The confines set on her by Prince Lysaer's absence chafed her nerves, the precaution of state edict now enforced by High Priest
Cerebeld's veiled threats. Yet her sweet nature prevailed. She did not impose her dull spirits on the women who served as her ladies-in-waiting. They indulged in their gossip. Planning for the festival masques that enlivened the winter court occurred with the princess's benevolent cooperation, and her surprising, mild wit, if not her heartfelt enthusiasm. Her Grace was seen to dance at the balls, but none in her close company were fooled. Her contentment was a carefully manicured lie, and her spirit, a stifled, caged songbird's.
Since the hour of her wedding to Lysaer s'Ilessid, Lady Ellaine had been little more than a puppet played by the strings of her powerful royal marriage.
The court viewed her reliable manner with complacency, a mistake that resounded to widespread repercussions when a man's booted step approached through the marble anteroom.
Ellaine's careful needlework dropped to the carpet, limp as a wing-shot bird. Seed pearls spilled and scattered in a dancing rain. Erect in her chair, her dark eyes like bored walnut, she addressed the tall man who paused on the threshold before her ladies quite realized he was there. 'You are here for my son?'
The chatter of the women cut off as the man stepped inside.
He was dressed for the road, his boots and his spurs still mud-crusted. The mantle he wore was a swordsman's slit cape, bearing the hammer and wheel blazon of Karfael. He glanced once at the door still ajar behind him, fair and young and uneasy, his riding gloves wrung between tortured hands. Then he gathered himself. Bowed to one knee in the chill winter light that flooded the diamond-paned casements, he addressed her sovereign query. 'My Lady Princess, your son and heir died among the best of our troops, under assault by a winged Khadrim.'
A rustle of thick silk, shot through by the ping and tap as the last, forlorn pearls strayed across flooring and carpet.
The courier dared a glimpse upward. Lady Ellaine had risen, hands tucked in her skirts, while her bevy of women turned aghast faces to measure her public reaction.
'Please stand,' her Grace said, her voice level, not beaten; as though somehow she had braced in advance for an unspeakable tragedy. Only the gilt cloth edging on her collar flared to the jerk of her indrawn breath. 'Say how my son died.'
Before such straight courage, a man could but answer. 'Quickly, my lady. His suffering was brief. He charged on foot with drawn sword as the monster descended, and drew it away from a forester's strayed child. The attack caught everyone by surprise.
No scout had seen signs of the predators. By sheer misfortune, his honor guard were unable to act. The girl child survived, but at sorrowful cost. Your son Kevor died as a man, a true prince of his people. There are no remains. The Khadrim fire burned and left nothing. My Lord Mayor will bear the cost of a memorial with all honors once the thaws permit a state retinue to travel.'
Ellaine remained erect, unblinking. 'You have told High Priest Cerebeld this?'
'I have not.' The courier swallowed, the wadded lumps of his gloves fallen slack in his tormented grasp. 'His acolytes would not admit me. No one, they said, sees his eminence before he has opened his door to receive. I'm sorry. You should have had someone familiar to bring the sad tidings to you, but Ranne and Fennick travel back with the young prince's squires and all that remains of his gear. I was sent ahead with all speed, lest careless word should spread damaging, premature rumors.'
Every inch the poised princess she had never been granted the public standing to express, Ellaine held to her desperate composure. 'Your judgment is to be applauded.' She did not dismiss the courier, but added, 'Since Cerebeld is otherwise engaged, and Prince Lysaer absent, I deem it fitting that you, as Karfael's representative, and I, as the realm's princess, take immediate steps to inform Avenor's people of their loss.'
'My lady.' The courier bent his head in acquiescence.
Ellaine did not see him, but looked down in dismay at the glittering aquamarine beaded silk and white fur that jarred the air like watered light for their vibrancy. 'Meiris,' she bade, her whisper distressed. 'Fetch me a sable overrobe, and a sash and black mantle for mourning. Quickly!'
Through a rustle of shocked movement as the woman did her bidding, Ellaine clasped hands that broke into shaking unsteadiness. Her grief set in eclipse by pure fear, she schooled her face to white-fired enamel and sealed her hard impulse to act. 'Inwie, hurry. Tell my honor guard to arm for a public appearance. Then find a fleet page who won't pause to question. Send summons with him to the duty captain of the guard. Get him here for immediate audience.'
