"Very well," she said. "I will meet you afterward as we arranged, then." "Thank you, dear," said Merolanna, remaining statue-still as her maid
struggled to close the hasp on a necklace that looked as heavy as a silver
harbor chain. "You're very kind."
Each time he looked at her Matt Tinwright had to look away after only a few moments. He felt certain that his guilt as well as his longing must shine from his face like the light of the brazier burning on the altar.
Only once had Elan M'Cory looked up to meet his gaze across the vast-ness of the Trigon Temple, but even from half a hundred paces away he felt the touch of her eyes with so great a force he nearly gasped aloud. Even in the midst of this nominally festive occasion she wore black clothes and a half-veil, as though she were the only person in Southmarch castle who still mourned the death of Gailon Tolly-as she might very well be. Tinwright had never been able to learn what Gailon had been to Elan, whether a se¬cret lover, her hope for a good marriage, or something even harder to un¬derstand, but it confirmed him in his belief that nothing was less knowable than a woman's heart.
Hendon, the dead duke's youngest brother, stood beside Elan dressed in an elegant outfit of dove gray with black accents, his sleeves so deeply slashed that his arms seemed thicker than his legs. Elan M'Cory might be the most important person in the room for Matt Tinwright, but it was the woman on the other side who was clearly of the most interest to Hendon Tolly: Southmarch's guardian did not even look at Elan, let alone talk to her, but spent much of the blessing ceremony whispering to Queen Anissa. It was the queen's first day out in public since the baby had been born. She looked pale but happy, and quite willing to receive the attentions of the current guardian of Southmarch.
The nurse beside her held the infant prince; as Tinwright looked at the tiny, pink face he could not help marveling at what a strange life this child had been born into. Just a few months ago little Olin Alessandros would have been the youngest in a good-sized family, the happy child of a healthy, reigning monarch in time of peace, with nothing ahead to trouble his hori¬zons except the business of being part of the most powerful family in the March Kingdoms. Now he was almost alone in the world, two brothers and a sister gone, his father imprisoned. If Matt Tinwright could have felt sorry
for something as unformed as a baby (and Tinwright was beginning to feel he actually could)-well, then young Prince Olin was a good candidate lot pity, despite having been born with everything the poet would most have liked to have himself.
Well, almost everything. There was one thing that even having been born royal would not have given him, and at this moment the lack of it burned in Tinwright's heart so that he could barely stand still. And tonight… the awful thing he must do tonight…!
He looked at Elan's pale face again but her eyes were cast down. If she could only understand! But she couldn't, as had been made all too clear. She had invited Death into her heart. She wanted no other suitor.
Hierarch Sisel finished the invocation of Madi Surazem, thanking the goddess for protecting the child and his mother during the birth. Tin¬wright thought the hierarch looked drawn and unsettled-but then, who did not? The shadow of the Twilight People hung over the castle like a shroud, chilling the hearts of even those who pretended not to feel it. It was having its effect in other ways, too, with fewer ships coming into the har¬bor and, because of all the refugees from the mainland city and villages, many more mouths to feed even as many of the kingdom's farms lay de¬serted and untended. Little as he knew about such things, even Matt Tin¬wright realized that when spring came and no crops were planted it could mark the beginning of the end for Southmarch.
Hierarch Sisel stood behind a small altar that had been erected just for this ceremony so that the ceremonial fire could be placed atop the large stone altar. The flames billowed behind him as cold air swirled in the high places of the temple. "Who brings this child before the gods?" he asked.
"I do," said Anissa in a small voice.
Sisel nodded. "Then bring him forward."
To Tinwright's surprise, the queen didn't carry the child to the altar her¬self, but nodded for the nurse holding the baby to follow her. When they stood before the altar, Sisel threw back the child's blanket.
"With the living earth of Kernios," he proclaimed, rubbing the bottoms of the child's feet with dark dust. "With the strong arm of Perin,"-he lifted the tau cross called the Hammer and held it over the child's head for a brief moment before setting it down-"and with the singing waters of Erivor, patron of your forefathers, guardian of your family's house…" He dipped his fingers into a bowl and spattered the child on the top of the head. The baby began to cry. Sisel grimaced ever so slightly, then made
the sign of the Three. "In the sight of the Trigon and all the gods of 1 leaven, and soliciting the wise protection of all their oracles on this, the prophets' own day, I grant you the name Olin Alessandros Benediktos hidden. May the blessings of heaven sustain you." The hierarch looked up. "Who stands for the father?"
"I will, Eminence," said Hendon Tolly. Anissa gazed at him with grate¬ful pleasure, just as if he had really been the child's father, and in that mo¬ment Tinwright felt he saw it all plain: of course Tolly did not want Elan-he had bigger plans. If Olin did not come back his wife and son would need another man in their lives. And who would be better than the handsome young lord who was already the infant prince's guardian?
Hendon Tolly took the baby from the nurse's arms and walked slowly around the altar, symbolically introducing young Olin to the household. Any other family, even a rich one, would have performed this ceremony in their own home, and before this day even the Eddons themselves had blessed their new children in the homely confines of the Erivor chapel, not in a vast barn like the Trigon Temple. Tinwright could not help wonder¬ing whose idea it had been to perform the blessing here in front of so many people. He had thought they were holding the Carrying ceremony ahead of Duke Caradon's arrival because to wait a day-to hold it at the begin¬ning of the Kerneia-would be bad luck. Now he decided that Hendon simply did not want his older brother present to steal any of the attention he commanded as guardian of the castle.
The second time around the altar Hendon Tolly lifted the infant above his head. The crowd, which had sat respectfully, now began to clap and cheer, with Durstin Crowel and Tolly's other closest supporters making the most noise, although Tinwright could see expressions of poorly-hidden disgust on some of the older nobles-those few who had actually attended. He wondered what kind of excuses Avin Brone and the others had made to stay away-even if he were a man of power himself, Tinwright would not want to risk offending Hendon Tolly.
A moment later, as Hierarch Sisel completed the final blessing, Matt Tinwright realized the madness of his own thoughts. He was frightened of refusing an invitation from Tolly to a child blessing, but he was smuggling poison to Tolly's mistress.
It is like a disease, he thought as the crowd began to break up, some push¬ing forward toward Anissa and the high nobility, others hastening out into the cold winds that swirled through Market Square. In all respects it looked
like an ordinary, festive occasion, but Tinwright and everyone else knew that just across the bay a dreadful, silent enemy was watching them. A fever of disordered thinking rules the place, and I have it as badly as anyone here. We are not a city anymore, we are a plague hospital.
To his shock, Hendon Tolly actually noticed him as he tried to slip past.
"Ah, poet." The guardian of Southmarch fixed him with an amused stare, leaning away from a conversation with Tirnan Havemore. Elan, who stood beside Hendon, did her best not to meet Tinwright's eye. "You skulk, sir," Tolly accused him. "Does this mean you will not have your poem ready for us at tomorrow's feast? Or are you merely fearful of its quality?"