Living With Ghosts (16 page)

Gracielis met his eyes and smiled. “It’s nothing.” His hand, passing over the cards, muddled them into a heap. “A game only. But you have seen Iareth Yscoithi.”

It was a pretty hand and a graceful one. Watching it, Thiercelin said, a little absently, “Yes.” And then, “Is it a trick?”

Gracielis looked inquiring.

“The card business. ‘You’ll have a fine heir and make wise investments.’ All that.”

“Have I said such events would occur?”

“No, but . . .” The persistence of it still troubled Thiercelin. “If it’s not a trick, then . . . ?”

Gracielis had collected the cards into a neat stack. Picking them up, he weighed them in his hand. “You might call it a nervous habit.”

“What?”

There were mysteries woven into the hazel eyes. It was nearly irresistible. Thiercelin shivered again. Gracielis said, “I’d read for myself to reassure you, but I always get my own cards wrong.” He turned the top card over. “Thus. A favored second child, probably female, gifted in the numerical arts.” He shrugged. “You wanted to talk to me about Iareth Yscoithi.”

“I suppose so.” Thiercelin felt dizzy, caught up in Gracielis’ sudden changes of direction. Drawing in a long breath (and the air, too, was dizzying, heady with Gracielis’ perfume), he said, “I saw her at the Lunedithin embassy. I told her about Valdin.”

“Indeed.”

“She . . . I don’t know . . .” Again, Thiercelin hesitated. “She seemed so remote.”

Gracielis said, “It’s been six years.”

“Yes, but . . . This must be important to him.” Gracielis frowned. Thiercelin said, “Well, why else am I seeing him?”

“It’s a matter of binding.”

“Yes, I remember. But you said it wasn’t me, so surely Iareth . . . ?”

“I don’t think so.” Gracielis rested his chin on his hands. “What I saw wasn’t a person, or not exactly one, anyway.”

Thiercelin sighed. “Iareth hardly seemed to care at all. It was just an oddity to her.”

Gracielis rose and came around the table. He put an arm about Thiercelin’s shoulders. He said, “I don’t know Iareth Yscoithi. But it seems to me that it’s her nature to disguise her feelings.” He was very close. His perfume covered Thiercelin like a veil. There was a moment of stillness. Thiercelin could feel something beginning to uncoil within him. Not desire precisely, but some gentler thing, as though he had reached an acceptance without knowing it. There was a pulse at the base of Gracielis’ throat, a blue vein beneath the translucent skin. It would be warm in that hollow, scented. Gracielis was leaning a little forward and the rose lovelock hung temptingly close. He was beautiful . . . In his mind, Thiercelin turned his face into those curls, breathed in their perfume, discovering if the fragile skin would really bruise at a touch. At a kiss. Gracielis’ lips were parted. His breath grazed Thiercelin’s cheek. His painted eyes were dark with concern. He had attention for no one in the room but Thiercelin. Thiercelin put a finger out to the lovelock, stroked it, tentatively. Gracielis was quite still. One might imagine anything from him. His skin would taste of flowers . . . It was, after all, a matter of desire. In the moment of realization, Thiercelin froze.

Yvelliane.

He had already betrayed her by seeking out Iareth Yscoithi. To do this other thing . . . Swallowing, Thiercelin turned away. Some years ago, before her marriage, Yvelliane had been seen regularly with Gracielis. He had no rights over her past. And if, in her present, she preferred Firomelle’s company to his, then it was still no excuse for betraying her. She had never said she did not care for him. Sometimes, before Firomelle had become ill, in the early part of their marriage, he had begun to believe that she might even love him. He should be grateful that she made any space at all for him, given all the calls upon her time. If, lately, she seemed no longer to value him, it was only because she was so tired, so anxious, so overworked. Perhaps this current temptation was in itself only a reflex of his love for her, a seeking after comfort in arms that had once held her. Better to think that than to believe he might simply want Gracielis. And above all, he did not want to do anything that could harm Yvelliane.

He said, “Graelis, please don’t.”

Gracielis drew away, leaving only a hand resting companionably on Thiercelin’s shoulder. Thiercelin ventured a glance at him. Gracielis’ face showed only kindness. Thiercelin said, “Forgive me. It isn’t you. I just can’t cope with this now.”

Gracielis said, “But perhaps you’d like us to be friends?” Thiercelin flushed, nodded. “So. Then it would be wrong of me to take umbrage if sometimes you give consideration to something more.”

