P. Hodgell - Honor's Paradox

“Do you think that we don’t know?” the man breathed in his ear. “You could call him ‘cousin,’ but wait: bastards have no kin, do they, even so high-blooded a one as you. Aren’t you glad that we took you in? This way.”

He pushed Kindrie into the Witch’s Tower.

“Now climb.”

The shadows struck him cold as he mounted the twisting stair and his breath smoked. Kindrie remembered the first time, as a child, that he had come this way, not knowing what awaited him.

“Let me see you, infant.” Oh, that chill, caressing voice. “Come close. Closer. Close enough. They say that no one can do you lasting harm. How . . . intriguing. Shall we see?”

Another more recent memory: “What a pretty chart. Here are all the Highlord’s dependents lined up so neatly. Does he really need such an aid to memory? Dear me. The written word is so easily destroyed, though, isn’t it?”

And she had thrust the scroll into the fire.

Witch. Bitch.

At least he still had the rough notes in his room at Mount Alban.

Rawneth lived in the upper stories of the tower, but the doors to the lower of these were closed. Only the way to the top level stood open. Kindrie paused at the head of the stair. Open windows all around let in the wind to swirl sheer curtains of dusky purple and deep blue, spangled with stars like the night sky but turned by the afternoon sun into glowing twilight. Through shifting veils he saw movement, heard muffled voices. The Lady had company in her tower.

“My dear,” she was saying, “now is not the right time. I told you so two nights ago. If you succeed today, might not we be blamed too?”

“Nonsense,” said a familiar, confident voice. “I’m too clever for that. Look.”

A dark figure loomed behind the drapes and swept them aside. Sudden sunlight momentarily blinded Kindrie, but he heard the smile in the other’s voice:

“I even have the perfect witness.”

Kindrie caught his breath as his sight returned, haloed around the edges. That curly brown hair, that smooth, young face so full of seeming innocence . . .

Rawneth’s guest was Holly, Lord Hollens of Danior.

It was the second, long, restless day for Torisen, spent waiting for the scrollsman expert to arrive who hopefully could settle this land squabble without a pitched battle. Holly’s people prowled on one side of the contested ground. On the other, the envoy Wither had pitched a pavilion and could be seen in it placidly reading as he waited. His lack of guards was almost an insult. Holly himself, having heard that Randir were already on his side of the river, poaching, had ridden off to hunt them. Torisen wasn’t sorry to see him go. Lord Danior made a very unquiet companion when frustrated.

The sun beat down, unusually hot for the time of year. Gnats rose in swirling clouds from the marshy land. They didn’t bother Torisen—stinging insects never did—but he could hear his guards slapping at themselves and swearing. Either he had brought too many of them or too few—not enough to protect him in case of an assault, too many to make this seem like a casual affair. He had let the Randir maneuver him into placing his prestige behind the dispute. If he couldn’t protect Holly’s interests, his allies would look at him askance. If he did so by breaking law or custom, however, friends and foes alike would have good cause to question his judgment.

Across the plain, Wither looked up from his book and gravely saluted him. Torisen gave him a nod and debated retiring into his own tent for a nap, but that was something he seldom did, as everyone well knew.

He didn’t even have Grimly to bicker with. That morning, there had been a slight tremor and he had sent the wolver to scout the lands north of the keeps with strict instructions to stay in human form so as to give the Randir bowmen no excuse to shoot at him.

Midafternoon brought a warning cry from his guards.

Torisen emerged from his tent to see Adric, Lord Ardeth, splashing toward him over the marshy ground on an exhausted gray mare.

“Really, Adric!” Torisen touched the Whinno-hir’s shoulder, stained nearly black with sweat. “Someone, rub her down and find some firm ground to walk her on until she’s cool. And now, my lord . . .”

He led Adric into the tent and induced him to sit. When he offered the old man wine, Adric took it but absentmindedly, without tasting it. He continued to fidget through the ceremony of welcome, and Torisen’s heart sank.

“Now,” he said finally, “what brings you from Omiroth to randon college to my humble tent in such a lather?”

Adric put down his cup and leaned forward. “I would have been here earlier, but someone slipped nightshade into my evening tipple and I overslept. I’ve talked to my grandson Timmon. He tells me that you gave him Pereden’s ring. Where did you get it?”

Torisen sipped his own wine, mentally bracing himself. He had known ever since he gave the ring and finger to Timmon that this moment was coming.

“My lords, I hope I don’t interrupt.”

A wizened Jaran scrollsman stood at the tent flap, nearsightedly peering inside. “I was at the High Keep examining some rare manuscripts when your summons reached me. Then I had to consult Mount Alban’s library and certain of my colleagues. Sorry if I’m late. Wine? I wouldn’t say no. A hot day, is it not?”

Burr entered and served him while Torisen scrambled to make sense of his sudden appearance. Of course. This was the expert for whom they had all been waiting. As if in confirmation, Wither appeared at the flap.

Adric plucked at Torisen’s sleeve. “About the ring . . .”

“I hope,” the Randir was saying courteously to the scrollsman, “that you come bearing the solution to our little dilemma.”

“It isn’t quite as straightforward as it seems. Some of the older scrolls refer not to the riverbed but to the River Snake’s back, which is said to run all the way from the Silver Steps to the mouth of the river bordering on Nekrien.”

Wither waved this away. “Mere primitive superstitions. What do the charters between Bashti and Hathir say?”

Grimly entered. “Tori, you should see the shape of the land to the north. Oh, and here’s Holly.”

The young Danior lord paused on the threshold of the already crowded tent, his face in shadow. In his coat of blue velvet laced with silver, he was surprisingly well dressed for someone who had spent the day tracking poachers. Apparently he had caught one, for he led a brown-robed figure by a tether around his neck. Torisen met a pair of anxious, pale blue eyes over a white gag.

“Kindrie?”

Holly twitched the lead, making his prisoner stumble forward. “It’s just a runaway acolyte from the Priests’ College. I was about to send him back.”

“That, be damned. He’s my cousin!”

“He’s a bastard, kin to no one.”

Torisen flicked a throwing knife out of his collar, spun Kindrie around, and cut the rope that bound his wrists. The Shanir scrabbled free of the gag.

“Tori,” he croaked, “I saw Lord Danior with Rawneth!”

As Torisen turned, incredulous, toward Holly, he saw the knife in the other’s hand. It darted toward him. His lighter knife turned the other’s blade, but only so far before snapping. As he twisted aside, he heard cloth rip and felt a line of fire across his ribs. Burr swore and lunged to the rescue, only to crash into Wither. Holly yelped. Grimly had bitten him on the leg. He slashed at the wolver, clipping off the tip of one furry ear, then stumbled as Yce barged between his legs. Torisen grabbed his knife hand at the wrist, bent it, and sent him crashing into the table. Wine flew in a crimson arc across Ardeth’s face.