Lord of Emperors by Guy Gavriel Kay Read Free Book Online Page B

that he’d realized how far he intended to go, though he’d never been away from home in his life and winter was coming.
    They’d tried to dissuade him later, but Pardos was a stubborn young man and not easily swayed when his mind and heart were set. He needed to put a distance between himself and what had happened in that sanctuary—what had been done by his own tribe and blood. None of his colleagues and friends were Antae, they were all Rhodian-born. Perhaps that was why they didn’t feel the shame as fiercely as he did.
    Winter roads to the east might have their dangers, but as far as Pardos was concerned, they could not be worse than what was about to happen here among his people with the queen gone and swords drawn in holy places.
    He wanted to see Crispin again, and to work with him, far away from the tribal wars that were coming. Coming again. They had been down this dark path before, the Antae. Pardos would go a different direction this time.
    They’d had no word from Martinian’s younger, more intense partner since a single relayed message sent from a military camp in Sauradia. That letter hadn’t even been addressed to them, it had been delivered to an alchemist, a friend of Martinian’s. The man—Zoticus was his name—had passed on word that Crispin was all right, at least to that point in his journey. Why he’d written the old man and not his own partner or mother was not explained, or at least not to Pardos.
    Since then, nothing, though Crispin would probably have reached Sarantium by now—if he’d reached it at all. Pardos, with his own decision to leave now firm in his mind, latched onto an image of his former teacher and announced an intention to follow him to the Imperial City.
    When they realized he wasn’t to be dissuaded, Martinian and his wife Carissa turned their considerable energies to making sure Pardos was properly prepared for the journey. Martinian lamented the recent—and very sudden—departure of his alchemical friend, a man who apparently knew a great deal about the roads east, but he succeeded in canvassing opinions and suggestions from various well-travelled merchants who were former clients. Pardos, who was proud to say he knew his letters, was provided with carefully written-out lists of places to stay and to avoid. His options were limited, of course, since he couldn’t afford to bribe his way into the Imperial Inns en route, but it was still useful to learn of those tavernsand cauponae where a traveller stood a higher-than-usual chance of being robbed or killed.
    One morning, after the sunrise invocations in the small, ancient chapel near the room he shared with Couvry and Radulph, Pardos went—somewhat embarrassed—to visit a cheiromancer.
    The man’s chambers were towards the palace quarter. Some of the other apprentices and craftsmen working on the sanctuary had been inclined to consult him, seeking advice in gambling and love, but that didn’t make Pardos feel easier about what he was doing.
    Cheiromancy was a condemned heresy, of course, but the clergy of Jad walked carefully here in Batiara among the Antae, and the conquerors had never entirely abandoned some aspects of their past beliefs. The door had been openly marked with a signboard showing a pentagram. A bell rang when it opened, but no one appeared. Pardos went into a small, dark front room and, after waiting for a time, rapped on an unsteady counter there. The seer came out from behind a beaded curtain and led him, unspeaking, into a windowless back room warmed only by a small brazier and lit with candles. He waited, still silent, until Pardos had placed three copper folles on the table and spoken his question.
    The cheiromancer gestured to a bench. Pardos sat down carefully; the bench was very old.
    The man, who was rail-thin, dressed in black and missing the little finger of his left hand, took Pardos’s short, broad hand and bent his head over it, studying the palm for a long time by the light of the