Amberdrake had listened to this well-reasoned discourse with astonishment. This was a bodyguard?
“You have thought of all that, and you are only a bodyguard?” he blurted. “The gods forbid I should encounter a scholar!” The man laughed aloud.
“Not only a bodyguard, good kestra’chern Amberdrake,” he said, with a little bow. “Also the son of King Sulemeth, the Emperor of Ghandai. This is my brother.” He indicated the other guard, who bowed also. “This is how Shalaman and every other Haighlei Emperor preserves the peace among us and our lands—they all have sons who are their neighbors’ personal bodyguards, as well as daughters who are Healers, Household Priestesses, Wives, or Consorts.”
“But I thought—” Amberdrake began, confused, “I thought Shalaman had no wife, no children.”
“Shalaman does not yet have sons and daughters by a Chief Wife and Consort,” the man corrected with a smile, “But he does have them by the ten Priestess Year-Wives of the first decade of his reign, and that is sufficient to the purpose. Year-Sons and Year-Daughters can inherit if there is no heir by a Chief Wife.”
“It is not wise to contemplate violence when your potential foe’s sons are the men guarding your back, but this is neither the best time or place for a discussion of our customs. Now, let us leave you to your rest.”
“Indeed.” Amberdrake came back to his mission with a start. “Thank you for being so civilized.”
The taller guard smiled again. “At first, you were thought to be barbarians. We who are at Shalaman’s side are also his voices in matters that would be improper for him to speak of. All I can say is that you are not barbaric—you are civilized, only different. The time of Change is upon us all—even the Emperor.”
Winterhart stormed into the bathing room just as he was putting the finishing touches on his disguise.
“You! You beast! You miserable dog!” she said, picking up the first thing that came to hand—which fortunately was a dish of soap and not the feather-dye. “You bastardl” She flung it at him; he ducked, and it smashed against the wall.
The single act of destruction seemed to run all of her rage out of her. “How could you?” she wailed, turning from anger to tears in a heartbeat. He froze in dismay; he’d thought she understood back there! “How could you say those things? How could—”
“I could say them because I didn’t mean them!” he cried, as her distress spilled over into him. “Oh ke’chara, how could you think I meant any of that?”
“But the things about—you know I’m sensitive about—” she dissolved into sobs, and he dropped everything he was holding to take her in his arms—leaving behind more shards of glass and pottery in his wake.
The moment he touched her, he was overcome by the same terrible grief, and for one moment, he could not shut it out. He was so used to leaving himself completely open to her it struck him like a great wave. Close up, close up now or you never will— It was a struggle, but he managed to close up his shields before he was overwhelmed and lost.
Think of her as a client, Drake—get her out of this. It’s just hysteria and strain, she was close to laughing in the Audience Chamber, and that was as much hysteria as this is. Besides, she’s had all this time to brood on it all, and you know how she makes things worse by brooding! Maybe you knew it was just a sham—but she didn‘t, not for certain, not at the time of the shock. No matter how much she trusts you, it was a shock and she couldn’t be positive in her own mind that there wasn’t some truth in what you said to her.
He calmed and soothed her with all the resources at his command, now very grateful that their daughter was nowhere nearby. This was the last way he’d want Windsong to see her parents, and as sensitive as she was, she might very well be affected by it all. Such small things as a child built one reaction upon another.
Gentle deflection while appearing to stay on the subject. . . .
“You handled yourself well, lover. You stood in the midst of the Court and spoke your mind without fear. Now, no one will ever think you are hiding your true feelings. I don’t see how anyone couldl The breeze we feel tonight should be from their lips flapping!”
Finally he had her laughing again, mostly at the absurdity of the situation, at the shocked and avid expressions he’d seen on the courtiers’ faces, at the effect the outburst had invoked in the staid and mannered life of the Haighlei Court.
“They looked as if we’d dropped a muck pile in the middle of the floor,” he chuckled. “If this shocked them, I wonder what they would have thought of the tantrums some of Urtho’s people used to pull in public?”
“Oh, you’ve quite driven every thought of the murders out of their minds, beloved,” she said as he wiped her face with a damp cloth to remove all traces of tears, then led her back into the bedroom. “You’ve driven all thoughts of anything else out of their minds, at least for the next day or so. It was all they could talk about, and now I know who favors what faction, just by whether or not they came up to sympathize with me or politely gloat at my situation.”
“Gloat?” he said. “The ones who don’t want you as Consort, do you suppose?”
She nodded as they both sat down on the bed. Sunset had come and gone, and the usual evening breeze had sprung up, driving the stale humidity from the room. “And those very few, mostly women, who really don’t believe that you’re guilty and who think I’m everything you said about me for deserting you and taking the Necklace.” She quirked an eyebrow at him, with just the faintest hint of jealousy. “You have quite a devoted following in some quarters. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if they start showing up at your door, wanting to console you in your deep distress.”
