Alberich counted up the months in his mind. “Spring, then,” he said with a sigh. “But the Prince himself will, perhaps, overstep before then?”
But Talamir shook his head. “No, I think that this ’patron,’ whoever he is, has found a way to clamp controls down over the Prince. More than just Norris, I mean, or even young Devlin. Devlin can’t be more than a messenger. It astonishes me. And I wish I knew how real the threat to Selenay is.”
Alberich nodded. There was the real question, truth be told. There were actually a number of interpretations that could be placed on what Norris had said to his control.
First, it could be all bluster. It was one thing to say that the Queen was dispensable; it was quite another to actually act on those words. Norris was, when it all came down to cases, a commoner. Whatever he knew about life at Court he could only learn from brief glimpses and the rather unrealistic views of life among the highborn that he got from his plays, or just perhaps by whatever his patron told him—assuming the patron told him anything at all about life at Court. Selenay was surrounded night and day by Guards that Alberich himself had trained and could vouch for, and by the Heralds as well. To actually assassinate her, someone would have to get past them and Selenay’s own impressive self-defense abilities, and it was guaranteed that whoever tried would not survive the attempt. So the enemy would have to find someone highly skilled, clever, and suicidal—not an easy task. Poison was out of the question; Healers checked everything that she ate and drank, and even if someone managed to slip poison past them, there were no “instantaneous” poisons other than some rare snakebites; Healers would almost certainly be able to save her. Norris (and, presumably, his “patron”) might simply be counting on the hazards of childbearing to remove Selenay. To Alberich’s mind, that was as foolish a hope as finding an assassin; Selenay was in excellent health and by no means delicate. Women gave birth without complications every day without the small army of Healers to attend them that Selenay had.
“I wish I could hazard a guess,” Talamir replied. “It seems a preposterous idea on the face of it. The ForeSeers are no real help either.”
Alberich knew what that meant. Too many future possibilities to sort out. That, or so he had been told, was why he never got any visions inspired by Foresight that extended into the future by more than a candlemark. His Gift evidently operated in the same fashion as he did—if there were too many choices, his Gift elected not to show any of them, so that he could concentrate without distractions pulling him in a dozen directions at once. It only showed him things he could actually act on.
“It is that I think, sometimes, our Gifts are more hindrance than help,” he said sourly.
“Some of them, at any rate,” Talamir agreed. He looked broodingly off over Alberich’s left shoulder for a long moment, staring at nothing, but doing it in a way that tended to raise the hackles on the back of Alberich’s neck. What was he looking at, so intently, with that expression of focused detachment? Alberich was used to that “listening” look that Heralds got when they were conversing with their Companions, and this wasn’t that expression. It also wasn’t the absentminded look most people got when they were engrossed in their own thoughts. The closest analogy that Alberich could come to was that odd look that cats sometimes got, when they stared intently at something that apparently wasn’t there. It was a Karsite tradition that when they did that, they were looking at spirits. Talamir’s look was very like that.
But if the Queen’s Own was seeing ghosts, he hadn’t said anything about it to anyone.
Alberich repressed a shiver and coughed quietly to bring Talamir’s attention back to the present.
Talamir blinked, and picked up the conversation where it had left off.
“I have to think at this point that your actor’s conversation was a deliberate attempt on his part to remind his control and his patron that he knows where all the skeletons are,” Talamir said. “I think he was trying to extract more money from them to buy his silence in case anything did happen to the Queen.”
Alberich thought that over. It was plausible. More plausible than any of his own theories. Norris might stay bought, but when you did that, there was less incentive for your “employers” to try to keep you in their pocket once they had what they initially wanted.
And theaters were more expensive to maintain than a stable full of racehorses.
“A dangerous ploy, that one,” Alberich observed. “He could be removed before a danger he becomes.”
“Perhaps, perhaps,” Talamir admitted. “But that is the best fit for what you overheard.”
Alberich nodded his agreement, but not without a sense of relief. If that was all it was . . . !
They finished their business, and Alberich made his way back to the salle through the dark. Not alone, of course; the moment he crossed over the fence into Companion’s Field, Kantor joined him.
:You’re still troubled,: his Companion observed.
:I don’t like it, for some reason,: Alberich admitted. :Unfortunately, I don’t know why.:
:Well, what can you do about it?:
