The White Gryphon v(mw-2

by Mercedes Lackey

  As might be expected with that kind of balance, the music was heavily percussive in nature, and Skan was glad he wasn’t sitting too near the ensemble.

  You could go deaf quickly with that much pounding in your ears—and I pity the poor creature with a headache! But when it all blends together, it is deep and driving. I like this a lot. It reminds me of—

  Skandranon realized what it reminded him of. It was visceral. It reached deep into him; the vibrations carried through his chest, through his wings, through his bones.

  It felt like sex; it felt like skydancing and mating, when the blood thrummed in his ears and all the world shook.

  Oh, I remember those times, when I weighed less. I was strong and virile. And fast! And sleek and glossy black.

  Skandranon suppressed a delighted laugh. Those were the days!

  Then the dancers struck their initial poses, right arms with their trailing sleeves raised high, left arm bent toward the earth, and bodies curved backward until it made his back ache to look at them. He forgot everything else from that moment on in his absorption in the dance, studying the details.

  “Enjoy yourself?” Zhaneel asked with a saucy gape-grin on her delicate gryfalcon face, as they looked in on the twins before taking to their own bed. Skan was yawning; the performance had gone on for a very long time, and it was well after midnight when all the congratulations had been made to the Dancers, the Musicians, and the Dancemaster, and they could return to their rooms again.

  Not that he hadn’t savored every minutes of it!

  The little ones were curled up in their nests of cushions, making a ball with two heads, four wings, and an indeterminate number of limbs—in other words, the usual nighttime position. In the heat of the day, they sprawled, belly-down on cool stone, looking rather squashed. But for now, they were puffballs.

  “I liked it a great deal,” he told her, as they left the twins to their dreams of mischief among the fishponds, and walked into their own room. The servants had already been and gone, leaving the suite prepared. The door to the balcony was wide open, the curtains pulled aside to allow entry to the cool breeze that always came up around midnight. The air that drifted in was scented with the heavy perfume of a flower that bloomed only at night, a tiny white blossom like a trumpet.

  She is just as sweet. I wonder if she is in the mood?

  Skan stretched luxuriously. “These Royal Dancers are quite amazing. I don’t remember ever seeing anything like that be—”

  Someone pounded on their door. Skan and Zhaneel exchanged startled glances as one of the Haighlei servants ran out of the servants’ rooms to answer it.

  Who can that be at this hour? Surely nothing can be so important that they need to summon us now! Unless—Skan suddenly felt a rush of chill. Unless something’s happened to Drake or Winterhart—

  The servant exchanged some half-dozen words with whoever was there, then quickly stood aside and flung the door open wide. Leyuet, the Truthsayer and Advisor to King Shalaman stood firmly in the doorway, looking both solemn and very upset, and with him were ten of Shalaman’s guards, all armed to the teeth.

  I don’t like the look of this!

  “You will please come with me,” Leyuet said, trembling, his voice shaking a little as he looked into Skandranon’s eyes, past the formidable beak. “Now.”

  Skan pulled himself up to his full height, and glared down at the thin Truthsayer standing in the doorway. Better act important and upset. If this is some kind of a trap, I might be able to bluff my way out of it. “Why?” he demanded. “It is midnight. It is time for sleep. And I am the envoy of my people and a ruler in my own right. What possible cause can you have to come bursting in here with armed guards at your back? What possible need can anyone have of my presence? What is so urgent that it cannot wait until morning?”

  Is this some way to try and separate us? Have we come all this way only to find we’ve willingly become hostages? Was Drake wrong in trusting that Silver Veil would protect us?

  But Leyuet only looked tired, and very, very frightened, but not by Skandranon. “You must come with me,” he insisted as he clasped his hands together tightly in front of his chest. “Please. You must not make me compel you. I tell you this for your benefit.”

  “Why?” Skan demanded again. “Why?”

  “Because,” Leyuet said at last, his face gray under the dark color of his complexion, “there has been a murder. And it was done by a creature with wings, with magic, or with both.”

  Zhaneel was not wanted along, so she stayed behind under guard. Skan was just as happy to have her elsewhere, although he doubted that she would get any rest until he returned. It looked as though it was going to be a long night for both of them.

  And we were just getting our stamina back, too!

  He was not under arrest. Fortunately, he and the others had been sitting in the middle of that Dance, under the scrutiny of the entire court, all the Dancers, and however many servants had managed to steal a moment and a place to watch from. Or rather, his “arrest” was a token only, and meant to last only so long as it took for half a dozen witnesses to be hauled from their beds and swear before the King that Skan had not once left his seat from the moment the Dance began. As he was counted as the highest authority among the newcomers, protocol dictated that he would be questioned first; presumably this was so that he would have the option of naming any of his underlings guilty of the crime, and thus save face.

  Shalaman waited on his bench-throne, face stern and impassive, as six sleepy Haighlei—a Dancer, a servant, three courtiers, and an envoy from one of the other Kingdoms—all vouched for him at different times during the Dance. Evidently, they were leaving nothing to chance.

