The Fox (48 page)

While he was packing his belongings—the locket tied with care in a square of silk, just as it was, to be given to his father—and issuing orders for Flash Arveas as aide to Jasid Tlen, a short ride coastward in Lindeth, Inda sat in the guildmistress’ house.

He and Tau had been kept waiting. Then they’d had to endure a long and tedious but exact list of goods and services rendered, first donations and then those for which he was expected to pay. Each item was ticked off by clerks for the guilds and the harbormaster.

At last it was over, just as the tide was about to turn. Inda studied the faces around him. “That’s settled, then?”

The harbormaster, the guild mistress, and the others who had insisted on attending this meeting all murmured assent.

Inda pulled a purse from his winter vest and counted out the heavy silver six-sided Sartoran coinage. Two or three people leaned forward. Most everyone recognized Sartoran coins, but they were rare this far west.

“I believe that’s the equivalent,” he said. “According to the value table your own people sent me.”

“Fair enough,” said the harbormaster, a gaunt, austere man who had been born when Lindeth was free and who remembered the conquering Marlovan king fifty years before. He knew that Lindeth Harbor was by far getting the best of the bargain, and his innate honesty jibed at him until he said, “From all the reports, what you have thus given us in sail-craft, we are probably in your debt.”

The guildmistress, even older than the harbormaster, pursed her lips. Then said defensively, “We must pay for those services that were not part of the donation agreement, and it must be done now, as you are sailing. We do not know how the ships you left us will value out.”

Inda flicked open his hand, palm up—a Marlovan gesture, from the long-ago days when it was important to show no concealed knife. But Iascans no longer knew what it signified.

Tau observed the subtle signs of distrust and wariness after Inda’s gesture, as Inda said, “I am not arguing, but I do need to go, if you want to see the last of us.”

The others stirred, some of them avoiding others’ gazes. Inda had recognized that the long wait was partly the back of the hand at Marlovan pirates and partly what they’d consider prudence—to release him just in time for the tide to turn so he’d not stop anywhere on his way out. “Listen,” Inda said. “Many of the Brotherhood ran. They might try something new, so get those ships repaired and don’t relax your watch.”

The harbormaster looked grim. “We will continue to keep night as well as day watch, you may be assured.”

Inda flicked up a hand. Most of his cash reserves were now gone, but his own ships were in a fair way to being repaired. The last things could be done by his own carpenters under sail. More important, each ship was laden with goods against the long journey ahead.

He looked around, saw questions in some faces.

“May we ask your plans?” asked the old guildmistress.

Inda knew distrust when he saw it. And so, to whom would they pass any answer? “Whatever I do will be far away from here.”

Exchanges of looks. Inda turned to leave.

A tall, black-haired young man, who had lounged against the side wall during the whole interview, watching from under lazy eyelids, straightened up and stepped in Inda’s path. He said in flat-accented Marlovan, “We know who you are.” The words were Marlovan, but the verb endings Iascan.

Inda gave him no more than a glance, stepped around him, and walked out. Tau got up and followed—or began to.

The lounger’s hand shot out and gripped his arm. “Is he really Elgar the Fox? The son of the Prince of Choraed Elgaer? ”

Tau looked down at the fingers gripping his arm, waiting until they loosened and then dropped. The man backed up a step, hands held up in mocking apology.

“Ask him,” Tau replied, and closed the door behind him.

The harbormaster looked up wryly. “Well, Mardric?”

Mardric shrugged. Obviously whoever that scar-faced pirate and his pretty companion were or were not, Elgar the Fox hadn’t the remotest knowledge of or interest in the Resistance against the Marlovan conquerors. Except that that short young fellow—he’d swear he was even younger than the princeling up at Ala Larkadhe—was not the tall, red-haired commander clad in black that the traders he’d visited in secret at midnight had all insisted was in command of the flagship that defeated the red sails.

During the time the pirates had been kept waiting Mardric had slipped out once to hear from the spies he’d sent to observe the two at the pier and then on the main road, where the gray-coated Marlovan sentries patrolled. Elgar and his golden-haired mate had made no attempt to speak to any of them. They had also walked by the Marlovans without the latter betraying any sign of recognition. He was certain it would be the same on the way back.

“I’d call that a waste of breath,” the harbormaster added.

Mardric laughed. Indeed. So much for his plan to try to hire or lure these pirates—especially if led by an exiled Marlovan—to do some fighting against the Marlovans for Olara! But he never admitted defeat—out loud.

He said, “I’d call it a good try.”

The harbormaster turned his head. “Well, Mistress Pim? You’re the only one who has seen their Lord Indevan Algara-Vayir. Was one of those men he?”

From a side room came a straight-browed young woman. “Yes,” she said. “The short, ugly one. He hasn’t changed much since I found him in that pirate harbor in the east, except to get uglier.” She touched her jawline.

“Ugly? Not at all,” Mardric drawled. “Perhaps not as finished as his golden-haired mate, but pretty enough, despite the scars.” He was thoroughly enjoying the unspoken disgust in Ryala Pim’s face, the revulsion in the guildmistress’: their firm stance on the moral high ground obviously did not include the possibility of pirates being attractive.

Sure enough, the guild mistress said in her precise, disdainful voice, “But we still don’t know if he’s Elgar the Fox.”

The harbormaster nodded. “Anyone might wear black, but neither of them is red-haired.”

Ryala Pim said with disgust, “That Lord Indevun called himself Elgar when he hired on our ships. He is a Marlovan
and
a pirate. You can’t tell me he paid for that black raffee out there, nor did he earn what he sent to repay me.”

