by Ed Greenwood
Her lord stared at her, then shook his head and laughed ruefully. "You're beyond the Falcon, Tel, you are! How did you..."
"I've been reading your face and voice quite well for more than a score of years now, Irrance Tesmer," his lady replied meaningfully. "Now give, Ranee."
"I just did," he jested, then met her mock-angry gaze with a raised finger and the graver words, "Earlier this night, and I tell you true now, some of our bowmen watched the Hammerhands howling at the walls of Lyraunt Castle—and as we put arrows into a few Hammerhand backs, lorn flew out of Lyraunt and commenced to savage the Hammerhold knights."
"Malraun," Lady Tesmer said quietly. "Sending them at the last to try to salvage something while his spell-might and attention remain elsewhere."
Her lord nodded. "I saw it in that wise, too. It stands as proof of the danger you warned against, yes. Yet, Tel, I still hunger to be Lord of Ironthorn; I think I always will, until I am."
"Ah, but Lord of Ironthorn now, just in time for Malraun to arrive and blast and burn you, me, and all this vale? Or Lord of Ironthorn in some year to come when there is no more Malraun lording it across too much of Falconfar? I still say we must very soon be ready to flee into the Raurklor—all Tesmer folk, our warriors with us—if need be. Try not to get caught up in any wider fighting yet, so we can stand ready for anything."
Irrance Tesmer nodded. "You have always been the shrewder of we two, and any man can see the wisdom of being ready for anything. Yet tell me, if you would, the thinking that led you to this counsel."
Staring gravely up into her husband's eyes, Lady Telclara Tesmer murmured, "I see the Master's hand in this, but I've not yet seen what he desires. When he tells us, then we'll know if ruling Ironthorn is a stride ahead from us—or if our lives are going to be turned toward something else altogether."
Lord Tesmer nodded slowly.
"We've trusted him these many seasons," his wife added, "and are still alive and reigning over gem-mines that many a Stormar lord or Galathan velduke drools to have. We must trust him now."
"Do you trust any of our children?"
Lady Telclara Tesmer snorted. "Of course not." A look of disgust passed over her face, and she said, "We forge what tools we must, at the Master's command. Now love me again; I'd much rather not think of them."
Her lord grunted heartfelt agreement and lowered his head to her breasts again.
She chuckled and twisted under him, trying to buck him off. Mock-struggling, yes, but with surprising speed and strength. Lord Tesmer had to move in great haste to catch her wrists, then use all his strength to hold her down.
When their eyes met again, his were once more ablaze with delight.
"HAND ME THE flask. Making love to you is hot work, sister."
"Warmer than you anticipated?" Talyss Tesmer purred, stretching to let the moonlight trace her every sleek curve.
She was sitting up on their cloaks, settled into the curve of a tree-bough as sleekly at ease as if she'd been lounging on a grand chair in one of the great rooms of Imtowers. Looking down her shapely length, from lambent eyes to long, long legs, Belard Tesmer licked his lips all over again.
They were here, in this shady and spell-guarded hollow far out in the Raurklor, to scheme. Nigh the tiny, tinkling headsprings of the Imrush, in a dell half-cloaked with overhanging tree boughs, surrounded by the invisible fires of the strongest ward-magics they both carried. Wards to keep prowling beasts at bay as they honed their plots over wine—and, it had turned out, a little love-making. Coupling with each other for sheer pleasure despite being brother and sister.
"Relieving my burning itch," Talyss had termed it.
The wine and their excitement had spurred it, but it was more than sheer release. Both of them had been hungry for it, and more than hungry, feeling the lack of skin on skin. Neither dared trust any non-kin—or anyone else of the blood Tesmer, for that matter—enough to play the bareskinned bedmate, no matter where or when.
Now sated, it was time to relax, sip wine, and discuss what to do.
In a single smooth, graceful movement, Talyss Tesmer took up the flask and conveyed it to her younger brother's waiting hand. Her movement was swift, but seemed languid, not hurried. Her movements always seemed languid.
The youngest and most vicious of the three Tesmer daughters, she was less than a year older than dark-haired, handsome, sardonic Belard, scourge of young lasses everywhere he rode—and their mothers, too.
