The Clandestine Circle

by Mary H. Herbert

  “You came out to meet me,” Linsha remembered. “Was there something else you wanted to tell me?”

  Varia bobbed her head. “Lord Bight heard from one of his spies that the Dark Knights are going to raid the farms again. He took off like an avenging dragon with most of his men.”

  “I saw them on our way back. Commander Durne wouldn’t let me go with them.”

  “He cares about you. I suppose that is one thing I like about him.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  The owl turned huge eyes on her. “I did not say that.”

  “But you don’t like him,” Linsha persisted.

  “I do not know him well enough to decide,” Varia replied. “But I do not trust him. I cannot see past his facade, and that bothers me.”

  It disturbed Linsha, too. Varia was a superb judge of character and preferred to spend her time with creatures who were generally good. If Varia couldn’t look past Ian Durne’s social masks to read the makeup of his character within, she would never come to like him. It bothered her also that Durne shielded himself so well that even Varia’s perceptions couldn’t sense him. What did he have to hide?

  She tucked the thought away in her memory for later and led Windcatcher back to the trail. “I will come to the barn tonight if there’s time.”

  With a powerful thrust, the owl launched herself off Linsha’s arm and winged into the trees. “Until then,” she called and was gone, a whisper on the wind.

  Heavy of heart, Linsha rode to the palace and reported to the officer of the watch. The lieutenant’s face paled, and his hand worked, open and shut, on the pommel of his sword while he shouted orders and organized a squad to investigate the murder.

  When they were ready, Linsha led them back to the captain’s body and explained how her normally staid mare had bolted from a snake and charged into the undergrowth close enough to the grove of pine for Linsha to catch a glimpse of red.

  The lieutenant, a stranger to her, eyed her suspiciously, paying special attention to her bloody shirt. She told him about her duty in the harbor district and the run-in with the looters. She suggested he talk to Mica and Commander Durne.

  Still, the lieutenant took no chances of making a mistake in this murder of one of their own. He ordered Linsha to stand by until Lord Bight returned, then he posted guards by the body and Linsha and sent to the temple for Mica.

  The dwarf, he was informed, had gone back to the city and was not available.

  When she heard this, Linsha clenched her teeth and suppressed the oaths she wanted to utter. Maybe Varia had seen him and was following.

  The nearly full moon rose and sailed placidly to its zenith before Lord Bight and his men returned from the farmlands in the vale. They rode slowly, bringing many wounded and three riderless horses with them. The officer of the watch met them at the front gate. He quaked inside, seeing Lord Bight was already in a towering rage, but he stood straight and delivered his bad news.

  The lord governor reined his horse aside and rode down the hill without a word. Commander Durne waved the company on, then he and a squad trotted after Lord Bight into the trees and followed the flickering light of torches to the copse of pine and the body of Captain Dewald.

  “Oh, no,” Durne breathed. He threw himself off his horse and knelt beside the body of his friend and aide. He bowed his head and covered his eyes with his gloved hand. Lord Bight squatted down on the other side of the body and, like Linsha, brushed away the ants and flies from Dewald’s face. After a moment Durne collected himself and, with Lord Bight’s help, tipped the captain’s body over. Together they examined it as thoroughly as they could in the light of torches.

  “Who found the body?” Lord Bight demanded.

  One of the guards pointed to Linsha, who sat under a nearby tree with two more guards in close attendance.

  “Why are you under guard?” Commander Durne sprang to his feet and strode to her.

  She stared up at him in weary resignation. “The officer of the watch didn’t like the stains on my shirt. He was just trying to be careful.”

  “You may release her,” he ordered, and the two guardsmen saluted and moved away.

  Once again she explained how she had found Dewald’s body on her way back to the palace. Lord Bight listened carefully, although his eyes burned with an inward fury that Linsha sensed had little to do with this incident. Commander Durne studied the ground around the body, noted the lack of blood and the drag marks in the grass, and came to the same conclusion Linsha had.

  “He was killed somewhere else and dumped here,” he told the lord governor.

