Arch Wizard

Chapter Twenty-Eight

"Irrance," Lady Tesmer's voice came coldly out of the darkness, "come back to bed. All of this lordly striding about in the darkness disturbs my slumber. And just what do you think you'll need that sword for?"

"I–I was thinking of war, and… and ruling Ironthorn," her husband mumbled. He waved the slender naked longsword with both hands as he spoke, but he was brandishing it a little less flamboyantly than he'd been flourishing it a moment or two ago. For an instant, as it sliced empty air, it caught moonlight through the tinted window-panes, and its edge blazed up a cold bright blue. "It… it found its way into my hand, somehow. Felt good there."

"Time was when other things would find their ways into your hands at this time of night, and more than one of us would feel good, thereby," Telclara Tesmer said bitingly. "But the years have wrought changes, haven't they?"

"Clara," her lord replied quietly, his voice a little sullen. "I wish you wouldn't do this. I really do."

"I wish I didn't have to do it, but if I don't, you start to swagger like a game-cock and strut around spewing nonsense. Dangerous nonsense."

When he made no reply, she added sadly, "One of the maids heard you talking to our warriors this evening. Calling yourself 'Lord of Ironthorn' again."

"Well, and so I shall be!" Lord Irrance Tesmer said sharply. "Soon, too, from what the Master gave me to understand! At long last, to rule this-"

"Irrance, the Master gave you nothing of the kind. I heard his every word, remember? Now put down that sword before you hurt yourself or break something, and get over here!"

"I-" Lord Tesmer was not a foolish man, no matter how often his wife proclaimed him so. Nor did his temper tend to ride down and trample his caution. With foes and threats he knew well, his wisdom steered his gallop time and again into prudent ways. Telclara's voice was more familiar to him than anything else, and he knew that particular tone very well.

"Yes, dear," he replied meekly, carefully laying the sword down on the crudest and least expensive of the three seats in the room-the one she wanted replaced, the moment she found just the right chair to serve in its place-and wending his way through the concentric arcs of hanging tapestries to their great new fortress of a bed.

The bed, grandest in all Falconfar, for all he knew. It was what Telclara wanted-everything was what Telclara wanted-and towered up in the center of the room like a great Stormar temple idol. Lord Tesmer felt like a thief slinking into a castle every night. Telclara's castle.

A glow was kindling in it. When he ducked past the last tapestry, brushing aside its translucent fall of white silk, he saw his wife had awakened the light of her enchanted mirror and held it under her chin so he could see her smiling at him in welcome.

It was a kind smile, devoid of sneer or anger, but the warm affection she meant to convey was marred by the coldly steady radiance of the mirror lighting her face from below. It gave her an eerie appearance, as if some fell spirit had stolen inside his wife's body and taken it over, to use it to lure him into its clutches.

Irrance Tesmer forced a smile onto his own face and held out his hand, but was unable to keep the gesture from seeming tentative.

"Lady?" he asked gently, feeling once more the uncertain courting lad he'd been, so long ago.

Her smile widened and went tender. She beckoned him, deftly undoing the catch at the throat of her bodice so it fell open, baring her to her waist.

Lord Tesmer swallowed. By the Falcon, but she was still beautiful!

"Tel," he whispered, daring to use the pet name he'd called her by when they were both young, as he put his arms rather gingerly around her, "you look… look so…"

She was deftly drawing apart his night-wrap, thrusting the long robes back over his shoulders to bare him, too.

"Tell me," she murmured. "Not how you think I look, but what you want to do to me."

"Take you," he said hoarsely.

She drew her knees together against his chest, to hold him at bay. "There will be a price, Lord Tesmer," she said gravely, sounding gentle but firm-neither teasing nor scornfully dismissive.

Irrance frowned, not knowing how to take this. "My Lady?" he asked gently.

"Treat with me as an equal, Ranee," she replied, addressing him as she had when he was a young and splendid lion among men. "You hate the bite of my words, and how I rule you; you think I know this not? So in return you give me sullen silence, and play the war-commander behind my back, and tell me little of how you order our soldiers and what they do. Little enough, and less truth."

