Fugitive Prince: First Book of The Alliance of Light. Janny Wurts

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СКАЧАТЬ hundred thousand coin weight in exchange for the time to arrange for thirty thousand deaths.” Lysaer never moved, his seamless detachment enough to raise frost on hot iron. “What price, for the blood that was spilled in Dier Kenton Vale?”

      The ambassador sidestepped that baiting insinuation. “The treasure is guarded aboard my state galley, counted and bound under seal by his lordship, the Seneschal of Havish. Upon my receipt of signed documents of discharge, the gold can be consigned to the care of Avenor’s state council.”

      No need to prolong the particulars; a writ of acceptance could be drawn up and sent to the harbor by courier. Avenor’s strained resource could scarcely spurn funds, however embarrassing their origin. Havish’s envoy straightened, in haste to exchange due courtesy and depart. He had no authority to stay on as witness to the afternoon’s clandestine council.

      Yet before he could draw the audience to an end, the royal steward flung wide the door. A tightly bunched cadre of trade ministers filed in, their clothes trimmed in furs and jewelled braids. Costly, dyed plumes cascaded from their hat brims; their hands flashed, expressive with rings.

      The prince had staged his private meeting to converge with the ambassador’s presence. Eldir’s delegate settled back on his seat, out-maneuvered by the forms of diplomacy. While the trade worthies vied like rustling peacocks for the places close to the dais, he waited in guarded resignation for the play of Lysaer’s strategy.

      This would be a volatile, partisan gathering to judge by the seals of high office displayed by the men who attended. Trade background let the ambassador identify at least a dozen of Tysan’s ruling mayors, united in their distrust of Arithon. Other delegates with complaints against the Shadow Master had been summoned from extreme long distance, as shown by the black-and-gold lion of Jaelot emblazoned on a dignitary’s tabard.

      Another who wore plain broadcloth and boots seemed displaced, all fidgety with nerves as he moved through the trappings of wealth and the suave, mannered men of high power. The table filled, then the seats arranged by the side walls. The liverish governor of the Western League of Headhunters hunched uncommunicative beside two stolid commanders at arms with the broad, southcoast vowels of Shand. These would have suffered direct losses on the field, or borne firsthand witness to the devastating sorceries wrought from illusion and shadow.

      Rathain’s foremost headhunter, Skannt, sauntered in with his gleaming collection of knives. He chose to stay standing, arms folded, in the cranny by the gallery landing. At his shoulder, companionable and stout chested, Lord Commander Harradene chuckled over some pleasantry. To him fell the captaincy of the disheartened remnants of Etarra’s decimated field troops. The chair left vacant by Lord Diegan’s death stayed unclaimed to Lysaer’s right hand. As yet no replacement had been named to command Avenor’s elite garrison. Nearest to the prince, faced bristling across four feet of oak table, a muscled, tight-lipped mercenary traded glares with Mearn s’Brydion, youngest brother of a clanborn duke from the eastshore kingdom of Melhalla. The scruffy little cleric in scholar’s robes placed between them stared through the window, oblivious to the smoldering hatreds entrenched through five centuries of bloodshed.

      The men Lysaer s’Ilessid had drawn to his cause were of disparate backgrounds and loyalties, too fresh in alliance to mingle in comfort, and too volatile a mix to leave standing too long without war to harness their interests. They crowded the small chamber like rival wolves, the martial devices of the field captains’ surcoats bold as game pieces beside the padded silk pourpoints of city ministers.

      Lysaer called the meeting to order. He might wear no coronet of royal office, yet the absent trappings of rank stole no force at all from his majesty. His opening phrase slashed the crosscurrents of ambition and froze them forcefully silent. “We are gathered this hour to resolve my claim to the powers of crown rule, offered to me by legitimate blood descent, and sealed into edict by Tysan’s independent city councils.” His hand, bare of rings, moved, reached, and lifted a heavy document weighted with state seals and ribbons.

      All eyes in the room swung and trained on the parchment. Against the expectant, stalled quiet, something creaked in the gallery, behind and above the seated audience.

      A snap of air flicked across a taut bowstring, then the whine of an arrow, descending.

      Its humming flight scored through Captain Skannt’s scream of warning, and above these, the shout of the archer, in sheared, clanborn accents, “Such claim is unlawful!”

      A sharp crack of impact; the four-bladed point impaled the parchment and skewered it to the table. The chink of shattered wax became lost in the noise as the dignitaries chorused in panic, “Barbarian! Assassin!”

      Pandemonium rocked through the room. Scribes bolted for cover. Overdressed trade magnates and timid mayors ducked, trembling and frightened to paralysis. Entangled and cursing, war-hardened commanders surged erect and charged, bowling over spilled hats and cowering figures. They heaved empty benches before them as shields and pounded for the stair to the gallery.

      “I want him alive!” Lysaer cried through the clamor. Uncowed and looking upward, he wrested the arrow from the tabletop. The lacquered red shaft gleamed like a line of new blood against his stainless white tabard. The hen fletching also was scarlet, the cock feather alone left the muted, barred browns of a raptor’s primary.

      “That’s a clan signal arrow. Its colors are symbolic, a formal declaration of protest.” The speaker was Skannt, the headhunter from Etarra, his lidded eyes bright in his weasel-thin face, and his interest dispassionate as ice water. “In my opinion, the archer struck what he aimed at.”

      Lysaer fingered the mangled parchment, slit through its ribbons and the artful, inked lines of state language. He said nothing to Skannt’s observation. Motionless before his rumpled courtiers who crowded beneath the shelter of tables and chairs, he awaited the outcome of the fracas in the gallery. Five heavyset war captains rushed the archer, who stood, his weapon still strung. He wore nondescript leathers, a belt with no scabbard, and soft-soled deerhide shoes. In fact, he was unarmed beyond the recurve, which was useless. He carried no second arrow in reserve. As his attackers closed in to take him, he fought.

      He was clanborn, and insolent, and knew those combatants who brandished knives bore small scruple against drawing blood to subdue him.

      Fast as he was, and clever when cornered, sheer numbers at length prevailed. A vindictive, brief struggle saw him crushed flat and pinioned.

      “Bring him down,” Lysaer said, the incriminating arrow fisted between his stilled hands.

      Scuffed, bleeding, his sturdy leathers dragged awry, the clansman was bundled down the stairs. He was of middle years, whipcord fit, and athletic enough not to miss his footing. Space cleared for the men who frog-marched him up to the dais. He stayed nonplussed. Through swelling and bruises, and the twist of fallen hair ripped loose from his braid, his forthright gaze fixed on the prince. He seemed careless, unimpressed. Before that overwhelming, sovereign presence, his indifference felt like contempt.

      Through the interval while rumpled dignitaries unbent from their panic, to primp their bent hats and mussed cuffs and jewelled collars, his captors lashed his wrists with a leather cincture borrowed from somebody’s surcoat. The clansman never blinked. He behaved as though the indignity of bonds was too slight to merit his attention.

      “Slinking barbarian,” a man muttered from one side.

      Another snapped a snide comment concerning the habits of clan women in rut.

      No reaction; the offender held quiet, his breath fast but even. His patience was granite. The royalty he had affronted was forced to be first to respond.

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