Sun Wolf 2 - The Witches Of Wenshar (18 page)

“They’ll never do it.” Sun Wolf’s hand smoothed the skin of her shoulder absently, yet delighting in the feel of it, like silk under his palm, broken by the delicate tra-punto of an old knife scar. “It hinges on Osgard admitting that Tazey’s mageborn—that she isn’t the perfect little princess he’s always wanted. Galdron’s going to be lucky if he gets away from the palace without a flogging for even bringing it up.”

But evidently the Bishop went unflogged, for three hours later he came, in silence, to the base of the outside stair that led up to Tazey’s lighted room. The night had grown cold, the terrible electric quality of it ebbing as the distant storm died away over the desert. The music had long since ceased from the Hall, but the light in the King’s solar continued to burn, and an occasional soft-footed servant had come and gone from the curtained archway of Tazey’s room. The curtains were orange and scarlet desert work; with the lights in the room behind them, they rippled like a rainbow of fire. A reflection of that dim and far-off luminescence sparkled on the Bishop’s embroidered cloak as he gathered up his robes like a lady’s skirts, glanced surreptitiously around him, and started to ascend the stair.

“It’s a bit late to be going calling, Galdron,” said a soft, even voice from the shadows of the stair.

The old man stopped with an apoplectic snort. Midway up the stair, a rawboned figure unfolded itself from the shadows; the sinking moonlight brushed a few ivory strands of short-cropped hair and the glint of steel studding on a green leather jerkin such as the guards wore. The Bishop blustered, “They said that the Princess sleeps ill of nights and that, if she was still awake, I might speak with her.” But like her, he kept his voice low. A sharp word spoken anywhere between the stair and the little gate that led from the court to the empty quarter would wake every sleeper on that side of the Palace.

“They probably didn’t mean at three hours before dawn.”

“I have been speaking with the King,” the Bishop replied with dignity. “I thought . . . ”

“You thought you might be able to talk Tazey into wanting what you want for her? Give her a few choice nightmares to think about before she sees her father at breakfast?”

“Whatever nightmares the witch’s guilty conscience might visit upon her,” Galdron said sententiously, “they are well spent if they will save her from the eternal nightmare of Hell by causing her to repent.”

“Repent what? How she was born? Saving four people from dying? You have a beautiful voice, Galdron; you can probably persuade people into believing anything.” The dark figure began to descend the stairs toward him, and there was a sudden flash of moon-silvered steel as a thin knife appeared in her hand. “I think it would be a whole lot less persuasive with your nose slit clear back to the sinuses.”

Galdron backed down the stairs so hastily that he nearly tripped on the flowing satin of his crimson robe. He stammered, “I shall call—”

“Call whom?” a rich, deep voice asked softly from the courtyard shadows. The Bishop looked back irritably over his shoulder. In the shadows, eyes gleamed white in a dark face above the pale blur of a collar ruffle. “The guards, and tell them you tried to talk your way around Tazey when her Daddy had already told you no? I told you it was a fool idea. Let’s go back to town.”

Galdron hesitated for a moment. In the moonlight Starhawk saw his face purse with frustration. Then he looked up at her where she stood on the stairs, his white beard like streaks of ermine among the dark fur of his cloak collar. “Don’t believe that I have given up,” he said, still softly. “The girl’s soul is in danger. I have told her father so, though that . . . ” He hesitated and glanced at Norbas Milkom, who had materialized beside him in the shadows. He amended, “ . . . though her father will not believe me. There is too much witchery in this Palace already. She must be removed, or evil will come of it.”

And turning, he vanished into the night. Laughing softly to herself, Starhawk slipped her knife back into her boot and went up the stairs.

The following morning Tazey was pronounced well enough to make her appearance in the Hall at breakfast.

Sitting in her usual place at Kaletha’s table, Starhawk eyed the girl worriedly, as Tazey was ushered in by her father and her uncle. Her dust-blond hair artificially curled, her broad, straight shoulders framed in a profusion of cantaloupe-colored silk ruffles, she looked washed out and miserable, hopelessly distant from the gay and beautiful girl who had so joyfully danced the war dance. Years of friendship with Sun Wolf’s various concubines had given Starhawk the ability to spot make-up carefully applied, in this case to cover the ravages of sleeplessness and doubt. The King, in puce damask that accentuated the broken veins in his nose and cheeks, held his daughter’s hand with possessive pride, his weary, bloodshot green eyes darting over the faces of the unnaturally large crowd at breakfast, daring any to speak.

