The Night Holds the Moon

by Roberts, Parke; Thompson, Colleen

  The black-clad guardians of the door saluted her with such alacrity she started. She had forgotten the Royal Elite Guard, the select corps that served only the Queen, her two sons, and now, herself. She faltered, not knowing how to respond, and looked away to the pair of marble statues that flanked the swordsmen. On the left, an old woman raised her eyes skyward. She wore the same enigmatic smile as the child upon the door, but the flute seemed to tumble from her grasp. To the right of her, the girl again, this time in marble. She brandished a flute triumphantly above her head. One foot rested on the prone body of a tall, slender man whose long hair spilled over the statue's base. A horrible mask had fallen away from his face, where pain had been carefully chiseled into the delicate features.

  Impossible, not to recognize the vanquished. Instantly embarrassed for the flesh and blood highlander at her back, Elzin half-turned, an apology whose contents she couldn't begin to guess at rising to her lips.

  But the count hadn't appeared to notice the statues at all. He smiled and waved her encouragingly onward.

  The two Elite bowed deeply to their new charge, although their vigilant gazes never dropped. One blushed as he opened the door for her, and the heat rose to her own face when she realized that only last month she had awakened in his arms. She quickly ducked between the doors. They snicked shut, seemingly weightless behind her.

  "Sweet Telriss!"

  She was surrounded. Along the walls of the great, round room, sixteen women waited; young or old, fat or thin, smiling or not, each bore three things in common: their plain, thick robes, a flute held in various attitudes and, their marble skins. Elzin examined the friendliest, a grown woman who marched boldly forward, a welcoming hand extended and her mouth open as if she called a greeting. FETHZANN, the base proclaimed.

  "Why, they're all old Saires!" She envisioned a statue of herself, swollen with child, among these others. They would probably collapse into dust with embarrassment.

  Three portals led farther in. She chose one impulsively and found herself in a hallway. From floor to ceiling, past door after door, the Saireflute performed its miracles on rich tapestries and paintings, many faded or darkened with age. She might have stayed to look, to examine what she might expect for herself from the instrument which she still clutched tight in both hands, but sound, not sight, drew her on now--a joyful, tinkling music.

  Two Elite stepped smartly aside as she hurried past the double doors at the end of the hall. Here a marble porpoise leaped gaily from the center of a crystalline pool. From his blowhole a waterspout jetted, gurgling and chiming as it struck the crystal basin. She knew now the reason for the guards. Surrounding the fountain were splendors she never imagined: paintings and carvings, weavings and gems, gifts from long-dead kings. She touched a golden cup, lifted a necklace of rubies to her throat, ran a hand along a bolt of cloth that shimmered like moonlight on water; no one made a move to stop her.

  Finally, she remembered the count and all of her troubles. She poured a handful of silver stars back into their container, a vase shaped like an ivory moon, and returned to the antechamber where Val Torska still waited patiently with his hounds.

  Elzin smiled sheepishly and brought him in. "I'm sorry. I'm silly, I know I am. But there was so much--like a dream! I forgot where I was. I guess I'm just a stupid backwater girl after all. I can't believe this is happening to me."

  "My family has only most recently stumbled into nobility, Great Lady. I would be the last to be indifferent to this."

  Elzin perched on the edge of watered silk divan, her hands twining restlessly. "Please sit with me, My Lo-- I mean, Caldan." She laughed. "I've got to stop doing that.

  “You know, it's all so much! The Saireflute, all of this, and then Shelvann--poor Shelvann! Things have gotten so twisted around. I'm frightened all the time. I don't know what to do. Before this, I would have sworn I could trust almost anyone in this castle." She sighed. "I wish my brother would come back. He'd know what to do."

  With a hesitancy she found strangely sweet, Val Torska took her hands in his. "You must take heart. Surely he will be found soon, and until then, I am at your service."

  o0o

  The Queen shoved aside the latest trade figures. A pox upon the boring columns of endless numbers. Let the lord councilors worry about them. She had other things to think about.

