“There’s nothing down her throat that I can see, sir,” Kaarl told the Vashtun’s Second, closing the mouth and wiping his knife on his leggings. “Nothing that’s not supposed to be there already. If she was killed by magic, it was an invisible sort.”
“Interesting,” remarked Diamar, in his dispassionate way. If he was angry that some sorcerer had killed on the very steps of the Shadrun sanctuary, he didn’t show it. “It does appear very clear that House Jadaren, in its official capacity, had nothing to do with this unfortunate attack.”
“I will swear under any penalty we did not,” declared Arna.
“A pity we couldn’t find out more,” said Diamar, pulling the cowl back over his shaved head and turning to the Shadrun’s entrance. “But to many who plague our guests, crime is its own reward, just as our gift of sanctuary is ours.”
Lakini was tempted to call out to him, to accuse Sanwar of killing the witness, but she forbore. It was a relief to have the oppressive feeling of something watching and waiting gone from her mind. And Lusk was right. It was none of their concern.
Kill the big guard, the one in charge, Garush had said, referring to Sanwar’s picked man. This was the one who had told the younger guards to relax, that they were within the realm of safety now, that there was no need to be alert. This was the one who had placed his more experienced guards at the rear, knowing an attack would come from the front.
This was the one who must have realized, the moment before the crossbow bolt had killed him, that he’d been betrayed—betrayed by an old friend.
She let her gaze trail over Sanwar Beguine, now in intent conversation with Diamar and Ciari, probably making his demands about the conditions of the negotiations Shadrun-of-the-Snows had condescended to host. The knotted leather cord had vanished, but a light sheen of sweat remained on his brow. As if he knew someone had noticed, he mopped his forehead with his sleeve.
Lusk was right. It would complicate matters to make an accusation, and their sworn duty was the protection of the sanctuary and its visitors from the dangers that were all too common in Faerûn.
Diamar had turned to lead the others into the sanctuary. As he looked back, casually looking at the folk ranged behind him, his gaze brushed across hers. She felt something, gentle but insistent, touch her mind.
Get out of my head, she growled internally, with an annoyance she had not allowed herself to feel before. Like a sea anemone touched roughly, the invisible tendril withdrew.
“Your friend—the Clan Druit boy with the cantrips—did he come with you?”
Startled, Arna glanced up at Ciari. “No. He’s on family business.”
“A shame. I liked him. Tell him to see me about investing in the venture once the knife-sharpening cantrip’s improved.”
“I think he’s planning to,” said Arna, masking his surprise. On impulse he went on. “He hasn’t seen me in some tendays. I think he’s been jealous. And he’s been writing poetry of late. I think he’ll be very glad to hear of this … unexpected development.”
Ciari grinned and patted his cheek. “That’s my boy,” she said.
In the quarters assigned him by the sanctuary’s steward, Sanwar Beguine raged internally. The plan, which had seemed so foolproof before, was a disaster. When he had shared his dismay at his brother’s insane determination to ally the House to their longtime enemy, Harilpina Andula had been sympathetic and referred him to a company of mercenaries that had proved useful to her in several situations requiring both force and secrecy. He had met with Garush and her crew, supplied the cast-off uniforms, and instructed them to kill whomever they wished as long as they spared Kestrel and Ciari and eliminated Nimor.
He regretted the necessity of removing the captain of the guard, who had always been loyal to the House and, since he had a sister who was ruined because of a debt the accountants of House Jadaren had held over her head, understood together with Sanwar who House Beguine’s enemies were. But he had assured Nimor the mercenaries’ mission was to scare, not to kill, and, once blood was shed, he could not be sure the man wouldn’t betray him.
The beauty of the plan was that whatever the outcome, his goal should be accomplished. If men in the livery of House Jadaren savaged a Beguine caravan and kidnapped the daughter of its head, or if the same men were killed but had evidence of being from the enemy House, the result was the same: a rending of the tentative truce between the Houses and an end to this mad plot of marrying Kestrel to the Jadaren whelp.
