by Helen Lowe
The Honor Captain put up her dark brows. “A priest lover? I? She is quite right, though. We need the Temple quarter now, whether we like it or not.”
“My father,” the Earl said, “would have called those traitor’s words.”
“But you,” Asantir pointed out, “are not your father. Besides, traitors do not give the pledge that we just heard.”
The Earl looked grim. “No. Although I was referring to you, not Korriya.”
“Traitor and priest lover,” Asantir replied. “It is fortunate, then, that I serve you and not the Old Earl. Still”—she smiled slightly—“if one did wish to overturn custom and tradition, what better time than when people are already reeling and so more likely to accept that extraordinary events require out-of-the-ordinary responses?”
The Earl gave a sharp bark of laughter. “You should have been born to the House of the Rose! You have exactly their double-edged, devious mindset and are quite wasted as a blunt warrior.” Swiftly, his face grew serious again. “I promise to think about the Temple quarter, but that is all. As for the other matters Korriya spoke of, we must not mention them again—not until we are sure of all the facts.”
“Not even the Golden Fire?” asked Asantir.
“That least of all,” he said, “until we know that it is real.” He shifted, as though his armor had grown suddenly heavy. “But Korriya was right about the Heir. We must find her, and quickly. Quickly, Asantir.”
Her gaze met his, grave and steady. “All that can be done, shall be done. And more.”
He nodded, both assent and dismissal, but before she could turn there was a crisp knock and a guard entered the room. “My lord Earl. Captain. The two heralds who arrived last night are here and say that they wish to deliver their message. They say that they were charged to give it to you without delay, my lord.” He hesitated, seeing their resigned exchange of glances. “I have tried to send them away, but they won’t go.”
The Earl steepled his fingertips together. “As it happens, I had not forgotten our heralds of the Guild, whom someone has seen fit to send all the way from the River. Their timing, though, is hardly good.”
“There will be no good time,” Asantir murmured, “not in the days ahead. And you will have to see them at some stage, my lord.”
He sighed, looking grimly resigned. “You are right, of course, although it’s unlikely their message will seem significant beside last night’s events. But even so—Show them in, Garan.” The grimness deepened as he turned back to his Honor Captain. “I believe that they mentioned a sigil of silence yesterday. You had better stay a little longer, after all.”
7
The Tower of the Rose
Nhairin paused outside the Little Chamber and surveyed the mix of guards, councilors, and the two young and plainly ill-at-ease priests standing at a distance down the hall. There had been no fighting in this area but guards were present in force, both outside the Earl’s chamber and at intervals along the wide corridor. The majority were from the keep garrison, although there were honor guards at the Little Chamber door—drawn from those few, Nhairin surmised, who had survived the night unwounded. But she saw the same deep weariness in every face, however watchful their expressions.
Most of the Earl’s councilors either ignored the waiting priests completely or stalked past them with a sidelong glance of distaste, but Teron stopped beside Nhairin and glared, his clenched fists on his hips. “What are they doing here, Garan?” he demanded, scowling at the guard standing next to him.
The guard’s dark, mobile face was carefully neutral as he looked from Teron to the nervous priests. “Captain’s orders,” he replied. “She seemed to think the priestess was entitled to a tail.”
“That is true enough,” Nhairin agreed reluctantly. “Priestess Korriya is of the Blood of the House of Night and the Earl’s First Kin.”
Teron did not quite dare to switch that scowl onto her. “She’s a priestess,” he protested. “Kin or not, she shouldn’t be allowed near the Earl at all, at least not without more of us to guard him!”
Haimyr laughed. “I don’t think that the Earl is greatly at risk, even without your saving presence, sir squire.”
“You don’t know the priest kind, minstrel,” the youth replied ominously. “They are devious and treacherous.”
“Is this something you know from your own experience?” Haimyr inquired lazily.
“I? No!” Teron looked affronted. “We follow the House of Blood’s example in our hold and will not suffer priests within our walls, given their past betrayals. Speaking of betrayal,” he added darkly, “how do we know that last night’s attack was not some conspiracy between the Temple quarter and the priestly Houses?”