She smiled now at that thought, still aglow; he'd been every bit as good as his reputation, and much, much better than she'd expected. It seemed there was one Tesmer, at least, who knew how to use his tongue for more than mere foe-lashing.
He was using it now to answer her, voice softly breaking the companionable silence. "Much warmer, and gladly so. We are sadly out of the habit of thanking each other properly, we Tesmers—probably because fitting occasions for gratitude among us are so few—but let me thank you now, Lyss. You were... magnificent."
She gave him a real smile in return, making sure the moonlight was full on her face so he could see she'd laid aside her usual arch, ready-to-pounce manner, and told him, "Thank you, Bel. So were you. Consider yourself welcome in these arms any time.
Belard Tesmer ducked his head, doing something he'd not done in four seasons of wenching, facing down angry husbands, and sparring with rivals: he flushed, the blood rising to his face dark and swift. Then he nodded to cover his sudden lack of words.
Utterly relaxed, Talyss kept her instinctive little smile of satisfaction off her face. Hooked. As every man was, yes, but she must treat Bel differently, or ruin his usefulness to her.
"Let us speak of plots once more," she said gently, letting reluctance taint her voice. "Do you agree—in the main—with these admittedly over-simple assessments of our parents? Father is a weak fool, utterly ruled by Mother, and she—for all the fearsome reputation Falconfar accords her—is a blinded-by-ambition schemer who will sacrifice everyone and everything to get more power for herself, no matter what the cost to the family, to Ironthorn, or for that matter to all Falconfar?"
Belard smiled mirthlessly, and nodded his head. "I cannot help but agree. I would have agreed with you seven summers ago, or more. How matters stand between Lord and Lady Tesmer is not something all that hard for anyone to see."
"And where will knowing this obvious state of things profit us, if we seek to govern all affairs Tesmer?"
"That control over Mother is essential, control she does not see as taking power from her or frustrating her will and rule. Rather, successful control must come through arranging events and what she learns of them to appear to offer her greater and greater power, so she does and decrees what we want her to as likely steps in her own reaching for more power."
Talyss nodded. "Well said." She reached out wordlessly for the flask.
"Yet so much is obvious," Belard murmured, returning it to her. "Our brothers and sisters know it, the lowest of our servants knows it—even the dead Lords Hammerhand and Lyrose knew it. How can we use this, that all know, to move Mother and therefore all Tesmer the way we desire—yet not get caught at it?"
"There's where you struck the shield-wall, brother, and saw no way past it, yes?"
"Yes," Belard admitted. "Wherefore I risked..."
"Much, and more when you got here and I gave you my smile," Talyss said quietly, taking a swift swallow that sent fresh comforting fire down her throat. "I value that more than you can probably believe, Bel. You're not the only one who knows loneliness as a knife that's never far away, and ever sharp and cruel."
Belard chuckled. "Even our brothers and sisters would be surprised to hear these words from us, so well do we play our parts; me the rake, and you the claws-always-out cat, both of us too eager to hurt, in our separate ways, to feel hurts."
Talyss let her catlike smile reach her lips this time. "Yes, and we must use their judgments of us to give us chances to do the unexpected. Our first chance must be good, and we must u
se it, mind. Mother's no fool; the slightest hint that we're working together—or that either of us is able to step out of being what the world sees us to be—will have her watching us sharper than the Falcon itself. We—"
She broke off, looking up sharply, as dry branches snapped underfoot not far off in the forest.
Their wards started to sing, that rising note of resistance to an intruder, and on its heels sounded the crackle of dead leaves, crushed under foot or paw by something moving forcefully. Something the size of a hunting cat, or a man.
Belard was on his feet with sword in hand, bent forward to get out of the moonlight and try to peer into the night-drenched forest.
They heard a stifled curse—a man, trying to keep his oath to a whisper—and more snappings of trodden dead wood. By then Talyss had snatched up her own slender sword and the best-balanced of her poisoned knives, and had the smaller fang poised for throwing.
The wards were almost shrieking now, the shrill sound they made when fighting someone who had his own magic to counter them.
