The laughter rippled around the table, but McWilms noticed that Valdisa didn’t seem to share the amusement. He wondered at that. “What do you think, Thane?” he asked. “Are good times like those still waiting for us?”
She smiled back at him, but the gesture touched only her lips. Her eyes, with the fine time-wrinkles at the corners, seemed to be almost hurt. “You never know, Jeriad.”
“The Ulthane loved his food as well as the rest of us,” Bachier said. “Began to show on him a little toward the end, though—still, he always did well enough on the practice strips. Wonder how he looks now? Can’t have lost his skills too much, considering how he snuck in here recently.” Then, to Valdisa’s accusing stare: “We all know it had to be him, Thane. Who else would you have let leave peacefully after that?”
“The Ulthane looks very good,” McWilms said without thinking. He could feel Valdisa’s gaze on him now, and he didn’t dare look at her. He berated himself. Fool, does such little mead go to your head so quickly that you can’t control your mouth? “I saw him on a street in Sterka, going the other way,” he added as casually as he could. He picked up his bread again, broke off another chunk.
“Did he speak to you?” Valdisa asked sharply. Her voice was acid, stern.
“You told us to avoid the Traders,” he answered. It seemed to satisfy her, though she still looked at McWilms appraisingly.
“If I’d been one of the kin the Ulthane met on his way in, it would have been different,” Bachier said. “He wouldn’t have put me on the floor.”
Valdisa’s head snapped around to him. “Don’t be so damned sure,” she said. “You’re strong enough, Bachier, but the Sula”—she used Gyll’s new title with heavy emphasis—“has always been one quite able to counter strength with a move.”
“Thane—”
“No,” she interrupted. “I don’t know why the Sula returned here just to sit in the back caverns, but my orders still stand. I want all of you to leave him alone, and to tell me if he tries to contact any of you. And I hate this subject,” she added. “Let’s find another.”
“Thane,” McWilms said. He kept his voice gentle, casual. “The Ulthane isn’t Hoorka’s enemy, after all. He did create the guild, made us kin. We shouldn’t pretend that he doesn’t exist. Some of us had great affection for him . . .” His voice trailed off as he glanced at her.
He knew he’d gone too far, said too much. He could see it in the way Valdisa drew back, in the flush that crept up her neck, in the way her fingers curled around the arm of her chair. She hovered on the edge of anger, and he could see her fighting it. There was silence around the table. Slowly, Valdisa relaxed, the creases in her face softening. McWilms regretted, far too many times at this supper, his words.
“Thane, I’m very sorry,” he said. “Sometimes there’s an idiot working my mouth.”
She shook her head tightly. Her voice played with nonchalance and failed. “It’s all right, Jeriad. What you say is true. We shouldn’t forget our past or what the Sula has meant to us.” She nodded to the kin. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get the money ready for Felling.”
Deliberately, Valdisa pushed her chair back from the table and rose. She bowed slightly to the kin and, walking a shade too quickly, left the room.
“Stuck your feet in it that time, didn’t you?” Serita said to McWilms when she had gone.
He didn’t answer. He stared into the darkness after the Thane.
• • •
The night was uneasy for Gyll. The dream at first was gentle and erotic. Kaethe was with him, as she had been the night he’d left with Helgin for Neweden. She was on top of him, moving, her eyes closed, lost in their passion. He reached up to touch her swaying breasts, and they were suddenly Valdisa’s; smaller, the texture of the skin rougher under his hands, and it was not Kaethe’s face that loomed over him but some strange melding of Kaethe and Valdisa—his two lovers, his two lives. In his dream, he did not care, but lunged with her as they sought release, and when they finally found it, he cried out as Kaethe/Valdisa laughed.
He woke, sweat-drenched, and oddly frightened of the dream. He forced himself to stay awake long hours after that, watching Neweden move beneath his ship. In time, he could not keep his eyes open, his tired body forcing him to return to his bed.
When he dreamed again, it was of lassari and dead women and knives of bright, sharp steel.
