MAR HAD LEARNED long ago that if you walked with a purpose, and nodded at the people you passed, everyone who saw you assumed you had business, and let you go without comment. She found that this was as true in Tenebro House as it had been in the streets of Navra. So far, none of the people in the passages, most wearing the livery of servants or guards, had done more than return her nods, and many not even that much. If anyone asked her, she planned to say she was looking for the Scholar to return his play, and she had it in her gown pocket for proof. But also in that pocket was a piece of drawing chalk she had pilfered from a box in Lan-eLan’s rooms after luncheon.
Every now and then she would make sure no one was looking, and chalk a mark low on the wall, pattern marks like weavers used to record how a pattern had been woven. Meaningless to anyone else, they would tell Mar which passages led toward exits, and which deeper into the House.
She didn’t have a plan, exactly, but Dhulyn Wolfshead had once said that you should always be sure of the way out.
She had just backtracked out of a passage that led only to bedrooms and was trying another turning when she saw there was someone sitting in the seat fitted into the window embrasure halfway up the passage on the right. She fixed a modest smile on her lips and prepared to stride purposefully by when recognition made her slow her steps.
“Gundaron,” she said, her heart beating faster. He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, staring at his clasped hands. He didn’t look up.
“Scholar.” Mar raised a tentative hand to touch him on the shoulder. He shuddered and straightened, showing her a pale face with dark circles under the eyes.
Gundaron blinked, for a moment not recognizing the silhouette, backlit by the branched candlesticks farther down the passage. Scholar, he thought, shaking his head and blinking again to clear the fog from his brain. This was Mar-eMar. He straightened. Had she asked him a question?
Mar motioned with her hand and Gundaron shifted over. The window seat was more than wide enough for them to share.
“I said, are you all right? You look very pale.”
“I don’t know,” he glanced around. “I must have dozed off. I… I don’t remember.”
“Did you hit your head? What’s the last thing you do remember?”
“Pasillon.” The word popped out of his mouth before he could stop it. “Oh, Caids,” he said, as the scene in the Kir’s workroom came spilling into his mind. What was he doing sitting here? How did he get here? The light spun, and he clutched at the hand Mar had placed on his arm to steady himself.
“Who is Pasillon?”
Could he tell her? Certainly he had to give her some reason for the fear he saw mirrored in her face.
“Not a who, a what. When I was a boy, in the Library at Valdomar, I used to sneak downstairs, late at night when I was supposed to be asleep, to read the books we weren’t old enough to read yet.” He swallowed, and a smile’s ghost rested a moment on his lips. “There was one in particular, the Book of Gabrian, that told of Pasillon.”
Mar-eMar settled herself, half-turned toward him, her face steady and unsmiling.
“It’s a plain,” he said. “Far to the west of here and south, in the country that’s now Lebmuin. The plain has another name now, but when it was Pasillon, there was a great battle there, between two city-states, Tragon and Conchabar. It was Tragon that won.”
“I’ve never heard of them.”
“Practically no one has, but that’s not why people remember Pasillon.” Gundaron twisted to face her. “There were Mercenary Brothers on both sides-”
“Both sides?”
“They’re like Scholars, the Brotherhood, free of all countries, citizens of the world. And during battle-” All at once Gundaron was back in his midnight Library, shivering in the cold. Mar took his hands in hers and began chafing them. “During battle they’ll kill each other, if they come upon other Mercenaries on the opposing side. They think it’s the best way to die, at the hands of one of their own.”
Mar drew down her brows, nodding. “Yes, that’s what they would think.”
Gundaron took a deep breath and released it slowly. He could feel sweat on his upper lip. He freed his hands from hers and rubbed them on the smooth cloth of his hose.
“That day, the day of the battle at Pasillon, the lord of Tragon had been killed, or maybe it was his son-I only read Gabrian that one time, so I’m not sure. But, with this special grievance, the Tragoni fought harder and won.” Gundaron looked closely into Mar’s face, searching for the glimmer that showed she understood. “But their loss made it a sour victory. And the taste of it left them angry, so they chose to take no prisoners. The Tragoni killed the Conchabari as they fled, allowing no one to surrender.”
