Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Makke nodded and sent both of the little ones tumbling away with pats to their hindquarters. In the past few weeks, she had been spending more and more time in the gryphons' suite, time that had nothing to do with any cleaning that was needed. All Makke's children were gone, and the twins had obviously aroused in her all the old maternal urges. Zhaneel had been more confident with Makke in charge of the nursery than she had been in entrusting the safety of the little ones to the young and obviously childless "nursemaids" supplied by the chief of the serving staff.

  Makke was clearly surprised, despite all her earlier talks with Zhaneel, that anyone of Zhaneel's rank would grant her such a privilege. She had even protested, once or twice, that this was not the sort of thing that she should be allowed to do.

  "But you have been a mother, have you not?" Zhaneel had said, with patient logic.

  Makke had nodded slowly.

  "And you know and love children, you see my two imps as children and not as some sort of odd pet." That was the problem with the "nursemaids," who had probably been brought in from the ranks of those normally in attendance on the many animals that courtiers brought with them. The girls treated the gryphlets as beloved pet animals, not as children—expecting a degree of self-sufficiency from them that the youngsters simply didn't have yet. They might be as large as any of the biggest lion-hunting mastiffs, but you simply couldn't leave them alone for any length of time without them getting themselves into some kind of trouble. Tadrith, in particular, had a genius for getting himself into situations he couldn't get out of.

  "That is so, great lady," Makke had admitted.

  "Then you are the correct person to help me with them," Zhaneel had said firmly. "We of White Gryphon count what is in one's heart far more important than what caste one is born into. For those of us who shared the same trials, bore the same burdens, rank has come to mean very little."

  Normally Makke came to the nursery with smiles wreathing her wrinkled old face, but tonight she had been unaccountably gloomy. Now she watched the two youngsters play with such a tragic hunger in her eyes that it might as well be the last time she ever expected to do so. Even as Zhaneel watched, the old woman blinked rapidly, as if she were attempting to hold back tears with an effort.

  "Makke!" Zhaneel exclaimed, reaching out to her. "What is wrong?"

  "Nothing, nothing, great lady—" Makke began, but then her resolve and her courage both crumpled, and she shook her head, tears spilling out of her soft dark eyes and pouring over her withered cheeks. "Oh, lady—" she whispered tightly, blotting at her eyes with her sash. "Oh, lady—I am old, my children are gone, I have nowhere to go—and I must leave the Court—I have disgraced myself and I will be dismissed, and once I have been dismissed, I will die. There is nowhere that will shelter me—"

  "Dismissed?" Zhaneel interrupted sharply. "Why? What could you possible have done that they would dismiss you for? I need you, Makke, isn't that—"

  "But you cannot trust me, lady!" Makke wailed softly, her face twisted with despair, the tears coming faster. "You must not trust me! I have failed in my duty and my trust, and you cannot ever dare to trust me with so precious a thing as your children, can you not see that? And I will be dismissed because I have failed in my trust! I must be dismissed! It is better that a worthless old rag as I should go after so failing in my duty!"

  "But what have you done?" Zhaneel persisted, now seriously alarmed. "What on earth have you done?" A hundred dire possibilities ran through her mind. Makke was old, and sometimes the old made mistakes—oh, horrible thought! Could she have accidentally hurt or poisoned someone? Could she have let the fact that she suspected the Kaled'a'in of having mind-magic slip to one of the Priests? Could she have allowed someone of dubious reputation into the Palace?

  Could she even, somehow, have been indirectly involved in the murders Skan had been accused of?

  "Tell me!" Zhaneel demanded, insistently. "Tell me what you have done!"

  "I—" Makke's face crumpled even further, and her voice shrank to a hoarse whisper, as she yielded to the long habit of instantly obeying those in a caste above hers. "I—oh, great lady! It is dreadful—dreadful! I have cast disgrace over myself for all time! I lost someone's—" Her voice fell to a tremulous whisper. "laundry."

