Io Triumphe
Once upon a time, the general who had triumphed in a campaign to defend and extend the empire had made his first approach to the city of Carthak before dawn. In the dark and still outside the Sacred Wall, he heaped up a primitive altar, with his own hand wielding the implement with which the earth was turned up and piled, and there - by terrible and ancient obligation - he immolated his highest-ranking prisoner to the Graveyard Hag. Then he headed his victory procession, smeared with sacrificial blood and glowing and white-hot like a god, with mages raising him above the shoulders of the crowd as he marched in front of his soldiers and captives. Thus accepting the obeisance of the people, he slowly made his way through the city, until at last, late in the afternoon sun, he was washed and purified before the temple of Mithros, where he burned holy and clean offerings on the altar. In the old days not even the emperor had taken precedence but had stood apart as merely one of the noblemen who knelt with all the citizens as supreme power and priesthood was yielded for a day.
One could argue (and Kaddar would not stand against it) that such archaic brutality was unnecessary; they said that even Kaddar's father Ghazanoi, who on the strength of his marriage into the imperial house had been the last general permitted to make the full victory procession after his first triumph over the southern Shushini, had made only a symbolic sacrifice to the goddess. But there were surely some here, Kaddar thought as he looked out over the crowds gathering around the Imperial Hill on specially-erected scaffolds and packing the streets far beyond them, who could tell stories of the great victories over Ekallatum and Yamut in the reign of Fazim Gold-Born. Did they think their rulers had become soft, or were they glad to be a more merciful people? Did they wonder and mutter that there was no propitiation of the gods, no formal thanksgiving? Did it even cross their minds to resent that Carthak's greatest generals and the recent representatives of her ancient military pride were being denied their traditional debt of glory? Or were they happy enough with this abbreviated spectacle that merely affirmed the emperor's supreme place? What did the soldiers feel? Was this enough exaltation and glory to compensate for the hard life and hard discipline of war? What would it have been like, indeed to witness one of those legendary, primitive triumphs of not even a century past? What would it have meant to be a young officer in training, to have struggled through a difficult and uncertain campaign for a year or more, and to finally see the fruits in that mysterious, ecstatic procession?
Of course, he could reason, these wars were no longer wars of expansion and conquest but of mild pacification, and the Emperor's aegis rightfully stood over and guided every commander, whether he fighting in the field or triumphant in the capital. To extend, moreover, even a day's outstanding primacy to any general was a risk; to an ambitious one it was an invitation for a more dangerous kind of rebellion. Kaddar himself - in the confines of his mind he could be honest with himself and admit that he valued the old ways, but were he (Mithros forfend the thought) on the imperial throne, he would not want to extend such an honor to a Metorat. Still, he thought, as he took his place on the Royal Steps, he would have said that it was neither pious nor conducive to a stable government to neglect the outward forms of religion, or to abandon so entirely the spirit of ancestral ways.
Artificial breezes of the mages had kept the court pavilion cooled to a glittering and comfortable warmth under the morning's late summer sun. In the corner of the court, with the lesser nobles and the representatives of University, Mistress Kingsford and Master Reed looked stiff and uncomfortable. It was as if even all the sorcery that fully-trained mages could muster could not penetrate the thick Eastern-style clothing under their robes or shade bodies that had not been born for the heat. Or perhaps, Kaddar conceded, eying his teacher at the very edge of his line of vision, they were uncomfortable at such a display of Carthaki power. He wondered briefly what Master Reed would have made of the old ritual.
General Metorat's parade was approaching the Steps, having made a shortened and more decorous passage through the city. The old approach would have come from the west, circling the shrine of Thak the Hero and old amphitheater, then past the temple of Shakith, the basilica of the Black God, and up the Imperial Hill to the Temple of Mithros. But today they processed from the harbor directly to the back of the Palace district and the eastern foot of the Imperial Hill. Horns, trumpets, and fifes sounded the battle-alarum, but the army - or at least the selected companies of soldiers - were orderly behind their officers. From the second tier of the Steps, the spectacle looked like a red and gold dragon displaying its scintillated crests where the sunlight caught and flashed on a spear or a helmet. The rebellious Shushini lords had adopted a great snake as a symbol of their attempt at power, and Kaddar knew that some of the captives were perforce carrying banners showing the emperor's hyena and stormwing clutching and tearing the upstart emblem. Ironic, that the army as a whole was revivifying it writ large on the city of Carthak itself. But as General Metorat halted his army at the foot of the hill to await the signal to proceed, the snake disappeared into the disciplined military core at the heart of the mass of Carthaki populace that seemed to stretch out as far as the horizon.
The trumpets and crumhorns blared, and, like an actor in a play, Kaddar dropped to his knees and bowed his head to the ground in a full obeisance as the emperor appeared. The court ranked along the tiers of the Steps down the hill knew their parts in the spectacle, however degenerate an imitation of that pure and rugged ancient ritual it might be. Yet Kaddar still felt his heart catch a little at the true majesty of the sight as he rose with the rest of the court. This was the greatness of the peoples of Carthaki and their far-flung domains. He was afraid that the selfishness and impiety of one man might forfeit it all.
Duke General Metorat was a short stocky man with a pointed chin and a pointed nose that looked too small for his flushed face. He was plainly sweating in his parade uniform, with his dour face composed into a look of gratitude and a sense of being honored. They were nothing alike, but Kaddar wondered if he would never be able to see a standard-bearing general of Carthak in full dress without thinking of his own father. He wished he could turn away. As the emperor raised his general and turned him to face the people in victory, Kaddar wondered what kind of father-in-law Hego Metorat would be to his sister. An absent one, most likely. Would that be a relief for Tecmesso, or would it mean the loss of the only slight source of decency in her husband's household?
