The Heir of Night (12 page)

There was stark silence while their eyes held, the one cold and dark, the other gray and measuring. Then Korriya sighed and rose to her feet. “You are right,” she said quietly. “Given the Oath, my only claim on you is that of Blood. But we are very nearly the last of that Blood. Perhaps, in my anxiety to preserve it, I spoke intemperately. Yet I was born to the House of Night as well as to its Blood, and I am not the only one behind the Temple quarter gate who still cares deeply for both.” She paused, her eyes still locked on his. When she spoke again, her voice rang in the quiet room. “But I, my First Kinsman and my Earl, care at least enough to make you this pledge: my blood for the Earl of Night, my blood for his Blood, my life for his life, my heart only for this House and the Derai cause.”

She did not wait to see the effect of her words, but simply bowed, turned on her heel and stalked out past Asantir, who saluted her and held open the door. The priestess met her eyes briefly, before nodding a curt acknowledgment and walking through. The Earl remained silent, frowning into the fire’s heart, while Asantir stared straight ahead. Eventually, the Earl looked up. “I never thought that you were a priest lover, Asantir.”

The Honor Captain put up her dark brows. “A priest lover? I? She is quite right, though. We need the Temple quarter now, whether we like it or not.”

“My father,” the Earl said, “would have called those traitor’s words.”

“But you,” Asantir pointed out, “are not your father. Besides, traitors do not give the pledge that we just heard.”

The Earl looked grim. “No. Although I was referring to you, not Korriya.”

“Traitor and priest lover,” Asantir replied. “It is fortunate, then, that I serve you and not the Old Earl. Still”—she smiled slightly—“if one did wish to overturn custom and tradition, what better time than when people are already reeling and so more likely to accept that extraordinary events require out-of-the-ordinary responses?”

The Earl gave a sharp bark of laughter. “You should have been born to the House of the Rose! You have exactly their double-edged, devious mindset and are quite wasted as a blunt warrior.” Swiftly, his face grew serious again. “I promise to think about the Temple quarter, but that is all. As for the other matters Korriya spoke of, we must not mention them again—not until we are sure of all the facts.”

“Not even the Golden Fire?” asked Asantir.

“That least of all,” he said, “until we know that it is real.” He shifted, as though his armor had grown suddenly heavy. “But Korriya was right about the Heir. We must find her, and quickly.
Quickly
, Asantir.”

Her gaze met his, grave and steady. “All that can be done, shall be done. And more.”

He nodded, both assent and dismissal, but before she could turn there was a crisp knock and a guard entered the room. “My lord Earl. Captain. The two heralds who arrived last night are here and say that they wish to deliver their message. They say that they were charged to give it to you without delay, my lord.” He hesitated, seeing their resigned exchange of glances. “I have tried to send them away, but they won’t go.”

The Earl steepled his fingertips together. “As it happens, I had not forgotten our heralds of the Guild, whom someone has seen fit to send all the way from the River. Their timing, though, is hardly good.”

“There will be no good time,” Asantir murmured, “not in the days ahead. And you will have to see them at some stage, my lord.”

He sighed, looking grimly resigned. “You are right, of course, although it’s unlikely their message will seem significant beside last night’s events. But even so—Show them in, Garan.” The grimness deepened as he turned back to his Honor Captain. “I believe that they mentioned a sigil of silence yesterday. You had better stay a little longer, after all.”

7

N
hairin paused outside the Little Chamber and surveyed the mix of guards, councilors, and the two young and plainly ill-at-ease priests standing at a distance down the hall. There had been no fighting in this area but guards were present in force, both outside the Earl’s chamber and at intervals along the wide corridor. The majority were from the keep garrison, although there were honor guards at the Little Chamber door—drawn from those few, Nhairin surmised, who had survived the night unwounded. But she saw the same deep weariness in every face, however watchful their expressions.