  She—no—Zhaneel felt her beak gaping open. "You—what?" She shook her head violently. "You lost—laundry? And for this you would be dismissed and disgraced?" She shook her head again, and the words made no more sense than they had before. She blurted out the first thing that came into her mind. "Are you people insane?"

  She did not doubt Makke, nor that events would follow precisely as Makke described. But—dismissal? For that?

  "Great lady—" Makke dabbed at her eyes and straightened a little, trying to meet Zhaneel's gaze without breaking down again. "Great lady, it is a matter of honor, you see. If it were my own laundry, or that of the Chief of Servants—or even that of a ranking lady, it would be of—of less concern. But it is the envoy's laundry that I have lost. I must be dismissed, for there is no greater punishment for such carelessness, and it is our way that the punishment must equal the rank of the victim. This is—in our law, it is the same as if I had stolen his property. I am a thief, and I deserve no better, surely you must see this."

  "I see nothing of the kind," Zhaneel said stoutly. "I see only that this is all nonsense, quickly put right with a word to Amberdrake. Unless—" She clenched her claws in vexation; if Makke had already told the Chief of the Servants what had happened, there was no way that Zhaneel could save the situation. "You haven't told anyone but me yet, have you?"

  Makke shook her head miserably. "I have not yet confessed my crime, great lady," she said, tears pouring down her cheeks afresh. "But I wanted to say farewell to you and to the little ones before my dismissal. Please forgive—"

  "There is nothing to forgive, Makke, and I do not want you to report this until you and I have had a chance to speak with Skandranon and Amberdrake—" Zhaneel began, reaching out her left talon to surreptitiously hook the hem of Makke's robe so that the old woman could not run off without tearing herself free of Zhaneel's grip. "I…"

  The door to the suite opened, thudding into the wall.

  Makke and Zhaneel turned as one, as surprised by the fact that no one had knocked as the fact that the door had hit the wall.

  Winterhart stood in the doorway, one hand clutching a wreath of tawny-gold lilies, the other at her throat, convulsed around an elaborate necklace of carved amber lilies and solid gold and bronze sun-disks. Her face was as pale as a cloud, and her expression that of a stunned deer.

  She stumbled into the room as Makke and Zhaneel stared, and fumbled the door shut behind her.

  "Winterhart?" Zhaneel said, into the leaden silence. "What is wrong?"

  Winterhart looked at Zhaneel as if she had spoken in some strange tongue; she licked her lips, blinked several times, and made two or three efforts to reply before she finally got any words out.

  "The—King," she said hoarsely, her eyes blank with disbelief. "Shalaman—"

  "What about him?" Zhaneel persisted, when she fell silent.

  But when Winterhart spoke again, it was Zhaneel's turn to stare with disbelief.

  "He—" Winterhart's hands crushed the lilies, and her knuckles whitened under the strain. "He has asked me to marry him."

  * * *

  "You must confine us both to our suites," Skandranon was insisting, to an increasingly alarmed Leyuet. "You must place us under guard, if you will not imprison us."

  Frantically, Leyuet looked around for a higher authority, but the King and Palisar were both gone, Silver Veil had vanished earlier with Amberdrake, and only he and Skandranon were together in this little side-chamber. This, of course, was precisely the way Skan wanted things.

  He's one of Shalaman's protocol administrators. These demands are going to send him into a spinning frenzy. He can't grant them, of course. I already made the bold, dramatic gesture, which forced the King t
o counter it with a bold, dramatic sign of trust.

  "The Emperor has decreed that nothing of the kind is to occur," Leyuet said at last, forced to rely on his own judgment. "You must not be placed under arrest. Such a thing would be dishonorable. It is impossible to agree to this demand of yours."

  I know, Skan thought smugly. That's why I made it.

  "Are you saying that I am free to move about this Court as I will? That this is what the Emperor wants?" Skan retorted, allowing skepticism to creep into his voice. "That can't be right."

  "I tell you, it is!" Leyuet insisted, his face now so contorted with concern that it resembled a withered fruit. "You must move freely about the Court—nay, the Court, the Palace, the entire city! This is the King's decree! This is how he shows his trust in you!"

