Cephrael's Hand: A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book One

by McPhail, Melissa

  The kingdom still had a fair number of Adept Healers in the service of the crown, but His Majesty had sent many of them to the war as a show of support for his ally, Prince Radov. A lot of people were angry about that—Raine’s truth, they were angry about sending sons and husbands to fight at all, especially in some other king’s battle—and there was a lot of discontented talk in court on the subject.

  The upside of all this—and Tanis always looked for the upside—was that a trained Adept had a lot of options open to him. That is, if he could escape the service of his king.

  While he was pondering where he might want to serve instead, Tanis watched a host of soldiers on horseback emerge from the stable yard and canter off toward the gate. Must be headed to meet Prince Ean, he decided, though there was nothing jovial in their expressions as they rushed past.

  “Commission or no, I hear you’re doing well for yourself already,” Tad noted after a moment, casting Tanis a grin.

  Tanis turned him a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”

  “Called into the counsel of the King’s Own Guard is what,” Tad said, shifting on the barrel with sudden interest. “What did the dead man really look like, Tanis? Was he as ashen as they say?”

  Tanis grimaced. “Fairly.” He didn’t bother asking how Tad found out about the dead man, whose very existence was supposed to be a state secret; Tad always seemed at the forefront of the latest gossip.

  “I wonder who he was? A spy most likely, but on whom was he spying?” and he shot Tanis a conspiratorial look.

  “He didn’t seem a spy.” Tanis’s mind was only half on the conversation now, for he’d spotted two men just then exiting a coach that had pulled into the yard, ostensibly to avoid the traffic on the Promenade, and there was something about one of them…

  “I’ll bet it was that Anke van den Berg,” Tad said. He turned to Tanis and inquired juicily, “You don’t think they were having an affair, do you? The dead spy and the Ambassador to Agasan?” Tad’s eyes glittered as he whispered, “Word is Anke killed her last husband by drowning him in his own bathtub. They say she held him under with a pitchfork and just stood there smiling as he struggled. I wonder what she did to this poor chap.” Tad’s imagination was already off and running. “Must’ve been poison. Those Agasi are famous for their poison—and their wild magic. Could it have been magic, Tanis?”

  “Magic?” Tanis murmured, preoccupied. “Oh, yes. Her Grace said it was certainly magic.”

  “That proves it then!” Tad sounded triumphant. “It must’ve been Anke. Who else around here knows anything at all of Patterning?”

  Had Tanis been paying attention, he would’ve told Tad that Anke van den Berg wasn’t a wielder and likely knew very little of Patterning. Instead, he watched as the two men passed in front of them. Tanis wondered what it was about the second nobleman that snared his attention. It wasn’t the manner of his walk, or his slim build; nor was it his brown hair or his chestnut cloak, which was trimmed in suede and stitched along the hem with an intricate design of golden boxes. No, there was something else about him that Tanis couldn’t quite put his finger on…an odd feeling of recollection. As if Tanis should recognize the man, though he was certain they’d never met.

  The lad watched as the two men halted long enough for the slightly broader of the two to tend to his bootlace, which had come undone. In that brief moment, the second man’s gaze came to rest on Tanis, and the lad started with an intake of breath.

  Then the moment was gone. The broader man made a cheerful comment about poorly made boots not holding up to the challenge and they headed off again toward the First Circle.

  “That’s funny,” Tad commented. He, too, had noticed the pair.

  “What’s funny?”

  “That man looked awfully familiar—the slim one. Did you see him?”

  Tanis was tingling from head to toe. “Yeah,” he murmured, startled and excited and deeply thrilled all at once. “Did you?”

  Tad frowned at him and turned away in mild disgust. He began gazing longingly toward the Promenade, which was demarked by a long line of towering elms.

  Tanis watched the endless stream of sacks being passed along and tried to calm his fluttering heart, for he knew the man now.

  The Vestal Raine d’Lacourte! It was a thrill beyond measure to think of meeting so famous a personage. “Tad,” Tanis muttered. He elbowed his friend to get his attention. “Tad.”

  “What?”

  “Did you see who that man was?”

  Tad gave him a strange look. “I said he looked familiar is all.”

