escort, though the exchange had the comfortable, routine air of a formality. Then the group swept on forward, down into the manor's courtyard, while more guards watched from the walls, along with leering statues wrought in the shapes of hunchbacked, gangly men. The moment Fidelias stepped from the litter, he felt the light, steady tremors of power in the earth that led back to each statue on the wall and found himself staring at the statues.
"Gargoyles:1" he breathed. "All of them?"
Aldrick glanced at the statues and then to Fidelias and nodded once.
"How long have they been kept here?"
"As long as anyone remembers," Aldrick rumbled.
"Aquitaine is that strong..." Fidelias pursed his lips in thought. He did not agree with the principles of anyone who kept furies within such a restrictive confine-much less those who would trap them there for generations. But it certainly confirmed, had he been in any doubt, that Aquitaine's raw power was more than sufficient for the task at hand.
The Knights Aeris accompanying the litter departed toward a bunk-house for food and drink, while the captain of Aquitaine's guard, a young man with an earnest expression and alert blue eyes, opened the door to the litter and extended a courteous hand to those within. Then he led them inside the manor proper.
Fidelias took casual note of the manor as he followed the young captain, marking the doors, the windows, the presence (or evident lack) of guards. It was an old habit, and one he would be foolish to surrender. He wanted to know the best way to leave any place he walked into. Aldrick walked beside him, casually carrying the still-sleeping Odiana as though she weighed no more than an armload of cloth, each footstep something solid, focused.
The young captain swung open a pair of double doors leading into a long feasting hall, complete with mountain-style fire pits built into the floors,
already burning though the season had not yet grown truly cold. That dim, crimson light was the only illumination in the hall, and Fidelias took a moment to pause inside the doors and allow his eyes to adjust.
The hall stretched out, lined with a double row of smooth marble pillars. Curtains covered the walls, providing a bit of aesthetic warmth and the perfect cover for eavesdroppers, guards, or assassins. The tables had been taken down for the night, and the only furniture in the hall was a table and several chairs upon a dais at the far end. The shapes of people moved about there, and Fidelias could hear the gentle music of strings.
The captain led them all straight down the hall and toward the dais.
Upon a large chair covered in the fur of a grass lion from the Amaranth Vale sprawled a man-as tall as Aldrick, Fidelias judged, but more slender, and with the appearance of a young man in the prime of his youth. Aquitai-nus had high cheekbones and a narrow face, led by a strong jaw whose lines were softened by the tumble of dark golden hair that fell to his shoulders. He wore a simple scarlet blouse with black leather breeches and soft, black boots. A goblet dangled lazily in one hand, while the other held the end of a long strip of silken cloth that slowly unwound from the shapely girl dancing before him, gradually baring more and more of her skin. Aquitainus had eyes of pitch black, stark in that narrow face, and he watched the dancing slave with an almost feverish intensity.
Fidelias's eyes were drawn to the man standing behind and just a bit to one side of the High Lord's chair. In the dimness, details were difficult to make out. The man wasn't tall, perhaps only a few inches more than Fidelias himself, but was strongly built, his posture casually powerful, relaxed. He bore a sword at his hip-that much Fidelias could see-and a very slight bulge in his dark grey tunic perhaps revealed the presence of a hidden weapon. Fidelias met the silent man's eyes, briefly, and found the stranger's gaze to be opaque, assessing.
"If you value your head, Captain," Aquitainus murmured, without looking away from the girl, "it can wait until this dance is done." His voice, Fidelias noted, carried the faintest trace of a drunken slur.
"No, Your Grace," Fidelias said, stepping forward and past the captain, "it can't."
The High Lord's back stiffened, and he turned his head slowly toward Fidelias. The weight of the man's dark eyes fell onto the Cursor like a physical blow, and