“I have just been telling our host that most of the army is away on the borders to the south and west, keeping the Kondrians honest. I don’t know how many might come to us.”
“I believe we may have time to put that to the test,” Alkoryn said. He signaled to Fanryn Bloodhand.
“The latest news,” Fanryn began, “is that the Anointing and Dedication scheduled for the new moon has been postponed. Lok-iKol has sent for the Mesticha Stone, and tells people he’ll wait for its arrival. What this means, no one knows, but it’s only the last and strangest of the changes the latest days have brought us. As we know,” Fanryn said, tossing her hair back out of her face and accepting the cup of ganje Thionan had brought her, “the first few days found the Houses of Jarifo and Esmolo coming and going in the precincts of the Dome, giving themselves airs about the court and the city itself.”
“It seems there was to be a wedding,” Thionan added, “between Lok-iKol and Riv-oRiv Esmolo.”
“She’s young,” Tek-aKet said. “Too young to marry in any case.”
“Too young to marry, but not too young to be promised in marriage.” Parno drew their attention as he leaned forward, elbows on the table. “It’s a good move,” he added. “Buys the support of an important House without really committing himself to anything.” He shrugged. “A great deal can happen between now and the time the girl can actually marry.”
“Well, the wedding’s no longer spoken of,” Fanryn said. “Now both those Houses have taken down their flags and flowerets, pulled their men off the streets, closed up their enclaves. Like those other Houses who were neither for you nor against you, Lord Tarkin, they now bide their time, waiting to weigh Lok-iKol’s power, waiting to see who they should salute. What’s changed them, though, that we can’t find out.”
Disha the Racha bird suddenly hopped from the floor to the back of an unoccupied chair. As if it were cause and effect, Cullen spoke, his soft voice cool and dry.
“So the Houses are playing their tiles carefully. There’s nothing new in that,” he said.
“But if the Houses have withdrawn their support, it may be we have a chance to regain the Throne if we act quickly. I’ve sent out word through the old network,” Alkoryn added, “letting people know that you’re alive, Lord Tarkin, and that you will return. Soldiers and guards alike are presenting themselves at safe contact points. One who’s come to us quietly with no fanfare and on foot so as to draw no attention is Fen-oNef Penradoso. He says to tell you that he doesn’t forget his promise to your father, nor yet the one he made to you. If you want Lok-iKol dead, say the word.”
Tek-aKet exchanged looks with those around the table, returning Parno’s broad smile with one of his own. Tek-aKet’s skin looked less bleached, Dhulyn thought, and the muscles of his face had regained their youthful firmness. This was what he needed to hear; that there were those who had believed in him, who were willing to support him still.
“He’s a tough old man, Fen-oNef,” he said, still smiling. “And I’ve no doubt that he would try. But it’s too dangerous.”
“Exactly what I told him. And it’s too dangerous for him to house the would-be soldiers who keep turning up. One of the things we must think of, is a place to gather troops.”
“What of the Jaldeans,” Dhulyn said, leaning forward. “And the Marked?”
Fanryn’s eyes flicked at the Cloudman, her question as clear as if she’d spoken it aloud. How much did they know? Dhulyn shrugged. It no longer mattered, she thought. As the Clouds revered the Marked, she was probably safer with them than with anyone besides her own Brothers.
“There’s a mystery there somewhere.” Fanryn shook her head. “At first, there was great rejoicing from the Jaldean Shrines, and people were talking about the dream of the Sleeping God as if they were about to join it.
“But now petitioners are being turned from the shrines, told to come back, and when they do, they’re turned away again with excuses and soft words. There are no services or meditations, and the priests aren’t seen in the streets. Beslyn-Tor has not been seen in over two days-not even by his own people-and some others who were believed touched by the god are also conspicuous by their absence. People are wondering what has happened to the promises the Jaldeans were making before the fall of Tek-aKet Tarkin. The very people who were so quick to support them, are now murmuring against them.”
“Helped by the rumors we and the Scholars are spreading, of course,” Thionan said with a grin.
“And the Marked?” Tek-aKet asked.
Thionan’s voice came low and rough. “Two days ago they started being taken to the Carnelian Dome, and not to the Jaldean Shrines. None have been seen, city or country, since.”
The silence in the room was as thick as inglera fleece.
“We will hope there are some in hiding,” Cullen of Langeron said, as his bird Disha nodded.
Thionan cleared her throat. “There’s something else, though it’s hard to know how significant it is,” she said. “I’m sorry to say, Lord Tarkin, that your counselor, Gan-eGan, was yesterday found hanged in his private chambers. Hanged by his own hand, it appears. It seems a small tragedy in the face of everything else, and in the face of what the Marked have had to endure, but we thought perhaps you would want to know.”
Dhulyn shut her eyes, seeing again the two images of the skinny, overjeweled old man, one with green eyes, the other standing behind, weeping. She blinked. Green eyes again. Like the Mage in her Visions. And the Scholar. Who was on his way even now with information. Perhaps more information than he knew.
Dhulyn glanced at Tek-aKet. He was pale again, his face fixed and resolute. But before she could ask any questions a young woman appeared in the cave’s entrance. Dhulyn recognized her as the same one, Rehnata by name, who had greeted them when they first arrived in Gotterang. Since then, the dark brown hair above her temples and ears had been removed in preparation for the tattooing of her Mercenary badge.
“They are here, my Brothers,” she said to Alkoryn, acknowledging Dhulyn as well with a bob of her head. “Shall we bring them?”
“By all means,” Alkoryn said.
“Watch your head.”
From the sound, the warning had come just a second too late for Karlyn-Tan, Gundaron thought. He himself was too short to worry about bumping his head, but being led blindfolded through passages and tunnels meant bashed elbows and stepped-on toes, no matter how careful your guides. As things were, however, Gun was grateful to have sore elbows and bruised toes to distract him from what was coming. He knew Mar and Karlyn-Tan were right-this was what he had to do. But just at the moment, he was more than half convinced he’d been persuaded against his will.
Finally the blindfolds came off. They’d had them on so long that even the soft light of the lanterns carried by their guides was enough to have all four of them blinking and squinting. Gundaron tried not to hang back as they approached the open doorway of the underground meeting room. Not that he could do much more than drag his feet a bit since there were Mercenary Brothers both in front of and behind him. From what Karlyn-Tan had said, he’d expected Dhulyn Wolfshead herself to lead them to Tek-aKet, but it had been two black-haired Mercenary Brothers with Semlorian accents. The smiles they’d given him when they’d met them at the fountain made the skin on the back of his neck crawl.
Dhulyn Wolfshead would be inside the room, he thought, watching Dal-eDal pass through the entrance. Along with the Brother he hadn’t met, her Partner Parno Lionsmane.
The first Brothers he saw as he followed Mar into the room weren’t the two he was dreading the most, however, but Fanryn Bloodhand and Thionan Hawkmoon, who went so far as to lay her hand on her sword hilt and grin at him. Gun looked away and, seeing Mar’s face, followed her line of sight to where Dhulyn Wolfshead stood to the left of Tek-aKet. Mar stepped toward the Outlander woman with her hands lifted, reaching out, but hesitated, coming to a stop as the Wolfshead gave her the half bow that was the very knife edge of courtesy among the Noble Houses. Such would be the greeting-Gun had seen it many times-between two nobles who had some long-standing grudge, but were forced to be civil in some public gathering. Dhulyn Wolfshead straightened and turned her eyes away, and Gun braced himself… but her stone-gray eyes moved over and past him as if he was not even there.