“Interesting,” remarked Diamar, in his dispassionate way. If he was angry that some sorcerer had killed on the very steps of the Shadrun sanctuary, he didn’t show it. “It does appear very clear that House Jadaren, in its official capacity, had nothing to do with this unfortunate attack.”
“I will swear under any penalty we did not,” declared Arna.
“A pity we couldn’t find out more,” said Diamar, pulling the cowl back over his shaved head and turning to the Shadrun’s entrance. “But to many who plague our guests, crime is its own reward, just as our gift of sanctuary is ours.”
Lakini was tempted to call out to him, to accuse Sanwar of killing the witness, but she forbore. It was a relief to have the oppressive feeling of something watching and waiting gone from her mind. And Lusk was right. It was none of their concern.
Kill the big guard, the one in charge, Garush had said, referring to Sanwar’s picked man. This was the one who had told the younger guards to relax, that they were within the realm of safety now, that there was no need to be alert. This was the one who had placed his more experienced guards at the rear, knowing an attack would come from the front.
This was the one who must have realized, the moment before the crossbow bolt had killed him, that he’d been betrayed-betrayed by an old friend.
She let her gaze trail over Sanwar Beguine, now in intent conversation with Diamar and Ciari, probably making his demands about the conditions of the negotiations Shadrun-of-the-Snows had condescended to host. The knotted leather cord had vanished, but a light sheen of sweat remained on his brow. As if he knew someone had noticed, he mopped his forehead with his sleeve.
Lusk was right. It would complicate matters to make an accusation, and their sworn duty was the protection of the sanctuary and its visitors from the dangers that were all too common in Faerun.
Diamar had turned to lead the others into the sanctuary. As he looked back, casually looking at the folk ranged behind him, his gaze brushed across hers. She felt something, gentle but insistent, touch her mind.
“Your friend-the Clan Druit boy with the cantrips-did he come with you?”
Startled, Arna glanced up at Ciari. “No. He’s on family business.”
“A shame. I liked him. Tell him to see me about investing in the venture once the knife-sharpening cantrip’s improved.”
“I think he’s planning to,” said Arna, masking his surprise. On impulse he went on. “He hasn’t seen me in some tendays. I think he’s been jealous. And he’s been writing poetry of late. I think he’ll be very glad to hear of this … unexpected development.”
Ciari grinned and patted his cheek. “That’s my boy,” she said.
In the quarters assigned him by the sanctuary’s steward, Sanwar Beguine raged internally. The plan, which had seemed so foolproof before, was a disaster. When he had shared his dismay at his brother’s insane determination to ally the House to their longtime enemy, Harilpina Andula had been sympathetic and referred him to a company of mercenaries that had proved useful to her in several situations requiring both force and secrecy. He had met with Garush and her crew, supplied the cast-off uniforms, and instructed them to kill whomever they wished as long as they spared Kestrel and Ciari and eliminated Nimor.
He regretted the necessity of removing the captain of the guard, who had always been loyal to the House and, since he had a sister who was ruined because of a debt the accountants of House Jadaren had held over her head, understood together with Sanwar who House Beguine’s enemies were. But he had assured Nimor the mercenaries’ mission was to scare, not to kill, and, once blood was shed, he could not be sure the man wouldn’t betray him.
The beauty of the plan was that whatever the outcome, his goal should be accomplished. If men in the livery of House Jadaren savaged a Beguine caravan and kidnapped the daughter of its head, or if the same men were killed but had evidence of being from the enemy House, the result was the same: a rending of the tentative truce between the Houses and an end to this mad plot of marrying Kestrel to the Jadaren whelp.
He had not factored in the interference of those two fighters, those tall, preternaturally still, bizarrely marked creatures who’d attached themselves to the sanctuary. He’d not factored in Garush’s allowing herself to be captured.
And he’d not factored in Arna Jadaren’s already being here, ready to defend his House, to confirm Kestrel’s suspicions about the uniforms. Damn the boy, making moon eyes at Kestrel! It was bound to affect her judgment.
He must assume the worst would happen and make his contingency plan. He drew a deep breath, sat on the simple pallet, and mastered his temper.
There were strange figures painted on the white plaster wall before him. Despite his agitation, he studied them with interest. They were lines drawn in a flat black pigment, and shadowed with another color that looked either blue or purple, but it was hard to determine. It was a color rather difficult to look at. The lines looked as if they had been drawn randomly within a square roughly the length and breadth of Sanwar’s forearm, but, when he looked at them for a minute, they seemed to shift and form a mathematical figure, unknown to him but certainly drawn with some sort of intent.
As he looked at it, the last of his anger dissipated. He didn’t know how long he’d sat there before he realized the lines were vibrating, quivering in time to a hum that had built up, almost unnoticeably, in his head.
The figure couldn’t be moving or making a sound. It must be some kind of trick of the light. When he rose and went closer to examine the sharp angles and interwoven circles, the illusion of movement vanished and the sound died away.
He reached out to touch it. When his forefinger was just shy of the pigment, he heard a voice in his head, an articulate voice that spoke carefully as if it were translating from one language to another.
He should be alarmed at the notion of an alien voice in his mind, he knew. But it didn’t seem real. It seemed simply a fancy, a way of one part of his consciousness communicating with another.
He concentrated, playing the exercise of ordering his tumultuous emotions for the examination of an outsider, trying to find a way to victory through defeat.
The members of House Jadaren were little better than pirates, and had found ways to cheat House Beguine over and over again. More than one competitor and jealous noble had tried to infiltrate them from the inside, to find a way to strike at them from within. But the House’s headquarters, the heart and brain of their organization, was within a tunnel-riddled volcanic lump, thoroughly protected and warded with powerful spells set in place by the Jadarens’ buccaneer ancestor. How he was able to do it no one knew; the Jadarens were not well-known for their spellcraft.
Sanwar sat and stared at the odd glyphs, feeling as if he’d been given the last half of an equation that had stymied him for years; a formula breathtaking in its simplicity.
He reached into his shirt for a soft leather pouch and with the tips of his fingers pulled out a slip of parchment, folded lengthwise. Inside were five long hairs, brown with glints of amber. He held them carefully between forefinger and thumb, considering.
He remembered when Vorsha, weeping, had brought them to him, trusting he’d do what he promised. At the time, he had every intention of doing just that: creating a charm of protection that would ward Kestrel in the midst of her enemies. A good idea, he realized now, but not ambitious enough. He could do more.
It would take planning and careful timing, and would test and tax his skills. But he could do it. With Nicol’s simplicity, Kestrel’s trust, and a few men still loyal to him and his cause, he could do it.
Folding the strands of Kestrel’s hair back into the parchment, he steeled himself to leave the room and meet the others, to feign that he had bowed to fate and intended to support the alliance. At the door, he paused and
