Ivory Lyre (4 page)

Kiri peered through the mortar hole to study
him. She knew nothing about Thorley except that it was a small
principality in the east of Thedria, which lay far to the south
across hostile seas. Folk in this hemisphere knew little about its
people. Kiri had heard they were peaceful and reputed to raise fine
horses. She leaned against the stone, listening intently as Prince
Tebmund and the king discussed the sale of the four horses. Oh, how
could he bear to sell such horses?

“I can promise up to fifty head of trained
war-horses like these, if Your Highness desires,” Prince Tebmund
said. He had a quiet, clipped voice that Kiri found appealing. As
if he did not care for long speeches.

King Sardira leaned back in the settee,
stroked his black beard, and belched delicately. He was like a thin
black bat with its wings folded neatly across its front and its
black eyes missing nothing. “And what is your price, per head? I
expect it will be higher for the stallions.”

“It is the same for both. Two hundred pieces
of gold.” Prince Tebmund’s expression was calm, but his dark eyes
held a flash of impatience—or dislike for the king.

There was a cold pause before the king
spoke. Prince Abisha remained silent. Kiri could see his fat foot
tapping softly.

“Two hundred for these four,” the king said.
“That seems rather steep. But, of course, if they—”

“Two hundred per head,” said Prince Tebmund.
His dark eyes and lean face hid a surge of anger, subtle as the
passing of a breath.

This pause was colder, and lengthy. Prince
Abisha came to stand before the hearth, his fat stomach not inches
from Kiri. She drew back against the cistern.

“It is too much,” said Abisha. “It is out of
the question. No one asks such gold for horses.”

“These are not common horses,” said Prince
Tebmund.

“They are the finest horses on Tirror, as
I’m sure you can see for yourselves. They will carry a man into
battle with absolute absence of fear. They will not only carry him,
they will rear and strike the enemy’s mounts and the enemy soldiers
as well. They have struck down many an opponent and left a lifeless
body. They are well worth twice what I ask. However, if you are
not. . .”

Abisha moved away from the wall, and Kiri
saw the king’s lifted hand, striking silence. Prince Tebmund waited
politely.

“Why do you bring them to sell,” asked the
king, “if they are so fine?”

“Our horses are our living, our finest
commodity. We raise them and train them to sell. If you are not
interested, there are others who will be. We offered first to you,
King Sardira, because we felt that your court, of all the nations,
would hold the best and kindest horsemen.”

That, thought Kiri, was laying it on pretty
thick. Though it had been true once, when Papa was the king’s
master of horse.

Prince Tebmund said, “I will be more than
pleased to give you a fortnight in which your soldiers can work
with these four mounts under my direction, to learn their unusual
ways. I would not sell them without training men to their skills.
If,” he said softly, “at the end of that time, you are not pleased
with the horses and with the price, I will depart happily with the
horses, and no charge made.”

Kiri strained to see the king’s face. It was
set in a scowl, but there was a gleam of interest in his black
eyes. A fortnight in which Sardira’s captains could learn some
interesting secrets about training war-horses, and in which some of
the king’s own mares might be secretly bred to the two fine
stallions. Then, if Sardira didn’t buy, he would still have the
benefit of a beginning to a fine new line of mounts . . .
at no cost. Of course the king would accept. Sardira cared for
nothing if not for expediency and self-gain.

Kiri wondered if Prince Tebmund had any idea
that horses sold here would soon belong to the dark invaders.

Or perhaps Prince Tebmund didn’t care.

King Sardira played both sides. He courted
the few leaders who stood valiantly against the dark enemies, and
courted the dark invaders with equal favor. They came to Dacia
often, seeking supplies and soldiers and whatever else the city
could provide. Their flesh lust was easily pandered to in the
quarters of the drugged servants and in the stadium fights between
prisoners and animals. Those exhibitions sickened and terrified
Kiri. The dark unliving wanted whatever new depravity the city and
Sardira’s court could produce. In return, they offered Sardira
flattery and the means for further power through their magic. The
unliving were conquerors. They lusted to make war, to kill in
battle. They would, when they saw Prince Tebmund’s horses, offer
Sardira far more than two hundred gold pieces per head, to send
such animals into the fighting.

