Sons of the Falcon (The Falcons Saga) (36 page)

Thorn smiled dolefully.
Not yet,
young man. But you will, I’m afraid.

What about the eyes? When do I
learn to use them?

Don’t rush yourself. Your brain
might explode from overwork.

Jaedren’s mouth opened in horror.

No, no, not really.
Thorn
bit the grin off his face.
Go get some rest. You’ve earned it.

~~~~

W
hen Jaedren wasn’t present
to serve at supper, Carah asked why. Her uncle explained the squire’s success
as though it were nothing more exciting than a weather report. Carah hung her
head and pushed away her plate, but otherwise surprised everyone at the table
with her restraint. “I don’t have to lose my temper, you know,” she told them,
drawing herself up. “Besides, I’ll learn it. In time.”

Across the table, adoration had sneaked
back into Thorn’s smile.

His affection should have been
enough to comfort her, but she couldn’t stand it. Bettered by a nine-year-old.
As soon as the family got up from the table, Carah excused herself and hurried
to the squire’s quarters.

Jaedren sat against his headboard,
playing with a small turtle he’d captured along the riverbank. It crawled
laboriously from one hand to the other. A box of silverthorn stood open on the
bedside table, next to a cup of hot water. He had turned the lamp down low, as
if the light hurt his eyes.

Carah cleared her throat, and the
squire glanced up from his turtle. The sudden movement made him wince.

“Head still hurting?” Carah asked,
sympathy shallow.

“It comes and goes. Did you need
something, m’ lady?”

“Just some answers. Don’t get up.”

He frowned, suspicious about her
motives, and gestured her to a chair piled with his livery. He took better care
of his foster lord’s clothes than his own, it seemed. Maybe he was lax because
of the headache.

Carah picked up the small cerulean surcoat
with the black falcon embroidered on it and folded it neatly. “I wanted to
congratulate you, actually. Uncle Thorn says you did well today.”

Jaedren ducked his eyes demurely.

“
How
did you do it?”

“Oh, it’s easy!” In an instant, his
meekness boiled up into the offhanded arrogance of a child who has outshined
his elders. “But it’s strange, too. You have to not think about it, but one
part of you has to be concentrating really hard. It’s a di … dichotomy. That’s
what Thorn called it.”

If Carah could make sense of that
nonsense, she’d consider herself a bloody genius. She sank onto the chair,
feeling less hopeful than ever.

“You can’t imagine how fast the
brain works,” Jaedren rambled on. “Almost too fast to catch everything you
hear. Sometimes I hear the thought real low, then hear it a second time really
loud, like an echo, only backward. Maybe the first time the thought is just
forming and ordering itself, and the second time it’s meant to be heard. And by
the time you hear one thought, another is coming up underneath it.” He glanced
down at the turtle pinched between his fingers. Its stubby, wrinkled legs swam
to find purchase. “Turtles aren’t like that. Turtles think real slow. Slower
than they walk. And one thought at a time.”

Carah held out her palm. Jaedren
handed her the turtle, and she studied the bulbous eyes. “So what’s this little
man thinking right now, Master Avedra?”

Jaedren shrugged. “He’s hungry. He’s
always hungry. Turtles are kinda boring to talk to.”

Her fragile good humor slipped a
notch. She was ready to head off to a bath where she could mope in solitude. “I’ll
have to take your word for it. But tomorrow’s my day. I’m sure to get it then.”

C
arah didn’t get it, not the
next day or the next. Shafts of sunlight shined through the stained glass of
the skylight and swept long probing fingers from one side of the library to the
other, and all the while interminable silence screamed in Carah’s ears. Thorn
scratched out short lines of foreign words on parchment while Jaedren looked
on. The boy pressed at a headache. While Carah watched the Elaran lesson or
pretended to care about the book opened up in front of her, she tried to make
sense of Jaedren’s advice about “not thinking about it while concentrating
really hard.” Her head throbbed she tried so hard. To no avail.

During lunch break, Carah could
tell the two of them were talking about something. Something intense and highly
interesting. All she could do was grit her teeth and listen to herself
swallowing her food.

Jaedren flung down his spoon, sucked
down a gulp of air, and cried, “There they are! I see them! Two of them, a yellow
one and a blue one. It’s Aster! I see her and I’m not asleep.” He looked at
Thorn for approval, then at Carah, and exclaimed, “Everybody’s glowing!”

Carah groaned and buried her face
in her hands.

