Covenants (60 page)

We were herded out of the common room, Pellan leaving two of the Watch to guard the embassy staff that was still clumped together in fright by the fireplace. The haunts tried to follow, but Pellan once more threatened me with the glory sphere and they moved back into the room. When we reached the stairs, I offered an arm to Doyen Allwyn who was limping badly, but our guards took exception. I felt the air change behind me and ducked just as one of the Watch swung at my head, catching the blow on my shoulder instead. I staggered and fetched up against the stone wall, just stopping myself before I fell down the stairs. My muscles tightened as I started to lunge back, but the bloody sphere was in front of me again.

"Be easy, Rabbit," Laurel said, moving so that he was between me and the guard. The guard raised his fist again and the cat looked over his shoulder past him to Pellan. "I am still of my clan, Commander. I would dearly love to see the High Council declare them null and void.”

The Black Hills clan must've been formidable, because Pellan frowned. "No bruising," he said.

The guard hesitated, then allowed his arm to drop. Laurel dismissed him with a flick of an ear and helped Allwyn down the steps.

Commander Pellan led us down several flights of steps that grew narrower and darker the deeper we descended.

We finally reached a passageway that was just as narrow and dimly lit, and we were marched along it until we came to a series of doors. While there wasn't any dungeon stench, I expected to see chains and cages when the door was opened. Instead we were pushed into a bright, spacious room decorated in the same style as the rest of the keep. Several of the Watch followed us in and Pellan shut the door, turning the key in the lock. A moment later it shimmered as it was warded. Footsteps then sounded against the passageway's stone floor as the commander took Wyln and the castle guards away. Two of the Watch moved to a door on the opposite side of the room, but we paid them no attention as our own eyes were on Chancellor Berle and Archdoyen Obruesk sitting at a table by the lit fireplace, enjoying a repast of tea and dainties.

The archdoyen set his cup down and smiled at us all. "Grace to you, messirs." He met my eyes, nodding.

"Lord Rabbit.”

"Berle?" Lord Esclaur said as he started to walk towards the table, only to be thrust back by a city guard.

"I'd obey them, Esclaur," the chancellor said, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. "We don't want to cause a diplomatic incident.”

Esclaur made a sound between a gasp and a growl. "You absolute, traitorous—" He broke off as the guard hit him hard, making him stagger.

The chancellor's russet fox eyes swept over us to rest on Laurel. "Well, it seems as though promises made are not going to be kept after all, are they, Ambassador? Even with all the will in the world."

Laurel rumbled, but no one dared to stop him (the Black Hills clan must've been extremely formidable).

"The day's not over yet, Chancellor.”

"Such optimism," Berle marveled, reaching for a small cake.

"Such treason," Javes drew back before Laurel could reply. The guard made up for his weakness with Laurel by grabbing Javes' arm and twisting it up his back, forcing him to his knees.

"Oh, no, not treason," Berle said, ignoring Javes' pain. "We don't want to overthrow the throne. To curtail it, though, yes, with perhaps a more balanced allotment of power so that the faults and failings of one person do not shake the kingdom to its foundations." She made a moue of distaste. "King Jusson had allowed such unsavory characters free rein! If only he had paid closer attention, we wouldn't have had lawlessness, rebellions and threatened wars with neighbors.”

"That's very true, Chancellor," Obruesk said. He selected another cake. "However, if it weren't for His Majesty's inattention, there wouldn't be this chance for change.”

"Change?" Suiden asked. He was another one the guards left alone.

"The High Council will agree to not pursue war if we make certain changes in the governing of Iversterre," Berle replied, "the first being a parliament through which all appointments and laws shall pass."

"Is this their idea or yours?" Suiden asked.

"Oh, I may have planted the notion." Berle took a sip of her tea. "But once I did, they immediately saw the advantage.”

"Whose advantage?" Suiden asked. "Yours when you become grand vizier?”

"That's a Turalian office," Obruesk said, wiping his fingers with a napkin. "We would have a first minister.”

"And Chancellor of Foreign Affairs is not so bad for the daughter of a mere governor of no particular House," Berle said. "I'm content where I am.”

"I see" said Esclaur, shifting away from the guard nearest him. "Jusson a figurehead, while your cronies run the kingdom, and you play the power behind the throne—ah, council.”