They would let the horses win for them, but
they would thirst to see them fight for their lives, see them
injured and screaming in pain. Pain and death fed the unliving.

It was the un-men and Sardira together who
had cut out her father’s tongue, to prevent the images that his
voice could bring alive. Their way had been far more cruel than
killing him. To silence Colewolf was to sentence him to a cold half
death.

Didn’t this young prince understand the
nature of the dark? Didn’t he know that Sardira traded with them?
His uncaring ignorance angered Kiri.

Yet why should it? She had no reason to
think he was anything more than just another friend of the
dark.

Still, if he was a friend of the dark, he
could have taken his horses directly to them. His coming to Sardira
was just as bad, though. If he was willing to sell his fine,
spirited animals to any cruel taker, even where they would be used
to help the unliving, he was no better than the dark leaders. It
was people like Prince Tebmund, who helped the dark for their own
selfish gain, that made the battle so one-sided. She stood shaken
with anger, but very aware that she must not lose control.

When Kiri slipped away from the great hall
at last, it was all she could do to keep herself in hand. Her inner
turmoil frightened her. To let her feelings rule her was too
dangerous—for herself and for the cause she served. Why had Prince
Tebmund stirred such anger in her?

And the eyes of that black stallion! She
could not forget them.

The next morning Kiri was late getting to
her cousin Accacia’s apartments. She stopped in the servant’s
scullery to heat the lemon juice and grind the minten leaves she
used to wash Accacia’s hair, then fled up the six flights to her
cousin’s floor. Accacia, of course, was in a temper, her brown eyes
angry. Kiri supposed she had been pacing; her green satin robe
swirled around her as she bore down on Kiri.

“Can’t you ever be on time? We have an
important visitor in the palace, and I want to look my best—to
please Abisha, of course, when he presents me. Do get on now as
quickly as you can.” She flung herself into the straight satin
chair and leaned her head back over the silver tub. Kiri lifted
Accacia’s long chestnut hair up into the vessel and began to pour
on the warm herbed lemon juice. The minten leaves made a fine
lather, and soon Accacia relaxed under Kiri’s knowing fingers. The
hearthfire had been built up to dry Accacia’s hair, making the room
very hot.

It was an ornate room, not to Kiri’s liking.
Too much gold-leaf filigree in the screens and furniture, too much
crowding of satin draperies over the bed and at the windows, so one
had a closed-in feeling. It was a room that couched Accacia’s
beauty as a velvet-lined box would couch a jewel.

Accacia had ordered long ago that Kiri alone
was to wash her hair and perform other small duties for her, but
not because she liked Kiri’s company or wanted to make a more
secure place for her in the palace, or because they had been raised
together. Accacia’s father had been related to the king, but it was
the girls’ mothers who had been sisters. Kiri carried none of the
king’s blood in her veins, she thought with satisfaction. Accacia
kept her to do her bidding because she did so like ordering Kiri
around, as she always had since they were babies growing up
together. Accacia’s mother had died at her birth. Her father had
been in the king’s guard. When he died in battle, Accacia lived
with Kiri’s family. She had not left the palace after Kiri’s father
was maimed and sent away. She got herself engaged to Prince Abisha
and promptly commandeered two floors of the west tower for her use.
Her sympathy was shallow and short-lived when Kiri and Gram were
turned out, to take the tiny cottage below the wall. Kiri guessed
she ought to be grateful that Accacia had gotten her appointed a
minor page. It was safer than trying to find work in the city, and
the information Kiri gleaned in the palace was invaluable to those
who mattered.

Kiri was so deep in thought as she shampooed
away that she was startled and jerked a hank of hair badly when a
shrill voice exploded behind her in the doorway. She turned, her
ears filled with Accacia’s scolding and with the irritating voice
of her cousin’s friend Roderica, daughter of the present master of
horse. Two maids followed Roderica in, bearing curling irons to
heat at Accacia’s hearth. The two friends liked to have their hair
done together so they could gossip in private. Roderica had no maid
of her own and used Accacia’s freely. The thin, angular girl
shrieked and giggled as they discussed the visiting prince.