  Lord Bight merely nodded, containing his anger like a volcano about to erupt.

  Silently the company of guards gathered around their fallen comrade. They laid the captain’s body on a litter and escorted him through the veil of silver moonlight to the palace on the hill. There they wrapped him in a linen shroud, placed him on a bier, and set him to rest in the great hall until his burial in the morning. Guards stood at his head and feet, and his sword rested at his side. Commander Durne knelt by the bier for a long while, his head bowed and his hands resting on the shrouded arm of the dead.

  Linsha, meanwhile, found herself free at last to seek her rest. After feeding and rubbing down Windcatcher, she retrieved a loose caftan robe from her quarters and made her way to the garden bathhouse. The courtyard was quiet, and the few men that were about were subdued and grim. She knew the foray that night had been a disaster, but no one had given her the details and she hadn’t asked. It seemed too much to face on top of the untimely death of Captain Dewald.

  In the bathhouse, she handed over her bloody tunic and shirt to the ever-present attendant, who merely shook her head at Linsha’s carelessness with uniforms and bore them away.

  Linsha’s bath was prolonged and delightful. When at last she was finished, her skin was wrinkled and scrubbed clean and her muscles no longer ached. She pulled the caftan robe over her head and walked outdoors, barefoot and dripping wet. A passing breeze drifted through a trellis of twining moonflowers, bringing a delicious scent to the night. She wandered along the paths in the back garden beside clumps of gardenias, peonies, and hibiscus. The wind cooled her wet skin and stirred her damp curls.

  A faint splash reached her ears, and she wondered if Shanron had decided to use the bathhouse at this late hour. She hadn’t seen the barbarian woman that day. Maybe Shanron would like some company. But when she walked out from between a corridor of shrubbery into the open place where the reflecting pool sat, she saw it wasn’t Shanron who had come to enjoy the garden. It was Lord Bight. There, in the rectangular stone pool, lay the lord governor of Sanction, reclining in the water and the silver light of the moon’s rays. He stretched out full length, still completely clothed. Only his boots lay on the ground where he had dropped them. His head rested on the stone wall, his hand idly stirred a floating water lily. The small fountain played over his face in a shimmering shower of white droplets.

  Fascinated, Linsha walked to the side of the pool and stood studying his face. He didn’t hear her over the splash of the fountain, and since his eyes were closed, he didn’t notice her either. He looked utterly serene. The lines of care and anger were erased from his face, replaced by an aura of contentment and quiet joy that even the gray-white light of the moon couldn’t disguise.

  She reached out to touch him, then checked and slowly withdrew her hand. Moments of peace such as this had to be rare for him these days. She didn’t want to disturb it. She turned silently to go.

  “You’re not disturbing me,” his deep voice said above the music of the fountain. “Please stay.”

  She halted a step away from the pool and smiled down at him. His eyes stayed closed, but he grinned back at her. “What are you doing, Your Excellency?” she had to ask.

  “Swimming,” he replied without opening his eyes. “I try to swim every night. It helps me relax. It was too late to go to the harbor tonight, so I came here.”

&nb
sp; “Your Excellency, there is a perfectly good bathhouse over there. If you use it, you won’t come out smelling like fish.”

  “The bathhouse was occupied. Besides, my excellency likes fish,” he announced. “Fish and water and flowers and moonlight and night wind and beautiful wet women.” He patted the stone rim of the pool, inviting her to sit down.

  “I’m not wet anymore,” she teased.

  His hand snaked out, snatched the hem of her robe, and pulled hard. With a squawk, she toppled into the pool, sending waves of water and lilies sloshing over the rim. He laughed as she surfaced, soaked and bedecked with pond plants. “Now you are,” he gasped and laughed again.

  Linsha swatted him with a handy lily pad. He roared and splashed water at her. They fought their mock battle from one end of the pool to the other until the pool was a mess of plants and mud and the fish were hysterical. At last they staggered out and collapsed, drunk with delight on the grass lawn.

  The lord governor sighed and lay on his back. “Thank you, Lynn. I haven’t laughed like that in days.”

