Raven's Shadow rd-1

by Patricia Briggs

  There was music coming from the Bard’s cell, but the door was too thick to hear more than that. Drawing his short sword, Phoran tapped lightly on the door.

  “Come in.” Impossible to mistake that voice: it was Tier.

  Phoran sheathed his sword and opened the door. The Bard was sitting on his bed with a lute in his hands. He was pale and looked nearly as tired as Phoran felt, but when Tier saw that it was Phoran, he set the instrument aside and got quickly to his feet. “My emperor.”

  “Just Phoran,” Phoran advised him and shuffled over to plop down on the end of the bed. He scooted back until his back was braced against the wall and motioned for Tier to do likewise. “I’m glad to see you in a better state than last night.”

  “You came last night as well?” Tier sat down and pulled the lute back into his lap as if it were a baby. He glanced over at the Memory, which had taken up the same place it had on the first night.

  “I couldn’t wake you,” Phoran yawned. He’d forgotten that he hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. At least he had a better excuse for being tired. “I waited for a few hours, but decided that I’d give you a night to recover from—?”

  “Something the wizards have cooked up,” said Tier unhappily. “I’m not certain what.” He shook his head and gave Phoran a small smile. “Nothing anyone can do about it right now. I do have some information for you. You asked about Avar, the Sept of Leheigh. I heard his name mentioned, mostly because his brother, Toarsen, is a Passerine, but if he’s a member, the Passerines don’t know about it.”

  Phoran heaved a sigh of relief. He’d been almost certain after the council incident, but it was good to be sure.

  “There are a number of Septs who are Raptors,” said Tier and rattled off a list of thirty or forty.

  Phoran would have been more impressed if the list hadn’t frightened him so badly. “Could you go through them again, please?” he said tightly.

  Tier complied, listing the same people in the same order.

  “Did you hear any other names?” asked Phoran, almost afraid to ask. “Not of the Passerines, but the wizards.”

  “The Masters, the wizards, except for Telleridge, keep their identities hidden,” said Tier. “I do have the names of more Raptors.”

  Phoran listened to a recital that consisted of people ranging from Douver, the council secretary, to the captain of the palace guard, including any number of influential tradesmen and scholars.

  “You have a remarkable memory,” said Phoran neutrally. “You heard all of those in the past two days?”

  “Mostly today,” agreed Tier. He gave Phoran a small smile. “Bards have to have a good memory, and the Passerines weren’t at all unhappy to discuss the glories of membership in the Secret Path.”

  Phoran believed him, and wished unhappily that he did not. “What if,” he said slowly, “what if I told you that the Path recruits the restless younger sons and cousins among the nobles of the Empire at the age of fifteen—the kinds of boys who are an embarrassment to their families. Remember, the one rule the Path has when the young men join is that they cannot be direct heirs of any Sept.”

  “I have noticed that there are a lot of Septs among the Raptors,” agreed Tier, clearly seeing what was bothering Phoran. “But since I haven’t heard of a wave of assassinations of Septs and their heirs, I assumed there was an explanation—the last war or that plague.”

  “You told the Memory the story of the Shadowed,” said Phoran.

  Tier wasn’t stupid; he understood where Phoran was going. “You think that one of the Masters of the Path created that plague?” he asked. Unlike Avar, Tier had no incredulity in his voice; he was considering Phoran’s theory.

  Thus encouraged, Phoran continued. “The plague twenty years ago was very convenient for a number of Raptors. Tomorrow I’ll bring paper and ink so you can write down the list of Septs for me again. Then I’ll do a little research, but I know that Telleridge, Gorrish, Jenne, the old Sept of Leheigh, and a dozen others you named inherited then. Some of them were six or seven people away from inheritance.”

  Phoran glanced at Tier.

  “Go on,” the Bard said.

  “My father died in the plague. His brother, my uncle, was named regent. When I was twelve he was poisoned by his mistress, and the council, under Gorrish, took over an informal regency. The Sept of Leheigh’s son, Avar, took me under his wing.” Phoran smiled without humor. “He’s mellowed out a lot in the past few years, but when I met him he was a lot less respectable than his reputation would have shown him.”

