The Sacred Hunt Duology (55 page)

Jewel had to give the guard credit. Whoever he was, he was completely neutral; if he thought she was an urchin from the worst part of town—which she was, practically speaking—he didn't show it at all. It made her nervous. She took a deep breath, glancing over her right shoulder to where Arann stood, propped up between Carver and Angel, with Jester at his back.

“I've been sent to deliver a message.”

The fair-haired older man frowned slightly as his gaze swept over Arann's unconscious body, but that was his only change of expression. He held out his mailed hand. “You can leave it with us; we'll see that she gets it.”

This was more along the lines that she expected. “I was told to deliver the message to The Terafin herself.”

“You aren't ATerafin,” the guard said, asking the question although it was clear that he knew the answer.

“No.”

“Well, then, you probably don't understand the rules of the House. The Terafin's day is governed by strict schedule; if your message is a matter of emergency, you may deliver it to her right-kin, and he will see that she receives it.”

“We can't.” Jewel took another, deeper breath, and felt the sheaf of papers she'd taken from Old Rath's flat as they rustled against her skin. “Look—I've been told to tell you that the message is from—is from Ararath Handernesse. But I can't tell you any more than that. You just go and tell her—and see if she won't see us.” She folded her arms, suddenly nervous, as Arann started to gurgle.

The guard stared down at her impassively.

• • •

The boy was dying; that much was clear the moment Torvan laid eyes on him. What had caused the injury wasn't completely obvious; it looked as if he'd gotten into a knife fight on the edge of a roof, had taken a few blows, and had been pushed off.

He looked at the girl who stood, arms crossed, lips drawn into a tight line, before him. He thought her seventeen at the very oldest, but in all probability younger than the age of majority. Yet it was clear that she, of this group of wandering urchins, was the leader. It was also clear that she had been told too many stories about guards and noble families, if she thought to force him to deliver a message to The Terafin. A message from the Kings themselves would have to be delivered—would in haste be delivered—to the right-kin, Gabriel.

He stared down at Jewel, at her folded arms, at her stiff expression. He almost thought her brave, to stand here in front of the personal guards of The Terafin. Behind her back, her den had formed up, and they watched her with trust and confidence.

It was a trust and a confidence that she did not feel herself; although she showed no fear, he was experienced enough to see the signs of it.

“I'm afraid,” he said softly, “that the most I can do is carry your message to Gabriel ATerafin. Who did you say sent you?”

“Ararath,” she replied. “Ararath Handernesse.” Her brow folded in at the bridge, and her expression changed. “Look—if you don't carry the message to The Terafin, you'll regret it. She'll want to hear it, and she'll be very angry—”

He lifted a hand almost gently. “What is your name?”

“Jewel,” she said. “Jewel Markess.”

“But everyone calls her Jay,” Finch added, from over her left shoulder.

“Jewel,” he said, inclining his head in a gesture almost of respect. “I am Torvan ATerafin. The Terafin personally chooses the guards who answer the gates of her manor on the isle. She knows me by name, and I have some knowledge of her; she is the lord that I serve.

“If I choose not to deliver this message in the fashion you demand, it is unlikely to cost me much. There is trust between my lord and me.” He didn't take his eyes from her face, and at last she looked away.

As did he—back to the boy.

The boy who was dying.

It was true, what he'd told her, although he didn't know why he'd said it. At market, he was far less patient with this sort of urchin, and more than likely to send the lot of them scuttling for cover should they come near.

“Wait here, Jewel Markess. I'll return.”

She swallowed, and her eyes were darkly ringed. “I'll wait,” she replied softly. He could almost hear the plea that she couldn't make in her voice.

He could never be certain why he did what he did next. But the words he had spoken to the young girl were true: There was trust between The Terafin and her Chosen. He should have taken the news to Gabriel—the most trusted and valued of The Terafin's advisers—and let the right-kin deal with it as he saw fit.

