Darksong

by Isobelle Carmody

  Bathed and freshly dressed twenty minutes later, Glynn presented herself to the draakira at the front doors to the apartment. To her surprise, she was given a rich Fomhikan brown cloak to wear in place of the grey one she had been given on Acantha. Outside, she was dismayed to find the tall, thin, green legionnaire and his sadistic comrade again on duty. The squat legionnaire, who had tormented her before, lifted the point of his sword to one of her breasts with an expression of vicious playfulness. ‘So, our pretty little pet has come out again.’

  ‘I … I have an urgent errand to run for my mistress,’ Glynn said, ignoring the blade. She had to fight back the urge to scowl at the brute for, as before, something in the crude spill of filth from his mind repelled her in a way that simple violence would not have done.

  ‘First you must answer a few questions in the interests of palace security …’ He shifted the sword tip to her breastbone and pressed on it so that the blade pierced Glynn’s shirt and pricked her skin. She repressed a gasp, aware that he wanted her reaction, but she could not suppress a stab of fear at the thought that the feinna would suffer if he hurt her.

  ‘What is going on here?’ a female voice rapped out icily.

  The legionnaires snapped to attention, and Glynn now saw past them to the Iridomi, Aluade. She looked exactly the same as on the first day they had arrived on Ramidan, and it seemed impossible that she could be a draakan fanatic.

  ‘We were just going to question this servitor …’ the big legionnaire began.

  ‘I could see what you were just going to do, Satrick,’ Aluade said. ‘Perhaps you need some additional training in discipline as a reminder that, when on guard, you are to guard and nothing else. I will mention it to Kalide.’

  Both men had paled, but neither protested.

  Aluade looked at Glynn. ‘Go about your business,’ she said, and Glynn gladly made her escape.

  She had just come to the top of the set of steps that would bring her to the garden level when a large group of nobles wearing bright trailing gowns and capes swirled around a corner and came towards the steps, laughing and chattering. Glynn stepped hastily to one side, her heart beating fast, but no one paid any attention to her. She listened to their words as they passed down the steps.

  ‘ … will have to be done about it.’

  ‘Of course, but who will speak of it to Tarsin?’

  ‘One could, once upon a time, appeal to Asa, or bribe him if it came to that.’

  ‘I’d like to know what happened to him …’

  ‘Wouldn’t we all, including Coralyn.’

  ‘Do you really think she does not know?’

  ‘That is what is being said. And I have heard that Asa has just been … questioned … by Kalide.’

  ‘Ahh. Well that is the end of his usefulness. A pity …’

  The voices faded as the group vanished from sight around a turn in the steps. Glynn waited, then made her own way down the steps, slowly enough that, by the time she reached the bottom, the festive group of nobles had vanished. She took the same route as she had taken the first time she had gone to the kitchens. Several elaborately attired young women, chattering like a flock of birds, emerged from one of the gardens and passed Glynn. She overheard enough of their conversation before they were out of sight to guess that they had been passing time in a garden until the start of an important hall in one of the other gardens. She had almost reached the place where the broken steps led down to the kitchen level when a third group of people came along the path behind her. Again she slowed and moved to one side to let them pass.

  This time, most of the nobles were Fomhikan by their colours, and several of them glanced at her cloak curiously, no doubt wondering who she was. Fortunately an elderly man in their midst was discoursing about something to do with the weather, and they all passed on without comment.

  Reaching the steps that would take her to the kitchens, Glynn stopped and watched until they vanished around another corner. They were clearly bound for the same hall as the other nobles that she had seen. She wondered idly about the occasion for the hall. It was a pity she had not gained that knowledge from their talk because it might have been reported to the Draaka. The host must be someone important if so many different sept groups were attending. Glynn frowned, wondering if perhaps Tarsin himself would attend. Or perhaps it was he who had called the hall. If that was so, then the fact that the draakan delegation had not been invited to present themselves was a deliberate slight, because Kalide had suggested Tarsin had not summoned them only because he was not attending any halls.

