“What of him, my Lord King?”
“He must die.”
Full night was upon them. There were stars overhead, clear and bright in a freezing cloudless sky, but there was no moon. In the starlight, Aldric could see the pale glimmer of Kyrin’s face as she turned her head toward him, and the paler cloud of breath that she released in a little sigh of annoyance; but he couldn’t see her eyes, and that was probably just as well. There would be accusation in them, and for all that their expression would probably be diluted by the sardonic humor he employed himself on far too many occasions, it was an expression which he didn’t want to see at all.
“We’re lost.” The Valhollan accent made her words come out even flatter than such words usually would.
“We’re close. I’ll ask someone; they’ll be bound to know—”
“—that we’re lost… ?”
“No!”
“No?”
“No. And besides, we
are
expected.”
“Oh, yes, of course. I was forgetting. But I’d feel better about it if you weren’t trying so hard to convince me of it. And yourself. But all right—ask. Someone. Anyone. If you can find them awake…”
There came at last a time, as the night dragged on, when Aldric’s temper began to fray. Despite careful directions from a number of locals—some of whom he had plainly woken from a sound sleep—he was still no closer to finding the steading that he sought.
“If they’re making game of me…” he muttered between his teeth.
“What if they are?” Kyrin, dozing in her saddle with one knee crooked around its pommel to keep herself from falling, yawned sleepily. “You’re the foreigner here.
Inyen-hlensyarl
Just as much as me, for once, and with as few rights. Maybe fewer. I’m not… not an enemy. But even so, I think they’re being friendly enough, in a back-handed way.”
“?” Aldric made an interrogative noise in the back of his throat that couldn’t be dignified as a question.
“I think they don’t want to disappoint you. They’re telling you what you want to hear—directions to a hold— rather than what they know—which is that none of them have any idea of how to find it.”
Aldric looked at her and through her, and this time it was as well
his
expression was hidden by the darkness. But the way in which he spat on to the ground was plain enough for them both.
A few uncomfortable minutes passed in a silence broken only by the slow tramp of weary horses. Then Kyrin coughed politely and pointed; Aldric knew about the pointing, because he could hear the rustle-and-creak of mail and leather as she stretched out her arm, and the glitter of stars reflecting off the metal.
“Now what?” he said, and for the first time in that too-long night, Kyrin heard real tiredness in his voice instead of the increasingly forced bright optimism which had annoyed her before she realized what it was.
“We’re passing a gateway,” she said, noting absently that her voice was as weary as his.
“Which we’re already passed five times tonight, I think. In both directions. So?”
“Don’t you think that maybe we should try asking there?”
“I’ve had enough of…” Then he coughed, sounding just slightly apologetic. “All right. One more… just this one. And then I’m sleeping under a tree.”
“Or a bush.”
“Or the rock I feel as if I crawled from under. But I’m going to sleep somewhere…” and Kyrin actually heard him laugh.
The frozen pounded earth of the road gave way to a gravel track which crunched noisily beneath the hooves of pack- and riding-horses. The buildings to which it led were in darkness, without even a doorway lantern, and Aldric reined back uneasily. “I’m not sure about this,” he said softly.
Kyrin could detect more than tiredness in his voice this time; there was an uncertainty and a tension which had come from nowhere, for no reason. Leather creaked faintly in the midnight stillness as he twisted in his high-peaked saddle, trying to see her face or maybe only read something encouraging from her half-seen outline. Other than a drift of breath, silver in the light of winter stars, he could see nothing. And she knew it. “Aldric… what’s wrong? It’s just a house like all the others… isn’t it?”
“I… Yes. I think. But I’ve got—call it a feeling— about this one. There’s something not right—as if we’re being watched.”
“Oh.” The pause which followed went on too Jong. “Are you going to sit on that horse all night—or dp you want
me
to hammer on the door?”
“Light of Heaven, no! I’ll do it. You stay where you are. And be careful.”
“Of what?”
Her question, or maybe his answer, was lost in the crisp double thud as Aldric’s boots hit the gravel. He straightened his back, tugging at his furred and quilted clothing to neaten it—and to conceal the half-armor that he wore beneath—then walked to the door of the house and raised his gloved right hand to tap politely on the wood.