~~~~

T
he Assembly was one month
away and supplies rolled in. Kelyn stood in the drizzle supervising the
unloading of the wagons, while Madam Yris peered into each barrel and ticked
items off her list. Though Kelyn’s people provided most of the food and extra
staff, the finer things had to be sent for. Crates of Doreli wine arrived from the
ports at Brimlad. Fruit came all the way from southern Mahkah, a land of endless
summer. Fish and porpoise and oysters were delivered on ice from Westport;
those weren’t scheduled to arrive until the day or two before the Assembly
convened, but sometimes they came too late. “Have the bedclothes gotten here
yet?” The royal family slept on new silk sheets every year; those had yet to
arrive from Vonmora.

“There’s plenty of time, m’ lord,”
Yris said.

“Where’s my daughter?” Kelyn shot a
nasty glare up at the keep’s windows. “She should be down here observing all
this.” His own father hadn’t wanted his rowdy boys anywhere near the
preparations. How Lord Keth had hated hosting the Assembly and all the trouble
that went with it. All Kelyn had to do was show up, look dashing, and refrain
from pursuing the cadre of handmaids. It wasn’t until after the war ended that
he had the opportunity to host the Assembly himself and appreciate the reason
for Father’s ill temper.

A voice hailed him from the
gatehouse. Another wagon rolled into the courtyard. Eliad himself held the
traces and raised a hand to wave. Two other wagons followed him in, stuffed
with forlorn-looking sheep.

“You’re a delivery man now?” Kelyn
asked peering into the back of Eliad’s wagon. Cured elk meat wrapped in wax
paper filled half a dozen crates. Three times the size of the contribution
Eliad owed his liege lord, and all because of the Assembly.

He leapt down from the wagon. “Ach,
there are times when it’s a grave mistake having two women in the house. A man
must flee.”

“You have my full sympathy,” Kelyn
said.

“How can you possibly understand?
You have only one wife and she’s gone half the year.”

Kelyn replied with raised eyebrows.
“I will pray to the Mother-Father that one day your house is full of
daughters.” Even as he directed the drivers to take the sheep to the paddocks,
Carah emerged from the keep, puffed up and gritting her teeth like a prize
fighter.

She found Kelyn among the wagons
and workmen and marched straight toward him. “How in all hells did you grow up
with him without killing him?”

Kelyn laughed and wrapped an arm
around her. “You make my heart soar.”

That placated her anger somewhat.

“Did he kick you out again?”

She sighed. “No. I held my temper,
but just barely. He had mercy and dismissed me for the afternoon. Put me to
work, Da. Something I
can
do, or I shall despair.”

Kelyn turned his head to hide his
grin. “Go help Yris. Gently.”

She huffed past Eliad, casting him
a scathing sideward glare. Kelyn leaned close to him and whispered, “There’s no
escaping them.”

By the time they set the day’s
deliveries in order, dusk had fallen and they were chilled to the bone. “How
tedious, Da,” Carah complained, climbing the steps to join him and Eliad. The
endless drizzle curled her hair into ringlets about her face. Her teeth
chattered.

Kelyn wrapped his cloak about her shoulders.
“Expect it until the Assembly’s over, grit your teeth, and get on with it.”

“I think I’d rather sit in a
library listening to nothing.”

“Hnh, so would I.”

They started for the great bronze
doors where hot food and hot baths awaited, but Captain Maegeth called from the
top of the wall, “A courier, m’ lord.”

The wardens had already secured the
gate for the night. They didn’t look happy about opening it up again. The
courier’s lathered racer trotted into the courtyard. A crown hovered over the
head of the spread-winged falcon on his livery.

“From Bramoran,” Kelyn said and
descended the steps.

The courier dismounted, snapped a
bowed, and extended a letter sealed with the royal stamp. “My Lord Ilswythe. Is
Her Grace in residence?”

“She is.”

The courier dug another letter from
his satchel, handed it off to Kelyn, then glimpsed Eliad on the steps. “And
Lord Drenéleth. This saves me a ride east. I’ll be on to Thyrvael, then.”

“Rest here, take a fresh horse in
the morning,” Kelyn offered.

The courier bowed his thanks and led
his racer off to the stables.

“What is it, Da?” Carah eyed the
seal with childlike giddiness.

Eliad glowered at his own letter as
he might at a poacher’s trap found on his lands.

“I know,” Kelyn muttered,
suspicious himself. The paper was made of silk, his name written in silver ink.
No expense spared. “Maybe he’s announcing a wedding. Come, let’s open them
inside. We’ll have a drink first.”

They found Thorn in the gentlemen’s
parlor swirling a glass of brandy.

