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Chapter IV
Dinner at Omiroth

The Riverland: Summer 68–71

I

The next morning, a mounted ten-command formed in Tagmeth’s lower meadow, along with several pack-ponies.

“The postscript did say that you should bring an escort,” said Brier, noting Jame’s expression.

“What, I might get lost?”

“I think, on Summer’s Day, that you scared him.”

Jame thought that she probably had, showing up in such a state. Torisen still hadn’t gotten used to her return to the Kencyrath. To lose her again, when they had come so far, would have been hard. For her too, to lose him. Just the same, they still found ways to irk each other.

“He could at least have told me what was wrong.”

If nothing else, that lack of information had made choosing the ten more of a challenge. For what, after all, were they being chosen? An escort wasn’t a war guard. A guard wasn’t a diplomatic mission. A mission wasn’t a pleasure excursion, not that Tori was apt to summon her so peremptorily on one of those, if ever.

She had decided that Brier should stay at Tagmeth, considering that it was only days since she had dismissed Rush. His one-hundred command had been reassigned to Farmer Fen and seemed content to be so, but what if Rush had followers who would rise if she, Jame, also departed? Tagmeth might yet need a firm hand.

Damson’s ten-command remained intact although both she and her five-commander Quill had graduated to officer rank. There simply weren’t enough Kendar at Tagmeth to give them the enlarged commands that they deserved nor, like Dar and Mint, had they yet asked for reassignment. Let them come, then. Anyway, Jame wanted to keep an eye on Damson a while longer given that Kendar’s odd, potentially lethal nature. The Shanir’s power, as near as she could understand it, lay in manipulating other’s bodies. At least two people had stumbled to their deaths after crossing her. Worse, she had no innate moral sense. Instead, she had turned for guidance to Jame, who herself was none too sure of her own moral compass.

Then there was Rue, holding back as if to stay as much out of sight as possible.

“Stop following me everywhere,” Jame had said, but that was before she had acquired an entire entourage.

And there was Jorin, plumped down in the midst of everything, busily washing his face with the back of a paw.

Cheva, again, handed Jame a saddle, this one a heavy affair with raised pommel and cantle. “No sign of him yet?”

“No sign.”

At the head of her troop, on foot, with the saddle slung awkwardly over her shoulder, Jame left Tagmeth.

And walked. And walked.

Horses clopped after her. Tack clinked. Past Tagmeth island, past the water meadows on the west bank, past the steep slope on the east that had been intended for winter wheat and since had been abandoned for fields anew. The wooden saddle tree chaffed her shoulder. The stirrups banged against her thigh. Her legs began to ache under their combined weight.

“This is ridiculous,” said Damson behind her. “At least give me the saddle.”

“Quiet,” said Jame, not looking back. “The more uncomfortable I am, the more he is too. I hope.”

They had gone perhaps a mile when Death’s-head came thundering up behind them. The escorts’ horses shied, eyes rolling, nostrils flaring as they caught the rathorn’s reek of outrage. He came up behind Jame and snorted fiercely down the back of her neck.

“All right,” she said, stopping, turning. “You don’t want to go. I understand that. But I may need you. Choose.”

He snarled. His ivory horns carved the air inches from her face, daring her to flinch within their strike. Then, with a grumble of disgust and a shake of his tangled mane, he submitted to the saddle with an ill grace.

Off they set again, Jame this time riding. The other horses kept a wary distance behind them. Perhaps with more trust than good sense, Jorin trotted just ahead of the rathorn’s hooves.

Jame had expected Death’s-head to leave the River Road to guide them through the folds in the land; however, he remained grumpy and disobliging. At this rate, it would take them a good three days to reach Gothregor. She had thought that it would serve Tori right if she didn’t travel at the break-neck pace that had last brought her to his doorstep. Now, though, she had too much time to wonder why he had summoned her at all.

