In one of the chairs sat a man in a black velvet robe sipping from a goblet. He was a decade or so older than Tier with the features of an eastern nobleman, wide-cheeked and flat-nosed. Like his face, his hands belonged to an aristocrat, long-fingered and bedecked with rings.
He looked up when Tier’s guide softly cleared her throat.
“Ah. Thank you, Myrceria,” he said pleasantly, setting his goblet on the table. “That will be all.”
The door shut quietly behind Tier’s back, leaving the two men alone in the room.
The robed man folded his hands contemplatively against his chin, “You don’t look like a Traveler, Tieragan of Redern.”
Traveler?
Tier raised an eyebrow and took the empty chair. It was a little short for him, so he stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. When he was comfortable, he looked at the man most probably responsible for his recent imprisonment and said courteously, “And you don’t look like a festering pustule on a slug’s hind end either. Appearances can be deceiving.”
The other man’s face didn’t change, but Tier felt a pulse of power, of magic—just as he was meant to.
The surge of magic died and the wizard smiled. “You are angry, aren’t you? I do believe we owe you an apology for keeping you locked in your cell, but it has been a long time since we had an Owl in our keeping. We had to be certain that we could contain your magic before releasing you.”
Contain his magic?
“You seem to know a lot about me,” Tier commented. “Would you care to return the favor?”
The other man laughed, “You’ll have to excuse me—you’re not quite what I expected. I am Kerstang, Sept of Telleridge.”
Tier nodded slowly. “And what would the Sept of Telleridge want with a Rederni farmer?”
“Nothing at all,” said Telleridge. “I do, however, have a use for a Traveler and Bard.”
“I told you,” said Tier mildly. “I am not a Traveler. What do you need me for?”
Telleridge smiled as if Tier’s answer had pleased him. “In addition to my duties as a Sept, I find myself with the delicate charge of the youth of the Empire. The law of primogeniture, however necessary, leaves many of the younger sons of noblemen without any constructive outlets for their energies. I run an Eyrie for these lost young men and I’m responsible for their entertainment.”
“I’m the entertainment?” said Tier. “Surely there are bards who don’t need abducting to be persuaded to provide entertainment.”
Telleridge laughed, “But they would not be nearly as amusing.” The laughter drifted away as if it had never been. “Nor would they be Owl. All you need to know at the moment is that you are, will you or nil you, my guest for the next year. During that time you will entertain my young friends and occasionally participate in our ceremonies. In return you may ask for anything that you wish, short of leaving, and it will be arranged.”
“I don’t think so,” said Tier.
“Refusing is not an option,” said the wizard. “For a year and a day you will have whatever you want—or you can struggle; it matters not one whit to me.”
That phrase struck a chord of memory. “A year and a day,” Tier said. “You’ll make me beggar king for a year and a day.” He hummed a bit of the old tune. “And I suppose, like the beggar king, you’ll sacrifice me to the gods at the end?”
“That’s right,” said the wizard as if Tier were a prized pupil. “I see that an Owl will be different than a Raven—which is what we’ve had the last three times. The Hunter was interesting, though we finally had to cage him. I think you’ll do. But first…”
He leaned forward and touched Tier lightly; as he did so, the silver and onyx ring on his index finger caught Tier’s attention briefly.
He was distracted by the ring when the wizard’s voice dropped a full octave and he said in the Traveler tongue, “By Lark and Raven, I bind you that you will harm neither me nor any wizard who wears a black cloak in these halls. By Cormorant and Owl, I bind you that you will not ask anyone to help you escape. By Falcon, I bind you that you will not speak of your death.”
Magic surged through Tier, holding him still until the wizard was done.
“There,” he said sitting back again.
There indeed, thought Tier, shaken. No one had ever laid a spell on him before. He felt… violated and frightened. It had been so fast and he hadn’t been able to defend himself from it at all. Cold sweat slid down his neck and he shivered, fighting nausea.
“Sick?” Telleridge asked. “It takes some people like that, but I couldn’t depend upon the word of a Traveler peasant—even if you’d give it. My young friends are easily influenced. I would hate to lose any of my Passerines too soon.”
“Passerines?” asked Tier, breathing shallowly through his nose and hoping he didn’t look as shaken as he felt. “You have song birds here?”
The wizard smiled. “As I said, a Bard will be interesting. Myrceria will tell you what you need to know about my Passerines. Ask her about the Secret Path if you wish. She is waiting for you outside the door.”
The woman was indeed waiting for him, kneeling on the cold stone of the floor with her hands at rest. Prepared, Tier thought, to deal with a man in any mood he might emerge with. She sat unmoving until he closed the door gently behind him.
“If you like, I can take you into the Eyrie,” she said, using her right arm to indicate the open double doors. “There are others to talk to if you wish and food and drink are available to you there. If you would prefer to ask me questions, we can go back to your room. You will find it much improved.”
“Let’s go talk,” he said after a moment.
