Tarma did not look at all relaxed. Kethry didn't blame her; she'd been increasingly uneasy herself.
'There was no sign of Gray in the stables, and I looked for him,' Tarma called abruptly from the bathing room. Gray was Idra's gelding; a palfrey, and not the Shin'a'in stallion she rode on campaign. 'No sign of Hawk tack, either. It's like she's been long gone, or was never here at all.'
Kethry heard splashing as her partner stood; and shortly thereafter the Shin'a'in emerged from the bathing room with a huge towel wrapped about herself. They'd turned down an offer of bath attendants; after one look at Tarma's arsenal, the attendants had seemed just as glad.
'If she's been here, we should find out about it tonight. Especially after the wine begins to flow. Do I look impressive, or seducabie?' Kethry glided into Tarma's room, and turned so that her partner could survey her from all angles.
'Impressive,' Tarma judged, vigorously toweling her hair.
'Good; I don't want to have to slap Royal fingers and get strung up for my pains.'
Kethry's loose robes were of dark amber silk, about three shades darker than her hair, and high-necked, bound at the waist with a silk-and-gold cord.
At her throat she wore a cabochon piece of amber the size of an egg; she had confined her hair into a severe knot, only allowing two decorous tendrils in front of her ears. The robes had full, scalloped-edged sleeves that were bound with gold thread.
She looked beautiful, and incredibly dignified.
Tarma was dressing in a more elaborate version of her black silk outfit, this one piped at every seam and hem with silver; she had a silver mesh belt instead of a silk sash, and a silver fillet with a black moonstone instead of a headband confining her midnight hair.
'You look fairly impressive, yourself.'
'I don't like the feel of this place, I'll tell you that now,' Tarma replied bluntly. 'I've got my Kal'enedral chainmail on under my shirt, and I'm bloody well armed to the teeth. I'm going to stay that way until we're out of here.'
Kethry rubbed her neck, nervously. 'You, too?'
'Me, too.'
'You know the drill -- '
'You talk and mingle, I lurk behind you. If I hear anything interesting, I cough twice, and we get somewhere where we can discuss it.'
All their good humor had vanished into the shadows of the Palace, and all that was left them was foreboding.
'I don't suppose that Need ...'
'Not a hint. Just the same as back at Hawksnest. Which could mean about anything; most likely is that the Captain is out of the edge of her range.'
'I hope you're right,' Tarma sighed. 'Well, shall we get on with it?'
Closing the door on the dubious shelter of their suite, they moved, side by side, deeper into the web of intrigue.
Six
Perfume, wine, and wire-tight nerves. Musk, hot wax, and dying flowers. The air in the Great Hall was so thick with scent that Tarma felt overpowered by all the Warrlng odors. The butter-colored marble of the very walls and floor seemed warm rather than cool. Lighted candles were everywhere, from massed groupings of thin tapers to pillars as thick as Tarma's wrist. The pale polished marble reflected the light until the Great Hall glowed, fully as bright as daylight. The hundreds of jewels, the softly gleaming gold on brow and neck and arm, the winking golden bullion weighing down hems sparkled like a panoply of stars.
It was not precisely noisy here -- but the murmuring of dozens, hundreds of conversations, the underlying current of the music of a score of minstrels, the sound of twenty pairs of feet weaving through an intricate dance -- the combination added up to an effect as dizzying as the light, heat or scent.
Carved wooden doors along one wall opened up onto a courtyard garden, also illuminated for the evening --
