The balcony was more than ten feet wide, with a waist-high railing. Light streamed up from an array of oil lamps. Mathi wished there had been furniture in the balcony to hide behind, but it was barren. She slid toward the rail on her belly, feeling as if she were casting a shadow twenty feet high behind her. Carefully she approached the rail.
She heard voices. The elf speaking had a low, throaty voice, female but strong.
“-cannot believe it. He must be sending you away to save your life, not to harm you.”
Balif replied in his distinctive voice: “So you say. I have my doubts.”
“If he wanted you dead, you would never have left the Night Chamber,” his unseen companion insisted.
“Your brother is more subtle than that.”
Mathi almost choked on her own breath. Brother? Balif’s secret companion was the Speaker’s sister?
She did not hear part of what was said next. All she made out was “-your chance to win back the Speaker’s favor.”
“Who wants his favor? I enjoyed it for more than a century, and the lies of a convicted criminal were enough to lose it in one day.”
They were directly below her, beneath the overhang of the balcony. Mathi imagined they were at a table dining or seated on some of the few couches remaining in the mansion. She was startled to see Balif emerge from under the balcony wearing nothing. Mathi froze, realizing that she was intruding on a private moment indeed.
Balif went to a delicate amphora perched beside a silver lamp stand made in the form of a mimosa tree. He poured a measure from the vessel. The liquid was dark, not nectar.
“Do you want more?” he asked. The lady said yes. Balif pointedly did not serve her, but held out the amphora for her to help herself.
The mystery guest entered Mathi’s sight, decorously draped in a bit of silk sheet. It was the elder of the two women Mathi had glimpsed at the Tower of the Stars. So she was Silvanos’s sister, the Divine Votress of the Greenwood? Her name, she knew from common knowledge, was Amaranthe. Silvanos had made her Divine Votress, the highest of high priestesses in the land. The Divine Votress was an ancient office usually held by a very old female. Everyone knew Silvanos elevated Amaranthe to the sacred office to prevent her from marrying anyone. There was no one in all of Silvanesti the Speaker deemed worthy of such a close link to the royal family. Imprisoning his sister in the office was typical of the Speaker’s ruthlessness. Since she’d had no choice but to accept the office, Amaranthe evidently did not consider her vow of chastity binding.
She filled her cup and said, “Do as Silvanos commands. In a year or two, the scandal around Vedvedsica will die down, and he will find reason to recall you. Then we shall be together again.”
“And if he doesn’t recall me? Would you leave Silvanost? Could you live in some remote province, far from the city, to be with me?”
There was no hesitation in her answer. “You know I can’t do that.”
“Not even if I wed you before all the world?”
It was a bold offer. For a Divine Votress to marry was unheard of. For a member of Silvanos’s family to marry without his permission would cause a scandal greater than the one driving Balif out of Silvanost.
“I can’t,” Amaranthe repeated with less assurance.
“Can’t. Won’t. The words are different, but the result is the same. I mean less to you than your place near the throne.”
“Don’t play the wounded hero with me! You know how things stand. You know who has the power.”
Balif kissed her gently. “Yes, I know,” he said. “It isn’t us.”
She put her arm around his waist. At once she withdrew it, as if stung. Balif, lost in thought, did not notice. Slowly Amaranthe returned her fingertips to Balif’s back.
“Are you ill?” she asked. He denied it. “There’s something on your skin,” she said, frowning deeply. “Feels like … like hair?”
Mathi was listening so closely that when Amaranthe said that, she slid farther forward so as not to miss a word. Her forehead rapped smartly against the carved railing. Horrified, she ducked down and held her breath.
Balif strode out to the middle of the room and said, “You heard?”
Amaranthe drew the sheet close around her. “Someone is near!”
“Yes, on the balcony!”
If Mathi expected the guilty pair to run away or shrink from harm, she was gravely mistaken. With her cheek pressed hard to the floor, she saw Amaranthe vanish under the balcony. She returned with a wicked-looking dagger. Strange people, Mathi thought, who make love with daggers close at hand!
“Here,” Amaranthe said, putting the pommel of the weapon in Balif’s hand. “Find who it is and kill them.”
Mathi inched backward. Once in the deeper shadows at the rear of the balcony, she could rise and run. She was still prone when Balif leaped from the salon floor and grabbed the bottom of the balcony railing. To Mathi’s terror, he steadily dragged himself up. The dagger was clenched in his teeth.
She had no doubt she would die if the general caught her. Abandoning stealth, she scrambled on all fours into the shadows, creeping along the baseboard into the darkest corner of the empty balcony. She watched in growing alarm as Balif scaled the railing, throwing a lean, bare leg over the top. He took the dagger from his teeth. Staring into the shadows, he looked unerringly in Mathi’s direction.
“Whoever you are, you must die. Stand still, and it will quickly be over.”
Mathi steadied herself to leap. She reckoned she could make the rail in two bounds and be over and down before Balif could reach her. If the Divine Votress was not armed, she could get away and be out the door. It would be the end of her quest, but with luck she might yet redeem herself.
Balif advanced, holding the long dagger like a sword. Against the amber background of the lamplight, his usually blue eyes glowed blood red.
CHAPTER 5
There was a clang from below. Half the light promptly vanished, throwing the expansive room into near darkness. Balif halted his advance. Looking back over one shoulder, he called out, “Was that you, Mara?”
“Yes, curse it! My cloak caught on the candelabra!”
More of the tree of candles went out, tilted as they were at too severe an angle. The princess of Silvanost struggled with guttering lights, hissing maledictions as the hot wax burned her fingers.
“Be still,” Balif said to his lover.
Mathi did not need to be cautioned; she was as still as she ever had been in her life. While Balif’s eyes had been averted, she used her fingers and toes to grip the stone wall behind her. Fortunately it was rough travertine, and she was able to pull herself up with the slightest of holds.
“Is anyone there?” Amaranthe called.
Balif did not answer. He glided through the deep shadows to the spot where Mathi had cowered. She had reached the ceiling and clung there, gazing down at the dim figure of Balif. The dagger gleamed dully.
He swept the air before him with the blade, to Mathi’s great relief. The general could not see her hiding above him. That’s why he struck out so blindly at the shadows.
“Mara, are you dressed?” She said she was. “Raise your cowl and go out to the hall. Wait for me there.”
In a swirl of silk, the Speaker’s sister departed. Balif backed to the rail, dagger held out point first.
“You have escaped with your life, for now. There will be another reckoning later.”