'What are you saying, Laca?'
Laca's retainers then burst into the room-summoned, no doubt, by the retreating servant. A sea of unyielding Solamnic Knights stepped between the friends turned adversaries. Daeghrefn waved his sword helplessly over a burly fellow in full armor, as the tide of retainers pushed him farther and farther from the man who had wronged him, who had implied… no, who had boasted of his deed, now that he thought again of it.
Daeghrefn had looked to his wife then. Her head was bowed, and the pallor of her face told him that what Laca had admitted, had proclaimed to all present-including lit tie Abelaard-was the truth.
The snow had been blinding, Daeghrefn remembered, and the guards at the gate of Laca's keep pleaded with him to stay, to take light and shelter. But he would accept no comfort from a false friend. After all, the infidelities of seven months past must have taken place at Nidus, in the heart of Daeghrefn's true hospitality. Under his protecting roof. Perhaps in his own chamber. He now remembered that Laca had declined the hunt one morning, saying he must be about his devotions.
Indeed.
In a frenzy of righteous anger, he herded his family from Laca's castle. It was the outcome of too much trust in friends, too much faith in the Oath.
Daeghrefn scorned the five days' path they had followed around the Khalkists. He chose instead a shortcut, which, even in clear weather, was a hard day's climb right through the mountains. But now it was obscured by snow and his own blinding rage. Gradually the steps of his wife j*rew slower, and she stumbled. Abelaard, only four, still duped by his mother's lies and wiles, stopped to help her. And the three of them straggled over the rocky road to Nidus into a new blizzard.
He would have guided them home that very last night. Perhaps the woman would have fallen in the mountains, even within sight of the castle walls, but she had been doomed anyway-doomed seven months before by the feverish promptings of her blood. Had the druidess not come, there would soon have been but two of them- Abelaard and himself-and there would have been no reminder of that betrayal.
None but this faceted glass he turned in his hand.
Daeghrefn shook his head, swallowed more wine, and plunged back into the memories.
Verminaard had always been underfoot, at the edge of sight, where his presence was a mocking reminder of that distant spring, the harsh revelations of that distant winter night. Only for Abelaard's sake had he tolerated the bastard at all. For Abelaard, and for a strange goading at the borders of his thought-some reason he could not put words around. But he knew that to injure the child or to abandon him would bring down fearful consequences.
Indeed, Verminaard had been such a thorn to Daeghrefn, such a torment and mockery. The gebo-naud seemed a just reprieve from his twelve years with the boy. With the Nerakans in the mountains forcing an alliance with his old enemy, he saw the gebo-naud as he wished to see it. Son for son meant he could give Verminaard to the Solamnics in exchange for Aglaca, sealing the alliance, ridding himself of Verminaard, and sending the boy back where he belonged, all in one thrifty gesture. And Abelaard would have understood. Eventually.
But the chance for that was past, the gebo-naud over and Daeghrefn's only son taken in the exchange. Daeghrefn's anger had not subsided. He thought of his own son, of Abelaard encamped somewhere in the western distances, and slammed the table with his fist. It shook the crystal and crockery; the faceted glass that had sparked his memory teetered precariously on the table's edge. Robert, rising from his venison long enough to notice, snatched the delicate object before it tumbled, then set it, almost reverently, beside his master's open hand.
'The druidess,' Daeghrefn muttered absently, glaring at the flames. 'What did she say? What?'
Robert blanched as he steadied the cup. He recalled the druidess as well-when the Lord of Nidus had returned with Abelaard and the infant, he sent Robert himself away into the mountains.
He could not do what Daeghrefn had asked. He found the druidess crouched among the evergreens, shaking the weight of snow from their branches. Her green robe and auburn hair shone against the faceless white of the drifts. She was lovely, a candle of warmth in the cold dusk.
He had slipped from behind the rock, sheathing his weapon even as he turned away. But she had seen him, had known he was there all along. She called him back, and they spoke briefly, their words falling amid wary silences. His heart had melted within him.
