She stiffened but did not look at him. Her daughter, Litha Sira, took her mother’s hand and clasped it in both of her own. The girl looked very pale, and her eyes darted to Callo’s face as he spoke.
“My lady, I have never asked questions of you. Even when His Majesty required me to be here I have stayed out of your sight. But now that you have seen fit to announce the news in front of the whole family, I must know the rest.”
The room seemed to wait in breathless silence, just for one moment, and the sounds of the pyre and the crowd drifted up to the windows from far below and down by the sea. Arias, frowning, stared at his mother and said, “You must tell him now. Take him to the conservatory if you want privacy. You will be alone there—Eamon is Watching, and everyone else is here.”
“I will not go with him alone, and I can’t tell him here,” Sira Joah said, head held high again.
“Tell him in private,” said Queen Efalla, who was nibbling on sugared nuts at the table. “Sira, my dear, there is no taking back those words spoken without consideration.”
“By Jashan and all the gods! I am glad every one concurs!” the King snapped. “I have had enough of this gentle coaxing. Go away, Sira. In fact, everyone out! Except for you, Lord Alkiran, since you are now Collared Lord. I’ll speak to Lord Callo here. After all, I’ve work for him, which is why I had him come up here to talk to me in the first place. I am sick of all this wretched whining!”
The family members went quietly, respecting the temper of the king. Lady Sira Joah looked away from Callo’s face as she continued out the door. Only King Martan, Lord Arias, and Callo were left in the drafty solar.
“Your Majesty,” Callo said. “I must know the whole truth.” He could feel his shoulders knot with tension.
“Yes, yes, yes,” said King Martan irritably. “Well, then, you must both know. It was a traveling mage who stayed here at the castle a month or so.”
“What do you mean, a traveling mage?” Arias said angrily. “My mother just said he was a ku’an, from Ha’las—” Callo knew his half-brother’s dislike of the Ha’lasi would have been sharpened by the new binding which bade him bear constant guard against them, but he wished Arias would calm down.
“Your Majesty,” Callo said.
“You are impatient. I am aware. As you have been told, the man was really a ku’an from Ha’las, but then we thought him a simple traveling mage. He was young and good-looking, claimed to be third son of some rural
righ
family. Lady Sira Joah was infatuated with him, and he favored her. She claims he manipulated her into his bed with his psychic magery . . .”
“And how do we know he did not?” Arias growled.
“What happened to the mage?” Callo asked.
“Long gone. Back in Ha’las, no doubt, and my spies could discover nothing of him in the capital. What he wanted, we never found out.”
“You think it was part of a plan, then,” Callo said.
“Of course I do. Why else would a ku’an be within our borders? Why, apparently, target the wife of a Collared Lord? No one was able to trace him when he left. He didn’t go to SeagardVillage or Two Merkhan or Sugetre or any other place we could find. We asked about him at all the ports and even sent spies to Ha’las. If he had been an innocent traveler, he would have been found.”
“How did you learn he was ku’an?” Callo asked.
“The mage told her himself, when he left Seagard.”
“But she never told my father!” Arias bit out. Callo wondered through his stunned confusion why Arias was so concerned about his father’s honor now, when he had never cared before.
King Martan shrugged. His eyes dwelled with amusement on Callo, who felt as if his feet stood on shifting sand instead of the worn stone floors of the upper solar.
“To what point? The man was Collared; he couldn’t leave and attack the Ha’lasi.”
But you could have
. The thought burned in Callo’s mind, and he saw Arias’ eyes drop and knew he was thinking the same thing. It would be worth their heads to ask why King Martan Sharpeyes had failed to move the earth and sea to avenge his sister’s lost innocence.
“Why did you take him in then?” Arias asked, as if Callo wasn’t there. “Why did you feed him and educate him and even gift him with a holding, when my lady mother wished never to see him again?”
“It is better,” said King Martan Sharpeyes, “To keep one’s enemies—and their tools—under one’s eye.”
The King’s tone was cold—absolutely bitter, with none of the malicious humor he had shown as he watched all their reactions to the news spilled by Sira Joah. Callo’s gut clenched. There was no affection here, no sense of duty, as he had often imagined. Here was only a King, watching with his sharp eye over the future of his throne.