Lord Tesmer was still and silent against her knees for a long time before he brought the edge of one hand down between them to ease them gently apart, and murmured, "It will seem odd to discuss tactics, as I would with my warcaptains in the stables, as we…"

"Couple," she murmured helpfully, and added in a whisper, "Let's try it."

He smiled, shaking his head in rueful wonder, then commanded sternly, "Begin."

"You have been readying our soldiers for war," she replied without hesitation, parting her legs and reaching for him between them, the mirror in her lap now.

He surged forward, lowering himself onto its glow, and replied, "I have. Mindful of what you said earlier, of mayhap fleeing Ironthorn rather than conquering it."

"Meaning, I hope, you're taking every care not to get caught up in fighting?"

He hesitated, then lowered his mouth to her breasts rather than replying. She smiled thinly as he licked, nipped, and sucked, then closed her fingers around his most tender of areas, tightened them into a claw that made him stiffen and gasp, and said pleasantly, "My Lord Tesmer, I do believe I have somehow failed to hear your answer."

"Falcon, Clara, don't-" That gasped protest ended in a little cry as her fingernails almost met through his flesh.

"You no longer want to try it?" she asked him sadly, putting all the reproach she could into her gaze.

Their noses were perhaps the length of her hand apart; she saw him wince as much as she felt it.

"I… I do neglect to tell you things," he admitted. "Out of habit, it now seems."

"It does indeed," she agreed softly, letting go of what she'd clawed and stroking it in gentle apology. "Please, Ranee."

He drew in a deep breath, nodded in very much the same manner as her favorite gelding customarily tossed its head, and said in a rush, "Well, we can't dwell in Ironthorn and not daily draw blade or bend bow when those of Lyrose and Hammerhand menace us, surely?"

"Of course not. Yet you seem strangely reluctant to tell me just what frays our warriors have tasted these last few days. I'm neither blind nor an idiot; I would know if we were besieged, or many of our soldiers were rushing off elsewhere in the vale-and we are not and they are not. Which means whatever fighting they've been doing can't be more than a skirmish or two, at most… wherefore I find myself puzzled indeed at your reluctance to discuss it. Irrance, what's going on?"

He made as if to pull back from her and sit up, but she moved with him to keep them joined, clasping her arms and legs about him with sudden strength. They stayed pressed together on the bed, the radiance of the mirror leaking out from between them.

Lady Tesmer's movements made her lord growl with pleasure and grin at her. She smiled back, then took his lips in her own and kissed him every bit as aggressively as minstrels always insisted conquering lords forced kisses from captive wenches.

When their lips parted again, both of them had to gasp for breath, but Irrance Tesmer couldn't keep a widening grin off his face. His lady moved under him again, making him groan with delight and setting him to moving, too. Rocking, slamming into her.

As that surging rhythm built, he gasped, "Let me… let me say this my way, Tel. The Hammerhands are dead; the father, or vanished; the daughter, and their warcaptains are enraged at that. Too furious with Lyrose to have anything to do with us but loose arrows our way if we dispute with them or bar them passage; they're bent only on besieging Lyraunt and taking it. They carve up dead Lyrose warriors and send the flesh into Lyraunt tied to flaming arrows, and they slaughter Lyrose horses and roast them under the Lyraunt walls. Word is that House Lyrose is now reduced to just mother and daughter. Magrandar and his last and most worthless son, Pelmard, are both dead."

Telclara Tesmer frowned. "So how then are the men of Tesmer caught up in this? It would seem to me that until Hammerhand exterminates Lyrose or dies in the trying, they have no time for us."

"True," her husband admitted, looking away from her fierce gaze for a moment, "but I… I am weak. I could not resist."

"Resist what?" Lady Tesmer could not quite quell a sharp edge from creeping into her words.

"Sending our best bowmen to watch the siege from afar, and slay the best of their warcaptains and boldswords-just a handful I've marked, mind-with well-placed arrows."

"Their best officers."

"Yes," he murmured, bowing his head as if expecting a storm of her fury to explode in his face.

Two strong hands caught hold of his ears and dragged his face down to meet hers. She kissed him hard-and bucked under him, harder, until he exploded with a roar of release.

