The Raven Ring

by Patricia C. Wrede

  “What?”

  “Laurinel has a charting deck somewhere, I think. I could lay out a new chart for you; perhaps that would clarify things.”

  “I’d like to think about what you’ve told me first,” Eleret said. “I—”

  The far door opened and the serving man entered. Bowing, he said, “Lady Kistran, Freelady Salven, pardon the intrusion. There is a messenger here to see either Lord Daner or the Freelady, and he says it is urgent. Since Lord Daner has—”

  “Yes, I know, he’s with his father,” Lady Kistran said, waving the man to silence. “You did quite right not to interrupt them. Show the man in.” As the servant bowed again and left, Lady Kistran turned to Eleret. “If the message is truly urgent”—her tone said she did not believe it could be—“you can send word to Daner once you know.”

  No reply was necessary, for the door opened once more and the serving man bowed as a small man in a bright blue, gold-trimmed tunic entered. “Karvonen?” Eleret said in disbelief.

  “At your service, Freelady Salven.” Karvonen bowed with a flourish. Apart from the attitude, he bore very little resemblance to the scruffy thief who had accosted Daner the day before. His hair was carefully combed, his clothes looked both new and expensive, and he even stood differently. More confidently, Eleret thought, not as if he’s nobody, hoping to be overlooked. Well, an official messenger would be that way. And there was certainly no stiffness or hesitation in the way he used his left arm. Still, she felt a twinge of uneasiness.

  “You know this man?” Lady Kistran said.

  “Yes, he’s…brought me a message once before.” Eleret rose as she spoke. “Whatever news he has, I think it’s safe to say Lord Daner will want to hear it. If you would take us somewhere we can talk, and then send word to him—”

  The serving man looked unhappy. “I’m sorry, Freelady, I’ll be happy to show you to a private room, but I’m afraid I don’t know where Lord Daner went.”

  “He’s with his father,” Lady Kistran said. “Really, Henwas, I don’t understand why you’re having such a problem.”

  “No, Lady Kistran.” The serving man’s expression grew even more troubled than before. “That is…Lord Daner saw Lord tir Vallaniri for a few moments before he left, but that was at least half an hour ago.”

  “Left?” Eleret said.

  “Yes, Freelady,” the servant said patiently. “Lord Daner left the house half an hour ago, and has not yet returned. If you wish, I can ask the man at the door when Lord Daner said he would return.”

  “Do that.” Eleret hoped her voice did not sound as angry as she felt. “In the meantime, I’ll talk to this…messenger in that private room you mentioned.”

  “Very good, Freelady. This way, if it please you.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  TO ELERET’S SURPRISE—and considerable relief—Karvonen did not say anything more until they had reached the private room and the door had closed behind the servant. Then he dropped into the nearest chair—a heavy, high-backed oak frame with wide arms and several large pillows—and sighed. The movement, the pose, were pure Karvonen, and Eleret’s doubts vanished.

  “Looks like Lord Daner has run off on you,” said the thief. “Any idea where?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say he’s gone to see Adept Climeral at the magic school. He wanted to ask about spells to keep that shapeshifter from coming back.”

  “Not a bad idea, actually.” Karvonen sounded almost disappointed.

  “No, it isn’t. What brings you back so soon? Surely you haven’t answered all my questions already.”

  “Even Aurelicos have limits. No, I came to let you know that somebody seems to have put the chain back on the Syaski.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Put the chain on them, called them off, sent out word that you’re not the one they’re looking for.” He frowned, displeased by her lack of response. “I thought it was good news. Yesterday you weren’t safe on the streets; now—”

  “I’m no safer than I was then.” Eleret shook her head at his expression. “Do you really think the Syaski will stop looking for me just because some mysterious person says not to? And even if they did, would that stop them making trouble if they happen to run into me?”

  “I see your point.” Karvonen grimaced. “I don’t suppose I could talk you into running away, could I?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Oh, for a start, there’s a shapeshifting wizard who seems to want you dead, and about a hundred Syaski in town who you’ve just said won’t hesitate to oblige him even if he’s told ’em not to.”