By early afternoon, still on the River Road, they crested a rise to find Restormir spread out before them on the other side of the river. The Caineron fortress might have been a fair-sized city with its eight walled compounds and its bustling streets. Scarlet flags flew, each figured with a golden serpent devouring its young. The water of marble fountains flashed in a dozen public squares. Over all loomed the tower. Its shaft was capped by the family quarters known as the Crown, and that in turn was topped by a garden. Half hidden by fruit trees was the stone cottage where the Matriarch Cattila had dwelt. Jame wondered who lived there now, if anyone, since the death of that redoubtable old woman.

Behind her, the Knorth ten-command shifted into formation. Travel on the River Road or its counterpart on the west bank was supposed to be protected, but one never knew what to expect from M’lord Caldane. Indeed, as they approached a body of riders spilled out of the main gate-house and galloped across the bridge to intercept them. It was at least a one-hundred command, ten times their number. Tiggeri led it.

Death’s-head snorted and his horned head came up, balancing its lethal array of ivory armor and horns. Whatever his mood, he was always ready for a fight. The ten-command stopped. The one-hundred slowed. Tiggeri urged his reluctant mount forward. The rathorn stepped to meet him, red eyes glaring down his long, armor-plated nose.

“Permission to pass?” asked Jame.

Tiggeri blinked, then grinned. “What, you don’t mean to attack us?”

“Why would we do that?”

There was something wrong here, Jame thought. She and Tiggeri were enemies, no doubt, but surely no fight between them would be this random. Besides, what sort of a fool did he think she was, to bring so few warriors to an open assault?

“In that case,” he said, his grin broadening, “why don’t you come in? I’ve breakfasted at your keep and dined at your brother’s. Time, perhaps, to return the hospitality. Besides, there is someone here whom you might like to see.”

Lyra Lack-wit came immediately to mind. Jame worried about the girl, pitched back into the same mess she had been subjected to when barely a child. But she must long since have been sent south to Karkinor. Jame was tempted to go in to see for herself, but she didn’t trust either Tiggeri’s smile or his air of presenting, however obliquely, a hidden trap.

“Some other time,” she said, and nudged a reluctant Death’s-head past him.

The Caineron command parted to let her pass, or perhaps their mounts gave them no choice in the matter. Few equines could stand up to a rathorn, whose very scent could drive them mad. Death’s-head stalked between their ranks, turning to hiss contemptuously in faces as he passed.

Huh, he seemed to say. No fun here.

Jame’s ten followed.

They reached Mount Alban around dinnertime, and Kirien came down the long wooden stair to meet them. The young scrollswoman was usually so cool and poised. She still wore that mask, but as if it were something brittle, about to crack. Kindrie didn’t appear at all, then or at supper. Jame had the impression that he and Kirien had disagreed. That put her at a loss. On one hand, she was eaten by curiosity. On the other, she didn’t want to pry. What, after all, did she know about lovers’ quarrels? What if something she said only made matters worse?

“I apologize if I seem distracted,” said Kirien, stirring the acorn stew of which she had eaten none. “A dear friend died recently. He took the White Knife.”

“Who?” asked Jame, before she could stop herself.

“Dunfause.”

“Oh.”

Of course, she remembered the man. He hadn’t seemed happy at the Jedrak’s dinner, and Kindrie even less so.

“Er . . . do you know why?”

Kirien played with her spoon, not raising her eyes. “No one does, nor why Kindrie didn’t try to save him.”

So that was the problem.

“My cousin is a dedicated healer. He must have had a reason.”

“What could that have possibly been? He said that Dunfause might have wanted death, but why? Oh, I knew that Kindrie was jealous, but I never dreamed . . . ”

She stood up suddenly, upsetting her bowl so that its turgid contents spilled across the table.

“Oh,” she said again, staring down at the mess. Her face had gone white. “So clumsy. I—I have a headache. We will meet again at breakfast.” And she fled.

But she didn’t come down the next morning, sending only an apology: “Sorry.”

Kindrie sent nothing, not even himself. Jame was a bit miffed at that, but she supposed that he was off in some corner of the college nursing a similar sore head and heart.

That night her ten stopped at Shadow Rock, where Cousin Holly appeared to have his own problems.

