'Indeed. Highfast is not only a place of learning. It is haven, too, for our kind. A refuge from the . . . harshness with which both Huanin and Kyrinin are wont to treat us. Just as Dyrkyrnon is. There are few places where such as you and I can live in peace. Would it surprise you if I said I understood the reasons for that? That, sometimes, I can almost sympathise with those who need so little encouragement to turn upon a na'kyrim in their midst.'
She saw, and felt, the surprise her statement provoked.
'Terrible things were done to many, many na'kyrim after the War of the Tainted, in the Storm Years and since. You know that as well as I do, Eshenna. You know, but perhaps do not consider so much, that terrible things were also done by na'kyrim themselves before that. Orlane, imprisoning the mind of a king and making him betray his own people. Long before him, there was Minon the Torturer; Dorthyn, who bent all his will and strength to the utter destruction of the wolfenkind, of an entire race. Many of them, Eshenna. Many whose gifts became terrible weapons. The Huanin remember Orlane most clearly, and revile his name most bitterly, but he was not the only one, or even the worst.'
'I do not quite understand, Elect,' murmured Eshenna.
'It is my responsibility to preserve Highfast and what it contains. The power of the Shared is unwisely used if it is used to interfere in the arguments of the Huanin. We might mean only to do good, but we would nevertheless only remind the humans of what it is they fear.
'If there is truly a na'kyrim out there amidst all the slaughter in Lannis-Haig, serving the Black Road, now is not the time to risk Highfast's tradition of discretion. The Kilkry warriors on the battlements above swear their oaths of secrecy, but there's no stilling so many tongues. There are already many more people who know we are here, and what we do, than you might imagine. If it becomes common knowledge that a na'kyrim is aiding the Black Road, who is to say that some of the anger that follows - and it will follow - may not be turned on us? It would be better not to remind the world of our existence.'
'Yet,' said Eshenna, 'if it were true that one of the na'kyrim is repeating the errors of the past, does it not fall to us, even more so than to the Bloods, to oppose that error and rectify it?'
Cerys gave a curt laugh. 'Nimble, Eshenna. But not nimble enough to sway me. It has taken centuries to gather the wisdom that is recorded here in our books and manuscripts and scrolls. I would not risk that for the sake of correcting another's mistake. Not until we know a good deal more than we do at present.'
'You must excuse my obstinacy, Elect. Still, I would have thought that the death of one of our own demanded more of an answer.'
'Eshenna,' Cerys said levelly, 'I grieve for Inurian. But we deal in manuscripts here. In study and memory. Not judgement; not execution. My counsel, and that of the Conclave, is patience. We will wait, and we will watch. If it comes to seem that it is right, and best, for us to do something more, no doubt we will. I cannot keep you here if your heart calls you to leave. Highfast is not a prison. But I must ask you, so long as you wish to remain here, to put your trust in the wisdom of the Conclave, and follow its decisions.'
Eshenna bowed her head. 'Of course, Elect,' she said as she rose to leave.
The door was almost closed behind her when Cerys said, 'I would regret it, Eshenna, should you ever choose to leave Highfast. We do need . . . other views to leaven our traditions, sometimes.'
'Thank you, Elect,' she heard Eshenna say, and then the door clicked shut.
Cerys sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. How sweet a few days of peace, and a few nights of undreaming sleep, would be. She knew she was unlikely to be granted them. Still, there were smaller respites to be found. She opened a cabinet and took out the scented candles that she burned only rarely, and on very particular nights. Amonyn would come to her this evening. They had not spoken of it, but she knew he would come. Tonight they would offer one another what comfort they could against the clamour of the outside world.
