He was back to his own self, with senses no more alert than might have been expected of those forged in the fires that had made Kieran what he was. Despite his close acquaintance with Kheldrin’s vanished Gods, he was no more capable of understanding what it was that Anghara was doing to help them on their way than any earth-bound man. Somehow she had woven a concealing sea mist around their boat. They could see out, but none could see them within—and it seemed to work. Once, at night, they sat quietly in their little craft and watched the passage of two large Roisinani galleys, part of Sif’s force, travelling toward Kheldrin. Anghara’s face had been eloquent, and once the ships were past and there was no danger of his being overheard Kieran hastened to chase away the brooding shadows in her eyes.
“As ai’Jihaar said, the desert itself will be Sif’s enemy.”
“But Sa’alah,” Anghara replied with quiet pain, “Sa’alah is not in the desert. And Sa’ila is so easily denied…”
That was the hour in which Kieran chose to throw his support behind the Algira venture—it was something that needed Anghara’s active participation, leaving her no time to torment herself with dark visions. He pushed her into thinking about what she meant to do, reaching for some sort of plan, despite her expectation of a path waiting to unroll itself at her feet. With that, and the necessities of guiding their small craft on its way, the days drifted by. They passed close enough to Vallen Fen to smell its sweet, rotten corruption in the early morning mists; on their right, a dark smudge on a bright ocean, lay the largest and closest island of the Mabin Archipelago. There was a time when Anghara sat motionless in the midst of the small craft, only her eyes moving, darting from the shore to the island.
“We’re too close to two Dances,” she told Kieran when he asked if she was all right. “There is something in me that wants to answer the call of both, and is being torn apart…”
“I thought the old Gods were gone.”
“They hadn’t been in Roisinan for a long time,” Anghara said. “But the Dances…they belong to something else. There will always be power there. I can’t help it; the presence of a Standing Stone is like a knife to me. It’s like a breath of incense. They…remind me of everything.”
“Like desert sage,” Kieran had murmured.
She didn’t ask what he meant, and he didn’t elaborate. But soon the island was left behind, and the Dances released Anghara from their thrall. The marshes of Vallen Fen gave way to grasslands, then dark, lush forest sweeping down to the shore. Sometimes they saw small animals swimming in and out of the shadows in the shallows. The raucous noise of a tribe of small monkeys followed them, and once, when they saw a freshwater rill pouring into the sea and stopped to replenish their water supplies, the monkeys came close enough to pelt them with hard-shelled fruit. Anghara sported a blue-green bruise on her arm and Kieran had a walnutsized lump on his temple, where a larger than average missile had narrowly missed his eye.
“We’ll make quite an entry into the palaces of Algira,” Kieran grumbled. “When they ask us how we came by these bruises, I just wish we didn’t have to say we were beaten up by a troop of monkeys.”
Anghara had known the land around Algira was heavily cultivated, but the vineyards and the olive groves took her by surprise—the little Kheldrini boat had made good time. They first saw the silver-leafed vineyards by moonlight, and Anghara leapt up to tack the sail.
“Back,” she said. “It was lucky we came here at night. I don’t want to sail straight into Algira Harbor. We’ll hide the boat in the forest; from here we walk.”
They sailed back to a small inlet they had seen earlier, pulling the light craft up onto the sand beneath concealing fronds of lush undergrowth. That night they slept on the beach, in the lee of their craft, and it didn’t take them long the following morning to hack their way through the forest and find a road.
The an’sen’en’thari had provided them with neutral travelling cloaks, but these were little protection against the curious glances of vineyard and orchard workers, who straightened from their tasks to glance at the two passers-by. Anghara used Sight to blur them both, leaving behind an impression of two nondescript travellers, who merited little attention. They were forgotten as soon as the workers turned back to their labor. Later, as their country road swung north to join a broader artery which eventually led all the way to the banks of the Ronval River and Roisinan, they mingled with other travellers making their way south to Algira. They found anonymity amongst women with large baskets and small unruly children and the occasional cart laden with produce heaving its way into the city. Impatient riders wove through the pedestrians with muttered curses, and old men plodding patiently beside equally ancient donkeys, gray around the muzzles, bearing sacks of olives or sloshing skins of wine.