That was one way of putting it. Thiercelin smiled, shaking his head, “I suppose so.” The hand was still on his shoulder, small and slight and narrow-boned. Thiercelin touched it. “But you will behave.”

Gracielis removed his hand and used it to push back his hair. “I always behave.”

“I’m sure,” Thiercelin said. One of the inn staff was laying bread and plates and cutlery on the table before them. Watching her, he said, “You may be right.”

Gracielis sat back down and looked inquiring. “Iareth Yscoithi,” Thiercelin said. “I’d thought, I don’t know, that I knew her, I suppose. She was here for several months with Valdin. I spent a fair amount of time with them. She was . . .” He was reaching now for long-suppressed memories. Old wounds did not always heal clean. “She was reserved, yes, but not unapproachable. Whereas now . . . Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps I never knew her. She’s so cold.”

Gracielis said, “She’s Lunedithin. It isn’t their way to be warm with those not of their blood.”

That appalling, calm acceptance, with barely a hint of emotion at the mention of Valdarrien’s name . . . Thiercelin said, “She’s a stranger. I told her about Valdin. Yviane . . .” He hesitated. “I had to give my name at the embassy. When Yviane finds out, she . . .”

“Don’t,” Gracielis said. Thiercelin looked at him. “It doesn’t help, hurting yourself.”

“No, I suppose not.” Thiercelin picked up a spoon and toyed with it. “I don’t know what to do for the best.”

“Wait, then.”

“Yes. But Yviane . . .” Thiercelin shook his head. “I can’t tell her about this Valdin business, not at the moment. She’s so busy already, and the queen is ill. I can’t explain my visit to Iareth without explaining things and giving her even more to worry about.” Gracielis watched him in silence. He went on, “I have to deal with this myself. If I take it to her, she’ll either think I’m incompetent or that I’m mad.”

“I believe she values you more than that.” Gracielis said.

“She has enough to deal with,” Thiercelin repeated. If he could resolve this, it would be one small thing he could do to help Yvelliane, one small means of protecting her.

Gracielis was silent for a long time. Finally, he said, “As you wish.” He paused again, and said, “As to Iareth Yscoithi, it may be difficult for her, being in Merafi.” Thiercelin had not really thought about that. He nodded.

Gracielis continued. “It might explain her coldness. It’s hard, being a foreigner here.” There was an odd note in Gracielis’ voice. Looking up, Thiercelin saw that his eyes were fixed again on the middle distance.

In all his thirty-three years, Thiercelin himself had never been more than eighty leagues from Merafi. He said, “Perhaps I should take you to see her. She might prefer to talk to you.”

Gracielis shrugged, grace in the slender bones. “If you wish. But I doubt it. The Lunedithin have scant love for those of Tarnaroqui blood. Under their law we’re heretics to a man.”

“As are Merafiens, as I understand it.”

Gracielis shook his head. “By their standards, you’re sadly fallen away. You’ve permitted the blood of many clans to be mixed in your veins, instead of holding to the purity of each line. But that isn’t heresy. Whereas the Tarnaroqui . . . Our blood isn’t simply that of the clans, however mingled.”

“But . . .” said Thiercelin, who knew his history, if rustily. “We’re all descended from the clans. Who else . . . ?”

“Who else indeed?” It was growing dark. The landlord moved about the inn, lighting tallow candles. Shadows played across the planes of Gracielis’ face, hiding his expression.

Thiercelin said, “I was told the old stories when I was a child. How Queen Firomelle’s ancestor Yestinn Allandur broke the purity of the clans and forced them to intermarry. How, before he did that, pure clan blood supposedly gave people the ability to shape-change, each clan to a particular animal form. How . . .” and he swallowed, “in Yestinn’s time there were other things, too, not born of the clans. Creatures of fire or air or stone or water, capable of taking on human shape but lacking our nature. But they weren’t human. They couldn’t interbreed . . .”

“Couldn’t,” said Gracielis, “or wouldn’t?”

“The Tarnaroqui are known to be fey,” Thiercelin said, “and to worship death and to make spies out of their priests. But I never heard that they—you—weren’t human.”

Gracielis smiled. “Fey,” he repeated, slowly, “and strange. Ghostseers and prophets. Mystics and assassins.” The landlord set a candle on the table between them. In its light Gracielis’ face was austere, ascetic despite the paint. He looked at Thiercelin. “Impure blood—hated by those who still hold to the old clan ways. But,” and the smile grew warm, “I’m not wholly inhuman.”

