Ibris raised his eyebrows and a faint smile appeared again, albeit briefly. ‘I'd forgotten how petulant you could be when your sleep was disturbed, Aaken,’ he said. ‘But bear with me in this and stay silent for the moment. Help me wait. Soon you'll know all that I know.'
Help me wait! A warrior's plea, it could not be denied. Aaken blew out a short breath of surrender and acquiescence and sank back into his chair. The Duke seemed to consider his own request for a moment, and then he too sat down. Choosing a long, winged couch, he threw one leg along it casually, draped his arms along the back and one side and leaned his head back so that he was staring up at the dimly lit ceiling high above.
The two men became as motionless as the watching statues, and the night's silence slowly returned to the room. The soft hiss of the lamps served only to deepen it.
Antyr drew his cloak about him and pulled his hood forward. From its confines he cast a surreptitious glance at the leader of his escort. On two occasions, as was the duty of all the male citizens of Serenstad, Antyr had served with the army in defending the city's increasingly widespread domain, and although he was no expert in military hierarchies, he had the foot-soldier's pride that he could smell a senior officer at fifty paces: and this was indisputably one. His latest examination, however, yielded no more than his previous attempts. The man was half a head taller than he was, though he seemed more, holding himself very straight as he walked, yet without the rigidity that Antyr associated with the officers of the palace guard.
'You're slouching, as well.’ Tarrian's acid comment entered his head, and he straightened up in an involuntary response.
An indignant reply began to form in his mind, but he dismissed it. Tarrian was preparing himself and Antyr knew better than to try verbal knocks with his Companion as the wolf's ancient hunting instinct rose up to join his incisive intellect in readiness for the search.
Then Tarrian was ready and, for a moment, Antyr found himself looking through the wolf's eyes and rebelling at the assault of the smoke-laden fog on the wolf's keen sense of smell. More pleasantly he felt also the strange, deeply balanced movement of his four-legged gait. Despite the disturbing implications of the fact that he was being escorted through the city in the middle of the night by palace guards and someone from the Duke's own bodyguard, he was amused by Tarrian's underlying vexation at the slowness of the pace of these ungainly long-legged creatures towering around him.
Antyr stumbled slightly as Tarrian returned his mind to its own body, and a powerful hand caught his arm. ‘Sorry,’ came the thought from Tarrian. ‘Never could manage the way you walk.'
'Are you all right?’ The officer's voice seemed loud and raucous in Antyr's ear after the subtle nuances of his thought conversation with Tarrian. But though it was authoritative, it was leavened with some genuine concern. It was the first time the man had spoken since they had left the Dream Finder's house apart from answering Antyr's initial surge of questions with a polite, ‘In due course.'
Antyr nodded. ‘Just cold and a little tired, thank you … sir,’ Antyr replied. The man nodded and released his arm, but did not speak again. The pressure of the man's grip seemed to linger for a little while and Antyr felt a small but uneasy swirl of emotions eddy through him. The hand had sustained and, for whatever reason, cared for him. It was a long time since anyone had touched him thus. Yet that same hand, with that same purposefulness, would surely have killed men in the past as its owner had made his way through the wars and through the sometimes bloody labyrinth of city and palace politics to serve with the Duke's bodyguard.
Antyr felt an unexpected surge of approval from Tarrian at this insight.
Tentatively, Antyr tried again to reach this hooded guardian. ‘I hadn't expected to be out in this filth again tonight,’ he began. ‘I haven't seen it so bad since…’ But the attempt faded into nothingness as he felt it rebound off the man's indifference.
This time it was dark amusement from Tarrian. ‘I told you before, you weasel,’ he said. ‘He's a pack leader. He won't deal with the runts of the litter except to tell them what to do.'
From the shade of his hood Antyr gave his Companion a malevolent look.
'Forgive me if I don't share your levity about this, Tarrian,’ he said. ‘But these are palace guards escorting us, and this “pack leader” is one of Ibris's personal bodyguard.’ Fear churned inside him again. ‘We could be heading for one of the palace dungeons for all we know.'
Tarrian replied as if to an exasperating child. ‘What for?’ he said wearily. ‘Personally I'd lock you up for the crimes you've committed against yourself, but you've certainly not committed any against city law. And since when do Ibris's personal officers do the Watch's work? This is business, that's all, I can feel it in my fur. It'll be some important courtier's wife…’ His tone became ironic. ‘Seeing “great horrors ahead” for the … city … the land … the whole world. A routine nightmare, nothing more.’ He paused. ‘But there should be a good fee in it-and good contacts if you shape yourself.'
Antyr frowned. ‘Minutes ago you were reproaching me for thinking like that,’ he said.
There was no immediate rejoinder. Instead there was an untypical and awkward silence, then, ‘We've still got to eat, Antyr.'
But behind the words was something else. A fear-a great fear.
'You're hiding something.’ So vivid was the alarm that had suddenly slipped from the wolf's control and bubbled up into his mind, that Antyr almost spoke the words aloud, and again his step faltered. He felt the officer's gaze turning towards him. ‘We're just preparing ourselves,’ he said with an authoritative gesture. Both voice and gesture were harsher than he had intended and he winced inwardly at his folly in behaving thus to such a man, but the officer simply turned away without seeming to take offence.
Silence hung in the minds of the Dream Finder and his Companion, while around them the rhythmic tread of the marching guards and the fluttering hiss of their torches echoed flatly through the fog.
Antyr felt Tarrian wilfully recover himself and the fear was taken from him. ‘What was that?’ he demanded urgently.
Silence.
'Tarrian!’ He shouted into the wolf's mind.
'Nothing!’ Tarrian snapped back angrily. ‘At least nothing that concerns us here.'
'That's not good enough, for pity's sake,’ Antyr said. ‘You said yourself we're probably going on a search…'
'I know where we're going, and there's nothing that concerns us here. Trust me.’ Despite the last words however, Tarrian's interruption was almost ferocious and, echoing his inner speech, his lip curled back and a deep menacing growl came from his throat.
The officer looked down at him sharply and then at Antyr, his hand moving discreetly but ominously into his cloak. Antyr returned the unseen gaze and tried to repair any damage his earlier hastiness might have done. ‘It's all right, sir,’ he said, raising his hand reassuringly this time. ‘He means no harm. He just doesn't like the fog. The scents upset him.'
At the same time he replied to Tarrian, ‘All right, all right. Calm down. You forget how nervous you can make people. I'll trust you-not that I've any alternative at the moment. But I didn't like the feel of that and I want to know what it is you're keeping to yourself. I don't…'
Tarrian interrupted him again, though now his voice was calm and controlled. ‘I'm sorry, Antyr,’ he said. ‘It was a slip on my part. We'll talk later … I promise.'
'But…’ Antyr began.
An order from one of the guards cut across his doubts and made him look up. Preoccupied with his inner debate with Tarrian, and content to be swept along by his escort, he had not paid any attention to where they were walking. Gazing around, he saw that there were now many more street torches. Some were isolated and brilliant, others formed ordered lines that curved away from him in all directions. There was something familiar in the pattern, but seeing the lights hovering seemingly unsupported in the fog disorientated him for a moment.