The Sacred Hunt Duology (130 page)

Mutinous, she glared at him; he returned her gaze with a forced indifference. She really wished that the book had hit him in the face.

But before she could speak again, Torvan did. “Might I speak with you privately, Jewel?”

She nodded and he left Avandar under Alayra's watchful gaze, retreating to the muted quiet of the farthest shelves. There, he found a stool and sat her down.

“Understand,” he said quietly, “that to speak to Avandar as you did was an insult to The Terafin. She is not pleased, and has every right not to be.”

“But I don't—”

“Nevertheless, while she is not required to give explanations, you must trust that what she has done is for the good of both the House and your place in it. Think, Jewel. You are seer-born. There is no doubt left in the minds of anyone on the House Council. You have proved your value to The Terafin, to Averalaan, and to the Crowns. They all know of who, and what, you are. But if they know, you are no longer a secret. The other Houses will know.

“There have been no seers in the service of the great Houses for at least two generations that we're aware of. The talent is rare, and it is not without risk. You didn't fight in the last House War—but if Darias had known of your existence, he would have spared no expense to have you removed. Yes,” he added, as he saw the shifting lines of her face as understanding came, “assassinated. The Kings are above such games, but the Houses . . . the Houses are only human.”

“You have a future with this House—and The Terafin, by honoring you with a domicis of Avandar's ability, has indicated that you will be among her most valued advisers—if you survive, both physically and politically.” He looked beyond her to where Avandar stood. “You are no longer a den leader. The rules of the street are poor protection for the life you have embarked on. I know what you
think of him.” He smiled. “Everyone in the room couldn't help but know it.” The smile dimmed. “But Avandar Gallais was chosen for you by The Terafin. If anyone can guide you into your majority in this House, it will be Avandar.

“You don't have to like him, but trust him.” He paused. “He is your domicis. And unlike Ellerson, the only thing that will part you is your death or his.”

His
, she thought churlishly. She was wise enough to say nothing.

“Now come.” He offered her his hand, and after a moment, she took it. His smile was gentle, and although he did not offer her more comfort than that, she took comfort from his presence. “You will be assigned your own guard,” he added softly. “They will not be many. But if you would have me, I would be honored to serve you.”

Jewel was dumbstruck for the second time in an afternoon—and that didn't happen often. “But—but you're one of the Chosen!”

“Yes. One of the Chosen of The Terafin. It was my request, and she saw wisdom in it; if you will accede, she will allow it, and I will retain my rank.” His smile deepened. “And as the ranking guard, I may choose the men under my command.”

She knew what he was offering her: Arann.

“Let him—let him make the choice, all right?”

At that, Torvan smiled. “You really don't understand military service, do you? Very well. If you so request, I will let him decide his own future.” He looked down at her hand, still twined tightly around his.

“There is always loss,” he told her softly. “And gain. Come, ATerafin.” He paused. “If you haven't been informed, the battle is over. We won.”

She couldn't think of a single thing to say—or perhaps she could think of too many. “Devon?”

“Alive. With Alowan.”

“He's here?”

Torvan caught Jewel's arm before she could bolt out of the library. “No, Jewel. I didn't say he was here.”

“Then—”

“The Terafin sent Alowan to the palace with the young . . . runner. We won, but not without cost.”

Cold, unlooked for, reached beneath her skin, where warmth could easily dislodge it. She paled; her eyes widened. Avandar appeared at her side at once, although how he knew, she couldn't say.

“What has happened?”

She forgot to distrust him; forgot, for a moment, that her dislike of the cool, self-assured man mattered at all. An ice that made him seem warm, a darkness that made him seem light, put her once again into the tunnels beneath the market authority, sole witness to the unweaving of reality. Eyes wide, she stared into
an uncertain distance. “Tell me,” she said softly to Torvan ATerafin. “Tell me what happened.”

1st Veral, 411 A.A.
Breodanir, The King's Forest

She had thought never to attend another Sacred Hunt in her life; too much of her heart's blood had been spilled by the Hunter's Death to make these hallowed, ceremonial grounds bearable. But Elsabet, Lady Elseth, stood in all her finery at the forest's edge listening to the muted thump-thump of the drums. Remembering.

