VIII
In the deathly hush that hung over the gardens, Gareth’s descent from the wall sounded like the mating of oxen in dry brush. Jenny winced as the boy crashed down the last few feet into the shrubbery; from the shadows of the ivy on the wall top at her side she saw the dim flash of spectacle lenses and heard a voice breathe, “You forgot to shout ‘Eleven o’clock and all’s well,’ my hero!”
A faint slur of ivy followed. She felt John land on the ground below more than she heard him. After a last check of the dark garden half-visible through the woven branches of the bare trees, she slipped down to join them. In the darkness, Gareth was a gawky shadow in rust-colored velvet, John barely to be seen at all, the random pattern of his plaids blending into the colors of the night.
“Over there,” Gareth whispered, nodding toward the far side of the garden where a light burned in a niche between two trefoil arches. Its brightness spangled the wet grass like pennies thrown by a careless hand.
He started to lead the way, but John touched his arm and breathed, “I think we’d better send a scout, if it’s burglary and all we’re after. I’ll work round the three sides through the shadows of the wall; when I get there, I’ll whistle once like a nightjar. Right?”
Gareth caught his sleeve as he started to move off. “But what if a real nightjar whistles?”
“What, at this time of the year?” And he melted like a cat into the darkness. Jenny could see him, shifting his way through the checkered shadows of the bare topiary that decorated the three sides of the King’s private court; by the way Gareth moved his head, she could tell he had lost sight of him almost at once.
Near the archways there was a slither of rosy lamplight on a spectacle frame, the glint of spikes, and the brief outline of brightness on the end of a long nose. Gareth, seeing him safe, started to move, and Jenny drew him soundlessly back again. John had not yet whistled.
An instant later, Zyerne appeared in the doorway arch.
Though John stood less than six feet from her, she did not at first see him, for he settled into stillness like a snake in leaves. The enchantress’s face, illuminated in the warm apricot light, wore that same sated look Jenny had seen in the upstairs room at the hunting lodge near the Wildspae—the look of deep content with some wholly private pleasure. Now, as then, it raised the hackles on Jenny’s neck, and at the same time she felt a cold shudder of fear.
Then Zyerne turned her head. She startled, seeing John motionless so near to her; then she smiled. “Well. An enterprising barbarian.” She shook out her unbound, unveiled hair, straying tendrils of it lying against the hollow of her cheek, like an invitation to a caress. “A little late, surely, to be paying calls on the King.”
“A few weeks late, by all I’ve heard.” Aversin scratched his nose self-consciously. “But better late than never, as Dad said at Granddad’s wedding.”
Zyerne giggled, a sweet and throaty sound. Beside her, Jenny felt Gareth shiver, as if the seductive laughter brought memories of evil dreams.
“And impudent as well. Did your mistress send you along to see if Uriens had been entangled in spells other than his own stupidity and lust?”
Jenny heard the hiss of Gareth’s breath and sensed his anger and his shock at hearing the guttersnipe words fall so casually from those pink lips. Jenny wondered why she herself was not surprised.
John only shrugged and said mildly, “No. It’s just I’m no dab hand at waiting.”
“Ah.” Her smile widened, lazy and alluring. She seemed half-drunk, but not sleepy as drunkards are; she glowed, as she had on that first morning in the King’s Gallery, bursting with life and filled with the casual arrogance of utter well-being. The lamp in its tiled niche edged her profile in amber as she stepped toward John, and Jenny felt again the grip of fear, as if John stood unknowingly in deadly danger. “The barbarian who eats with his hands—and doubtless makes love in his boots.”
Her hands touched his shoulders caressingly, shaping themselves to the muscle and bone beneath the leather and plaid. But Aversin stepped back a pace, putting distance between them, rather as she had done in the gallery to Dromar. Like Dromar, she would not relax her selfconsequence enough to pursue.
In a deliberately deepened north-country drawl, he said, “Aye, my lack of manners does give me sleepless nights. But it weren’t to eat prettily nor yet to make love that I came south. I was told you had this dragon eating folks hereabouts.”
She giggled again, an evil trickle of sound in the night. “You shall have your chance to slay it when all is ready. Timing is a civilized art, my barbarian.”
“Aye,” John’s voice agreed, from the dark cutout of his silhouette against the golden light. “And I’ve had buckets of time to study it here, along with all them other civilized arts, like courtesy and kindness to suppliants, not to speak of honor, and keeping one’s faith with one’s lover, instead of rubbing up against his son.”
There were perhaps three heartbeats of silence before she spoke. Jenny saw her back stiffen; when she spoke again, her voice, though still sweet, had a note to it like a harp string taken a half-turn above its true note. “What is it to you, John Aversin? It is how things are done here in the south. None of it shall interfere with your chance of glory. That is all that should concern you. I shall tell you when it is right for you to go.
“Listen to me, Aversin, and believe me. I know this dragon. You have slain one worm—you have not met Morkeleb the Black, the Dragon of Nast Wall. He is mightier than the worm you slew before, mightier than you can ever know.”
“I’d guessed that.” John pushed up his specs, the rosy light glancing off the spikes of his armbands as from spearpoints. “I’ll just have to slay him how I can, seemingly.”
“No.” Acid burned through the sweetness other voice like poisoned candy. “You can not. I know it, if you and that slut of yours don’t. Do you think I don’t know that those stinking offal-eaters, the gnomes, have lied to you? That they refused to give you true maps of the Deep? I know the Deep, John Aversin—I know every tunnel and passage. I know the heart of the Deep. Likewise I know every spell of illusion and protection, and believe me, you will need them against the dragon’s wrath. You will need my aid, if you are to have victory—you will need my aid if you are to come out of that combat with your life. Wait, I say, and you shall have that aid; and afterward, from the spoils of the Deep, I shall reward you beyond the dreams of any man’s avarice.”
John tilted his head a little to one side. “You’ll reward-me?”
In the silence of the sea-scented night. Jenny heard the other woman’s breath catch.
“How is it you’ll be the one to divvy up the gnomes’ treasure?” John asked. “Are you anticipating taking over the Deep, once the dragon’s out of the way?”
“No,” she said, too quickly. “That is—surely you know that the insolence of the gnomes has led them to plot against his Majesty? They are no longer the strong folk they were before the coming of Morkeleb. Those that were not slain are divided and weak. Many have left this town, forfeiting all their rights, and good riddance to them.”
“Were I treated as I’ve seen them treated,” John remarked, leaning one shoulder against the blue-and-yellow tiles of the archway, “I’d leave, myself.”
“They deserved it.” Her words stung with sudden venom. “They kept me from...” She stopped herself, then added, more reasonably, “You know they are openly in league with the rebels of Halnath—or you should know it. It would be foolish to dispose of the dragon before their plots are uncovered. It would only give them a strong place and a treasure to return to, to engage in plotting further treason.”
“I know the King and the people have heard nothing but how the gnomes are plotting,” Aversin replied in a matter-of-fact voice. “And from what I hear, the gnomes up at the Citadel haven’t much choice about whose side they’re on. Gar’s being gone must have been a real boon to you there; with the King half-distracted, he’d have been about ready to believe anything. And I suppose it would be foolish to get rid of the dragon before so many of the gnomes have left the Realm—or some reason can be found for getting rid of the rest of ’em—that they can’t reoccupy their stronghold, if so be it happened someone else wanted the place, that is.”