Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court (80 page)

Tallos. Tallos di'Jedera. The name was vaguely familiar. The clan itself was not one of the warrior clans; it lacked the antiquity of Leone, Callesta, Lamberto, or even Marente, and the sons of Jedera blood would therefore never rule.

But it had
money
, and the prestige that money could buy.

Among the merchants, that prestige was a seat in the hall of the merchant Court, and a right to use the halls and courts, the baths and parlors, at the height of those grand stairs.

"Come," the merchant said. "When the business at hand is a matter of significance, or the client a client I feel will be of import in the future of the clan, I prefer to retreat to the Court. There are very, very few who would question the authority of the merchants within their own halls."

"Indeed," Kallandras said softly. "And the clan Larantos perished because they likewise understood that custom had the force of law, and they sought to force that issue with the ruling Tyr."

"An interesting phrase. The force of law."

Kallandras paused an instant, gold warmed by sun beneath his palm. Misstep.

Without pausing, the merchant who called himself Tallos took the steps, leaving Kallandras with a simple choice. He could follow, or he could leave. He followed.

"You will find," the merchant said, his voice thick with accent as he slid from Torra to Weston, "that the word law in Torra is very rarely used."

"It is often used," Kallandras countered, still speaking the Torra that had been his birth tongue. "But it goes by the guise of power."

"And in the North," the merchant said, abandoning the obviously foreign tongue, "the guise of power is indeed baffling. But it is there, if one knows how to look."

Kallandras smiled. "Money, Ser Tallos, is more valued in the North than in the South."

"Less valued," Tallos replied. "But more openly."

"You have traveled."

"The clan Jedera deals heavily in the goods that come through the Terrean of Averda. We had hoped to… take more active control of those interests." He shrugged. "The clan Callesta is more interested in things monetary than we would like. But who knows? The winds of war are coming, and may sweep them entirely from the plains and valleys."

"Many of their allies will be caught in that gale."

"Indeed, it is so." The merchant shrugged. "But men of money make poor allies, or so it is said."

"It is, indeed, said."

The flower beds passed beneath three large arches, the facades of which were gilded and painted in deep blues. Bright light and dark intertwined in swirling patterns that, only when viewed at a distance coalesced into a meaning that was not merely a visual delight:
Those who are willing to pay the price, enter
.

Seeing where his guest's gaze dwelled, the merchant said softly, "I think you have already paid."

Kallandras raised a brow. Games were a part of his art, but he was suddenly weary of them. The day was wearing thin; he would not be at Yollana's side again until dusk, and then only if he moved quickly.

"I have," he replied in Weston.

The merchant's raised brow mirrored his own.

"Take me to her. We have very, very little time."

There were four Halls of Gold: the Lord's Hall of Gold, the Lady's Hall of Gold, the Golden Hall of Dawn and the Golden Hall of Dusk. They formed a quartered circle in the center of the circular grounds beyond the impressive, arched walls: the symbol, in the South, of an oath made between equals.

There was something appropriate in that; the men who had made both building and oath had perished, but what they had wrought remained. Legacy. He was not certain where the merchant led him, but his path crossed the Lord's Hall, where those merchants of power who wished to make a statement by presence alone might choose to spend a portion of their day.

The Hall had been built by a warrior; it was built for warriors. Commerce, like one of the forgotten arts, had devolved onto the shoulders of lesser men, made Tors for the most part in an effort to insure that such devolution did not engender dangerous disloyalty.

Titles seldom produced that effect among men of ambition; Kallandras wondered idly why the gambit was so often tried.

Or perhaps the sense of the attempt was too Northern in origin; perhaps the titles were an attempt to dignify the import of duties that might otherwise remain hazardously untended. Men of worth, after all, hungered for many things, but tending money, much like tilling fields, was not one of them. Perhaps the only incentive that
could
motivate a free man was the title itself. He could not be certain.

