellers on the road to Felewith were being picked off daily. They go in armed convoys now. Have you not been told any of this?"
"Travellers' tales and peasants' prattle!" Egmar growled. Then, his voice rising, he added "Of course I've heard it - and if I'd believed it do you suppose I'd have said Histek is dead?"
"How can you doubt me?" retorted Shansi. "People have been attacked. It is true that the village was destroyed. I saw it with my own eyes! Histek or whoever - does it matter? Murderers and robbers are attacking farms, villages and travellers in the very country we had to travel through. We needed protection."
"And I ensured you were given it." Egmar's tone was triumphant.
Shansi, cooler now, said "Gorn arrived at the Lodge without his sword. He'd 'mislaid' it on the way. He'd 'mislaid' about half the escort too. Those he'd managed to keep were drunk and dishevelled. There was no discipline; no order. I refused to make the journey in the company of such men, bandits or no bandits. I ordered Pemmel to take command, and he served the prince, your son, faithfully. He was obeying my orders. I beseech you, my lord, show him your kindness. He has done no wrong. He could have begged leave to return to his home, and I should have had to grant it. He would now be free. I know what a generous man you are, and wise. Show your wisdom and generosity now to our servant Pemmel."
Egmar stroked his chin. His wife, he realised, had been upset; it accounted for her extraordinary lack of respect but now that he had calmed her she had recovered it. It was all a matter of knowing how to handle her. He said "I will release Pemmel."
"May he remain here?" Shansi asked. "He often spoke to me about the high esteem in which he holds you. In Kroya they know the brilliance of your court. If you could find a position for him in your guard he would repay you doubly with loyalty and bravery. He is a man of such integrity I knew you would recognise in him a kindred spirit."
Egmar realised that he might, after all, have acted hastily; yes, he said, the Kroyan could stay, and he would give him a position in the Household Guard.

……..

The naming ceremony took place a month after Chaldez was brought to Felewith.
Shansi had dreaded meeting Morvina and hearing endlessly from her about the exploits of Sigmar, but the Dowager Queen was silent on the subject. She only began to show signs of animation when she set eyes on Prince Chaldez, and then she was as sweet as syrup. Egmar noted it, and wasted no time in scolding Shansi for her uncharitable and unworthy feelings towards his step-mother. He said he believed she was as fond of the royal family as she would have been had he, Egmar, been her own son and Chaldez her grandchild.
Shansi knew that to contradict him would be useless.
From the scale of the preparations she now saw being made in the capital she realised that Egmar intended the naming ceremony to be a magnificent affair.
Great and petty nobles of the kingdom, along with certain Sairish rulers from beyond its borders began arriving with their retainers, and over a period of days a gaudy city of tents appeared in the fields surrounding the capital.
On the eve of the sacrificial ritual of the naming ceremony, Egmar held a banquet in the great hall for the most important of his guests. Shansi was seated on his left, in a position which reflected the honour due to her.
As she looked out over the company her eyes seemed always to meet the gaze of one man in particular. She knew him to be a cousin of her husband, a man called Segga. Although a Sairish nobelman, his estates did not lie within the borders of Sair Jisenner.
When the banquet reached the stage at which formality had begun to dissolve into licence, he left his place and approached the king. Half mockingly, or so Shansi thought, he scolded his cousin for keeping his wife too much to himself.
Egmar, who had been drinking all day and by now was barely conscious, muttered something unintelligible, then rose and lurched unsteadily towards a group of men who greeted his arrival with a raucous cheer.
Segga sat down beside Shansi; perhaps he thought that her expression of astonishment meant that she did not recognise him because he at once introduced himself, explaining that he and the king were related. Shansi listened dispassionately, then said she knew who he was. He seemed hardly put out - and certainly not put down - and chatted away with all the familiarity of an old friend, which Shansi resented.
After a while he fell silent, looked at her intently and said: "You don't like me, do you?"
Shansi pretended not to have heard him properly.
"You're not afraid of me?" he asked.
She looked at him squarely and answered sharply that no, she was not afraid of him; was there any reason to be?
He laughed, but his conversation had, it seemed, dried up. After a while he excused himself and left.
For the remainder of the banquet, until she retired to her bedchamber, Shansi scrupulously avoided looking in his direction.
The following day she learnt that Egmar had given his consent for Morvina to present Chaldez to the priest at the stage in the naming ceremony when the blood of the sacrificial fowl was to be splashed across his abdomen. The idea filled her with terror, but there was nothing she could do to alter the arrangement.
During the early part of the ceremony she found herself standing immediately in front of Segga. When Morvina came forward to take the baby from her arms she heard him move closer. After Morvina had turned and stepped away he leant forward and whispered that there was someone of whom she should be afraid.
Shansi turned and stared at him, her face drained of blood.