Fall of Thanes

I

The two young girls walked hand in hand, whispering as they went. Anyara did not need to hear what they said to know that they were beyond the reach of the world. They were followed, as they wandered idly through the bare garden, by maids who carried songbirds in gilded cages, but they might as well have been entirely alone. The girls were enclosed in the perfect privacy of their own realm: the place in childhood where nothing mattered save whatever thought had hold of them at that moment; where adults were but faint and inconvenient clouds on the horizon of their secret concerns.

Anyara could remember such a place, though she had inhabited it only briefly. She and Orisian and Fariel had shared it, in the days before the Heart Fever: a few precious years in which everything had been bright and exciting, and fashioned for them and them alone. She was exiled from that place by the passage of time, by deaths. And now by distance, for she sat on a marble bench in a terrace garden of Gryvan oc Haig’s Moon Palace. These self-absorbed girls she watched were the children of some lady of the High Thane’s court.

Anyara shrugged deeper into her fur coat. Winter had followed her southwards. All the way down from Kolkyre, through Ayth-Haig lands, across the moors and on through the farmlands of the Nar Vay shore, it had been an intangible, morose hound dogging every step her horse had taken, eating up the land in her wake. There was a faint mist on the air now. Around this palace in which she was a comfortable, imprisoned guest, Vaymouth sprawled beneath a dank grey blanket. All sound was deadened by the thick air. The birds in their cages did not sing.

“It must seem a silly affectation to you, this fashion for birdcages.”

Tara Jerain, the wife of the Haig Blood’s infamous Chancellor, smiled down at Anyara.

“I hadn’t given it any thought,” Anyara murmured.

Tara gave her another complicitous, almost conspiratorial, smile.

“It’s kind of you to be so gentle with our foibles,” she said. “I don’t like them myself. The birds, I mean. May I join you?”

Without waiting for an answer, Tara settled herself on the bench. The many layers of fine fabric that enveloped her sighed and shifted over one another. Even in this dull light there were threads in there that shone and glimmered. The Chancellor’s wife clasped her hands in her lap. The cuffs of her cape were trimmed with the white fur of snow hares.

“Nobody was interested in songbirds until Abeh oc Haig decided she liked them.” She leaned a little closer to Anyara as she spoke. “Then, all of a sudden, every lady of the court-even the girls, intent upon being ladies one day-realised that they are the most fascinating and precious of things. Silly. Birds aren’t meant to sing in the winter, but still everyone must have one.”

“Everyone except you,” Anyara grunted.

“Oh, no.” Tara shook her head lightly. “I have one. Of course I do. Two, in fact. The best that money can buy, I’m told.”

Anyara wished this woman would leave her alone. She found more than enough that was hateful about her situation here in Vaymouth without being subjected to the babbling of the self-regarding butterflies who thronged the Moon Palace. She had heard of Tara Jerain, of course, even before she was brought here: the beautiful, cunning wife of the hated, still more cunning, Shadowhand. And Tara was indeed beautiful: eyes that even in this wintry light glittered like jewels, skin that bore a lustrous sheen of health. Her poise and confidence made Anyara feel like a child all over again.

“Those who think they know about such things tell me we’ll have snow here in a few days,” Tara mused absently. “Some years we have none at all, you know. I enjoy snow, myself. It makes everything look better than it really is, like fine furs and gems.”

Again, that warm smile. Anyara could think of no good reason why the Chancellor’s wife should suddenly have decided to make this pretence at friendship. She had paid her no attention before now. No one in the Moon Palace had.

On the day of her arrival, Anyara-aching, tired and feeling entirely bedraggled-had endured a brief and rather strange audience with Gryvan oc Haig himself and his wife Abeh. They seemed more than a little bemused-in Abeh’s case, offended-by her presence, as if she were an unexpected and unwanted guest they did not know what to do with. All of which served to irritate Anyara almost beyond concealment. She comforted herself by imagining that Aewult nan Haig might in due course learn precisely what the High Thane thought of sons who sent unsought hostages to their fathers.

Since that initial, clumsy welcome, Anyara had found herself all but ignored. She had fine chambers on the favoured south flank of the palace. She was given gifts of gowns and necklaces. Maidservants were assigned to her service. But almost no one spoke to her. She was given no reason or excuse to leave those fine chambers, and if she did so of her own accord, she found herself oppressively shadowed by those same, watchful maids, who would herd her back to her rooms as if she were a wayward, simple-minded sheep in need of penning. She had asked, once, to borrow horses so that she and Coinach could ride out towards the sea. She had not expected the request to be granted, and it was not.

