DHULYN LOOKED WITH INTEREST around the small reception room. It was sparsely but very expensively furnished, and while the chair opposite the entry doors was too small to be a throne, it was decorated with the distinctive red carnelians that were set aside for the exclusive use of the Tarkins of Imrion. The floor, a soft creamy marble, still had its carpets laid down against the winter chill, and likely would for a few weeks yet. The light oak panels on the walls, even the double doors on the left side of the room, were inlaid with silver hooded snakes, the symbol of the ancient House of Culebro, founders of the Tarkinate of Imrion. Two men and a woman stood close to the Tarkin’s chair, and it was the younger man who turned, saluting Alkoryn with a smile and a lifted hand, before taking the seat.
Like the room, Tek-aKet, Tarkin of Imrion, Consage of the Lost Isles, Darklin of Pendamar, and, as it happened, Culebroso, was plainly but richly dressed in the dark red of the Tarkinate. On his left sleeve were two thin stripes of color, yellow and brown, to show his Culebro heritage. As tall as Parno, but as slim as herself, the man was well-muscled, with his northern father’s dark hair and his southern mother’s fair skin setting off eyes so pale a blue as to be almost colorless. The woman, olive-skinned, her eyes a glowing black, her hair and most of her dark red gown covered by a long veil of purple silk shot with gold, took her place to the Tarkin’s right, and Dhulyn realized that it was the Tarkina herself who was taking part in the audience. Dhulyn hooked her thumbs in her worn leather sword belt, unsure whether the Tarkina’s presence would make things easier… or harder.
The older man, skinny, and wearing more jewelry than either Tarkin or Tarkina, Dhulyn noted with a grimace, also wore the Carnelian badge on his left shoulder, marking him for some upper-level aide of the Tarkin.
“I greet you, Alkoryn Pantherclaw.” The Tarkin’s voice was surprisingly gruff coming from so smooth-looking a man. And there was a smile in it, Dhulyn realized, which explained how Alkoryn had been able to see the Tarkin so quickly. Some connection, whether friendship could be the word or no, existed somehow between the two very different men. “My aide Gan-eGan you know,” the Tarkin said, gesturing at the older man, “and my Tarkina you have met. You say there is a threat against my life?”
“I greet you, Lords, Lady,” Alkoryn said, bowing his head and touching the empty loop on his belt where his sword normally hung. “May I present my Brothers, Dhulyn Wolfshead the Scholar, and Parno Lionsmane the Chanter. It is the Wolfshead who brought this news to me, and I bring her now that you may hear her own words.”
The Tarkin turned his pale blue eyes to her, the strange etiquette of the Carnelian court allowing him to notice her for the first time.
“Lord Tarkin,” Dhulyn said, lowering her gaze for a moment and touching her sword belt in imitation of Alkoryn’s example. Her Senior had heard and approved the version of the story she and Parno had planned, and she began it now. “I have recently been in House Tenebro, and while there I overheard the present Tenebroso speaking with a Jaldean priest. They were discussing your assassination, my lord, and making plans to put the Tenebroso Lok-iKol-the Kir as he then was-on the Carnelian Throne.”
The Tarkina lifted her hand, as if to put her fingertips on her husband’s shoulder. There was no other movement in the room.
Finally, the Tarkin leaned back in his chair, rested his chin in his right hand. The red stone in his seal ring caught the light, twinkling.
“The newly risen House and a Jaldean priest?”
“Yes, Lord Tarkin.”
The Tarkin looked at his aide. “Have your people heard anything of this?”
Gan-eGan shook his head. “No, my lord, and I do not see how this could be so. The Jaldeans have made no changes in their usual demands.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Dhulyn saw Parno rub his upper lip with his left index finger. She, too, imagined she knew what the “usual demands” were. Judging from what they’d heard preached on the street, the Jaldeans wanted arrests and detainments, not just green headdresses, curfews and pressure to come to their shrines voluntarily.
Alkoryn cleared his throat. “Nor would there be, if they had something like this in view. You are too moderate for them, Lord Tarkin…”
“It may be, as some suggest, that I would prefer the Jaldeans had never found their new teachings,” the Tarkin said. “But they are here, many listen and believe, and that is a reality of my reign. I am sorry for the Marked. I have instructed my soldiers, and the guards along my borders not to hinder or stop them if they wish to go, though the Jaldeans would prefer I did otherwise. I am not myself a New Believer, but I will have order, and until I find some other way, the Marked are the price I must pay.”
“It is as I have said,” the aide said. “The Jaldeans have no need to support the claims of another for the Throne.”
“Perhaps the need is Lok-iKol’s,” Dhulyn said.
“You should be more careful, Mercenary. This is a High Noble House you speak of.”