  When the last of them left, Leyuet listened for a moment while the King spoke, then turned back to Skan. “The King would like your opinion on what transpired, and he requests that you accompany us to investigate the scene. As you pointed out, you have wings, and you know magic. The King believes that you will have insights into this tragedy that we may not.”

  As if I have any choice. If I refuse, it will look bad, perhaps suspicious, and these people are suspicious enough of me already.

  Best to put a good face on it, then. He bowed as he had to the dancers. “Tell the King that I will be pleased to add whatever I can to help determine who is the author of this murder.” He tried to look calm, dignified, and just as impassive as Shalaman himself.

  His innocence ascertained, the King waited for Palisar, Silver Veil, and a gaggle of priests and official-looking fellows with spears that were both functional and decorative to arrive. Then all of them, Skan included, trooped off together to a far corner of the Palace, to one of the towers that housed some of the higher-ranking nobles.

  The corridors were deserted, but not because people were sleeping. Skan sensed eyes behind the cracks of barely-opened doors behind them, and sensed fear rising like a fog all along their path. People knew that something terrible had happened although they didn’t know what it was. Rumors were probably spreading already.

  I only hope I look like an investigator and not a prisoner or a suspect in custody!

  Up the wooden stairs of the tower they went, four stories’ worth of climbing, with a landing and a closed door giving onto the staircase at each floor, until they came out onto the landing of the suite belonging to the victim. This was the uppermost floor of the flat-roofed tower, with only the staircase as an access route. Leyuet took pains to point that out, as they opened that final door into the victim’s suite.

  They didn’t exactly have to search to find the body—or rather, most of the body. It was all still in the first room of the suite.

  Skan didn’t know the victim. When Leyuet had mentioned the name, it hadn’t triggered a feeling of familiarity; there were a lot of high-ranking nobles, and he’d hardly had time to learn all of them by name. He might have recognized the face—if there had been anything left of the face to recognize.

  The problem wa
s that there wasn’t anything left to recognize. The body had been shredded, flesh sprayed all over the walls and furniture with such abandon that the hardened guards looked sick, and the more susceptible Palisar and Leyuet had to excuse themselves. The King, who presumably had seen quite a bit of carnage over bis lifetime, if only on one of his fabled lion hunts, was visibly shaken. Silver Veil’s face was as white as her dressing gown, but her features remained composed. Skan wondered how she managed it.

  Then again, she took her wagon and her apprentices through Ma’ar’s battle-lines, and before that, through the areas he‘d “pacified.” Perhaps this isn‘t anything worse than she saw back then.

  Well, that was a horrid thought. And, unfortunately, probably true.

  Skan paced slowly around the room, avoiding the blood and bits of flesh, noting how and where the blows had fallen. There wasn’t a great deal of furniture in this room, which made his task easier. “I hope your Serenity will excuse what might seem callousness on my part,” he said absently, crouching to examine the path of a particular blood spurt. “But I am a warrior. I have seen worse than this visited upon my own people in my very presence. Silver Veil will have told you of Ma’ar, of the wars. I assume that I am here in part because of that experience, as well as the fact that I am a mage and I am capable of flying.”

  Silver Veil translated, and Shalaman nodded. He said something, and Silver Veil turned toward Skan.

  “His Serenity says that the woman who died was seen in Court this evening, and left just as you entered the garden for the Dance in your honor. She was known to oppose the alliance, and chose to make her opposition public with her withdrawal.”

  Charming. My enemy, which makes me suspect all over again. “I was not aware that this particular woman felt that strongly,” Skan said mildly. “I do not feel it is my place or my duty to interfere in the opinions of the Haighlei. Firstly, they are your people, not mine, and your Serenity will deal with them and their opinions as he sees fit. Secondly, actions tell more than words; I behave with honor and candor, and that will do more to reverse a poor opinion of me than all the arguing and attempts at persuasion of all the learned diplomats in the world.”

  Shalaman smiled faintly as Silver Veil translated this, and Skan went back to his examination. Since he had tacit permission to do so, he invoked mage-sight, although he frankly wasn’t expecting it to work correctly. Sometimes it did, these days, and sometimes all it showed him was a wash of magical energy over everything like a fog, impossible to see through. Once in a while, very rarely, it showed him nothing. That might mean that it wasn’t working—or it might mean there was nothing to see.

  This time, he got that foggy wash of energy over everything, which was hardly useful.

  He examined the windows, which were unlocked and open, and found nothing there, either. No bloodstains showing that the murderer had escaped that way, and no signs of clawmarks as there would be if the murderer had landed on the window ledge and grasped it as a gryphon would.

  He reported both those nonfindings dutifully.

  “Could a mage have done this?” Leyuet prompted.

  “Certainly,” Skan replied. “If any mage could gather enough power to overcome all the present difficulties in working magic—difficulties I am certain that Your Serenity’s priests have already advised you of—this could be done at a distance, without the mage needing even to be near this room. It could also have been done physically. My opinion is that most of the damage was done while the victim was already unconscious or dead, probably the latter.”

