Frustrated, exhausted, he put his head down on the hammarharp and let his eyes close, just for an instant. His thoughts lost their discipline and began to float about like dust motes in a sunbeam. Then the dust motes became thistledown, and he was lying on the still-green grass of early autumn not far from the charming little town of Gleon Maelhen. He’d seen a purple moon the night before—a true wonder he’d stayed up late into the night to observe. Now he was considering a nap to make up for that, until from off in the hills he heard a melody, played on a shepherd’s pipe. It transfixed him, because it was so beautiful and haunting, yet incomplete . . .
“Fralet Ackenzal—oh, I’ve disturbed you.”
Leoff jerked like a hooked fish, scattering his papers everywhere, realizing in a panic that he’d fallen asleep. If the praifec found him like that and saw what he was doing . . .
But it wasn’t the praifec. It was the lady Gramme.
He stumbled to his feet. “Milady—” he began, all in a rush.
“That’s not necessary,” she said. “I just came to thank you.”
“Then—”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “My men found Mery, just as you said. And I promise you, no harm came to your friend.”
Leoff reflected that he couldn’t be sure of that until he saw Gilmer again, but word had it that the regent’s men were scouring the countryside for the little girl. Gramme had been quick to understand the implications, and had begged him to tell her where Mery was. He’d relented, knowing he was risking his friend’s life, but believing Gilmer and Mery had less to fear from Gramme than from the regent. Once Mery was with her mother, the prince could hardly claim she’d met with foul play at the hand of the queen mother, and if the lady Gramme was discreet, he would never know it was Gilmer who’d watched after her.
“I should like to see her, when it is reasonable,” Leoff said.
“It is reasonable right now,” Gramme replied. “I just wanted to speak with you first, alone. I wanted to know, honestly, why you put yourself at such risk, for no gain I can see.”
Leoff blinked. “I—it just seemed the right thing to do, lady.”
She stared at him, then gave a weary little laugh and before he could react, bent and kissed him gently on the lips. Then she straightened. “Mery’s back in the hall. I’ll send her in.”
He waited, stunned, wondering what had just happened.
Mery came straight to his arms when he saw her, a far cry from the days when she’d hidden in his cabinets.
“How was staying with Gilmer?” he asked her. “Did you enjoy that?”
“He was something of a grump,” Mery allowed, “but he was as nice to me as he could be, I suppose. This one time, we went to the village . . .” He listened as she told him about some adventure of hers, but despite the fact that he was overjoyed to see her, the melody was stuck in his head again, and as she spoke, he began playing at it, the missing notes taunting him like an infuriating itch he couldn’t scratch.
Mery smiled. “That’s pretty,” she said. “May I try it?”
“Of course,” he said. “It’s not finished . . .”
He listened helplessly as she played it—perfectly, of course, but still just as incomplete as his version.
“That’s not quite right, is it?” Mery said.
He stared at her. “No, it’s not,” he said at last.
“What if—?” She glanced up at him, then put her tongue in her cheek, placed her hands on the keys, and pushed them down.
Leoff gasped, absolutely stunned. “Of course,” he murmured. “Saint Oimo, of course.”
“That was better?” Mery queried.
“You know it was,” he said, mussing her hair.
She nodded.
He reached over and gently touched the keys, then did what she’d done—instead of sounding the notes singly as a melody, he played them together, as a chord.
“That’s perfect,” he sighed, as the harmony faded. “Now it’s perfect.”
2
Confluence
Cazio coughed and spit. Through pain-blurred vision he saw bloody spackles appear on the leaves as his head thumped against the ground, and he had an odd sensation of weightlessness, so that for a moment he wondered if he’d been beheaded, instead of struck by the back of a fist.
He briefly considered continuing to lie there, but instead he painfully flopped back to a sitting position—difficult to do with both hands and feet tightly bound.
He lifted his eyes to again regard the man who had struck him. Without his face-concealing helm, the knight looked young—only a few years older than Cazio, perhaps twenty-three or so. His eyes were something between green and brown, and his hair was the color of the dust of the Tero Mefio—not the copper red of Anne’s hair, but a paler and weaker sort of ruddy.
“I apologize,” Cazio said, feeling with his tongue to see if any of his teeth were broken. “I cannot imagine why I called you an honorless, cowardly gelding. How foolish I feel now that you have proved me wrong. But doing is more effective than words, as they say, and nothing proves bravery better than striking a man who is bound and unarmed—unless, perhaps, it is the murder of a woman.”
The man squatted next to him, grabbed him by his hair, and pulled his head back. “Why can’t you shut up?” he asked in thickly accented Vitellian. “By all the ansu together, why can’t you just learn to keep your mouth closed?” He looked over at z’Acatto. “Has he always been this way?”
“Yes,” z’Acatto answered blandly. “Since the day he was born. But you have to admit, he does have a point. That’s why you hit him, because it’s so frustrating when he’s right.”
“I hit him,” the man said, “because I told him to be quiet.”
“Then put a gag in his mouth and spare us all,” z’Acatto said. “You the embarrassment, and him the beatings.”
“Better yet,” Cazio said, pulling his face toward his enemy’s, even at the expense of losing some hair, “why don’t you untie me and give me my sword? How is it that even though you cannot die, you fear to fight me?”
“Are you a knight?” the man asked.
“I am not,” Cazio replied. “But I am Cazio Pachiomadio da Chiovattio, ennobled by birth. What father raised you, who will not fight when he is challenged?”
“My name is Euric Wardhilmson, and my father was Wardhilm Gauthson af Flozubaurg,” the man answered, “knight and lord. And no son of his need favor any ragtag ruffian like you with an honorable duel.” He pushed Cazio’s head back farther, and then released it. “In any event, my men and I have been forbidden from dueling.”
“That’s very convenient,” Cazio said.
“No more convenient than noticing hundscheit in time to step over it,” the knight replied with a nasty smile. “Anyway, it hardly looks like you defeated Sir Alharyi in a duel. It looked more as if someone dropped stones on him from above, then cut his head off while he was down.”
“That would be the gentleman in the gilded armor, back near the coven Saint Cer? The one covered with the murder-blood of the holy sisters? The one who attacked me in the company of another and with the aid of the Lords of Darkness?”
“He was a holy man,” Euric said. “Do not speak ill of him. And if you must know, I am not ansu-blessed as he was. Only one of us at a time is given that honor, and Hrothwulf was the chosen.” He nodded toward another of his captors, a man with hair as black as coal but with skin so fair his cheeks were pink, like a baby’s.
“Well, send him over. I’ll fight him—again, I mean. I’ll sit him down on his ass a second time.”
“I’m starting to like the old man’s suggestion of a gag,” Euric said.
“You haven’t gagged me since I’ve been your captive,” Cazio said. “I don’t imagine you will now.”
Euric smiled. “True. It’s much more satisfying to show you how completely your words don’t bother me.”