Battle: The House War: Book Five (62 page)

She had chosen the reading room not because she might put distance between herself and her guests, but because of all of the rooms within the manse proper, it had the strongest magical defenses; no one listened here without her express permission unless they were also in the room. She had taken the liberty of invoking the extensive protections before the doors had opened. She was aware that the
Astari
had spies within her manse—Duvari’s reach was such that it could safely be assumed he had spies within any House of power. Let him work for the information she did not choose to hand him.

It would, no doubt, make him far less suspicious of said information when it at last crossed his desk.

Shadow sat heavily beside Jewel’s chair, staring at the bardmaster. She impressed Jewel; she met his gaze as if he were a wearisome child. “I remember a white cat,” she said, the words trailing up in question.

“You remember correctly. Snow is not present at the moment. This,” she added, “is Shadow. Of the three brothers—”

“We are
not
brothers,” he hissed.

“—He is the most cunning.” This met with Shadow’s approval, although he stared at her with suspicion, as if looking for the hidden insult in the words.

“Do you guard her dreams, Shadow?” the bardmaster asked softly.

The question appeared to surprise the cat; it certainly surprised Jewel. It was, however, Jewel who answered. “He does.”

The Wayelyn bent and retrieved a large, worn case from the floor to one side of his chair. It was a natural leather, but cracked in places, and darker in color around the handle and the edges that touched floor. Opening it, he retrieved his lute. It, like the case, was of obvious age, but no cracks could be seen anywhere upon its wooden body. He began to tune the strings, and as he did, Solran spoke, as if to accompaniment.

“Understand, Terafin, that I mean no disrespect either to your office or your House. I allowed the song to be widely disseminated without regard to either.”

Jewel nodded, watching Solran with care.

Meralonne emptied his pipe and began to fill it.

“I ask a boon,” the bardmaster continued.

Jewel stiffened. “Ask.”

“I would have you hear The Wayelyn’s song—but I would have you hear it in a less . . . confined . . . space.”

“You do not intend to gather an audience?”

“Not as such. But I wish to return to the grounds for which House Terafin has become famed in so short a time, and I believe they would be a suitable location in which to sing. Or to listen.”

Jewel considered the request with care. The song itself, Duvari had heard. Of that, she had no doubt. But any comments she might make with regard to the song would be severely limited in such unguarded environs.

You are wrong
, Avandar told her.
Should you desire it, none—not even the firstborn—would be witness to what was said or spoken within your grounds. You rely on the magics of the Order, here, but even within your manse, they are the lesser power.

The greater power, unknown and unharnessed, led to closets that devoured her kin. She did not say this aloud; instead, she rose. “Very well, Bardmaster. Wayelyn. If you will accompany me, we will take your song to the
Ellariannatte.
APhaniel?” she added, when he failed to rise.

“I speak as your House Mage,” he replied, “but I will tell you now that I am not certain this is wise.”

“Are you certain it is unwise?” she countered.

“No, Terafin. I feel there is some risk, but it is possible that there will be some benefit.” He rose then. “And you are willing to take that risk.”

“I am. I am unwilling, at this point, to take such a risk anywhere else within my domain—but within the forest, I am comfortable.”

* * *

The trees for which Terafin had achieved such instant awe and fame were visible before the small party had cleared the manse; The Wayelyn and Solran Marten stood on the terrace to one side of the fount, looking up at the heights the
Ellariannatte
graced. Wind could be seen in the movement of branches and leaves; the air around the terrace itself was still.

Shadow nudged Jewel. She braced herself and maintained her footing. She expected either admonition or criticism, but the cat glanced at her visitors and remained silent. He did step on Avandar’s feet, but Avandar didn’t so much as blink.

There is a risk
, her domicis told her.

What risk? The last thing I need is difficulty while The Wayelyn is present.

I judge the possibility of mortal danger to be low; this is the heart of your domain, and only the very, very powerful will attempt to breach it.

She was tired of riddles. As she nodded to The Wayelyn, she examined the warning, turning it over as she looked for hidden barbs. Avandar, however, had no need to rely on the hidden to make his point. She was not yet concerned with any future but tomorrow’s, and even were she, tomorrow would take precedence. The rule of her House depended on it.

And not your life
?

They will not kill me,
she replied. As the words left her, wrapped in the intimacy of silence, she realized they were true. It should have been a comfort. But she glanced at the set of The Wayelyn’s uncharacteristically still jaw, and felt uneasy instead.

