Wintermoon

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Kedric, if you believe any woman would let you begin a sentence like ‘I was just thinking’ and end it with ‘never mind,’ you truly are a fool,” she snapped, her brows furrowing with irritation.

  “All right!” He held up his hands. “I was just thinking that—this is going to sound very stupid—I was just thinking that I owe your Countess a great apology, as well as a debt of gratitude.”

  She raised an eyebrow, and regarded him expectantly.

  “I owe her the debt of gratitude for sending you,” he elaborated. “Although I confess that when I was told you, a mere slip of a child, was supposedly a Grey Lady, I was very angry and sure you would be less than useless. So I suppose I owe you an apology as well. I could never have hoped to stop this without you—I was never meant to be an assassin, and I cannot think of any other way of removing Massid.”

  She smiled grimly, thinking of her own training and the weapons still hidden in her chest. “You would never have gotten past his bodyguards,” she replied firmly. “They are trained as assassins. The Khaleems require such, since treachery is so much a part of their lives. Not unless you could conjure up some subtle poison and the means to deliver it that they had never seen before.”

  “Alchemysts make poor poisoners,” he murmured. “We do not meddle much with physic and medicine. We leave that to the healers and doctors.”

  She tilted her head to one side, curiously. “Why did you choose to become an alchemyst?” she asked.

  He laughed bitterly. “Trying to transmute this—” he tapped his hunched shoulder “—since healers and doctors had so little success at it. Then, well, I was apt to it, and alchemysts do make good spies, the more so when they have other talents to disguise their true nature.”

  “Does it cause you pain?” she asked, regarding him steadily.

  He gaped at her. Not surprising, it was a surpassingly rude question. But she had a reason for her bluntness.

  “No—” he replied, clearly without thinking.

  “Then why bother?” she retorted, with a shrug. “It makes you neither more nor less intelligent, nor healthy, nor any other thing that matters. Have you looked at the faces, the bodies, the hands of my people?” she continued. “Really looked? Or because they are merely underlings, have your eyes slid right by them? I will confess, before the Countess trained my eyes, I would have done the same.”

  He shook his head.

  “Then when this is over, do take the time to look. See how many of them are scarred, twisted, missing fingers or toes or hands or feet.” She nodded as his eyes widened. “The sea is a harsh mistress, and a harsher teacher. She often claims a tithe of flesh and blood, especially to pay for a mistake. But they carry themselves proudly, and find ways to do their duty—or find a different duty. They do not think overmuch of what they are not. And neither should you.”

  She had intended to leave it there, but her mind was tired, and what she had intended to keep to herself slipped out before she could stop it. “What you are is a clever and kindly man, a skilled and wise man, more noble in heart than most are by blood—altogether the sort of man I wish was my husband in truth.”

  He stared at her blankly. For the first time in a very long time she felt herself flushing, blushing so hotly she was sure that her cheeks rivaled the coals of the fire. “I have said too much. More than I ought. I was tired. More tired than I thought. Forgive my rudeness, my foolishness, and forget what I—” she blurted, and got up, stumbling out of the room and into the bedroom to hide herself behind the bed curtains and curse herself until she unaccountably fell asleep.

  The transition from dusk to full dark on the evening of Midsummer Moon passed in the blink of an eye as Moira watched from her window. She had seen the edge of the coming storm itself just before the sun set, and as the light was sucked out of the sky, watched as it scurried across the waves toward them on a hundred legs of blue-white lightning. Then the storm came down on the keep like a shark on a herring. It roared across waves already washing over the lower terraces and hit the walls with an initial blast that shook the entire building.

  She strained her ears for the one sound she was waiting for, over the screaming wind, the thunder, and the howling waves—and she strained her eyes during the lightning flashes for a glimpse of—

  There! A tumble of planks and posts slammed up onto the rocks beneath the cliff face!