Most of the Earl’s councilors either ignored the waiting priests completely or stalked past them with a sidelong glance of distaste, but Teron stopped beside Nhairin and glared, his clenched fists on his hips. “What are they doing here, Garan?” he demanded, scowling at the guard standing next to him.

The guard’s dark, mobile face was carefully neutral as he looked from Teron to the nervous priests. “Captain’s orders,” he replied. “She seemed to think the priestess was entitled to a tail.”

“That is true enough,” Nhairin agreed reluctantly. “Priestess
Korriya is of the Blood of the House of Night and the Earl’s First Kin.”

Teron did not quite dare to switch that scowl onto her. “She’s a priestess,” he protested. “Kin or not, she shouldn’t be allowed near the Earl at all, at least not without more of us to guard him!”

Haimyr laughed. “I don’t think that the Earl is greatly at risk, even without your saving presence, sir squire.”

“You don’t know the priest kind, minstrel,” the youth replied ominously. “They are devious and treacherous.”

“Is this something you know from your own experience?” Haimyr inquired lazily.

“I? No!” Teron looked affronted. “We follow the House of Blood’s example in our hold and will not suffer priests within our walls, given their past betrayals. Speaking of betrayal,” he added darkly, “how do we know that last night’s attack was not some conspiracy between the Temple quarter and the priestly Houses?”

“We do not, of course,” Haimyr replied. “But from what I understand of last night’s events, and the number of priests that lie dead, it seems unlikely.”

Teron’s scowl did not lift. “What would you know anyway?” he muttered. “You’re only—” He broke off at the sudden glint in Haimyr’s golden eyes. The minstrel’s tone, however, remained light.

“An outsider?” he inquired. “Why, so I am. All the same, I try to use my eyes and ears—and at least a little of what lies between them as well.”

Nhairin snorted and Teron glowered at the minstrel, clearly biting back a reply. The guards looked openly amused but made no move to send him away, while the two priests retained their cautious station down the hall. Their faces had remained expressionless throughout, but the young woman was flying two spots of color high in her cheeks. Teron’s belligerent stare shifted back to them. “I still say they shouldn’t be here,” he said loudly.

Garan’s amused expression did not change, but there was
a warning note in his voice. “Captain’s orders, young Teron, which means yours, too. So pipe down like a good lad, else I’ll have to send you packing.”

Teron flushed crimson from his collar to the roots of his hair, but remained silent. After a tiny pause, Haimyr turned back to Nhairin, but his eyebrows flew up when he saw her expression. “Ah,” he said, drawing her away down the hall, “another sour face, I see. Surely
you
do not think that the priestess means the Earl any harm?”

Nhairin’s mouth twisted. “No,” she replied shortly. “It just galls me that Korriya calls on Right of Kin and Blood to speak privately with Tasarion and so I am sent away—but Asantir remains. Yet I am the friend and playmate of their childhood while Asantir is what? A one-time levy who came to us from the boundary holds.” She snorted again. “The boundary holds that never send their best when the keep calls. Instead we get their leavings, those too old for active service and the half-grown younglings. That is all Asantir was, when she first came to us!”

The faintest hint of a frown pulled at Haimyr’s brows. “Then, perhaps, but not now. Besides, I understand there are good reasons for that practice, since those who are well trained and in their prime can never be spared from the boundary watch. Just as the reasons why Asantir remained behind seem plain enough. Given your Derai law, no one else could do so.”

Nhairin shrugged. “Because the former levy, the nobody, is now Honor Captain. Oh, I know it is foolish of me to feel excluded, doubly foolish even, since Asantir
is
the Honor Captain and so best qualified to protect Tasarion.” She paused, her mouth a thin, sharp gash in her scarred face, and folded her arms across her chest. “I resent it sometimes, that’s all,” she muttered, not looking at him.

Haimyr rested one hand on her shoulder. “I know,” he said, “for unlike Teron, I am not blind. It must be difficult indeed to watch your former comrades run and fight while you wait safely behind the lines, wondering whether or not
they will save you. And hard, too, however much she is your friend, to see the comrade of your soldiering days promoted in honor while you must follow a path where glory is, at best, unlikely.”