"Gods above and below, Ranee, but I'm proud of you!" she panted, eyes shining. "Just the right thing to do! Keeping our blazon out of sight and no arrayed Tesmer force for Hammerhand to glare at, yes?"

"Yes!" he panted happily. "Exactly thus, yes!"

She twisted and arched under him then, moaning and biting her lip, and her hands tightened like claws on his shoulders. Irrance Tesmer found himself gripped firmly in many places at once, and froze just as he was, sweating happily as he grew the beginnings of a fierce grin.

Under him, his lady growled low in her throat, like an angry hunting cat, her fingernails raking him. It was a sound of pure pleasure, loud and long.

He flinched not under her clawings, but kept still and silent, holding her until they both calmed back to gentleness-which was when she interrupted her own slowing pants to say smilingly, "So now tell me what you're keeping back from me. What darker thing haven't you said yet?"

Her lord stared at her, then shook his head and laughed ruefully. "You're beyond the Falcon, Tel, you are! How did you…"

"I've been reading your face and voice quite well for more than a score of years now, Irrance Tesmer," his lady replied meaningfully. "Now give, Ranee."

"I just did," he jested, then met her mock-angry gaze with a raised finger and the graver words, "Earlier this night, and I tell you true now, some of our bowmen watched the Hammerhands howling at the walls of Lyraunt Castle-and as we put arrows into a few Hammerhand backs, lorn flew out of Lyraunt and commenced to savage the Hammerhold knights."

"Malraun," Lady Tesmer said quietly. "Sending them at the last to try to salvage something while his spell-might and attention remain elsewhere."

Her lord nodded. "I saw it in that wise, too. It stands as proof of the danger you warned against, yes. Yet, Tel, I still hunger to be Lord of Ironthorn; I think I always will, until I am."

"Ah, but Lord of Ironthorn now, just in time for Malraun to arrive and blast and burn you, me, and all this vale? Or Lord of Ironthorn in some year to come when there is no more Malraun lording it across too much of Falconfar? I still say we must very soon be ready to flee into the Raurklor-all Tesmer folk, our warriors with us-if need be. Try not to get caught up in any wider fighting yet, so we can stand ready for anything."

Irrance Tesmer nodded. "You have always been the shrewder of we two, and any man can see the wisdom of being ready for anything. Yet tell me, if you would, the thinking that led you to this counsel."

Staring gravely up into her husband's eyes, Lady Telclara Tesmer murmured, "I see the Master's hand in this, but I've not yet seen what he desires. When he tells us, then we'll know if ruling Ironthorn is a stride ahead from us-or if our lives are going to be turned toward something else altogether."

Lord Tesmer nodded slowly.

"We've trusted him these many seasons," his wife added, "and are still alive and reigning over gem-mines that many a Stormar lord or Galathan velduke drools to have. We must trust him now."

"Do you trust any of our children?"

Lady Telclara Tesmer snorted. "Of course not." A look of disgust passed over her face, and she said, "We forge what tools we must, at the Master's command. Now love me again; I'd much rather not think of them."

Her lord grunted heartfelt agreement and lowered his head to her breasts again.

She chuckled and twisted under him, trying to buck him off. Mock-struggling, yes, but with surprising speed and strength. Lord Tesmer had to move in great haste to catch her wrists, then use all his strength to hold her down.

When their eyes met again, his were once more ablaze with delight.

"Hand me the flask. Making love to you is hot work, sister."

"Warmer than you anticipated?" Talyss Tesmer purred, stretching to let the moonlight trace her every sleek curve.

She was sitting up on their cloaks, settled into the curve of a tree-bough as sleekly at ease as if she'd been lounging on a grand chair in one of the great rooms of Imtowers. Looking down her shapely length, from lambent eyes to long, long legs, Belard Tesmer licked his lips all over again.

They were here, in this shady and spell-guarded hollow far out in the Raurklor, to scheme. Nigh the tiny, tinkling headsprings of the Imrush, in a dell half-cloaked with overhanging tree boughs, surrounded by the invisible fires of the strongest ward-magics they both carried. Wards to keep prowling beasts at bay as they honed their plots over wine-and, it had turned out, a little love-making. Coupling with each other for sheer pleasure despite being brother and sister.

