She removed the blindfolds and, blinking in the brightness, saw with no surprise at all that it was Finn again. As if from far away she heard the voices of the adults watching them, and further still she heard a roll of thunder, but she looked only at Finn. He seemed more alone every time. She would have been sad, but it seemed so destined that sadness didn’t fit, nor any sense of surprise. She didn’t know what the Longest Road was, or where it led, but she knew it was Finn’s, and that she was calling him to it.
Later that afternoon, though, something did surprise her. Ordinary people never went to the sanctuary of the Mother, certainly not at the direct request of the High Priestess herself. She combed her hair and wore her only gown; her mother made her.
When Sharra dreamed now of the falcon, it was no longer alone in the sky over Larai Rigal. Memory burned in her like a fire under stars.
She was her father’s daughter, though, heir to the Ivory Throne, and so there was a matter to be looked into, regardless of fires in her heart or falcons overhead.
Devorsh, Captain of the Guard, knocked in response to her summons, and the mutes admitted him. Her ladies murmured behind fluttering fans as the tall Captain made obeisance and gave homage in his unmistakable voice. She dismissed the women, enjoying their chagrin, and bade him sit in a low chair by the window.
“Captain,” she began, without preamble, “certain documents have come to my attention raising a matter I think we must address.”
“Highness?” He was handsome, she conceded, but not a candle, not a candle. He would not understand why she was smiling; not that it mattered.
“It seems that the archival records make mention of stone handholds cut many years ago in the cliff above Saeren due north of us.”
“Above the river, Highness? In the cliff?” Polite incredulity infused the gravelly voice.
“I think I said that, yes.” He flushed at the rebuke; she paused to let it register. “If those handholds exist, they are a danger and we should know about them. I want you to take two men you trust and see if this is true. For obvious reasons”—though she knew of none—“this is to be kept very quiet.”
“Yes, Highness. When shall I—”
“Now, of course.” She rose, and so, of necessity, did he.
“My lady’s will.” He made obeisance and turned to go.
And because of the falcons, the moon-touched memory, she called him back. “Devorsh, one thing more. I heard footsteps in the garden the night before last. Did you notice anything by the walls?”
His face showed real concern. “Highness, I went off duty at sundown. Bashrai took command from me. I will speak to him of this without delay.”
“Off duty?”
“Yes, Highness. We take turns, Bashrai and myself, in leading the night watch. He is most competent, I suggest, but if—”
“How many men patrol the walls at night?” She leaned on the back of a chair for support; there was a pressure behind her eyes.
“Twelve, Highness, in peacetime.”
“And the dogs?”
He coughed. “Ah, no, my lady. Not of late. It was felt unnecessary. They have been used on the hunt this spring and summer. Your father knows about this, of course.” His face was animated by unconcealed curiosity. “If my lady feels they should—”
“No!” It was intolerable that he be in the room another moment, that he continue to look at her like this, his eyes widening in appraisal. “I will discuss this with Bashrai. Go now and do as I have told you. And quickly, Devorsh, very quickly.”
“I go, my lady,” he said in the distinctive voice, and went. After, she bit her tongue, tasting blood, so as not to scream.
Shalhassan of Cathal was reclining on a couch, watching two slaves wrestling, when word was brought to him. His court, hedonistic and overbred, was enjoying the sight of the oiled bodies writhing naked on the floor in the presence chamber, but the King watched the fight, as he heard the news, expressionlessly.
Raziel appeared just then in the archway behind the throne with the cup in his hand. It was mid-afternoon then and, taking the drink, Shalhassan saw that the jewelled goblet was blue. Which meant that the northerner’s stone still shone as it should. He nodded to Raziel, who withdrew, their private ritual observed, as every day it was. It would never, ever do for the court to find out that Shalhassan was troubled by dreams of red wardstones.
Turning his thoughts to his daughter, Shalhassan drank. He approved her headstrong nature, indeed he had nurtured it, for no weakling dared sit on the Ivory Throne. Tantrums, though, were irresponsible, and this latest… Tearing apart her chambers and whipping her women were one thing; rooms could be restored and servants were servants. Devorsh was a different matter; he was a good soldier in a country with remarkably few, and Shalhassan was not pleased to hear that his Captain of the Guard had just been garrotted by his daughter’s mutes. Whatever the insult she might say he had given her, it was a rash and precipitate response.
He drained the blue cup and came to a decision.
She was growing too undisciplined; it was time to have her married. However strong a woman might be, she still needed a man by her side and in her bed. And the kingdom needed heirs. It was past time.
The wrestling had grown tedious. He gestured and the eidolath stopped the fight. The two slaves had been brave, though, he decided, and he freed them both. There was a polite murmur from the courtiers, an approving rustle of silk.
Turning away, he noticed that one of the wrestlers was a little tardy in his obeisance. The man may have been exhausted, or hurt, but the throne could not be compromised. At any time, in any way. He gestured again.
There were appropriate uses for the mutes and their garrottes. Sharra would just have to learn to discriminate.
The knowledge of approaching death can come in many shapes, descending as a blessing or rearing up as an apparition of terror. It may sever like the sweep of a blade, or call as a perfect lover calls. For Paul Schafer, who had chosen to be where he was for reasons deeper than loss and more oblique than empathy for an aged King, the growing awareness that his body could not survive the Summer Tree came as a kind of relief: in this failure, at least, there could be no shame. There was no unworthiness in yielding to a god.
He was honest enough to realize that the exposure and the brutal heat, the thirst and immobility were themselves enough to kill him, and this he had known from the moment they bound him.
But the Summer Tree of Mörnirwood was more than all of these. Naked upon it in the blaze of day, Paul felt the ancient bark all along the planes of his body, and in that contact he apprehended power that made what strength he had its own. The Tree would not break him; instead he felt it reaching out, pulling him into itself, taking everything. Claiming him. He knew as well, somehow, that this was only the beginning, not even the second night. It was scarcely awake.
The God was coming, though. Paul could feel that slow approach along his flesh, in the running of his blood, and now there was thunder, too. Low yet, and muted, but there were two whole nights to come and all about him the Godwood vibrated soundlessly as it had not for years upon years, waiting, waiting for the God to come and claim his own, in darkness and forever, as was his due.
The genial proprietor of the Black Boar was in a mood that bade fair to shatter his public image entirely. Under the circumstances, however, it was not entirely surprising that his countenance should display a distinctly forbidding mien as he surveyed his demesne in the morning light.