'What other things was she doing?' Valdir prompted in a whisper, hands clenched together so tightly they ached. This was it. This was what he was looking for. The secret no one knew. The key to it all.
She sounded as if she was talking to herself. 'When Tashir grew older - and handsomer - she started looking at him differently. The gods know Deveran hadn't come to her bed for four years, and wouldn't allow any male servants near her, only women. She had never had any pleasure except in bed, I think. I wonder if that wasn't the only thing she thought she could do well.' The old woman was gazing deeply into her stone and not at all at him now, and her voice was very low, so that he had to strain to hear it. She shifted just a little, and he caught the sharp smell of lavender from the folds of her dress. 'Tashir began looking more and more like his uncle, and he was still terrified of her. Of her, who never frightened anyone, and couldn't even command respect from her servants. It must have been too seductive to resist, that combination; fear, and the handsome young face and body. She set out to seduce her own son into her bed.'
Valdir froze. No - that's - my gods -
She continued on, still speaking in that same, dreamy voice, as if she was speaking only to herself. 'That frightened him even more, I think, once he realized what was going on. Poor child. I hardly believed it at first; I just thought the petting was getting a little - overwarm. She'd use any excuse to get her hands on him. Any excuse at all.'
Valdir licked his dry lips, but couldn't make his voice work.
Reta sighed. 'And Deveran either didn't know or didn't care; I tend to think the latter. He had what he wanted; three sons indisputably his, and likely to reach maturity. What happened to Tashir didn't matter. The only person who cared what was happening to him was the old armsmaster, the one Deveran had retired. Karis. He had taken to teaching the boy, when he saw no one else would. He protected him as much as he could. Which wasn't much, but it was something. He gave the boy a place to hide- and a person to look up to who was stable, sane, and fond of him.'
'A good man?'
And possibly another way to get Tashir to open up -
'A very good man. A pity he was in the palace with the rest of them.'
Valdir wanted to curse, and restrained himself only by a strong effort of will.
'Finally it got to the point that Tashir couldn't keep her away - and that wizard- power of his intervened. He had a kind of fit; smashed half the bower before it was over. That was when Deveran decided.'
'Decided what?' Valdir asked.
At that moment, the power faded abruptly. One breath it was there. Then it was gone. Her eyes finally came back to their normal sharp focus. 'What?' she asked him, looking up at him suddenly.
Gods - the spell's broken. Oh, Lady of Light, help me persuade her. Would she finish the sentence? Could he convince her on his own? 'You were going to tell me what Deveran had decided to do about Tashir,' he prompted. 'That night.'
'Oh.' She shrugged, indifferently. 'That. I thought everyone knew about that.'
“I don't,' he pointed out. 'And nobody wants to talk about it, much.'
'It's simple enough. Since Vedric was making such a big to-do over the boy, Deveran decided to let him deal with the problem. Deveran was going to send the boy to his Mavelan relatives - permanently. That was what he told Ylyna after they cleared the boy and the mess out of her bower. That he intended to tell the boy at dinner.' She sighed. 'And I can only assume, given that Tashir was even more frightened of that den of madmen than he was of his mother, that this was exactly what happened, and what brought - everything-down.'
He hadn't realized how much time he'd spent in the little sitting room; when he took his leave of Reta, he was appalled. One candlemark to sundown.
Panic stole thought. He could only think of one thing.
Home.
He had to get home, before it was too late. He didn't dare try to Mindtouch Savil from here; that would be as stupid, with Vedric so near, as riding through the gates in full Whites on Yfandes.
He ran across town, dodging through foot and beast traffic, trying to reach the east gate before they closed it for the night. Once closed-he wouldn't get out until morning. He didn't dare cast any kind of spell to get him by, no more than he dared Mindtouch Savil. Vedric would detect spellcasting even faster than the
