“He could be a very valuable piece in their games. They will not yield easily if they want him badly.”
“Then they will have to reckon with me. I will play a game of my own, to my own rules. It may be long years before the Lord of Sirle sees his son again.”
“The old lord is dead,” Maelga said. “Coren’s oldest brother, Rok, is Lord of Sirle, lord of rich lands, walled forts, an army that has threatened the Eldwold Kings for centuries. My child,” she said wonderingly. “You have never cried before.”
“Oh, I am angry—” She wiped her face with her fingers impatiently. Then she looked down at their glistening. “How strange… My father said my mother wept, looking out the windows, before I was born, but I never knew what he meant… Why can I not just throw Coren to Gyld and have done with it? But I have his name and the sound of his voice, and the order of his words. He is a fool but he is alive, with eyes to see and weep with, hands to carry a baby and kill a man, a heart to love and hate, and a mind to use, after a fashion. In his own world, he is doubtless valued.”
“My child,” Maelga whispered. “We are all of one world.”
Sybel was silent.
She went to look at Coren before she slept. Tam was sleeping; around her in the dark night she felt the animals’ vague night dreaming, colorful and strange as fragments of old, forgotten tales. The white-pillared hall was silent under her soundless steps. The fire slept, curled in charred, pulsing embers. She opened the door softly, and beard the faint, breathless chatter of Coren as he lay burning with fever.
He turned his head to look up at her by the flame of the single, hunched candle by the bed. His eyes glittered like Ter’s.
“Ice-white Lady,” he whispered. “He was so beautiful, with amethysts and gold in his claws, but they say never, never look upon the face of beauty. And you are beautiful, ivory and diamond-white, fire-white, with eyes as black as Drede’s heart… blacker… black as the black trees in Mirkon Forest where the King’s son Arn was lost three days and three nights and came out with pure white hair… Black—”
“Arn,” Sybel said softly. “How would you know a tale like that? It is written in one place only, and I have the key to that book.”
“I know.” He blinked, as though she were wavering like a flame. He reached toward her, then dropped his arm with a hiss of pain. “I am hurt,” be said wonderingly. Then he shouted, “Rok! Ceneth!”
“Sh—you will wake Tam.”
“Rok!” He stirred restlessly, turning his face away from her, and she heard the sudden sob of his breath. Then he was quiet, as she bent over him, touched his hair, smoothed it away from his face. She wet a cloth with wine and wiped his damp forehead again and again until his taut hands loosened and she knew by his breathing that he slept.
She slept late in the morning, then rose, still weary, to check the animals. She walked through the vast sweep of walled grounds to the small lake Myk had built for the Black Swan where it glided proud and silent beneath the blue-gray sky. Wild swan, geese, ducks flying across the mountains from winter had stopped to feed with it. The huge Swan moved toward her as she stood on the edge, its eyes of liquid night. Its thoughts trailed into hers-flute-toned.
Sybel, you are beautiful these days as moonlit ice.
A smile flicked, wry, into her eyes. Ice. Thank you. Are you well?
I am. But there are others of us who do not seem so content.
I know. I will see to Gyld.
Who will see to the lordling of Sirle? I have heard he comes to take back what he has given.
He will take nothing from me. Nothing.
So? The great Swan glided a moment in silence. Once when the child prince of Elon was in danger of his father’s enemies, I flew him by night and moonlight where no man could seek him.
I will remember that. Thank you. She heard a flurry of leaves about her and found Ter Falcon, great talons winking in the pale light.
I smelled a familiar thing, he said, and his clear, ice-blue eyes reminded her again of Coren. Would you have me drop him off a cliff?
Oh, no. I think he is damaged enough. I think he has come for— She checked, gazing into the sharp eyes, and her mind emptied swift as water flowing between stones. Ter’s feathers ruffled a little in the wind.
I have ridden on the boy’s fist and listened to his secret, late night murmurings that he gave to me because I could not answer. I have spent many years in the courts of men and I can guess what the lordling of Sirle has come for.
You will not harm him, Sybel said. Not unless I ask you. He thinks—he thinks I set Gyld at him.
What can it matter what such a man thinks or does not think? Ter inquired. She was silent, searching herself.
It matters, she said at last. But I do not know why. The Falcon was silent for a long moment. She waited, unstirring, while the winds pulled at the hem of her black dress. Then she felt the wrench at her mind, the sudden, dizzying soar of Ter’s thoughts away from her, like the swift Falcon’s flight toward a distant sky. But she kept her mind clear, still, her thoughts encompassing his thoughts’ flight like a ring that encompassed the earth and the air, growing outward, always just beyond the Falcon’s flight; until its flight faltered and broke, and spun downward, downward into a smoldering, fiery inward surge of rage and power that grew in her until her sinews were taut harp strings, and her heart aflame with Ter’s hot blood. Yet still, in the center of her mind, there was a cool, endless ring of quiet, holding her own name, that Ter could not reach. He yielded finally, his thoughts retreating like a wave, and she drew a slow breath of the winds. Her mouth crooked in a little, triumphant smile.
Now, why do you even try? she asked.
For the boy’s sake. If you had broken I would have killed.
And you are the one that stopped me from throwing him off the mountaintop.
I am sorry, now.
I will not let him leave here with Tam.
Neither, Ter said, will I.
The great, black, green-eyed Cat Moriah dropped like a shadow from a tree while she walked back to the house. It padded at her side, and she trailed her fingers through its velvet fur.
There was a spell, the Cat said at last, in its sweet, silken voice, my former mistress had, that would dissolve a man so completely only the rings on his hands would be left.
I do not think Maelga would approve of that, Sybel said. Are you well?
Maelga has done many things.
She has never dissolved a man. She stopped suddenly, impatiently. Oh, why even think of it? Neither will I. My father and my grandfather did not like men, but they never killed them. I could not kill a man.
I can.
Well, he only has to be made afraid.
Cyrin met her at the door, his red eyes guileless under the autumn sun. She stopped and gazed down at him.
What do you think I should do with that man?
The silver-bristled Boar panted gently a moment. A net of words, he said at last, is more powerful than a net of rope.
So?
So that man is talking to Tam and he has a tongue like a sweet-mouthed harpist.
Sybel’s heart fluttered suddenly like one of Maelga’s doves. She went into the house and ran to Ogam’s room. She opened the door, and Tam’s face turned away from Coren, toward her, oddly flushed. His eyes were vague with struggling, incomprehensible things.