None did. However and whyever Nexué’s strident gossip had been silenced, Starhawk thought, the silencing had been effective. There was a good chance that the whole affair would be scotched.

And what then?
she wondered. The gorgeous and somewhat wooden-headed Prince Incarsyn would marry Tazey and carry her off in splendor to his jewel-like little city deep in the dune seas of the south. She would eat candied dates, ride in palanquins, bear his babies, and try to forget what it felt like to part the winds with her hands.

As the King conducted his daughter to her place at the High Table, Anshebbeth came hurrying down to where Starhawk and Kaletha sat. The governess, in her high-necked velvet gown, looked as if she, like Tazey, had spent a night either sleepless or ravaged by hideous dreams; her thin hands twitched as she kept glancing back toward the King. Though her place was with her charge on what was clearly an official occasion, she perched nervously on the chair at Kaletha’s other side.

“They came last night,” she fretted. “The Bishop and Norbas Milkom . . . ”

“Starhawk was telling me,” Kaletha replied, a little spitefully, as if to lay emphasis on Anshebbeth’s exclusion from the prior conversation.

The governess threw a hunted look up at the High Table where Osgard was irritably ordering Jeryn to sit up straight. The boy, just up from his own bout with sunstroke, looked like a lizard in molt, wan and exhausted and peeling, his white hands with their bitten nails toying listlessly with his food. Her voice sank to a whisper, “Do you think he will—will proclaim your banishment?”

“Your banishment?”
Starhawk asked, surprised.

Kaletha’s lips compressed with barely stifled irritation. Anshebbeth explained hurriedly to Starhawk, “We were told, Kaletha and I, that the real reason Galdron and Norbas Milkom came last night was to demand that—that Kaletha be sent away! Only because of her power, only because her excellence would be a temptation to the Princess—only out of spite, and jealousy, because of Egaldus becoming a wizard! They hate her, Galdron and Milkom . . . ”

“Stop it, ’Shebbeth!” Kaletha said, embarrassed.

“It’s true,” the governess said eagerly, trying too hard to make up yesterday’s lost ground. “You know they hate you.”

Kaletha pushed at a forkful of beans on her plate. Still without looking up, she said, “I wish you’d stop taking every backstairs rumor your lover whispers into your ears as sacred truth.”

At the viciousness in Kaletha’s voice as she pronounced the word lover, Anshebbeth’s pale face turned the color of paper, her hand clutching nervously at her throat.

Coldly, Kaletha turned to face her. “You don’t think I know you’ve been playing the slut with Nanciormis? The man gossips like an old woman and sneaks and spies worse than Nexué did. No wonder I’ve never been able to raise the smallest powers in you, as I have in Egaldus. All you think about is yourself.”

Not at all to Starhawk’s surprise, Anshebbeth hung her head. There were tears perilously close to the surface as she whispered, “I—You’re right, Kaletha. I have—I have thought too much of myself—not enough of your welfare, or that of others. If I haven’t achieved power yet, I realize it’s my own fault . . . ”

Kaletha opened her mouth to say something else, but Starhawk, realizing that nothing encourages cruelty so much as subservience, broke in with, “I think you’d better get back to the High Table, Anshebbeth, or Osgard will think about banishing Kaletha.”

The governess started, throwing a stricken glance up at Osgard’s irritated face. She gulped, hastily wiped her eyes, and gathered up her flowing skirts, to scurry back and take her place at the bottom of the High Table, dropping flustered curtseys to everyone there, even as a stirring around the Hall door marked the entry of Incarsyn of Hasdrozaboth, Lord of the Dunes.

He looks,
Starhawk thought, his usual gorgeous self in the full panoply of the shirdar lords. He had all Nanciormis’ grace and beauty, unblurred by the lines of sensuality and indulgence which had long ago eroded the commander’s handsomeness. In his white cloak, his baggy trousers and soft boots with their stamp-work of gold, his flowing surcoat, and strings of scarlet and blue amulets, he looked like a young and graceful hunting cat; whereas the commander, though he had the same hawklike shirdar features and the same thick braids of black hair, more resembled a somewhat spoiled tabby who has long ago decided that mousing was beneath him.

