“Everything all right?” he murmured.
She tossed a bundle on the seat beside him and sat down. “No problems. Is it time?”
“Still early. But sunset is near. We can stay here for a while longer, and then we’d better start making our way to the palace lake.” His eyes flickered. “If there’s anyone there to meet us.”
“There will be,” said Anghara, her voice thoughtful but nonetheless ringing with conviction. Her faith might have lapsed for a moment or two, but now, close to the consummation of her plan, it was back, burning stronger than ever.
“I only hope there won’t be more than we bargained for.”
“He’s a soldier, like you,” Anghara said. “If he undertakes to do something, knight’s honor will ensure he sees it accomplished according to his given word. Isn’t that what you would do?”
“I’m not a prince,” Kieran said.
A crown, the old crone had said, and the memory broke into his voice, brought a sudden tension into his words. He gazed at Anghara helplessly, caught up in the honeyed trap of his love for a woman who would be queen. I never wanted this. I wasn’t born to claim royalty.
But he couldn’t ask her to lay it aside—not after he had fought and schemed to seize it back for her. He could either stay with her—as simply another of her captains and generals, a leader of her armies—or run, seek his fortune alone in the lands beyond the mountains, of which he knew no more than myth, fable and tangled travellers’ tales.
A crown. He could take a third path. He could declare himself, tell her of his feelings…ah, had things been different, he would have married her and taken joy in it—but she was royal, would be queen on the oldest throne in their world, and that carried responsibilities of its own. Queens did not—could not—marry for love.
But he pushed those thoughts away. Now was not the time; he needed all his focus and concentration upon the task at hand. Despite Anghara’s confidence, there was a great deal of danger; Kieran was far from sure a soldier’s honor would prevail over a prince’s sense of expediency. Whatever else he might be, Favrin was still Duerin’s son—and Kieran knew Anghara would never have contemplated doing what she was about to do with Duerin Rashin.
The light was deep gold outside, the afternoon almost over. Kieran swallowed the last dregs of wine in his cup and rose. “It’s time we were moving.”
Sunset caught them in the city, with lamplighters passing from lamp to lamp in the main thoroughfares and yellow light from open windows spilling out onto the canals. They sometimes heard music as they passed beneath, or a delicate laugh, a murmur of conversation somewhere above. A woman dressed in scarlet waved in their direction with a feathered fan from a balcony. Kieran froze, waiting for someone to lay a heavy hand on his shoulder—but the footsteps, when they came, were light and joyous, and a young man, wearing an elaborate half-mask beneath a floppy hat adorned with more feathers, pushed past him and hurried toward the balcony. Kieran let out a shaky breath. “Nobody here could possibly know our identity—at least, not yet,” he said softly. “Still…I wish I could get rid of the feeling that everyone is play-acting and knows exactly who you are.”
“What time is it?” Anghara asked doggedly. Kieran realized she hadn’t even seen the painted woman wave from above, and the young gentleman hurrying past had left no more impression than a ghost. Anghara had an assignation with destiny that night—other dalliances were invisible in the light of her own.
“We’ll be there on the appointed hour,” Kieran said, almost laughing. “Don’t be so keen to walk into this web; I’m still far from certain you’ll be able to walk out of it with impunity.”
The scribe had assisted when Anghara planned her assignation—she had wanted to make it on the main quay, to wait for Favrin’s boat and escort out in the open, but Kieran hadn’t liked the idea and the scribe, unexpectedly, had concurred. There was another quay, he told them, to the west of the palace lake—more discreet. A postern quay, he’d called it, hiding what Kieran was sure had been a smile behind his delicate cough and the concealing gesture of his narrow brown hand. This was the place where Anghara’s letter had told Favrin his visitor would be waiting an hour after sunset. Now, as they approached, Anghara in the lead and Kieran a step behind with blade loosened in the scabbard, they could see a boat. Two men waited aboard—a slope-shouldered oarsman, and another, face shadowed beneath a hat similar to that gracing the young nobleman they had encountered outside the bawdyhouse. Favrin’s emissary wore a heavily brocaded robe over ruby-colored doublet and hose, and from the shadows cast by the improbable hat, his hair gleamed in long golden curls in the light of a single torch affixed to the boats prow.
