House of Shadows (14 page)

I
n Lonne, dusk was invariably the correct time for an evening engagement to begin, though this meant, naturally, that the actual proper hour changed as the length of the days waxed and waned through the year. Taudde knew this. However, obeying Lord Miennes’s instructions, he deliberately aimed to arrive a little late. Around him the lamps of the city, massive globes atop tall iron poles, were flickering to life. The lamps glowed with a pale green light through the long hours of the night. The mist that curled slowly down the mountain’s flanks and threaded through the city streets took on an unsettling greenish tint in that light. Taudde would have preferred the natural light of the moon and stars, but that silvery light was masked by the city lamps.

Benne drove because in Lonne it was considered horribly inappropriate for a man of quality to touch his horse’s reins himself. The big man had found a small but rather fine carriage, dark gray, with silver scrollwork on the doors. The horse was a young gelding, dappled gray, with high flashy action and a seafoam-white mane and tail. At first inclined to think this display excessive, upon arrival at Miennes’s house Taudde saw that any less showy an equipage would have seemed altogether shabby in the company the lord was keeping this evening.

Three other carriages waited along the drive. Two were large, elaborate affairs. The doors and window frames of the first carriage were inlaid with gold and pearl. Four matched chestnut
horses stood before it. The second was plainer but had the sleek look of quality; the blood bays harnessed to it were finer than the chestnuts. The last carriage, of the same style as Taudde’s new acquisition, appeared to be made entirely of rare, expensive ebony from southernmost Miskiannes. Complicated mother-of-pearl inlay spun a delicate pattern across the black doors, and the fine black mare that drew it had pearls set into her harness and dripping from her bridle. Against such display, the silver on the doors of Taudde’s carriage no longer seemed quite so extravagant.

Normally comfortable making an entrance into any company, tonight Taudde could not help but feel self-conscious. A servant, blankly oblivious to his tardiness, admitted him to the house and then to a small dining chamber. Here, Miennes, Ankennes, and six other men lounged at their ease around a carved table.

All of the men looked up when Taudde entered the room, some amused but others clearly annoyed. Taudde had the impression that they had been arguing about some issue that had tempers running high. He also guessed that, though some of them were happy to have an interruption, others were not.

Oddly, although it was his house, Miennes had not taken the place at the head of the table, but rather the first place to the left. He said with sleek satisfaction, “Come in, come in—my lords, this is the foreign lord whom I had mentioned.”

Taudde took a step forward and paused. The place at the head of the table was occupied by a young man with a thin, strong-featured face and elegant hands. He had dark, serious eyes under straw-pale brows and a rather arrogant mouth; his hair, a shade lighter than his brows, was long, straight, and caught back at the base of his neck with a clip of jet and gold. He wore black cut through by an abstract pattern of saffron.

It was that particular saffron shade that allowed Taudde to recognize the young man: This must surely be one of the princes of Lonne. A son of
Geriodde Nerenne ken Seriantes
himself, and some remarkable tide of chance had cast
this
young man at Taudde’s feet? For this prince of Lirionne must, without doubt, be
Miennes’s intended target. It was impossible that a Seriantes prince should be at this table, and yet Miennes’s target be some other man. It seemed likely that Miennes would demand Taudde do murder upon a son of the very
Dragon of Lirionne
. The prospect all but stopped breath.

Taudde had once promised his grandfather, swearing on his own father’s grave, that he would never seek personal vengeance against the King of Lirionne. The Treaty of Brenedde specifically forbade such acts, and Taudde, of all men, was surely required to abide by its terms. In the note he’d left for his grandfather, he’d sworn again that vengeance had no part in his reasons for coming to Lonne.

But now this. This.