“Isn’t brandy for after dinner?”
Kelyn groused.

“You had a good day, I take it.” Carah
was right; Thorn was infuriating.

A footman arrived to take their wet
woolen cloaks. Kelyn told him, “If Her Grace isn’t occupied, inform her she has
a letter. From the king.”

“Ah,” said Thorn. “That’s the
reason for the long faces. Most would be elated to receive a second glance from
a king, much less a letter.”

“Just pour us a couple of drinks,
will you?”

Thorn complied without argument.

“One for me, too, please,” Carah
requested. “My father forgets I’m not five anymore.”

Two peas in a pod, were uncle and
niece. Sick of the snide remarks, Kelyn turned to Eliad, “Maybe we should wait
until after dinner. I fear the contents will ruin my appetite.”

“Waiting and wondering will ruin
mine.”

Rhoslyn drifted in, a fragrant
cloud of sparkling pink silk. She was already dressed for supper. “A letter
from sweet cousin Valryk, for me?”

“One for all of us,” Kelyn said,
handing hers over.

“Aw, I feel left out,” Thorn said.

“That’s it, I’m not waiting.” Eliad
broke the glob of blue wax. So did Rhoslyn.

Kelyn couldn’t bring himself to do it
yet. “Will Rhian join us for supper?”

Thorn shrugged. “He and Jaedren are
playing sentry on the north wall, now that Jaedren can see with Veil Sight.”

Eliad hissed a curse, slapped his
letter across his thigh. Rhoslyn’s face was ice. She glanced at Kelyn. Damn, he
knew it. What did Valryk change this time? He broke his seal and read:

To our
illustrious cousin, Lord Ilswythe, greetings.

It is our
pleasure to inform you that this year’s Assembly will take place within the new
King’s Hall at Bramoran Royal. You are expected…

“That son of a bitch!” Kelyn
roared. “I knew he’d do something like this. We have hosted the Assembly since
recorded memory. Why change it now?”

“Dearest,” Rhoslyn said, “it is
possible that Valryk is only trying to be pragmatic.”

“Pragmatic? If he was being
pragmatic, he would have informed me of his decision—to my face, no less—months
ago.
Before
I spent my money and troubled my people and half a
continent’s worth of suppliers to deliver shit I don’t need. All of it wasted!
And for what? To save that boy a day’s ride north?”

The duchess turned aside in a
supremely snobbish way that stated she would endure being shouted at by a fool
merely because he was a fool whose shouting would soon prove unjustified.

Kelyn snarled at her and flung the
letter at his brother. “Read that and tell me I’m not to feel slighted by my
dead friend’s son.”

Thorn huffed, having no desire to be
swept up in this battle, but holding the letter at arm’s length did as he was
told. Kelyn paced, calculating the loss to his treasury. “What the hell are we
supposed to do with new silk sheets with Valryk’s initial on them?”

Rhoslyn cleared her throat. “Well,
I can think of something.”

“Ach! Mum!” Carah whirled away to
face the hearth and warm her hands, unable to look at any of them.

That drew a bitter laugh from
Kelyn. “And get fat on the extra food in the larder, I suppose? Valryk will
need to feed us all. Maybe I should send it south and bill him.”

Their attempts at humor were lost
on Thorn. His face was grave as he looked up from the letter. “Did you read the
rest?”

“My
unjustified
anger
prevented me,” he replied, casting a glare at Rhoslyn.

“The kings are coming,” Eliad said,
awed by what he read. “The other ones. All of ‘em.”

Kelyn snatched back his letter.

“This isn’t merely an Assembly,”
Thorn added. “It’s a royal convention.”

“There, you see?” Rhoslyn said.
“It’s a one-time event, dearest. Valryk intends to nurture better relations
with his neighbors, and you should commend him for it. I’m sure next year
everything will be back to normal, and your house will be overrun with moody,
demanding, maneuvering highborns.”

Kelyn read aloud: “ ‘As Their
Majesties are expected to arrive with sizeable suites and because
accommodations and livery will be limited, Lord Ilswythe is permitted to bring
only himself and one squire. He is also required to bring his heir. The Lady
Carah is permitted one handmaid.’ Required. Permitted. Hnh.” The commands were tactlessly
stated.

At mention of her name, Carah
hurried close and peered at the silver writing.

“At least it will last only three
days instead of five,” Thorn pointed out.

“No dancing?” Rhoslyn asked, though
the melodramatic hand to her chest told Kelyn she wasn’t exactly disappointed.

