City of Night (49 page)

She raised a pale brow, and in turn offered the bard a weary smile. “I am wary, young man, of almost everyone.”

“There is something . . . unusual . . . about his voice.” He glanced at her, as they reached the flat stones.

“Indeed?”

“And you are not surprised in the slightest to learn of it.”

She smiled. “I am flattered that you feel it is important enough to tell me, and I admit that you are charming enough that your concern pleases me.”

“Which is entirely unlike surprise or fear.”

“Believe that I am concerned, Kallandras.”

“You are also adept at speaking with the bard-born.” He smiled. It was a smile made different by moonlight and breeze from the smiles he had offered both Sigurne and any other woman with whom he had spoken in the hall.

“I am old,” she replied. “At my age, dignity is possibly the last bastion on which to shore up pride. I would like to think that dignity requires an ability to choose what is heard when one speaks.”

“Many a man your age—or older—would let his voice say more and care a great deal less.”

“Oh, men.”

He laughed. “As you say, Member Mellifas. I see the pavilion, but I do not see your mage.”

“No.”

He glanced at her. “You are not worried about his absence.”

“I am. But I am not worried about his well- being. And I do not miss his pipe. If it comforts you at all, I am considering strangling him when he does choose to show his face. If he does,” she added.

The slight shift of expression across the bard’s face caught Rath by surprise. “He must be a brave man, indeed, if he is willing to risk your anger, here.”

“I wish I could call it brave. At my age, brave and reckless often seem the same, and regardless, he is not a
young
man. He is not brave; he is merely bored.” She smiled. “And if I were this open in all of my discourse, Master Bard, would it not in the end tell you far more than you would want to know?”

He laughed. “No. There is music there, if one knows how to listen, and Sioban Glassen is my Master; I know how to listen. Lord Cordufar is not pleased, but his fear is not of you, not precisely. It is broader and deeper, and it is tinged by some constant malice and no little anger.”

“You’ve met him before?”

“No. I have, of course, heard of him. But this is the first time that I have had any cause to speak with him personally.”

“Surely he spoke to you when you agreed to grace his ball?”

“No. I am not entirely certain he appreciates the role of bards in Averalaan. But I would say he understands the unofficial ways in which the bards are beholden to the Twin Kings.”

“If he does not appreciate bards, it is a wonder that Sioban acceded to the request at all.”

“Ah,” he said, smiling slightly. “The actual request did not come from Lord Cordufar. It was tendered to the bardmaster, in person, by The Darias.”

“Personally?”

“Even so.” He shrugged. “I am often on the road, and it is pleasant to play and converse this close to Senniel. But I will offer you this much; even at the insistence of The Darias, I do not think Lord Cordufar was pleased to have me in attendance.”

“Oh?”

“His manners, where he must treat with his guests, are of course very fine. But the only time I have heard him speak more than a few words in my presence was when he spoke with you, and he spoke, I think, less guardedly there than he has all eve. He is aware of what I am,” Kallandras added, “and he has not your practiced patience in speaking with the bard-born.”

“But he is aware of the need for such practice.”

“Even so. I believe that your presence, and the presence of your guest, has been noted.”

Sigurne did not correct his misapprehension, and Rath, therefore, remained silent.

“I will now, if you will countenance my lack of manners, go in search of your missing mage. I think any contest of wills between the Order and the Cordufar family would, in the end, go through The Darias, and therefore through the Council of The Ten, and I do not feel that such a confrontation would be in the interests of Averalaan.”

She was silent for a long moment as she considered this. “Nor,” she said quietly, “would it be in the interests of Senniel to be embroiled in the same contest.”

“Sioban can barely control the bards as it is, and this is known.”

“I have misgivings.”

“Indeed, as a First Circle mage, you must. If you did not, you would not now live in the tower.” He smiled, and the smile was slight. “Very well, Member Mellifas. If Sioban cannot control her bardmasters, I think it unlikely that the concerns of the Order could. The Order must, by necessity, keep those born without talent calm; in order to achieve this calm, they maintain decorum, and where possible, foster the public image of mages as dotty and obsessive individuals.

