City of Night (46 page)

“I have feared it,” Sigurne said, as the last strains of music were buried beneath the constant rain of spoken words. “I have feared it for all, for almost all, of my life. Even when it is beautiful. Perhaps especially then.

“But encountering such beauty at the debut ball of a young girl is jarring. I wonder, at times, how Duvari endures it.”

“Duvari?” Rath’s eyes rounded slightly. “You speak of the head of the Astari?” The Astari were the men—and women—who stood in the Kings’ shadows and protected them from assassination. Unfortunately for the patriciate, they were both thorough enough and paranoid enough that they could see the assassin’s hand in anyone who had accumulated enough wealth or power.

“Indeed.”

“You should abstain. It’s rumored that any mention of his name draws the full force of his attention.” It was only half a joke.

“That,” Sigurne replied dryly, “is hardly much incentive, given that the Magi are already blessed by the questionable benison of his suspicion. But he is a young man. Don’t make that face, Ararath; it does not suit you. He is young, as you are young. And I appreciate him in exactly the same way that I can appreciate Sor Na Shannen.”

Rath frowned. Her pronunciation of the name was slightly different than Lord Cordufar’s had been.

“Perhaps I appreciate him more; I understand his goals, and I find them more personally acceptable. Come. There is Lord Cordufar, unfettered by his lovely companion. The girl by his side is his niece.”

“About time,” Matteos grumbled. When Sigurne frowned up at him, he added, “I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

 

Meralonne APhaniel joined them for dinner. The great hall had been suitably furnished, and the hundreds of guests likewise seated at rectangular tables across which fine linens had been draped. The table runners were a lace embroidered with the colors of Cordufar. The napkins were likewise embroidered, but the insignia on these was small and tasteful; the rest, Rath did not consider important enough to notice.

Nor did Meralonne APhaniel, although when he produced his pipe, Sigurne glared it into nonexistence. They sat in a silence accentuated by the quiet music of musicians whose task it was not to interrupt conversation.

“We did not see you in the great room,” Sigurne said, engaging Meralonne when his hand strayed, again, to the folds of his robe.

He glanced at her. “I was much occupied with the somewhat confused architecture of this mansion, and eventually ended up in the wine cellars.”

She raised a silver brow, and then, after a pause, she relented. “Wine cellars?”

“They are quite, quite good, even to my admittedly jaundiced eye. And no, before you ask, I did not choose to test the vintages.”

“Imagine my relief.”

He raised a brow that was not dissimilar to her own. “You have obviously had a more interesting evening than I have managed.”

“Indeed.”

“However, I sensed no magic, and heard no raised alarm. I’m somewhat bored.”

If Sigurne found his utter lack of conventional manners annoying, she hid the annoyance well. Rath wondered, and not for the first time, what a meeting of the Magi must be like. “Very well,” Sigurne said. She slid her hand into her robe for a moment, and then withdrew it. “We may speak freely. We met, and spoke with, Sor Na Shannen, Lord Cordufar’s mistress.”

Meralonne raised a brow. “And?”

“She is kin.”

“
Kialli
?” The single word sharpened syllables that should have been soft.

“I did not think to test her in a crowd of this size. I would appreciate it if you likewise refrained.”

“What did you speak about?”

“Ararath of Handernesse.”

Meralonne frowned. He reached for his pipe for a third time. It remained, unlit, in his hand. “You play a dangerous game,” he said, speaking now to Rath.

“So I have been informed. If I am not mistaken, Member APhaniel, you yourself do likewise.”

“In the cobwebs of a wine cellar?”

“Many a man considers the wine cellar the heart of his home.”

Meralonne laughed. “And clearly, this is one such man.” He set the pipe to one side on the table. “There is magic in the wine cellars of Cordufar, and it is not a magic that is easily tested; without care, I think it would pass undetected.”

Sigurne, silent until that moment, froze in place.

“You expected no less.” Meralonne spoke softly.

“You used Summer magic?”

He nodded.

Rath frowned. “Summer magic?”

“It is an old branch of magic, and one not studied now,” Sigurne replied. “It is not forbidden, but in order to test its efficacy, one would require a practitioner of arts that
are
forbidden.”

Rath did not ask how Meralonne had studied the school.

Instead, he examined an entirely internal map of the undercity, as Jewel called it. It was not a map in the way that the maps Jewel had saved from a burning building were. It was some part of his eleven years of experience in the silent dark: The feel of dirt beneath his feet as it gave way, by descent, into stone; the solid stone of the safe roads; the worn stone of stairs; the rough and sharp edges of cracked walls, cracked statues, cracked pillars and columns; the trembling edges of open crevices; the mustiness of air that was never disturbed; the sound of bats, like high-pitched thunder, when they took sudden flight.

He knew the width of most of the roads; he knew the shape of them, the way they turned in on themselves, the way they cut and bisected other roads. He knew that the undercity traveled for miles beneath Averalaan. He knew, as well, that some of the exits and entrances that he used opened up near the Merchant Authority, and in that section of town, real estate was costly. But not so costly as the Cordufar Estates; they were old.

How old?

“Ararath?” Sigurne said, and Rath shook his head slightly.

“My apologies, Sigurne. Meralonne, did you detect this magical disturbance only in the wine cellars?”

Meralonne watched Rath closely, his gray eyes narrowed. After a moment, he nodded.

“Near a trapdoor or some other method of descent?”

“A curious question.”

Rath said nothing.

“This is not a game, scion of Handernesse.”

Sigurne placed a hand on Meralonne’s arm. He affected not to notice, and his eyes were shining slightly. The light and the color of those eyes made them seem, for a moment, like blade’s edge.