  There is a certain glint in his eyes... I think he has finally figured out that this might be a better move on their part than trying to keep us locked up. After all, that didn't work before. If we actually were guilty, this kind of freedom might make us careless, and give them a chance to trap us, and I'm sure those are precisely the thoughts that are going through Leyuet's mind at this very moment.

  So, there would probably be watchers, covert and overt, keeping an eye on Skan and Amberdrake at all times. That was just fine with Skandranon. He wanted to be watched.

  He continued to express doubt, though, and Leyuet continued to express the King's wishes, and all the while he was making plans, grateful that it was very difficult to read a gryphon's facial expressions.

  I will wait until Kechara contacts me tonight, and I will tell Judeth to send only the Silvers and keep the rest of the delegation at home. I'll tell her to fortify White Gryphon. We might yet need to defend the settlement before this is over.

  And he had one more request of Judeth; one he knew that she would understand. He had a list of things he wished her to take out of the storage chests in his lair—and he would ask her to prepare and send a cask of ebony feather-dye.

  And last, but by no means least, he would bid her to tell the settlement of White Gryphon that the Black Gryphon was back.

  The Black Gryphon is back.

  Shalaman had long been in the habit of listening to his court secretaries with half of his mind, while the other half mused on subjects that had nothing to do with the minor issues at hand. Whatever he left to the secretaries to read to him was minor, after all; that was why he had them read these letters to him after Evening Court and the Entertainment, and just before he retired. He had a mind that was, perhaps, a trifle too active; he needed to tire it or he would never be able to sleep.

  So the secretaries read the innumerable petitions, and he grunted a "yes," "no," or "later—delay him," and he let his thoughts circle around other quarry.

  Tonight, they circled Winterhart, that strange, pale beauty from the North. Engaging—nay, fascinating! She had many of the attributes of the incomparable Silver Veil, but unlike a kestra'chern, Winterhart was attainable....

  Silver Veil could never give heart and soul to any single person. No kestra'chern can. That is why they are kestra'chern; their hearts are too wide for a single person to compass. But Winterhart—ah, Winterhart—

  Like Silver Veil in elegance, in grace... not precisely a shadow of the kestra'chern, but reachable. Shalaman had learned, if he had learned anything at all, that there was no point in yearning for the unattainable. Better to have the moonflower that one could touch than to lose one's heart to the moon.

  Logic gave him plenty of arrows to spend against the target of Palisar's inevitable objections. This would be a valuable gesture; even in the light of the murders. Should Amberdrake prove to be the murderer, he will be repudiated, and wedding her would mollify the northerners. Marrying her would create the kind of alliance that would bring them into my Kingdom as vassals rather than allies. The gryphons alone are worth wedding her for!

  So he would tell Palisar and Leyuet—though he did not think that the Truthsayer would object, only the Speaker.

  He would not tell them his other reasons.

  This is the kind of woman, like Silver Veil, who could make me happy when I am not in the Court's gaze. Silver Veil was not always there when he needed—company, companionship, pure and simple. She had other duties, others who needed her skills as much as he. Winterhart could be only for him.

  She said little enough about herself, but he sensed that she hid depths that she had not disclosed. She carried herself well, unconsciously projecting a nobility of spirit that spoke of noble birth, just like Silver Veil. But unlike Silver Veil, her surface was not entirely flawless; there were hints of vulnerability. One could reach her if one tried.

  He had ten Year-Sons and two Year-Daughters, born of the Year-Brides of his first decade of rule. He need not wed her for heirs, for he needed none. He could wed her for himself alone.

  The first secretary coughed and reached for water, his throat raw. Shalaman waved to the second to begin where the first had left off, as his thoughts drifted northward—not to Winterhart, but to the place where she had come from.

