"Perhaps. But if I hadn't, Harn Grip-Hard wouldn't be here now to act as my second-in-command."
"You reinstated him? But the man is a berserker, unreliable on his own in a battle."
"I rely on him."
"Well, you know best. Still, this will stick in Caineron's throat if nothing else does. He sold his consent for a promise once, though; perhaps, for the right price, he will again."
The young man snorted. "And what can I offer him this time, short of the Highlord's seat itself?"
"A grandchild?"
Torisen made an impatient gesture. "We've been through all this before. On your advice, I took Caineron's daughter as a limited term consort, and that did keep her father off my back for nearly a year. Kallystine was sure I would extend the contract to include children. She still is. But if Caineron ever gets his hands on a legitimate Knorth grandchild, I may as well cut my own throat to save him the trouble. Trinity knows, after a night with Kallystine I've often considered doing it on general principles."
"And yet I'm told that she is very beautiful."
"So is a gilded sand viper."
"Yes, well, just the same, you should be forming some permanent alliances. Look at Caineron. He has children and grandchildren with mothers from nearly every house in the Kencyrath."
Torisen gave a snort of laughter. "Don't I know it. That man is prolific enough to sire offspring on a mule."
"I daresay. Caldane's fancy has been known to wander. I could tell you tales of his exploits in Karkinaroth some twenty years ago . . . but never mind. The point is that the bloodlines of his legitimate children form a net of power, one that Caldane may eventually use to entangle and destroy you. Now, if you were to contract to one of my great-granddaughters and I had the right to avenge you if necessary, that might make him hesitate."
"Perhaps," said Torisen dryly, "but it will hardly make him let the Host march the day after tomorrow."
"True," said Ardeth.
He steepled his long, elegant fingers and gazed thoughtfully at them. Firelight woke a spark in the depths of his sapphire signet ring and another in his hooded blue eyes, still keen after nearly fifteen decades.
"I will have to pull a few bloodlines myself. Now, if Caineron should cast the sole dissenting vote, he might be pressured into changing it. He cares what others think of him, or at least will until what they think no longer matters. Randir will be the most difficult. Between them, he and Caineron command more than a third of the Riverland Host. Danior and Jaran are yours as, of course, am I. The Edirr twins will be swayed by their whimsy, and Brandan by his sense of responsibility. As for the Coman, there should be no problem once you've confirmed Demoth as lord."
"I haven't decided about that yet," said Torisen.
Ardeth stared at him. "Of course you will confirm Demoth. His mother was one of my great-granddaughters."
"And for that I should give the Coman a lord who is quite possibly an idiot?"
"An idiot, perhaps, but one who supports you and is of my blood. In case you'd forgotten, the alternative is Korey, whose mother is a Caineron. That would be quite unacceptable. But enough of this useless debate," he said, rising. "The matter is settled. Tomorrow at the Council session you will declare for Demoth."
"No," said Torisen.
It was the first time since becoming Highlord that his instincts had led him flatly to refuse one of Ardeth's more serious "requests." He had expected the old resentment to come boiling up. Instead, all he felt was exhaustion and a dull ache in his leg. He leaned against the mantelpiece, looking down into the flames, feeling the bite of Ardeth's cold eyes.
"I'm Highlord now, Adric, not your field commander," he said, not looking up. "I have to do what I think is right for the Kencyrath, whatever your wishes, whatever mine. The best I can do is promise to protect your interests whenever I can. I owe you that much at least. As for the Coman, I simply don't know Demoth and Korey well enough yet to choose between them."
"You young fool. How much time do you think you have?"
A footstep on the spiral stair made both men turn sharply. Burr stepped into the room, carrying a covered tray.
"Supper, my lord."
"Oh hell," said Ardeth, in quite a different voice, and sat down again abruptly, putting his hands over his face.
"Adric?" Torisen bent over him. "Are you all right?"
"What we don't have time for," said Ardeth in a muffled voice, "is a stupid quarrel." He let his hands drop. Every one of his one hundred and forty nine years seemed etched deep in his face. "Especially not when the Southern Host has already marched. Do you really think Pereden was ready to take command?"
"I hope so," said Torisen carefully. "He did have nearly a year's training as my second-in-command." With Harn doing all the actual work.
Ardeth leaned back in the chair for a moment, his eyes closed. "He is the child of my old age, my last son. All the others died in the White Hills, fighting for your father. Sometimes I wish I had died with them." He stood up again, more carefully this time. "Think about the Coman. Of course, whichever one you chose, the other is apt to come after you with a knife, but you'll find in the end that I'm right—as usual."
He glanced at the far wall and blinked, a startled expression flickering across his face.
"Adric?"
"Nothing, nothing." Ardeth shook his white head as if to clear it. "Just eat something and get some sleep. You don't look as if your northern trip was all that restful." He paused at the top of the stairs. "Pereden thinks very highly of you, you know, but no less than I do."
" 'Highly' my left boot," muttered Burr as the Highborn disappeared down the steps. "That spoiled brat would spit on your shadow if he dared."