"Not just me, Esclaur," Berle said. "There are others too—a certain vice admiral among them—who were very concerned about Lord Gherat's influence not only over the king but also the Lord Admiral and other high officials.”

Please no, I thought as I stared at the chancellor, not Uncle Havram.

"Whose influence is now broken, but you've done this anyway," Javes said.

"Because Jusson has no discernment whatsoever and allows his sudden whims and caprices to dictate who gets close to the throne," Berle said, looking at me. "So we will make it so that it doesn't matter what fancy His Majesty has next.”

"You actually think the king will allow this?" Suiden asked. "You think the Great Houses will?”

"Or the patriarch and the Church?" Doyen Allwyn added.

"Ah, Pietr," Obruesk said, his deep voice filling the room. "Not a bad man, you understand, but weak and easily led.” I blinked, trying to reconcile Obruesk's statement with the man I had met on Iversly's docks. I failed.

'Treating gently and even blessing an accused sorcerer." Obruesk shook his head. "Turning a blind eye to the persecution of those who dare oppose wickedness in high offices. Even allowing smuggled wood from the Border to be used as Staves of Office throughout the realm.”

"Of course, your hands are clean," Esclaur said. "It is amazing how everyone from the patriarch on down had one of those spritewood staves—except you.”

"Isn't it?" Obruesk said. "But that may be because I've accepted the call to purity and righteousness, no matter the cost. Unlike certain of our elders." He gave Doyen Allwyn an earnest look. "Perhaps it is time for the patriarch to step down so that the Church may recover under strong leadership.”

"Such as yours?" Groskin asked, his voice a rumbling growl.

Obruesk smiled. "Among others."

"Not Uncle Orso!”

Obruesk merely smiled again as he picked up a peach and bit into it.

"Most times it's the simplest of sins that will snare a person, gracious people," Doyen Allwyn said.

"Behold Covetousness, coupled with Unchecked Ambition.”

"They and Teram Flavan'son," Laurel said, "have suckled at the same teat.”

"Indeed, yes. They're all reavers and they will all tear the kingdom apart," Esclaur said, his eyes still fixed on the chancellor.

"Oh, no, not us," Berle said. "It is the king who has brought us to threatened annihilation. It is our efforts that will save us and create a stronger kingdom.”

"Of course," Suiden said. "And your wants and desires have nothing to do with it.”

"I was told to obtain peace," Berle said, her voice light. "I did. This is its price. As for the king and Great Houses—" She shrugged just as lightly. "It's all in the presentation, messirs. 'Yield, or die in a war you can't win and thereby have everything you hold dear destroyed' usually works.”

I lowered my head to stare at the floor, as a vision of Iversterre ravaged from warfare both with the Border and with itself rose before me, and I wondered if the chancellor was naive in her estimation of the Great Lords' responses and so a natural fool, or willfully blind to how they would fight for their people and land, and therefore a deliberate one.

The wind picked up again, shrieking and slamming the panes, causing everyone in the room to look at the windows, and a couple of the guards near them edged away. In the relative quiet inside the room, it dawned on me that I couldn't feel the butterflies anymore, and glanced at my shoulder. They weren't there. I looked around the room for Harbormaster Lin. She wasn't there either. I was wondering if Pellan had taken her with him when the door to the hallway opened and I heard a clinking noise. I jerked my head around to stare at a guard carrying chains and shackles heading my way.

"Ah." There was a rustle as Chancellor Berle shifted in her chair. "As in any negotiation, there is give and take, and I'm afraid you, Lord Rabbit, have just been taken."

Obruesk laughed as I took a step back.

"But then, you are a runaway apprentice and, regardless of any promises made or degrees to dead and distant kings, should be returned to your master.” I retreated another step and a guard struck my lower back; pain radiated down my legs. He hit me again, and I fell to the floor with a deep groan, rolling away from a well-aimed boot. The sphere swooped to hover in my face and I continued rolling, terror lending me strength to rip my tabard at the seams. As the sounds of scuffles, shouts and Laurel's deep growl filled the room, I came up on my knees and flung the tabard over the abomination, figuring that it could corrupt my ruined clothes all it wanted. Gripping the ends of my tabard with one hand, I started to rise, as the wind shrieked and crashed against the windows—only to have it go quiet inside the room.

