Tetrarch

They embraced. 'I thought…' the woman bit her lip.

'What?' smiled Yara.

'That I would never see you again, or the twins. Everyone I love goes away and they don't come back.'

'I will always come back,' said Yara. 'Liliwen, Meriwen?'

They embraced their aunt, who then turned, looking questioningly at Nish.

'My sister, Mira,' said Yara. 'Mira, this is Cryl-Nish Hlar, known to his friends as Nish. He has escorted us all this way.'

'I'm pleased to meet you, Mira,' said Nish, holding out his hand.

Mira's hand stopped halfway. 'Hlar?' she said, studying his features. 'Is he related to that warmongering perquisitor, Jal-Nish?'

'His father is Jal-Nish Hlar, now acting scrutator for Einunar,' said Yara.

Mira let her hand fall to her side. 'I'm sorry, Cryl-Nish Hlar, but I don't care what service you have rendered my sister. No Hlar is welcome in my house.'

Nish felt as if he had been slapped across the face. He stepped backwards, gained control of himself and bowed. 'I am not my father, Mira, but if my presence causes you distress I will go at once.'

'Stay,' said Yara, waving her hand at him. 'Mira, know that after the fall of Nilkerrand, Meriwen and Liliwen were lost and wandered alone on the road for a night and a day. Had not Nish befriended them they would have been despoiled and murdered by two of the vilest ruffians in the world. And he has done us further service since. Twice he saved my daughters' lives.'

Mira stared at the girls. She put her hand over her open mouth. Nish thought she was going to scream, though her eyes were as dry as dust.

'They were not harmed,' said Yara, 'though they will remember it to the end of their days.'

Mira threw her arms around the twins and wailed. It went on for ages. Nish looked on uncomfortably. Her eyes were webbed with red.

Yara stood back, head cocked to one side. 'And so,' she said when the embrace finally broke up, 'if Nish is not welcome at your house, neither am I, nor my daughters.'

Nish was astonished. Although Yara had thawed since the monastery, he would never have expected her to defend him against her sister.

Mira pulled away, rubbed her eyes and made a supreme effort which dissolved the lines from her face and for a moment made her seem ten years younger. She must have been a striking woman, he thought, before.

'I am sorry, Nish,' she said, giving him her hand. It was deathly cold. 'No doubt my sister has told you of my troubles. The war has torn out my heart and hacked it to pieces, leaving nothing but the curse of my own life. But that is not your affair. You must be weary. Come inside. The hospitality of my house is yours, though I cannot promise you entertainment.'

'All I look forward to,' said Nish, 'is hot food, cool drink, and a bed wherever I may find one. I swear if you propped me against the fence I would go to sleep.'

Mira managed a smile and once again her face was transformed. 'I can promise you all those things. This house has plenty of vacant beds, including my own.' Her face crumpled, she choked back a sob, then froze her face and turned inside.

Yara said something to Nish with her eyes, though he could not read it. He followed her up the steps. The house was large, efficient and well run. Nish was provided with a handsome room lined with boards, walls and ceiling, looking out onto the veranda and down to the river, where mist was already rising with the evening. His dirty clothes were taken away and shortly a servant knocked at the door.

'Your bath is ready,' she said. 'It is the door at the end of the hall.'

Nish sank into the warm scented water with a sigh of bliss. After scrubbing himself until his skin shone, he hung his arms over the side of the tub, closed his eyes and the next he knew the servant girl was knocking on the door. 'If you would come to dinner, Mr Nish.'

Clean clothes were laid out on the end of his bed. Dressing hurriedly, he went down the hall to the stair, where another servant pointed him to the dining hall. This room was long, with panelled walls of dark timber and a steeple roof, also panelled. A fire crackled in a stone fireplace. A long table was set for five people.

Mira came in, wearing a gown of some clinging fabric that revealed a trim figure. Sitting at the head of the table, she indicated the chair to her right. 'Please sit down.'

He hesitated, for Yara and the girls had not yet appeared.

'I do not go in for pointless ceremony,' she said.

Nish sat, looked at Mira, and away. What was he to say? 'I am sorry,' he said, 'to hear about your -'

'You did not know my man or my boys,' she said, not harshly. 'Let us talk of other things.'

Nish was generally comfortable with women of his mother's age, and Mira was nearly that, but there was something about her that tangled his thoughts and he could not think of anything to say. 'What would you like to talk about?'

'Anything but war! What are you, Nish? A warmonger like your father?'

'I am not. How do you know my father?'

'My mother corresponded with every person of note on the continent. I have continued that tradition. And even among the monsters of this world the name Jal-Nish Hlar stands out. But the son is not necessarily the father.'

'Do you travel a lot?'

'I do not travel at all. Skeets were first tamed in these mountains by my family, more than eleven hundred years ago. We have been breeding them ever since. It is my sole pleasure, and I exchange with like-minded people all over the world, as my family have done for thirty-five generations.'

'I never imagined such a thing,' said Nish.

'The Council of Scrutators think they own the world,' said Mira, 'but there are more powers, and older, than they know about.'

'What do you mean by like-minded people?'

'Is that the scrutator's son asking?'

'Of course not.' He flushed.

'I mean those who want peace rather than endless war.'

'But the lyrinx -'

'They did not start the war, and their every peaceful overture has been brutally rejected.'

Nish was staggered. 'Are you saying that the scrutators want the war to continue?' Another piece of a puzzle.

'Some do, or did – those at the top. It suited their purpose in the early days, for it gave them control of the world. But control is slipping from their grasp. They cannot lose face by compromising, and the lyrinx no longer wish to. So we must fight until they are extinct, or we are. I do my small best to change that. What is your profession?'

'I was forced to become an artificer at the age of sixteen,' he said carefully, and as her face hardened he rushed out, 'but before that I was a prentice scribe to a merchant of Fassafarn.'

'What name?' she interrupted.

'Egarty Teisseyre. Do you know him?'

'Only by reputation. He is honest enough, for a merchant.'

'I loved being a scribe,' he said wistfully. 'And I was a good one, too.'

'I suppose artificing was your mother's doing, to save you from the army.'

'So it seems, though it was a long time before I realised it. I hated being an artificer. I worked hard at it,' he added hastily. 'I did my duty, though I have little talent for that kind of work.'

Yara appeared with the twins, and the talk went on to other matters. It was an uncomfortable dinner, with long silences, and when the girls began yawning uncontrollably Yara rose, saying, 'I will take my leave, sister, for I am quite as tired as they are. Good night.'

Nish rose as well but Mira said, 'Stay awhile, unless you are weary. It is not yet nine.'

'I napped in the bath and feel quite refreshed.'

'Would you care for wine?' The opened flask had been sitting on the table all through dinner but, as Yara had declined, Nish had felt out of politeness that he should do the same.

'I would love some,' he said. 'I seldom get the opportunity to taste good wine.'