"One of your better pieces, if I do say so!" Malesh complimented Senan. He slapped him on the back, and the three began their trek back to Uri's manor.
Scothnaran Manor was big, rambling, and vulgar. Just like its owner, Malesh thought, feeling his mood sour. Scothnaran lacked both pedigree and history, two more things it had in common with Uri. No one who saw the huge, garish structure would doubt that it was built to impress any who saw it with the owner's wealth and position. Pity that Uri never did figure out real wealth had no need for show. Malesh had lost his life, his blood, and his freedom to Uri a hundred years before in a duel over a card game that had gone badly. And Malesh, whose bloodlines could be traced to Principality's ruling nobility, had been made courtier to a fool and bumbler, a two-skrivven card sharp whose greatest break came when he was brought across as punishment for a bad debt.
Scothnaran was filled with guests when Malesh and his fledglings entered. Uri enjoyed the company of mortals, as if his status in the Dark Gift together with his new wealth actually accorded him the position he had long desired. But tonight, Malesh saw no mortals in the room—none of the rapacious young men hoping to win at cards, and none of the slatterns Uri called 'ladies.'
The great hall of Scothnaran was as pretentious as its owner. Chandeliers dripped with crystals and pearls. Noorish inlay decorated so many of the furnishings that the pieces seemed to vie with each other for attention, warring with the profusion of color in the tufted carpets that covered the highly polished marble floor. Portraits covered the walls, oils done of Uri and of others whom Uri claimed to be his ancestors. Malesh knew the portraits were fabrications, the social climbing of a gutter snipe.
The room was filled with Uri's fledges. Uri held court in the middle, a goblet of goat's blood in his hand. The stale smell was noxious to Malesh after- the sweetness of the recent feast, and from the looks on their faces, Senan and Berenn felt the same.
"Did you really call him a 'fight slave' to his face?" Tanai leaned forward, hanging on Uri's every word.
"I did," Uri boasted. His face was flush with new blood, and the candlelight sparkled in his rings. "I remain connected with...business associates...in Nargi. They maintain my relationship with the Nargi army—through the necessary intermediaries. General Kathrian's troops held the Nu River border ten years ago, during the golden days of the betting slaves. There was none better than Jonmarc Vahanian. Never lost a fight in two years. Made a bit of gold on him, I did. To see him dressed up like a noble and having Gabriel passing him off as the new Lord of Dark Haven was more than I could stand. Nothing but common trash!"
"Not like there's anyone else who fits that description here," Malesh said in a barely audible aside to Senan, who smiled. Senan and Berenn were of families as noble as his own. Malesh had chosen them, and the others in his inner circle, to help make Uri's casual vulgarity bearable.
"And is it true that you drew blood?"
Uri smiled, showing his yellowed eye teeth. "Do you think I'd let Gabriel keep me from making my point? If that's all Vahanian has to show for fighting skill, he's lucky to have slipped Darrath's grip. I had my teeth on his neck before he even knew I was coming. But then, I heard Darrath got the best of him the last time Vahanian was fool enough to go to Nargi. Needed a mage to rescue him—that's rich. All over a woman." Uri drained his glass and snapped his fingers. A servant appeared at his side and refilled the goblet.
"Still, I heard he held his own for a good fight—and took the lash without crying out. By the Whore! It might be amusing to go a round with him—for old times' sake."
"So the truce, is it ended?" It was Tresa who spoke, one of Uri's most senior fledges. While Malesh and his friends stayed near the back, watching from afar, Tresa sat at Uri's right hand.
Sit at his feet like the lapdog you are, Malesh thought with annoyance. It was an open secret that Tresa coveted Malesh's position at the Council as Uri's second, a position it had taken no end of calculated obsequiousness to obtain.
"Ah, Malesh. There you are. They've been asking about the Council meeting. You were there."
Malesh stepped forward, more to spite Tresa than out of any real interest in retelling the story. "It's as Uri says. A room full of vayash moru, fawning over a mortal. Gabriel's the worst of the lot, although Riqua isn't much better. I noticed Rafe and Astasia stayed out of it. If Vahanian is to be Lord of Dark Haven, let him prove himself strong enough to take it."
There were murmured assents all around, and Uri's eyes glinted with approval. Malesh could tell from the way Uri's lids drooped that the blood he drank was laced with absinthe and dreamweed. "I've heard my share of stories about the great fighter Vahanian, hero of Chauvrenne," Malesh said with unconcealed contempt. "But when Uri went for his throat, I saw fear in Vahanian's eyes. Lord of Dark Haven indeed!"
"My thoughts exactly," Uri said in a voice that, if not exactly slurred, lacked the clarity it sometimes had on the rare occasions when Uri was free of the absinthe. "Mark my words: the Council's days are numbered. It's going to be a brand new game soon, our game. The truce is on its deathbed."
With a slight gesture, Malesh signaled to Senan and Berenn to follow him. They slipped from the back of the room without Uri noticing as he launched into another tale that kept his hangers-on enthralled. Malesh wound his way down to the rooms on the lowest level of Scothnaran where he knew his own coterie would be waiting.
Compared to the opulence of the great hall, Malesh's salon was stark. The pieces, while fewer in number than those in the entrance-way, had been in Malesh's family for generations, commissioned by ancestors who were even more well known than the craftsmen who made their treasures. The miniature oil paintings were of Malesh's real ancestors, men and women who had served the kings of Principality long before Uri was brought across. A half dozen of his fledges were already waiting for him. More would come, Malesh knew, when Uri was sated with drink and less likely to notice their absence from his circle of admirers.
"Can you believe the utter garbage Uri is spewing?" Senan dropped into his seat.
"That's Uri.". Sioma, a beautiful red-haired vayasb moru replied, her ennui evident in her voice. Sioma was Malesh's current companion of choice, and she caught his eye, promising him with her half-smile that there would be pleasures for him before dawn sent them to their rest.
"As usual, he says much and tells little," Malesh added. He waved away a goblet of blood, not wishing to taint the sweet aftertaste of the hunt that still lingered in his throat. Between Sioma and the hunt, Malesh remembered the best of what it was to be mortal— unfettered passion and the thrill of power. The Dark Gift enhanced all of those feelings, adding to them the headiness of unending youth and true immortality. "So what of the truce and the Council?"
Berenn asked, finding a seat.Malesh rested his boot on the edge of the table. His slim, tightly muscled frame coiled like a stawar about to lunge. "Uri wants the attention he gets by walking out. He loves to be coaxed back. What do you think? He's upstairs, drinking polluted blood and lapping up the attention of his pets. What does he gain from leaving the Council? They'll just appoint another to take his place and he knows it."
"And the truce?"
Malesh pushed away and began to pace. "Uri's been content to feed off the blood of drunks and dreamweed whores for three hundred years. What does he benefit from breaking the truce? He has all the tainted blood he can drink from the sots in the gutter."
"What of Vahanian?"
Malesh leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms. The exquisite lace at his cuffs spilled down over his fine-boned hands with more contrast now that he had recently fed. "Vahanian is neither as soft as Uri wants to believe, nor as undefeatable as Gabriel hopes. I did see fear in his eyes for a moment, but in the next he was struggling with Kolin to join the fight. Fear alone won't stop him. And as for Darrath nearly killing Vahanian—that much is true. But it was after he'd bested three of Dar-rath's prize soldiers and taken both a beating and a full scourging. The mage that came for him was none other than Martris Drayke. Vahanian is every bit as good a fighter as the stories say—maybe even able to hold his own against one of us."