Lightborn.

"Do not respond to that, Lady Telmaine," cautioned di Brennan.

She sonned di Brennan, her brow furrowed in temper. "No court should even charge me, sir. I have done nothing wrong."

There was a silence. She did not dare sonn the man"s expression until his sudden movement startled her into a nervous cast that visualized him rising from his chair. "Thank you for your time, Lady Telmaine."

Di Brennan rose also. Telmaine remained where she was, resisting the desire to melt into the chair. Di Brennan followed the superintendent to the door but, instead of following him through it, closed the door softly and firmly behind him.

Turning, he sonned her lightly, his face thoughtful. "When I met your husband, I thought him a clever young man. Now I appreciate he has an equally clever wife."

"I don"t understand you, sir," Telmaine said, struggling to summon up offense. "I have done nothing wrong. If the Sole G.o.d were not watching over me, then his mother was." She regretted the statement immediately: the Mother of All Things Born was the G.o.ddess of Lightborn and mages, not of respectable Darkborn. She brought her hand to her lips. "Forgive me," she said, from behind it.

He said, "Please mind what you say, Lady Telmaine. Even to me."

Floria Floria woke, unrested, eyes squeezed against the dazzle of the lights overhead. She had slept naked for want of her usual night attire, a thigh-length lace vest, Darkborn-made, that Balthasar had given her as a birthday gift years ago. Tangled sheets bound her legs; the sheet against her back felt clammy. She threw an arm across her face, ignoring the p.r.i.c.kling of her shadowed skin, and tried not to taste the inside of her mouth. The thought might be unworthy of the prince"s loyal servant, but she could not help hoping that Isidore had paid just a little for yesterday"s overindulgence.

But the festivities had pa.s.sed without major incident. Yes, several duels, three with pistols-a deplorable habit adopted from the Darkborn-and two deaths. Many alliances and schemes, some of which would no doubt lead to trouble. Numerous dalliances, some of which would produce inconvenient children. The Lightborn did not have the Darkborn"s sensitivities about legitimacy, since magic could answer questions of paternity, but alliances amongst their brightnesses were of necessity political, and even the brightest were susceptible to base jealousy. But today the guests would begin to disperse, taking with them the most uncouth from the south and the least forgiving from the north, and she could stand down.

At least there was no occasion around breakfast. The business of the princedom must go on, whether or not a son comes of age, and the prince habitually woke early, worked before breakfast, and then ate breakfast privately with one or more intimates. Today, it was his flighty daughter Liliyen. Floria angled her arm to view the clock; it was as early as she feared, given the way she felt, but not, alas, as early as she hoped, also given the way she felt. She kicked free of the sheets, rolled to her feet, and began her morning stretches.

Stepping wide for a side lunge, she bruised her bare foot on one of her own shoes. She caught it up and pitched it beneath the form carrying her court costume before she thought-she had not left it there.

She had not left it there, and none of the palace servants could possibly have come into this room without her knowing. Which left-she began a methodical search of the room, looking for the evidence that would surely be there if one of her own colleagues was counting coup on her. It had to be a game, for if someone had found a way into her room with malevolence in mind, she would not have lived to awaken.

She found nothing, no mocking note or hidden counter. Perhaps, she thought, that was the object, to unsettle her. Sooner or later someone would make a point of letting her know.

She rounded off her exercises in irritable haste and went to bathe. One of the compensations of an overnight stay at the palace was the sybaritic facilities. The huge bathtub and sink were milky porcelain, chipped and marked with the fine frieze of age. They had originally been enspelled to absorb the daylight from the wide window, but subsequent economies replaced that by the usual magical lights in mirrored brackets. By habit, she noted their healthy color and brightness. A light whose store of sunlight was dwindling pa.s.sed through all the colors of sunset before it went out.

