Nancy Berberick - The Lioness

She listened, breathing quietly, reckoning how the currents of contention shifted among the thanes.

Thorbardin. All of it smelled like a temple long deserted, the sight of faded glory like the last ghostly whiff of ancient incense. Everywhere her eye glanced, she saw the scars of a war not yet forgotten.

Behind her, a voice rough as gravel said, “Now, how was it our good old King Duncan put it? Ah yes: Let the stone remember, and may all our deliberations in this place be nourished.”

Kerian turned, startled. Her hand dropped to the knife at her belt then fell when she saw the glint of amusement in the eyes of the dwarf who’d stolen up behind her. Beard and hair were iron gray, but his eyes shone with a youthful light. He was not so old as he seemed. Older, she thought, than the count of his years.

“Pretty little knife y’got there, young woman. Dwarf-made, is it?”

She nodded, her eyes surveying the way behind him. Old habit, outlaw’s habit. “A gift at the very moment I needed it. I’ve had better since, but none I like so well.”

The dwarf considered the “better” and let it go. “You hear people say that about a weapon they trust, one that weighs nicely in the hand.” A shrewd light shone in his eyes. “Maybe one they made a good kill with, eh?” He nodded past her, into the council chamber. “You won’t need your knife in there, lass. Not everyone’s going to agree with you, and you might not get what you want or need, but no one in there is looking to kill you, Mistress Kerianseray.”

Kerian balanced between an intuitive liking for this dwarf and a strong instinct warning her to be careful. Speaking with cool courtesy, she murmured, “You know my name, sir. You have the advantage of me.”

The dwarf nodded, genially agreeing. “Not for long, lass. I’m Tarn Bellowgranite, and I’ve heard you’re looking for me.”

Taken aback, Kerian, a creature of courts before ever she was an outlaw of the forest, bowed at once. “Your Majesty—”

He snorted. “Whose majesty? Never mind that. You’re speaking for your king, so speak as your king. Him and me, we’ve not yet laid eye on each other, but I know the tale of Gilthas the son of Tanis Half-Elven. I know the tale of him and the tale of his kin. Your King Gilthas has had a judgment on him, eh? Since the day he lifted himself onto his dead uncle’s throne he’s been weighed and found wanting in the eyes of people who don’t know what gets sacrificed so they can stand around in tavern and hall making grand opinions.”

His eyes darkened and Kerian thought this king knew about sacrifice and the subtleties of what must be forsaken so others might live.

“Nay, speak proudly for your king, Mistress Kerianseray. In the best of all ways of being, that should be enough. As it is, you can do that and still hope all will be well.”

Kerian’s liking for this dwarf grew. She bowed again. “I will, sir, and I thank you for the grace.”

Tarn laughed, a great booming roar. “Aye, rough looking as you are, your hair all running down your back, booted, belted, and bristling with knives—rough as that, nothin’s scraped the elf out of you yet, eh?” He chuckled. “Well, well. I think those deliberants in there have been warming the air long enough, don’t you? Let’s see what ideas they’ve nourished in our old King Duncan’s hall.”

Honoring the tradition of hospitality, the High King of the Eight Clans of Thorbardin ushered the ambassador from the Court of the Speaker of the Sun the rest of the way into the hall.

This he did by putting his hand at the small of her back, giving her a none-too-gentle push as he said, “Get in there now, lass. Get it said, and let’s get it moving, onward or done.”

“Ah, you’re everyone of you madmen!”

Ragnar Stonehigh’s scornful judgment boomed through the high hall of the Council of Thanes like thunder, rolling round the high ceilings and raining down in echo upon Kerian. He was, this bristle-browed thane with the fierce Daewar eyes, the third of seven thanes to condemn her mission. Ebon Flame of the Theiwar had rejected it out of hand, and Skarr Forgebright of the Hylar refused to entertain the idea of combining with humans and elves in a treaty against dragons. His had been the most reasoned argument, the one Kerian would address if she could slip in a word between the Daewar’s bluster.

“Why,” Skarr had asked mildly, “should Thorbardin risk even a drop of dwarven blood or a bent copper of treasure for Outlanders? We don’t need them, and their need could bring down a dragon’s revenge upon us. No,” he’d said, seeming to be genuinely regretful, “I can’t sanction this alliance.”

Shale Silverhand of the Klar had argued for the treaty but awkwardly. Donnal Firebane had come down in favor of it for the sake of old alliances. No one knew the opinion of the thane of the Aghar, the third Bluph the Third. He sat far back upon the throne of his clan, sucking the marrow from the bone of an old meal and cleaning his fingernails one with another.

Neither could Kerian reckon the feelings of Tarn Bellowgranite. The high king seemed content for now to watch his council shout it out. He was not, Kerian thought, inclined to suggest to anyone that the emissary from the elf king be given a chance to speak.

“She’s a mewling girl,” Ragnar sneered. “By Reorx’s beard? Sent here—what?—to talk for her puppet king?” He looked around the vast hall, at all his brother thanes seated upon or standing near the thrones of their clans, at the High King himself upon the throne round which these ranged. Very pointedly, he did not look at Kerian. He threw back his head, his dark Daewar eyes flat as a snake’s. “It’s an insult! A damned elven insult! In the name of all Reorx has forged—”

Yawning, scratching his chin through his beard, Rhys Shatterstrike of the Neidar sat up straighter. “In the name of all Reorx has forged,” he said in the drone of the bored, “it is an insult. It is tantamount to a declaration of war, so insulting is it that the elf-king—the dancing boy who gave away his kingdom for a chance to go about his golden city in jewels and furs—comes to ask our aid in the name of old friendship.” He yawned again. “At the risk of insulting you , Ragnar—not a difficult thing to do—I ask you to offer new arguments and to stop repeating this weary old one.”

In the moment of silence between them, flames licked at the darkness from the tripod braziers alight between each of the marching columns. They had been in this council chamber since day’s end. No window graced the hall. What light there was came from torches and braziers. It was, through all hours of the day and night, a deliberative darkness.

In that gloom, Kerian’s glance shifted from the thane of the Daewar to the thane of the Neidar. Shadows sculpted their faces, unfriendly masks. They did not love each other, those two. Rhys scratched his beard again. Ragnar bristled.

“You’re a fool, Ragnar. You haven’t even heard the girl’s embassy. You don’t know what she’s been sent to say—”

“Hah! I know good and damn well what she’s here for. She’s here with her king’s hand out, that’s what I’m telling you now—” He glared around the chamber, not sparing even the high king his disdain. “I’m telling you now, no good comes of it. None!”

Ragnar drew breath, filled up his lungs to pour out more objections. In that startling moment of silence, Kerian took a step forward.

“My lord thanes,” she said. She spoke quietly, and two of the thanes leaned forward as though uncertain she had spoken at all.

“Ah, now what?” Ragnar snarled. “Look at this! The girl’s got no manners, either. Interrupting a council—”