“I… All right, yes I am. I must. I’ve known you long enough before, before—”
“Before I gave you honest answers to your questions, and you found that you didn’t like the sound of truth after all?”
“
I—I
found it hard to swallow.”
“Like the man who ate the cart-horse,” Gemmel said, and grinned. It was the old grin and the old Gemmel, and Dewan felt a deal more easy in his mind to see it. “You mean that flare in the sky? A falling star.”
“That was no star, falling or otherwise!”
“Good. Then we can agree on something. Would you also agree that we should abandon this excessive caution just for once, and use the road?”
Dewan looked along the road for as far as he could see in both directions; which wasn’t far at night, but far enough to make sure that there was no one else in the area. It wasn’t so much using the road so close to the city that concerned him, but the chance of being seen emerging from concealment by someone who might take an interest in the question
why
? “All right,” he said. “All clear. So come on.” He floundered through another drift, noting with absent irritation that Gemmel waited until he had done so before following him through the already-broken ground. “I must remember, Gemmel, wizard,
friend
, to let you take your turn in front some time,” he growled, slapping snow off his furs and clothing.
“As you wish,” said Gemmel, reaching the road— which so close to Egisburg was not merely paved, but also kept reasonably free of all but the heavier falls of snow. “Then I’ll lead from here, shall I?” He walked off down the road.
Dewan watched him for a few seconds and in those seconds, with snow still in his hands, the Vreijek fought a noble struggle with his own sense of dignity, the inad-visability of what he was considering—and the potential satisfaction that a well-aimed, tightly-squeezed and accurately hurled snowball would bring.
Then he dropped the still-loose snow and dusted off his hands, and set off after Gemmel without another word.
Aldric returned to the inn without making any detours; he avoided the square and its distractions and therefore didn’t see one storyteller in particular gathering her gear together in readiness for a rapid departure from a city which had lost all its attraction for her. Most of all, Aldric wanted to get back and behind a locked door before he met someone who might pass comment on his appearance. He hadn’t checked, but there was most likely drying blood about him somewhere; he had enough intimate experience of killing swordplay to know that its traces were hard to avoid, even when one was the winner.
The entrance hall of the inn was empty, and he was glad of it for though he might be calm and in control right now, he doubted that he could remain that way if he came face to face with Lord-Commander Voord. Later, perhaps, but not just at present. He closed the outer door noisily behind him, deliberately signalling his return to any interested ears and knowing that any such would be listening for
his
return alone, since from what he had seen of Voord’s departure that worthy had not— supposedly—left the building. He would be back by now, of course. Aldric cast an eye towards the inn’s big case-clock in its alcove by the stairs and hesitated, surprised. Barely half of an Alban hour had passed since he had flinched into the shadows and out of Voord’s sight as the man stalked out into the night. A half-hour—or a quarter, Imperial! Then walking leisurely as seemed his custom, it was likely that Voord himself was not long through this very door—much more quietly, of course. That was a piece of luck indeed, and probably just as well.
Unintercepted by whoever might have remained in the withdrawing-room to finish up that flagon of chilled wine, Aldric reached the door of his own upstairs room without incident and put out one hand to open it. Then he paused, looking at the hand with his head quirked quizzically to one side. As he had done earlier, he raised it level with his nose and stared. It was steady, as steady as it had ever been, and not even the vibration of his pulse was enough to shake the black leather-skinned ringers.
Am I growing used to murder, then
? he thought somberly. It was not a possibility which held much appeal.
Or is it something else entirely
?
Now that was likely indeed, for the thought of doing something worth-while at last—the rescue of a prisoner rather than the assassination of someone never met before, like those two in Seghar, would be enough to calm anyone; or at least to fill them with an excitement that was a deal more wholesome. Aldric threw open the bedroom door, noting absently that it was darker than before because someone—a servant perhaps, or simple lack of oil—had reduced the lamp to a mere glow of flame.
Once inside he turned, pushed the door shut again and ran its heavy deadbolt into place. There: all secure! And then he stiffened because something, somewhere was not quite
right
! Without moving, he analysed the brief glimpse of the room which he had caught as he crossed the threshold: the furniture was unmoved, the shuttered windows as he had left them, his gear untouched. Other than the reduced lamp, nothing had changed. Until, moving only eyes that were rapidly adjusting to the gloom, he saw it and in that instant every alarm inside his head went screaming off at full pitch.