“Oh, no.” Mar raised her shoulders and drew her sleeves down over her hands.
“But the Brotherhood, the Mercenaries, they had no reason to flee. Their Common Rule says that those who fight on the losing side submit to the victors and are ransomed by their own Brothers. But not that day. Not at Pasillon. Blinded by victory, enraged by its cost, the Tragoni pursued their fleeing enemy and fell upon any who stood in their way. They did not see why a Mercenary badge should buy someone’s life.
“They’d forgotten they had Mercenaries on their own side. And those men and women were quick to come to the aid of their Brothers. And then the real battle of Pasillon began.” Gundaron leaned back against the cold stone embrasure, eyes closed, looking back at the boy he had been, reading an exciting and forbidden book by candlelight when he should have been in bed.
“Exhausted, outnumbered,” he went on, “some injured, forty or fifty Mercenaries stood against more than five hundred. Gabrian describes how they stood back-to-back on a rise of ground and cut down wave after wave of enraged Tragoni until finally, long hours later, when the sun had set, three injured Brothers crept off in the darkness, leaving the rest to cover their escape. And finally, finally, the last Mercenary fell. The victors-the few Tragoni who were left, looked about them and shook their heads, thanking their gods that it was over.”
Gundaron blinked, and focused on Mar once more. Her eyes were wide, whites showing all around, and the corners of her mouth were turned down.
“Except it wasn’t over.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “The army of Tragon continued to die after that day. Not everyone, just the men who were there that day. Just the men who had killed Mercenaries. And the officers who did not stop them. And the lords who gave orders to the officers.
“People spoke of bad luck and the Curse of Pasillon, and many went to Healers and Finders and Menders, even Jaldean shrines, since they were soldiers, to see if the Sleeping God would cleanse them. The Healers saw no illness, the Finders found no poisons, the Menders nothing broken, and the Sleeping God slept on. But many shrines housed Scholars, and the Scholars saw that this was the work of the Brotherhood.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you see? It was the Mercenaries, the Brothers who escaped. They carried the story back to their Houses, and their Schools, and the Brotherhood acted, to teach everyone in the world that mistreated and betrayed Mercenaries would be avenged.” He looked away. “Will be. Still will be.”
“No, I understood that part. I don’t understand what made you think of all this now? Why you’re so frightened.”
He looked at her, licked his dry lips. Realizing that he could not tell her. Could not tell her of the look on Dhulyn Wolfshead’s face and the word Pasillon on her lips-Gundaron pressed his clasped hands between his knees to steady them.
“It was seeing the Mercenaries,” he said finally. “Not the tame ones who live here and guard the walls, but the strange ones, your Mercenaries. They made me think of it and I had a nightmare…”
The girl pressed her lips together, frowning. “Something else has happened.”
Gundaron looked down at his hands, suddenly clenched into fists without his even realizing it. What else happened? He’d been in the Kir’s workroom and Dhulyn Wolfshead had said “Pasillon,” and then… and then. Nothing.
He looked at Mar-eMar. His hands were shaking.
“Nothing,” he said. “There’s nothing there.” He pitched forward as the yawning blackness swallowed him again.
Dal-eDal shook the box of vera tiles, listening with half an ear to the rattle, spilled them onto the tabletop, and began laying them out in the Tarkin’s Cross, one of the old patterns, the Seer’s patterns. As a child he’d wished for the Sight, sometimes even pretended he had it, and he’d brought his box of tiles with him when he was summoned to Tenebro House on the death of his parents. If he’d been the Seer he’d pretended to be, would he be sitting now in his own Household, he wondered, his mother and father still alive? His sisters nearby instead of married away, and himself at home instead of a Steward he knew only through the man’s reports. But perhaps then he’d have been summoned to Gotterang after all, like little Cousin Mar, who might yet find herself in one of Lok-iKol’s windowless rooms, on the receiving end of uncomfortable questions, with the chance of an unwanted introduction to a highly-placed Jaldean staring her in the face.