“They are the marvel that I remember,” Solran said, her face upturned, her voice hushed. “I envy you your grounds, Terafin. Do not tell me they are not worthy of envy; I assume they exact a price, the whole of which I might never know. But they are peaceful; they contain the quiet of a day without conflict or the burden of responsibility.”

“How would you recognize such a day?” Jewel asked, with a wry smile. “Given The Wayelyn and the only other master bard with whom I’m familiar, I imagine that you don’t have many of them.”

Solran laughed. Her laugh was a surprise; it was low, deep, and suggested reserves of genuine delight. “Have I done something shocking, Terafin?”

“No, Bardmaster. I apologize for staring—you are familiar with my early history. Occasionally, the strict etiquette demanded by the patriciate is beyond my grasp.”

“Your grasp has grown stronger, with the passage of time—and your reach, longer. If it eases you at all, Terafin, I trust you implicitly.”

“On so little acquaintance?”

“Yes. I am surrounded by the bard-born, and not a single one of them has heard more than the hint of a lie in your words when you choose to speak in their hearing.”

“And I so casually came up in conversation?”

“Not casually, no,” the bardmaster replied, the last of the joy once again completely submerged. She stopped walking, her mouth half-open.

C
hapter Nineteen

J
EWEL STOPPED AS WELL. She had—she would swear she had—followed the bardmaster into the grounds transcribed by the Master Gardener and his staff. She glanced at the path beneath her feet; it was made of interlocking stone. In shape, in width, in length, it was very like the paths that wound their way through the garden of contemplation. It was adorned by short, standing lamps, their round, glass globes surrounding small magestones, keyed to radiate light when evening fell. Flower beds were laid, in careful order, to either side of the walk, although the garden would not reach the full riot of its tended color for weeks.

She hadn’t stepped off the path, but apparently it no longer mattered. Where the small, cultivated trees so dwarfed by the
Ellariannatte
had once stood, there now stood trees of living silver and gold. Standing among them was a solitary tree on which roses were in bud. It should have looked ridiculous; it didn’t. Accents of red—for the buds were a deep, deep red—glinted off silver, were warmed when seen in gold; it was almost as if the trees had grown around this single bush in a ring, to give it glory.

“Your garden has grown wild since the funeral,” Solran said.

“Since just before,” Jewel replied. She felt Avandar’s disapproval. “But they didn’t take root here. Not initially.” She lowered her head. “Don’t touch the trees,” she said softly.

“I would not dream of doing so. Neither, I am
certain
, would The Wayelyn.” The Wayelyn so mentioned was approaching the trees, but stopped, armoring himself with his lute and an unrepentant smile better suited to a child than a man of wealth, experience, and power.

“You are incorrigible,” Solran said, her tone equal parts affection and exasperation. “We have come this far to play to an audience of one—but for all that, an extremely significant audience. This is not perhaps the stage we would have chosen, but it seems fitting.”

“I’m not certain—”

“No, Terafin, you are not—but it appears that roses can grow encircled by such wilderness, and even remain unharmed and unaltered. They are not, to my eye remarkable, but they are—like the rarest of gems—in their perfect setting. Is it because of you?”

Jewel shook her head. “I’ve always thought gardens like this were a waste of time and money.”

Solran appeared to be genuinely surprised; The Wayelyn laughed. “You would prefer, perhaps, a farm?”

“I would, truth be told. I am aware of all the reasons why it would be highly inappropriate; apparently to maintain wealth and power, one must exercise it in obvious and ostentatious ways. Growing food is not one of them. If you think my own attitude toward decorative flowers is at the heart of this . . . encroachment, I admit that I fail to see how.” She turned to The Wayelyn. “Apologies, Wayelyn, but I have one more appointment this eve, and my time grows short.”

“Is it significant?”

“Although my advisers would be appalled, I will answer: I am to meet with Hectore of Araven. I am new in my tenure as head of this House, and relations between Araven and Terafin have not always been the most cordial; it is an opportunity I cannot afford to pass over.”

“Indeed.” He lifted his lute and once again played a series of short scales; he touched none of the knobs to either loosen or tighten strings. Instead, he frowned, and touched the strings again. He played something longer, faster, sliding up and down the scales. Jewel knew very little about music and musical instruments; she knew, in a time-honored way, what she liked—and for the most part, it was “lamentably common.” But it sounded to her untrained ear as if he’d started out with a series of exercises and those exercises had gotten away from the fingers that played them.