It was too early to open the shutters, still before dawn. She turned away from the light and found herself facing a mirror. She a.s.sessed herself with detachment. A woman of more than average height, lean, muscles like straps and cords, bulkier on the right arm and leg. Fine lines of age around eyes and mouth, but only to those who came close. A little softening by time of the contours of breast and b.u.t.tocks, but only to one who remembered. Shoulder- length hair, not much darkened from the white gold of youth, a fortunate color amongst Lightborn. She should consider it so; it was what made her father notice her mother, all those years ago. Several old scars, white on fair skin. The tattooed mandala of faded yellow and brown that spread across most of her upper abdomen.

She rubbed the mandala lightly. She had not been awake when the a.s.set was cast upon her, the tattoo cut into her skin. Her father"s doing; he knew she would not have consented, otherwise, to a.s.sume the a.s.set that had preserved his life and profession until then. Only one member of the White Hand lineage could carry it at any one time.

For the remaining four years of his life, she had tasted his food, too. Then he had set aside his caution, and died. Another had brought the poison to the table, she understood that-and had had her vengeance-but he had brought his indifference to living longer, now that the weakness of age was fully upon him.

On her, the marks of age were slight, the marks of weakness none.

It was, she thought, unfair on a woman: her father was a decade older than herself when he sired her, yet if she were to pa.s.s the a.s.set on to a child of her own, that child would have to be conceived soon. The alternative would be to pa.s.s it on to a cousin. She could not but find fault with all her young cousins, in some way or other.

She would think about this later, she decided, not for the first time.

Frowning at her vagrant shoes, now resting one across the other, she pulled on underclothes and trousers, blouse, and tunic. The front and rear of the blouse and tunic were opaque, the narrow side panels transparent. The fabric of the sleeves and trousers alternated stripes of translucent white with opaque silver, to muddle an enemy"s eye. Lightborn could not endure too dense a shadow. Black tarpaulin was even a weapon of a.s.sa.s.sination, though a victim had to be extraordinarily negligent, drugged, or sodden drunk to be taken that way.

As she b.u.t.toned the tunic up its side, memory niggled: sometime during the night, she had fastened these very b.u.t.tons as part of a peculiarly prosaic dream of walking through the brightly lit halls to the prince"s quarters with-something in her hand. All she could think of was a little wood and ivory box that Balthasar had given her for a birthday years ago, filled with a sandalwood perfume cake. She had never told Bal that her a.s.set reacted to the perfume, and the delicately carved wood and ivory were stained and mismatched, ugly to her court-refined eye. Though she still kept the box, because she treasured the friendship. Why she should dream of carrying that to her prince, she did not know, except if it had to do with his comment that the future lay in people like the Darkborn.

She shook her head in self-reproach. Of all the ills that could beset her after long duty and spice- laden banquets, why she should choose to fret over this one, she did not know. Or for that matter, why consider it a nightmare?

She combed out her hair, spun it into a coil at the back of her head, and contained it with a white mesh. Shoes, soft-soled with closed toes and mesh uppers. Glove on right hand, soft suede palm, mesh upper. Sword on left hip, pistol on right. Her great-grandfather had schemed to acquire an a.s.set that would deflect bullets, but he had never been able to persuade the family to support the purchase of another a.s.set, when their fortunes had still to recover from the first. The prince carried such an a.s.set, cast on a talisman for his father. The price had been a province, one of the last pieces of land outside the city owned by the princedom.

Her father had always told her that politics was no concern of a vigilant. But when the impoverishing of the princedom led directly to the southern alliance, it had closed his lips on that argument.

As she opened her door, she heard the screaming. Faintly, from the direction of the prince"s chambers. She sprinted, hand gripping the sword hilt to steady it, through galleries, past where servants were gathering to open the many shutters, once certain of dawn. As she reached the last corner, the screams dwindled to a harsh mewing, more ghastly than the shrieks.

