House of Shadows (21 page)

At least he now found it very simple to focus purely on the urgent concerns of the moment. Lord Miennes was clad in the best style of a Lonne nobleman, in a fine amethyst overrobe, matching amethysts in the rings on his fingers. Miennes, Taudde thought, would have been greatly amused to hear the prince chiding his bodyguard for unnecessary wariness.

He forced his expression into an easy smile.

Miennes made his bow to the prince and took a place at the table.

Two more keiso entered the chamber. They bowed to the prince, then to Taudde, and finally to the rest of the gathering, smiling with what appeared to be unfeigned delight. Both were younger than Summer Pearl. The first was a young woman with pleasantly rounded features and a dimpled smile; she wore an overrobe embroidered with autumn leaves, in rust and copper, from bodice to hem. Her blue-black hair, falling down her back in a thick plait, was gathered into five descending clips of amber and gold.

This keiso carried a white bowl in which floated a single exquisite pale-lavender flower. She set this bowl in front of Taudde with a small bow that suggested she was particularly delighted to find him, specifically, present at this banquet. A light, spicy fragrance rose from the flower. “My lord, I am Meadowbell,” the keiso said, in a cheerful tone. “Welcome to Cloisonné House. May this visit be the first of many!”

“Thank you,” said Taudde. Deliberately emulating the prince, he reached out a finger to brush a delicate lavender petal and said, glancing at the keiso rather than at the bloom, “A beautiful flower.”

The keiso smiled delightedly as though she were not accustomed to being paid such compliments, or at least not by men she admired as she admired Taudde. Taudde, amused at this flattery, concluded that, unless the men of Lonne were blind and deaf, this keiso’s cheerful manner and softly rounded figure must surely make her a favorite even among all the beauties of the candlelight district.

Koriadde declared, “Well said, my friend! We shall count you an asset to the flower world!” and lifted a tiny cup in salute.

Taudde put his hand over his heart and bowed slightly in his turn to acknowledge the compliment.

“And do you have a mistress in Miskiannes upon whom you practice your graceful manner?” Miennes inquired.

“I have forgotten,” said Taudde, offering another slight bow, this time to the keiso, who laughed and slyly bowed her head, turning so as to glance at him over her shoulder in a teasing, deliberately seductive gesture.

The other keiso, the youngest of the three, said in a light, bantering tone, “Meadowbell has a keisonne, my lord, so all other men must be wary lest she break their hearts! Now,
I
am still free. My name is Featherreed.” She looked at Taudde through down-swept lashes. “You are from Miskiannes? How exciting! Is it true snow never falls in Miskiannes? Do flowers bloom all through the winter?”

This keiso was as tall and slender as her namesake, fine-boned, with delicate features and a graceful way of moving. Her hair, golden as wheat, was pinned up with small ivory combs. Birds as golden as her hair flew in a spiral from throat to waist around her overrobe.

“It snowed at my uncle’s house once when I was very young,” Taudde told her. This was even true. “We thought it very pretty, but the snow did wilt the winter lilies, which would otherwise have bloomed straight through until spring.”

“So an unexpected snow may rob us untimely of our last blooms,” Miennes said, smiling warmly around at the keiso. “But in Lonne, of course, we are fortunate to have other flowers we may cherish while we wait for spring.”

“A sharp winter is perhaps the price Lonne pays for possessing the greatest and most splendid mountains in the world,” remarked Taudde, though in fact he thought the stark mountains of Kalches more beautiful. He wished, suddenly and intensely, that he was home among his own mountains now, but hoped that long practice kept this yearning from showing in his face.

“Ah, Kerre Maraddras!” said Koriadde. “I tried to climb it once, you know.”

The prince, accepting a tall slender glass of straw-pale wine from Featherreed, turned his head at this. “Did you? I didn’t know that. How far did you get?”

“Hardly past the first shoulder,” Koriadde replied. “I was young and foolish and had neglected to wear spiked boots. Fortunately, you will say. I hardly like to think of the mountain’s response, had I had the temerity to lay a hand on the stone of his face.”