It was what he intended to do as he walked through the gallery on the second
floor mezzanine. But he found himself walking past the hall that branched into Gabriel's quarters; found himself marching, and quite quickly at that, to the rooms that The Terafin used for her daily business.

“Torvan?”

“I have a request for the Lord,” he said, looking forward as Gordon barred the doorway with his sword. Gordon was also one of the Chosen; he lifted his sword, nodded, and took two crisp steps to the side. All was as it should be in House Terafin. Marave cocked a dark brow, but she said nothing, as she was on duty. Guarding The Terafin's doors was perhaps the job which required the most dress discipline; Torvan rarely got assigned there.

The door opened into an antechamber that was both sparsely and finely decorated. There were four guards in it, but they allowed him to pass without challenge. They did not have a dress function as the guards at the door did; they were there as a precaution. Six months ago, an assassin had nearly ended The Terafin's life. Neither the assassin nor the hand behind him had been caught.

Still, he nodded at them as he made his way to the second door. Arrendas opened it for him, and allowed him to pass, lifting a brow in open curiosity.
Later
, he mouthed to his oldest friend, as he walked through the door.

The Terafin looked up from her desk. It was a tidy, almost severe affair; papers had been meticulously separated into neat piles of varying degrees of urgency. At her side were two secretaries who had been assigned the luckless task of sorting through the demands of the Terafin family and assigning them a relative degree of importance. Merchant matters normally rose to the top because, in matters that concerned money, voices were usually loudly and quickly raised in pleading protest.

“Torvan?” The Terafin said, the question in her voice soft. “Is there trouble?” She raised a delicate brow, and stood in a smooth elegant motion. Her pale blue skirts fell to her ankles. They were wide and quite practical, not at all the fashion of the current noble court.

But The Terafin, unmarried, was of an age where fashion did not rule. Torvan couldn't imagine that she had ever been at an age where it did. She was not young, but not old, and she wore her years like a fine and valuable armor. The analogy was apt; she also wielded her experience like a fine and valuable weapon, much to the regret of any who attempted to cross her. Her dark hair was confined by a glimmering net that fell just past her shoulders; sapphires glinted at her left ear and upon her right hand.

“Trouble?” He shook his head quickly. “No.”

“Why,” she asked, as she moved away from the desk, earning a glance of consternation from her undersecretary, “don't I believe you? What is it? Difficulty at the gate?”

He bowed his head. “Not difficulty, but not a normal occurrence. It seems that a street den has arrived and will not be moved.”

The Terafin raised a dark brow and her lips turned up as she pictured it. “I see. Have they chosen my House in order to mark it for humiliation, or do they have a pretext for their trouble?”

“They carry a message that they will deliver only to you.” She chuckled almost dryly, and folded her arms across her chest as she leaned back onto the lip of the desk. “I see. And what brought you here?” That she expected more was obvious.

“They say it is from Ararath Handernesse.”

Her expression didn't change, nor did her posture, but The Terafin's Chosen were selected for their instinct and their intuitive ability, as well as their ability to fight; Torvan knew that the message meant something to her the moment the name left his lips. “I see. Well, then,” and her voice was quite dry, “you had best see them in.”

“As you will it, Lord,” Torvan replied, without missing a beat.

• • •

Torvan ATerafin came quickly down the stairs that led to the narrow walk. His face was calm and his expression composed, but his stride was quick. He reached the gate—and his partner at arms—in half a minute.

Jewel couldn't make out what he said, but she could hear him speak. The gates swung open.

“Jewel Markess,” Torvan said gravely, inclining his head slightly. “The Terafin has requested your presence. Please follow me.”

Just like that. Jewel's knees refused to move; they felt weak and unstable. She looked over her shoulder and caught Finch's trusting relief. Swallowed.

“Arann?”

Carver shook his head. He took a step forward, as did Angel, but they both staggered slightly at the weight of their unconscious companion. Teller leaned toward Arann's white face, listened there a moment, and then looked up at Jewel.