Prince"s consort Helenja and one of the consort"s Vigilance stood before the door to the prince"s rooms. At their feet was the prince"s daughter Liliyen, tumbled onto her side, her head lolling on her arm, her bare hand outstretched to the threshold. Floria noted the faint motion of her breathing, though that meant only that she was not, at the moment, dead. The vigilant was staring into the doorway with a face flayed with horror, fatally oblivious to everything about her. It was from her throat that the mewling came. Helenja turned her head. Her face was whey-hued and moist, her eyes wide to bulging, her broad jaw sagging. Her mouth silently opened and closed like that of a fish dragged into a boat to smother in air.

Slowly, Floria turned toward the door. It stood ajar, pushed wide open. The light from the corridor fanned across the floor and reflected dimly from the near furniture, on the periphery of a room in utter darkness.

Three.

Telmaine Alone in her rooms, Telmaine picked wearily at a late supper, grilled fish in an herbed b.u.t.ter sauce. She had scant appet.i.te, having eaten a nursery supper with her daughters in an attempt to reconcile them to staying with their cousins. The effort had met with little success: though the nursery itself was familiar, the children sensed her ambivalence at leaving them there. But she could not-she would not-bring them back to a household under such threat as this one.

To her relief, Merivan had been indisposed with her latest pregnancy, delivering her ultimatum that she and Telmaine must speak later from beneath a mint-scented facecloth. She had not even asked what had become of Balthasar. Telmaine had had to speak to Merivan"s husband about her daughters" protection, a small ordeal, that. Despite careful forethought and despite invoking Lord Vladimer"s name to account for both her fears and her constraint, there had been several precarious moments. The lord judge understood better than most Vladimer"s capabilities, ruthlessness, and limitations. She maneuvered carefully between convincing him and alarming him, lest he feel it his duty to order her under his own protection. In the end he let her go, making her promise that she would ask for help if she needed it, while he promised in turn to shelter her daughters. He was, she thought, more than Merivan deserved.

She had wept all the way back in the carriage, barely caring about threats from sunrise or Shadowborn, or the presence of her maid.

So she dipped her fork in sauce, and wondered whether she should summon the maid from her own late supper to pour her a bath, or defer the bath for tomorrow, or simply fall asleep where she sat. The archduke"s vitality pulsed in her awareness; even three hours after sunrise, he showed no indication of retiring. And Vladimer had, in the last hour, awakened and grown restive.

Nevertheless, the note was an unwelcome surprise. Kip carried it in one hand, hurrying her unhappy maid along with the other. The note was brief, untidily punched, but quite legible. "Join us, immediately. Oak receiving room. V."

Of course, she thought, a man who could fire a fatal bolt from a cane, left- handed, would surely be able to write pa.s.sably with that same left hand With the help of her maid she scrambled into a fresh dress, still damp from the pressing it had received in Merivan"s laundry, and pulled her hair into approximate order. Veils covered a mult.i.tude of sins. Kip was chafing in the sitting room when she came out; she thought for an unsettled moment that he was going to take her by the arm to hasten her along. But he contented himself with keeping her pattering after his long stride. He had, she noted, acquired a footman"s uniform that fitted tolerably well, though not the graces to go with it.

Since she couldn"t protest to Vladimer, she did so to Kingsley. "A lady needs time for her toilette."

He halted and turned so abruptly she almost collided with him. Snapped sonn before and behind them, confirming the corridor was empty. Bent his head to hers to say in a low voice, "The archduke"s about to go into session with the dukes over the ducal order and this and that that"s happened-the Rivermarch fire, and Lord V."s ensorcellment. But Lord V."s just had a message-something"s happened with the Lightborn, something serious."

"Will Lord Vladimer be there?"

"Yes, more fool he," said the apothecary. Shook his head. "Don"t suppose he"s much choice. Here we are. Over to you, m"lady."

Over to her, indeed. Quick pat of hands to veil, hair beneath it, collar, bodice, gloves, skirts. Draw spine very straight and sail forward into the sonn of the two footmen. "Lord Vladimer is expecting me," she proclaimed, with emphasis on the name.

