Kesrin continued to fuss with his tea, blowing and sipping and keeping his eyes off Abramm. “Your suggestions are very bold, Alaric,” he said presently. “But I can’t help noting you would not be the one to pay the price should the king find such boldness offensive.”
“From all that I have heard, sir, boldness is hardly an approach you are unfamiliar with.” He paused, aware of his heart pounding wildly again. “In fact, you were quite bold with the king himself that day you met him on the dock, bandying words with him and Master Belmir about the authority of Kiriathan law.”
“That was different. That was—” Kesrin’s voice choked off. His head came up sharply, brows drawn together, his gaze as intent on Abramm now as the serving girl’s had been earlier. Abramm matched him stare for stare, watching as his face went blank. The moments stretched out in a silence broken only by the creak of the old building and the muffled wheedle of a reed pipe from the Great Room. A sap pocket burst in the fireplace, pluming sparks onto the stone hearth.
Finally Kesrin spoke, his voice quiet and strained. “Yacopan. Parcival. You may leave us now.”
Yacopan’s mouth fell open. “Sir?”
“Take up your posts outside the door. I’ll call you when I need you. For now I will speak to Alaric alone.”
The servants looked at one another in befuddlement but did as they were bid. As the door closed, Kesrin turned his gaze back to Abramm. After a moment he stood and came around the table to face him, a kelistar blazing to life between them. It floated in front of Abramm’s chest, casting its illumination across his face. Kesrin’s gaze passed slowly over that face and then he stepped back.
“May I . . . may I see your mark, sir?”
“Certainly.” Abramm flicked back his cloak and loosened the ties on his jerkin to reveal the shield on his chest, glittering like newly minted gold in the kelistar’s clear light.
Kesrin peered at it, picked gently at its edges to see if it would peel off, then touched it with a flicker of Light that elicited an answering flicker from the Light that lived in Abramm’s own flesh. He drew back with a muttered “Light’s grace!” and whirled to pace to the table’s end where he stood with his back to them. After a few moments he expelled a burst of air and turned again to face them. “Your pardon, Sire, but I haven’t been this surprised in a long, long time.”
“You’re sure I’m not deceiving you? That my mark is real and not some sort of trick? That the Light in me is genuine?”
Kesrin smiled slightly. “I can feel it now from here, sir. In fact, I remember thinking there might have been something that first time we met—there on the dock. The way you looked at me, the way you took my hand. I almost believed I felt a spark of the Light there.”
“Actually I was thinking of conjuring a kelistar,” Abramm said with a smile, “but it seemed inappropriate.”
“But then the night of the reception—” Suddenly Kesrin’s expression changed again, this time to a flustered dismay that seemed completely out of character. Memory of the reception had apparently caused another realization to click in his mind, and now he jumped to the table and pulled back one of the chairs. “Here, sit down, sir. I don’t know what I was thinking, making you stand all this time. Would you like some tea? I pray you’ll forgive my incivility—”
“I can hardly hold you accountable for believing a deception I initiated,” Abramm said with a laugh. He sat and, seeing his host hesitate beside his own chair, motioned for him to sit, as well. “Please, kohal, let us forgo the social formalities of my station and speak with each other as men.”
Kesrin nodded and sat, but it was plain this was a situation outside his ken.
“You did not know my brother Raynen, did you?”
“No, sir. Not personally.” Kesrin picked up his mug, stopped, then put it down and asked again if Abramm wanted tea.
“No thank you.” A few more moments under that nosy serving girl’s gaze and she’d be recognizing him, too. Then all the world would know. “Please, kohal, be at your ease. I am little more accustomed to being a king than you are to entertaining one. Whatever protocols you might break, it’s unlikely I would notice.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Now, you were saying something about the reception?”
“The reception. Yes.” Kesrin picked up his mug again. “I was saying that it wasn’t just the Prittleman thing that put my hackles up. I also felt a strong sense of evil associated with you. I see now it must have been coming from someone else.” He sipped thoughtfully at his tea. “Undoubtedly he was trying to put me off of you.”