Torisen sighed. "I know. See that Ardeth gets safely back to his quarters, won't you?"
"Yes, lord. . . . You didn't tell him what happened at Tentir?"
"Trinity! No, not a word."
Burr grunted. "He'll hear about it soon enough anyway." He went down the stair, shutting the door behind him.
Now why hadn't he said anything about Tentir? It hadn't been a conscious decision at all, more like an instinctive reluctance to tell Ardeth anymore than he had to. Torisen picked up the journal and leafed through it. Names, dates, events . . . Anar, his old tutor, had kept a book like this when he had felt his mind beginning to go. Anar, the keep, Ganth . . . Ardeth believed that the Gray Lord had died before his son's departure.
That he hadn't was one secret that the lord of Omiroth must never even be allowed to suspect.
"Memory is safer," murmured Torisen, and threw the journal into the fire.
As the pages burst into flames, he turned and saw the child's shadow on the wall, sitting on the shadow table, swinging her legs back and forth. So that was what had given Ardeth such a start. What was he going to do about her? What was he doing with her in the first place? The answer lay just beneath the surface of his mind, but he flinched away from laying it bare. Things were complicated enough already. Just this once, he would do as he pleased and ask himself no questions. He picked up the saddlebag and sat down before the fire holding it.
"So what do I do about Caineron?" he asked the air.
No answer. He was too tired to think of anything but grandchildren. Yes, he could promise Caldane one, as a last resort. That would at least launch the Host and—who knows?—he might die fighting the Horde anyway. If he didn't and Kallystine bore his child, Caineron would certainly move against him in the child's name. He might still control events but, if not, he could at least prevent a civil war by killing himself. Then Caineron would be Highlord in all but name and soon, probably, even in that.
"He cares what others think of him, or at least will until what they think no longer matters."
Torisen remembered Kindrie's cry of pain. Was that the sort of cruelty the Three People had in store? Could it possibly be what the Kencyrath's cold, enigmatic deity wanted for them?
Torisen sat staring into the flames, following t
he same thoughts around and around, until the distant blare of a horn broke the circle. He woke suddenly beside the dead fire, surprised to find that he had been asleep. Who in Perimal's name could be blowing a challenge this late at night? He rose and threw open a shutter. From this height, the outer ward seemed starred with campfires, but they were nothing compared to the river of torches flowing down from the north, grouped in battle formation. The horn sound again, imperious.
"Restormir!" came the guard's hail from the barbican. "Restormir!"
So Caineron had arrived, twelve thousand strong and apparently ready for a fight. It must have surprised him to find the outworks open and the walls unmanned. Would he be stupid enough to rush in on the sleeping camp anyway? Torisen wished he would, since that would turn the other lords against him with a vengeance.
Here came torches under the gate: two, six, twelve; a delegation, then, riding up to Gothregor.
Torisen put on his coat. Carrying the saddlebag, he opened the southern door and stepped out of the tower. Beyond was a narrow platform, then a catwalk suspended between the keep's two front towers. It swayed underfoot as the wind caught it.
Below, Caineron rode up through the gatehouse into the inner ward. Three of his established sons were with him, as well as a small, miserable figure who could only be Donkerri. The herald blew another blast, waking a volley of echoes off the stone walls.
"Quiet!" Torisen shouted down at him. "People are trying to sleep!"
Caineron looked up, and flinched. Torisen remembered with sudden amusement that the lord of Restormir was nearly as squeamish about heights as Burr. He unobtrusively shifted his weight to increase the catwalk's sway.
"Highlord!" Caineron shouted up at him. "My son's blood is on your hands. I will have justice!"
"So will I!" Torisen shouted back. "But in the morning."
The walk swayed back and forth, twenty feet down to the flat roof of the keep, seventy to the flagstones before the door.
"Your rank will not protect you from the consequences of this foul deed!" bellowed Caineron, rather desperately launching into a formal challenge, which he had not expected to deliver at the top of his voice, much less to a moving target. "If you deny your guilt, I say that you lie and . . . and . . . will you stop that?"
"Stop what?" Torisen shouted back. The walk swung him up toward the stars and back again with the wind whipping his black hair in his face. "Caldane, go to bed! Your quarters are ready, and I've moved the Council meeting up to nine tomorrow morning. If you're too excited to sleep, have pity on those of us who aren't. Good night!"
Caineron seemed inclined to argue but, from what Torisen could make out at this distance, he was also beginning to look distinctly unwell. He let his sons persuade him to go inside.
Torisen waited for the walk's swing to slow and then went on to the southwest tower, which housed his sleeping quarters. Good. Someone, probably Burr, had started a large blaze in the fireplace. He stripped by its light and lay down before it. Tomorrow no longer worried him. Caineron had tripped over his own feet before, rushing in for the kill, and somehow, he was about to do it again. Their god might favor a cruel man, but never a fool. He fell asleep almost at once, and dreamed that he was a child again, pushing his sister in a swing back and forth over the edge of a precipice.
