Parno bowed to her, put the knife back into the sheath he wore at his belt, and followed Bet-oTeb to the far end of the room, where the Tarkin sat with his wife. Tek-aKet smiled his thanks to his daughter and indicated that Parno should seat himself on the next bed.
The Tarkin looked tired, as well he might, having slept only a few hours after being up most of the night. Parno doubted he would have recognized the man had he merely encountered him on the street, any more than his second cousin appeared to recognize him. There was a world of difference between the seventeen year old he had been and the bearded, tattooed, and heavily-muscled Mercenary Brother he had become. The last time Parno had seen Tek-aKet, back when he himself had still been Par-iPar Tenebro, Tek had been thirteen, gangly and round-shouldered from study. Fourteen years later, Parno could see the old Tarkin in the shape of Tek’s eyes, the breadth of his shoulders, and the firm set of his jaw.
Tek-aKet now leaned forward until their heads were almost touching.
“Zelianora and I have been taking thought,” the Tarkin of Imrion said. “Am I correct in my understanding that you can speak for your Partner?”
Parno nodded. “We are the same person,” he said.
“Can you tell me, then, whether she will use her Mark to help me?”
“More than she has already done,” the Tarkina said, acknowledgment and gratitude in her voice. Her husband flashed her a smile and nodded.
Parno looked down at his hands, clasped between his knees. The man thought he had a great tool, and who could blame him… Parno had once thought so himself. Experience had taught Parno differently, but how was he to convince Tek-aKet? Did Dhulyn escape from Lok-iKol only to fall into his cousin’s hands? Parno looked at Zelianora Tarkina, who was watching her husband’s face with steady dark eyes. Composed, almost serene. He looked back at the Tarkin. This man was not like Lok-iKol, he thought. Nothing like.
“One time,” he said quietly, “Dhulyn woke up crying. She’d Seen a farmer drowning a basket of kittens. Is that the kind of thing you want her to tell you?”
Tek-aKet sat up straight, letting his hands fall to his knees. “You’re saying she can’t control it.”
“I’m saying she can’t control it.” Parno rubbed his chin. He’d kill for the time to shave and a nice sharp razor, though he feared he’d have to wait until he left Imrion to do it. “At first, I thought it was just some kind of Outlander stubbornness. She hated the thought that I might be watching her in the morning, trying to see in her face some sign that she’d Seen something in the night. That I was waiting for her to tell me what to do next, instead of using my own brain. ‘I’m not a crutch,’ she used to say to me. But then I realized that she wasn’t trying to teach me a moral lesson, but telling me the real truth. Her Mark wasn’t something that we were going to able to use, to lean on.”
“How does it work, then?” the Tarkina asked in her musical voice.
Parno shrugged. “It comes when it comes, waxes and wanes like the moon. Strongest with her woman’s time, as if the blood brings it, and if she’s touching someone, she’s likely to See something pertaining to them. But not always. And sometimes she’ll get Visions in between, not so clear, but sometimes.” He looked up to find them both watching him.
“And you have to understand, there’s never any context to them. The farmer with the kittens? She didn’t know what country he was in, or when it would happen. If we’d wanted to stop it, we wouldn’t have known where to go. She’ll help you,” he said. “We both will. But don’t count on her Mark to win for you.”
“And since the foreign ambassadors should be met with as quickly as possible, my lord, I’ve arranged for an informal supper in the east reception room. That way you can speak to them all at once. The Berdanan ambassador is particularly insistent concerning the whereabouts of the Tarkina and her children, as they are the heirs of her sister, Queen Alliandra.” The voice of the Tarkin’s Chief Counselor, Gan-eGan, was flat and colorless. But then, Lok-iKol thought, that more or less described the voice of everyone in the Carnelian Dome.
“It would not be more diplomatic to see him at least individually?” Lok-iKol frowned, resisting the desire to rub at his eye. He’d managed only a few hours’ sleep in the last two days, and right now he felt they hadn’t done him much good. The day had started well, the Dome and city were his, and the Assembly of Houses had met and accepted him as Tarkin-though not quite by acclamation. House Penrado had pleaded illness and absented himself, as Lok had expected, but he had not actually protested. Lok would do something about that later.
But the day had not continued well. Lok closed his right hand into a fist. He had not expected Karlyn-Tan to defy him, and now he would have to find someone else to hunt for the Seer.
“A meeting at this time, my lord Tarkin, is a mere formality. They acknowledge you, and you remind them that existing relations will continue. Your reassurances to the Berdanan ambassador will carry more weight when spoken in front of such witnesses. When I said ‘informal, ’ I meant in dress and preparation, not in topic of discussion.”
“Very well.”
As Lok spoke, a page entered the spacious room that had been Tek-aKet’s public study. Lok-iKol let out his breath with such force that Gan-eGan looked up from the mark he was making on his parchment list.
“The Priest Beslyn-Tor is here, my lord,” the page said. Gan-eGan dropped pen and parchments, and the page courteously stooped to help him retrieve them.
“My apologies, but I have no leisure for him today.”
“My lord Tarkin.”
Lok realized that Beslyn-Tor had followed on the page’s heels and was already in the room. He suppressed the irritation that immediately rose to twist his lips. Gan-eGan looked around, brows raised and head twitching as he backed away from the priest. Lok’s eye narrowed. It seemed there was something between Gan-eGan and the old priest. Something unpleasant.
Lok smiled. He’d expected Beslyn-Tor to turn up, though not quite so quickly.
“More wine and a glass for my friend,” Lok said to the page, ignoring the Jaldean’s shaken head and gesture of refusal. He’d never seen the man take either food or drink, and Beslyn-Tor was noticeably thinner than he had been when Lok had first met him, though he showed no other signs of ritual fasting. His color was good, his grip firm, his jade-green eyes particularly clear and his movements, as he took the chair next to the worktable without waiting to be invited, graceful.
Once more Lok-iKol suppressed a frown. “As you heard me say,” he began, “I have no great store of leisure today. If you would tell me in what way I can assist you?”
“I have given you what you desired, yet you withhold my payment.”
Again a darting glance from Gan-eGan, and another from the page, as he came in with a tray bearing a fresh flask of wine and a second goblet.
Lok looked at the tray as the page set it down on the table. “Leave us,” he said.
Unexpectedly, Gan-eGan did not protest. Hugging his parchment lists to his chest like a shield, he scuttled from the room. The page looked from the old counselor to Lok-iKol and back again, as if he might speak.
Lok raised his remaining eyebrow.
The page inclined his head, though his lips thinned as he turned to go. No one in Tenebro House would ever have looked at Lok like that. What has Tek-aKet been teaching his servants?
Only when they were alone did Lok sit down in the Tarkin’s chair. “I must have time to solidify my position before I can give you what we agreed upon. A moon, perhaps two.” As the priest narrowed his eyes, Lok smiled and spread his hands. “Come,” he said. “Have we not prospered?” He leaned forward and poured himself a glass of the wine. It was a dark, full red that Lok knew from experience would taste of the oak it had been aged in. “When I am anointed, I will prepare the proclamations that shall give you what you’ve asked for.” He sipped at his cup of wine, savoring it in his mouth a moment before swallowing. And, once I’m anointed, I won’t need you. “The support and countenance of the Tarkin for yourself and your followers. Dominion over the Marked.”