'The first step towards a purer Land.' There was pain in his voice now, and he hugged his royal bride tighter, like a frightened child. 'All these years I've fought the fanatics, and now I find myself the worst among them.'

  'That's not true,' Oterness insisted, 'you are not the same as them; you're no coward who interprets holy words according to his own prejudice; who twists the scriptures to use them as tools they were never intended to be. The king of this nation is not such a man. The father of my child is not such a man.'

  'My child,' Emin gasped, a flicker of life returning to his eyes as he struggled to straighten himself up. 'How is our child? Are you both well?'

  Oterness hugged him. 'We're both well, Emin, we're strong and healthy.'

  He stroked a reverential hand over her belly, his eyes widening in wonder as he realised how large she'd grown. 'Oh my child, what is this new Land you will be born into?' he asked, his voice shaking.

  'A Land yet to be determined,' Oterness answered gently, 'a Land that you have fought twenty years to forge, Emin, and one you cannot give up on now. I know you, better than those who work in your shadow, even Morghien. You've worked for years to contain these fanatics, and these new reports of priests demanding greater measures are just an escalation of that age-old problem. Your agents are still at work; your networks remain in place. Only yesterday Count Antern brought a letter from one of your spies, sealed with green wax.'

  'Green wax?' He sat up a bit straighter. Usual matters of state were sealed with red wax, matters of national security used white, and he encouraged his queen to read both, even in his absence -there might have been other women with lineage equal to that of the former Lady Oterness Bekashay, but her intellect was far beyond that of any of the other potential wives, and her help in governing his kingdom remained invaluable. But the green wax was different; it denoted messages concerned with his war with Azaer, the shadow, and that matter he was determined to spare her.

  'It's up on your desk,' said Oterness with a nod toward the spiral stair behind him. The pulpit-like mezzanine was shrouded in shadow, for Jorinn knew not to set foot on the stair, let alone go up, even to light the lamp on the king's desk.

  Emin helped his wife into her chair before going to retrieve the letter, which was folded up so small that it could be concealed in the palm of a hand. He opened it, and read the message inside, his eyes darting towards Oterness as he finished. Without speaking he went to the bell-pull by the fire and gave it a sharp tug to summon Coran, his white-eye bodyguard.

  'Can't it wait? You need to eat and rest, give yourself an hour at least,' Oterness said, concerned, though she knew he would ignore both his own needs and the hurt he was feeling and attend instead to the demands of his position.

  But will you never let it out? Your rage at Ilumene's betrayal was buried deep, but it's still there – and now? You're asking too much of yourself, my Emin, far more than any man should.

  'I will rest soon,' the king replied at last, gripping the back of her chair and resting his hands on her shoulders. Coran stormed in without knocking as usual, his expression blank.

  'Give this letter to Anversis Chals; tell him to draft a plan for Midsummer's Day.'

  'Anversis? Your uncle?' Oterness interjected with a puzzled look. '1 thought he was no part of your war – doesn't he spend his days researching migration patterns?'

  Emin smiled. 'True enough.'

  'Surely you've not found a use for his obsessions? The man is so indiscreet – you can't possibly trust him with your secrets!'

  'Also true,' the king sighed, 'but he has applied his theories to the movements of Harlequins and this letter is the first sign of something we've feared since Thistledell.'

  'We?'

  'Morghien and I. You remember when I first met him?'

  Oterness nodded warily. 'Something about a ghost in the library your father had sponsored, and Morghien saving you from it.'

  Emin scowled. 'It was no ghost, it was Azaer. The shadow was unable to resist the lure of a library open to the whole population, all that knowledge, available to everyone, and it started to rewrite some of the books, changing our history. At the end of that week I had declared war against an intangible immortal, and I had a sister to bury. There is one group of people better equipped than any other to edit history, and Rojak showed us at Thistledell the power a minstrel can wield.' He raised the letter before handing it to Coran. 'This is a report from Helrect: a Harlequin passing through there in late summer made a mistake when telling a story!'

  'A mistake?' Oterness said, surprised. 'But Harlequins have perfect memories, don't they? That's the whole point.' She ignored Coran as he offered the pair a perfunctory bow and hurried out.

