Ivory Lyre (3 page)

The dragon song kept freedom alive in
people’s minds, stirring their fury against the smothering and
consuming dark. That was what it must do for all of Tirror. There
were
more bards; there had to be. Perhaps, somewhere, there
were more dragons. The old power, where bard could speak to bard or
dragon over distances, was all muddled and frayed by the dark. Teb
caught only glimpses of battles. He knew there was little
communication remaining among the resistance forces, human or
animal. This, too, Teb and the dragons meant to change. Meanwhile,
they would be in the thick of it in Dacia, and would learn
more.

They waited until dark before taking to the
sky, moving on the silent wind over the small island nations. It
was near to midnight when Teb chose a likely-looking fishing town
from which to steal his new clothes.

They came down along the cave-ridden cliffs
of Bukla and, because black Nightraider would not be seen so
easily, it was he who turned himself into a horse and carried Teb
up the cliffs to the prosperous little town.

Teb jimmied a shop door with little trouble.
He chose his clothes with care by the shielded light of one lantern
taken from the shop desk. He selected three changes of the most
elegant tunics and dark leggings, a pair of fine boots, and a red
cape that stirred memories, for its color. These were clothes meant
to impress, suited to a rich prince, not to his personal
preference. He found buckles, heavy linen thread, and some felted
horsehair padding for a saddle in the shop’s workroom, and packed
it all into a linen bag. He left ample gold in exchange, and locked
the door behind him.

They spent three days on a small rock island
while Teb fashioned the four halters, a saddle, and saddlebags of
the white leather. Then on the fourth night the dragons made for
the northerly and deserted shore of Dacia, north of the city, some
five miles from the black palace that loomed against the stars.

Chapter
3

The Palace of Dacia was built directly into
the mountain, so its deepest chambers were the mountain’s own stony
caves. The sheer black palace walls, carved and ornate, looked down
on the country’s one city, their arrow slits watching the teeming
streets like thin, appraising eyes. The city climbed up so abruptly
to meet the palace that the stone huts stood jumbled nearly on top
of one another, straw-thatched roofs shouldering against the
doorsteps above.

It was early evening now, the sun gone
behind the mountain. The palace’s heavy shadow spread down across
the tangled city, reaching to swallow more and more houses and
lanes as suppertime drew near. The smell of the city was of boiled
mutton and cabbage and of animal dung and crowded humanity. Men
were coming home from the wharves and fields and pouring out of
taverns. Women shuffled pots on cookstoves and shouted at squalling
babies.

Kiri stood in her own darkened doorway,
listening.

She glanced back inside once, where her
grandmother dozed on the cot, her thin body angled under the frayed
quilt, her veined hands clasped together.

Kiri watched Gram with tenderness, then
turned to make her way up the darker side of the cobbled street,
deeper into the shadow of the palace. She was fourteen, thin,
sun-browned, her brown hair tucked up under a green cap. She was
dressed in the green homespun tunic of a page. She wore a sharpened
kitchen knife hidden beneath the tunic, couched comfortably against
her thigh. As she climbed, the city spread itself out below her.
She could see the first early squares of candlelight, and the
occasional brighter glow of an oil lamp in some privileged
household—Kiri took note of which houses. There, the baker was
burning oil, where he had not in nearly a month. What had he been
up to, to curry favor with the king? And the tanner, also—two
bright lamps in his windows.

There was a look about Kiri that was
difficult to define, though she tried her best to look
unremarkable. Her two tunics were purposely worn and shabby, her
hair dulled by rubbing dust into her comb, her expression
spiritless and unrevealing. But beneath the seeming dullness was a
spark as free and wild as a mountain deer, hidden as best she could
hide it. The clean chiseling of her face and the challenging,
longing look in her dark eyes did not belong to the kind of drudge
she pretended to be. It was a joy at night to strip out of her
confining cap and brush her hair clean and talk with Gram in the
privacy of their cottage, to hear Gram’s tales before the cookfire,
and laugh, and not have to look so solemn and stupid.