He had not factored in the interference of those two fighters, those tall, preternaturally still, bizarrely marked creatures who’d attached themselves to the sanctuary. He’d not factored in Garush’s allowing herself to be captured.
And he’d not factored in Arna Jadaren’s already being here, ready to defend his House, to confirm Kestrel’s suspicions about the uniforms. Damn the boy, making moon eyes at Kestrel! It was bound to affect her judgment.
He must assume the worst would happen and make his contingency plan. He drew a deep breath, sat on the simple pallet, and mastered his temper.
There were strange figures painted on the white plaster wall before him. Despite his agitation, he studied them with interest. They were lines drawn in a flat black pigment, and shadowed with another color that looked either blue or purple, but it was hard to determine. It was a color rather difficult to look at. The lines looked as if they had been drawn randomly within a square roughly the length and breadth of Sanwar’s forearm, but, when he looked at them for a minute, they seemed to shift and form a mathematical figure, unknown to him but certainly drawn with some sort of intent.
As he looked at it, the last of his anger dissipated. He didn’t know how long he’d sat there before he realized the lines were vibrating, quivering in time to a hum that had built up, almost unnoticeably, in his head.
The figure couldn’t be moving or making a sound. It must be some kind of trick of the light. When he rose and went closer to examine the sharp angles and interwoven circles, the illusion of movement vanished and the sound died away.
He reached out to touch it. When his forefinger was just shy of the pigment, he heard a voice in his head, an articulate voice that spoke carefully as if it were translating from one language to another.
Why your anger? the voice queried.
He should be alarmed at the notion of an alien voice in his mind, he knew. But it didn’t seem real. It seemed simply a fancy, a way of one part of his consciousness communicating with another.
He concentrated, playing the exercise of ordering his tumultuous emotions for the examination of an outsider, trying to find a way to victory through defeat.
The members of House Jadaren were little better than pirates, and had found ways to cheat House Beguine over and over again. More than one competitor and jealous noble had tried to infiltrate them from the inside, to find a way to strike at them from within. But the House’s headquarters, the heart and brain of their organization, was within a tunnel-riddled volcanic lump, thoroughly protected and warded with powerful spells set in place by the Jadarens’ buccaneer ancestor. How he was able to do it no one knew; the Jadarens were not well-known for their spellcraft.
Send an agent. The thought surfaced in his mind, and he laughed. He well knew many had tried. He himself had tried.
Send an agent who doesn’t know she is an agent. An agent of your blood. Send … What is the word? Your daughter.
Sanwar sat and stared at the odd glyphs, feeling as if he’d been given the last half of an equation that had stymied him for years; a formula breathtaking in its simplicity.
He reached into his shirt for a soft leather pouch and with the tips of his fingers pulled out a slip of parchment, folded lengthwise. Inside were five long hairs, brown with glints of amber. He held them carefully between forefinger and thumb, considering.
He remembered when Vorsha, weeping, had brought them to him, trusting he’d do what he promised. At the time, he had every intention of doing just that: creating a charm of protection th
at would ward Kestrel in the midst of her enemies. A good idea, he realized now, but not ambitious enough. He could do more.
You can do much more. Especially since you sired her.
It would take planning and careful timing, and would test and tax his skills. But he could do it. With Nicol’s simplicity, Kestrel’s trust, and a few men still loyal to him and his cause, he could do it.
Folding the strands of Kestrel’s hair back into the parchment, he steeled himself to leave the room and meet the others, to feign that he had bowed to fate and intended to support the alliance. At the door, he paused and looked back at the figure on the wall. Some strange decoration, that was all; nothing but the random artistic musing of some pilgrim.
As he turned his back, the blue-purple lines glowed, intensely and briefly, and faded away.
