The RuneLords (2 page)

With much ceremonial nodding, Dreys had agreed, had looked at the book absently. The Chronicles of Owatt, Emir of Tuulistan. A thin volume bound in lambskin. Dreys had pocketed it, thinking to pass it along at dawn.

Dreys hurt so terribly now that he could not shout, could not move. The world spun; he pulled free of the assassin, tried to turn and run. His legs felt as weak as a kitten's. He stumbled. The assassin grabbed Dreys' hair from behind, yanking his chin up to expose his throat.

Damn you, Dreys thought, haven't you killed me enough? In one final desperate act, he yanked the book from his pocket, hurled it across the Butterwalk.

There on the far side of the street a rosebush struggled up an arbor near a pile of barrels. Dreys knew this place well, could barely see the yellow roses on dark vines. The book skidded toward them.

The assassin cursed in his own tongue, tossing Dreys aside, and limped after the book.

Dreys could hear nothing but a dull buzz as he struggled to his knees. He glimpsed movement at the edge of the street--the assassin groping among the roses. Three larger shadows came rushing down the road from the left. The flash of drawn swords, starlight glinting off iron caps. The City Guard.

Dreys pitched forward onto the cobblestones.

In the predawn, a flock of geese honked as it made its way south through the silvery starlight, the voices sounding to him for all the world like the barking of a distant pack of dogs.

That morning a few hours after the attack on Dreys and a hundred or so miles south of Castle Sylvarresta, Prince Gaborn Val Orden faced troubles that were not so harrowing. Yet none of his lessons in the House of Understanding could have prepared the eighteen-year-old prince for his encounter with a mysterious young woman in the grand marketplace at Bannisferre.

He'd been lost in thought at a vendor's stall in the south market, studying wine chillers of polished silver. The vendor had many fine iron brewing pots, but his prize was the three wine chillers--large bowls for ice with complementing smaller pitchers that fit inside. The bowls were of such high quality that they looked to be of ancient duskin workmanship. But no duskin had walked the earth in a thousand years, and these howls could not have been that old. Each bowl had the clawed feet of a reaver and featured scenes of hounds running in a leafy wood; the pitchers were adorned with images of a young lord on a horse, his lance at the ready, bearing down on a reaver mage. Once the pitchers were set into their silver bowls, the images complemented one another--the young lord battling the reaver mage while the hunting dogs surrounded them.

The ornaments on the wine chiller were all cast using some method that Gaborn could not fathom. The silversmith's detailed workmanship was breathtaking.

Such were the wonders of Bannisferre's goods that Gaborn hadn't even noticed the young woman sidle up to him until he smelled the scent of rose petals. (The woman who stands next to me wears a dress that is kept in a drawer filled with rose petals, he'd realized, on some subconscious level.) Even then, he'd been so absorbed in studying the wine chillers that he imagined she was only a stranger, awed by the same marvelous bowls and pitchers. He didn't glance her way until she took his hand, seizing his attention.

She grasped his left hand in her right, lightly clasping his fingers, then squeezed.

Her soft touch electrified him. He did not pull away. Perhaps, he thought, she mistakes me for another. He glanced sidelong at her. She was tall and beautiful, perhaps nineteen, her dark-brown hair adorned with mother-of-pearl combs. Her eyes were black, and even the whites of her eyes were so dark as to be a pale blue. She wore a simple, cloud-colored silk gown with flowing sleeves--an elegant style lately making its way among the wealthy ladies of Lysle. She wore a belt of ermine, clasped with a silver flower, high above the navel, just beneath her firm breasts. The neckline was high, modest. Over her shoulders hung a silk scarf of deepest crimson, so long that its fringes swept the ground. She was not merely beautiful, he decided. She was astonishing. She smiled at him secretively, shyly, and Gaborn smiled back, tight-lipped-hopeful and troubled all at once. Her actions reminded him of the endless tests that one of his hearthmasters might have devised for him in the House of Understanding--yet this was no test.

Gaborn did not know the young woman. He knew no one in all the vast city of Bannisferre--which seemed odd, that he should not have one acquaintance from a city this large, with its towering gray stone songhouses with their exotic arches, the white pigeons wheeling through the blue sunlit sky above the chestnut trees. Yet Gaborn knew no one here, not even a minor merchant. He was that far from home.

