Isuas’s face lights up. She is of course too young to realise the cunning way in which I have just guaranteed our entrance to the Tree Palace as an aid to investigating. Unfortunately Makri isn’t. She grunts at me.
“Forget it, Thraxas. I’m not getting stuck with the kid just so as you can wander about asking questions.”
“Makri will be delighted to help,” I say. “Would tomorrow in the afternoon be a good time to talk to Lady Yestar?”
Isuas nods, and manages to raise a smile. “I’ll have the servants prepare a meal.”
“Excellent, Isuas. Do you think they could rustle me up some beer?”
“Beer? I don’t think we have that at the Tree Palace. But maybe we could send out for some. I know that Mother will be pleased to meet you.”
I doubt that very much.
“I’ve practised what you showed me every day,” says Isuas to Makri before she departs.
Makri places her scroll on a table and looks at me rather wryly.
“Yes, very clever, Thraxas. Now you can enter the Palace as a guest of the Royal Family and make a nuisance of yourself to your heart’s content. Provided you don’t just concentrate on emptying the island of beer, that is. But I’m not playing along. I refuse to teach that kid any more. She’s a hopeless student. Anyway, I don’t like her. It was all I could do not to knock her head off on the ship. I only went along with it because I was bored. There’s plenty of other things I want to do on Avula rather than play nursemaid to the Royal Family’s unwanted runt.”
“I still don’t see why you dislike her so much, Makri. She’s not that bad.”
“I can’t stand the way she’s always bursting into tears. When I was her age tears were punishable by immediate execution. And she keeps falling over. It’s infuriating. And she’s so weedy. Also, it gives me the creeps the way she keeps getting more friendly the more I insult her. It’s not natural. What she needs is a good beating.”
“Are you sure she doesn’t remind you of yourself at her age?”
“What do you mean?” demands Makri. “I was never like that.”
“So you say. But the way you take against her gives me the strong impression that at one time in your life you were an extremely frightened and weak child. And you don’t like being reminded of it.”
“Nonsense,” says Makri, crossly. “Stop trying to be analytical, Thraxas, you’re really bad at it.”
I shrug. “Anyway, if you were teaching her how to fight, wouldn’t that give you some reason for handing out a beating? It would certainly toughen her up.”
“I’ve a reputation to protect,” objects Makri. “You think I want to send her out to fight as my pupil and have all these Elves laugh at her? Think how bad it would make me look. I’m not going to be able to teach her enough in six days to prevent her from being a laughing stock.”
“Don’t forget, she’s been practising every day. She might have improved. Anyway, when it comes right down to it, Lord Kalith and Lady Yestar aren’t going to let her enter the tournament. So just pretend you’re willing. It’ll get me a day or two at the Palace. After the way I outraged Lord Kalith by putting his guards to sleep, I can’t see any other way I’ll get back in.”
The most I can persuade Makri to do is to turn up with me there tomorrow.
“If I end up having to teach her, there’s going to be trouble,” Makri warns me.
“You won’t,” I assure her. “Kalith wouldn’t let Isuas within a mile of any fighting. Okay, you’re laughing about using wooden swords, but these things can still be tough. There were junior tournaments in Turai when I was young. Not big affairs, like they have for Senators’ sons of course, just small affairs for the offspring of the local workers. Prepared us for life in the army. One day I went up against the son of the blacksmith and he broke my arm with a wooden axe. My father was furious. Said I’d let the family down. He made me go back out and fight with my arm in a sling.”
“What happened?”
“I kicked the blacksmith’s son in the groin and then stepped on his face. Which was going a bit far even by the relaxed standards of the tournament. I was disqualified. But my father was pleased with me.”
“Quite right,” says Makri. “I don’t see why they disqualified you. You have to do whatever is necessary.”
Makri tells me some stories of her early fighting experiences, most of which involve inflicting terrible damage on Orcish opponents, all much older and heavier than her. She cheers up. Talking about fighting always puts Makri in a good mood. It must be the Orcish blood. Keeps her savage, even when studying botany.
[Contents]
Chapter Ten
I’m planning to make an early start next day. As the Elves rise late I should be able to examine the scene of the crime without interruption. Unfortunately, after securing another bottle of wine from Camith, I find myself swapping war stories with him late into the night and by the time I wake the sun is overhead and the morning is gone.
“I did not wish to disturb you,” says Camith as I struggle through for a late breakfast. “I know that Turanians are conscientious about their morning prayers.”
“Yes, it often holds me back,” I admit, and settle down to a loaf or two, washed down with the juice of some Avulan fruit I can’t put a name to.
I ask Camith if he knows Gorith-ar-Del.
“I know of him. I don’t believe we have ever spoken. He’s a maker of longbows and lives on the west of the island, where the trees are suitable for his craft.”
“Can you think of any reason why he might be skulking round the Hesuni Tree, looking unfriendly?”
Camith can’t. He’s never heard anything disreputable about Gorith although he is aware of the trouble his relatives found themselves in when they visited Turai.
“I’ve been wondering about this Hesuni Tree, Camith. Just supposing it wasn’t Elith who damaged it, and also supposing it wasn’t just some random act of vandalism, which seems unlikely, what motive might any other Elf have for doing it? I mean, who could gain from it?”
“No one.”
“Are you sure? Makri tells me that not only are all the Avulans connected to it in some way, but the Tree Priests can actually communicate with it.”
“In a way,” agrees Camith. “Though the communication is not what you would have with another Elf. More a sense of the life around the Tree, I believe.”
“What if something dubious was going on on Avula? Might the Tree be able to tell the Tree Priests about it?”
This makes Camith smile. “I do not think so. It’s not that sort of communication.” He looks serious. “Yet there is a relationship. Perhaps the Tree Priest might learn some things that were beyond the ken of other Elves.”
“Which might be motive for someone to try and kill it. Bumping off a witness, so to speak.”
Makri is sceptical. “You can’t get a witness statement from a Hesuni Tree, Thraxas. You’re grasping at straws here.”
“Okay, I’m grasping at straws. But last summer I found myself in conversation with dolphins in Turai, so I’m keeping an open mind about a talking tree. What about this other branch of the family I heard about? The rival claimants to the position of Tree Priest?”
This makes Camith uncomfortable. “There is a rival claimant, Hith-ar-Key. The dispute over the succession goes back some centuries. I believe that their claim is weak but it is not something that would be much discussed, apart from in the Council of Elders.”
“Why not?”
“Any dispute over the Priesthood is calanith to everyone except the Elders and the priestly families. It is up to them to sort it out and no other Elf would interfere or even refer to the matter.”