While her cousin Dal-eDal sat in his room and played vera with himself.
Dal didn’t even bother to sweep the tiles back into their box when a knock sounded at the door.
“Come,” he said, looking up from the pattern on the table and smiling his inquiry at the man-at-arms who came in.
“I don’t know how you knew it, my lord, but you’re right. The upper armory’s been unlocked and restocked, though nothing’s missing from the lower armory, and nothing’s been delivered from outside so far as I can find out.”
Dal tapped the tabletop with the tile in his hand, keeping his face impassive. “And the other matter?”
“I did as you told me, my lord, and asked in the kitchens. The Scholar and the Kir are using the big workroom, leastways food and drink have been taken there, and up to the small room in the north tower as well. But there’s something else, my lord. Lights and braziers have been taken down to the western subcellar, the wine rooms.”
Dal lifted his eyebrows, but slowly, careful to keep his excitement off his face. Lights to the wine rooms were one thing, but lights and heat? He sat back in his chair. Wine rooms indeed. Cells didn’t stop being cells because you called them wine rooms. Light and heat down there, that meant new prisoners in the old cells. And new, unaccounted-for weapons in the armory? That gave him an idea of who the prisoners were.
If he was right, if the Mercenaries were still in the House-what, if anything, was he going to do about it?
He knew what his father would have done, if Lok-iKol had left Dal’s father alive to do anything. Mil-eMil would have gone straight to the nearest Mercenary House with his tale of kidnapping and forced imprisonment. And not because he wanted to remove an obstacle to his own ambition-he’d had none, though Lok-iKol had never believed it-but to protect the House. And maybe, said the voice of the little boy who still lived inside Dal, maybe just because it was the right thing to do.
What would my father do? he thought. Something more than stand back collecting information, that was certain. And what had happened to make him think of his father just now?
“Thank you, Juslyn, you’ve done well. Ask the Steward of Walls to be good enough to join me in the upper armory at his earliest convenience. I require his advice for a new sword.”
“Very good, my lord. Thank you, my lord.” The man-at-arms bowed his way out of the room, his crooked teeth showing in his wide grin.
Dal turned over the tile he’d set down and looked at it. The picture on its face was tiny, but unmistakable. A Mercenary of Swords. He sat up straight, concentrating on the tile. There had been something. Something that had made him think for a split second of his father. When he’d led the two Mercenaries through the halls to the trap point, something-a shiver of familiarity-about the man Lionsmane had triggered a thought, a memory. What had it been? He frowned, placed the Mercenary of Swords back into the olive-wood box and began sliding the others into his palm. No time to chase down stray thoughts now.
He closed the lid of the olive-wood box with a snap.
And if his one-eyed cousin was keeping four Mercenary Brothers in a cell and one in a nice room-when she wasn’t tied to a chair-what, precisely, could Dal do about it now?
A brisk knock, and Lan-eLan entered with a click of high heels. She shut the door behind her, leaning against the knob.
“Why knock if you don’t wait for me to say ‘enter’?” Dal said, good training bringing him to his feet. As usual, she ignored him. They’d long ago come to an understanding; a free exchange of information between them helped them both.
“Mar-eMar was told she’d get her lands back.”
Dal sat slowly, holding the edge of the table like an old man.
Lan nodded, a stiff smile on her lips. “She wondered, as innocent as you please, should she ask about it now or wait. I told her she should wait, of course, or speak to you.”
“Sound advice, in any case. Though she’d wait a long time. Do we even own the lands still?” Dal shook his head. It felt strange to know that once upon a time he’d been this naive himself. “Did she say what she’d done to expect this gift?”
“I gave her every chance to tell me,” Lan said, spreading her hands wide. “But the moment passed. She must have been asked for something…”
Dal thought he knew what Mar-eMar had been asked for-and what she’d brought. But why?
