Текст книги " The White Gryphon"

Автор книги: Mercedes Lackey

Соавторы: Ларри Диксон
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"I liked it a great deal," he told her, as they left the twins to their dreams of mischief among the fishponds, and walked into their own room. The servants had already been and gone, leaving the suite prepared. The door to the balcony was wide open, the curtains pulled aside to allow entry to the cool breeze that always came up around midnight. The air that drifted in was scented with the heavy perfume of a flower that bloomed only at night, a tiny white blossom like a trumpet.

She is just as sweet. I wonder if she is in the mood?

Skan stretched luxuriously. "These Royal Dancers are quite amazing. I don't remember ever seeing anything like that be—"

Someone pounded on their door. Skan and Zhaneel exchanged startled glances as one of the Haighlei servants ran out of the servants' rooms to answer it.

Who can that be at this hour? Surely nothing can be so important that they need to summon us now! Unless—Skan suddenly felt a rush of chill. Unless something's happened to Drake or Winterhart—

The servant exchanged some half-dozen words with whoever was there, then quickly stood aside and flung the door open wide. Leyuet, the Truthsayer and Advisor to King Shalaman stood firmly in the doorway, looking both solemn and very upset, and with him were ten of Shalaman's guards, all armed to the teeth.

I don't like the look of this!

"You will please come with me," Leyuet said, trembling, his voice shaking a little as he looked into Skandranon's eyes, past the formidable beak. "Now."

Skan pulled himself up to his full height, and glared down at the thin Truthsayer standing in the doorway. Better act important and upset. If this is some kind of a trap, I might be able to bluff my way out of it."Why?" he demanded. "It is midnight. It is time for sleep. And I am the envoy of my people and a ruler in my own right. What possible cause can you have to come bursting in here with armed guards at your back? What possible need can anyone have of my presence? What is so urgent that it cannot wait until morning?"

Is this some way to try and separate us? Have we come all this way only to find we've willingly become hostages? Was Drake wrong in trusting that Silver Veil would protect us?

But Leyuet only looked tired, and very, very frightened, but not by Skandranon. "You must come with me," he insisted as he clasped his hands together tightly in front of his chest. "Please. You must not make me compel you. I tell you this for your benefit."

"Why?" Skan demanded again. " Why?"

"Because," Leyuet said at last, his face gray under the dark color of his complexion, "there has been a murder. And it was done by a creature with wings, with magic, or with both."

Zhaneel was not wanted along, so she stayed behind under guard. Skan was just as happy to have her elsewhere, although he doubted that she would get any rest until he returned. It looked as though it was going to be a long night for both of them.

And we were just getting our stamina back, too!

He was not under arrest. Fortunately, he and the others had been sitting in the middle of that Dance, under the scrutiny of the entire court, all the Dancers, and however many servants had managed to steal a moment and a place to watch from. Or rather, his "arrest" was a token only, and meant to last only so long as it took for half a dozen witnesses to be hauled from their beds and swear before the King that Skan had not once left his seat from the moment the Dance began. As he was counted as the highest authority among the newcomers, protocol dictated that he would be questioned first; presumably this was so that he would have the option of naming any of his underlings guilty of the crime, and thus save face.

Shalaman waited on his bench-throne, face stern and impassive, as six sleepy Haighlei—a Dancer, a servant, three courtiers, and an envoy from one of the other Kingdoms—all vouched for him at different times during the Dance. Evidently, they were leaving nothing to chance.

When the last of them left, Leyuet listened for a moment while the King spoke, then turned back to Skan. "The King would like your opinion on what transpired, and he requests that you accompany us to investigate the scene. As you pointed out, you have wings, and you know magic. The King believes that you will have insights into this tragedy that we may not."

As if I have any choice. If I refuse, it will look bad, perhaps suspicious, and these people are suspicious enough of me already.

Best to put a good face on it, then. He bowed as he had to the dancers. "Tell the King that I will be pleased to add whatever I can to help determine who is the author of this murder." He tried to look calm, dignified, and just as impassive as Shalaman himself.

His innocence ascertained, the King waited for Palisar, Silver Veil, and a gaggle of priests and official-looking fellows with spears that were both functional and decorative to arrive. Then all of them, Skan included, trooped off together to a far corner of the Palace, to one of the towers that housed some of the higher-ranking nobles.