“We should have been robbed of the pleasure of your company,” agreed the prince. He had relaxed visibly and now lounged comfortably back on one elbow, holding his glass of wine with his other hand. “I went up Kerre Taum once, where the rock is broken, beside the waterfall.”

“A good climb,” Koriadde agreed.

“Surely not to the very top? Can one climb so high?” asked Featherreed admiringly. She offered the prince the bowl of nikisi seeds.

“Almost all the way.” The prince’s dark eyes had gone quiet with memory. He stirred a palmful of seeds with one fingertip, but did not taste any. He said softly, “There is a great hollow there, cut into the rock where the spray breaks against the cliff. One can see halfway to Ankanne. The Laodd looks small under your feet, like a townhouse, and the townhouses look like toys. From that height, the bridges across the rivers might be made of quills and golden
thread, and the ships coming into the harbor of gull’s feathers and paper.”

“I would be afraid to be so high!” exclaimed the young keiso. “But you describe it so well I can see it from this very room. How beautiful it must be!”

“The Seriantes princes make that climb when they are twelve years of age,” said a deep voice from the door. Taudde saw without surprise that Mage Ankennes stood there. He felt he had known of the mage’s arrival before Ankennes had even laid a hand on the door, if not quite consciously. It seemed to him now that the whole of Cloisonné House reverberated with the mage’s arrival. That Ankennes’s words fell as he spoke them into the ordinary world and yet echoed as well into a different world lying just aslant of the visible and ordinary. Yet, in this house, the mage himself seemed somehow more ordinary and less threatening than ever before. Taudde eyed him covertly, trying to decide whether the mage was doing something himself deliberately to create this impression or whether it was caused by something about the house itself.

Then the mage’s words distracted him completely, for the mage was continuing, “The hollow of which Prince Tepres speaks is not merely a natural hollow. It is the tomb of the kings of Lirionne. Young princes make that climb in order to become acquainted with mortality. There are steps carved into the face of Kerre Taum, but even so that is not an easy climb. Customarily, a prince’s father or an older brother will accompany the boy. I believe it was Prince Rette who escorted you, was it not, eminence?”

“So it was,” the prince said equably, showing no visible reaction to the mention of the Seriantes tomb or his deceased brother who now occupied a niche within it. Yet, though his outward tone was calm, there was a sudden tightness to the undertones of his voice. Everyone else in the room had gone noticeably still.

“Sometimes the thoughts prompted by Kerre Taum are dark ones.”

“So you have said to my father,” Prince Tepres said, his tone at last acquiring an edge. “On more than one occasion, I believe. If
his
answers do not please you, Mage Ankennes, do not look to me for satisfaction.”

“The heart of the mountains is the heart of darkness, as I think the dead on Kerre Taum would tell you. Though the dead have no speech, their bones speak a language more true than any that passes the tongues of the living—”

“Enough, I say!” snapped the prince, straightening. “That is all past. Do not speak of the dead.”

The mage stopped, bowing his head in what appeared perfectly ordinary and polite apology and acquiescence.

Taudde did not understand why Ankennes should make such strange and daring comments. He did not believe for a moment that the mage had so little self-control that he could not resist baiting the Seriantes prince. He was certain Ankennes did nothing without reason.

Did Ankennes wish to draw attention to himself and away from Miennes? Or perhaps away from Taudde? Or perhaps… it occurred to Taudde that if Ankennes wished to encourage the prince in fear or bitterness or hatred of his father, he might do worse than refer to his dead brothers. Though Taudde could not guess why the mage should bother, when he expected the prince to very shortly follow his brothers to the Seriantes tomb… perhaps he intended to achieve all those results, or something else entirely. Taudde could easily believe the mage subtle enough to have half a dozen goals in mind for every word he spoke.

Summer Pearl said gravely, with a practiced grace that suggested keiso also learned to smooth over incipient quarrels, “Memories at times clamor as loudly as the Nijiadde River crashing over the cliffs. And the approach of winter draws out memories we should perhaps rather let sleep.”

