An’Tellarus?”
Severn was silent. After a long pause, he said, “I’m certain he wasn’t a criminal. He’s not in the files the Wolves keep.”
The boy had checked even that.
“This person taught you to read?”
“He read to me,” Severn said, which was a compromise. In a far lower voice, he added, “I thought these were lost.”
“Your teacher died?”
Silence again. This silence would not be broken until An’Tellarus returned; it was a silence of memory. It did not imply secrecy, as it would have in most other men; it implied, instead, a respect for someone else’s privacy, a desire to protect that privacy.
An’Tellarus, however, did return. She carried a large tray, balanced on one arm and hand, as if she were accustomed to serving others. Once, in the distant past, she must have been. No Barrani started at the top. Elluvian, however, had never asked.
She carried this tray to the abused table in the center of the room and set it there. None of the foods required any sophistication to consume; they could be eaten by hand, should one choose to eat at all. Severn looked at the tray, and then lifted his gaze to meet hers.
She nodded, as wordless as Severn. As if to prove that the food itself was harmless, she picked up a small sandwich and bit into it. This proved nothing, of course. She had prepared the food and she had carried it in; it would be trivial for her to know which parts of this spread were safe to consume.
Severn, no doubt, understood this. It therefore came as a surprise to Elluvian when the young man sat cross-legged on the floor across from An’Tellarus’s position on the single long couch before the table. He lifted a sandwich, just as she had done, examining it.
One quick glance at An’Tellarus made clear that she took no offense at the examination. She watched Severn, yes, but what she saw, or what she inferred, from his examination was not what Elluvian would, or had.
A long moment passed before Severn ate, and even then he ate slowly, as if waiting for the effect of each bite, each swallow. As if time, once he had committed to taking the risk of eating, would somehow save him. But no, Elluvian thought, puzzled. It was not suspicion.
He had seen this infrequently in the expressions of the mortal Wolves he had collected and trained, but seldom in circumstances such as this. He was remembering. And committing, to memory, the experience of being in this room, with this woman.
He asked no questions of her.
She asked no further questions of him. They seemed content, the ruler and the probationary Wolf, to eat in a silence that implied not walls but familiarity, companionship.
“I doubt you will take me up on my offer,” she said quietly, when he had finished. “But should you desire it, you may return to my quarters at any time; this room will be open to you while we both live. It would not be entirely wise to attempt to enter the High Halls on your own; you are mortal, and it is, as you suspect, unwise for even my own kin to enter the High Halls without escort. Not even I do it, unless I wish to make a statement.
“Elluvian will attend you.”
“I have attended far less respectable people in my time,” Elluvian said. “I am sure this would be no burden to me.” An’Tellarus’s eyes narrowed, as he intended. If this was the game she desired to play, he had mastered most of its elements since the last time they had engaged.
He knew Severn would not ask.
He also accepted, wearily, that should Severn not ask, An’Tellarus was certain to demand Elluvian’s attendance. She needed no pretext. But her assumption that Severn was his to command in the foreseeable future had flaws. If An’Tellarus understood the Barrani—and she did—she did not understand the Emperor or his Wolves.
But that was fair; Elluvian found them mystifying on many occasions, and he had worked with both for over a century.
* * *
They left the High Halls; no further command performance interrupted Elluvian’s day. Severn did not speak until the grounds on which the High Halls stood were no longer beneath their feet.
Elluvian had expected Severn to ask about An’Tellarus. The boy surprised him. “I would like to visit the Tha’alani quarter.”
“Permission is required.” Surprise, on the other hand, was—like any other weakness—best not revealed.
Severn nodded. “Would I seek that permission, or would you?”
“In general, you would. If you ask