She could hear voices raised in argument behind the closed door, m.u.f.fled by its thickness, unnervingly loud as the doors swung open before her. She almost shied on the threshold, but forceful interlaced sonn pinned her there like a naturalist"s beetle, and the voices went suddenly silent at her unexpected appearance.

"Lady Telmaine!" said Claudius"s voice. There was a general rustle of movement as the men rose to their feet. The movement struck her then as peculiarly sinister, a closing of ranks. She walked steadily forward, striving to project composure. "Lord Vladimer asked me to attend, Your Grace."

"Thank you, Lady Telmaine," Vladimer"s voice said. "Indeed I did."

There was a brief, low exchange; though she could not make out the words, she could well guess the content. Then Seja.n.u.s Plantageter"s voice said, "Bring a chair for the lady. There will do."

There was in the empty s.p.a.ce at Vladimer"s side, Seja.n.u.s dealing a little discomfiture Vladimer"s way. She risked a light stroke of sonn over the figure in the armchair, the one who had not risen. Vladimer was fully dressed, even overdressed, his formal coat more suited to winter than summer. Social armor, or warmth? His left hand rested atop his cane in a familiar pose-and she would think very respectfully of that cane hereafter-and his right arm was propped carefully on the chair arm. His face was drawn, his lips dry, but his expression was alert, his sonn crisp. Too alert, and too crisp, for a man with his wound. She tallied signs she had learned from Balthasar, with his interest in treatment of addictions, and realized that the apothecary"s "more fool he" was not merely a comment on Vladimer"s being on his feet. Stimulants could negate the effect of injury and blood loss, for a time.

"I trust," the archduke said dryly, "that we can now proceed."

"Yes, Seja.n.u.s. I apologize." Trying for bland, Vladimer sounded merely sardonic.

"Then, my lords, I was explaining why, on Vladimer"s request, I signed and sent ducal orders to the Borders, authorizing the raising of troops by the five baronies beyond the allotment stipulated in the order of six twenty-nine."

"And I was saying," Sachevar Mycene growled, "that it is the most ridiculous farrago I have ever heard-" and once again, everyone was talking at once.

Telmaine started as a hand gripped her sleeve; it was Vladimer, leaning over to hiss beneath the hubbub, "They"re all themselves, I take it."

"Yes," she breathed.

"A shame," said Vladimer, and eased himself upright, leaving her to ponder his twisted humor. Which of them would he prefer were a Shadowborn, or Shadowborn touched? Sachevar Mycene, the archduke"s political rival? Xerxes Kalamay, devout follower of the Sole G.o.d, opposed to the least accommodation with the Lightborn?

"What"s happened?" she risked whispering.

"Wait."

Though she had met these men at social events, here, in their power, they seemed to use up all the air. Of the four major dukes, the next tier of rank down from the archduke, three were present.

Xerxes, Duke of Kalamay, did not turn his head at her sonn, though its pitch and quality would have marked it as feminine. As with the archduke, experience and character had engraved itself on his face. It might have been a benign face, had he achieved his youthful aspirations to the service of the Sole G.o.d and the hand of the merry daughter of a fellow cleric. But one short summer"s night his elder brother wandered staggering drunk from his fellows and was not missed until past sunrise, and within two years Xerxes was his father"s deputy and wed to a melancholy heiress. Time had scored his disappointments deep.

Beside him sat Sachever, Duke of Mycene. He was small and wiry, like his son, with a finely shaped, hairless head that, in its poise and swift turning, evoked a hunting hawk. Time rode him lightly. Even in his sixties he was pugnacious, driven, and a master of sports and weapons. He delighted in outwitting or outlasting men a third his age, and still made his plans as though he expected to pluck their fruit himself, even fruit thirty years in the ripening.

The Duke of Imbre sat to her left hand, the nearest of them all to Vladimer. He was more than eighty, as eroded and immutable as a sandstone outcropping; no predator but time would pull him down. Age had brought him wisdom and the respect even of his enemies.

