Grand Conspiracy. Janny Wurts

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      On the sanctuary of the raised dais, only two men held their tempers in check. The Prince of the Light sat with his elegant, ringed fingers lightly curled on the stem of his wineglass. The other hand lay flat on the damask tablecloth, stilled amid a spread of gleaming cutlery and food that had not yet been touched. He wore no diamonds. A doublet roped with gold and white pearls hazed his outline in the glow of soft light, a display of pale magnificence artfully set off by the indigo tapestry hung behind his gilt chair. Beside him, dark panther to his bright grace, the Lord Commander, Sulfin Evend, leaned against a pilaster with his narrow hands hooked through the bronze-studded harness of his baldric.

      Once a captain at arms in the Hanshire guard, he had eyes like poured ice water, a square jaw, thin lips, and a ruthless penchant for analysis that posed even the event of light supper as a mapped-out strategy of war. His whetted vigilance encompassed the room. Through the cadence of the servants who refilled carafes and platters, his slitted gaze noted Gace Steward’s furtive entry with the infallible assessment of a predator.

      He unfolded crossed arms, bent, and spoke a word to the Exalted Prince.

      Lysaer showed no change of expression. Intent and possessed of a monumental calm, he continued to listen as the current complainant shot to his feet, jewels sparking to his purpled state of fury.

      ‘… there’s no recourse and no redress! Every galley sent southward through Havish with slave oarsmen gets struck helpless by Fellowship sorcery!’

      Hats jerked, feathers trembled, and vintage wine sloshed in its calyx of crystal as the uneasy company grumbled and muttered, engrossed in remonstrance for recent infamy. Angry sentences broke through the hubbub like the crack of stone shot through a hailstorm.

      ‘We can’t extradite the prisoners!’ The exasperated consonants of Lord Eilish, Minister of the Royal Treasury, spattered through the grim background of noise. ‘Yes, it’s the same damned numskull policy men bled to throw down with the uprising. Yes, we already tried. There’s no chance for ransom.’

      His woolly head snagged in the turmoil like fleece off a peasant’s card, Avenor’s seneschal stabbed a harried finger and reviewed the core problem yet again to quell a latecomer’s uninformed temerity. ‘Word came through under High King Eldir’s seal just this morning. His Grace has freed the chained slaves from the benches. He won’t negotiate. Every officer and captain caught in breach of charter law will face his tribunal and be indicted under Havish’s Crown Justice.’

      ‘Sail’s no help at all!’ pealed an importunate voice. ‘Every laden vessel to strike out across Mainmere gets waylaid by barbarian pirates!’

      More caustic, the delegate from Erdane slammed down his fist; cutlery and pastries jumped and resettled to a clashing complaint from fine porcelain. ‘Such marauding is done in hulls stolen from us! They’ve been outfitted with weapons and trained crews by hell’s minion! Arithon s’Ffalenn is the plaguing curse that’s gutting the marrow of our trade!’

      Profits were being eaten alive by clan pests crying vengeance for kinfolk, branded and chained at the oar. Sweating in ermine too dense for the heat, the minister of the glass guild at last hurled the gauntlet. ‘What is your vaunted Alliance of Light doing to cap the bleeding breach?’

      ‘What’s being done? The crown seneschal hurled back, the stringy wattles of his neck creased by his massive chains of office. ‘Answer me this! Just why would we have four companies of crack Etarrans maintained at Alliance expense, given arms and standing orders to burn the clan dens out of Caithwood?’

      Against that broil of seething, high temper, Gace Steward wormed onto the dais. Lord Commander Sulfin Evend straightened and met him. Tiercel pale eyes glinted like turned steel as he heard the man’s breathy, fast message.

      ‘News!’ he cracked over the burgeoning noise. ‘A courier’s brought word back from Watercross.’

      The Prince of the Light pushed back his chair. He stood up, his grace like subtle, poured light before his less polished guests and court ministers. At his movement, the baying complainants faltered. Shamed by the calm in his steady blue gaze, they shuffled aside and made way for the courier.

      His travel-stained cloak and mud-splashed boots screamed disaster the instant he entered. His stumbling step raised a jolting clangor of roweled spurs through the delicate chink of state jewelry. The last yammering talk crashed to blighted whispers. The scintillant glint of rubies and cut gemstones froze, nailed still within a tableau of choked quiet. Avenor’s favored dignitaries turned heads and clasped hands, breasts locked in an epidemic seizure of stopped breath.

      The messenger reached the dais stair, caught and braced by Sulfin Evend. Against the gold-trimmed tablecloth, he folded to his knees in a homage that verged upon total collapse. ‘Your Grace, Prince Exalted.’ Every mile he had ridden rasped through his spare words, a cry of appeal for his sovereign’s mercy against the ill news that he carried. He offered up the sealed roll of his dispatch with hands that shook beyond recourse.

      ‘Give the rider my chair,’ Prince Lysaer said, his shaft of exasperation for the lapse of humanity exhibited by his own stunned staff. ‘See him comfortable at once.’

      Caught staring along with everyone else, Gace Steward started, then leaped to obey that ominous, struck tone of command. A brisk snap of fingers summoned a page to bring wine in a crystal goblet.

      ‘Sit,’ Lysaer said. ‘Since I see that the missive you carry is secure, you may count your mission as accomplished. Please accept your due honor and my praise for the hardships imposed on you by the season.’ Nor did he move to accept the dispatch until the man had been settled, and had drained the glass of Carithwyr red to the dregs. The creased parchment changed hands in resignation, not fear. The courier’s gratitude for small kindness served as fuel, cranking the onlookers to an unbearable, fever-pitched tension.

      All eyes tracked the Prince Exalted, poised on the dais with the scroll case in hand but not yet opened. The seal was genuine, its imprint that of the Etarran commander who captained the campaign to rout the clan enclaves in Taerlin. Yet the superscription was not in Lord Harradene’s bold script; his cipher had been imprinted in haste by the secretary posted with the supply train at Watercross.

      The glow on Lysaer’s pearls hazed to sudden motion as he ripped through the ribbons and wax. He read, while his courtiers hung, their anxiety unrequited by his majestic demeanor.

      He reached the end and looked up, locked in private shock. Then, overcome, he closed his eyes, while the last bloom of color receded from his fair skin. ‘We are to mourn,’ he announced in a strangled, gruff utterance. Brute strength sustained him. He regained full voice. His announcement sang out with hammering force and rocked the far corners of the room. ‘Every brave man who stood ground for the Light in Caithwood has been struck senseless by conjury set loose by a Fellowship Sorcerer!’

      An indrawn gasp swept the company.

      ‘Worse,’ Lysaer said, ‘there’s a haunting by trees that has closed the road to armed caravans.’

      An explosion of fiends in Avenor’s main market would have created less havoc; this fresh disaster slammed home even as the first blizzards choked the high passes through Camris.

      ‘Grace save us, now even our land routes are strangled!’ pealed the distressed Minister of the Royal Treasury.

      Before wailing pandemonium could upend the whole room, the СКАЧАТЬ