He was beautiful in the candlelight and elegant and utterly to be possessed.

Thiercelin said, “You’re shameless. And you know it.” Gracielis bowed. “I may make you see Iareth anyway. I told her that Valdin spoke to us. She understood. But she won’t tell me what he meant.”

“Or can’t,” said Gracielis.

6

T
HE NIGHT SEEMED unnecessarily cold to Joyain, especially after an hour and a half spent crouched in concealment near the east door of the embassy. He felt foolish, and he was getting stiff. He should never have allowed himself get into this in the first place. If the Lunedithin wanted to spy on one another and break the curfew, that was their business. If he had any sense at all, he’d put a stop to it right now and go home. Not, he suspected, that Iareth Yscoithi would listen to him. And if his captain came to hear that he had left a foreigner to wander alone through Merafi at night, he could kiss any thoughts of comfort good-bye for the next three years at the very least. He would give it another ten minutes, and then he would tell Iareth that the whole thing was a monumental waste of time.

The door opened. Irritable, but mindful of his responsibilities, he drew back into the angle of the wall and held his breath. There was almost no light. Both moons were hidden behind heavy cloud, and the shutters of the embassy were closed. He could make out only a bare outline—a slight figure, cloaked and hatless. Closing the door, the figure set off at a steady pace toward the river. Joyain hesitated, waiting for some signal from Iareth. In this gloom, likely as not they would lose each other, let alone the man she wanted to follow. He started, as her hand touched his arm, but kept quiet. She squeezed his wrist then pointed toward the figure. Joyain took a step forward. She shook her head. Leaning forward, she whispered, “I will follow. Leave some fifty paces between us, then come after if you wish.”

It was, finally, a chance to go home to bed. Unfortunately, his conscience troubled him about leaving a woman alone in the streets, especially with all the trouble there had been in the docks. “Are you sure it’s Kenan?” he whispered back. She nodded once and faded back into the gloom.

Joyain counted to fifty and followed her.

He was long accustomed to Merafi after dark. He knew where he might go and where he had better not, how to evade the watch and how to detect evaders. And yet, trailing Iareth, he was aware of a strangeness. Mist had been rising from the river since sunset. It pooled across the roads like floodwater. In this murk even a native might have been excused a modicum of confusion. He counted side-turnings absently and tried to mind his footing (the mist was no help in that department). Ahead of him, Iareth was only the barest hint of a figure.

They were heading west and slightly south, down toward the old walled city. The mist grew thicker as they descended. It was far too late for the Kings’ Bridge to be open. Kenan must be intending to cross by the Temple, which was always open for cash. It would be difficult for Iareth and himself to avoid attracting attention, since there would be a toll to pay, and too much delay would lose them their quarry. He wondered if Iareth had the necessary fee and began to rummage in his pockets.

They had come almost to the quayside when Kenan unexpectedly turned north along a narrow and evil-smelling passage. Not the old city at all, but the less respectable fringes of Silk Street. For Joyain, it was an area presenting few problems, but for Iareth Yscoithi . . . By default, only the least successful whores would still be plying their trade at this hour. She risked harassment, or worse. Quickening his pace, he climbed the last few steps and halted at the mouth of the passage. He looked right, then left. He could see no sign at all of Iareth. A few yards away, Kenan seemed to be negotiating with a woman. Joyain stepped back hastily and waited, hoping he hadn’t been noticed. River bless, it was cold! And damp; the mist was seeping through his cloak. It deadened all sound. He could catch not one syllable of Kenan’s interchange with the whore. Surely they hadn’t followed him all this way just to witness a cheap liaison? Joyain wished he knew where Iareth had got to. Kenan had finished his conversation, and he and the woman had begun to walk toward a nearby house. Joyain hesitated, looking round, then followed them, hugging the wall. His breathing sounded thunderous in his ears. They were certain to notice him.

He nearly jumped straight out of his skin when a hand closed over his mouth. His own hand went to his sword hilt. He prepared to struggle. Then he recognized Iareth, obscure in the darkness of a shop porch. She held his gaze for long moments before removing her hand. He said, “What . . . ?”

“Ssh.”

A door closed nearby, muffled in the fog. She hesitated, then whispered, “These dwellings. Is it possible to approach them from the rear?”