IV
WITHIN THE WALLS of Gryvan oc Haig's Moon Palace were stored riches beyond the dreams of all save the most avaricious of souls. There were gemstones from the Karkyre Deeps and the Hills of Far Dyne, bars of solid Kilkry-Haig silver, bale upon bale of the finest furs the northern forests could offer, and vials of Nar Vay dyes worth more than gold. And there were treasures from further afield too: the most delicate, detailed copperwork from Tal Dyre; silks and velvets smuggled out of the far south; pearls the size of bird's eggs from the oyster fields of the Dornach Kingship. It was wealth enough to make a man fall into a stupor of amazement and desire. As Mordyn Jerain watched his counters at work cataloguing the plunder gathered from Dargannan-Haig towns, it was not precious stones or jewellery or gold coin that he saw. It was power, and influence over the will of men. Mordyn kept his own hoards sealed behind heavy doors and thick walls in his Palace of Red Stone, his personal army sequestered in its barracks. The Chancellor had long ago realised that many of those in Vaymouth had lapsed into a common kind of reasoning: their judgement of what to do in any given situation had become a simple question of what was most profitable for them. He was not one to decry such frailties. Everyone must have some rule to measure their actions against; some had chosen coin, and that gave the Shadowhand the means to influence them.
The Tal Dyreen turned away and left his men to their work. He climbed up through the intricate stairways and passages of the palace. Even as a youth fresh off his father's ship from Tal Dyre it had been obvious to him that the house of Haig stood upon the threshold of enormous power. Now, for all the uncertainties of the situation, he could smell the possibilities afresh. The Dargannan-Haig Blood, an obstreperous child ever since it had been created by Gryvan's grandfather, was broken and would soon be tamed. Lannis, the least of all the Bloods but a long irritation nevertheless, was routed. Even Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig was weakened and bound now, in time of war, to remember where his proper allegiance lay. All that remained was to drive off the Black Road madmen, and Gryvan could at last turn his full attention upon the prizes to the south: the masterless towns of the Bay of Gold, Tal Dyre and the Dornach Kingship itself. The High Thane might yet, in his lifetime, shape the greatest kingdom the world had ever seen out of these possibilities, and Mordyn would be there at his side as he had always been.
He found Gryvan oc Haig in one of the terrace rooms on the southern side of the palace. The High Thane was reading through papers of some kind, attended by an expectant gaggle of scribes. A songbird chirped in a tall cage wrought from fine threads of precious metal. A flask of wine stood apparently forgotten on a table at the High Thane's side.
Mordyn cleared his throat from a respectful distance. Gryvan looked up, smilingly set the document aside and dismissed his attendants. The Chancellor bowed.
'It is fortunate you came, Mordyn,' said the High Thane. 'I was minded to send for you.'
The Chancellor made to reply, but was distracted by a movement at one of the great open windows that looked out over the terrace. He felt a twinge of irritation as he realised it was Kale, the Thane's shieldman, who had been lurking there unseen. He was like some ageing hound unwilling to be parted for even an instant from its master. Mordyn set the distraction aside and smiled at Gryvan.
'I am at your disposal,' he said. 'The tallying of your recent gains is all but done, and no longer needs my close attention.'
'The least of my gains, that loot,' said Gryvan. 'I find the thought of Igryn safely locked away in my dungeons sweeter than any amount of gemstones. But that is not what I wished of you this afternoon. What word from the north?'
'Nothing new. Most of the valley remains in the hands of the Black Road. Lheanor has, it seems, managed to restrain himself and waits patiently for our armies. If what Lagair tells us is true, the Thane seems to have lost some of his wilfulness, since the death of his son.'
'You still say it is only the Horin-Gyre Blood that has taken the field?'
'Them and the White Owl Kyrinin. There is no report of any other
forces, save a handful of Inkallim. And the ravens are most likely there to keep an eye on Horin-Gyre as much as anything else.'
'Very well. Aewult marches for Kolkyre tomorrow, with ten thousand men. So long as he only faces Horin-Gyre, I think we can be certain of a speedy resolution.'
'I imagine so,' Mordyn murmured. His misgivings about the Bloodheir related not to his prowess on the battlefield but to how he might deal with the aftermath, and with Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig.
'And Croesan and his spawn, what of them?'
Mordyn studiously placed a troubled expression upon his face.
'No word. All the signs would suggest that not one of Croesan's ramily has survived. We cannot be certain of it yet, though.'
The High Thane, by contrast to his Chancellor, could not keep a smile from his lips. The bird was singing in its cage, the melody spilling out between the golden bars.