  “He looks familiar because he’s one of the most famous men to ever walk the realm!” Tanis could barely contain his excitement.

  Tad seemed taken aback. “Really? Who was he then? A bard?”

  Tanis drew himself up, proud to announce the name. “He was the Fourth Vestal, Raine d’Lacourte.”

  Tad barked a laugh so loud he drew looks from his father’s men. More quietly, he said, “Tanis, be serious!”

  “I am! Didn’t you see his eyes? They were colorless, just like mine.”

  “So he’s a Truthreader. So what? That doesn’t make him the Fourth Vestal.”

  Tanis gripped his arm. “I’m telling you, he is.”

  “Don’t be absurd, Tanis. Why in Tiern’aval would any of the Vestals be coming to Calgaryn Palace?”

  Tanis had no answer for this, but his certainty remained. He is the Vestal. He must be!

  Tad was meanwhile gazing curiously at him. Abruptly he grabbed Tanis’s head and began prying at his right eyelid. “Did you take one of your lady’s powders?” he accused while peering intently into one colorless eye. “What’s wrong with you today?”

  Tanis shoved him off and sat there feeling disgruntled. He didn’t care what Tad said. He had that feeling again, the one that always heralded things to come.

  In the case of that morning, however, it was his lady who came, and she looked none too thrilled as she marched up with long skirts in hand. “Tanis, why in Tiern’aval weren’t you waiting for me at the South Gate?”

  Tad and Tanis quickly jumped to their feet, and Tad bowed slightly with a cheerful, ‘Morning, Your Grace,’ while Tanis gazed fretfully at her and rubbed at one eye.

  “You’re not staying for the parade then, Your Grace?” Tad asked with a cheeky sort of grin.

  Alyneri settled him a suspicious look. Tanis often wondered if she didn’t have a little Truthreader’s talent in addition to her own, for she certainly seemed to know when a boy was up to no good. “Why no, Lord Towermount.”

  “You mean you don’t want to see Prince Ean?”

  “Sadly, the sick do not choose the days in which they need my ministrations,” she answered, which of course was not an answer at all.

  “So you’re excited to see Prince Ean then?” Tad pressed.

  Tanis knew Tad’s mind, but he didn’t think it would work, this trying to catch Her Grace in a question she didn’t want to answer truthfully so that Tanis could tell she was lying. Even so, there were plenty of ways to avoid telling a lie, and no one knew that better than a Truthreader.

  “Excited is not the word I would’ve chosen,” Alyneri replied impatiently.

  “Really? What word would you’ve chosen, Your Grace?”

  “Impertinent,” Alyneri replied tartly, “in description of you, Tad val Mallonwey. Now, if you will excuse us, our carriage is waiting.”

  Tad bowed a grinning surrender. “And a good day to you also, Duchess.”

  Alyneri cast him a withering look as she retreated with Tanis in tow.

  When they were well away, Alyneri said, “What was that all about, Tanis?”

  “What do you mean, Your Grace?”

  She gave him a chiding glare. “What prevailed upon your friend to inquire so doggedly about my interest in Ean val Lorian?”

  “I really couldn’t say,” Tanis answered, added innocently but with a particular Truthreader’s tone he’d been practicing, “
I didn’t know you had an interest in Prince Ean.”

  “I…well, I—” Alyneri was no more immune to a Truthreader’s compelling voice than anyone else, but she was quite impervious to Tanis. She overcame the slight compulsion in his tone, tossed her chin high and replied indignantly, “I have no undue interest in Ean val Lorian whatsoever.”

  “Well then,” Tanis said equitably.

  Alyneri shot him a fiery look. For all she was four years his senior, he was quickly growing adept at his craft. It was evident that she’d noticed it and found the situation displeasing.

  “Have you heard anything more on the man we found last night, Your Grace?” Tanis asked, steering the conversation away from a discordant head.

  “No. The evening was an entire waste. Would that I could bill the Lord Captain for my hours of lost sleep.”

  Tanis noticed then that she wore the same plain dress she’d had on the night before, and he finally connected its meaning. “Are we going to see Farshideh then?”

