VII

Anyara paced listlessly up and down in front of the fire in her chambers in the Palace of Red Stone. Coinach was seated with his head in his hands. “We have to go,” the shieldman said. “Somehow. Anyhow. That was the chance you wanted, the audience with Gryvan. Nothing came of it. We have to get out of Vaymouth. The place is tinder.” Anyara had never seen him so disturbed. He had killed a man as they returned from the Moon Palace earlier that day. As they left the vast main square—all but deserted now—that adjoined Gryvan’s towering home, and started their way down a wide street lined with stalls and shops, the man had run out from an alleyway. Closer to old age than youth, he was dressed as an artisan. Certainly a trained and skilled worker, perhaps even a Craftsman. Yet he wailed as he ran at Anyara’s horse, his eyes bulging from their sockets. Coinach was riding on her other side, so he was unable to come between them. The man threw himself up at Anyara before she had a chance to react. Only the fact that he clumsily missed his grip on her arm prevented him from dragging her from the saddle. She tried to slap him away, but he ducked beneath her sweeping arm and scrabbled once more for a hold, this time on her leg. Coinach landed a stinging blow on her horse’s haunch, and it sprang forward startled, carrying her immediately out of reach of her assailant. Coinach had calmly leaned low out of his saddle and killed the man with a single sword stroke to the neck. He was considerably less calm now. “The city’s not safe,” he said, not for the first time since their return. Anyara kept pacing, her mind working furiously. “We can’t run away,” she muttered. “The Chancellor could deliver this city, this Blood, every Blood to the Black Road. If that’s what he wants to do.” “We don’t know.” He lifted his head out of his hands. “I know,” snapped Anyara. “I’ve heard him. I’ve looked into his eyes. He’s going to drag us all down into ruin, unless someone stops him.” “Do you want me to kill him?” Coinach asked dolefully. “Is that it?” Anyara stopped and looked at him. “Would you do it, if I asked you to?” “Of course,” he said without hesitation. “But if I did… what then?” There was a soft knocking at the door, followed at once by a tentative, familiar voice: “My lady?” “Come in, Eleth,” Anyara called, and the maid entered. That the girl’s mood had improved compared with recent days was immediately obvious. There was a renewed energy in her movements, and a bright and alert gleam in her eye. Anyara found this bewildering when the city around them was sinking every day further into chaos. “You seem much happier,” she said, unable to entirely conceal her confusion and faint suspicion. “Thank you, yes.” Eleth smiled. She paused, but when she realised that more explanation was expected she added, “My father was… sick. But the sickness has… well, it’s gone away.” “If only all sicknesses were so amenable,” Anyara muttered. “Yes, my lady. The High Thane is here, my lady. He has… I was told to say your presence is required.” “Gryvan?” Anyara said in surprise, raising her eyebrows towards Coinach. The shieldman rose slowly to his feet, frowning. “I don’t understand,” he said. “And the Bloodheir, too,” Eleth said. That thoroughly deflated Anyara’s briefly waking hopes. Of all the people she desired to see, or imagined could possibly be of any assistance to her, Aewult nan Haig was the very least and last. “You shouldn’t go,” Coinach said firmly. Anyara grunted. “You want me to turn down a summons from the Thane of Thanes, while I’m trapped in the same building with him? Oh, Coinach, I have to go. And it’s another chance, isn’t it? It might be. We don’t know. We’ll never know, if I don’t try.” Coinach’s face fell, but he said nothing. “Where’s the Chancellor’s wife?” Anyara asked Eleth. “Oh, she’s been sent for too, my lady. On her way, I’m sure. If not there already.” Tara was waiting for Anyara outside the broad double doors of a room Anyara could not recall ever having been inside. They were ornately carved from some exotic dark wood. They smelled of oil, and gleamed. Tara took Anyara by the arm as she approached. Eleth was dismissed with a silent look. “Listen to me,” Tara whispered. “I know what this is. Gryvan’s angry, looking for answers. He’s only here because