“Avar?” Phoran said distractedly. Now that he thought of it, the writing desk was an odd choice as well. He couldn’t remember ever actually sitting at it—something Avar would have noticed.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Yes, yes, let him in.” It was too late to change anything anyway.
The door opened and Avar made his entrance. “Phoran,” he said as soon as the door was closed behind him. “I’ve been looking for you since yesterday afternoon. Did you really take all the proposed laws and run off with them?”
Surprisingly, Phoran didn’t have a prepared reply. He hadn’t even thought about what Avar would say. Not that he didn’t care—but it didn’t seem as important anymore.
Avar misread his hesitation.
“Not that you didn’t have every right to—but you might have warned someone you intended to take a closer look. It wasn’t necessary to give poor Douver an anxiety attack.”
Phoran found himself smiling. “Wasn’t it? You’ll have to forgive me if I’ve forgotten that I could have just called the things into my review. I suspect everyone else has forgotten as well.”
A frown chased itself across Avar’s perfect brow. “What are you up to, my friend?”
“Do you know anything about the Secret Path?” It was an impulsive question born of years of trust, blind trust he was no longer certain he felt. But even after the question left his lips, Phoran didn’t regret it.
“The secret, secret club that everyone knows about?” asked Avar with a grin. “Where a bunch of young hotheads go to pretend they are villainous Travelers? My brother, Toarsen, and his tagalong, muscle-bound friend, Kissel, belong to it.”
Phoran walked back to his bed and perched on the end, offering a nearby padded bench to Avar with his hand. “Tell me everything you know.”
“Does this have something to do with taking the proposals?” asked Avar as he availed himself of the offered seat and leaned back against the wall.
“I don’t know,” said Phoran truthfully.
“Well then.” Avar put his head back and relaxed. “They choose young men of noble blood when they’re fifteen or sixteen and induct them in some sort of secret ceremony. They don’t pick a lot of boys—no more than five or ten a year. I don’t know what they do at the ceremony—but my brother carried bruises from it for a week or more. The people they choose are usually the ones who are… well, problems for their families.”
He looked at Phoran a moment, then sighed. “I know they had something to do with that mess last year when some young thugs destroyed the weavers’ market. I saw Toarsen coming home in the wee hours of the morning, dead drunk with a hatchet in his hand. I should have said something, but”—he shrugged ruefully—“he’s my brother.”
“Do you know any of the older members?” asked Phoran. “The Raptors?”
“Some,” answered Avar with a quick grin. “The ones my brother gripes the most about. The council leader—the Sept of Gorrish is one of them and Telleridge is another. My father was—I think that’s how my brother was selected.”
Phoran closed his eyes and thought. “Didn’t the Weavers’ Guild file a complaint against Gorrish just before the market was destroyed? They dropped it because he was instrumental in getting funds to help them rebuild it.”
“You’re right,” said Avar in an arrested voice. “I never thought to look for a deeper motive. I’ve always thought of the Secret Path as a game for boys who are at loose ends.”
“I have heard that you cannot be an heir to a Sept and belong to the Path,” said Phoran.
“Gorrish’s father and three older brothers died in the plague that hit the Empire about twenty years ago,” said Avar. “He’s not the only younger son who has inherited.” He smiled. “My own father was a second son.”
Phoran had a terrible thought. Maybe it was because he’d just spent the night talking to a bard that he’d thought of the old story of the Shadowed. How the first magic the Shadowed had loosed was plague. Maybe it was all the talk of magic—or maybe it was his current affliction of Memory. “How many of those second and third sons, or cousins who inherited a Sept were members of the Path?” he asked.
“I don’t know exactly—I was about four at the time, Phoran. The younger sons who inherited unexpectedly… oh, Seal Hold, Telleridge, Jenne, and a few others. You aren’t going to tell me that the Secret Path is responsible for the plague, are you?” Avar shook his head. “A lot of people died, Phoran. Most of them weren’t Septs with heirs who happened to be members of the Secret Club.”
“Doubtless, you’re right.” Phoran smiled and changed the subject. “I am calling a Council Seating for tomorrow,” he said.
“You are?” asked Avar, surprised into insult.
Phoran smiled at him grimly. “It may have become usual, since my uncle died, for Gorrish to call the Seat, but it is the imperial prerogative he uses. I am calling it, and I’d like you to deliver the messages. See if you can convince them that it’s just a silly whim of mine—that I said something about being bored.”
Avar stared at him for a long time, then nodded his head. “I’ll do that. Tell me what time you’d like to meet.”
The Memory came again that night. Phoran waited impatiently for it to finish. At last the cold tongue licked the puncture wounds clean and the Memory gave him the usual offer.
“Were you a Traveler held by the Secret Path?” Phoran asked.
“Yes,” it said and was gone with its usual abruptness.
Pale and a little dizzy, the Emperor went to his closet and pulled on a robe. With only a little caution—because the Path’s rooms were in an obscure corner of the palace—Phoran made it back to the bard’s cell with little trouble. He found Tier’s door unlocked, but when he went in, Tier lay unmoving on his bed and nothing Phoran could do would awaken him.
Phoran took up a seat on the end of the bed and stared at Tier’s face—but other than being a little pale, he seemed healthy enough. At last Phoran arose unhappily and returned to his suite.
When Tier awoke, he knew they’d come for him again, though his last memory was of settling in to play a bit of music after leaving the party in the Eyrie. He moved and the lute tucked beside him dug into his ribs.
He sat up with sudden anxiety and inspected it for any damage it might have taken. He found something that could have been a new scratch on the finish, but nothing that would impair its use. He settled back against the wall with a sigh of relief. His head throbbed, his body ached, and his mouth was uncomfortably dry—but the lute could not heal itself.
He hugged the lute against his body.
What was it that they did to him?
Someone knocked on the door. Tier gathered himself together and stood up.
“It’s dinnertime, sir,” Myrceria explained after he’d opened the door to her. “I can have food brought to you, or you can eat in the Eyrie with the Passerines.” She hesitated, then said, “You might have noticed that your movements have been restricted unless you have an escort. I was told to inform you that you now can move freely around most of the rooms used by the Passerines. If you’d like to wait and go alone, you may do that also. Food will be provided at any time upon your request.”
He stood up slowly, but the movement seemed to help some of his aches and pains. “By all means,” he said with as much charm as he could muster over his fading headache. “Let us go to the Eyrie.”
The room was almost full to bursting. When Tier stepped inside, the dull roar quieted as the young men all watched him. Like a duck who had the ill luck to drop to earth in the midst of a pack of wolves, Tier thought with amusement.
Food of every description was spread out on the bar for the taking. Tier, following Myrceria’s example, took a wooden platter and began filling it. When she led the way to an unoccupied table he followed her.