  She nodded. “I would’ve left last night if the captain had not detained me.”

  Tanis gave her an injured look. “You would’ve gone without me?”

  “Don’t take it so personally, Tanis. I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

  Because I was in the gardens doing your business! Tanis thought begrudgingly, but he knew better than to lay blame upon Her Grace for what was really his own failing.

  “Anyway, there is little I can do for Farshideh, I fear.” She exhaled a sorrowful sigh and shook her head. “Only Patterning might save her life—my mother could possibly have done the working, but I…” and here she bit back vengeful words and finished bitterly instead, “Well, you know I have not trained in the Art.”

  She didn’t need to say that King Gydryn had forbidden her to attend the Sormitáge, for Tanis knew it as well as anyone. His Majesty said he couldn’t spare Alyneri, but Tanis knew that Her Grace thought the king was scared of losing her, too. So much had changed since Alyneri’s mother, Lady Melisande, had died; since the queen’s treasured middle son was lost at sea and Queen Errodan stormed off to the Shoring Isles spouting vitriolic threats with her youngest son in tow.

  So very much had changed.

  Gaining their carriage at the South Gate, Tanis climbed in behind his lady, but he silently longed to remain. What with Prince Ean’s imminent arrival, the beginning of Festival, and the mysterious but exciting appearance of the Vestal Raine d’Lacourte, Calgaryn Palace seemed an utterly thrilling place to be.

  Their leave-taking was delayed only moments more by the exodus of another great number of mounted soldiers storming through the gates. Tanis stuck his head out of the coach’s window to watch them pass. That’s twice now I’ve seen soldiers leaving under a dark cloud of fury. “Where do you think they’re going, all those men?” he asked.

  “Probably to the harbor to receive Prince Ean,” Alyneri muttered. She was rummaging through her traveling bag and not paying attention.

  Tanis frowned after them. “If they’re going to the harbor, they’re sure headed the wrong way.”

  “I’ve heard enough of Ean val Lorian for one morning, Tanis,” Alyneri complained. “Do come back inside.”

  Tanis pulled his head in and closed the window, but he couldn’t help wondering why he felt so certain that something was wrong.

  The drive to his lady’s country estate took several turns of the hourglass, and Tanis napped while Alyneri made notes in one of her little suede-bound books. Midday had come and departed by the time they turned into the drive, whereupon Tanis’s stomach started growling fiercely enough to wake him. He was happily surprised when they exited before the steps to find the staff in line and the cook—a gregarious woman who always pinched his cheeks but let him steal from her kitchen—handed him a warm bundle with a wink and a pinch.

  Alyneri’s seneschal, Farshideh, stood atop the steps wearing her warm, dark-eyed smile, but even Tanis could tell now that her health was failing. Her iron-grey hair had grown thin, and her dark complexion looked pallid. She walked with support of a staff, and her back was alarmingly stooped, such that she could no longer straighten to her full height.

  Alyneri was shocked at her deterioration. “Farshideh!” she exclaimed and rushed up the steps. “What are you doing walking about in this condition!”

  “Is that any way to greet your old nursemaid?” Farshideh chided in her melodic deep voice.

  Alyneri dutifully embraced her with a kiss on both cheeks, followed by Tanis in the same manner. Then, pressing hands together before their hearts, all three bowed to one another.

  “Much better,” Farshideh said, smiling then. “Khosh Amadid!”

  Thus welcomed, Farshideh dismissed the staff back to their posts and turned inside, with Alyneri holding her arm. “I see you wore my favorite dress,” she remarked in her deeply resonant voice that Tanis so loved, her words drenched by the heavy accent of the desert province of Kandori. Tanis had thought to learn that accent once, to pretend himself a Sheik, but Farshideh had only laughed and explained that to effectively learn the accent, one must learn the language, and the complicated tongue had been well beyond Tanis’s skill. Her Grace spoke the language well, however, having learned from her father in her youth.

  “Farshideh, please, will you let me escort you to bed now?” Alyneri pleaded.

  “Lying around in bed all day won’t straighten my back, soraya,” she returned, using her name for Alyneri, which meant princess. “I spent enough years assisting your mother to know that much, and tea is no more a cure for what ails me than wine will mend a broken heart.”

