Rather, what he felt was poisonous rage directed at the man who had borne Portia’s dead body back to Highmeadow.
Tristan seized the crystal decanter again and splashed more of the honey-colored liquid into his snifter. He tossed it back; the potable was so smooth it did not burn, but the corners of his eyes stung nonetheless. He could feel the warmth race down his throat to his stomach, where it sparked the fury that was boiling there into wildfire rage. He heaved the glass into the fire, where it shattered against the back of the hearth and flashed as the alcohol hit the flames.
Then, his anger still burning, he strode to the library’s heavy back door, threw it open, and hurried down the auxiliary staircase to the servants’ quarters.
The enclosed sconces that lined the stairway cast long, flickering shadows on the stone walls that curved along the staircase. Even in his fury Tristan made note of the solidity of the fortress he was visiting for the first time. Highmeadow was a new stronghold, a citadel four years in construction that had been designed for defense by the best artisans and military commanders of the Cymrian Alliance, making use of the premier military knowledge of four different races. Situated in the dense forests of western Roland, in the province of Navarne but very close to the border of Bethany, his own province, at the historical site where the ancient House of Remembrance had once stood, Highmeadow was a bastion of strength in an impenetrable woodland, a conglomeration of buildings that were situated on, within, and above the earth in the very trees of the forest, with hidden defenses and barricades surrounding it for miles. This building was the only one he had been privy to thus far in his visit, a general keep meant for housing guests of state and other visitors of the Lord and Lady Cymrian, with libraries, meeting rooms, and dining halls all secured for the protection of the guests and privacy of the discourse undertaken there. Even Portia, an eavesdropper of highly refined talents, had complained that the new keep had prevented her from overhearing anything of value since the household had moved there from the old and drafty keep of Haguefort in the capital of Navarne. Since one of the main functions that Tristan had commanded of her when he sent her as a gift to the Lord and Lady was just such surveillance, he had been left with little information of value for his pains.
At the bottom of the stairs, the hallway was dark save for light coming out from under a door halfway down on the right. The Lord Roland made his way to the door and paused outside it. A moment later he could hear soft conversation, and identified one of the voices as belonging to Gerald Owen, the longtime chamberlain of Haguefort who had served Stephen Navarne, the late duke, and his father and grandfather before him.
The other voice was unmistakably that of Gwydion of Manosse, known to his intimates as Ashe. Tristan’s boyhood friend and long-hated rival for both power and, at least within the secrecy of Tristan’s heart, the love of a woman.
The Lord Cymrian.
Without so much as a respectful tap on the door, Tristan barged into the room.
Gerald Owen and Ashe looked up in surprise. Both men were gray in the face, the chamberlain from age and exhaustion, the Lord Cymrian from something else. Tristan could see despair in his cerulean-blue eyes, though his face betrayed nothing as his gaze returned to the bed.
Lying before them on the room’s bed was the body of the serving maid. Tristan’s throat tightened upon beholding it again; he slammed the door shut behind him and came to the bed, staring down at the woman who lay there.
His mouth dropped open in shock.
The corpse of the beautiful young chambermaid was desiccated like a mummy that had been buried in sand for a thousand years. The supple flesh of her limbs, so vibrant and smooth that morning, had withered and dried to a tanned hide, hanging limply off the visible bones. The enormous eyes that had stared deeply into his own, watching him intently as she rode him up against the wall of his bedchamber in the guesthouse that morning, had sunken into hollow sockets and disappeared. Her sensuous mouth that had been open as if in the throes of sexual congress was open still, but the lips had vanished, leaving little more than gristle around the gaping teeth. Only the waves of long black hair remained, draping languorously over the pillow. Were it not for that hair, he would never have recognized her.
Tristan’s stomach rushed into his mouth. He turned and retched into the washbasin on the nightstand. Then, when the nausea passed, he wheeled in wrath and addressed the two men, only one of whom was watching him.
“You bastard, Gwydion,” he snarled at the one whose gaze was still on the body. “You unspeakable bastard. What have you done to her?”
“Nothing,” the Lord Cymrian murmured over the chamberlain’s snort of indignation.