  “Any time, my lord.” Linsha was surprised to realize she meant it. She had admired and respected Lord Bight for some time. Now she could add the truth that she genuinely liked him, arrogant rascal that he was. “But you don’t need to thank me,” she went on, primly wringing out her robe. “You were the one soaking himself in a fish pond like a decrepit sea elf.”

  “Decrepit!” he bellowed. “I’ll show you decrepit.” He lunged to his feet and snatched her before she could run. Throwing her over his shoulder, he marched to the bathhouse and tossed her in the bath, robe and all.

  Linsha hadn’t grown up with an older brother for nothing. Shouting a war cry, she boiled out of the water, grabbed his muddy tunic and hauled him in after her. His weight fell on top of her, and for a moment they thrashed intertwined in the water.

  Abruptly he pushed away from her and climbed swiftly out of the pool. Panting and dripping, he gazed down at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable in the shadows.

  Linsha perceived his withdrawal immediately, and she was flooded with embarrassment and remorse. In the pleasure of the moment, she had let herself forget her adopted place and character. She was not a Lady Knight worthy of his attention. Here she was only Lynn, a squire in his court, and she had no business cavorting with him in the bath.

  “Your Excellency,” she said nervously, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.” She groped her way out of the pool across from him and pulled her wet robe closer around her. Her curls lay plastered to her head.

  “You didn’t,” he said. “You have reminded me that even lord governors should play once in a while.” He handed her a towel. “It’s late. I still have duties to attend to. Good night, squire.” Still soaking wet, he turned on his heel and strode out of the bathhouse.

  Linsha watched him go, worried by the sudden change in his demeanor. Her hand automatically clutched the dragon scale under her wet robe. Had she offended him that badly? All of her pleasure evaporated in a sense of dismay and confusion. She dropped her towel on a rack and said softly, “Good night, my lord.”

  Outside in the hot darkness, Linsha walked quickly through the garden toward the barracks. Head down, her thoughts elsewhere, she didn’t see the dark figure detach itself from the garden gate and slide out of sight into the shadows of the courtyard.

  The moon hung low in the western sky and shed its light through the open loading door and ventilation windows in silvery beams that barred the velvet darkness of the hayloft. In the patch of light that gleamed on the hay-strewn floor, Linsha spread out a blanket and settled down to wait for Varia to return.

  Although the night was waning, Linsha was still pent up and agitated from her time with Lord Bight. She had wanted to leave him in peace and instead he left irritated and affronted by her presumptuous behavior. At least she guessed that is what had forced him to withdraw from her. Since he hadn’t explained, she could only assume he was displeased by her conduct, and yet if he didn’t want to participate in such horseplay, why had he started it? There were other possibilities, of course, but none that seemed likely. Perhaps the tensions of the day had caught up with him and haltered his exuberant play. She hoped he would eventually accept her apology, for she couldn’t stand the thought of his rejection.

  There was just enough illumination in the stable loft to see what she was doing, so Linsha pulled out her leather juggling balls. Often the disciplined spin of the balls helped her put her thoughts in order, and tonight she needed all the help she could get. She sent the juggling balls sailing in a slow circle from hand to hand and up and down. As the balls traveled through her hands, she turned her focus inward to the people who occupied her thoughts the most.

  “Lord Bight,” Linsha said quietly as one ball smacked her palm. “Mica,” she said to the second. “Ian Durne,” for the third. In rhythm with the balls, she listed more names. “Captain Dewald … Lady Karine … the Circle … Solamnics … Dark Knights … the Legion … Sailors’ Scourge … pirates … Sable … volcanoes …” There was a pattern to all these names. Everything had a place in the complicated pattern of Sanction, she just hadn’t found them all yet. She could feel a sense of urgency building like the dome on the volcano. Time was slipping away from her. The Clandestine Circle would be expecting action, yet she didn’t have all the answers to make the right decisions.