  For a brief moment, Eleret allowed herself the luxury of picturing herself somewhere else, away from the city and all the complex problems that had developed since she arrived. Then she shrugged. “Trouble always runs faster than you do. I don’t think the shapeshifter will give up just because I’ve left town. At least here, I have some allies.”

  “You could still try it.”

  “No. And why are you so anxious for me to leave, all of a sudden?”

  Karvonen raised a hand as if to run it through his hair, then stopped at the last minute and let it fall. “Because the more I find out, the less I like the look of the whole mess, and some of the rumors…Never mind. But with the Syaski off the streets, even a few of them, even just for a while, this is probably your best chance to jump ship. I didn’t really expect you to, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to point it out.”

  “Well, now you have, and I’ve said no, so let it be. Is that all you came for?”

  “I—” Karvonen stopped, frowning. Then he leaned forward and gave her a searching look. “All right, what’s wrong? And don’t say ‘nothing,’ you stubborn Cilhar, because I can see that something’s bothering you. Is it the shapeshifter again?”

  “No.” Eleret paused, unwilling to admit that she had been unsettled by finding a legend in a pack of cards. The Shadow-born are only an old tale, she told herself, but part of her did not believe it.

  “What is it, then?”

  “Daner’s aunt just finished going over the cards Jonystra was charting for me.” She hesitated again. “One of them was a card called the Shadow-Mage.”

  “I didn’t think a Cilhar would take card-charting so— The what? What was the card?”

  “The Shadow-Mage.”

  Karvonen looked sick. “Shadow-born. I knew I shouldn’t have gotten mixed up in this. Are you sure you won’t run away?”

  It was comforting to have someone else react the same way she had, even if his automatic response was to suggest flight. Eleret shook her head. “If there are Shadow-born involved, I don’t want them following me home.” Her voice quivered on the last word.

  “It might not be that bad.” Karvonen did not sound as if he believed what he was saying. “After all, the only evidence you have that there’s a Shadow-born stirring the soup is one card in a chart that never got finished.” When she did not respond at once, he frowned. “That is the only evidence you’ve got, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. For a minute, there, I thought maybe…Anyway, if it’s only the card—”

  “I won’t take chances with my family.” Cilhar folk had more than enough problems to contend with, even in times of peace, without bringing something out of nightmares down on them.

  “I suppose even Cilhar would have trouble dealing with Shadow-born,” Karvonen said, and again the echo of her own thoughts disturbed and reassured her at the same time. “Well, if you’re not going to run, what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Let me think.” Her instincts told her to handle things alone, one person was enough to risk against such a powerful opponent. But it was too late to keep Daner out of it, and Karvonen—“Why don’t you take your own advice?”

  “Run away?” Karvonen’s face went blank of expression. “And leave you and his most noble lordship like a couple of babies playing at cliff’s edge? It’s a tempting thought, but no. Not just yet.”
His tone was a fair approximation of his usual bantering, but Eleret could hear the strain underneath. Her opinion of him rose tentatively. Whatever his motives—and he still had not explained them, she reminded herself—he was plainly as determined as any Cilhar to face possible dangers in spite of his fears.

  “All right.” Eleret did not even try to sort out the confused mixture of emotions she felt. She had more pressing problems. Lay it out like one of Raken’s tactical problems. Who are my most powerful enemies? The shapeshifting wizard, and, possibly, the legendary Shadow-born. Compared to them, the Syaski rated a distant third, despite their numbers. Who opposes them? Herself, armed with her skills, her daggers, and her ravens’-feet. Daner, with his swordsmanship and spell-casting. Karvonen, still largely an unknown quantity. What other resources do I have? The raven ring, which she didn’t know how to use. Her mother’s back pay and death fee, which would be an enormous sum in the mountains but which might not be so startling in Ciaron. Think of things that are not so obvious. What’s the terrain? The twisting streets of Ciaron, which both Karvonen and Daner seemed to know well. And the equally twisting maze of people and privileges and customs in the city, which Daner navigated without even thinking. Other possible allies… Commander Weziral had offered his help, and so had Climeral. Lord tir Vallaniri might also be willing; Jonystra and the shapeshifter had disrupted his household and threatened his family, and a common enemy made good grounds for alliance.