Chapter 7
THE NOTE HAD COME to Gyll in a most roundabout fashion, handed to a Diplo guard at Sterka Port by an apprentice Hoorka, and then given to one of the Family Oldin crew on their shuttle. When the shuttle returned to Goshawk, it was placed on Fischer’s desk, who gave it to Sula Hermond.
It said, simply: “Ten a.m., the river below the falls. Valdisa.”
The note did not seem to require an answer, and evidently Valdisa did not expect him to miss the appointment; she knew him that well. Gyll took the next shuttle down, wondering, memories of his odd dream and the fiasco of d’Embry’s dinner occupying his thoughts.
The falls spread cold mist over the morning. The wind shifted, and curtains of water spread across the river. The falls were pretty but unspectacular—some worlds were blessed with a hundred better scenes. The cascade clambered down the worn steps of the bluffs well outside Sterka. There was the normal amount of litter scattered about, remnants of old rendezvous. Gyll shrugged his jacket tighter around him. The mists beaded his hair. He ran a hand through the wetness, shook his head. He reached down and picked up a flat rock. He skimmed it across the roiling water.
“Hello, Gyll.”
He’d not heard her approach in the clamor of the falls. She wore the Hoorka nightcloak, the hood up. “Chilly out here,” he said.
“Sorry.”
“Your note didn’t give a reason for this . . .” He didn’t know what to call it.
“You talked to McWilms.”
There was a flat and curiously dispassionate accusation in her voice. Gyll could sense her body under the cover of the nightcloak; muscles flexed, ready to move at need, as if the confrontation would of necessity be physical. All he could see of her were her eyes and a strand of hair curling down over her forehead.
He didn’t bother to deny her charge—he didn’t lie easily; Helgin had told him many times how transparent he was when he tried. “Did Jeriad tell you?”
“He didn’t have to.”
“Don’t blame him,” Gyll said. “We really didn’t seek each other out. It was just a chance meeting on the street, and I invited him to have a drink. I know you asked me to stay away from the kin, but I don’t find anything horrible in talking to Jeriad. Have some compassion, Valdisa. He’s an old friend.”
The wind blew mist back into their faces. Valdisa turned away before he could see if there was a reaction to his words in her eyes. When she finally looked back, there was a troubled hardness to her stare. “I’ve as much compassion as any of the kin, Gyll,” she said. “At least that’s what I tell myself. But the Thane sometimes isn’t allowed to show it or respond to it. She has to be a bitch.” Now she swept the hood back, turned down the collar. Mist swept down eagerly. “I don’t like it, but it’s necessary. You should know that.” Slowly, faintly, she smiled. “I do understand, Gyll. I don’t really mind.”
Gyll smiled tentatively back. “Good. I’d hate to have you angry with me. We’ve done that to each other too often in the past.”
“I’m not angry.”
“Then can we move out of this damned mist?”
She laughed, her face sheened with water. “Certainly.”
Down the riverbank, they found a sheltering wall of cliff. There was a small hollow where the wind could not find them. Narrow, it brought them close together of necessity, and each of them pressed their back to stone to lessen the intimacy. Gyll stared out at the river, not at her face, suddenly too near his own. “I assume you had some other purpose with the note than just giving me a shower?”
“I want to know more. I want to
know why you’ve come back, what you intend to do.”
“I thought I’d told you.”
“Maybe. I’m not sure you know. From what I gathered from Jeriad, he seems to think that you’re rather perturbed by Hoorka, by what you’ve seen since you got here.” She said it carefully, neutral. Her gaze sought his, but she seemed only attentive, waiting for his answer.
“Yah. I don’t like it. I especially don’t like what people keep telling me.” Her eyes would not let him go.
“What is that?”
“That the Hoorka belong to Vingi.”
Lines creased her forehead, her lips tightened into a scowl. “You’ve been listening to the wrong sources, then. Give me some credit, Gyll. I’ve followed your code, strictly. If that gives Hoorka the appearance of being Vingi’s, then it’s the code’s fault, not mine.” The timbre of her voice changed, tinged with spite. “You weren’t around to see how that might come about.”
