Shadowkill

1

The skimmer landed in the main Court, pulverizing a number of the paving stones, taking up most of the open space. On the side facing the House, a ramp unfolded. As soon as it was down and stable, the Artwa Arring Angakirs Cagharadad came marching out and stood before the stairs like the earth was his but beneath his notice. Rintirry lounged behind him, looking bored and beautiful.

Perched in the opening behind the oriel window above the Great Doors, Kizra watched Rintirry look around and decided Allina had splendid judgment when it came to men.

He straightened suddenly, his eyes fixed on something across the Court.

Kizra pressed her face against the glass, swore under her breath. Tamburra the Kiv’kerrinite was standing in a patch of sunlight that turned her hair to fire, emphasized the translucence of her skin, the perfection of bone and body. Posing for him.

Gods. That’s trouble, that is.

The Artwa was a tall lean man with an abundance of coarse white hair and a vigorous white mustache. His face was bright red, his skin rough as a rutted road. He glared at the silent facade and twitched his long nose.

Everything was stilled, waiting.

The great doors opened and Matja Allina came out, leaning on Aghilo’s arm, Polyapo and Kulyari a half-step behind her. She stood quiet a moment at the top of the stairs, looking down at the Artwa. A flutter of her fingers summoned Polyapo to her side. With both women helping her, she came down to greet him.

She stopped five paces away from him, placed her palms together, bowed her head, then let Polyapo and Aghilo lower her to her knees. While they prostrated themselves before the Artwa, Matja Allina rounded her back, brought her hands up, palm to palm, pressed her thumbs against her brow and waited to be acknowledged.

The old man spoke. “Matja.”

“Ghanar Rinta is honored,” Matja Allina chanted in the tonal version of the local langue, a formal singsong that her voice made into music, “Artwa Arring Angakirs Procagharadad. Amurra Bless thee and thine. This House and all in it are thine. What is thy pleasure, Artwa Arring?”

In the cloudless pale blue sky a single raptor glided in wide circles over the Kuysstead and precisely on cue gave its wild, eerie call, then went swooping off after something Kizra couldn’t see. She pressed her hand over her mouth to stifle the giggles that threatened to burst out of her (nervous giggles-though the scene had gone comical on her, there was still a soupcon of fear in it).

“Get up, get up, girl,” the Artwa said, a heavy geniality in his loud voice. “I’m an easy man, you know. These formalities…” He waved a hand, then scowled. “Where’s my son? Got his nose stuck in a book somewhere? Or is he so grand these days he can’t come to welcome his old father?”

With Polyapo and Aghilo boosting her, Matja Allina got to her feet. “Artwa Arring Angakirs, there was a raid on one of the outer pastures. Arring Pirs has gone with guide and guard to look into the matter. If he had known you were coming, Sar, of course he would have postponed his departure long enough to greet you. If you will enter your House, Sar? I have set the servants readying the Honor Suite for you and your household. Will you take some wine and cakes and rest yourself a while?”

He nodded graciously and strode past her, half-running up the steps, then striding into the House.

Rintirry strolled after him. He reached with languid grace toward Matja Mina as if he intended to draw his hand across her belly. She didn’t lift a hand to stop him, simply looked at him with calm contempt.

Rintirry laughed at the Matja; it was meant to be a taunting laugh, but it didn’t quite come off. He waggled his fingers at her and went sauntering up the steps.

Kizra ran her fingers through her hair, hurried back to her room.

There were two tables at the end of the Great Hall, the high table where the men sat and the lower one for the women. The high table was in a large curtained alcove raised a good two meters off the floor. The candles in the torcheres flickered in the drafts that wandered through the hall, waking shimmers in the damascened cloth-of-gold tiedrapes and a deeper sheen in the green velvet folds behind the gold. The rug was the color of fresh blood, the table a dark tight-grained wood, the dinnerware silver with gold wire laid into it in a series of interlocking double spirals. The wine in the crystal goblets was oxblood and there were yellow and white and blue flowers in oxblood vases.

Artwa Angakirs wore viridian and gold, a heavy gold chain about his neck set with emeralds, turquoise and chrysoprase, rings on all his fingers with more emeralds in them. Green and gold were the family colors and much of the Family wealth came from the emeralds found on Caghar Rinta, the gold in its streams and hills. And the pockets of turquoise that kept turning up. In the flickering candlelight he was magnificent, an old king: stupid as a rock, vain and selfish, but an impressive presence when presence was all you needed.