  And there! For just one moment, farther out than she would have guessed, a glimpse of a slim fighting ship, masts stowed and sails safely stowed away belowdecks, tossing on the crest of the waves like a child’s toy, whirling rudderless and out of control—

  She bit her lip in grim satisfaction, and turned at the sound of a familiar step, a familiar tap upon the door. “It’s—” said Kedric. He looked at her in shock.

  “Yes, it is,” she agreed, shifting her sword belt a little. “It’s quite gone, boathouse, ship, and private army. Now it is up to us.”

  He continued to stare in disbelief. So, she had managed to keep one secret from him, at any rate!

  “Massid knows that the King is out there somewhere,” she said, waving a hand vaguely in the direction of the window. “And I have questioned every servant that has ever been around him when a storm has struck. I know where he goes, and I know he goes alone. I am going to stop him.”

  Strange irony that where he went was the timber room. She must have just missed encountering him there dozens of times.

  “You? But—”

  “If I am to succeed, I desperately need you to deal with my father and Massid’s men,” she continued. “I don’t know how, but you must keep them occupied! Keep them from learning what just happened to Massid’s ship, and keep them from going to fetch Massid!” She threw a mantle on over her armor. It looked enough like one of the loose gowns she favored, particularly in the uncertain light, that he might not notice what she wore beneath it for a few crucial moments. “You said yourself that you are not trained as an assassin. Well, I am.”

  The look on his face might have been funny under any other circumstances. She hoped that she would survive to laugh about it later.

  To laugh about it with him later…

  Please God…

  “He won’t be expecting a female assassin,” she continued, staring into his dark, stricken eyes, willing him to believe her. “I’m going to pretend I followed him to beg his forgiveness and ask for him to take me as his wife. That should let me get close enough. Perhaps if you went to my father and told him you had persuaded me—?”

  He swallowed hard. “That might suffice, my lady,” he said, his normally melodious voice gone harsh. “I will do that—”

  She ducked her head, to avoid the pain and the fear—for her!—in his eyes. “Thank you,” she murmured, and started to push past him.

  But he seized her before she could get out the door, and pulled her to him, holding her in an embrace that probably hurt him, given the armor she was wearing. He cupped one hand behind her head and crushed his mouth down on hers in a kiss that felt as if one of those lightning bolts outside the window had struck her on the lips. She couldn’t breathe—couldn’t think—didn’t want it to end—

  He let her go, and she stood, wide-eyed and swaying, staring at him.

  “You will return to me, wife!” he grated, his eyes wild. “You will come back to me whole and unhurt, for Grey Lady or not, I shall not give you or myself up to the service of any other, nor shall I let anyone part us, even if he be the King himself! And if you do not come back to me, then by the signs and the seal, I will follow you, though it be to the gates of heaven or hell!”

  With that, he whirled, and was gone, his footsteps, half-running, echoing down the hall amid the noise of the storm.

  She stood swaying a moment more, somehow managed to get some sort of control over herself, and walked with swift but uncertain steps to the first servants’ stair that would take her where she needed to go.

  It was a good thing she knew the way by heart, beca
use most of the lanterns were out, and she fumbled her way through the darkness in a kind of daze. Half of her wanted to shout with elation, and the other half was frozen with fear, for despite her brave words, she was not even remotely certain that her ruse would work. Women were used as assassins all the time in the Khaleemates, though usually it was poison in the festive cup or a knife in the dark, the pillow over the face or the serpent in the bath. But there was no guarantee. And no guarantee that Massid himself was not an assassin, and had already recognized her for what she was.

  She stumbled out into the open space of the timber room, looking every bit the confused and distressed maiden, she was sure, though it was not by design. The cavern echoed with the storm below and all around; strange drafts whipped her clothing tightly to her body, and the flickering and uncertain light made bewildering shadows everywhere. She could not see Massid.

  “Massid?” she croaked, her voice not even carrying a foot from where she stood. She coughed and cleared her throat. “My lord Prince?” she tried again. “Massid? My lord?”