“I’ll find a chance to speak to her myself,” he said. “See what I can get from her.” Lan nodded and left as abruptly as she’d entered.
What was so important about these Mercenaries? Dal pushed his chair back from the table, stood, and picked up his box of tiles. He’d asked the Steward of Walls to meet him, and he’d better go. He could give the good Walls a nudge in the right direction. With luck, this affair might become his chance to finally do what his father had asked of him. Avenge his death. Stay alive himself.
Maybe the Mercenary Brothers would solve his problems for him.
“You sent for me, my lord?” Karlyn-Tan waited in the doorway of the old armory, letting his eyes adjust to the light of the oil lamps within the room, so much darker than the sunlight streaming into the passageway from slits high in the stone walls.
Dal-eDal looked up from the dagger he was examining. “We’re alone, Karlyn, or will be if you shut the door.”
Karlyn took a step forward and let the oaken door, reinforced with strips of iron, swing shut behind him. Sturdy wooden shelves lined the walls, and low tables divided the floor space into long sections with clear pathways leading toward the far end of the room. A fine layer of dust covered innumerable pieces of weaponry laid out in orderly rows, everything from a gilded mace to a dagger small enough to fit in a glove. Many pieces were ceremonial, or so jeweled as to be almost useless.
“What’s this Juslyn tells me about a new sword? Are you sure you don’t want one new-forged?”
“I’m afraid I misled Juslyn slightly.” Dal was looking him directly in the face, but Karlyn thought there was something stiff and unnatural about the man’s smile. “It’s not so much a new sword I’m looking for, as a particular one. My father’s, to be precise. I seem to remember it was among the effects I brought from my Household.”
Karlyn started off to the left, heading for the far corner. “If it was, this is the place to look, right enough. Private blades-family blades that is, or anything jeweled should be along here.”
“Do you remember my father?”
Karlyn nodded, without turning around. “I met him once, just before I became Walls. A big man, golden-haired like a lion.” Karlyn turned to look more carefully at the other man. “Like you. You must look quite like him, though I won’t lie to you, I don’t remember his face. That would be, let me think… I’ve been Steward of Walls in Tenebro House for fifteen years, and served almost as many before that, since my father brought me here. So close to twenty years ago.”
“The Tenebroso never objected to your father bringing you?”
“Because he was her husband, you mean?” Karlyn shook his head. This was a question he’d answered many times over the years. “His children by other women did not affect the succession. And she liked me,” he added, seeing that it was Dal he spoke to. “Trusted me enough to make me Walls when old Norwed-Gor died, though my father was gone himself by then.”
“A man’s made Walls of a House as much for his judgment as for his skills,” Dal said. “I think we may have need of your judgment now.”
Karlyn heard Dal’s last words, but at first they did not register. He had reached the section of the tables where the swords were laid out in wooden racks, hilts first. He had stopped at a particular sword about one third of the way down the rack on the left. A sword lacking the patina of dust worn by those around it. A sword he knew.
Dal’s father might very well have had a sword like this one; forged by a master, perfectly balanced, sharp along the full bottom and back perhaps two thirds of the top edge. But this was not Dal’s father’s sword. Karlyn knew this sword. Knew the horsehead pommel, knew the very slight nick in the guard. He’d had this sword in his hands within the last three days. And if her sword was here, then the red-haired, gray-eyed Mercenary and her companion had not, after all, left Tenebro House two days ago-Karlyn-Tan struck his thigh with his fist and turned on Dal-eDal.
“What do you know about this?”
“Little more than you.”
“You helped him, don’t deny it.”
Karlyn saw Dal consider reprimanding him for his tone, saw the noble’s face relax as he changed his mind.
“My cousin the Kir doesn’t always leave me in a position to refuse when he commands-as you very well know.”