Anghara had seen paintings of fabled Algira in her childhood. Kieran had not; all he had were elaborate tales, and many of those had been suspect. But the truth was so much beyond even these stories that Kieran stared with something like disbelief. The Crystal City was one of many names with which the chroniclers of history and legend had wreathed Algira. It had other guises; it was also known as the Water City, the Canal City or the Garden City. And all of those were true.
The sun was bright and high when Anghara and Kieran topped a shallow rise and stood looking into the valley sloping down to the blue bay. The ocean sparkled in the sunlight, but was put to shame by the flash and fire of Algira’s towers as they broke the southern light like a shattered adamant. The place seemed made of glass, and shimmered before Kieran’s eyes; he could see twisting trails of water, sometimes bridged with arching spans of white stone or black obsidian, which wound their way between the glittering buildings. Scattered amongst these, great palms spread enormous emerald fronds, and glimpses of bright creepers upon sheer walls caught Kieran’s eye. Above it all, upon a small hill ringed by a broad stretch of water, rose the most magnificent building of all—a delicate edifice which looked as though it had been made from spun sugar. Its gardens were a riot of green and scarlet, well-tended lawns giving way unexpectedly to tangled green masses which reminded Kieran of the forests they had recently passed.
“That’s where we’re going,” said Anghara quietly, having caught him staring. “The White Palace. The home of Favrin Rashin, and his father, the king.”
Beauty tempted Kieran into disloyalty. “What in the name of the great God Kerun do they want with our harsh winters and snow-bound crags when they have this?”
“There was a time when the kings of Roisinan had both. The Rashin would have it so again.”
“So would you,” Kieran said. “Else why would you be here?”
“They would kill for it. I would leave them their world; they would be less kind to me.” Anghara allowed her eyes to rest for a long moment upon the White Palace, for so long the summer place of the Kir Hama kings, now home to a pretender to their ancient throne. “Come on.”
Kieran, unaware he had stopped, obediently began moving again. His eyes, however, stayed on the White Palace, and once the initial thrill had passed he saw it with a soldier’s eye. And he didn’t like what it revealed.
“Even assuming you could get into that place—it looks as if it could go hard on you if you tried to leave without your host’s consent,” he said in a low voice.
Anghara glanced at him, then down to where the white walls caught the sun and flamed with brilliant splendor. “That is not entirely unexpected,” she said. “But explain.”
Kieran frowned. It was so beautiful and such a deadly trap. “Look at it,” he said. “An island, surrounded by water—you, an easy target for an archer upon the walls. And not a scrap of concealment near the waterline—the place might look like it’s going wild, but there’s a careful plan in the midst of that madness. There isn’t anywhere to hide. And, discovered, there isn’t anywhere to run.”
“I don’t plan on running,” said Anghara with a curious smile.
She would do it, Kieran thought despairingly.
She would walk into this without any thought for the aftermath—trusting to the Gods. Still. But there were no Gods, not any more; there was only Anghara’s own bright flame, and the dogged loyalty of a single man. Who would follow her into anything, even this, because for him no other choice existed.
By now they were already in the city, walking beside the first canals coruscating in the southern sunshine. It was more crowded here, people starting to jostle for space on the narrow walkways flanking the canals. One large elbow nearly spun Anghara off into the water; Kieran would have turned to remonstrate, but Anghara’s hand on his arm forestalled him. “No, I don’t want attention. Follow the greatest crowds; I need a marketplace.”
“What for?”
“That’s where we’ll find a scribe.”
Kieran knew this cryptic tone. She had cooked up a plan, but nobody would know a detail of it until she was ready to speak. But Kieran already had an inkling of this plan, and he didn’t have to like what he was thinking.
“What would you commit to paper here?” he said. “There is danger enough being courted today without going out of your way to draw it upon you. Don’t tell me you mean to challenge Favrin Rashin in his own city?”
“Not challenge,” Anghara said demurely. “Merely invite.”
“To do what?”
“To issue an invitation in return,” Anghara said. “I plan to enter the White Palace as an invited guest-friend.”
