The Totem-Maker (part one hundred forty-eight)

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Thirteen

The Citadel

(part one hundred forty-eight)

“And yet nothing in his nature, nothing he is able to think of, will turn him aside. He embraces the old, distrusts the new. He cannot see that life only too much goes on, after great death and sacrifice, and that his own death and failure are as the ashes of his fires. The Citadel will make the terms of trade more punishing, and the Emperor will find his next prince.”

“Well. I suspect he won’t, as he has very little money. He will be overthrown.”

“Samatho wouldn’t rather become the instrument of that overthrow? Retire to a lovely province, which he might be given command of?”

“I think you know that cannot be at all.”

“When a man can have much of what he likes today, be alive to have more of it later… And with no punishment if he weighs and measures, does half a task, explains why this or that prevents the doing of more…”

“A particular man?”

“Any. Side by side with those who complete what they’ve pledged,” I gave this phrase a sarcastic accent, “are those I mention, who spare themselves the journey’s end by being always at a jog, busily along the path. Such men live, and dictate histories to their scribes.”

I have told how we’d spread our caravan along the mountain road, and of the great bustle of traffic in the town of Aran. Egdoah trotted up to ride a head behind me, and only the sight of him gave me reminder…

That he was the Prince’s second watchman, over me, keeping Castor’s willfulness in check. Through our talk Egdoah made noises of agreement. I allowed he might even have progressed in the language of Monsecchers; I had given him tiles to play with, told him words to name them by, showed him how their juxtaposition could form sentences.

In the northern tongue, I said: “Egdoah. Can you carry a message to the Prince?”

I gestured across the valley. “That is he, camped below. He has counsel he prefers to mine, and has done what I warned against.”

“If you say go, I will go.”

“When, let us agree. The Prince may be in the act of bargaining, he may have an envoy at the zhatabe’s court. If so, I will keep your service.”

Our strange parade entered a city now, clattering with an echo of hooves up a paved avenue, between walls of growing height, to the paradisical indulgence of the palace garden.

152

The Citadel

The Totem-Maker (part one)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)