The corridors were deserted, but not because people were sleeping. Skan sensed eyes behind the cracks of barely-opened doors behind them, and sensed fear rising like a fog all along their path. People knew that something terrible had happened although they didn't know what it was. Rumors were probably spreading already.

I only hope I look like an investigator and not a prisoner or a suspect in custody!

Up the wooden stairs of the tower they went, four stories' worth of climbing, with a landing and a closed door giving onto the staircase at each floor, until they came out onto the landing of the suite belonging to the victim. This was the uppermost floor of the flat-roofed tower, with only the staircase as an access route. Leyuet took pains to point that out, as they opened that final door into the victim's suite.

They didn't exactly have to search to find the body—or rather, most of the body. It was all still in the first room of the suite.

Skan didn't know the victim. When Leyuet had mentioned the name, it hadn't triggered a feeling of familiarity; there were a lot of high-ranking nobles, and he'd hardly had time to learn all of them by name. He might have recognized the face—if there had been anything left of the face to recognize.

The problem was that there wasn't anything left to recognize. The body had been shredded, flesh sprayed all over the walls and furniture with such abandon that the hardened guards looked sick, and the more susceptible Palisar and Leyuet had to excuse themselves. The King, who presumably had seen quite a bit of carnage over his lifetime, if only on one of his fabled lion hunts, was visibly shaken. Silver Veil's face was as white as her dressing gown, but her features remained composed. Skan wondered how she managed it.

Then again, she took her wagon and her apprentices through Ma'ar's battle-lines, and before that, through the areas he'd "pacified." Perhaps this isn't anything worse than she saw back then.

Well, that was a horrid thought. And, unfortunately, probably true.

Skan paced slowly around the room, avoiding the blood and bits of flesh, noting how and where the blows had fallen. There wasn't a great deal of furniture in this room, which made his task easier. "I hope your Serenity will excuse what might seem callousness on my part," he said absently, crouching to examine the path of a particular blood spurt. "But I am a warrior. I have seen worse than this visited upon my own people in my very presence. Silver Veil will have told you of Ma'ar, of the wars. I assume that I am here in part because of that experience, as well as the fact that I am a mage and I am capable of flying."

Silver Veil translated, and Shalaman nodded. He said something, and Silver Veil turned toward Skan.

"His Serenity says that the woman who died was seen in Court this evening, and left just as you entered the garden for the Dance in your honor. She was known to oppose the alliance, and chose to make her opposition public with her withdrawal."

Charming. My enemy, which makes me suspect all over again."I was not aware that this particular woman felt that strongly," Skan said mildly. "I do not feel it is my place or my duty to interfere in the opinions of the Haighlei. Firstly, they are yourpeople, not mine, and your Serenity will deal with them and their opinions as he sees fit. Secondly, actions tell more than words; I behave with honor and candor, and that will do more to reverse a poor opinion of me than all the arguing and attempts at persuasion of all the learned diplomats in the world."

Shalaman smiled faintly as Silver Veil translated this, and Skan went back to his examination. Since he had tacit permission to do so, he invoked mage-sight, although he frankly wasn't expecting it to work correctly. Sometimes it did, these days, and sometimes all it showed him was a wash of magical energy over everything like a fog, impossible to see through. Once in a while, very rarely, it showed him nothing. That might mean that it wasn't working—or it might mean there was nothing to see.

This time, he got that foggy wash of energy over everything, which was hardly useful.

He examined the windows, which were unlocked and open, and found nothing there, either. No bloodstains showing that the murderer had escaped that way, and no signs of clawmarks as there would be if the murderer had landed on the window ledge and grasped it as a gryphon would.

He reported both those nonfindings dutifully.

"Could a mage have done this?" Leyuet prompted.

"Certainly," Skan replied. " Ifany mage could gather enough power to overcome all the present difficulties in working magic—difficulties I am certain that Your Serenity's priests have already advised you of—this could be done at a distance, without the mage needing even to be near this room. It could also have been done physically. My opinion is that most of the damage was done while the victim was already unconscious or dead, probably the latter."

