She smiled placidly, as if talking of a visit planned to the dressmaker’s. “I’m afraid my good Cypmann Galnes has not noble enough blood to be asked to such an affair, else I’d lean on his graces. You will bring me into the castle, unseen, and shall keep me unseen through the evening. I’ve heard of your particular skills. In return, you may take the ring back to the boy.” Her hand flicked in dismissal. “If I have you, then I have no need of the ring. I never intended to use it. That’s all.”
“That’s all?” He gaped at her.
“Yes.” Liss smiled at him. A girl with gray eyes. Her eyes were gray now.
“You don’t just walk into the regent’s castle!” said Ronan. “Do you know what you’re asking? Particularly on a night as that. In all of Hearne, there isn’t a more impossible place to enter unwanted.”
“There is another place more perilous in this city,” she said. The color of her eyes was shifting again. Gray washing into blue.
“Where?” He spoke without thinking.
“This house.”
And it was back again. Someone—something—ancient looking through her eyes, examining him and weighing who he was. The ring was strangely cold in his hand, as if it had taken none of the warmth of her body. He knew he would not be able to deny her, even though what she asked might prove beyond him. The sea surged within her eyes and she sat before him, a wisp of a girl with her hands folded on the table. He suddenly realized he feared her more than the Silentman himself.
“You aren’t Liss Galnes, are you,” he said.
The girl said nothing.
“Sakes, dearie,” said the cook, turning from the sink with her hands covered in suds. “Liss Galnes died near three years ago now. Caught the influenza and withered up like the flower she was. Just like her mother before her. Inconvenient for her, but timely for my mistress. She needed a place, like a hermit crab needs herself a new shell every now and again.”
“Who are you?” His voice sounded hollow. “And how is it that Cypmann Galnes still calls this place home?”
But they said nothing to that. The girl and the old woman merely looked at him, the one with beady, black eyes and the other with eyes like the shifting sea.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
TREATIES AND FOUL MOODS
“Enter!” barked Botrell.
The regent was sitting on the end of his bed and contemplating the floor. It didn’t seem to be shimmering in such a sickening fashion anymore. He was in a filthy mood, for he had stayed up late with the envoy from the court of Oruso Oran IX in Damarkan. Who would have guessed that blue-eyed icicle would have had such a capacity for wine? But he’d shown him. The man had been scarcely coherent by the time his attendants had carried him off to his rooms.
The court chamberlain peeked in through the door.
“The Lord Captain of Hearne requests an audience, my lord.”
“Tell him to come back another day! Next month!”
The chamberlain vanished for a moment and then reappeared.
“He says the matter is urgent and cannot wait another day. He says it involves the security of your people and Hearne and, consequently, the safety of your own lordship. He apologizes most humbly for bothering you in your bedchamber.”
“Tell him to come back next year!”
The door closed and then reopened almost in the same instant.
“He says—”
“Good morning, my lord regent,” drawled Owain Gawinn. He pushed past the chamberlain and stood smiling.
“Gawinn,” gritted Botrell. “It’s early. Don’t you have a city to watch over? Aren’t there soldiers to drill and horses to be galloped about?”
“Fear not, my lord. I watch over Hearne with a jealous and unsleeping eye. So have the Gawinns always served the regents of Hearne, and so do I. A danger has arisen, my lord. It requires your attention, even though, as you’ve pointed out, the hour is early. Nearly noon, isn’t?”
There was ice in his voice and in his smile. Botrell stirred uneasily on the edge of his bed. When he was honest with himself, he had to admit that the Lord Captain of Hearne made him nervous. The man was much too serious about his job.
“Have the old scholars in the university uncovered something dangerous? Pirates threatening our sea trade again? Is the Thieves Guild overstepping their bounds?”
“Nothing like that,” said Owain. “The university ruins contain nothing more dangerous than rats, in my estimation. The last pirate to plague our coast died on my sword three years ago. And the Guild? Bah! If you gave me a free hand with them, I’d hang the lot—but, as ever, I defer to your notion that they somehow encourage trade.”