Lying down the geometrical center of the bed, dividing its mattress in two precise halves, was a sheathed sword. Jouvaine pattern, said some dry index of his mind through the warning jangle which filled it.
Estoc
thrusting-sword. But it was not a weapon he remembered seeing carried by any of his companions in this rescue party—even though it was familiar, somehow. More: there was a presence in the room, a living person somewhere, hidden, waiting. All the muscles and the sinews of Aldric’s body tensed and his right hand flexed for the grip of Widowmaker’s hilt.
But before his fingers closed on it, the sword was plucked away from his hip by knowing hands—knowing, because while one gripped the
taiken’s
scabbard with the lift-and-twist which unhooked it from the weapon belt at Aldric’s waist, the other undipped one end of the cross-strap which passed over his shoulder. It passed over his shoulder now like a snake, slithering with the sound of a viper on parchment as the whole weapon was wrenched clear of his hand with frantic speed.
A voice spoke in his ear, a voice from so close behind him that he could feel the warm breath carrying every word. How did that happen? he raged inwardly. Nobody gets that close if they mean mischief! And then: but what if they don’t?
“Stand still,” the voice said. “Just answer me this: What is a woman that you forsake her, to go with the old gray Widowmaker? This Widowmaker!” The
taiken’s
gray star-steel blade clanked once inside its scabbard as the chape grounded on the floor, and Aldric’s eyes went wide as he stared for a long moment at nothing at all, swallowing once or twice, trying to clear his gullet of the hot throbbing constriction that was surely his own heart, pounding halfway between his mouth and its proper place. He did not hear the longsword clash against the floor; all he heard was that voice.
And all he said in answer to its question was, “Kyrin?” He turned then, expecting to be wrong, expecting to be cheated yet again by his own imaginings; but he was right this time and he was not cheated now, because it— she—was Tehal Kyrin after all.
All the tension drained from face and body, but was replaced by a shuttered, enigmatic, unreadable expression very far from that which the Valhollan had been expecting. “Lady,” he said, giving her the ghost of a bow, “one moment.” Then he walked quietly across the room and adjusted the lamp until it flooded them both with light. “Yes. Lady, your… your eyes are as blue as I remember them; your hair is as fair.” He did not move to touch her. “And you have troubled my dreams both waking and asleep this six months and more, Tehal Kyrin, Harek’s youngest daughter. But lady, why talk to
me
of forsaking and of Widowmaker?”
He held out his right hand for the weapon and Kyrin took the three steps forwards that was just enough for her to lay it gently, respectfully, on his outstretched palm. The fingers closed, reaffirming possession, gripping tightly, and rotated Isileth Widowmaker so that Aldric was staring at her past the longsword’s looped, forked guards. “This has been true to me, lady; I trust her and she returns that trust. It—
she
has not yet left me for another. I did not, will not forsake. I did not and w-would not forsake you. That choice was yours and you made it. You alone.”
For just a hurt heart’s beat there was a look in Kyrin’s eyes which Aldric had seen before; he recognised it, for he had caused it now just as he had caused it then, so many painful months ago: a look as if he had reached out and struck her across the face. After a moment she drew breath, and with it seemed to draw on some reserve of inner strength, enough at least to meet him stare for stare past the black steel of Widowmaker’s hilt.
“Aldric-an,” she said, pronouncing it as salutation and as valediction, using the honorific rather than the affectionate form and with her Valhollan accent emphasising its vowel-shift all too plainly. “Aldric-an, you’ve lived for too long with this cold mistress. I travelled far to find you, to be with you again. Foolish, with an uncertain reception waiting at the end of all. Or maybe not so foolish after all. Now that I know how it is between us, I can leave again—and this time be at peace within myself. Did you flatter yourself that yours were the only troubled dreams, the only sleepless nights? There were times when I lay awake in the darkness, alone, when I wondered if I had done right or wrong. Not wrong to go with Seorth; there was no wondering about that. Not after I learned that he and Elnya had been married within a month of my… My supposed loss, when my uncle’s ship foundered off the Alban coast. Have you ever found yourself an excess number, Aldric-an? Discovered that you were one too many under your own roof?”
