"Leave your horses here, sirs, and follow me."
They dismounted and tied up their mounts at a rail inside the keep wall. The old soldier led them on through the keep's small and unimpressive main door to the large entry hall. The place was chill and dark, and there was mud on the floor as they stepped in. The sparse rushes in the entryway had not been changed recently. Welstiel had spent too many years living in Droevinkan keeps with his father, and these walls felt distastefully familiar.
"Please wait here, sirs," the old soldier said. "The baron may still be up, but I will need to announce you."
"Of course," Welstiel replied.
He paced, staying clear of the walls and forcing down visions of his father in places such as this. He wanted the entire ordeal to be over. If not for Magiere's foolishness, he would never have been forced to come this far.
"Are you are all right?" Chane asked.
"I'm fine."
"I don't know what you're after in here," Chane said. "So I cannot play out this game for you."
Welstiel straightened. "Be ready to act when I do."
"In what sense?"
"I need to procure documents. Unfortunately, we cannot leave anyone alive who heard my name."
"Then why use the name at all?" Chane asked with some annoyance. "There must have been another way to secure an audience with Buscan."
"We do not have the time to search for him ourselves and kill every guard or servant along the way who sees us. No. We must be granted a private audience, accomplish what is needed, and then leave quietly."
Chane crossed his arms. "Is this Buscan an old friend of yours?"
"Hardly," Welstiel answered. "He has served the Antes for many years. By the time my father requested a specific fief, Buscan granted it, out of fear as much as anything else. Everyone was terrified of my father. " He paused. "Was your father feared?"
"Not by the nobles," Chane answered. "Most of those in Belaski found him charming."
The old soldier trotted back down the hall, lantern in hand, and gestured to them. "This way, sirs."
Wynn stayed close to the campfire that night as Leesil and Magiere crawled into the wagon's bed to sleep. Magiere insisted there was room for all, which was true enough, but Wynn preferred privacy for herself and for them. She assured Magiere that she would be fine by the fire with Chap beside her. Leesil and Magiere whispered to each other for a while. Wynn neither wanted nor was able to hear what they said, and shortly they settled quietly to sleep.
Wynn worked a little longer on her account of the Mondyalitko. It was distracting and less disquieting than her notes concerning Magiere. When she looked up from her work, Chap had crawled close, lying with his head on his paws. She closed up the journal, binding the parchments into their leather cover, and scooted next to him across her blanket spread upon the ground.
His crystalline eyes were full of sorrow.
"I wish you would tell me what is wrong," she whispered.
Chap blinked once but offered nothing more. His long fur was becoming matted, and she would need to brush him come morning. Wynn reached into her pack, pulling out a piece of smoked mutton she had saved from the last breakfast at Lord Stefan's manor.
"I do not care for meat," Wynn said. "I was saving this for your breakfast, but you might like it now."
Chap raised his head with a grunt, and she tore pieces for him to chew upon. When the snack was gone, he laid his head back on his paws. Whatever troubled him could not be fixed with a tasty morsel.
"I saw you in the forest before you healed my sight," Wynn said. "You were part of both worlds at the same time, your kin's and ours. I do not understand what you did to take this form, but it cannot be easy to be trapped between worlds all alone."
She gathered his head in her arms. He resisted at first, then shoved his entire face into her stomach.
"You do not have to be alone," she said. "Someday, you will tell us why you are here."
Wynn stroked Chap's head until the fire burned down to glowing coals of orange.
Chane expected the old soldier to lead them to some great conference hall and was surprised when they were escorted into a side passage and up a narrow staircase. At its top was a corridor running both ways. Directly across from it was a plain door. The soldier opened it and ushered them in before retreating, closing the door behind him.
It was a small room of polished wood walls, furnished more comfortably than what Chane had seen of the castle so far. Thick rugs of local weave covered the floor, and a painting of armored cavalry racing though the Droevinkan forest hung upon the rightmost wall. The sight of such artwork in this dismal country seemed garishly out of place.
Candles as thick and tall as his forearm were ht around the room upon small tables or stands of iron. Two large mahogany chairs sat by a small fireplace that must have been constructed in more recent times. Keeps this old rarely held more than the one hearth in a main hall. A small desk sat to the right of the hearth, and a narrow bookcase to its left. On a table beside the chairs were a quill and inkwell.
In those chairs sat a man and a woman. Chane assumed the former was Baron Cezar Buscan. He was enormous in height and girth, and wore a dark blue night robe that stretched around his middle. His bush of a black beard reached his chest, but his head was shiny and bald except for a circlet of dark hair running around back between his temples. His ruddy complexion reminded Chane of his father's wealthy friends who drank too much brandy.
The woman was such a stark contrast that she put Chane on guard. In both his mortal and undead existence, he had known many lovely women. Sitting near Buscan was the most striking beauty he'd ever seen. She stood up to greet the two visitors.
Neither slight nor voluptuous, her small stature was distinctly curved beneath a silk, coffee-brown dress, unusually light for this chill country, cut to resemble a robe and sealed down the front by a long row of brass clasps. A scarlet cord tied about her waist. The first two clasps were unfixed, leaving her exposed from her throat to the tops of her breasts. A teardrop bloodstone hung upon a brass chain about her neck and rested in the hollow of her cleavage. Her dark red hair was not dressed like a lady of court, but hung past her shoulders in a thousand spirals. Green eyes watched Chane below a smooth brow.
She smiled a greeting with one finger tracing the edge of her neckline, causing it to dip briefly.
Lord Buscan rose with some difficulty. He was older than Chane had guessed.
"Welstiel?" Buscan said.
The baron paused too long, eyeing Chane's companion, as if doubting his own eyes. Chane looked at Welstiel and realized what troubled the baron. If it had been many years since Welstiel's last presence in this land, how much had the baron aged since those days to now stand before someone who appeared not to have aged at all?
"It has been so long, we thought you dead," Buscan said. "You look… quite well. " He gestured to the woman, voice tinged with pride. "Osceline, my consort."
The woman smiled again, her tiny teeth white and perfect. She bowed her head slightly without taking her eyes off the visitors.
Welstiel stepped closer, picking up the feather quill on Buscan's chair-side table to examine it.