Dhulyn smiled her wolf’s smile, and Gan-eGan edged farther away from her. The Tarkin looked quickly aside, lifting his hand to rub at his upper lip. I could like him, were he not so wrong, Dhulyn thought, stifling a genuine smile of her own.
“May I ask, Dhulyn Wolfshead, how it is you came to overhear this conversation?” the Tarkin said.
Dhulyn swallowed. This was the tricky part.
“They thought I was unconscious, and so spoke freely before me.” The Tarkin sat up straight. “They thought you were unconscious? How?” He transferred his look to Alkoryn. “Drunk?”
“Drugged, my lord.”
The aide sniffed. “Is that not much the same thing?”
“Drugged by them.”
“To what possible purpose?”
The Tarkin was content, Dhulyn saw, to let his weasel of an aide pursue his questions for him. She drew in air through her nose.
“I did not catch your name, sir,” Parno cut in. Dhulyn ground her teeth but stayed silent. This was Parno’s world, as she herself had said. She’d do best to let him handle it.
“I am Gan-eGan,” the aide said through stiff lips. “I am the head of the Tarkin’s private council.”
“I am surprised, Gan-eGan, to find you so hostile to persons who have come here with a warning.”
“The Brotherhood’s neutrality is well known, so you may therefore understand my caution when one of you, claiming to have been drugged, comes with an accusation against a High Noble House,” Gan-eGan said.
It was all Dhulyn could do not to throw her hands in the air. This would get them nowhere. “My partner and I delivered a cousin of theirs whom we’d guarded from Navra, and when the job was done, we were set upon and held. We don’t know why-perhaps you could ask the Tenebros? They gave me fresnoyn, and while they were waiting to question me-again, I don’t know why-I overheard the conversation I’ve described. The interrogation was interrupted, and we escaped before it could be continued. We thought about remaining in captivity and asking a few questions of our own, but rational thought prevailed.”
“Do not take offense.” The Tarkin’s eyes danced in an otherwise straight face. “The Carnelian Throne is not an easy seat. Even the accusations of friends must be examined, when they come without proof. Is there proof you can offer me?”
Dhulyn closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. “I thought it was a mistake to come here,” she muttered. “Believe us, don’t believe us-it’s all the same to me.”
It was as if Dhulyn had thrown a cat into a dovecote. The weasel of an aide yammering his indignation, Alkoryn’s rough whisper failing to catch the Tarkin’s ear, and Parno also trying to be heard. Dhulyn ground her teeth together. This would all be for nothing if she could not get them to believe her. She caught Parno’s eye and raised her eyebrows. He grimaced and shrugged, leaving it up to her. She looked from Alkoryn to the Tarkin and back. She was here. Her decision, she realized, had already been made.
She grasped Gan-eGan by the shoulders and moved him to one side as though he had been a child, stepping into the space he had occupied, stepping to within striking distance of the now silent Tarkin. If details were what they wanted…
“They will poison you in a dish of kidneys.”
Every tongue stilled. Every eye in the room turned to her, and the Tarkin’s were not the only ones which had narrowed. Dhulyn took a deep breath, now she was for it. At least the weaselly clerk had stopped his yammering.
“You’ll be in a little room, much smaller than this one, in an old part of the palace where the walls are very thick. There’s a tall, thin window with an archer’s grille, and a shutter on the inner wall, with glass panes in it.” The Tarkin’s chair was elevated enough that Dhulyn looked straight into Tek-aKet’s blue eyes. “The lower left-hand pane has some words scratched on the glass; I don’t know what they say, it’s a language I don’t know. I could write it for you, though. There’s a worktable, with an armchair on each side of it, both cushioned. A fireplace on the side of the room farthest from the window, with a small fire laid but not yet burning. A dark patterned carpet on the floor, old with worn spots, but you can still see the outline of snakes. A cloth covering the table with weights sewn into the corners-”
“Enough,” the Tarkin said, his voice harsh and abrupt. “I know the room.”
“Well, they’ll bring you a dish of kidneys there, Lord, and you’ll die from it.”
“How can you know-”
“She’s Marked.” Only the Tarkina would interrupt the Tarkin, and she’d been silent so long they had all forgotten her. She sounded as though she smiled with delight under her veil, and her voice had the liquid lilt of her northern homeland. “She’s a Seer.”
“That’s why you include the Jaldean priest in your accusation.” Gan-eGan stabbed the air with his beringed index finger. “Now your motives come clear. The Marked have ample reason to wish the Jaldeans accused of the assassination of the Tarkin.” The man’s eyes narrowed with calculation as he turned to the Tarkina, “My lady, this is not proof.”