  At least her spy's news had been good. It had not been easy to attach one of her people to Elzin's household staff. The first three she had sent had been summarily dismissed. The messenger had explained only that the Saire had thought them unsuitable.

  The old queen smiled her toadish smile. Elzin had been more attentive while she had been lady in waiting than she had been given credit for. She recognized the Queen's spies from their all too frequent visits to the royal chambers.

  At last the Saire had accepted a trusted old woman named Beksann to run her household. Beksann had been nurse to the two princes, but Elzin had never met her and did not know her past. What Beksann had reported gave the monarch good cheer.

  The Saire was ill, it seemed. Since her installment the previous week she had been vomiting, and she was driven to distraction by the death of the Candidate who had so briefly attended her. Perhaps Elzin had realized that the poison had been meant for her. That was a pleasant thought, to imagine the insolent commoner shivering with terror in her purloined rooms.

  But who had tried to poison the Saire? It could have been one of any number of people, but it would be worth her while to find out which. Blackmail could make such a vigorous lash. She must have Gold work on it.

  The Queen leaned back and rubbed her enormous belly, oblivious to the groaning protests of her chair. It seemed Saire Elzin’s sharp retort upon her installation might be the last she’d dare. Perhaps the count's assessment had been prophetic after all.

  Chapter Three

  Save your secrets for the sea, child,

  Save your secrets for the sea,

  For no man or woman on all land

  Will spare your mystery.

  -- The Verses of Shador

  "Father! Jennzann's Pearl! It's gone!"

  Count Val Torska did not raise his eyes from the pile of papers where scores of notations continued their orderly march.

  "Castandra, speak to me here. I will not have you shout."

  His white-haired daughter, heavy skirts hoisted to her ankles, stopped smartly before his desk.

  "The Pearl! It's missing! I locked it in my jewelry chest, and now it's gone!"

  "Smooth your temper along with those skirts. I am the culprit. While you were off riding, Gestinn and Mother Fenn called and wished to see the Pearl. This mess," he gestured to the stacks of ledgers, that morning's gift from the Queen, "has kept me so distracted that I neglected to put it back." He fished the Pearl from his pocket and placed it in Castandra's hand.

  Not really a pearl, but an opalescent rock the size of a hazelnut, Jennzann's Pearl took its name from the priestess discovered white-haired and drooling on her prayer mat, the stone caught between two slack fingers. No one knew how she had come by her treasure; Jennzann, beyond all telling, had survived only days before her senseless husk had expired.

  The cause of Jennzann's malady remained a mystery, not so the power of the Pearl. A curious sorcerer discovered its unique property, and many sorcerers since had endeavored to make greater use of it.

  Just one of many, Castandra thought as she closed long fingers over the innocuous stone. But, one day, perhaps, she would be the first of that many to learn the treasure's true significance.

  o0o

  "Surely the Pearl has not yielded its secrets so easily," her father said, dipping his pen once more to ink.

  Castandra closed the door before she spoke.

  "Father, what woman were you with today--that you touched?"

  He lifted his eyes to hers with such dangerous deliberation she flustered. "I beg your pardon?" he asked.

  "I don't mean to be impertinent. But, I need to know."


  "I will be the judge of that."

  "Yes," she said. "Of course." She rubbed her fingers fretfully over the Pearl. "Since the Mothers and the Magician's Society allowed me to study Jennzann's Pearl, I've used it many times. You know its function?"

  "Please, Castandra, get to the point."

  "Well… you touched it last, so it must have been you. Sometime today, you touched a woman while at the same time touching the Pearl. This transferred her resonance, which I have just read."

  "That would mean --"

  "-- that someone is decidedly pregnant," Castandra concluded. "One child, a male. Exactly fifty-two days along."

  "Gods…" the count mused.

  "Who is it? Is it the Queen? Won't there be such a scandal!" the girl whispered.

  "Stop babbling," he snapped. "You will keep silent about this; is that clear?"

  "Yes, Father."

  "Go."

  "At once, Father!" She fled in a whirlwind of skirts, dogs bounding after.

