Dhulyn Wolfshead sounded as though she might be smiling, but she’d only turned her head enough for him to see the very corner of her mouth. Gun pressed his knees tightly against the saddle and tried to sit up straight as she’d instructed him. It had been years since he’d sat on a horse, and even though it was said that you never forgot how to ride, there seemed to be something lacking in his own recall. Had the beasts always been this far from the ground?
His teeth closed sharply on the inside of his cheek as his horse stopped short. Gingerly, the taste of blood on his tongue, he edged his horse next to Dhulyn’s.
“I thought we were in a hurry,” he said. He craned his neck to see what had stopped her, but all he could see was a group of children playing Blind Man. Three stood to one side, waiting their turn to play; four were chanting as they danced around the child in the center, blindfolded with what looked like a strip torn from the bottom of his shirt. Someone’ll be in trouble when he gets home tonight, Gun thought.
“Blind Man, Blind Man,
Which one will you choose?
Over and through, in and out he goes;
The green tile or the blue, no one really knows
Are you a glad one or are you a sad one?
Are you a good one or are you a bad one?”
“Three days ago they were afraid to come out to play,” Dhulyn Wolfshead said, her eyes fixed on the children and their game.
“They wouldn’t be out now, if they knew what we know,” Gun said.
The Mercenary smiled her wolf’s grin. “We do know,” she said, “and yet here we are.” She clucked to her horse and Gun was jolted upright as his own beast followed.
“If this is a game,” Gun said to her back. “I don’t want to play anymore.”
One of the Tenebro guards must have recognized them as they rode along the street, for the gate of Tenebro House was rolling back as they approached, and a familiar figure appeared in the opening. Except for the change in his clothing and the different braiding of his hair, he looked exactly as he had the first time Dhulyn had seen him.
“Look to the Scholar,” she said to him as he came to help her down from Bloodbone. “He’s the one’s not ridden much.”
But another guard was stepping up to help Gundaron, and Karlyn-Tan stayed where he was, smiling up at her. “We thought it would be Parno Lionsmane with you,” he said. “Is your errand to the Tenebroso?”
“Is there a Tenebroso?”
“The lord Dal-eDal was called to the Tarkin’s bedside this morning, and confirmed before witnesses as Dal-eLad Tenebroso.”
“And do you address me as his Walls?”
Karlyn-Tan smiled again and shrugged, shaking his head in answer. “But I must do something while I’m here, eating his bread.”
“Since you ask as a friend, Karlyn, we come on the Tarkin’s orders, to fetch certain needed supplies that the Scholar knows to be in his former rooms. Whose leave do we ask, if not yours?”
“As you come in the Tarkin’s name, I’d say you ask leave of no one.”
Dhulyn swung her leg over Bloodbone’s head and slid off the mare’s back, landing on her feet face-to-face with the former Steward of Walls. He made no step back, just put his hand out for the bridle. “Perhaps, then, the Scholar can find his own way to his old rooms,” she said.
“Undoubtedly he can, but Dal-eLad Tenebroso’s been told of your approach, and has asked that you speak with him when your errand is done.”
Dhulyn looked Karlyn up and down, the beginnings of her wolf’s smile on her lips. “It seems to me I’ve come into this House once before, Karlyn. I’m in no hurry to do so again.”
“Ah, but this time you may keep your weapons,” the former Walls said, his own grin wide and open. “The new Tenebroso says that all Mercenary Brothers are to be regarded as members of his House. Your Partner and yourself above all others.”
Dhulyn absently stroked Bloodbone’s neck. “Does he now? That’s kind of him.” She supposed it was, really, but somehow she couldn’t find herself grateful.
“So you may go about your business, Scholar. The Wolfshead will be in the small salon when you are ready.”
When Gundaron looked at her, Dhulyn nodded. “Go ahead, Scholar, I’ve no need to see that room again.”
Karlyn waited until Gundaron had run up the left-hand staircase before leading Dhulyn away to the right.
“You won’t be familiar with the small salon,” he said, holding open a heavy wood door with a small iron grille at eye height for her. “Dal is converting it to his study, and restoring the old Tenebroso’s sitting room to its public function.”
“I’m surprised to see you still here, if you don’t intend to become Walls again,” Dhulyn said.
He let her pass through the door, then paused a moment holding it open. Dhulyn stopped and looked back at him. He faced her, but his crystal-blue eyes were focused inward.
“It’s not my plan to stay here,” he said, finally lifting his eyes to her. “But it’s as good a place to live as any until this crisis ends, or until I know where I wish to be.”
“You are not too old to make a Mercenary Brother, if you lived through the Schooling,” she said.
His smile, for all that it creased his eyes, made him look younger. “I’ve lived through several things already.”
Gundaron’s room wasn’t exactly as he’d left it. It was clear that someone had searched it, but it had been someone who had left the room almost as neat as they’d found it. The books and scrolls had clearly been taken from the shelf and then stuffed back in place without regard for either order or bent corners; the bed had been stripped of linens, but the linens themselves had been taken away and the bed restored-almost-to its place against the wall.
He wasn’t surprised to find the same partially restored order in his clothespress, though he was surprised that his spare tunics were still there. What wasn’t there, however, was the box of drugs that should have been on the top shelf.
Gun chewed on his bottom lip. He’d taken the drugs to the workroom when he’d given them to Dhulyn Wolfshead. He’d brought them back here-hadn’t he? He touched the spot on the shelves where the pearwood box should be. Well, if he had brought it back, whoever had searched the room had taken it away again.
That did leave him one other place to look.
He was actually out the door and into the hallway before he remembered there was something else he’d come here to get.
Karlyn tapped on the right-hand leaf of a set of plain double doors and opened it without waiting. The room within was neither as crowded and carpeted as the old woman’s room, nor as cold and heavy-furnitured as Lok-iKol’s. The floors were plain golden wood, clean and polished. The furniture, while sturdy, was limited to a few chairs of a light-colored wood, backs, seats, and arms covered with tooled leather, with a few bright-patterned cushions scattered about. The walls held simple ink drawings, there were flowers in low vases, and dried fruit in shallow ceramic bowls. As they entered, the new House, Dal-eLad Tenebroso, was studying the top of a low, round table that sat between two of the leather-covered armchairs. Before he got to his feet, he shifted something on the table with his fingertips with a movement that was very familiar to Dhulyn. She waited until he raised his head and smiled before advancing into the room herself. When she got close enough, she was not surprised to see that the tabletop was covered with what looked to be a very old set of vera tiles. Most were turned facedown, as if a game were about to begin.
“Do you play the tiles, Tenebroso?”
“Please, call me Dal. We are related, in an odd way, though it seems we’re not to acknowledge it. And no, I get no pleasure from gambling. I don’t even play the Solitary hands, really. It’s the patterns that interest me most. I lay the tiles out in the old patterns as a way to help me relax.”