  A movement that was not shadow warned her, and she half turned as Massid, clad from head to toe in black, rose up from behind a pile of masts. She could not see his face, but there was anger in his voice.

  “What do you want, woman?” he growled. “This is no time for the idiocy of females! Begone!”

  She stumbled toward him, deliberately trying to make it look as if she could not make out her footing. But she knew every stick and plank in this room, where it was, and how steady or unsteady it was underfoot. Her stumbles, at least, were feigned.

  “My lord?” she said plaintively. “My lord, I have sinned against you and my father. I was evil, disobedient, my mind polluted by that wicked woman with whom I have lodged all these years. I know I was wrong to say what I did, I know that I never deserved the honor of being made your wife, and in spurning you, I—”

  “Enough.”

  The unmistakable sound of a sword being unsheathed made her freeze where she stood.

  “Do you think I do not know about the Countess Vrenable and her Grey Ladies? Do you think I had not guessed that you were one of that detestable creature’s polluted assassins?” He took a step closer, and it was all she could do to keep from shrinking backward. “How like that weakling King of yours, to hide behind skirts and send little girls to do his work! Well, there is no dishonor to a blade in using it to spit a viper—and there will be no dishonor in using mine to rid the world of one more poison-tongued witch!”

  He leaped, and that was enough to shock her into dodging, not backward, but to the side—to fling off her mantle and throw it at him in the hopes of entangling his blade while she unsheathed hers, dagger and rapier together.

  A gust of wind caught it as she got her sword clear, and threw it over his head.

  Her body recognized her one chance, even though her mind went blank.

  Her body acted as she had trained, throwing her forward in a long, low lunge under his flailing blade, flinging her arm out in a swift strike.

  Her body followed up the hit as the blade, instead of encountering the resistance of armor and a blunted tip, slid into his gut as a fish slid through water.

  Her arm wrenched upward of itself, driving the blade in and up until it grated against bone, and hot wetness gushed against her hand.

  And her body drove home the dagger into his throat, as he flailed at her head with the hilt of his sword, in blows already weakening, until he dropped to the floor of the cavern, taking her weapons with him.

  His eyes stared up sightlessly at the ceiling; she turned and stumbled away a few paces, and fell to her knees, heaving and retching, until there was nothing left in her stomach—and weeping hysterically between each bout of gut-wrenching sickness.

  Then, out of the darkness, a voice, and hands on her shoulders. “Moira? Moira! By God, if he has harmed one hair—”

  She turned into his embrace, laughing and weeping at the same time, the taste of bile bitter in her mouth and her throat raw. “You’ll do what? Bring him back to life so that you can beat him?”

  “Fiat lux!” came the unexpected words, and the cavern blazed with light from a globe that appeared just over Kedric’s head. “Oh, my love—” He wiped her mouth and chin with his soft linen sleeve, then dabbed at her eyes with the napkin someone behind him handed to him. He took her chin and tilted it up. “You’ll have a black eye in the morning,” he said, with calm matter-of-factness that belied the fading fear in his eyes. “And a sore stomach.”

  “Yes, well, I’ve never—” She made herself say the words. “I’ve never killed anyone before. I suppose—I—” She started to relax in his embrace, then pushed him away in alarm. “Father!” she exclaimed.

  “Lord Ferson has met with an accident,” said Kedric. “I don’t know the details. Your cook tells me I do not want to know the details. There was some little to-do in the Great Hall when one of Massid’s men came up with the news that the ship, the boathouse, and the dock were all gone. Unaccountably, they blamed me—and your loyal retainers rushed to my defense.”

