Grand Conspiracy: Second Book of The Alliance of Light. Janny Wurts

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ oblivion of death, she crossed the cramped cottage and stooped to retrieve her dropped flint and striker from the hearthstone. ‘At least, I should think dirt floors and rabbit stew could be found in more interesting company than mine.’

      ‘You know the Shadow Master’s whereabouts.’ Lirenda tried a step, groped at the edge of the trestle, and stopped to the chink of bumped flasks. Her restraint spoke volumes, since her highbrow nature invariably met baiting with a show of superior authority.

      Elaira snapped the striker. Against felted darkness, a spat tangle of sparks; their reflections touched her eyes, the unyielding, flat tone of wet slate in that moment when illicit love and compassion collided with inflexible duty. She must answer when questioned. Her initiate’s vow demanded obedience; nor could she feign ignorance. The uncanny cord of awareness she shared with Rathain’s prince had not faded one whit through seven long years of separation.

      She wrung what stabbing satisfaction she could from the level force of her honesty. ‘My reply won’t be news.’ Her shrug was blurred by the tenuous flicker as the new flame died on the wick. ‘Your scryers could have spoken without the rank bother of spending a cold night under thatch that’s infested with silverfish.’

      Lirenda returned an expectant silence.

      Compelled to elaborate, Elaira gave the striker another fierce effort. ‘What would any thief do with jacked brigs, except sail them? His Grace of Rathain’s been at sea for three months.’

      The tallow dip caught. Marigold light flared over crude edges of wood, then the chipped rims of her hard-used Araethurian crockery, and lastly, in a wavering, unkind disclosure, the tatty, patched quilts and old fleeces tumbled over her cot in the corner. Elaira refused the embarrassment of an apology. Life here on the moor gave her all that she needed. Her roof did not leak, a comfort never to be taken for granted after her impoverished childhood. This tiny cottage had been her home since she had forsaken Arithon’s company at Merior. Its unvarnished planks gleamed oiled yellow, walls and pegged furnishings left unadorned in their natural dappling of knots. The steam-bent wooden canisters, the iron pot, the stone knives, and the brazier which served her herbalist’s vocation scattered their familiar melange across the trestle.

      Yet, as if such cozy, workaday clutter had subtly slipped into chaos, the haven Elaira had claimed for herself no longer seemed safe or friendly.

      An enchantress who held her in utmost contempt commandeered the stool which still wore the nicks of its origin in a cobbler’s shop. All citybred elegance, Lirenda perched like a displeased cat, a slipped coil of hair unreeled down the white-marble skin of her temple. But for the marred elegance of travel-creased skirts, her composure was flawless, each limb arranged with the serenity of a sculptor’s sketch for a masterpiece.

      Which complacency struck a false chord in a fireless cottage with the change in the season howling through the chinks; Elaira suppressed a raking, fresh pang of unease. Lirenda had always deplored life’s rough edges. For a sleek, cultured woman who demanded her bathwater scalding and her personal servants brisk and silent, a cottage in these moorlands on the biting edge of autumn posed an inconvenience akin to punishment. Without Morriel Prime’s direct order, Lirenda would have foisted this sorry errand on one of her least-favored underlings. The fact that her misery kept no company bespoke an ominous secrecy.

      Elaira shed the tallow dip on the table before her trembling drew unwanted notice. Rather than grapple with her building dread, she crouched and resumed the easier task of coaxing wet fuel to take fire. ‘You can’t really believe I could hold sway over Prince Arithon’s movements.’

      Lirenda insisted, ‘You have a part to play, even so.’

      Elaira recoiled. Her pile of birch shavings scattered as if by an arrow’s aimed force, and the spark snuffed, spindled into a sullen ribbon of smoke. Jaw hard, her friable emotions buttressed behind a façade as determined as stormed granite, Elaira recouped her scattered kindling. She ground the flint against her worn lump of ore, distressed enough to start a conflagration on the sheer impetus of resentment.

      Her Koriani oath constrained her, until the achievement of each inhaled breath taxed her separately to complete. The instant the blaze caught under her hands, she stood erect and faced her tormentor. ‘Say what you mean.’

      Lirenda fussed with the muddied silk draped across her braced calf. ‘Why protect Rathain’s prince? He stands accused of monstrous crimes. Avenor has gathered hard evidence. Lysaer’s magistrates claim he used black arts and blood sorcery to fracture the cliff face above Dier Kenton Vale. You can’t pretend not to know Lysaer’s great war host was milled down and slaughtered wholesale under a shale slide.’

      ‘That’s six-year-old news. We’re remote here, not fossilized.’ Elaira cast the striker into the wood scuttle, silted under the flaked ash of the charcoal she hoarded to heat her brazier. ‘Does the Koriani Senior Circle believe that’s what happened? That Arithon engaged wrongful conjury?’

      ‘The man’s capable, certainly.’ Silk rustled, an offended whisper against the diminished clang of abused tinware. Lirenda looked up at last, her eyes like poured oil in the primitive play of the firelight. ‘His malice is documented. None can deny the massacre wrought by his hand. But you know him best. What defense could you possibly offer to exonerate him from those acts?’

      ‘I would ask him,’ Elaira said. To deflect her overwhelming desire to strike out, to smash through the porcelain-doll certainty stamped on Lirenda’s features, she folded her forearms under the scruffy fleece lining her jacket. ‘Whatever his Grace of Rathain did, then or now, he will have his own reason. I have never seen him lie for convenience. Nor have I known him to break from the sound tenets of his character.’

      ‘Well then, your conviction won’t prove any hindrance, at the least.’ Satisfaction smoothed Lirenda’s dulcet tones. ‘The task your Prime asks should reward such sterling faith. Rathain’s prince need do nothing else but confirm your belief in his incorruptible s’Ffalenn compassion.’

      ‘What are you saying?’ Blind panic flared into temper before Elaira could think. ‘Have done with coy riddles. I won’t stand being toyed with.’

      ‘Very well.’ Lirenda peeled off her gloves, her enameled veneer of deportment at odds with the rough-cut timbers around her. ‘The Koriani Prime commands your assistance to create a living double who can pass in close company for Arithon of Rathain.’

      ‘Ath’s infinite mercy!’ Horror leached the color that cold had burnished into Elaira’s cheeks. Intuitively leaping ahead, she cried, ‘You can’t be thinking of young Fionn Areth as the unwitting subject of a shapechange!’

      The ruthless affirmation Lirenda returned shocked beyond reach of all tact.

      ‘What’s happened to pity? Has our Matriarch gone mad? That’s a monstrous act for an order whose founders aspired to healing and mercy!’ Elaira interlocked whitened fingers. Hackled to a suicidal, insubordinate rage, she shivered, well aware her explosion must not venture beyond the briefest word of hot protest. ‘What need on Ath’s earth could be dire enough to cast a child into the breach?’ Koriani interests, set against the Alliance’s stew of power and trade intrigues, made deadly ground for a game piece. ‘Save us all; Fionn’s naught but a herder’s son with a blameless life left ahead of him.’

      ‘You know that’s not entirely true.’ The superior tilt of Lirenda’s chin lent her beauty the chill of an ice sculpture. ‘Our scryers know the boy’s birth prophecy. Why shouldn’t the destiny groomed by our order be the one to lead him from obscurity?’

      ‘That’s СКАЧАТЬ