Yes, Karlyn knew. Dal had come to the House a frightened boy, hostage for the good behavior of his mother and the safety of his sisters. The women were gone now, dead or married off, but the habits of years were not so easily shaken away.
“I heard the same story as you. The Mercenaries gone from the guard after the incident of the bad food, as their Common Rule requires. Mar-eMar’s escort seen leaving Gotterang by the North Gate. I was relieved when I learned that they were gone.”
“Looks like your relief is short-lived,” Karlyn said. And mine, he added to himself.
Dal was nodding, as he brushed the dust off the sword next to Dhulyn Wolfshead’s with a fingertip. “Lok’s not impressed by the Curse of Pasillon, you know. He says the power of the Brotherhood has passed, and there are too few of them left in the world to pose such a threat.”
“He’s a great one for logic, is the Kir,” Karlyn said, his anger rising hot enough to burn his throat. “But logic’s a two-edged blade, and can cut both ways.” He hefted the Mercenary’s blade for emphasis. “Even in these times, people have a way of dying when Mercenaries go missing or abused. How’s this for logic? If their numbers are fewer in these years, would they not be all the more careful of each other?”
“What is so important that Lok would put the whole House into danger this way?”
Karlyn spat to one side. “It’s that snake spawn Beslyn-Tor behind this.” Dal’s head jerked up, and his eyes narrowed as he studied Karlyn’s face. “Did you think I didn’t know? I’m Walls, for the Caids’ sake. That poison’s been coming to the House for months now.” Karlyn laid the sword back down in the rack. He’d never regretted having to let anyone into the House as much as he regretted having to let in the leader of the New Believers. Not that he much liked the Jaldean’s underlings either. Hard to make out which was worse, bona fide poisonous snakes, or their tail-kissing followers.
“What will you do?”
This time Karlyn did not trouble to hide his disgust. “I am Steward of Walls of Tenebro House,” he said. “My oath, and my responsibility are not to you, Lord Dal, nor to Lok-iKol, nor even to the Tenebroso herself. My Oath is to the House. And it is the House I will protect.”
Karlyn-Tan swept by him so brusquely that Dal had to take a step back to keep from being shoved off his feet. The hand that he put out to steady himself knocked against the rack of swords, setting the blades of some ringing like bells. The nearest blade was knocked from the rack entirely, its dusty tip rapping the tabletop sharply. This sword was marginally shorter than the Mercenary’s weapon, slightly curved and sharp on only the bottom edge. However, it, too, had an animal’s head for a pommel, this time, a mountain cat. One of the cat’s ears had been hammered flat, when the pommel itself had been used to strike a blow. Dal sucked in a breath, wrapped his hand around the cat’s head.
This was his father’s sword.
IT IS COLD. THE WOMEN HAVE ROSY CHEEKS IN PALE FACES; A FEW HAVE COVERED THEIR BLOOD-RED HAIR WITH SCARVES OR HOODS. THEY STAND IN A CIRCLE, HOLDING HANDS, EYES CLOSED. ALL CHANTING THE SAME WORDS, OVER AND OVER. ONE OF THEM APPEARS TO BE HERSELF, OLDER, BUT WHERE IS HER MERCENARY BADGE? SHE TREMBLES…
AND SEES THE FIRE. THE MOB MILLING ABOUT IN FRONT, THE FLAMES LICKING AT THE WINDOWS. THERE ARE CHILDREN INSIDE, AND UNLESS SOMEONE ARRIVES IN TIME TO SAVE THEM-
Blood. And. Demons. Dhulyn turned on her side, hugging herself in the feathery warmth of the bed. That was the Finder’s fire in Navra, certain sure, so why should she be Seeing that now? And as for the circle of women… Espadryni women. Herself older she’d Seen, many times, but never without her tattoo. Dhulyn blinked. Not herself without her Mercenary badge, but her mother.
Not the future, but the past.