  Eleret began to feel less unsettled. But for the possibility of Shadow-born, the situation was not so bad as she had begun to fear. And as to the Shadow-born… Set a legend to defeat a legend. She smiled slightly, and looked over at Karvonen, who immediately assumed an expression of exaggerated patience.

  “Thought it all out at last?” the little thief asked solicitously.

  “Not all of it, just the next step. We’re going to see Adept Climeral.” From the look of relief on Karvonen’s face, he’d expected her to offer an open challenge in the market at midday to any Syaski, shapeshifters, or Shadow-born within hearing. Eleret felt her smile grow. “Come on. No sense in wasting time.”

  After offering her regrets to Lady Kistran, Eleret led Karvonen down the narrow front stair to the outer door. The guard on duty was the same one who had let her and Daner in the night before, and she nodded a greeting as she approached. To her surprise, he stepped in front of her, blocking the door.

  “Give you good day, Freelady.” The guard’s words resonated against the stone walls. He eyed Karvonen briefly, then shifted his weight forward and moved his hands a fraction farther apart, where he could more easily reach his weapons if they should be needed.

  “Good day return to you, Bresc.” Eleret paused uncertainly. Was there some unfamiliar protocol for leaving a Ciaronese nobleman’s home? “The messenger and I have to find Lord Daner. Will you open the door?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t, Freelady.” Bresc’s tone was polite, but with an undercurrent of implacability. “Lord Daner’s orders were very clear.”

  “Lord Daner’s orders?”

  “No one is to come in or go out until he returns.” Bresc’s eyes flicked to Karvonen once more. “And no one has.” Karvonen was back in his role, his face was a mask of professional politeness and unconcern, but beneath it he was taut as a new bowstring.

  Eleret shifted, and Bresc’s eyes snapped back to her. She felt more than saw Karvonen relax, and shifted again, so that the thief was very slightly behind her. “Keeping people out makes good sense, under the circumstances,” she told Bresc. “But keeping people in—”

  “His lordship was very specific about that, Freelady. No one leaves without his express permission.”

  “Which we can’t get, because he isn’t here.” She could, of course, try to fight her way out. Bresc was no Cilhar, and his reflexes were unlikely to be a match for hers; on the other hand, experience would make up for some of the speed that age had robbed him of. With regret, Eleret set the idea aside. She couldn’t start a fight in her host’s home, especially since Bresc was only doing his duty, nor could she challenge the guard simply because Daner had been thoughtless again.

  Behind her, Karvonen cleared his throat. “If the Freelady feels the matter is of sufficient urgency, perhaps Lord tir Vallaniri…”

  “I believe Lord tir Vallaniri is aware of Lord Daner’s commands, and agrees with them,” Bresc said. “If he gives you permission to leave, I shall, of course, obey.”

  “Then I will no doubt see you again soon.” Eleret bowed, turned, and, with Karvonen two steps ahead of her, headed for the stairs.

  “Do you really think Lord tir Vallaniri is going to let you out of here?” Karvonen asked as soon as they were out of the guard’s hearing.

  “Why shouldn’t he?”

  “Because you’re a guest who’s been threatened and he thinks you’ll be safer here, or because you’re a suspicious stranger he wants to keep an eye on, take your pick. Ciaronese take both their host-duties and their families very seriously.”

  “So do Cilhar. And speaking of suspicious strangers, how did you get in?”

  “Ummm—the love of your bright eyes made my heart so light that I flew over the wall?”

  Eleret snorted. “Let’s go talk to Lord tir Vallaniri. Whatever he says, he’ll make more sense than you do.”

  “Leave? No, no, Freelady, there’s no need for that,” Lord tir Vallaniri said. “The house is perfectly safe now; Daner’s seen to that.”

  “Yes, he told me.” Eleret frowned. “But you don’t win wars by sitting in a safe-hole waiting for your enemies to come to you, and there are things I should be doing.”

