Arriving at the estate, he is quickly and without comment escorted into the main house, down its central corridor and out into a high-walled garden where night flow shy;ers stream down the walls, drenched blossoms opening to drink in the gathering dusk. The masked bodyguard then leaves him, for the moment alone in the garden, and the bard stands motionless for a time, the air sweet and pungent, the sound of trickling water filling the enclosed space.
He recalls the soft songs he has sung here, unaccompanied by any instrument. Songs drawn from a hundred cultures, a dozen worlds. His voice weaving together the fragments of Shadow’s arrival, drawing together the day just past and the night eager to arrive.
There were secrets in music and poetry. Secrets few knew and even fewer un shy;derstood. Their power often stole into a listener subtle as the memory of scent on a drawn breath, less than a whisper, yet capable of transforming the one so gifted, an instinctual ecstasy that made troubles vanish, that made all manner of grandeur possible — indeed, within reach.
A skilled bard, a wise bard, knew that at certain moments in the course of a cycle of day and night, the path into the soul of a listener was smooth, unob shy;structed, a succession of massive gates that swung open to a feather’s touch. This was the most precious secret of all. Dusk, midnight, and that strange period of sudden wakefulness known as the watch — yes, the night and its stealthy ap shy;proach belonged to the heart.
Hearing a footfall behind him, he turns.
She stands, her long black hair shimmering, her face untouched by sun or wind, her eyes a perfect reflection of the violet blossoms adorning the walls. He can see through the white linen of her dress to the outlines of her body, roundness and curves and sweeps of aesthetic perfection — those forms and lines that mur shy;mured their own secret language to awaken desires in a man’s soul.
Every sense, he knows, is a path into the heart.
Lady Envy watches him, and he is content to let her do so, as he in turn re shy;gards her.
They could discuss the Seguleh — the dead ones in the casks, the living ones serving in this estate. They could ponder all that they sensed fast approaching. He could speak of his anger, its quiet, deadly iron that was so cold it could burn at the touch — and she would see the truth of his words in his eyes. She might drift this way and that in this modest garden, brushing fingertips along trembling petals, and speak of desires so long held that she was almost insensate to the myr shy;iad roots and tendrils they had wrought through her body and soul, and he would perhaps warn her of the dangers they presented, the risk of failure that must be faced and, indeed, accepted — and she would sigh and nod and know well he spoke with wisdom.
Mocking flirtation, the jaw-dropping self-obsession, all the ways in which she amused herself when engaging with the mortals of this world, did not accom shy;pany Lady Envy to this garden. Not with this man awaiting her. Fisher kel Tath was not a young man — and there were times when she wondered if he was mor shy;tal at all, although she would never pry in search of truth — and he was not at all godlike with physical perfection. His gifts, if she could so crassly list them, would include his voice, his genius with the lyre and a dozen other obscure in shy;struments, and the mind behind the eyes that saw all, that understood far too much of what he did see, that understood too the significance of all that re shy;mained and would ever remain hidden — yes, the mind behind the eyes and every faint hint he offered up to reveal something of that mind, its manner of obser shy;vance, its stunning capacity for compassion that only blistering fools would call weakness.
No, this was one man whom she would not mock — could not, in fact.
They could have discussed many things. Instead, they stood, eyes meeting and held, and the dusk closed in with all its scents and secrets.
Storm the abyss and throw down a multitude of astounded gods! The sky cracks open from day into night, and then cracks yet again, revealing the flesh of space and the blood of time — see it rent and see it spray in glistening red droplets of dy shy;ing stars! The seas boil and the earth steams and melts!
Lady Envy has found a lover.
Poetry and desire, fulminations one and the same and oh this is a secret to make thugs and brainless oafs howl at the night.
Has found a lover.
A lover.
‘I dreamt I was pregnant.’
Torvald paused inside the door and hesitated just a little too long before say shy;ing, ‘Why, that’s great!’
Tiserra shot him a quizzical look from where she stood at the table bearing her latest throw of pottery. ‘It is?’
‘Absolutely, darling. You can go through all the misery of that without its be shy;ing real. I can imagine your sigh of relief when you awoke and realized it was nothing but a dream.’
‘Well, I certainly imagined yours, my love.’
He walked in and slumped down into a chair, stretching out his legs. ‘Some shy;thing strange is going on,’ he said.
‘It was just a passing madness,’ she said. ‘No need for you to fret, Tor.’
‘I mean at the estate.’ He rubbed at his face. ‘The castellan spends all his time mixing up concoctions for diseases nobody has, and even if they did, his cures are liable to kill them first. The two compound guards do nothing but toss bones and that’s hardly something you’d think renegade Seguleh would do, is it? And if that’s not weird enough, Scorch and Leff are actually taking their responsibilities seriously.’
At that she snorted.
‘No, really,’ Torvald insisted. ‘And I think I know why. They can smell it, Tiss. The strangeness. The Mistress went to the Council and claimed her place and there wasn’t a whisper of complaint — or so I heard from Coll — and you’d think there’d be visitors now from various power blocs in the Council, everyone trying to buy her alliance. But. . nothing. No one. Does that make sense?’
Tiserra was studying her husband. ‘Ignore it, Tor. All of it. Your task is simple — keep it that way.’
He glanced up at her. ‘I would, believe me. Except that all my instincts are on fire — as if some damned white-hot dagger is hovering at my back. And not just me, but Scorch and Leff, too.’ He rose, began pacing.
‘I haven’t begun supper yet,’ Tisera said, ‘It’ll be awhile — why don’t you go to The Phoenix Inn for a tankard or two? Say hello to Kruppe if you see him.’
‘What? Oh. Good idea.’
She watched him leave, waited for a few dozen heartbeats to ensure that he’d found no reason to change his mind, and then went to one of the small trapdoors hidden in the floor, sprang the release and reached in to draw out her Deck of Dragons. She sat at the table and carefully removed the deerskin cover.
This was something she did rarely these days. She was sensitive enough to know that powerful forces were gathering in Darujhistan, making any field she attempted fraught with risk. Yet Tiserra, for all her advice to Torvald to simply ignore matters, well knew that her husband’s instincts were too sharp to be summarily dismissed.
‘Renegade Seguleh,’ she muttered, then shook her head and collected up the Deck. Her version was Barukan, with a few cards of her own added, including one for The City — in this case, Darujhistan — and another — but no, she would not think of that one. Not unless she had to.
A tremor of fear rushed through her. The wooden cards felt cold in her hands. She decided on a spiral field and was not at all surprised when she set the centre card down and saw that it was The City, a silhouetted, familiar skyline at dusk, with the glow of blue fires rising up from below, each one like a submerged star. She studied it for a time, until those fires seemed to swim before her eyes, until the dusk the card portrayed began to flow into the world around her, one bleeding into the other, back and forth until the moment was fixed, time pinned down as if by a knife stabbed into the table. She was not seeking the future — prophecy was far too dangerous with all the converging powers — but the present. This very instant, each strand’s point of attachment in the vast web that now spanned Darujhistan.