Carah, however, was horrified. “He
can’t cut the dancing!”

“Along with the races and
tournaments, I’d imagine,” Kelyn said.

“Not one for entertainment, your
Valryk?” Thorn put a brandy glass in his brother’s hand. Kelyn had no idea when
he’d set it down.

“He’s as dry and humorless as a
dog’s chew bone.”

“Well, I’m not going,” Eliad said, dropping
into the hearthside armchair. On the chessboard nearby, the pieces remained as
he and Kelyn had left them on his last visit. He bent over the board and moved
a knight.

“You are
required
to be
there,” Kelyn snapped. “There are some things you cannot flout, king’s decrees
among them. If you don’t go, Valryk will wonder why. I doubt he’ll be as
merciful or compassionate as your father was.”

Rhoslyn put on her mothering face.
“We’ll go and love it, so says the Black Falcon.”

~~~~

L
essons continued as usual
the next morning. Carah groaned as she wrestled herself out of bed and trudged
to the library wearing the same dress she wore yesterday. She didn’t bother brushing
her hair or putting on her shoes. All she ordered up for breakfast was strong
hot tea to help her stay awake and silverthorn for the inevitable headache. She
hadn’t slept well. The same nightmare woke her three times before dawn.

Jaedren sat at the writing table,
pressing at a dull headache as he copied Elaran letters onto a slate. On
occasion, Thorn grabbed the chalk to correct a curlicue or add a dot. He seemed
to have less patience with his prize pupil today. Maybe he hadn’t slept well
either.

Carah grew weary of his
snappishness and of watching the boy draw the same symbols over and over again.
On scrap paper, she started her list of things she wanted to take to the
Assembly. Convention, rather. ‘Royal convention’ sounded so much more important
than ‘Assembly.’ And the king had demanded her presence! Butterflies flapped
giddily in her stomach. Deciding which gowns to take provided relief from the lingering
images of her nightmare. Bizarre, bloody shadows. Violent crumbling of bone.
Cold, hate-filled eyes searching for her.

Shortly before the lunch hour,
Rhian slipped into the library. He didn’t bother with a greeting, even a silent
one, for Thorn didn’t know he’d come until he edged around the table and sat with
them. His glance flicked across the table’s other occupants, then came to rest
on the scarred tabletop. He looked contemplative, uneasy, but Carah didn’t dare
ask him why. She might get slapped again, and she didn’t really care what
troubled a pearl fisher. He slouched back in the chair, thumbs tapping
together. The nervous jiggle of his foot shook the whole table.

Thorn’s toe darted out and cracked
into Rhian’s shin. “Did you need something?”

“Ach, Goddess, if there weren’t
children present,” Rhian said through clenched teeth as he massaged his shin.
Carah decided he’d lumped her into the “children” category. “It’s almost
lunchtime. That’s all. But after that low blow, I wouldn’t report trouble if it
was about to fall on your head.”

Jaedren giggled.

“Can we resume our silence,
please?” Thorn demanded.

Carah’s giddiness over the
convention waned; she started crossing things off her list. The scratch of
Jaedren’s chalk continued. The room seemed to close in around them, the air
ready to crackle. It wasn’t the spitefulness between Thorn and the pearl
fisher, Carah decided, but something that had been festering and growing all
morning, like a rash.

Jaedren slapped down his chalk.
“I’m sorry, Thorn. I didn’t hear the last thing you said. I had another
nightmare last night, and I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Carah’s heart turned over. Rhian
glanced at the boy, just as startled. Thorn calmly reached for the chalk and the
slate and began drawing another sinuous Elaran letter. “What nightmare?”

“Well,” Jaedren began, hesitant,
“there were these robed people.” Carah whimpered, seeing them again. “Their
faces were hidden, but I knew they were real tall. The person in front was
tallest, and in one hand he held one of the green men. It grunted like a pig
and … and it had been eating bloody things. In the other hand, he held a
normal-looking man. Maybe he was a farmer or a sentry or anybody. Then the
robed person clapped his hands together and smashed the two little people.
Blood squished through his fingers. I could even smell it.” Yes, Carah had
smelled the blood, thick and coppery, so close she hadn’t wanted to open her
eyes. Jaedren went on, “Then I thought the robed people were hunting for me. I
was in a cave. I tried to run and hide, but there weren’t any cupboards or
closets or anything. Outside the cave was a big castle. I knew that’s where the
robed people were coming from, and if they saw me inside the cave they’d catch
me and squish me, too. The whole time I was trying to hide there was this
voice. It kept saying—”