The man who was not Lorneth Crownsilver sat as still as stone in the shadowed lee of a moonlit pinnacle not all that far up Starwater Gorge from the tender tryst he was spell-seeing. He smiled much as the real Lorneth would have done.
Little Narantha was a natural, not that the ranger lad was all that unwilling-and so smitten with the moment was he, just now, that the second mindworm had flowed off the end of her tongue and into him without him noticing at all.
Horaundoon smiled up at the moon in quiet triumph. Deftly done, and a good night’s work. The first of many such nights to come, as she obeyed his bidding through the first mindworm coiled within her head, and so slipped more and more under his command.
Ah, with the right spells in his hands, a patient man could rule the world… one seduction at a time.
“Right, King Azoun?” he asked the unhearing moon gleefully.
Dawn had been bright, and the morning moreso. Now, within sight of highsun, the sun beat down as mercilessly as a moneylender’s smile.
Yet it seemed gentle indeed compared to the icily sneering grimace of a grin Lord Maniol Crownsilver gave to the guards he was spattering mud all over as he reined in his mount in front of Tessaril’s Tower.
“Where’s Tessaril?” he barked at them, throwing his reins in the face of the man who stepped to the head of his mount.
“Crave you an audience?” came a level question in answer. Lord Crownsilver swung himself down with a grunt, not deigning to reply. He had swords enough in livery with him to deal with a few tower guards-and if his men had remembered his orders, several hand dartbows would be aimed at each of these helmheads right now.
Lurching from the stiffness of more time spent in the saddle than he was used to these days, he mounted the porch steps. Two Purple Dragons and two knights of the realm barred his way, but he neither slowed nor hesitated-and they drew smoothly aside moments before his striding would have brought him crashing into them.
“You are expected, Lord Crownsilver. Go right up,” one said, as the doors magically opened themselves, taking Maniol’s wordless grunt of reply with him as he stamped to the stairs.
Behind him, he heard his senior guards coldly insisting that they accompanied him everywhere-and gasps as something was revealed that stopped their blustering in mid-word. Not caring whether they slaughtered the tower guards in the street or were all turned to frogs by some war wizard spell or other, he ascended, finding the landing populated with highknights.
“Where’s Tessaril?” he growled at them. They gave him identical looks of disdain and silently lifted their hands to indicate the bower at the far end of the floor.
Maniol passed them without another word or glance, fixing his eyes on the lone woman in high-booted black leathers who sat awaiting him.
“Where’s my daughter?” he barked at her.
“Gone.” Her voice was calm.
“ What? Woman, if you’re lying to me-”
“I can well believe women would oft have cause to lie to you, Lord Crownsilver,” Tessaril Winter said, “if your courtesies are customarily so lacking. The Lady Narantha Crownsilver is no longer within these walls-but the Crown has neither jailed nor hidden her.”
She lifted a hand to point. “She slipped out of a locked and guarded bedchamber-that second door behind you, as it happens-last night. And fled, I know not where. By her own designs.”
“And you let her go? With all your spells and guards and-and-”
“Lord, I am the Lady Lord of Eveningstar, not a jailer. Nor yet a Wizard of War, empowered to use magic at will on a loyal subject of the realm who stands accused of no crime, and is not only noble but enjoys royal favor-”
“ Yes! That’s it! Azoun wants to bed her! You’ve spirited her away-”
“Maniol, guard your tongue. Ranting and raging are one thing; speaking treason quite another.”
“You dare — ?” Maniol strode forward, fists clenched, to loom over Tessaril. “You dare accuse me of treason, and school me what to say and not to say? D’you know who I am, wench?”
Blazing eyes glared down into calm and steady ones.
“Yes, Lord Crownsilver, I do: an unpleasant boor of a man who is at this moment understandably lost in rage-but now demonstrating his lack of nobility. Nobles control themselves, Maniol. Nobles make masks of their faces, and guard their tongues with great care, and do the right thing. For the good of the realm.”
“You jumped-up commoner! You trollop! Preening over an empty title won by letting the man who calls himself ‘king’ plow you thrice a tenday! How dare you lecture me, a Crownsilver born, on what it is, and what it is not, to be ‘noble’! Before all the gods, this bursts all bounds! I-”
“-go on bursting them, Maniol Crownsilver, with every word you spit. Your phrase ‘man who calls himself king’ is clear treason, and I’ll not hear more words like it! Belittle me if it pleases you, berate my guardianship-for you do so justly, and I am ashamed and will answer to the king for it-but spare us all unguarded words that can yet cost you your head!”
She rose to face him, nose to nose, and hissed, “I’m trying to keep you from going too far, idiot! Speak no more treason!”
Maniol sneered, his angry breath hot on her face. “Or you’ll-what?”
“Or I’ll tear off your codpiece with all that’s in it, and jam it into your yapping mouth,” Tessaril told him, letting him see the utter lack of fear in her eyes, “before breaking all of your fingers, dressing you in women’s weeds, and sending you back home to your wife tied to a succession of peddlers’ mules, with a banner knotted to you that tells the world: ‘This fool spoke treason in the hearing of Tessaril Winter.’ ”
She shrugged. “Or I could just let slip my leash on yon highknights and let them cut out your tongue, flog you from here clear across the realm to your keep, and behead you there before all your household, as the good old law still holds that nobles deemed traitors be treated.”
His eyes burned into hers. He was breathing heavily, eyes bright with rage and desperation: the dawning fear that he had said too much and would soon face such fates.
“Or I could regard you as an angry father, driven to imprudent speech by love and care for his daughter, who has served the realm well for years, and just needs rest, a good feast, and time to find some calm,” Tessaril added. “So as to consider what we can best do for Lady Narantha Crownsilver. Wherever she may be.”
Maniol Crownsilver’s gusty sigh became a growl, his eyes glittering. “It’s those cursed Swords, blast and hrast them!” he burst out.
Tessaril shook her head. “No. We’re keeping them under quite close watch.”
“ ‘We’?”
Tessaril pointed, and Lord Crownsilver swung around. No less a war wizard than Laspeera Naerinth stood behind him, in a corner he was certain had been empty a few moments before. She gave him an expressionless nod-over the two wands in her hands that were aimed right at him.
“We,” Tessaril repeated. “Both of us were concerned that Lord Maniol Crownsilver, so valuable and respected a lord of the realm, might in a moment of raging do something foolish, like speak treason or attack a king’s lord.”
Maniol felt her hand-cool and smooth-clasp his. He turned back to her, tugging free of her grasp. She was standing just as close to him as before, their chests almost touching.
“Hear me now, Lord Crownsilver,” Tessaril said. “Narantha’s not with those adventurers-for which you should be very thankful-and they’ve made no attempt to contact her or come here.”
“ I’ll contact them! Where are they?”
“No, Lord Crownsilver,” Tessaril told him, “you’ll not. You’ll take your house blades — all of them, leaving not a one behind ‘by mistake’-and turn around and go home. If your daughter’s not found by highsun on the morrow, the war wizards will start searching for her, all across the realm. I’ll not have armed bands roving Eveningstar, looking for trouble.”