House of Shadows (35 page)

Now she waited, alone, in a great echoing chamber with walls as thick as those of a tomb and no amenities to soften its stark chilliness. In its own way, this room was as intimidating as the Laodd’s outer ramparts. It was meant to be, she knew: the intimidation as much a calculated effect as Cloisonné House’s warm welcome. Common people were supposed to wait in this room, and while they waited, they were supposed to think again about why they had come here. If their reasons for approaching the court were trivial, they were expected to slink out quietly and go home. The guards at the Laodd gates wouldn’t question them. For most people, leaving the Laodd was much easier than entering.

Leilis could leave. Indeed, she hadn’t had to come here at all. She could have gone to Mother right away, let Narienneh be the one to approach the court. Narienneh knew everyone. She could
have approached the right person, someone powerful who would know what to do about a Kalchesene sorcerer who’d had the temerity to enter Lonne. But, no. Leilis had told herself she’d meant to keep her House clear of any entanglements, but now she suspected it had merely been pride that had prompted her to venture the cliff road herself. Misplaced pride. Whom did
she
know?

She hadn’t really been thinking clearly, she acknowledged now. Or at least, she hadn’t let herself recognize everything she’d been thinking. Because even more than leaving everything to Mother, she’d been tempted simply to take no action whatever. Because she knew—she
knew—
the foreign lord must be a sorcerer. A Kalchesene sorcerer. Why else would he have tried to murder the Dragon’s heir? Why else would he have tried to do so with enspelled
pipes
?

But, even knowing so much, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from wondering what else a Kalchesene sorcerer might be able to do that Lonne mages couldn’t. Might a sorcerer, for example, be able to remove strange curses? Hadn’t the foreigner even implied as much? And seemed willing to do it?

And, after all, Prince Tepres hadn’t
actually
been harmed by whatever magic had been in those pipes. In a way, that made it almost as though the foreigner had never given them to the prince, didn’t it?

She couldn’t quite persuade herself of this, although she wanted to. Besides, if she told no one about these pipes and then the Kalchesene finished what he’d come to Lonne to do—if the prince or anyone else died at his hands—it would be her fault. That was an obvious conclusion, and wishing it had never occurred to her didn’t make it vanish from her mind.

Leilis hadn’t, in the event, been able to persuade herself to anything so immoral as complete inaction. But she hadn’t gone to Narienneh, either. She’d come to the Laodd herself, in a sort of compromise between inaction and efficiency.

She’d first intended to approach the prince himself, but that had clearly been foolish. Then she had thought of Jeres Geliadde.
Surely
he
would be interested in what she had to say. But the dour bodyguard frightened her. So then she had thought of the prince’s left-hand friend, Koriadde. Surely Koriadde, himself keiso born, would listen to a woman from the flower world.

So she had come to the Laodd and asked to see Koriadde. And now she stayed, and waited, and would not give up and go home. She stood instead by the room’s one window and looked out at the late sun turning the spume from Nijiadde Falls to glittering diamond, and though she wanted to run across the room to the door and then down the echoing hall and out of the Laodd and back to the candlelight district, she didn’t.

She turned restlessly and paced around the perimeter of the room. She had done this twice, now. Each circuit took a long time, if one walked slowly, for the room was quite large. She told herself that when she reached the window again, if someone hadn’t yet come to escort her to Koriadde, she would leave the Laodd, but she could tell that this wasn’t a firm decision because as soon as she told herself this, her steps slowed even further. Maybe if she delayed long enough, she would never reach the window. Or maybe Koriadde—

But it wasn’t the prince’s friend who interrupted her slow circuit of the room.

Lord Chontas Taudde ser Omientes looked like he’d been hurrying, and the big man with him was clearly a hired thug. They could only be here looking for her—and the door through which they had entered was also the only way Leilis could leave. She froze, momentarily panicked. When she’d thought of bracing the sorcerer, it hadn’t been here, like this, with the pipes in her pocket and no way to defend herself.