  “I’m sure they can wait until Daner returns,” Lord tir Vallaniri said. “He shouldn’t be away much past noon.” He looked at her face and added, “I appreciate your position, Freelady. I hope you appreciate mine. You are my guest, and you have already been attacked once under my roof. It would be far worse if you should be injured or killed through my carelessness.”

  “I understand.” At least, she understood that Lord tir Vallaniri was not to be persuaded, any more than Bresc had been. It looked as if she would spend her morning sitting home whittling tent stakes, whether she wanted to or not. Smothering her irritation, she gave a formal half-bow. “Good day to you, then, my lord.”

  Outside the study, Eleret turned right, toward the staircase that led up to her room. “Not that way,” Karvonen said. “This way. Unless you want to waste the morning admiring Lady tir Vallaniri’s taste in furnishings.”

  “You have an idea?”

  “I have a way out.” Karvonen hesitated. “It’ll unwrap a few family secrets for you, though, so if you use it you’ll have to promise not to tell anyone how you did it.”

  “I give you my word,” Eleret said at once. Her duty as a guest prevented her from fighting her way out, but it did not forbid her use of other means to escape her hosts’ overprotectiveness.

  “Then follow me.”

  Two flights of stairs and three narrow hallways later, curiosity about Karvonen’s “way out” had given way to amazement at how well he knew his way around the Vallaniri house. Only once did he pause and motion for Eleret to stop and be silent. Slightly puzzled, she did so, and heard footsteps growing fainter down a branching hall. She looked at Karvonen and raised her eyebrows.

  The footsteps faded into nothing. “I didn’t want to be seen,” Karvonen said softly. “This way, Freelady.”

  “Seen by whom?” Eleret asked. “And why do we have to go up two floors to get to your ‘way out,’ when all the doors are at the bottom of the stairs?”

  Karvonen peered cautiously around the corner. “We’re meeting some—Hsst! Jaki! Over here. Help for the family.”

  “What—Karvonen?” It was a woman’s voice, familiar but changing tone and timbre so completely between the two words that Eleret could not be certain who had spoken. A moment later, Jakella rounded the corner. For a moment, the two women stared at each other in mutual astonis
hment; then Jakella spun on Karvonen, her whole body stiff with anger.

  “Help for the family,” Karvonen repeated in an insistent tone, as if the phrase was a password. “Come on, Jaki, you know the drill. Where can we talk?”

  Jakella pressed her lips together, glanced back over her shoulder, then motioned them around the corner and through a door. The room beyond was small and clearly seldom used; the hearth was cold and swept clean, and the air smelled faintly of dust.

  “Now you can talk,” Jakella said. “And you, my dear cousin Karvonen, had better have a damned good reason for crying family to an observer on a job, and in front of an outsider, at that.”

  “It’s all right, Jaki, she’s Cilhar.”

  “I know that. So?”

  Karvonen looked nonplussed. “She’s given her word not to say anything about this to anyone. You haven’t broken cover yet.”

  “That’s a help, but it still leaves a little matter of—”

  “Excuse me,” Eleret said, laying her hand on the hilt of her dagger. She felt a little ill at what she was about to do, but duty to her host and her pledged word gave her no choice. “I won’t tell anyone about you, but I have to stop you. Guest-service. I’m sorry.”

  “Wait!” Karvonen stepped between Eleret and Jakella, hands carefully out to the sides, fingers wide and empty. “Can’t we talk first?”

  “I don’t think you want me to hear any more,” Eleret said. “And you can’t change my obligations. Lord tir Vallaniri is my host. Since I was foolish enough to pledge you my silence, I’ll have to stop whatever theft you’re planning myself.”

  Jakella made a small choking noise. “Theft? Karvonen, what have you been telling her?”

  “I haven’t told her anything,” Karvonen said, sounding harassed. “Shut up a minute, Jaki. Eleret—Freelady Salven—what makes you think—”

  “The City Guards told me that the Aurelicos are all famous thieves,” Eleret said. “And you admitted as much yourself.”