He stood near the edge of a market, not far from the docks on the broad banks of the south fork of River Dwindell--a stone's throw from Smiths' Row, where the open-air hearths gave rise to the rhythmic ring of hammers, the creaking of bellows, and plumes of smoke.

He felt troubled that he'd been so lulled by the peacefulness of Bannisferre. He'd not even bothered to glance at this woman when she had stood next to him for a moment. Twice in his life, he'd been the target of assassins. They'd taken his mother, his grandmother, his brother and two sisters. Yet Gaborn stood here now as carefree as a peasant with a stomach full of ale.

No, Gaborn decided quickly, I've never seen her; she knows I'm a stranger, yet holds my hand. Most bewildering.

In the House of Understanding, in the Room of Faces, Gaborn had studied the subtleties of bodily communication--the way secrets revealed themselves in an enemy's eyes, how to differentiate traces of worry from consternation or fatigue in the lines around a lover's mouth.

Gaborn's hearthmaster, Jorlis, had been a wise teacher, and over the past few long winters Gaborn had distinguished himself in his studies.

He'd learned that princes, highwaymen, merchants, and beggars all wore their expressions and stances as if part of some agreed-upon costume, and so Gaborn had mastered the art of putting on any costume at will. He could take command of a roomful of young men simply by standing with head high, cause a merchant to lower his prices with a balking smile. Concealed by nothing more than a fine traveling cloak, Gaborn learned to lower his eyes in a busy marketplace and play the pauper, slinking through the crowd so that those who saw him did not recognize a prince, but wondered, Ah, where did that beggar boy steal such a nice cloak?

So Gaborn could read the human body, and yet he remained a perpetual mystery to others. With two endowments of wit, he could memorize a large tome in an hour. He'd learned more in his eight years in the House of Understanding than most commoners could learn in a life of concerted study.

As a Runelord, he had three endowments of brawn and two of stamina, and in battle practice he could easily cross weapons with men twice his size. If ever a highwayman dared attack him, Gaborn would prove just how deadly a Runelord could be.

Yet in the eyes of the world, because of his few endowments of glamour, he seemed to be little more than a startlingly handsome young man. And in a city like Bannisferre, with its singers and actors from across the realm, even beauty such as his was common.

He studied the woman who held him, considered her stance. Chin high, confident, yet slightly tilted. A question. She poses a question of me.

The touch of her hand--weak enough to indicate hesitancy, strong enough to suggest...ownership. She was claiming him?

Is this an attempt at seduction? he wondered. But no--the body stance felt wrong. If she had wanted to seduce, she'd have touched the small of his back, a shoulder, even his buttock or chest. Yet as she held him she stood slightly away, hesitating to claim his body space.

Then he understood: a marriage proposal. Very uncustomary, even in Heredon. For a woman of her quality, the family should have easily arranged a marriage.

Gaborn surmised, Ah, she is orphaned. She hopes to arrange her own match!

Yet even that answer did not satisfy him. Why did not a wealthy lord arrange a match for her?

Gaborn considered how she must see him now. A merchant's son. He'd been playing the merchant; and though he was eighteen, his growth had not come in fully. Gaborn had dark hair and blue eyes, traits common in North Crowthen. So he'd dressed like a fop from that kingdom, one with more wealth than taste, out wandering the town while his father conducted more important business. He wore green hose and pants that gathered above the knee, along with a fine white cotton shirt with ballooning sleeves and silver buttons. Over the shirt, he wore a jerkin of dark green cotton trimmed in finely tooled leather, decorated with freshwater pearls. Completing the disguise was a broad-brimmed hat, on which an amber clasp held a single ostrich plume.

Gaborn had dressed this way because he did not want to travel openly on his mission to spy out Heredon's defenses, to gauge the true extent of the wealth of its lands, the hardiness of its people.

Gaborn glanced back toward his bodyguard Borenson. The streets here were crowded, made narrow by the vendors' stalls. A beefy, bronze-skinned young man with no shirt and red pants was herding a dozen goats through the throng, whipping them with a willow switch. Across the road, beneath a stone arch beside the door to the inn, Borenson stood grinning broadly at Gaborn's predicament. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a balding head of red hair, a thick beard, and laughing blue eyes.

