Yet no tents were in evidence; no pavilions. No party of loyal officers awaited to give updated reports or provide him with the impervious shield of Avenor's state backing. Alone in soiled clothes, Sulfin Evend dismounted. If the guard at the sallyport did not know his face, he was going to suffer no end of snide ridicule.
Yet challenge did not arise from the sentries. The main gate was unbarred by a captain in formal parade arms. He strode forth, no less than the officer who had once commanded the misfortunate company lost in Korias. Two mounted lancers rode at his heels, trailed by a liveried groom who led a fresh horse, saddled with a cloth bearing Lord Mayor Garde's gold ribbons and family blazon.
Chin up, eyes like ice, Sulfin Evend voiced no greeting. He foisted the reins of his hack on the groom, then held out his gloved hand for the remount.
'You have the nerve in you!' The guard captain spat with revilement. 'Seventeen years! Thirty-nine dead who were my finest, and now you. Alive, thrice-entitled, and still with no word!'
Sulfin Evend knew how to mask gouging grief; one learned, under Lysaer s'Ilessid. He mounted the horse. Under the merciless flood of the torches, he stared downward until his accuser flushed red.
More worn, looking suddenly old in his gleaming appointments, the captain struggled not to be first to break under his own round of punishment.
His discomfort bought pain, before triumph. 'You sent your finest,' Sulfin Evend allowed, finally. 'They faced horrors your troops here could never imagine. Nor can you measure the cost I have paid to be crossing this gate, still alive.' He wheeled the horse. As the waiting escort scrambled to respond, he spurned them without a glance back. 'I know the way to my father's palace.'
The captain cracked. 'Damn you to Sithaer! You ungrateful craven!' Hard-clenched to stay his hand from his sword, he signalled his bewildered outriders. 'Orders. See him through!'
'Sir.' The men spurred ahead, angry. Their charge did not rein in, which forced the spokesman to shout like a yokel to make himself heard. 'Lord Mayor Garde is in council. He demands your presence for audience straightaway!'
Hanshire's hall of state lay between the town's central guard keeps, overlooking the steep fall of the bluffs. The stone terrace, with its slate-capped battlements, still bore the weathered triaxial knots carved by the ancient Paravians. In Third Age Year Ten, rule had been passed to a clan family appointed by Tysan's High King, Halduin s'Ilessid. Times changed, since the mists. The descendants now skulked as drifters on the wind-raked downlands, tolerated for the bloodstock they raised and sold at the West End fair every autumn.
Blood-tainted by an outbred clan lineage he rigidly wished to disown, the current Lord Mayor enforced the ascendancy of town law with an iron fist. The Divine Prince of the Light was his ally in name, but no friend; not with Avenor's crown might tied to interests aligned for a unified conquest.
Coldly received for his title alone, the Alliance Lord Commander left his mount with the sentries who guarded the arch. He strode ahead, still unspeaking. His step echoed off slate flagstones and battle-scarred revetments, glistening with the odd patch of slag left seared by the bale-fires of dragons. Where the veteran captain who trained him had aged, centuries-old stonework endured without change.
Seventeen years could have passed in a day. Sweating despite winter's chill on the air, Sulfin Evend disregarded the expectancy that would have rushed him through the hall doors. He took pause instead and gazed over the battlements.
From that eyrie vantage, the lower town spread in a jumble of roofs, rammed tight to the flank of the coast. The damp wore the taint of wet thatch, peat-smoke, and kelp from the apothecary's shacks. Below, the cove harbour lapped the darkened headland, fringed by torch-light where the water-front wharves met the teeming balconies of the brothels.
The distant lamps of the anchored ships rode like spangles across silken water, except one: ablaze in state trappings, the vessel that flew Lysaer's sunwheel banners stood out like a beacon.
Sulfin Evend could have shouted aloud with relief.
'My Lord Commander, if you would?' The liveried lackey sent out to collect him bowed with unsettled urgency. 'Lord Mayor Garde and the council are already seated in session.'
'You may send word ahead.' Since a state delegation could not wait on raw nerves, Sulfin Evend turned back and entered the doubled doors. As the lackey's rushed footsteps cast their whispered echoes ahead, the absentee son revisited his privileged origins: a melange of patchouli, citrus polish, and ink, and smart servants receiving his mantle and gloves. The one who brushed down his plain, mud-stained leathers met his duty with lofty disdain.
