'Unacceptable!' Zafir was already on her feet, but now she picked up the empty wine goblet from the arm of her throne and hurled it at the grand master. It was a good throw, and would have hit Jeiros squarely in the face if he hadn't ducked. It clanged across the floor behind him and lay still. None of the servants who usually rushed to clear away errant goblets and the like moved a muscle.
There was a moment of silence. Jeiros was red-faced and trembling, although out of fear or fury was hard to tell. Probably a rather delicious mixture of both, since Zafir's temper was both fierce and unpredictable. Jehal kept his face stern, but inside he was beaming. Goblet throwing, the sport of kings. How I've missed this… Both Jeiros and the speaker looked like they'd had plenty of practice at this sort of thing while he was away. They might even have rehearsed it.
The silence continued. He could feel the tension between the speaker and her grand master rising and rising, until even the air between them seemed to be trying to get out of the way. With a sigh, he stood up. As soon as he did, he could feel the wave of relief through the hall. Thank the ancestors for Prince Jehal. He'd been doing a lot of this lately, almost from the moment he'd landed in the wreckage of the Adamantine Eyrie. The Red Riders' attack had been no more than a scratch, superficial and quickly healed, but the wound to Zafir's pride had been savage.
See what happens when you don't listen to me? But that doesn't help either. Although Yd rather enjoy saying it. He bowed to Speaker Zafir. 'Your Holiness.' It took her longer than usual to give him a grudging nod and sit back down on her throne. She folded her arms angrily. Jehal set his eyes on the grand master. Jeiros was looking at him with a mixture of pleading and defiance.
'The council of kings recognises Prince Jehal!' boomed the court herald. Jehal winced. Calling this farce a council of kings was absurd, but that was Zafir for you. Calling it that had at least forced King Sirion out of his tower and into the chamber.
'Grand Master Jeiros.' Jehal favoured him with a smile. 'Let us be reasonable. No one holds the Order responsible for the Red Riders, whoever they are…'
'I should hope not! They've burned-'
'Several of the Order. I know. We all know.' Jehal let his smile slip. 'Please don't interrupt me while I'm speaking. It does nothing for my disposition. If you do it again, I shall simply leave you to resolve your dispute with the speaker on your own. Doubtless you've always wanted to make a close inspection of the dungeons under the Glass Cathedral.'
Jeiros went from being red in the face to purple. 'How dare you threaten me, Prince. Only a council of kings can-'
He didn't get to finish before Zafir was on her feet again. 'This is a council of kings, you old fool,' she shouted. Jehal could see her hand looking for something else to throw. A knife, perhaps?
Jeiros took a step forward. 'Then where are the kings?' he shouted back.
Zafir came down from her throne, step by step towards him. 'Would you have me drag Queen Shezira and King Valgar out of their prisons? Prince Tichane is here for King Valmeyan. King Tyan is dead and Prince Jehal is not yet crowned. King Silvallan hasn't yet deigned to answer my summons, and King Narghon is content to let us resolve this matter without his advice. What would you have me do?'
Jeiros snorted. 'Prisoners and princes. I say again, where are the kings? Where are the queens?'
'King Sirion is here,' thundered Zafir, ' and I am a queen!'
There was another moment of silence. Jehal broke it, clapping his hands slowly. Before either of you do anything irrevocably stupid.
'Bravo, Grand Master, bravo. A cheap point bravely won. Yes, Speaker Zafir has still yet to appoint an heir to h'er own throne and pass on her crown.' He shot Zafir a glance that told her to keep quiet. He could hardly count on her doing what he asked these days, but on this occasion she did. 'I applaud your courage.'
Grand Master Jeiros took a step forward. 'Until she does-'
'But not your wisdom!' barked Jehal. 'Where do the Red Riders strike? South of the Purple Spur. In Queen Zafir's lands, in the speaker's lands, in the border between them. It is a well known principle of war, written in the first chapter of Prince Lai's Principles, that an effective campaign requires a single absolute leader. Speaker Zafir is wise to keep her crown until these renegades have been crushed. I'm sure, as soon as that has been done, she will be delighted to name her heir.' He shot Zafir another glance. And you better had.
'Prince Jehal-' Jeiros began.
'The Red Riders fly on the backs of dragons, Grand Master. What would happen if those dragons did not receive your potions, Grand Master?'
Jeiros rolled his eyes. 'As we all very well know, they would become wild. They would turn on their own riders.' Which was barely scratching the surface of the truth, but was as much as the grand master or any other alchemist would admit to, except perhaps to a council of kings that actually had some kings in it.
'Since that has clearly not happened, one must assume that they are receiving your potions, Grand Master. Who makes these potions?'
'The Order of course.'
'Anyone else? Perhaps you would care to speculate, Grand Master? Who is supplying your potions to these outlaws?'
The alchemist snorted and his lip curled. 'I cannot begin to imagine. They have stolen a goodly quantity from the speaker's eyries. As for the rest, ask amongst yourselves. Ask the kings and queens of your illustrious council.' He sounded a little uncertain; he was quite clever enough to see where Jehal was going with this.
'They are your potions, Grand Master, and I am asking you. We will most certainly enquire of the kings and queens of the realms, but is it not possible that these riders have friends within your Order? For all their treason, they are doubtless powerful men, with powerful families.' Not that their families will know what they're doing, since the penalty for this will most certainly run deep into all their bloodlines.
'Preposterous.'
'Really?' Jehal raised an eyebrow. 'You don't sound entirely sure.'
'The Order would never…' Jehal could see the grand master thinking. Thinking that he was almost certainly right. That there was almost certainly no treachery from within the Order itself. That he had almost nothing to fear. And then too he was thinking about the consequences, if one of those almosts turned out to be wrong. Catastrophic for him at least, with no almost about it. And he was thinking about Jehal, and of what he knew about the prince that Hyram had called the Viper, who twisted and turned and knew secrets about people that they didn't even know themselves. Jehal let him stew for a second or two, before putting on his most reasonable voice.
'All the council of kings is asking, Grand Master, is that you audit your potion supplies.'
'Counting, Grand Master,' muttered Zafir acidly.
Jeiros stamped a foot. 'Do you think we are not already doing that? I have spent months, months, merely trying to count all the dragons in the realms to determine whether Queen Shezira's renegade,' he glared at Jehal, 'is dead or alive. Do you have any conception of how difficult it is to count even dragons? And yet you ask me to count potions? And frankly, as this council should be very aware, nearly all of my alchemists are fully occupied making them.'
Jehal smiled. 'The Red Riders are not some local insurrection, Grand Master. They are attacking the speaker; they are attacking everything she stands for, and by inference everything that you stand for. All I am asking, Grand Master, is that yon tell us who is requesting more of your potions than usual. Because you must know that. If you didn't, you would not be doing your duty, and I know that cannot be the case. When you gives this answer, we shall know where they are getting their supplies.' As if we didn't know already.
'They are stealing them from the speaker's eyries!'
'All of them, Grand Master? Then you can show us by what records you know this.'
Jeiros stood there for a second, quivering. Then he bowed his head. 'It shall be done.'
'And soon, Grand Master,' snapped Zafir. 'Very soon.'
The council moved on to other things: to the repairs to the eyries, to preparations to receive the remaining kings and queens of the realms, to the impending trial. Jehal watched behind half-closed eyes. In particular he watched King Sirion, who looked as comfortable as a man sitting on a hill full of stinging ants. She's got to you, hasn't she? Whatever she offered you, it must have been good. So which way will you jump, when someone comes to kick you off your fence? Most probably King Sirion was thinking the same thing about him. Except that I don't look like a man riven by indecision. Or do I?
