Changer of Days (22 page)

Moran offered them a shallow, courtly bow. “My lord will meet with you,” he said. “He has bid me welcome you to the White Palace of Algira, under his own protection. The boat waits to convey you.”

Kieran knew Anghara was smiling beneath her concealing hood. He didn’t need Sight to sense a delighted
I told you so
in the gray eyes he knew were looking at him. “We come under the protection of your master’s word,” Kieran replied.

Moran waited until they climbed into the boat and then followed them, nodding to the oarsman. The other man, having sat patiently through the protocol, now bent over his oars. The boat slid across the still water almost without a sound.

In silence Moran signalled for his lord’s mysterious night visitors to follow him when they reached the other side. They were here under Favrin’s sworn protection, yet Kieran glanced round warily as they crossed an area of open lawn and plunged into the shadows of an alley of tall bushes bearing sweet-scented white flowers, so pure in color they seemed to almost glow in the dark. It seemed Favrin had a taste for secrecy—which was not entirely unexpected. These guests were to be conveyed into his presence through small and secret gates, not through the bright and guarded main entrance.

“This way,” Moran said, speaking softly, opening a narrow door beneath a trellis wreathed with climbing roses.

They entered a tiled corridor, new torches burning in iron sconces set at intervals into the walls. The men’s boots woke a soft echo on the tiles; but no one crossed their path as they passed along the corridor and beyond into another, broader and more opulent, where the wall sconces were silver and the echo of their footsteps dulled by soft carpets. Moran glanced up and down the deserted corridor, crossed it, climbed up a flight of stairs with a wooden banister elaborately carved into the shapes of sea-beasts, and turned into another long passageway. Stopping at the third door along, he opened it and motioned them inside.

They found themselves in a small anteroom, panelled in some blond wood, sparsely furnished with a low table and a brace of wooden chairs. The very simplicity of the chamber here in the heart of a prince’s apartments pronounced the room to be one of service, not pleasure. A guardroom. It was empty, or seemed to be; but Moran paused.

“I have to ask you to leave your weapons here,” he murmured, still flawlessly correct. “They will be quite safe.”

It didn’t have to be an order. They were in a king’s palace, and even mild requests would be backed with force if necessary. Kieran had been expecting something like this, a ritual disarming before entering into the presence of royalty; that still didn’t mean he liked the idea. He stripped off his sword belt, the white ki’thar skin of Kheldrin, with reluctance, leaving sword and dagger on the table. Moran, with a curious air of mingled diffidence and implacability, glanced toward Anghara’s muffled shape.

“Not armed,” Kieran said shortly. Moran hesitated, and then decided to take this at face value. As well he did, Kieran thought, else their ruse would have been blown right here.

And ruse it was, because the letter Anghara had sent, except for the royal seal affixed to whet Favrin’s appetite, gave no indication as to the identity of the Prince’s visitors—merely that they came with a message from Roisinan, hinting obliquely at the messengers’ high birth. As Moran ushered them into the room where Favrin Rashin waited, Kieran had the satisfaction of seeing Favrin’s face change when Anghara stepped inside, flinging her cloak back to reveal the piled red-gold hair and the golden Kheldrini robe.

“Your Grace,” said Kieran, “I present Anghara Kir Hama, rightful Queen of Roisinan.”

F
avrin had known the moment Anghara stepped into his chamber—any number of men could have gained admittance to him under that seal, but only one woman. That instant of surprise was gone almost before it came; what was left in its wake was admiration, and genuine astonishment.

Favrin mastered himself, allowed a small smile to play upon his lips, and bowed deeply in the elaborate fashion of the southern court.

“You honor my house,” he said. The words could have been facetious. They were not; but those that followed were. Dangerously so. “When Sif Kir Hama ascended the Throne Under the Mountain, we were given to understand it was over the dead bodies of your father, your mother…and yourself. I always had my doubts about the truth behind the tomb in the Miranei mausoleum which bears your name; it is gratifying to have them vindicated.”