Could this be the work of the fresnoyn? Or had she been having Visions of the past all along, and never known it? Dhulyn laughed aloud. No wonder the Sight had been of so little practical use to her-she’d have to look at each one more carefully than before. She squeezed her eyes shut. Perhaps the fair-haired boy she’d seen was not Parno’s child, but Parno himself?
Dhulyn shook her head and took another, deeper breath. She had no time to fully consider these questions now. First things first. They had looked for her, old One-eye and his leashed Scholar. Looked for her specifically because she was who she was… what she was.
Dhulyn’s eyes flicked open. Because the women of her Clan-no, of the Tribe were Seers. She frowned, digesting this information. So the Mark had not fallen on her from the clear blue sky, as she’d always thought. Her mother had been Marked as well, and the other women of her tribe. Seers all.
And I have seen your face, Mother.
Gone. All gone. Not just her mother, her father, aunts, uncles, cousins. Her Clan, and likely her whole Tribe. Everyone who might have helped her when her Mark came. Everyone who might have had some answers. Why hadn’t the Sight helped them?
Why hadn’t the Sight helped her? Kept her out of Lok-iKol’s hands? Dhulyn rubbed at the still-numb skin of her face. Had they asked her anything else? For a moment the smoky darkness, the face of a man turning purple as he choked to death threatened to rise again, but she gritted her teeth against it.
The Tarkin, she thought, remembering the color of his tunic and the golden circlet around his brows. The Tarkin of Imrion was going to be poisoned, by the Sun and Moon, and she knew who would gain by it. Though not for long. This was information she should take to Alkoryn Pantherclaw-if she could think of a way to explain how she came by it.
Dhulyn blinked. The important thing right now was escape. She pulled her hands out from under the warm covering and ran her fingers over her head. Contrary to how it felt from the inside, it was in one piece, though her scalp, like her face, felt numb. That was the fresnoyn and the poppy still in her blood. Her hair was untouched, neither unbound, nor cut nor shaved. She started to sit up and stopped abruptly, hissing at the throbbing of her head. This was not good.
She gritted her teeth. Pain or no, she had to get up, get out, find Parno. And all without finding herself again in that chamber, with the fresnoyn fresh inside her, when they’d thought of better questions to ask her.
The shape of the present room told her nothing. Alkoryn’s floor plans had shown dozens of squarish rooms. Heavy hangings covered the walls entirely, the only furniture her bed, and, just within reach on the floor, a glazed pitcher with a matching cup. She scrubbed her hands over her face and again ran her fingers over her hair, this time feeling carefully at the beads and baubles, ribbons and thongs, all intact, tied and woven through it. She touched the wire she was looking for and released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
All right. She must put aside her fear, her anger, and be patient. Her Clan might be gone, even her Tribe, but she was not alone. As Dorian the Black Traveler had once promised her, she had a House, Brothers, a place to stand in the world. She would hold fast to that and she would not fail them. Nor would she fail herself.
As soon as this cursed drug wore off, she would find Parno. She would free him. They’d kill the One-eye. And maybe his Scholar boy as well. Then she and her Partner would return to their own House.
Lok-iKol, Kir of House Tenebro, signed his name to the bottom of a letter, adding the glyph that indicated he had indeed signed it himself, and not given it to one of his clerks.
“Just these three more, my lord,” Semlin-Nor, Steward of Keys murmured, selecting another sheet of paper from the sheaf she held in her hands to place on the table in front of him. Lok glanced over the list on the paper before him, mentally comparing figures and amounts to what his Keys had already reported to him. He did not trouble to look up when the door opened.
“My lord Kir, the priest Beslyn-Tor-”
Lok raised his eyebrow as the Jaldean did not wait to be further announced, but entered the room before the page had finished speaking. Lok pressed his lips together, but stifled the major part of the annoyance he felt. His need for the services the Jaldean and his fanatic followers had been providing, and were still to provide, brought him to his feet, and turned what could have been a gesture of dismissal into a signal for Keys to bring another chair that his guest might join him at his worktable.
“It has been some days since I have heard from you, my lord Kir,” Beslyn-Tor said, standing in front of the chair brought for him.
