Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court (77 page)

It had started idly enough, and it had become a puzzle, a challenge, filling in the steps between terrified adolescent to serene, powerful woman. He had heard all of her voices; seen all of her faces. He knew the exact moment—in the chronology of her life— she had become a killer; knew that she would never lose the ability, as some did who visited that precipice and then withdrew. He knew how to anger the Evaynes it was possible to anger; knew how to comfort the Evaynes it was possible to comfort.

But he did not know if she would be at his side when he finally found the woman he was searching for.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Smiled. The older Evayne carried her warnings—if she offered them at all—by words. It was amusing. In her youth, she saw him as the shadowy, dangerous assassin whose eyes missed nothing, no matter how well hidden. In her prime, she saw him as a peer, and as such, presumed that anything she noted with ease would be likewise noted. Only at this age, between the two and confident of her own power, did she seek to warn him when no warning was necessary. "I see them," he said quietly. The hand withdrew.

Two men lounged idly in the midday heat, like many of the Southern clansmen. The hour was right for it, but the wind wrong; it was, as the Tor Leonne went, a cool day. Sweat, here, was a fact of life when the sun reigned.

They wore sturdy clothing that had probably seen better days, but could certainly see worse; uncolored cottons and brown vests, wide sashes, long pants. Swords adorned hip and rested off to one side, a foot above the ground. They weren't likely to be drawn.

But the daggers already had been; they were clumsily but deliberately concealed. He approached them, but kept a comfortable distance.

"Gentlemen," he said, speaking flawless Torra.

They glanced at each other; the older man, bearded and slighter of build, frowned. It was the younger of the two—heavier set, about three inches taller than Kallandras or most of the men one could see in the streets of the Tor Leonne—who chose to answer.

"Not usually."

Evayne came from around his back. He saw the mask in her hand as if it were a natural extension. The younger man frowned, and once again turned his gaze to the older for a quick, silent consultation.

But the older man's eyes, caught by Evayne, were held there. Interesting.

"Kallandras," Evayne said softly. It was a question. A request. He nodded.

"Gentlemen," he said again, and this time the older man nodded slowly. "I am a stranger to the Tor, and I am… lost. I have been told that you guard one of the fairest merchant trains in the city. Perhaps you might offer me the kindness of your hospitality."

"The Tor," the younger man said, before the older could reply, "isn't known for hospitality."

"No, indeed. Nor is the open road, but I have found hospitality there in my time."

"And such hospitality as you have found," the older man said, speaking for the first time, "is offered in less dangerous times."

Kallandras nodded, but he did not offer an answer; he was, for a moment, moved to silence by the unusual richness of the stranger's voice. It was a deep voice, and it had layers to it—of anger and joy, of wariness and abandon, of sadness and determination—that were muted in other voices, when present at all. There was intimacy in it, or hints of intimacy; there was friendship, or the promise of friendship, and there was, distinctly, death. It was, he thought, a brother's voice.

But a brother did not serve the dictates of the living.

He bowed.

The older man raised a brow.

"Indeed, in less dangerous times. And by a family other than Corrona."

"You are… observant."

"No doubt. We," he said quietly, nodding to Evayne without taking his gaze from the stranger, "have come to deliver a message from two who have offered us their hospitality."

"And that?"

"It can be delivered only to Elsarre."

"That is not the way things are usually done in this caravan."

"It is the way things are done," he said, interjecting the faintest note of apology into words that, on the surface, held none, "in the entourage of my mother."

"Your mother?"

"Yollana," he said quietly.

"A common enough name." It was not to Kallandras that the man's intent gaze traveled, but to Evayne. "You have been on the road a long time," he said at last, his eyes never leaving her face. "And if you desire it, I will speak on your behalf."

"The message can only be delivered—"

"So that the woman for whom such message is meant might be predisposed to listen."

"Dani—" the younger man said, surprise and anger highlighting the two syllables.

But the man called Dani raised a hand, no more.

The gesture had the full force of an order. An order given by a man with the authority to give it.