  Suddenly Glynn was struck with a daring notion.

  What if she were to go to the hall and learn for herself the reason for it and the name of its host. Servitors went everywhere and were virtually invisible to nobles so it should not be difficult to gain admission. Even if Tarsin turned out not to be the host, there should be ample opportunity at such an occasion to learn something else that might interest the Draaka. Of course, if she were exposed as a gate crasher, she might be punished, but on balance, the danger was slight, Besides, there would be many servitors offering refreshments at a hall, as well as those the groups brought with them.

  Resolved, she headed in the direction taken by the Fomhikan group and soon found herself among other groups and couples making their way to the hall. It was not difficult to attach herself to a larger group of younger revellers wearing various different sept colours, most of whom seemed half intoxicated. As they came close to what was obviously the entrance to the garden where the hall was taking place, Glynn was alarmed to see that it was flanked by two muscular red-clad legionnaires who were stopping people and questioning them before allowing them to proceed. There was no way for her to withdraw, and even her momentary hesitation caused the people around her to regard her with slight annoyance. She decided to say that she had a message for someone. She was racking her brain for a name when she realised that the legionnaires were only stopping people who carried bundled cloaks or bags. Probably they were searching for weapons, which seemed to indicate that Tarsin would attend the hall.

  The legionnaires did not even look into Glynn’s face as she passed through the gate, since she carried nothing and, once inside, she felt a surge of elation and renewed hope. Looking around, she saw that she had entered the largest of the gardens she had so far seen. Much of it was given over to lawn and decorative flowerbeds, though the walls were well hidden behind veswood trees and neat flowering shrubs. Dozens of tiny tables and silk-covered chairs had been arranged in sept colours under open-sided tent-like pavilions, and there were at least a hundred people already seated or walking about, and more entering the hall at every moment. Glynn noted that the servitors saw their masters and mistresses seated, then withdrew to stand against the shrubs and gossip. She took her own place between a boy with a red pug nose and an attractive woman in blue with her hair in the close-cropped style affected by Acanthan windwalkers. She wondered suddenly if there were Acanthan diplomats upon Ramidan. If so, they might be pressuring Tarsin to greet the favourite of the chieftain. Glynn decided that it might be worth gravitating to them when she had the chance because, of all those present, they were the most likely to speak of the draakan delegation.

  ‘Whom do you serve?’ the boy next to Glynn asked.

  Immediately Glynn stiffened and moved purposefully into the throng as if she had been summoned by her master. She kept walking until she had reached the other side of the garden and was lost to the boy’s sight. She had been a fool not to realise that, while nobles and legionnaires might ignore her, other servitors would not. She must choose her next position with more care. This time she stood between a shrub and a haughty looking man in red trimmed with purple. Both the man’s attire and his superior expression suggested that he was a senior servitor, and, as she had hoped, he responded to her vaguely witless smile with an unwelcoming glare before giving her the cold shoulder. Certain that there was no likelihood of him wanting to talk to her, let alone ask quest
ions, Glynn relaxed and went back to studying the press of revellers.

  Her feinna senses picked up criss-crossing currents of fear and anger forming a dense weave beneath the laughter and polite chatter, but the same might be said of any gathering. She noticed a throne on a dais against the opposite wall, and a smaller ornate chair set directly on the ground beside it. Above was a silken pavilion of purest gold and, as this was the colour worn by the Holder, it must mean that he was to attend, unless the chairs for the Holder were some sort of formality. Or maybe the heir to the throne, the mermod, would come to represent the throne. Despite her worries, Glynn realised that she was curious to see both the mermod and the mad ruler of Keltor, about whom she had heard so much.

  ‘Glynn!’

