the Royal Charter of Rathain in the square before the guild-halls. This time, the ceremony was engineered with enough glitter to make even Etarran excess seem drab.
Afterward, the populace could speak of nothing else.
The only man in the city less pleased than the Lord Governor and Etarra’s commander of the guard was Arithon s’Ffalenn himself. Set on display before the throng, he had managed his part as a musician might play to a rowdy taproom. Viewed as saviour by the poor, unrelentingly hated by the trade-guilds, he weathered the feast that followed less masterfully. Mantled in the green, black and silver of the s’Ffalenn royal blazon, he mingled awkwardly with a merchant aristocracy of faddish extremes. The fine food and wines did not distract them from their newest pleasure, which primarily consisted of prince-baiting. Intrigue poisoned the simplest word of courtesy, and while some wives and ladies battled for the chance to ingratiate, they had sharp, cunning minds that searched also for weaknesses to exploit.
This was a city where children were urged to select their playfellows according their parents’ rank and importance, and who were often as not sent out visiting with instructions to overhear all they could of the affairs of their schoolmates’ fathers.
Arithon handled the pressure with the jumpy nerves of a cat caught unsheltered in a rain shower.
Amid an obstacle-course of laden tables, heavy with gold appointments and pearl-stitched bunting, he needed his swordsman’s footwork to escape becoming entangled. At his elbow, steady in support, was Lysaer who deflected social ripostes with a wit that invited friendly laughter. Less skilled at diplomacy, Arithon buried distaste behind blandness. He escaped being targeted by insults by never for a minute staying still. He did not trust these people, in his presence or out of it. He most carefully followed conversations that took place behind his back. Hounded as quarry set after by beaters, he saw openings. Even Diegan’s hostility revealed ways to breach the arrogance, the mistrust, even the depths of antagonism that fenced him round. But the political complacencies such changes would demand of him played false to his musician’s ear.
Karthan, at least, had not been riddled with such viperish greed in brocades; though piracy was no honest trade, its thievery had been straightforwardly presented.
‘You don’t look well,’ murmured a female voice in his ear.
Rathain’s prince turned to acknowledge the source: Diegan’s tawny-haired sister who could drive a man silly with her looks, but who was poised in her carriage as a snake.
Arithon inclined his circlet-crowned head. Physically graceful in discomfort, he offered his hand. Too much rich food. Your city’s cooks have outdone themselves. Shall we dance?’
She took his fingers and her fine, arched brows sketched a frown that was swiftly erased. She had not expected his callouses. The tightening around her eyes made plain that the discovery would be passed to her brother: that despite the appearance of delicate build, this prince’s palms were no stranger to the sword. ‘I find conversation more interesting.’
‘How disappointing for both of us. Too much talk has been driving me mad.’ Arithon returned a regret as impenetrable as chipped quartz. ‘For clever conversation with a lady, I must defer to Lysaer’s charm.’ Gently, firmly, he deposited her on the arm of the blond companion, who disengaged from discussion with two ministers with a panache any statesman must envy. ‘Lord Commander Diegan’s sister, Talith,’ Arithon introduced, and his grin came and went at his half-brother’s blank instant of appreciation.
The lady in her black-bordered, tawny brocades was enough to disrupt conscious thought.
‘My lady, Lysaer s’Ilessid.’
‘Commander Diegan mentioned you,’ said Talith in chilly politeness. She turned her head quickly, but Arithon was gone, melted into the crowd as neatly as a fugitive iyat. Her annoyance this time creased her forehead. He had defeated her before she had quite understood that her methods were under attack. Her stung pride would show, if she put aside dignity and chased him. No prince should have been able to vanish that swiftly, burdened as he was in state clothing. The gossips might be right to name him sorcerer.
‘Allow me,’ Lysaer interrupted her thought. ‘Poor substitute though I may be, in truth, his Grace can be terrible company.’
Talith turned back, to find her pique met by a surprisingly earnest concern. Lysaer’s elegant good looks did nothing to ease her thwarted fury. ‘He said he wanted to dance. I should have accepted.’
Lysaer set her down on a chair and as if by magic a servant appeared to pour wine. ‘Arithon anticipated your refusal.’ Smiling in the face of her crossness he added, ‘Given his perverse nature, and his penchant for solitude, that’s precisely the outcome he desired. He’s much easier to collar when alone. Will you take red wine or white?’
‘White, please.’ Talith accepted the offered goblet and raised it. ‘To his absence, then.’ She drank, surprised to discover herself mollified. Lysaer’s sympathy held nothing of fawning. He appreciated her misjudgement and refrained from questioning her motives, suave behaviour that was piquantly Etarran. Gauging the interested sparkle in his eyes, she smiled back. One missed opportunity could as easily be exchanged for another. From Lysaer, she could glean as much, or perhaps more to help the city’s cause, than from the irksome s’Ffalenn prince himself.
Not until very much later, when her brother the commander of the guard visited her chamber to ask what she had garnered, did she realize how thoroughly she had been beguiled.
Throughout the evening spent with Lysaer she had done most of the talking.
‘His charm is tough to resist,’ her brother grumbled. He loosened the amethyst buttons of his collar with fingers much softer than the prince’s, and smoothly unmarred by scars. ‘Damned fair-haired conniver is a diplomat down to his shoes. Too bad he wasn’t born townsman. We could’ve used one with his touch to restore our relations with the farmers.’
At council the following morning the acknowledged Prince of Rathain was conspicuous by his absence. Worn by the tact needed to smooth down mutinous factions of councilmen, and strung up from picking apart intrigues that clung and interwove between the guilds like dirtied layers of old cobwebs, Lysaer decided he needed air. Of late he had been troubled by a succession of fierce headaches. Threatened by another recurrence, he begged leave of the proceedings when Sethvir called recess at noon.
Lysaer seemed the only one bothered enough to pursue his half-brother’s irresponsibility.
A hurried check on the guest chambers at Lord Governor Morfett’s mansion revealed Arithon nowhere in evidence. The bed with its orange tassels had not been slept in; the servants were quick to offer gossip. Laid out in atrociously warring colours over the divan by the escritoire were the gold-worked shirt and green tabard that should have attired the prince.
