The Armies of Daylight - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,55

more and more often wait for him in Gil's study. The strain was telling on her, and there was a fevered desperation in her meetings with Rudy that made Gil's heart ache.

Rumor was not the only evil in the Keep in those days.

The bitter animosity felt by all the people of Darwath against the men of Alketch was returned in kind and fourfold. The bodyguards of Stiarth and Vair were always in the Keep, and by day the southern troops, who drilled with Alwir's forces under a joint command, came and went freely.

The hatred was felt particularly among the Gettlesand rangers and among the Penambrans, who had lived along the borderlands of the southern Empire. There were rangers whose families had been butchered or enslaved by the borderlords of Alketch and Penambrans whose houses and goods had been ravaged by Imperial freebooters along the warm, mosquito-ridden coasts of the Round Sea. Bitter fights became common, and revenge was not always taken directly on the instigating parties.

Racial and political hatred was not the sole cause of contention. Few camp followers had dared to accompany the Army north. Ugly stories began to circulate of women or young boys raped, either in the woods or in the back corridors of the Keep itself, so that it was considered dangerous to go about alone. Three flat-faced Delta Islanders ambushed Gil one night as she returned from visiting Alde in the Royal Sector; she told Janus of it only so that everyone's story would be straight when the bodies were finally found.

Enclaves formed. No Southerner, whatever his business, ventured above the third level of the Keep. Ingold was the only wizard who would go into the Church-ruled mazes at the east end of the Keep, where Govannin and the Inquisitor Pinard kept their council among Pinard's shaven, silent warrior-monks, and Gil found herself prey to growing uneasiness every time he did so. Old statutes regarding the spheres of power of Church and civil government were hauled from Govannin's cherished library and debated hotly in Council. Moreover, Gil became aware of a song in circulation among the Guards regarding the sexual proclivities of the Alketch leadership; since she recognized the tune, there was no doubt as to its source. The lilting march was whistled at all hours in the corridors by the deep-night watch and did nothing to remedy matters.

"I don't know how much more of this I can stand," Minalde said one evening, sitting on the ramskin-covered bench by Gil's desk with her child asleep at her side. "It's like waiting for lightning to strike and not knowing where. I know they hold 'informal' Council meetings, Alwir and Stiarth. They present me with things to sign that they've clearly negotiated between themselves, and there's nothing I can do about it." Her fingers curled restlessly at the fleece of her vest-a ski vest Rudy had made for her, like his own, painted with the black and gold eagle of the House of Dare. "I feel so helpless."

Gil was silent. Her idle scratch-pen picked herringbone patterns in the wax of the note tablet before her; the shadows of her fingers were black and bony over the translucent, creamy surface. From outside in the common room, they heard Dame Nan's gibing voice and Tomec Tirkenson's disgusted cry: "Let be, woman! Can't I say hello to your daughter without you scratching at me like a broody hen?"

Gil raised her eyes to meet Aide's. "Your brother's set on this alliance, isn't he?"

Aide sighed and brushed the hair back from her face. Her white, too-slender fingers looked like bones against the thick braids. "He's like a-a man in love, Gil. You know Stiarth came north with gifts, things we haven't had since Gae fell - bolts of velvet and musical instruments, scissors and books. He gave me these..."

She drew her dark skirt hem aside, to show beneath her white petticoat the pointed toes of slippers of heliotrope satin, brocaded and stitched with pearls. "Alwir goes on for hours about trade with the South, about renewing the civilization we've lost, once we've taken Gae. Alwir always wanted things to be the best, you know. He loves the fine things, the beauties of civilization. He's an aesthete at heart. The crudities of living here at the Keep rankle him like a sore. You know it. You've seen him."

Gil reflected upon the Chancellor's immaculate tailoring, the fineness with which he surrounded himself, and the scent of soap and perfume. Being this pedestal of perfection