He fell into a contemplative silence, his eyes fixed on the pewter candlestick— minus its candle—sitting on the table in front of Abramm. After a time, he said, “There are others among the peerage whom I’m sure our enemies have manipulated as they have me.”
“That is part of why I came to you, sir, hoping you might do something about this rumor that I am the Mataio’s puppet.”
Kesrin looked up at him gravely. “Unless you’re prepared to have me state openly that you wear a shield, I can do little more than discourage it. And even then I doubt the majority would believe me.”
Abramm frowned. “If I state it openly now, I’ll lose the Crown for sure. Unless . . .” His frown deepened as he fingered the base of the candlestick.
“Unless I’ve misread things and Eidon doesn’t intend that I be king so much as simply stir things up.” He looked up into Kesrin’s dark eyes. “Am I wrong to hide it?”
“That is between you and Eidon.” Kesrin contemplated his tea, swirling it gently in the cup. “We are to be purveyors of the Light, it’s true. But there are many ways to do that, and I’ve long said that timing is everything.” He swirled the tea some more, then sipped. “There are some who need to know the whole truth now, though. One man in particular. One who would be a valuable and loyal ally, and who, at the moment, is anything but.”
“Who is he?” Abramm could think of far too many possibilities.
“I’d rather not say just yet. For your own sake as well as his. And I’m a little worried about him for other reasons, too. But I’d like your permission to tell him the truth, if you’ll trust me to determine whether that would be best or not.”
Abramm didn’t hesitate. “I’ll trust you. Go ahead and tell whomever you think should know.”
Kesrin nodded, then took his thoughts further than he cared to share for a few moments before rousing himself. “Is that all you needed to speak to me about?”
And now Abramm smiled sheepishly. “Actually, no. What I wanted most was to beg your permission to return to your Terstmeets. I have much to learn, and many questions, and I feel as if I am starving.”
Kesrin looked surprised, then somewhat pleased. “It was Alaric who was banned, I believe, not Abramm. But I’m afraid it will be days before—” He broke off, apparently seeing on Abramm’s face the chagrin—maybe even the desperation—that his words caused. He tapped his forefinger against the cup for a moment, then relented. “There will be smaller meetings throughout the sector until we can regather the whole group. Perhaps we can work out a way for you to join us.”
“Thank you, sir.”
They went on to speak of other things and it was not until the wee hours of the morning that Abramm and Trap finally took their leave. “Send word to the king of your troubles,” he told Kesrin as they left. “Give him a chance to prove he will help you.”
“He could get into very big trouble helping us.”
“We have as a people long held that all should be free to worship as they wish. Why should Terstans be an exception?”
“I’m sure Lord Prittleman would be happy to explain that,” Kesrin replied with a grin. Then he sobered. “Be careful of him, sir. He’s a ruthless fanatic. And rest assured news of Skurlek’s death will get back to him. Alaric is a marked man already. He’d do well to leave the city altogether.”
“Well, seeing as he’s outlived his usefulness, I rather su
spect he will.”
CHAPTER
21
Late the next morning, as Simon was leaving the Royal Fencing Hall on the far eastern side of the palace grounds, he was waylaid by Ethan Laramor. After several hours spent at hard weapons practice, followed by a leisurely dip in the hall’s outdoor baths, Simon was feeling more relaxed and content than he had in some time. And after all the trouble he’d taken to avoid meeting with his Borderer friend over the last few days, finding him waiting in the hall’s main yard was as dismaying as it was surprising.
Laramor, though he did make use of the archery range, rarely came to the fencing hall itself. In fact, few did, and the great high-ceilinged room where scores of young men once gathered to practice now echoed with the sounds of but a few. The stars of the sport, and those who would become stars, practiced there, but few of those were noblemen anymore. The decline had begun in Simon’s youth and was now in full swing, the art that had once been the full measure of a nobleman reduced to sport. Nowadays, while the courtiers were happy to spend an evening watching—and wagering on—various matches, to actually pick up anything more than a decorative sword themselves was increasingly unthinkable. Gillard’s skill and interest were tolerated as an amusing eccentricity, neither emulated nor aspired to by most of his peers. Thus the hall often stood empty, its lofty spaces mocking the few who dared intrude.