'My lady?' the appointed woman gasped, stunned. 'What if today's assigned officer is—'
'He will hear royal orders!' the Princess of Avenor interrupted, jeweled silk gleamed on her form like new ice as, bare-handed, she dared seize the reins of the power implied by her title and station. 'We have crisis in Westwood! Whichever captain of the watch is on duty, he must serve by right of my sovereignty as the mother of this realm's deceased heir.'
* * *
The thunderous knock shook the shut door to the High Priest of the Light's inner sanctum. Shrill voices clashed in deadlocked affront, the acolytes' dissonant baritones slashed by Gace Steward's yelping tenor.
On his knees before his ceremonial altar, immersed in his morning devotions, Cerebeld was jarred from the depths of ecstatic trance. He blinked, confused and disoriented. The battering assault on his door gained force. Urgent shouting rattled the blown-glass sconces, and gold fringes shivered on the draped, sunwheel cloth. The water and rarefied oils trembled in the offering bowls. Only the wax effigies of the three priests from Darkling, Morvain, and Etarra suffered the invasion, mute in their cut circle of candlelight. Their pale, molded faces stared back at him, dead, a doll's mockery of wax and cut hair, and crudely sewn snippets of silk.
The ephemeral tie invoked out of ritual had been shocked into dissolution. No connection remained with the living men in the distant wilds of Rathain.
Cerebeld arose, stiff in the knees, and charged to monumental displeasure. A large man, he moved with powerful speed, crossed the morning light spilled through mullioned windows, and wrenched open the door.
The squalling argument rocked to a stop, replaced by a scalpel-cut silence. The two acolytes sank to their knees. Left exposed, the rail-thin palace steward caught the glacial brunt of the High Priest's glower. 'How dare you!'
Gace squeaked an insincere apology, bony hands tucked to his liveried chest like the paws of a nervous rat.
'How dare you!' Cerebeld repeated. 'Because of your meddling, our lord, the Exalted Prince, has been hindered in this day's divine work.'
'The princess,' Gace gasped. His narrow frame quivered under the azure pleats of his livery as he jerked a snipped gesture toward the east-facing bank of latched windows. 'Outside in the plaza. Go. See for yourself. Then tell me which hindrance will prove the more meddlesome to the true cause of the Light.'
Cerebeld said nothing. He strode with clamped jaw back to his altar, snatched up undone wrappings and ribbon ties, and cast veiling cloth over his clutch of wax effigies. His slicked seal hair gleamed like satin-polished wood as he stalked to the casements overlooking Avenor's grand palace of state.
The plaza seethed with the variegate colors of a gathering crowd, though the daily invocation to the Light was not scheduled to occur until noon. Some townsfolk were dressed in village motley, others in sober brocades, with the journeymen and craftsmen scattered among them still aproned from work in their shops. The gilt-roofed cupola raised over the sunwheel dais sheltered nothing except a sweeper, who leaned on his idle broom, interrupted from his daily task of tidying.
Princess Ellaine had eschewed the hallowed seat of divine office in favor of the parapet that fronted the second-story grand ballroom. She had her personal retinue and her honor guards all mantled in stark black. The captain of the day watch flanked her, jet streamers affixed to his helm
. He held ten guardsmen at solemn attention, the disturbed tidings at hand evidently more pressing than keeping their post at the watch keep.
A messenger came in from Karfael.' Gace said, lame.
Far too controlled to show his dismay, Cerebeld flicked the latch and pushed open the lead-paned casement. 'Say who has died.' He cast a commanding, uncivil glance backward, the trimmed point of his beard sky cut to the profile of a billhook.
'No one could find out.' Gace swallowed. 'The courier would not speak, except to Lady Ellaine. The boy I sent to listen at her keyhole was detained. I went myself to recover the lapse, but by then, the doors to the royal apartment were braced shut by the guard, with all of the servants inside.'
'Enough!' snapped the High Priest. Princess Ellaine was speaking, her high, clear voice riding the breezeless air. The raw gist reached the tower, broken to echoes off the saffron facades of the buildings.
Inquisitive to the bone, Gace Steward edged past the obstructive acolytes and craned his neck over Cerebeld's shoulder. 'The heir.' he whispered. 'We've lost the young prince to marauding Khadrim.'