Nhairin uttered a short laugh. “Very unlikely, as last night showed. And you are right, both that Asantir and I are friends and that it doesn’t make our relative situations any easier to accept.” She stared down the hallway with bleak eyes then gave a quick shrug, as if to throw off her mood. “But this is all folly, as I have already said, and does me no credit. We must all make the best of what we have and who we are.”

“And at least,” Haimyr said, “you need not take your exclusion from the Little Chamber to heart. Even Rowan Birchmoon was turned out.”

The flash in Nhairin’s eyes came and went in an instant. “She is not—” she began, then quickly bit off the words.

Haimyr shrugged, smiling. “Derai?” he finished for her. “No, of course not.” Nhairin flushed and looked away. “But speaking of being Derai,” the minstrel continued, “we need to talk more of something that Jiron raised, this matter of seekers.”

“Seekers?” Nhairin echoed, still uncomfortable. “What is there to talk about? As Tasarion said, we have none.”

“But what,” said Haimyr the Golden, “if I knew where to find one?”

“What?” exclaimed Nhairin. “But that’s impossible!”

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” murmured Haimyr. “But let us not discuss it here.” He strolled away and Nhairin limped after him.

“What do you mean by this?” she demanded. “There are no seekers, Haimyr, not in the House of Night anyway.”

He raised his brows slightly. “What should I mean by it, except a better chance to find our Malian? But first, I must speak with the chamberlain.”

They found him back in his office, still muttering about the disruption of the council meeting. “No good will come
of it,” he said, as soon as he saw Nhairin. “The Earl should not put aside the counsel of his tried advisers to listen to the ranting of a priest, First Kin or no First Kin. Especially,” he added gloomily, “at a time like this.”

“Kin and Blood,” said Nhairin, seating herself and easing her leg with a small sigh. “He had no choice.”

The chamberlain looked peevish. “It’s the old law, I suppose, but I still say no good will come of it. No good at all.” His expression sharpened as he looked at Haimyr. “And what do you want?”

“Such courtesy,” said Haimyr. “I came, good chamberlain, to inquire after our guests of yesterday evening, the heralds of the Guild. How do they fare in the aftermath of last night’s battle?”

“Better than most,” the chamberlain replied, still sharp, “since they are housed in the guest wing, which escaped last night’s fighting. Now, of course, they are persistent in wanting their audience with the Earl.” He held up his hands. “The Earl, I ask you! They must wait their turn like everyone else, and so I’ve told them.”

Nhairin nodded, keeping her expression sympathetic. “Do you know where they are now?” she asked.

“Where they should not be, I have no doubt,” the chamberlain replied shortly. “I asked that they await the Earl’s summons in their guest suite in the Tower of the Rose. Yet now I hear that they’ve gone down to the stables, to see to their horses or some such thing. Just as if we don’t have grooms enough!”

“Well, that is not entirely unreasonable,” Nhairin pointed out, but the chamberlain shrugged.

“They should not be roaming the keep at will, not at a time like this! And I have better things to do than hunt them out once the Earl does eventually decide to see them. If he does,” he concluded under his breath.

They left the chamberlain to his papers and Nhairin waited until they were out of earshot before detaining the minstrel. “What are you up to, Haimyr?” she demanded.
“And what have these heralds to do with it? Surely you are not suggesting that they are seekers?”

Haimyr’s only answer was a hooded look and she stepped away from him. “But that’s impossible!” she said incredulously. “Only the Derai priesthood has such powers!”

“Nhairin, Nhairin,” the minstrel chided her, “you are becoming as Wall-bound as Teron. It is said, on the River, that the heralds of the Guild can seek out the hidden and find the lost. They are quite famous for it, in fact. So evidently it is
not
only the Derai who have that particular power.”