What he could be certain of was this: The Hall was vast, and half of its visible surfaces were covered in gold. The arches, fanciful and fancy, through which the flower beds had passed were forsaken here for the absolute lines of a rectangle that stood the height of the ceiling on either end of the hall. Smaller doors punctuated the massive stretch of walls to either side, but they had been designed to blend in with the grim and exotic face of the walls themselves: In cold, golden relief, the battles of Tyrs were played out for the Lord's pleasure.

"Do you recognize that?"

He looked back at the hooded expression of his companion. "The battle? No. I confess that my studies were less military in nature."

"Ah. Well."

"You are familiar with it?"

"I? I am merely a merchant," Tallos di'Jedera said.

His answer was carefully neutral.

Too careful.

"Are those doors ever closed?"

The merchant frowned. "Doors? You mean the arch?"

"It is not an arch—or rather, it serves that function but it has hinges built into the stone."

"An interesting question."

"And one to which you don't have the answer."

"I would have to say no," Tallos continued, as if Kallandras had not spoken aloud. "In my tenure, they have never been' closed. It is an odd question."

"Odd?"

"I have brought many guests through the triad and into the Halls of Gold—although I have left many more in desire of such entry at the stairs—and most of them fall silent when they enter the Hall." He shrugged, turning toward the rectangular doorway that had been the target of such idle curiosity. He began to walk again. "Those who do not fall silent fall into their own categories. There are men whose need to impress is so great they trivialize the wonder they see. There are those who simply cannot be silent—and among merchants, that number is legion. And there are those who cannot contain the sudden awe they feel; it strikes, and they respond before they can stop themselves.

"But I babble. Come. We must pass through the center, and from there, the Lady's Hall. We have little time."

The center was, itself, a hall of a type. Four large arches, each in a different style, entered it, and for that reason it had a chaotic, an uneven look to it—one that no detail in the Lord's Hall would have hinted at. Of the four entrances, the Lord's was the boldest, the simplest, the tallest, its line unbroken from floor to height by so much as a bend.

Opposite the Lord's arch was the Lady's. It was tall, of course, but not so tall as the Lord's; wide, but not so wide. It was, however, splendid. One could see where the architect had started with the simple shape of a door, but no mandate had confined him to its line. From the floor to two thirds of the full arch's height, it rose unimpeded. But from there, it traveled up in a trefoil whose peak was adorned with opal and diamond. Gold lined the wall in profusion—to be expected of something subtitled Hall of Gold—but overlapping the gold, a colder metal, like new silver. Or platinum.

Engraved in the width of the stone wall that supported the arch were words in old Torra. He could not pronounce them, not cleanly, but he knew what their symbols meant. Birth. Joy. Sorrow. Love. Hatred. Loss. Death. Dominion.

The Lady's domain. He paused before he passed beneath the arch. Bowed once, although the day without was bright and the sun high. Windows, glassed and leaded and supported by the work of architects the like of which the Dominion had not seen in decades, let that daylight in, where it spilled across expanses of gold and stone as if daring mere men to rise to the challenge of poets in an attempt to describe it.

Tallos passed beneath the arch and paused there, waiting.

Kallandras nodded slightly. Followed.

And then, before his foot touched the tiles beyond the arch, he leaped forward in a sudden surge of movement that ended with the merchant.

Tallos di'Jedera swung 'round; Kallandras held him firmly by shoulder and throat, using him as a shield.

It happened in an eye blink; the merchant grunted as a crossbow bolt hit him in the fleshy upper arm. He spun again, but the merchant shouted an order in sharp, harsh Torra, his voice a bark.

Kallandras did not speak.

"Very well," the merchant said softly. "My apologies, but I had to be certain."

"And now?"

"I am certain.
Mika
."

The second son appeared from behind one of the glorious columns of light the windows above made of stone. His crossbow was unfired. "Father—"

"It is enough."

"But he—"

"Will you shame me further by arguing in front of a stranger?" He made no attempt to shrug himself free of the hand that held him.

Which was just as well.

"Jonni!"

A second man appeared. The merchant relaxed.

"There are three," Kallandras said.