“You could always let the Tarkin be poisoned, then you’d know for sure.” Parno said in his most reasonable tone.
“I Saw what happens to the Tarkin, and I Saw Lok-iKol on the Carnelian Throne,” Dhulyn continued, leaning forward against the grip Parno had on her arm. “I don’t need the Sight to know what will happen to you. It’s all the same to you who sits on the Carnelian Throne, providing you keep your office-” She poked the aide’s shoulder with her index finger.
GAN-EGAN STANDS IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBER AND TALKS TO A TALL MAN IN A DARK RED GUARD’S UNIFORM. HE IS CALM AND SMILES A SMALL, VEE-SHAPED SMILE; HIS EYES ARE A WARM JADE GREEN. ANOTHER GAN-EGAN, TRANSPARENT LIKE THE IMAGE OF THE SCHOLAR SHE HAS SEEN BEFORE, STANDS BEHIND HIM,
WEEPING, AND WRINGING HIS HANDS. WHEN HE IS FINALLY ALONE, IN HIS OWN ROOM, AND HIS EYES ARE GRAY ONCE MORE, HE FITS A ROPE AROUND HIS NECK AND STEPS ON TO A CHAIR.
Dhulyn sucked in air and clung to Parno’s arm. The green again. The green fog. In the priest’s eyes, in the one-eyed Lok-iKol, and now in this old man. What was it, and how did it move? And why did it seek out the Marked? She swallowed. Gan-eGan’s eyes were gray now. If she saved the Tarkin, would she save this counselor as well?
“You will feel differently, sir,” she told him. “You will. If this man falls-” she jerked her head toward the Tarkin, “so will you.”
Dhulyn stepped back into Parno’s circling arm and hung her head, swallowing. They were fools, all of them. Listen to them now, Alkoryn’s urgent whisper going unheard, drowned out by the clerk bleating his outrage. Only Parno’s murmur in her ear made any sense. She wished she hadn’t come.
The doors to the anteroom opened, and the slim, golden-haired young woman who’d been their escort through the winding corridors of the Carnelian Dome came in with a unit of six guards in the Dome colors at her back.
“My lord Tarkin,” she said, “a report has come from House Tenebro. It seems the old House did not Fall of age and infirmity as was thought at first. There is now evidence that the Fallen House was poisoned, and two members of the House have run away, suggesting their guilt.”
“I grieve to hear it, Amandar,” the Tarkin said. “But why must I hear it now?”
“One of the runaways is a distant cousin, Mar-eMar, recently come to the House, and brought by these Mercenary Brothers.”
“Who else ran from the House?” Parno said.
The young woman shot a quick glance at Parno out of the corner of her eye before focusing again on the Tarkin.
“The Scholar Gundaron of Valdomar,” she said when the Tarkin had nodded his permission for her to answer.
Dhulyn looked at Parno and raised her eyebrows.
“And do we know where these people are now?” the Tarkin asked.
“They were followed almost to the doors of Mercenary House, and then lost, my lord.”
“Alkoryn Pantherclaw,” the Tarkin said. “You will understand that I must detain your Brothers-” He raised his hand to halt Alkoryn’s whispered protests. “This is the Fall of a High Noble House, and not any House, mind, but one closely related to my own… and it places into a different light the tale that these Brothers have brought you. Some will say,” here he looked aside at Gan-eGan, “that they wished to make the first move in a game of accusations-but enough! Questions must be asked, and these Brothers will remain here, well-treated, until the answers are found. You, I hold blameless; you may go. But see that you send the Tenebro cousin and the Scholar Gundaron to me, should you have occasion to find them.”
“My lord, we are neutrals, we cannot merely-”
“You may go.” The Tarkin stood and looked to his wife, who shook her head and remained standing beside the chair. He nodded to Alkoryn, and left the room by the double doors to the right of his chair, accompanied by Gan-eGan. Once her husband had cleared the door, the Tarkina turned back to the young woman and the guards.
“Amandar, you will give me a moment with these Brothers. You guards may wait outside. Alkoryn Pantherclaw, I know you have matters to attend to at your own House.”
“I do, my lady, but I expect to return for my Brothers.” He turned to them and touched his forehead.
Dhulyn caught herself before the smile reached the surface of her lips. It was not the Tarkina, but she and Parno who were being reminded. Dhulyn remembered Alkoryn’s workroom, and the charts and floor plans that lined his shelves, and thought she knew how Alkoryn intended to return for them.
“Dhulyn, Parno,” Alkoryn touched his forehead with his fingertips. “In Battle.”
“Or in Death,” they replied in unison, saluting him in return.