Polite or not, the knock never landed. The door jerked back from his descending knuckles, and the glare of a suddenly-unshuttered lantern made him flinch away, shielding eyes dilated by darkness from an amber-mottled purple glare that just now was all that he could see. Even then Aldric might have drawn blade on pure defensive reflex had it not been for the subliminal image which had scorched beyond even the lightborn blindness…
The image of a crossbow, leveled at his chest.
There was a cacophony of barking in his ears, and Kyrin’s stifled cry of shock far out on the edges of the uproar. Then everything went quiet. Except for the sound of someone laughing…
Rynert’s statement came out so flat, so unembellished by any intonation, that there were several at first who thought their ears had deceived them. Even when reaction manifested, it was muted by the shock of what they had just heard. If only by default, Lord Dacurre found himself the spokesman once again.
“
Mathern-an
...” Rynert favored him with the courtesy of a swift glance. “Lord King…
why
?”
“I am the King: I could say, because I command it.” Rynert did not smile as he spoke, and it became starkly plain that there was no subtle joke in what he said. He leaned back a little, steepling his fingers together in the old gesture and studying his silent lords over their entwined tips. “But say rather: because his recent… activities… have brought us closer to war with the Drusalans than I care to contemplate; because he has made more free with the Art Magic than any honorable Alban lord has ever dared to do in all our history. And because he has caused the death of my own Captain-of-Guards.”
That last stirred them more than anything else had done, for those whose business kept them close to Cerdor had noticed Dewan ar Korentin’s absence this past month and more; but had not—given the man’s rank and position—cared to make more inquiries than the listening to rumor would allow. Those rumors current had told of a mission for the king; of secrecy; of importance both personal and political. They had told of enough to discourage the asking of incautious questions. But they had never told of anything like
this
.
“How… how did this happen?” No one councillor seemed to have asked the question aloud, yet it was so much to the forefront of every mind that it might well have taken shape out of the air.
Rynert told them: of the simple task of carrying friendship-messages which Aldric Talvalin had perverted to suit his own designs; of his interference in Imperial policy for as-yet-undisclosed purposes; of the killing of two Drusalan Overlords at Seghar and the setting up another; of the constant thread of sorcery running through every report about him; and now the apparent destruction of part of the Imperial city of Egisburg. It was this which had cost ar Korentin his life: no accurate information had so far filtered through, but the rumors—oh, there were always rumors—were concerned with the kidnap of an important personage under the guise of a rescue, the murder of a highly-placed political figure, and it seemed now almost certain that in trying to restrain further such excesses Dewan ar Korentin had met his death.
Rynert deplored his own lack of foresight in allowing that particular young lord to be his emissary to the Drusalans, for all Aldric’s persuasiveness. He was, to blame for everything, since he should have realized at once that it would have been tantamount to letting a wolf negotiate with sheep…
... And it proved the power of his impassioned rhetoric that not a single one of his Council saw a trace of the ridiculous in the sprawling and traditionally inimical Drusalan Empire being described as helpless against one young man. Too many of them had memories of Aldric’s single-minded pursuit of vengeance, and the blood retaking of his usurped ancestral fortress. Many of their relatives and friends had died in that short, savage campaign, and just for the present they forgot that more had been at stake—for themselves and for all Alba—than one man’s personal satisfaction. The only thing they chose to remember, and of which Rynert chose to remind them, was who seemed to gain most profit at the end of it all. The same man who had then apparently washed his hands of his comrades’ blood and gone about his own affairs.
Aldric opened his eyes a fraction and at the same time raised both his hands, open and palms outward, to the level of his ears. The laughter continued, breaking off only when a dog—how many dogs, for the love of Heaven?—growled again and was silenced with a sharp word of command.
He was beginning to see them now, through the dance of glowing streaks inside his eyes, and seeing them was not a comfort. Two leggy Drusalan guard hounds sat back on their tailless haunches and regarded him with fanged, tongue-lolling grins which had nothing humorous about them.
Aldric had met Drusalan hounds before; and the memory was not a pleasant one.