“It’s not as if m’lady Rawneth has done anything recently,” he said, fingering a mug of cider, regarding his young son as the boy rushed back and forth in the hall shouting “Kitty!” while a harassed Jorin slunk from cover to cover. “I would almost feel better if she did. This quiet is . . . unsettling. Like a bated breath.”

“Have you sent your troops off to Lower Bashti?”

“Yes. Not many of them, mind, but we feel their absence here keenly.”

The Danior numbered only about one thousand at the best of times, the Randir eight or nine times more.

“Caldane’s opinion lingers,” Holly said, as if reading her mind. “Not one lord from each house as equals on the High Council but the houses in command by order of size. That would be the Caineron, the Ardeth, the Randir, and the Brandan.”

“Tori would never agree.”

Holly laughed without mirth. “That’s if he maintains his rank as Highlord. Remember, cousin, your house is only twice the size of mine.”

With his words still ringing in her ears, Jame reached Gothregor the next day.

II

“I admit,” said Torisen, a bit sheepishly, “that I panicked. This is the letter that Harn sent.”

Jame took it and read.

It was late afternoon on the 70th of Summer. The sun had recently set behind the western Snowthorns and cool shadow flooded the river valley below. Sparrows, homing, rustled the ivy outside the window with sundry scuffles and chirps. How much more peaceful this was than the last time she had been here, yet tension still filled the air.

“I see what you mean about local politics,” she said, glancing up. “There’s a lot here about the Bashti royal family, especially about Crown Prince Jurik, who is either promising, or a problem, or both. The references to his mother Queen Vestula puzzle me too. Harn sounds afraid of her. The king of Bashti is currently using our troops to parade about his country, I presume to his greater glory. He’s also negotiating a trial match between them and Duke Pugnanos of the Transweald, also against Karkinor. What does that mean?”

Torisen began restlessly to pace his study which, being in a narrow drum tower of the old keep, was only a few strides in each direction. He looked better than the last time she had seen him, but new lines furrowed his fine-drawn face. Were there more silver strands in his black hair than before? He was Shanir, after all, and might eventually go pure white like Kindrie even without added stress. So, for that matter, might she. She at least had understood that beforehand.

“Since Caldane withdrew his offer,” he said, “Duke Pugnanos has employed a company of Brandan. As I understand it, in the past the Kings set their Kencyr troops against each other in arranged fights, almost like competitions. Political or territorial stakes were decided in advance. Bets too. The randon guaranteed a fair outcome and, because no one dared to accuse a Kencyr of lying, they were believed.”

“I can see that working, up to a point.”

“You have to understand that the Central Lands were barbaric when we first encountered them. No rules. No mercy. No honor. Harn used to say that, in a sense, we civilized them. However, it never became instinctual. Every generation had to learn the rules anew.”

“This time, it’s thirty years later and the rules have changed.”

“Apparently. No one has yet tested that, as far as I know. Some older rulers are still in power—Prince Uthecon of Karkinor for one, King Mordaunt of Bashti for another. Rothurst of Mirkmir. Ort of Ordor. And there are younger Kings: Pugnanos of the Transweald; Ostrepi of the Midlands; Harward of Hathir. The east and west bank, Hathir and Bashti, might still be at war if Vestula, a Hathiri princess, hadn’t been contracted to Mordaunt, the king of High Bashti.”

“I still don’t understand what upset you so much.”

“Read on.”

Several scrawled pages later, she looked up again. “He offers to resign his commission. Then he says that he can’t leave. It isn’t clear what he wants, or what he will do, or why.”

“Now read this.” He handed her another scroll.

Jame regarded the broken seal. “From the Commandant? But he’s stationed with the Caineron at Karkinaroth across the river.”

“Read.”

Jame did, frowning. “Sheth Sharp-tongue is oblique, as always. He says that Harn appears to be giving Prince Jurik randon training. That’s unusual, although not actually forbidden.”

“What follows is worse.”

