As with all the stories of the immortals, he had discovered he could only make an ending happy by a careful choice of stopping point. This was a poem in honor of a child-blessing, after all-he could not very well go on to describe the hatred that grew between the Onyenai and Perin's Suraze-mai. Tinwright did not think even Hendon Tolly expected him to cele¬brate young Olin Alessandros' naming day with a poem about one set of royal brothers destroying the children of another royal wife. If Olin or one of the twins ever regained the throne, that would be the kind of thing re¬membered at treason trials.
Treason. As he raised his voice to begin the last stanzas, Tinwright felt cold sweat prickle his forehead again. Let Zosim, god of poets, stand beside him now! Why was he worrying about something as far away as a treason trial? He was planning to do something tonight that could get him be¬headed without any trial at all!
He faltered for a moment, just as Perin was about to throw down his cruel, drunken father. Ordinarily Tinwright didn't think much about the
actual gods except as almost inexhaustible subjects for poetry, but there were moments like this when his childhood terror of them came sweeping back, moments when he stood again in their long cold shadow and knew that someday he must face their judgment.
"Great Sveros, Twilight Lord, roared in his rage,
'How, shall sons spit into their father's face?
My curse shall rain like blood on all this age
And pursue each whelp of my cursed race
Until Time doth all who now live erase.
They bound him then in chains Kernios made
And cast him into dusky vaults of space
To drift unfleshed in sempiternal shade
'Til thought and feeling both should frameless fade…"
His legs shaky, as much from misgiving as from being so long on his feet, he spoke the final lines and Puzzle gave a last flourish on the lute. Tin-wright bowed. As the courtiers lazily followed Hendon Tolly's lead, ap¬plauding and calling a few words of praise, Elan M'Cory rose from her seat beside the guardian of Southmarch and made to go. For a moment Tin-wright caught a flick of her eyes beneath the veil, then Hendon Tolly ex¬tended a hand and stopped her.
"But where are you off to, dear sister-in-law? The poet has labored hard to deliver this work to us. Surely you have a few words of praise for him."
"Let her go," growled Caradon Tolly. "Let them all go. You and I have things to talk about, brother."
"But our poor poet, swooning for want of kind words from fair ladies…" prompted Hendon, grinning.
Elan swayed, and Tinwright had a sudden terror she would crumple, that she would faint and be surrounded by lady's maids, the physician would be called, and all Tinwright s careful plans to free her from her misery would be upset. "Of course, my dear brother-in-law," she said wearily. "I extend my praise and gratitude to the poet. It is always instructive to hear of the lives of the gods, that we mortals can learn to comport ourselves properly." She gave a half a courtesy, then reached out a trembling hand, letting one of her maids support her arm as she made her way slowly out of the room. The murmur of conversation, which had dropped almost to silence, now rose again.
"Thank all the gods my wife is not such a frail flower," Caradon said with his lip curled. "Little Elan has always been the doleful one of that family."
Hendon Tolly beckoned Tinwright forward. He produced a bag that clinked and put it in Tinwright's hands.
"Thank you, Lord Tolly." He tucked it away quickly, without testing the weight-to receive anything other than a blow from this man was a gift in itself. "You are too kind. I am glad my words…"
"Yes, yes. It amused me, and there is little that does so these days. Did you see old Brone squirming when you spoke the part about 'Ever must the blood of tyrants water That free and sovereign soil of our fair honor'? It was very funny."
"I… I didn't notice, my lord."
Tolly shrugged. "Still, it is like spearing fish in a soup bowl. I miss the Syannese court. They are sharp as daggers, there. A good jest is appreciated. Not like here, or in my family's house, which is like dining with the local deacon in some Helmingsea village."
"Enough, Hendon," said Caradon sharply. "Send this warbling phebe away-we have men's talk to talk and your childish festivities have wasted enough of my time."
Tinwright thought the look Hendon gave his brother the duke was one of the strangest he had ever seen, a combination of amusement and deadly loathing. "By all means, elder brother. You may withdraw, poet."
Tinwright, sickened, could tell that Hendon planned to murder his brother someday. He had also seen in that same moment that Caradon him¬self knew it very well, and that the duke probably planned the same for his younger brother. The two of them scarcely bothered to conceal their feel¬ings, even in front of a stranger. How could one family breed such hatred? No wonder Elan wanted to escape them into death.
"Of course," Tinwright said as he quickly backed away. "Going now. Thank you, my lords."
He at least had the small satisfaction of seeing that Erlon Meaher, an¬other court poet who thought much of himself, had been watching his conversation with the two Tollys. Meaher's face was twisted in an unhid¬den grimace of envy and dislike.
"Get yourself some wine, Tinwright," Hendon Tolly called after him. "I'm sure reciting poetry is almost as thirsty work as killing-if not quite as enjoyable."
It was the hardest hour of waiting he had ever experienced. He knocked on her door while the bells were still chiming the end of evening prayers.
Elan M'Cory opened it herself, shrouded in a heavy black robe. She had sent away her servants to protect him, Tinwright realized, and he was sur¬prised again by the intensity of feeling she aroused in him.
It was a touch of lover's madness, surely-the very thing he had written about so many times. He had always felt secretly superior to the sort of lovesick people found in poems, almost contemptuous, but in these last days, as he had come to realize that he could not sleep, eat, drink, stand, sit, or talk without thinking about Elan M'Cory, matters had begun to seem very different. For one thing, although he had alluded in many a poem to the "happy pain" or even the "sweet agony" of love, he had not understood that the agony could be worse than any other sort of agony-worse than any actual pain of the limbs or organs, worse even than the way his head felt after a night out with Hewney and Teodoros, which he had previously thought could not be outdone for misery. And there was no way to sepa¬rate a wounded heart from the body it tormented-no way except death.
He was terrified to realize he now understood Elan's pain very well, al¬though hers had quite a different cause.
He reached out to take her hand but she would not let him. "Let me beg you one last time, my lady-please do not do this." He felt oddly flat. He knew what her response would be, and in fact, he could think of no other way forward at this point except to let the grim machinery turn, but he had to say it.
"You have been a loyal, kind friend, Matt, and I wish nothing more than it could be another way, but there is no escape for me. Hendon will never loose his claws. He savors my pain too much, and he would kill you in an instant if he thought I cared for you. I could not bear that." She hung her head. "Soon Queen Anissa will be his, too, if she is not already-he pays court to her as though she were already widowed. Nobody knows the depths of that man's evil." Elan took a deep breath, then undid the tie of her robe and threw it off, revealing a brilliant blaze that startled him like lightning. She was dressed all in white, like a bride or a phantom.