  Deliberately, he laid aside his pen. Two months with child. The girl herself must suspect by now; no wonder she was terrified. Count Val Torska ran one hand through his midnight hair and wondered. Surely something could be done.

  Surely he could find a way to turn the Saire's "secret" pregnancy to an advantage.

  o0o

  Despite Beksann's worried protests, Elzin played in the new-fallen snow. Goading a reluctant attendant into a brief but furious snow battle had made her feel wonderful, better than she had in days. Her face glowed pink from the cold, and she still puffed from her exertions as she prepared for her weekly duty.

  The new Saire's second performance would be her first in the White Theater, the Flute's own hall. As usual, the hall filled quickly with the favorites of the Queen -- among them the court historian, her son, Prince Heratinn. No one paid Heratinn much mind, for the withdrawn young scholar was not the Queen's heir. His elder brother, Stantinn, was Prince Royal and the one who bore close watching. The Queen had grown wary of the ambitions of a son who was proving to be as ruthless and clever as she; Her Majesty had packed Stantinn off several months before to study navigation in Seacoven, a port city in southern Lhant. The Prince Royal had found the sea to his liking and was content there at present, to the great relief of his mother.

  What might Prince Heratinn write of her, Elzin wondered; how she would fare in those big, dusty volumes that scarcely anyone touched? Peeping from the alcove where she waited to make her entrance, the blonde met his shy, expectant gaze with her own anxious grin.

  The huge stone fireplace behind the dais had been lit, for the isle's unusually cold weather caused the castle's stone blocks to radiate a chill that made them feel more like so many blocks of ice. Hundreds of candles also cast their light upon the highly polished walls, which shivered and shimmered with a warm orange glow.

  Draped in the heavy folds of the white robe that tradition demanded she wear within this room, Elzin began her slow progression down the steps of the tiered floor. Before the dais at the bottom of the concave room, she turned to her audience and favored them with a now somewhat nervous nod. What if the Saireflute would not play for her today, she wondered as she mounted the steps to the platform. The hands that placed the Flute on its stand felt stiff and clumsy, and with trepidation she opened the case -- until she touched it, the Saireflute, live and warm again under her hand like a cherished love: mate, child, mother, protector.

  o0o

  The hall hushed and she played, or it played, or perhaps each instrument played the other. Melancholy, soft at first, the Saireflute's song enticed the listeners, coaxing them to strain their ears to discern its more delicate passages. It drew them in, like bees to buttercup, then opened to them and rose in volume, until it became a wall of sound, pushing outward from the dais. The tune became rapid, frenzied, Elzin's fingers flew like shuttles -- faster -- faster -- faster --

  The explosion rocked the theater. Candles toppled from sconces and stands. The Saire swayed with the concussion, but played obliviously on as brilliant sparks arced over her head and dropped into the shrieking crowd. The room filled with smoke and coughing as people fled to every egress. Only after the last deserter crossed the threshold did the song begin to slow and the smoke to break apart, evaporating like fog beneath a summer sun.

  o0o

  Elzin took the Saireflute from her lips and gaped. Her audience had vanished! Only the Queen, Prince Heratinn, the elite and Count Val Torska with his daughter still remained. Smelling smoke behind her, the Saire turned. The stone fireplace, blazeless now, was split with an ugly, scorched crack. Her questioning gaze fell one by one on the last of her audience; the Queen, squat, malignant and gloating; Prince Heratinn, scribbling madly; Castandra, her hand tightly gripping her father's, and, lastly, Count Val Torska, who alone remembered to give the traditional bow.

  “Remind me never to bet against Duke Gold in a footrace,” he said. “For someone so sedentary, he is mortal fast on his feet.”

  Elzin packed away the Flute and endeavored not to grin. Whatever had happened, it must have been all right. Caldan would make it right. The count had taken her side from the moment the Saireflute had accepted her, and since Shelvann's death he had faithfully kept his promise to help her as the search continued for her brother. His revelation that dear old Beksann spied for the Queen only emphasized the value of his secret counsel.