The five Borders barons stood approximately level with the next tier of dukes in social rank, though their vast, spa.r.s.ely populated lands encircled the Shadowlands and extended almost to the south coast. Two of the five were here, with the heir to the third, Stranhorne. And Ishmael"s city representative, a cousin, surely, with that broad figure and blocky profile.

The archduke"s raised hand elicited silence. "Perhaps we might like to hear each other"s questions."

Sachevar Mycene had half sprung from his chair. "Di Studier murdered my son"s betrothed and he and his-a.s.sociates are using this-farrago of lies and insinuations-to distract us from his guilt."

"For all we know," the heir to Kalamay said, "he seduced the lady."

"There was no seduction and there are no children," Mycene snarled. "The physician who claims so-"

"Lady Telmaine"s husband," Vladimer murmured.

"-was in Ishmael di Studier"s pay."

"My husband was in n.o.body"s pay."

Vladimer tapped Telmaine"s arm, in caution. "I have two independent examiners" reports that Lady Tercelle Amberley had borne a child within a few days of her death."

There was a shocked silence. Imbre winced and shook his head. "This is an outrage!" Kalamay said. "To violate a lady"s modesty so in death-Seja.n.u.s, your brother has gone too far!"

The archduke, Telmaine suspected, might have agreed; even she herself, with no love whatsoever for Tercelle Amberley, was dismayed. Vladimer continued, unruffled as a pond in summer. "While I have no wish to slander the lady"s memory"-a lie, given his indifference to slander against his own reputation-"or offend your lordships" sensibilities"-another lie-"we do know at least one other man might have an interest in Tercelle Amberley"s life or death."

"The child was Strumh.e.l.ler"s," Randalf Kalamay said.

"An extraordinary feat of magic, that, given that he was in the Borders at the pertinent time."

Vladimer, Telmaine decided, was enjoying this exercise of wits too much.

"There was no child," Mycene said, "and my son will have anyone who repeats this slander outside this room on the dueling ground."

Which was a threat to give anyone in this room pause. Ferdenzil Mycene"s aim had publicly been proved deadly on several such occasions.

Old Duke Imbre said slowly, "You must know how implausible this sounds, Vladimer. Ferdenzil"s bride is dead. The child or children have disappeared, so their origin or even their existence cannot be proven."

"Never mind these children," Duke Kalamay himself said. "Seja.n.u.s, is it my understanding that you have given a ducal order into Ishmael di Studier"s hands?"

"As a matter of fact, no," the archduke said, calmly. "I received an order of succession for Strumh.e.l.ler prior to the issuing of the ducal order. I had no reason then not to sign and seal it. Reynard di Studier is now Baron Strumh.e.l.ler." A small, pointed pause. "As for Ishmael di Studier, last evening I commissioned Lord Ferdenzil Mycene to travel down to the Borders and apprehend him."

Telmaine heard herself gasp. She swept Vladimer"s face with sonn, demanding explanation. His face was still and his grip on his cane, knotted. The announcement had surprised him, too, unpleasantly. She felt ill, remembering Ferdenzil Mycene, when he had paid court to her, or rather to her bloodline and properties. Herself, he had perceived as no more than a pleasing female shape and a vessel for his dynastic ambitions. She had seldom touched a man so potent and so cold.

"I thought it more than likely Ferdenzil would take matters into his own hands," the archduke said. "And Ishmael di Studier loose in the Borders is too much fox for any city agent. I was quite explicit that di Studier is to be returned alive, and frank in my displeasure if any harm comes to him. If he is innocent, then I wish his name cleared; if guilty, then he shall be punished by law."

The Duke of Mycene seemed to be examining his son"s commission like a gift of dubious providence, uncertain as to its hidden purpose or price. The Strumh.e.l.ler representative raised his jaw from his fist. "It might seem t"me that you do not trust Bordersmen t"respect th"law."