Only the white-headed fellow who knelt to wipe his grimed spurs slapped his calf with familiar affection. 'Young master, you are returned none too soon. Off you go. Your people expect you.'
'Freyard,' murmured Sulfin Evend, surprised. He had not expected a welcome.
The old lackey grinned, ancient now, missing teeth. 'Your gear looks to be overdue for a polish. I'll do that myself. Here's your escort.'
The steward's officious reserve suggested that no travel-worn swordsman should receive state admittance, far less any officer bearing authority bestowed by crown rank at Avenor.
Piqued by a flare of perverse enjoyment, Sulfin Evend strode on, while the council-hall doors of Vhalzein lacquer were whisked open with dispatch before him.
Beyond, the vaulted chamber lay deserted. The vast silence from the galleries was crushing. The dais of carven, serpentine jade left by the ancient Paravians gleamed under the crystal chandeliers. In place of Mayor Garde and his rapacious advisors, Sulfin Evend confronted no worse than a grandiose row of tasselled covers on the state chairs.
'They're gathered in the privy chamber,' the steward said, tart. 'This way, if you please.' . Sulfin Evend side-stepped the mores of officious ceremony. 'I'll go on my own, without fanfare.' Pushed past, he cut through the warren of clerks' desks and ducked through the alcove door.
Inside, the air was a stifling blanket, overburdened with perfume and fraught tension. The floor seats were crammed full, and the high dais as well, installed with the full complement of Hanshire's advisory council and greybeard heads of state.
First sweep, Sulfin Evend surveyed his estranged father: the meaty strength of the face now sagged with pinched discontent. Grizzled as a bony, aged wolf, Lord Mayor Garde leaned back in stiff clothes, in command with laced hands and crossed ankles. Behind his chair stood four Koriathain wearing floor-length purple robes. All wore the red-banded sleeves of ranked seniors. One showed five stripes, an authoritative presence that plucked Sulfin Evend to resharp-ened wariness.
At right hand, also standing, the weathered Champion of the Guard wore his ceremonial breast-plate; seated left, the hawkish High Minister of Trade lounged in boredom and crusted jewellery. Beside him, the corpulent town justiciar was speaking with stinging disparagement. 'You can't imagine you'll accomplish that feat without forging a Koriani alliance!'
The voice that replied wore frost like white diamond. 'I will do all I say, with or without any ties to the order's practice of obligation.'
Lysaer; past the jammed ranks of the dignitaries, the gold-etched figure was on his feet, reduced to the station of common petitioner in front of the mayor's dais. That shaming slight smashed the last pretence of protocol, and prompted Sulfin Evend to intervene.
'Just what bargain would the Prime Matriarch demand? Access to the gifts that lie latent in Dari s'Ahelas's old lineage, perhaps?'
Met by the sharp turn of Lysaer's head, Sulfin Evend shoved toward the front of the chamber.
'Oh, yes,' he assured, as he pressed his way through, disarranging rare furs and trimmed velvets. He made no apology for his disgruntled wake. His concern only measured the whipped start of surprise from the Blessed Prince who, at Erdane, would have discovered just what such a line of descent might entail. Sulfin Evend locked eyes with his liege. Then, barefaced before his disowned family, he savaged the tissue of long-standing scars.
'Koriathain do occasionally breed children. In the cloistered, dim corners of their sisterhouses where outsiders aren't invited to look.'
Mayor Garde's incensed shout burst decorum. 'That's enough! Are you mad? Your impertinent remarks serve no purpose but mayhem!'
'Truth!' cracked Sulfin Evend, arrived front and center before the candle-lit dais. 'I notice your fifth-rank senior dares to say nothing at all.'
Purple silk rustled through the cooler voice of denouncement. 'What should be said of a son who forsakes his family obligation? Your return, you'll insist, was arranged for a loyalty you claim to have made in free choice.' The enchantress bearing the red bands of accolade gave a small shrug, then attacked. 'By all means, let's hear honesty. Have the man you name master ask what you were doing in conference with Sorcerers at Althain Tower.'
The jerked flash of gold exposed Lysaer's swift breath. Though the blue eyes remained steady, their depths had now darkened with clouding distrust. 'Were you in fact?'
