Grand Conspiracy (29 page)

When no answer, and no sympathy was forthcoming, Lysaer shoved half-upright and sighed. ‘You advised Harradene to broach his dismissal, beforehand. The public presentation was yours all along?'

‘It was necessary because of the men,' confirmed a voice of fruity, round vowels, and consonants of crisp authority. Cerebeld
gestured to the page boys with the boots, and the valet, who hovered uncertain. ‘Go. I shall serve your prince with my own hands tonight.'

Lysaer allowed his servants to be chivvied out the door. As the panel closed to the touch of Cerebeld's scrubbed hand, he loosened the braided gold laces at his throat. ‘I did ask for a bath.'

But Cerebeld had made the arrangements already. His suave gesture encompassed the archway that led through the tiled foyer. ‘The tub and the water are waiting. You object?'

‘No.' Lysaer tugged the shirt off over his head. His grimace as he stretched showed all of the weariness he kept masked before all others. ‘After thirty leagues in the saddle over damnable, bad roads, I will gracefully let you handle my toilet and towels.' He pushed to his feet, fighting the lassitude which had seeped into his muscles from even that short interval of rest. ‘You don't trust a whole troop of men not to talk? That's probably wise. For myself, I doubt I could have found the stone heart to turn them off with no pay and an uncertain future. Most haven't a pedigree family to fall back on, unlike Harradene and his high-ranking officers.'

Cerebeld shut down pity with surgical logic. ‘The treasury will fare better without the unnecessary burden.' He held out his palm.

Prince Lysaer removed the regent's ring with its massive, cut-sapphire seal. Cerebeld received the signet, then the diamond-set collar of state, and placed them in the velvet-lined tray the valet kept at hand for the purpose.

‘Oh for the days when the flow of cold bullion did not rule our every move.' Lysaer stripped his hose. The lines of firm muscle in his buttocks and thighs as sculpted as the haunch of a lion, he walked unabashed into the next-door chamber, and stepped into the steaming bath. ‘You're right, of course.'

The more difficult factions in Erdane would pay generously to kill clansmen. But all the mavens in the trade guilds would shut their purses like oysters before lending even one coin weight to fund pensions. Already, the doubled bounties for headhunters drove Eilish to hand-wringing fits.

‘There could be compensation,' Cerebeld allowed.

‘When my plan for Etarra reaches fruition?' Lysaer frowned. ‘Perhaps.' The Alliance would soon begin its campaign to recruit farmhands for armed service. Harradene's veterans would not lack for work in the fields, as younger sons were called to leave
their family steadings. ‘Though I warrant the Etarrans' wives will be sharp for the uncharitable change in their station.'

Immersed to the neck in hot, soapy water, Lysaer tipped his head back against the bronze rim of the tub. He closed his eyes, at boneless ease as Cerebeld poured a dipper of water over his golden hair. As his high priest massaged perfumed soap into his scalp, he murmured, ‘Give me the news. Were you able to uncover any links into the Shadow Master's correspondence network?'

Cerebeld plucked up a warmed towel from the rail by the hearth and delicately blotted his pink hands. ‘Very nearly. The carrier evaded my informant in Shand, but the crown examiner you had billeted with the recruits from Jaelot picked up a strong resonance of spellcraft. Someone needed to shelter their activity from the eyes of Koriani scryers.'

Spurred to sharp impatience, Lysaer ducked his head and immersed, splashing suds over the rim of the basin. He emerged, rinsed and dripping, and fixed his regard upon Cerebeld's inscrutable features. ‘There's more.'

‘Oh yes.' Cerebeld passed a dry towel. His meticulous, polite pause let the Prince of the Light blot the streaming scented water from his face. ‘The trail we followed was muddied by the antics of Parrien s'Brydion. He's been dispatched to sea by his duke to pay Alestron's respects upon the occasion of your forthcoming wedding.'

‘No hard proof of collusion with Shadow?' Lysaer lapsed back again with closed eyes, while the heat worked its magic with his kinked muscles.

