This time of year, Herewiss thought as they went into the suite’s shared room, glancing around at the walls and floors of grey marble, the thick dark carpets, the quietly sumptuous divans and hangings. It was getting on toward the beginnings of harvest, now, and in the Two Lands that meant that country households kept a feasting table ready all the time to thank the Goddess, through their visitors, for the year’s bounty. But this year the bounty was going to be much less than usual, even in Darthen, and he suspected that was much on Andaethen’s mind.
“This is lovely,” Moris said, going over to the window and looking out. There was an iron-railed terrace outside it that looked down on the garden. Herewiss joined Moris there and gazed down. There were paths laid out below, and flowerbeds filled with old wide-blown fragrant roses and tall skyspike and heartbell and such, along with flat dense beds of sweet-smelling violet star and emethtë. Cluttered, dense, friendly, it was a cottage garden smuggled into the city, with even a few fruit trees over by the old wall, seventy or a hundred years from the looks of them—apples, pears, even a gnarled old kilce brought far north from its usual habitations in the Bluepeaks.
Herewiss sighed, feeling abruptly at rest, and strange to be so after so much traveling. “Do you need to sleep a while?” he said.
“I need food,” Moris said, and headed off to one of the doors that opened from the left and right of the sitting room. “But a bath first.”
“That’s for me as well,” Herewiss said, and looked into the other room. “Dear Goddess,” he said, “look at the size of that bed.” And he made a small wry face as he thought, Though the one who would appreciate it most isn’t here. Ah, Lorn…
“Mine too,” said Moris. “It’s not a bed, it’s a county. But later for that. Let’s go see about the bath.”
***
About an hour later they made their way downstairs to the banqueting hall, which was at one end of the right-hand stroke of the au-rune, butting up against the old wall. It was easily a hundred yards long and twenty wide, the marble the white “spark” marble of the Highpeaks which seemed to show a subtle golden lustre under the surface when light moved near it. None did now: the rows of braziers of iron and gold that lined the room were all empty and cold, and only the soft indefinite light of dusk came in the thirteen doors on each side that led out onto the garden terraces. Everything was grey, except in two places. One was the near end of the great long table of polished blackstave in the center of the room; a branched silver candlestick stood there, and around the candlestick were arranged dish after dish of food, and cut- glass beakers of wine, along with knives, and napkins of linen. The other circle of light and color was where an iron torchiere stood near the table’s head. There beneath the light of the torchiere sat Andaethen, with papers piled all about her and another candlestick hard by. She was frowning, and scribbling on one curling parchment. Beside her sat a half-empty glass of wine and the remains of a roast chicken on a plate.
Andaethen looked up with relief as they came in, and put the quill aside as they made their way down to her, a summer day’s journey down the hall.
“Do have something,” said Andaethen. “That’s lamb there, on the big salver, in sour blackberry sauce: and roast chickens stuffed with garlic—this one was good. And the spiced venison is good too. And pickled beetroot, and pickled onions, and sour bread, and—” She waved at the dishes marshalled far down the table. “Whatever. Don’t miss that big decanter, that’s the Brightwood white.” She scowled meaningfully at Herewiss. “Almost the last of my supply.”
Herewiss smiled to himself and picked a serving plate. Moris had already begun working on the spiced beef. After a few moments of picking and choosing, Herewiss moved over to the tall slender decanter of Brightwood white, chose a plain silver cup, filled it. He raised the cup to the rose-tinged dusk coming in through the right-hand windows, saluting first the Goddess, and then thinking, Lorn… He drank.
The same flavor as always, of green leaves, cool wind, silence; but a slightly brassy around the edges. “It never did travel all that well,” Herewiss said to Andaethen, as he carried cup and plate around and down to her end of the table.
“I know,” she said, “but nowadays it’s not traveling at all. Well, I understand your father’s reasons.”
Moris joined them, sitting across from Herewiss. “Now the advantage of this room at this time of day,” Andaethen said, “is that with the doors closed, no one can get close enough to overhear anything—unless the power being used to overhear has nothing to do with ears.”
