‘Of course, Elect.’
‘So we hide ourselves behind these thick walls,’ Cerys said. ‘We keep ourselves from the gaze of the Huanin in whose lands we dwell. Forgive me if it sounds a foolish question, Eshenna, but why is that?’
There was only the slightest of hesitations before Eshenna’s soft-voiced reply.
‘Because they fear and mistrust na’kyrim, Elect. Because not all share the tolerance that the Thanes of Kilkry have shown us.’
‘Indeed. Highfast is not only a place of learning. It is haven, too, for our kind. A refuge from the . . . harshness with which both Huanin and Kyrinin are wont to treat us. Just as Dyrkyrnon is. There are few places where such as you and I can live in peace. Would it surprise you if I said I understood the reasons for that? That, sometimes, I can almost sympathise with those who need so little encouragement to turn upon a na’kyrim in their midst.’
She saw, and felt, the surprise her statement provoked.
‘Terrible things were done to many, many na’kyrim after the War of the Tainted, in the Storm Years and since. You know that as well as I do, Eshenna. You know, but perhaps do not consider so much, that terrible things were also done by na’kyrim themselves before that. Orlane, imprisoning the mind of a king and making him betray his own people. Long before him, there was Minon the Torturer; Dorthyn, who bent all his will and strength to the utter destruction of the wolfenkind, of an entire race. Many of them, Eshenna. Many whose gifts became terrible weapons. The Huanin remember Orlane most clearly, and revile his name most bitterly, but he was not the only one, or even the worst.’
‘I do not quite understand, Elect,’ murmured Eshenna.
‘It is my responsibility to preserve Highfast and what it contains. The power of the Shared is unwisely used if it is used to interfere in the arguments of the Huanin. We might mean only to do good, but we would nevertheless only remind the humans of what it is they fear.
‘If there is truly a na’kyrim out there amidst all the slaughter in Lannis-Haig, serving the Black Road, now is not the time to risk Highfast’s tradition of discretion. The Kilkry warriors on the battlements above swear their oaths of secrecy, but there’s no stilling so many tongues. There are already many more people who know we are here, and what we do, than you might imagine. If it becomes common knowledge that a na’kyrim is aiding the Black Road, who is to say that some of the anger that follows—and it will follow—may not be turned on us? It would be better not to remind the world of our existence.’
‘Yet,’ said Eshenna, ‘if it were true that one of the na’kyrim is repeating the errors of the past, does it not fall to us, even more so than to the Bloods, to oppose that error and rectify it?’
Cerys gave a curt laugh. ‘Nimble, Eshenna. But not nimble enough to sway me. It has taken centuries to gather the wisdom that is recorded here in our books and manuscripts and scrolls. I would not risk that for the sake of correcting another’s mistake. Not until we know a good deal more than we do at present.’
‘You must excuse my obstinacy, Elect. Still, I would have thought that the death of one of our own demanded more of an answer.’
‘Eshenna,’ Cerys said levelly, ‘I grieve for Inurian. But we deal in manuscripts here. In study and memory. Not judgement; not execution. My counsel, and that of the Conclave, is patience. We will wait, and we will watch. If it comes to seem that it is right, and best, for us to do something more, no doubt we will. I cannot keep you here if your heart calls you to leave. Highfast is not a prison. But I must ask you, so long as you wish to remain here, to put your trust in the wisdom of the Conclave, and follow its decisions.’
Eshenna bowed her head. ‘Of course, Elect,’ she said as she rose to leave.
The door was almost closed behind her when Cerys said, ‘I would regret it, Eshenna, should you ever choose to leave Highfast. We do need . . . other views to leaven our traditions, sometimes.’
‘Thank you, Elect,’ she heard Eshenna say, and then the door clicked shut.
Cerys sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. How sweet a few days of peace, and a few nights of undreaming sleep, would be. She knew she was unlikely to be granted them. Still, there were smaller respites to be found. She opened a cabinet and took out the scented candles that she burned only rarely, and on very particular nights. Amonyn would come to her this evening. They had not spoken of it, but she knew he would come. Tonight they would offer one another what comfort they could against the clamour of the outside world.
Within the walls of Gryvan oc Haig’s Moon Palace were stored riches beyond the dreams of all save the most avaricious of souls. There were gemstones from the Karkyre Deeps and the Hills of Far Dyne, bars of solid Kilkry-Haig silver, bale upon bale of the finest furs the northern forests could offer, and vials of Nar Vay dyes worth more than gold. And there were treasures from further afield too: the most delicate, detailed copperwork from Tal Dyre; silks and velvets smuggled out of the far south; pearls the size of bird’s eggs from the oyster fields of the Dornach Kingship. It was wealth enough to make a man fall into a stupor of amazement and desire. As Mordyn Jerain watched his counters at work cataloguing the plunder gathered from Dargannan-Haig towns, it was not precious stones or jewellery or gold coin that he saw. It was power, and influence over the will of men. Mordyn kept his own hoards sealed behind heavy doors and thick walls in his Palace of Red Stone, his personal army sequestered in its barracks. The Chancellor had long ago realised that many of those in Vaymouth had lapsed into a common kind of reasoning: their judgement of what to do in any given situation had become a simple question of what was most profitable for them. He was not one to decry such frailties. Everyone must have some rule to measure their actions against; some had chosen coin, and that gave the Shadowhand the means to influence them.
The Tal Dyreen turned away and left his men to their work. He climbed up through the intricate stairways and passages of the palace. Even as a youth fresh off his father’s ship from Tal Dyre it had been obvious to him that the house of Haig stood upon the threshold of enormous power. Now, for all the uncertainties of the situation, he could smell the possibilities afresh. The Dargannan-Haig Blood, an obstreperous child ever since it had been created by Gryvan’s grandfather, was broken and would soon be tamed. Lannis, the least of all the Bloods but a long irritation nevertheless, was routed. Even Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig was weakened and bound now, in time of war, to remember where his proper allegiance lay. All that remained was to drive off the Black Road madmen, and Gryvan could at last turn his full attention upon the prizes to the south: the masterless towns of the Bay of Gold, Tal Dyre and the Dornach Kingship itself. The High Thane might yet, in his lifetime, shape the greatest kingdom the world had ever seen out of these possibilities, and Mordyn would be there at his side as he had always been.
He found Gryvan oc Haig in one of the terrace rooms on the southern side of the palace. The High Thane was reading through papers of some kind, attended by an expectant gaggle of scribes. A songbird chirped in a tall cage wrought from fine threads of precious metal. A flask of wine stood apparently forgotten on a table at the High Thane’s side.
Mordyn cleared his throat from a respectful distance. Gryvan looked up, smilingly set the document aside and dismissed his attendants. The Chancellor bowed.
‘It is fortunate you came, Mordyn,’ said the High Thane. ‘I was minded to send for you.’
The Chancellor made to reply, but was distracted by a movement at one of the great open windows that looked out over the terrace. He felt a twinge of irritation as he realised it was Kale, the Thane’s shieldman, who had been lurking there unseen. He was like some ageing hound unwilling to be parted for even an instant from its master. Mordyn set the distraction aside and smiled at Gryvan.