As Myrceria promised, the cell had been transformed in his absence. It had been scoured clean and furnished with a bed such as the nobles slept in rather than the rush-stuffed mattress over stretched rope he had at home. Rich fabrics and rare woods filled the room; it should have looked crowded, but it managed to appear cozy instead. In the center of the bed a worn lute rested, looking oddly out of place.
He took a step toward it, but stopped. He wasn’t like Seraph: he didn’t feel the need to do the opposite of whatever anyone tried to get him to do, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed being manipulated either. So he left the lute for later examination and chose to investigate another oddity. The room was lit by glowing stones in copper braziers placed in strategic places around the room.
“They’re quite safe,” said Myrceria behind him. She moved against him, pressing close until her breasts rested against his back, then reached around him to pick the fist-sized rock out of the brazier he’d picked up.
He set the brazier down gently and stepped away from her. “You are quite lovely, lass,” he said. “But if you knew my wife, you’d know that she’d take my liver and eat it in front of my quivering body if I ever betrayed her.”
“She is not here,” Myrceria murmured, replacing the rock and turning gracefully in a circle so that he could see what he was refusing. “She will never know.”
“I don’t underestimate my wife,” he replied. “Nor should you.”
Myrceria touched the net that confined her hair and shook her head, freeing waves of gold to cascade down her back and touch her ankles. “She’ll believe you’re dead,” she said. “They have arranged for it. Will she be faithful to you if you are dead?”
Seraph thought he was dead? He needed to get home.
“Telleridge said you would answer my questions,” he said. “Where are we?”
“In the palace,” she answered.
“In Taela?”
“That’s right,” she leaned into him.
He bent until his face was close to hers. “No,” he said softly. “You have answers to my questions, and that is all I’m interested in.” There was a flash of fear in her eyes, and it occurred to him that a whore was hardly likely to be so interested in him on her own. “You can tell Telleridge whatever you like about tonight; I’ll not deny it—but I’ll not break the
vows I’ve made. I have my own woman; I need answers.”
She stood very still for a moment, her eyes unreadable—which told him more about what she was thinking than the facile, convenient expressions of a whore.
Slowly, but not seductively, she rebound her hair. When she was finished she had tucked away her potent sexuality as well.
“Very well,” she said. “What would you like to know?”
“Tell me a lie,” he said.
Her eyebrows raised. “A lie?”
“Anything. Tell me that the coverlet is blue.”
“The coverlet is blue.”
Nothing. He felt nothing.
“Tell me it’s green,” he said.
“The coverlet is green.”
He couldn’t tell when she was lying. Just about the only useful thing his magic could do. He opened his mouth to ask her to help him escape, just to see if he could, but no word of his request left his throat.
“Gods take him!” he roared angrily. “Gods take him and eat his spleen while he yet lives.” He turned toward the whore and she flinched away from him needlessly. He had himself under control now. “Tell me about this place, the Passerines, the Secret Path, Telleridge… all of it.”
She took a step back and sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, on the far side of the lute. Speaking quickly, she said, “The Secret Path is a clandestine organization of nobles. The rooms that you have seen today and a few others are under an unused wing of the palace. Most of the activities of the Path involve only the young men, the Passerines. The older members and the Masters, the wizards, direct what those activities are. The Passerines are the younger members of the Secret Path. They are brought in between the ages of sixteen and twenty.”
“What do they call the older members?” asked Tier.
“Raptors,” she replied, relaxing a little, “and the wizards are the Masters.”
“Who is in charge, the wizards or the Raptors?”
“The High Path—which is made up of a select group of Raptors and Masters and led by Master Telleridge.”
“What is the requirement for membership?” he asked.
“Noble birth and the proper temperament. None of them can be direct heirs of the Septs. Most of the boys come at the recommendation of the other Passerines.”
“Telleridge is a Sept,” said Tier, trying to put his knowledge into an acceptable pattern.
“Yes. His father and brothers died of plague.”
“Did he start this… Secret Path?”
“No.” She settled more comfortably against the wall. “It is a very old association, over two hundred and fifty years old.”
Tier thought back over the history of the Empire. “After the Third Civil War.”
Myrceria nodded her head, and smiled a little.
“Phoran the Eighteenth, I believe, who inherited right in the middle of the war when his father was killed by an assassin,” he said. “A man known for his brilliance in diplomacy rather than war. Now what exactly was it that caused that war…”
Her smile widened, “I imagine you know quite well. Bards, I’ve been told, have to know their history.”
“The younger sons of a number of the more powerful Septs seized their fathers’—or brothers’ lands illegally while the Septs were meeting in council. They claimed that the laws of primogeniture were wrong, robbing younger sons of their proper inheritance. The war lasted twenty years.”
“Twenty-three,” she corrected mildly.
“I bet the Path was founded by Phoran the Eighteenth’s younger brother—the war leader.”
She cleared her throat. “By Phoran’s youngest son, actually, although his brother was one of the original members.”
“The Path,” said Tier, having found the pattern, “draws the younger sons, young men educated to wield power but who will never have any. Only the ones who are angriest at their lot in life are allowed into it. As young men, they are given a secret way to defy those in power—a safe outlet for their energies. Then, I suppose, a few are guided slowly into places where they can gain power—advisor to the king, merchant, diplomat. Places where they acquire power and an investment in the health of the Empire they despise. Old Phoran the Eighteenth was a master strategist.”