Arias walked over to one of the tall windows. The breeze came in, carrying with it the smoky odor from the pyre on the cliffs, but Arias seemed not to notice as he stared out over the sea in the direction of Ha’las. King Martan eyed his newest Collared Lord for a moment as if gauging his reaction, then turned to stare at Callo.
“I have work for you,” he said.
“Your Majesty,” Callo said, going on one knee. “With your permission, I claim leave.”
“What? You have not been your brother’s guest long enough?”
Callo did not need to look up to know that King Martan’s cold gray eyes were on his face. Callo was not good at hiding his feelings. He could feel his shock and shame flooding his expression. His legs felt unsteady as he knelt. He had known, of course, that he was a bastard, but his Ha’lasi ancestry was a shock, as was Arias’ cold reaction to the news. He had never thought he would hear Arias’ scorn and anger directed at himself.
The King’s eyes narrowed as Callo fought back the strength of his reaction, as if he could feel his nephew’s turmoil.
“Where would you go?” asked the king.
“I am not sure yet, Sire. I could go to Ha’las.”
“You should get back to Sugetre, away from the border,” Arias said from the window.
King Martan ignored Lord Arias. “You would seek him out?”
“Perhaps. I do not know.”
“Your chances of success are small.”
“No doubt. I may try anyway. The attempts you made, years ago, were defeated while they were on guard against pursuit. And they say the ku’an have means to cloud the intellect.”
“There are many rumors about the ku’an,” King Martan said. “Their power over emotion is profound. But I never yet heard they could cast illusions or dreams over the mind. This is what Lady Sira Joah claims, that this mage tricked her with illusion and manipulation.”
“Jashan!” cursed Arias, growing angry again.
King Martan was amused. “Calm down, Nephew. It has been thirty years, you know—far past time for rage. Callo, the truth is none of us know the limits of the power of the Ha’lasi mages. But then we had help. We had spies; we had mages. If she could find nothing, then you certainly won’t succeed now.”
“Nevertheless, Sire. I would like to clear this up.”
“You must deal with that yourself. I grow weary of all this. The story’s out; there is no more to say. Your leave is denied, Nephew. You will await those damned Leyish, if they haven’t foundered in the journey. You have official status and your own troop to escort them to Sugetre. I need them before there is another Tide, by Jashan!”
There was no arguing with that. King Martan turned away as Callo bowed, then left the solar preceded by the guards who had been outside the door. His white finery flashed in the sunlight behind him. Lord Arias had bowed too, but he rose as the king left and looked at his half-brother. His face was unusually grim.
“Yes, I can see you don’t like this a bit,” Callo said. “How do you think I feel? But you’ll have me out of your hair as soon as the Leyish ship arrives, Arias.”
Arias shrugged, but his eyes were angry. He said nothing, just stalked out of the room after the King.
Callo sighed. The brisk sea wind changed direction and blew briefly straight into the room, carrying with it the unmistakable smell of the pyre. He looked down as his valus fur and saw the dark smudges of ash across his sleeve. Shock froze him where he stood for a moment, but he could feel the emotion pushing at his control, trying to escape. The wall he had built, with Jashan’s help, to contain such a powerful feeling was trembling.
Chapter Five
Kirian scrambled up the slope between leafless bushes, her basket slung over one shoulder. She felt a tug on her cloak and reached back to pull it clear of the branch on which it had snagged. It was a good thing Ruthan had lent her this old, moss-stained cloak; it wouldn’t win any prizes for beauty, but it was a veteran of herb gathering expeditions, and another hole wouldn’t matter at all.
She rattled the rueberries in the basket, disappointed at the small pile. For some unknown reason—perhaps a trick of the late-arriving winter or the unusually large numbers of hungry migrating birds—the rueberries were scarce. The villagers and the Castle residents swore by Ruthan’s headache remedy, but it required several baskets of rueberries, crushed and infused with other ingredients, to make enough for a typical year. This year, most of the rueberry bushes were already stripped of their fruit. Kirian had been searching most of the morning, climbing up the overgrown slope near the cliff path, until her hands were raw from holding onto rough branches, and the skin of her face felt stiff with cold.
