Isak's chamber, keeping an increasingly frustrated Xeliath company, or sitting with Isak himself.
The white-eye wasn't a garrulous person at the best of times, but the last week had seen him turn even further inward. Now he was spending hours sitting on a ledge above his own ducal chambers, with his feet hanging over the edge and the bitter wind constantly buffeting him, watching the Land pass by. The slippery stone and treacherous swirl of winds meant he had been completely alone until Mihn had clambered out to join him.
Now it had become a strange little ritual, one that left even Lady Tila and Carel shaking their heads in incomprehension. Mihn would make his way up to the roof a while before dusk to find his lord there, a strange sort of gargoyle perched on the edge of his ledge and puffing on a pipe. Without a word Mihn would claim whatever space was left on the ledge and sit for as long as Isak was there. Isak remained silent while Mihn sang whatever songs occurred to him, from laments to lullabies.
The only response Mihn ever elicited from his lord came when he spoke the short prayer that accompanied the setting sun. Each day Isak frowned at the words and each day Mihn ignored it entirely, refusing to allow the upheaval in the cults to affect his own habits.
Without warning the office door jerked open and Mihn looked up with a guilty expression, quickly hiding his hands behind his back. Tila started out of the door, exclaiming in surprise when she saw him.
'Merciful Gods, what are you doing lurking out here?'
Mihn let her imperious gaze wash over him without reaction before he replied, 'Waiting for the Chief Steward, of course.'
'If he sent for a painted lady I think you might be something of a disappointment,' she said, trying to elicit a smile. There was a famous pair of statues overlooking the largest of the river's docks; a man and a woman, side- by-side, known to the locals as Fisher and the Painted Lady. Someone had made the comment on the training ground the previous day, having seen Mihn's hands, and by the next morning it had spread throughout the palace.
'Or perhaps something rather more serious, judging by your expression,' she added, giving up.
'Something rather more serious,' Mihn agreed. He knew he frustrated Tila. She could be a charming girl when she wanted to be, and combined with her looks, it meant most men in the palace did exactly what she wanted. Aside from Isak, Mihn was the only man she couldn't influence, and she didn't conceal her annoyance on that front.
'You do realise one day you're going to have to trust me,' she said sharply. 'I spend all day as Lord Isak's representative while Lesarl runs the nation. I'm party to state secrets and yet you won't even trust me with what you had for breakfast!'
Mihn gave her an encouraging smile. 'Then to make amends I will make a point to tell you that every day. This morning it was porridge. Yesterday it was also-'
'Oh shut up,' she said, more amused than exasperated. 'How about giving me something a little more substantive than that?'
Mihn screwed his face up in thought. 'More substantive than porridge?'
'Information! Don't try your pantomime skills on me, I'm too tired.' She gestured towards his hands. 'What about those? Tell me about the circles.'
The emotion fell from his face and his expression was blank again. 'There is nothing to tell.'
'Hah. It's just as well I'm too much of a lady to respond as Vesna or Carel might to that.'
Mihn bobbed his head in acknowledgement. 'And I am grateful for it.'
'Might I at least see them?'
Her voice was softer now and Mihn hesitated, running the sounds of each word through his mind. Harlequins were trained to speak every dialect, to mimic every mood. Few were as adept at scrutinising intonation as they, and after a moment's thought he nodded. She wasn't trying to charm him now; her words contained only honesty.
He held out his left hand and let her take it and turn it palm-up. It was a strange sensation for a man who had been effectively celibate his entire life. Harlequins kept their gender a secret, and Mihn's subsequent exile had not given him much opportunity to explore or worry about such things.
Her soft fingers on his sent a tiny electric tingle up his arm. Tila, oblivious, bent low over his palm. She was taller than he, but slender, even compared to his lithe frame. Fascinated, she brushed a finger in a gentle circle over the tattoo covering most of the palm of his hand. Only his physical training stopped him twitching at the touch, but Tila still glanced up at him as though he had flinched.
'And Ehla did this for you?' she asked.
'It would have been hard to do myself,' he replied, noting that she, like many of the Farlan, was uncomfortable calling the witch of Llehden by her title – despite the fact that the tribe was noted for its attachment to titles. Instead of referring to her as 'the witch', they had all latched onto the name she'd provided. Fernal's words returned to him: 'A name shapes, just as it is comes from shape.'
How true, and more people know her as Ehla – light – than her real name. But has she made herself vulnerable by allowing a name to be bestowed, or does she have a purpose in mind for what that name might change in her?
'Why an owl's head?' Tila asked, breaking his chain of thoughts.
The tattoos, on the soles of his feet as well as the palms, consisted of three concentric circles, and in the centre of each was a stylised owl's head. The two outer rings contained writing, angular Elvish runes for the inner and a stylised form of the witch's own western dialect for the other, mantras she had chanted as she tattooed his skin, imbuing his body with words of silence and stealth.
'It seemed appropriate,' Mihn replied. He slid his hands from her grip and adopted a firmer tone. 'I must speak to the Chief Steward now.'
'What about?'
'A personal matter.'
'Personal? Since when do you and he have personal business?' she said sharply. 'Has something changed since last week? You normally scurry around these corridors avoiding him in case he asks you to be his principal agent.'
'Scurry?' Mihn said, arching an eyebrow. It got the desired reaction and Tila laughed. 4
'Perhaps that was not the most appropriate word.' She waved him into the room. 'Come on, and I'll sit in – I'm sure Lord Isak will want to hear about whatever it is Lesarl is trying to get you to do.'
Mihn acquiesced with a curt nod and followed her inside. The Chief Steward's office was a long thin room with a pair of windows at the far end. His desk, an enormous carved monstrosity inlaid with ivory, squatted in the very centre, the only piece of opulence the day-to-day ruler of the Farlan permitted himself. The long walls on either side were shelved from floor to ceiling and crammed with tied leather files. Between the windows, a pair of bookcases were placed back-to-back. One shelf was not full, Mihn noticed, but he guessed it was only a matter of time.
'The most accurate history of our last two hundred years,' Lesarl announced when he saw Mihn looking around at the files, 'if you know the way to read it. Can you guess which file is yours?'
'I expect one of the more recent ones on that bookcase behind you,' Mihn said, approaching the desk. Two straight-backed armchairs were positioned next to it.
'You'd hope so, wouldn't you?' Tila commented breezily, walking around the desk to her own chair, 'but it turns out our Chief Steward's paranoia knows no bounds. The numbering system allows for new files to be inserted into the system at apparent random and I have yet to work out how to identify either the dummy files or the false documents inserted into most of the
folders in case the wrong eyes do find them. I have started to get the hang of his elliptical style of notation at last, so the infrequency of names is proving less of a problem now.'
Lesarl smiled at Mihn like a snake about to swallow a mouse. 'It would be foolish to rely solely on the security precautions of the palace, don't you agree?'
Mihn shrugged.
'No desire for idle banter?' the Chief Steward asked. He was a thin man, with spidery limbs and a narrow, pointed face. His grin was one of the most malicious expressions Mihn had ever seen, and it was clearly one of Lesarl's favourite from a selection that might not have been as varied as a Harlequin's repertoire, but was certainly