Gram’s tales were sometimes about Kiri’s
father, who once had been horsemaster to the king. It was a
prestigious position. The horsemaster of any kingdom on Tirror was
a most important person and responsible in good part for the
strength of that country’s armies. Now Kiri’s father had gone away.
He was not Gram’s son; Gram was Kiri’s mother’s mother. But Gram
respected him. Neither Gram nor Kiri spoke about the thing that had
been done to him. Kiri missed him. She did not miss her mother, who
had been dead since Kiri was two. She had died of the plague that
Kiri and her father had escaped, though everyone around them had
been sick. Kiri didn’t know why this was except maybe it was
because of the special talent that she and her father shared. It
made her sad to think that because Mama had not shared this gift
she had died. It was after Mama died that Gram came to live with
them and look after Kiri.

The Queen of Dacia had also had the plague,
though she didn’t die of it. She was made crippled and weak, and so
ill the king shut her away in a private chamber. She might as well
have been dead, for all most folk spoke or cared about her;
certainly not the king. He had bedded with Kiri’s cousin Accacia
until some mysterious event put a stop to that.

Now as she climbed the narrow cobbled
street, Kiri kept her eyes cast down, watching the city under her
lashes. Suddenly she heard horses and commotion. She raced to where
she could see the main approach to the palace gates. She saw a slim
man on a white mount. He was elegantly dressed in a red cape and
gold tunic.

He rode with easy grace the shying,
sidestepping war-horse. Three other horses followed him, mincing,
tossing their heads, but held lightly on thin leads. He appeared
far too regal and too wealthy to be traveling this land alone, and
with four of the most wonderful horses Kiri had ever imagined,
horses that surely had not come from Dacia or any of the
surrounding countries.

They were taller than Dacian horses, for one
thing, and slimmer of leg. They carried themselves with a balance
and grace that no Dacian horse could match. Their necks and
shoulders were dark with sweat and their legs spattered with mud
from the road as if they had had a long journey. But still they
were dancing and bowing their necks, their tails switching with
high spirits and challenge.

When Kiri reached the small palace gate that
led to the servants’ quarters, she paused to watch the rider enter
the main gate ahead. First she heard the creak of the gatekeeper’s
small door, then words exchanged that she could not make out. She
could see figures stirring inside the courtyard. The great gates
clanged open and the horses’ hooves rang on the cobbles. When rider
and horses had disappeared inside, there was more conversation
muffled by the wall. Kiri waited until the gate had been closed and
the gatekeeper gone back into his cottage; then she climbed the
palace wall in deep shadow, her bare feet knowing the toeholds.

She slipped over the top between the iron
spikes like a sparrow hopping between spears, scraping her arm only
once as she eased down the other side. Who was this elegant rider,
to come alone to Sardira’s palace with such horses? The voices
inside the courtyard had challenged him, and then had gone soft and
smooth as syrup. What was his business? No one traveled on any
business these days that did not have to do with the wars.

Kiri moved silently through a narrow passage
to the back door of the servants’ quarters, then inside. Half a
dozen women looked up dully from where they were scrubbing clothes.
They never remarked on her comings and goings or even noticed them,
so muddled had their minds become with the nightly rations of
drugged liquor. She went quickly through the dim room to the inner
hall that led to the courtyard, and along this toward the tangle of
voices, pressing close to the damp stone walls. She could hear the
traveler giving directions for stabling his horses. He sounded
young. She stood in deep shadow where she could see out into the
cobbled yard.

He
was
young, not much older than
she, a slim, tanned boy with high cheekbones and dark hair tied
back neatly, and dark eyes. And what strange directions he was
giving. A triple ration of oats—well, that was all right. But no
rubdown or grooming? And the stall doors to be left wide open, the
horses unfettered so they could roam at will?

“But there are no fences,” the king’s
steward said. “Surely you don’t mean . . . ?”

