by Ann Marston
The inn stood three storeys tall, built of stone and timber, its roof red tile instead of thatch. The windows were glazed casements with leaded patterns of rose, blue, green and yellow glass, and flanked by neatly painted shutters. The sign above the door depicted the Ephir’s crown pierced by the blade of an ornate sword, and the words Sword and Crown painted in flowing script beneath it.
I joined Cullin and Kerri, who were already inside. Men and women, richly dressed in velvets, silks and glossy leathers, occupied most of the tables in the common room that boasted of a polished mosaic tile floor inlaid with copper and brass. Serving girls dressed in neat grey and white gowns, with spotless white aprons embroidered with the sword and crown motif, hurried back and forth between the tables and the kitchens or the bars, carrying trays laden with food or crystal decanters of wine or mead. There was nothing so prosaic as mere ale in this room. A brightly-clad minstrel strumming a lute strolled among the tables and sang bawdily merry songs for the entertainment of the inn’s clientele. Few of them paid him much attention.
The innkeeper wove his way deftly through the tables to meet us. He gave us no welcoming smile as he shrewdly assessed our clothing.
“How may I help you?” he asked in the carefully neutral voice of a man ready to move to either welcome or rejection. “Perhaps you’d be needing directions to more suitable accommodations?”
Kerri wore her trews and tunic, clean now, but rumpled. Cullin and I wore travelling leathers we had purchased the afternoon before from a merchant we found in a small town. They fit reasonably well, but were by no means up to the standards of the clothing worn by the rest of the inn’s patrons. Compared to them, all three of us looked scruffy and unkempt.
Cullin drew himself up to his full height and positively radiated his nobility like heat from a flame. “Is there better in Honandun?” he asked, raising his eyebrow casually.
The innkeeper’s smoothly affluent face grew red. “There is not,” he declared emphatically.
“Then we’ve come to the right place,” Cullin said. “I am Cullin dav Medroch, son of Medroch dav Kian dav Keylan, Clan Laird of Broche Rhuidh of Tyra.” His hand gestured gracefully toward Kerri, then to me. “My lady Kerridwen al Jorddyn, kinswoman to Prince Kyffen of Skai, and my son, Kian. We are here to see the Ephir on a matter of some importance with a message from my father.”
Instantly, the innkeeper’s manner became deferential and respectful. “You are welcome here, my lord,” he said. “Only tell me what you require, and it shall be provided.”
Cullin looked distastefully down at his clothing. “First, three rooms and hot baths in each,” he said. “Then, I think the services of a fuller and a barber for my son and myself.” He smiled. “And I assume you have someone trained as a ladies’ maid for my lady Kerridwen?”
Kerri opened her mouth to protest she needed no such thing, but subsided when I took her arm and squeezed none too gently.
“Of course, my lord,” the innkeeper said smoothly. “I have the perfect girl for the lady, well trained and very discreet. And your meal? Would you prefer to take it down here, or shall I have something to your taste sent up?”
“Sent up, I think,” Cullin said. “We have been travelling for almost a fortnight. It was tiring in the extreme.”
“Of course, my lord,” the innkeeper said. He snapped his fingers and two boys appeared to relieve us of our saddle packs. “I will have Lashia sent to the lady’s room immediately. The boys will see you upstairs. You have but to call and I will have your meal sent up.”
Kerri paused on the stairs and looked at Cullin, a hint of a smile on her mouth. “You do that very well,” she murmured.
Cullin’s smile was beatific. “It’s an art,” he said negligently. “And I was well-schooled.”
***
The next morning after we broke our fast, Cullin summoned a messenger and sent a note to the Ephir. By mid morning, a man wearing royal livery arrived at the inn bearing a formal invitation for the three of us to attend at the palace that evening. Cullin returned a gracious acceptance, then set the whole inn on its ear as he demanded—and got without question—all the services to see us properly ready and on time.
I have never in my life seen such dedicated, frantic scurrying around by so many people. Kerri disappeared into her room amid a bevy of ladies’ maids and seamstresses. My dress kilt and plaid were snatched right out of my hands and spirited away to the fuller. A quietly dignified bootmaker old enough to be my grandfather, sat me down on a velvet upholstered chair in my room and called me “my lord” while he told me why this particular pair of boots and none other would suit my purpose.