  The kitchen servitor, Opel, was approaching, carrying a basket of breads and smiling. It was only when she was near that Glynn realised the beaming smile did not reach her eyes. Sensing the interest of the supercilious servitor at her side, Glynn stepped forward. ‘It is good to see you, my friend,’ she said warmly.

  Opel’s eyes widened but remained serious. ‘I must tell you what happened in the kitchens …’ She drew Glynn into a clear space and adopted a coquettish smile as if she was about to offer girlish secrets, but when she spoke, she said, ‘I wanted to tell you the other day when you returned to the kitchen but there was no chance. After you left the kitchens the first time, a man came and asked the over cook a lot of questions about you …’

  ‘What kind of questions?’ Glynn felt sick, for it could only mean that she was being followed. Had the Prime been testing her after all?

  Opel suddenly laughed aloud. ‘Smile!’ she hissed and Glynn obeyed. ‘I could not hear much of what he asked. But the over cook kept shaking his head and said he hadn’t spoken more than three or four words to you. Afterwards he said he wondered what you had done to have one of Kalide’s spies sniffing your trail.’

  Glynn fought to keep her false smile, knowing that she ought to have realised that Kalide would have her followed. He would know that, as a servitor, unlike the others in the delegation, she would be free to come and go from the apartment.

  Opel said tightly, ‘I hope you did not speak of me to anyone, or repeat my words to you.’

  ‘I haven’t mentioned you to anyone,’ Glynn said, trying to remember all that had transpired on that first trip from the apartment. She had gone to the kitchens pretty much directly, and other than a brief conversation with Opel, she had not talked to anyone. Surely no one had been close enough to hear their words. Then she remembered. The encounter with Kerd and Unys had also happened on that day. No watcher could have come close enough to overhear what was said but, being Iridomi, Unys would have told everything that she had heard, if she had been questioned. She doubted that Kalide or his agents would question Kerd, given that he was Fulig’s son, and even if Kerd had responded to casual questions about what had passed between them after Unys left, Glynn was sure that he would say nothing that would bring strife to her.

  She was about to reassure Opel when a horrible thought arose. She leaned closer to Opel and said urgently, ‘If I was followed before, I may be followed now.’ Opel would have drawn back in fright if Glynn had not kept hold of her arm. ‘If anyone asks you about this conversation, you had better say that I was asking you how Tarsin feels about the Draaka. If you are told it looks as if we are friends, say that we exchanged a few words as we waited outside the kitchens.’

  Opel’s face registered distaste. ‘Why would you want it thought that you were interested in Tarsin’s opinion of the Draaka?’

  ‘I am a bonded servitor to the Draaka …’

  Opel drew back. ‘I am sorry to hear that. But why would one who serves that vile sect wish to see the soulweaver …’

  Glynn decided she had better take a tough stance. ‘I did not say that I wanted to see the soulweaver. You assumed it, and now we are both in danger because of what you might say if you are interrogated. Therefore do as I say and we will both be safe, for the watcher and his master know who I am and who I serve.’

  ‘Very well,’ Opel said, and now the eyes above her bright smile were grim with contempt. ‘I will do as you say, but only in order to save my own skin from being blistered. Not to save one who willingly serves evil.’ She turned away abruptly and was soon lost in the shifting crowd.

  Glynn had a vivid memory of Hella, sobbing in her arms when she had thought her brother dead, then another image of her on Fomhika, pale and cold-faced with accusation. Solen had sworn that Hella was sorry about the things she had said, but Glynn knew that there were some things that could not be mended.

  She glanced around, deciding that the best thing she could do was to leave the hall. It had not occurred to her before, but it was highly likely Kalide and his mother would attend the hall. If so, and if Kalide’s spy were watching her, he would lose no time in reporting her presence at the hall to his master. Finding her at the hall would certainly give Kalide an excuse to interrogate her.

  She began to work her way very casually around the edge of the garden towards the gate, for if she left too hastily, it would appear as if Opel had given her a warning. The garden had grown very full now and, as she edged between nobles, chattering and giggling like schoolgirls, she thought that the nobles on Acantha had been in general more serious in nature and manner. Of course, foolishness could be a mask, too, and this was a sept that loved masks.

