The Price of Spring (Long Price Quartet #4)(24)

Crowds filled the docks, and he heard a roar of voices and snatches of drum and flute carried by the breeze. The air itself smelled different: rank and green and familiar in a way he hadn't expected.

The Emperor of the Khaiem had been away from his cities for eight months, almost nine, and his return with the high families of Galt in tow was the kind of event seen once in history and never again. This was the day that every man and woman at the seafront or watching from the windows above the streets would recall until death's long fingers touched them. The day that the new empress, the Galtic empress, arrived for the first time.

There were stories Otah had read in books that had been ashes for almost as long as this new Empress had been alive, about an emperor's life mirroring the state of his empire. An emperor with many children meant rich, fertile land; one without heir spoke of poor crops and thin cattle. An emperor who drank himself to sleep meant an empire of libertines; one who studied and prayed, a somber land of great wisdom. He had halfbelieved the stories then. He had no faith in them now.

"You would think they would have made some allowance for our arrival," a man's peevish voice said from behind him. Otah looked back at Balasar Gice, dressed in formal brocade armor and shining with sweat. Otah took a pose of powerlessness before the gods.

"The wind does what the wind does," he said. "We'll be on land by nightfall."

"We will," Balasar said. "But the others will be docking and unloading all night."

It was true. Saraykeht would likely add something near a tenth of its population in the next day, Galts filling the guest quarters and wayhouses and likely half the beds in the soft quarter. It was the second time in Otah's life that a pale-skinned, round-eyed neighborhood without buildings had appeared in his city. Only now, it would happen without drawn blades and blood.

"They're sending tow galleys out for us," Otah said. "It will all be fine."

The galleys, with their flashing banks of white oars and ornamental ironwork rails, reached the great ship just after midday. With a great clamor of voices-protests, laughter, orders, counterorders-thick cables of hemp were made fast to the ship's deck. The sails were already down, and with the sound of a bell clanging like an alarm, Otah's ship lurched, shifted directly into the wind, and began the last, shortest leg of his journey home.

A welcoming platform had been erected especially for the occasion. The broad beams were white as snow, and a ceremonial guard waited by a litter while a somewhat less ceremonial one kept the press of the crowds at a distance. Balasar and six of the Galtic High Council had made their way to Otah's ship in order to disembark with him. The Avenger with Ana and her parents would likely come next, after which the roar of competing etiquette masters would likely drown out the ocean. Otah was more than willing to leave the fighting for position and status for the dock master to settle out.

The crowd's voice rose when the ship pulled in, and again when the walk bridged the shifting gap between ship and land. His servants preceded him in the proper array and sequence, and then Otah left the sea. The noise was something physical, a wind built of sound. The ceremonial guard adopted poses of obeisance, and Otah took his ritual reply. The first of the guard to stand, grinning, was Sinja.

"You've shaved your whiskers," Otah shouted.

"I was starting to look like an otter," Sinja agreed. His expression became opaque and he bowed to Otah's right. "Balasar-cha."

"Sinja," Balasar said.

The past intruded. Once Sinja had played the part of Balasar's man, expert on the cities of the Khaiem and mercenary leader of war. He had spied on the Galts, betrayed Balasar, and killed the man Balasar held dearest to his heart. It thickened the air between them, even now. Balasar's eyes shifted to the middle distance, a frown on his lips as if he were counting how many of his dead might have lived, had Sinja remained true. And then the moment was gone. Or if not gone, covered over for the sake of etiquette.

The others of the Galtic party lurched in from the ship, unsteady on planks that didn't move, and the assembled masses cheered each of them like a hero returned from war. Servants dressed in light cotton robes led each sweating Galt to a waiting litter, Otah's station of honor making him the last to leave.

"I suspect they'll be changing to local clothes before long," Sinja said. "They all look half-dead with the heat."

"I'm feeling it myself," Otah said.

"Should I interrupt protocol?" Sinja asked. "I could have you loaded and on your way up the hills in the time it takes to kill a chicken."

"No," Otah said with a sigh. "If we're doing this, let's do it well. But ride with me, eh? I want to hear what's going on."

"Yes," Sinja said. "Well. You've missed some dramatics, but I don't think there's anything particularly ominous waiting. Except the pirates. And the conspiracy. You did get the report about the conspiracy in Yalakeht? It's apparently got ties to Obar State."

"Well, that's just lovely," Otah said.

"No more plague than usual," Sinja offered gamely, and then it was time and servants stepped forward to escort Otah to his litter. The shifting gait of his bearers was similar to being aboard ship, but also wrong. Between that and the heat, Otah was beginning to feel nauseated, but the buildings that passed by his beaded window were comforting. Great blue and white walls topped with roof tiles of gray and red; banners hanging in the slow, thick air; men and women in poses of welcome or else waving small lengths of brightly colored cloth. If it had been autumn or winter, the old firekeepers' kilns would have been lit and strange flames would have accompanied him up the wide streets to the palaces.