“But I didn’t mean—” Giogi began to say.
“I will not accept your overindulgences with alcohol as an excuse for divulging our family’s problems, nor for sleeping when you should be performing some task that will aid in the spur’s recovery. The only person with any excuse for resting on this day is Gaylyn. And Amber, of course. Even Frefford has assigned himself a task. He is investigating every stranger in town who might possibly be a long-lost relation and our thief.”
Giogi’s exhaustion got the better of his temper. “What about Julia? Why not just have her listen at the door of the thieves’ guild?” he asked sarcastically.
Aunt Dorath’s brow knit in annoyance. Her reaction was a clue to her great-nephew that she already had some inkling of Julia’s eavesdropping. The old woman recovered her lost ground quickly, though. “Julia,” she replied frostily, “is seeing to the arrangements for Cousin Drone’s memorial service. Now, what do you propose to do in what time remains today?”
Well, Giogi thought, straightening up, here goes. “I plan to discover the spur’s secret powers,” he announced.
“The spur doesn’t have any secret powers,” Aunt Dorath snapped.
“Oh, but it does,” Giogi insisted. “My father used the spur’s powers whenever he went adventuring.”
Aunt Dorath gave a little gasp and sank into the rocking chair. “Who told you that?” she demanded. “It was Cousin Drone, wasn’t it? I should have realized his oath was not to be trusted.”
“Uncle Drone didn’t tell me, Aunt Dorath,” the nobleman insisted. Angry with the old woman for keeping his father’s adventuring a secret from him, Giogi felt spite take hold of him. “Actually, it’s common knowledge,” he taunted. “They talk about it in every tavern in Immersea.”
Aunt Dorath leaned forward in the rocker and poked Giogi in the rib with her finger. “This is not a joking matter,” she reprimanded him.
“No,” Giogi agreed, feeling bad for trying to shock her. “It is a family matter, though.” He bent over his aunt and put his hands on her shoulders. “I have a right to know about my father,” he said vehemently. “You should have told me.”
Aunt Dorath glared up at him. “All right,” she replied hotly. “Cole used to tramp about the countryside in the company of rogues and ruffians, and whenever he left, he took the spur from the crypt. Not that I blame Cole. Your Uncle Drone, to his everlasting guilt, aided him, and Cole hadn’t the force of will to resist the spirit of that she-beast. She used those awful dreams to seduce him from his family’s side.”
“She-beast?” Giogi asked. “Do you mean the guardian?”
Dorath’s voice rose sharply as she retorted. “Of course I mean the guardian. What other she-beast lurks in our family?”
Giogi bit the inside of his cheeks and fought back his urge to reply.
“Who else,” Dorath asked, “is always babbling about the death cry of prey, or the taste of warm blood, or the crunch of bone?”
“She’s talked to you, too?” Giogi squeaked in astonishment.
“Of course she’s talked to me, you fool,” the old woman replied. “You don’t imagine that out of fifteen generations of Wyvernspurs you were the only child ever locked down in that crypt by accident, do you?”
Amber gurgled and squawked in her cradle, and Aunt Dorath rose to pat the infant reassuringly. Frefford’s daughter quieted.
“Do you have the same dreams, too?” Giogi asked.
For a moment, it looked as if some fearful memory disturbed Aunt Dorath’s composure, but she shook her head once, the way a horse would to dislodge a gadfly, and her face grew calm. “I had them once,” she admitted softly, then added more sternly, “but I ignored them, as would any well-bred young woman.”
“But they don’t go away,” Giogi whispered.
Aunt Dorath turned from the cradle and put her hands on Giogi’s shoulders. “You must keep ignoring them,” she insisted, giving him a shake. “You are a Wyvernspur. You belong with your family in Immersea. All that gadding about the Realms with the spur got your father was killed.”
“He didn’t die from a riding accident like you said, did he?” Giogi accused the old woman. “How did he die?”
“How do all adventurers die? Fell monsters hunt them. Ruthless bandits slaughter them. Evil wizards turn them to dust. It didn’t make any difference to me. Cole was dead. He died far too young and far too far from home. Your Uncle Drone fetched his body back. We never discussed how he died. My only concern was that it should not happen again.”
“I need to know the spur’s power,” Giogi said. “It could be a clue to who the thief is.”
“No,” Dorath answered. “It’s not. Even if it were, I wouldn’t tell you.”
Giogi sighed with exasperation. “Aunt Dorath, I don’t want to use the spur,” he insisted. “I just want to know what it does.”
Aunt Dorath shook her head in refusal. “I’m doing this for your own good, Giogi. I won’t watch another member of our family destroyed by that cursed thing.” She turned back to the cradle and readjusted the blankets around the baby.
“If you won’t tell me, Aunt Dorath, I shall have to find out from someone else,” Giogi threatened.
“There is no one else,” his aunt said, stroking Amber’s hand with her finger.
Giogi racked his brain for an idea of who could tell him about the spur.
“I’m the last member of the family who knows,” Aunt Dorath whispered down to the baby.
“Then I’ll have to ask an outsider,” Giogi said. It came to him suddenly. There was someone who’d known his father, someone who’d promised to talk more about him. Someone his aunt would hate to think of as telling him the family secrets. “I’ll have to ask Sudacar,” he said.
Aunt Dorath whirled and glared at Giogi. “That upstart?” She sniffed. “What could he possibly know? He doesn’t swallow without advice from his herald.”
“He met Cole at court. He knows all about Cole’s adventures,” Giogi answered, hoping it were really true.
Aunt Dorath’s eyes narrowed into slits. Giogi could tell she was calculating what Sudacar knew. She called her kinsman’s bluff. “Go ahead,” she said. “Ask Samtavan Sudacar. You’ll be wasting your time, though.”
“I will ask him,” Giogi retorted. “Right now.” He leaned over and stroked Amber’s little ear before turning about and striding from the nursery. “Good afternoon, Aunt Dorath,” he whispered as he left.
11
Selûne’s Stair
Samtavan Sudacar finished studying the last document in the cord of parchments Culspiir had piled before him. “Depleting resources necessitate troop inactivity,” he read aloud, though he was alone. He ran his fingers through the graying hair at his temples. Reading reports such as this one was turning his dark hair gray, he decided.
He read the phrase over again as if it were a riddle, which indeed it was to him. Suddenly he pounded his meaty fist on his desktop and chuckled with understanding.
“That boy has a way with words,” he sighed, shaking his head. While he admired his herald’s bureaucratic skills, there were times the local lord felt it would be better if Culspiir weren’t so clever that he made himself misunderstood.
In the document’s margin, beside the passage he’d just read, Sudacar scrawled: Azoun, I can’t send these boys out patrolling in freezing rain with nothing but watery porridge in their stomachs. I need those food rations!!!