She was almost at the corner. She’d begun the turn, he could almost see her profile.
“Wait!”
Thirteen
DHULYN LOOKED WITH INTEREST around the small reception room. It was sparsely but very expensively furnished, and while the chair opposite the entry doors was too small to be a throne, it was decorated with the distinctive red carnelians that were set aside for the exclusive use of the Tarkins of Imrion. The floor, a soft creamy marble, still had its carpets laid down against the winter chill, and likely would for a few weeks yet. The light oak panels on the walls, even the double doors on the left side of the room, were inlaid with silver hooded snakes, the symbol of the ancient House of Culebro, founders of the Tarkinate of Imrion. Two men and a woman stood close to the Tarkin’s chair, and it was the younger man who turned, saluting Alkoryn with a smile and a lifted hand, before taking the seat.
Like the room, Tek-aKet, Tarkin of Imrion, Consage of the Lost Isles, Darklin of Pendamar, and, as it happened, Culebroso, was plainly but richly dressed in the dark red of the Tarkinate. On his left sleeve were two thin stripes of color, yellow and brown, to show his Culebro heritage. As tall as Parno, but as slim as herself, the man was well-muscled, with his northern father’s dark hair and his southern mother’s fair skin setting off eyes so pale a blue as to be almost colorless. The woman, olive-skinned, her eyes a glowing black, her hair and most of her dark red gown covered by a long veil of purple silk shot with gold, took her place to the Tarkin’s right, and Dhulyn realized that it was the Tarkina herself who was taking part in the audience. Dhulyn hooked her thumbs in her worn leather sword belt, unsure whether the Tarkina’s presence would make things easier… or harder.
The older man, skinny, and wearing more jewelry than either Tarkin or Tarkina, Dhulyn noted with a grimace, also wore the Carnelian badge on his left shoulder, marking him for some upper-level aide of the Tarkin.
“I greet you, Alkoryn Pantherclaw.” The Tarkin’s voice was surprisingly gruff coming from so smooth-looking a man. And there was a smile in it, Dhulyn realized, which explained how Alkoryn had been able to see the Tarkin so quickly. Some connection, whether friendship could be the word or no, existed somehow between the two very different men. “My aide Gan-eGan you know,” the Tarkin said, gesturing at the older man, “and my Tarkina you have met. You say there is a threat against my life?”
“I greet you, Lords, Lady,” Alkoryn said, bowing his head and touching the empty loop on his belt where his sword normally hung. “May I present my Brothers, Dhulyn Wolfshead the Scholar, and Parno Lionsmane the Chanter. It is the Wolfshead who brought this news to me, and I bring her now that you may hear her own words.”
The Tarkin turned his pale blue eyes to her, the strange etiquette of the Carnelian court allowing him to notice her for the first time.
“Lord Tarkin,” Dhulyn said, lowering her gaze for a moment and touching her sword belt in imitation of Alkoryn’s example. Her Senior had heard and approved the version of the story she and Parno had planned, and she began it now. “I have recently been in House Tenebro, and while there I overheard the present Tenebroso speaking with a Jaldean priest. They were discussing your assassination, my lord, and making plans to put the Tenebroso Lok-iKol-the Kir as he then was-on the Carnelian Throne.”
The Tarkina lifted her hand, as if to put her fingertips on her husband’s shoulder. There was no other movement in the room.
Finally, the Tarkin leaned back in his chair, rested his chin in his right hand. The red stone in his seal ring caught the light, twinkling.
“The newly risen House and a Jaldean priest?”
“Yes, Lord Tarkin.”
The Tarkin looked at his aide. “Have your people heard anything of this?”
Gan-eGan shook his head. “No, my lord, and I do not see how this could be so. The Jaldeans have made no changes in their usual demands.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Dhulyn saw Parno rub his upper lip with his left index finger. She, too, imagined she knew what the “usual demands” were. Judging from what they’d heard preached on the street, the Jaldeans wanted arrests and detainments, not just green headdresses, curfews and pressure to come to their shrines voluntarily.
Alkoryn cleared his throat. “Nor would there be, if they had something like this in view. You are too moderate for them, Lord Tarkin…”
“It may be, as some suggest, that I would prefer the Jaldeans had never found their new teachings,” the Tarkin said. “But they are here, many listen and believe, and that is a reality of my reign. I am sorry for the Marked. I have instructed my soldiers, and the guards along my borders not to hinder or stop them if they wish to go, though the Jaldeans would prefer I did otherwise. I am not myself a New Believer, but I will have order, and until I find some other way, the Marked are the price I must pay.”
“It is as I have said,” the aide said. “The Jaldeans have no need to support the claims of another for the Throne.”
“Perhaps the need is Lok-iKol’s,” Dhulyn said.
“You should be more careful, Mercenary. This is a High Noble House you speak of.”
Dhulyn smiled her wolf’s smile, and Gan-eGan edged farther away from her. The Tarkin looked quickly aside, lifting his hand to rub at his upper lip. I could like him, were he not so wrong, Dhulyn thought, stifling a genuine smile of her own.
“May I ask, Dhulyn Wolfshead, how it is you came to overhear this conversation?” the Tarkin said.
Dhulyn swallowed. This was the tricky part.
“They thought I was unconscious, and so spoke freely before me.” The Tarkin sat up straight. “They thought you were unconscious? How?” He transferred his look to Alkoryn. “Drunk?”
“Drugged, my lord.”
The aide sniffed. “Is that not much the same thing?”
“Drugged by them.”
“To what possible purpose?”
The Tarkin was content, Dhulyn saw, to let his weasel of an aide pursue his questions for him. She drew in air through her nose.
“I did not catch your name, sir,” Parno cut in. Dhulyn ground her teeth but stayed silent. This was Parno’s world, as she herself had said. She’d do best to let him handle it.
“I am Gan-eGan,” the aide said through stiff lips. “I am the head of the Tarkin’s private council.”
“I am surprised, Gan-eGan, to find you so hostile to persons who have come here with a warning.”
“The Brotherhood’s neutrality is well known, so you may therefore understand my caution when one of you, claiming to have been drugged, comes with an accusation against a High Noble House,” Gan-eGan said.
It was all Dhulyn could do not to throw her hands in the air. This would get them nowhere. “My partner and I delivered a cousin of theirs whom we’d guarded from Navra, and when the job was done, we were set upon and held. We don’t know why-perhaps you could ask the Tenebros? They gave me fresnoyn, and while they were waiting to question me-again, I don’t know why-I overheard the conversation I’ve described. The interrogation was interrupted, and we escaped before it could be continued. We thought about remaining in captivity and asking a few questions of our own, but rational thought prevailed.”
“Do not take offense.” The Tarkin’s eyes danced in an otherwise straight face. “The Carnelian Throne is not an easy seat. Even the accusations of friends must be examined, when they come without proof. Is there proof you can offer me?”
Dhulyn closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. “I thought it was a mistake to come here,” she muttered. “Believe us, don’t believe us-it’s all the same to me.”