"Lord di Gruner," the archduke said, gravely, "I trust the majority of Bordersmen to respect the law, but there are precedents when fugitive Bordersmen have been sheltered within the Borders."

"Aye, and northmen have hidden in the north from retribution from their crimes," di Gruner said, in a Borders accent achingly like Ishmael"s. "Th"baron near died three times in th"cells. It needn"t be guilt that makes him shy t"return."

"Then set your mind at ease; he will be well protected until the truth of the charges is known."

"Yes," said Vladimer, one spare word, heavy with the weight of his reputation.

"Now, I had thought to have Superintendent Plantageter report to you on progress with the investigation of the Rivermarch fire, but decided to defer that report. In brief, the fire started simultaneously a dozen places and burned extremely fiercely. Since it started in daylight, we asked for reports from the Lightborn. There was suspicious activity near two of the locations, but it proved to be ordinary criminal activity. There is no evidence of coordinated arson."

"They would say that," said Kalamay.

"A second such incident involved a fire in a warehouse in the Lower Docks, this time at night. The warehouse had been largely unused for some time, except for illegal purposes. Again it appears that the fire started in several places at once and burned extremely fiercely.

"A third such incident occurred this evening, on a train newly arrived at Bolingbroke Station." He clearly did not want to mention whose train. "Fortunately, the fires were contained before great damage was done or injury sustained."

Claudius said slowly, "Ja.n.u.s, are they saying the fires were unnatural?"

There was an uneasy, shifting silence. "I know," the archduke said, "you find mention of magic distasteful. You do not believe it exists; it offends your piety and your sense of the order of things; it seems too much like wish fulfillment, bringing a man too easily things he should achieve only with effort or not at all. It is an invitation to corruption and a childish gratification of whim."

Telmaine realized she was hearing Seja.n.u.s"s own convictions. That might be said of her, whose power came so easily, but Ishmael di Studier"s magic had taken everything he had. "But there is another aspect of magic, a part that we prefer not to acknowledge: it is potentially very dangerous. An attempt-two attempts have been made on my brother"s life. And a little while ago, Vladimer received word that an attempt was made on the Lightborn prince"s life, and was successful. Isidore is dead."

Not a man spoke. Lightborn or no, the prince was a ruler, and the rulers had their own fraternity. What struck at one struck at all. Seja.n.u.s seemed the calmest man in the room, including Vladimer, whose knuckles sonned like bone on the head of his cane and whose expression, turned toward his brother, was stark.

"How?" said Kalamay.

"The light in his chambers failed during the night. Dissolution was, as burning is for us, near instantaneous. As these lights are enspelled to create light, their failure is unlikely to be either by chance or nature."

"Then that puts the southern b.i.t.c.h"s son in his place," said Baron Rutgegard grimly, and not a man rebuked him for language in the presence of a lady. The new prince"s great-grandfather, named Odon the Breaker in Darkborn histories, had set out to rid his lands of Darkborn. The Borders in particular had never forgotten, or forgiven, that year and a half of genocidal slaughter. "They"ve won at last."

"Barbarians," said Kalamay. Thwarted in his religious calling by his elder brother"s death, Xerxes Kalamay had quarreled even with members of his own church over interpretations of doctrine that suffered mages and Lightborn in their midst.

"Perhaps," the archduke said mildly. "Young Fejelis may surprise more than the southern factions, I suspect. But that is outwith our powers to decide. My lords," he said, formally, "aside from my brother"s concerns, on the other side of sunrise there are powers we do not understand, powers that may exceed anything that we can match, and whose motives are unclear. Furthermore, whatever the logic of their protocols of succession, Isidore"s a.s.sa.s.sination will result in turmoil, during which the southern factions are certain to make a renewed bid for power. If Fejelis does not survive that turmoil, the succession is liable to pa.s.s over to his younger brother, who is a creature of the southern factions.