  What made him take such risks for her? Though not a total stranger--she had often seen him at royal functions where she had attended the Queen--he had always seemed so aloof and serious that she had never dared to approach him. While everyone else strove to be the deepest in their cups before the night finished, the count set his goblet aside at the first opportunity. He might talk to anyone, but he seldom smiled and rarely laughed. Numerous highborn ladies of the court vied for his attention -- even the Queen was rumored to not be immune to his charm -- but while never anything less than polite, he was always reserved. No scandal touched him, and even his worst enemies freely admitted that he was a capable lord councilor.

  But he had apparently not always been so tame. The tale was as old as herself and the councilor's scar, which started even with corner of his mouth to curve well beneath the right side of his jaw. Since the scar was obvious and people curious, the story was recited often. Elzin had told it herself once or twice.

  Decades past, when the Queen's father lived and reigned, the King had sent Caldan's father on an extended diplomatic tour. Yaabaak, Egia, across the entire known world the son accompanied the father. Caldan, a boy at the start of their journey, was eighteen by the time they returned to Lhant.

  Caldan's father, Ardai, had returned home to marry. His fiancée had ridden from the wilderness of Tarska to meet him in the royal city of Sheldwinn, where they would make their vows in the presence of the court. But Lyrvahn, Ardai's bride-to-be, had attracted the attention of another, Brendiss of Seacoven, King's Champion and the greatest swordsman in the land. Brendiss challenged Ardai to a duel for the woman's hand.

  The battle was brief, one-sided, mortal. Over the dead body of his father, Caldan threw back Brendiss's own challenge. The King's Champion accepted. He even allowed the highlander to ride to Tarska to be installed as count--with the lady left behind as insurance of his return, of course.

  How many high-risk speculators made their fortunes on that second duel was still a subject of conjecture. What Caldan won was far more obvious: vengeance, his scar, and the woman, twice his age, who had been meant to be his father's bride.

  In the third year of their marriage, Lyrvahn died giving birth to their second child. It was whispered about the court that young Caldan had sworn a solemn oath upon her death that he would take no other wife or lover. Naturally, this made him such a romantic figure that half the women within the castle walls felt compelled to change his mind. In seventeen years, none had succeeded.

  But to Elzin he was neither the wild, aggrieved teen nor the remote Lord Councilor. Attentive,
concerned, he always knew how to reassure her. No problem of hers ruffled his calm or found him without a solution. Though he still seldom laughed, he delighted in making her do so. Already well known for his dry, acerbic wit, Elzin soon discovered Count Val Torska also possessed a more playful humor, made all the more startling for his typically somber mien. This he seemed to reserve only for their times alone, as if that side of him was a secret with which he trusted only her.

  She wanted him to trust her, like she trusted him. She was beginning to think that she wanted, perhaps, even more.

  o0o

  "Beksann, I need to rest. Don't let anyone disturb me."

  The handmaid’s eyes grew huge and she raised a trembling hand to her mouth, but the Saire, expecting a secret visitor, was in far too much of a hurry to bolt her door to notice.

  At nineteen years of age, Elzin had taken part in a great many seductions. She loved the feeling of being seduced, of having her body convinced before her mind that it was right to make love. She loved, too, the seducing and the feeling of power it gave her to conquer a man who was, at first, reluctant.

  Elzin had seduced; Elzin had been seduced. But she had never been romanced. It was different, she thought as she absently toyed with the special thing she had brought to show Caldan. It was somehow more wonderful to have, at long last, her mind convinced before her body. Surely in time the rest would come, too.

  But she did not have time. In a few months, her secret would be discovered. She wanted to tell Caldan, to ask him for help and advice, but she feared that her pregnancy would repulse him and drive him from her. Just a little more time, she told herself, just a little more time for him to get to know me, to love me if I could be so fortunate.

  She stretched out on her coverlet, absorbing herself in the great tapestry beside her. Naturally, to hang in such a place as the Saire's own room, the art and execution of the weaving made it worthy of any king's treasury. But neither art nor skill commanded Elzin's interest at the moment. Instead, she searched for movement, the telltale ripple of the tapestry which announced the opening of the secret door behind.