Sword of the Lamb (8 page)

One more gauntlet for Rich to run in the name of duty: the family’s obligatory appearance at the Daro Galinin Estate ball. Alexand looked out the ’car window, not at his brother. It didn’t require direct observation to know Rich’s state of mind after the incident at the Plaza.

Incident.

Perhaps that was the word for it. A small event that would be noted by witnesses and reporters simply because the Woolfs had been involved, but would soon be forgotten.

Rich would never forget it because he didn’t understand it. The inexplicable motives of the man who tossed the ink bomb would fix the incident indelibly in his memory.

The Galinin Estate was near the Plaza complex on a bend of the Yarra River. It was one of the oldest structures in Concordia, surrounded by parks and glades, its venerable, rose-hued stone walls garlanded with ivy, a sanctuary of calm, like Mathis Galinin himself. But tonight it was lighted and decorated for the festivities, and even though Hilding had the flashing clearance lights on, their approach was slowed by the tangle of traffic. Daro Galinin was traditionally the first stop on the Concord Day tour of the Concordia Estates, and the influx was at its peak.

That tradition was the reason for this last gauntlet for Rich. The Woolfs wouldn’t find it necessary to tour the other Houses, but a stop at Daro Galinin was mandatory, and not because Mathis Galinin would be offended if they didn’t put in an appearance tonight; he found social affairs on this scale tiresome and would much prefer to see his daughter and family in private.

Custom commands, according to the old maxim. To defy this custom would create speculation about the relationship between Daro Galinin and DeKoven Woolf. That the bond between the two Houses was generations old and cemented by personal affection and respect wasn’t enough. Rumors could be disastrous in the games of politics; appearances were generally more important than truth.

The ’car was finally approaching the landing area at the foot of the entry stair below the ballroom. Alexand felt a change in Rich’s posture; he was bracing himself.

Woolf had suggested casually that Rich might prefer to have Hilding take him home. Elise had seconded the suggestion, her tone light. But he refused. This duty call would be brief; it always was. There was nothing wrong with him.

Alexand recognized that decision as an error; Rich too often overestimated his strength, and emotional stress affected his muscular control. But he didn’t argue with Rich, not did his parents. At least there would be no stationary steps for him to contend with; the entry stair had moving ramps. And their stay
would
be brief; only long enough to pay their respects to Galinin and to Evin and Marcessa.

Alexand wondered if the Lady Camma would be at the ball. His grandmother’s illness was seldom discussed, perhaps because it was hopeless. She hadn’t accompanied her husband to the Plaza ceremonies.

The landing seemed to come with a lurch. Elise rose as the guard opened the door.

“Rich?”

“I’m fine, Mother.”

The ramp carried them up into the crowd milling about the columned foyer off the ballroom, into the laughter and music, the silken rustlings, the murmuring of multitudinous footsteps. Alexand heard the change in the tone of voices, saw the faces turning in their direction.

The foyer level, the end of the ramp, and Rich managed it easily enough. But he was too pale.

“Ah, Elise! You’re exquisite, my lady—as if you were ever anything less.”

Elise laughed, extending her hand to the tall, golden-haired Lord Ivanoi.

“Alexis, you’re the only man I know who can flatter without insult. Honoria, how are you?” This to Ivanoi’s wife, a regal woman whose beauty was reason enough for her renown in the Concord, but it was overshadowed by her character; a woman of intelligence and outspoken conviction fortunate enough to marry a man who valued those qualities.

“I’m very well, Elise, except for an incipient case of boredom. I’m looking forward to Master Demret’s symphalight concert at your ball to alleviate that.”

“It’s beautiful, Honoria, at least the little Demret would let me see of it.”

The greetings extended to Alexand and Rich, and Woolf and Alexis Ivanoi took a moment for a
sotto voce
conference. Politics, Alexand knew. Ivanoi was a Director and a staunch ally of Galinin and Woolf.