Osgard rose, leading Tazey by the hand. The girl’s face had the set, desperate look it had worn, Starhawk realized, when she had first stepped forward to face the darkness of the storm.

With slightly rehearsed grace, Incarsyn bowed and smiled. “It is better than you know, my Princess, to see you well again.”

Tazey took a deep breath, released her father’s hand, and stepped forward. Reaching up, she removed the small, gleaming droplets of the sand-pearls from her ears. Her voice was small and steady and like the clink of a dropped dagger in the enormous silence of the Hall.

“Thank you.” She faltered for one instant, glanced desperately back at the King, then went on. “You’ve been too good to me for me to want to pay you in false coin. What you’ve heard is true. I’m mageborn.” And she put the sand-pearls into his hand.

In that hideous instant of silence, Starhawk’s interested glance took in all the faces at the High Table—Osgard’s engorging with blood as his hand came up involuntarily as if he would strike her, and Jeryn’s dark eyes blazing to life with the first expression of soaring joy Starhawk had seen in them at his sister’s courage; Nancioromis was smiling. Why smiling? Beside her, she was aware of Kaletha smiling, too, with triumph at having thwarted the King and with anticipation at being, after all, Tazey’s teacher.

For one shocked instant, Incarsyn looked as taken aback as if Tazey had confessed to selling her favors in the Pardle bazaar.

The silence seemed to last for minutes, though Starhawk calculated it was in fact twelve or thirteen seconds. Then Osgard found the breath to gasp, “You—”

Incarsyn lifted a stilling finger. Reaching forward, he took Tazey’s hand, turned it over gently, and replaced the sand-pearls in her palm.

“It is a poor lover,” he said softly, his liquid voice carrying to all comers of the Hall, “who abandons his betrothed because she cuts off her hair, or changes its color, or decides that she will learn to play the war pipes. What you have told me is no more than this. If you will have me, Lady Taswind . . . ” Graceful as a panther, he sank to one knee and, closing her fingers around the pearls, pressed a kiss upon her knuckles. “ . . . I will still be your true lord.”

The applause rang like a thunderclap in the rafters, shouts of approval and toasts in weak breakfast wine. Osgard, stayed in his stride forward to shake Tazey until her teeth rattled, stepped back, his broad face wreathed in a smile of startled surprise at this magnanimity. But Tazey, Starhawk saw, looked stunned, shaking her head in confusion as a tear tracked down her hollowed face.

“I think it was beautiful,” Anshebbeth sighed dewily, coming to join Kaletha’s table a few minutes later.

“Do you?” Nanciormis walked quietly up behind her, a half-drunk vessel of wine in hand, pressed there by the King to toast the betrothed couple. His pouchy eyes glinted with cynicism which could not quite conceal furious anger.

Anshebbeth flustered, confused about what she might have said wrong and even more confused by Nanciormis’ presence, as if, thought Starhawk, she can not make up her mind whether to stand next to him or Kaletha. “Well—that is—after what people have been saying . . . though of course there’s nothing wrong with it . . . But Incarsyn—”

“Incarsyn,” said Nanciormis bitterly, “would have said the same thing were she a humpbacked leper and still the daughter of the King of Wenshar. I know.” He looked somberly at Kaletha, and even her cool reserve relaxed a little, under his warm brown gaze. “I met him late last night, coming back from the brothels in town. ‘Does it matter to me if the girl’s a witch-bitch?’ he said. ‘I rode north to marry her whatever she looked like; if she boils toads and couples with snakes for her pleasure, what is that to me? It could be worse—she could play the war pipes.’ ”

Anshebbeth went white with shock and disillusionment. Kaletha’s nostrils flared in anger, but there was no surprise in her face as she threw a bitter glance at the High Table, where Tazey, rigid with desperate composure, listened to the Prince’s light glow of blandishments that spared her the effort of stammering a reply. “So he’ll take her away with him after all,” she said bitterly. “And her father will be spared having to think about her ‘disgrace.’ ”

“It’s what he came here for.”

With soft and bitter violence, she whispered, “Men,” and turned her head suddenly, going back to her breakfast in arctic rage.

After a moment’s hesitation Anshebbeth gathered up her long skirts and sat beside Kaletha, offering the comfort of her presence, but she threw one look quickly back over her shoulder at Nanciormis, as if asking his permission. Nanciormis said nothing, but his dark eyes warmed for a moment with complicity; with that Anshebbeth smiled, uneasily content.