Lord Chontas looked relieved, as well he might be, finding her here—clearly she hadn’t had time yet to speak to anyone—undoubtedly he meant to ensure that she wouldn’t speak to anyone ever again—she said quickly, “I’ll scream. Guards will come if I scream, you know! They’ll come right away—stop there!”—as the foreign lord seemed inclined to approach her.

To her surprise, Lord Chontas did stop, one hand a little extended toward her. He said, his tone an odd mix of caution and certainty, “Leilis. You won’t scream.” And then, with a jerk of his head for the other man, “Benne.”

The large man retreated back through the door—to watch for the threatened guards, Leilis understood. She said sharply, “He had better not try to fight Laodd guardsmen. They’re all King’s Own, you know. They’d kill him.”

“He won’t,” answered the foreign lord. “He won’t have to, because you aren’t going to scream. Leilis, I don’t wish to harm you. I don’t
intend
to harm you.”

“I’m sure you don’t.” Leilis couldn’t quite manage to keep the scorn out of her tone. “You just want your pipes back. Here, then—” She took the ruined pipes out of a pocket and showed them to the foreigner. Then she pretended to throw them across the room, but really she threw a comb that she’d palmed when she got out the pipes. The comb clattered across the floor, and as the foreigner turned to follow its path, Leilis darted past him and toward the door.

She almost reached it. But the foreigner spun back, took two long strides, and caught her by the wrist. The curse flared to life. Leilis, better accustomed to the silent clash of dissonant magework, wrenched herself free from the foreigner’s suddenly lax grip and jumped for the door again, and this time she made it.

But the foreigner’s servant was there, looming just outside the doorway, his broad, stupid features more alert than Leilis had expected. Certainly he was quicker than she’d guessed: His arm came up to block the hall. He could effectively block it all by himself; he was that big. Leilis, frustrated, slid to a halt.

“Don’t scream!” Lord Chontas said behind her.

The foreigner spoke with a kind of quick force that stopped her even as she drew breath. Sorcery? Leilis wondered, and suspected it was, of a sort. Besides, unfortunately, no guardsmen were in sight. Leilis turned back to face Lord Chontas instead.

The foreigner met her eyes. “You’ve guessed already that I’m
Kalchesene. A bardic sorcerer. Of course you have. Surely it has occurred to you that I might remove the mageworking that is interfering with the smooth extension of your, your… own immanent self.”

Leilis said nothing. If Lord Chontas wanted to offer a bribe rather than a threat, she was more than willing to let him.

“It had occurred to you. And yet you are here. Well.” The Kalchesene looked like he wanted to shout at her, but he didn’t. He said quite reasonably, “Leilis, I will try to, um. Resolve your problem. If you permit me. All I ask is that you have enough hope to let me try.” He waited.

Leilis said drily, “And all you’d ask in return is these pipes.”

“Well, yes. Is that so much to ask?”

“I saw those twin pipes when you gave them to Prince Tepres, and I saw them when he gave them in turn to Karah. And I saw them this morning, all cracked and ruined, and I think I’m not the only one who ought to see them. So you tell me: how are you not a threat to me and to everyone else in Lonne, Lord Chontas, if that is your name?”

“Because I don’t wish to be,” the lord said patiently.

“You’re Kalchesene. Here because of the coming solstice—you intend to murder our prince—maybe our king, too, I don’t know—”

“I swear to you, Leilis, I did not come here to murder the prince, or anyone else in Lonne. I was grieved to know I might have done harm to that little keiso, and greatly relieved to find I had not. I swear to you, I never meant to harm her. Nor would I harm you. I’ll help you if I can. And I think I can.”

Leilis could think of no reason in the world she should believe a word of this, and yet somehow this assurance sounded true. More than true: honest. Lord Chontas was a Kalchesene sorcerer: He must be doing something to make her believe him? But he wasn’t using any instrument…

“Then why did you come to Lonne?” she asked at last. “If it was not to murder our prince—but it was, of course it was, what other
reason could have possibly brought you here? Everyone knows blood will wash across the land like the tide across the shore this spring, when the Treaty of Brenedde expires. You
must
have come to assassinate the prince—or his father.”