She could hear the notes—fast, light, deliberate—as they echoed; as if they, like the glints of deep red, were being reflected by the silver and the gold. She thought, as she listened, that the notes changed, not in pitch, but in
texture
, as if the lute could somehow invoke from the heart of her forest the sounds of other instruments.

She was surprised when his voice joined the sound of a rising orchestra. She didn’t understand the first words he sang; she didn’t recognize the language. It wasn’t Torra, and it certainly wasn’t Weston. She glanced at Avandar, who seemed suddenly transfixed by the song—Avandar, whose hands had fallen, loose, to his sides. To one who wasn’t familiar with him, there was no change in his outward appearance.

But Jewel knew. She knew that the words that were beyond her would not remain that way; she wasn’t even certain if The Wayelyn was aware that what he sang was not what she heard.

“Bardmaster, what do you hear?”

Solran had the expression that Avandar lacked; her eyes were wide, unblinking, her pallor considerably paler. “This is not the song that has spread across Averalaan,” Solran whispered.

“Do you recognize the language?”

“No, Terafin.”

“Avandar?”

Her domicis did not appear to hear anything but the song itself; he didn’t even spare her a glance. The Chosen listened, but Torvan was less enchanted and more alert; his gaze slid off and around The Wayelyn, who had taken up a position directly in front of the roses, not the fairy-tale trees themselves.

With sinking heart, she glanced at Meralonne. She was not surprised to see that his pale, platinum hair now flew in a strong breeze that seemed to touch nothing else in the garden, not even the leaves. His eyes were rounded, as were Solran’s; unlike Solran, his lips were turned up in the faintest edge of a smile. He was the heart of winter, in this place; she almost felt the ice forming in the air around him. Around them all.

So it was to Shadow that her gaze went, and it stayed there. The great cat’s wings were high, and as she watched, he gathered himself, haunches rippling as his hind legs bent and tensed for leaping.

“
Shadow!
” Her voice was strong enough, sharp enough, to rouse Avandar from his fascination, and he turned instantly.

He didn’t attack Shadow. Instead, Jewel saw a sheen of brilliant orange light spring up in a sphere around where The Wayelyn, back turned to his audience, now stood. If he was aware of it at all, he did nothing to betray it; his song did not pause. Instead, it soared.

Shadow bounced off him. Jewel grabbed his pinions—never a wise thing to do—as he tensed again. “Make him
stop
,” the cat growled. “Make him stop, or I will kill Viandaran in order to stop him
myself
.”

“What is he doing?” Jewel demanded, shouting to be heard. Pointing out that Avandar was deathless, while factual, was pointless. She accepted the fury of the cat’s intent.

“He is
singing, stupid, stupid
girl. He is
singing
. The land
hears
him. It hears him and it will carry his song to places not even
we
can reach. They will
hear
it, and they will hear it too
soon
. You are not
ready
.”

She knew, as she listened, that he told no lies. “Bardmaster—”

Solran shook herself. “Wayelyn. Cease.”

Shadow sputtered in outrage. Jewel tightened her grip on his wings. “
Her
words are
nothing
! Use
yours
!”

Jewel opened her mouth, and shut it hard enough to clip the inside of her cheek. Shadow was right. He was viscerally, immediately
right
. But he was a wild, winged version of beautiful, glittering death. He didn’t belong in the world of the Twin Kings, the Terafin manse, the hundred holdings. His only connection to them was Jewel.

But Jewel was
of
them. Even standing here, surrounded by silver-and-golden trees, the voice of the bard-born laden with the ancient, she was of them. Yes, this land was hers. She’d claimed it, and she’d claimed it in the only way the land itself understood. But she wasn’t Shadow or Celleriant. The closest model at hand was Avandar, a man who had walked away from the defense of a city, to see it fall to the god they would face, sooner or later, in war.

She wanted to be neither.

She wanted to be Jewel Markess ATerafin for just a while longer. “Bardmaster!”

Solran didn’t even look at Jewel. Her lips were compressed in a thin, white line.

“I understand what I need to understand,” Jewel told the Master of Senniel College. “And if necessary, I will hear his song in a tavern, or in the market square.”