Absorbed in his thoughts, Kaddar nearly missed Farid Baeculsikh as he passed by with the general's officers and junior legates. Maharcal's brother looked straight ahead as he marched up to the dais to be greeted and personally rewarded by his Emperor. A fine day for a loyal soldier indeed. By now the sun was high. The fan-bearers' and mages' efforts were poorer protection against the heat, and none against the glare of polished armor as it marched by. Kaddar would have liked to slip away; he was not a child to be delighted by mountains of tribute and treasures. But a prince had duties, and a slave slipped to kneel with a small basket of coin as the soldiers began to pass. Although they were walking in full kit in companies and accompaniment to the carts and bands of captives, they appeared, for the most part, to be admirable specimens of Carthaki manhood: untired by the final slope up the Imperial Hill. Not so the Shushini prisoners straining and groaning to bring their emperor the tribute their rebellion had denied him, or weeping in their chains and once-fine silken robes. But for them Kaddar could spare little thought as he pressed coins into rough palms, smiled graciously, thanked men them for their service in the emperor's name. Some stopped to grip his hand and others to kiss it; a few looked up in surprise at finding that he did not entirely lack a fighting man's callouses. It occurred to him that he might someday witness this spectacle from the other side, when he himself became a junior officer. Or more likely, that he would have experienced it in some other world. He was no longer the sort of nobleman who learned his manhood on campaign.
Near the end of the train, one man, a column-sergeant, looked at him hard then pointed, as he called to his company: "It's Ghazanoi's son!"
A cheer went up, and Kaddar felt a lump in his chest and heat behind his eyes. "It's an honor to my father's name and a great gift to me that you remember his service."
But the pleasant pain of remembrance vanished when out of the corner of his eye he saw what might have been a thoughtful expression settle on his uncle's face. You have to fix this, and you have to act now. He smiled, as cheerfully and unfalsely as he could. Grabbing the basket from the astonished boy, he tossed its remaining contents over the last of the soldiers. "For Emperor Ozorne! Long may he triumph!"
The men were ready and eager to pick up the cheer. "To the Emperor! To Ozorne! Triumph to Emperor Ozorne!" Kaddar didn't dare to look at his uncle, but clapped with the rest of the court.
A spontaneous eruption of support from the army was a fine way for the emperor's triumph to end. The court repaired to an upper pavilion that caught what breeze a summer evening offered, where slaves were even now setting out tables and couches and beginning to bring cool melons and sherbets iced with mountain snow to satisfy their masters. In the city below, every freeborn subject was feasting on meat and bread and a cup of wine at the emperor's expense; here, at the table on the dais, the wine itself was flecked with minute particles of gold.
General Metorat and his senior officers were honored to recline at the emperor's table, while Kaddar exercised imperial hospitality to the junior legates. Although they praised the emperor's generosity and urged each other to try the different dishes, they were far more decorous than young noblemen celebrating their first triumph might be expected to be. They would have liked, Karadd suspected, to toast their fallen comrades and indulge in more celebration than they felt was permissible just here. For his part, he was politely solicitous: he felt out of place among older and experienced men, who, in other circumstances, would have seen him as a boy to be impressed with the stories of the life he would one day begin himself. But he was not simply a younger cousin or brother, and his rank seemed to enforce a restrained politeness was plainly strained and constraining to everyone. He felt that he was being quite a failure as a host
"After a day in the sun in full kit, I daren't drink more than the toasts, Your Highness," said one man by way of apology as he waved away the wine-pourer.
With evident reluctance his companion followed suit, glancing toward the emperor's table. Kaddar dared to misinterpret his look. "Is the General a very strict commander, then?"
"Oh not so much, Your Highness. He worked the men hard enough-"
"And us too!" There were laughs and nods of agreement.
"-But there was never any pretense that we ought to be Utikensi's men." The heroic general had forced his army through the desert of Siraj with no provisions, and no distinctions of rank for any of his men. One of the legates nudged the speaker and whispered something, causing a heavy blush to immediately darken his olive skin.
"Forgive me, Highness – I hadn't heard the news, that you and General Metorat are to become kin. No one could be more worthy to earn his family such an honor than the general. He is honorable, steadfast, and loyal, Prince Kaddar," the legate continued earnestly, "and he is sure to have instilled the same virtues in his son."
There were assents and cheers. One of his companions showed approval by pounding the speech-maker on the back, and he ducked his head shyly in a vain attempt to conceal the embarrassment that his light complexion made plain.
The other officers were quick to take up the theme.
-"Congratulations, Your Highness!"
-"May your sister quickly give Old Measurer grandsons!"
-"Just imagine what a son she could bear for Carthak, with two such grandfathers!"
On the excitement of that last wish, the brief moment of genuine warmth provoked by the thoughts of marriage, children, and the continuance of military dynasties passed back into politely muffled sounds of eating.
"Will you follow your famous father, Your Highness, and hold the military offices?" ventured someone at last.
The question had been dancing at the edge of Kaddar's thoughts all day, but he had not let it come to the forefront of his mind. In only a few more years, he would be old enough to hold a junior post. Were he not the emperor's heir, were his father still alive, were he not his father's son...Before his father's death and before his adoption, he would have hated the thought and fought against it. Now, being more attuned to duty and opportunity, to the fragility of real friendship and camaraderie, he was not as sure.
"My desire is to serve the Carthaki people however I may," he said quietly. "But it not for me to venture to say how."