“Then what do you speak of?”
“I have reports of strange killings to the east of us. Isolated farms wiped out. Entire villages decimated. All in the last month.”
“Old news,” said the regent, yawning. “None of our business. The duchies can look after their own.”
“The massacres happened in three different duchies as well as in northeastern Harth. Twice in Vo, thrice in Vomaro, once each in Harth and Dolan, and now just five or so days ago again in Vo. All the duchies have been in contact with me, as well as Damarkan’s envoy. That was one of the reasons Damarkan sent their man north. According to the old treaty drawn up after the Midsummer War—a treaty, no doubt, you are conversant with, as it outlines the balance of power between Hearne and the duchies of Tormay—when danger threatens multiple duchies, leadership in such a situation is deferred to the regency in Hearne.”
“The treaty says that?” Botrell was reasonably sure he had read the old document. Years ago, true, but he would have remembered such a ridiculous and imprudent provision. His head hurt.
“It does.”
“Probably just bandits. Unfortunate, but merely part of life.”
“No,” said Owain. “Bandits steal, even if they sometimes will kill. Whoever is doing these killings isn’t interested in gold. Nothing is ever stolen. Except for life. So I ask your permission, my lord, to scout in the east where the massacres happened. It would do us well to learn what we can of this new enemy. Besides the obligations of the treaty, who knows but there might come a day when the killers are within our walls?”
“I suppose there have been no witnesses,” said Botrell, mentally cursing whichever addled ancestor had seen fit to sign such a treaty. An expedition of the sort Owain was intending would cost much gold.
“There is one. A girl of perhaps eight or nine years. She was found by a passing trader at the site of the last massacre in Vo.”
“Aha! So she saw those involved!”
“Doubtlessly. However, the terror she has been through has struck her mute. She responds to little that is said to her. The only noise she makes is when she screams in her nightmares. I have hopes of her speaking someday—”
“Hmmph.”
“—but for now she is in the care of my good lady. What do you say, my lord? Do I have your permission to undertake my duties? I’m confident that you, as ever, are eager to see our laws fulfilled.”
Owain took a little of the sting out of his words by smiling, but it was a wintry smile at best. That was all he could manage for the regent. There was silence in the room. Both men thought their thoughts, one smiling and the other scowling, both despising the other.
“Oh, all right!” burst out Botrell. “Hunt and be damned! Just get out of my sight!”
“Thank you, my lord,” said Owain, bowing. “As ever, you are a wise and able ruler.”
“Just remember to leave someone behind to guard the city,” said Botrell nastily.
“To be sure,” said the other, and then he was gone.
“Chamberlain!” shouted the regent. “Bring me some wine!”
CHAPTER THIRTY
A MEMORY OF WOLVES
In the town of Andolan, near the castle, was a small church. It was a tumbledown building made of stone, weathered by the years and grown over with gray-green lichen. The church was older than t
he castle, even older than the walls of Andolan themselves. It had been built before Dolan Callas ever rode north to the Mearh Dun, when there had been only a hamlet where the town of Andolan now stood. The church was dedicated to the nearly forgotten sleeping god and was watched over by one old priest. He spent most of his days feeding the town cats who regarded the churchyard as their home. He also mumbled his way through mostly unattended vespers once a week and pottered about in the cemetery behind the church, tending the roses and weeding around the headstones.
It was midmorning when Levoreth walked around the side of the church. A rose bush grew at the back of the cemetery, where the oldest gravestones stood near the town wall. The bush had vines as thick as tree branches. They gripped the stones of the wall and climbed upward until they spilled over the top in scarlet blooms. Bees buzzed amidst the growth, and the air was heavy with perfume. The priest, armed with a rusty pair of shears, tottered around the perimeter of the bush, poking at some vines that curled out toward the nearest headstones. It was there, at the back of the cemetery, that the members of the Callas family were buried.