“I see that. Sheth hints, oh, so subtly, that Harn might compromise the Transweald or Karkinor games to favor this prince. That, he says, would be unfortunate. I should think so.”

Torisen turned on his heel to face her. “So do I. The betrayal of the clauses has cut the ground out from under us. On what can we still depend, except our honor?”

“You hinted that you saw something in the contract to our advantage.”

“Potentially, at least. The bad news is that it now states explicitly that we have to follow all orders, up to and including mutual slaughter. Then there’s a piece of old news. I’ve compared notes with Mount Alban. The scrollsmen tell me that the contracts have always had a clause that if either party violates its terms, the agreement is void. That’s in there too.”

“Isn’t that our answer? If the Kings order us to do the unthinkable, we refuse and walk away.”

“There’s more: according to this clause, if we break the contract, we forfeit all pay, past, present, and future. So far, Mordaunt hasn’t paid us anything at all.”

“Oh,” said Jame. She understood that Gothregor had to survive the coming winter, hoping that the gates would support it in the coming year. “But if he doesn’t pay us, isn’t he in violation of the contract himself?”

“For that he isn’t penalized, except by losing our service. That was their hidden clause, which we didn’t discover until after we signed. The table turned, as it were. It never occurred to me that he simply wouldn’t pay. He may yet, of course. Just the same,” he added, returning to his current worry, “how can I question Harn Grip-hard about his honor?”

Harn had been his commander, then his subordinate, then his war-leader. He would never have risen without Harn’s support, nor Harn without his. If Ganth and Adric had failed him as fathers, the burly randon had come close. Now, however, Tori found himself in the role of protector. Jame understood that, as she did the worth of the man. She had also depended on Harn during her year at Tentir, and had needed several times to protect him from himself. He was a Shanir berserker, after all, who had once dismembered a fellow Kencyr in his mad rage. Even the Commandant, it seemed, felt protective toward him.

“Agreed,” she said, answering an unspoken question. “This is the other side of the bond. He needs us. Either you or I have to go to him.”

Torisen gave a helpless shrug. “It can’t be me. If I were to leave the Riverland now . . . ”

“I’ve talked to Holly. I understand. I’ll go.”

He gave her a crooked smile. “Yes. I thought that you would. We can keep company at least as far as Omiroth. Don’t look so surprised. You said, when we last met, ‘Ask questions.’ Well, I’ve been getting messages from both Dari and Lady Distan about the Ardeth succession—this, while Adric is still alive. They both want my blessing without, necessarily, wanting me.”

“So you mean to descend on them.”

“How else can I judge the case?”

“This,” said Jame, “should be interesting.”

III

The next morning Jame and her ten again took the road south, this time accompanied by her brother, the Wolver Grimly, and a hundred-command honor guard.

“I forgot to tell you,” said Torisen as they rode along, his black war-horse Storm keeping a wary eye on the white rathorn by his side who in turn regarded him with what seemed like amusement. “Farmer Rush turned up at Gothregor several days ago, much wroth. He accused you of quite a few things, which mostly boiled down to his claim that you were mismanaging a valuable asset, namely the gates.”

“I wondered what he would say. Did he tell you that he tried to drive me out of Tagmeth?”

Torisen’s smile quirked. “He didn’t mention that. My impression, though, was that he thought he could do a better job of running the keep than either you or Brier.”

“He wrongs Brier, at least.”

“And that you were ignoring a wealth of gold and silver.”

“Only obtainable if we want to invade Skyrr. Against Arribek sen Tenzi, though, I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Ah, well.”

“What will Rush do now?”

“A good question. He left for Tagmeth to great fanfare with a large command. Now he has returned alone, his pride gravely wounded. You, apparently, told him that he didn’t belong in our house. Perhaps he will go elsewhere.”

At this, Jame shifted uneasily in her saddle. “He knows about the gates now. He could compromise them, and us.”

“Let’s worry about that later,” Torisen said, and his face settled back into lines of preoccupation. Was it Harn he worried about, or Adric, or both?

Word had gone ahead of them, so Omiroth was prepared for their arrival if not necessarily glad of it.