He pointed out with clinical precision why he had come to that conclusion—the lack of force in the blood sprays, the apparent lack of movement on the part of the victim. Leyuet looked sick but continued to translate.

I had better learn this language quickly if I am going to find myself fending off accusations of murder!

"I cannot tell if this was done by magic means or physical," he concluded. "There was time enough for someone to have done this by physical means before the body was discovered, since the victim dismissed her servants to brood alone during the Dance. I cannot tell if someone flew here or climbed up from below. The latter would be easy enough, for the north side of this tower is all in shadow, and does not overlook a guard post or a garden where someone might have been walking. If the murderer was very, very good, he could even have come up by the stairs and left the same way without anyone seeing him." He shrugged. "I am sorry to be of so little use."

Leyuet nodded, as Silver Veil translated, and then said something to Shalaman himself. The King spoke, and both of them listened gravely.

It was Silver Veil who translated the reply. "Skandranon," she said hesitantly, "I do not care to be the one who tells you this, but His Serenity decrees that while he is convinced for the moment that you had nothing to do with this, there are others who will not be convinced. You must therefore submit to his supervision."

Skan ground his beak, and Leyuet winced at the sound. "And what sort of supervision will that be?" he asked harshly. He could already tell from Silver Veil's expression that he wasn't going to like it, whatever it was.

"You must have one of the Spears of the Law with you at all times, or submit to being closed inside a locked and windowless room if you must have privacy," she told him apologetically. "That is the only way we can be certain of your whereabouts at all times. It is as much for your sake as ours, you know."

Oh, lovely. Either have one of these ebony spearcarriers watching my every move, or get closed up into a closet. Charming. This is not going to do a great deal for my love life! Somehow I doubt that Zhaneel will welcome a third party to our little trysts....

And the idea of any kind of exertion in a locked and windowless room, especially in this climate, was not a pleasant one.

I shall certainly lose weight. It will be steamed off!

But what other choice did he have?

None, and that's the problem, isn't it?

"Very well," he growled, making no secret of his displeasure. "Tell everyone that I will suffer that they may feel more comfortable. Tell them I will voluntarily be their hostage in a closet. I can't see any other solution."

"Neither can I," Silver Veil replied with a sigh.

It was matched by Skan's. And there was one more problem to be faced.

I have to explain this one to Zhaneel!

* * *

There was a windowless room in their suite, as it turned out; normally used as a storage room, and hastily turned into a sleeping chamber. Fortunately for him, it might have been windowless, but it wasn't airless; he had forgotten the humidity that went along with the heat in this land. You didn't dare close things into an airless chamber, not and expect to extract them again in the same shape they went in. Mildew and mold were the twin enemies that housekeepers fought here, and mildew and mold would thrive in a completely closed chamber.

So there were air-slits cut just below the ceiling, no broader than the width of a woman's palm, but cut on all four walls, and providing a steady stream of fresh air into the room.

"At least it will be dark when we wish to sleep," Zhaneel said philosophically as she set a tiny lamp up on the wall, trying to make the best of the situation. It was a good thing that she hadhandlike foreclaws, and not Skan's fighting claws—with no mage-lights available, it was either a lamp or nothing, and hecouldn't light a lamp. Except with magic, which he'd been warned not to use. "These slits cannot let in much light. And if the little ones wake at dawn and begin to play, the walls will muffle the noise."

Skan tried not to growl. It was not exactly compensation for being shut into a closet at night.

"I won't say I like this," he said, throwing himself down on their bed, and resisting the urge to claw it to bits in frustration. "I wish I had a better solution. Sketi, I wish I'd never come here in the first place! If I wasn't here, there'd be no one from White Gryphon to suspect!"

"I would not count on that," Zhaneel countered thoughtfully, stretching herself down beside him, and beginning to preen his ear-tufts to soothe his temper. "Consider; what if this were devised preciselyto implicate you? Or rather, to implicate one of the White Gryphon envoys. If Judeth had been here in your stead, the murder might seem to have been performed by a fighter; if Lady Cinnabar, the victim might have been dissected with surgical precision. Or a weapon from the north might have been found in the room."

"Hmm." Skan pondered that; it had the right sound and feel to it. "But what does that mean for us at the moment?"