Gyll reached out a hand, touched her shoulder through the nightcloak, amazed at the texture of the material—he’d remembered it as softer. Valdisa flinched away from his touch, and he let his hand drop back. “No, I wasn’t around,” he said softly. “And I’ve learned quite a bit since then—about myself, mostly. For one, I’ve learned that you shouldn’t let pride speak before necessity. I know I would never have said this before, but maybe the code needs to be changed.”
The mildness of his answer only seemed to feed her ire. She made a sound of disgust deep in her throat, taking a step out of the hollow and back. She glared at him. “Gods, the Family Oldin’s done wonders for you, hasn’t it? The bitch Kaethe feeds you her dreams, and FitzEvard substitutes his own vision for yours. What’s happened to you, Gyll? You’re not the person I made love with, the proud Hoorka-Thane. Do the Oldins unman all their employees?”
Fury raced through Gyll, a blind, white heat. But he did not move, didn’t instinctively reach for the sheathed blade at his side as he once would have done. He willed himself into some semblance of control—the same rules he’d imposed on his Trader-Hoorka. Think before action. There’s usually more time than you believe, and deeds aren’t easily undone. He tore his gaze away from Valdisa’s challenging eyes. He breathed deeply, listening to the rushing dance of the river. “I don’t understand this, Valdisa,” he said at last. “I don’t understand why we insist on making each other angry.” Bleak, he turned to face her. “And, by the Dame, you succeed in it. You succeed admirably. But I don’t kill anymore, and I only fight when there’s no other recourse. If you’re trying to goad me to that extent, it won’t work. I won’t let it.”
She didn’t believe him; he could see it. Her stance mocked him, her face scoffed. “You’re Sula, head of a military force. You tell me that you don’t fight, don’t kill?”
“I teach.”
“You send others to do your dirty work, then, like the Li-Gallant.”
He visibly recoiled from that accusation, sagging against the rock of the cliff as if wounded. A jagged finger of stone dug into his back. Wearily he shook his head. “I still believe much of what Neweden taught me, Valdisa. The blame for any death rests with the person that ordered that killing, no matter who held the weapon. But I avoid such a final decision if I can avoid it, and the Oldins seem to prefer that approach.”
“It’s more devious.”
“It’s more effective.”
“Then why in the hell do you want my Hoorka? What good can we do you? We kill, Gyll. That’s what you set us up to do, trained us to be—assassins. Nothing more.”
“I’d like to retrain you, use your skills in other ways . . .” He shrugged, thrusting away from the wall with his shoulders. They were very close. He could smell the spice of Valdisa’s breath. “And, in any case, killing is still a needed skill.”
Her gaze searched his face, curiously soft. He began to wonder if her anger had merely been a sham devised to destroy the vestiges of their old affection. “Gyll . . .” she began; then her lashes came down to shield those eyes, drawing deep lines at the corners. “Just what is it that you’re offering?”
“Comfort, challenge, a new meaning to our kinship.” He paused, wondering how to phrase what he wanted to say. “Maybe even to see if we can be friends—or more—again.”
“Those are just words, Gyll. They don’t mean anything.”
He smiled. “You’re right. You want specifics: the Hoorka here would be the nucleus of a special-forces division within my current group, for use when one or two people are needed—for subversive work, perhaps even assassinations, though I would prefer not. We’d move you from Neweden to a planet near OldinHome that I’ve made my base. You’d be in charge of the kin, Valdisa.”
“But subject to your orders.”
“To FitzEvard Oldin, through me.”
“Or just you, if you decide something needs to be done. The Oldins would back you, wouldn’t they?”
“I suppose that’s possible,” he admitted.
“And we’d be back to where we were eight standards ago.”
“Was it so bad?”
