It would, of course, have been a great pity if anything happened to her, so the female gryphon's suggestion about how to keep her safe was a good one. But it was an insignificant detail in the greater work of this evening. He and Amberdrake between them had managed to engineer all of it without ever having Shalaman's honor publicly called into question.
And Amberdrake saved us all from the curses of the gods— and on the eve of the Eclipse, too!His relief at thatwas enough to make him weak in the knees. The disaster that would be— the curses could have persisted for the next twenty years, or worse!
But of course Amberdrake's forgiveness came quickly and readily; that was the kind of soul that Leyuet had touched.
He simply rested from his labor as Skandranon, Shalaman, and the rest worked out what the next moves would be.
"I think perhaps that we should do more than continue to foster the illusion that I am the chief suspect," Amberdrake said gravely. "In fact—Winterhart, if you have no objections, perhaps we should also foster the illusion that you and I have quarreled over this, and that you have accepted the King's proposal."
Leyuet woke up at that. It was a bold move—and a frightening one. He would have been more concerned, except that he had violated custom and Read the King, and he knew that Shalaman had been truly frightened by his narrow escape, and that he would, indeed, regard Winterhart as purely and without lust as if she was his daughter from this moment on.
In the face of so great a threat, the violation of custom is a small matter. Shalaman could not have been permitted Winterhart's company if his heart had not changed.
"I don't object—as long as I can still—" Winterhart bit her lip and blushed redly, and Shalaman laughed for the first time that evening. These pale people showed their embarrassment in such an amusing fashion!
How far down does the red go, one wonders?It certainly crept down her neck and past her collar.
"I shall have Leyuet give you the key to the next suite," Shalaman said indulgently. "Just as the gryphons's suite connects to yours, there is one that connects to theirs. I shall put you there—it is a suitable arrangement for a Consort-To-Be, since the bride must remain with her relatives, and they are the closest you have to relatives here—and it will look as if I am placing the gryphons between you and Amberdrake as a kind of guard upon your honor and safety."
"Meanwhile, we are anything but. I like it," Skandranon said. "Just don't keep us awake at night, scampering through our quarters, all right, Amberdrake?"
Shalaman chuckled at this, as did Amberdrake. So did Leyuet. If the King had been having second thoughts, he would have put Winterhart in the Royal Apartments. All was well.
He relaxed back onto his cushion; his opinion was not needed in this, but he did need to know what they were planning, for Palisar and Silver Veil would have to be informed.
Ishouldn't be relaxed,he tried to tell himself. This is a perilous and horrible situation. There is a killer among us, a killer who is likely also a traitor, who kills in terrifying and obscene ways. It could be anyone! Well, almost anyone. Four ladies of the Court are dead— I did not know them, but still, I should not be sitting here thinking about being able to enjoy a meal for the first time in days....
On the other hand, there was nothing more that he could do, and his Emperor was acting again like the Shalaman he knew, the warrior, the leader.
And he was seeing a side to the foreigners, especially Amberdrake, that he had never, ever guessed. They had seemed so different from the Haighlei before this moment—alien, tricky, crafty, possibly deceitful.
Amberdrake, in particular, had seemed too opaque to be trustworthy. How could he not have noticed that this very opacity was like Silver Veil's mannered detachment?
I thought that Silver Veil was unique. Is this how all northern kestra'chern are? Oh, perhaps not. Anyone can call himself a kestra'chern, after all. We have kestra'chern who are hardly worthy of the name. And there have been very few even of the good ones who have risen to the rank of Advisor.
But here were two who were worthy of the name and the highest of ranks—Silver Veil and Amberdrake—and an equally brilliant soul, if of a different order, in Winterhart. The strangers had turned out to be not so strange after all, despite their odd ways and their even odder friends, the gryphons.
Perhaps— one day I shall venture to read the gryphons. If they can be the friends of Amberdrake, then I think I should be in no danger of harm....
With a start, he realized that the conference was coming to an end, at least as far as he was concerned.
"You may go, Leyuet," Shalaman said, dismissing him with a wave of his hand. "We have taken up enough of your rest as it is. In the morning, see that Palisar and Silver Veil learn of what we have discussed, but keep it all among yourselves."
Unspoken, but obvious to Leyuet—he should keep to himselfthe King's near-debacle in the matter of honor.
It was not the first time that he had kept such things to himself. That was something of the nature of a Truthsayer; he examined and watched the King more often than the King himself knew.
He rose, smiled his farewells, and bowed himself out.
But not to go to his rooms.
Silver Veil would probably learn of all of this from Amberdrake; he could make sure of that in the morning.
But the rest of this was critical enough that Palisar should hear of it now.
Let Shalaman preserve his illusion that his Advisors wasted time on sleep when there was a delicate situation to be handled. Leyuet knew his duty, and so did Palisar. It would be a long night, but one well-spent.
Besides,he thought, humming a little to himself, suddenly I seem to have much more energy than I did earlier.
I wonder why that is?
Eight
Skandranon woke early and went scouting on the wing, just after dawn, despite the late hours they had all kept the night before. He was restless and found it hard to sleep with so many problems burning away at him.
First and foremost, of course, was whothe murderer was, and how he was accomplishing his crimes.
Skan was so angry that his muscles were all tight, but it was not the kind of hot, impulsive anger that had driven him in the past. This was a slow, smoldering rage, one that would send him wherever he had to go, to do whatever he had to do to catch the culprit. And when he caught the blackguard—well, he would probably wish that Leyuet and his Spears of the Law had gotten there first. Whoever this smelly chunk ofsketi is, he has to be getting into those rooms somehow. Maybe he left some sign on the roofs. Maybe I can find it. I doubt that Leyuet's people were really looking for it, not after they'd made up their minds that Drake or I had killed those people.
He flung himself off the railing of his balcony and up into the air with a great lunge of his hind legs—a lunge no longer accompanied by the plaint of his muscles, although there was a tiny creak of his joints that was probably unavoidable. At least his campaign of reconditioning himself had worked. The creaking was because of the damp, and there wasn't much to be done about that. This place was always damp; cool and damp by night, hot and damp by day. The climate made for some spectacular foliage, thick with lushly beautiful flowers that were even now sending their fragrances up on warm thermals, but it was also rather bad for middle-aged joints.