Before the great hall lay a courtyard lush with banks of flowers, filled with winding paths and miniature fruit trees. Here was a marble rimmed fish pond, glinting with silvery scales. Jame wondered if this was where the cherished carp of Timmon’s half-brother Drie had swum, before their father Pereden had make him catch and eat it.

“I never realized the horror of that before I met you and the Falconeers,” Timmon had said, speaking of the cadets at Tentir who were bound to various animals as Jame was to Jorin, as Drie had been to his carp. “Now, the whole thing seems abominable. And Father laughed.”

With a shriek, a white peacock shook out its fantastical tail at them. Feathers shimmered.

Such grace. Such remembered cruelty.

Dari and Lady Distan waited for them at the top of the marble steps that led up to the great hall.

Dari was somberly dressed, as usual, and his mouth, as usual, was tightly pursed. Allergic to his own rotting teeth, he wouldn’t show them if he could help it. Unfortunately, their state also affected his disposition.

Lady Distan stood beside him, a vision in layers of pink chiffon under a pale green damask robe, rather like a middle-aged rose bud that refused to unfurl. Behind her was her son Timmon. He might have matched her splendor in a guard’s coat of sky blue with silver lace trim, but he also looked uncomfortable.

“Hello,” said Jame to him, as her brother and the Ardeth traded stilted greetings. “Nice jacket.”

Timmon grimaced. “Don’t tease me. It was Mother’s idea.”

“Still playing dress up for her, are you?”

“You, on the other hand, appear set for an expedition. I envy you. By the way, do you know where Lyra is? I sent her a message at Restormir but never received an answer.”

“For one thing, I doubt if any Highborn girl would be allowed to correspond with anyone outside her family. For another, she may not know how to read, much less how to write. For a third, I think that she’s been sent south to Karkinaroth to Prince Uthecon.”

Timmon looked aghast. “Her father has contracted her to that old man?”

He was used to getting what he wanted from women. At Tagmeth, however, Lyra had thwarted him with her sheer innocence—or was that ignorance? That he still thought about her at all surprised Jame.

The Wolver Grimly skirted the reception committee and joined them, looking ill at ease.

“So much finery,” he said. “Too much.”

“What happens to your clothes when you change into a wolf?” asked Jame.

Grimly considered this. “I never thought about that before. They just go away, and later come back.”

“Maybe your clothing and fur are the same thing, in different forms.”

“Maybe. At least I don’t remember ever being naked.”

“We have been invited to dinner,” said Torisen, approaching them. Given that it was late afternoon and they were guests who had travelled all day to get there, this seemed reasonable.

“Oh,” said Distan, behind him, “perhaps your . . . er . . . pet would feel more comfortable in the stable.”

Jame looked around for Jorin, who was discovered dabbing at a bee head down in the throat of a lily. It buzzed angrily. He retreated, looking nervous.

“I think,” said Torisen, “that she means Grimly. My . . . er . . . friend goes where I do, lady. Or we can reverse that, if you wish.”

“Now, now, now,” said Dari, screwing up his mouth, making a sour face. “Let’s not quarrel. Omiroth can feed more than we few.”

They were given guest quarters in which to refresh themselves and, later, in which to sleep. Not knowing what to expect, Rue had packed Jame’s crazy-quilt court coat. Now she tried to press the creases out of its rich, heavy fabric.

“I’ll sleep with this under my mattress tonight,” she said, giving it a shake. “Tomorrow . . .”

“Or the next day, or the next, it will be wrinkled again.”

Rue harrumphed.

Once dressed, Jame left Jorin curled up for a nap on her bed and went down the hall to her brother’s room. Grimly was there, crouching in a corner.

“You don’t have to eat with us if you don’t want to,” Torisen was saying to him.

“It’s not just that Lady Distan was rude.” The Wolver gave a shaky laugh. “After all, to many people we of the Holt or the Weald are only filthy vermin.” Then he shivered and rubbed his arms as if against a chill. Was that rough cloth on them or prickling fur? “Worse, there’s a bad feeling here, a bad smell, and no, it isn’t just m’lord’s unfortunate teeth, although they don’t help.”

