Tim pursed lips and squinted. “There were no witnesses?”
Geros shook his head. “Only the bum boy. What I got out of him on the spot was little—he was verging on hysteria—and seemed to back up Myron’s lies. And when I wanted to question him the next morning, he was nowhere to be found. It was nearly two weeks before Moorahd, the hall hunter, hauled what was left of the corpse out of the north forest. A hot summer that was and the body was ripe, and animals had been at it till there was no way to tell just what had killed him. We only knew it was the runaway by a silver torque Myron had given him.”
“Very convenient … for somebody,” grunted Tim. “So now, the only way we can get at the truth is to put dear half-brother Myron to the question. And if the man he is be as stubborn as the child he was it would have to be rather severe questioning. Hmmm.”
A grin split Geros’ face almost from ear to ear. “Ah, Tim, it will do these ears good to hear that strutting, buggering popinjay howl! Of course, your father’s Room of Truth has not been used in some years, but I doubt not it can be put to rights quickly enough, and …”
Tim grimaced. “And we’d have the archduke, possibly even the prince as well, down around our ears before the echoes had died. We must never forget that this isn’t a northern burk but a duchy of the Confederation, wherein, what we have here contemplated is illegal; not even the High Lords, up in Kehnooryos Atheenahs, can put a Confederation nobleman to the torture without ironbound proof of wrongdoing.”
The young captain smashed scarred knuckles into horny palm. “Why? Why could there not have been one living witness? The deed must’ve been planned long and carefully to have been carried off so cleanly.”
Then he fell silent. A dim, almost imperceptible far-speak was nibbling within his mind: “But there was another witness. Brother Tim, and Sir Geros is right, it was murder—pure and simple. No, brother, do not try to range me, please—there are other secret mindspeakers in your hall. And do not expect me to make myself known or to reveal what I saw until you have made it safe for me to do so.”
And the fleeting contact was gone, like a wisp of morning mist.
“Who are the mindspeakers, here, Geros?” asked Tim. “How many of them are ours?”
Geros frowned. “Beyond any doubt, the best is your brother, Lord Ahl. You must recall that he always was far above average in that faculty, and it has been improved by a couple of years of training at the Institute in Kehnooryos Atheenahs and the year he lived at the duke’s court. But my daughter, Mairee, is almost his peer in mindspeak … and the two are seldom parted; he even took her to the capital with him, and the duke seems to think highly of her.”
“And,” grinned Tim, shamelessly picking thoughts from the older man’s mind, “you know how she feels toward my brother and are thinking that Ahl would not prove a bad son-in-law, eh?”
Though red with embarrassment, Geros nodded vigorously. “Lord Ahl could do worse, Tim. Blind as he is the Kindred will never accept him tahneestos. But he has the wisdom to make a fine town lord, and my baronetcy in Morguhn boasts a fine little town, and, since my stepson and both my natural sons died, Mairee is my only heir.”
Tim nodded emphatically. “No need to convince me, old friend. I think it a marvelous idea, not to mention a stroke of pure luck for Ahl. I agree he’d be a better town lord than perhaps anything else; neither custom nor law requires a town lord to be sound of body himself, just to maintain a few Freefighters and a ready levy under a loyal and efficient captain.”
“But back to this question of mindspeakers, Geros …”
“Master Tahmahs and most of his grooms are good to fair, of course, Tim.”
Tim nodded. “Yes, good horse handlers have to be.”
Geros went on, “There are many with middling mindspeak, like mine own, among the servants and the soldiers, though definite eye contact is necessary to range most of them.”
“How of Mehleena and her litter?”
Geros looked the disgust he so strongly felt. “If she herself has any at all, she’ll not ever own to it, since her damned priest says that any who can use that ability are witches and damned of his crucified god.”
Tim snorted a short, harsh laugh. “That any of that accursed, traitorous pack should accuse normal Kindred of ‘witchcraft’ surely surpasses sane understanding. But, pray continue.”
“Well, Tim, as to the piglets: Whenever the bitch has the chance to talk to Vawn or Morguhn Kindred, she’s always prating about the mindspeak ability of Myron, but he’s got no more than have I. Treena, the eldest girl, has none, and neither does Speeros, her year-younger brother. As for the two youngest, Maia and little Behti, it’s possible they’re more of Vawn than the rest—at least they look like they are, and, when the bitch or the others aren’t about, they act more like they are, too.”
“Sun and Wind alone know just what talents that damned Neeka owns, and …”
Suddenly there was a quick, measured series of knocks against the outer door and Geros opened it a crack, then closed it and turned back. “There’s no more time for talk, Tim. The majordomo is hotfooting it out here, and Lord Ahl has come down to break his fast. I’d best let him know you’ve arrived.”
3
The edifice known as Vawn Hall was new, as structures went in this ancient land; its construction had been started at the close of the great Ehleen rebellion and finished only a few years before the death of Hwahltuh Sanderz, first thoheeks of the new line, all the original Vawns having fallen under the dripping blades of the rebels.
Like all the older halls, it faced east—toward the rising point of Sacred Sun—the main building rising three stories aboveground and descending four levels of cellars below. A wide, spacious, flag-paved courtyard fronted the broad stone stairway leading up to the entry. The courtyard was bounded on either side by lines of small, low-ceilinged cubicles built against the twelve-foot granite walls. Opposite the hall stood the squat, two-story stable-cum-barrack-cum-gatehouse. To the west of the main structure was a smaller court, likewise walled, with the castellan’s neat home snuggled into one corner and the kitchen—with its huge hearths and cavernous ovens and soaring chimneys—in the other.
Just beyond the postern gate lay a well-appointed yard for the exercise of arms skills, with the summer smithy on one side of it and the hall privies facing. Around and about the hall stretched the rolling, grassy leas, across which ambled the hall horses and a herd of milk cows with sheep and goats in the near distance. In the fringes of the oak woods, a half mile distant—for Thoheeks Hwahltuh, ever mindful of the fate that befell his predecessor, had cleared all woods and brush within four arrow flights of his hall—rooted and foraged half-wild swine.
Having interbred countless times with the huge, indigenous boar tribe, these “domestic” hogs ran to lean strength and such fearsome ferocity that only starving wolves or a ravenous bear or the occasional mountain cat would brave their porcine rage. But they had learned to fear two-legs on horses, for this was how they were taken in the fall, by two-legs on horses, armed with lances and bows and ropes.
Farther into the forest ranged deer and elk, and, more rarely seen, wild cattle—called “shaggy bulls” in the Middle Kingdoms, huge and fierce and dangerous if provoked; they were roan or dusty black, dark brown or sometimes whitish, but both sexes equipped with wide-flaring, needle-tipped horns and the strength and speed to use them to awesome effect. Rabbits scuttled through the underbrush, sometimes pursued by weasel or bobcat, wolf or fox, while squirrels chattered from the trees above.