this kind of indiscretion, Anyara knew. There would surely be servants and guards who could hear all of this just as clearly as she could herself.
“You know,” Tara went on, her tone moderating a touch, veering back towards grief and confusion, “you used to know, at least, that I would not allow so much as a feather’s width of distance to separate us, but this talk of Lannis and Kilkry treachery is absurd. Whatever their failings, they would never do anything to weaken our resistance to the Black Road. Lannis owes its very existence to the struggle against them. They’re obsessed with it. You know all this far better than I. Why can’t you explain to me what’s changed?
“Please! Don’t turn away from me. Listen to me. Explain to me. I need to understand.” She was begging him now. “Surely it’s Aewult’s clumsiness, his ineptitude, that’s caused this confusion. You said from the start he should not have been sent north. You said — ”
“What I said does not matter.” The Shadowhand’s voice was leaden. All Tara’s desperate longing evidently moved him not at all. “What is: that’s our concern now. There is conspiracy against us, against the High Thane. That is all you need to know.”
“All I need to know? How can you say such things?”
“I have no time for this. There is conspiracy. I have shown Gryvan the proofs of it, and he acts upon them as he sees fit. The girl, and her Blood, stand condemned in his eyes, along with many others. Her brother killed Aewult’s messengers. He is to be outlawed.”
Coinach was pulling gently at Anyara’s sleeve. She glanced at him, and his concern was clear. With good reason, Anyara knew: if they were known to have overheard this fraught exchange, troubles could flock about them as thickly as crows on a carcass. But then, as was abundantly clear, they were already beset by plentiful troubles.
“Proofs?” Tara snapped. “What proofs?”
“My own report of what I discovered while in the hands of the Black Road. Letters. Messages I’ve uncovered since then. Enough, woman!”
“Messages? Those you wrote yourself?”
Then, suddenly, the sharp sound of palm on flesh. A stinging blow.
“Don’t question me,” cried Mordyn Jerain. “Never question me. And never speak such an accusation again, to me or anyone else.”
Too forcefully to be resisted, Coinach drew Anyara back and led her into the shadows of the long room at the back of the terrace. As she retreated, she thought she could just hear, almost too faint for her to catch, Tara’s soft gasps of shock, and horror, and betrayal. Perhaps they were the choked remnants of sobs.
“We should get back to your chambers,” Coinach whispered. “They must find us safely there, and safely ignorant, should anyone wonder where we are.”
Anyara nodded. They went quickly and quietly back through the corridors.
Alem T’anarch liked to think of himself as a man of refined but modest tastes. The thin cord with which he tied his long pale hair had gold thread braided into it, but the strand was so delicate as to be almost invisible. His sword, which he wore only on the most important of occasions, had small diamonds set into its scabbard. They were discreet, though. Certainly not as boorishly indulgent as so much of the wealth on display in Vaymouth had become.
Alem had been ambassador of the Dornach Kingship to the Haig Blood for long enough to acquire a grudging respect for the vigour of his hosts, but this was increasingly overlaid by much less charitable sentiments. The overbearing self-confidence of Gryvan oc Haig, his family and his entire Blood had become tedious; all the more so since it had started to express itself in the ever more ostentatious adornment of Vaymouth with palaces and grand Craft establishments and pointless ceremonial. And in recent times there had been growing hostility towards Alem’s own Kingship. It had become absurdly acute since Gryvan’s discovery of Dornachmen fighting in the service of the rebellious Dargannan-Haig Blood. Alem had found himself treated without even the faint respect his position had previously commanded. He had been denied any contact with Gryvan or any of his high officials.
He now strode through the echoing corridors of the Moon Palace with, therefore, a mix of anticipation and trepidation. That he should at last be granted the audience he had long sought was a relief, but the manner of his summoning to it-abrupt, discourteous-did not bode well. His attendants, hurrying in his wake, looked worried. No one wanted war with the Haig Bloods-not yet, at least-but the possibility hung in the air like the stench of an approaching corpse-ship.