“Console me?” he said in dismay. “There are women who feel sorry for me and want to console me?” That was a possibility that hadn’t occurred to him and it presented any number of unpleasant and inconvenient possibilities!
“Hadn’t counted on that, hmm?” She was smiling smugly now, and didn’t bother to hide it—probably in just retribution for what he had just put her through. “Oh, yes, I’m sure they’ll be eager to console you, personally and intimately. However, the King’s physicians have said you’re mad and not to be trusted without a keeper. Theoretically, he has sent one to take charge of you, so no one is going to get in here unless you let him—or her—in.”
He heaved a sigh of relief. Trust Shalaman to think of that! He knew his courtiers better than Amberdrake had suspected.
She blinked then and touched his hair as if she had only just that moment noticed it. “What’s this?” she asked, startled. “You won’t be able to show up in public like that—”
“Not as Amberdrake, but as Hawkwind, Skandranon’s bodyguard, there shouldn’t be a problem,” he told her, and laughed. “Besides, this is a carrier version of the feather-dye. It washes right out again. I won’t be able to swim or take a bath in public, but not everyone swims, and these people don’t have public baths. I’ll just hope it doesn’t rain much. Come to think of it, I’d better have a hood with me.”
“Why do this at all?” she asked. “We have enough people now. You don’t need to go out in public.”
“Three reasons.” He sat back and stretched his shoulder muscles as he spoke, easing the tension out of them. “Skan should have a bodyguard, and he won’t listen to anyone but me. Granted, he doesn’t often listen to me either, but at least I have a better chance of getting through to him. Two, if I’m not here and an assassin comes calling, I won’t be killed, and only the assassin would know I wasn’t here. So anyone who would accuse me of sneaking out would be the assassin, or have hired one. Three, no one ever pays any attention to a bodyguard, as I just had brought home to me. I might hear or see something you and Skan don’t, since you are Personages and I won’t be.”
She nodded, and added another reason. “Four, you’re going crazy here, cooped up in these rooms.”
“I hadn’t wanted to mention that,” he admitted, “But yes. You’re right. It’s very l
onely here.”
He hadn’t intended to admit that, but somehow it came out. She blinked thoughtfully, and nodded.
“I can see that,” she began, when there was a tapping on the door to the balcony.
Before either of them could answer it, the door opened, and the Black Gryphon stepped in, leaving the door ajar to let in more of the fresh breeze that followed him inside.
“I,” he said to both of them, “am one frustrated gryphon.”
Skandranon finished the third night of his patrols the way he had finished the first two; with empty talons.
Well, not quite empty—he had already caught three thieves this evening alone. One was not exactly a petty thief, either; he’d managed to scale one of the lesser treasure-towers, and was about to break in through a window hardly big enough to admit a child. Of course, since this man was either a dwarf or of some race that was naturally stunted, the window made a fine entrance. Since the thief was so small, he was able to comfortably snatch the small man from the wall. The Black Gryphon carried the man’s tiny, terrified body to the proper authorities, whereupon the thief blurted out a full confession, as they all had. Leyuet’s Spears had them all in custody, a neat arrangement so far as Skan was concerned.
He’d assumed that since magic wasn’t working properly, their enemies couldn’t be using it even to disguise their movement or hide themselves—and that his old night-combat and night-spying skills would be better suited to spotting the culprits from above than even the most experienced Haighlei guard from below. Whoever this was might not think about hiding himself from a watcher above him. Even Ma’ar’s people, as accustomed as they were to dealing with gryphons, still occasionally forgot.
All it had netted him, though, was the common and not-so-common thief. No killers. Most of the little rats had not been any kind of threat physically.
Put a bedridden old woman with a cane against any of these clowns, and 1 would bet on the old woman to beat them senseless.
But he was not going to give up. For one thing, Drake was watching.
The fact that Amberdrake was still considered to be the person in charge of this whole operation still rankled, even though he agreed logically with it. It rankled even though he agreed emotionally—at least in part.
He just hated to think he’d been superseded, and worst of all, no one had asked him about it. They’d all just assumed it would be all right with him.
That was what left the really sour taste in his mouth.
As he glided on still-rising thermals, circling with a minimum of wingbeats, it continued to rankle.
Drake is a terrific planner. Drake is a fine organizer. Drake knows what he’s doing, and yes, I am a bit too reckless, as long as it’s only my own neck I’m baring to the makaar’s talon. But still—if they’d just asked me. . . .
He probably would have said yes. He probably would have cheered. Now, it itched like an ingrown feather, and he couldn’t stop obsessing on it.
