The Shattered Mask (17 page)

Brom gratefully abandoned his uncomfortable perch and peered up at his companions. Though a troll’s claws had twice shredded his armor and lightly scored the flesh beneath, Vox was as stolid as ever. The more seriously wounded Escevar, however, was pale and shaky, in marked contrast to his exuberance earlier on. Ruddy-faced and breathing heavily, Tamlin was clearly having difficulty calming down, although whether he was seething with anger or fear, Brom couldn’t tell. Probably a mixture of the two.

“I didn’t mean to abandon you,” said Tamlin to the wizard. “I just lost track of you in all the chaos. I rode back as soon as I realized you weren’t with us.”

Or else you did intend to forsake me, but had a change of heart, thought Brom, but even if that was true, he wasn’t inclined to hold it against Tamlin. In the end, the aristocrat had risked his own life to rescue him, and that was all that mattered. “Thank you,” the wizard said.

Vox tapped his massive chest with his forefinger.

“I know,” Tamlin said, “I should have told you to go. But I was excited, and I figured every second counted. Are you all right, Escevar?”

The redhead gave him a jerky nod.

“We’ll get you to a healer as soon as the horses have had a moment to rest,” Tamlin said, and then a quaver of agitation entered his voice. “Ilmater’s tears, it just came home to me that Honeylass is dead! The other birds are lost. And the poor greyhounds! I forgot all about them until this second. Did anyone see what happened to the dogs?”

“No,” said Brom. “As you said, all was confusion. I’m afraid it’s likely they’re slain or run away for good.”

“Curse it!” With trembling hands, Tamlin extricated his glass blade from the loops on his golden sword belt. The ornament had miraculously emerged unscathed from the battle, but now its owner lashed it against the wall of a vendor’s kiosk, shattering it into tiny fragments.

“Did that make you feel better?” Brom asked.

Tamlin smiled. “A little.”

“Then we’d better think about what just happened,” the spellcaster said. “Obviously, that ambuscade was no haphazard affair with robbers assaulting the first gentleman who happened along. That was a carefully planned attempt to assassinate the heir to the House of Uskevren, and I daresay it’s no coincidence that it happened the morning after your parents vanished.”

Tamlin grimaced. “I hate to admit it, but you’re probably right. Damn my father for disappearing! It’s his province to deal with this sort of unpleasantness, not mine. But since he’s gone, I suppose we’d better get back to Stormweather Towers and confer with the others.”

It was Larajin who’d come to the library to inform Talbot of the conclave, and she opted to walk along with him to the great hall as well. Ordinarily, he would have taken pleasure in her company, for he and the willowy maid with the rust-colored hair and striking hazel eyes had been friends for as long as he could remember. At present, however, he was frustrated at his lack of progress in the researches that he had prayed would provide a cure for his affliction, and, their futility notwithstanding, equally vexed at being summoned away.

“Why is Tamlin, of all people, calling a family meeting?” he grumbled. “What does he want to talk about, brandy and lace?”

“I don’t know,” Larajin said, the silver bells on her golden turban chiming as she moved. The

turban was a part other maidservant’s livery, devised to warn her masters, who might desire privacy, other approach. “But it was Master Cale who bade me pass the word to you, and he said the matter is urgent.”

“Ordinarily, that would be good enough for me,” Talbot conceded. “But—”

One of the household pets, a fawn-colored mastiff, wandered out of a doorway just ahead. It gave the humans an incurious glance, turned, started to amble away from them, then suddenly spun back around. Crouching, the fur standing up on its back, the dog bared its teeth and growled.

Talbot winced. He understood what was happening, for he’d experienced it on various occasions since the calamity that had befallen him just over a year ago. For the most part, animals responded to him the same as they had before, but periodically, they sensed the wolf-thing that lurked inside him and wrested control of his body at every full moon. He suspected it was more likely to happen at moments like this, when he was angry.

“Brownie!” Larajin said. “What’s gotten into you?” Heedless of the mastiff’s menacing demeanor, she advanced and slapped her thigh. “Heel!”

Brownie slunk to her side, and Talbot wasn’t altogether surprised. Larajin had always had a way with animals, and for some reason, over the past several months or so, the rapport had deepened to the point that she rarely experienced any difficulty inducing any of the various beasts inhabiting Stormweather Towers to do her bidding.