“Your shieldman has been much remarked upon.”

Anyara glanced round. Coinach was standing a short distance away, by the gates that gave out onto these tidy gardens. He was rigidly straight-backed, staring ahead, steadfastly ignoring all the ladies and the servants and the children. It made Anyara smile, though she dipped her head to hide the expression from Tara Jerain. Coinach’s determination to retain his dignity even in these disquieting circumstances had a touch of youthful pride and dogged loyalty about it that she found very pleasing.

“He’s a striking man,” Tara observed. “And it’s so unusual for us here to see a woman with so… martial an attendant.”

“Things are a little different in the north these days,” Anyara said rather more sharply than she intended. She did not know whether it was Coinach or herself she was defending. “Very different. Perhaps if all of you — ”

Tara cut her short with a flourish of her smooth, ringed fingers.

“That’s not what I wanted to discuss with you, in any case. Really, it’s a little too cold to spend more time than is necessary out here, don’t you think? I have a proposition for you. I thought you might find it more comfortable, more… well, more comfortable, if we found you different quarters.” Tara leaned in once more and whispered, “Things can be so formal and tedious here, don’t you find?”

“What have you got in mind?” Anyara asked cautiously.

“My own home, of course. We have a great many rooms that might find favour in your eyes, and I think you’ll find it a good deal quieter. Much more calming.”

Anyara thought for a moment or two, and then looked sideways at Tara.

“Is this Gryvan’s idea?” she asked. “He doesn’t know what to do with me, so tidies me away into your care. Am I so much of an embarrassment to him?”

Tara rolled her eyes in amused frustration. It was such a natural, relaxed gesture that Anyara found herself warming to the woman. She had to remind herself that this was the Shadowhand’s wife, and by that measure unlikely to be a reliable friend.

“Really,” Tara said, “is everyone of your Blood so blunt? It’s refreshing, but there is no need to make quite such a close alliance with suspicion. Look — ” confiding, companionable “-there’s been some misunderstanding between your brother and Aewult. Or between Aewult and Taim Narran. I don’t know; I don’t follow these things closely. But it will all be cleared up before long, I’m sure, particularly now that Mordyn is coming back to us.”

“Your husband?” Anyara said in surprise. She knew the Shadowhand had been injured and then gone missing in the chaos consuming the Kilkry Blood. It had been one of the charges-or suspicions at least-laid against her, against Orisian, by Aewult nan Haig when he took her hostage.

“Oh, yes,” Tara said with such undisguised, apparently uncontrived delight that Anyara once again felt that questionable twinge of affection for her. “Have you not heard? My husband is on his way south even now. He will be here very soon. And really, there’s no need for you to be shut up in this marble tomb in the meantime. That is what I think, anyway, and the High Thane agrees.”

Anyara nodded thoughtfully. She did not dare to hope that all of this would really be so easily tidied away, but there was no denying that she hated the Moon Palace. If Gryvan oc Haig wanted her out of the way, for whatever reason, she was not inclined to resist.

The two girls she had been watching earlier had turned back to their maids. One of them was poking a stick through the golden bars of her birdcage, trying to make the prisoner within sing.

“All right,” Anyara said. “I’d be grateful for your hospitality.”

“Do you find our new accommodation more to your taste?” Anyara asked Coinach.

The shieldman shrugged and wrinkled his nose.

“Each palace seems much like another to me. What colour it is makes little odds.” He stood uncomfortably in the doorway of Anyara’s new quarters in the Palace of Red Stone. His stiffness and formality amused her, for no obvious reason.

“It’s porphyry,” she said. “The red.”

“Is it?”

“Oh, don’t try so hard to sound interested.” Anyara lifted the finely carved lid of a massive chest at the foot of the bed and peered in. Sheets and blankets: linen, wool, silk. Better, if she was any judge, than what she had slept amidst in the High Thane’s palace.

“Sorry, my lady.”

“And don’t start calling me that again,” Anyara said in mock irritation. She sniffed the bowl of water at the bedside. It had a strong scent. Roses, perhaps. “There’re more than enough ladies in this city already.”

Coinach made a non-committal noise that came surprisingly close to a grunt.

“Perhaps now that we’re little a less closely watched, we can start some training again,” Anyara mused.

Since leaving Kolkyre, there had been almost no opportunities for Anyara to refine her still rudimentary skills with a blade. The constant supervision had made it all but impossible. If she was honest, she feared drawing ridicule down upon herself and-even more so-upon Coinach if they were observed.