  Phoran had done a lot of thinking since his conversation with Avar before the council meeting. “He was a boy, and his own father had encouraged him to be wild. It wouldn’t have struck him odd that the old Sept would encourage him to take a twelve-year-old places that were at best unsavory and at worst outright dangerous—I don’t think that he’d have sought out my company without his father forcing him to do so.” It hurt to admit that, but he knew it was true.

  “You have gained a reputation of being volatile and unreliable,” said Tier slowly. “Even we in the hinterlands of Redern have heard so much.”

  “Not to say that I wasn’t a willing participant,” Phoran said staunchly, though he wanted Tier to like him and it was difficult to admit responsibility. “But if my uncle had lived I would never have been allowed the excesses I have visited.”

  “And you would have come to power by now,” said Tier. “You are what, twenty-four? The Septs would have been under you directly for five years.”

  “Am I seeing shadows that don’t exist?” Phoran asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Tier. “But if you are, then so am I. I’ve been looking upon them as my problem, or even a Traveler problem. But so many Septs would make any group powerful, and powerful groups seek more power. I don’t know that wizards can create convenient plagues, but it is odd that so many of the Path survived to inherit.”

  “I sent a letter to your wife,” said Phoran hesitantly.

  Tier’s head jerked up, but Phoran couldn’t read his expression.

  “I told her that you were here in the palace,” Phoran continued quickly. “I told her you were alive, but that it would be dangerous to come. I told her that she could send word to me or you through the messenger—he was one of my uncle’s men, retired this past decade. My uncle was a canny man; I doubt that any of his would be suborned to the Path.”

  Tier laughed abruptly. “Told her it was dangerous, did you?”

  Phoran nodded. “I thought it best.”

  “We can plan on her showing up a week after she receives the letter, then,” he said. “And we’ll be the better for it. I’m not a Traveler—but my wife is, and, if you gave her enough information, she’ll bring the whole of the Travelers with her when she comes.” He laughed again. “Thank you.”

  “I wrote to Gerant as well,” Phoran said. “Directly after the council meeting. I thought he ought to know what the council had almost done.” He hesitated. “It was a long letter. I told him of the situation I’ve made for myself, then asked him to come here and help clear out the Path. I told him that I had it on good authority that he was an honest man.”

  Tier laughed. “He’ll want to thank me for that—but he’ll come, right enough. He’s almost too old for fighting—fifty or thereabouts by now—but he had several sons, good men all.” He began to play a quiet melody as he talked. “If the Path is as bad as we think, then it will be good to have Gerant at your back. The wizards won’t scare him off either; one of his daughters-in-law is a wizard, and he employed a few more when I knew him. I take it that you saved his land?”

  Phoran launched into the story of his triumph. Tier was a good listener. He laughed in the right places—grinned, when Phoran told him about the way Avar had silenced the court.

  “I can see why you like him. Phoran,” said Tier, “would you take some advice from an old soldier?”

  “Try me,” Phoran replied.

  “The
re are a lot of the Passerines here who might turn out to be good men if they had some goal, some task to work at. No one is more loyal than someone who feels good about himself and his accomplishments—someone who has a stake in the stability of your throne. Find them jobs to do.”

  Phoran laughed. “If anyone should have hope that reformation is possible, it should be me. Get me a list of names and I’ll come up with something.”

  “Military would work for most of them,” said Tier. “Bloodless dueling seems to be a pastime around here—and there are a number of fine swordsmen in the bunch.”

  Phoran shook his head. “I don’t know where I’d put them. The city guards are political appointments through the merchant guilds. The palace guards are mostly inherited positions—and one of the Raptors is the captain of the guards. Neither troop is one a nobleman would willingly join.”

  “You’re a Sept yourself, aren’t you?” asked Tier.