“Here,” said Levoreth. “Let me get that for you.”
“Thank you, my dear,” said the priest, startled at the girl’s appearance but happy to relinquish the shears. He blinked in admiration as she clipped the vines back.
“Eh,” he said, mopping his brow, “Thought it might be the shears, but perhaps it’s just my arms.” He blinked at her some more. “Why, it’s Lady Levoreth. I haven’t set eyes on your pretty face in nigh on five years.”
“Two years,” said Levoreth. “You remember? I sat up with you for midwinter compline the evening the great snows started falling. No one else came.”
“Ah,” he said. “The great snows. What a winter that was. My poor cats refused to leave the church, even after they’d caught all the mice. Not that I blame them, with the wolves coming down out of the mountains. It was a wonder we didn’t have them wandering about the streets.”
“Aye,” she said. “It’s a wonder.” She stepped back and looked up at the rosebush. “This old vine certainly has seen better days.” A sparrow rustled its way through the leaves and trilled a burst of song down at her.
“That it has,” said the old man. “That it has. Like us all.” He sighed in contentment, sat down on a fallen headstone, and glanced about the cemetery. Sunlight lay on the headstones, on the mossed-over paths that ambled between the graves, the crooked back of the church hiding the cemetery from the rest of the town.
“What a pleasant place to sleep.”
“I’ve always thought so,” said Levoreth.
And sleep, the priest did—his head nodding forward until his chin was resting on his cassock.
It was remarkable how many Levoreths had been buried in the cemetery. One double headstone in particular drew her. It looked to be the oldest, and it was. Over six hundred years of sun and rain and snow had hollowed out the engravings until the letters were almost illegible. She knew them by heart, however. With one finger, she traced the stone: Dolan Callas. First Duke of Dolan. Levoreth Callas. Beloved Wife and Mother. Her namesake. Her own self. A smile crossed her face. She sat down upon the grass, the headstone at her back, and closed her eyes.
Two years ago. The coming of the wolves. That was why she had left Andolan for the solitude of the country manor in the east. At least, that was the practical reason. She would have left sooner or later, for she could never bear the town that long. Too many memories. The wolves had hurried her decision.
Two years ago, she had been woken in the night by the wind murmuring at her window in the castle. She had leaned against the sill to listen. Normally, she did not trust the wind, for she found it fickle, given to fits of whimsy and equally quick in turning to violence. It was not tamable, at least not by her hand. But that night had been different. She could not ignore the melancholy in the wind’s voice. And in its murmur she heard news of an approaching winter, of shadows stirring on the far side of the mountains, and of wolves coming west.
The following night, midwinter’s eve, she had heard the howl of a wolf lingering in the wind as she trudged back to the castle after compline. She had stopped, surprised, for there was fear in the wolf’s voice. The snow drifted in her hair as she listened. Fear in a wolf was something rare.
And then the reports had started trickling in from the shepherds in the far reaches of the Mearh Dun. Huge timber wolves, the likes of which had never been seen west of the Mountains of Morn. Fierce beasts that terrorized the folds where the flocks were wintering, unafraid of dog and man alike. It had been only days later when the first one was sighted near the walls of Andolan. Children were no longer allowed outside the town. One day, the remains of a trader and his packhorses were found dead in the snow, three miles from the gate.
On that evening, she had wrapped herself in a cloak and slipped out of the town. A full moon was rising, and its light shone on the snow. Her breath steamed in the air. For half an hour she trudged through the snow before stopping. She stood on a hill, bare of anything except the snow and her footprints. In every direction there were only the rolling slopes of the Mearh Dun. There was not a cottage or tree in sight. She stood and listened to the land.
Then she had heard them, far to the north. She sent forth her thoughts and called. She subsided into silence, waiting in the cold, under the night and a scattering of stars like jewel shards and the moon with its pale eye.
