destruction of Arithon’s lyranthe; besieged by his drive to right injustice, he gave full rein to the ingrained gallantries of his upbringing. Lysaer touched shoulders and patted the cheeks of children, offered kind words to the plain-clad people in the streets. They stood aside for him, gave him way where the press was thickest and smiled at his lordly grace.
Rathain’s prince must be like him, they said; tall and fair-spoken and pledged to end the corruption in Etarra’s trade guilds and council.
Lysaer did not disabuse the people of their hope. The whispered turbulence of his thinking bent wholly inward as the untroubled faith of Etarra’s commonfolk caused him to measure his own failing. He too had allowed himself to be misled by the prince of Rathain; he, Amroth’s former heir, who had lost blood kin to s’Ffalenn wiles, should at least have stayed forewarned.
A touch upon his arm caused Lysaer to start. He glanced in polite forbearance at the matron with the basket of wrinkled apples who gave him a diffident smile. ‘Did you lose track of your folk, sir?’
‘Madam, no.’ Lysaer smiled. ‘I’m alone.’
Abashed by his extreme good looks, the woman gave a little shrug. ‘Well, even by yourself, sir, you’d get a better view from the galleries.’ She raised a chapped hand from her knot-worked shawl and pointed.
Lysaer squinted against sunlight so pure it seemed to scour the air with its clarity. From his vantage at the edge of the square, the balconies of the guild ministers’ mansions arose in tiers above street level. Their wood and wrought-iron railings striped shadow over a singing knot of cordwainers who boisterously shared a skin of spirits. As their least tone-deaf ringleader paused to take his swig, their ditty drifted cheerfully off-key. ‘I have no invitation,’ Lysaer said above the noise. ‘And anyway, by now the best places are all spoken for.’
‘Well, that may be.’ Made bold by his friendliness, the matron gave him swift appraisal. ‘But I’ve a cousin who has lodging at the front of the square. At my asking a bit of space could be found.’
Lysaer did not ask if the cousin perhaps had a marriageable daughter and fond hopes to attract a wealthy suitor. Neither did he accept on false grounds as he clasped the woman’s wrist and kissed her palm. ‘You’re most kind.’
The dreams and the lives of just such honest folk were the first things Arithon’s machinations would tear asunder.
Lysaer gently captured the matron’s basket. ‘Let me. Any burden must hamper you terribly in this press.’
‘Not so much.’ But her fingers surrendered the wicker handle. Won to trust by his sincerity, the matron took his arm. ‘Come on. Hurry or we’ll miss the procession.’
Minutes later, squeezed between the granddaughters of a furniture maker and three strapping cousins who wore guild badges as vintners, Lysaer took the place he was offered.
From a third-storey gallery accessed by an outdoor stairway, he gazed over the square’s gathered thousands which eddied below like currents pressed counter by fickle winds. The jewelled and feathered finery of the rich mixed uneasily with poorer fare, common labourers and beggars still clad in their jetsam of motley. Angry, outraged, curious or joyful, the factions mingled uneasily. Etarra had turned out for Arithon’s coronation in a welcome well leavened by enmity.
The atmosphere on the gallery where Lysaer came to roost was festive. The lads had been staked a cask by their master, and wine was freely passed around. The sharpness of red grapes mingled with the sweeter scent shed by apples doled out to the children.
Courteous but aloof, Lysaer smiled and offered compliments when the inevitable pretty daughter was presented. After that, though the girl in her neat paint and layered silk dresses shot him admiring glances filled with hope, he spared her little attention as he engaged in a predatory survey of the crowd.
Her little sister was more forthright.
She toddled forward and plucked at his rich sleeve. With her dimpled chin dribbled with apple juice, she demanded, ‘Who are you looking for?’
Behind her, older cousins were whispering, ‘It’s him. The very one who’s companion to the prince. Nobody else in Etarra wears indigo velvet like that.’
The child with her fruit sticky hands was pulled back to allow the exalted guest space.
Lysaer gave the family who hosted him scant notice as his gaze caught and fixed on an anomaly: above the sunwashed square with its heaving, raucous throng, a raven flapped, deep as shadow against the cloudless brilliance of the sky.
Heat and cold flashed through Lysaer, and a tremor coursed his flesh. Then the bird, sure harbinger of Traithe and the doings of the Fellowship, the next heartbeat ceased utterly to matter.
Beneath the raven’s flight path, a lone man shoved through the press.
Lysaer noted details in preternatural clarity. The fugitive had shirt cuffs worked in ribbons of green, silver and black and edged with bands of leopard fur. A plain cloak thrown on to conceal a heraldic tabard had been torn, and threadwork glistened through the holes. The royal blazon might not show, but in his haste Arithon s’Ffalenn had neglected the circlet of inheritance that even now crossed his brow.
The face beneath was taut with a desperation that touched Lysaer to stark anger. ‘He’s running away!’ he murmured incredulously. ‘Breaking his commitment to the realm.’
‘Who’s running away?’ cried the vintner’s drayman, full of red wine and brash fight.
Heat and cold and chills merged into scalding resentment. ‘Your prince,’ Lysaer snapped back. ‘The truth must be told. Your promised Teir’s’Ffalenn is a criminal and a pirate’s bastard, raised and corrupted by sorcerers.’
The youngest children were staring, their half-gnawed apples in their hands. To Lysaer, the innocence in their faces reflected a whole city’s deluded defencelessness.
Something inside of him snapped.
‘Get the little ones inside, they’re not safe here!’ His command was instinctive, and charged with a regal prerogative that none on the balcony dared gainsay. A grandfather helped the house matron bundle her young through a side door.