At her side, tense with waiting, and pale with unspoken fear, was her daughter Maribelle. This year, at sixteen, she was to have been introduced with quiet pride and a certain triumph to the Queen's court. This year, at sixteen, she was to have begun her search for a suitable husband—or rather, she was to entertain the offers of those that Elsabet deemed suitable. Maribelle had been trained and raised on the Elseth Estates, and she had handled them with grace and responsibility, proving her worth.

Elsa glanced down at her daughter's hair; it was pulled tight and held up with plain pins and a silver net. Gone—or hidden—were the curls and ringlets that had marked her youth. She wore a spring dress of pale green, pale blue, and a deep violet—all colors that had cost dearly—beneath a cloak the color of Hunter green. At her throat, a clasp that was an heirloom of Elseth, one fine and old and delicate, held her cloak in place. Her head was unadorned.

Lady Maribelle of Elseth. Lady Elseth.

They were titles that they had the right to use until the last call of the Hunt was sounded. Elsabet glanced at the Queen's Dais. The Ladies of the court, the wives and the daughters of the Hunters who risked everything for the land as they waited, gathered by or about the throne—or upon the green, near the great, empty altar, in small groups.

She could not bear their pity—or worse, their stunned silence, their incomprehension, their horror—and so she waited alone with the daughter who might have no future. Even her rivals, those women with whom she had made her struggles over trade, barter, goods—took no joy in her misfortune; it was too grave a loss for that.

They were dead, she thought numbly. She knew her sons. They
had
to be dead. If she only had their bodies . . .

Her petition was before the Queen, and the Queen was aware of the state of affairs—of the reasons for the departure of her two sons. But the laws of the Hunt were not decided by the Queen, and perhaps not by the King either. And if the Hunter knew mercy, it was not on
this
day, when he wore the face of death for the nobility of the land.

Oh, the air was cold. She was too old for it, although she had scarcely seen her fortieth year.
Not for my sake
, she thought, as she glanced again at her daughter's stiff, proud face.

Lady Faergif had written to Elsabet after meeting with Gilliam and Stephen in the court of the foreign Queen Marieyan. The latter had impressed her, and the former—well, she thought him a very fine Hunter Lord. That had brought a smile to Elsabet's lips, but it was brief and easily broken.

The rest of the letter had offered little in the way of information, and although Elsa had written quickly and spared little expense to ensure that her message was received in haste, Lady Faergif, an old friend and an old ally, had in the end returned her a reply that was cryptic and—to either worried mother, or a woman in danger of losing title to her life and her life's work—of little use at all.
Tell me
, Elsabet had written.
Tell me that they're living, that they're on their way home. Or tell me that they're dead.

Twelve days ago, on the eve of her departure for the King's City, she had received her answer.

It is
, Lady Faergif had penned, in her stately, delicate form,
in the hands of the Hunter, Elsa. I wish you well.
And later in the letter, toward the end of unusually idle superficialities, she had said,
You have raised Breodani sons.
Only that, no more.

But the Breodani did not miss the Sacred Hunt. Gilliam and Stephen had not arrived to join the King's call; they had not come to the forest to renew their pledge to the Hunter God by joining in the Sacred Hunt. They were dead, she thought, too raw to remain numb.

They
had
to be dead. Because if they were not, the stain they had brought to the Elseth name could never be removed.

Her hands curled into fists before she forced them to relax. The air was heavy with chill although the sun's warmth softened the bite of this cold first day of spring.

• • •

The sun sank slowly; the light cast by its western face lengthened the shadows of its fall. The pits were being cleared and readied by the servants, and the altars were tended to by the Priests who, not nobility, were not required to serve as sacrifice to the Hunt itself. There were not many.