Torisen regarded him with concern. “What do you fear?”

“I don’t know! Nothing good.”

“Where are your guards?” Jame asked Torisen, aside.

He gave her a disbelieving look. “You can’t possibly believe . . . in the mess-hall, I suppose.”

“Humor me. Take your sword.”

It was a keen-edged, businesslike weapon, she noted as he buckled it on over his black dress coat whose fit it distorted. However, it wasn’t Kin-slayer. For the most part, he had put aside that dire blade. Perhaps in his recent illness he had feared he would go after either her or Kindrie with it. This one would have to do. Also, they had Rue. Also, Grimly, who went down with them slinking at Torisen’s heels.

Dinner was served in the great hall, in the midst of which a table had been set. The Ardeth sat on one side of it, the Knorth on the other. Grimly slunk to cover behind Torisen’s chair. Rue self-consciously took the seat to Torisen’s right, there being none beside Jame. They were to be a small party, it seemed. Presumably the keep had another, less formal dining room for its other Highborn residents.

He doesn’t want witnesses, thought Jame, glancing across the table at Dari.

A harpist began to play in a screened off alcove. Servers offered basins of hot water in which the diners might wash their hands, then departed. The first course was brought in: frumenty with almonds and venison, cheese tart, and sorrel soup. Evening light fell dimly on the tiled floor from high, stained glass windows. The table was lit by a many branched chandelier.

“Where is Adric?” asked Torisen, taking up a spoon to address his soup.

Distan fluttered a pink gloved hand. “Oh, he often eats in his room. So much more discreet. His table manners . . .”

Dari glared at her. “Quiet.” He too was drinking soup, or trying to. His teeth, thus revealed, were a distressing series of gaps, rotten stumps, and fresh white nubs. Obviously, not all of them fell out at once; rather, the cycle of decay and regeneration never seemed to end. “Lord Ardeth is well enough, considering.”

Distan pouted. “Well enough to have chosen my son as his heir, at least.”

“Well enough to rule himself, if he so chooses. D’you think I want to supplant him?”

“Of course you do. Do you think that I am unaware of the messages you have sent our dear Highlord, asking to be made lordan regent?”

Dari looked disgusted. “He only has to pull himself together.”

“It doesn’t work that way! He is old, old, old, and so are you. This house belongs to the young.”

“You and I, lady, are much the same age.”

She looked flustered, a rose bud about to erupt. “I meant my son, and well you know it.”

The second course was brought in, to a sudden silence at the table. Trenchers of bread were cut at a sideboard and placed before them. Silver platters were set on the table, laden with roast capon, dilled veal balls, humble pie, and swan neck pudding. The diners helped themselves sparingly. By now, only Rue still had an appetite, and the parade of food showed no sign of ending anytime soon. It also occurred to Jame that the courses were coming rather fast, as if to forestall disaster.

“A morsel of meat, my lord?” said Distan, graciously offering Torisen a slice of capon. “I find that it goes very well with lemon wine sauce.”

“Thank you,” said Torisen, and cut the smallest possible bite.

The attendants left.

“Really,” said Dari to the lady, “I find your reasoning difficult to follow. You hold that Adric is competent to choose his lordan, but not to rule himself.”

“That was then. This is now.”

Timmon put down his knife with a clatter. “Would anyone care to ask me if I want to be the next lord of this house?”

“No!” Dari and Distan snapped at him simultaneously.

“Mother knows best, dear,” the latter added, patting his hand. “Be quiet.”

Jame stirred. “Surely he’s entitled to an opinion.”

Distan blinked wide eyes at her from behind her froth of a mask. “Of course he isn’t. Neither are you. But do have a veal ball. They are excellent. I . . . we have the finest cook in the Riverland, if sometimes somewhat distracted. Of course, Pereden should have been Adric’s heir, and was until his heroic death against the Waster Horde. Dari, your reasoning puzzles me too. You say that Adric could govern if he put his mind to it, and yet you plot to steal both his power and that of his designated heir.”