“But they dress well, these southerners,” Anghara said softly, while she and Kieran were still out of earshot. “I heard they liked peacocks in their gardens; I’m beginning to understand why.”
But Kieran had seen past the obvious. “That blade he is wearing is no prop,” he said. “The velvets and brocades—it’s all show; remember, we’ve been fighting these men in southern Roisinan since…since you and I sat discussing their tactics in Feor’s schoolroom. They’ve taught us many things, not least that they are to be respected. Danger is all the more perilous when you’re lulled into believing it doesn’t exist. Careful—he’s coming ashore; the hood.”
Anghara reached out and pulled the hood of her cloak forward over her face. The man had stepped out of the boat and stood waiting as they approached, features shadowed by the brim of his velvet hat.
“I am Moran.” He offered first greeting as they came to within a few paces and stopped. “I am Prince Favrin’s chamberlain. You are the one seeking him under the royal seal of Roisinan?”
Kieran nodded in silence.
Moran offered them a shallow, courtly bow. “My lord will meet with you,” he said. “He has bid me welcome you to the White Palace of Algira, under his own protection. The boat waits to convey you.”
Kieran knew Anghara was smiling beneath her concealing hood. He didn’t need Sight to sense a delighted I told you so in the gray eyes he knew were looking at him. “We come under the protection of your master’s word,” Kieran replied.
Moran waited until they climbed into the boat and then followed them, nodding to the oarsman. The other man, having sat patiently through the protocol, now bent over his oars. The boat slid across the still water almost without a sound.
In silence Moran signalled for his lord’s mysterious night visitors to follow him when they reached the other side. They were here under Favrin’s sworn protection, yet Kieran glanced round warily as they crossed an area of open lawn and plunged into the shadows of an alley of tall bushes bearing sweet-scented white flowers, so pure in color they seemed to almost glow in the dark. It seemed Favrin had a taste for secrecy—which was not entirely unexpected. These guests were to be conveyed into his presence through small and secret gates, not through the bright and guarded main entrance.
“This way,” Moran said, speaking softly, opening a narrow door beneath a trellis wreathed with climbing roses.
They entered a tiled corridor, new torches burning in iron sconces set at intervals into the walls. The men’s boots woke a soft echo on the tiles; but no one crossed their path as they passed along the corridor and beyond into another, broader and more opulent, where the wall sconces were silver and the echo of their footsteps dulled by soft carpets. Moran glanced up and down the deserted corridor, crossed it, climbed up a flight of stairs with a wooden banister elaborately carved into the shapes of sea-beasts, and turned into another long passageway. Stopping at the third door along, he opened it and motioned them inside.
They found themselves in a small anteroom, panelled in some blond wood, sparsely furnished with a low table and a brace of wooden chairs. The very simplicity of the chamber here in the heart of a prince’s apartments pronounced the room to be one of service, not pleasure. A guardroom. It was empty, or seemed to be; but Moran paused.
“I have to
ask you to leave your weapons here,” he murmured, still flawlessly correct. “They will be quite safe.”
It didn’t have to be an order. They were in a king’s palace, and even mild requests would be backed with force if necessary. Kieran had been expecting something like this, a ritual disarming before entering into the presence of royalty; that still didn’t mean he liked the idea. He stripped off his sword belt, the white ki’thar skin of Kheldrin, with reluctance, leaving sword and dagger on the table. Moran, with a curious air of mingled diffidence and implacability, glanced toward Anghara’s muffled shape.
“Not armed,” Kieran said shortly. Moran hesitated, and then decided to take this at face value. As well he did, Kieran thought, else their ruse would have been blown right here.