Rich was still capable of smiles and polite responses. The Ivanoi drifted away to be replaced by the Robek, then the Matsune, the Reeswyck, and later Lord Charles and Lady Constanz Fallor with their daughter Julia in tow, all eyeing Alexand speculatively. The Woolfs moved steadily toward the ballroom, but their progress seemed unbearably slow; familiar faces that must be recognized, unfamiliar ones that called for introductions, seemed to expand in geometric progression. Alexand automatically made the expected responses, seldom looking directly at Rich, but keeping him always in the periphery of his vision.

And Rich was faltering. The trembling wouldn’t be apparent to anyone else, but it was there, and his pallor was more pronounced. Rich had the will for this gauntlet, but not the strength, and he was beginning to realize it now.

Lord Cadmon, then the Cordulay, and the Zarlinska with three marriageable daughters on display; the Estwing, the Sharidar, the Delai Omer, the Cameroodo. . . .

“Alex . . .” Alexand had to lean close to Rich: he was nearly whispering. “Alex, perhaps I could wait near the ramp. . . .”

“We’ll go to the car.” Alexand caught his mother’s eye; she only nodded, sending Rich a smile as they turned away.

But Alexand paused at the touch of his father’s hand on his arm: that and the significant turn of Woolfs head focused Alexand’s attention on a man standing near the ballroom doors.

The Lord Orin Badir Selasis, looming massively, his bulk draped, not disguised, by full-length robes heavy with fur, the black eye patch giving his swarthy features a sinister aspect against the background of festive decorations and costumes. Selasis was displaying a rare smile for the man with whom he was talking, a handsome man in his forties, tall and broad-shouldered. With his blond, Noreuropan coloring, he was a marked contrast to the woman beside him, who was slender and small with an oriental cast to her features.

“The gentleman enjoying Orin’s attention,” Woolf said, turning his gaze elsewhere, “is Loren Eliseer.”

Alexand emulated his father’s disinterest. “The Lady is his wife?”

“Yes. Galia Shang.”

“Is their daughter here?”

Woolf glanced briefly toward the Eliseer. “I don’t see her. At any rate, this isn’t the time for—”

“
Rich
—” Alexand spun around, suddenly cold, his pulse leaden. Rich was gone. He’d started for the ’car, thinking Alexand was following him. But it wasn’t Rich’s absence in itself that brought that chill. It was a sound small in this pressing crowd, but one his ear was attuned to.

A metallic clatter. A crutch falling.

Alexand struck out through the crowd in a straight line toward the entry, veering slightly to one side of it. He couldn’t see Rich, nor was there time to wonder why he moved so purposefully in this direction, how he knew exactly where Rich was. But he knew.

And he knew Rich needed him desperately.

He collided with someone, aware only of a mass of brocaded robes and cloying perfume. He didn’t stop to apologize; he was oblivious to everyone around him, smiles and greetings meeting with silence and unseeing eyes.

An eddy off the mainstream, a transient gathering of young Sers and Serras. Alexand knew them all, knew their names and lineage; they were his peers. But only one of them registered in his consciousness.

Karlis Selasis.

Lord Orin’s flawed Adonis, as fair as his father was dark, as handsome as he was sinister; Karlis attired in blood-red down to his gold-scrolled, sharp-heeled boots; Karlis with his Grecian mouth drawn in a languid smirk, bending his golden-curled head to a companion; Karlis laughing. The laugh was taken up on cue by the others, and Karlis was vain enough to think they followed his lead out of deference to him.

They laughed on his cue because all of them recognized behind him the shadow of Orin Badir Selasis.

Alexand plunged toward that psychic eddy, a circle shaped by an emotional current that would dissipate in a matter of seconds as it had formed in seconds, but those seconds were each eternities of pain. He was choked with it. It emanated from Rich and translated into blind rage in Alexand’s mind.

