Warhost of Vastmark. Janny Wurts

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СКАЧАТЬ cold at each knuckle. ‘I know this piece well. It was granted to me during a state visit by the Mayor of Falgaire, then stolen in a raid by barbarians allied with the Shadow Master. You would do well to take heed. The man is a threat to every city in Athera, your own children even now at his mercy. You knew him well enough to receive his favour. Perhaps you also heard the name of the port that will come to shelter him next. Were this campaign in sole charge of Duke Bransian of Alestron, or my Commander-at-Arms, Lord Diegan, either one would use means to force the information from you. I shall give no such orders. Your collusion is a tragedy and I pity your twins. But I shall not try abuse to gain my ends. Your Master of Shadow held no such scruple with the man he took prisoner, who claims to have fired his shipyard.’

      ‘Arithon kept no one captive,’ Jinesse insisted.

      Lysaer did not miss how her gaze stayed averted from the bowl. That’s a falsehood most easily disproved. The wretch we saved off the Shearfast was left bound there to burn. Once we got him cleaned up, he was recognized as a former captain of Duke Bransian’s, who had reason to bear malice toward your Master.’

      ‘Why not go back and question him?’ Jinesse said, a struck spark of iron in her tone.

      Lysaer met her with patience. ‘When the victim regained his wits, he talked well enough. He said he had torched the s’Ffalenn ship works, and for that, suffered rough interrogation. The scars on his body attest his honesty.’

      ‘Arithon never beat him,’ Jinesse said.

      ‘No.’ Lysaer regarded her in level, brutal truth. ‘Alestron’s officers did that for what looks like mishandled justice. What Captain Tharrick received from your Shadow Master were burns, inflicted with a knife blade heated red-hot, then assault with a bludgeon that left knots in his sides from broken ribs. Not pretty,’ he finished. ‘The additional blistering he suffered from the flames before he was rescued from Shearfast cause him pain aboard an anchored galley. My healer says he needs stillness and rest. Therefore, I came to beg your charity. Let Tharrick come to your cottage to recover from his injuries. My servant will be sent to administer remedies as needed. After seeing this man’s condition first-hand, you may reconsider your opinion on the criminal your silence comes to shelter.’

      Too upright to feign horror, since every mark on Tharrick’s body was already infinitely well known to her, Jinesse sat braced in her chair. The depths of her feelings stayed masked behind acid and painful politeness. ‘Bring your injured man here. I refuse none in need. But lest you hope falsely, my kindness to an outsider will lend no more credence to your plotting.’

      ‘Very well.’ Lysaer stood in a frosty sparkle of disturbed gemstones. ‘I see I’ve upset you. That was necessary. My concern for the dangers you refuse to acknowledge is no light matter for dismissal. Two of my guards will stand watch at your door. Having suffered the tragic consequences of s’Ffalenn cunning all my life, I realize the allure he can foster. Knowing, I stake no less than my personal assurance of your safety.’

      ‘I wish no protection,’ Jinesse said, obstinate.

      Lysaer inclined his head in regal sympathy. ‘I can hope you’ll reconsider, if only to help your lost children. Have no fear. The ones in the village who disagree with your stand shall not be permitted to badger you. Should you wish to confide in me, you have only to send one of the men-at-arms. Rest assured, mistress, I will come.’

      On the instant the Prince of the West had departed, Jinesse took the offending bowl of Falgaire crystal and shut it away in a clothes trunk. She banged the catch down and sat on the lid, then buried her face in her shaking hands and wept in painful relief.

      Tharrick had survived the wreck of Shearfast.

      By a stunning twist of fate, a misapprehension, and the sort of tangled handling Arithon left like moiled waters in his wake, Lysaer s’Ilessid meant to send him here, ostensibly to undermine her prior loyalties.

      The sob in her throat twisted to a stifled gasp of irony. In fact, Tharrick under her roof would but tighten the villagers’ resistance. They might have betrayed the exiled captain’s collaboration with Arithon while he was aboard Lysaer’s galley, but under her roof, he became as one of their own. Whatever ill intent they came to believe of the Shadow Master, Tharrick’s interests would suffer no immediate betrayal.

      The procession to deliver the invalid to her cottage arrived in the early afternoon. Jinesse had the bed in her back room made up in clean linens to receive him. A brisk hour in the kitchen over pans of hot water and recipes for herbal poultices convinced the prince’s physician that she was well versed in the treatment of burns. An indolent man and a scholar by nature, he was content to leave the convalescent in her care. Her dislike of outsiders left him distinctly unwelcome. He would check in, he assured, every few days to see that Tharrick’s weals closed cleanly.

      The litter bearers left, cracking crude jokes and laughing through the winter twilight that mantled pearly mist over the beachhead of Merior. As Jinesse closed the shutters against the sea damp and set about the chore of lighting candles, Tharrick stirred from the heavy sleep of drugged possets. He opened his eyes to the familiar sight of a pale-haired wraith of a woman with a profile like clear wax, underlit by the flutter of a tallow dip.

      She saw him come aware. A still, pretty smile raised the corners of her mouth as she reached out to smooth the singed ends of his hair over his bandaged forehead. ‘Don’t speak.’ Her look warned him silent as she whispered, ‘Lysaer’s men-at-arms wait without.’

      Tharrick closed his eyes, unsure how he had come to be returned to the widow’s care, but grateful for the comfort of her presence. That her cottage was kept under watch was not hard to believe. Lysaer and his officers had been demanding in their efforts at interrogation. Passion and urgency had driven them to dig for any clue to Arithon’s intentions and location. Tharrick had withstood their pity and their blandishments. He had sweated in his sheets through their threats, and repeated himself unto tedium. His ignorance was no lie. Only the Shearfast’s dead captain had known their intended port of call.

      Now, restored to friendly surroundings and the outward illusion of safety, necessity came hard to maintain the act that he and the widow were strangers.

      Late in the night, when the thud of the breakers thrashed the spit at flood tide, Jinesse came to his darkened bedside. She brought water as she had when he was Arithon’s charge, and tucked in the bedding tossed awry in his suffering.

      ‘Do you believe the Prince of the West?’ she demanded point-blank at a whisper. Fresh in her mind lay the morning’s trip to the market, where a neighbour had refused to sell her eggs. Another wife pointed and insisted that she was a creature enspelled, drawn into wickedness to abet the Master of Shadow.

      Tharrick studied the edge of her profile, printed in moonlight against the outlines of gauzy, high-flying clouds. ‘That Prince Arithon is evil? Or that he’s guilty of criminal acts in the north?’

      The crash of the surf masked their voices. Jinesse bent her neck, her features blocked in sudden dimness. ‘You feel there’s distinction?’

      Tharrick stirred from discomfort that had little to do with blistered skin. ‘The accusations fit too well to deny. Don’t forget, I saw what he caused at Alestron.’

      ‘You’ll betray him,’ Jinesse said.

      ‘I ought to.’ Tharrick shoved aside the corner of the coverlet and reached out a wrapped hand to cup her knee. ‘I won’t.’ Aware of her porcelain fairness turned toward him, he swallowed. ‘Corrupt, evil, sorcerer СКАЧАТЬ