To Ride Hell’s Chasm. Janny Wurts

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СКАЧАТЬ Isendon, despite the clack of public opinion; Mykkael chose honesty. ‘No need to investigate. I witnessed the source of the rumour myself in the course of a routine patrol.’ At the king’s insistence, he elaborated. ‘One of the flower girls is in love with the driver of a slop cart. She went to have her fortune told, hoping for a forecast, or a simple to bind her affection. The mad seer who lives in the alley by the Falls Gate mutters nonsense when she’s drunk. Her cant tonight said the princess was missing, but then, her talk is often inflammatory. Few people take her seriously’

      Taskin stirred sharply, and received the king’s nod of leave. ‘You think her words carry weight?’

      ‘Sometimes her malice takes a purposeful bent.’ Mykkael hesitated, misliking the prompt of his instinct. Yet Taskin’s steely competence warned against trying to shade his explanation with avoidance. ‘I’ve seen her prick holes in folks’ overblown ambitions, or cause ill-suited lovers to quarrel. Occasionally, she’ll expose the shady dealings of a craftsman. Mostly, her ranting is groundless rubbish. But one watches the flotsam cast up by the tide.’

      ‘You will question this woman,’ commanded the king.

      Mykkael raised his eyebrows, moved to tacit chagrin. ‘Majesty I’ll try. Until morning, the old dame will be senseless on gin. Cold sober, she can’t remember the names of her family. I’ll find the slop taker’s sweetheart, if I can, and see whether she recalls something useful.’

      The king regarded him, probing for insolence, perhaps. Mykkael thought as much, until some quality to the trembling, lifted chin made him revise that presumption. Those fogged eyes were measuring him with shrewd intellect. Mykkael keenly sensed the authority in that regard, and more keenly still, that of Devall’s heir apparent, edged and growing jagged with concern.

      Then Isendon mustered his meagre strength and spoke. ‘Captain, you are the arm of crown law below the Highgate. My daughter has vanished. By my orders, you will do all in your power. Find her. Secure her safety.’

      Mykkael bowed, arms crossed at his chest in the eastern style, that gesture of respect an intuitive statement more binding than any verbal promise. He straightened, bristled by a sudden movement at his shoulder.

      The Commander of the Guard now flanked his stance at close quarters, no doubt mistaking such silence, perhaps even questioning his professional sincerity. Taskin’s whisper was direct. ‘You will answer to me, on your findings.’

      The garrison captain inclined his head, not smiling. He waited until the King of Sessalie granted leave with the gesture of a skeletal hand. The dismissal closed the audience. Yet the gaze of the lowcountry prince did not shift, or soften from burning intensity.

      Mykkael had time to notice that the man’s hands were no longer clasped, but tucked out of sight beneath the tabletop. No chance was given to pursue deeper insight, or gauge the Prince of Devall’s altered mood.

      Taskin demanded his attention forthwith. ‘We need to talk, Captain.’

      Mykkael paid his respects to crowned royalty. As he turned from the dais, his words came fast and low, and without thought. ‘Don’t leave him alone.’

      The commander stiffened. Only Mykkael stood near enough to catch that slight recoil. Taskin’s hooded eyes glinted, hard as polished steel rivets. Clearly, he required no foreigner’s advice. ‘We have to talk,’ he repeated, never asking which of the two royals had prompted the spontaneous warning.

      That moment, the carved doors of the chamber burst open. A flurry among the guards bespoke someone’s imperious entry. Then a female voice cut like edged glass through the upset. ‘Her Grace isn’t hiding. Not in any bolt hole she used as a child, I already checked. Taskin! You can call your oafish officers to heel. They won’t find anything useful tossing through everyone’s closets.’

      Belatedly Collain Herald announced, ‘Court worthies, your Majesty, the Lady Bertarra.’

      ‘The late queen’s niece,’ Taskin murmured, for the garrison captain’s benefit. ‘A shrew, and intelligent. She’s worth a spy’s insights and ten berserk soldiers, and the guards I have posted at the king’s doorway are loyal as mountain bedrock.’

      Mykkael regarded the paragon in question, a plump, beringed matron who bore down upon the royal dais, her intrepid form hung with jewellery and a self-righteous billow of ribbon and saffron taffeta.

      ‘Best we beat a tactical retreat,’ Taskin suggested.

      Mykkael almost smiled. ‘Her flaying tongue’s a menace?’

      Taskin returned the barest shrug of straitlaced shoulders. ‘I’d have the report on the closets from my duty sergeant without the shrill opinion and abuse.’

      But withdrawal came too late. The matron surged abreast, and rocked to a glittering stop in a scented cloud of mint. Mykkael received the close-up impression of a round suet face, coils of pale hair pinned with jade combs, and blue eyes sharp and bright as the point on an awl.

      No spirit to honey her opinions, Bertarra attacked the obvious target, first. ‘You’re a darkling southerner,’ she accused. ‘Some say you’re good. I don’t believe them. Or what would you be doing here, standing empty-handed?’ Her glance shifted, undaunted, to rake over the immaculate commander of the palace guard. A plump hand arose, tinkling with bracelets, and deployed a jabbing finger. ‘Our Anja’s no hoyden, to be sneaking into wardrobes! Shame on you, for acting as though she’s no more than a girl, and a simpleton!’

      Taskin said, frigid, ‘The closets were searched at her brother the crown prince’s insistence. Do you think of his Highness as a boy, and a simpleton?’

      Bertarra sniffed. ‘Since when has a title been proof of intelligence? Prince Kailen will be drunken and whoring by morning. Simplistic, male adolescent behaviour, should that earn my applause?’ Her ample chin hoisted a haughty notch higher. ‘His Highness is a layabout who thinks with the brainless, stiff prod in his breeches. All men act the same. Here, our princess has been kidnapped by enemies, and not a sword-bearing soldier among you has the guts in his belly to muster!’

      ‘Who’s prodding, now?’ Taskin grasped that perfumed, accusatory finger, turned it with charm, and kissed the palm with flawless diplomacy. ‘Lady Bertarra, if you think you can stand between any grown man and his pleasures, you are quite free to curb the excesses of your kin with no help from my men-at-arms.’ He bowed over her hand, his dry smile lined with teeth. ‘As to enemies of the realm, give me names. I am his Majesty’s sword. In her Grace’s defence, I will kill them.’

      Yet like the horned cow, the woman seized the last word. She slipped from Taskin’s grasp and fixed again on Mykkael, silent and stilled to one side. ‘That’s why you brought this one? To sweep our sewers for two-legged rats? What did you promise for his compensation? A well-set marriage to raise his mean standing?’

      Mykkael’s slow, deep laughter began in his belly, then erupted. ‘Now, that certainly would not be thinking with my man’s parts.’ His dismissive glance encompassed the jewellery, then the cascade of ruffled yellow skirt. ‘A sick shame, don’t you think, to dull a night’s lust stripping off all that useless decoration? And, from some pale Highgate woman, who’s likely to be nothing but fumbling inexperience underneath? That should require an endowment of land as incentive to shoulder the bother.’

      Bertarra’s mouth opened; snapped shut. She quickly rebounded from stonewalled shock. ‘Crude creature. Prove your mettle. Find our Anja and bring her home safely’

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