Rich was at the center of that circle, isolated in that transient vortex like a trapped animal suffering the taunts of the closing hounds. One of his crutches lay gleaming on the floor, while he balanced precariously on the other. Under normal circumstances, he could retrieve the fallen crutch easily, but his nerves and muscles wouldn’t respond now; even with the one crutch, he might fall in another second.

And Karlis Selasis laughed. The Sers and Serras laughed with him, and not one of them had the humanity or the courage to offer Rich a succoring hand. Again, Alexand knew himself capable of violence. He would stop that laughter with his bare hands at Karlis’s throat if—

Rich was no longer alone. Alexand was only a few paces from him, but he stopped short, jarred as if he were confronted by an apparition.

There was one person here capable of compassion and possessed of the courage to defy the first born of Orin Selasis. She moved toward Rich silently, an eidolon materialized out of nothingness, a slight girl who seemed at first no more than a child. Yet she struck the laughter down.

She walked with regal grace that dispelled the impression of childishness; not yet a woman, but far more than a child, and Alexand had the irrational conviction that she’d never been a child. He thought at first she was dressed in white, but that was also a false impression. Pale blue velveen bordered with pearls. Strands of pearls decked her night-black hair like stars; oblique eyes, black as her hair.

Those weren’t the eyes of a child, and the unmasked contempt in them didn’t stop short of loathing. It was there to be read by anyone, and it was directed with no hint of equivocation at Karlis Selasis. He shrank under that gaze; his fair skin reddened, and no words came from his open mouth.

The girl stopped when she reached Rich, the contempt vanished, and in its place was a gentle smile that hardly touched her lips; it was all in her dark eyes. She sank in a graceful, formal curtsy.

“Ser Richard, if I may . . .”

Rich could only stare at her, dazed and silent, while she knelt to pick up his crutch, then steadied him as he took it and grasped the handgrip. Alexand roused himself and started toward Rich. The eddy had already dissipated; only Karlis was left, standing in livid humiliation, ready to vent his anger on the Serra, but the words died on his lips when Alexand appeared at Rich’s side.

“Lost your nerve, Karlis?” Alexand asked softly.

His chin came up sullenly. “Are you calling me a coward?”

“That would flatter you.” Then the rage surfaced in a rush. “Out of my sight, Karlis, or we’ll settle this with a point of honor!”

Karlis glared at him, then turned and stalked away.

“We’ll settle it,” he said belligerently over his shoulder, but he didn’t pause in his retreat.

“Alex . . .” Rich’s faltering voice made that more a sigh than a word.

And the Serra was gone, like the eidolon she called to mind. But there wasn’t time to think about her; Rich was shaking, on the edge of collapse.

“Rich, hold on.” Alexand had long ago learned how to support him without making it obvious; his hand on his arm high under the shoulder; a grip Rich could lean on, that would cause him no pain. The crutches were on maximum lift; if he didn’t lose his hold on the handgrips . . .

Elise Woolf appeared, taking Rich’s other arm without comment, her smile still intact. But she stopped to speak with no one as the three of them moved toward the entry.

“Rich, your father ’commed Hilding. The ’car will be waiting. Phillip will stay to finish the socializing here.”

The ramp, and Rich sagged as it carried them downward.

“Mother, I’m sorry. . . .”

“Hush, love, none of that.” She leaned down to kiss his forehead. “All you need is some rest.”

Alexand’s gaze was fixed on the scarlet and black banners on the Faeton waiting at the bottom of the ramp. He couldn’t meet his mother’s eyes now.

Dr. Stel and Phillip Woolf were gone now. Rich lay quiet; the nearly hysterical bout of weeping he’d staved off until their return to the Estate was over. His mother sat on the edge of the bed holding his hand, and Alexand leaned against the canopy post at the head of the bed. The windowall framed a scintillant galaxy, the lights of Concordia, and the only sounds were Elise’s soothing voice and Harlequin’s music.

Alexand looked over to the corner by the windowall where the old Bond sat crosslegged on the floor, lined face tilted up, blind eyes focused somewhere in the blackness behind those unseeing sockets. An electroharp rested on his knees, and his blunt fingers moved deftly among the strings, sending out soft, bell-like tones. The lumensa wall behind him shimmered with amorphic light-shadows, violet to blue to green, with the pulse of the music.