“I don’t know,” Rath replied, meeting the gaze, and aware of how little corresponding light shone in his own eyes. “What lives do gods lead? They fear no death, they suffer no pain; what is left them, in the end, but the dalliance of long games?”

“They fear death,” the Magi replied quietly. “But for the rest, I will concede your point, and will offer information I feel you already know: there is a concealment and a protection cast upon the floor of the farthest of the wine cellars. The concealment is a trivial magic; the protection, I fear, is not.

“Had I discovered the wine cellar first—had I been apprised of the import of descent—I might have been able to untangle the protections that lay upon it. As it was, I had a scant hour.”

“An hour?” Sigurne asked.

“An hour, but . . . there was some surveillance, and in order to ward myself against detection, I had to move slowly, and within the sphere of the watcher.”

“What spell?”

Meralonne glanced at her. “It was a simple spell,” he said, grudging the admission, “but it covered the whole of the last two rooms.”

“And you were not discovered?”

“No. But the wine cellar was visited.”

“A servant?”

“No. You need not look at me in such an accusatory fashion, Guildmaster. There were no deaths, and no disincorporation.”

“I feel less than entirely reassured.”

“I could do neither, while I wished to avoid alerting the master of the house.”

“What did you do?”

“I observed,” he said coolly and with genuine distaste. “And while I fail to see the necessity for subtlety at this time, such subtlety was practiced at your request.” He turned, then, and glanced down the long hall, to the head table. There, in the center, was Lord Cordufar.

“He is not the master here,” Rath found himself saying.

Meralonne glanced at Rath.

“She is,” Rath added.

Into the hall, unescorted and unattended, strode Lord Cordufar’s mistress, her blue dress swirling in a way that suggested thigh without exposing so much as an ankle. With all of the guests seated, she made a statement of her simple strides. Rath watched her until he found the watching uncomfortable and forced himself to look away.

To look at Meralonne.

There was no lust, no expression of desire, upon his face. The lights in the long hall paled his skin, and if time had etched lines there, they were gone. But there was a hunger in the way he watched her, and it reminded Rath of death.

Sigurne once again put her hand over Meralonne’s wrist, and he shrugged and turned away, but his expression did not, and had not, changed.

D
INNER PASSED. Rath ate and found, to his surprise, that he enjoyed the food; that he enjoyed the variety of small and elaborately prepared dishes. Soup, in shallow, slender bowls, water and wine in elegant cut crystal, partridge eggs, poached, tiny perfection, laid out against a bed of greens, with strips of smoked meat laid across them. He appreciated the baked cheese, in a deep pastry dish, and also the beef that followed, garnished by long, slender new beans.

He thought it a pity that Andrei could not, or would not, drink the wine, for it was a vintage worthy of the Araven wine cellars. Dessert, when it came, was a chilled custard.

During dinner, musicians played, and the sound of laughter, and the occasional raised voice, drifted across the great hall. When dinner drew, at last, to a close, Lord Cordufar’s attendants rose to announce the opening of the ballroom, and the subsequent dance.

Meralonne grimaced, but did not speak. Rath privately doubted that words were necessary; the expression itself spoke volumes. The mage drew his pipe from its place on the table, and he took out leaf and began to line its bowl. Matteos looked both pained and annoyed, and he cast a furtive—and hopeful—glance at the reigning guildmaster. No rescue came from that quarter, and in any case, pipes were brought to the tables, and tobacco followed.

Rath, avoiding Matteos’ gaze, took a pipe for himself, and when it was alight, he looked at Meralonne APhaniel. “Will you join the dance at all?”

“I am not much of a dancer,” the mage replied dryly, “and as Member Mellifas is too kind to say, I can only afford to embarrass her order on a single front. As I have not yet done that this eve, I fear to waste the opportunity on the merely trivial.”

“Meralonne.”

“Sigurne herself does not often dance, although she occasionally likes to watch. Why,” the Magi added, blowing a perfect ring from pursed lips, “I honestly do not know.”

“Matteos?”

“I was not raised in Averalaan,” Matteos replied. “And were I, it would not have been among the wealthy.”

Rath nodded, and smoked for a while.

The music shifted in both tone and volume. “And will you brave the wine cellars again?”

“I may. The chance that I will see them again before the storm is upon us is slim. Lord Cordufar is much occupied, and I believe his mistress is now by his side. They will, in the custom of Averalaan, open the dance.”

“I believe that Lord Cordufar will open the dance with his niece.”

The correction was clearly too trivial for Meralonne APhaniel, who merely shrugged and rose. “I will, perhaps, see you later,” he told them.

Sigurne watched him go. “He is right,” she said quietly.

“He’s just bored,” Matteos told her. He had not touched pipe, and he had a nearly full glass of wine in front of him. “I told you not to bring him.”

“I could hardly refuse his request. Not when he went through so much effort to make it politely.” She rose as well. “Ararath?”

Ararath left his chair, taking only a moment to douse his pipe. “It would be my honor.”

 

In Meralonne’s absence, Rath and Sigurne drifted toward the dance. He had no intention of joining it, but found it oddly compelling. Jewel was not yet at an age where such a gathering could have been held in her honor, and even were she, she hadn’t the station. But he smiled, briefly, as he thought of what Haval might do to prepare her for a night such as this.

And thinking it, his thoughts drifted, treacherously, to the night of Amarais’ presentation. He could see her in the long, cream silks that she favored at that age, her hair beaded and flowered so heavily it was a wonder it hadn’t overbalanced her. Just a fragment, a momentary image.

But with it, the other memories.