“Leave me,” she ordered abruptly. “I want to think about this some more without you all jabbering at me.” The three of them rose to their feet and headed for the door, experience having taught them the futility of trying to defy the princess when she was in this sort of mood. “Not you, Fool.”
Elezaar stopped, a little concerned, and returned to her chair by the fire as the other two left. She hadn’t called him Fool for months.
“Your highness?”
Marla leaned back in her chair and studied him for a moment before she spoke. “Tell me what you know about Laran Krakenshield.”
“What makes you think I know anything about him, your highness?”
“You hear things. I know you do. People ignore you because they think you’re a halfwit, just like they used to ignore me when I was a child. Or they don’t see you at all. I want to know what you’ve heard about him.”
“Not much, your highness,” he admitted, cursing his inability to have foreseen this. If only he’d known Laran might make an offer for Marla, he would have made it his business to know everything there was to know about the Warlord of Krakandar. Elezaar was a survivor, however. He knew how to turn his ignorance to his advantage. “That says something in itself, though, your highness.”
“What does it say?”
“It says he probably doesn’t have that many bad habits. Or if he does, he keeps them to himself.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The slaves’ grapevine is very effective, your highness. I could tell you things about some people you’d never dream of. Trust me on this. The worse the gossip, the quicker it finds its way through the slave ranks. If I’ve heard nothing about Laran Krakenshield, then there’s a good chance it’s because he’s never done anything that warranted the gossip of his slaves.” He smiled, as he remembered something that might help his cause. “I could tell you about his sister, though.”
“His sister?”
“Lady Darilyn Taranger. She lives in Greenharbour.”
“So?”
“Well, rumour has it, Lady Darilyn had a bit of an accident a couple of years ago, not long after her husband died. Had to have it taken care of rather discreetly, so the story goes.”
“You mean she had an abortion?” Marla asked impatiently. “What of it? Women do it all the time when they’ve had a mishap.”
“Lady Darilyn comes from a very wealthy family, your highness. There’s no need for an abortionist in that household. Her court’esa are all Loronged males. Every one of them is sterile.”
“So you’re saying her babe wasn’t fathered by a court’esa?”
“I believe, at the time, the best odds were on Lord Oscarn, husband of Lady Darilyn’s good friend, Lady Syble. He’s known in the lower quarters, by the way, as ‘The Hound’ because according to his court’esa he likes to do it doggy style.”
In spite of herself, Marla laughed. “You truly are the most scandalous wretch, Elezaar.”
“Actually, I’m a very bad and disloyal scandalous wretch, your highness.”
“Disloyal? To whom?”
“Slaves the world over, your highness. I really shouldn’t be repeating our gossip to my mistress. It’s considered very bad form.”
That seemed to amuse her. “But it’s perfectly all right to talk about your betters among yourselves in such a manner, is it? Do you have names like ‘The Hound’ for all your masters?”
“Most of them,” he admitted.
“What do they call Aunt Lydia below stairs?”
“It would be worth more than my life to tell you, your highness.”
“Do the slaves have a name for me?”
“It would be worth more than my life to tell you that, too.”
“Then far be it from me to condemn you to death, Fool.”
Marla rose to her feet and walked to the window. The weather hadn’t improved much since they’d woken this morning. It was still a sea of impenetrable white beyond the glass. She smiled distantly, but didn’t press him any further on the matter.
You will be condemning me to death if you send me away! he wanted to shout at her. But he couldn’t risk it. It wouldn’t do at all to let Marla know how desperate he was.
“I’d gladly die for you, my lady,” he told her instead, with a courtly bow.
“Prove it,” she ordered, turning to look at him.
Elezaar smiled. “Take me with you when you leave tomorrow. I promise, the first chance I get, I’ll die for you.”
“If I leave . . . I might decide to take Corin.”
She’s teasing, Elezaar told himself. Please gods, let her be teasing!
“But you need me, your highness.”