He had no sooner left when a barber and his assistant descended upon me. They shaved me and washed my hair, then trimmed it, tasks I had been fully capable of performing for myself all my life, and I submitted with only a token protest. But when they brought out the tongs, I flatly refused to let them near me, despite their protestations of the dictates of fashion. My hair was perilously close to curling on its own after it was washed. It needed no extraneous attention from a pair of fashion-mad barbers. They finally left, bitterly disappointed, when I offered with heartfelt sincerity to throw the first man to touch my head with those forsaken tongs right out of the window.
I had exactly ten minutes respite to re-plait the braid in my hair before a servant arrived with my neatly pressed, spotless kilt and plaid, carrying a snowy linen shirt across his arm. I looked with distaste at the fountains of frothy lace at throat and wrists. It looked like a year’s worth of precious needle lace if what Gwynna produced was a good measure.
“Not really,” I said in dismay.
“Yes, really,” Cullin said, appearing at the door. He had not, I noticed, escaped the attention of the tongs. “If we are to be barbarians at Court, ti’rhonai, then we will be truly magnificent barbarians.” He tossed me a clan badge, plaid brooch and kilt pin, freshly polished to a soft, gleaming sheen. “Here. They left those with me. You’ll need them.”
“Barbarians,” I repeated, eyeing the shirt. “Does that mean I can drink wine from the decanter and leer at the ladies?”
“I believe leering at the ladies comes under the heading of civilized behaviour,” he said gravely. “You’ll have to content yourself with aloof disdain.”
“I’m good at disdain,” I said, considering. “But I’d rather leer.”
“Of course,” he said. “So would we all.” He grinned and left me to my own devices and at the mercy of the servant.
“No swords, my lord,” the servant said apologetically when I made to buckle mine on. “The Ephir allows no weapons in the palace.”
“Wise of him,” I muttered. I felt strangely naked and vulnerable without the sword, but I left it in the room.
The Ephir sent a carriage for us. The footman appeared at the door of the Sword and Crown just as Kerri swept down the stairs in a gown of something that shimmered like moonbeams on water, her hair pulled back off her face, dressed with pearls and bound by gold netting, a dark blue velvet cloak around her bare shoulders. Cullin bowed to her, then offered her his arm. She inclined her head graciously and placed her fingers delicately on his elbow. I trailed out to the carriage in their wake. Cullin and Kerri looked odd without their swords, too. Perhaps we had been too long among bandits and potential enemies.
***
The reception room of the palace was full of people. The velvets, silks, laces and glossy leathers they wore rivalled the priceless tapestry wall hangings in opulence, and their jewels glittered brightly as the crystal, gold and silver under the massed light of hundreds of candles. I noted in passing there must be somewhere in Honandun some very rich chandlers. The ornate throne at the far end of the room near the marble hearth stood conspicuously empty as the heralds announced us. The ripple of conversation abated slightly as people turned their heads to watch us, assessing our importance and deciding just exactly how polite they needed to be.
With Kerri on his arm, Culli
n advanced into the room, his grace and poise more than a match for any of his audience. A man separated himself from a knot of people and came to meet us, hand extended in greeting. He was clad in Isgardian trews and jacket in a soft grey, but wore a plaid in bright red, brown and blue pinned over his shoulder. I noted reflectively that the foam of lace at his throat and wrists was even more elaborate than mine. Or Cullin’s. His hair gleamed like polished oak and sprang from his head in tight, lustrous curls. Only the braid by his left temple and his neatly trimmed beard showed silver to betray any indication of age.
“Cullin, my dear boy,” he called ebulliently. “How very good to see you again!”
“Sion, you old reprobate,” Cullin replied, smiling. “It’s been years.” They embraced each other soundly, then Cullin drew Kerri forward. “Sion, I have the honour to present the lady Kerridwen al Jorddyn, kinswoman to Prince Kyffen of Skai. My lady, Sion dav Turboch, Tyran ambassador to the Court of Isgard.”