Kirian stood to look out over the bushes. The wintry sun glared out of a cloudless sky. She thought she saw an untouched group of red-tinged bushes a little farther up. Perhaps there were still a few berries on those bushes. She sighed, pulled the cloak tighter about her, and leaned into the climb.
A flash of light caught her eye.
Kirian stopped. The flash had come from an area just off her intended path, where she knew there was a tiny clearing. As she scanned the area, she saw it again—sunlight glancing off metal.
She walked forward. She pushed aside branches and stepped between a group of tall, brown weeds—and stopped, gasping in shock.
There was a sword at her throat.
For an endless moment, Kirian stopped breathing and stared into the narrowed eyes of the swordsman. Then Lord Callo dropped his sword-point and stepped back.
Kirian caught her breath. The shock made her feel a little weak. “Lord Callo, I didn’t know it was you.”
Lord Callo dragged his forearm across his forehead. He was sweating and breathing hard. He said, “I didn’t know anyone came up here.”
With no apology from him for scaring the breath out of her, Kirian felt a twinge of disappointment. She had thought he was different from other nobles, but perhaps not after all.
“I was picking rueberries, although there are not many. Ruthan uses it for her headache tea. I’m sorry I startled you, my lord.”
Callo moved his weight from one foot to the other, as if he was anxious to resume his practice. The sword was a splinter of deadly steel, balanced in one hand. She felt as if she had interrupted him at some religious rite. Puzzled, she backed off. “I will leave you, my lord. Good morning.”
He nodded. The sun shone on those golden eyes, giving him a disconcerting, glowing look. She backed away, watching him. He lifted his face to the sky, briefly closing his eyes, seeming almost unaware of her, then stepped into his form again. Self-protective and a little frightened of his strange mood, Kirian decided to forego further berry-picking today. As she walked along an animal trail toward the cliff path, she heard a whicker and saw Miri, tethered loosely to a scrawny tree-branch.
“Hello, Miri,” she whispered, not wanting Lord Callo to hear her. “How are you, pretty girl? And better yet, how is your master?” Lord Callo had the look of a man in trouble. She remembered the old lord’s funeral, two days before. Surely Lord Callo was not mourning?
Well, Kirian told herself, what was it to her if some nobleman felt distressed? It was no concern of hers. But as she negotiated the cliff path toward the village, the memory of Callo’s eyes stayed with her.
She had reached a steeper section of the path when she heard the jingle of harness and the thud of hooves approaching. With the caution this trail demanded, she stepped off the path to allow the horsemen to pass. They came into her sight, four of them, wrapped in fur cloaks, climbing two abreast. Instead of ignoring her on their way to the Castle, the lead horseman pulled his horse to a halt. His companions followed suit. The smells of horse and leather enveloped her.
“Would you be Hon Kirian, Healer to the castlefolk?” asked the man on the lead horse. He was a burly man with a thick black beard, and the tone of his voice showed he expected to be obeyed.
“I am,” Kirian said. “Who are you?” She eyed the four horses nervously as they stood a little too close to the drop.
“I am Hon Jiriman, Captain of the Guard for Lady Mia Lon at Fortress Mount. I have been sent to look for an associate of yours. Come with me, Healer!” Jiriman wheeled his horse about with negligent disregard for the edge of the cliff and beckoned her up the trail, toward the Castle on the ridge.
Kirian’s temper sparked at this rude summons. “I am returning to Hon Ruthan, the village Healer. I don’t see any reason why I should follow you. If Lord Alkiran wants me to talk to you then I…”
“Insolence!” said one of the other men. “I’ll take her up, Captain.” Kirian stepped further back as the man grabbed for her arm.
There was a rattle of displaced stones and a fifth horse made its appearance on the steep and crowded trail. Miri neighed and tossed her head as she was pulled to a stop. Lord Callo blocked the way, his face grim. His sword remained in its sheath.
“Who are you men?” he asked. “What is your business with this Healer?”
Kirian saw Jiriman evaluating the quality of Lord Callo’s horse, his sword, and his accent. Jiriman’s tone was somewhat more respectful when he spoke, but still allowed no dissent.
“Sir, I am Hon Jiriman, Captain of the Guard for Lady Mia Lon at Fortress Mount. A friend of this Healer’s who was posted at Fortress is being sought for a crime. I must take this Healer up to the Castle to be questioned.”