Abramm had come down to watch some of the practice matches yesterday, and everyone was still buzzing about it this morning. Why had he come? Would he be back today? Was he thinking of taking lessons? No one knew, but the visit had elicited more excitement than Simon had seen in some time, and everyone from Headmaster Tedron to the lowliest towel boy had only good things to say about their new king. They were especially enamored with that sling of his, which he had been persuaded to demonstrate again. Another cabbage had died—though he’d needed five attempts—and today the young boys, some of them noblemen’s sons, were out in the sparring yards practicing with makeshift slings of their own.
Only boys, perhaps, but it marked a watershed: Yesterday, if they’d been practicing with any weapons at all it had been swords. Today it was slings.
A large part of the fascination undoubtedly sprang from the thing’s novelty, though Simon had to admit the weapon had its good points: simple and cheap to make, easy to carry, and you never ran out of ammunition. And seeing the ease and accuracy with which Abramm used it the day of the picnic had done much to revise his view that it was a crude weapon used only by the unskilled and uncouth.
Nor was that the only thing about which his views had been revised that day. His opinion of Abramm himself, already on the rise, had taken a major jog upward, thanks not so much to the business with the sling or even the courage he’d shown in Graymeer’s, but to the way he’d handled his horse. With a light, sure hand and a well-balanced seat, he reminded Simon poignantly of his own brother Meren, Abramm’s father. Despite Simon’s fears, the animal’s antics hadn’t fazed him, though in truth, Banner had indulged in far less of that than was his wont. Instead of making Abramm look foolish and inept, the fiery young horse had actually enhanced his regal bearing.
Simon believed one could tell a lot about a man by the way he worked his horse, particularly a horse like Warbanner. The best riders were not oppressive or overbearing, yet somehow you knew they were unquestionably in control. Clarity of purpose, strength of will, unshakable self-confidence, an instinctive underlying respect for others—Simon wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but Abramm had that indefinable quality that made some men natural leaders. His courtiers had responded in the same way as Banner had, and even Simon had felt the pull of it.
Which only intensified the ambivalence that had raged within him since that afternoon in the royal audience chamber when Abramm forced him to reveal the truth of Gillard’s plottings. At first he’d told himself it was only politics, that there was nothing else he could have done. Abramm had asked, and Simon had to comply or ignite disaster, personal or otherwise. But when he ran into Laramor shortly thereafter, he’d felt suddenly and intensely ashamed, as if he had so despoiled his honor it would never recover, even while he told himself he had done no such thing, that Abramm was the rightful king. And the king had asked for his advice in implementing the very plan Simon himself had been begging Gillard to start for four years now. Even now Gillard seemed more concerned with his own position of power than with what was right or good for Kiriath.
But all those observations could not assuage the sharp pang of guilt he felt, and so he’d spoken to none of his oldest and closest friends—nor to Gillard, either—since the picnic, burying himself in his work and telling himself he lacked the time. That he’d talk with them if they ran into each other, or after he’d gotten this expansion project under way. And then he didn’t think about it anymore.
Just as he hadn’t thought about the rumor sparked by Abramm’s visit to the fencing hall, which said he’d asked Master Tedron to prepare him to face Gillard in a challenge for the Crown. It was a speculation as ridiculous as it was ominous. Ridiculous, because a few fencing lessons would never make up for the disparity in their skills. Ominous in that people were sure Gillard would challenge him, one way or another.
But this morning Simon had put all that out of his mind, losing himself in the complex dance of feint and parry and lunge, in the requisite boasting and inevitable demands for proof, and all the technical talk of who did what that came afterward. For a few hours he was young again, with no more concerns than what happened at the end of his blade. But the moment he exited the hall and saw Ethan Laramor sitting on that bench in the shade of the old oak, it all came rushing back.