For the intruder, striding closer to the hollow would be like wading upstream against a strong current, or forcing his way onward through a biting wind—not the stabbing pain the wards would force on the unprotected, where to advance far enough would be to die.
Belard felt for his boots. Seeing him made Talyss look for her own, and—
Light was blazing up in the darkness now, the wards starting to burn with the fires that both warned ward-owners and seared imprudent intruders. Most men would have turned back long since, and many of the rest would be screaming by now, plunged into agony by the flames streaming over them.
They could see him, or rather his outline, trudging rather unsteadily toward them through the thick trees. One man alone, hands apparently empty...
"Forestmother, defend me!" he declaimed, in the manner of a priest.
Boots on but otherwise still stark naked, Belard Tesmer strode to the edge of the hollow, sword raised and ready. "Halt," he snapped, "or die."
The burning man, who must not be feeling the flames, to have a voice so free of pain, never slowed.
"We all die, lord," he replied calmly, "and I would rather speak to you—both of you—than flee emptyhanded. Put up your sword; I mean you no harm."
Belard shot a look at Talyss, who nodded, and gestured with her sword that he should let the stranger come.
Or not-stranger; she knew that voice. She couldn't place it, just yet, but she'd heard it a time or three before, she knew she had... in Ironthorn, of course, yet who—
Belard backed away, and a man came staggering down into the hollow, the ward-flames falling away from him into nothingness as he reached the protected area within the wards.
As he came out through the lowest, still-dancing boughs—the limbs overhead were thick, as large in some spots as some full-grown trees along the banks of the Imrush—the moonlight fell full upon him, and both Tesmers gaped in astonishment.
They were staring at Cauldreth Jaklar, the Lord Leaf of Hammerhold. He looked bedraggled and grim, and his hands were empty. He raised them in a palms-out "I'm unarmed" gesture, and came to a halt amid their discarded garments.
"Lord and Lady Tesmer," he said, shooting swift looks at both of them, keeping his eyes carefully on their faces, his own face betraying no opinion at all about their lack of dress and likely reason for that, "I am pleased to have found you this night, for I have an offer to make to you that should please you both and lead to a bright future for Ironthorn."
Belard took a step forward and brought his sword up. "Priest," he snapped, "how did you know we were here?"
"I... you are in the forest, and I serve the Forestmother, who told me where you could be found."
"And why did you want to find us?" Talyss asked silkily, stepping back so moonlight no longer reached her raised arm, and the knife held ready to hurl in it.
"I need your aid, and your talents. Ironthorn needs your aid and talents."
"Oh?" Belard snapped, taking another menacing step forward. "Ironthorn's been slow to say so, thus far!"
"Lord Tesmer," Jaklar said quickly, stepping back and to one side, "please hear me! I can hurl spells to strike you both down, yet have not! Please! Hear me out!"
"Speak," Talyss commanded. The priest's sidestep had brought him closer to her, yet she was mindful of his winning his way so swiftly through their combined wards. He was protected by his own magic, and it might serve to turn aside blades. Or even send hurled ones back at the one who'd thrown them.
"Yes," the Lord Leaf agreed. "Hear me: the Hammerhands are dead, yet House Lyrose survives—with the wizard Malraun standing behind them. So I need new rulers in Hammerhold."
He took a step forward, and tried a smile. "Such as the two of you. With any mates you care to take, of course."
TWO TESMER JAWS dropped open again, incredulity ruling them this time.
"What?" Belard asked disbelievingly, shaking his head.
Talyss had a swifter, surer tongue. "Rule as lord and lady? Over those who hate and mistrust us? While our parents sit a short ride away in their own castle, with their own claim to rightful rule over all Ironthorn?"
Jaklar met her eyes and nodded hard, as if accepting her view. "Yet hear me still!" he snapped. "The Lyrose women will soon be dead, punished by Malraun for their laxity, and your parents—who are, admit what you well know, the pawns of the other Doom, Narmarkoun of the greatfangs and the walking dead—will flee Ironthorn even sooner, running before Malraun can catch them."