  'Exactly. And now we need to pay great attention, to see whether any other instances crop up.'

  The queen froze. 'You said "draft a plan for midsummer". What sort of plan, exactly?'

  Emin crouched down at her side and put a protective hand on her swollen belly. 'If they have become the servants of Azaer, even unwittingly, the damage they could cause could be incalculable. In Scree, Azaer's disciples turned the citizens against the Gods – what if that happens across the whole Land? We have had so few opportunities to derail the shadow's cause, and I must not flinch now.'

  'You would kill them all?'

  'It seems,' said Emin slowly, 'that there is nothing I will not do.' He bowed his head, a man defeated by his own deeds.

  'Fate's pity, did Scree have such an effect on everyone? Did no good come of it at all?'

  The king laughed coldly. 'No good?' he echoed, then the hardness faded from his face and was replaced with a look of profound sadness. 'Doranei, that poor boy Doranei: he fell in love.'

  CHAPTER 3

  Unhindered by the weak candlelight, Lord Isak looked around at the assembled faces and tried to ignore the ache at the back of his head. One scowled back, making little effort to conceal his displeasure, but Isak had grown to expect that from his Chief Steward. The young white-eye had inherited an entire nation from his predecessor, Lord Bahl, and whatever else one might say about Chief Steward Fordan Lesarl – megalomaniacal sadist being one of the more colourful terms bandied about – the man knew how to run a country.

  The rest of those present were quite a handsome bunch, something that had surprised Isak the first time he'd met them, although he had never been able to pinpoint why exactly. They were divided into those staring back like cornered rabbits and those with eyes miserably downcast. He took a deep breath. The day hadn't been going well and his already bad mood had only been darkened by the persistent drizzle that worsened to a downpour every time he ventured outside.

  Don't lose your temper. Isak had to keep repeating this simple message to himself: don't lose your temper; don't turn on those you trust. He'd seen the warning in the eyes of his friends, his advisors, especially Carel. Though he was thin now, and aged ten years or more since losing his arm in battle, Carel had always recognised better than anyone else the temper boiling within Isak. Carel had been more of a father to him than Isak's real father during the years they had lived on the wagon-train, and he had been made a marshal as much for the calming effect he had on Isak as anything. He was still the person Isak trusted most.

  Arranged around three tables were the nine members of Lesarl's coterie, as disparate a collection as anyone was likely to find anywhere, and not all of the Chief Steward's agents looked as if they belonged in the dusty attic of a tavern just off the bustling Crooked Tail Street. The main river docks in Tirah were only a stone's throw from the Cock's Tail, and the tavern's regular patrons were as rough and raucous as they came. The grizzled first mate sitting at one of the tables, his arms and bald head covered in tattoos and scars, looked as if he'd fit right in downstairs in the taproom; the silk-clad dandy next to him did not – but no one here was fooled by the appearance of either.

  'I see you're all as delighted as Lesarl to be here,' Isak said eventually.

  The Lord of the Farlan was dressed almost as splendidly as Dancer, the foppish nobleman. His tunic and breeches of deep blue had swirls of silver thread and moonstones down the left side. Isak had abandoned his silver ducal circlet after a day of official functions, but everything else bar the lack of crest on his dark grey hooded robe was as custom dictated: a pristine exterior, even down to his smooth cheeks and trimmed hair, but all the finery could not disguise the muscles underneath.

  'They are concerned, as am I, about the security issue,' Lesarl said.

  Isak acknowledged the point, and the informality. The Chief Steward had made it clear that his coterie were encouraged to speak freely and frankly, and without reference to rank.

  'There are so many clandestine meetings going on every night in this city, no one is going to notice one more.'

  ' You are hardly unremarkable,' said the youngest member of the coterie, Whisper, who headed Lesarl's personal spy network. 'And neither is Dancer, especially in this district.'

  Dancer gave her a broad smile and indicated those even more out of place than him. Prayer was a tonsured priest of Nartis, a sour-faced man in his early fifties who had sat as far as possible from the bejewelled woman called Conjurer. She in turn was making a futile effort to be inconspicuous. Isak suspected the woman was unused to this, but he knew most mages found it difficult to be comfortable in his presence. A combination of the raw skills of youth, the brute force of a white-eye and the vast power of two Crystal Skulls would make any sane person nervous.