"We desire it," Kallandras said, speaking for Evayne. "And we will be in your debt."

The man raised a brow. Nodded. "Follow, then. But follow quickly."

He moved.

Kallandras was not surprised by his speed. He wasn't surprised by his silence, either; the Voyani belonged to the shadows the Lord cast; they were used to running or hiding. What surprised him was the grace of his words; he spoke like no Voyani—especially no male—that Kallandras had ever met. That he traveled the
Voyanne
was not in question. Not in this caravan, not with this train. That he was born to it? Highly doubtful.

But the Voyani as a rule did not take in strangers, and on the rare occasions they did, they still distinguished between charity and blood. Family was family, and everything else was a matter of convenience.

Dani led them through the maze of narrow streets that the poorer clansmen who served the Tyr called home. He stopped occasionally to speak to his companion, his expression shifting with the careless wildness of a man who's drunk almost too much. The younger Voyani responded by shying back with a mild look of concern mingled with disgust; it was clear to the casual observer who was responsible for whom.

And it was a common enough sight in the streets. Kallandras frowned and drew the young woman at his side closer; she in turn pulled the folds of her hood farther down about her face. They walked as a loose party, one of several similar parties, the Lord's gaze upon them, the preparations for the Festival of the Moon crowding streets that were seldom so busy.

He smiled as they came to a narrow doorway, replete with long hangings and a garland that hung from the height of the stone frame. No one but Elsarre would live like this in the Tor Leonne. Or rather, no Matriarch.

They entered the dwelling, and then Dani turned and bade them wait; he did so with an economy of words—precisely none—that was astonishing among the Voyani. In spite of himself, Kallandras was curious. It had been a long time since he had been simply curious.

When Dani returned, he said, "She will see you now."

He led them down the long hall into a wide, round room; a room that was lit by lamp and hidden by hanging and shutter from the sun's light. The hanging, he pulled aside, holding it back as if he were a seraf. The gesture made him invisible and Evayne passed him by without a backward glance. Not so Kallandras; he stopped a moment to nod. Dani raised a brow and gestured, by nod of head, to the room.

There, seated upon a bench that rested against the unadorned stone wall, sat a woman. She was not alone; not quite. To her left—at the bench's edge—stood an older man, his hair white, his skin dark and cracked by sun and wind. To her right, seated, was an older woman, shawls pulled up about her head as if she were a clanswoman. Her hair was still dark in places; curls crept out beneath the edges of cloth framing her face, with its severe, suspicious expression.

But the seated woman did not trouble herself with such severity. She was younger than Kallandras, although she was old enough that she no longer deserved to be called young. Her face, unlike the faces of most Voyani women of her age, was almost unblemished by exposure to the sun; it was plain that she did not choose to face the Lord often. She wore red and yellow silks, much to Kallandras' surprise; they were fashioned in imitation of the saris that high clanswomen wore, but they were not as restrictive.

She wore a sword as well, although he judged it decorative rather than practical; she could not fight with competence in what she had chosen to wear. Nor in how she had chosen to present herself: her hair, long and thick, fell in a straight line from head to bench, rippling against the wood as it caught the light.

All of these things were seen, judged, and consigned to memory in an instant. Elsarre, of the four Matriarchs, had always been called the wild one. He better understood the naming now.

"You," the seated ruler said to Evayne.

Kallandras, standing beside her, heard the shift in her voice. She was momentarily confused, but she knew better than to expose herself to this woman.

"My apologies," she said softly, "for interrupting you in this fashion."

"It is hardly an interruption compared to your last visit." She lifted an arm, waved it to take in the whole of the small room. Kallandras kept the smile off his face; her look was luxuriant and elegant; her voice and her manner were distinctly Voyani. "You gave us portents and signs and warnings, and we traveled here in the secrecy you counseled wise. We have been
waiting
," she added.

"You know that I do not come at my own choosing, or in my own time. I travel at the Lady's whim."