“My father’s and my mother’s are real enough,” Anghara said. Her eyes were hard, gray flint; it had been unwise of Favrin to have mentioned Red Dynan. Anghara’s father had, after all, met his death through an arrow fired on Rashin orders.

Favrin shrugged the moment off. “But I am remiss in my duties. May I offer you a glass of wine? It comes from my own vineyards, a vintage of which I am, I think, justly proud.”

“Thank you,” Anghara said simply.

Favrin turned to Kieran, all southern courtesy. “For you, my lord?”

“No,” Kieran said. “Thank you.”

The offer had been a fishing expedition, the wine merely bait, but Kieran offered nothing further by way of introduction, leaving Favrin in the dark as to his identity. Favrin, however, took this adroit reflection of his probe smoothly enough; he inclined his head gravely in acknowledgment of Anghara’s reply, and turned to pour a measure into her glass. Kieran watched him closely, through narrowed eyes. If poison had been contemplated, now would be the time to introduce it. But Favrin poured from the same decanter into both his glass and Anghara’s; unless he was contemplating suicide, there was no poison here.

He was fair to look upon, the Prince of Algira; Favrin Rashin crossed the room to Anghara, bearing two glasses filled with dark red wine, moving with a courtier’s elegance, a fighter’s grace. His father, Duerin, was a classic south-erner—short and swarthy, black-eyed and olive-skinned with curly dark hair. Favrin was different—so different he could almost be taken for a changeling. His mother had been a woman from the north, and he took after her, tall and golden-haired, his eyes as blue as the ocean. Kieran watched him gaze on Anghara as she raised her head slightly to meet those eyes; they made a picture fit for a tapestry depicting the proud and beautiful kings and queens of ancient legend. Favrin knew it, of course—he was playing for effect. But a certain amount of arrogance was allowed a man who almost single-handedly changed the face of warfare in Roisinan.

“There were rumors, of course, that you were very much alive and hidden, waiting to reclaim your inheritance,” Favrin continued smoothly, picking up the thread of the conversation. “But it was all too easy to dismiss these, especially as we started many of them ourselves. They worked in our favor, after all.”

“As long as Sif feared someone might heed them enough to hold Miranei in my name in his absence, he couldn’t venture far from his throne,” Anghara said, nodding, twirling her glass between her fingers. “You hobbled the great warrior. The rumors made it safe for you to pursue your war, because you could wait Sif out, and wear him down, knowing you were protected from invasion. You could stop one every time simply by firing up a new round of rumors in Miranei.”

“Quite,” said Favrin, amused at this succinct summary of his tactics by this unlikely hearth-guest.

“Just how long were you planning to keep up this cat and mouse game?” she asked, sounding genuinely interested.

Favrin shrugged. “Now would seem like a good time to stop.” His blue eyes were glinting dangerously through the unexpectedly dark lashes of half-lowered eyelids. “Now that Sif plans to spend his summer chasing wild geese in the Kheldrini desert, I assume the purpose of your…visit…is to offer me an alternative to sweeping into Roisinan and gathering it into the palm of my hand while he isn’t looking?”

He was certainly well informed. But Anghara’s eyes were steady.

“How very perceptive, my lord,” said Anghara, and there was an acid sting in the compliment. “Do not be deceived—I do not come to bargain for my country. I have one inestimable advantage over my brother. I don’t have to lead my own armies; I can hold Miranei while men I trust take this war of yours to the thresholds of Algira.”

“But you do not hold Miranei,” said Favrin, eyes still hooded.

Anghara lifted her chin, eyes sparkling in challenge. “Neither do you.”

Favrin smiled; his teeth were very white, and oddly sharp. It gave his face the cast of a hunting cat scenting prey. “This interests me,” he said. “I anticipated this evening would be stimulating when I saw your seal, but this surpasses all expectations. Will you join me on the balcony, my lady? The night is balmy, and the view from this room has always been spectacular.”