‘None. I suspect, nonetheless. Parrien's flamboyant escapade was unlikely to have innocent origins. Coin smoothed the loose ends much too well. The parties involved shared no talk, and no one else paid much notice. The s'Brydion penchant for colorful mischief was dismissed by the southcoast officials as an embarrassing irritation. Unless you wish tactless pressure brought to bear, they'll stay reluctant to take such routine brawling seriously.' Cerebeld laced his hands over the beautiful worked emblem of the sunwheel gracing his belt buckle. His stance was the only relaxed aspect to him; his eyes on the prince kept the gleam of analytical steel. ‘Did you seek this intelligence? You had other plans for that family, I thought.'

Lysaer stayed expressionless. Serene as a masterworked sculpture in alabaster, he engaged in a sharp change of subject. ‘If
news from Shand is running to schedule, we must know by now how each town has responded to the invitation to attend my wedding.'

‘Gace Steward has made lists.' Cerebeld's slick complexion showed no frown line, the linked rapport he shared with the Divine Prince enough surety his inquiry had not met with rebuff. Secretive as the trained statesman, Lysaer enjoyed the close privilege shared with his high priest; in Cerebeld's company, he never needed to smooth over small gaps in dialogue with the meaningless honey of diplomacy.

The man knew his royal preferences well. When the Prince of the Light was ready to share confidence, or exert his will to examine the irregularities that flawed the s'Brydion promise of loyalty, he would do so in forthright conversation. In respect for planned timing designed for the greater good of the Light, High Priest Cerebeld steered the discussion toward the arrangements for the Erdani bride and her escort. Her cavalcade would depart for Avenor once the passes through Tornir Peaks were opened and made safe for a wellborn lady to negotiate.

‘Expect her arrival just after the equinox.' Cerebeld bowed, prepared with the large towel as his sovereign lord arose to step from the bathtub. ‘The girl's mother's no fool. She's overseen every aspect of her daughter's disposition. Expect to trip over a bevy of aunts who are almost as difficult to please. My new acolyte in Erdane sends news every fortnight. You knew the chit had written you in her own hand?'

‘I knew.' That subject caused Lysaer a swift, fair-skinned flush, immediately masked into a pallor he buried in the nap of the towel. Through the brisk strokes he used to dry his gold hair, he said, ‘Your thinking is noisy. Girlish fancies and sweet talk, I gathered? You'd approve. I had one of my young secretaries answer her in like-minded, flowery language. She won't need intelligence to bear Tysan an heir, and for that saving grace, I expect you and my council will all be suitably thankful.'

‘Her strict westland upbringing should hold her in line.' Cerebeld bowed, soothing over the difficult topic with ceremony.

Lady Ellaine of Erdane had been carefully chosen for her retiring, sensible temperament. Hot blood and passion, and the pressures of state politics were unlikely to drive her to the outspoken independence which had bought the late princess Talith her downfall.

Lysaer smiled, reassured, then stretched, and regarded his
high priest with disarming humor. ‘Now that you've tested my prenuptial nerves and plumbed after the source of my motives, I trust I may summon my valet with fresh clothes?'

Cerebeld laughed. ‘My interested adulation was never intended to leave you stranded and naked. I'll call your servant to attend on your Grace as I let myself out.'

Late Winter–Early Spring 5654

Far out to sea, strapped restless in splints, Arithon s'Ffalenn rejects Dakar's latest posset in a testy explosion of anger. ‘You can leave off the nursing. I'm not going to order this brigantine about! Whatever war and mayhem Mearn's sparked in Tysan, you'll have worse right here if someone doesn't fetch me my lyranthe …!'

