The Magicians of Night - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,56
didn’t look completely impossible.
Eleven
THE DUKE OF MERE greeted Shavus the Archmage with great cordiality when the old man appeared at the gates of Bragenmere, four nights before the last new moon of spring. For all his bluff, warrior heartiness, the Duke was a man of learning, and welcomed scholars—mageborn or otherwise—to his court. Even the most disapproving of the cult priests, the chill-eyed Archimandrite of Darova and the silent Mijac, High Priest of Agon behind his funereal veils, dared not remark. Sitting at supper the first night, Tallisett couldn’t hear what the Duke and the Archmage had to say to one another; but, looking along the glitter of the high table at the two big, middle-aged men, the dark crimson velvet of the one in no way belittling the shabby brown-and-black homespun of the other, she rather thought they were comparing the finer points of shortsword technique with the salt spoons.
But on the second night, as she was hurrying down the corridor toward the vestibule where the Duke’s guests assembled before walking in procession, two by two, into the state dining hall, she was stopped at the head of the stair by a pale, precise figure that materialized from between the malachite columns, and a cool voice inquiring, “Whither away, little cousin?”
It was Lord Esrex.
She curtsied politely, but her eyes were wary. She had never trusted her brother-in-law, even before his attempt seven years ago to have Rhion executed and herself disgraced—his friendliness now put her all the more on her guard. “I’m late. They’ll be going in soon...”
“Not until I’m there.” He leaned a narrow shoulder against a column drum and drew the white silk of his glove through his slender hand. “Surely you know the reason they’re having a state dinner? I’m the guest of honor—your father’s chosen to make me governor of the lands for which he married that brainless little slut at the turn of the spring,”
Tally felt her cheeks heat with anger, for she liked her new young stepmother, but she only said calmly, “If you’ve received the impression she’s a slut, I’m afraid the spy network of the Cult of Agon isn’t as accurate as it’s made out to be. Even the most careless gossip in the court could tell you Mirane of Varle is devoted to my father.”
She was rewarded by the color that flamed to the tight-skinned, delicate face. He would, she knew, have been delighted to be able to prove the Duke’s new wife unfaithful, even as he had sought for years to prove that Rhion of Sligo, and not her husband Marc of Erralswan, was the father of Tally’s children, and for the same reason—to discredit any heirs to rival his own son’s claim to the Dukedom from which his grandfather had so rudely been thrust.
But with icy and bitter precision the scion of the White Bragenmeres waved her words away. “He thinks he can make it up to me, giving me that pittance for the wrong he has done my family. And if he’s deluding himself that he’s still man enough to father a child on that straw-headed little lightskirt. Is that why he welcomed the Archmage to court? To get him a tincture of potency, now that his own tame conjure has disappeared?”
She realized he was baiting her, seeking information, and shook her head, reaching to straighten the pendant pearl that hung at her throat with a hand cluttered by unaccustomed rings. For the full ceremonial of a state dinner she wore her husband’s colors, emerald green, ribboned and tasseled in silver, the bronze-blue eyes of a peacock’s tail hanging around her half-bared shoulders in a delicate collar. “I’m not in his confidence, cousin.”
“They tell me other wizards are arriving in the city now,” Esrex went on softly, his pale eyes studying her face. “The Serpentlady of Dun came in last night, they say—carrying her lover in a basket, I should expect—and Harospix Harsprodin from Fell. So the ears of Agon are not as inaccurate as you might think.”
“Since everyone who enters the gates, mageborn or not, is under Father’s protection,” Tally replied steadily, meeting his gaze, “there’s no particular reason why wizards should conceal their movements. I suppose Agon’s spies simply like to feel important, telling their masters at the temple what they could have learned by the asking.” She tilted her head at the sound of a muted fanfare of music echoing in the deep arches of the stairwell, so close above their heads. “Shall we