“Why on the Gods’ green earth would he invite you into his palace, and guarantee safety to that which stands between him and his desire?” Kieran asked blankly.
“Out of curiosity. Out of piqued interest in what his sworn enemy might find to talk about while drinking his wine.”
“How do you know he’s even here, and not chasing Sif’s tail in Roisinan?”
Anghara, wise in the way of courts, merely smiled. “You ought to know Favrin’s colors by now,” she said. “There’s a blue and white pennant amongst the banners on the towers. Favrin’s. It only flies when he is within.” She laughed, then, at Kieran’s face. “Duerin might accept the gauntlet, only to try and have me poisoned quietly at his table,” she said, her voice light, almost lilting; Kieran’s skin crawled at her easy, almost fey, banter on the subject of her own death. “Not Favrin; he’s too forthright for poison. Feor was right about that. But he will accept my invitation—and he will guarantee my safety, his soldier’s honor will see to it.”
There was still something she wasn’t telling him, but they followed the throngs to a small square. Anghara’s attention was drawn to a striped black and white awning, beneath which sat a young man, garbed and turbaned in demure white. Wax tablets, steel styluses, ink bottles and other paraphernalia of his trade were laid out neatly on the ground beside him.
The language of Tath was no more than a variation of Roisinani, a different accent, a few different words. The language of Tath, however, was not what Anghara used. If the young scribe had been surprised to be addressed in high court Roisinani here in the heart of Tath’s power, he was too well schooled, to reveal it—and responded in the same language. Anghara was impressed by the young man’s self-possession, and so, almost against his will, was Kieran.
“I need a letter written, which will need skill and discretion,” Anghara said.
“We may not reveal what we write at another’s behest. That is guild law everywhere,” the young man said gravely, giving an oblique acknowledgment that he knew she was a stranger in his city. “Your coin buys my silence about whatever you choose to entrust to me.”
“What is your fee?”
“Six sessi. For matters of import…” he coughed delicately, hiding his mouth behind his hand, but his eyes were eloquent enough above it. “For matters of import—a price is negotiable.”
“Ten,” said Anghara, “if you will also arrange to have it delivered.”
“To what address?”
“The White Palace.”
The young man coughed again into his palm. “That is a matter of grave import indeed. For this…fifteen sessi.”
“Eleven,” Anghara said.
The young man’s eyes had kindled. “Thirteen, my lady?”
“Twelve,” said Anghara, “and a half.”
He considered this for a moment and then bowed to her from the waist without getting up. “Twelve and a half,” he acceded. “We can have privacy within my tent, if you so desire.”
“Perhaps that would be best,” said Anghara.
“Where did you learn to haggle in a manner Borre of Shaymir might have envied?” Kieran hissed at Anghara as she turned to follow the scribe into the black and white striped tent beyond the awning. “And where do you plan to get these twelve and a half sessi, whatever they are, from?”
“Kheldrin gave many gifts,” said Anghara, smiling at him.
“Khelsies haggle?” Kieran murmured. “By Kerun’s Horns, they become more human every time I look. Am I allowed to know what will be in this letter?”
Her eyes were sparkling with the delight of the game. “Come inside and listen.”
It was Kieran’s role to worry about the young queen who showed no sign of taking a thought for her own safety, and his time as a leader of men had taught him to weigh risks with deliberation. But he was also young enough, and reckless enough, to enjoy putting Anghara’s scheme into action. The missive written by the young scribe—who, with admirable self-control, had shown no reaction to what he was being asked to set down—had been sealed with the royal seal hanging from al’Tamar’s say’yin, and dispatched, with careful instructions, by a street runner summoned by the scribe. Kieran had, of course, been right—Anghara didn’t have the coinage to pay for the service she had received. What she did have was Kheldrini silver. While it wasn’t legal tender, barter was a matter of course and the scribe quietly and efficiently produced a small set of scales, weighed the offering, and gave her the equivalent in Algiran sessi. Made profligate by an odd sense of excitement, Anghara tendered fifteen sessi to the scribe rather than the agreed sum; if the man noticed, he made no sign, merely bowing with grace and courtesy as the money vanished into a fold of his garment. They left him then, to find something to eat in the crowded marketplace, and wait for the hour Anghara’s letter had appointed.