On the cresting spring tide, the night after the newly launched Alliance ships were invested and sailed on their maiden voyage down the Riverton inlet, a fire breaks out in the royal shipyard that reduces every stacked plank and rope, and levels the craft sheds to ashes …

The following morning, when Cattrick and his senior craftsmen are not found in the city, an Alliance rider is dispatched northward to Hanshire, bearing word of the sabotage and the suspicions cast upon the names of possible arsonists; and en route through the lowlands to the west of Mogg's Fen, the courier falls from his horse, dead as he lands, from an arrow dispatched by a sharpshooter clansman …

T
he ill news arrived at Prince Lysaer's chambers in Avenor on the hour the royal valet shook the sweetening herbs from the indigo tabard his Exalted Grace would wear for the afternoon ceremony. No sunwheel device, but the star and crown blazon of Tysan would commemorate the marriage of the Mayor of Erdane's eldest daughter to Tysan's time-honored s'Ilessid bloodline. By midday, the squalling, gust-driven clouds had not given way to fair weather. Rain seeped in tinseled runnels down the casements, steamed gray on the inside from the close heat of foreign envoys and celebrating courtiers.

The best vintage wine from Carithwyr had been flowing all morning. Through loud, raunchy jokes and backslapping laughter, the recent arrival passed unregarded until the discord at the entrance to the royal apartment turned heads. Hat feathers aligned like grass in high wind; the pedigree highborn and those few merchants privileged to attend the prince's robing looked down their noses, perturbed.

‘Invitations bedamned,' cried a leather-clad man with a commoner's middle coast accent. ‘I bring urgent news!'

The tussle crescendoed. Lysaer's flustered chamber steward lost the upper hand, and the intruder barged in, mud spattered, reeking of soaked wool and lathered horse.

Overdressed courtiers cleared from his path in a breaking flurry of velvets. ‘Where's Sulfin Evend!' The man's shout clove ahead through the bedlam. ‘I seek the Alliance Lord Commander!'

Chain mail glinted through the flower petal brilliance of brocades as the taciturn captain who laid claim to that title tossed off his gloves and slid like a ferret through the crush. ‘To me! Now!' His hardened fist caught the courier by the shoulder. ‘Whatever your news, the whole world shouldn't hear. You're from Hanshire?'

‘The north quarter, yes.' The man caught his breath, his face pinched with exhaustion. ‘Word will fly, soon enough. Four of the launched vessels from the new Alliance fleet just foundered themselves down the coast.'

‘In this weather?' The Lord Commander narrowed winter gray eyes. ‘Hasn't been wind fit to drive off the drizzle.'

‘No storm,' gasped the courier.

Sulfin Evend did not delay to hear more, but elbowed his way through the jeweled press of courtiers gathered to eavesdrop and gawk. He pulled the stumbling courier along, then propelled him ahead in a no-nonsense rush to the prince's private dressing room.

The courier received a blinding impression of lavish gilt trim, velvet footstools with lion-claw legs, and damascened cushions shot like fire with reflected candlelight. Then he and his forceful escort broke through the fawning coterie around the prince.

‘Exalted, we've got trouble!' Without regard for propriety, ignoring the spluttering mayor he displaced, Sulfin Evend fended away the valet who bore the sapphire tabard in a single-minded sally to reach the Prince of the Light.

‘Is there news? Let my officer through!' Lysaer s'Ilessid should have appeared ordinary, half-clad as he was, the laces of his finery untied and trailing. Yet his fierce inquiry as he straightened to meet the disheveled messenger and the taut urgency of his Lord Commander snapped his disgruntled sycophants to stillness. In breech hose and a shirt edged with gold, he seemed a figment stamped out of light. The diamonds flared like caught ice in his sleeves as his trim shoulders braced for bad news. ‘What's amiss?'

Sulfin Evend pushed the reeling stranger forward. ‘Give word to his Grace.'

‘Four ships out of Riverton, Lord Exalted.' The muddy man faltered, embarrassed.

‘Go on,' Lysaer urged, his patience a branding example of courage, while the tap of sullen rainfall slid uninterrupted through a silence of stopped motion and held breaths.

The courier coughed his reluctance. ‘Sunk, your Grace. Burst, dismasted, foundered, lost. The new hulls ran aground on the Hanshire coastline. None could be salvaged. The sea has battered them to wreckage on the reefs.'

‘How many drowned?' Lysaer demanded.