“This is now. That was then.”

“Oh, now you’re just being snide.”

Dari had been dissecting a morsel of humble pie, smaller and smaller, as if to fit it between the gaps in his teeth.

“Would you like a servant to cut up your food?” Distan asked sweetly.

Dari snarled at her. “It always comes back to Pereden, doesn’t it? Your perfect courtier. Your perfect mate. Adric adored him, more than life, as well I know. I’m sure you did too,” he added, turning to jeer at Timmon. “Who could ask for a more noble father, eh?”

Timmon had gone white. “You don’t know anything,” he sputtered. “You don’t know what he was, or how he died.”

Jame reached across the table and tugged his sleeve. “Timmon, think.”

He turned on her, looking stricken. “Can you imagine that I haven’t? Many a night, many a day . . . here, in this house, I am the shadow of a lie.”

The servers trotted in with the third course, this time fish: smoked pike in pastry, roast salmon, baked lamprey, gingered carp. These platters jostled with the meat course before, threatening to spill off the table.

“Oh, clear, clear first!” Distan implored, and some dishes were.

“Get out!” shouted Dari, rising and stomping a foot. “Out, out, out! You, cousin, what do you mean?”

The hall emptied of scared servitors. The harp had fallen silent with a discordant fumbling of fingers. Timmon was left leaning on the table, panting.

“I have to say this,” he said to Jame. “My soul isn’t my own until I do. Mother, I saw him in the soulscape, in the Gray Lands, a wretched thing woven of dry grass and dead twigs.

“‘I . . . I . . . I was my father’s favorite,’ he said. ‘I . . . I deserved to be. I deserved everything.’

“And then he told me he thought he could turn the Waster Horde, but he couldn’t. ‘Everyone fails me,’ he said. ‘Poor me.’ The Wasters told him that if he joined them he could take Torisen’s place. He joined. That was Pereden at the Cataracts, calling on our troops to surrender. That was Pereden fighting you, Highlord, in the Heart of the Woods, but you already know that.

“‘I will have my revenge,’ he said. ‘I will tell my father what I have done, and why.’

“‘It will kill him,’ you said. ‘And I promised to protect his interests. I keep my promises, Peri.’

“And you broke his neck. To protect Adric. To protect us all. I honor you for that.”

“Well!” said Dari, sitting back down. “I thought there was more to the story, but this . . . !”

“I don’t believe it,” said Distan. Her mouth had fallen open. Within her mask, she looked almost as hollow as her consort had in the Gray Lands. “This is delusion. Madness. Son. My child. You can’t mean it.”

“Trust me. I do.”

Dari started to laugh, in the process spitting defunct teeth tipped with blood on the snowy tablecloth. “Oh,” he said, wiping his mouth, “this is delicious. Highlord, if you fail to confirm me as lordan regent now, what a tale I will have to tell Adric!”

“If you do,” said Torisen, “it will kill him.”

A servant appeared in the doorway. “Lord Ardeth,” he announced.

Adric came into the hall, smiling. His white hair hung in straggly locks. His face was as creased as old leather. Food stains disfigured the front of his ivory lace court coat.

“Ganth!” he said, opening his arms to Torisen. “And Pereden, my dear son.” This, to Timmon, whom he also embraced.

Timmon took his fine-boned hands and led him to the table. Rue quickly gave up her seat and went to stand behind Jame. “Grandfather. Come. Sit. Eat.”

“Adric,” said Torisen. “How are you?”

“Fine, fine, fine, now that all of my loved ones are here. And you too, Distan? Tell me: have your outgrown your spots yet?”

“That,” said the lady with a tight smile, “was long, long ago. Here is your grandson, Timmon.”

“I remember when you were freckled like a trout. Or a lamprey. Of course, a matron’s mask may cover many sins.”

Servitors rushed in carrying platters of sweet tarts and pastries—tansy cake with peppermint cream, shortbread, elderberry funnel cake, and butternut. These they piled on top of the fish course, which no one had had time to taste.