  A loud noise began, which Glynn knew from experience was music. She hoped that a songmaker was not about to perform, for if so, all conversation and movement would cease, making it much harder to move inconspicuously towards the gate. But it was not a songmaker nor a balladeer. A herald was sounding a call on a long trumpet-like instrument and Glynn’s feinna senses detected a swell of anticipation from the people watching, richly seamed with curiosity and anger. Then the crowd shifted back to open a path through their midst. Glynn thought it must be the infamous Keltan ruler who was being announced, but to her intense impatience, a man with an enormous headdress stepped right in front of her so that it was impossible to see anything. Under other circumstances, she might have pushed through or craned her neck, but she was anxious not to draw attention to herself and most of the servitors seemed less interested in who had entered than in using the inattention of their masters to gossip.

  Glynn continued working her way to the gate and, as chance would have it, an eddy in the crowd suddenly offered a perfect view of the entrance. A tall, voluptuous woman in glimmering blue and green entered wearing a towering jewelled headdress clasping her skull like a giant hand. Thick blonde tresses flowed between the jewelled fingers of the headdress, but the hair was likely to be false, given the Iridomi penchant for shaven heads. The woman’s face was turned away. Immediately behind her came Kalide, also resplendent in blue and gold. Glynn froze, convinced he would look over and see her, but instead he stopped by the gate and began to speak with one of the gate legionnaires.

  Glynn backed up and wondered despairingly what it was about her that always brought her to the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps her mother had been right in believing that Glynn was the sort of person who only arrived where she was meant to be by accident. Negative comments from her mother were nothing unusual, but suddenly this memory on top of all that had happened that morning brought her close to tears. For a moment, she was overwhelmed by all the uncertainties of a childhood where even being born had sometimes felt like a mistake, because her mother had never been able to love her. How often had she announced in her cool, lovely voice that she had planned for one daughter, not two. Glynn had always wondered if it would have been different if she had been born first. If her mother would have loved her had she come before lovely, delicate, musical Ember.

  Unexpectedly, the new feinna-merged part of Glynn’s mind offered the strange assurance that the order of their births could not have been the other way round. Glynn was meant to be born second. This was such a queer thought that the moment of despair pa
ssed. For of course her mother’s inability to love had been just that, an inability and no reflection on Glynn. Coming to Keltor had shown her that and had freed her forever from feeling that she was unlovable. Glynn supposed that she would probably always be sad that her mother had not loved her, and sometimes more than sad, but she no longer felt it to be her fault.

  The feinna-merged part of her mind offered another strange observation; that all mothers did not love their young; that some were incapable of it. Glynn found herself remembering an argument between her mother and father in which her mother had hissed that children had not been her idea or desire. The having of children had destroyed her career as a concert pianist. And suddenly Glynn knew that her mother’s love for Ember had been possible only because Ember had been like a mirror image of herself.

  Glynn found this realisation neither hurt nor healed old hurts. She was not and never would be talented, beautiful Ember, but she had her own strengths and those strengths must now save her and the feinna.

  She straightened up, set her chin and wove her way back through the crowd with renewed determination. To her relief, Kalide had left the gate, but other nobles were still entering. Glynn blinked in surprise to see the sulky discontented face of Kerd’s betrothed, Unys, among those entering. She must be high born indeed to enter with Coralyn’s select party. There was no sign of Kerd, which was probably lucky, because he was just the sort to march right up to her and greet her. That was another danger that she had not considered.

  The music blared out again, louder than ever, and again there was a stir from the crowd. But people had shifted and Glynn’s view of the gate was once more blocked. She edged sideways until she was right behind a group of people alongside the gate and was appalled to see that the legionnaires were actually closing the gates!

  Glynn became aware of the whispering around her.