Anghara assented with a small inclination of the head, briefly catching Kieran’s eye as she turned to gather the cloak she’d unfastened and let fall.
This is my game; everything stands or falls by what happens here tonight. Watch; wait. Be ready if I need you.

Kieran’s face remained impassive but his eyes were alert and watchful as they followed Anghara and Favrin through the open doors and onto the broad terrace. Their conversation, resuming after a lull, became a delicate murmur; if he concentrated furiously Kieran could barely make out what they were saying. With an almost equal fury he made himself do the opposite, listening only for a possible change of cadence, for signs of fear or anger from his lady. This, indeed, was her game. Here, in the palace by the sea, far from the seat of her own power, she could reach out and win her land back, whole and complete, finally free of the war that had been eating at its southern borders for years…or she could lose it utterly.

Favrin had seated Anghara courteously into a high-backed chair of lacy wickerwork, himself choosing to perch with dangerous abandon upon the stone parapet, seemingly oblivious to the drop on the other side. It was a pose, of course; Anghara felt a stab of what was almost irritation, but it was quickly swamped by something else—a wry amusement, perhaps, that he should feel the need for it. He was cut from a fighter’s cloth, easily Sif’s match as a leader of men, and had proved himself one of the best soldiers of his generation. But there was something engaging in his need to demonstrate his courage sprang from something much greater—from a right of blood, the courage of princes. Favrin was older than Anghara, by not a few years, but she, younger, untried, felt no need to prove anything. Perhaps it did spring from royalty, the spirit and the courage so rampant in this room. Hers was the older line by far, already proved by the impetuous princelings of its youth and steady in the knowledge of its mature strength and abilities.

For all that, Favrin was worthy of being called prince. It was hardly his fault he had chosen to match wits with a queen.

He raised his glass to his lips now, his back ostentatiously to the view, and took a slow sip. Over the rim of the glass his eyes, bright and steady, remained upon Anghara’s face; they had never left it.

“If, as you say, you are not here to bargain for your country,” Favrin said, “then to what, exactly, do I owe the pleasure of your company? I can hardly put it down to a burning desire to meet one you doubtless see as an implacable enemy of Roisinan.”

“Aren’t you?” Anghara murmured into her wine.

“Hardly,” said Favrin, and his tone was mocking again. “In fact, I love it so well I would have it all as my own.”

Anghara didn’t smile at the jest. “This war was of your father’s making.”

“In the beginning,” Favrin admitted. “I wasn’t at the battle that felled Red Dynan. But afterward, when my lord father saw fit to give me command of the armies…and when I realized what truly was at stake…yes, it became my war. There was a time when a Rashin sat on the Throne Under the Mountain. There is a portrait of this ancestor of mine here in the palace. I could show you, if you would care to see. The crown of Miranei sits well on his brow.”

“Your crowned ancestor wears borrowed glory,” Anghara said, her words more of a verbal lash than any hearth-guest had right to indulge in. “Forgive me, but to my eyes no Rashin would look well wearing this crown. It has belonged to men of my blood for many generations.”

“Are you saying it suits Sif Kir Hama?” asked Favrin, with a touch of malice, his eyes glinting.

“That will change,” Anghara said, with icy calm.

Favrin raised an eloquent eyebrow. “He took over the armies once before when it was deemed impossible for a woman to lead them,” he said.

“A girl,” Anghara corrected. “Yes, he took them. I am taking them back. It is time.”

“A minor point, but the armies in question are in Kheldrin; you are here, and it still remains for you to convince many you are not your own ghost,” Favrin said dryly.

“Red Dynan’s royal seal, lost when his daughter vanished, will do much to attest to the solidity of this particular ghost. It worked for you,” Anghara tossed out a vivid smile. “As for the rest…Sif’s armies aren’t the only ones in Roisinan. And even they will return to my banner once it is unfurled over Miranei.”

“I like your confidence in the future,” Favrin remarked conversationally. “I share it—alas, my crystal ball shows quite a different path than the one you have outlined.”