  'Which is why there are pre-planned routes for you all to get here,' Isak said. 'It may not befit my position to sneak through attics and alleys all the way from Cold Halls, but anything Lesarl considers safe for himself is good enough for me.'

  'Not everyone has that luxury,' Whisper persisted, her voice gaining a slight edge. 'Prayer has to be loaded into a barrel upriver of Holy Docks; Conjurer's route takes two hours to travel and more to prepare. The shorter the notice you give, the more likely it is that the routes are compromised – even without the increased patrols of Ghosts round here to catch the interest of our enemies.'

  'Perhaps 1 didn't make myself clear,' Isak replied after a pause.

  Even in the dim candlelight her eyes flashed and he could see Whisper had caught the warning. She was surprisingly young for her position, no more than thirty summers, and a handsome woman. Right now she was dressed like a merchant's son, apart from the mass of wavy black hair that shadowed her face. When she'd slipped through the single attic window it had been tied back. Isak guessed she was new enough in her position to be wary, even of the rest of the coterie. Unlike the others, he suspected she'd put some thought into her attire, for he could see she was wearing nothing unusual or identifiable, not even a piece of jewellery.

  'I wanted this meeting to take place,' he continued, 'and so it is. I know you have rules in place to protect your identities, but at the moment that's not what I'm concerned about.'

  There was silence. Isak inspected the faces, trying to decide who would be the key to winning over the group. Lesarl was leader, sure enough, but Isak had grown up on a wagon-train and he knew full well there was always a leader among the equals. Carel had been the commander of the wagon-train guards, but Valo Denn was the mercenaries' man, the one who formed their opinions and presented their arguments when necessary, the person who was just that fraction more than his peers.

  So who've we got here? he wondered, managing not to jump when he got a reply from the privacy of his own head.

  'Isn't it obvious?' came the scornful mutter in the corner of his mind: Aryn Bwr, last king of the Elves, or at least what remained of his tattered soul. The last king, unable to fully possess Isak's body and return to life, had been reduced to a bitter memory of former glory, while forever fearing the retribution death would bring.

  'To you I'm sure it is,' Isak replied. 'How many years were you king of your people? For the rest of us, it takes a little more thought.'

  He looked around at the nine faces, men and women as different as you could find, each bound within the fabric of those communities they represented. Whisper, newly chosen by Lesarl to lead his spy networks, working hard to live up to the standard her father, the previous incumbent, had set; Dancer, marked out as a knight or a marshal by the single gold hoop in his left ear – and Isak had no doubt he was a marshal, born to the title. Perhaps it was Sailor, sitting next to Dancer, a scarred veteran with a crumpled nose. He was dressed in red, typical of his trade among the Farlan, though he was risking a flogging by eschewing the macrame knotting on his shirt that marked his ship – and made him traceable. Con-jident in his ability to manipulate a superior? I wouldn't bet against it, Isak thought.

  He couldn't judge Conjurer, so affected was her manner, and Soldier looked so terrified to be sitting in the presence of his lord that it looked like he'd forgotten he was a sergeant-at-arms of twenty years' service. Merchant and Farmer couldn't meet Isak's gaze for long, so he discounted them, and he doubted any group chosen by Lesarl would follow a priest's lead.

  And then there was one. So, Citizen it is, and doesn't she look a formidable bitch? 1 doubt she even needs that fat lump on the door downstairs to keep control of her patrons.

  As if to acknowledge his conclusion, Citizen met his gaze. She showed no trace of deference as she replied to his unspoken ques-tion. 'You're worried about it all,' she said in a rough local accent, her gravelly voice betraying a lifetime of pipe smoking. 'Not even your da's injuries are enough to take priority, though; it's the sound of the city that's got you troubled.'

  Citizen was a thickset woman with hair trimmed almost as short as Isak's. Her face was a mass of laughter lines, and she had a jaw-linc (o make a Chetse warrior proud. She sported three thick gold rings in each earlobe, and even in his inexperience, Isak realised it was intentional that they bore a striking resemblance to the earrings of a duke.

