“Enough!” the Prince snapped. “Don’t push me, Loren.” The two men exchanged a tense look.
When Diarmuid spoke again, though, it was in a milder tone. “I did apologize, Loren, do me some justice.” After a moment, the mage nodded.
“Fair enough,” he said. “We don’t have time to quarrel, in any case. I need your help. Two things. A svart attacked us in the world from which I brought these people. It followed Matt and me, and it was wearing a vellin stone.”
“And the other thing?” Diarmuid was instantly attentive, drunk as he was.
“There was a fifth person who crossed with us. We lost him. He is in Fionavar—but I don’t know where. I need him found, and I would much prefer that Gorlaes not know of him.”
“Obviously. How do you know he is here?”
“Kimberly was our hook. She says she had him.”
Diarmuid turned to fix Kim with an appraising stare. Tossing her hair back she met the look, and the expression in her own eyes was more than a little hostile.
Turning without reaction, the Prince walked to the window and looked out in silence. The waning moon had risen—overly large, but Jennifer, also gazing out, did not notice that.
“It hasn’t rained while you were gone, by the way,” said Diarmuid. “We have other things to talk about. Matt,” he continued crisply, “Coll is in the last room on the left. Make sure Tegid is asleep, then brief him. A description of the fifth person. Tell Coll I’ll speak with him later.” Wordlessly, Matt slipped from the room.
“No rain at all?” Loren asked softly. “None.” “And the crops?”
Diarmuid raised an eyebrow without bothering to answer. Loren’s face seemed molded of fatigue and concern. “And the King?” he asked, almost reluctantly.
Diarmuid paused this time before answering. “Not well. He wanders sometimes. He was apparently talking to my mother last night during dinner in the Great Hall. Impressive, wouldn’t you say, five years past her death?”
Loren shook his head. “He has been doing that for some time, though not in public before. Is there… is there word of your brother?”
“None.” The answer this tune was very swift. A strained silence followed. His name is not to be spoken, Kevin remembered and, looking at the Prince, wondered.
“There was a Gathering,” Diarmuid said. “Seven nights past at the full of the moon. A secret one. They invoked the Goddess as Dana, and there was blood.”
“No!” The mage made a violent gesture. “That is going too far. Who summoned it?”
Diarmuid’s wide mouth crooked slightly. “Herself, of course,” he said.
“Jaelle?”
“Jaelle.”
Loren began pacing the room. “She will cause trouble, I know it!”
“Of course she will. She means to. And my father is too old to deal with it. Can you see Ailell on the Summer Tree now?” And there was a new thing in the light voice—a deep, coruscating bitterness.
“I never could, Diarmuid.” The mage’s tone had suddenly gone soft. He stopped his pacing beside the Prince. “Whatever power lies in the Tree is outside my province. And Jaelle’s, too, though she would deny it. You have heard my views on this. Blood magic, I fear, takes more than it gives back.”
“So we sit,” Diarmuid snarled, stiff anger cracking through, “we sit while the wheat burns up in fields all over Brennin! Fine doings for a would-be royal house!”
“My lord Prince”—the use of the title was careful, admonitory—“this is no ordinary season, and you do not need me to tell you that. Something unknown is at work, and not even Jaelle’s midnight invocations will redress the balance, until we touch what lies beneath.”
Diarmuid sank into one of the chairs, gazing blankly at the dim tapestry opposite the window. The wall torches had almost burnt out, leaving the room webbed with lighter and darker shadows. Leaning against the window ledge, Jennifer thought that she could almost see the threads of tension snaking through the darkened spaces. What am I doing here, she thought. Not for the last time. A movement on the other side of the chamber caught her eye, and she turned to see Paul Schafer looking at her. He gave a small, unexpectedly reassuring smile. And I don’t understand him, either, she thought, somewhat despairingly.
Diarmuid was on his feet again by then, seemingly unable to be still for any length of time. “Loren,” he said, “you know the King won’t come tonight. Did you—”
“He must! I won’t let Gorlaes have—”
“Someone’s here,” Paul said sharply. He had quietly ended up in Mart’s post by the door. “Five men, three with swords.”
“Diarmuid—”
“I know. You haven’t seen me. I won’t be far,” and the heir to the throne of Brennin leaped in a rustle of cloth and a moonlit flash of yellow hair through the window, reaching out, almost lazily, for a handhold on the wall outside. For God’s sake, Kevin thought.
Which was all he had time for. Vart, the surly guard, appeared in the doorway. When he saw that Matt was nowhere to be seen, a thin smile flicked across his face.
“My lord the Chancellor,” Vart announced.
Kevin wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it wasn’t what he saw. Gorlaes, the Chancellor, was a big, broad-shouldered, brown-bearded man of middle years. He smiled generously, showing good teeth as he came sweeping in. “Welcome back, Silvercloak! And brightly woven, indeed. You have come in the very teeth of time—as ever.” And he laughed. Loren, Kevin saw, did not.
The other man who came in, an armed aide close beside him, was stooped and very old. The King? Kevin wondered, for a brief, disoriented moment. But it was not.
“Good evening, Metran,” Loren said deferentially to this white-haired new arrival. “Are you well?”
“Well, very well, very, very,” Metran wheezed. He coughed. “There is not enough light in here. I want to see,” he said querulously. A trembling arm was raised, and suddenly the six wall torches blazed, illuminating the chamber. Why, Kim thought, couldn’t Loren have done that?
“Better, much better,” Metran went on, shuffling forward to sink into one of the chairs. His attendant hovered close by. The other soldier, Kim saw, had placed himself by the door with Vart. Paul had withdrawn towards Jennifer by the window.
“Where,” Loren asked, “is the King? I sent Vart to advise him I was here.”
“And he has been so advised,” Gorlaes answered smoothly. Vart, in the doorway, snickered. “Ailell has instructed me to convey his greetings to you, and your—,” he paused to look around, “—four companions.”
“Four? Only four?” Metran cut in, barely audible over a coughing fit.
Gorlaes spared him only the briefest of glances and went on. “To your four companions. I have been asked to take them under my care as Chancellor for the night. The King had a trying day and would prefer to receive them formally in the morning. It is very late. I’m sure you understand.” The smile was pleasant, even modest. “Now if you would be good enough to introduce me to our visitors I can have my men show them to their rooms… and you, my friend, can go to your richly deserved rest.”
“Thank you, Gorlaes.” Loren smiled, but a thin edge like that of a drawn blade had come into his voice. “However, under the circumstances I count myself responsible for the well-being of those who crossed with me. I will make arrangements for them, until the King has received us.”
“Silvercloak, are you implying that their well-being can be better attended to than by the Chancellor of the realm?” There, too, Kevin thought, his muscles involuntarily tensing: the same edge. Though neither man had moved, it seemed to him as if there were two swords drawn in the torchlit room.
“Not at all, Gorlaes,” said the mage. “It is simply a matter of my own honor.”