  She took in his own battered face now, for the first time. “Kedric!” she exclaimed, anger replacing the sick sourness in her stomach. “Are you hurt? Did they—”

  “And you will do what? Send out men with nets to haul in what was thrown out the window?” With some difficulty, he curved his swollen lips in a smile. “I think we should both save our energy to deal with the King. He is not going to be very happy about losing his Fool and his Grey Lady—”

  She brought up her chin at that, covering her wince—she thought—rather well. “He will not have a choice,” she said. “I am the Keep Lady, and you are sealed and bound to me by the Keep Lord and my own will. If he does not wish to begin a revolt of the sea-keeps, he had better keep his opinions on the matter to himself!”

  “Well said, my lady!” crowed someone behind Kedric, and the Fool began to laugh, shaking his head.

  “Oh, you are a terrible woman, Moira of Highclere,” he said, tears leaking out of his swelling eyes. “I fear for my sanity, if not my life!” But the arms that held her did not release her; in fact, he pulled her closer as some of the men behind him began to chuckle. “Come along with you.”

  He pulled her to her feet, though his own balance was none too steady. “Do you think it is possible in this howling gale to manage a bath for your lady?” he called over the storm.

  “Eh, trust a Fool to want a bath at a time like this!” someone shouted mockingly, and everyone laughed, as they parted for the two of them to pick their way across the lumber and down into the heart of the keep again.

  Yes, she thought, with warmth and a sudden feeling of contentment! Trust a Fool. I shall certainly trust a Fool, with all my heart, for all my life.

  The Heart Of The Moon

  Dear Reader,

  The heart of the moon is, of course, the heart of a cool, strong and self-controlled woman. In this case, Clirando. She wears a “mask” because she’s been hurt. And because she is tough, she challenges what hurt her, and drives it off.

  But most of us know there are things that, discard or deny them as we may, leave their marks on us, like the scratches of a lion. Some fade, some scar. The scars are still there to be looked at long, long after.

  I wanted very much to find a way to free my character from her hurt. She deserved that. But like most of the ones I write about, she, or others in this tale, told me how her freedom would come about. She needed not only new light, but the means to confront the shadows. When Zemetrios entered the story and showed his worth, the core of the narrative began to flame—the fire-heart was being refueled.

  In fact, I first saw the heroine’s name in a dream, written across a white moon above a dark isle. It’s a kind of play on words, too, I believe. Clir-an-do: Clear and do.

  Tanith Lee

  Prologue

  The moon’s face is cold, but her heart is full of fire—how else could she give such light?
r />   Lightning

  The night that lightning struck the Temple of the Maiden—that was the night she found them. Clirando would never have suspected the warrior goddess Parna of such harsh melodrama. Though justice, of course, was partly her province. It seemed she had wanted Clirando to see and to know. Perhaps she had expected Clirando to behave differently after it had happened.

  The narrow streets of Amnos were moon-and-torch lit, and people were shouting and running up toward the Sacred Mount, where stood the temples of the Father and Parna the Maiden. Smoke and a thin flame still sizzled from her roof, and the sea-washed air was full of the reek of scorching stone.

  But by the time Clirando reached the lower terrace, men were already on the tiles, girls, too, from the various female warrior bands. Clirando saw two of her own command, Oani and Erma, busy there.

  She shouted to them. “Are you safe?”

  “Yes, safe, Cliro. But come up—”

  One of the men, no less than the architect Pholis, swathed in his bed gown, called down, “Use the stairs! No more swarming on ropes here, the roof is damaged.”

  So Clirando and several others ran up the final terrace and in from the side court.

  There were guest rooms off the court. Priests and others used them, if they were on duty that night at the temple.

  Almost everybody had come out. They stood around the tank of crystal water under the fig tree, talking, shaking their heads, some offering prayers.

  Two people were late, however, leaving a room.

  As Clirando walked into the court—yawning, she afterward recalled, for the levin-bolt had woken her from sleep like most of the town—she saw them. One was Araitha, her closest friend. The other dark-haired Thestus.

  Clirando knew them both so well that for a long moment it did not startle her to see them there. She was pleased, very probably. Her best friend, as well as her lover, Thestus, both of whom would be excellent at assisting on the roof.