  “Yes, Sept of Taela and of Hawkshold—but Hawkshold is a meaningless title. It’s been part of Taela for several hundred years. My lands are cared for by the palace guard, the city guard, and, if those won’t do, I can call upon the Septs to create an imperial army.”

  “If the council leader were to countermand one of your orders to the palace guard, who would they obey?” asked Tier.

  Phoran didn’t answer, because the answer was obvious.

  “Gerant’s men will obey him, and he’ll obey you,” said Tier, his question answered by Phoran’s silence. “But his Sept is in a border area. He cannot stay in Taela for long without risking disaster to his own lands.”

  “You’re saying that if I make up a troop of the Passerines they will obey me rather than the Raptors?”

  Tier smiled a little grimly. “The Raptors provide the Passerines with drink, sex, and a place to lurk about and pretend to be dangerous. They are sent out periodically to destroy a tavern or rape and pillage or maim. There are sixty of them and I’ve seen five or six already that I wouldn’t want at my back—but there are some good men. If you make them feel like men, not boys, they will follow you to hell and back.”

  Phoran was flattered, but he knew what he was. “They won’t follow me, Tier. A drunkard and a stupid fop.”

  “You may be right,” agreed Tier readily. “But that’s not who you are, Phoran. It is what you once allowed yourself to become. But you do not smell of alcohol tonight, and there’s not a stupid man alive who ever got the best of the Council of Septs. Be honest with them, Phoran; they know what you have done. Lead and they will follow, my emperor. Just as Gerant and I follow.”

  Phoran swallowed hard. “Get me a list of the men you think could work.”

  “I’ll do that,” agreed Tier. “Let me have some more time with them first, maybe a couple of weeks. Then I’ll have a better idea who is suitable and who is not.” He hummed a haunting descant to go with the song he played, and then suddenly he smiled. “I have one for you already. There’s a young man named Collarn. Do you know him?”

  Phoran shook his head.

  “He is a musician, but one with more technical ability than talent. What he is good with are instruments and their care. And the stranger the instrument, the better he likes it.” Tier silenced his strings. “Am I mistaken in assuming that this labyrinth of yours might have a musical instrument or two?”

  Phoran laughed and held up a hand. “I’ll find out.”

  After a moment, Tier said, “If the Raptors are playing games with the merchant guilds as you think, you might go to them if you need more support. It seems to me that a group who’s being blackmailed, like the Weavers’ Guild is, wouldn’t be unhappy at removing their blackmailer’s ability to hurt them.”

  Phoran smiled back, “Likely not.”

  He closed his eyes and listened to the music, wondering when he’d ever been this content before. This was the feeling he’d been looking for since his uncle died. He had a larger purpose, if he could hold on to the gains he’d made today. But there was more, too: for the first time in his life he felt like an adult. He smiled to himself—Tier was right, it was a powerful feeling.

  CHAPTER 14

  Tier staked out a table on the edge of the Eyrie where he could observe the Passerines. Myrceria sat with him as she usually did, never giving the appearance of being bored. He wondered at her attentions, though he said nothing to her. She was in charge of the running of the Eyrie: the servants, whores, and cooks all looked to her for guidance. From little things the Passerines let drop, she was a great favorite of several of the Raptors and a few of the older Passerines. Even so, none of them approached her while she was with him, and, if he was out of his cell, she was with him.

  She was not the only one who attended him, though. Wherever he went there were always a few Passerines who came to gossip and quiz him about his life as a Traveler. Since Tier had never so much as seen a Traveler clan, he told them stories of being a soldier instead—which they seemed perfectly happy with.

  All the while he watched them. Sorting the salvageable from the worthless in a process the Sept of Gerant had called “sieving the ferrets.” The Sept would gather all of the new recruits together and start them training with two or three veterans. Then he’d send in a man just to observe—usually Gerant himself, though Tier had done that duty more than once.

  At the end of several weeks, the observer would pick out the troublemakers, the cowards, and the men just not physically cut out for warfare and send them on their way with a bit of silver for their trouble.