“They will not leave,” the young man said,
with an impatient scowl at the steward.

“I can’t be responsible for such a thing.”
The steward stood stolidly, his square face sour with this
challenge to his good sense. No one left horses to roam free and
expected them not to stray.

“The horses are not to be tethered or
confined. They will not tolerate confinement. They will be here
when I want them.”

The horses did seem nervous within the
confinement of the courtyard. They moved and shifted close around
the young man and kept glancing up past the top of the high stone
wall toward the freedom beyond, as if it would not take much for
them to leap that eight-foot stone barrier and be gone. Kiri had no
doubt they could leap it, these tall, finely muscled creatures. She
thought the slim white halters they wore would hardly hold them if
they were to rear or pull back. And the saddle mare wore no bit in
her mouth.

This lad was a very skilled horseman if he
had trained these mounts himself. She could see that they loved
him, that they remained steady only because he was there with them.
What would they do in the stable, with strange grooms? Kiri stood
watching the beautiful animals hungrily, just as Papa would have
done. Oh, Papa would covet these horses. Papa . . . she
bit her lip and pushed thoughts of Papa to the back of her mind,
and studied the rider more carefully.

A white leather thong, like the leather of
the halters, tied back his smooth dark hair. His face looked strong
and, Kiri thought, honest. His red cape was of soft, fine wool. His
tunic was gold with red trim over dark-brown leggings. His boots
were made by a master craftsman.

He removed the saddlebags and the mare’s
saddle deftly—such a thin saddle, little more than a white leather
pad—and caressed her neck and ears as if he were loath to send her
with the grooms who had come into the courtyard. As they led the
horses away, the mare looked back at the lad.

When they passed Kiri, all four horses
twitched their ears in her direction. The nearer stallion gazed
directly at her, directly into her eyes. His look froze her so that
she stood dumb, staring as they passed on out of the yard.

She stood still long after the horses had
gone and the young man had left the courtyard accompanied by the
king’s marshal, in the direction of the great hall. Her mind, her
whole being, seemed frozen with the stallion’s deep, searching
look.

She roused herself at last and fled for the
hall, to listen. Who was this man? And why did the intent stare of
his horses set her blood to pounding? Her wrists prickled with the
thought of magic, but she put that down to excitement. She must be
levelheaded, clear-minded if she was to gather information
accurately.

Her way was dark and close, between storage
chambers and through back passages, until she reached the big
indoor cistern that stood behind the fireplace of the great hall.
This cistern heated the water for the kitchens, and its iron sides
were warm against her as she slid around it, to stand between
cistern and stone wall, pressed tight in the small space.

She put her ear to the wall where, with her
help, mortar had long since crumbled away from between two stones.
She could hear the voices in the hall clearly. The stranger was
there, and the king himself, and the king’s son, Abisha.

Kiri peered through and could see Abisha’s
plump, silk-clad legs stretched before the hearth. King Sardira, in
black robes that seemed an extension of his black beard and locks,
looked very pale and lined. Too much feasting, Gram would have
said. Too much wine on the table. Or too much of the white powder
they gave to the slaves and sometimes indulged in themselves, Kiri
thought.

She could see the stranger, too. Was that a
touch of humor in his dark eyes, in the lines around his mouth? One
did not usually smile in the presence of King Sardira, and this
stranger seemed to be holding back a laugh. Kiri liked his
looks—but she knew better than to rely on a first glimpse. She
pressed her ear to the hole, and listened.

The voice of the king came clearly through
the little hole in the mortar. The stone was cool and smooth
against Kiri’s cheek. She could hear the ring of china as Prince
Abisha poured out mithnon liquor and tea. She saw the stranger
shake his head.

“No mithnon, please. Just tea.”

“You came from Thorley how long ago, Prince
Tebmund?” The king had a way of speaking that always insinuated he
did not believe one. So, the stranger was a prince.

“Several weeks,” Prince Tebmund said
casually. “I had some errands in the more southerly
continents.”