Fandour cautiously probed the hard surface of his prison and contemplated this new information. Since beings from all across the Rogue Plane had journeyed to the place, the sanctuary, they called it, that housed the Vector and the Nexus, Fandour had been able to collect an astonishing amount of information. His imprisoned mind, strengthened by roots inextricably bound into the brains of the first Vashtun and all his successors, probed and questioned and sometimes was able to plant a seed into the folk who visited and revisited Shadrun, bringing news, gifts, sensations, and their own personal histories. Over several hundred years, the fragmented pieces of Faerûn’s varied folk were beginning to fit together, like a puzzle picture that would begin to become distinguishable once partially completed.
Fandour had gleaned information and influenced these little minds to bring him more. The Nexus—the Vashtun, and to a lesser extent his Second, remained Fandour’s primary links to the Rogue Plane, but increasingly he was able to influence other inhabitants of Shadrun. This latest entity—the human who began to engage the small Vector drawn in his room—Fandour could plant a seed in this one. He didn’t understand its emotions. But he could use them.
Over the years, Fandour had become aware of a shadowy place, a fortress warded by enchantments. He couldn’t see into it, but he was connected to it by mortal blood, by pain, by a stripping of its Power. Someone inside that dark place, he knew, was the Rhythanko.
This new entity desired to breach that fortress, and Fandour would help it.
Late that night, Kestrel Beguine sat cross-legged by the light of a single candle, her traveling desk in her lap. Ciari snored gently on the pallet in the corner of the simple room.
The parchment on the sloped surface of the traveling desk bore but one line of writing:
My Dear Father:
Kestrel sat a long time, her quill still in her hand, and contemplated what else to write. Her legs were beginning to cramp, and the flickering light of the candle danced across all surfaces, making her work difficult to see.
Finally she smiled and wrote quickly.
I like the boy. And the boy likes me.
She let the ink dry and put away her quill, rolling up the letter to give to one of the sanctuary messengers tomorrow at first light. Before she blew out the candle and crawled next to Ciari’s warmth, she paused, frowning at the dark line someone had drawn on the clean white plaster wall.
That was a shame. In thanks to the sanctuary, she would try to clean it off in the morning.
NONTHAL, TURMISH
1585 DR—THE YEAR OF THE BLOODIED MANACLES
Is this a time to be doing the accounting?”
Vorsha’s voice broke into Kestrel’s concentration. She checked her last column of figures, drew a line under the sum, and blew on the ink to dry it before she looked up at her mother in the doorway of her chamber.
“All done now. I didn’t want to leave it incomplete for Ciari.”
“Not the saffron prices still?”
“Even so. But I think I’ve given her enough information to go by. And I need to stay in practice. Niema Vral Jadaren sent me a letter, welcoming me in advance to the family, and at the same time making it clear that I’m expected to help with the records.”
Vorsha ventured into the room. “Good thing you like that kind of work.”
“I’m also supposed to keep custody of something. I forgot the name of it. Some artifact that keeps the spells surrounding that big rock of theirs intact.”
Kestrel looked up at her mother with a rueful expression.
“Don’t look at me like that! It’s something to do, at any rate.”
“I don’t blame you. I spent the night before my wedding picking apart the needlework vest that was my gift to your father, and stitching it, and picking it apart again.”
A clouded look passed across her face, but she forced a smile and changed the subject.
“Have you seen your sister? I checked her rooms, and she hasn’t packed a thing! I know she’s not taking her earthly goods and dowry to Jadaren Hold, but she must take something for the road and the ceremony. Why the smile?”
“Ciari was closeted with Vidor Druit all afternoon,” said Kestrel, stifling a giggle. “They’re negotiating each House’s percentage in investment and expected profit for the cantrip venture. I’m sure she’ll be ready by the time we must leave.”
She didn’t mention that she suspected that Ciari and Vidor were negotiating more than a trading agreement. That day Ciari had greeted the emissary of Clan Druit at the door, scolded him up and down for trying to cheat her House, cataloged a number of ambitious trade ventures that had been the ruination of local business, and scoffed at his ability to keep accounts straight. She’d then marched the bewildered but delighted Vidor Druit off to a private chamber and locked the door. Kestrel, restless with the prospect of tomorrow’s journey, paced past the barred room more than once and heard noises of a curious nature, together with snatches of what she suspected to be poetry.
