Robert Redick - The Red wolf conspiracy

Hercуl shook his head. "Don't ask me to speculate. And the fewer people you speak to about your father's business, the better. Come now, if you tarry longer they will know you met someone in the park."

They rose and walked on, fir needles crunching underfoot. Ahead, the glow of fengas lamps pierced the trees.

"Hercуl," said Thasha, "do you have any idea who they are?"

Hercуl's voice was uncertain. "There was one, a man I thought I knew, but that is hardly possible-" He shook his head, as if dispelling a bad dream. They had reached the edge of the firs. "Tell your father," he said. "And Thasha: tell him when he's alone, will you? Quite alone?"

Without Syrarys, she supposed he meant. Thasha promised she would.

Hercуl smiled. "I nearly forgot-Ramachni sends his compliments."

"Ramachni!" Thasha gripped his arm. "Ramachni's back? How is he? Where has he been?"

"Ask him yourself. He is waiting in your chamber."

Thasha was overjoyed. "Oh, Hercуl! This is a good sign, isn't it?"

Again her teacher hesitated. "Ramachni is a friend like no other," he said, "but I would not call his visits a good sign. Let us say rather that he comes at need. Still, he was in a jolly mood tonight. He even wished to come out into the city, but I forbade it. His greeting could not have been as… inconspicuous as my own."

"Inconspicuous!" Thasha laughed. "You tried to kill me!"

Hercуl's smile faded at the word kill. "Walk straight home," he said. "Or run, if you wish. But don't look back at me. I shall visit when I can."

"What's happening, Hercуl?"

"That question troubles my sleep, dear one. And I have no answer. Yet."

He found her hand in the darkness and squeezed it. Then he turned and vanished among the trees.

The old sentry at her garden gate bowed with the same flourish as two years ago. Thasha would have hugged him if she hadn't known what embarrassment the man would suffer. Instead she hugged Jorl and Suzyt, the blue mastiffs who waddled down the marble stairs to greet her, whimpering with impatience at their arthritic hips. They were her oldest friends, and slobbered magnificently to remind her of it. Laughing despite herself, she finally broke away from them and faced the house again.

In the doorway above her stood the Lady Syrarys. She was beautiful, in the lush Ulluprid Isles way of beauty: dark, smoldering eyes, full lips that seemed on the point of sharing some delicious secret, a cascade of straight black hair. She was half the admiral's age, or younger.

"There, darling," she said, as those gorgeous lips formed a smile. "Out of school for one hour and you're muddier than the dogs themselves. I won't kiss you until you've washed. Come in!"

"Is he really going to be an ambassador?" said Thasha, who hadn't moved.

"My dear, he already is. He took the oath Thursday at His Supremacy's feet. You should have seen him, Thasha. Handsome as a king himself."

"Why didn't he tell me? Ambassador to where?"

"To Simja-have you heard of it? Wedged between our Empire and the enemy's, imagine. They say Mzithrinis walk the streets in war-paint! We didn't tell you because the Emperor demanded strict secrecy."

"I wouldn't have told anyone!"

"But you said yourself the Sisters read your mail. Come in, come in! Nama will be calling us to table."

Thasha climbed the stairs and followed her into the big shadowy house, angry already. It was true that she'd complained of her letters arriving open and disordered. Syrarys had laughed and called her a worry-wart. But now she believed: now that those worries suited her purposes.

Thasha had no doubt what the consort's purposes amounted to. Syrarys meant to leave her behind, and wanted her to have as little time as possible to change her father's mind. And if I hadn't been dropping out? Would they have left without saying goodbye?

Never. She could never believe that of her father.

Watching Syrarys, she asked casually, "How soon do we sail?"

If the consort felt the least surprise, she hid it perfectly. "The Chathrand should be here within a week, and sail just a few days later."

Thasha stopped dead. "The Chathrand! They're sending him to Simja on the Chathrand?"

"Didn't the Sisters tell you? Yes, they're finally treating your father with the respect he's earned. Quite the expedition, it's going to be. An honor guard's been assembled for your father. And Lady Lapadolma is sending her niece along to represent the Trading Family. You remember Pacu, of course?"

Thasha winced. Pacu Lapadolma was her former schoolmate. She had escaped the Lorg ten months ago by marrying a colonel in the Strike Cavalry two decades her senior. A fortnight later she was a widow: the colonel's stallion, maddened by wasps, kicked him in the chest; he died without a sound, apparently.

"Hasn't she remarried yet?" asked Thasha.

"Oh no," Syrarys answered, laughing. "There was talk of an engagement, a Duke Somebody of Sorhn, but then came proposals from the Earl of Ballytween and the owner of the Mangel Beerworks and the animal-trader Latzlo, who was so mad for Pacu that he sent her a bouquet of five hundred white roses and fifty weeping snow-larks, all trained to cry her name. Pacu didn't care for any of them-said they all looked alike."

"Of course they did."

"The suitors, dear, not the birds. Luckily her great-aunt stepped in. By the time Pacu gets back even Latzlo may have forgotten her."

"I'm going with you," said Thasha.

Syrarys laughed again, touching her arm. "You are the sweetest girl."

Knowing very well that she was not, Thasha repeated: "I'm going."

"Poor Jorl and Suzyt. They'll have no one, then."

"Use any trick you like," said Thasha evenly, "but this time I'm going to win."

"Win? Trick? Oh, Thasha darling, we've no cause to start down that road. Come, I'll kiss you despite your dirt. My little Thashula."

It was her babytalk-name, from long ago when they were close. Thasha considered it a low tactic. Nonetheless they pecked each other's cheeks.

Thasha said, "I won't cause trouble in Simja. I have grown up."

"How delightful. Is that a promise to stop throwing your cousins into hedges?"

"I didn't throw him! He fell!"

"Who wouldn't have, dear, after the thumping you gave him? Poor young man, the lasting damage was to his pride. Knocked silly by a girl who barely reached his shoulder. Come, your father is in the summerhouse. Let's surprise him."

Thasha followed her through den and dining room, and out into the rear gardens. Syrarys had not changed. Smooth, crafty, clever-tongued. Thasha had seen her argue a duchess into tongue-tied rage, then walk off serenely to dance with her duke. In a city addicted to gossip she was an object of fascination. Everyone assumed she had a younger man, or probably several, hidden about the metropolis, for how could an old man satisfy a woman like that? "You can't kiss a medal on a wintry night, eh?" said a leering Lord Somebody, seated beside Thasha at a banquet. When he stepped away from the table she emptied a bottle of salad oil into his cushioned chair.

She had no great wish to defend Syrarys, but she would let no one cast shame on her father. He had been wounded so many times-five in battle, and once at least in love, when the wife he cherished died six days after giving birth to a daughter. Isiq's grief was so intense, his memories of his lost Clorisuela so many and sharp, that Thasha was astounded one day to hear him speak of her as "my motherless girl." Of course she had a mother-as permanently present as she was permanently lost.

Syrarys, for her part, scarcely needed defending. The consort glided among the ambushes and betrayals of high society as if born to them. Which was astounding, since she had come to Etherhorde just eight years ago in chains. Silver chains, maybe, but chains nonetheless.