Harlequin he was called, and Alexand didn’t know his real name. Elise had dubbed him Harlequin when she was a child. He wore the gold-and-purple tabard of a Galinin Bond, but he had lived in the Woolf Estate since her marriage, his extraordinary talents her private delight. And Rich’s. There the old man’s loyalties were happily divided—and shared.

There were no words to this song. Only a graceful melody that turned upon itself in exquisite variations, a melody that would be Harlequin’s own. A man who could neither read nor write, who could scarcely communicate in words, but the fire of genius burned behind those dead eyes. Yet only a handful of people would ever know it existed.

But Harlequin was happy. His genius was rewarded with the solicitous care of his Lady and the appreciation of those few people whose lives were enriched by his talents. Harlequin asked nothing more of life.

Rich was saying earnestly, “Mother, I’m all right now, really. The guests will be arriving, and you haven’t even changed your gown.”

She hesitated, studying his pale features. “Are you really feeling better now?”

“Yes, I
am
getting sleepy. Must be the sedative Dr. Stel gave me.”

She nodded. “Rich, perhaps we’ll go to the beach estate for a few days. Would you enjoy that?”

His eyes brightened. “Yes, I would—very much.”

“So would I. All this celebration is exhausting.” She leaned forward to kiss him and take him in her arms. “Good night, Rich. I love you dearly.”

“I love you, Mother.”

She rose and turned to Alexand, their eyes meeting in a shared understanding, a mutual pain. But her smile didn’t falter.

“Alex, will you be joining us at the ball later?”

“If you wish.”

“Only if
you
wish. You’ll have enough of such affairs in your life, and you won’t always have a choice.” She turned, touching Rich’s hand. “Rest well, darling.” Then, as she crossed to the door, she smiled at the old musician. “Good night, Harlequin. It’s a lovely song.”

When the door closed softly behind her, Alexand brought a chair up beside the bed and slumped into it, then unlaced the brocaded doublet. Rich studied his brother silently. For some time neither of them spoke.

Finally, Rich shifted his gaze to the windowall and the wash of Concordia’s lights.

“One day I’m going to find out
why
. I mean, that Bond. It was so senseless. An ink bomb. And why throw it at Mother?”

“It was probably intended for Father.”

“That still doesn’t make sense. What did Father ever do to him?”

“Nothing. It’s just that he’s the Lord Woolf.”

Rich was quiet for a while; the sedative was pulling at his eyelids, but he was still fighting it.

“Alex, who was she, the Serra?”

Alexand didn’t have to ask which Serra. Her image haunted his thoughts, that child-woman with her pearl-starred hair.

“I didn’t know her, Rich.”

“Aren’t you curious about her? The mysterious Serra with the courage to defy Karlis Selasis?”

“I don’t want to know who she is or anything about her.”

“Why not?”

Alexand turned to look across the bed to the windowall. “Tomorrow I’m to meet a potential bride. Not the first such meeting, not the last, and one day the Contracts of Marriage will be drawn and signed. But that mysterious Serra . . .”His throat seemed to close on him. “One could love someone like that. I don’t want to know her name.”

Rich sighed. “Yes, one could love . . . oh, Alex—”

“Rich, it comes with the Crest Ring, with the name and the power. It’s part of the price.”

He nodded, closing his eyes; he could no longer stave off the sedative, and his words were slow and slurred.

“So . . . sleepy. Alex, thanks. . . .”

Alexand didn’t move until Rich was well asleep. The time moved past, paced by Harlequin’s music. He would play without pause until asked to stop; the notes under his fingers were as essential and as effortless to him as his own heartbeat.

And Alexand sat motionless, listening. Why? So many whys: so many unanswerable questions. Tears moved unchecked down his cheeks. Harlequin couldn’t see them.