  “Lord Bight,” she murmured again. Even after days in his personal guard, she was no closer to knowing the truth of his power or his origins. If he was a trained sorcerer, he must have taught himself, for he had never set foot in her father’s academy and had been using sorcery long before Palin founded the school. So where did he learn to use the power? Only a handful of people understood and practiced the ancient magic as well as he.

  “Ian Durne.” Now, there was a conundrum. Cool, efficient, capable. Yet Lord Bight left him in charge while he went to see Sable, and everything went from bad to worse. Did he botch the job, or were things simply beyond anyone’s control? Now his aide was dead and the night’s raid was a disaster. What was happening here?

  “The Circle.” They wanted Lord Bight discredited and removed from his position of power. Were they working under orders from the Solamnic Council or from their own secret agenda? Did Sir Liam condone their desire to be rid of Lord Bight? Why couldn’t she convince the Circle that Hogan Bight was the best leader for this complicated, temperamental city?

  She murmured the names again, around and around in her mind like the balls in her hand. “How do they fit together?”

  “How does who fit together? You and me?” asked a man from the darkness.

  The balls fell from Linsha’s hands as she spun around to face the ladder, her dagger already in her grip.

  “It’s all right, Lynn,” said Ian Durne. “It’s just me. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  By all the absent gods of Krynn, she thought, slowly dropping her blade. How long had he been out there? She slid her dagger back in place and, still keeping an eye on him, knelt to retrieve the balls.

  The commander walked between the stacks of hay to stand at the edge of the moonlight. “I didn’t know you could juggle. Where did you learn to do that?”

  “I taught myself. It helps me think,” she replied in soft tones. She noticed he carried a bottle of wine and two stemmed cups.

  He held up the wine like a peace offering. His eyes were like glass in the moonlight, his face stern and sad. His usually immaculate uniform was dusty and rather disheveled, and his weapons were nowhere in sight. Linsha thought she had never seen him look so weary and forlorn.

  That warm flutter started again in the pit of her stomach. She tried to ignore it, to remember Varia’s advice. He was a stranger. What did she really know about him? “What are you doing here?”

  “I saw you cross the courtyard, and I thought I’d join you.”

  She stood up, uncertain how she felt about that. “Can’t sleep?”

 
; “No.” He looked up at the roof wrapped in darkness, at the timbers and the piles of hay. “So, why are you up here?”

  “It’s peaceful. I like the animals.”

  “It helps you think,” he finished for her. “Ah, may I sit down?”

  She nodded and smoothed out a corner of her blanket with a bare foot.

  He lowered himself to the blanket in stiff, slow movements, then he uncorked the wine and poured a generous measure in both glasses. Sampling it, he sighed with pleasure. “A nice red. One of the new local vintages. It’s pleasantly soft, with a fine, lingering finish.” He glanced up at Linsha, still standing by the edge of the blanket. “Oh, please, sit down. I hurt my neck tonight and I don’t want to look up.”

  Linsha hesitated, torn between being discourteous and on guard, or polite and vulnerable. Did she really want to put herself in this position? She could just take her leather balls and go. Varia would find her. She wouldn’t have to stay here, alone with this man who awakened such an attraction in her. She could say “thank you” and “no” and leave him to the blanket and the wine and the darkness.

  “It is said, ‘In delay there lies no plenty,’ ” he murmured.

  “It is also said, ‘If you leap too soon, you can lose all,’ ” she quickly retorted.

  He grinned. “Ever the cautious alley cat. Always sniffing around corners before you enter the street.”

  “Of course. A cat can never be too cautious when there are big toms around.”

  As if on cue, a large orange tomcat strolled out of the darkness, his tail held high. “Where did you come from?” Linsha asked. The cat twined around her legs and purred, but when Ian reached for him, his ears flattened on his skull and he hissed at him.

  The commander grumbled, “That’s why I don’t like cats.”

  A laugh welled up in Linsha’s heart. She scooped up the cat and sat cross-legged on the blanket across from Ian, the cat curled up in her lap.

  “You are so beautiful when you smile,” Ian said, his voice a haunting whisper. He poured a glass of wine, black-red in the moonlight, and handed it to her.