Wind Rider's Oath

'I repeat,' he said, his voice frosted with a warning edge of chill, 'how can you be so certain?'

'Because your armsmen aren't swarming into your chambers even as we speak, Milord,' his visitor said in a much more serious tone. The baron arched one eyebrow, and the other man nodded. 'If I could get into your personal chambers without them noticing me, I think it's safe to say that no one else could possibly suspect I'm here. Besides, I have a few . . . other ways of being certain I'm not under observation.'

'I see.'

The baron shrugged and crossed the study. He sat in the comfortable chair behind his desk and turned to face his visitor. He had to agree that the point about his armsmen's not having noticed the other's arrival was a good one. And then there was the other man's second point. The baron neither knew nor wanted to know all of the resources his self-proclaimed fellow conspirator might possess. He strongly suspected that sorcery was among them, and if it was, it was most certainly not white sorcery. And since the punishment for dark sorcery and blood magic was death, he preferred to have no more direct knowledge than he could avoid. In an ironic sort of way, his very ignorance-however hard he had to work to maintain it-would be his most powerful protection if things ever went far enough wrong for him to face investigation. Even a court-appointed mage could only confirm the truth of his statement when he testified that he didn't know that the other was a sorcerer.

'Well,' he said, after regarding the nondescript man with coldly for almost a full minute, 'since you're here, I suppose it wouldn't hurt for you to go ahead and tell me why.'

The other man seemed remarkably unaffected by the fishy eye of such a powerful noble. He wasn't precisely insouciant about it, but he strolled across to stand at a corner of the desk, hands clasped behind him while he toasted his backside at the baron's fireplace, and smiled.

'There are a few matters I thought we ought, perhaps, to discuss,' he said easily. 'And there are also some bits of news about which you probably should be informed. So since I was already in Sothofalas, I decided to come on as far as Toramos and share them with you.'

'What sort of news?' the baron asked.

'For starters, Festian has decided to formally appeal to Tellian for assistance.' The baron grunted in an unsurprised sort of way, and the little man chuckled. 'I know, I know-we expected that from the beginning. Indeed, I'm mostly surprised that he's waited this long.'

'That's because you're not a lord,' the baron said, and smiled thinly as he not so subtly emphasized the gap between his rank and that of his visitor. 'Yes, he has both the right and the duty to call upon his liege in a matter like this. But by appealing to Tellian for aid he admits his inability to handle the problem out of his own resources, and among our people, that will constitute a serious blow to his authority and legitimacy in many eyes.' He shrugged. 'Whatever I may think of Festian and his claim to Glanharrow, I understand the constraints he faces.'

'No doubt you're better placed to understand,' the little man agreed amiably, unfazed by any effort on his ostensible employer's part to put him in his place. 'My question is whether or not you want his messenger-he's decided to send Sir Yarran-to reach Tellian.'

'Surely what I want or don't want has little bearing at this point,' the baron said, watching the other man's face carefully from behind the untroubled expression of a veteran politician. 'Balthar is the better part of a hundred and fifty leagues from where we sit.'

'True.' The other man nodded and pursed his lips judiciously. 'On the other hand, I did just tell you that Festian has decided to appeal to Tellian, not that he's already done so. If my . . . sources can get that information to me that promptly, what makes you think I couldn't get instructions back to them just as quickly?'

'Put that way, I don't suppose there's any reason you couldn't,' the baron acknowledged, silently taking himself to task for asking the question in the first place. That sort of probe was dangerous to his carefully maintained ignorance. He leaned back in his chair, stroking his beard, and considered the question.

'I think it's best that we leave his messenger alone,' he said finally. 'While it's tempting to take this opportunity to dispose of Yarran once and for all, it's better to remember that a prudent spider weaves her webs patiently. Yarran is a capable enough man, in a rough-edged sort of way, and he's completely loyal to Festian. As such, he'll have to go eventually. But killing him-or even arranging a perfectly natural seeming accident for him-at this particular moment would only make Tellian even more suspicious than he'll already be.'

'In what way?' the little man asked in a tone of mild curiosity.

'Yarran is Festian's senior field commander,' the baron said. 'If we kill him at this point, we up the stakes all around. It would be a major escalation from simply stealing cattle, or even horses. As I say, we'll have to do it eventually, but I've just launched a little arrow which ought to add significantly to Tellian's distractions. I'd prefer to give that time to work on him before we escalate any further. Especially if the escalation in question might be sufficiently significant for Tellian to justify calling in Crown investigators. Those infernal busybodies are probably just panting to poke their noses in, and half of them are magi, curse them.'

His last observation was an exaggeration, but not all that great a one. The Crown's best investigators were magi, with the mage talents to make them fiendishly effective at ferreting out the truth, however well it hid itself. King Markhos' father's decision to found the Sothofalas Mage Academy and commission almost a quarter of its yearly graduates as Crown investigators was a major reason the Time of Troubles of his own father's reign had not repeated themselves. Cassan knew that, and as Baron Toramos and Lord Warden of the South Riding, he had to approve, in a grudging sort of way. But that didn't keep him from detesting the consequences for his own plans . . . or regarding the Crown investigators with a wariness that verged far more closely than he cared to admit on outright fear.

'That might be unfortunate at this point,' the other man agreed, wondering idly what sort of 'arrow' the baron might have sent Tellian's way. 'But as dangerous as magi are, it's not as if they'd really make that much difference, is it?' The baron frowned, and he shrugged. 'I don't wish to appear alarmist, but at the moment, Baron Tellian has not one, but two champions of Tomanak as houseguests,' he pointed out. 'I approve of all the precautions you've taken against magi, Milord, and I'm glad I was able to assist in some small way with them. But given my choice between two of Scale Balancer's champions and every mage in the world, I'd probably choose the magi.'

'A point,' the baron conceded. 'But, of course, that assumes the two of them really are champions of Tomanak.' He bared strong, even, white teeth in something no one would ever have called a smile. 'Given that we're talking about a hradani and a hradani-lover who's not only a woman but who publicly admits she was born a peasant, I sincerely doubt they are.'

His visitor's expression didn't even flicker, but it wasn't easy for the little man to keep it from doing so. The baron was a powerful, cunning man who was not unduly burdened by scruples. In his own way, he was easily one of the most intelligent men the little man had ever encountered, as well. But he was also a Sothoii, and a bigot. Armored by his own iron prejudice, he genuinely didn't believe that Bahzell Bahnakson or Dame Kaeritha could possibly be what they claimed to be.

'I can understand why you might doubt their legitimacy,' he lied after a moment, 'but that doesn't mean they aren't dangerous. If even half the things they say about this Bahzell are true, he has a nasty habit of surviving rather . . . extreme threats. And whatever we may believe about them, a significant number of people, especially in Balthar and, unfortunately, Sothofalas, accept that they truly are champions. I might point out that even Wencit of Rum has vouched for them. So whether they are or not, they're going to be allowed to operate as if they were.'

'So Wencit of Rum vouches for them, does he? Well, how wonderful!' The baron made a disgusted sound and looked as if he wanted to spit. 'Wencit may be impressive to many people, but I'm not one of them,' he said.

This time, the little man couldn't keep his shock, even fear, entirely out of his expression, and the baron chuckled harshly.

'Don't mistake me,' he said. 'I freely acknowledge Wencit's power, and I have no intention of openly challenging him or giving him a visible threat as a target. However, it's been my observation that Wencit is also an inveterate meddler. He works for his own ends and according to his own plans, and he's done it for so long now that I'd be surprised if even he remembers what all those ends are. I don't doubt for a moment that he would