Marla sighed heavily, downed the rest of her wine and turned to stare at the blanketing white storm outside. “What I need, Elezaar, is for somebody to cast a spell on me and turn me into a man. That way, I don’t have to marry anybody.”
“And if we can’t arrange that by tomorrow morning? What will you do?”
Marla shrugged unenthusiastically. “Marry Laran Krakenshield, I suppose.”
“Then I should start packing?” he suggested, hoping he didn’t sound as desperate as he felt.
Marla turned to Elezaar and asked the one question that made him go weak at the knees with relief. “Do you think Alija would be offended if I sold her gift? I don’t suppose I’m going to need Corin after this.”
“Why don’t you send him back to her?” Elezaar suggested, hard pressed to contain his feelings. “He’s a valuable slave, after all. I’m sure your cousin will appreciate the opportunity to recoup some of her investment. She may even decide to keep him for herself.”
“That’s not a bad idea. I’m certainly not going to leave him here for Ninane to play with. Will you compose the letter to Alija? If we’re leaving tomorrow, I don’t think I’m going to have the time.”
Impulsively, he grabbed the princess’s hand and kissed it devotedly.
“Your highness,” Elezaar replied with a beaming smile, “I speak the truth when I say there is nothing you have ever asked me to do which would give me more pleasure.”
chapter 37
T
arkyn was late for their regular morning meeting, which did nothing to lighten the mood Alija was in. Everything was taking far too long this morning and Tarkyn’s tardiness simply added to her frustration.
Although she had dispatched a messenger to Dregian to insist Barnardo return to Greenharbour, it would be days before her husband could get here and Lernen would have left Greenharbour by then with Kagan Palenovar, heading for a destination it seemed only the gods and Lernen Wolfblade were privy to. The chances of her being invited to attend Lernen on his journey were remote. The High Prince knew Barnardo wanted his throne and was in no mood to accommodate him, or his wife.
The purpose of Lernen’s journey—she had gleaned from her spies—was to buy slaves for the pleasure garden he was building on the roof of the palace’s west wing. Her spies had also confirmed that Kagan had agreed to go with the High Prince with some reluctance. That made her feel a little easier. Had Kagan displayed any enthusiasm for the task, she would have been instantly suspicious.
Then again, Kagan would know that. Was his reluctance feigned for her benefit?
It gave Alija a headache just to think about it.
“My lady, Tarkyn Lye has returned,” a slave announced with a bow.
“Tell him I wish him to attend me at once.”
“I . . . er . . .” The young woman hesitated before continuing. “That might be difficult, my lady.”
“Difficult? Why?”
“I think you’d best see for yourself, my lady.”
Throwing down her quill with a very unladylike curse, Alija rose to her feet and followed the slave down the stairs to the main foyer of the house. It was a large circular chamber with a beautifully tiled floor and a domed ceiling made of frosted glass tiles that flooded the hall with light. Tarkyn Lye was standing in the middle
of the foyer staring up with his blind eyes at the dome, a strange look of bliss on his face.
“Tarkyn? Where have you been?”
“See the pretty lights,” he replied in a dreamy, sing-song voice.
“Tarkyn!”
“I can see the pretty lights. All the pretty lights. Pretty lights are pretty . . .”
“Are you drunk?” She turned on the young female slave who had fetched her from the study. “Do you know where he’s been?”
“No, my lady. I assumed he was on an errand for you since yesterday. He hasn’t been back to the house all night.”
“Not drunk,” Tarkyn sighed. “Pretty lights.”
Concerned now rather than annoyed, Alija stepped closer to her court’esa and gently laid a hand on his shoulder. “Tarkyn?”
“See the pretty lights?”
“Yes,” she agreed, like a mother talking to a small child. “I see them. Where have you been?”
“Looking at the pretty lights.”
“But where were you looking at the pretty lights?”
“Wrayan showed them to me.”
Alija stared at him in shock. “Wrayan Lightfinger?”
“Lightfinger made the pretty lights happen. He let me see them.”