They had come in a rush, shadows loping over the next hill, vanishing down into the divide and then hurtling up the hill she stood on. Snow flew through the air from their paws as the pack surged around her, a few daring to brush her hands with their cold noses. Tongues lolled and eyes flashed amber, blue, and polished as wet stone. They stilled their pacing and stood around her—near a hundred, she counted. A black wolf stalked forward. His eyes, gray as a winter sky, met hers, and then he dropped his head to nose at her palm.
Mistress of Mistresses.
“Drythen Wulf,” she said. “The Mountains of Morn are the home of your folk, not the Mearh Dun.”
Aye. You speak truth.
“What has brought you and yours west? Does your clan entire think to chase the sun?”
He had laughed at that, soundlessly, his yellowed teeth glistening and his eyes half closed. And then his head drooped, and a shiver ran through the watching pack.
Nay, Mistress. We have no heart for legends anymore. We have run away from our land.
We run, echoed the pack. Their voices were doleful.
“What follows after you?”
But his head had drooped lower at her question. She knelt in the snow and took his shaggy head between her hands.
“Drythen Wulf, what follows after you?”
A sceadu, Mistress. A cursed shadow out of our ancient legends. The home of our ancestors has become a haunt of shadows and dread. The mountains are no longer ours. The deer took herself away, and the rock hare vanishes since summer’s sun. Our small ones dream of horrors and no longer wake, leaving us to chase the sun. He trembled with anger. His teeth snapped shut on the air.
“Are you sure of this? It has been many hundreds of years since such a one has been seen in this realm. There were three of them from days of old.”
The wolf did not speak, but only gazed at her with his gray eyes. She nodded, then, in acceptance of his words. The pack waited in silence around her.
“The Mearh Dun cannot be your home. Your coming has brought great distress to its folk. They are a gentle people and unused to the ways of the wolf.”
Are we not also your folk? Does the lady grow to love man more than her four-footed subjects? The nyten of mountain, hill, forest, and plain?
“Nay, nay,” she had said, vexed under the eyes of the wolf.
Would have us south, then, into the crowded plains of man and the desert beyond? The north will not have us. Giants walk there in the fields of ice, beyond the realm of man, and they have never been friendly to our folk. S
hould we run west, into the great sea?
“I would not have you anywhere except the land that bears you love, the Mountains of Morn.”
We cannot, Mistress. Unless—and here the wolf paused, unsure at his own daring—unless we have your company to search out the sceadu and make it safe for our little ones.
And so was struck the deal that brought Levoreth east from Andolan, bargained under the night sky and far from the sleeping town. The pack bore witness and the wolf brought forth a gawky-legged pup with his own black fur and eyes as silver as moonlight on the sea. It padded about her feet and licked her hand.
My own whelp, Mistress of Mistresses. I would have you name him, for someday he will lead the pack, after the sun has called me to the great chase.
She had named the pup Ehtan, after the great wolf that the Aro had bidden to hunt among the stars, tirelessly seeking after the Dark. She smiled and awoke in the stillness of the cemetery. The old priest was gone. The air was full of light and the sweetness of the rose bush.
“Aye,” she said aloud. “This is a place well-suited for sleep.” She stood up, somewhat stiffly, and lingered for a moment at the headstone of Dolan Callas before walking away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
A PLACE CALLED DAGHORON
Jute slept poorly that night.
He dreamt of the darkness. This is a dangerous thing to do, for such dreams are opportunities for the Dark. To dream of the Dark is to bring yourself to its attention. Who knows what may happen then?
It was a night without stars. Cold and breathless. A shadow stretched past Jute out into the expanse of space. If I turn, Jute thought, will I see this thing that casts such a shadow? Or what if it already stands before me, far on the other end of this darkness? For everything is shadow here, and the darkness stands everywhere. It does not need light to cast the shadow of itself.
The shadow gained form as he watched. Battlements rose up. Spires soaring above and below and on either side. Towers and walls that climbed ever upward, dizzying. Endless. The façade was pitted with windows that gaped without glass or light inside.
The Hawk And His Boy Page 17