The young woman, Amandar, hesitated but finally made a short bow and gestured the guards out of the room. The Tarkina waited until they were alone before sitting down in the Tarkin’s chair and throwing off her veil with a sigh. The face revealed was striking, her olive skin darker than the norm for Imrion, and her profile too pronounced, too hawklike, for conventional beauty. But her eyes, the darkest Dhulyn had ever seen, were large and lustrous, her lips full, warm and ready to smile.
Dhulyn pressed her own lips together. She’d wondered what the presence of the Tarkina might mean; perhaps she was about to find out.
“Do you know when this will come to pass?”
For a moment, Dhulyn wasn’t sure what the woman was asking about. Then she remembered it was the Tarkina who had guessed she was Marked.
“You believe me,” she said.
The dark woman in the Carnelian chair nodded slowly, the jewels in her hair twinkling in the light of the oil lamps. “Most people think there are no Seers left in the world, but I know differently. There was one, an old man from the far west, at my grandfather’s court when my father was a child. Long before my time, truly, but unlike Gan-eGan, I do not need to experience something personally to know that it exists.”
“And you do not mistrust the Wolfshead’s words, simply because she is Marked?” Parno said, his head tilted to one side as he considered the woman in the chair.
“No,” the Tarkina said, leaning back in such a way that it was obvious she’d often sat in her husband’s chair. “By what I was taught, the New Believers are heretics, and in Berdana the Queen, my sister, provides asylum to the Marked, and refuses the demands they are starting to make. Here in Imrion they are my husband’s subjects, and therefore safe from my bad opinion.”
“You’re not afraid of what you don’t understand?”
The dark woman shrugged. “I don’t understand higher mathematics, but I am not afraid of the Tarkin’s accountants nor yet his astronomers. And I’m not afraid of the Marked, that’s certain. Whether I understand it…” She shrugged again. “When we were young, my sister and I, in our father’s palace in Berdana we had many companions from among the children of the noble classes, and my favorite, the one who I think would have loved me even if I were not the daughter of the King, she was Marked. Not a Seer, no, but a Finder. Because of my love for my friend, our tutors told us stories of the Marked, and made their histories part of our studies.”
The Tarkina brought her gaze back from the shadows of her childhood to focus once more on Dhulyn. “If I can persuade my husband, will you help him? And if I cannot, can I hire you myself, to act as eyes and ears about the Dome?”
“Lady, I believe we are being detained under suspicion of abetting in the Fall of a House.”
“Yes, that is a small problem.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“You misunderstand me. I’m not concerned with the Fall of Tenebro House. I’m concerned with the Tarkin-personally,” she said, giving Dhulyn a direct look from her raven-dark eyes, “not just for the sake of my position, and the position of my children. I believe it would be a tragedy for Imrion to loose Tek-aKet as their Tarkin, but it would be more than a tragedy for me to lose my husband. At the moment, Tek and the moderates among the Houses who support him are keeping the Jaldeans in check in this country. If the New Belief wins here, there will be war. War here will mean war for Berdana; my sister cannot remain neutral.”
The Tarkina leaned forward and rested her chin on her right fist. “Gan-eGan is a fine man, whatever you might think, but he lacks imagination. Unlike him, I believe the Jaldeans will not stop their persecutions with the Marked, and if the Carnelian Throne will not give them what they want, I believe they will take the Throne. For Imrion, which is now my home, for Berdana my homeland, for my sister as well as my husband and children, I would push the Jaldeans back into their temples, and out of the council halls. For the sake of my old friend, I would have the Marked free again. Will you help me?”
Dhulyn glanced at Parno and found him looking at her, the same thought, she knew, in both their minds. This is what they had talked about, back in the Mercenary House, when she hadn’t been sure about warning the Tarkin. The Tarkina saw the same things in the Jaldeans that they had seen themselves. The balance would be upset, no matter what the Tarkin thought, and she and Parno needed to know on which side of the scales they were weighed.
“If we are free and alive,” Dhulyn told the dark woman in the Tarkin’s chair, “we will help you.”
The woman they brought him had a strong golden fire, small but perfect. He shuddered, knowing that he was broken and in pieces, who should never have had form to begin with. The shape of Beslyn-Tor was whole, and wearing it was less exhausting than trying to form and hold a shape of his own; it was easy to gather his powers-to gather himself-and push into her eyes, probing into the flame, smelling it, tasting it, feeling its strengths. Holding it in his hands.
A Mender.
In an instant he was in the mirror room, standing over the Mender woman holding her head between his hands; holding it high and tight so that her neck stretched uncomfortably and her eyes flared with alarm. This is where it had begun. Where he’d been Seen and Found and Healed and Mended. No matter that he had not been lost, and was neither sick nor broken.