“Oh, go away!” shrieked Distan.

Adric sat down and picked up a tansy tart. “My favorite,” he said, taking a bite. “Ganth, pray try one.”

Torisen resumed his seat as did the rest except for Grimly, now cowering flat to the floor in his complete furs, trying unsuccessfully not to whimper.

“Speaking of sins,” said Adric to Distan, “tell me: do you still maintain your supposedly secret correspondence with the Randir?”

Distan looked momentarily discomposed, but rallied. “Our dear Lady Rawneth as good as rules a major house,” she said. “I find her interesting.”

“Has she also interested you in the scheme of her ally, Lord Caineron, that the largest houses should rule the Kencyrath?”

The lady nervously played with the frilled neck of her mantle. “Well, it only makes sense, does it not? The bigger the house, the more powerful the lord. After all,” she added with a simper, “here you are.”

“Here, also, at our table, is one who rules over us all by sacred tradition and blood right. Would you care to explain your views to him?”

Distan gave a light, brittle laugh. “Now, would that be gracious? He is, after all, our guest.”

“Ganth, would you care to comment?”

“By no means, sir,” said Torisen politely. “Continue.”

Adric turned to Dari. “And where does your allegiance lie, grandson?”

“Grandfather, you know that I am loyal to you.”

“And yet you aspire to the position of lordan regent that should, in the fullness of time, be your nephew’s.”

Dari looked confused. “Who? Pereden’s? You must mean Timmon’s.”

Jame wondered: Had the old lord overheard at least part of the previous conversation? If so, sweet Trinity, how much?

“You never liked Pereden, did you?” Adric said to Dari. “Is it because he is all the things that you are not? Brave, faithful, charming . . . what are you compared to that?”

He spoke genially, but Jame noted that his hand shook. The hair rose, quivering, on the back of her neck. There was power here, barely contained, deeply flawed.

“And you question my wisdom in making my grandson Timmon my heir. Surely it is my right to do so.”

The room seemed to tilt, past and present shifting.

Madness is contagious, thought Jame, and saw Dari sway where he sat under this assault.

Distan drew away from him.

Timmon looked confused.

“We were a great people, once,” said Adric gently. Crumbles spilled down his cuff from a pastry too tightly held. “We kept our god’s faith. We maintained our honor. Now what have we come to, that creatures like you crawl among us? Have I lived to see such dishonor?”

“Grandfather . . .”

“Be still!”

The whiplash of his will threw plates from the table and the chairs lurched back a step. The Wolver yelped.

Attempting to distract him, Distan offered Adric a plate. “Another of your favorites?”

Adric looked down. “Carp for dessert? How eccentric.”

“I . . . I . . . I do not deserve this,” Dari stuttered, rallying. “I said you could still rule, if you would just try. I only want what is good for our house. Don’t you?”

“Traitor!”

Dari gagged. He had inhaled one of his own loose teeth and was choking on it.

Torisen thrust back his chair to rise. Its back legs caught on Grimly, who crouched behind it. The chair tipped. As Torisen went over backward, clutching the chair’s arms, Adric reached across him and gripped the hilt of his sword, which slid smoothly out of its well-oiled sheath. Torisen rolled over his shoulder, back onto his feet.

Too late.

Adric had lunged across the table and driven the point of the sword into Dari’s throat. Dari tumbled sideways out of his chair into Distan’s lap. Distan jumped up, screaming, and spilled him onto the floor.

Jame and Timmon both scrambled to help, but it was a hideous wound. In a tide of blood, looking incredulous, Dari choked out the errant tooth and collapsed. Eyes, mouth, and throat all gaped.

“I think he’s gone,” said Timmon, as if hardly believing it.

“I know he is,” Jame said, and closed his eyes.

Adric dropped the sword on the table and swayed where he stood, one hand pressed against his heart. Torisen caught him as he fell.

He smiled up into Torisen’s face.

“My son,” he said, and died.

Servants ran in, stared aghast, and ran out. The keep’s alarm began to sound.


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Framed