“You are well educated for a… a baker,” she said, “from a little village in the middle of nowhere.”
He smiled at her. “I fought under the Sept of Gerant from the time I was fifteen until the last war was over. He has a reputation as being something of an eccentric. He wasn’t concerned with the birth of his commanders, but he did think that his commanders needed to know as much about politics and history as they knew about war.”
“A soldier?” She considered the idea. “I’d forgotten that—they didn’t seem to consider it to be of much importance.”
“You are well-educated for your position as well,” he said.
“If younger sons have no place in the Empire, their daughters have—” she stopped abruptly and took a step backward. “Why am I telling you this?” Her voice shook in unfeigned fear. “You’re not supposed to be able to work magic here. They said that you couldn’t.”
“I’m working no magic,” he said.
“I have to go,” she said and left the cell. She didn’t, he noticed, forget to shut and bolt the door.
When she was gone, he pulled his legs up on the bed, boots and all, and leaned against the wall.
Whatever the Path was supposed to have been, he doubted that its only purpose was to keep the young nobles occupied. Telleridge didn’t strike him as the sort to serve anyone except himself—certainly not the stability of the Empire.
Thinking of Telleridge reminded Tier of what the wizard had done to him. His magic was really gone—not that it was likely to do him much good in a situation like this. Alone, without witnesses, Tier sat on the bed and buried his head in his hands, seeing, once more, Telleridge’s hand closing on his arm.
Wizards weren’t supposed to be able to cast spells like that. They had to make potions and draw symbols—he’d seen them do it. Only Ravens were able to cast spells with words.
Telleridge had spoken in the Traveler tongue.
Tier straightened up and stared at one of the glowing braziers without seeing it. That ring. He had seen that ring before, the night he’d met Seraph.
Though it had been twenty years, he was certain he was not mistaken. He’d a knack for remembering things, and the ring Telleridge had worn had the same notch on the setting that the ring… what had his name been? Wresen. Wresen had been a wizard, too. A wizard following Seraph.
How had Telleridge known that Tier was Bard? Tier had supposed that his unknown visitor had told the wizard, if it hadn’t been the wizard himself. However, it sounded as if Tier being a Bard was the reason they’d taken him in the first place. No one except Seraph knew what he was—though she’d told him that any Raven would know.
They had been watching him. Myrceria had known that he had been a baker and a soldier. Had they been watching him and Seraph for twenty years? Were they watching Seraph now?
He sprang to his feet and paced. He had to get home. When an hour of fruitless thought left him still in the locked cell, he settled back on the bed and took up the lute absently. All he could do was be ready for an opportunity to escape as it presented itself.
He noticed the tune that he’d begun fingering with wry amusement. Almost defiantly he plucked out the chorus with quick-fingered precision.
A year and a day,
A year and a day,
And the beggar’ll be king
For a year and a day.
In the song, in order to stop a decade-long drought, desperate priests decided that the ultimate sacrifice had to be made—the most important person in the nation had to be sacrificed: the king. Unwilling to die, the king refused, but proposed the priests take one of the beggars from the street. The king would step down from office for a year and let the beggar be king. The priests argued that a year was not lon
g enough—so they made the beggar king for a year and a day. The drought ended with the final, willing sacrifice of the young man who’d proved more worthy than the real king.
Just as the Secret Path’s Traveler king, Tier, would die at the end of his reign.
He thought of one of the bindings Telleridge had put on him. The young men, the Passerines, didn’t know he would die—otherwise there would be no reason to forbid him to speak of it with them.
No doubt then his death would serve a purpose greater than mimicking an old song. Would it appease the gods like the beggar king’s sacrifice in the story? But then why hide it from the young men? What would a wizard want with his death?
Magic and death, he remembered Seraph telling him once. Magic and death are a very powerful combination. The better the mage knows the victim, the stronger the magic he can work. The mage’s pet cat works better than a stray. A friend better than an enemy… a friend for a year and a day.
He had to get word to Seraph. He had to warn her to protect the children.
His fingers picked out the chords to an old war song. Myrceria, he thought, I will work on Myrceria.
Phoran held the bundle of parchment triumphantly as he marched alone through the halls of the palace toward his study. They’d look for him in his rooms first, he thought. No one but the old librarian knew about the study. They’d find him eventually, but not until he was ready for them.
It had been impulse, really. When the old fool, Douver, set down the papers the Council of Septs had for him to sign, Phoran had just picked them up, tucked them under his arm, and announced to the almost empty room that he would take them under advisement.
He’d turned on his heel and walked out, slipping through a complex system of secret passages—some of which were so well known they might be corridors and others he rather thought he might be the only one who knew. He’d given no one a chance to follow him.
For most of his life, he’d signed what they told him to. At least his uncle had done him the courtesy of explaining what he’d signed—though he remembered not caring much about most of it.
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