“Nothing? Look at her—she’s—she’s—” Tristan stuttered to a halt as the chamberlain stared at him. “What have you done?” he repeated.
“Have you never seen a body in such a state?” Ashe asked quietly, his voice hollow.
“Never.”
“No? Well, think back harder, to your childhood days. Do you recall the death of Talthea, the Gracious One?”
Tristan stopped. A memory, long buried, rose in the back of his mind, hanging in the mists behind which early days were hidden. He vaguely recalled standing beside his brother, Ian Steward, now the Blesser of Canderre-Yarim, but then merely an acolyte being trained in the Patrician faith, both of them barely old enough to feed themselves, watching the death of a woman most people in the crowd around them had simply referred to as the Widow.
“She was a First Generation Cymrian,” Ashe went on, his hand coming to rest on the withered skin of the dead woman’s arm.
“I know who she was,” Tristan spat. “She was a historic figure. My father brought us all the way to the Circle to witness her death. I was barely old enough to walk. What does that have to do with anything?”
Finally Ashe turned to look at the Lord Roland. “If you recall, I lived at the Circle at that time. She was left on the Altar of Ultimate Sacrifice, where she had died, under the stars, after all the mourners had left. Like you, I was just a child. Watching her struggle to die, when all the healers were trying to save her against her will, had horrified me. I remember feeling deep sadness, and not really even understanding why. So that night, I looked out the window of my room in my father’s keep, at her body bathed in moonlight on the altar. I thought she might be cold, so I took a blanket off my bed, slipped from my father’s house, and went to the altar.
“When I reached the place where she lay, the body was still there, but had changed immensely. At the time of her death, she had appeared a young woman in the bloom of youth, even though she had lived more than a thousand years. Like all First Generation Cymrians, Time had stopped for her, so all her life she looked as she did the day she left the Island of Serendair. But now, in the darkness several hours after her death, she looked like this—desiccated, dry, as if she had been rotting for a millennium. I have seen a few Cymrians of the First Generation die since—and this is precisely what it looks like.”
Tristan’s body went cold in shock, and his skin began to prickle. “You believe Portia was a First Generation Cymrian as well?”
The expression on Ashe’s face grew hard. “If she was, it’s a mystery. For a short time, I wore the Patriarch’s Ring of Wisdom. When I had it on my hand, I was aware of all of the living First Generationers—no matter where they were in the world. It was as if our heartbeats were tied together; there are few enough of them left to have counted each one, and know them by name. This woman was not among them.”
“Then how could she be of the First Generation, m’lord?” Gerald Owen asked.
The Lord Cymrian’s eyes met Tristan’s.
“When I wore the ring, I believe this First Generation census of a sort was making me aware of living souls, of people who still were tied to their own names,” he said. “There was a man who did not come into my awareness, but who should have been counted by rights as a First Generation Cymrian, a bastard named Michael, the Wind of Dea
th, who had been known to the Three when they were still in Serendair, several ages ago. I did not know of him; he was no longer the man, the Cymrian he had been—because he had already taken on a demon spirit as its host.”
The last words echoed off the walls of the room.
“A F’dor?” Tristan whispered.
Ashe nodded gravely. “And it is clear to me now, given all the trickery and games of the mind this woman was able to play on me, twisting reality until it was unrecognizable, that she, too, must have been host to something that evil, that unspeakably dark. If this body once belonged to a First Generation Cymrian woman, as it appears to have, that poor creature’s soul was eaten long ago by something demonic that took over her body before I had possession of the ring.”
“Dear All-God,” Tristan said, trying to quell his rising stomach.
The Lord Cymrian glared at him. “I can imagine how ill you must feel now, Tristan, realizing as you no doubt are that you have literally been in bed with the beast, have coupled with a monster that may very well have possessed you, may have taken a piece of your very soul, without you even realizing it.” His stare grew colder. “Not that you would even miss it.”