“Oh, he’s beautiful, Accacia! And young—far
too young for you, of course. More nearly my age, I would think.”
Roderica suffered from jealousy of Accacia, for all that they were
friends. And no wonder. Accacia, with her long auburn hair and
thick lashes framing golden brown eyes was, if nothing else,
certainly the most beautiful girl in the palace. She would marry
Prince Abisha at year’s end in a ceremony that threatened to
overshadow even the terrible wars.

“And the horses . . .” Roderica
was saying. “Oh, they are lovely horses, but the king haggled over
the price—two hundred pieces of gold for each one. I’ve near heard
of such a price. . . .” So Roderica had been
listening, too. Roderica might be silly and loud sometimes, but
Kiri knew there was another side to her, a puzzling one. She could
never tell what Roderica’s mood would be and wondered if sometimes
she used the drug cadacus, meant for the queen. Roderica spent much
of her time with the sick queen and was the crippled woman’s only
friend. She had been her handmaid since she was a small child and
was the only person the queen would now tolerate. Kiri thought
Roderica eavesdropped in order to supply the bored queen with
palace gossip. Maybe she brought her news of Accacia, too, and
whether she still had relations with the king.

“Why would such a handsome prince travel
alone?”

Accacia asked. “Why does he not have
attendants, some pretty traveling companions? And why did he travel
all this way, past dozens of other kingdoms, to sell his horses?”
She sighed. “What a terribly dull journey, all that water to
cross.”

“He came up the Channel of Barter on a
lumber barge out of north Thedria,” Roderica said. “He came this
far, I heard him say, because . . . Oh, I heard them
clearly, they were taking tea in the hall and—”

“And you listened from the pantry,” Accacia
said, smiling.

“Yes,” Roderica said without shame. “He came
this far because, he said, he thought the king would give his
horses the best care.”

Accacia laughed. “No one would travel all
that way for such a stupid reason.”

“But they are very special horses,” Roderica
said with her typical superiority about horses, because her father
was the king’s master of horse—though Roderica herself looked like
a broken stick on horseback.

“Humph,” said Accacia. “They can’t be that
special. He was fussing around the stable yard at all hours last
night, coddling those horses.”

“You watched him?”

“I . . . was late coming in.”
Accacia could see the stable yard clearly from her windows. “He was
at it again this morning. Trying to make it look as if those horses
are the most valuable things in Tirror—just to keep the price up,
of course.”

Kiri held her tongue with effort. Accacia
cared nothing for horses, except if they were flashy and could show
her off to advantage. Kiri thought Accacia would find a way sooner
or later to ride one of Prince Tebmund’s mounts. As for Accacia’s
opinion of Prince Tebmund himself, she was no great judge of
character.

Still, there was something about Prince
Tebmund, strange and so unsettling that Kiri couldn’t decide what
she thought.

She knew she was naturally suspicious.
Hadn’t she grown up spying, purposely suspicious of everyone? Now,
when she caught herself siding with Prince Tebmund despite her
disapproval of him, that frightened her. It was not comfortable to
feel so confused about someone, not comfortable to feel he should
be a friend, or as if they had something in common. It was not safe
for the cause she served.

Kiri left Accacia’s apartments deep in
thought, hardly hearing her cousin’s final scolding. She went
directly to the training field beyond the stables. Keeping to the
shadows of the almond grove, she watched the first demonstration of
the four Thedrian horses.

She was not allowed in the stables, though
she went there anyway. Roderica’s father didn’t like her critical
looks, for they recalled too plainly that Colewolf had had training
skills when he was horsemaster that Riconder could never match. She
watched Prince Tebmund demonstrate the larger of the two white
mares, then one of the stallions. She watched Sardira’s sergeants
botch the signals and flail as the horses spun and reared. Too soon
Prince Tebmund called a halt—too soon for Kiri, for she was having
a fine time. But not soon enough for the red-faced sergeants, nor,
Kiri expected, soon enough for the horses, for they seemed well out
of sorts with the clumsy riders. She stood in the almond grove for
some time after the horses were returned to the stable and the
soldiers had gone. Then she slipped away, to her palace duties.