  Tier found that sorting the boys of the Silent Path was a bit more difficult because the Path encouraged just the kind of behavior he was looking to weed out. He’d found five or six that he’d not have in any of his fighting troops, and ten more that he’d have been able to whip into shape eventually—but he was going to turn these boys over to Phoran, not an experienced military leader.

  Phoran had good instincts, but he also had some things that would make commanding a group like the one Tier proposed difficult. First of all, he was young. But worse was his reputation. It would make leading the Passerines in anything but drunken debauchery difficult.

  Tier had decided that he’d have to do a little training first. He took a judicious sip of his ale. He’d just wait until the next fight broke out—which, if the night ran to form, would be in the next hour or so.

  “Came and knocked on our suite this morning,” Collarn was saying with palpable excitement. “My father thought they’d come to arrest me for something stupid I’d done. I thought he’d die of shock when they told him that the Emperor had decided that the Keeper of Music needed help and that the masters at the School of Music had recommended me for the position.”

  Tier smiled at him. “So are you going to take the job?”

  Collarn grinned back. “And have to slave around after an old man for years, cleaning, tuning, and refinishing instruments? Absolutely. Do you know the kinds of things that are rabbited away in these rooms?” He gave a vague wave around to indicate the palace. “Neither do I. But I’ve already gotten to play instruments that are worth more than all my family’s holdings combined.”

  Tier talked with him a bit more, and gradually turned the conversation over to Myrceria. When she had Collarn’s attention fully engaged, Tier excused himself and began meandering through the auditorium because the unmistakable sounds of another fight were starting to rumble from somewhere near the stage.

  He spoke casually to a few boys as he passed. By the time he made it to the fight, a crowd had gathered around to call encouragement to the combatants. They parted for Tier willingly enough. Once he had a clear view of the action, Tier folded his arms and watched.

  The first boy was Toarsen, who was a hotheaded, bitter young man and, like most of his fellows, spoiled by too much money and nothing to do. But he was smart, which Tier liked, and he wasn’t a coward.

  His opponent was a little bit of a surprise, one of the twenty-year-olds who Tier had pegged as the worst kind of troublemaker
, the ones who sat by and let other people do their dirty work. Nehret was not one of the boys who usually found themselves in duels.

  Watching them closely, Tier could see signs that both of them had been trained to sword since birth, as many noblemen were, but they were trained as duelists, not as soldiers.

  When he’d seen enough, Tier turned to the boy on his right, “May I borrow your sword?”

  The boy flushed and fumbled, but handed the weapon over. When Tier asked the boy on his left for his sword also, that young man laughed, drew with a flourish and presented it to Tier on one knee. With a short sword in either hand, Tier walked into the makeshift combat floor.

  He watched closely for a moment, staying out of both opponents’ immediate line of sight as he tested the swords he held for balance. They were lighter than the one he’d left in Redern and of a slightly different design—made for letting blood rather than killing, he thought.

  Finished with his preparations, he darted forward and attacked. Toarsen lost his sword altogether. Nehret kept his blade, but only at the cost of form and balance. He landed ignominiously on his rump.

  “If you’re going to fight,” said Tier. “At least do it right. Nehret, you lose power because your shoulders are stiff—you’re making your arms do all the work.” Tier turned his back to Nehret, knowing from the past few days of observation just how well the boy would take being criticized and what he would do about it.

  “Toarsen,” Tier said. “You need to worry less about trying to scratch your opponent, and more about defending yourself. In a real fight you’d have been dead a half dozen times.” He turned and caught the blade Nehret had aimed at his back.

  “Watch this and see what I mean,” continued Tier as if he weren’t fending off the angry boy’s blows. It wasn’t as easy as he made it look. “Nehret is extending too much—ah, see? That attack is what I was talking about earlier. If you’d had your body behind it instead of just your arm it might have accomplished something. Look, he wants to really hurt me, but he’s been so trained to go for touches rather than hits that he doesn’t stand a chance of hurting me beyond a scratch or two. That’s the problem with too much dueling, you don’t know what to do in a real fight.”