Zhaneel delicately spat out a tuft of down and answered him. "Whoever did this in the first place must not realize that you were under the eyes of hundreds of witnesses at the time of the murder. The best that we can do is be graceful and gracious beneath this burden, and wait for some other evidence to surface. What is needed is motive. Perhaps this courtier had some great enemy, or perhaps she owned something that will prove to be missing." She shrugged and went after the other ear-tuft. "In any case, it hardly matters at the moment. Ithink that there is magic involved."

"How, when mages are so watched and bound by laws and priests?" Skan asked skeptically.

She had no answer for that, but there was no reason why he couldn't pursue that particular quarry for a moment. "I suppose that accidents could happen," he mused aloud. "This is a large country. A child could be overlooked, or even run away from the school. Once he knew what he was, if he didn't turn himself in—"

"Then obviously he would already be a criminal," Zhaneel stated.

"A good point. Which would mean he would drift into the company of other criminals." He nodded, and leaned a little more into her preening; she knew where all the really itchy spots were.

"Which would mean that he would become a weapon in the hands of other criminals," she replied. "I think the most likely is that this woman had a great enemy, and that the enemy decided to rid himself of the woman during a time when he was unlikely to be caught."

"During the Dance, you mean? But everyone knew we were going to be there, didn't they? After all, it was supposed to be in our honor."

"That would be known to those in the Court itself. The fact that the murder looked as if a gryphon did it might actually only be a coincidence, if this was a crime of terrible and profound anger," she pointed out. "And the murderer could simply be incredibly lucky, to have gotten into his victim's suite, killed her, and gotten out without being seen. People dohave that kind of luck, you know." She glanced at him slyly. "Certainly, you did."

"Huhrrr." He thought that over. It was possible. Not likely, but barely possible. "He'd have to be lucky andgood. And if that's the case, we'll never catch him."

"But when nothing more happens, this will all evaporate in a few days," Zhaneel pointed out. "After all, youcould not have done the deed, even Palisar admits that. As unreliable as magic is, even if you had done this by magic, you would still have needed privacy and a great deal of time, and there would be traces. So, when nothing more is discovered, all the attention upon us will fade in importance in no more than a week, and they will remove their guards and precautions." She glanced at him, with a sideways tilt of her head. "They may never find the murderer, but this will soon become only the interest of what passes for a policing force here."

Skan sighed, and nuzzled her tiny ear-tufts. "You're right, of course," he said as she craned her head upward to blow out the lamp. "In a few days their suspicion of us will be forgotten."

There. I have said what will comfort her. Why don't I believe it myself?

Five

There was a familiar knock at the door, a little after dinnertime and just before Court. The servant spoke a sentence or two in hushed tones.

"Don't tell me," Skandranon groaned, as the servant—once again—ushered in Leyuet and the Spears of the Law. This was the third time in six days. "Another murder."

Leyuet nodded grimly. His dark face was drawn and new worry-lines etched the corners of his mouth. And was there more gray in his hair? It seemed so. "Another murder. Another professed opponent of the treaty. This time, in a room locked and barred from within. It mustbe by magic. You were, of course, watched all afternoon during your sleep period?"

Skan gestured broadly to indicate the pair of heavily-muscled spear-bearers, standing stoically in what passed for the corners of the room. "They never left my side, and they never slept." After the second murder, a single watcher had not been deemed enough to insure Skandranon's innocence by some parties, so a second Spear of the Law had been added to make certain that the first was not duped or slumbering. "I've either been here or in the garden. Just ask them."

Leyuet sighed, a look of defeat creeping over him. "I do not need to, for I know that they will confirm your words. But I also know that no magician of the Haighlei could have done this. As you rightly pointed out, to overcome all the disturbances in the use of magic would require more power than any of our priests or mages has available to him. Thus the mage must be foreign, with foreign ways of working magic." He rubbed his eyes, a gesture that had become habitual over the past several days, as Leyuet clearly got less and less sleep. "No Haighlei would ever have committed murder so—so crudely, so impolitely, either."

Skan coughed to keep from choking with astonishment. Every time he thought he understood the Haighlei ways, someone said something that surprised him all over again. "You mean to tell me that there is a polite way to commit murder?" he blurted.