“Do you know this room? Have you seen me before?” She had a different form, but that did not mean this was not the Mender who had first given him shape. Even now, even after all this eternal passage of time in this world of forms and solids, he did not understand all that it was possible for shape to do. “Are you the one? Can you open the door?”
Her eyes flicked from side to side, seeing the great round mirror that held the doorway, the worktable with its scrolls and books. The sword.
“No, my lord. No.” She would have shaken her head, if he had not been holding it so tightly.
At once they were in the priest’s room in the Jaldean Shrine in Gotterang, he still holding her head between his hands. He reached into her with his own essence, sought out and found once more the golden flame. It burned hot and chaotic, almost shapeless. But he knew what true shapelessness was, and this was a mockery. He touched the golden flame and released it, dissolved its form. Made it NOT.
The woman fainted. When they took her away, her face was empty and she cried.
He was resting when the Tenebro Lord Dal-eDal came. His was a red flame. No danger there. The man held himself stiffly, as if he would rather be elsewhere.
“I am sent by the Tenebroso Lok-iKol,” Dal-eDal said, coughing to disguise the roughness in his voice.
“It is true, then. The House has Fallen.”
“It has.”
“He gives me a time?”
“Tonight, if it is possible.”
He nodded. “Tonight it shall be.” He closed his eyes, and the Tenebro Lord went away.
“Go out, my eyes and ears,” he whispered when he was alone again. “Go out, all my tongues, and whisper. It is time.”
“Are you sure we’re not lost?” Mar pulled the hood of her cloak closer around her face as the rain that had started threatening soon after they’d left Tenebro House began to fall in small, sharp drops. The balcony under which they stood was too narrow to give them any real cover, but at least the rain was keeping most of the townspeople off the streets.
“Of course I’m sure.”
Mar pressed her lips together. Why was it that fear so often made people angry? She’d been so pleased when he’d called after her, she’d known that Gun was braver than he’d thought. She only wished he was brave enough not to be annoyed now that he was doing the right thing. Though, with luck, he wasn’t irritated enough to be mistaken about the way… she’d followed his lead, trusting that he knew where he was going, but once they’d left the wider avenues for the warren of alleys, laneways, and courtyards that lay to the north of the Great Square, she was well and truly adrift.
Gundaron tapped the wall they stood by. “This is the east wall of the Bootmaker’s Inn, the one you told me about.” His fair brows drew down in a vee. Mar opened her mouth… and closed it without asking again if he was sure. Gun looked over at her.
“I’m thinking,” he said, “that we might not want to just walk up to the Brothers’ front door. Maybe we should be a bit more circumspect.”
“If this is some way to get out of going there,” Mar began, but was silenced by his tight-lipped headshake.
“We’re not having that argument again,” he said, voice gruff. “But we might not be the only ones looking for Dhulyn Wolfshead.” His lips trembled as though there were words he held back before continuing. “I’d like a chance to see if there’s anyone there we wouldn’t want to run into.”
Mar nodded. That made sense. She shifted her pack higher on her left shoulder.
“If you follow along until the end of this wall and turn right, a little ways up you’ll come to one of the big archways, one of the entrances to the Great Square; then, just a bit farther along, Mercenary House is on the right-hand side, the same side as the entrance,” Gun said. “There’s another laneway on the left, just before you get there.”
“And so?”
“So you can walk down and then turn into the other lane. You’ll look like you’re going down toward the Old Market, but you can see if there’s anyone suspicious around Mercenary House.”
Mar took her lower lip in her teeth. “Why me?” She thought it extremely unlikely she’d know what “anyone suspicious” looked like.
“Because no one from Tenebro House is likely to recognize you in clothes they saw you in for five minutes four days ago. Me, they’ve been living with for two years.”
At first Mar was inclined to argue further-after all, no one could be looking for them yet, and when the search began, if it began, surely no one would think to look for them here. Still, she felt Gundaron’s logic, and second thoughts persuaded her that this was exactly what Dhulyn Wolfshead and Parno Lionsmane would have done.
“Mar-eMar,” Gundaron said, when she still hadn’t spoken. “If you’re not sure-you don’t have to do this.”
Mar looked up sharply, but his eyes were firmly on hers, his gaze direct and open. This was no ploy to get her to change her mind; Gundaron was really worried about her, was really offering her a chance to think about it. It had all seemed so clear when she was explaining it to him around the corner from the Scholars’ Library. She couldn’t believe she was in any danger, but now she couldn’t help remembering what the Lionsmane had told her on the way to Gotterang. Anyone might kill you.
She dragged in enough air to fill her lungs. They’d saved her life. Dhulyn Wolfshead had killed someone for her. The Caids only knew what had been done to them in return. She owed them an explanation and an apology. Nothing changed that.
“Keep my pack for me,” she said, slipping the book bag off her shoulder and stepping out around the corner.