“He's . . . breathing.”

He's dying.
She reached out—she couldn't help it—and touched Arann's face. It was cold and clammy. “Arann?”

There was no answer but the silence of her den. “C'mon Carver, Angel. Let's get him in. We can't leave him here.”

• • •

He watched them struggle with the weight of their companion. Something about their struggle hovered at the far edge of his memory; it was familiar, but he could not recall where he'd seen it before. The younger girl was pale, and her eyes fluttered from person to person, lighting on anyone save the dying boy himself. The quiet boy did his best to help, but his spindly arms and legs were not up to the task. He could not take his eyes away from the unconscious young giant. The black-maned boy and the boy with a white spire for hair managed to support the weight of their
companion as they followed their leader's directive, with the red-haired, awkward one struggling at their back.

And the leader herself? He watched her impassive face, and saw the fear alive beneath it. It was almost as if she'd seen too many deaths, too quickly.

He knew, then, where he'd seen the expression, and the struggle; the determination not to abandon the living—no matter how badly injured—because there were too many of the dead.

Those fields were years and miles behind him. He always made certain that they stayed there. But a slip of a girl and her followers suddenly brought them back, however distantly.

“Here, Markess,” Torvan said gruffly, and his voice, deep, held the timbre of command. “Let me help you.” He pushed her firmly to one side, stared down at Teller until the boy got out of his way, and then caught Arann under the arms and legs as the two who had been shouldering his burden stepped away at the quiet directive of their leader.

He strained as he lifted him, but he lifted him.

• • •

Jewel wanted to pay attention to the finery of the House. She wanted to notice the colors of the tapestries that covered the west wall, the deep hue of carpet beneath her feet, the paintings, limned in light, that hung in the galleries.

She wanted to pay attention to the unbarred windows, to the silvered mirrors that were taller and wider than she, to the crystal that hung, casting light against their shoulders, from a ceiling so tall it couldn't possibly be kept clean.

It didn't work; they faded into a pale, listless dream that passed around her without really touching her.

What was worse was that she knew she should be calculating each of the words and gestures she was about to make. She had to have her story straight, it had to be convincing. If she was clever about it, the den would profit—and there was no rule against making a bit of money while saving the world.

But she thought of Fisher and Lefty. Lander. Duster. Even Old Rath. Each of them had died. She didn't know what killed them, or when, or how. She hadn't seen it, and although she was responsible for her den, the responsibility for their deaths didn't have the viscerality that Arann's dying did.

Snap out of it, Jay
, she told herself, as she saw the two guards at the end of the hall.
You won't do Arann any good like this.
She nodded to the right, and Carver came to stand behind her.

“Teller?”

The thin boy nodded.

“Keep an eye on Arann.”
As if
, she added, but only to herself,
he can look anywhere else.
The halls were so long. “Can't we walk any faster?” she demanded sharply.

Torvan looked down and shook his head. If he found her tone annoying, he gave no indication of it.

She was acting like a nervous child, and she knew it. Torvan ATerafin was carrying—on his own—Arann's massive body; he was moving much more quickly than they would have moved had he not decided to shoulder their responsibility.

He's so white.

The guards at the end of the hall put up their swords in an X, barring the entryway. “We're here to see The Terafin,” she said, before the clamor of their ringing had started to fade. “It's urgent. We've got to—”

“Marave, we're here by The Terafin's command.”

The woman, her dark hair peering out slightly beneath the edge of her helm, nodded crisply and pulled her sword up. “You may pass.”

The fair-haired, bearded man on the other side of the door likewise withdrew his weapon. “You may pass.” Their movements had the feel of ritual, and Jewel had seen ritual so seldom in her life that it almost drew her attention away from Arann.

But Arann proceeded through the open doors in Torvan's arms, and she followed quietly, failing to notice that the eyes of what remained of her den looked to her for guidance or command.