“But you said… !” Aldric burst out, stopped himself, considered. Then, accusingly: “You showed me a letter.”
“Which you couldn’t read. You only guessed at what it meant and because of… I’m sorry. There was a deal of deception with you unknowing in the middle. I said things I didn’t mean, things that weren’t true, because— because I was afraid. Afraid of them, afraid of all the power they had and afraid for you. I told them and I told you what they wanted, because I knew that even you couldn’t turn
no
into
yes
, and you’d have come to harm if you tried. Because you would have tried, Aldric,
Kailin-eir
Aldric
ilauem-arluth
Talvalin. I know you, knew you well enough for that. As I thought I still knew you.” Kyrin forced herself to stay wide-eyed, staring and arrogant, because she knew that just one blink would be enough to let the waiting tears go free.
“Kyrin.” She looked at him and the
taiken
was no longer between them; it had been lowered and was hanging slackly in his hand—as near to being flung aside, perhaps, as it would ever be. “They, Kyrin? Who are
they
?” He asked it, but was already sickly certain that he knew the answer.
“Dewan,” she replied without hesitation, “Dewan and the king.” Then she saw the muscle start to tic along the renewed scar beneath his eye and caught a stifled gasp between her teeth and knuckles. “But they promised that they would explain—they would tell you everything, their reasons, their need… After I was gone. Everything! They
promised
me.”
“Words—that’s what promises are. Sometimes, made with honor, they’re worth the having. But mostly they’re just breath with a little sound in them. So what did you say that
they
wanted to hear so much? What did you tell us all?”
“That there was no love between us. Nor ever had been. Dewan asked me and he wanted to hear
no
, so I said
no
. But…”
“But?”
“But I should have had the courage to tell him the truth. To say
yes
.”
Aldric’s hand came out slowly towards her face and she didn’t move a muscle, braced in case he… The leatherclad fingers touched gently along the line of her cheekbone in the old caress, and stroked at a stray tear which had escaped all of her efforts.
“Truth, lady?
Yes
?”
“Truth. Then. Now. Always.” Then she saw the change in his face, and most especially in his eyes, and began to be afraid again—not of him, now, but for him as she had been before. “Aldric, you’re
cseirin-bom
. High-clan. They would never allow… You can’t fight tradition with a sword!”
Softly, thoughtfully, almost to himself: “You said that once before.”
“But it still holds true!”
“Not now. Not for me. Not after what I’ve had to… Duty, Kyrin. Obligation—it’s a two-edged sword. Our proverb cuts both ways. It’s the sword to fight tradition with, because after what I’ve done, what I’ll yet do— though before the Light of Heaven, it’s more for myself now!—for Rynert the King, he owes me. He owes me honesty at least! No deception—and no broken promises. And afterwards… afterwards we’ll see about tradition and the sword, my lady. This sword. This old gray Widowmaker.”
He laid the longsword down, delicately, respectfully, on the bed beside the
estoc
which was Kyrin’s own, which he had seen her wear a score of times; which he had recognised and yet not known.
“Then it was you,” he said, wondering now that he could have been so dull as not to realize.
“Where?”
“On the road to Egisburg. Following. I thought I saw someone once or twice; and I thought I felt a presence, a watcher, many times. How?”
“Dewan ar Korentin,” she said and confused him more than ever. “He and a Drusalan woman he told me to find.”
“Kathur the Vixen!”
“Kathur the bitch-fox,” Kyrin corrected, sweetly vicious. “Yes. She told me enough to get here. Because when I came to Alba, looking for you, you were gone— some mission for the king. But Dewan sought me out, met me secretly and used words like
decency
and
betrayal
about something which the king had done. He didn’t approve; and he had already told Gemmel. The sorcerer. Your foster-father, Aldric? Is that true?” Aldric nodded silently and waved her to continue. “But he told me this: ‘Look for him; find him if you’re able, help him if you can—and stay with him if he and you both want each other still. With my blessing for all it’s worth. And tell him that I’m truly sorry.’ ”