Gun watched her walk away, head high, step sure. Everything he’d said to her was true. It was better, and safer for both of them for Mar to go. But he felt like a coward just the same. Was there anything he could do to help her? Could he Find danger? He closed his eyes.
The Library. Something trying to reach him… he recoils. The green fog. The shelves and tables laden with scrolls and books form walls around it, keeping it away, keeping him safe. Gundaron looks at the book nearest him and sees a name. Mar-eMar. He puts his hand on it. Stay here. Stay with me. It’s safe here.
The rain was a bit heavier away from the shelter of the wall, and Mar hunched her shoulders against it, holding her cloak closed in front of her. Makes it less likely anyone’s around to see me, she told herself, hoping that it was true. She followed the wall down to its end and turned right. The street jogged to the left-something Gundaron hadn’t mentioned-and Mar’s heart thumped loudly as at first she saw neither the Mercenary House, nor the laneway that she was supposed to dodge into before she got there. But as she followed the street along, she recognized the arched entrance to the Great Plaza and breathed more easily. A man came sauntering out of the archway, and her heart skipped a beat until she saw that, though he wore a sword under his cape, he was far too well-dressed to be on any guard’s payroll. He was bareheaded, his hair cropped short, and his face was clean-shaven, revealing a tattoo of thin black lines over the left side. He acknowledged her with a shallow bow before he turned and walked toward the Mercenary House.
Cloudman, she thought, Racha man, too. Mar remembered seeing the same tattoo on Yaro of Trevel. She continued down the road until she’d passed the archway and crossed as she drew abreast of the lane leading away on the left, just where Gun had said it was.
And there was the small gated archway of Mercenary House, and the Racha man just going in the postern door. Mar had taken a half step toward the House, forgetting Gundaron’s plan, when a guardsman wearing a black cloak with a familiar crest on the left shoulder and a broad teal stripe along the bottom approached the Mercenary’s gate from the far side, and called out to the still open door. Mar ducked into the lane before the man could turn to look in her direction. Only after several minutes had passed did her heart slow down and her breathing return to something like normal.
Mar could hear voices as the guard in Tenebro colors exchanged words with the Brother answering the gate at Mercenary House, but their voices were low, and the rain was noisy enough that she couldn’t overhear what was said. Now is the time to move, Mar thought. While the attention of the guard from Tenebro House was taken up by the Brother. Mar took three slow, deep breaths and stepped out of the lane, turning immediately back in the direction she’d come from. Remembering something Dhulyn Wolfshead had told her in the mountains, Mar dragged her left foot a little with each step, changing entirely the way she walked, and forced herself to go slowly, as if she hadn’t a care in the world besides getting home for her supper.
By the time she got back to the semi-dry corner where Gundaron waited, the pain in her left foot was real, and her stomach was tight as a fist. She pushed back her hood, welcoming the cool touch of the rain, as she told Gundaron what she’d seen.
He licked his lips, looking from her to the corner of the wall and back again.
“Most likely it’s the Mercenary Brothers they’re looking for, but I’d be very surprised if that guard hasn’t orders to watch the place, at least for tonight.”
“Where does that leave us?”
“It’s late, and later still for us to find a room somewhere even if we could afford it.” He frowned. “If we can make our way into the Old Market, we should be able to find somewhere to lay up until morning. Give us a chance to figure out what to do next.”
Mar swallowed, picked up her pack. If he was anything like as exhausted as she was, he’d be glad of any place out of the rain where they could sit down.
“I’m not promising much,” he said, and he started to retrace their steps.
“I was almost a moon on the road with Mercenaries,” she said. “I don’t expect much.”
Hernyn Greystone was making himself small and unnoticed behind a pillar in the Carnelian Dome’s outer courtyard when his Senior Brother came out of the building alone. With his damaged voice, Alkoryn Pantherclaw rarely went about the city unattended, and Hernyn had begged for the privilege of accompanying him on his errand. The chance to be of service to Dhulyn Wolfshead and Parno Lionsmane was only part of it, he assured himself. Only people with necessary business were let inside the Dome, however, which left him cooling his heels out here. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Hernyn made his way across the cobblestones and around a carriage being pulled out of a nearby stable entrance to Alkoryn’s side.
“Tenebro’s Deputy Steward of Walls came in half an hour ago,” he reported to the older man.
“With news I’ll tell you as we go,” Alkoryn said, walking briskly to the Dome’s open gates. “Did the Deputy see you?”
“No.” Hernyn hesitated, but as Alkoryn Pantherclaw was already on his way across the courtyard, he could do nothing but follow.
