To Ride Hell’s Chasm. Janny Wurts

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      ‘No one’s mentioned an armed party of abductors in the wine shops,’ Mykkael said with biting sarcasm. Tiny Sessalie was too hidebound to harbour a conspiracy without the busybody matrons making talk. So hidebound and small that every shopkeeper and servant knew his neighbour’s close affairs, with half the blood in the kingdom related to itself by kin ties that confounded memory. ‘Hard pressed, I’d be, to arrest a single miscreant who’s sober enough to raise a weapon.’

      Mykkael snatched up his naked blade, still loath to credit rumour. Princess Anja was beloved for her light-hearted spirit. Already, her compassion had earned the same reverence the queen had known before her tragic death. To Mykkael, she was an icon who demanded sharp respect. He had needed his crack division and fully half of his reserves to restrain the cheering commons when the handsome Prince of Devall had arrived with his train to formalize his suit for her marriage. Everyone had noted the princess’s flushed face. The trill of silver harness bells had shimmered on the air, as, radiant with joy, she had spurred her mount to welcome the match that young love and state auspices had favoured. The branding memory lingered, of the kiss exchanged upon the public thoroughfare. Her Grace’s greeting had burst all restraint—an explosive storm of passion more likely to invite a lusty midnight foray to her bedchamber.

      ‘Pretty foolish, if her Grace has stirred up the palace because she slipped off to the garden for a tryst.’ Mykkael’s amused chuckle masked the chilly ring of steel as he rammed his battered longsword into the sheath at his shoulder. ‘Jedrey’s better born, has the manners and diplomacy for that sort of social embarrassment.’

      ‘Well, nicety doesn’t man the walls, below the Highgate. If there’s been foul play, the merchants are likely to work themselves into a lather, bemoaning the loss of Devall’s ships. Suppose we faced a war?’ Flippant though he was, to broach that jibing comment, Vensic jumped to clear the doorway. ‘If the old king fancies he sees armies at the gates, he’ll want your field experience ahead of any uptown bravo’s breeding.’

      Mykkael scotched the ribbing with his usual spiked glance, and prowled in hitched strides towards the stairwell.

      ‘You won’t have to go afoot,’ Vensic added, dismayed as he noted the exhaustion betrayed by his captain’s dragging limp. ‘The herald’s overbearing and snide with impatience, but his escort has a saddled mount waiting.’

      ‘Well, the walk’s the lesser evil,’ Mykkael admitted, bald-faced. ‘Bloody war’s my proper venue. Crown orders aside, the drunks won’t stay their knives. How in the reaper’s hells can I keep the peace among the riff-raff if I’m called on to the proverbial royal carpet to act as a frisky maiden’s chaperone?’

      The wry conclusion stayed unvoiced. Taskin, Commander of the Palace Guard, was no more likely to appreciate a garrison man with desert-bred colouring treading on his turf above the Highgate.

      Commander Taskin, at that moment, bent his ice-pale gaze upon the tearful maid who had last seen Princess Anja in her chambers.

      ‘What more is left to say, my lord,’ she despaired, her pink hands clasped and shaking. ‘I’ve told you all I know.’

      Tall, gaunt, erect as tempered steel, with a distinguished face and frosty hair, Taskin radiated competence. His silences could probe with unsubtle, scorching force. While the distraught maid stammered and wept, he stepped across the carpet and bent his dissecting regard over the clutter on Anja’s dressing table.

      The gold-rimmed hand mirror, the brushes and combs and tinted bottles of scent glinted under the flutter of the candles. No rice powder had been spilled. The waxed parquet floor showed no scuffs or other evidence of struggle.

      In a cultured, velvet baritone that inspired chills of dread, Commander Taskin prompted, ‘The princess was wearing bracelets adorned with golden bells. Her slippers, you say, had silver heels and toe caps. No rare jewels, none of the crown heirlooms, but she would have made noise at every movement. What else? Could she have masked a change of clothing under her court dress?’

      The nervous maid curtseyed, though the commander’s back was turned. ‘Her Grace’s gown had bare shoulders and laces down the front. Nothing underneath, but her thinnest silk camisole. Canna brought her smallclothes from the cedar closet. She stayed to empty the bath and gather towels while I helped her Grace with her wardrobe.’

      Taskin added nothing, hands clasped behind his waist.

      The maid swallowed and dabbed at streaming eyes. ‘Her Grace sent me out to fetch the turquoise ribbons and a pin she said had been her lady mother’s. By the time I came back, she had already left. Gone to the banquet, so it seemed, since nobody heard even a whisper of disturbance. If she’s never been so thoughtless, well, new love would make her giddy. Her intended has the looks to scatter reason.’

      The maid’s distress was genuine. Anja loved a joke, but her style would not stoop to indiscretions that embarrassed her blameless servants.

      Taskin prowled the chamber, his booted step silent as a wraith’s. An uneasy pall of silence gripped the cream and copper opulence of the princess’s private apartment. Such stillness by itself framed a stark contradiction to her tireless spirit and exuberance.

      Anja’s zest for life met the eye at every turn. The plush, tasselled chairs were left in compulsive disarray by her penchant for casual company. Gilt and marble tabletops held a riot of spring flowers, with long-stemmed hothouse lilies forced to share their porcelain vases with the weeds and wild brambles plucked from the alpine meadows. On the divan, a book of poetry had a torn string riding glove marking its vellum pages. Abandoned in the window nook, a seashell scavenged from the beaches of Devall overflowed with a jumble of pearl earrings and bangle bracelets. The playful force of Anja’s generosity clashed with the constraints of royal station: the seneschal’s latest scolding had been blatantly ignored. The massive chased tea service kept to honour state ambassadors had been shanghaied again, to cache the salvaged buttons for the rag man.

      Even Taskin’s impassive manner showed concern as he subjected the princess’s intimate belongings to a second, devouring scrutiny.

      ‘My Lord Commander,’ the maid appealed, ‘if Princess Anja planned an escapade, I never heard a whisper. Her maid of honour, Shai, was the one who shared her confidence the few times she chose to flaunt propriety.’

      ‘But the Lady Shai knows nothing. I’ve already asked,’ a voice interjected from the hallway.

      Taskin spun. His glance flicked past the startled maid, while the elite pair of guards flanking the entry bowed to acknowledge Crown Prince Kailen.

      His Highness lounged in stylish elegance against the door jamb, still clad in satin sleeves and the glitter of his ruby velvet doublet. Fair as his sister, but with his sire’s blue eyes, he regarded the ruffled icon of palace security with consternation. ‘Don’t dare say I didn’t warn you, come the morning. Anja’s surely playing pranks. She’s probably laughing herself silly, this minute, enjoying all the fuss. Ignore her. Go to bed. She’ll show up that much sooner, apology in hand. Did you really think she’d wed even Devall’s heir apparent without any test of his affection?’

      ‘That would be her Grace’s touch, sure enough,’ a guardsman ventured. ‘Subtlety’s not her measure.’

      And the smiles came and went, for the uproar that had followed when her Grace had exposed the pompous delegate from Gance as a hypocrite. On the night he fled the realm, flushed and fuming in disgrace, she had asked the СКАЧАТЬ