She hoped they could not read the revulsion in the face she had so carefully schooled to be impassive. Kasarian had this right—and females were playing pieces in the intricate intrigues for power.
“The House of Krevanel,” her littermate was continuing, “holds the blood of the Lady Kaylania and therefore possesses a tradition which belongs to that house alone. Any female whelp may state her preference for a mate and none may question it.”
Baron Olderic looked shocked and then frowned. The First Whelp’s lips twisted as if he wished to laugh at the thought of such nonsense. Lord Sincarian made a small movement as if to arise from his chair but did not complete it.
What was Kasarian’s purpose? Liara thought. Did he wish her assent to a future of unbelievable evil, or did he want her heartfelt refusal and so give Sincarian such an insult as would start a feud? If she were to be his piece in some game he should have given her fair warning.
She thought of Kaylania—that legendary lady who had mated with a mage, drawn strange and dangerous blood into their line.
For the first time she spoke, keeping her voice to the monotone expected from a female in male company.
“Does the Lord Sincarian wish to welcome to his hearth one with… with mage blood?”
There was a flicker in her littermate’s eyes, but she could not tell whether that came from surprise or from satisfaction that she had made some point for him.
Sincarian was staring at her and it was plain that she had suddenly presented a problem.
“This one speaks openly of things most men would keep silent,” he said to Kasarian. “Is it that Krevanel now wants all the world to know of its taint? Has dealing with the mages from over the border so set you up in your own estimation? A poorish lot of dabblers they have proved themselves.”
Her littermate spread out his hands palm up, no weapon showing. “All here know what has happened lately when mage strove against mage to open once again the great gate. I am open in my speech, since it is to the honor of my house to be so.”
Baron Olderic nodded as his host paused. “Rightfully so. You are a properly schooled whelp of a line which has long proven its worth to Alix. The Lady”—he deigned to nod at Liara—“also knows her place. You would be a fool, Sincarian, to cross bloodlines with Krevanel. Surely as a breeder of famed hounds you know that. Has not the Baron Kasarian in the years since he ruled in Krevanel made no attempt to take a mate? He is to be honored for his decision. I will so state, even in the high council.” His fist pounded the table and Liara feared the cup of wine would be overset.
She risked a glance at her littermate even as she poured the guesting cup for Sincarian. Oddly enough, she had a strong feeling that her bold words had pleased him, in some way fit into a plan of his. But they certainly did not need another feud. As she handed the cup to Sincarian, he stared at her boldly. His look made her feel as if she stood there unclothed while a chamber rat nosed at her.
The First Whelp hesitated before he took the third cup she poured, as if by accepting it he would be in some way besmirched. Yet when Baron Olderic stared at him, he reached for it in a hurry.
Liara set the ewer in place and folded her hands at her waistline, where the length of the wide sleeves hid them. She found herself turning her precious ring about on her finger, knowing her gesture to be unseen. When would Kasarian dismiss her?
She had long ago learned that patience was one of the female’s weapon-shields, but it did not come to her naturally. This night it threatened to break bonds. Custom or not, nature or not, she concluded that the time had come when she must speak frankly with this littermate of hers, could she get to him privately.
It was easy, so close a watch did she keep upon him now, to catch that slight shift of his eyes toward the guests. Once more touching collar and house badge, she framed the formal words:
“Be safe within, my lords, even as a whelp lies safe beside its dam in the nursing box. The hearthside is at your service.” She inclined her head in their general direction.
They arose as she moved with the proper wide swirl of her skirts toward the door, but she did not look toward even Kasarian again.
Once more she passed swiftly through the halls, and came to the portal of her own domain, where the guards held strict attention and the door bar was drawn at their sergeant’s knock.
There were two slave maids in the outer room and Liara spoke to the nearest.
“Go and see if Whelp Nurse Singala sleeps. If she does not, come and let me know. You, Altara,” she ordered the second, “aid me off with this stifling weight.” She was already plucking at her bodice fastenings.
Liara had managed to rid herself of that cumbersome round of skirts by the time the first maid returned. Altara was carefully pulling out the long, jeweled pins to loose her coils of silver white hair.
“Lady—the whelp nurse wakes. She ate well tonight and is eager to have you come.”
Liara swiftly pulled on the short house robe, let Altara tie back her hair with a ribbon, and then waved both maids to the task of putting away the robes of state she had so swiftly shed.
No one could halt the passage of years. Singala, who had once been so much the reigning force in this part of the keep, now had to keep to her bed—her painful, swollen joints making her more often prisoner than not. But no ache or dust of years had slowed her wits, and to Liara she was as Gannard to Kasarian: an ever-present guard, a keeper of secrets, and perhaps the only one within these walls she might trust in full.
The woman, propped against a fluff of pillows, her badly swollen knee supported by a bolster, was gaunt. Her face appeared as if she were veiled by a webbing of tiny wrinkles. Her gray-white skin looked almost part of a mask, but her green eyes were sharp, clear, and took all attention from the rest of her.
“There is trouble?”
Liara laughed and shrugged. “When is there not in this world?
But this trouble…” Swiftly she told her nurse of the happenings in the banquet hall.
“My littermate plays some game of his own—courses his hounds on secret trails. I—” She reached forward and took Singala’s gnarled fingers into her own, warmer hands and held them close. “You have taught me much, very much. My dam’s littermate, the Baron Volorian, by some grace of fate saw something in me which made him treat me almost like one of his own whelps. I have been at his heels in the kennels, and always I listened and learned. Sin-gala, surely it must be true what was said tonight—those of our house have a strange blood strain. There is this also—I want the Key! It is mine to have for it passes by full honor to the First Female of the Krevanel pack, and that I am! I do not know where my other litter brother’s mate left it when she died. But I have a strange feeling”—she pressed her nurse’s hands even closer—“that in that key there lies something which is mine. And I shall ask Kasarian for it—nor can he by pack oath deny it!”
“Heart Whelp.” Singala might have been speaking as she did years ago when Liara came to her for the comfort or warmth of love. “Your litter brother’s mate never held the Key—for she was of another bloodline. It was laid away with your own dam’s betrothal jewels, which are yours alone.”
“Laid away—the treasure room! Did my dam not have a special casket with a double badge upon it? For she was truly of the house blood, being of the litter of Jaransican, who was of the west branch of Krevanel, now gone.” Liara’s eyes glistened. “So—we have double mage blood, Kasarian and I.”
She should feel fear, the proper revulsion of one who had been touched even so lightly by the evil of that magic which she had been brought up to abhor all her life. But she did not—rather she felt a queer excitement, as if she approached some door and would not find it barred, but swinging to her will.
“You have made me free of many secrets of this house, Singala Warm Heart, and so given me what may be greater than any heritage one can hold in two hands. A year ago I found another secret cabinet in the Lady chamber and in it what was left certain records. Time had eaten them, but there were bits left even I could puzzle out. Now you give me this—the knowledge that I may claim the Key.