The Ships of Merior. Janny Wurts

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СКАЧАТЬ young king paled in dismay. ‘Ath’s mercy! We reached you too late to help.’

      Asandir glanced up, eyes bright. ‘Certainly not.’ He inclined his head toward the door. Muffled voices issued from the other side, one male and laboured, another one female, bewailing misfortune in lisping sympathy.

      Eldir’s interest quickened. Even in extremis, it appeared the infamous Mad Prophet had pursued his ill-starred assignation. Then, practical enough to restrain his wild thoughts, Havish’s sovereign sighed in disappointment. ‘You’ve healed him already, I see.’

      The sorcerer shook his head. Dire as oncoming storm, he spun in the corridor, tripped the latch without noise and barged into Dakar’s bedchamber.

      The panel opened to reveal a pleasant, sunwashed alcove, cushioned chairs carved with grape clusters, and a feather mattress piled with quilts. The casement admitted a flood of ocean air lightly tainted by the tar the chandlers sold to black rigging. Swathed like a sausage in eiderdown, a chubby man lay with a face wan as bread dough and a beard like the curled fringe on a water-spaniel. Caught leaning over to kiss him, the pretty blonde kitchen maid with the knife-wielding husband murmured into his ear, ‘I will grieve for you and pray to Ath to preserve your undying memory.’

      ‘Which won’t be the least bit necessary!’ Asandir cracked from his planted stance by the doorway.

      At his shoulder, Eldir started.

      The maid snapped erect with a squeal and the quilts jerked, the victim beneath galvanized to a fish-flop start of surprise. A fondling hand recoiled from under a froth of lace petticoats as Dakar swivelled cinnamon eyes, widened now to rolling rings of white.

      The tableau endured a frozen moment. Already pale, the sorcerer’s wounded apprentice gasped a bitten-off curse, then to outward appearance fell comatose.

      ‘Out!’ Asandir jerked his chin toward the girl, who cast aside dignity, gathered her skirts above her knees and fled trailing unlaced furbelows.

      As her footsteps dwindled down the corridor, the sorcerer kicked the door closed. A paralysed stillness descended, against which the rumble of ale tuns over cobbles seemed to thunder off the courtyard walls outside. Beyond the opened shutter, the call of the changing watch drifted off the wall walks, mingled with the bellow of the baker’s oaths as he collared a laggard scullion. The yap of gambolling puppies, the grind of wagons across Ostermere market and the screeling cries of scavenging gulls seemed unreal, even dreamlike, before the stark tension in the room.

      Asandir first addressed the king, who waited, frowning thoughtfully. ‘Although I ask that the secrets of mages be kept from common knowledge in your court, I would have you understand just how far my apprentice has misled you.’ He stepped to Dakar’s bedside and with no shred of solicitude, ripped away quilting and sheets.

      Dakar bit his lip, poker stiff, while his master yanked off the sodden dressing that swaddled the side the baking girl’s husband had punctured.

      The linen came free, gory as any bandage might be if pulled untimely from a mortal wound. Except the flesh beneath was unmarked.

      King Eldir gaped in surprise.

      Dakar,’ Asandir informed, ‘is this day five hundred and eighty-seven years old. He has longevity training. As you see, the suffering of wounds and illness is entirely within his powers to mend.’

      ‘He was in no danger,’ Eldir stated in rising, incredulous fury. He folded his arms, head tipped sidewards, while skin smudged with the first shaved trace of a beard deepened to a violent, fresh flush. That moment, he needed no crown to lend him majesty. ‘For whim, the realm’s champion was sent out and told to run my fastest mare to death to fetch your master?’

      Naked and pink and far too corpulent to cower into a feather mattress, Dakar shoved stubby hands in the hair at his temples. He licked dry lips, flinched from Asandir and squirmed. ‘I’m sorry.’ His shrug was less charming than desperate.

      ‘Were you my subject, I’d have your life.’ Eldir flicked a glance at the sorcerer, whose eyes were like butcher’s steel fresh from the whetstone. ‘Since you’re not my feal man, regretfully, I can’t offer that kindness.’

      Sweat rolled through Dakar’s fingers and snaked across his plump wrists. His breathing came now in jerks, while lard at his knees jumped and quivered.

      Eldir inclined his head toward Asandir. ‘Perhaps I should wait for you without?’ Mindful of his dignity, he side-stepped toward the door.

      Alone and defenceless before his master, Dakar covered his face. Through his palms, he said, ‘Ath! If it’s to be tracing mazes through sand grains again, for mercy, get on with your traps and be done with me.’

      That wasn’t what I had in mind.’ Asandir advanced to the bedside. He said something almost too soft to hear, cut by a wild, ragged cry from Dakar that trailed off to snivelling, then silence.

      Eldir rushed his step to shut the door. But the panel was caught short before it slammed, and Asandir stepped through. He set the latch with steady fingers, turned around to regard the King of Havish, and said succinctly, ‘Nightmares. They should occupy the Mad Prophet at least until sundown. He’ll emerge hungry, and I sadly fear, not in the least bit chastened.’ Between one breath and the next, the sorcerer recovered his humour. ‘Do I owe you for more than your guardsmen’s allotment of gold buttons?’

      ‘Not me.’ Eldir sighed, strain and uncertainty returned to pull at the corners of his mouth. ‘The oldest son of the town seneschal staked his mother’s jewellery on bad cards, and I’m not sure exactly who started the dare. But the cook’s fattened hog escaped its pen. The creature wound up in a warehouse and spoiled the raw wool consigned for the dyers at Narms. Truth to tell, the guild master’s council of Ostermere is howling for Dakar’s blood. My guard captain held orders to clap him in chains when the fight broke out in the kitchen.’

      ‘I leave my apprentice to protect you for one day and find you exhausted by a hard lesson in diplomacy.’ Asandir’s grin flashed like a burst of sudden sunlight. He laid a steering hand on the royal shoulder and started off down the corridor. ‘From this moment, consider my apprentice removed from the realm’s concerns. Your steward Machiel should be able to guard your safety well enough, since you’ve managed to hold Havish secure through Dakar’s irresponsible worst. I’ve decided exactly what I shall do with our errant prophet and I doubt he takes it well.’

      ‘You’d punish him further?’ The habits of an unassuming boyhood still with him, Eldir paused by the window-seat to gather his discarded state finery. ‘What could be worse than harrowing the man with uninterrupted bad dreams?’

      ‘Very little.’ Asandir’s eyes gleamed with sharp irony. ‘When Dakar awakens, you will send him from court on a travelling allowance I’ll leave for his reassignment. Tell him his task is to keep Prince Arithon of Rathain from getting murdered by Etarra’s new division of field troops.’

      Eldir stopped cold in the corridor. After five years, accounts were still repeated of the bloody war that had slaughtered two thirds of Etarra’s garrison and left the northern clansmen feal to Arithon nearly decimated in the cause of defending his life. Motivated by a feud between half-brothers embroiled in bitter enmity; lent deadly stakes by the same powers of sorcery that had once defeated the Mistwraith; and fanned hotter by age-old friction still standing elsewhere between clanborn and townsman, the conflict had since brought the unified opposition of every merchant СКАЧАТЬ