Phoenix Unbound
Page 65

Azarion guided his horse closer to Gilene’s. “Erakes will offer you a qara of your own during our visit.”
A tiny frown marred her brow. “Why would he do that? Am I not your concubine?”
How he wished it were so in more than name and assumption. “You’re an agacin first and will be given the choice of where you’ll sleep.” He was tempted to cajole her into staying with him. Not once had she slept in a different place than he since his return to the Savatar, and while he missed her next to him on the same pallet, he had grown accustomed to having her nearby.
Azarion stayed silent, hoping she’d refuse Erakes’s offer in favor of sharing a qara with him. It lent more credence to her support of him as the new ataman of Clan Kestrel, but the choice was ultimately hers.
“I’m not interested in my own qara,” she said. “I share one with you at home. There’s no reason I shouldn’t do so here.”
It was a good thing he was an adept rider, or he would have fallen off his horse from shock. Gilene referred to the Kestrel camp as home. Azarion schooled his expression into a bland mask. She remained unaware of her very telling reference, only arching her eyebrows at his delayed response.
“As you wish,” he said. He inwardly rejoiced at this small slip of the tongue, this peek into her thoughts. A hope he dared not nurture flared to life inside him. Would she change her mind? Turn her back on Beroe and stay with the Savatar? Stay with him if he asked?
Clan Eagle’s population was easily five times greater than Clan Kestrel’s. While all clan atamans were considered equal on council, an unspoken deference was shown to Erakes Ataman by the other chiefs. As the ataman of the biggest, wealthiest clan, he wielded considerable influence. His word might not be law, but it carried weight. Only the Fire Council equaled him in influence, a fact the agacins were quick to remind him of at every joint council session.
Now the camp had swelled to twice its size with the arrival of the other clan leaders and their entourages. Azarion and his group navigated a path through the encampment, passing curious onlookers who gathered to welcome the new ataman and the outlander agacin who accompanied him.
Erakes met them at the entrance to an enormous qara. The qara Azarion inherited from Karsas would have easily fit inside it with room to spare.
He, Gilene, and his retinue of subchiefs and Kestrel warriors dismounted to stand before Erakes. All save Gilene saluted him with flattened hands thumped over their hearts.
Erakes eyed them in silence before he suddenly grinned and yanked the taller Azarion into his arms for a rib-cracking embrace.
Azarion’s healing shoulder and back spasmed. It took every bit of control he possessed not to instinctively hurl the ataman away from him.
“Stop!”
The entire camp froze at Gilene’s exclamation.
Erakes’s arms fell away. He turned to face the woman who dared shriek at him, and Azarion inhaled a grateful breath.
“Did you not know?” she said in slow, careful Savat. “Azarion Ataman was injured while fighting Karsas and is still healing.”
Erakes’s thunderhead scowl dissipated. His gaze swung back to Azarion, sweeping him from head to toe. “You look well enough. Where were you wounded?”
“Shoulder and back.” Azarion gestured to Gilene with one hand. “I’m honored by the agacin’s concern for my health.”
He hadn’t missed the way Erakes’s hand had dropped to his sword pommel at Gilene’s protest, as if he’d been tempted to skewer her for such blatant impertinence. A quick reminder that she was one of Agna’s handmaidens seemed prudent.
The wide smile Erakes wore earlier returned. “The affection of one of Agna’s blessed is no easy thing to win. Killing Karsas was a far easier task.” He offered Gilene a bow, acknowledging her status as a sacred agacin before all his clan. “Welcome to my encampment, Agacin. Clan Eagle is honored by your visit and that of Azarion Ataman.”
She bowed in return. “I am honored to be here, Erakes Ataman.”
Erakes ushered them all into his qara. Servants showed them to places where they could sit and rest in luxury. Numerous lamps ringed the dwelling, and the scent of roasting meat filled the air, making Azarion’s mouth water.
The qara was a crowded place, filled with Erakes’s family and servants as well as the atamans from the other clans. Each called a greeting to Azarion, along with congratulations on reclaiming his clan’s chieftainship.
A finely dressed woman directed the servants with efficient ease. Azarion recognized her as Erakes’s wife, though the ataman didn’t introduce her to his guests.
He bellowed for wine, mare’s milk, and food to share with the visitors. It was the start of a drawn-out process involving generous hospitality and hard-driving negotiation.
Gregarious by nature, and a hedonist with great appetites for food, music, drink, and women, Erakes was a shrewd negotiator and an ambitious clan chieftain—exactly the kind of man Azarion’s plan might appeal to if presented the right way.
He would have to be careful. Iruadis himself had once said Erakes made for a loyal friend and a dangerous enemy. He was Savatar through and through, proud of his heritage and the land that birthed him and the many generations of his ancestors before him. His love for the Sky Below was superseded only by his hatred for the Empire.
He and Azarion swapped stories between them, including Erakes’s recollections of growing up with Iruadis and the scrapes they got into as boys. Azarion, for his part, spoke briefly of his enslavement to the Empire and watched as Erakes’s genial mood darkened. Azarion turned the conversation to a lighter subject before the ataman grew even grimmer. They bantered with the other atamans and subchiefs for the next hour about inconsequential things, each man measuring the other as either potential ally or adversary in future dealings. Nearby, Gilene sat among six of the nine agacins, carrying on her own conversation or listening to the atamans’ conversations, her expression guarded and hawkeyed.
A servant girl approached Erakes and whispered in his ear. He nodded and sent her off before turning back to Azarion. “We have a qara for you and one for the agacin if she wishes it. Your subchiefs are welcome to stay with other families.” He held his cup up to a servant for a refill of wine. “The last of the atamans, Tulogan of Clan Lynx, will arrive late tonight. We’ll all get a good sleep and meet here again tomorrow once the sun has burned away the ground fog and hear what you have to say. Until then, I bid you all good evening.”
They were dismissed and escorted out by more of the efficient servants. After declining the qara for the agacin, Azarion and Gilene followed one of the servants to a qara set near the camp’s center.
Once inside, Azarion surveyed their surroundings, noting its many luxuries.
“This isn’t nearly as big as Erakes’s qara,” Gilene said as she wandered the interior, pausing at various spots to admire the silk rugs that lined the floor and the elaborately embroidered hangings that graced the walls. “But it’s certainly as opulent.”
“It probably belongs to one of Erakes’s subchiefs.”
Carved stools joined plush backrests for those who preferred not to sit on the ground. Velvet coverlets in jewel colors draped pallets, and the lit candles smelled of beeswax instead of tallow.
“Does it appeal to you?”
The few belongings he possessed and those that became his at Karsas’s death were basic by comparison. Clan Kestrel had never been as large or as wealthy as Clan Eagle, even at its height.