“We do not, of course,” Haimyr replied. “But from what I understand of last night’s events, and the number of priests that lie dead, it seems unlikely.”
Teron’s scowl did not lift. “What would you know anyway?” he muttered. “You’re only—” He broke off at the sudden glint in Haimyr’s golden eyes. The minstrel’s tone, however, remained light.
“An outsider?” he inquired. “Why, so I am. All the same, I try to use my eyes and ears—and at least a little of what lies between them as well.”
Nhairin snorted and Teron glowered at the minstrel, clearly biting back a reply. The guards looked openly amused but made no move to send him away, while the two priests retained their cautious station down the hall. Their faces had remained expressionless throughout, but the young woman was flying two spots of color high in her cheeks. Teron’s belligerent stare shifted back to them. “I still say they shouldn’t be here,” he said loudly.
Garan’s amused expression did not change, but there was a warning note in his voice. “Captain’s orders, young Teron, which means yours, too. So pipe down like a good lad, else I’ll have to send you packing.”
Teron flushed crimson from his collar to the roots of his hair, but remained silent. After a tiny pause, Haimyr turned back to Nhairin, but his eyebrows flew up when he saw her expression. “Ah,” he said, drawing her away down the hall, “another sour face, I see. Surely you do not think that the priestess means the Earl any harm?”
Nhairin’s mouth twisted. “No,” she replied shortly. “It just galls me that Korriya calls on Right of Kin and Blood to speak privately with Tasarion and so I am sent away—but Asantir remains. Yet I am the friend and playmate of their childhood while Asantir is what? A one-time levy who came to us from the boundary holds.” She snorted again. “The boundary holds that never send their best when the keep calls. Instead we get their leavings, those too old for active service and the half-grown younglings. That is all Asantir was, when she first came to us!”
The faintest hint of a frown pulled at Haimyr’s brows. “Then, perhaps, but not now. Besides, I understand there are good reasons for that practice, since those who are well trained and in their prime can never be spared from the boundary watch. Just as the reasons why Asantir remained behind seem plain enough. Given your Derai law, no one else could do so.”
Nhairin shrugged. “Because the former levy, the nobody, is now Honor Captain. Oh, I know it is foolish of me to feel excluded, doubly foolish even, since Asantir is the Honor Captain and so best qualified to protect Tasarion.” She paused, her mouth a thin, sharp gash in her scarred face, and folded her arms across her chest. “I resent it sometimes, that’s all,” she muttered, not looking at him.
Haimyr rested one hand on her shoulder. “I know,” he said, “for unlike Teron, I am not blind. It must be difficult indeed to watch your former comrades run and fight while you wait safely behind the lines, wondering whether or not they will save you. And hard, too, however much she is your friend, to see the comrade of your soldiering days promoted in honor while you must follow a path where glory is, at best, unlikely.”
Nhairin uttered a short laugh. “Very unlikely, as last night showed. And you are right, both that Asantir and I are friends and that it doesn’t make our relative situations any easier to acc
ept.” She stared down the hallway with bleak eyes then gave a quick shrug, as if to throw off her mood. “But this is all folly, as I have already said, and does me no credit. We must all make the best of what we have and who we are.”
“And at least,” Haimyr said, “you need not take your exclusion from the Little Chamber to heart. Even Rowan Birchmoon was turned out.”
The flash in Nhairin’s eyes came and went in an instant. “She is not—” she began, then quickly bit off the words.
Haimyr shrugged, smiling. “Derai?” he finished for her. “No, of course not.” Nhairin flushed and looked away. “But speaking of being Derai,” the minstrel continued, “we need to talk more of something that Jiron raised, this matter of seekers.”
“Seekers?” Nhairin echoed, still uncomfortable. “What is there to talk about? As Tasarion said, we have none.”
“But what,” said Haimyr the Golden, “if I knew where to find one?”
“What?” exclaimed Nhairin. “But that’s impossible!”