For the first time ever, Robert had disobeyed his lord. And though the druidess had promised her silence, had assured him that none other in Daeghrefn's service would see her again, he thought of her uneasily when the subject of druidry arose in the hall, or when the snow lay heavy on the juniper and blue aeterna.
Wide-eyed, pressing heavily against the back of his chair, Aglaca watched the pale seneschal steady the glass. It was like the jaws of Hiddukel, this dining hall-each man at the table doomed and damned, trapped in his own fears and gloomy thoughts. No one else seemed to notice Daeghrefn's outburst, and eyes and faces bent into the candlelight, to the bread and cheese and old venison, as fervently as if there were nothing else to eat in the castle.
His father had told him to be brave, that the war with Neraka would last but a matter of months. But he was only twelve, and the promised time in Nidus stretched before him like an eternal desert.
What would come of him here?
He whispered a prayer to Paladine over his untouched food. The childlike words were almost audible above the clatter of cutlery, the gurgle of pigeons in the eaves.
Cerestes did not hear the boy praying, but his fingers burned sharply at the words, and the knife shook in his long, pale hand.
Difficult. Aglaca would be difficult, with his Solamnic training and his mooning over Paladine and Huma and Kiri-Jolith.
The other one was a different matter. Verminaard had been lodged in these deep mountains, motherless and virtually tutorless, his father lapsed from the Order and no longer a believer in Oath and Measure-or even the gods themselves.
And yet the easy one was not always preferable. The Lady had taught him as much. Better to wait and watch and bide his time. Speratus's 'unfortunate' fall and Aglaca's arrival had given Cerestes all the time he would need.
He leaned back in the chair, savoring the golden wine. Tilting the glass, he peered through the crystal toward the boy Verminaard, who stared back at him, his expression lost in the wavering candles and distortions of the wine.
But Verminaard, as he always did when someone new entered the fortress, was sizing the company, following the elaborate dance of eye and gesture with the hope that something would be revealed, some secret emerge from a sidelong glance, a subtle tilt of the hand.
He had learned this caution long ago in Daeghrefn's castle, where the violent, almost explosive moods of the knight were as unpredictable as the mountain weather. The angered Daeghrefn was a force to be skirted- avoided entirely, if he could manage it. There were alcoves in the halls where Verminaard could step aside from the dark processions of armor and torches and glowering stares; there was Robert's lodgings, as well, where a certain shelter could be found among the old seneschal's neatly arranged battle trophies, where the room smelled of oiled leather and fruity wine. But mostly the boy had learned the augury of instinct-that sometimes, in the instant before a voice rose or a hand descended, something undefinable in his father's face would either emerge or go away. It was his sense of this that had preserved him from Daeghrefn's enraged beatings and deprivations.
Verminaard had felt the outburst approach like the gathering of the mountains before an avalanche, when sound at the timberline rises beyond hearing until it is sensed only at the edge of the bones. When Daegh-refn had struck the table, Verminaard was already steeled, watching the others closely, learning the new terrain.
It was the boy, the Solamnic, who bore the most notice. Though the knightly training masked his fear, fear was there nevertheless. The pale eyes had widened just barely; the faint smell of salt sharpened the air.
Oh, yes, Aglaca was afraid. And Verminaard made note of that, for in a castle where uncertainty was the master, fear was the coin of the realm.
Verminaard glanced with great care at his father, and then at Aglaca again. From the slightest rise of the new boy's shoulder, Verminaard knew he still had not unclenched his right fist.
Dinner ended abruptly when Daeghrefn rose from the table and stalked to the hearth, empty wineglass clutched in his battle-scarred hand. He slumped into a low, straight-backed mahogany chair. The dogs skulked away, from him and the pigeons in the rafters fell quiet.
It was Robert's cue to stand up, to lead Aglaca up the stairs to his new lodgings. Verminaard's heart rose