“Our Brothers?” he managed to murmur once they were out in Tarkin’s Square, a broad expanse of normally sun-drenched pavement fronting the massive pile of buildings that was the Carnelian Dome, seat of the Tarkins of Imrion.
“Detained.”
Hernyn listened in growing disbelief as Alkoryn told him of what had passed within.
“But-did you know this of Dhulyn Wolfshead?”
Alkoryn shrugged. “It’s rare for the Marked to become Mercenaries, and Seers are the rarest of the Marked…” His whisper died away. “There’s nothing in the Common Rule about such a thing. Nothing to tell us what to do or, or what to think.”
“Is she still…?” It was so unthinkable Hernyn couldn’t bring himself to say it, but fortunately Alkoryn knew exactly what he wanted to ask. And he knew the answer, too.
“Of course she is,” he said. “Brotherhood ends only with death.”
But for all that, there was something troubling the older man, Hernyn could tell that much.
The streets near the Dome were much more crowded than Hernyn would have expected, given that it was late and just beginning to rain. As they turned into the avenue that would eventually lead them to the Great Square and their House, they ran into a group of men blocking almost the whole of the way. Hernyn stepped forward.
“If we may pass?” he said.
Several young men, and one not so young, stepped back out of the way with nods. What I wouldn’t give for a horse, Hernyn thought as Alkoryn returned the nod of a bearded shopkeeper he obviously knew by sight. And what’s a silk merchant doing here? Hernyn wondered, making his own assessment of the man’s clothing. They passed out of the quarter of Noble Houses that crowded as closely as they were allowed to the Carnelian Dome and through the neighborhood of jewelers and metalsmiths. Here there were still shops, but these were the lesser trades: food sellers, weavers, cobblers, bakers, and the like. Though rain was falling more heavily, and the shops were closed and closing, there were still a surprising number of people, both men and women, on the streets at a time when most should be at home preparing for their suppers. Nor did they appear to be on their way home. Small groups formed and re-formed, and some, though talking in friendly enough fashion, kept looking over their shoulders. One tall fellow with a smith’s heavy shoulders and a familiar amulet around his throat, stared hard at Hernyn’s green cloak as they walked by.
Hernyn tossed back his hair to draw attention to his Mercenary badge, bared his teeth in a strained smile, and placed his hand casually on his sword hilt. And knew without looking that Alkoryn had done the same.
“If I were you, my Brother,” Alkoryn said, tugging at Hernyn’s dark green cloak once they’d left the smith behind, “I’d think about getting something in a different color.”
“It was a good price,” Hernyn said.
“And now you know why.”
As streets wide enough for two coaches became narrower and shorter, they passed shops which were now closed for the night, and the small knots of whispering folk grew fewer, and farther between. They were able to make better time here, and Hernyn had picked up the pace when Alkoryn spotted a woman in dark green creeping from doorway to doorway, taking advantage of every shadow the rainy evening offered her. As they drew near, she pressed herself into a doorway, turning her face away from them and waiting to let them pass. Hernyn was just thinking that she’d better hurry-curfew for the Marked was the setting sun, and with the rain it was hard to prove that the sun had not already set-when Alkoryn signaled to him with a quick finger snap and stopped in front of the woman, effectively shielding her from any others who might pass by.
“Korwina Mender,” he said, his soft whisper making it perfectly safe to say her name. “I thought you were gone from Gotterang.”
Seeing who it was, the woman looked up, but didn’t leave the deep shadow of the doorway. “Your advice was good, Charter, but we left it too late. We were turned back from the gate.”
Hernyn winced at a sudden bad taste in his mouth.
“I’m sorry, Korwina, that can’t be good,” Alkoryn said.
“So we thought, and it’s followed by worse. I’m to present myself and my family at the Jaldean High Shrine tomorrow morning.”
Alkoryn shook his head. “Do they know your family? How many…?”
“If they don’t, there’s plenty of my neighbors will tell them.” The woman’s tone had no resentment, no bitterness, Hernyn noticed. They’d got used to this kind of thing in Gotterang. She shrugged. “They’ll have to, to save themselves. Still, I’ve been going round now, to my best customers, to see if there’s any will hide my children. If they’re not there tomorrow, the Jaldeans can’t take them, no matter what tales the neighbors tell. But no one dares.” Again, she sounded as if she didn’t blame them. “They don’t know, you see, what the Jaldeans may do to us once we’ve gone to them. They can’t risk that I might tell…” the Mender drew in a shaky breath. “That I might tell where my babies are hidden.”
“Send them to us,” Alkoryn said.
Hernyn looked up in surprise.
“Come to Mercenary House.” Alkoryn’s voice sounded harsher than usual. When the older man turned to him, Hernyn had had time to school his face.