Rintirry lounged beside the Artwa in a smaller chair, dressed in a gold-crusted crimson velvet tunic with wide oversleeves trimmed in white fur. They fell back to show the black sleeves of his undertunic, a silky knit that hugged his muscular forearms. His only jewel was a single earring, a black opal teardrop hanging like dark fire from his left ear. The candlelight played games with his bright hair and gave an illusion of strength to a face that was a sculptor’s dream.

Kizra sat in shadows on the second level, concealed from the tables by a carved, pierced screen, six panels of polished wood, hinged together and zigging across the small stage. She was playing musical wallpaper again, waiting for the dinner to start.

The double doors opened and Matja Allina walked into the light as onto a stage, a queen to more than match the power of the old king waiting on the dais, tall and slender, graceful despite the heaviness of the child. She wore a dress of royal blue damask, high waisted and full in the skirt, not hiding her pregnancy but diminishing it. Her hair was braided into a regal knot, with a chain of aquamarines and silver twisted through the silver-gilt plaits. A wide necklace of beaten silver and aquamarines filled in the scoop neck of the dress, the pale greenish blue of the stones almost a match for her eyes. The sleeves of the dress were narrow, fitting close to her arms with wide wristlets of aquamarines and silver made to match the necklace and the heavy earrings. She wasn’t pretty like Kulyari following very much in her shadow, not beautiful either with her wide full mouth and angular bones.

In a room full of women, you’d look at her first, and if you looked away, you’d come back to her. A sharp and ironic intelligence, vigorous moral force, tightly controlled passion like a perfume, invisible but potent.

Angakirs was leaning forward, his weight on his forearms, his body tense. He was watching Allina intently, a glitter in his eyes, hating her and wanting her with about equal intensity.

Behind her screen, Kizra used one arm to wipe the sweat off her face while she kept the tinkle tune going with her other hand. If they got through this night without disaster, she was going to be very much surprised.

After a quick lift of his head when he heard the doors open, Rintirry lounged gracelessly in his chair and stared at his plate, doing his best to ignore the women. Hate as strong as the Artwa’s came off him like smoke. Hate and desire.

He tried to rape me at my betrothal feast, that’s what the Matja said. I thought she was um exaggerating, but I sure as hell believe her now.

Matja Allina crossed the hall and came up the stairs without help, the other women trailing after her, mostly unnoticed.

Kulyari glanced repeatedly at Rintirry, but he was so busy pretending to ignore the Matja he didn’t have time for her. When she realized this, her smile lost its glow, her movements were angular with rage.

For the first time, Kizra felt some sympathy for her. These last few years couldn’t have been easy. There was Angakirs blaming Allina for alienating Pirs, his favorite before the marriage, and seeing her as a failure as a wife since all her sons had been stillborn. There was Utilas the heir, jealous of Pirs and willing to do anything that would injure him (as long as he could do it without his fingers showing). There was Mingas the third son; an old suitor gone sour, he wanted to see Allina reduced to poor relation and presumably available for seduction. And there was Rintirry the youngest who wanted anything he could get his hands on whatever he had to do to get it. All of them urging her, tempting her, sending her here to Ghanar Rinta to seduce her uncle and get rid of Allina. It must have taken her less than a day to discover how hopeless that was. Take an ambitious and shrewd girl, put her where ambition was thwarted and shrewdness was useless, no wonder she wanted Pirs dead and Allina dispossessed. And now it was obvious that Rintirry had no eyes for her, only for the Matja.

Matja Allina bowed, then let Aghilo help her into her chair. She lifted the silver bell beside her plate, rang it, and the meal began, male servants sweeping in with platters of meat and all the rest of it.

Kizra laid the wallpaper noddling to rest and began the program that Allina had laid out for her.

He likes the old epics, the Matja said. You’ve learned something of the Gharadion, you’ll begin with that; it doesn’t matter that you don’t know the words, you wouldn’t sing it anyway, he wouldn’t stand for a woman singing that or anything else, not at dinner. As soon as the first serving is finished, I’ll send Impajin around to you, he’ll do the singing. Hmm. And Paynto, he’s fair with a flute, knows all the old songs. After the Gharadion, he’ll take the lead, you can improvise around him, give some depth to the music; he’s pedestrian at best. He’s loyal, though, and he’s got the ear if not the talent. He’ll be happy enough to have you there, distribute the blame if any; the praise will come to him, not you, he knows that.

The meal went on with murmurs and the clink of silver against silver, the sounds of glass and china, Paynto’s flute and Kizra on the arranga blending and moving apart and Impajin’s rough tenor louder than both. The candles flickered, the colors shimmered, shifting light and shadow picked out texture and sheen; it was like a brocade print, gorgeous and rare. And spoiled for Kizra by the constant undercurrents of hate and fear, anger and disgust.

Tinkle toot, let’s get this thing over with.