House of Shadows(128)

“Your Benne—I use the pronoun advisedly—came to me to intercede for you. He is an eloquent man when he holds a quill. After he confessed he had been Miennes’s spy, I commanded him to write down for me all the secrets he had learned through his years of spying. He told me there were people who would die before revealing the secrets they thought they held hidden, but that of course he had no recourse if I would compel him.” The king gave Benne a raised-eyebrow look, and the big man looked down, flushing. “Then he asked me how I was different from my cousin, who compelled men beyond their own choice to do murder for him. This was insolence, but I found I had no answer.”

Taudde said nothing.

The king nodded toward Leilis. “Now, this woman, Leilis, was not half so shy as you have been in bringing to my attention how great a service you did for me. She asked me if I did not care for justice. I had some difficulty recalling the last person who spoke to me with so little care for her own safety. Then I remembered that my wife used to speak to me so.” He paused.

Taudde still said nothing. He could see that Geriodde Nerenne ken Seriantes liked and approved of Leilis, and found himself in return wanting to like and approve of the king. This was clearly a dangerous impulse, as well as a horribly uncomfortable one.

After a moment, the king went on, “I promised them both that I would spare you if I could, which, of course, I already intended. I am aware of the promises you made to each of these people. I wish to see the art of Kalches for myself. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Taudde. He wanted the harp Leilis held as a man dying of cold in the mountains longs for warmth. “You will, of course, require an oath that I shall do nothing with that harp save keep those promises.”

“I require no such oath,” said the king, astonishing them all.

Or, no. Taudde saw that Prince Tepres was not astonished. The glance the prince gave Taudde was wary, but the look he bent on his father was merely exasperated, not in the least surprised.

“Eminence—” the senior officer of the guard objected.

“I cannot guarantee either your safety or this prisoner’s continued imprisonment if he touches that instrument,” warned the mage, speaking for the first time.

“Peace,” returned the king. “Trust must be reciprocal. If it is merely required of a prisoner, it is coercion.” He lifted a finger in a minimal gesture toward Leilis. “Give Prince Chontas the harp.”

Leilis’s first step was hesitant, but then her brows drew down and her mouth firmed. She crossed the room to Taudde with decision and put the finger harp into his hands. She was careful not to let her hand brush his: the unconscious care of long, long practice. Taudde did not let her step back; he caught her hand in his, setting his teeth against the immediate dissonance. “I gave your name to the Dragon of Lirionne,” he said to her.

Those grave eyes met his, utterly forthright, not in the least surprised. “I hoped you would.”

Taudde found his mouth wanting to curve into a smile, and sternly tamped it straight again. Yet it took him a moment to discipline himself to study merely the dissonance that clung to the woman, and not the graceful curve of her lips or the smooth line of her cheek. He had to tell himself very firmly that the dissonance, too, was fascinating. It was, in fact. Taudde studied it… only for a moment. It had become, as he had expected, familiar to him. Taudde opened his eyes, surprised to find he had closed them, and let go of Leilis’s hand, not quite willingly. She began to draw away, then met his eyes and stood still.

During those endless days he’d spent imprisoned by silence, Taudde had thought, one regret sharp among so many others, that he would never have the chance to break the twisted spell that bound this young woman. Now he sent one quick glance of honest gratitude toward the King of Lirionne, and bent his head over his harp.

Unraveling the dissonance that afflicted the woman proved a simple matter. Half of the spell was magecrafted, and though Taudde knew little of magecraft, he thought that this part was not even very well made. But it had tangled up in a familiar shadowy darkness that was not quite darkness, but almost a kind of light… Taudde said aloud, “I heard the Dragon’s heartbeat the first time I stepped across the threshold of Cloisonné House. I didn’t know what it was, then. But, Leilis, your heart beats in time with the dragon’s.”

The woman gave him a wary look from her sea-gray eyes.

“It’s a good thing,” Taudde assured her. “I think,” he added, and then more to the point, “except when the dragon’s inherent magic tangles with the craft of a mage who knows nothing of the darkness at the heart of the mountain.” He let his hands evoke that darkness, sending delicate notes whispering through the bright afternoon. He tuned each note to the shadows that tangled across the spellwork that bound Leilis, and then let each slip away, back to the living darkness from which it had risen.