“The bardic colleges are seldom the focus of public fear or scrutiny. Our power is not your power, for good or ill. If The Darias or Lord Cordufar object, in Council, to any behavior of Senniel’s, Sioban will, of course, hear it. But both House Darias and Cordufar will
also
hear, in response, the lyrics of Senniel brought to bear in the most public and amusing way possible.

“Those lyrics will be sung at every tavern and home in Averalaan before the month is out, and power, in society, is based in large part upon reputation.” He bowed. But when he rose, he was looking at Rath, not Sigurne.

“You must forgive my boldness,” he said, in a tone of voice entirely shorn of lilt or charm. “But you are of Handernesse?”

Rath knew that bards could watch a play once and recite almost all of the lines from memory thereafter; he therefore recognized the question as a polite overture. He nodded.

Kallandras studied him for a moment. “You did not arrive here with Sigurne’s party.”

“No. I arrived with Hectore of Araven, and if I have not offended him by evening’s end, it is likely I will leave that way as well. Why?”

“I was asked, by an acquaintance, to deliver something to you, should you be in attendance this eve.”

Had Kallandras not been a Senniel bard, Rath’s confusion would have shaded instantly into suspicion. As it was, he still had to work to mute it. “An acquaintance we have in common?”

“I assumed as much; I failed to inquire further.” His tone made clear that the failure was both desired and desirable, and Rath accepted this—with difficulty—and discarded his questions.

Kallandras then removed a small box from the folds of his jacket. It was the size, and shape, to hold a ring or small cuff links, and it was old and tarnished. Engraved into the surface of that slightly grayed silver, was a single initial, with its curls and heights so extremely overdecorated it was hard to read. He handed this to Rath.

Rath’s hand closed around it. “Was there no message?”

“Given the nature of the delivery, I did not think to ask,” Kallandras replied. He turned, and then turned back, as if drawn. “But given the acquaintance, Ararath, I will say this: I do not know where she leads you, or where she intends to lead you. But she offers nothing freely; the cost of her advice is high. What advice she has given me, I have followed; it has not yet killed me. But I’ve no doubt at all that it will.

“If she is not yet known to you, and she becomes so, bear only this in mind: she is without pity or mercy, and she will ask more of you than anyone you have met before or might meet in future. If, in the asking, she knows she will destroy you, your life, or those for whom you care, she will ask it, regardless.”

He had seemed, to Rath, older and urbane. The careful manners, the carefully careless speech, the choice of the right word and the right gesture—all of these implied experience. But absent these, he was younger than he had first appeared.

Younger and infinitely more angry.

“Who is she?” Rath asked softly.

“Her name is Evayne.” Kallandras turned away, and then paused, but did not turn back. “It may be, Ararath, that you will have no cause to meet her. What she sent may be enough.” He left, then.

Sigurne watched his back. “That was both unexpected and interesting.”

Rath, looking at the box he now held in his hands, merely nodded. He hesitated a moment before opening it.

Nested in a bed of blue velvet was a gold ring, a man’s ring. He spared it a glance, no more, and looked up to see Kallandras vanishing in the crowd, as if the crowd were a forest, and he, a small, wild animal who wanted and needed no observers.

“Ararath?”

“It is the signet of Handernesse.” His voice was cool; he could keep ice from it, with effort, and he made the effort.

“I . . . see.”

“Forgive me, Sigurne, but I do not think you do.” It was too much of an effort. He was shaking, slightly, with anger. The anger surprised him, but not enough that he could loose its grip. “If I am not mistaken, this ring is
the
signet of Handernesse; it is not a copy.”

“But—”

“It went missing some years ago, much to the distress of my father. Another was made, and he wears it.”

“You are certain?”

He swallowed the yes that had been forming, and said, instead, “Let me go to where the light is brighter.”