Cerebeld gave a chopping, backhanded gesture. 'Silence, you fool!'
Snatched phrases from the princess's proclamation winnowed through the rising breeze off the harbor. '. . . go to Karfael at once . . . Royal heralds are riding this moment to bear news far and wide . . . after the ceremony to honor our loss, Avenor will succor the northern hamlets . . . other women mourn loved ones, husbands or sons ... in Prince Lysaer's absence, hear my pledge! The depredations of these monsters will not be permitted to continue unchecked.. .in the name of the young prince, I will dispatch two companies from Avenor's garrison . . . safeguard the defenseless countryside.'
Gace Steward hissed an incredulous breath through locked teeth. 'She's promising armed intervention against Khadrim? Light save us all, that's sheer madness?'
Cheers arose from the crowd, nonetheless, a heartfelt endorsement of the princess's selfless support.
Cerebeld whirled from the casement, flushed livid. 'Madness or not, we can't stop this now. To cut her Grace down in retraction would tarnish the support of true faith, and the omnipotence of the Divine Light.'
Gace Steward pursed his lips in fidgety agitation. 'The Divine Prince will scarcely be pleased. Who gets to break the unhappy news, if the best of Avenor's trained garrison get flamed for the sake of some Karfael woodsmen?'
'The Light will receive their spirits in grace,' Cerebeld assured, more concerned by the unpredictable ramifications unleashed by the princess's wild-card bid for autonomy. 'Fetch my formal retinue!' he barked to the acolytes still frozen in stunned uncertainty. Muscles worked in his determined, square jaw as he snatched his white-and-gold mantle from the armoire.
Caught flat-footed, Gace Steward scampered to keep up. 'What steps can be taken? The princess has commandeered cooperation from the garrison troops! She's forbidden to leave Avenor, but that sanction can't be enforced while she's mourning.' His chattering monologue gained pitch and force, as he finally grasped the breathtaking scope of possible ramifications. 'Ellaine's authorized royal heralds to ride out! Who knows what dispatches they're carrying?'
The cat had slipped out of the bag too far, this time.
Gace hopped foot to foot, hounding Cerebeld's heels as the High Priest snuffed the candles that burned on the altar. 'We can't throw a damned blanket over her Grace's head, or take back the promise she's spoken.'
'No.' One syllable, to raise the hairs at the nape for its inarguable lash of finality. Cerebeld reached the threshold, and snapped strong fingers to his remaining acolyte. 'Fetch my valet. Have him gather my ceremonial appointments and catch up. I will robe in the downstairs vestibule.'
He hastened onward, soon breasting the rush of the underlings who arrived in a panic to unfurl the sunwheel standard, and unshroud the gold-sewn, ribboned stole of office and chain of clasped dragons he wore for his public appearances.
'Well, say something!' Gace Steward shrieked in frustration as he rounded the first landing and scurried like a weasel through the press. 'What in the name of Divine Light will you do to checkrein Lysaer's harebrained wife?'
'The chit's forced our hand,' Cerebeld cracked, his venom held in savage check beneath his knifing temper. Princess Ellaine had been shown copies of a document proving the plot behind Talith's death. If this was her bid to slip the restraint of authority and bolt to Erdane to expose the information, she would be gagged. The High Priest would use the bared might of his office and travel with her royal retinue.
The stairwell ended, with the door to the vestry tucked away to one side. Ignoring the royal steward, who still yapped and fussed at his elbow, Cerebeld dispatched a waiting acolyte with peremptory summons demanding an afternoon audience with Lord Koshlin. Then, his deep thoughts contained like the seethe of balked magma, he quashed Gace's badgering with a blast of withering authority. 'Nothing's to be done, yet, you hysterical ninny! A royal son lies dead! Decency demands something more than belated words of condolence. We must make a ceremonial appearance in the square and offer her Grace's expedition to Karfael the blessing and support of the divine powers of the Light.'
Late Winter 5670
Game Pieccs
In Ath's hostel near Northstrait, where the rolling boom of Stormwell Gulf's breakers smash themselves into snagged rock, an adept of Ath's Brotherhood pulls the curtain across the alcove where the motionless body lies, swathed head to foot in bandages soaked in salt water and unguent; and her sigh seems wrenched from the depths of her heart as she says, 'Khadrim fire burns deep, and the pain by itself has driven him very far from us . . .'