“Ah, so you spurn the pirate but not his money, eh?” Mardric retorted.

Ryala Pim flushed. “My mother says money is money. It has no wish or will. And we were owed.” Several nodded silently from the background.

Mardric dropped his voice, affecting seriousness. “Whoever he is, if we can’t make use of him, he’s better out in the ocean drawing the Venn out there than drawing them here.”

“True,” said the guild mistress. “We have enough of both, pirates and Venn. And Marlovans.”

“We do owe him a debt,” the harbormaster stated. “I mean the coastal harbors.”

“We won’t forget that,” the guildmistress said. “But that doesn’t mean we owe any of
them
allegiance.” She pointed through the tightly closed window, past which a pair of Marlovan guards rode by on their ceaseless patrol. “I say, don’t tell them anything about the pirates, whoever they are.”

And everyone agreed.

Outside Inda and Tau dropped into their boat and caught the last of the tidal flow. They were carried out to their waiting ships, which soon set sail for the unknown waters of the northwest and the legendary Ghost Isles.

Chapter Thirty

STONE
, cold stone, all around. Does it see? Does it hear? Does it remember?
Kialen pressed back against the gritty wall, terrified by screams, shouts, clangs of steel, until the sounds drowned in the rising and falling melody of “Alandais Lament.” It was old, older than the stone. So old and so secret Mistress Resvaes, who had come all the way from Sartor a couple of years before, would have been shocked to hear it echoing down the darkened hallways— not that it could be heard by any in this world.

Kialen shivered beside the wall until the only sounds beside the distant voices were the bells. No longer the terrible slow tolls of emergency lockdown, but the
dang-dang, dang-dang, dang-dang
of Daylast.

Night had fallen. She could move again, unseen. Safe from killing steel.

Her hands and feet had gone numb. Slowly she glided away, a wraith in the deepening shadows. Her own thin voice joined in the song.

Her sweet, breathy voice keening like a reed in the winter wind, Kialen left the silent stone and drifted from room to room, where glowglobes had lit in response to the fading of day. There lay the Sierlaef, darkening blood splotches against the bright crimson rug, surrounded by those he had slain. Near him the king, so still, face toward his son. She laid upon each desecrated breast a single white lily, unseen by any in this world, and then passed out of the room, singing.

Through Aunt Ndara’s room.

There was Aunt Ndara, lying next to the Evil One.

Kialen straightened Ndara’s arms, so terribly slashed and slashed again. She pressed a kiss upon her cold brow, then resumed the lament.

Kialen unfastened the locket round Ndara’s neck, obedient to a promise made long ago. She laid a last lily down in her aunt’s quiet hands and bore away the locket, still singing, as she stepped into Hadand’s silent rooms.

There she laid the locket down, and then she retreated to her own bower, full of lilies, bright as spring, gleaming in a sun from very long ago.

She took from a secret casket a vial of the dream-flower.

Still singing, she paused only long enough to gulp down the sweet liquor in the vial, and then lay upon her bed. She sang softly now, lilies gathered in her hands, until the ancient melody was joined by other voices, sweet voices, high and clear and good, voices bearing her away on a sighing tide, as her breast rose and fell one last time.

Chapter Thirty-one

EVRED was met two days outside of Ala Larkadhe by Noddy’s Runners, who had been dispatched the day that Cama reached Noddy. They were the first to alert Evred that there might be trouble in the royal city.

He commanded his host to hasten.

They were met more than halfway home by an impressive cavalcade of armsmen belonging to three houses, led by Noddy Toraca himself, Tuft Sindan-An, and Cherry-Stripe Marlo-Vayir, who had insisted at the last moment on accompanying Noddy. Tuft had joined with a flight of his father’s men when Noddy and Cherry-Stripe passed through his family land.

They took turns telling Evred everything they knew, though it took a couple of days to make sense of the splintered accounts. But before they saw the winter-bound city on the horizon he had assembled a fairly accurate picture of what he’d find.

In the meantime he had to contend with his own emotions.

His father was dead. Grief chilled his spirit when he thought of never seeing him in the archive poring over a text, the talks they would never have. At least he would not have to tell his father about Jened Sindan. Once or twice he considered tossing that stained locket away into the snow, but instinct stayed his hand. He had assumed that it was a love-gift of his father’s, but there had been far too much urgency in the way Sindan had hung onto his life just to say that one word.

The last day of their journey, his entourage, knowing they would soon reach the royal city, broke out their House tunics and weapons, everything polished and shining. Evred put on his old gray academy coat.

Noddy appeared at his tent flap, resplendent in a rich brown tunic with a crimson marmot: Khani-Vayir colors. “Gray?” His straight brows lifted. “I’m not much for strut in the ordinary way of things, but this does seem to be the time.”

“When you left,” Evred said, “I had a crown waiting. You of all people ought to know how quickly things can change.”

Noddy pursed his lips. “There is that. But they’d have to get past Hadand-Edli first.”

Nobody else said anything. The earlier freedom had vanished, and everyone, from friends down to armsmen, now maintained a scrupulous distance that Evred felt almost as an invisible wall forming by universal will. He was separate now, he was a king. Their behavior invested him with the power of kingship; he had done nothing yet to grasp it.

He was mulling the nature of power when they sighted the royal city. Armsmen were posted all along the walls: Montrei-Vayir crimson mixed with the sky blue and dark green of the Marlo-Vayirs, and the brown and crimson of Khani-Vayir. All wore black sashes. To Evred, that indicated a universal desire for order.