“You prefer to stay here rather than in your own palace while the unrest continues, so be it. But while you do, you’ll obey our… my rules. Get the whore out.”
“Go, Ishbel,” Aewult said grudgingly to her.
When she was gone, Gryvan slumped heavily onto one of the cushioned benches that flanked the fireplace.
“Where’s your brother?” he asked wearily.
Aewult smiled bitterly.
“Stravan is… indisposed. He found a stock of exceptionally fine Drandar wine this morning. And a number of young ladies eager to share it with him.”
Gryvan shook his head. Stravan was a sot, and a wastrel, and a burden of a son. Unworthy of his distinguished lineage.
“He is not the only one indisposed,” he sighed. “Get yourself ready. You and I are going to the Palace of Red Stone. There are answers there, and I mean to have them. You might learn something. To have one son fit to succeed me should at least be possible, surely.”
VII
Anyara paced listlessly up and down in front of the fire in her chambers in the Palace of Red Stone. Coinach was seated with his head in his hands.
“We have to go,” the shieldman said. “Somehow. Anyhow. That was the chance you wanted, the audience with Gryvan. Nothing came of it. We have to get out of Vaymouth. The place is tinder.”
Anyara had never seen him so disturbed. He had killed a man as they returned from the Moon Palace earlier that day. As they left the vast main square-all but deserted now-that adjoined Gryvan’s towering home, and started their way down a wide street lined with stalls and shops, the man had run out from an alleyway. Closer to old age than youth, he was dressed as an artisan. Certainly a trained and skilled worker, perhaps even a Craftsman. Yet he wailed as he ran at Anyara’s horse, his eyes bulging from their sockets. Coinach was riding on her other side, so he was unable to come between them. The man threw himself up at Anyara before she had a chance to react. Only the fact that he clumsily missed his grip on her arm prevented him from dragging her from the saddle. She tried to slap him away, but he ducked beneath her sweeping arm and scrabbled once more for a hold, this time on her leg.
Coinach landed a stinging blow on her horse’s haunch, and it sprang forward startled, carrying her immediately out of reach of her assailant. Coinach had calmly leaned low out of his saddle and killed the man with a single sword stroke to the neck.
He was considerably less calm now.
“The city’s not safe,” he said, not for the first time since their return.
Anyara kept pacing, her mind working furiously.
“We can’t run away,” she muttered. “The Chancellor could deliver this city, this Blood, every Blood to the Black Road. If that’s what he wants to do.”
“We don’t know.” He lifted his head out of his hands.
“I know,” snapped Anyara. “I’ve heard him. I’ve looked into his eyes. He’s going to drag us all down into ruin, unless someone stops him.”
“Do you want me to kill him?” Coinach asked dolefully. “Is that it?”
Anyara stopped and looked at him.
“Would you do it, if I asked you to?”
“Of course,” he said without hesitation. “But if I did… what then?”
There was a soft knocking at the door, followed at once by a tentative, familiar voice: “My lady?”
“Come in, Eleth,” Anyara called, and the maid entered. That the girl’s mood had improved compared with recent days was immediately obvious. There was a renewed energy in her movements, and a bright and alert gleam in her eye. Anyara found this bewildering when the city around them was sinking every day further into chaos.
“You seem much happier,” she said, unable to entirely conceal her confusion and faint suspicion.
“Thank you, yes.” Eleth smiled. She paused, but when she realised that more explanation was expected she added, “My father was… sick. But the sickness has… well, it’s gone away.”
“If only all sicknesses were so amenable,” Anyara muttered.
“Yes, my lady. The High Thane is here, my lady. He has… I was told to say your presence is required.”
“Gryvan?” Anyara said in surprise, raising her eyebrows towards Coinach.
The shieldman rose slowly to his feet, frowning.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“And the Bloodheir, too,” Eleth said.
That thoroughly deflated Anyara’s briefly waking hopes. Of all the people she desired to see, or imagined could possibly be of any assistance to her, Aewult nan Haig was the very least and last.
“You shouldn’t go,” Coinach said firmly.
Anyara grunted. “You want me to turn down a summons from the Thane of Thanes, while I’m trapped in the same building with him? Oh, Coinach, I have to go. And it’s another chance, isn’t it? It might be. We don’t know. We’ll never know, if I don’t try.”
Coinach’s face fell, but he said nothing.
“Where’s the Chancellor’s wife?” Anyara asked Eleth.
“Oh, she’s been sent for too, my lady. On her way, I’m sure. If not there already.”
Tara was waiting for Anyara outside the broad double doors of a room Anyara could not recall ever having been inside. They were ornately carved from some exotic dark wood. They smelled of oil, and gleamed.
Tara took Anyara by the arm as she approached. Eleth was dismissed with a silent look.
“Listen to me,” Tara whispered. “I know what this is. Gryvan’s angry, looking for answers. He’s only here because Mordyn refused to go to him in the Moon Palace earlier. Listen to me.”
Tara’s agitation was unsettling, especially in one normally so entirely in command of the impression she gave.
“Please. Do not lose me my husband, Anyara. That is all I ask of you. Let it be a sickness. A sickness of the mind. Not treachery. Not binding. If you should convince Gryvan of such things, he will have my husband killed. If it’s a sickness… there might be exile. Imprisonment, perhaps. Not death.”
Anyara did not know what to say. She felt indebted to this woman, and understood something of just how much she treasured her husband. And yet… there was more at stake than that here.
Kale pulled the doors open. The lean shieldman stared out at them with chilly indifference, as if he knew none of them.
“You wait out here,” he said levelly to Coinach.
“No,” Coinach said promptly.
Kale smiled then, and it was a strikingly lifeless and troubling sight.
“It is not a request or a suggestion. It is the command of your High Thane.”
Anyara smiled reassuringly at Coinach, though she felt more in need of reassurance herself than of providing it. He turned reluctantly away and stood with his back against the wall, staring straight ahead. Kale ushered Tara and Anyara inside, and closed the doors behind them.
The room was high-ceilinged, the walls painted with bright murals. No windows. One other set of doors, opposite those by which they had just entered. A single bare table set with six chairs, at two of which Gryvan oc Haig and his son were seated.
“You must let me provide some refreshment,” Mordyn Jerain was saying casually. “Wine, at least.”
“Nothing,” Gryvan snapped.
Mordyn Jerain turned, a transparent pretence at having only just noticed Anyara and Tara’s arrival.
“Ah, here we are.” He smiled. “Now perhaps we can resolve this confusion.”
He wore all his old charm, and it fitted him as snugly as a custom-made glove. Anyara looked at him, and it was like looking at an entirely different person from the one who had given her the bruise still discolouring her face.