Mordyn refused to go to him in the Moon Palace earlier. Listen to me.” Tara’s agitation was unsettling, especially in one normally so entirely in command of the impression she gave. “Please. Do not lose me my husband, Anyara. That is all I ask of you. Let it be a sickness. A sickness of the mind. Not treachery. Not binding. If you should convince Gryvan of such things, he will have my husband killed. If it’s a sickness… there might be exile. Imprisonment, perhaps. Not death.” Anyara did not know what to say. She felt indebted to this woman, and understood something of just how much she treasured her husband. And yet… there was more at stake than that here. Kale pulled the doors open. The lean shieldman stared out at them with chilly indifference, as if he knew none of them. “You wait out here,” he said levelly to Coinach. “No,” Coinach said promptly. Kale smiled then, and it was a strikingly lifeless and troubling sight. “It is not a request or a suggestion. It is the command of your High Thane.” Anyara smiled reassuringly at Coinach, though she felt more in need of reassurance herself than of providing it. He turned reluctantly away and stood with his back against the wall, staring straight ahead. Kale ushered Tara and Anyara inside, and closed the doors behind them. The room was high-ceilinged, the walls painted with bright murals. No windows. One other set of doors, opposite those by which they had just entered. A single bare table set with six chairs, at two of which Gryvan oc Haig and his son were seated. “You must let me provide some refreshment,” Mordyn Jerain was saying casually. “Wine, at least.” “Nothing,” Gryvan snapped. Mordyn Jerain turned, a transparent pretence at having only just noticed Anyara and Tara’s arrival. “Ah, here we are.” He smiled. “Now perhaps we can resolve this confusion.” He wore all his old charm, and it fitted him as snugly as a custom-made glove. Anyara looked at him, and it was like looking at an entirely different person from the one who had given her the bruise still discolouring her face. Here was someone all fluid grace and natural warmth. “Sit, sit,” he said to Anyara, gesturing towards chairs. “The High Thane wants to talk with us.” Watching him warily, Anyara settled into a seat opposite Gryvan. Tara Jerain, she noticed, was staring at her husband, rapt. Her face did not seem to be able to decide between unease and relief, as if she did not trust what her eyes and ears told her. “You too,” Mordyn said gently to her, and Tara sat at Anyara’s side. Gryvan, evidently inured to the effects of the man’s charm by long exposure, was glowering at the Shadowhand as he walked slowly around the table. Aewult looked merely bored, though he did favour Anyara with a particularly savage glare before he resumed his studied detachment. “I want answers,” Gryvan rasped, his hands bunched into fists on the surface of the table. “As do we all.” Mordyn nodded. “And we shall have them, I am sure.” He paused suddenly in his circuit of the room, and frowned. “Do you hear something?” he asked of no one in particular. And in the question’s wake came the unmistakable sound of raised voices and hurried feet somewhere within the Palace of Red Stone. Then what struck Anyara immediately as the sound of fighting. Her first thought was concern for Coinach, but the disturbance seemed to be coming from the front of the palace, beyond the door through which Gryvan and Aewult had presumably entered, not that at which Coinach stood guard. Tara was rising from her chair, alarmed. “Wait, wait,” muttered Mordyn, extending a hand. “It’s probably nothing, but let’s wait a moment. Let’s not rush into anything.” “I’ll see what’s happening,” said Aewult, rising, but Gryvan pushed his son back down into his seat. “Kale,” the High Thane said. “Find out what it is.” The brief tumult was already fading, but Gryvan’s shieldman obediently turned and went out through the doors behind the High Thane’s chair. Mordyn moved round that way, craning his neck as if to peer out as the doors swung shut behind Kale. The Chancellor took hold of the doors to hurry them on their way, and pushed them firmly closed. There was a dull clack as some latch fell into place. Anyara frowned at the sound, which seemed out of place. Inappropriate. Mordyn turned, each of his