Only a few days to the Eclipse Ceremony, and we still don’t have our killer. That was his second ingrown feather. Shalaman can’t marry Winterhart, so he can’t ally with us that way. He can’t declare us allies while we’re still under suspicion. He can’t declare us innocent, not without forcing the hand of our enemy in some way we probably won’t like. Probably what would happen would be that he would just quit, leaving us with several corpses and no answers, but there are other things he could do—and Drake’s histrionics should make him go after another victim before the Ceremony. He ‘II probably make it look as if I did it, since I’m making myself so conveniently obvious as a potential killer.
Wait a moment. What’s this?
He turned a slow, lazy circle in the sky and peered down at the hint of movement below. There was something or someone climbing up the side of that tower— Now, it could have been a simie, one of those furry little creatures that looked so very human; normally they lived in some of the gardens and made the paintbox-birds miserable with their antics. But the simies often got out of their designated “areas” and went looking for something to do, some new mischief to get into, when they ran out of ways to torment the birds.
I thought the shadow looked too big to be a simie, though—heyla!
There he was. . . .
Skan spiraled down, taking care not to betray himself with the flapping of wings, and drew nearer. Silence. . . .
The man was scaling the side of the tower, which was odd, because there were a dozen better ways to get into it, all of them involving a whole let less work.
If he was just a thief, why bypass all those easier ways in? He moved with a skill that told Skan he knew exactly what he was doing. . . .
In fact, he moved in a way that put Skan’s hackles up. Move a little—then freeze in a distorted pose that looked more like an odd shadow than the outline of a human. Move a little more, freezing again, this time in a different, but equally distorted pose. He wasn’t going straight to his goal, either, but working his way back and forth along the face of the building to take advantage of all the real shadows.
This has to be the one!
Just as Skan thought that, the man suddenly vanished, and only by accident did Skan see the darker shape of a window inside the irregular shadow-shape he had entered.
Skan folded his wings and dove headfirst for the spot, backwinging at the last moment and thrusting out with all four claws to catch the sides of the window, and hold him there.
He clung there for just a heartbeat, long enough to see that the window was open and that it was big enough for him to enter. Then he plunged forward with a powerful thrust of his hindlegs, wings folded tightly against his body, head down and foreclaws out.
Where— was his last thought.
He woke all at once, which argued that a spell had knocked him unconscious rather than a blow to the head or an inhaled drug. He was, however, still quite unable to move; he was bound in a dozen ways. No matter how he strained against the bindings, he could not move even a talon-length.
He lay on his side staring at a wall, with a rigid bar or board stretched all along his spine. His neck was bound to this bar, and his tail; his head was tethered to the end of it as well, and he thought he had been bound to it in several places along his chest and stomach. His wings were certainly bound. He counted three straps at least, and there might be more.
He was muzzled, but not blindfolded or hooded. There were more bars, this time of metal, fastened to his ankles, holding all of his legs apart in a rigid pose, and rendering his talons useless. He could flex them, and his legs a little, but it wasn’t going to do him any good; the ends of the metal bars were against the wall and floor and weren’t going anywhere. A collar around his neck was tied to the muzzle and to the bar between his foreclaws. A soft footfall behind his back warned him that he was not alone. “Quite an artistic arrangement, don’t you think?” said a voice that sounded vaguely familiar. “I thought it up myself.”
Skan discovered the muzzle was just large enough to permit him to speak. “Fascinating,” he said flatly. “And now that you know you’ve got a successful arrangement for gryphon trussing, would you like to let me go?”
“No,” said the speaker. “I like you this way. It reminds me of home.”
Why does he sound familiar? Who is this idiot? He’s speaking our language, not Haighlei—could he be one of Judeth’s people? No, or how would he have killed all those Haighlei women before Judeth got here?
Something about that combination was teasing at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t seem to put the clues together into a whole.
“Haven’t you recognized me yet?” The voice sounded disappointed. “Oh, this is really too bad! Either you are becoming a senile old fool, Black Gryphon, or I am simply not notorious enough. I am inclined to believe the former.”
“Which means you have outwitted a senile old fool,” Skan replied instantly, with a growl. “Hardly impressive.”
He hoped to annoy this person enough to get s
ome useful reaction out of him, but he was again disappointed when the man giggled.
“But you aren’t the important one, gryphon,” the man said smugly. “You’re only an annoyance that we had to get out of the way so you couldn’t interfere in our real work. We have bigger prey in mind than you.”
“We?” Skan asked.
The man giggled again. “Oh, no. You won’t catch me in that little trap. You have the most remarkable knack for escaping at the last minute—unlike those old bitches I practiced on.” The voice took on a sullen quality, rather like an aural pout. “They were hardly good material. All flaws, and nothing really to work on. Very disappointing. Unartistic. Not worth my time, when it came down to that. You have some potential, at least, and I am truly going to enjoy showing him—ah—what you’re made of.” Another giggle, and this one was definitely not sane. “Now mind you,” the man went on, in a belligerent tone, “I don’t usually practice my arts on males, but I’m going to make an exception in your case, just to impress Amberdrake.”
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