Anghara put down her wineglass. “I have said I am not here to bargain for my country. But I am here to bargain. For yours.”

She had succeeded in startling him, but, as before, he turned his surprise into sardonic amusement.

“For mine?” he questioned softly, a curious, shadowed smile playing around the corners of his mouth. “You come freely into my land and tell me you come to bargain for my country?”

There was a threat there, however veiled. But Anghara laughed, a brittle laugh which had little to do with merriment. “Yes, I came—I trusted in the given word of a prince and the honor of a soldier. Was I wrong? My friend might be interested to learn his uncertainties are likely to be so richly vindicated.”

Favrin’s nostrils flared briefly, and there was a spark in his eyes. “I keep my word,” he said curtly.

Anghara offered a half-bow from her chair. “I do not doubt it.”

There was still a last swallow of wine in Favrin’s glass; he drained it, brought it down with a sharp, spasmodic motion. His face was still wearing its mask of gentle amusement, but his eyes had darkened into violet. “You came here to tell me something,” he said. “What is it?”

“I claim Roisinan,” Anghara said, very softly, sitting very straight, the light wicker chair suddenly a throne. A soft golden light came to play around her head and shoulders; Favrin couldn’t see it, but it was hard not to be aware of it on some level—he could sense it, the air around her changed, became charged with royalty. He had to fight against the pull of it, else he would have been on his knees swearing fealty.

“There is still the right of conquest,” he said instead, his jaw set.

“There is,” Anghara agreed. “Shall I claim Tath, too?”

“You could not,” Favrin said.

Her eyes glittered strangely. “Could I not? Would you gamble with your birthright?”

“Others gambled with yours, long ago. The dice rolled against you.”

“Then,” said Anghara, with light emphasis.

Favrin, prodded into betraying a sudden disquiet, slipped off the parapet where he had been perched and turned away, staring into the distant horizon where the ocean met the sky. He heard a rustle behind him, then a footstep; he sensed rather than saw Anghara come to stand beside him. Surprised, he looked around into a pair of intense gray eyes.

And found himself at once prey to something completely unexpected.

He sought refuge in levity, as usual, but it was a weak and watery smile he dredged up as defense against a wave of sudden desire, a hunger that swept through him and left him acutely open and vulnerable in its backwash.

“In all your designs,” he said, “have you considered the inescapable fact that the single most effective way of solving our problems might lie not in sundering our Houses, but in joining them?”

Anghara blinked; for a moment the magnetic gray eyes broke their contact with his own, and Favrin found the strength to look away. “Joining them?” she echoed.

“Marriage,” Favrin said, his voice already firmer. His knees still felt suspiciously as though they might give way if he let go of his balcony’s balustrade too abruptly, but having gained solid ground after nearly drowning in her eyes his mind worked round the idea and found it curiously pleasant. Which was odd; he had enjoyed his share of bed-mates—women came willingly to one of royal blood—but until this instant he had never contemplated wedlock.

It was Anghara’s turn to be startled; this was certainly not the turn of events she had envisaged when, prodded by the cryptic words of the oracle at Gul Khaima, she had first formulated the nebulous idea of coming to the White Palace of Algira. In the short but charged silence following Favrin’s single word, she considered the concept. Above the idea towered the shade of Red Dynan—a huge ghost, and one unlikely to ever be laid to rest. Favrin might not physically have Anghara’s father’s blood on his hands, but they both knew only youth and inexperience had kept him from the battle which had taken Dynan’s life. The war had been started by the Rashin clan—the blood guilt would always be there. And yet…Anghara was deeply shocked to discover her father’s death hadn’t been her first concern. Other images had crowded Red Dynan out of her mind. One was a hazy thing, trembling on the edges of comprehension—Favrin was
wrong,
the wrong man. The wrong man for her. It was an instinct that was bone-deep, even if she didn’t have time to chase it down and discover exactly why. The other was something far more specific, and far more compelling.

“Clever,” she murmured at length, looking down at her interlaced fingers.