Sulfin Evend stared back, level. So soon, his fresh oath must be put to the test: a trial exposed before bitterest censure. He withstood his father's towering rage, and, more cutting, his coquettish mother, whose agonized frailty stripped his skin like sandpaper and glass; then the Koriani Seniors, smug and still in their silence. Most of the packed ministers present recalled his rebellious childhood. Worst of all these was his prince, recovered and wearing the terrible mantle of his inborn self-command.
'I will answer your Blessed Grace, and in full. But the matter ought to be private.' Though his life might ride on the issue laid bare, Sulfin Evend placed duty foremost. 'I am ever your man, sworn to serve the Alliance. For the sisterhood's proposed offer of service to you, I ask leave to know: what is the order demanding?'
'Partnership,' said Lysaer, 'in exchange for defences. They want the Spinner of Darkness cut down, and I need a trained shield against practising necromancers. Too much has gone sour at Avenor, out of sight behind someone's closed doors. I won't have secrets.' Brows raised in inquiry, not overtly distressed, he added, 'I presume you went to the Fellowship to dispose of an unclean sacrificial knife?'
Gifted that firm affirmation of trust, Sulfin Evend returned the hint of a smile. 'The appeal was met, and without laying claim to your Blessed Grace's autonomy. If I might presume? Then rest assured, I've already brought back your protection.'
The Koriani Senior hissed through her teeth. 'A clever half-truth! My lord Prince, listen now and avoid a betrayal! Your commander at arms is no longer yours. His loyalty is compromised, and now he plays an insidious game of deception. Ask why he wears a fresh cut on his wrist. Protection, he claims! What bargain was struck? What binding was sealed by his own let blood, in formal oath to a Fellowship Sorcerer?'
'Forgive me,' whispered Sulfin Evend, flushed before the sharp startlement that hardened Lysaer's straight regard. 'This is no equable hearing, Blessed Grace, but a fight over spoils involved in a feud that divided me from my family long years ago. By your leave, I ask to defend myself.'
Lysaer s'Ilessid inclined his head. Fairness commanded him. His deliverance at Erdane demanded that much, whether or not there was privacy.
Sulfin Evend confronted his grim row of accusers: a father, whose hard-set expression suggested no tactic was too cruel to compel a son's shirked obligation. His mother, a poised doll in her high-wire head-dress, whose tight-laced hands masked a rapidly breaking composure. Lastly, by far the most ruthless of all, the unified row of Koriani enchantresses, whose grasping subterfuge had no limit. No cost was too high, and no ploy too low, in their bid to depose the constraint of the Fellowship Sorcerers.
Committed beyond risk for his personal integrity, Sulfin Evend shattered the last, fragile hope he might reconcile with his past and come home. 'The oath I accepted binds no one but me. Its terms were not made in demand by the Fellowship, but fulfilled as a promise to a blind seeress whose help I required in Erdane. My service is given beyond power to revoke, to this land and the weal of its people. As Regent of Tysan, and Divine Prince, Lysaer's interests are one and the same. Therefore, I stand steadfast at his right hand. Compromise him at your peril.'
From Lysaer, no word; from his father, checked fury; from his mother, a flood of silenced tears for a grief grown too harsh to bear. For that, Sulfin Evend swore he would have blood, provided the vicious reckoning ahead did not come to destroy him.
For the deadliest enemy would not back down. The fifth-rank enchantress stepped forward, incensed. An upstart male had obstructed her order's interests, and she would spare nothing to see him cut down.
'Your s'Ilessid has compromised himself well and fully without any move on the part of our sisterhood. Since your sword can't defend against vile assault by the cabal that's choking Avenor, what have you sold in exchange for a covert Fellowship backing?'
'There is no such backing,' Sulfin Evend insisted. 'I asked for a Sorcerer's stay of protection for myself alone. That risk, I bore for the sake of necessity, in line with my duty as liegeman. The Light of his Grace is in no way affected.'
'Then stand back, little man.' Beyond scornful, the rankled senior's dismissal gouged for a deeper reckoning. 'Leave your birth obligation and Hanshire's interests forsworn! You may have balked the will of your father, but not ours. Your Blessed Prince must seal his own fate. Leave his safety to us. Or dare you lead him naked into Avenor, a blindfold lamb to the slaughter?'