“You go with her, my Brother, make sure she and the children are safe and none see you. Your Brothers in the House will know what to do with them. Tell your Brothers further what has occurred at the Dome; tell them to bar all doors and gates, and to make the lower chambers ready. Then join me yourself at the Dome.” Alkoryn looked off into the middle distance, as if he were listening to some music only he could hear. “Tell them that if we are not back by sunrise, Fanryn Bloodhand is Senior.”
“But, Alkoryn-”
“I’m a fool, Hernyn, I’ve been too long with my maps. The time for counsel and waiting is passed. Go now, do it quickly.”
His mouth suddenly dry as sand, Hernyn nodded, and stepped round to take the Marked woman gently by the elbow.
“Waste no time,” Alkoryn said. “In Battle.”
Hernyn touched his forehead. “Or in Death.”
“The Caids bless you,” the Mender said in the ancient way, “the Sleeping God hold you in his dreams.”
“Someone’ll have to,” Hernyn muttered, as he followed the Mender woman down a narrow corridor between two buildings. She did that well, he thought, almost like a Mercenary. It was surprising what people could learn when they had to.
Tek-aKet, Tarkin of Imrion, stood a long time at the window of his private room, watching his reflection dance on the rain dripping down the panes of glass, and running his fingers from time to time against the five words scratched there by some unknown ancestor’s jewel. Like Dhulyn Wolfshead, he did not know the language, though he also thought he could draw the letters from memory.
The sound of the door latch drew him around, and made the old dog sleeping in front of the fire raise its eyelids.
Larissa-Lan, junior page for this old tower, and therefore the one who usually brought whatever was required to the Tarkin’s private workroom, entered balancing a tray with practiced ease on her left hand. On the tray, along with cutlery, linen, and a breadbasket, was a heavy ceramic dish whose close-fitting lid barely the contained the familiar odors of a wine sauce.
“Here we go, sir,” said the young woman, smiling. “Still hot, and unsampled, though I had to threaten Kysh with a beating.”
“What is it?” Tek asked, though he thought he knew.
The page looked up in surprise. “Why, your favorite, Lord. Kidneys in jeresh sauce.” She advanced on the worktable, set down the tray, and laid out a heavy place mat for the hot dish. Beside it on the right she placed a crisp napkin folded in the shape of a crane, along with one of the new silver forks, and arranged the small breadbasket to the left.
Tek did his best to nod naturally even while his throat closed and his stomach dropped abruptly. This was coincidence with a vengeance-and altogether too pat for comfort.
“And who ordered this treat for me?”
“The Tarkina, my lord. At least, that’s what the cook told me. I was to say, with the compliments of the Tarkina.”
“Excellent, Larissa, thank you.”
“A pleasure, sir. Enjoy.” With the confidence of familiarity the young woman left the room.
Enjoy. Well that was going to be difficult. Tek almost wished young Kysh had taken a taste of it. Then at least he’d know…
He shook his head and sat down at the table. He already knew. Of course he did. There was nothing wrong with these kidneys and he didn’t need a taster. Tek broke off a piece of bread and picked up his fork in his right hand, speared a particularly juicy looking bit of kidney, and, using the piece of bread to stop the sauce from dripping on his clothes, lifted the tasty morsel to his mouth.
The Tarkin of Imrion let the fork clatter down on the plate. The old dog raised its head.
Larissa said the Tarkina had ordered the dish. Any other day Tek would have believed it-but not today. Just this morning, long before the request for an audience had come from Alkoryn Pantherclaw the Charter, Zelianora had talked to him about how tight his clothes were getting, and how little exercise he’d managed to get over the winter. A nice dish of steamed carrots, flavored with cumin. Apples spiced with cinnamon-even a hot soup. Those he would have expected Zella to send him. But kidneys in jeresh sauce? Not likely.
That didn’t mean the dish was poisoned. And it didn’t mean that it wasn’t.
Old Berlan got up with difficulty from his spot by the fire and walked his old dog’s walk to nudge his master’s hand. Tek absently stroked the bony old head, pulling the long silky ears through his fingers. The dog laid his head on Tek’s thigh and snuffled. Tek looked at the dish of kidneys, at his dog, and back to the dish. Berlan was too old to hunt, too old even to go outside, almost too old to eat. His pain was not yet great, but that day, too, would come.
Tek took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He thrust one finger into the center of the ceramic dish to test for heat before placing the dish on the floor. He watched as Berlan, tail wagging, began to eat. No great harm, perhaps even a kindness, if the dish was poisoned.
And if the dish wasn’t poisoned? No great harm there either.
Tek-aKet, Tarkin of Imrion, Consage of the Lost Isles, Darklin of Pendamar, and Culebroso, sat back in his chair to watch his dog eat.