Leyuet did not rise to the bait; he just shook his head. "It is just the Haighlei way. Even murder has a certain protocol, a set ritualistic aspect to it. For one thing, a murderer must accomplish certain tasks to be certain that the spirit of his victim has been purged from the earth. How else could the perpetrator feel satisfaction? But this conforms to nothing Haighlei. It is not random, but there is no pattern to it, either."

Zhaneel coughed politely, drawing Leyuet's gaze toward her. "All the victims were women as well as being opposed to the alliance," Zhaneel suggested delicately. "Could it be a case of a jilted lover? Someone who approached all three of the women about an assignation and was rebuffed—or someone who once had affairs with them and was cast off for another?"

But Leyuet only shook his head again. "There would be even more of ritual in that case. No, this has no pattern, it was done by magic, and it is like nothing we have ever seen in the Empire."

As if some madman among the Haighlei could not act in a patternless fashion."It is new, in other words," Skan said flatly. "And since it is new, and we are new, therefore—"

"Therefore I must summon you before the Emperor Shalaman once again," Leyuet finished for him, spreading his hands wide. "It is the pattern."

Skan simply bowed to the inevitable. I have no choice, after all. I cannot even try to go back to White Gryphon now; they might decide that retreat was an admission of guilt and send an army."Lead on," he replied, gesturing with his foreclaw. "I am at your disposal."

And I only hopethat isn't a prophetic phrase! I would very much prefer not to be "disposed of!"

Kanshin worked the little wooden ball up and around his fingers, from the index to the littlest finger and back again, in an exercise often used by street-entertainers who practiced sleight-of-hand and called it magic. He was no street-entertainer, however. He was a thief, and a master thief at that. More than any street-entertainer, he needed to keep his hands supple.

His father would be horrified, if he still lived, to know what "trade" Kanshin now plied. Better to be a master thief than a master-ditchdigger.That was what Kanshin's father had been, and his grandfather, and so on back for ten generations. That, so the priests and the gods decreed, was what Kanshin should have been.

Kanshin sneered at them all, at his father for being a fool, at the priests for the "decrees" that duped so many. A pox upon priests and gods together. Assuming there even are any gods, which I doubt.

He worked the ball around his left hand, across the palm, and up to the index finger again. My father believed in the gods and the priests, and we starved. I like my way better.

Kanshin had more intelligence than to believe the pious rhetoric spewed out in regular, measured doses by the priests—especially when the only way to "be certain" of a better position in one's next life was to bestow all of one's wealth on the priests in this one. Not that a ditch-digger was going to acquire much wealthover the course of a lifetime, but Kanshin's father had devoted every spare coin to the purchase of that new life, to the detriment and hardship of his own children.

Perhaps that was why Kanshin had seen through the scheme by the time he was five. Hunger undermined manners. Polite people didn't question.

He glanced at the door to the guest room, thinking he had heard a sound, but it was nothing.

Even our guest would certainly agree with me and not with my father. He might be insane, but he certainly isn't stupid.

He had hoped for a while that he might escape the endless cycle of backbreaking labor and poverty by being taken by the priests as a mage—but that never happened. No mage-craft and easy life for me. What a joke! If the gods really existed, they'd have arranged for me to have the powers of magic, wouldn't they? If they had, I'd be one of their fat priests or fatter mages right now, and there would be many people still in the incarnations I cut short.But there were no gods, of course, and no priest had come to spirit Kanshin away to a better life. So, one day, when his father and mother and bawling, brawling siblings were all sleeping the sleep of the stupefied, he ran away. Away to the city, to the wicked, worldly city of Khimbata, and a chance for something better than blisters on his hands, a permanently bent back, and an early grave.

Kanshin smiled with satisfaction at his own cleverness. So much for the gods, who sought to keep him in his place. For although he could not go higher in caste to win himself the fortune and luxury he craved—he couldgo lower.

He transferred the ball to his right hand, and began the exercise all over again.

