“The Diamar has asked to consult with us,” she said. “Two of the merchant Houses seek an alliance and ask that Shadrun midwife the negotiations.”
Lusk frowned. “Shadrun is a holy place. What has a sanctuary to do with commerce? And we are warriors and guardians, not diplomats.”
“The sanctuary is like us, Lusk. We might not be of the world, but we must function within it. Shadrun guards the roads, and while we serve Shadrun, we do likewise. And for better or worse, merchants use the roads.”
She smiled at him. “We become responsible for what we protect.”
Lusk stared at her so intently, her smile faltered. He didn’t appear to see her at all but seemed to be looking through her, as if she were transparent, to some distant scene behind her. If she had the ability to probe his mind’s eye, Lakini wondered, would she see his gathered dead ones looking back at him reproachfully?
Then his gaze shifted, and he was aware of her again. He relaxed a fraction and smiled back.
“It used to be simpler,” he said. “Back when we were newly born. Which Houses are we to wet-nurse?”
“Jadaren and Beguine, Beguine of Turmish,” said Lakini, relieved that his dark mood was lessening. “There is a blood feud between them, going back through their generations, that is rooted in some imagined wrong. Now they seek to marry two children of their Houses and end the dispute.”
If Lakini hadn’t turned away, she would have seen the tiny shiver that passed over Lusk’s frame at the name Jadaren, or the way his eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, as if trying to puzzle out a riddle.
“I don’t know the name Beguine, and Jadaren only in passing,” he said, his voice level. “And their bickering means nothing to me.”
As Lusk turned to follow Lakini through Shadrun’s passages, his gaze fell on the askew star shape. He, too, felt a voice murmur in his head, but when he looked away, the voice stayed, just below the level of consciousness.
Unlike Lakini, he didn’t mind the voice. It echoed back his own thoughts, multiplying the words that drifted there until they took on the nature of a chant:
NONTHAL, TURMISH
1585 DR-THE YEAR OF THE BLOODIED MANACLES
Sanwar Beguine stood in the library, in the circle of light cast by the sun shining through the round window embedded in the center of the roof. The library was not large, but it was a pleasant room, with clean lines, plenty of light, a high ceiling, and shelves lined with a respectable selection of books and scrolls collected over several generations, to which he had added not a few. Here were histories, ancient and modern, of the land of Faerun in many languages, as well as popular tales and entertainments. Here also were more arcane volumes, spellbooks, as well as atlases of not only strange lands, but of strange planes, to which most people never thought of journeying.
It was these, of all the volumes the Beguine family held, that appealed most to Sanwar’s sensibilities. Let his brother deal with the practicalities of trade; he would protect the House with the magic arts.
He knew their enemies did. It tormented him-the knowledge that no matter how he studied the arcane arts, no matter how he tried to advance the interests of House Beguine with magic, the Jadarens possessed something with Powers he could only dream of-something that warded that monstrosity of a Hold they hunkered down in; something that kept them from being destroyed.
He would find a way to best it. He would find a way in.
There was a rustle of silks and the scent of roses threaded the air, but Sanwar didn’t turn around until a soft hand touched his shoulder. He glanced down into the wide brown eyes of his sister-in-law.
“Does Kestrel still cleave to my brother’s plan?” he asked. “Or by some miracle has she come to her senses?”
Vorsha shook her head. “She’s like her father. She looks favorably on the idea of an alliance between the families, whatever her personal feelings in the matter.”
“ ‘Like her father,’ ” Sanwar said. “If she’d been mine, Vorsha, her temper would have been different. I wish she were mine. She could have been.”
A hot blush burned across Vorsha’s neck and face, and she turned away. She could feel the heat of his bulk as he bent over her.
Sanwar’s lips were almost touching Vorsha’s ear. She felt his warm breath on her skin and closed her eyes.
“Vorsha, do me this favor,” he said, softly.
“Anything,” she whispered.
“It destroys me to think of that little girl trapped in that den of serpents. I can’t stop her from going-not without a miracle-but I can try to protect her in my small way. I need your help to do it.”
Vorsha did open her eyes then and looked up at Sanwar guilelessly. “I’ll help however I can.”
“I can make her an amulet-something that will give her warning when danger is near, and can turn aside a stealthy blow or curse. It’s not a guarantee she’ll be safe, but if someone wishes her harm, at least she’ll have a fighting chance. But I need something from her to craft it. I don’t want to upset her by asking her myself, but you could get it for me without anyone knowing.”
“What do you need?”
He smiled and put his finger under her chin, tipping up her face to the warm sunlight streaming through the circular window. He brushed his lips lightly against her neck and felt her shiver with anticipation.
“Nothing of any significance. Five hairs from her brush-five long, unbroken hairs. No more and no less.”
She looked into his eyes, and unexpectedly, her eyes narrowed. “For a protective amulet, you say? No more, no less?”
He looked hurt. “Do you think I’d harm her?”
“Not intentionally,” she said, considering.
He withdrew, and all warmth and life seemed to go with him, leaving her cold and alone.
“I only want to shield her, Vorsha. It seems I might be the only one who objects to throwing your daughter to the Jadaren wolves. But if you truly distrust me …” He turned from her.
“No!” She flung herself into his arms, and, to her inexpressible relief, he scooped her up, embracing her. She felt she could bathe in his warmth. She buried her face in his chest and fought back tears.
“Of course I’ll get them for you, of course.”
“Good girl,” he said, stroking her hair and looking over her head at the rows of books, leather-bound, hidebound, hinged in steel and locked in silver. The books would tell him what to do.
Kestrel had a big slant-topped writing desk in her chambers. Her mother found her with an accounts book spread wide on top of it. She was sitting at a stool before it, holding a short ivory pointer in her hand and running it down a column of figures. Vorsha had entered when there was no answer to her soft knock, and it didn’t surprise her to find her daughter engrossed in numbers. Kestrel had caught her lower lip up between her teeth, and to Vorsha she looked very much like the child she had been seventeen years before, learning her figures and the marvelous written tools of commerce at her father’s knee.
At Vorsha’s light step, Kestrel looked up from the cream-colored pages, startled, and smiled.
“What are you reading, love?” asked Vorsha, crossing behind the desk and stool to Kestrel’s dressing table. There were a few cosmetics scattered across the wooden surface of this other fine piece of imported furniture inlaid with fanciful figures, men riding horses, and small dragons, in brass and silver. She straightened the items, capping a perfume bottle that leaked the smell of summer flowers, and gathered some well-used pens into an alabaster cup. Smiling, she rubbed at an ink blot that marred the tail of a mounted dragon. She knew nothing save sanding that would get it out, and she knew no amount of scolding would stop Kestrel from scribbling at figures anywhere it struck her.
“The accounts from the spice trade two years ago,” said Kestrel, lifting the tip of her ivory stick from one column to another. “Ciari told me the price of saffron has jumped extraordinarily, and the Testra clan is claiming the flowers were damaged by hail. But at this time two years ago there were similar storms, and the increase was not nearly so great. They have a new proctor, and we suspect he’s taking the opportunity to set a new bar.”
Vorsha fingered the carved wooden handle of a brush, examining the bristles for strands of hair, but Kestrel