"Oh, hell," Groskin said into the sudden stillness, and I looked up to see Doyen Allwyn on the floor, a guard's boot in his back. The guard bent forward and gripped the doyen's hair, lifting his head. Blood trickled from Allwyn's mouth as the guard stretched his neck, placing a knife just under his ear, and the doyen's eyes met mine, his hot and ashamed that he'd been unable to fight harder.

Groskin and Suiden lowered the chairs they had grabbed and Laurel dropped his paw. Esclaur was against the wall, his arm at a strange angle, and Javes stood in front of him, one eye swelling shut. Esclaur allowed his head to drop and Javes closed his other eye as I let the tabard go and was hauled to my feet.

I stood unresisting as guards attached manacles to my wrists and, pulling off my boots and stockings, placed fetters on my ankles, the weight of them cutting into my skin. One guard snatched the covenant feather off my braid and dropped it on the floor, grinding it under his boot heel. He then fastened an iron collar around my neck, the bolts dropping into their holes with loud clanks, and Chancellor Berle gave me her wry smile as she drank her tea.

The door opened once more and the chancellor stood. "Is the Council ready, Lord Commander?"

"Yes," Pellan said, stepping into the room. He looked over at the elfin guard holding the knife to Doyen Allwyn's throat.

"The human resisted when the chains were brought in, Commander Eorl Pellan," the guard said.

Pellan nodded and walked across the room to the other door. "Bring them.” As the guards pushed us into the next room I caught a pattern in the floor and turned my head. The Witness Circle. I glanced around and discovered that we had entered the main audience hall through a side chamber. Pellan signaled us to stop so that we faced a long table on a platform, opposite to the Fyrst's throne. And at the table, some sitting on chairs and some not, was the High Council. Or at least a portion of it.

Chancellor Berle swept to the front and bowed, making it clear that she was separate from us. "Gracious lords—" she began.

"If you please, Chancellor," said an elf who was seated at the middle of the table. Ribbons woven into his pale blond hair indicated that he was a northern clan chieftain. I stared, trying to see if I knew him, but the sphere, apparently taking exception to my interest in the Council, floated in front of my face, and I lowered my head.

"There are a few things we must take care of before we can start," the elf said, and I heard Laurel beside me growl. "Are you ready, Kareste?”

My head shot up; all of a sudden I didn't care about evil spheres. Magus Kareste, though not a Council member, sat at me end of the table. He saw my look and gave me a wintry smile, laying his hand on something before him. I blinked as I recognized Laurel's staff, and Kareste's smile widened a bit before he turned to the elf. "Yes, I'm ready, Ilenaewyn.”

At Ilenaewyn's nod, the hall's main doors opened and Kareste stood, picking up Laurel's staff, raising both it and his free hand. Laurel's growl exploded into a bellow, and a guard, emboldened by the Council's presence, backhanded him, knocking the cat to the floor. I turned around, my chains clanking, and my mouth gaped.

The haunts were coming into the hall but instead of their usual flowing, pouring and running, it was a halting progress as they fought each step they took. Honor's arms were locked to her side and her head thrown back as she strained against whatever was pulling her into the room; Basel's antlers were lowered as he too was dragged in stiff-legged, the unicorn, the leopard, and all the rest bucking, twisting, resisting.

I shifted so I could also see the Magus, and his ice shard eyes were glittering as he began to move Laurel's staff in a complicated pattern, murmuring. He brought the staff sharply down and there was an unbearable moment when the haunts distorted, their mouths stretched open in silent, prolonged screams.

Then they were gone.

"No," I said, ignoring both the metallic taste in my mouth and the sphere that floated back in front of me, splitting my view of the Magus.

Kareste dropped the staff onto the table with a thunk before he sat down. "A summoning, a binding, a banishing. Easy enough to do with ghosts—if one's aspect is earth." He gave another wintry smile. "Mine is not, but fortunately I do have a staff that once belonged to one whose aspect is.”

"Vile necromancer!" Laurel roared. He staggered to his feet. "You have twice murdered them!" His rune was white hot, light radiating from it as he began to raise his paw at the Magus. "By the Lady Gaia I pronounce you cursed—"