And Miennes had arranged for Taudde to walk into this room blindly. Taudde fought to set a mask of grave apology over the storm of anger and grief that shook him—it felt like trying to hold back striking lightning with a silken veil—and walked forward to make his bow to the company. He ended, however, by dropping to one knee and bowing his head to the prince. “Forgive me, eminence,” he said, in his best court tone, layered with bland respect and apology, “I see I am behind-hand in my arrival. I am, as Lord Miennes has said, a foreigner, and I regret I did not realize Lord Miennes meant to specify so precisely the hour in the invitation he did me the honor to extend. I am devastated to have put so noble an assembly to any difficulty.”

“My fault entirely!” Miennes exclaimed, smiling. “I should have taken greater pains to be clear, knowing I spoke to a foreigner. Especially given the distinction of my guests. I fear I did not warn Lord Chontas Taudde ser Omientes of the company to which he would be made known this evening.”

“What can I be but grateful of the honor Lord Miennes affords me?” Taudde said at once.

The prince glanced at Miennes and then back at Taudde. An eyebrow lifted, and then his disapproving expression eased toward a smile, so that he looked suddenly both younger and far more welcoming. He said, “Of course, Lord Chontas. We have not been
discomposed by any such small error. We are glad of your company. Please, sit.” His voice was a rather light tenor, but with a barely discernible harsh edge behind it, whether temper or simply tension Taudde could not tell.

Taudde rose to his feet, bowed, and took the open place at the end of the left-hand curve of the table. A boy in a brown robe brought him a bowl of clear broth scattered with pink pepperberries. Taudde tasted it, pretending absorption in the broth while he studied the assembly. There was something… something about the way everyone present oriented toward the prince…

Ah. In fact… in fact, this prince was, Taudde guessed at last, not merely just
one
of the princes. He must be Tepres Nemedde ken Soriantes, the only
legitimate
son remaining to the King of Lirionne. The
heir
of the Dragon of Lirionne was Miennes’s target. Taudde much doubted Miennes had ever made so fraught a demand of any of his other blackmail victims, though they were no doubt many.

Taudde shut his eyes for a moment, trying not to let anything of the storm within show on his face. At least any oddity in his expression or manner would surely be put down to shock at finding himself in such exalted company.

He had intended to find some way to evade whatever trap Miennes and Mage Ankennes had laid for him. He’d meant to find a way to punish the arrogance of both lord and mage if he could, or simply to slip quietly out of Lonne if they proved too clever and well-guarded. Now… well… well, perhaps Taudde might bring himself to perform this one little service for them after all. He drew a slow, steadying breath and opened his eyes, re-orienting himself to the company he had found himself so unexpectedly keeping.

The three younger men were, Taudde guessed, companions of the heir. To the prince’s right there was an older man in the black of the King’s Own, but with deep purple embroidery across the shoulders of his overrobe: a personal guard of the prince, of high family himself, Taudde guessed. Taudde suspected that the other older man was the prince’s tutor. He had heard the man’s name, though he could not at once recall it, and he was almost certain he had heard
that the prince was much inclined toward his tutor’s company. Opposite Taudde was Ankennes, in the black underrobe and long white overrobe of a Lonne mage. Taudde gave him a wary nod.

“You are from Miskiannes, we understand, Lord Chontas,” one of the young men near Taudde commented. “So, tell us, what does Miskiannes think of the coming spring? Does Miskiannes await the solstice with eagerness or with dismay? And whom does Miskiannes support in the conflict?” The young man asked this question with a raised-eyebrow look directed not at Taudde but toward another of the young men. Clearly it was a continuation of the earlier argument.

“Ah…” Taudde did not dare declare that he favored Kalches, but he could not bring himself to pretend support for Lirionne. “Miskiannes awaits the spring with trepidation, I believe, my lord, and with relief that we are widely separated from any possible field of battle and thus need not declare partiality.” There: That was both true and unobjectionable.

“Why trepidation? If you’re so far removed from battle, why should you care at all?” the other young man demanded.

“Why, whoever might win or lose, war disrupts trade,” Taudde pointed out as though surprised, borrowing for a moment his favorite uncle’s opinions and manner.

“Well, whatever else you may say of Miskiannes, it is above all a nation of
tradesmen
,” commented the first young man, a trifle snidely.