‘Can't say, your Grace.' A shift foot to foot, and the courier qualified. ‘I was gone at a gallop before the rescue boats launched.'

A glance like blued steel passed between the Divine Prince and his coiled and volatile Lord Commander at Arms. Then, with a calm that annealed for its steadiness, Lysaer voiced the brute logic no one else dared to address. ‘There's been no weather to run a ship on the cliff rocks, I know that.'

Relieved by the tact which spared him from breaking the first, harsh impact of disaster, the messenger loosened. ‘Sabotage. The harbormaster at Hanshire believes the shipyard's master played your Grace false with the designs on his boards down at Riverton.'

‘No man in my kingdom stands accused without proof, even a common-born craftsman.' Unmoved from his image of tight-leashed serenity, Lysaer gave rapid orders to his war commander. ‘Look into this. Quietly. The high council must convene on my state galley the moment the wedding festivities are over. Have the vessel provisioned. See five of my warships ready to sail south on the midnight change of the tide.'

Sulfin Evend bowed, a falcon unleashed for the hunt, but for Lysaer's touch holding him back. ‘Hear the rest.' The royal head lifted. Blue eyes surveyed the avid circle of courtiers. Unflinching, direct, that measuring majesty drove the most hardened sophisticate backward. Jammed in a welter of velvets against the tables spread with warm wine and comfits, the pedigree elite of Avenor received the prince's unequivocal warning.

‘Let no one disclose what has passed in this chamber. For the good of this kingdom, my wedding goes on. I'll have no taint of black news, no one's busy secretary, and no messenger in guild pay sent abroad to spread talk and premature rumors. My justice will not fail to address all wrongdoing, but action shall await upon my bride's pleasure. Woe betide the man who dares break his silence beforetime.'

The barest hint of leashed temper flicked through Lysaer's bearing as he released Sulfin Evend in dismissal. ‘Be sure the courier's needs are met, and on your oath to serve the Light, let
nothing
upset the celebration arranged to honor Tysan's new princess. Once the marriage has been consummated, I'll attend my sovereign duties at the wharf.'

Sulfin Evend's eyebrows furrowed in drastic surprise. ‘Tomorrow?'

‘Tonight. By midnight, latest. Be ready.' Lysaer snapped his fingers, startling the valet who hovered at a loss with the royal tabard draped on his forearm.

While Sulfin Evend shouldered toward the doorway, and the servant shrank hesitant on the sidelines, Lysaer softened into a debonair smile. ‘Do you think me a bridegroom without tenderness?' White upon gold against the gloom of the casement, his ebullience burned like a torch. ‘There's no frightened virgin who can't be made pliant. Carithwyr wine and a posset should ease any girl's skittish nerves.' He dipped his fair head, still talking. ‘Gace Steward will instruct the lady's handmaids. Now, please, can we go through the motions of dressing? I've no wish to marry in shirtsleeves and hose, and if you strangle that tabard in a death grip any longer, I'm going to wear fingerprints in the velvet.'

In the peach-and-gold decor of the palace guest suite, the wax candles burned with extravagance. Velvet curtains with white silk fringes masked the drizzling rain, and the chatter of highborn Erdani women fell mellow and warm as the weather denied by Tysan's changeably fickle west coastline.

‘Your chin, miss,' murmured the lady's maid. The polite request came with a firm, guiding hand, then a pinch of hair nipped and turned under a pin to crimp a ringlet into her coiffure. Ellaine shut her eyes as the damp, hot towel pressed the confined strand against the flushed skin of her temple.

‘I'm sorry,' she whispered. ‘My mind feels as scattered as the mist.'

‘Ath's glory, who wouldn't be distracted for a bridegroom who fills his hose like the stuff of legends themselves!' The heavyset aunt who had spoken shot out a cheerful, dough fist. She caught the loose toddler who charged past, squealing, in a tangle of untied ribbons and a rosy absence of underthings. ‘Love us, we're going to be late, every one, if this gentleman keeps kicking off his breeches.'

