A Fall of Princes by Judith Tarr Page A

mouth were chains, and the world itself his prison.
    o0o
    They were not like his brothers and their accomplices in
Pri’nai. No one was careless here, or underrated Hirel for his youth and his
prettiness and his sheltered innocence. When morning came, he was still in the
camp, and Zhiani made much of his leaving, sighing and kissing him and heaping
him with gifts.
    He had decided to let her live. She was only a savage; she
could not know what she had done to him.
    Perhaps he might take her with him. She was no fit wife for
a high prince, but she made a remarkable concubine. No one in Kundri’j had
anything like her.
    If he ever saw Kundri’j again. But he would take her. For
comfort. For company.
    She bathed him, kissing him wherever the fancy took her,
nibbling here and there, but when desire rose and he reached for her, she eeled
away.
    “No more,” she said in deep regret. She dressed him with a
little less playful wantonness, and clearly she did not approve of the breeches
that he had insisted on.
    “Woman,” she muttered. “Woman-weak.” But she helped him into
them, skin-snug as they were, and fastened the codpiece with rather more
pleasure, and the heavy plated belt; then settled the embroidered coat, leaving
it open so that the gold of her first gift shone clear on his chest.
    Last of all she brought out the high soft boots, and in her
mind they seemed to make up for the effeminacy of the breeches. Small feet were
much prized among these broad-footed savages; his, narrow and fine and only
lightly calloused, the scars of his wandering beginning to fade, delighted her
almost as much as the golden brightness of his hair.
    When she was done, he looked like a prince again, cropped
head and all. He saw it in her eyes. She brushed his eyelids with royal gold,
caressing as she did it; her finger traced a curve on his cheek. Asking with
silent eloquence. Offering paints: gold, scarlet, green.
    Almost he yielded, but he had a little sense left. “No,” he
said firmly. “No more.”
    She sighed, but she withdrew, holding back the flap of her
tent.
    The others were waiting. Nine painted, jangling, kilted
giants holding the bridles of their tall seneldi; and Sarevan.
    Sarevan on his own feet, painted and jangling and kilted
like any Zhil’ari buck, with his hair in two narrow braids flanking his face and
a long tail behind, and a red-eyed, red-maned demon of a stallion goring the
air beside him.
    He turned toward Hirel; his face was a terror, painted in
barbaric slashes of white and yellow, his beard braided with threads of gold.
But his arrogance was the same, and the white flash of his teeth. “You took
your time, cubling,” he said.
    “I had help.” Hirel looked about. “Am I permitted to ride?
Or must I be bundled on a packbeast?”
    “You ride,” Sarevan said. He gestured; a boy led forward a
tiger-striped mare.
    She was not as tall as the others, though still no pony, and
she was no great beauty. Her like would never have been suffered in Hirel’s
stables in Kundri’j. But she moved well, and she had a bright wicked eye in her
narrow head, and when Hirel took the bridle she snorted and stamped and
threatened him with her teeth.
    He laughed. He liked a senel with a temper.
    He vaulted into the odd high saddle with its softening of
fleeces, its festoons of straps and rings and bags. But there was a senel under
it all, lightly bitted and gathering to test him, and if there was anything he
could do, it was ride. Shorn, captive, and thrice betrayed, in this at least he
had come home.
    The others were mounting. Azhuran had come while Hirel was
absorbed in his mount, and Zhiani was close by her father, watching him speak
to Sarevan.
    Hirel nudged the mare toward them. Sarevan ended his
colloquy and mounted lightly, favoring his wounded shoulder only a little.
    Azhuran saluted Hirel. “Good morning, little stallion,” he
said.
    Hirel inclined his head. “You have been most generous. I
thank you; if ever I can