“Perhaps,” Coinach acknowledged without notable enthusiasm.

The shieldman moved aside to allow a maidservant to enter, bearing fresh pillows for Anyara’s bed. She was a short but graceful girl, much the same age as Anyara, with strikingly red hair. She gave a neat bobbing curtsy, and there was even a flicker of a smile on her face.

“What’s your name?” Anyara asked, wondering how far the warmer welcome she was receiving here would go.

“Eleth, my lady.”

“I’m Anyara.”

“Oh yes. I know, my lady.”

“And this is Coinach.”

The maid blinked and cast a fleeting smile over her shoulder towards the warrior. Then, much to Anyara’s surprise, she gave a little giggle. Coinach frowned, as darkly as if he had just heard someone impugning his honour.

Eleth energetically plumped the pillows and arrayed them upon the bed.

“The lady asked if you would join her,” she said as she worked. “There are sweetmeats and warm wine prepared in the Tapestry Room.”

Anyara and Coinach followed their guide through the Palace of Red Stone. It felt entirely unlike Gryvan oc Haig’s gargantuan Moon Palace. Whatever splendour the Moon Palace bought through crude size and ostentation, the Chancellor’s abode matched through elegance. From its meticulously painted ceilings to its cool marble passageways, every element of its fabric spoke in refined and tasteful tones. There was a sweet, faint aroma on the air that Anyara could not quite place, though it reminded her of spice.

The Tapestry Room lived up to its name. Long tapestries covered three of its walls. In the fourth were set latticed windows, the light that fell from them diffused by shimmering, almost transparent curtains. Tara Jerain was already seated at a table bearing trays of tiny cakes and biscuits, and a jug of wine as darkly red as any Anyara had ever seen.

Coinach waited by the door, distancing himself slightly from the pair of serving girls who also stood there. Tara glanced at the shieldman as Anyara settled into a chair.

“Does he go everywhere with you, then?” she asked, without a trace of criticism or mockery.

“Not everywhere,” Anyara replied, slightly defensive. “But most places.”

“And why not?” Tara offered a platter laden with intricate, absurd little confections. “I am sure his presence must be of great comfort. In all manner of ways.”

Anyara wondered briefly if anything unseemly had been implied, but Tara was, as ever, smiling warmly. Whatever she said, it was always dressed in the livery of friendly, innocent banter.

“I hope your bedchamber is satisfactory,” Tara said.

Anyara nodded as the flavours of almond and apple suffused her mouth. Such wonderful delicacies were unknown in her homeland. Tara gestured to one of the servants, who came nimbly forward and poured wine into a pair of goblets.

“You must tell me at once if there’s anything you require,” the Chancellor’s wife went on. “We will do whatever we can to make your stay here comfortable. Perhaps even pleasurable, I hope.”

“I would not want to cause you any inconvenience,” Anyara said. She tasted the wine. Its rich warmth eased down her throat.

Tara gave a little laugh. “Believe me, you need not concern yourself over such things. You cannot imagine how tedious it becomes to see only the same people, day after day after day. You are a most refreshing change, I can assure you.”

“Perhaps one thing, then,” Anyara said, making a studied effort to sound casual and light-hearted. “I hoped, when I was at the Moon Palace, that it might be possible to borrow some horses, and ride out to the sea. The opportunity never arose.”

“Of course.” Tara looked delighted by the suggestion. It was impossible to read the woman, Anyara thought. Or at least it was impossible to detect whatever calculation might lurk within her. Even Anyara’s stubborn mistrust might be eroded by such meticulously crafted good humour.

“Yes,” Tara breezed on. “We may have to wait a day or three for the weather to don a clement face, but it would be good to get out of the city for a little while. I’ll go with you, if you will have me. I’ve a very fine bay horse that would be just right for you, I’m sure. Although there’s a grey, too, and he’s a wonderfully gentle creature…”

Tara chattered on, outlining the merits of various possible mounts. Anyara’s attention drifted as the soothing wine, Tara’s graceful voice, the soft light spilling in through the curtains, all conspired to lull her into comfortable distraction. She allowed herself briefly to wonder what it must be like to live this easy life, so abundant in its comforts. She mentally shook herself, hardening her lazy thoughts. Slaughter was still being done, far from these marble halls. Orisian and Taim Narran and countless others were still adrift in that storm. Her people were drowning in blood.

She set down the cup of wine and pushed it carefully away from her. She was suddenly ashamed to be sitting here, in such company, amidst such grace, while others fought and died on fields that felt immeasurably distant.