Wain came to fetch him away from them. Several men were with her, bulging sacks slung across their shoulders. They had been collecting heads to be thrown into Castle Anduran.
The Kyrinin had not moved since the end of the battle. Now a small group had separated from the main band of White Owls. They came across the grass, picking their way between and around bodies: a dozen warriors, their faces blurred by sweeping, spiralling tattoos, walking in a loose band with a tall, unarmed figure at its centre. It took Kanin a few moments to recognise who it was. Wain was a moment ahead of him.
‘Aeglyss,’ she murmured.
As the party of Kyrinin drew closer, they passed between knots of warriors who fixed them with hostile glares. The White Owls did not seem to notice. Kanin could see an amused expression playing upon Aeglyss’ face. It broke into a narrow smile as the na’kyrim came up to him.
‘You don’t seem pleased to see me,’ said Aeglyss before Kanin could speak. ‘I hoped for a warmer welcome.’
‘I am surprised, that is all.’
Aeglyss gave a sharp, short laugh at that. ‘I do not doubt it. But pleasantly surprised, I hope?’
Kanin frowned. It was as if the halfbreed’s fawning, obsequious manner of only a day ago had never been. Now, the man reeked of arrogance and self-satisfaction, perhaps even thinking himself some kind of hero. He was as unpredictable and inconsistent as a child.
‘You should thank me,’ said Aeglyss, indicating the battlefield with a sweep of his arm. ‘If we had not arrived when we did, things might have gone differently.’
Kanin followed the gesture with his eyes, taking in the bodies of men and women and horses; the gouged, broken earth, stripped of any hint of green; the Tarbains crossing and recrossing the scene in their search for bounty. It looked ugly to him, now that Aeglyss had come. ‘I suppose so,’ he muttered.
‘Graciously done,’ said Aeglyss, his voice weighed down by sarcasm. Kanin made to reply, but the na’kyrim was already holding up a conciliatory hand.
‘Let us not argue,’ Aeglyss said. ‘We are reunited in victory. It would be a shame to sour the moment.’
‘Indeed,’ said Kanin.
‘I will not trouble you further now,’ Aeglyss pressed on, ‘but perhaps we shall have more time to talk once we have returned to Anduran.’
There was a silvery, soothing undertone to the na’kyrim’ s voice with his final words. Kanin felt light-headed, and closed his eyes momentarily. When he opened them again, Aeglyss was already turning and heading back with his Kyrinin escort.
‘Wait,’ shouted Kanin.
‘We will follow you to the city, Bloodheir,’ called Aeglyss without looking back. ‘I will come to you there.’
The Bloodheir stared after the na’kyrim and his inhuman companions.
‘He seems to think he will now be a favourite of yours,’ Wain said at his side. She sounded almost amused.
Kanin shook his head. ‘The man is mad,’ he muttered.
The Craftmasters were bringing gifts to the Thane of Thanes. In the Great Hall of the Moon Palace in Vaymouth, a succession of bearers deposited treasures before Gryvan’s throne. It had been the way of things ever since Haig replaced Kilkry as chief amongst the Bloods: a High Thane returning victorious from battle received the tribute of the Crafts, in gratitude for his restoration of peace and prosperity.
The day before, the ordinary folk of Vaymouth had thronged the streets to hail the triumphal progress of Gryvan oc Haig all the way from the Gold Gate to his Palace. The journey had taken two hours, such had been the jubilant press, so urgent the collective need to greet the returning army with their train of yoked prisoners. Now Vaymouth’s greater powers made obeisance in their turn.
In the presence of the full assembled court, the Weaponers gave to Gryvan pikes and maces set with gold, the Armourers a helm of solid silver. The Vintners laid before him jars of the best Taral-Haig wines and the Furriers the pelt of a great white bear. One after another, each of the sixteen Crafts paid homage, and Gryvan oc Haig acknowledged each gift with a gracious nod and smile.
Standing a little behind the throne, Mordyn Jerain watched impassively. The Shadowhand had received gifts of his own from some of the Craftmasters—those who took the keenest interest in the fate of the now Thaneless Dargannan-Haig Blood—these last few days. Dargannan was a young Blood, without tradition and history to fall back on at a time of crisis, and Igryn had no son; fighting had broken out amongst his relations as soon as he was taken. With each gift had come a murmured suggestion of how stability might best be restored, which of Igryn’s diffuse family might best be suited to replacing him as ruler of Dargannan lands. For all the courtesy and humility the Craftmasters affected, their pride grew year by year. The time might soon come, Mordyn felt, when it would be necessary to remind them that it was still the High Thane who wielded the greater power.
Seated upon the steps that led up to the Throne Dais was a living demonstration of that power. Igryn, the fallen Dargannan Thane, was an eyeless mockery of his former self. His hair and beard had been trimmed and combed, new clothes provided and his empty eye sockets hidden behind a black silken band to make him fit to appear amidst the splendours of the court. Still, he was left to sit upon the cold marble steps like a child or an idiot.
Mordyn did not imagine that the message of humbled power Igryn embodied would discomfit the Craftmasters. They would assume that their ways were too subtle, their ambitions too narrowly defined, to merit such a violent response. Gryvan had meant the blinding for another audience: Igryn’s successor, and the troublesome—though now beset by troubles of their own—Thanes of Lannis and Kilkry. The High Thane’s instincts had always run towards blunt gestures. Mordyn would have prevented this one if he had been there in the wilds of Dargannan-Haig. The sudden revival of the Mercy of Kings drew too clear a link between Gryvan and those long-dead monarchs of Dun Aygll. It would have been better to kill Igryn outright.
As the Chancellor watched, a servant in the raiment of the Goldsmiths approached Gryvan oc Haig and, kneeling, unfolded a velvet-wrapped bundle upon the floor. He revealed a necklace woven from hair-thin threads of spun gold. The servant lifted it to display its beauty to the assembled throng before respectfully setting it back upon its velvet bed.
Mordyn suppressed a smile and glanced up.Tara was there, in the crowd lining the hall. The Chancellor savoured the familiar feeling of surprise that he should be loved by a woman of such astounding beauty and gifts. So many years of marriage, and still he hardly believed that he deserved such fortune. It was the discreet droplets of gold hanging from her ears that he was looking for now, though. Lammain, Master of the Goldsmiths, had delivered them personally into Tara’s hands only two nights gone, expressing the hope that they might be a fitting ornament for such a lady on this day. Later, in one of the more private rooms of Mordyn’s Palace of Red Stone, as they lingered over cups of aromatic wine, the Craftmaster had wondered aloud if Gann nan Dargannan-Haig, a cousin of Igryn’s, might not be fitted for the Thaneship. Mordyn knew Gann to be a crude blowhard, and knew as well that the Goldsmiths had been secretly enriching the young man for several years. They probably all but owned him by now. The hills of Dargannan-Haig were thickly veined with gold in places, and the idea of a compliant Thane no doubt appealed to the Goldsmiths.