  White Gryphon; no parrot in the world can crack that palm-fruit. His spies had drifted through the city in the guise of sailors and other harmless sorts, and the word that they sent back was of caution. The city was built for defense, and with very little work could be made impregnable. Technically, it was within his borders—but only technically. If he had to make war upon them, his allies would rightly say that a settlement perched so precariously on the edge of his lands was not worth disputing over. His allies would be correct. There were troubles enough in his Empire without taking on a nasty little border war. The sudden failure of magic and the strange creatures emerging from the deserts and jungles in the wake of magical catastrophe were quite enough to occupy the rest of his tenure on the Lion Throne.

  As for the newcomers themselves, unlike Palisar, he saw no harm in them. They were a fact; they were not going to leave, and their very existence meant a change in Haighlei ways, whether or not anyone admitted it. Precedent was important, too, since there might yet be more Northerners to come. If they came, they would mean change, too.

  We desire change even as we fear it. Like children looking for demons in the dark, but hoping the demons will bring us three wishes, or wealth, or magic carpets to ride....

  And whether or not Palisar liked the presence of the newcomers and the changes they would bring, their discovery on the eve of the twenty-year Eclipse Ceremony was too serendipitous to be coincidental. If I were a religious man, I would call it an omen.

  Even Palisar would accept and embrace a change that was mandated at the height of the Eclipse. When the sun vanishes at midday, then change comes to the Haighlei. That was the word in the holy books themselves, many of which had been written following changes that came with the Ceremonies of the past. It was wise of our gods to give us this. We love things to remain the same, but if they remain the same forever, we will rot as a people. Pah, if they had remained the same forever, we would still be a collection of little villages of thatched huts, hunting with copper-headed spears, growing only yams, lying in fear of the lions in the dark! Or else—a nation more flexible would have discovered us and carried us away to be slaves in their fields.

  "Tell him it is impossible until after the Eclipse," he said, in answer to one of the petitions. "If it is still an issue then, I will reconsider."

  Many of the current petitions could be put off until after the Eclipse. Many of them were not problems at all, only the perception of a problem, and simply delaying a decision would make it less of a perceived problem with every passing day. Others—well, they tied in with the decisions he would have to make about these people from White Gryphon, and none of them could be resolved until he decided what he was going to do about them and made his decrees...

  ...or did not.

  At that point, it would become the problem of his successor, for he did not foresee himself living to see another Eclipse Ceremony. Nothing whatsoever could
be done about the outlanders until the next Ceremony.

  And there are a fair number of Emperors who resolved such tricky problems by just such a postponement, he thought wryly.

  But again, Winterhart came into his thoughts. She could be the perfect, symbolic embodiment of that change; the focus for it, the way to present it to Shalaman's more doubting or hidebound subjects in an acceptable form.

  If only Silver Veil—

  But Silver Veil was a kestra'chern, and she, too, was bound by the edicts of the ages. She was not for any one man. Her office was too important, and not even the Emperor could take her for himself.

  He had already proposed marriage to Winterhart anyway, this evening, before that dreadful interruption of the Entertainment.

  She had been overwhelmed, of course, as any woman would. She had stammered something about being bound to Amberdrake, though, and there was a child, now that he came to think about it—

  Shalaman was too well-schooled to frown, but his thoughts darkened for a moment.

  Still, that may not be a problem for long, after this evening. In a way, the fourth murder had come as something of a blessing. It was rather difficult for even the most sensitive to be dreadfully upset about the death of that harridan, Lady Fanshane. She had moved into the life of Lady Sherisse years ago, turning the poor thing into a man-hating recluse, and she was cordially detested by most of the wiser folk in Shalaman's Court. And once Lady Sherisse had drunk herself into an early grave, Lady Fanshane had been circling the court like a vulture, looking for another victim to fatten on.

  Still, she had been murdered, and murder was a crime most foul (and never mind that in the laws of return, Lady Fanshane could be considered guilty of the murder of her former paramour), and evidence was mounting that it was Amberdrake who was guilty of that crime, and perhaps the previous three murders as well. Once there was enough evidence, Amberdrake would be out of the way, and Winterhart would be free to accept the honor that the Emperor had offered her.