“I’ll take him back in here and calm him down,” said the maid, taking hold of the mastiff’s leather collar. “You go on.” She led the now-docile animal back through the doorway. Talbot trudged on to the conclave alone, his mood even more sour than before.

The feast hall was a large chamber adorned with marble-sheathed pillars and lamps of brown iridescent glass. In fact, Talbot reflected as he entered, it was so spacious that it was ridiculous for a mere six people to use it for a meeting. They would have been just as comfortable, possibly more

so, in a smaller room, and then the servants wouldn’t have been inconvenienced when they had to trek from one end of the mansion to the other. As it was, the help would have to avoid both the centrally located feast hall and the galleries overlooking it, lest they overhear a confidential discussion. Talbot supposed that it had never occurred to his preening peacock of a brother to preside over a conference anywhere except in the grandest setting available.

Talbot saw that all the others had arrived before him. Jander Orvist, the captain of the household guard, gave him a terse nod. Jander was a lean, middle-aged man with a thin, humorless trap of a mouth, fierce silvery eyes, and a pronounced gray widow’s peak. No matter how innocent or festive the occasion, Talbot had never known the grizzled warrior to wear anything but the blue tunic of the Uskevren’s soldiery, nor seen him without a long sword ready to hand.

Clad in a decollete emerald caffa gown her mother hated, Tazi sat glowering, impatient for the meeting to commence and probably to end, until she gave her younger brother a welcoming smile. Erevis in his ill-fitting doublet looked somber as ever. His polished oak staff leaning against the arm of his chair, Brom seemed equally grave, but then, eager to impress, he tended to appear that way even when performing the most trivial duty.

It was Tamlin, who had of course usurped Father’s seat at the head of the long inlaid table, who gave Talbot his first intimation that he ought to take this meeting seriously. Not simply because he was frowning. Tamlin occasionally adopted a serious manner, and it was usually over something utterly trivial. But today the heir had a bruise coming up on the left side of his face, and although he was dressed as gorgeously as ever, in a sky-blue outfit that made Talbot unpleasantly conscious of his own uncombed hair, lack of a doublet, and stale, half open shirt, he had, as was rare of late, added a businesslike long sword and poniard to his ensemble. The hilts were excessively ornate, made of gold adorned with sapphires, but to Talbot’s knowledgeable eye, the weapons looked as if they’d serve well in a melee even

so. Even more curiously, an axe, a simple laborer’s tool, lay on the table before him.

“You took your time getting here,” said Tamlin, a little petulantly.

“Sorry,” Talbot grunted, flinging himself into the empty seat beside Tazi. “What’s going on?”

“Mother and Father are missing,” Tamlin said, milking the announcement for all the drama it was worth, “and not two hours ago, someone tried to assassinate me.”

“What?” Talbot exclaimed, while Tazi’s sea-green eyes widened. In contrast, the retainers didn’t look surprised, merely concerned. Plainly, they’d heard the news already.

“Tell it all from the beginning,” Jander suggested. “That way, we’ll have it clear in our heads.”

“I—” said Brom and Erevis in unison, then the gangling wizard waved his hand, deferring to the steward.

“I can tell about Lord and Lady Uskevren’s departure,” said Erevis, who proceeded to do so. Talbot knew his parents had ridden out, but this was the first he’d heard of the retainers’ misgivings.

“We could dispatch search parties,” Tazi said when the bald major-domo finished.

“We will,” Erevis replied, “but first, let’s try to discern exactly what’s going on. Master Tamlin, please, tell us about the ambuscade.”

Tamlin nodded and gave them the tale. Talbot assurrfed it was factual in its essence, though embellished to make the teller seem more of a hero. For could his self-centered popinjay of a brother truly have slain a troll single-handed, or, when already free of the trap, ridden back into dire peril to rescue a retainer? To say the least, it was unlikely. At one point, Talbot elbowed Tazi, and the pair exchanged ironic, skeptical glances. Still, there were weightier matters to consider than their elder brother’s mendacity, and their shared amusement lasted only an instant.

“It’s far from certain that these two situations actually have anything to do with one another,” observed Talbot at the story’s conclusion. “Mother and Father left the mansion

of their own volition, they haven’t been gone that long, and there are any number of reasons why they might be slow in returning.”