"Mika—"

"He's lying. There were only Jonni and I." Truth, in that voice. And not a little fear, although the surface of the words was unbroken by it, and a man with little talent might have missed it altogether. He was certain, then, that Mika actually was Tallos' son.

Ser Tallos was silent a moment. Then he said quietly, "The third is not mine."

"No," the third voice said, stepping out of the shadows that light also made. Her face was the color of ivory, her hair was pale, and her eyes were like the winter sky. Her crossbow was armed; she held it firmly, with the casual familiarity of one who has used it often.

"I believe," she said softly, "that you have something of value to me."

He met her eyes for a moment.

"I believe," he replied, "that we have grounds for discussion. May we repair to a less public venue?"

"It would be hard to find a less public venue than the Lady's Hall." She lifted a hand, swept it in a wide semicircle. "The Lady's Hall—and the Lord's—are not as venerated as they once were within the Court."

"I… see. Nevertheless, I must ask."

"I thought you might." She put up the crossbow. "Come, then. We were expecting you."

She led them to the North wall. Paused before it. Bowed deeply, the movement so exact it had the feel of ritual. Kallandras was afraid that Mika might try something unwise, but his father's terse command seemed to keep him in check.

The stranger put her hand to the wall. Said three words. The words themselves were perfectly clear and completely meaningless to Kallandras' ear. Magic.

He nodded to himself as the door, unseen and indistinguish-able until that moment from the flat panorama of gold and blue that was sunset over the Menorans, slid open.

"Enter," the woman said quietly, "and accept the hospitality of the Lady."

"Thank you," he replied, releasing the merchant.

Tallos di'Jedera, bleeding from the bolt that he had not yet retrieved from his arm, straightened himself to his full height.

"I believe," Kallandras added, as he turned his back upon them all and walked into the small enclosure, "that you are the woman I've been searching for."

There were no benches here; no chairs; none of the furniture that one associated with a Northern room.

But there were also no mats, no pillows, no low tables and no fans. There were no torches, and no windows, no openings from above through which light might fall.

Yet the room was not dark, and it did not feel empty.

"You take your risk," he said softly to the woman.

"This Festival," she replied gravely, "I felt as if there were little choice. Tallos," she added, speaking to the merchant for the first time, a real note of anger in the calm of her voice.

"I had to be certain," he told her, shrugging. "You know what they've offered for you."

"They?"

"The Tyr'agar has expressed a desire to meet with the Voyani. Or we assume that's what incarceration in the Tor proper means." Tallos shrugged. "Unfortunately, given other disturbing rumors, Maria has elected to remain… remote."

"I see. A wise decision. So, too, have the other Matriarchs, although not one of the three is as well hidden as the Serra."

She raised a brow at the title.

He bowed in return. "Apologies, Matriarch, but were it not for the hand of the sun upon your skin, I would not guess by voice or gesture that you were a Matriarch. There is a roughness that seems to elude you, or a polish that eludes them, but having met the three, I would say the former is the more likely truth."

"I accept your apologies," she said, with the faintest hint of a smile, "but I do not believe they come from any accidental slip. You knew who I was."

"It is a failing of my profession."

"It is a failing of one of your professions." . He froze then.

"My thanks, however; I realize that Tallos could just as easily be dead as wounded at your hands. He required some proof that you were as I said you were."

"And that, Matriarch?"

"Does it matter? You have come to us, and you have passed any test we have set for you. You have a message."

"You do not know what that message is."

"Although it grieves me, no." Truth.

Yet she had known he would come to the market, to Tallos di'Jedera. So she had some of the Matriarch's gift, and the ability to use it.

He slid his hand deftly into his robe; extracted Yollana's message in the curve of his fingers, and withdrew it. "Just this," he said softly.

The poor light in the room flickered erratically as his fingers exposed palm, and the contents of hand.

She was as unlike Elsarre—as unlike a Matriarch—as any woman could be. He saw her skin pale beneath the surface; saw the sudden stillness of chest, heard the extra layer of silence that it provided. She offered him no more. Until she lifted her own hand to take the ring he held out.