“Why,” Moris said, “don’t you trust your staff?”
She laughed at him, though softly. “Of course not. Half of them are Arlenes, and a quarter of those are in Cillmod’s pay. When I put temptation in their way, it’s because I want to. I’m not above misleading eavesdroppers. Or frightening them.” She grinned. “But you in particular,” Andaethen said to Herewiss, “have set everything upsy-versy, as I daresay you and my mistress expected. All the city, and Kynall Castle in particular, had heard wild rumors about you, and all with some substantiation. Mountains moving, battlefields cleared of enemies… all most disquieting. And then, la, the truth of the rumors walks in at the West Gate and asks for directions. Very droll,” she said, looking sidewise at Herewiss and taking a drink of wine. “And bearing what you bore in your packs, too… which the Castle has rumors of, but no truth yet. I have it, by the way.”
“And what did you think of it?” said Moris.
She laughed at him again. “Mori poppet, who says I get to think? I am my mistress’s mouth. What she thinks, that I speak. Your hand-kissing is going to be interesting,” Andaethen said to Herewiss, “since that’s where the declaration of war will have to be made. We of course are safe—if safe is the word here, any more. The army groups billeted in town are encouraged to misbehave sometimes, make life difficult for foreigners—know what I mean? Or even sometimes for the locals. A little violence in the back alleys, the merchants’ families threatened… you know. Nothing serious, nothing that anyone here is willing to complain about—lest they draw more attention to themselves. But as for you,” Andaethen said, drinking her wine again, “you will shortly be the man in Arlen that the most people desire to kill. Bearer of the bad news—and more than that: the bad news incarnate. The end of the old powers, both secular and spiritual, and the upraising of new, that’s what you’ll look like to anyone who sees you. I wouldn’t be in your skin for any amount of Fire, my lad.”
“But here I am in it,” said Herewiss, “so I’d best make the best of it that I can. For I do have more than one Mistress.”
“Yes,” said Andaethen, and looked at him with an expression uncomfortably like that of someone suppressing awe. “Where will that work lead you, do you think?”
“It’s hard to say. But I have business with Rían.”
Andaethen nodded. “Well, he’ll be at your kissing-of- hands, and the dinner after. There may be some delay about that—Darthen giving a dinner for the Arlene court on the same day as they declare war on it would go down oddly.”
“But the next tenday or so,” Andaethen said, “that’ll be fine.” She grinned at Moris’s shocked look. “Business goes on, coz. It’s when I pack my bags and leave here that you should start to worry. And meanwhile,” she said to Herewiss, “I can at least advise you on who’s most likely to try to kill you first. It’s a nice mare’s-nest of plottings and subtleties that you’ve fallen into—half the Four Hundred plotting against the other half, alliances formed one hour and shifted the next, any wild rumor throwing everyone into a panic—”
“The truth is,” Herewiss said, “they’re all afraid to starve. And starvation is, well, not quite looking the Four Hundred in the face yet… but peering around the corner. They would like to evade it, for lords who can’t keep their people in food get killed and plowed in—as do kings who can’t do the trick.”
“That’s true,” said Andaethen. “But here’s Cillmod, who is patently of t
he royal blood—having been in Lionhall and out again. ‘Support me,’ says our Cillmod to the Four Hundred. ‘This famine is not my fault: it’s the fault of the one who fled. I have been working hard to recreate the royal sorceries and bring back the rain and the food. Isn’t the harvest already better than it was last year? This comes of the great sorcerer who’s helping me. Support me now and everything will soon be well. But if you fall in with the pretender, then after I restore the kingship I will not fail to remember who my friends were, and who my betrayers—’“
Herewiss found that the fist of his sword-hand was clenching on the table. He consciously unclenched it and picked up a pickled onion to nibble. “And there are potential ‘betrayers’, then.”