'How you ladies hate to admit that Athera holds living powers other than yours.' Sulfin Evend reached into his jerkin and removed the deerskin-wrapped knife from its thong. 'Here is Lysaer's protection. My charge to stand watch and guard for his safety comes to him without any strings.'
A stir whispered through the packed seats at his back. The council would not recognize a Biedar knife; nor did his father, whose beet fists and clamped jaw still displayed overt irritation. But the Koriani witches must acknowledge defeat. Their fifth-rank senior could probably name the seeress whose wise counsel had arranged for Lysaer's deliverance.
'I have no more to say, here!' Sulfin Evend pronounced. 'My loyalty and my close affairs are not yours to question at whim. The birth ties I once owed to Hanshire were stripped on the hour I gave my blood oath to the realm. I rest my case. The matter of my integrity must lie between me and the prince who carries my grant of feal service.'
Caithdeinen offered their lives to test princes. Sulfin Evend withstood the rank pressure of fear. He did not give way to his mother's heart-break, or apologize for his father's overpowering rage. His case must stand or fall in the end on the strength of s'Ilessid justice: a virtue warped by the Mistwraith's curse, that could foul the most stringent perception.
Lysaer said nothing. The quiet spun out. Sulfin Evend endured through the hard-breathing rustle of finery from the rows of town officers ranked at his back. As ruthlessly public, his mother's bowed head received no grace of reprieve amid cracking tension. The Koriathain maintained their adamant discipline. They would justify him with no saving word, that the flint knife was a genuine talisman. All ears strained to hear how the Blessed Prince would choose to call his ruler's power of judgement.
Sulfin Evend would not turn his head in appeal. He knew, too well, the fierce majesty that cloaked Lysaer's form through those times when the law called for a harsh consequence. From brushed gold hair, to dazzling jewels, to the fall of immaculate clothing, his Grace was the blinding epitome of authority and attentive poise. Beside that dizzying, unearthly charisma, the traveller rough from his overland journey could not seem other than discredited: an unshaven ruffian in his muddied leathers, with a primitive knife offered up by a beggar's hand.
As the silence extended, he swayed on his feet. He had ridden without a snatched moment for rest; twenty-five leagues through the haunted wilds, on post-horses bartered from drifters. The great oath just sworn at Althain Tower had reforged the core of his being, perhaps to die here as a branded traitor, under the eyes of his heirless parents.
Pride ruled him,
at last. He had not broken loyalty. Sulfin Evend sustained accusation, the flint blade his naked, last testament.
Cloth stirred at length, then a whispered breath, drawn against the glass-etched stillness. 'They wanted your child?' Lysaer asked, too quiet.
Sulfin Evend swallowed. 'In exchange for arcane service to my family. Yes.'
The blunt question followed. 'By your Lord Mayor's knowledge, the Koriani Order has placed demands such as this one before?'
Stiff under the weight of his father's shame, Sulfin Evend spoke out. 'The sealed bargain with Hanshire's ruling council is renewed with each generation. Before the obligation demanded of me, the sisterhood has asked no more than buildings, or land, or sometimes a tithing of labour. The obligation began in the years of the uprising, when our mayors asked service, and provided a safe haven for enchantresses who were in flight, or left homeless at large on the country-side.'
Diamonds flared like white ice; the Blessed Prince had stepped forward. 'Liegeman, your life is bound under regency law. Give me the knife.'
Sulfin Evend did not recoil from the touch as the weapon left his willing hand. Sworn man to master, he held still for the sentence: exoneration or execution of a summary justice. One thrust might finish his life in a second. Sulfin Evend clamped down on his shuddering nerves. Somehow, he kept himself standing.
From his side came the verdict, glacial in delivery. 'I will take my protection from those I can trust. Not from factions who think to play me for a game-piece. Once, on Corith, I gave the Koriani Order my warning. I will not have my Alliance suborned! The needs of my people are not put to usage for gain. Ladies, consider this audience closed! Meddle outside your soft nest here at Hanshire, force any man for his seed in duress, and I promise, such dealing will see you arraigned! I will tear down your sisterhouses, stone from stone, and put your ranked seniors to fire and sword for criminal oppression and acts of dark practice!'