  Alyneri sighed. “I know, but—”

  “But nothing. We have an understanding, you and I, do we not?” and her voice was firm.

  Alyneri heaved another regretful sigh. “Yes, Farshideh.”

  “Khoob, that is well for the sun.”

  Tanis found himself smiling at the familiar expression, which made no sense whatsoever translated into the Common Tongue. Farshideh was full of such phrases. Another one he liked was, ‘Only the wind knows the truth in the water.’ He had no idea what it meant, but it sounded wise. He’d tried using it with Tad once, but his friend had only insisted he was taking his lady’s powders. Maybe if he’d spoken it in the desert tongue instead…

  “Tanis, khortdad,” Farshideh said, using her pet name for him, which he knew meant ‘perfection’ and which always embarrassed him in the knowing, “run along to see Grettel Hibbert in the kitchen. She has something prepared for your stomach.”

  “Mamnoon, Farshideh,” Tanis thanked her, pressing hands together and bowing.

  “Khahesh mikonam, khortdad,” she replied with an approving smile.

  Tanis darted off, for he’d already consumed the two mulberry tarts Mistress Hibbert had given him upon arrival, and they’d barely taken the edge off his hunger.

  Alyneri and Farshideh settled into chairs beside the fire in the seneschal’s office. The autumn day was unseasonably warm, but Farshideh too often was touched with chill lately, so Alyneri stoically endured the fire’s stifling heat.

  It pained her no end to see her friend in such a state. Farshideh had served her mother and her grandmother before, and she’d been as much a mother to Alyneri growing up as the Lady Melisande. Alyneri knew the pestilence which ate away at her dear friend, making her weaker every day, and she knew also that while she herself hadn’t the knowledge to heal Farshideh, others might. But Farshideh wouldn’t hear of it.

  ‘Azerjaiman draws our breath to him when he wills,’ she always told Alyneri whenever she brought up the matter, ‘and Naiadithine claims our waters. Huhktu takes our bones, and Baharan our bodies, and our spirits soar free with Inithiya. Death is a necessary part of life, soraya.’

  Well settled into her armchair with a blanket across her legs, Farshideh reached for a heavy ledger which she opened on her lap. “Now then,” she said, one finger following a line of figures that was the income for Alyneri’s estate, “we sha
ll talk the beans and the donkeys.”

  Alyneri sighed and nodded, but as Farshideh went over Alyneri’s financial incomes and expenditures, reciting with uncanny detail every transaction with farmer, fisherman or hedge lord, all Alyneri could think of was how she’d failed her oldest and dearest friend.

  Nine

  ‘Be wary of deep water and dogs that do not bark.’

  – An old pirate saying

  Errodan stood with her back pressed stiffly against the velvet-upholstered walls of the king’s Privy Chamber, arms crossed. She awaited news—any news of her son—from the many patrols Gydryn had dispatched earlier that morning, but thus far none had returned. Pacing had helped calm her nerves, but after the fifth or so annoyed glance from Gydryn, she’d forced herself to stand in one place.

  Across the room, thirteen powerful men sat around a long table carved in the center with the image of the val Lorian eagle. At the table’s head, King Gydryn slouched in a throne-sized armchair, fingers clasped across his broad chest, raven hair swept regally back from his high brow. He had more silver in his hair than when Errodan had left him five years ago, and deeper lines etching his grey eyes, but he’d lost not a shade of his imposing demeanor.

  She had no place being there, a mere woman among such a council of war, but this was where the king’s men would come with reports of their searches, and she’d be damned if she waited anywhere else. She marveled her husband had the mind for politics with his last living son and heir missing, but when she’d mentioned as much to him, he’d arched a raven brow and remarked, “The Akkadian Emir isn’t likely to cease hostilities against M’Nador simply because a prince goes missing, Errodan.”

  Around the table from the king, Dannym’s leadership was debating a pressing conflict, the essence of which was conveyed just then by Gareth val Mallonwey, Duke of Towermount and General of the West, as he said, “If the damnable letter isn’t a hoax, then we must act!”