“Oh, yes indeed! You’ll meet more than enough of those. There are plenty of people who would prefer Freelorn to Cillmod… if only because they feel they’ve been dealt with unfairly at Cillmod’s hands, and they prefer the Shadow they don’t know to the one they do. Others look more deeply into the situation, or less so, but support Lorn regardless. And others are dead set against him, for good reasons or bad ones. At least, that’s how it all is today. Tomorrow or the next day, when you kiss hands, and I read out that piece of parchment—la!” Andaethen drank off what remained of her cup of wine and set it aside. “All this flies apart and reassembles itself into some new and odder shape, all the alliances change and change again… and you find entirely different people trying to kill you.” She shook her head, smiling wearily. “Anyway, there’s nothing you need do until the time for your hand-kissing is set. Day after tomorrow, I think.”
“Two more days for the Queen to work on her muster,” said Moris.
“If it matters,” said Andaethen. “I think they suspect what you’re here for, up in Kynall, and have started their own muster already. But no need to rush things… the proprieties have to be observed.”
“Yes,” Herewiss said. “I have a visit to make myself, in that regard. If it’s all right.”
Andaethen looked at him curiously for a moment, and when he said nothing further, nodded. “Indeed it is. Your duties are what you say they are—that much is plain in my mistress’s brief to me. And anything I can do for you, only say the word. Meanwhile I can occupy myself with feeding up this poor starveling here—”
“Dati!” Moris said, more a groan than a name. Andaethen chuckled and ruffled his hair.
Herewiss smiled and had another pickled onion.
***
It was some time after midnight when Herewiss finally slipped out of the embassy. He stopped into the stables, looking for Sunspark, and found only one of two horses—Moris’s. However, in the tack room, he also found a red- headed, amber-eyed young man in russet jerkin and trews, playing at dice with one of the grooms, and winning. Herewiss smiled in that door, waved, said nothing.
As he headed for the street, the voice in his head said, Am I needed, loved?
Always, Herewiss said. But not for this. I’ll be back in a while.
As you say.
And when you’re done, Herewiss said, you should see the bed in my room—
I shall give it full attention. It’s almost certainly better than straw….
Herewiss slipped out the postern door in the larger gates, now shut. Earlier in the evening he had heard sounds of trouble in the street. He had Khávrinen slung over his shoulder, though, and a few bravos were the least of his worries tonight. He had more important business—and was intent on bigger game, if it would be drawn.
He had left the WhiteCloak behind, putting on a plain dark shirt and breeches; the night was warm and there was no need for anything else. He made his way back along the circle-road that paralleled the second wall, listening to the night-sounds as he went. Shouting, yes, but not like the kind he remembered from his youth, the friendly noises of night—the sound of taverns chucking out their patrons, of people chaffing one another on the way home, a homey, reassuring susurrus, the sound of the city breathing quietly before it turned over and went to sleep. There was a more threatening sense to this sound; sleep was not on its mind, and you would prefer not to meet its source face to face.
Herewiss shook his head and went on, following the buildings that followed the old wall. There was little Moon tonight, hardly visible through the thin cloud that was coming in—that old mist that always came up the Arlid after a warm day. Few lanterns hung in this street any more: iron stumps were visible in the walls where some of them had been broken off, and where they did hang still, outside one or another stately old building, many of them were bent or broken. The feeble light did little to show the way along the uneven cobbles.
He stopped where the Street of the Second Wall crossed the Arlid’s Way, and breathed in, breathed out. The old stink, at least, had not changed, nor the purpose that had given the street its name: open sewerage flowed down it and out an old cloaca burrowed beneath the walls, to the river. He looked up the street for the glint of lanterns, saw only a few—and a small hand lantern, swinging idly as someone, the watch perhaps, went about their business.
Herewiss crossed the Arlid’s Way, being careful of where he put his feet, and went on along the curving street in the dark. After a couple of hundred cubits the paving changed, becoming large flat slabs instead of cobbles: and light or the lack of it no longer mattered, for he knew where he was. The street widened out, becoming a plaza; the buildings on the left-hand side of the street suddenly stopped, giving way to more paving, right up to the old second wall.