  He pointed out with clinical precision why he had come to that conclusion—the lack of force in the blood sprays, the apparent lack of movement on the part of the victim. Leyuet looked sick but continued to translate.

  I had better learn this language quickly if I am going to find myself fending off accusations of murder!

  “I cannot tell if this was done by magic means or physical,” he concluded. “There was time enough for someone to have done this by physical means before the body was discovered, since the victim dismissed her servants to brood alone during the Dance. I cannot tell if someone flew here or climbed up from below. The latter would be easy enough, for the north side of this tower is all in shadow, and does not overlook a guard post or a garden where someone might have been walking. If the murderer was very, very good, he could even have come up by the stairs and left the same way without anyone seeing him.” He shrugged. “I am sorry to be of so little use.”

  Leyuet nodded, as Silver Veil translated, and then said something to Shalaman himself. The King spoke, and both of them listened gravely.

  It was Silver Veil who translated the reply. “Skandranon,” she said hesitantly, “I do not care to be the one who tells you this, but His Serenity decrees that while he is convinced for the moment that you had nothing to do with this, there are others who will not be convinced. You must therefore submit to his supervision.”

  Skan ground his beak, and Leyuet winced at the sound. “And what sort of supervision will that be?” he asked harshly. He could already tell from Silver Veil’s expression that he wasn’t going to like it, whatever it was.

  “You must have one of the Spears of the Law with you at all times, or submit to being closed inside a locked and windowless room if you must have privacy,” she told him apologetically. “That is the only way we can be certain of your whereabouts at all times. It is as much for your sake as ours, you know.”

  Oh, lovely. Either have one of these ebony spearcarriers watching my every move, or get closed up into a closet. Charming. This is not going to do a great deal for my love life! Somehow I doubt that Zhaneel will welcome a third party to our little trysts. . . .

  And the idea of any kind of exertion in a locked and windowless room, especially in this climate, was not a pleasant one.

  I shall certainly lose weight. It will be steamed off!

  But what other choice did he have?

  None, and that’s the problem, isn’t it?

  “Very well,” he growled, making no secret of his displeasure. ‘Tell everyone that I will suffer that they may feel more comfortable. Tell them I will voluntarily be their hostage in a closet. I can’t see any other solution.”

  “Neither can I,” Silver Veil replied with a sigh.

  It was matched by Skan’s. And there was one more problem to be faced.

  I have to explain this one to Zhaneel!

  There was a windowless room in their suite, as it turned out; normally used as a storage room, and hastily turned into a sleeping chamber. Fortunately for him, it might have been windowless, but it wasn’t airless; he had forgotten the humidity that went along with the heat in this land. You didn’t dare close things into an airless chamber, not and expect to extract them again in the same shape they went in. Mildew and mold were the twin enemies that housekeepers fought here, and mildew and mold would thrive in a completely closed chamber.

  So there were air-slits cut just below the ceiling, no broader than the width of a woman’s palm, but cut on all four walls, and providing a steady stream of fresh air into the room.

  “At least it will be dark when we wish to sleep,” Zhaneel said philosophically as she set a tiny lamp up on the wall, trying to make the best of the situation. It was a good thing that she had handlike foreclaws, and not Skan’s fighting claws—with no mage-lights available, it was either a lamp or nothing, and he couldn’t light a lamp. Except with magic, which he’d been warned not to use. “These slits cannot let in much light. And if the little ones wake at dawn and begin to play, the walls will muffle the noise.”

  Skan tried not to growl. It was not exactly compensation for being shut into a closet at night.

  “I won’t say I like this,” he said, throwing himself down on their bed, and resisting the urge to claw it to bits in frustration. “I wish I had a better solution. Sketi, I wish I’d never come here in the first place! If I wasn’t here, there’d be no one from White Gryphon to suspect!”

/>   “I would not count on that,” Zhaneel countered thoughtfully, stretching herself down beside him, and beginning to preen his ear-tufts to soothe his temper. “Consider; what if this were devised precisely to implicate you? Or rather, to implicate one of the White Gryphon envoys. If Judeth had been here in your stead, the murder might seem to have been performed by a fighter; if Lady Cinnabar, the victim might have been dissected with surgical precision. Or a weapon from the north might have been found in the room.”

  “Hmm.” Skan pondered that; it had the right sound and feel to it. “But what does that mean for us at the moment?”

  Zhaneel delicately spat out a tuft of down and answered him. “Whoever did this in the first place must not realize that you were under the eyes of hundreds of witnesses at the time of the murder. The best that we can do is be graceful and gracious beneath this burden, and wait for some other evidence to surface. What is needed is motive. Perhaps this courtier had some great enemy, or perhaps she owned something that will prove to be missing.” She shrugged and went after the other ear-tuft. “In any case, it hardly matters at the moment. I think that there is magic involved.”