Without waiting for Tarkyn to explain, Alija plunged into his mind. The shield she had so carefully constructed around him to protect the knowledge he carried was gone. Whoever had done this had hunted through Tarkyn’s mind like a thief rifling through the contents of a drawer looking for valuables. The damage probably wasn’t permanent, but it was clumsy. Wrayan had made no attempt to hide what he had done. Even the “pretty lights” that Tarkyn was so enchanted with had been placed in his mind quite deliberately.
It was almost as if Wrayan wanted her to know who had done this.
“I’ll kill him.”
“My lady?” the young slave gasped.
Alija hadn’t realised she’d spoken aloud. Nor did the act of giving voice to her anger lessen her need for vengeance. Wrayan Lightfinger would pay for this, and pay dearly. He had violated something so close to her, something so personal, that it was almost like being raped. Trawling the depths of Tarkyn’s mind, with its intimate knowledge of her thoughts and feelings, her fears and her insecurities, was a crime more heinous than rape. It wasn’t just the intelligence Tarkyn might have that made him valuable. Tarkyn knew the inner workings of Alija’s very soul.
Even more disturbing was the realisation that Wrayan owned such a level of skill. She had thought the High Arrion’s apprentice nothing more than a bundle of raw power. Where had he learned to dismantle a shield like the one she had used on Tarkyn, without permanently damaging the court’esa’s mind?
But the thing that infuriated Alija the most was the notion that a mere apprentice would dare to taunt her like this. Tarkyn’s condition was a blatant challenge. If Kagan—and there was no doubt in her mind that the High Arrion was behind this—had simply wanted to interrogate Tarkyn, he could have done it at any time. And could have killed the court’esa afterwards, making his death look like the work of cutpurses or assassins if he seriously wanted to conceal his hand in the crime. But to do this; to destroy the mind shield and then send Tarkyn back home waxing lyrical about “pretty lights”—that was more than just a goad. It was an outright declaration of war.
Alija reached into Tarkyn’s mind again and he slumped at her feet, unconscious. She couldn’t let him spend the day wandering around making a fool of himself going on about the pretty lights.
“Tressa, have Tarkyn taken to his room, please. And have my litter brought around.”
“You’re going out, my lady?”
“There is some urgent business I must take care of at the Sorcerers’ Collective. I’ll be in my study. Call me when the litter is ready.”
“Yes, my lady,” Tressa replied with a low bow.
Alija turned towards the stairs. Her anger was like a slow-burning fire, simmering so close to the surface she wanted to scream.
You won’t get away with this, Wrayan Lightfinger, she vowed silently. She would take him apart herself and then hand the pieces over to the Sorcerers’ Collective for them to deal with the remainder. Wrayan had violated so many Collective prohibitions about invading another mind, they were almost too numerous to count. Even if she couldn’t prove conclusively that Kagan was behind the attack on Tarkyn, Wrayan Lightfinger was finished in the Collective. She would see to that personally.
Taking a moment to calm her ragged breathing, Alija stopped at her desk and leaned on it to gather her wits. She needed to be calm. In control. Justified as she was in her anger, she couldn’t risk underestimating her adversary. He’d had the skill to dismantle her shield.
Who knows what else he can do?
Once she felt a little more in control, Alija moved to the lacquered cabinet beneath the window and waved her arm across it to release the magical locks that kept its contents safe from prying eyes. She heard the faint click of the lock and opened the doors to reveal a stack of scrolls, many of them ancient and on the verge of crumbling into dust. Withdrawing one of the scrolls with particular care, she relocked the cabinet and took it back to her desk.
With the greatest of care Alija unrolled the ancient document, wishing she could read the Harshini script more fluently. But she knew enough to understand the power of this particular scroll. Knew enough to realise that with its power, Wrayan Lightfinger was no match for her, no matter how strong he was. With this scroll, she would be able to use his strength against him. The harder he fought, the stronger she would become.
“My lady,” Tressa announced from the door. “Your litter is ready.”
“Tell them I’ll be right down,” Alija replied. “Has Tarkyn been taken care of?”