“With all due respect,” said Brom, “as I mentioned before, Lady Uskevren’s manner seemed odd.” “Still—” Talbot began.

Tazi lifted her hand. “There’s something about Mother that none of the rest of you knows. A little over a year ago, when she and I went to hear the Hulorn’s opera—”

“There was harmful magic woven into the music,” said Tamlin, impatiently, “and you and Mother had to snatch away the conductor’s baton or something to halt the performance and break the spell. We do know. We’ve heard the story.”

Tazi glared at him. “You haven’t heard all of it. Stopping the opera was more difficult than anyone knows, and in the course of it, Mother took up a sword and battled statues come to life, fighting as well as. anyone in this room. She also scaled a wall, jumped off a roof into a tree, then climbed through the branches nimbly as a squirrel. Through it all, she was grinning and joking like a different person, an adventurer who relished risk and didn’t care a rotten apple about decorum.”

Tamlin snorted. “That’s absurd. Mother doesn’t like weapons. I doubt she ever handled any implement more formidable than an embroidery needle in her entire life.”

“I swear to you, it happened,” the black-haired girl retorted, her level tone so convincing that Talbot realized that, although her assertion was indeed “absurd,” he believed her. Apparently everyone else did as well, for the hall fell silent for a moment as they tried to assimilate what they’d heard.

Erevis gazed at Tazi. “You might have told someone before today,” he said, a hint of reproach in his voice.

To Talbot’s surprise, his sister, who never accepted blame or rebuke from anyone, flushed and lowered her eyes. “She asked me to keep her secret.”

But why would you, Talbot silently wondered, when you

and she were always at one another’s throats? Then he realized that his mother had probably been in a position to reveal some secret of Thazienne’s as well.

As if he’d arrived at a similar inference, Jander scowled and said, “There have always been too cursed many secrets in this household. I don’t know what most of them are, but I sense they exist, and I always feared one of them would rear up and bite us on the arse someday.”

“If this one has,” Tamlin said. “I’m not certain it did. How is it Mother knew how to fight, and what has it got to do with what’s happening now?”

Tazi grimaced. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “She never would explain herself. But I suspect there’s a connection.”

“Perhaps,” said Erevis, frowning, “but I for one don’t understand it, just as we have absolutely no clue as to what’s become of Lord and Lady Uskevren. Perhaps we should focus on the situation we know more about: the attempted assassination. Let’s think about who might have been behind it.”

“My guess is that the masked wizard was leading the attack,” said Tamlin. “But that doesn’t mean he was the instigator. He could have been acting for someone else.”

“I agree,” said Erevis. “The question is, who? The Foe-hammer knows, the Uskevren have made their share of enemies over the years. But there are five rival Houses that wished the family ill long before you three were even born, and all remain inimical to this day.”

Tazi ran her fingers through her hair, a sign that she was pondering. “Soargyl, Talendar, Baerodreemer, Ithivisk, and Malveen.”

Tamlin frowned. “Gellie Malveen is a friend of mine.”

Tazi gazed at him with withering scorn. “Let’s hope that our fears are groundless, and no one has murdered Father. If an idiot like you is now head of the family, we’re doomed.”

Tamlin flushed. “If I am in charge—”

“Please!” said Erevis, and Tamlin fell silent. The heir had never been fond of the butler the way his siblings were, but perhaps he’d come to respect him after the events of last

winter, when undead marauders had attacked the mansion, and, to everyone’s amazement, Erevis had demonstrated that he knew how to fight.

As, apparently, did Mother. Talbot sighed, for Jander was right. Every member of the family, except, he supposed, his feckless brother, harbored secrets, and in consequence their lives were complicated and strange. Not for the first time, he imagined how pleasant it would be to abdicate his position here and become a simple player. But he knew he never could, not when he might one day need his House’s resources to rid himself of the beast within.

“I believe that what Mistress Thazienne was trying to say,” Erevis continued, “was that while young Gellie rrtay indeed be your friend, it’s always been the way of Selgaunt for nobles to trade and socialize one day and attempt to destroy one another the next. Moreover, however your crony feels, it’s unlikely that his opinion would soften the animus of the elders of his House.”