The mother of the youngster arrived and scooped him up, breathless in her exasperation. ‘Easier to keep clothes on an eel, I'm afraid.' Her apologetic smile dissolved into laughter. ‘Come on, wild thing! Let your pipsqueak equipment grow a few years before you show off to the ladies.'

Ellaine closed her eyes, while other hands patted and primped, and tucked ruches and arranged pins and jewelry. She could scarcely share her sister's breathless excitement over the bows and fine laces, or the delicate embroidery of gold worked into satin ribbons. As a comfortable cloud of patchouli arrived and settled in a whisk of silk at her right hand, her mouth turned up at the corners. ‘I'm too pale, I know.'

Her mother patted her chill hand. ‘Never mind, Ellaine. Your eyes will be dazzling. We'll just brighten your skin with a dusting of rouge powder.' The beautiful, ringed hands which had managed each detail of her father's state palace in Erdane snapped once, and a maidservant jumped in response. ‘Mind, not too much, girl! She'll flush with the dancing. We don't want her looking like a hussy, nor leaving streaks on her husband's fine cuffs as he touches!'

Ellaine chewed her lip; caught herself; stopped. A fortnight in residence had shown her how tightly the wheels of efficiency meshed in Avenor's state household. Gace Steward ran everything like a high-strung dictator, until even the pot scullions feared to spread gossip. ‘Ath, where will I be needed?' she blurted aloud.

Her mother caught her shoulders in a careful, quick squeeze. ‘Women's wisdom, my dear. You'll make your own way. This bastion of male authority will have chinks, and you'll find them, just as I did when I wed your father.'

Ellaine opened velvety, tea-colored eyes. Her answering smile trembled at the edges, but courage shone through, steadfast and determined. ‘Are you sure you taught me everything you know?'

Her mother arose from her perch on the chair arm. ‘You will bear the royal children. That will make you an influential power in this land, don't you ever for one moment forget. Your worth will come to be measured as Crown Princess. Nor will you fall short. You hold the threads of your prince's dynasty, and in that arena, your place beside him is
equal
. One day, your blood will shape Avenor's policy. Your son will sit the throne that commands Tysan's four principalities, and his deportment as a king will come to be the purposeful achievement of your life.'

The lady's maid slipped the pins, and deployed the little ringlets that softened the line of a face which required little artifice to adorn the clear bloom of youth. Another hand arranged the jeweled pendant at her throat, and the room very suddenly seemed half-empty of life; the squealing of children and the companionable chatter of women relatives rolled into a sudden, poised hush.

Her mother's wise eyes misted over. ‘Blessed be, girl, you're lovely. You'll do very well. Come now, the carriages are waiting.'

In twenty brisk minutes, impeccably on time, the Prince of the Light emerged from the privacy of his chamber. He had called for no emergency council. Beyond his first orders to Sulfin Evend, he had done nothing more than let his servants attend to his dress. His stature ensured that their fuss was not wasted. The cloth of gold sash and sapphire tabard finished that precise, frosty poise that could intimidate at twenty paces. By the lighthearted charm annealed through his expression, no doubt clouded his committed intention to grant his new bride her day of carefree celebration.

The talk of the courtiers drifted around him, brittle as beads of blown glass. If none of the pedigree elite could ignore the royal seal of silence, word of the smashed ships would break loose from other sources. The trade guilds had private couriers. The noon post run from Hanshire would reach Avenor by evening, to questions and unrest if the gate watch detained them. Ill news could not bide in close company for long. The ministers' wives in their layered gowns and amethysts, their velvets with silver-tipped ribbons, would hear from the lips of their lackeys.

Like the flocking of sparrows before breaking storm, the guests poured in for the bridegroom's reception, smiling and oblivious. The palace halls jammed with their packed heat and noise; their grooms and their footmen thronged the vestibules. While the bride's procession wound through the city in gilt carriages with outriders tossing flowers, the highborn and the powerful gathered to toast the health of Tysan's prince. In crowded splendor, cloaks and jeweled mantles crushed together in steaming warmth and perfume, and a sibilance of flowery language, they wished him vigor and bliss through his upcoming nuptials.