'We are fortunate, are we not?' Gryvan said. 'Dargannan and Lannis laid low in a single season. We must give some thought to the future of the Glas valley, once the present situation is resolved. Perhaps we need no more Thanes ruling in Anduran, especially now that it appears there are none to lay claim.'
The Chancellor nodded graciously in assent, concealing his disquiet. He could hardly do otherwise, since he had himself long ago planted in Gryvan's mind the idea that a Blood could be unmade just as it could be made. The Aygll Kings, in olden times, had their Wardens who wielded the monarch's authority in the furthest parts of the Kingdom. Why should a High Thane not use his Stewards in the same way? But that had been for later, after the Free Cities on the Bay of Gold, and Tal Dyre, had been added to Gryvan's domains. Taral and Ayth might be subdued and subservient, but until Dargannan, Lannis and Kilkry had been securely and permanently ground down the time would not be right for pulling down the edifice of the Bloods.
'And no Thanes in Dargannan either, perhaps,' mused the High Thane.
'We must be careful not to over-reach ourselves,' said Mordyn.
'Oh, of course,' agreed Gryvan with a nonchalant wave of his hand, as if the Chancellor's caution was some fly to be warded off. 'Not yet, I know. Not yet. But we must always be thinking ahead, must we not? You are the one who always tells me that our future glories depend upon our actions today, tomorrow.'
'They do.'
'It is important that events in Kolkyre and the Glas valley go well. That however things fall out once the Black Road is driven back, they do so in a manner favourable to us.'
Mordyn waited patiently for whatever was to follow. It was obvious that the High Thane, in his clumsy way, was preparing the ground for a suggestion - a command, more likely - that his Shadowhand was not going to like.
'My thought is this,' Gryvan said, leaning forwards with an almost conspiratorial air. 'You should go with Aewult to Kolkyre. You will be valuable to him. A guide.'
One less disciplined than the Chancellor might have let some hint of his dismay show. The Bloodheir was the last person he desired more time alone with. And scurrying around trying to temper the edge of his ill judgement would be wearying. The Chancellor's mind sifted the options in a moment. There were only two, and his every instinct said the first - trying to change the High Thane's decision -- would not work. So, he reasoned with a heavy heart, it must be the second.
'Very well,' he said. 'I will offer the Bloodheir whatever assistance I can.'
'Good.' The Thane of Thanes seemed genuinely pleased, perhaps even pleasantly surprised, at Mordyn's acquiescence. 'I know, Mordyn, you have your differences with Aewult. I do not blame you. He can be impulsive, careless. A little harsh, perhaps. But he will be Thane after me, as sure as fawns follow the rut. He has much to learn, and I can think of no better teacher than you.'
'I will need a little time to put matters in order,' the Shadowhand said, with the slightest of bows, 'and to placate my wife.'
Tara would not be pleased, and her displeasure could be fearsome. She would not accompany him - she was too fond of her comforts to exchange them for wintry Kolkyre - yet his absences pained her more with each passing year. They hurt him as well. When he had been young he might have scoffed at the prospect, for the marriage had been at least partly driven by self-interest on both their parts, but virtually without their noticing it, powerful bonds had grown between the two of them. She had almost died in losing, for the second time, a child of his before its birthing time. The fear he had felt then, as he glimpsed a future without her, had been enough to drive the desire for a son out of his mind. He would never again risk the loss of that which was most precious to him.
The High Thane brushed the bars of the birdcage with a finger. The prisoner hopped a little closer on its perch and leaned forwards, half-spreading its wings. When it realised no food was being offered it began to sing again.
'Stupid, these birds,' Gryvan murmured, then smiled and shrugged his shoulders. 'My wife likes them. What can I do? We are all slaves to those we love.'
It was on the eve of his departure that a young manservant came to find Mordyn. He was in his reading chamber, perusing reports from his informants at Ranal oc Ayth-Haig's court in Dun Aygll.
'What is it?' Mordyn demanded irritably.
'There is a messenger here, my lord,' the youth said as he bowed. 'Not an official one: someone we've never seen before. She insists on speaking only with you, and will not leave. We have her in the guardroom. She is . . . unclean.'
'I am not in the mood for messages. Send her away.'