And ruse it was, because the letter Anghara had sent, except for the royal seal affixed to whet Favrin’s appetite, gave no indication as to the identity of the Prince’s visitors—merely that they came with a message from Roisinan, hinting obliquely at the messengers’ high birth. As Moran ushered them into the room where Favrin Rashin waited, Kieran had the satisfaction of seeing Favrin’s face change when Anghara stepped inside, flinging her cloak back to reveal the piled red-gold hair and the golden Kheldrini robe.
“Your Grace,” said Kieran, “I present Anghara Kir Hama, rightful Queen of Roisinan.”
13
Favrin had known the moment Anghara stepped into his chamber—any number of men could have gained admittance to him under that seal, but only one woman. That instant of surprise was gone almost before it came; what was left in its wake was admiration, and genuine astonishment.
Favrin mastered himself, allowed a small smile to play upon his lips, and bowed deeply in the elaborate fashion of the southern court.
“You honor my house,” he said. The words could have been facetious. They were not; but those that followed were. Dangerously so. “When Sif Kir Hama ascended the Throne Under the Mountain, we were given to understand it was over the dead bodies of your father, your mother…and yourself. I always had my doubts about the truth behind the tomb in the Miranei mausoleum which bears your name; it is gratifying to have them vindicated.”
“My father’s and my mother’s are real enough,” Anghara said. Her eyes were hard, gray flint; it had been unwise of Favrin to have mentioned Red Dynan. Anghara’s father had, after all, met his death through an arrow fired on Rashin orders.
Favrin shrugged the moment off. “But I am remiss in my duties. May I offer you a glass of wine? It comes from my own vineyards, a vintage of which I am, I think, justly proud.”
“Thank you,” Anghara said simply.
Favrin turned to Kieran, all southern courtesy. “For you, my lord?”
“No,” Kieran said. “Thank you.”
The offer had been a fishing expedition, the wine merely bait, but Kieran offered nothing further by way of introduction, leaving Favrin in the dark as to his identity. Favrin, however, took this adroit reflection of his probe smoothly enough; he inclined his head gravely in acknowledgment of Anghara’s reply, and turned to pour a measure into her glass. Kieran watched him closely, through narrowed eyes. If poison had been contemplated, now would be the time to introduce it. But Favrin poured from the same decanter into both his glass and Anghara’s; unless he was contemplating suicide, there was no poison here.
He was fair to look upon, the Prince of Algira; Favrin Rashin crossed the room to Anghara, bearing two glasses filled with dark red wine, moving with a courtier’s elegance, a fighter’s grace. His father, Duerin, was a classic south-erner—short and swarthy, black-eyed and olive-skinned with curly dark hair. Favrin was different—so different he could almost be taken for a changeling. His mother had been a woman from the north, and he took after her, tall and golden-haired, his eyes as blue as the ocean. Kieran watched him gaze on Anghara as she raised her head slightly to meet those eyes; they made a picture fit for a tapestry depicting the proud and beautiful kings and queens of ancient legend. Favrin knew it, of course—he was playing for effect. But a certain amount of arrogance was allowed a man who almost single-handedly changed the face of warfare in Roisinan.
“There were rumors, of course, that you were very much alive and hidden, waiting to reclaim your inheritance,” Favrin continued smoothly, picking up the thread of the conversation. “But it was all too easy to dismiss these, especially as we started many of them ourselves. They worked in our favor, after all.”
“As long as Sif feared someone might heed them enough to hold Miranei in my name in his absence, he couldn’t venture far from his throne,” Anghara said, nodding, twirling her glass between her fingers. “You hobbled the great warrior. The rumors made it safe for you to pursue your war, because you could wait Sif out, and wear him down, knowing you were protected from invasion. You could stop one every time simply by firing up a new round of rumors in Miranei.”
“Quite,” said Favrin, amused at this succinct summary of his tactics by this unlikely hearth-guest.
“Just how long were you planning to keep up this cat and mouse game?” she asked, sounding genuinely interested.