Ahead of him in the dimness was a building, three storeys high, done in the old, simple way of Arlene architecture, some eleven centuries ago. The building was just a cube, with a high dome atop it. The windows on the front half of the sides of it were not glazed, merely cut into the sides of the building, twenty feet up, straight through the six-foot-thick marble walls. There was no portico at the front, nothing but a great empty yawning entrance, without gate or door. Within the building, the darkness was complete.
Herewiss walked across the plaza, making little sound. Always before, there had been a lamp lit inside the outer precinct of the building by day and night. But circumstances being what they were, this darkness did not particularly surprise him, as he came to stand in the doorway, and paused there.
It was an illusion, of course, that all city sounds suddenly seemed muted. Herewiss waited in the doorway some moments, letting his eyes grow used to this still deeper darkness, until he could just see the great dim form on the pedestal within. He let that silence sink deep into him, let that darkness make its point. Then he drew Khávrinen and walked into the outer court of Lionhall.
The statue was exactly as it had been seven years ago. Herewiss went softly forward into the silence and the darkness, with only Khávrinen to light his way—and that light a faint one, meant not to disturb the sanctity of the place. In the shadows behind the pedestal, he could just make out the bronze doors, shut, that led into the back of the building: the part of Lionhall that had no windows, and no other exit. But for the moment, his attention was not so much for the doors.
He came to the pedestal and stopped, grounding Khávrinen point-down on the plain paving. Laven d’Hwuin tai-Healhrásti, that had been the sculptor’s name: it was graven on the pedestal, near the floor. Nothing more was known about her for certain, except that she was not directly of Héalhra’s line, but a cadet branch. A millenium and more ago she had made this statue, in that clean, spare style of the day. Couchant in his majesty, one forepaw curled under, the other lazily pendant over the pedestal’s edge, the White Lion lay and looked out through calm, half-closed cat-eyes, through the huge portal and out at the city and land He founded and died for. The luxuriant mane and the longer tail were plain in the dimness, typical of the Arlene white lions, which are also a third bigger than their Darthene cousins, the tan lions that run in prides. Elefrua, the Arlene word called them: “mere-lions”, as opposed to the “great lions”, airua.
But this one was more than merely “great
”. This one had been a man, and had been called by his Creatress to become more: and he had accepted the call. His humanity had been burned away in blue Fire—he, with Éarn, becoming one of the only two men since the Catastrophe to wield it—and he had taken this form on the battlefield, to the confusion of his enemies, the thinking Fyrd and other monsters that the Shadow send down from the mountains to destroy the human beings trying to establish themselves once again in the Kingdoms. Terrible power he had wielded; and the look of that Power lay in Laven’s sculpture, the death dealt out, the rage. But all restrained now, all past. This was the White Lion at peace, his battles done. He looked out with forbearance and calm, the power and the majesty no whit lessened, but at rest. He seemed to look out the doorway, but for one standing at his feet, it was difficult to tell whether those eyes did not in fact look downward, under the heavy, lazy lids, and examine the watcher.
If it was the artist’s skill, and an illusion, it was one that Herewiss didn’t mind. He sank to one knee there, and bowed his head, directing his reverence to the one who had accepted Her call when it came, and let Himself go to become more than a man. We are all under Her together, Herewiss thought, tools to a purpose. May I take my toolhood as well as You did, Lionfather; and as Éarn my own linefather did. Help Your own son, as far as You may; bear him, at least, in mind, as he does You…
Herewiss knelt there in quiet for a while, having no further requests in him. He thought of when he had last seen the Lion, in dream. Lorn had been there with him, and together they had looked up at a Being Who for the joke’s sake was pretending to be His own statue, lying easy on a pedestal as the statue did. There was no question about the attention of the eyes that time, though, or the old power and wisdom in them, or the amusement. That by itself had been a great delight—