Walegrin and his men had the first of three great watches these days, coming on duty in the cold, predawn hours, then relieved at just about this time. Even if the man hadn't been his brother-in-law, Dubro would have chosen him over the other two watch commanders, the eminently corruptible Aye-Gophlan or the murdering Zip, to tell about Illyra's visions.
And lately, as Illyra suspected, they'd found a comfortable subject of conversation in their concerns for her. A hearty meal and a few mugs of ale in the all-male taproom of the Tinker's Knob might be just the cure for his own irksome malaise. The market-day crowds parted before him once his destination, the palace barracks, was fixed in his mind.
"There, you see, I told you it was nothing," Prince Kadakithis said with rather too much surprise in his voice to be entirely convincing.
Illyra nodded weakly. They might have at least warned her that her examiner would be none other than her own half-brother-and whatever other flaw Walegrin might have, his sense of family loyalty was above reproach. He'd made it plain that it was reasonable to panic when one of those infernal snakes was around.
"I'm certain the kitchens have got more than enough food. Shall I have the guards escort you there? I'd go myself, but ..." The prince cast his eyes upward-in the general direction of not only the nursery but the Hall of Justice and Torchholder's suite of exchequer and registry. Neither husband nor ruler, yet somewhat more than a decorative figure- head, Kadakithis showed his adolescence more these days than he had seven years ago when he had first arrived as a naive puppet. He was growing but not yet grown.
"Thank you, I can find it myself," Illyra assured him.
He seemed genuinely relieved and took off at a decidedly unregal trot. Illyra had a flash vision of him seated on a steel-colored stallion, then nothing, as her thoughts turned to the aromas wafting out of the beehive- roofed kitchen. They'd recognize her there and accord her the same distant politeness the other palace retainers did: they knew they were better than some S'danzo wench from down in the Bazaar even if she did have the ear of royalty and the gods.
With a tightly woven basket, worth more than the food it contained, slung in her shawl, Illyra strolled into the bright forecourt. She might wander along the General's Road to the hills where the trees had turned a hundred shades of red, gold, and orange. Or she might go to the Prom- ise of Heaven which was usually deserted by daylight. Or she might ...
Illyra's musings stopped short when she caught sight of a familiar figure passing under the West Gate. Dubro-and though she herself had told him to seek out Walegrin her heart began to pound. Once or twice- when she'd been a child and the blacksmith her protector, not her hus- band-she'd run away from him, but never in recent years. Until now. She scooted behind a water cart, crouching over her basket, pretending to examine its contents.
She waited, cried, and thought of Cha-bos who hadn't known how to count to one hundred. When her tears had dried she decided it was safe. She headed in the direction she was now facing-to the back corner of the palace, past the ornate gate where priests and gods made their com- munion with temporal authority.
The palace stoneyard was here, ready for the next round of palatial repairs, and the huge water cisterns to sustain the inner fortress in times of siege. Though far from lost-she could still see the water cart-Illyra had entered unfamiliar territory and did not know the name of the little gate she discovered there. Or even if it was a deliberate gate and not one of Molin Torchholder's bright ideas. It seemed, judging by the dust, to be the main conduit between the work gangs and the palace.
"Hey, sweetheart, got anything in there for me?" a half-naked roustabout called from farther down the path.
"No, just my own meal."
"You're sure? A pretty little piece like you shouldn't be out here eating alone ..."
Illyra understood, then, what he had in mind. She blushed radiantly;
he laughed heartily and she ran through the nameless gate into the jum- bled red sandstones piled beyond it. Indignation got the better other; she wished all manner of minor disasters upon the workman who had not recognized her as a happily married matron and implied propositions never suggested to a S'danzo seeress.
She ate the creamy cheese without tasting it. The fire of her shame burned inwardly now, illuminating the misunderstanding with which the world treated her. It wasn't as if she asked for so much, Illyra reminded herself. It was pure selfishness and stubbornness that kept those who claimed to love her from understanding that her world-her promise of happiness-had ended when Lillis died. If they really loved her they would commiserate with her and cease their meaningless efforts to jolly her out of mourning.
Her life was a tragedy: a slow dirge relentlessly playing between Lillis's death and her own. She'd become a martyr-and was comfortable with that identity.
"You should not scowl so."
Illyra sent the basket flying and stared into the sun, unable to recog- nize the man who spoke so familiarly to her.
"And you should be more careful where and how you make your personal storms."
Not about to be scolded by a stranger-or anyone else, for that matter -Illyra was tempted to break her private vows and launch a full-fledged S'danzo curse in his direction. But something she did not understand restrained her. She clambered down from her perch and gathered her scattered meal instead.
From this angle, away from the sun, he was easier to see but no more recognizable. Not that there weren't a dozen incomprehensible languages spoken these days along the walls-but this one wasn't a stoneworker. Even Tempus, silhouetted by a bloody setting sun, was not so timeless and out of place as this man seemed to be. Moreover, she could not See him or his shadow which boded ill when Sanctuary itself was remarkably free of magic.
"I'm a free woman," she said petulantly, climbing onto a different stone where the light was better and she could look straight into his eyes.
"Not here you're not."
He was calm, not threatening; speaking simple facts as if there were something obvious she had overlooked. But what could be overlooked sitting on forgotten rubble with her back to the main path?
"Look down," he suggested in a bemused and paternal manner.
Down. The dirt was red where years of storms had had their way with the sandstone. Nothing grew there. Nothing was buried there. She couldn't See anything.
"Where you're sitting. Where you've been sitting this past hour."
Well, that. It was rubble, after all. These stones had been dressed and shaped into a building once, a long time ago. Not as if these were the only rocks around with little chips and bumps of some forgotten language on their sides. Lords and frogs, it could be Rankene for all she would know, wind-blasted as it was and illiterate as she was.
She took a mean-tempered bite out of her fruit and jawed it pointedly. "So?"
"Are you blind, child?"
This stranger with his beaten, bronze-colored armor and his probing, dark eyes deserved nothing less than a S'danzo curse; Illyra decided. His stare was worse than a Beysib's and his high-and-mighty attitude worse than that. He'd be less arrogant when the S'danzo were through with him. She wrapped her thoughts in the ancient forms, then dug deep in her memory to find the ritual words that would merge her desire with the Sight.
He sprang at her, though she prepared her curse in silence, and wres- tled her from the stone with his hand locked firmly over her mouth.
"You fool," he exclaimed, dropping her to the ground. "You blind, hopeless fool. How many times has Sanctuary been damned by petty curses uttered in ignorance by petty fools who don't recognize sanctity when they see it?"