It was regrettable, Alem recognised, that Jain T’erin had sold his warband to Igryn oc Dargannan-Haig, but the Dornach Kingship had always produced a supply of stubbornly independent adventurers: sons disinherited by the fall of their fathers in one of the regular reorderings that swept through the nobility; warriors cut loose when the excessive popularity or success of their commanders led to the disbanding of whole armies. It was the way of things, and it was absurd to hold the King responsible for the deeds of those spawned by such developments. In truth, Alem’s own subsequent demand for compensatory payments to the families of those dead mercenaries had probably been misjudged, but the instruction had come from Evaness and his doubts had been overruled. The late Jain T’erin-or his family, at least-evidently still had influential friends at court.
Alem and his party drew to a halt before the massive double doors of Gryvan’s Great Hall. The guards standing there regarded them with the disdain which Alem had come to expect. He ignored them. The doorkeeper, a slight and ageing man, raised the ancient staff that was his symbol and pounded its gnarled, polished head against the door. The arrival of anticipated visitors thus announced, there was nothing to do but wait, which everyone did in tense silence.
That wait was, unsurprisingly, longer than was dignified. Alem studied the intricate carvings on the panels of the door. It was supposedly a relic of the Aygll Kingship, removed from Dun Aygll by some warlord during the Storm Years. Whether that tale of its origin was true or not, it betrayed the instincts of the Haig family. They sought to accrue to themselves some of the glamour once attached to the extinct Kingship.
There were notches and scars here and there, but the quality of the craftsmanship remained evident. Alem’s gaze traced the intertwining coils of ivy and the elegantly depicted warriors. There were figures high up on the door whose faces had been cut away, leaving ugly wounds that marred the otherwise balanced compositions. Those, Alem knew, had been images of Kyrinin, once allies of the Kingship, later its avowed enemies.
The doors swung belatedly open, ending Alem’s bitter musings. He advanced into the Great Hall, holding his head up and wearing a carefully neutral expression. His footsteps rang in the cavernous vaulted and columned hall. It was unusually empty, and the journey from the door to the Throne Dais at the far end felt uncomfortably exposed. Gryvan oc Haig was waiting there, his crimson cloak drawn across his chest. That was seldom a good sign, Alem thought as he drew near. Whenever that cloak was upon the High Thane’s shoulders, it swelled his sense of his own grandeur. It was no more pleasing to see Abeh, Gryvan’s wife, sitting in her own throne at his side. Alem could barely recall a single well-judged word ever having passed her lips.
The Ambassador was more encouraged by the sight of Mordyn Jerain standing close by the Thane of Thanes. The Chancellor’s head was bowed, so Alem was unable to make the eye contact he would have desired, but still he felt a hint of hope. For all the dubious games Jerain undoubtedly played, Alem had always found him to be, if nothing else, intelligent and considered. It had been a relief to hear that he was safely returned to the city, and to Gryvan’s side, after his prolonged absence. If anyone in this increasingly turbulent city might be prevailed upon to see the wisdom of a return to civility, it would surely be Mordyn Jerain.
Alem came to a halt before the dais, and bowed to the Thane of Thanes. He put a little more depth into the gesture than was usually his wont, for though he served a true King, and this man merited none of the respect such a title conferred, a conciliatory demeanour seemed the wisest course.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to present myself, sire,” he said, head still bent.
“Perhaps you should await developments before deciding how grateful you are,” Gryvan oc Haig replied, and Alem noted with unease the chill that ran through the words. Slowly, the Ambassador lifted his head, attempting a faint, relaxed smile. He caught the eye of Kale, the Captain of the High Thane’s Shield, as he did so, and wondered at the dead, reptilian quality of the man’s gaze. No, not even reptilian; the lizards that basked amongst the sand dunes of his homeland’s coast had more life in their regard.
“It is fortunate that you reached us here without coming to any harm,” Gryvan said. “The streets are somewhat dangerous.”
Alem was uncertain how best to respond to that. It seemed an odd gambit for a ruler to draw such attention