"Relieving my burning itch," Talyss had termed it.

The wine and their excitement had spurred it, but it was more than sheer release. Both of them had been hungry for it, and more than hungry, feeling the lack of skin on skin. Neither dared trust any non-kin-or anyone else of the blood Tesmer, for that matter-enough to play the bareskinned bedmate, no matter where or when.

Now sated, it was time to relax, sip wine, and discuss what to do.

In a single smooth, graceful movement, Talyss Tesmer took up the flask and conveyed it to her younger brother's waiting hand. Her movement was swift, but seemed languid, not hurried. Her movements always seemed languid.

The youngest and most vicious of the three Tesmer daughters, she was less than a year older than dark-haired, handsome, sardonic Belard, scourge of young lasses everywhere he rode-and their mothers, too.

She smiled now at that thought, still aglow; he'd been every bit as good as his reputation, and much, much better than she'd expected. It seemed there was one Tesmer, at least, who knew how to use his tongue for more than mere foe-lashing.

He was using it now to answer her, voice softly breaking the companionable silence. "Much warmer, and gladly so. We are sadly out of the habit of thanking each other properly, we Tesmers-probably because fitting occasions for gratitude among us are so few-but let me thank you now, Lyss. You were… magnificent."

She gave him a real smile in return, making sure the moonlight was full on her face so he could see she'd laid aside her usual arch, ready-to-pounce manner, and told him, "Thank you, Bel. So were you. Consider yourself welcome in these arms any time.

Belard Tesmer ducked his head, doing something he'd not done in four seasons of wenching, facing down angry husbands, and sparring with rivals: he flushed, the blood rising to his face dark and swift. Then he nodded to cover his sudden lack of words.

Utterly relaxed, Talyss kept her instinctive little smile of satisfaction off her face. Hooked. As every man was, yes, but she must treat Bel differently, or ruin his usefulness to her.

"Let us speak of plots once more," she said gently, letting reluctance taint her voice. "Do you agree-in the main-with these admittedly over-simple assessments of our parents? Father is a weak fool, utterly ruled by Mother, and she-for all the fearsome reputation Falconfar accords her-is a blinded-by-ambition schemer who will sacrifice everyone and everything to get more power for herself, no matter what the cost to the family, to Ironthorn, or for that matter to all Falconfar?"

Belard smiled mirthlessly, and nodded his head. "I cannot help but agree. I would have agreed with you seven summers ago, or more. How matters stand between Lord and Lady Tesmer is not something all that hard for anyone to see."

"And where will knowing this obvious state of things profit us, if we seek to govern all affairs Tesmer?"

"That control over Mother is essential, control she does not see as taking power from her or frustrating her will and rule. Rather, successful control must come through arranging events and what she learns of them to appear to offer her greater and greater power, so she does and decrees what we want her to as likely steps in her own reaching for more power."

Talyss nodded. "Well said." She reached out wordlessly for the flask.

"Yet so much is obvious," Belard murmured, returning it to her. "Our brothers and sisters know it, the lowest of our servants knows it-even the dead Lords Hammerhand and Lyrose knew it. How can we use this, that all know, to move Mother and therefore all Tesmer the way we desire-yet not get caught at it?"

"There's where you struck the shield-wall, brother, and saw no way past it, yes?"

"Yes," Belard admitted. "Wherefore I risked…"

"Much, and more when you got here and I gave you my smile," Talyss said quietly, taking a swift swallow that sent fresh comforting fire down her throat. "I value that more than you can probably believe, Bel. You're not the only one who knows loneliness as a knife that's never far away, and ever sharp and cruel."

Belard chuckled. "Even our brothers and sisters would be surprised to hear these words from us, so well do we play our parts; me the rake, and you the claws-always-out cat, both of us too eager to hurt, in our separate ways, to feel hurts."

Talyss let her catlike smile reach her lips this time. "Yes, and we must use their judgments of us to give us chances to do the unexpected. Our first chance must be good, and we must use it, mind. Mother's no fool; the slightest hint that we're working together-or that either of us is able to step out of being what the world sees us to be-will have her watching us sharper than the Falcon itself. We-"

She broke off, looking up sharply, as dry branches snapped underfoot not far off in the forest.