“All right,” said a voice that was still thrumming with mirth, “I recognize you. Haranil-
arluth’s
youngest. Don’t worry; this thing isn’t even loaded.”
The woman’s hair had been steel-gray. It was silver-white now, gilded by the lamplight, and she was wearing a staid and all-enveloping sleeping gown rather than traveling furs and fine woolen broadcloth; but for all that Ivern Valeir looked very little different from the last time Aldric had seen her, in the courtyard of Dunrath when she and her husband had come to sell their fine horses to his father, six years and a lifetime ago.
Except perhaps for the guard hounds… and the crossbow.
He swallowed once or twice, trying to clear the constriction in his gullet which felt like his heart halfway between his mouth and its proper place, then endeavored without much success to fit a wan smile onto a face turned white as paper as he gave her the most courteous bow he could summon in the circumstances.
“You invited me, lady,” he said, and for a wonder there was neither tremor, nor anger, nor accusation in his voice. “I sent a letter to your husband, asking that I might at last accept the hospitality you both offered, that time in Dunrath when my father paid you for the horses. Unless, of course, I’ve made a mistake?” That crossbow was still cradled in her arms and Aldric, ever prudent, did not for an instant believe what she had said about it.
“No mistake.” She quirked an eyebrow at him. “You were invited, yes. Expected… well, call that one
yes
as well. But earlier.” Ivern looked up at the sky and rather pointedly—thought Aldric and Kyrin both—at the post-midnight configurations of the stars that glittered there. “Much, much earlier.”
“He—
we
—got lost.” Kyrin’s explanation did not please Aldric much, but he kept his mouth shut and let her talk. “We woke up most of the province trying to find you. And even then the finding was by accident…”
Ivern shifted the lamp and looked out into the darkness of her own courtyard. That smile was back on her face as she flicked an amused glance between Aldric and his lady. “Ah. So,”she said, plainly trying not to laugh. “I
see
...” She probably did, at that; those eyes were like Kyrin’s in their ability to look far and deep. “That sort of ‘earlier’ wasn’t what I meant, my dear, although it’s true enough. I meant years, not hours—before Ansel, my husband, died.” She saw a muscle twitch in Aldric’s face, and shrugged to dismiss the matter. “Oh, but that was years ago as well. Now, there are stables and a guest annex behind the house. Once you’ve settled your animals, come in. You’ll have to chop some firewood for the stove, young man, but you look as if you’d be good at that. And then something warm to drink, and a talk, would do us
all
good. Although I think a good night’s sleep right afterward would do you two most good of all.”
“There you have it, gentlemen,” Rynert said when the tangled, bloody tale was done. The outrage vanished from his voice like frost from glass, so that once again his words came out without inflection, expressing his preferences neither one way or the other. He sat still now, frighteningly so, as immobile as a corpse freshly dug to sit at the head of the table, and with eyes as blank, seeming neither to blink nor to breathe, as patient as a cat waiting at a mouse-hole. But waiting for what? Which of them was the mouse?
Except for the few who had met Aldric Talvalin face to face and refused to believe that the man they knew was capable of what they had been told, there was not one among the councillors who found his behavior other than appalling. High-clan-lords were accustomed to the wielding of power, and to utter ruthlessness if such was required; but—to those who were convinced—this was excessive. To the others it was simply stupid and that, rather than the shocking violence, made it unbelievable. A capability for ferocity, and for the foolishness of impulsive action—that was one thing. This was another. And they all found Rynert’s reluctance to give them a lead… uncomfortable. Unnatural, and unlike him. Usually he would hint, if only by unconscious shifts of posture and expression, in which direction he hoped his council’s vote would take. Not that such hints would have swayed their decision; this was Alba, not the Drusalan Empire, and clan-lords were followers of their own persuasions rather than another man’s implicit—or indeed explicit—views. Yet Rynert’s blank, uncaring face was so unlike the subtly mobile features which they thought they knew—especially after his first blunt declaration—that private speculation made them feel more uneasy than deliberate, diametric opposition to the king’s openly stated, carefully reasoned command. And such a lack of interest as this, in so grave a matter as they had been told of, was most unsettling of all.