Sion dav Turboch took Kerri’s hand and bowed over it, raising it briefly to his lips. “I’ve met your father, my lady,” he said, his eyes twinkling merrily. “And I must say that he does not deserve a daughter so beautiful as you. You must favour your lady mother.”
Kerri murmured something polite and smiled.
Cullin drew me forward. “Sion, this is—”
“Leydon’s boy,” Sion said, measuring me carefully. “I’d know you anywhere, lad. Last time I saw you, you could walk beneath a horse without bending your head. In fact, you were. Nearly frightened your mother’s hair white.”
“I’ve grown since then,” I said, smiling. It was difficult not to smile in reply to the dazzle of his.
“Aye, well, I should hope so,” he replied. “That must have been well nigh twenty years ago.”
Cullin looked around casually, smiling. “Have we established our credentials for all the watching eyes, Sion?” he asked.
Sion laughed. “Aye,” he said. “I believe so. That’s why I was sent to greet you. The Ephir trusts few people these days.”
“As well he should,” Cullin said. “And you’re one of them.”
“I have that honour,” Sion said smoothly.
“Sion was one of the best swordmasters in Tyra before he turned to his hand to diplomacy,” Cullin said, still smiling. “His tongue was not always so polished.”
“Because you were a stubborn and frustrating student,” Sion replied. “But you were one of my best, much as I hate to admit it and give you reason to expand that pride of yours.”
Cullin grinned at Kerri and me. “Sion also runs the best network of spies on the continent,” he said, lowering his voice. “Sometimes, he even tells my father what he knows.”
“Only so much as is good for him,” Sion said, comfortably complacent. He offered his arm to Kerri. “The Ephir has arranged a private audience before the meal, if you would be so good as to accompany me.”
“You probably already know what news I bring,” Cullin said as we fell into step with Sion and Kerri.
“No doubt,” Sion said serenely. “No doubt, but it would be best coming first hand from you, wouldn’t it?” He smiled down at Kerri. “You make the other women in this room dim like candles before the sun, my dear.” He patted her hand on his arm. “You shall have to let me take you around and introduce you so I may show you off.”
“Go gently with the lady, Sion,” Cullin said, amused. “She’s bheancoran and very well trained.”
Sion looked at Kerri with new interest. “Ah,” he said. He smiled. “Then perhaps we shall merely dine together and you will be so kind as to gaze besottedly at me to enhance an old man’s reputation.”
We had almost reached the door near the empty throne when a man wearing the dress uniform of an officer in the Honandun Guard intercepted us. The hand holding his silver-chased goblet flashed and glittered with rings, but the jewels could not disguise the whiteness of the knuckles. The set of his nose was badly off kilter, but all signs of swelling or bruising had faded. The nose did little now to augment his good looks. He put me in mind of a meticulously bred but slightly stupid horse. Malevolence gleamed in his hooded dark eyes as he looked at Cullin.
“It would seem we meet again,” he murmured. “I had thought you would not dare to return so quickly to Honandun.”
“I take it you two have met already,” Sion said.
“Not formally,” Cullin replied politely.
“Ah,” Sion said, nodding. “Tergal Milarson, Cullin dav Medroch of Broche Rhuidh. And the lady Kerridwen al Jorddyn of Skai, and Kian dav Leydon.”
Kerri gave the Guard officer a dazzling smile. “Why, Sion,” she murmured prettily. “You had not told me that Honandun contained such handsome men!” She held her hand out to the Guard and gave him the full effect of her brilliant smile. “Delighted to meet you, Captain Tergal.” And she batted her eyelashes at him.
Tergal bent low over her hand, then straightened, smiling. “It is a pity we could not have met before I had this unfortunate accident,” he said, touching his nose briefly.
“Oh, but, Captain,” Kerri gushed. “It gives you such an interesting and mysterious appearance. This one—” She waved a dismissive hand in my direction. “This one has only looks but no substance. So very wearying, would you not agree?”
Heat climbed from my throat to suffuse my cheeks. I hoped Tergal would interpret it as cold dignity attempting to disguise wounded barbarian pride rather than near strangulation from the effort it took to repress the laughter threatening my breathing. Cullin put up his hand to stroke his beard and hide the corners of his mouth, but not a ripple disturbed the smooth, bland surface of Sion’s face.