“I—I—never—”
“Spare me.” The air in the subterranean room grew instantly drier, as if it were on the verge of igniting. Tristan had seen the dragon in Ashe’s blood rise before, but never in such close quarters. “You do not think that I know what you have been up to? You forget, my friend, that my draconic nature grants me an awareness of much of what is going on around me, transcending normal understanding. In addition, this is my house. I know every sickening detail of your tryst with this woman this morning, distracted as I am by everything else that I am contending with. She was your bedwench—I know you brought her here, not to aid Rhapsody with our son upon his birth, as you claimed to my face, but to seduce me, to lead me away from all that I hold holy. I do not know how she was able to appear in my wife’s aspect, to approximate her scent, her likeness, but even you should know that those abilities are signs of powers of dark intent, probably demonic. And you knew she was capable of those things. Don’t lie to me—this is not the time for it. I will gut you with my teeth where you stand, I swear it, if you speak another falsehood to me. Confess.”
Tristan’s eyes darted nervously around the small room.
“Gwydion—I—”
The air around him seemed to swirl as Ashe grabbed him by the neck and slammed him up against the nearest wall, knocking the breath from him.
“Don’t lie to me,” the Lord Cymrian demanded through clenched teeth. His eyes were burning with azure fire, the veins in his neck extended in ropy strands. His anger was palpable in the air around them, burning Tristan’s lungs. “Your next breath will be your last if you do not tell me the truth, now.”
Even as he danced on the edge of consciousness in the raging Wyrmkin’s grasp, Tristan’s wiles were working. He is not his wife, the Skysinger, the Namer, so he hasn’t the ability to discern the truth, as she does, he thought, fighting off the blackness that winked in and out before his eyes. His dragon sense cannot look into men’s hearts.
He gasped raggedly and with the last of his effort tore Ashe’s hands from his neck.
“Unhand me, you lunatic,” he snarled, pulling away. “What truth do you wish me to tell you, Gwydion? That I knobbed the girl? I admit it freely. I brought her to Haguefort, along with the other servants, to assist you and Rhapsody in any capacity you might need them in your transition to Highmeadow. It did not occur to me, nor does it embarrass me, that you might make use of her copious talents beneath the sheets. I couldn’t care less. I have been free about acknowledging my attitudes regarding the value of bedwenches and whores—an attitude your own father shared, if you recall.” Tristan breathed more deeply, his bruised trachea aching, noticing the simmering down of the fire in the Lord Cymrian’s eyes. He decided to press his luck. “Also, if you recall, the woman I have loved most in my life was just such a serving wench who was both my father’s concubine and mine. So do not attach to my gift any nefarious purpose, Gwydion. If you considered straying from your marital vows and bed, well, that’s on your head.”
Ashe eyed him warily, the gleam of fire calmer, but still burning.
“Look well upon your gift to me, and remember this sight as you recall what you once held in your arms,” he said, his voice measured. “I speak to you as one who has had a piece of his very soul enslaved by such a demon, and if in the throes of passion the beast that probably inhabited this woman ripped away a piece of yours, Tristan, you will reap your deserved punishment a thousandfold. By rights I should kill you now, where you stand, rather than risk letting such a scourge live on through you, if you are in fact in the demon’s thrall.”
The Lord Roland’s face went white.
“But you are surely not contemplating that, Gwydion?” he said nervously. The Lord Cymrian’s aspect was utterly blank, expressionless, save for the burning fury in his blue eyes, eyes scored with vertical pupils denoting the dragon blood in his veins. Though they had been friends since childhood, Tristan Steward could see no reassuring sign of fealty or privilege there; for all intents and purposes, he could be looking into the face of a stranger.
Or an enemy.
The Lord Cymrian continued to stare at him a moment longer. Then he turned to his chamberlain.
“Parchment and ink, please, Owen. Sit down, Tristan.” He indicated the only chair in the room at the small table on which the basin and pitcher rested as the chamberlain left the room. When the Lord Roland hesitated, the Lord Cymrian took him by the shoulder and slammed him into the seat. Tristan struggled to rise, but as he did, Ashe drew his sword.
In the glimmering blue light of the blade of Kirsdarke, the ancient sword of elemental water, Tristan Steward froze.
“Gwydion—” he gasped.
