Cold eyes, warm voice; Diegan steeled himself. No coward despite his dandy looks, he forced the necessary enquiry. ‘Your lineage. Are you royal? Does that sorcerer’s upstart really share your blood as half-brother?’
Lysaer’s look went straight through him. ‘Would you claim kinship with a byblow forced upon a queen by abduction and rape?’ The little falsehood came easily, that his mother’s flight to embrace her s’Ffalenn paramour had never extended through a year of willing dalliance. A frown marred Lysaer’s features as he wondered upon the memory that, he would once have spoken differently; that he had in some other time challenged his royal father to intercede for the pirate bastard’s comfort.
That event seemed distant, as cut off as a stranger’s memory. Brave, Lysaer had seen himself then; honourable and just. Now, his past pity seemed the puling naivete of a fool, to have invited his own downfall and thrown away heirship in Amroth for adherence to one painful truth. A lie cost so little, in comparison; and by today’s outcome, his losses being permanent and Arithon having shown his true nature, the fib to Diegan might as well have been the plain truth. Feeling giddy and light, as if the burden of heaven’s arch had been unyoked from his shoulders, Lysaer almost laughed.
‘You’re royal as he, then,’ Diegan murmured in dark conclusion. He caught Lysaer’s fierce flare of mirth and reassessed: both hysteria and the queer lack of emotion were quite likely the effects of profound shock. Moved to sympathy, the Lord Commander softened his accusation. ‘That’s difficult. Most awkward.’
‘Not at all.’ The next lie came easily to Lysaer’s tongue. ‘I may be a king’s son, and legitimate, but not on Athera’s soil. What inheritance I could claim by birthright lies beyond the span of a worldgate, unreachable, reft from me by the doings of s’Ffalenn.’
‘A prince in exile, then?’ pressed Diegan.
Lysaer’s smile was sudden as spring-thaw. ‘No prince at all, friend. I was formally disinherited, a victim of sorcerer’s wiles, as you are. Etarra’s people shall have my help for their own sake. Rest content. I find just vengeance sufficient.’
They passed the juncture of another alley; Diegan scanned the cross-street out of ingrained habit: such sites were prime places for high-bred officials to be ambushed. ‘Then your mother was not s’Ffalenn?’
‘No, can’t you guess?’ Lysaer grimaced on an edge of pain deep buried from childhood. ‘My mother, may Dharkaron Ath’s Avenger visit judgement on the seed of her shame, was the sadly ravished queen.’
Ahead loomed the market square, its arched entry ghost-lit by the lamps. In the strange and strangled light, the luck-shrines tucked under carven gables were grotesquely clotted with wax from the candles left lit by ambitious merchants. The little tin talismans that should have jangled to warn of iyats hung silent, gripped fast in the windless dark.
The mob pressed thicker, where farmers won over to the cause of restored monarchy hurled insults and loose bricks at guild tradesmen. Now and again the crossfire of debris would clang off the face of a targe. More soldiers had bolstered Diegan’s escort. These newcomers brought the fire-caught glint of gilt trappings and the weapons they brandished were still streamered with ceremonial colours. Drawn from the squads originally posted to keep order through the coronation processional, their splendid appointments lent Gnudsog with his scars and nicked field-gear the hard-bitten look of a felon.
Disturbance ruffled the ranked columns. A messenger in governor’s livery burst through, breathing hard, his cheek disfigured by a bruise. He cried above the din for Lord Diegan.
‘Here’s news!’ bellowed Gnudsog to his commander. ‘You can’t want it now, lord. Better to hear inside sanctuary, after we reach the council hall.’
‘No!’ The courier’s voice cracked in terror. ‘Not there! The hall’s been locked fast by fell sorcery.’
‘Traithe,’ Lysaer said tersely. At Diegan’s taut-jawed flare of outrage, he raised a placating hand. ‘The ministers inside won’t be harmed.’
Amethysts and diamonds spat glints through murk as the commander of the guard spun around. ‘Send the man through. I’ll hear him now.’
Soldiers gave way to admit the courier. His shirt was torn at the shoulder, and the knuckles of one hand were skinned raw. ‘I’m lucky to have reached you at all, lord. Looters have kicked down the lamp-posts for quarterstaves, with three city aldermen battered dead.’
‘You have news?’ Diegan yanked the man up by his collar.
Just then aware of who attended his Lord Commander, the messenger gasped and flung away. ‘But my lord! That blond man is lackey for the sorcerers!’
High tempered, about to hail Gnudsog to end the fool’s dithering by blows, Diegan started at a touch upon his arm. He swung, restrained by the steady gaze of Lysaer.
The prince who had abjured all rights to royal rank said gently, ‘No. After Arithon’s betrayal, any man’s enmity is fair. Let me prove myself worthy of trust, his, yours, and Etarra’s.’ The prince in his tinsel velvets showed a proud, unpractised majesty, and the result of unprepossessing humbleness clothed in grace and shining wealth combined to powerful effect.
The messenger was moved to stand down. ‘Your pardon, great lord.’ He bent to touch his forelock and stopped, aghast at his dripping knuckles.
Lysaer startled him from embarrassment with a kindly clap on the shoulder. ‘Forget titles. Against the Master of Shadow, we are equal in station, you and I.’ Then, as if screaming, rampaging mobs were not being thumped by Gnudsog’s soldiers, as if no darkness choked sight, he probed with gentle questions for information.
Diegan watched, awed, as the messenger stopped quaking and answered. Very quickly they learned that Traithe’s spells disbarred the council lords from action. Surly as an old, scarred tiger, Gnudsog allowed that while his squads could batter down doorpanels well enough, wards of sorcery were another matter.
‘Then we won’t use force,’ Lysaer said equably. To the courier, he added, ‘You’ve crossed the main square by the council hall. What’s become of the grand dais built for the s’Ffalenn pretender’s speeches?’
The courier rolled his eyes. ‘Rioters been having at it, sure enough. A pack o’ guild apprentices came with prybars and staves to tear it down, but farmers with drays blocked it off, flying leopard banners and swearing they’ll enforce the crown charter for their land rights.’
‘Extremists from both factions?’ Lysaer grinned. ‘That’s perfect.’ He laughed and turned shining, exultant eyes