Tergal smiled again. “You are too kind, my lady,” he said. “Perhaps you would do me the honour later of allowing me to present you to my cousin, the Ephir.”
“That would please me immensely, Captain,” she said, and gave him another dazzling smile. “Once we have finished our business with my lord ambassador here, I would be delighted.”
Tergal bowed. “Your servant, my lady,” he said. “Until later then.” He gave Cullin the smug, self-satisfied look of a mountain cat that has just successfully stolen a plump, juicy rabbit right out from between the teeth of a wolf. He made a stiff, abrupt bow to us and moved away. We had not seen the last of Tergal Milarson. He looked just intelligent enough to be sly, and certainly vindictive.
Sion offered Kerri his arm again. He bent over to place his mouth close to her ear. “Minx,” he murmured just loud enough for me to overhear. “You drew his fangs very neatly, my girl.” Kerri merely gave him a radiant, starry-eyed smile.
We left the reception room and passed into a brightly lit hall. Sion paused before a brass bound door and knocked three times. From inside, a voice called: “Come.”
***
The chamber Sion led us into was small and comfortably, if plainly, furnished. A wooden worktable stood facing the window. On the wall behind it hung a huge map of the continent, the countries all colour washed in different hues: Tyra, a tapering green arrowhead running east from the coast; the blocky yellow shape of Isgard and the sprawl of landlocked Maedun, blood red in the candle light. I had never seen a more finely detailed map, except perhaps for the one my grandfather owned, which hung in his own study at Broche Rhuidh. A sleek grey-striped cat lay curled in sleep on a wooden bench beneath the window. I had been expecting a demonstration of more opulent tastes, similar to the reception chamber, but this was a room in which Cullin’s father, my grandfather, would have been at home. It sharply restructured my image of the man who ruled Isgard.
The man himself stood with his back to us, hands clasped loosely behind him, gazing out the window at the square below. He wore trews and jacket in simple, unadorned grey and he was shorter than I expected—less than a handspan taller than Kerri. Narrow shoulders curved forward in an habitual slump, allowing the light to gleam on the pink scalp surrounded by thin, lank grey hair. Not a prepossessing figure at first sight, the Ephir
.
Then he turned and the illusion shattered. The set of the Ephir’s thin, nearly lipless mouth gave away nothing, nor did his pale grey eyes, small and closely set above the knife blade of his nose. They shone bright and gleaming as silver coins. They were as flat and impenetrable as coins, too, giving away nothing of what their owner thought. I thought perhaps they might allow a man to see whatever he wished mirrored there. The slouched posture and the drab, grey exterior, then, were a subtle subterfuge, an exercise in misdirection. The study in contrasts between the reception chamber and this room, between the slumped posture and the alert, watchful eyes, was meant to confuse and to keep both friends and enemies off balance
Sion presented us and the Ephir inclined his head in brusque acknowledgment as Cullin and I bowed and Kerri curtsied.
“My lord Ephir,” Cullin said, “I bring you greetings from Medroch dav Kian dav Keylan, Eleventh Clan Laird of Broche Rhuidh of Tyra, First Laird of the Council of Clans, Protector of the Sunset Shore, Laird of the Misty Isles, Master of the Western Crags and Laird of Glenborden.” The titles rolled effortlessly from his tongue. I always managed to trip over one or more of them when I tried it.
“Your father honours me,” the Ephir murmured. “I had not expected him to send his son. But surely you are his younger son?” He slanted a quick glance at me. “I was given to understand you had sired none but three daughters.” In Isgard, a man’s virility was measured by the number of sons he produced. In Tyra, a man’s worth was measured otherwise.
“Kian is my foster-son,” Cullin said, undisturbed by the veiled insult. “The son of my brother, Leydon.”
“So.” The Ephir went to a chair behind a work table. “Please, be seated,” he said, gesturing toward wooden chairs before the table. The cat uncurled itself from the window bench and sauntered insolently across the carpet to leap into the Ephir’s lap, confident of its welcome. The Ephir stroked the glossy fur and the cat’s contented purring filled the room. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell me how thinks your father about the possibility of an alliance between Isgard and Tyra.”