The bardmaster walked to where The Wayelyn stood. What Shadow’s claws and fangs couldn’t penetrate, her hands could. Jewel saw the orange barrier part to let her hand through. Just one. She didn’t touch The Wayelyn; instead, she laid her hands against the strings of his lute, stilling their vibration.

His fingers continued to move below her palm. “Wayelyn,” she said. And then, when his voice failed to stop, she added, “Ernest.”

He blinked, his voice faltering for the first time. His song banked, dwindling until Jewel could understand the words he sang: they were Weston, modern Weston.

“
And she, as fair, as fair as winter’s heart, as pale as sun’s light

“Will stand upon the walls, while winged heralds from that height

“Speak her name. But it is not their voices that she hears

“But ours, raised in our mortal song, above our fears

“Will lend her the strength only she requires.”

“Walls?” Jewel asked, as The Wayelyn at last fell silent and turned toward her. His face was shining with sweat, his pupils slightly dilated, as if he’d just stepped out from a dark, dark room into full sunlight. “We don’t have walls.”

He blinked rapidly. “Your garden,” he said, his voice cracked and dry, “is colder than I realized at this time of year. It is a wild and perilous place—but beautiful, for all that.” Color returned to his cheeks, and the smile that was at once charming and self-indulgent returned to his lips. “Beauty is oft deadly, but we are moths, Terafin. You, in your white dress, with your winter cat and your glorious, ancient trees—you are the beginning of a story made flesh. It is not our story. It can’t be.

“But . . .” He pivoted far too lightly on his feet for a man of his age. “APhaniel owns some part of it; look at him now. His hair is the color of your dress on that day.”

“Why did you write that song?”

“Because, Terafin,” he said, entirely devoid of his usual humor, “You will build those walls. No one else now can; we don’t have the time. Do you understand what you heard?”

“Do you,” she countered, “understand what you sang?”

“Only the last few phrases.”

She was momentarily nonplussed. “Did you intend to sing whatever it was you
did
sing in this place?”

He turned to the bardmaster. Solran said—in a voice that made winter seem warm, “Ernest, you will answer her question. It is much on my mind, now.”

Solran held his gaze, hers unblinking, until he looked away. “No, Terafin. No, but I suspected I might. The bard-born voice is sometimes strong in the wilderness. I cannot lie with it; the words themselves might be false, but what lies at the heart of the song
I
sing? Never. Solran is not bard-born. She understands the limitations and the capabilities of our kind more thoroughly than many born to the voice—but not all.

“Word has come to Senniel—and to Morniel and Attariel as well—that strange creatures now walk the roads. Whole caravans have been lost—much to the anger and bewilderment of the merchant houses, and lives lost as well, to things which are not easily explained away.

“We have had no word from Brekenhurst or Linden, although we expect word will come; they are furthest from Averalaan.”

Solran’s gaze never left his face, but her expression had shuttered; Jewel couldn’t tell if she were angry. Nor did it at this point matter; The Wayelyn had not yet finished, and he could not now be stopped. “You have seen demons, Terafin. You have seen the Wild Hunt. You have taken into the heart of your domain the winged cats, and you ride a beast that the Queen of the Wild Hunt herself might ride.

“Against the creatures that now enter the Empire, you have some chance. If they were to attack you here, you would, in all likelihood survive. Am I wrong?”

“No. You are not wrong.”

“What hope does a farmer have? What magic, what wild power, comes to his defense? Does he lift his scythe? The iron in it might be some protection, but not against all creatures. And what do we know about those creatures? Stories. Legends. Bardic lays. We can learn the truth now—and we are—but what we’re learning is merely how people disappear or die. There are very few credible witnesses. The bardic colleges have sent out even journeymen to the North and West; we have master bards on the roads to the South.”

“We?”

“The bardic colleges. If I have not offended the bardmaster, I am still a member of the Collegiate Council.”

Jewel was not completely familiar with the internal structure of the bardic colleges; she was surprised that something official existed at all. Nor was it the time to discuss it. “Very well. Bards have been sent across the Empire, and beyond its bounds. They’ve tendered reports.”

“It is not just bards,” Meralonne said. “The Members of the Order of Knowledge in the various kingdoms have begun investigations, and they have been in constant contact with the guildmaster; if the bardic colleges have a loose and collegial governing structure, the Order of Knowledge does not. What The Wayelyn says is substantiated by reports from the Order’s members.”