“I see,” said her mother. She seemed about to say something else, then smiled.
“Shall I brush your hair one last time, before you are a married woman?”
Kestrel laid down her quill. “Please do. It will help me sleep tonight.”
Vorsha took up the hairbrush and lifted Kestrel’s tresses back over her shoulders, gathering them together and smoothing them down until the girl’s shoulders started to relax.
“You’re tangled again.”
“You should come and live with us, so you can take care of that.”
“I wish I could.”
For a few minutes there was no other sound but the soft whisper of the brush through Kestrel’s hair and the crackle of the embers in the fireplace.
“Kestrel,” said Vorsha, pausing in her work so that the bristles of the hairbrush were entangled in the mass of her daughter’s thick hair. “Kestrel, I want you to promise me something.”
Kestrel opened her eyes, alert. “What is it, Mother?” she asked.
She couldn’t help but notice that Vorsha had seemed distracted all day. Although she had busied herself in helping Kestrel pack for the journey, and making final repairs to the dresses Kestrel had decided she couldn’t leave behind, Kestrel thought her eyes were darkened by some inner shadow, her smiles veiled with a secret fear. Perhaps it was merely her concern at sending her daughter so far away to live in what had been enemy territory.
Vorsha laid down the brush and drew something from a pouch that dangled on her belt. “You know how concerned your uncle is about your safety. How distrustful he still is of House Jadaren and their motives in this alliance.”
Kestrel sighed. “Yes, I know. He’s made it perfectly clear.”
Vorsha put her hand on Kestrel’s shoulder and held out her hand. On the upraised palm was what looked like a glass bead, looped on a delicate gold chain.
Curious, Kestrel took it between her fingers. The bead was smoother to the touch than it seemed glass could be, as if there were no friction between its surface and her fingertips. The middle was thicker than either end, and inside were swirled tiny ribbons of color—green and blue, and an intense purple so dark it looked black.<
br />
She held it up before the embers of the fire. Embedded in the glass between the colored ribbons were what looked like strands of metal wire: gold, bronze, and copper, all thin as hairs.
“It’s a protective charm—an amulet,” said Vorsha. “Your uncle Sanwar has spent a long time making it. It’s to shield you from magical attack.”
Vorsha’s hand tightened. “I want you to promise me—and your uncle—that you will wear it at all times. On the journey to Jadaren Hold, and while you live there.”
Kestrel’s thumb rubbed the curve of the bead reflexively. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mother. You don’t seriously think Arna’s family—or Arna—wish me harm.”
“Honestly? I don’t suspect that boy of anything but loyalty to his family. And it’s clear he’s fond of you. I think you have as good a chance for happiness as anybody. But this feud has lived longer than any of us, and there might be those in that fortress they call home who still believe in it.”
Like your uncle, she thought, and she knew Kestrel thought it as well.
“Please, Kestrel. Sanwar’s very fond of you. He was most insistent that you should wear it.”
Kestrel sighed and put the charm carefully on the desk beside her ledger book.
“Very well. At the least, it’s very pretty.”
She closed her eyes and let her head dip back. “Brush my hair some more, Mother. It’s the last time you’ll be able to do it for a while, and I don’t want to shock my future in-laws with my hellion appearance. They might back out of the deal.”
“I doubt that,” said Vorsha, picking up the hairbrush, while thinking it might not be a bad thing, after all, if they did.
Early the next morning, the traveling party assembled in the courtyard outside the stables. The new brick paving protected their shoes and the hems of their cloaks from the dust that, no matter how often the area was swept, wisped across the packed dirt where the wagons passed. Ansel Chuit stood near Kestrel, his blue uniform newly pressed and every button shining. His eyes were in constant motion, surveying every corner of the yard as if brigands were likely to be lurking there, and his hand was near the hilt of his sword, as if he would fight every one of them.
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