At first she was sure the Kalchesene wasn’t going to answer. He turned away and went across the room to look out the window, though Leilis didn’t know whether he was looking out at the darkening sea or only into his own thoughts.

He said after a moment, not turning, “The sea goes out forever, doesn’t it? Sweeps in with the tide and washes endlessly out again, iterations on a single unfathomable theme… One could imagine the setting sun drowning out there in the far west. The sea seems more powerful even than light…”

Leilis wondered where this was going.

“I used to dream of the sea. I love the high mountains of Kalches, but I dreamed of the sea. The deep music of the tides has pulled at my bones for as long as I can remember… I have lived in Miskiannes as well as Kalches, and traveled through Enescedd to get from one land to the other. My uncle told me I was a fool to enter Lirionne, especially this year. But if I did not come to the coast this year, when would I come? This was my only chance. My grandfather begged me to be content with the countries behind the mountains and leave Lirionne to the Dragon of Lirionne, but he is also a sorcerer and did not call me a fool.” He turned back to face her. “I swear to you, I did not come here to strike at your prince. Indeed, I swore to my grandfather I would not attempt personal vengeance. But then there was Miennes. So I was a fool, after all.”

Leilis said nothing. Dreams alone hardly seemed adequate reason for a Kalchesene sorcerer to dare the Seriantes ban. Until she remembered the goading power of her own dreams. Though
those
had been thoroughly crushed. And this man swore he could restore them? Probably he meant to murder her, too, and drop her body into one of Lonne’s rivers.

But, though she couldn’t have explained why she doubted this,
she honestly didn’t think so. “Then why did you give those pipes to the prince?” she asked him, trying to think.

The foreigner bowed his head a little. “Lord Miennes discovered my nationality and commanded me to cause the prince’s death. I immediately resolved to destroy Miennes, if I could. But I knew there must be a foundation of truth in my actions if I were to deceive him.”

Leilis tried to think through this. If Lord Miennes had tried to get the foreign lord to murder the prince in the first place, it did seem reasonable for the foreigner to strike at Miennes in turn. Leilis had never liked Miennes; none of the more acute keiso liked him. She knew personally of two who had rejected his offers to become their keisonne.
That
said something, as wealthy as he was. Had been.

But if she hadn’t liked Lord Miennes, still Leilis had respected his cleverness. It would indeed have been difficult to deceive him. But Leilis also realized she hadn’t asked the right question—hadn’t yet even approached the right question. She tried again. “Couldn’t you have done something else? Evaded Lord Miennes’s demands somehow?”

“I should have tried,” the foreigner admitted at once. She thought he spoke honestly, and
knew
there was no reason for such a feeling, but still she thought so. “There were other reasons why I… thought I was justified to… do what I did. I think now I was wrong. I was glad to find I had done less than I meant to do.”

Leilis hesitated. She said carefully, “But Lord Miennes did die.”

The foreigner lifted an eyebrow, suddenly disdainful. “And I’m glad I didn’t fail of my entire aim. I don’t care to have such things required of me.” His tone was edged with remembered anger and something else. Injured pride, Leilis thought. And something beyond that, less identifiable still.

How had Lord Miennes missed this man’s pride? Perhaps Miennes had protected himself against magecraft and thought that would suffice against sorcery as well. Leilis, in contrast, was under no illusion that she could protect herself.

Lord Chontas added with more humility than she would have expected from him, “The prince lived because he gave the pipes away. I was relieved, though I could hardly blame you if you don’t believe me now. I… I had been willing to destroy the heir of Geriodde Nerenne ken Seriantes. But then I found that outcome less desirable than I’d expected, after all. Particularly after the enchantment went astray. I’m very glad it landed nowhere else to ill effect.”

There was a deep sincerity in his tone that compelled belief. This was part of his bardic skill, Leilis understood, and yet she felt that beyond the deliberate sincerity lay, well, genuine sincerity. She heard both: deliberate earnestness layered over truth like a descant line above a melody.