Beside Borenson stood a skeletal fellow with blond hair cropped short. To match his chestnut eyes he wore a historian's austere brownish robes and a disapproving scowl. The man, simply called by his vocation, Days, was a chronicler of sorts--a devotee of the Time Lords--who had been following Gaborn now since Gaborn was an infant, recording his every word and deed. He took his name from the order of "the Days." Like every man of his sect, Days had given up his own name, his own identity, when he'd twinned his mind with that of another of his order. Days watched Gaborn now, keenly. Alert, eyes flickering about. Memorizing everything. The woman who held Gaborn's hand followed his glance, noting the bodyguard and Days. A young merchant lord with a guard was common. One shadowed by a Days was rare. It marked Gaborn as someone of wealth and import, perhaps the son of a guildmaster, yet this woman could not possibly have known Gaborn's true identity.

She pulled his hand, invited him to stroll. He hesitated. "Do you see anything in market that interests you?" she asked, smiling. Her sweet voice was as inviting as the cardamom-flavored pastries sold here in the market, yet slightly mocking. Clearly, she wanted to know if she interested him. Yet those around her would mistakenly believe she spoke of the wine chillers.

"The silver shows some decent handiwork," Gaborn said. Using the powers of his Voice, he put a slight emphasis on hand. Without ever recognizing why, she would believe that in Understanding's House, he had studied in the Room of Hands, as rich merchants did. Let her believe me to be a merchant.

The vendor of the stall, who had patiently ignored Gaborn until now, lurched from under the shade of his rectangular umbrella, calling, "The sir would like a fine chiller for the madam?"

Until a moment ago Gaborn had seemed only a merchant boy, one who might have reported to his father any interesting wares. Now perhaps the merchant thought him a newlywed, with a wife far more handsome than himself. Merchant lords often married their children off young, seeking monetary alliances.

So the vendor thinks I must buy the silver to humor my wife. Of course such a lovely woman would rule her household. Since the merchant did not know her, Gaborn imagined that she would also have to be a stranger to Bannisferre. A traveler from the north?

The young woman smiled kindly at the vendor. "I think not today," she teased. "You have some fine chillers, but we have better at home." She turned her back, playing her role as wife exquisitely. This is how it would be if we married, her actions seemed to say. I'd make no costly demands.

The vendor's face fell in dismay. It was unlikely that more than one or two merchants in all the Kingdoms of Rofehavan had such a fine wine cooler.

She pulled Gaborn along. Suddenly, Gaborn felt uneasy. In the far south, ladies of Indhopal sometimes wore rings or brooches with poisoned needles in them. They would try to lure wealthy travelers to an inn, then murder and rob them. It could be that this beauty had nefarious designs.

Yet he doubted it. A quick glance showed that Borenson was certainly more amused than concerned. He laughed and blushed, as if to ask, And where do you think you're going?

Borenson, too, was a student of body language--particularly that of women. He never took risks with his lord's safety.

The woman squeezed Gaborn's hand, readjusting her grip, holding him more firmly. Was she seeking a greater claim to his attentions?

"Pardon me if I seem over familiar, good sir," she said. "Have you ever noticed someone from a distance, and felt a tug in your heart?"

Her touch thrilled him, and Gaborn wanted to believe that, indeed, she'd seen him from afar and fallen in love.

"No, not like this," he said. Yet he felt it a lie. He'd once fallen in love from afar.

The sun shone on them; the skies were brilliant. The air blowing off the river smelled warm and sweet, carrying the scent of hay fields from across the shore. On such a fine day, how could anyone feel anything but invigorated, alive?

The cobbles on the street here were smooth with age. Half a dozen flower girls strolled barefoot through the crowd, calling for patrons in clear voices. They blew past, a breeze rippling a wheat field. They all wore faded dresses and white aprons. They held the centers of their aprons up with one hand, making their aprons into a kind of sack, sacks filled with riotous colors--brilliant burgundy cornflowers and white daisies, long-stemmed roses in deepest reds and peach. Poppies and bundles of sweet-scented lavender.

Gaborn watched the girls drift by, feeling that their beauty was as stunning as that of larks in flight, knowing he would never forget their smiles. Six girls, all with blond or light-brown hair.