Lok repressed another grimace at the sound of the Jaldean’s honeyed voice, the kind of honey that caught unsuspecting listeners in a golden trap. Surely the priest must know by now that Lok was anything but unsuspecting. He took up his pen and, leaning back in his chair, began to turn it over in the fingers of his right hand, making it dance down toward his smallest finger, and back again.
“I have not sent for you, Beslyn, no,” Lok said, deliberately using the diminutive of the man’s name. “But now that you are here, will you not sit?” Lok allowed himself a small smile. The chair that Semlin had brought forward for the priest was the very chair that Dhulyn Wolfshead had been sitting in. Two of the silk scarves which had been used to bind her wrists were still draped over the left arm. Lok lowered his eyes to the papers in front of him and without turning to her said, “Semlin, would you be so kind as to bring our guest some wine?”
The Jaldean’s raised hand stopped her when she had only half turned toward the door.
“I have very little time this evening,” the honeyed voice said. “I was the more surprised not to hear from you, Lord Kir, given the arrival of your recent guests.”
At moments like these, Lok welcomed the advantages of his injury. It was almost impossible to register any emotion at all-even when he wished to-and equally impossible to give anything away. So he could be certain that the shock that struck him like a blow to the heart at the priest’s words never showed on his face. Who among his household was selling information to the Jaldean?
“If our guest needs nothing, Semlin, perhaps you might return to your other duties?” The woman’s well-trained face remained expressionless as she made her courtesies and left the room.
“We have an agreement, Lord Kir.”
Lok turned to the Jaldean, setting his quill pen down to the right of the documents on his table. Beslyn-Tor was sitting on the forward edge of the chair, statue-still, as he always did. The man didn’t fidget, didn’t scratch, didn’t chew his nails or rub at his hands. It seemed at times as though he didn’t sweat.
“I have met my part,” Lok reminded the motionless man. And he had. Eleven Marked had been found by the Scholar Gundaron-though only nine had been turned over to the Jaldean. Until a moment ago, Lok would have sworn that Beslyn did not know about the Healer and the Mender secreted in the Tenebro summerhouse. But he also would have sworn the man didn’t know about Dhulyn Wolfshead.
“As I will meet mine. You will not sit on the Carnelian Throne without my help.”
Lok inclined his head in a shallow bow. But once I’m there, he thought, that will be help I no longer need. Especially if he was the only person in the country-perhaps the peninsula-with Marked in his service. Especially if one of those was a Seer. The Jaldean was a fanatic and, like all fanatics, out of his depth when dealing with an equally ruthless but rational man.
“We have had some arrivals, as you say, but it is merely our cousin Mar-eMar, with her bodyguard.”
“And that bodyguard? I had heard one was an Espadryni woman.” A warmth lit up the jade-green eyes until they seemed almost to glow. “I have been given the benefit of your Scholar’s theories.”
Lok sat back and waved his hand in the air. “She answered the physical description,” he said, using his most reasonable tone. “But it is not so unusual. We were able to fully account for her background. She is not Espadryni.”
“You are certain?”
“As certain as we can be. We used fresnoyn in her food.”
The Jaldean nodded. “The chance of a Seer,” he said, so softly he might have been speaking to himself. “There are so few.” He raised his head and once more Lok had the benefit of his level jade-green stare. “It was necessary to be sure.”
“I believe the woman and her companion have already left Gotterang,” Lok continued, once more picking up his pen.
“What of the Mesticha Stone?”
“According to my last report, the ship had left Navra on its way to the shrine on the Isle of Etsanksa to retrieve it. We cannot expect to hear again for some weeks.”
“He is a good tool, your little Scholar.”
“He is,” Lok agreed. “I could not part with him.” Certainly not, Lok thought, until I find out what you want with all these relics he’s located for you, and why the Mesticha Stone is so important.
“Are you sure you will not have some wine? Can I offer you other refreshment?”