* * *
THE TRUMPETS SOUNDED, high and sweet. Another procession was coming in under the gatehouse. The morning sunlight blazed on crimson velvet and white fur, on steel and ivory. Brandan's flame banner cracked over his head, its flying shadow throwing the deep lines of his face into even deeper relief. The retinues of the lesser houses—Danir, Edirr, Coman, and Jaran— waiting in the inner ward raised their war-cries in welcome, to be answered by Brandan's troops. Following Brandan would be Randir, Ardeth, and Caineron, in ascending order of importance.
"I still say you should bring up the rear," muttered Burr, giving Torisen's boots a final buff before handing them to his lord.
"You mean sneak out the postern at dawn and come back in by the front door, banging a drum? No, thank you. Let them come to me." He pulled on the boots, trying not to wince as the top of the right one came up over his calf.
"Still sore, eh?"
Torisen gave the Kendar a dirty look. "Nothing to complain about." In fact, the wyrm's bite only looked like a ring of fading bruises this morning.
Burr held out his black dress coat with its full sleeves, and he slipped into it. The high collar felt odd without the throwing knives sheathed in it, but even if they had survived the fight with the changer, it wouldn't have been proper to carry them on such an occasion. A pity that the armorer probably wouldn't be able to replace them before the march south, assuming there was one. There. That was it, except for one item.
"I hope you haven't forgotten the Kenthiar," he said to Burr.
Burr snorted. "I hoped that you had. Here it is."
He opened an iron box. Inside lay a narrow silver collar, ornately inscribed with runes of forgotten meaning, set with a gem of shifting hue. It had been found in the unfinished temple at Kothifir when the Kencyrath first came to Rathillien. Some claimed that it was a parting gift from the mysterious Builders; others, that it had simply been left there by accident. At any rate, in those times of self-doubt just after the Master's fall, the Kenthiar had become both the emblem and test of authority, for supposedly only the true Highlord could wear it in safety. Many questioned that belief now, but admired the nerve of anyone willing to put the thing on.
Burr gingerly lifted it out of its box. Those who carelessly touched the collar's inner surface were apt to lose their fingers, or worse. After Ganth had surrendered it and the title, it had lain on his chair for twenty years, a challenge and a taunt to all would-be successors. Then a drunken Highborn had put it on during a dinner party as a joke. The next minute, his neatly severed head had fallen onto the table and bounced into a soup tureen. No one else had even dared touch the thing until Ganth's son came to claim it ten years later.
Personally, Torisen didn't trust the Kenthiar at all. During its long history, it had also decapitated three Highlords whose claims to power, as far as anyone could tell, had been perfectly legitimate. No wonder so few in recent centuries had been willing to take the risk. If Caineron were to snatch power, he probably could get out of wearing it altogether; but Torisen, coming to claim his father's place with neither Ganth's ring nor sword, had felt that he must make some gesture to prove himself. Now he was about to make it again.
"Ready, lord."
"You're sure you want to risk another good coat? All right, all right . . . go ahead."
Burr put the silver collar around his lord's neck. The hinges on either side of the gem straightened, and the catch closed with a vicious snap. Torisen caught his breath. Nothing.
"All serene," he said to Burr with a smile. "No spilt soup today . . . and just in time."
Up the spiral stair came confused sounds from the Council Chamber below.
The lords of the Kencyrath turned and fell silent as the Highlord entered. They were clustered at the far end of the room, under the map of Rathillien now ablaze with morning light. Torisen thought for a moment that they were all avoiding him, but then he caught a whiff of something rotten nearby. The bundle of furs in the chair to the left of his own raised its head. It was Jedrak, Lord Jaran. Green light from the window mottled his bald pate like mold. His nearly toothless mouth stretched in a lopsided, welcoming smile.
"Ganth!"
Torisen went forward immediately and took the clawlike hands which the old lord held out to him. Someone on the far side of the room gasped.
"No, not Ganth," he said gently. "Torisen. Remember?"
A look of confusion and near-panic flickered through Jaran's cloudy eyes. "Torisen?" His expression sharpened. "Tori! Yes, of course. Stupid of me. My great-great-grandchild, Kirien."
A soberly dressed young man whom Torisen hadn't even noticed stepped forward and gave the Highlord a half bow. His features w
ere unusually delicate and his expression quite unreadable. Torisen returned the bow, then turned to the others. Here it came.
"I expect you all know by now that Nusair was killed the night before last at Tentir, and that my lord Caineron thinks I did it."
Caineron snorted loudly. "Thinks!"
"He has probably also suggested to you that I have finally succumbed to the madness that runs in the Knorth blood."
Ardeth made a small, distressed sound. Madness, like senility, was considered not only hereditary but contagious and unsafe even to mention.
"Obviously, this matter will have to be settled before we can discuss anything more important. To save time, we'll consider the challenge already issued. As for the answer, no, I did not kill Nusair. That leaves it up to you, my lord Caineron: prove me a liar—if you can."
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