The Walls of Air Page 0,87

people had chucked away in the snow.'

Voices came faintly to them through the trees. Looking up, Gil saw Alwir pass, his fine hands gesturing to the melody of his speaking voice. At his side, Maia of Thran was nodding, a seven-foot longbow held unstrung in his hand. The Chancellor glanced up through the thin screen of bare birches and saw the three Guards in their black, shabby uniforms and the young Queen with her son. He passed them by without a word. Gil heard the swift, ragged draw of Aide's breath; turning, she saw the quick misery that had crossed the girl's face.

A voice called out, young and shrill, and Tad the herdkid

came running up the path toward the Chancellor with a string of the Keep orphans at his heels. Alwir looked down his nose at the boy until he heard what Tad had to say; then Gil saw him bend forward, suddenly attentive. She didn't hear what Tad had said, but she saw the look that flashed between the Bishop and the Lord of the Keep. Then Tad and his little band were running toward the clearing, Tad calling out, 'My lady! My lady!' Aide got quickly to her feet. 'What is it, Tad?' The children roiled to a stop, red-faced and snow-flecked, in the steaming cloud of their breath. 'It's the messenger from Alketch, my lady,' the boy gasped. 'Lyddie here saw him coming up the road from the valley.'

What seemed like the whole of the Keep had assembled on the steps to watch the coming of the messenger from Alketch. But whether they were ones who had come from Gae or from Penambra, they were silent, a sea of watching faces. From her position among the ranks of the Guards, Gil could see that the messenger rode alone. The Icefalcon had not returned with him.

For a time, grief clouded her vision, and she saw nothing. The Icefalcon had been her friend, the first of her friends among the Guards. Cool, aloof, and self-contained, he had only once paid her a dubious compliment - if she wanted to take being told she was a born killer as a compliment; in the course of training with her as a Guard, he had given her welts and bruises enough to qualify in most circles as a deadly enemy. But they had both been foreigners among the people of the Wath, and that had been a bond. And they had both stood behind Ingold, the night the Dark had come to the Keep.

For that, Alwir had sent him south. And he had not returned.

The messenger was dismounting. The murmuring among the vast, dark crowd around the doors of the Keep was like the lapping of the distant sea. He was a youngish man, black-skinned, with haughty, aquiline features and great masses of curly raven hair. Under a patched scarlet travelling cloak, he wore a knee-length tunic stamped with gold, its pattern picked up again on his close-fitting, high-heeled, crimson boots. A

small horn recurved bow hung at his back; on the saddlebow rested a spiked helmet of gilded steel, and a slim, two-handed killing sword was scab-barded below. In his dark face, his eyes shone a bright, pale grey.

He made a profound salaam. 'My lord Alwir.'

Standing above him on the lowest step, Alwir gestured him to rise.

'I am called Stiarth na-Salligos, nephew and messenger of his Imperial Majesty, Lirkwis Fardah Ezrikos, Lord of Alketch and Prince of the Seven Isles.' He straightened up, diamond studs glittering in his earlobes.

'In the name of the Realm of Darwath, I greet you,' Alwir said in his deep, melodious voice. 'And through you, your master, the Emperor of the South. I bid you both welcome in the Keep of Dare.'

Gil heard the murmuring behind her rise at that, and a man's angry voice grumbled, 'Yeah? And all his bloody damn troops as well?'

'Ration our bread to feed the damn southerners,' someone else growled, the sound of it almost lost among the general whispering, and a third voice replied, 'Murdering fags.'

With this in her ears, Gil watched Minalde come down the steps to greet Stiarth na-Salligos, her head high and her face very pale. The graceful young man bent over her hand and murmured formal courtesies. She asked him something; Gil heard only his reply.

'Your messenger?' Those elegant brows deepened in an expression of concerned regret. 'Alas. Our road here was fraught with perils. He was struck down by bandits in the delta country below Penambra. The