Tang could not bring himself to utter the prayer. To concede their valor was to admit he had suffered defeat at the hands of a barbarian; worse, it was to admit defeat at his own hands. When his soldiers laughed at him, he had let his embarrassment dictate General Fui’s death. The price for that arrogance had been the failure of his assault, and the prince did not care to admit—to himself or his ancestors—that he been had such a fool. If that made him a coward, so be it; Shou princes were taught to be cowards, and forgetting that lesson had been the cause of his ignoble defeat.
Tang’s resolve only made the voices echo louder inside his head. He rolled onto his back and sat up. Midnight gloom filled the swamp below like a funeral pyre’s black smoke, spreading an oily, clinging ink over everything it touched. The darkness was broken only by a faint fox fire glow that illuminated the floating corpses of the screaming dead soldiers.
“Silence, I command!” Tang hissed. “Present yourselves at Ten Courts and leave me in peace!”
A gentle sloshing sounded below. Something broke the surface of the black water, sending a crazy pattern of rippling, ghost-faint lights bouncing off invisible cypress trunks. Tang froze, praying the disturbance had been caused by a restless alligator.
It was impossible to say how long the prince stared into the darkness. He was not conscious of breathing until long after the air had grown heavy with silence and the pond had returned to its glassy stillness. It occurred to him that the voices of his dead soldiers had fallen quiet; then he sensed a pair of long reptilian necks rising from the black water. He did not see the creatures so much as feel a pair of lighter, warmer presences among the cypress trees below, but he knew without doubt that his craven outburst of whispering had drawn the attention of Cypress’s wyverns.
Tang had not expected the two reptiles to emerge from the cave that night. They had both suffered a substantial battering during the destruction of the Shou assault party, so the prince had assumed they would lie up for the night and lick their wounds. Still, with a ready supply of fresh meat floating outside their door, it was not surprising they had come out to feed. Tang was glad he had decided not to hazard moving at night. If the creatures had been outside when he started rustling through the brush, they would surely have killed him.
No sooner had Tang finished congratulating himself on his wisdom than the ground trembled beneath his legs. He stifled a cry and, thinking one of the reptiles had landed nearby, reached for his only weapon, a pitifully inadequate dagger. Instead of feeling the sharp sting of a wyvern’s tail barb, however, he heard a series of faint, muffled knells—such as a distant bell or gong might make.
The tolling had hardly begun to fade before a loud purl rolled from the mouth of the grotto below. Cypress’s form—a huge, shadowy darkness far blacker than the surrounding swamp—emerged from the lair and seemed to pause outside the cavern.
The wyverns hissed in frustration and swam, rather noisily, back into the cavern. A loud, basal throb reverberated through the swamp as Cypress’s mighty wings beat the air. Visions of the dragon swooping down out of the darkness filled the prince’s mind, at least until he realized the pulsing was growing softer and more distant. The dragon was flying away.
Tang sighed in relief, then kicked his heels deep into the mud and felt something slithering across his leg. The prince remained motionless until he located the creature’s head, then calmly grabbed it behind the jaws and flung the writhing thing down the hill. He had nothing to fear from snakes—perhaps from the spirits of his dead soldiers, whose voices were again filling his ears—but not from snakes.
* * * **
Ruha slept without dreaming and awoke sometime later, lying on the soft bed with the heavy woolen quilt pulled high beneath her chin. Her first thought was not that she usually took off her aba before sleeping, or that she never pulled the blanket up to her chin, but that she had slept the night away. She threw the cover off and rushed to the alcove, where, to her relief, she saw the treetops still dancing in silver moonlight. Only then did she notice that someone had removed her veil and realized that the tallow lamp had been extinguished—she could not have been asleep long enough for it to burn itself out!—and it occurred to her Vaerana had already come and gone.
Ruha fumbled around in the darkness until she found her veil on the stone bench, then felt her way out the door, into the hallway, and down the spiraling staircase. Jarvis and his partner were leaning on their lances outside the portcullis.
The witch paused to put on her veil, then demanded, “How long have I been asleep?”
Startled by Ruha’s question, they whirled around with lance tips lowered. When she cautiously stepped into the flickering light of their candle, both men sighed and snapped to attention.
“How long ago did Vaerana put me in my bed?” Ruha demanded.
The two guards glanced nervously at each other, then Jarvis said, “Actually, I laid you in the bed.”
Ruha raised a hand to her face. “You removed my veil?”
Jarvis looked first confused, then embarrassed. “The Lady Constable commanded me to—er, she said that you deserved your rest—”
“Vaerana said that?” Ruha could hardly imagine those words coming from the Lady Constable’s lips.
“Yes, about three hours ago. She rushed up the stairs and right back down again.” Jarvis glanced at his companion, then added, “She ordered me to see that you rested comfortably, and to tell you she would look in on you when she returned.”
“Kozah take her for an impatient she-camel!”
Jarvis scowled at that outburst. “There’s no need for calling names. She was only trying to be considerate—and that’s a rare thing for Vaerana Hawklyn.”
“It would have been considerate to wake me!” Ruha retorted. “She was taking advantage of my fatigue. How soon will she return?”
Jarvis shrugged. “She was dressed for battle.”
Ruha cursed again, this time under her breath. “And what of Captain Fowler? I told you to fetch me if he asked.”
“He has not asked,” Jarvis replied stiffly.
Ruha sighed in relief. If Fowler had not come for her, she could still spring her trap. “I want one of you to come with me, so you can show Vaerana where I am hiding.”
“Hiding?”
“It is for the good of Yanseldara. That is all you need to know, Jarvis.”
Ruha started across the drawbridge without waiting for the guard to agree. Before she reached the other side, Jarvis’s heavy steps were booming across the thick planks behind her.
“We’re not supposed to leave our posts,” he complained.
“And Vaerana was supposed to speak with me before she left. Because she did not, we must now improvise.”
They descended the stairs and retraced the meandering path to Silavia’s kitchen. With the door and shutters all closed, the place looked as dark and silent as the other sheds built along this section of the wall. Wondering how those inside could tolerate the cloying smell of ylang oil without opening the windows, Ruha slipped beneath an unruly wax myrtle. She settled into a hiding place so deliberately uncomfortable that she would not fall asleep, then sent Jarvis back to Pearl Tower.
A long, bone-aching time later, Ruha began to debate the wisdom of going to check on Tombor’s progress. She had expected it to take him quite some time to press all eight sacks of ylang blossoms, but the first gray hint of false dawn had already appeared in the eastern sky. Household servants were beginning to trudge about their morning tasks, and it would not be long before some passing groom or maid discovered the witch lurking in the bushes.