Jo Clayton - Shadowkill

He laughed, tapped her on the nose. “The very minute. Now go get your baths and go to bed.”

“Papay?”

“Ingva?”

“Take me with you. I won’t keep you back, I ride better than Wurro even, I do. You talk to the old ’uns, I’ll talk to the young ’uns. Babeyla and Tink and the rest. They’re as good as the old ’uns at looking out for strangers.”

“Not this time, lirri. It’s a good idea, but now’s not the time. I tell you what. We’ll do it in a week or so, when I see how things are going to jump. All right?”

Ingva gave a brisk quick nod, then took her sister’s hand and went out.

Tinoopa curtsied, said, “Arring Pirs, be sure we shan’t speak of this even to each other.” She hauled Kizra to her feet and hustled her out.

Pirs rode from the Kuysstead an hour before dawn. Kizra woke sweating and moaning from a nightmare whose details evaporated before she got her eyes open. She flung the covers back and went to the window where she saw him on the ferry, his uncovered head shining silver-gilt in the starlight. The rider beside him was long and lean, with plaits bumping against his back, blond, too, but duller, like rope braided from last season’s straw. P’murr the Loyal. Blood brother, as close to Pirs as chat ever got to Irrkuyon.

They rode the big Blacks, Pirs’ prize horses, skittish beasts, snorting and sidling, hooves noisy on the floorboards of the ferry, the sounds that they made as loud in the clean stillness of the predawn as if she were standing beside them; she could hear almost as clearly the put-put of the winch motor and the creaking of the windlass.

She watched them ride off the ferry and vanish into the predawn gloom, moving toward the leftward of the two mountains, the one called Patja Mount.

Well. Good luck to him.

She shivered and started to turn from the window. Something flickered. On the wall near the mill.

She pushed the window open farther and leaned out. Someone was running along the wall. Fair hair and skirts.

The way it moved, young. Accustomed to that Talent of hers by now, content to view it as the equivalent of her ear for music, she read the figure, nodded.

Kulyari. Up to something.

She could smell it-spite, triumph, and a furiously busy mind.

What is it? What could she do, that little rat?

Kulyari flitted along the wall like someone set her tail on fire.

Corning inside fast as she can scoot. How? Somewhere on the ground floor, no other way in. All right, let’s get down there and see what we see.

She kicked her slippers off, threw the robe around her shoulders, and went running out.

Kizra leaned over the gallery rail, peering down at the Great Hall. Shadows and emptiness. No movement. Nothing. She read the runner again.

The garden, that was it, Kulyari was coming down into the Family Garden. She stopped, then she was moving again. She stopped again, stayed still. Doing something. Very busy. Sense of vindictive satisfaction. She was talking to someone. Talking? Who?

Using her reach as a dowsing rod, Kizra ran down the stairs and through the smudgy darkness, until she was touching the south wall of the Great Hall. One hand on the wall, her bare feet silent on the elaborate parquet, she ghosted along, getting closer and closer to the girl-until she was standing outside a massive door.

She leaned against the door and tried to hear what Kulyari was saying. The wood was too thick. She chewed at her lip, nodded, eased the latch up, and opened the door a crack. She saw a bluish-white light flickering, a ghost light hardly brighter than the shadows.

Com. Must be battery powered. I didn’t think… Don’t be stupider than you have to, Kiz, this far out, of course they had to have a com.

“… before dawn, I told you, less than thirty minutes ago.” Kulyari stopped talking, listened to a muted mutter. Kizra thought it was a man’s voice, but she couldn’t be sure, and she hadn’t a clue what the words were.

“No. No one saw me. They’re all asleep.”

Mutter mutter.

“Two of them. On the Blacks, with a pack mule.” Mutter mutter.

“P’murr.”

Mutter mutter.

“Northeast. Toward Patja Mount.”

Kizra didn’t have to hear any more. Aghilo, she thought. And right now.

Kizra tapped at Aghilo’s door, tapped again, swore under her breath. Come on, woman. Come on!

Aghilo opened the door. “Chapa! What are you doing down here? And dressed like that?”

“Let me in,” Kizra whispered. “She’s coming up the stairs, I can hear her feet.”

“Who?”

“Kulyari.”

“All right.” Aghilo stepped back so Kizra could come in. “What are you talking about?”

Kizra stood by the door listening. “On second thought, you’d better go see that it’s her out there. I’ve a feeling my word isn’t worth much when it comes to the Irrkuyon.”

Aghilo pressed her mouth shut. She nodded. “True. Wait here. Leave the door open if you wish.” She snatched up a robe, flung it around her shoulders, and went out.

“Visiting a lover?” Aghilo’s voice was peppered with scorn. “Shameless one, out of your bedroom this late.”

“Get lost, old woman. Keep your mouth shut or I’ll have you whipped for impertinence. And don’t think I can’t do it.” Kulyari laughed. “I don’t have to explain anything to Garaddy’s bastard.” She swept off, laughing again.

Aghilo came back. She pulled the door shut, sighed. “You have your witness.”

“She’s putting it on. Under that arrogance, she’s scared.”

“Oh, really. What IS this about?”

“I woke up a little while ago, nightmare I think, but I don’t remember. Anyway, I was looking out the window and saw Arring Pirs crossing on the ferry. Someone else was watching; once Pirs and P’murr were across, she took off. It was Kulyari. She came down in the Family Garden and got into a room there, I don’t know what the room was, but there’s a com in it. I cracked the door and heard her talking to someone on the com. She was telling him, I think it was a man, about Pirs, where he looked to be going, who was with him, you know, everything he didn’t want to get out.”

“Ah.” Aghilo stripped the tie off her long plait, began pulling the strands apart.

“Is there any way we can make her tell who it was she was talking to?”

Aghilo moved to her dressing table, began brushing her hair, her strokes full of nervous energy. “No,” she said. “The only one who could touch her is Pirs.”

“Matja Allina?”

“No. No. You don’t understand the way things are here. She dropped the brush and twisted her long hair into a knot atop her head, began shoving in hairpins, each darting movement of her hand emphasizing a phrase of what she was saying. “She’s the heir’s daughter. Utilas. He sent her here for fostering-once he saw what Pirs and Allina were making of this place. For fostering and to make trouble. Get rid of Mina. Be there to marry Pirs.”

“He’s her uncle, almost like seducing her father. I…”

“No, I told you, you don’t understand.” Aghilo slapped in the last pin, got to her feet. “It’s done here often enough. Usually the second wife, if the first dies or has to be put aside.” She took off her robe, threw it on the bed, moved about, collecting underclothing, a skirt and shirt, talking as she moved. “The Families don’t want conflicting alliances and it conserves the wealth. She’s here to marry him if she can manage it. Viper. Him or his successor if she gets him killed.”

“Since her father’s the heir…”

Aghilo pulled a folding screen out from the wall, went behind it and began dressing. “No. He’s got enough on his hands with the old property. It’ll be Mingas or Rintirry gets this if Pirs is killed.”