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“You know something we should know?” she demanded, and Rosha closed his mouth and banished his mirth. “I’ve seen that stony expression too often lately!” Ligne shrilled and she lashed a foot viciously into his bare shin. Rosha winced briefly at the unexpected pain but didn’t budge from his place by the cage wall. That mask of rock settled immediately back onto his features.

“Talk to me! I demand that you speak! I’ll rip that expression off you…” Ligne tore off the leather hood that covered the head of her falcon, and would have thrust the frightened bird into Rosha’s face had not Kherda and Rosha’s guard caught her by the shoulders and pulled her off.

My Lady! Ligne, please! Control yourself,” Kherda shouted as the woman cursed him and struggled to get free. The falcon fluttered around their heads, beating its wings to keep from falling, while surveying for the first time the rainbow-feathered feast that filled the aviary. Maliff had only lately trained him to the lure, and here was live meat wherever he turned his head none of it further than twenty strong beats of his wings.

The Imperial House watched all this with fascination.

The Queen at last succeeded in controlling her own temper and turned her attention to controlling the falcon. She’d kept a tight rein on its leash primarily because she’d clenched both fists in her rage. Now she looped it again around her left wrist and spoke soothingly into its ears. When she turned her face back up to the others, her lips wore a flippant grin. “I don’t know why I let myself get so angry when you won’t speak to me,” she told Rosha. “Why should I want to listen to you maul the language, stumble over every word, stutter and stammer through the simplest of spec lies

The guard groaned inwardly as he struggled to restrain Rosha’s automatic reaction. This was the hardest part of his job holding the powerful warrior in check when Ligne was in the mood to bait him.

Kherda took a deep breath. “My Lady, if you could leave the lad for just a moment, perhaps we could deal with this play business and I could then leave you to your game.” Kherda ignored Ligne’s sharp look, continuing blithely, “Of course, Maythorm always tends to exaggerate, and he seems rather more addled after this last trip than any previously still, he swears loudly that this play is a masterpiece. The fact that this troupe was at one time connected with Pelmen may be dismissed as entirely coincidental. In my analysis, this event holds no danger whatever. Rather, it would indicate that these players are attempting to win their way back into court favor which implies public acceptance of your legitimacy as ruler. Perhaps you would like for me to issue tham an invitation to court?”

Ligne was still gazing at him when he finished. Her sapphire eyes made no secret of her annoyance. “Must you bother me with such petty details? Can’t you invite this troupe by yourself?” She turned her back on the Prime Minister, effectively dismissing him. Kherda stiffened, and turned his own back on her.

“Kherda,” she said sharply, and he froze. “What are we going to do with this pretty young warrior who can’t seem to talk?” Ligne chuckled at Rosha’s strugglings to get free. It was easy to see that he longed to get his bound hands loose and to wrap them around her throat.

“You know very well what I think you should do with him!” Kherda snarled.

“That’s right. You want to lock him away, don’t you, so that I can’t look at him? You’d prefer me to get my mind back on affairs of state, wouldn’t you? Well remember, Kherda, I am the state now ” She paused and touched Rosha’s shoulder affectionately. ” and this is one affair I can handle all by myself.”

“So you say,” Kherda snorted, “but I’ve yet to see him in your bed ”

Kherda swallowed the rest of his statement, shocked that he would allow himself to be so dangerously familiar.

Ligne’s eyes were on his once more, and Kherda braced himself for the lash of her tongue. Remarkably, it didn’t come. Ligne was smiling instead a girlish, almost modest smile. “Nor will you, when he finally is,” she said, and she raised her eyebrows flirtatiously. Kherda would have preferred the tongue-lashing. She’d just revealed how much she cared for this savage young captive and such affection was dangerous.

“My Lady, the boy’s a killer! He is a consort to your rival, and a known follower of your enemy Pelmen. Lock him away at once, before he wriggles free and strikes you down.”

“Lock him away, Kherda?” Ligne snarled. “Lock him away in my dungeon, so that he can be stolen away in the night, as was my rival? I never have gotten a clear explanation of how that happened, Kherda, Do you have any idea?” Ligne advanced on him menacingly, keeping her voice low to keep Rosha from guessing what had happened to his love. Kherda stepped backward, nearly tripping over the back of a curious peacock that craned its head around

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his knees for a look at the angry Queen. “As to Pelmert, you say he’s far away, in Lamath, no longer any threat. Is that true, Kherda? Do you know that, for certain? Or are you trying to lull me into a false sense of security, plotting against me, just as you once plotted with me?”

“My Lady, you know the measure of my loyalty. I’ve supported you in every way ”

“See that you continue, Kherda! And keep your pointed little nose out of matters that don’t concern you!”

“Yes, my Lady.” He nodded vigorously. “Now get out of my aviary!” she screamed, and he whipped around to obey. He didn’t leave very quickly, however. He knew Ligne well, and had learned always to expect further orders after being abruptly dismissed from her presence. She acted now true to form.

“Kherda,” she yelled, and he turned back to face her. “Anybody in that troupe any good?”

“Ah… I believe… the heavy player Gerrid, Gerrig, something like that…”

“Gerrig, really?” Ligne said, pleased. “I remember him from Shadows of a Night at Sea yes, he will do nicely. Summon his troupe to court.”

“Then you are interested?” Kherda growled. “Of course I’m interested.

Who wouldn’t be intrigued by a masterpiece based on oneself? After all, Kherda I’m only human. Besides, it will certainly be an improvement to listen to someone who can talk without gagging on his own stumbling tongue.”

Ligne jumped at the bellow of rage behind her, and spun to see Rosha hurtling blindly in her direction. Her jibe had caught the guard by surprise. Rosha had jerked the chain leash free from the soldier’s hand and now aimed his hooded head like a battering ram toward the sound of Ligne’s voice. She threw herself out of his path, banging her elbow on the cage bars and crying out in pain. Rosha’s head plowed into the gut of the wide-eyed Prime Minister, knocking him backward, and both of them landed in a heap on the back of the squawking peacock, who suddenly had occasion to rue its own curiosity.

There was a brief whisper of pulsing wings as a brown form shot skyward, then a shriek and a fluttering of colorful feathers. Ligne gasped and looked at her hand in disbe Tie Wizard tn Waiting lief the falcon was no longer bound to her. “Kherda!” she screamed. “Do something!”

But Kherda was locked in a desperate struggle with an aroused peacock, who was intent on clawing his tired face to ribbons. He did not see the brilliant wave of birds flock first to one side of the cage and then to the other to avoid the darting and swooping of the falcon. He did not see the lightning-quick flash of that hunter as it caught and crushed a second exotic show bird, then a third, and a fourth. The falcon was only doing what it had been trained to do and doing it very well.