  'Explain, please,' he said politely.

  She shrugged and gave a smile, more than comfortable with the attention of the whole room. 'Lived in this city my whole life – I know its sounds and its moods better'n any lord. You're a white-eye, so you feel it too, though you mayn't yet have recognised it as such.

  'Some days 1 can just hear there's an ugly mood in the city, and those days the Cock don't serve, 'cos it's those days that there's riots. The city ain't like that right now, but it's stinkin' of men crammed together like too many bulls in a field.'

  Citizen raised a forearm as solid as a man's calf and patted Prayer's shoulder. The priest, who was sitting on her left, ignored her and pulled his cloak tighter around his body. 'Then you got the fact that all this mob are actin' even worse than the nobles, preachin' war and whippin' honest folk in the street for stupid reasons.' She cocked her head at Isak. 'My guess is whatever's pissed on their mood – and I hear that's the Gods bein' so angry after Scree that their priests are feelin' the effect – it's done the same for you.'

  'So your conclusion is that everyone's just a little bit tense?' Isak said irritably.

  He had never been to the Cock's Tail before. Not even Carel's white collar would have stopped someone taking exception to a white-eye here, but the tavern – and Kepra Dei, its formidable landlady – were renowned throughout Tirah. She was tough, and could be heartless to anyone who wasn't family; anyone working the docks knew it was asking for trouble to mess with anyone bearing the Dei name. Even her sons-in-law, big men themselves, had been glad to break with tradition and adopt the Dei name as their own. And those three earrings aren't a joke with anyone but herself, I'll bet, he thought. To the rest it's a warning that round here her word's law as much as mine – maybe more so, if it came to it.

  'Tense ain't even the start of it, boy,' she replied equably. 'It's the confusion in the air I'm talking about: no one's agreein' with anyone else, not the nobles, not the priests, not the soldiers. What's gettin' you concerned is the chaos this city's in – can't fight a war when you're fightin' yourselves, can you? And you've got it going at every level of society – as well as within yourself.'

  Isak didn't reply immediately. The woman's calm expression nagged at the swirl of frustration and anger inside him. He knew she was right, but he hadn't wanted her to be quite so right. However the priests were being affected, he was too, albeit to a lesser degree, thanks to the Skulls which were acting as a buffer for his mind – and that wasn't information he wanted the Land to know.

  'It sounds like you've put some thought into this,' he said after a moment. 'You've got a suggestion for me? Your job is to advise after all, not just to state the bloody obvious.'

  She shrugged and broke his gaze, affecting a deference that he was sure she didn't feel. This one really is sharp, Isak thought. She knows that even here – for all the informality of the coterie, and her own position within it – that it does no good to issue me with instructions.

  'Well, I can't claim to understand the trouble with the priests,' she began slowly, 'you've got that knowledge, not I, so I'm just goin' on guesswork-'

  'Make the assumption you do,' Isak said, gesturing for her to get on with it.

  'Then I'd want to get rid of the distractions that are gettin' the nobles heated up,' she said firmly.

  'Which are?'

  'Your coronation – they're here for that and they'll squabble like children until they know when they're goin' home to their families. Then there's the wondering over Lomin's dukedom. And most importantly, there's Duke Certinse.'

  Isak nodded his agreement. Lesarl, Tila and Vesna had all been of one mind on the subject of the trial and execution of Duke Certinse. The man's family had too many supporters, too many dynasties tied to it for anyone's comfort and no one was sure what deals and recriminations might yet appear. Add to that, a dozen suzerains had weighed in for what appeared to be purely reasons o(principle.

  'And how much of the argument over foreign policy will that solve?'

  'None, but at least you'll be able to have the argument. With one of two fewer reasons to argue, folk get less troublesome. You are Lord of the Farlan, however newly made; once folk get used to that and realise the nation's still strong you'll find the authority Lord Buhl held waitin' on the other side.' Citizen paused and looked across to the far table. 'Dancer, am I right in thinkin' that there's no great lobby among the nobles for Cardinal Veck's reforms?'

 

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