She nodded. Most of the other mages of his acquaintance—not that they were many—would have merely gestured light into existence without a second thought. Sigurne? She used power for a purpose, and where there was an alternative, she used that, instead.

Light existed, encased in fine glass that had been blown into shapes appropriate for a garden’s path. They darkened the path a moment by huddling closer to that light.

Bright, pale white made the tarnished box look infinitely more dingy. But the gold itself, noble metal, was unchanged. The crest of Handernesse was large; it was a ring that was meant to be noticed. There were rubies at the heights of each stylized section of the “H.” Unlike the elegant and nearly unrecognizable scrawl upon the lid of the box, this letter was done in bold, simple lines.

He lifted the ring out of its blue bed, and held it up to the light. It was heavy, the way gold was heavy; heavy the way history was heavy. Between finger and thumb, it caught light. One of the rubies was cracked. “It is,” he said quietly, “the Handernesse signet. You can see the cracked ruby, even in this light.”

“When was it cracked?”

“In story? Hundreds of years ago, in one distinguishing battle or another. I asked, and I believe I received an answer, but I was a child. It was not the battle itself that was significant. It was the flaw,” he added softly. “The flaw that was a matter of quiet pride.”

Sigurne frowned. “Ararath.”

He looked away from the ring.

Matteos Corvel glanced at Sigurne. Something about her expression changed the whole cast of his. “Sigurne?”

She lifted both of her hands, and spoke a single word, twisting her palms toward her body as she did. Her sleeves fell, drawn by gravity toward the carefully manicured grass that surrounded the standing lamp.

“Lift the box, please.”

Rath did as she asked so quickly she might have been bard-born.

“Matteos?”

The mage was concentrating as well. “Yes, I see it. Whoever worked the spell upon that case was an adept. It hides—it mutes—everything. Even the magic upon the case itself is all but folded into the protection. With privacy stones and magestones in such common use, this would pass entirely undetected.”

Sigurne nodded. All frailty and age had fallen away from her face, and only the lines remained, but they now appeared chiseled by a hand other than time’s.

“The ring, Matteos?”

He frowned. “The ring seems, to my eye, to be a ring, no more. It is not ostentatious, but it would be noticed, if worn. What do you see, Sigurne?”

“Death,” she replied. She gestured and the ring flew from Rath’s hand and stopped two inches short of hers, suspended in midair.

Matteos frowned, his brow rippling as he examined the ring again. And again. After a third time, he grunted in frustration, which was almost as much expression as Rath had ever seen him show. “I do not see what you see.”

“No. Damn him, where is Meralonne?”

“He is here.”

She turned as Meralonne APhaniel approached them on the path. His cheek bore a slight scratch, and blood had beaded along its length; it was not deep. He bowed, slightly, after he had reached her side. “It is possible,” he said, in a flat, neutral tone, “that a writ of exemption may—just may—be required.”

“May?”
Matteos spit the word out, as if it were something wholly unpleasant that he had just been fed.

Meralonne shrugged. “I feel that it is not in Cordufar’s interest to make public any mild inconvenience I may have caused.”

Sigurne gazed at him, but the outraged lecture that Rath expected failed to emerge. “The ring,” she said quietly.

A platinum brow rose. He did not, however, argue. Nor did he lift hand or speak word; he merely looked. But his eyes widened almost imperceptibly.

“Where did you get this?” he asked her softly, his eyes still upon the ring that hovered above her hands in the air.

“I did not; it was given to Ararath.”

“By?”

“Kallandras of Senniel College.”

“Impossible.”

“It is not hearsay, Meralonne,” she replied, her voice as flat and even as his. “I myself witnessed it.”

“You will excuse me while I attempt to locate the master bard.”

“No, I will not.”

“Sigurne—”

She lifted a hand, and Meralonne’s eyes flashed, reflecting a brief burst of light that had not actually occurred. His hair rose slightly in the breeze. It was long; longer than Rath had realized.

The guildmaster, however, was unmoved and unimpressed. “I will deal with an angry Patris,” she told him. “I will not deal with an angry Senniel College.”