On the eve that Avenor's picked garrison prepares to march northward to Korias, High Priest Cerebeld receives word that her Grace, Princess Ellaine, has vanished from the palace, and though her honor guard and her ladies-in-waiting are subjected to rigorous questioning, none holds the first clue to her whereabouts . . .
Under wind-whipped tent canvas on Daon Ramon Barrens, a sunwheel priest blots fresh blood from a bronze pendulum, then straightens in triumph and taps a smeared finger on a map. 'Here, Divine Grace, the new position of the enemy. Our forces steadily close on him. Your call to eradicate the Master of Shadow may be answered inside the next fortnight. . .
Late Winter 5670
VII. Threshold
Twilight stole over Daon Ramon Barrens, sung in by bitter winds and a gauzy, thin dusting of snowfall. Earl Jieret crouched, sheltered, in the lee of a rock scarp, the hood of his bear mantle snugged to his chin, his spill of red beard shielding the gusts from his fingers. His farsighted gaze remained fixed on the gap where two hills folded into a tangle of whitethorn and witch hazel. There, on the hour past the rise of the moon, the fugitive Crown Prince of Rathain would ride through, if the prophecy sent by Traithe's raven held true to the Sighted scrying two months ago.
The scout who poised at his chieftain's shoulder chafed and blew into his cupped hands, equally tense as he received last-minute instructions.
'No noise and no light,' Jieret stated, emphatic. 'His Grace has been driven on the run since the solstice, and we can't risk him thinking we're enemies. Tell the men, hold position and stay out of sight. No one's to call out, or make an approach, unless our liege is seen to turn down a valley other than this one.'
The stakes would not forgive, if someone's ill-advised move should startle their prince to blind flight. The troops from Etarra and Darkling hazed his trail from behind, bolstered at their south flank by Jaelot's zealot trackers, whipped on by a spell-turned commander.
'Go,' Jieret finished. 'I'll signal you with an owl's call the moment I have him in hand.'
'May Ath's grace stand beside you.' The scout slapped the wadded snow from his boot cuffs and faded without sound into deepening gloom.
Earl Jieret sat alone with the dirge of the gusts, moaning over the cragged stone where he sheltered. A cold hour's vigil stretched ahead of him, less time than he wished to review his turbulent memo
ries of service at the shoulder of Rathain's prince. The events were too few for his forty-odd years, with no single one of them peaceful. Jieret brooded, his steady gaze pinned to the draw where the shorn, winter hills meshed and met with the darkened horizon. He wondered what sort of desperate creature would ride through that gap, first set to flight through the Skyshiels in winter, then hounded across the desolate barrens, with no human contact beyond the pack of armed enemies hunting him.
Arithon s'Ffalenn at best form was a difficult spirit. No way to guess in advance how to grapple the fugitive the raven's prophecy would deliver.
The night deepened. Between gusts, the whispered tap of dry snowfall nicked through the dead canes of briar. A hare screamed, brought down by a hungry night predator; a kit fox barked in the brush. Jieret tucked anxious forearms over his knees, while the winter stars wheeled through broken clouds overhead, and the new-risen moon sliced a mother-of-pearl rim over the eastern horizon.
Precisely on schedule, a suggestion of motion ghosted through the weave of the thicket. Jieret sharpened his attention. The disturbance might be the movement of wolves, or a herd of deer seeking forage. When minutes dragged by, and no further sign met his searching scan of bare branches, he almost settled back in disappointment. No doubt he had experienced no more than a phantom wrought of overstrung nerves.
Then the shadow moved again. Snapped back to vigilance, Jieret made out the forms of three horses as they emerged in clean outline against a pristine palette of snow. Heads raised, ears tipped forward, they poised in wary silhouette and surveyed the swept valley that unfolded before them. No lead reins or bridles cumbered their heads, but two bore laden packsaddles, the bulk of their burden set close to the shoulder to free their balance to gallop. A stilled moment passed. Then the animal in the lead stepped forward, head down and blowing soft snorts. Another' hushed movement, and a fourth horse slipped from cover, this one saddled and bridled, but bearing no visible rider.