“Yes, my lady. Bildon and Franken carried him to his room, and Plia said she’d stay with him until you got back.”
“Good.”
“Will he be all right, my lady?”
The girl sounded quite worried. Alija glanced at her for a moment, wondering if Tarkyn had been amusing himself with the young woman and her concern was that of a lover, or if he simply commanded a great deal of respect among the other slaves. She wasn’t a particularly attractive girl. Alija made a point of buying plain, even downright unattractive female slaves, nor did her House own any female court’esa. She didn’t want Barnardo getting distracted. But the girl’s appearance wouldn’t bother Tarkyn. He was blind. Nor did it matter. So long as Tarkyn was there whenever Alija had need of him, she really didn’t care what he got up to with the house slaves.
“He’ll be fine. Once I’ve had a chance to attend to him.”
“Very good, my lady.”
Alija took one last long look at the carefully inscribed instructions then rolled the document up carefully and returned it to the cabinet under the window before she headed downstairs for the inevitable confrontation with Wrayan Lightfinger.
chapter 38
W
rayan waited for Alija in the main temple of the Sorcerers’ Collective. He waited beneath the Seeing Stone, wondering, if Kagan’s theory that he was part Harshini was true, did that mean he could use the Seeing Stone? If he stepped up to the crystal monolith and placed his hands upon it, would he connect with Sanctuary, the lost city in the Sanctuary Mountains in Medalon? Would he be able to speak to the hidden fortress that supposedly housed the last of the Harshini who had retreated there when the purge in Medalon became too dangerous for any of their number to be seen in the world of men? Would the impossibly beautiful face of a Harshini appear in the depths of the stone, smiling and serene, with eyes as black as onyx, as they were depicted in much of the artwork in the Sorcerers’ Collective?
The massive crystal resting on its black marble base loomed over the apprentice. Were there even any Harshini left? Had any actually survived the purge, or was the story that the survivors had all fled to Sanctuary simply a tale put about by the Sorcerers’ Collective to reassure those pagans
who could not accept the peaceful race might have been so easily obliterated by a bunch of vindictive, atheist women?
The temple was empty on Kagan’s command; the candles in their silver sconces illuminating the crystal had burned down quite a way, Wrayan noticed with a frown. The sorcerers who regularly came here to beseech the gods for their assistance had been told to stay out of the temple. It wasn’t that they needed a large clear space for this showdown. Kagan just thought it would be better if nobody else witnessed it.
Wrayan glanced over his shoulder at the empty, cavernous temple. The geometric pattern on the tiled floor drew one’s eye, quite deliberately, to the centre of the hall. But the building remained empty, as it had for hours. Wrayan was thirsty. He should have thought to bring something to drink.
Perhaps Kagan was wrong. Maybe Alija didn’t care what happened to Tarkyn Lye. Or she was out when Tarkyn arrived home and didn’t even know about his condition yet. Maybe all of this was a pointless waste of time because Alija was out shopping . . .
On the other hand, the chances were good that she knew something was amiss. All Wrayan’s attempts to find Tarkyn in the last few hours had resulted in a puzzling silence. It wasn’t that he couldn’t locate and crack Tarkyn’s mind shield any time he wanted; it was as if Tarkyn no longer existed.
Had Alija discovered her court’esa had been tampered with and killed him in a rage?
Wrayan thought that highly unlikely. Not after having rifled through Tarkyn Lye’s thoughts. The blind court’esa knew things about Alija that were more dangerous to her than a room full of assassins. There is no way she would allow his violation to go unavenged.
But where was she?
Had she not taken the bait? Had she seen through the trap and decided to follow Kagan and Lernen out of the city instead of seeking revenge for the attack on her slave? Was Alija so easily distracted? Would she fall for such a transparent attempt to thwart her plans?
Doubt began to eat at Wrayan’s confidence. This plan was as ill-conceived as it was dangerous. Alija was no fool. Surely she would connect the sudden and unprovoked attack on Tarkyn Lye and the departure of the High Prince.
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