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” murmured Haimyr. “But let us not discuss it here.” He strolled away and Nhairin limped after him.
“What do you mean by this?” she demanded. “There are no seekers, Haimyr, not in the House of Night anyway.”
He raised his brows slightly. “What should I mean by it, except a better chance to find our Malian? But first, I must speak with the chamberlain.”
They found him back in his office, still muttering about the disruption of the council meeting. “No good will come of it,” he said, as soon as he saw Nhairin. “The Earl should not put aside the counsel of his tried advisers to listen to the ranting of a priest, First Kin or no First Kin. Especially,” he added gloomily, “at a time like this.”
“Kin and Blood,” said Nhairin, seating herself and easing her leg with a small sigh. “He had no choice.”
The chamberlain looked peevish. “It’s the old law, I suppose, but I still say no good will come of it. No good at all.” His expression sharpened as he looked at Haimyr. “And what do you want?”
“Such courtesy,” said Haimyr. “I came, good chamberlain, to inquire after our guests of yesterday evening, the heralds of the Guild. How do they fare in the aftermath of last night’s battle?”
“Better than most,” the chamberlain replied, still sharp, “since they are housed in the guest wing, which escaped last night’s fighting. Now, of course, they are persistent in wanting their audience with the Earl.” He held up his hands. “The Earl, I ask you! They must wait their turn like everyone else, and so I’ve told them.”
Nhairin nodded, keeping her expression sympathetic. “Do you know where they are now?” she asked.
“Where they should not be, I have no doubt,” the chamberlain replied shortly. “I asked that they await the Earl’s summons in their guest suite in the Tower of the Rose. Yet now I hear that they’ve gone down to the stables, to see to their horses or some such thing. Just as if we don’t have grooms enough!”
“Well, that is not entirely unreasonable,” Nhairin pointed out, but the chamberlain shrugged.
“They should not be roaming the keep at will, not at a time like this! And I have better things to do than hunt them out once the Earl does eventually decide to see them. If he does,” he concluded under his breath.
They left the chamberlain to his papers and Nhairin waited until they were out of earshot before detaining the minstrel. “What are you up to, Haimyr?” she demanded. “And what have these heralds to do with it? Surely you are not suggesting that they are seekers?”
Haimyr’s only answer was a hooded look and she stepped away from him. “But that’s impossible!” she said incredulously. “Only the Derai priesthood has such powers!”
“Nhairin, Nhairin,” the minstrel chided her, “you are becoming as Wall-bound as Teron. It is said, on the River, that the heralds of the Guild can seek out the hidden and find the lost. They are quite famous for it, in fact. So evidently it is not only the Derai who have that particular power.”
The steward shook her head. “How can that be?” she whispered. “Such a thing has never happened before, even beyond the Gate of Stars. Forgive me, but I find it difficult to believe.”
Haimyr smiled. “I must prove it to you, then. We shall find these heralds and see whether or not they will assist.” He quirked a golden eyebrow at her. “Their assent should be proof enough even for you, my doubting Nhairin.”
She drew herself up, flushing a little. “First we have to find them. The Tower of the Rose is on our way to the stables; we should try there first.”
The Rose was the tallest tower in the complex of barbicans and galleries that formed the guest wing of the keep, located not far from the Gate of Winds. There was a time when the whole wing would have been overflowing with guests and envoys but now, when the Derai had grown mistrustful even of each other, the Tower of the Rose was the only part of the complex still in use.
There was romance in the name, Nhairin supposed as she limped up the steps to its double doors, as well as in the legend that it had been built by a long-ago Earl of Night to house his lover from the House of the Rose. Lover or no, it had been a considerable time now since any one from that House had sojourned in the Keep of Winds, although the rose vine was still carved around the tower entrance and stamped in silver on its doors.
No one would think, coming here, that battle had raged through most of the keep last night. Everything was quiet, peaceful, calm, and yet—the tower had an abandoned feel, Nhairin thought, then instantly derided herself. But she could not quite shake the feeling that there was a focused quality to the silence, as though the tower itself was listening. She was annoyed to find herself keeping her voice low. “Do you think there’s anyone here? It’s very quiet.”