Chairs and benches had been provided for the use of the Hunter Ladies, and many of these were occupied when the first strain of the horn's clear call could be heard. Oh, the horns had been singing their call throughout the last hour as the Hunters found their quarry—but
this
call, this elegiac note, no Lady could mistake for anything other than the sounding of the Death. In ones and twos, as the sound traveled throughout the wood, other horns joined in. Not all Hunters would hear the call; some were busy with their quarry, in the heat of their trance.
But those who had either completed their kill, or who had not yet caught their beast at harbor—they made of their horns a mournful, a respectful, chorus.

Elsa, ashen, bowed her head a moment into the tips of her fingers; she took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders unconsciously as she raised her chin. Her daughter, to her pride, did likewise; they looked very much kin, these two. The Hunt was over.

Gilliam of Elseth had not returned.

Elsabet looked down at her hand; at the signet ring that had been given her by Lord and Lady Elseth upon her rites of joining to their Hunter son—their only son. It was an old ring, and although it had been sized to fit her hand, no other work had been undertaken upon its detailed, golden surface. Hands shaking, she quietly removed it, holding it in the cup of her palm as she drew her cloak tightly across her shoulders.

“Mari,” she said softly, using a name that she had not used since her daughter was a child. “We must go.”

Maribelle gathered her slight train in hands that were steadier than her mother's. She nodded wordlessly, but threw a backward glance over her shoulder at the Queen's pavilion and the women gathered there. They had been—and would have been—her peers and her worthy rivals.

If Elsa thought to protect her child, if she thought to somehow be the strength for both of them, then she was mistaken; Maribelle at sixteen was tall and proud, a woman of strength and conviction, if not all of the wisdom one could hope for. It was Maribelle who offered an arm, and Elsa who, after a long pause, accepted it.

To walk away was harder than she had ever dreamed.

• • •

“Lady Elseth!”

Hope was such a strange thing. She heard the cry, and out of habit she stopped. It was not, after all, a mere name or title; it was
who
she had become over the years. Curling her fist tight around the ring, she bent her head a moment, for the voice was a voice that she vaguely recognized.

Ah. That was it: Iverssen. The King's Priest. She straightened her shoulders and gently released her daughter's arm—her sole support—before turning. But it was not Iverssen that she saw first; it was Corwinna—Lady Valentin. And Lady Valentin's face was pale—an odd mixture of relief and profound empathy.

“Elsa,” she said softly, and Elsabet knew it was not good news—although what news could be harder, she did not know—for Corwinna was wont to be more formal in public circumstance.

“I heard the King's Priest,” Elsa said softly.
Calling me by my title.

But Corwinna shook her head softly. “Maribelle,” she said, as strands of graying hair slid free from the fine, jade comb that had pinned it just above the gathered
folds of her hood. “You must come to the Queen's Dais now.” She paused, and then said softly, “I am sorry.”

• • •

Together they crossed the green, passing the first group of returning Hunters who had already set about, in grim silence, the work of the unmaking. Their sleeves, blood-splattered, were rolled up and pinned to their shoulders; their cloaks, drawn back, were a heavy and mud-stained green—Hunter green.

Braziers burned in the cool spring afternoon, lending blackened smoke to the twist of the breeze's current. The hearts of the great stags were burning in ones and twos, freeing their spirits from the cage of earthly flesh.

As they looked up, the Hunter Lords saw her passing, and they recognized in her Soredon of Elseth's wife. The youngest of the men here had never hunted with him, but the oldest had. His death, more than his life on this single day, made him a part of the Sacred Hunt. In respect, they bowed their unadorned heads, and in respect, she nodded in return, feeling the ice lodge at the base of her heart so completely she wondered if, offered to fire, it would burn.

Because as she passed them, she knew that each and every one of them—Hunter Lords and huntbrothers all—would know that Gilliam of Elseth had failed to answer the summons. What respect would they then have for his house? And why?

To the clearing she walked, Corwinna at her side, the light of the sun dying by slow degree. There were more Hunters, green clad, struggling with their burdens as the forests released them. She saw their Ladies, brightly, gaily, stepping across the reeds and mats placed over damp dirt to greet their Lords' return. And then over the hushed whisper of work and private words, the sound of the drums.