"Leaving us to be blasted down by the both of them!" Belard protested. "To say nothing of what we'll have on our hands from all Ironthar—brother and sister ruling as husband and wife!—and our own kin! If none of them accept our rule, we'll soon be corpses, lord and lady of no more than a coffin each. If we're lucky enough to be slain cleanly, so there's something left of us to put in a coffin, that is!"
The priest looked to Talyss and then back at Belard, almost beseechingly. "What if your brothers and sisters rallied to you, and upheld you as Lord and Lady of all Ironthorn?"
Talyss shook her head, lip curling. "Man, you know nothing of House Tesmer, do you? Our darling kin wouldn't do that even if both Dooms, the Falcon and Forestmother, and our parents all ordered them to!"
"What if I used magic on them? Do any of them have influence over the others? I could—"
"Priest, you are a fool."
Those words were uttered by a new voice, that struck everyone in the hollow to startled silence.
It was loud, cold, scornful—and came from above their heads.
Cauldreth Jaklar's hand gave off a sudden glow as he looked up, but an answering wink of light blossomed from one of the great tree limbs overhead, and the voice spoke again.
"No, Jaklar, not this time. You're not the only ambitious snake in Falconfar able to lay hands on a little magic, you know. I've half a mind to blast you now, just to make sure you'll never again dare to think of using spells to control any of we Tesmers—or have mind enough left to do so."
"Nareyera!" Talyss spat.
The younger of her two elder sisters smiled sweetly down at her through the leaves. Nareyera Tesmer had long, glossy black hair; right now it was framing eyes that were dark with malicious glee.
"Talyss, dear, where did you learn to pleasure a man? Watching mares being serviced in the stables?"
Fire rising in her eyes, Talyss hefted her knife threateningly.
Nareyera sneered. "Even if I wasn't spell-shielded against warsteel, your poison is nothing to me, dear. You use dellarra—so lazy of you—and I've tasted it for years. All it does these days is give me a headache. Enough to annoy me, nothing more. Bury it in yon lying priest if you must feed it someone."
She shifted silently along the bough until she could glance clearly across the hollow—whereupon her smile broadened. "Now there's a dagger," she said, licking her lips. "I wouldn't mind a ride or two myself, Belard, if you've finished with Little Cat Spiteful,
here."
Her brother glared up at her. "How long have you been here, Nareyera?"
"From the beginning. Two family wards walking together, out here in the dark, dark Raurklor, arouse my curiosity—and when I'm curious, I like to get up high to watch and listen. When those two wards obligingly stop right under me and start to interweave, I get very interested. As it turns out, I got more than interested—I got entertained. Mmhmm, did I. Enough to make a swiftly-aging woman warm and wet, even if it is my own brother and sister."
"Lady Tesmer," Cauldreth Jaklar snapped, "you would be wise-
"I am wise, priest. You're the one who should learn to become wise. You can begin by shutting your mouth, right now, and putting aside all thoughts of using any magic at all on any of us. Then, perhaps—just perhaps—I'll let you live."
"I—"
Belard took another step toward Jaklar. "Lord Leaf," he growled, "I very seldom agree with my sister Nareyera, but in this one matter I find that I do. Very much so."
"One moment," Talyss said then, raising her voice a trifle. "Jaklar, I believe it would be best if you left this part of the forest, very soon and walking briskly. However, I would have an answer from you first, and an honest one, if you're capable of telling truth. I believe I would like to hear you swear by the Forestmother on this."
Cauldreth Jaklar gave her a glare, but raised his brows and tilted his head to one side as if inviting her query.
"You put a proposition to us," Talyss Tesmer said to him, as calmly as if she was clad in finery, with armed Tesmer knights surrounding her, drawn swords backing her every word, rather than standing nude in a forest hollow, clad only in her long hair. "Tell us now: Why? Why did you want to see a Tesmer brother and sister ruling Ironthorn? What were you looking to gain from this? What hold did you plan to have over us?"
A slender, black-clad arm pointed down at him from the tree-limb above, rings on its fingers suddenly kindling to glowing life, and Belard sidestepped smoothly, to menace Cauldreth Jaklar from one side, almost from behind him. An instant later, Talyss moved too, her bare feet utterly silent, to put the priest squarely between her sword and Belard's.
