Hell's Gate

"Oh, Your Grand Highness," Relatha had sighed when Lady Merissa had finished buttoning her into a gown of ivory and silver brocade, trimmed with ermine and pearls. "You look a picture, so you do, just like your beautiful falcon. You ought to have a portrait done, just like that!"

Lady Merissa had paused and tipped her head to one side, considering.

"You know, Your Highness, she's right. You should have a portrait done with that gown and Finena on your arm. Ternathia's imperial grand princess and her imperial peregrine, symbol of the Empire for five mille

"If you insist," Andrin had muttered, thinking privately that her bird would outshine her.

A light cloak covered the brocade gown at the moment, protecting it from the brisk wind, although it was scarcely needed for warmth. It might be autumn, but it was warmer here than back home in Estafel, and the temperature had to be in the sixties. Palm trees grew along the hillsides, and the wind was merely brisk and cool, not chill. The cloak was enough to shield her elaborate gown from the capricious breeze, and it hid her nervous movement as her free hand smoothed the brocade u

She knew there was to be a formal reception and di

"We're nearly there, poppet," he said softly.

"Yes," she said simply. He hadn't called her that since her fifth birthday, and she smiled up at him, then lapsed back into silence and watched their final approach to Tajvana's passenger docks.

The captain rang down "Finished with Engines," an the chuffing paddlewheel tugboats moved in, pushing with bluff bows to ease Windtreader alongside an ornate, marble-faced quay aflutter with official flags of every nation on Sharona. A mob of carriages and people dressed in elaborate finery cluttered the long pier, well back from the longshoremen waiting for the ship's lines.

Paddlewheels churned white froth, Windtreader quivered as her thirty thousand-ton bulk nuzzled against the massive fenders, and steam-driven windlasses clattered as mooring cables went over the waiting bollards and drew snug. Crisp orders and acknowledgments went back and forth, and more steam hissed as it vented through the fu

And then, for the first time in almost a week, the deck under Andrin's feet was motionless once more.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Music drifted across the pier from a surprisingly large band, as the Ternathian imperial anthem floated to their ears in an appropriate salute to the arriving delegation. The imperial sunburst crackled from every mast as the longshoremen ran out the boarding gangway which would allow them to disembark, and Andrin's father lifted his arm from her shoulder, then offered her the crook of his elbow, instead.

"My dear, shall we greet Tajvana?"

She gave him a brave smile and nodded, placing her gloved hand on his coat sleeve with careful precision. Lady Merissa removed Andrin's bo

When they reached the gangway, Andrin released her father's arm to manage her skirts, concentrating carefully on the placement of her feet. The last thing she wanted to do was to trip and fall flat on her face in front of Tajvana's waiting dignitaries. She made it safely to the quay, shook out her heavy skirts, and placed her hand back on her father's waiting arm with a serene smile that belied the tremors in her knees.

The band was swirling and skirling its way through the fourth verse of the imperial anthem as she and her father stepped onto a long, purple carpet that ran from the side of their ship to the center of the quay, where an immense crowd waited. A veritable sea of faces peered toward them, leaving Andrin's fingers damp inside her formal gloves. When they'd crossed the carpet, they came to a halt before a semicircle of elegantly attired dignitaries. One of them, a short broad man in the elaborate robes of the Order of Bergahl, was obviously the Seneschal of Othmaliz himself.

Andrin gazed at him thoughtfully as Finena shifted on her gauntleted wrist. The falcon opened her beak but didn't?quite?hiss, which surprised Andrin, given what she could could sense of her companion's emotions. It was obvious Finena didn't much like him, but Andrin hoped the bird's agitation would be put down to the crowd about them, and not to her reaction to the Seneschal. It would never do to begin their visit here by insulting Othmaliz's ruler, yet, Finena's reaction left Andrin wondering just what it was about the man the falcon disliked.

She knew the history of the Order of Bergahl, although not in the sort of detail she suddenly wished she could command. Bergahl had been the patron deity of Tajvana before Ternathia had arrived. He was a war god, and a god of judgment, whose followers had been pledged to the militant pursuit of justice. The Empire, with its long history of religious toleration, had accepted the religious beliefs of its new capital's people, although the emperors had insisted that civil law was now the business of the imperial justicars, and not Bergahl's priesthood. The Empire had made no objection to the Order retaining its position as the administrator of religious law, however, and with Ternathia's withdrawal from Tajvana, it had gradually reemerged as the dominant force in secular matters, as well. That was really all she could recall, although she also seemed to remember reading somewhere that the Order had been none too scrupulous about how it went about regaining its previous power in the wake of the Empire's withdrawal.

A functionary standing in front of the Seneschal bowed low and greeted them in fluent Ternathian.

"His Crowned Eminence, the Seneschal of Othmaliz, bids greeting to the Emperor of Ternathia and the Grand Princess Andrin. Be graciously welcome in this city. It has been many fine centuries since Ternathia last stood upon its shores."

Her father's arm turned to stone under Andrin's hand, and she heard someone gasp behind them. She didn't know why that phrase had drawn such a violent reaction, but it was quite obvious her father had just been profoundly insulted, and it had to have something to do with that last sentence. After all, this wasn't the first time the Emperor had visited Tajvana, and everyone knew it. For that matter, Ternathia had withdrawn from Othmaliz less than three hundred years ago, which scarcely qualified as "many fine centuries." So why include the phrase in a formal greeting? What sort of point or message could the man be trying to deliver?

She didn't have any idea, but she didn't have to understand the insult to realize one had just been offered. Rather than go hot, her cheeks drained white, and her eyes went cold as gray ice as she stared through the Seneschal as though he didn't exist. Neither she nor her father spoke, and an uneasy stir ran through the crowd behind the Seneschal. Even the functionary, who was doubtless repeating verbatim a speech he'd been carefully instructed to deliver, seemed to realize his Seneschal had blundered gravely, and his face did darken … with embarrassment, not anger.