'Yes, lord. She did say . . . she did say you would hear her out. She said she brought word for the supplicant.'
Mordyn hung his head in thought for a moment.
'You said unclean. How so?'
'The King's Rot, my lord. Foul...'
'Very well. Has she been searched?'
'The guards say she is unarmed, lord.'
Mordyn went to the guardroom as much out of curiosity as anything. For Torquentine to send his precious doorkeeper in person, the message must be of some import.
When he reached the guardroom, he sent everyone away and sat before Magrayn alone.
'I never thought to welcome you to my home, doorkeeper,' he said.
She wore her hood pulled far forwards, keeping much of her face in shadow. How the guards must have cursed when they pulled that hood back, Mordyn thought.
'I will not linger,' she rasped. 'I think your men find my presence unsettling.'
'I imagine you're right. Let me hear your master's message, then.'
'His exact words: I hear you are bound for Kolkyre, noble Chancellor. There is a man I have heard of, in Lheanor's city. A wretch; worse than that, a leech. Ochan by name, a usurer by nature. And a dealer in stolen goods, a smuggler, a blackguard of the vilest ilk. It would be to the good of the Bloods and all honest traders if he were brought to justice, yet it seems he is under the wing of some protector. There would be no debts between us, should your presence in Kolkyre coincide with this Ochan's fall.'
Mordyn laughed. 'So I am to be the long arm of Torquentine's revenge upon some minor rival, am I?'
Magrayn remained quite still and quite silent.
'Well, go back and tell your master I will consider it. But make him no promises; be clear on that, Magrayn. No promises. And compliment him on the skills of his eavesdroppers. It's only a day since I decided to go to Kolkyre, after all.'
When Torquentine's doorkeeper had departed, Mordyn remained for a minute or two alone in the guardroom, a faint smile playing across his lips. One had to admire Torquentine's presumption. It took a considerable amount of self-confidence to seek to use the Chancellor of the Haig Bloods thus. Still, Mordyn would think on it. There might be some merit in exerting a little of the High Thane's authority in Kolkyre; bringing down someone Lheanor's own people had allowed to prosper would be an elegant demonstration of the Haig Blood's primacy.
V
KOLDIHRVE, ORISIAN COULD not help but think, stank. Of fish and freshly butchered meat, of smoke and stagnant pools, o
f filth: smells he knew well enough from Kolglas, but here they had a different intensity. It was noisy, too. The muddy, puddled streets were filled with shouting and cries. Ear-grating singing assaulted them when they passed by a half-derelict tavern.
There were wild-looking men leading mules laden with furs and carcasses and baskets of turnips; old, crumpled women talking animatedly in doorways or through windows. Scrawny dogs loped up and down, noses to the ground and eyes darting nervously this way and that as if haunted by a lifetime of stonings. The houses were rough and ready, many of them little more than wooden shacks thrown up with whatever timber had come to hand.
Varryn and Ess'yr had parted from them before they entered the town, making for the vo'an on the other side of the river. Ess'yr had promised to find them later. Orisian noted the curiosity with which the town's inhabitants watched them pass, even without Kyrinin walking alongside them. There were many frowns, and words muttered behind hands.
'Old Hammarn lives down by the water,' said Yvane. She proceeded down Koldihrve's streets utterly oblivious of the unpleasant distractions that assailed them, and the questioning, unfriendly looks cast their way.
They passed by the rotting corpse of a dog half-hidden beneath a wooden boardwalk. A small group of children, their clothes ragged and their faces smudged with dirt, yelled abuse at them, and fled in a squall of laughter when Rothe cast them a black glare.
Even the sea, when they came to it, was a grey and leaden thing compared to the ever-shifting expanse that washed the edge of Orisian's homeland. The water slapped disconsolately upon the muddy shore. There were small boats lying at strange angles here and there, hauled up out of the water and tied down. Koldihrve stood at the highest reach of a long and snaking estuary that protected it from the storms of the open oceans, so there was no need for the protective breakwaters of Kolglas and Glasbridge. There was only a handful of crude wooden jetties. The huts that lined the top of the beach were rickety affairs, half of them made of driftwood.
Godless World 1 - Winterbirth Page 48