“Tarandar,” Mallowfaer bellowed from down the hall. “The new chairs and stools are being unloaded at Zorsin’s dock right now! I’ve sent Emmur and Darlakan for wagons, but get yourself down there to see they don’t break or mar every last piece in their loading!”
“Saer!” Halance shouted back. “I hear! And I’m on my way!”
He dashed to the door, then spun around, strode back to his desk to snatch up the still-wet note, and ran.
For a wagon, it was a long way to Zorsin’s dock, but not such a long route for one hurrying man. Which meant …
He had a fair idea of where Arclath would be. The Eel or the Dragonriders’ Club or possibly Saklarra’s Wonderful Willing Wenches if our young Lord Delcastle was feeling particularly frisky.
If the Fragrant Flower of House Delcastle happened to be elsewhere … well, there were half-a-dozen inspections and negotiations regarding the upcoming council that a senior chamberjack could parlay into depart- the-court forays. Yet telling Arclath soonest would be best and would get it off his desk and out of the way, the better to devote all his attention to all the council details …
Into his head, then, came a brief, bewildering vision. It seemed as if a beholder was staring at him fixedly, through an eerie glow, with a dark cavern all around it. A
Gods, he was having waking nightmares! This farruking
Shaking his head, Halance Tarandar hastened down one last hall, ducked past the guards with a smile and nod, and hurried into the streets, crossing the promenade and turning immediately into his favorite alley.
He never even saw the hand that struck him down.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
In the sumptuous heart of pink-walled Delcastle Manor, there were rooms most visitors never saw. Rooms whose pink-plastered walls were sculpted into semblances of thickly clustered roses climbing the paneling and entwining above doors.
Lord Arclath Argustagus Delcastle would have shuddered to see such decor in someone else’s home, but in his mother’s rooms, he was used to it.
Or so he repeatedly told himself.
It was a long-standing family rule that blood members of House Delcastle arriving home should present themselves to his mother-or to her personal maid on the rare occasions when Darantha had been ordered to intercept him-so, as he had done so many times before, Arclath took his dashing self up the soaring stairs from the entry hall and through several ornate chambers into the land of sickly roses. Sweeping past the usual impassive guards, he glided into his mother’s receiving room.
Where the Lady Marantine Delcastle gave him her best well-fed-cat smile. She was sprawled on a daybed whose blood red silks complemented the roses beautifully-but clashed horribly with the flame orange sleeping silks she wore, open to somewhere well below her waist. Not to mention shriekingly discordant with the emerald-dyed fur wrap she’d thrown oh-so-elegantly around her shoulders.
The hour had crept from very late to very early, but Lady Delcastle was wide awake and practically purring as she languidly ate scorched-orange-peel chocolates and sipped from a tallglass of amberglath “sweetwine” liqueur. Unless she’d found some unusual new diversion to leave her in such a mood, it meant she was very much enjoying the afterglow of being pleasured by three of her strapping “chamberjacks.”
“Well met, Mother,” Arclath gave her his cheerful, smoothly sardonic greeting. “Are your oiled ones gone?”
She gave him one of her best sneers. “Don’t belittle my playthings, Arkle dear. They’re more men than you’ll ever be.”
“How so?” he asked, strolling to her decanter-covered sideboard and regarding her in the mirror above it.
“Don’t you prefer boys?”
Arclath shrugged. “No, as it happens. Aren’t those
She waved a dismissive hand. “No, unobservant fool, I want
“Lord Delcastle,” Arclath observed calmly, selecting a decanter and a clean tallglass, “is a real man.”
His mother’s shrug was far more dramatic than his. “He was, once. Now he’s too drowned in drink to be much of anything.”
It was an open secret in Suzail that Arclath’s father, Lord Parandur Delcastle, was a habitual drunkard who spent his days walled away in his favorite turret in Delcastle Manor, drinking.
“And so?”
“And so, nothing. Disposing of him would make
“And would I be a man if I came to you reeking of sweat and blood and danger?” Arclath asked calmly.
His mother laughed throatily. “Oh, yes. Not that such a celebratiory moment is all that likely to befall, is it?”
“Not all that likely,” Arclath agreed, setting the decanter down again and sipping the vintage he’d chosen. “Pleasant dreams, Mother.”
He strolled out, back into the dimly lit passage-where a hard-faced House guard stood watching him, a loaded and ready crossbow aimed at Arclath’s breast.
The younger Lord Delcastle raised an eyebrow. “Has heir-hunting season begun, Trezmur?”
“Orders,” came the curt reply. “Sons have murdered mothers before.”
“And will again, I fear,” Arclath replied, strolling away down the passage with his tallglass in hand. “Yet not this son. Such a deed would be entirely too … noble. I seek other delights in life.”
It was a good thing one of those delights wasn’t sleeping, he thought to himself, knowing just how soon he’d be up again and out of the bed that was waiting for him.
Two passages later, when he arrived at his own chambers, he handed the now-empty tallglass to the doorjack waiting there, went inside, and firmly closed the door.
Only after the inner door beyond that first one had closed behind him did he add aloud to what he’d told Trezmur, “And when at last I discover the delights I should be seeking, life can truly begin.”
Bright early morning was flooding through windows that thankfully weren’t framed in sculpted roses. Not that Arclath was lounging and enjoying the view.
He was at his usual desk, looking over documents, deeds, and an ever-rising pile of cross-strapped- between-boards parchments; the endless scrip of family investments and business dealings.
Around him, the front chambers of Delcastle Manor were bustling, as various family factors, clerks, scribes, and coin-stewards hastened up to him to receive their directions among his crisp stream of orders.
They might have been concealing yawns, but their smiles were genuine; the sooner they were done, the sooner their time was theirs, and once Lord Delcastle left his chair, their days were ordered for them, their tasks clear.
As he spoke, the factors bowed and bustled out, one by one; trade agents get about early, or inevitably find themselves picking over leavings spurned by others.
Soon enough, Arclath followed them, spiking his quill and deeming his day’s work done.
Catching up his favorite gem-handled cane, he gave the clerks an airy wave and swaggered out into the streets, twirling his spike-ended stick like a carefree child.