hands reaching into the opposite sleeve. He withdrew them as he stepped forward, smiling. Anyara saw the gleam of metal, and had a vivid, ghastly memory of a feast night in the Tower of Thrones, and a serving woman leaning close to Lheanor oc Kilkry-Haig. She opened her mouth to cry out. “How simple,” Mordyn said with satisfaction. Tara was rising once more from her chair, shock plain on her face. Gryvan twisted round in his chair to see what was happening. The Chancellor drove one of the long-bladed narrow knives into the back of Aewult’s neck, at the base of his skull. The other went in under Gryvan’s chin as he turned onto it. As soon as the blades were planted, the Shadowhand was running, darting around the table. He reached the second set of doors before either Tara or Anyara had got free of their hampering chairs. “Coinach!” Anyara shouted. The same dull clack of wood on wood as Mordyn sealed the doors. “What have you done?” Tara Jerain gasped, hands rising to her mouth as she looked from her husband to the dead Thane and his son, their blood flooding out over the table. “Paid some clubmen off the street to stage some distracting little trouble,” Mordyn muttered. He ran at Anyara, surprisingly fast, and seized her by her shoulders. He threw her violently against the wall and she fell. “Didn’t really think that would work,” she heard the Chancellor saying through the faint ringing in her ears. She could hear the doors shaking too. Coinach shouting: “Anyara!” “Thought I would be dead by now, but it would have been a price worth paying.” Anyara got unsteadily to her feet. Mordyn had his wife by the throat, was holding her down on the surface of the table. Her mouth was agape. “I suspected the game was done as soon as I heard you had been to see Gryvan. Knew it beyond doubt when I got his message demanding I go there myself. A pity. I could have done so much more. But this will do. This is enough.” Tara had her hands about Mordyn’s wrists, straining ineffectually to pry them apart. The door shook once more beneath Coinach’s assaults. Anyara looked from the latch holding the door shut to the knife protruding from the back of Aewult’s head. And chose the knife. She leaned across the table and wrenched it free with a sickening crunch. Mordyn looked round at her. She rushed at him. None of the meagre training she had received from Coinach was needed. Mordyn raised no defence. He merely looked into her eyes as she ran at him, and kept his hands on Tara’s throat. Anyara stabbed him in the side, under his arm. She did remember something Coinach had told her then, and punched the knife in and out once, twice more, reaching for the heart. To be certain. Mordyn fell heavily. Tara did not stir at first, but then lifted herself up groggily, one hand pawing at her neck. Anyara opened the door to admit Coinach. The shieldman came in with sword in hand, his eyes widening in astonishment as he took in the gory scene. “What happened?” he murmured. “We have to get out of here,” Anyara said, considerably more calmly than she felt. “Help me with Tara.” She tried to put supporting hands under Tara’s elbows, but the Chancellor’s wife pushed her away. She was staring down at her dead husband. “Tara,” Anyara said quietly. “We should go.” The doors opposite rattled as someone tried to open them. “We really should go,” Coinach said emphatically. The doors crashed open under Kale’s foot, and the High Thane’s shieldman strode in, sword readied. His eyes moved with precision and speed, and settled on Coinach. Kale leaped forward, brushing the corner of the table. His sword came sweeping down. Coinach raised his own, and caught the descending blade and held it there. He brought his knee firmly up into Kale’s groin, lifting him momentarily off his feet and staggering him. Coinach went after him, making two or three rapid slashing cuts. A single slightly misjudged parry and Coinach’s blade had skidded off the top of Kale’s blocking thrust and into his side. Anyara heard a rib break from the other side of the room. Kale buckled, and Coinach hit him again, and again as he went down. Once Kale was on the ground, Coinach finished him with a straight thrust to his throat. He frowned as he sheathed his sword. “I had heard he was better than that.” He sounded vaguely disappointed.