A pity Myste was perhaps the Herald who was the most inept with weapons in the entire Circle. He could do with a dose of her good sense here tonight. Not that she'd enjoy it, of course. She would far rather be where she could avoid all this interminable nonsense, in her quarters, either writing up the current Chronicles or going over old ones, a glass of cold, sweet tea at her elbow.
Where she would probably knock it over at least once tonight. Hopefully when she did, the glass would be empty. If it wasn't, well, at least the papers on her floor were discards, unlike the ones piled all over Elcarth's office.
Alberich pulled his attention back to the reception. The heat wave had finally broken, though the thick stone walls of the Old Palace kept every room in it comfortably cool even during the worst of the heat. With the doors open, there was a pleasant scent coming from the roses in the courtyard. No one had gone out there, though, for Selenay and Orthallen were in here. No matter how tired anyone's feet got, he wouldn't leave where the power was.
If Alberich's gaze rested more often than usual on a particular page, circulating among the guests with a tray of wineglasses, probably no one was going to notice. It was a very ordinary-looking boy: small, dark, curly-haired. If he moved more gracefully than the usual lot, that wasn't likely to be noticed either. Alberich was pleased with the way he was looking up at the people he was serving — not staring enough to make him seem insolent, just paying respectful attention. Very good, very smooth. The boy must have done something like this before, many times, though Alberich doubted it had been for any purpose other than to filch food from whatever noble household he had infiltrated.
Lord Orthallen, on whose behalf this reception was being held, also circulated among the guests quite as if he was the one who was the host, and not the Queen. This particular festivity was a reward for those who had helped Orthallen to conclude a set of delicate negotiations that would ultimately benefit the Crown substantially, according to Myste. Alberich was not at all clear on just what those negotiations were, only that they had involved a number of men (and a few women) of vastly disparate backgrounds, many of whom had personal differences with each other.
One thing they all had in common, though. They were all very, very wealthy.
That much showed in their costumes, rich with embroidery and of costly materials, and in their ornaments, heavy gold and silver and precious gems. The details didn't matter to Alberich, though Myste would have been studying them with the eye of one who would be recording every subtle detail later in her writings. That was the problem of living around a Chronicler; he never knew just what detail, what secret that he assumed was just between them would end up in one of her Histories, to be goggled at by some other generation of Heralds to come.
Right now, he was in the unusual position of having part of his attention devoted to something other than Selenay and her welfare. He watched that one small boy, not as a hunter watched prey, but as the prey watches a hunter, alive to every nuance in his behavior, waiting for the slightest sign that the boy recognized a voice he'd only heard once.
When he told the boy that he could arrange for him to hear words spoken in tones of condescension, he had not been promising more than he could deliver. Although these people had worked together for Orthallen's cause, they had not forgotten rank and perceived rank and all of the tangle of quarrels that had made it so difficult to get them to work together — they had merely put those things aside for the moment. And although they were now basking in the unanticipated presence of Royalty, those things still remained. Where the Queen gazed, all was harmony, but the moment that she took her attention away, the claws were unsheathed, though subtly, subtly, with a care not only for the Queen's presence, but for the watchful eye of her guardian.
Who might misinterpret what he saw. And in Alberich's case —
Well, no one wanted Alberich to misinterpret anything.
So rather than bared claws and visible teeth, there were mere hints of rivalries and competitions, mostly carried out in tone and carefully chosen words.
Oh, there would be condescension in plenty, among those able to read tone and words so exactly that they could choose to ignore what they heard or exaggerate the offense. Small wonder the crude bully Jass hadn't heard what the boy had read in his master's tone. The wonder was that the boy had read it so accurately.
Well. Every Herald, every Trainee, is a wonder, small or great.
It could be that this boy was — or would be — more of a wonder than most. There were still those — not Heralds, mostly — who doubted the wisdom of having a thief as a Trainee. And the boy was not yet committed to becoming a Herald; Alberich, so apt at reading the unspoken language of gesture and tone, knew that better than any. If it had been a case of trusting to the boy by himself to come around, to learn to trust, to understand what it was they were doing, Alberich would have been the first to say, “No. He is a danger to us, and cannot be trusted past his own self-interest.” But there was more than that; there was the Companion. And so, Alberich was always the first, not the last, to say “Peace. He will be ours, soon enough.”
The boy was good; very good. Alberich had no difficulty in imagining him moving through a crowd of just about any sort of folk save, perhaps, the highest, and remaining completely unnoticed. He was, after all, a pickpocket; that was the way of the game. The unobtrusive prospered; the rest wound up in gaol. Watching the boy was the only entertainment he had, though, and in the end the reception was, as such things generally were, deadly dull. These people were small; in the normal course of things, no matter how wealthy they were, they would never have seen Selenay except from the back of the Audience Chamber, or at most, stood before her for a few, brief moments while she passed some judgment in their favor or against them. They would never have watched as she bent that cool, thoughtful gaze on each one alone, never have heard her inquiring as to the details of their lives. For that moment of reflected glory, they were content to be restrained and to keep their masks firmly in place, their smiles unwavering.
And although the boy had shown a moment or two of hesitation, there was no sudden recognition. The reception came to its predictable end when Selenay had had a private word with each and every one of Orthallen's guests, and withdrew, along with Talamir and Alberich. And after that, the guests would depart swiftly, there being nothing there to hold them. The boy Skif would have to extricate himself from the toils of the Page Master as best he could.
And when he did — just as swiftly as Alberich had reckoned he would — he found Alberich waiting for him in his own room.
Alberich had taken some thought to the needs of boys and had brought with him something other than the things, good though they were, that lay in Mero's free pantry. He had gone down to the Palace kitchen, and commanded some of the dainties that Selenay's Court feasted on. He calculated that having had such things paraded beneath his nose all night, the boy would not be emotionally satisfied with bread and cheese, however good those common viands were, and if he was anything like Alberich had judged him, he had not filled himself at dinner.
So when Skif pushed open his own door, there was Alberich, beneath a lit lantern mounted on the wall, sitting at his ease in the boy's chair, the covered platter beside him on the desk.