A wizened old woman, resembling one of the noisy little monkeys of their past painful acquaintance, grabbed at Anghara’s hand as she walked past. “Two sessi?” she cackled, fawning up at her shamelessly. “Two sessi, and I’ll tell you your fortune. A kind-faced young lady like you with such a handsome lad by your side—you’ll want to know what’s in store for you, duckling…”
Anghara pulled her hand away, gently. “No, thank you, mother. Perhaps another time.”
As Kieran edged past, the crone snatched his hand instead, turning the palm up before he could shake her loose. Irritated, for Anghara had already taken a step or two away and was in danger of being swallowed up by the crowd, Kieran tried to pull his hand back. “Have done,” he said. “I don’t need…”
“I see suffering,” the old woman murmured, seemingly tranced, her eyes cast down and wide open, unblinking. “I see partings, pain, a great love almost lost…and battles gained…and then…and then a crown.”
Kieran snatched his hand away as if he’d been burned. The old woman, apparently having forgotten this fortune was supposed to be worth two sessi, had turned to wander off, muttering about crowns, hurt and hard choices. Kieran stared after her for a long moment, his eyes hard with suspicion and something that was almost fear; and then he started abruptly, turning to rake the crowds in search of Anghara.
“So she did snag you,” Anghara said, taking a bite out of a peach she had bought at a nearby stall with her new-gained currency, licking at the juices which ran down her chin. “You didn’t even pay her fee. That wasn’t very gallant, Kieran. What did she say?”
“Some old rubbish,” Kieran said. Too quickly. But the peach was proving to be a successful diversion, and Anghara was lookin
g around, laughing.
“I hope there’s a fountain somewhere close by, or else we had better go back to the canals—I won’t be able to touch another thing until I’ve washed my hands.”
“Do you know what passes for a han here?” Kieran asked. “Perhaps the best thing would be to find somewhere to hole up until sundown—and you could get cleaned up properly.”
“There’s got to be an inn somewhere off the canals; I’ll have to find somewhere to change,” said Anghara, who carried a pack containing all her Kheldrini an’sen’thar finery—just as she had done once before on a homecoming. Kieran called to mind the ill-fated King’s Inn in Calabra and its consequences, and his notion of finding an inn was roundly and speedily dismissed. He had no wish to have Anghara—or himself—find out what the dungeons of this palace looked like from the inside.
“We’ll think about that later,” he said. “Let’s keep moving for now.”
It proved to be a long day, heavy with summer. They ate iced cream, a southern concoction neither had tried before, while watching a ship flying the sea-serpent banner of the Mabin Islands dock in the harbor in the long, golden southern afternoon. The galley was bristling with grimly efficient armed men, the sun glancing off lances and body armor.
“Are there pirates in these waters?” Kieran asked, bemused at the sight.
“For that ship there might be,” Anghara said. “Its cargo is probably pearls from Mabin, for the king.”
“You should have detoured,” said Kieran, teasing. “Gone to Mabin, picked up a shipload of pearls in exchange for all that Kheldrini silver and presented yourself at the palace gates. I’m sure you wouldn’t have been refused entry.”
“They’re worth a king’s ransom, those pearls,” Anghara said. “I might yet have that in common with them before this night is over.”
She seemed to be having second thoughts, and, ironically, it was now Kieran who defended her plan. Anghara allowed herself to be persuaded. They left the harbor eventually, finding a quiet inn just off the main wharf, where a handful of coins bought careful silence from the landlord and a jug of cheap but remarkably good wine. They nursed it between them for a while, then Kieran remained at the table while Anghara slipped off to change into garb more appropriate for a royal visit. Anyone glancing at him would have thought him utterly relaxed, his long legs stretched out before him and his eyelids drooping; but beneath those half-closed eyelids he was warily watching the door through which Anghara had left, uneasy at allowing her away by herself. Only when she emerged again, wrapped carefully in her dark cloak, did an unspoken tension leave his shoulders, and he leaned back against the wall.
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