He had started out as a beggar, self-apprenticed to one of the old hands of the trade, aged Jacony. Jacony had taught him everything; how to wrap his body tightly with bandages to look thinner, how to make his face pale and wan or even leprous, how to create sores from flour, water, and henna, how to bind his leg or arm to make it look as if he were an amputee. That was all right for a while, as long as he was young and could look convincingly starved and pathetic—and as long as the sores and deformations his master put on him were strictly cosmetic. But when the old man let drop the fact that he was considering actually removinga hand or a foot to make Kanshin into a "wounded lion hunter," Kanshin decided that he'd better find another trade and another master.

Ican't believe the old man thought I'd stand for that. I wasn't that desperate! But– maybe he was. And missing a hand or a foot, I'd be a lot more conspicuous if I tried to run off—a lot more dependent on him, too, I suppose.

It didn't take him long to find a new master, now that he knew his way around the city. By that time, he was quite conversant with the covert underground of beggars, whores, and thieves that swarmed the soft underbelly of the lazy metropolis, like fleas living in the belly-fur of a fat, pampered lapdog. And he knew what he wanted, too.

There were other masters ready to take me at that point. Lakshe, for instance.He hadn't ever given Lakshe's offer serious thought because he didn't intend to become a boy-whore, although the trade paid well enough. He would have only one chance in ten of earning enough before he became too old to be called a "boy" anymore, and there wasn't a lot of call for aging catamites.

And the odds of becoming a procurer like Lakshe are even lower than earning enough to keep you for the rest of your life.

He'd tried being a beggar, and he just looked too healthy, too strong; not all the paste-and-henna sores in the world would convince people he was really suffering, not unless he didundergo a self-amputation. I didn't like begging, anyway. No chance for a fortune. And scraping out a living that way was hardly better than digging ditches.

So—that left thief, an avocation he was already attracted to. He smiled as he worked the ball across his fingers. I'd even picked a pocket or two by then, so I was ready, ready to learn more.

He was still young enough—just—to get a master. He chose one of the oldest thieves in the city, an alcoholic sot who lived on cadged drinks and a reputation many doubted. No one knew that Poldarn was more than a drunk and a liar.Kanshin had not doubted him after several of the stories had, on investigation, proven to be true. Nor had he doubted the man's ability to teach him, if only Kanshin could keep him sober and alive long enough to do so.

He had managed both, and now, if he was not themaster-thief in the city, he was certainly among the masters. Poldarn did know every trick of the trade, from picking locks to climbing up walls with no more gear than ten strong fingers and toes. He was good, I'll grant him that. Too bad drink addled his wits.

And his master? Dead, now; collapsed back into the gutter as soon as Kanshin left him on his own. He couldn't stay sober a day without me. He was drunk the day I set up on my own, and I never saw him sober after that. I don't think he lived more than a fortnight after I left.

Hardly a surprise; the man's liver must have been the size of a goose. Either that– or he went back to drinking the same quantities of strong liquor that he had of weak, and the drink itself killed him. Small loss, to the world or to me. Where were the gods for him, when he was drinking himself into a stupor?

The young thief had been good—and careful. He neither over– nor under-estimated his own abilities, and he always brought back the goods he'd been paid to take.

Now Kanshin had all the things he had dreamed of; a house, slaves, fine foods to eat and wines to drink. The food was as good as that from the King's table, and the wines were often better.

The house was a grand affair, like the dream of a palace on the inside—granted, the house was in the heart of the Dakola District, but no one was stupid enough to try to rob Kanshin. The last fool who'd tried was still serving out his punishment, chained to a wall in Kanshin's basement, digging a new cesspit. That was a farmore effective deterrent than simply killing or maiming interlopers. After all, most of them, like Kanshin himself, had become thieves to avoidhard labor. When they found themselves little better than slaves, forced to wield shovels and scrub dirty dishes, they never tried to rob him a second time.

He listened very carefully, and smiled when he heard the faint scrape of a shovel on dirt. Now therewas one unhappy thief who would not be making a second visit to Kanshin.

The house itself looked like every other filthy, rundown heap in the district—outside. Inside, it was crammed with every luxury that Kanshin could buy or steal. Perhaps service was a little slower than in the homes of the nobles—the slaves were hobbled with chains to hinder their escape—but Kanshin didn't mind. In fact, he rather enjoyed seeing people who could probably boast higher birth than he, weighted down with iron and forced to obey his every whim. Slavery was not legal in this kingdom, but none of these people would dare to complain of their lot.