The prince gave the older keiso a sharp glance and, after a moment, inclined his head. He did not smile, but he leaned an elbow on the table, his manner easing. He said, “ ‘The season of falling leaves, and falling winds, and falling mists; memories, too, come down and linger with the cold.’ ”

Summer Pearl evidently recognized the quote, for she responded, “ ‘Memories deepen as the snows deepen; they drift over our hearts; our hearts, frozen in ice, wait for spring.’ ” She poured a tiny cup of fragrant tea for the prince and lifted her own cup to him. Taudde found himself wondering whom the keiso had loved and lost.

Mage Ankennes, evidently willing to allow the keiso to ease away from the difficult moment, quietly took a place toward the foot of the table and nibbled nikisi seeds. Taudde studied him discreetly, but came to no further conclusions.

Two more keiso came into the room. The first was a young woman with the look of a Samenian, coarse boned and over tall. Despite her lack of beauty, she had the confident air of one who sets her own worth very high. She wore a blue overrobe with falling leaves and rising birds embroidered in rust.

However, the second girl, once she came into sight, utterly eclipsed the first. She was a truly lovely girl, with beautiful creamy skin, clouds of twilight hair, and the most exquisite eyes Taudde had ever seen. She wore a rich blue overrobe with white moths fluttering in a spiral over the great blossoms of moonflowers.

She was also, Taudde realized slowly, extremely young. Everything showed this, but most especially the girl’s obvious nervousness. Her shyness, however, did not detract from her beauty. Quite the reverse. Glancing around, Taudde saw that every man in the room was as captivated as he. Even Jeres Geliadde appeared to have been charmed. The prince set his wineglass down, making no attempt to disguise his interest.

The other keiso, Taudde saw with some amusement, were unsurprised by the effect the girl had produced. Summer Pearl had a tolerant, humorous curve to her mouth; her eyes were alight with gratification. Meadowbell and Featherreed were exchanging glances filled with enjoyment that approached hilarity.

The girl bowed shyly and said in a soft, timid little voice, “I am—I am Moonflower, my lords. I beg my lords’ indulgence. I don’t—I—This is my first week as a keiso and I know nothing. I beg my lords will permit me to—to merely observe their banquet.”

There was a general murmur through the room that encompassed, Taudde thought, disappointment and approval and resignation. The prince gave young Moonflower a nod and then looked deliberately away. Compelled by this royal example, the other men sat back on their cushions and also turned their attention elsewhere.

Moonflower’s companion murmured to her, and the girl found a place at the end of the table and settled there with her eyes cast down and her hands folded in her lap.

The other keiso then made her bow to the prince, who rose and took her hands with obvious warmth. He said, “Rue, my beauty. You will dance tonight?”

“Of course, eminence, if it would please you,” agreed the Samenian keiso, and went to murmur with Summer Pearl and Meadowbell while Featherreed poured tea and wine for the men.

There was suddenly movement both within and without the banquet chamber, apparently on some signal Taudde had missed. Servants served broth in bowls painted with waving sea grasses, and, on small plates painted with dragonflies, translucent noodles sprinkled with chopped abalone.

Summer Pearl settled herself with her knee harp and began to play, with confidence but without seeming to give much attention to the music she made. Another older keiso who had entered quietly joined her, playing the kinsana. This newcomer played with great skill, but also with feeling that transcended skill. Taudde assumed that this was Bluefountain, for it was only natural that anyone should think of this woman when music was mentioned. She found the heart of the demanding instrument effortlessly. Taudde refrained, with difficulty, from showing excessive interest.

Koriadde told a story of sledding down the Laodd road and nearly into the churning basin where the Nijiadde Falls came down onto the rocks. “Only Lord Geriente drove his horse sideways and knocked my sled into the snow beside the road. I broke my arm and his carriage wheel and my father nearly threw me into the river himself.”

Everyone laughed. Meadowbell, who had taken a place next to
Koriadde at the table, said cheerfully, “Sledding below the Laodd! Only you!”

Jerinte Naliadde ken Miches said unexpectedly, “Oh, no. I was there.” He was smiling, for the first time Taudde had seen. “There were several of us who stole trays from the kitchens for sledding, but only Koriadde broke his arm.”