Haimyr was standing in the center of the entry court with his head tilted, listening. “Oddly enough, given their calling,” he murmured, “heralds have something of a reputation for silence.” He gazed at the wooden paneling and mosaic floor as though seeing them for the first time. “But from what the chamberlain told us, they are probably not here.”
“We should check,” said Nhairin, and they mounted the stairs to the suite of rooms where the heralds were staying. Haimyr raised his hand to knock, the shadow of his sleeve casting a fantastic silhouette across both door and floor—but before his fist could fall, the door swung wide, as though inviting them to enter.
A coincidence, wondered Nhairin, peering around the minstrel’s shoulder, or something more?
The room seemed ordinary enough, with rich yet somber furnishings, a bright fire in the grate, and a tumble of traveler’s gear, including saddlebags, cloaks and bedrolls, strewn over chairs and sideboards. There was no sign of the two heralds, however, and the room was filled with the same listening silence as the rest of the tower. “Should we enter?” Nhairin asked.
“The door opened for us,” the minstrel replied, as though that were invitation enough. “But to what purpose?” he added, half under his breath as he stepped forward. He looked around carefully, almost as though he expected to see the heralds materialize out of the shadows, but the room remained empty. Nhairin followed more slowly, casting a doubtful look at the closed doors on the far side of the room.
“They could be resting,” she suggested, but without conviction.
Haimyr shook his head, although he seemed to be listening hard. Nhairin shrugged and drifted toward the fire. There was something strange about that, too, she thought, even as its warmth drew her close. It took her a moment longer to realize that the fire was burning without a sound. The blaze leapt up merrily, but there was no hiss or crackle of burning wood, no sudden snap of sparks. Nhairin moved closer still, fascinated by the clarity of the flames—then drew in her breath in sheer surprise as the patterns resolved themselves into a woman’s face, looking back at her. The eyes, deep and cool, held Nhairin’s gaze.
“Do not touch the fire!” Afterward, she could not be sure whether it was a voic
e in her mind that spoke, or Haimyr—sharply—from behind her. The minstrel’s hands were hard on her shoulders as her head jerked back, away from the blaze. When she looked again the face was gone, although the silent, jewel-bright flames still burned.
“What happened?” Nhairin asked, shaken.
“You looked into a herald’s ward fire,” Haimyr said slowly, puzzlement banishing his concern. “It shouldn’t have drawn you in like that, though.”
“A ward fire.” Nhairin frowned at the flames with distaste. “Is that what this is?”
“Ay. The silence, if nothing else, tells us that.” Haimyr still looked puzzled. “Heralds use them to ward their camps when they are out in the lonely places of the world, and to watch over their accommodation from a distance. If they are staying somewhere dangerous. Given last night, I should have expected the fire or some similar device, but my eye slid over it, detecting no strangeness.” He shook his head. “I had heard that heralds are masters at tricking the eyes and ears, but now I have proof!”
“I noticed its silence almost as soon as I came in.” Nhairin remembered how first the fire and then the watcher’s eyes had drawn her closer, and frowned more deeply. She wondered how much she should say about the face in the fire and decided to keep her own counsel, at least until she knew a little more. “So I take it they’ll know we’re here?”
“They will be aware that someone is here but beyond that—” Haimyr shrugged. “The door opened, so we cannot be entirely unwelcome.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Nhairin, “the fire drew me in because they wanted a closer look at us.”
“Perhaps,” said Haimyr, but his tone suggested doubt. “The question is, knowing someone is here, will they now return, or should we seek them out?”
He moved back toward the door in a soft chiming of bells, but paused by the table in the center of the room. It held a scattering of the small, personal possessions that Nhairin would have expected to find on any traveler: a compass, a pile of loose coins, and a book. She protested involuntarily when Haimyr’s hand hovered over the book, and he flashed her a mocking smile. “I was only going to look at it, my Nhairin. If the legend on the cover is true, it is a rarity, an original work of J’mair of Ishnapur.”