Their wards started to sing, that rising note of resistance to an intruder, and on its heels sounded the crackle of dead leaves, crushed under foot or paw by something moving forcefully. Something the size of a hunting cat, or a man.

Belard was on his feet with sword in hand, bent forward to get out of the moonlight and try to peer into the night-drenched forest.

They heard a stifled curse-a man, trying to keep his oath to a whisper-and more snappings of trodden dead wood. By then Talyss had snatched up her own slender sword and the best-balanced of her poisoned knives, and had the smaller fang poised for throwing.

The wards were almost shrieking now, the shrill sound they made when fighting someone who had his own magic to counter them.

For the intruder, striding closer to the hollow would be like wading upstream against a strong current, or forcing his way onward through a biting wind-not the stabbing pain the wards would force on the unprotected, where to advance far enough would be to die.

Belard felt for his boots. Seeing him made Talyss look for her own, and-

Light was blazing up in the darkness now, the wards starting to burn with the fires that both warned ward-owners and seared imprudent intruders. Most men would have turned back long since, and many of the rest would be screaming by now, plunged into agony by the flames streaming over them.

They could see him, or rather his outline, trudging rather unsteadily toward them through the thick trees. One man alone, hands apparently empty…

"Forestmother, defend me!" he declaimed, in the manner of a priest.

Boots on but otherwise still stark naked, Belard Tesmer strode to the edge of the hollow, sword raised and ready. "Halt," he snapped, "or die."

The burning man, who must not be feeling the flames, to have a voice so free of pain, never slowed.

"We all die, lord," he replied calmly, "and I would rather speak to you-both of you-than flee emptyhanded. Put up your sword; I mean you no harm."

Belard shot a look at Talyss, who nodded, and gestured with her sword that he should let the stranger come.

Or not-stranger; she knew that voice. She couldn't place it, just yet, but she'd heard it a time or three before, she knew she had… in Ironthorn, of course, yet who-

Belard backed away, and a man came staggering down into the hollow, the ward-flames falling away from him into nothingness as he reached the protected area within the wards.

As he came out through the lowest, still-dancing boughs-the limbs overhead were thick, as large in some spots as some full-grown trees along the banks of the Imrush-the moonlight fell full upon him, and both Tesmers gaped in astonishment.

They were staring at Cauldreth Jaklar, the Lord Leaf of Hammerhold. He looked bedraggled and grim, and his hands were empty. He raised them in a palms-out "I'm unarmed" gesture, and came to a halt amid their discarded garments.

"Lord and Lady Tesmer," he said, shooting swift looks at both of them, keeping his eyes carefully on their faces, his own face betraying no opinion at all about their lack of dress and likely reason for that, "I am pleased to have found you this night, for I have an offer to make to you that should please you both and lead to a bright future for Ironthorn."

Belard took a step forward and brought his sword up. "Priest," he snapped, "how did you know we were here?"

"I… you are in the forest, and I serve the Forestmother, who told me where you could be found."

"And why did you want to find us?" Talyss asked silkily, stepping back so moonlight no longer reached her raised arm, and the knife held ready to hurl in it.

"I need your aid, and your talents. Ironthorn needs your aid and talents."

"Oh?" Belard snapped, taking another menacing step forward. "Ironthorn's been slow to say so, thus far!"

"Lord Tesmer," Jaklar said quickly, stepping back and to one side, "please hear me! I can hurl spells to strike you both down, yet have not! Please! Hear me out!"

"Speak," Talyss commanded. The priest's sidestep had brought him closer to her, yet she was mindful of his winning his way so swiftly through their combined wards. He was protected by his own magic, and it might serve to turn aside blades. Or even send hurled ones back at the one who'd thrown them.

"Yes," the Lord Leaf agreed. "Hear me: the Hammerhands are dead, yet House Lyrose survives-with the wizard Malraun standing behind them. So I need new rulers in Hammerhold."

He took a step forward, and tried a smile. "Such as the two of you. With any mates you care to take, of course."