"Oh, indeed," Elsarre replied, her words so heavy with sarcasm they could have damaged the floor had they been solid.

Evayne stiffened. "If you did not believe my words," she said, her voice the sudden breeze that takes heat—or warmth—from a room, "you had no cause to travel."

"It was not your words, but my own instinct, that brought us here."

Careful, Evayne
, Kallandras thought. But he knew what his apparent position was in this room, and he stood as her shadow; attached, but silent, unremarkable.

"Then confine your anger to where it is due."

Elsarre lapsed into a silence that indeed confined her anger. Kallandras was momentarily impressed.

"I come with information," Evayne said, breaking that chilly silence.

"No doubt it is urgent."

"I do not seek to second guess the wisdom of a Matriarch," the seer replied, smoothing the ice and irritation from her voice. "It is information; your sense of its urgency will decide, in the end, how urgent it is." She turned to Kallandras.

He bowed. The younger Evayne would never have been so politic because she would never have been so capable of judging the mood and character of a woman she had only just met.

He was certain that this was the first meeting for Evayne; her voice betrayed surprise, confusion and, overriding both, determination. Dislike. He wondered which Evayne had spoken with Elsarre, and what she had said.

But he did not wonder long. Elsarre's eyes were upon him, and she—the youngest, until the death of Evallen, of four Matriarchs— did not have the easy patience, or temper, that Yollana did. He knew better than to keep her waiting.

"Your information?"

"I have been sent," he said quietly, "with no words."

"Stranger, I warn you—"

He reached into the hidden pocket of the robe he wore. At his back, Dani moved, shifting position and changing his status of unarmed observer to armed one so quietly Evayne didn't turn at the noise.

When Kallandras opened his hand, Elsarre froze.

"This cannot be," she whispered. Her eyes narrowed, her gaze slid past him, flickering a moment like candlelight.

He
moved
, turning, his palm snapping into a fist, his free hand dislodging weapon from sheath. When it came up, it came up beneath the chin of the man called Dani.

To his surprise he found a slender blade a hand's width from the center of his chest.

He looked up; Dani's eyes met his. There was a flicker there, of recognition, perhaps of respect. A nod.

"Elsarre," Evayne said, her voice as cold as Northern winter. "This is not a game. It would pain me to deprive you of an obviously trusted ally, but I'll do it in a heartbeat if he doesn't lower his weapon."

The Matriarch rose, ignoring the seer's warning. Obviously, Kallandras thought, a better judge of character than he had given credit for. "Where did you get that?"

He held out his hand. The ring gleamed in his palm, band broken from beginning to end by russet etching in a bleached, pale white that Kallandras thought, from the look alone, must be bone. Except, of course, no simple bone could survive as long as this ring must have: it was etched with symbols the like of which he had last seen when the Kings had opened a cenotaph and their armies had descended into darkness, and the darkness beyond it.

"From the hand of Yollana of the Havalla Voyani."

She spit. Not at him, not quite, but the derision, the disbelief, could not be contained by a simple snort. She dressed like a Serra, but that was all that they and she had in common.

"She says the place is—"

"I will know the place," Elsarre snapped back. "If you do not lie, I will know it."

"Matriarch—"

"Dani, watch him. If he speaks another word, kill him." She turned to the woman at her side. "Ona Elisa?"

A volume in those two words.

The old woman met his eyes. "Your weapon," she said to Kallandras, no softness in her voice although she spoke quietly.

"Yes."

"It is the Lady's weapon."

"Yes."

"Swear by Her."

"What would you have me swear, Ona? All vows to the Lady have their price."

"Swear that the Matriarch gave you the ring."

"So sworn," he said softly. His eyes flickered off Dani's dagger hand as he made his decision. He lowered his own blade; let it bite palm. Hoped that the demon within it drew no sustenance from the gesture. "By the Lady."

She nodded grimly. "Trust him."

"But he—"

"You know it yourself, Elsarre. Trust your instincts."

"But a stranger's hand has
never
borne that ring. How could she take such a risk? I tell you, Elisa—"