“All nations are founded on trade,” Taudde said, a very Miskiannes opinion. “Do you yourself await the coming spring with eagerness, then, my lord?” He didn’t add his uncle’s opinion, from time to time forcefully expressed, of excitable young nobles who considered adventure more important than profit.

“The treaty merely deferred hostilities,” began the young man.

“A welcome deferral,” murmured the prince. Everyone at the table naturally quieted to hear him. “Fifteen years without open violence; half a generation for tempers to settle… Most likely they have not settled enough. But it was the best that could be won, at the time.”

“And hard won at that,” one of the older men rebuked the snide
young man. “You young men don’t know what those days were like, or how hard the Dragon worked to force that treaty upon the ice-hearted Kalchesene people, or you would be far less ready to decry Miskiannes’s elevation of trade above warfare.”

“Kalches can’t possibly
win
, however dedicated they may—” began the young man, his tone hot.

The older man cut him off. “When we have spent another generation or two of young men’s blood winning one stony field after another, you may find yourself less inclined to pursue victory!”

“Those fields, however thin and stony, rightfully belong to us!” snapped the young man. “Would
you
pursue
defeat
?”

Taudde set his teeth, lifted his goblet, stared intently into the straw-pale wine, and pretended hard to a neutrality he was far from feeling.

“Better, perhaps, to pursue a quiet spring,” murmured the prince, cutting off what had promised to be a sharpening argument. “Though there seems little hope of it.”

There was a tense pause. Taudde certainly did not break it, though he could not prevent himself glancing in surprise at Prince Tepres. He would not have expected the Dragon’s very
heir
, of all men, to express a wish for peace. The Seriantes Dragons had always considered that the lands to the north should by rights belong to Lirionne.

Enescedd might be protected by its wide enchanted forests, through which armies could not march; and Miskiannes by wealth and distance and most of all by the fortunate chance of having Enescedd between itself and Lirionne. But Kalches was protected only by its mountains, and those had never been enough. However hard the kings of Kalches fought to defend their people and their lands, they had nevertheless been forced to yield and then yield again, until now, since the Treaty of Brenedde, Kalches was able to claim less than half the territory it had once possessed.

And now the Dragon’s very
heir
wished for peace? If any Seriantes had ever wished for anything but conquest, Taudde could not recall his tutors mentioning it.

“So,” the third of the young men said at last, breaking the tension, “such interesting weather we’re having this year!”

Everyone laughed, the unpleasant young man a trifle reluctantly. The prince gave the humorist a slight nod of approval and sealed the change of topic by adding with dry amusement, “Whoever would expect cold breezes in the winter?” He turned deliberately toward Taudde. “Though in Miskiannes, perhaps, one would not?”

“Certainly not as you have here, eminence,” Taudde agreed. He set his goblet down again, gently.

“Oh, well, it’s not bad yet, but I promise you, Lord Chontas, plenty of snow will shortly come down off the mountains!” said the friendly, outspoken young man. “Ice will freeze down all the walls of the Laodd; it will glitter like the purest diamond. It is a most imposing sight.”

“Oh, imposing!” The remaining young man waved a dismissive hand. “Yes, the Laodd is
imposing
, if that pleases you. But for beauty in the winter, one must ride through the candlelight district. All the keiso Houses and aika establishments sculpt ice into flowers and birds and fantastic creatures. At night the theaters hang out lanterns bright as the moon, and the keiso have the mages make them streamers of colorful fire to float in the wind—is that something you do, Ankennes?”

The mage smiled. “I have been known to make such toys.” He had not seemed disturbed by the previous argument, and seemed equally comfortable with the present flippancy. His voice was smooth and deep, rich with humor, with very little trace of the coldness Taudde had heard in it the previous day. “It pleases the keiso, and is that not greatly to be desired?”

The other men laughed and agreed with this comment. A second course, of doves cooked with leeks and cream, was brought in on small copper-colored plates.