She sighed, and he knew that she was finally beyond the reflexive Neweden anger. A melancholy smile drifted over her face and she cocked her head, listening to the distant thunder of the falls. “I’ve changed a lot too, Gyll, if not in the same ways you have. For me to do this would be the same as admitting I’ve ruined Hoorka, and I simply don’t believe that. We’ve had bad times recently—I’d admit that to anyone—hell, Neweden’s had bad times, but the kin are still together. I’ve talked with d’Embry about new offworld contracts and I’m hopeful that she’ll consider them. We’ve had two contracts in the last half-standard that weren’t Vingi’s. I’m not going to admit defeat, Gyll, and that’s what you’re asking.” She passed her hand through her hair, raining droplets on the ground. “No, it wasn’t all bad between us, Gyll. I enjoyed being with you, learning from you, being your lover. It was a good time. But we also had our differences; they drove us apart then. I figure the same thing would happen now, and I’m getting too old to want to take that kind of chance.”
“You sound like I did,” he said. “Eight standards ago.”
She grinned. “Maybe.”
“And I’ve found that I was wrong in that thinking. Valdisa, the Oldins are what Hoorka needs to grow. The Alliance is only a dead end, Neweden is just a blind alley. We suit the Families, they suit us. From everything I’ve seen and heard here, the Hoorka will be lassari shit in another few standards, dead like the ippicators. Let me at least make my offer to the kin, let them decide.”
The grin had fallen from her face. “No,” she answered; then again, softer. “No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t trust the Family Oldin.”
“Then you don’t trust me. Gods, you sound like d’Embry.”
“Maybe she’s right.”
Gyll scuffed a heel against rock. He sighed, a long exhalation. Valdisa waited as he looked upward at the mist-driven sky. Then she did something that surprised him. She took a step, pressing against him, her arms around him in a firm hug. A moment, and then he responded, clasping her against him. The sudden affection brought back a flooding of memory. He bent his head down to kiss her, but she had moved back again. “Why did you do that?” he asked.
“I wanted to do it while I still could,” she answered. Gyll didn’t know what to say to that. He stood there, shifting his weight uncertainly until she spoke again. “You were a fine lover, Gyll, but you never were very easy with affection. You’d always say nothing, or the wrong thing.”
“You could give me another chance at it. You could let me talk with the kin.”
“With my kin,” she emphasized. “It’s not their decision to make, Gyll. I’m Thane, and I’ve said no.”
“Valdisa, I don’t like what Hoorka has become. It makes me sick to think of the guilded kin reviling my creation. I want that to end, one way or the other.”
Her anger was back before he’d finished speak
ing. A minute ago, he’d thought there was a chance. But all that vanished, riven, with the rage that twisted her face. She clambered away from the hollow, into the wind and mist, her hair tousled, the heavy fabric of the nightcloak swirling. “Damn you, Hermond. You’ve no more sensitivity than a frigging stone. All you can think about is how things affect you.”
“And what are you doing?” he asked mildly.
“You believe I’m just as selfish, neh?” She put her hood up against the wind. “Maybe I am. Maybe I can’t stand the thought of losing my little tithing of power. If it is, so be it. No, Gyll. That’s going to remain my answer to you. No. If I find that you’re trying to go around me, I’ll take actions. We were friends and more—I’d hate to see us become enemies.”
“Valdisa,” he persisted. “Everything I see of Hoorka here makes me angry.”
“And what bothers you most is that you have no power over it. Well, you gave that up voluntarily, Gyll. You understood Neweden and Hoorka fit it very well, but you went looking for power elsewhere. It’s a shame, because I don’t think you understand the Families and the Alliance much at all, and I’m afraid they’re going to swallow you whole.”
“Then come with me and help me understand.”
“Stay away from us, Gyll.”
“Hoorka was my creation.”
“And we’re past you now. Sula Hermond is not kin, and he has nothing to do with us.”
He ignored her tone, her use of the impersonal mode. “I’m not certain of that.”
“Stay away, Sula.” Her lips narrowed. She spat out the words as if they burned her tongue. “Or I’ll kill you. I swear it, Gyll, I’ll use my knife.”
She turned in the middle of his reply, the nightcloak moving around her with finality. He made no effort to go after her. He listened to the sound of her boots against rock, his head leaning back against the cold stone. Finally, he could hear nothing but the soughing of the river; still, he did not move. It was only when the sunstar, climbing, found him that he kicked himself away from the cliff and began the walk back to Sterka.
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