“Ethan,” he said warily as Laramor fell in beside him. “I didn’t expect to see you here this morning. They said you’d gone down to the city.”
“I did.” Laramor’s dress confirmed it: black, broad-brimmed hat, suede leather doublet, white cravat, and brown leather riding gloves, which he was in the process of stripping off. His riding cloak he had already removed and folded over one arm. He looked pale and hollow-eyed, as if he’d been up all night.
“You heard about the killing?” he asked, tucking the gloves into his belt and shifting his cloak to his hand.
“Prittleman’s man, Skurlek?” Simon made a face. “How could I not? Father Bonafil’s already issued a statement demanding Abramm apprehend the murderer at once, and Abramm, to his credit, is dragging his feet.”
“Only because he hasn’t gotten out of bed yet,” Laramor said.
Simon looked at his friend in surprise. “The master of the dawn? Still not up at this hour? Are you sure?” Since the day he’d arrived Abramm had consistently risen at first light to spend an hour exercising Warbanner or rowing circuits of the Lake of the Moon.
“I guess he had a late night,” said Laramor.
“I heard he turned in early. Closed his doors around seven, in fact.”
They entered the forested ravine adjacent the hall, a path of finely crushed gravel winding ahead of them through stately elms and oaks just starting to turn color. Ferns, already brown and curled from the first frost, bordered the path, while birds chirped overhead, their songs underlaid by the constant chuckle of the stream at the vale’s midst.
“All I know,” said Laramor, “is that he still wasn’t receiving visitors when I went through on my way here. And it’s already after eleven. Maybe he was attacked by an assassin sneaking into his bedroom again,” he added dryly, “and is making up for his lost sleep.”
Simon snorted a laugh. “I’m sure we’d have heard by now if that were so. More likely he’s just sick. Quite a few have been down with the grippe lately.”
“True,” Ethan allowed. He ran a finger under the edge of his cravat, as if it were too tight. “I’ve been feeling poorly myself of late.”
As they started over the first of two stone bridges spanning the stream he half laughed, half snorted. “Wouldn’t that be something if Abramm contracted lung fever a
nd died? Eidon just takes him out and all our problems are solved.”
Or multiplied, Simon thought sourly, and this time he did not chuckle along. Instead he returned to their earlier subject. “So what did you learn about this murderer? They’re saying he was some half-Esurhite Terstan just off one of the boats.”
“Aye. And quite a hand with the blade, I guess.” Laramor paused. “But it wasn’t murder, Simon. Skurlek attacked him. In front of at least thirty witnesses. Though, of course, his being Terstan and Skurlek being one of Prittleman’s, there won’t be many willing to testify.”
“He’s probably long out of the city by now.”
“I hope he’s heading back to Esurh. He’s done us a service, and I’d hate to see him have to pay for it.”
Simon knew Skurlek more by reputation than personal encounter. In addition to linking him heavily to the officially illegal Gadrielite persecutions, rumor attached other crimes to his name—extortion, rape, even murder.
“He was a hooligan in fancy pants,” Laramor declared with some degree of heat, “just looking for an excuse to bully people. He probably wasn’t even Mataian, though you’ll never get Pritt to admit it. He’s like to blow a lung with the fit he was throwing outside the king’s chambers just now.”
“He was doing that three hours ago when I left to come here!”
“Well, now he has a score of other petitioners to watch his antics. Haldon just kept repeating, oh so patiently, that the king was not yet receiving visitors. I wanted to laugh, but the crow scowled at me so evilly, I couldn’t.”
They left the shaded hollow for the bright expanse of the East Terrace, a long, almost barren formal garden separating the forested glen and the palace itself. The lay of the land was such that the wide Keharnen Plateau took a sudden rise just before sheering off in the steep escarpment that formed the eastern boundary of the Kalladorne river valley. Built along the edge of that escarpment, the palace stair-stepped down from that higher point toward this more level prospect, where Queen Katerin had built her East Terrace seventy-five years ago.
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