“If you so much as twitch again, I will behead you and gouge the beating heart from your chest,” the Lord Cymrian said quietly. “Doubt not my word, Tristan. As far as I am concerned, you are a thrall of the demon and a threat to all I hold dear. To think I tolerated your continued existence in the same keep as my wife and son—”
“You—you can’t seriously believe I would—harm Rhapsody, or your son?”
“Knowing that there is no limit to the evil a F’dor’s thrall can commit, I am willing to believe you capable of anything,” the Lord Cymrian said, his tone deadly. “I need not even believe that your soul is tied to a demon to know that you want my wife, and would do anything to have her, your pledge of fealty and supposed lifelong friendship to me notwithstanding. Don’t open your mouth again to protest, Tristan, unless you want to experience the taste of my sword—I am fighting every inclination that is coursing through me at this moment to ram it down your throat.”
The regent swallowed hard but said nothing as the chamberlain returned to the room with an inkwell, a quill pen, and a sheaf of parchment.
The Lord Cymrian indicated the table, and the chamberlain set the items down on the flat surface, moving the bowl and pitcher out of the way with a faint look of disgust. Ashe conferred with him in low tones for a moment; then the chamberlain nodded and left the room again. Ashe turned to Tristan once more.
“Write,” he demanded.
“Write what?”
“‘My dearest Madeleine,’” the Lord Cymrian dictated. He raised his sword as Tristan hesitated, then took up the quill quickly and began to scratch letters onto the parchment. “‘I fear I am needed at Highmeadow for the foreseeable future. I urge you to take Malcolm and return for the time being to Canderre, where your father’s keep will provide you both with security and care.’ Finish with whatever endearments you don’t mean. Then sign it.”
“I—I need to get back to my lands—”
“As of this moment, you have no lands, Tristan. Your lands, your title, and your freedom are forfeit until such a time as it can be determined beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are not in th
e debt of a demon. I will take no chances with that possibility.”
“You are out of your misbegotten mind,” the Lord Roland spat, rage outweighing his fear. “What makes you think—” His words were choked off by the dry crackling in the air that signaled the rise of the dragon in Ashe’s blood.
And the knock at the door.
“Come,” the Lord Cymrian said. The multiple tones of the dragon were in his voice.
The door opened and Gerald Owen reappeared. Behind him in the hallway were four of Highmeadow’s guards, armed and drawn. The chamberlain came into the room.
“The Lord Roland’s—er, guest quarters are ready, m’lord.”
“What are you talking about? I am perfectly comfortable in my current suite,” Tristan Steward stammered, but realization was beginning to dawn on him.
“No doubt,” said Ashe dryly. “Thank you, Gerald—we will be ready in a moment.” The elderly chamberlain bowed and left the room, struggling to cover the smirk on his lips.
Finally the Lord Cymrian’s eyes came to rest on the Lord Roland. In them there was no sign of Tristan’s boyhood friend, or the patient leader of the Alliance; all of the pleasantry and tolerance had been stripped from his aspect, leaving nothing but a wildness of fury that chilled Tristan’s soul. Somewhere, deep within that soul, he felt a twinge, guilt or something darker.
But only for a moment.
“You have not been given the tour yet, Tristan, but you will be happy to see that even the most secure of prison cells here in Highmeadow are relatively comfortable, certainly compared to the accommodations I experienced in my twenty years of exile, hiding from those forces that had taken a piece of my soul. Compared to those hovels, sewer vents, barns, and mud huts, you should feel downright pampered.”
“You’re insane,” the Lord Roland whispered. “You can’t be serious—you are arresting me?”
“For the sake of your wife and child, and her family, I am willing to forgo that announcement at present,” Ashe said. His voice was low and controlled, but the hiss of the dragon was in the undertone. “It is still my hope that you can be examined by those who can taste the presence of a demon’s bondage and found to be free of it, but until such time I will not chance the possibility that you are so bound. Portia died alone in the woods, as far as we know, so the demon may have died as well, with no host to take it on. But if it did find its way to a new host, then that person still holds a bill of lading against your soul—you are still a thrall of the demon, just like the every other hapless fool who wreaked havoc upon this land and then had no idea why. I have an Alliance to protect. The only other option to your imprisonment is your execution and the dissolving of your body in acid—you make the choice.” His voice dropped to a sinister whisper.