Favrin shrugged. “Now would seem like a good time to stop.” His blue eyes were glinting dangerously through the unexpectedly dark lashes of half-lowered eyelids. “Now that Sif plans to spend his summer chasing wild geese in the Kheldrini desert, I assume the purpose of your…visit…is to offer me an alternative to sweeping into Roisinan and gathering it into the palm of my hand while he isn’t looking?”
He was certainly well informed. But Anghara’s eyes were steady.
“How very perceptive, my lord,” said Anghara, and there was an acid sting in the compliment. “Do not be deceived—I do not come to bargain for my country. I have one inestimable advantage over my brother. I don’t have to lead my own armies; I can hold Miranei while men I trust take this war of yours to the thresholds of Algira.”
“But you do not hold Miranei,” said Favrin, eyes still hooded.
Anghara lifted her chin, eyes sparkling in challenge. “Neither do you.”
Favrin smiled; his teeth were very white, and oddly sharp. It gave his face the cast of a hunting cat scenting prey. “This interests me,” he said. “I anticipated this evening would be stimulating when I saw your seal, but this surpasses all expectations. Will you join me on the balcony, my lady? The night is balmy, and the view from this room has always been spectacular.”
Anghara assented with a small inclination of the head, briefly catching Kieran’s eye as she turned to gather the cloak she’d unfastened and let fall. This is my game; everything stands or falls by what happens here tonight. Watch; wait. Be ready if I need you.
Kieran’s face remained impassive but his eyes were alert and watchful as they followed Anghara and Favrin through the open doors and onto the broad terrace. Their conversation, resuming after a lull, became a delicate murmur; if he concentrated furiously Kieran could barely make out what they were saying. With an almost equal fury he made himself do the opposite, listening only for a possible change of cadence, for signs of fear or anger from his lady. This, indeed, was her game. Here, in the palace by the sea, far from the seat of her own power, she could reach out and win her land back, whole and complete, finally free of the war that had been eating at its southern borders for years…or she could lose it utterly.
Favrin had seated Anghara courteously into a high-backed chair of lacy wickerwork, himself choosing to perch with dangerous abandon upon the stone parapet, seemingly oblivious to the drop on the other side. It was a pose, of course; Anghara felt a stab of what was almost irritation, but it was quickly swamped by something else—a wry amusement, perhaps, that he should feel the need for it. He was cut from a fighter’s cloth, easily Sif’s match as a leader of men, and had proved himself one of the best soldiers of his generation. But there was something engaging in his need to demonstrate his courage sprang from something much greater—from a right of blood, the courage of princes. Favrin was older than Anghara, by
not a few years, but she, younger, untried, felt no need to prove anything. Perhaps it did spring from royalty, the spirit and the courage so rampant in this room. Hers was the older line by far, already proved by the impetuous princelings of its youth and steady in the knowledge of its mature strength and abilities.
For all that, Favrin was worthy of being called prince. It was hardly his fault he had chosen to match wits with a queen.
He raised his glass to his lips now, his back ostentatiously to the view, and took a slow sip. Over the rim of the glass his eyes, bright and steady, remained upon Anghara’s face; they had never left it.
“If, as you say, you are not here to bargain for your country,” Favrin said, “then to what, exactly, do I owe the pleasure of your company? I can hardly put it down to a burning desire to meet one you doubtless see as an implacable enemy of Roisinan.”
“Aren’t you?” Anghara murmured into her wine.
“Hardly,” said Favrin, and his tone was mocking again. “In fact, I love it so well I would have it all as my own.”
Anghara didn’t smile at the jest. “This war was of your father’s making.”
“In the beginning,” Favrin admitted. “I wasn’t at the battle that felled Red Dynan. But afterward, when my lord father saw fit to give me command of the armies…and when I realized what truly was at stake…yes, it became my war. There was a time when a Rashin sat on the Throne Under the Mountain. There is a portrait of this ancestor of mine here in the palace. I could show you, if you would care to see. The crown of Miranei sits well on his brow.”
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