She sat back on her knees after a moment, clinging, barely, to the last remnants of her self-control. Worse than being stuck in the dark was surely being panicked in the dark. Even thinking about panic made her want to leap to her feet and race into the darkness, and just knowing how foolish that would be didn’t help enough… She realized she was gasping in short, frightened breaths and tried to make herself breathe more slowly. Telling herself she was being stupid helped a little. Stubborn pride helped more.
Nemienne thought of light as hard as she could. She was no longer trying to call light into the darkness, she realized. She had given up on that. She was thinking instead of the warmly lit life she had left behind when she had stepped through the mage’s doorway. Getting to her feet, Nemienne thought hard of light and stepped forward blindly into the dark.
CHAPTER 6
In Lonne, dusk was invariably the correct time for an evening engagement to begin, though this meant, naturally, that the actual proper hour changed as the length of the days waxed and waned through the year. Taudde knew this. However, obeying Lord Miennes’s instructions, he deliberately aimed to arrive a little late. Around him the lamps of the city, massive globes atop tall iron poles, were flickering to life. The lamps glowed with a pale green light through the long hours of the night. The mist that curled slowly down the mountain’s flanks and threaded through the city streets took on an unsettling greenish tint in that light. Taudde would have preferred the natural light of the moon and stars, but that silvery light was masked by the city lamps.
Benne drove because in Lonne it was considered horribly inappropriate for a man of quality to touch his horse’s reins himself. The big man had found a small but rather fine carriage, dark gray, with silver scrollwork on the doors. The horse was a young gelding, dappled gray, with high flashy action and a seafoam-white mane and tail. At first inclined to think this display excessive, upon arrival at Miennes’s house Taudde saw that any less showy an equipage would have seemed altogether shabby in the company the lord was keeping this evening.
Three other carriages waited along the drive. Two were large, elaborate affairs. The doors and window frames of the first carriage were inlaid with gold and pearl. Four matched chestnut horses stood before it. The second was plainer but had the sleek look of quality; the blood bays harnessed to it were finer than the chestnuts. The last carriage, of the same style as Taudde’s new acquisition, appeared to be made entirely of rare, expensive ebony from southernmost Miskiannes. Complicated mother-of-pearl inlay spun a delicate pattern across the black doors, and the fine black mare that drew it had pearls set into her harness and dripping from her bridle. Against such display, the silver on the doors of Taudde’s carriage no longer seemed quite so extravagant.
Normally comfortable making an entrance into any company, tonight Taudde could not help but feel self-conscious. A servant, blankly oblivious to his tardiness, admitted him to the house and then to a small dining chamber. Here, Miennes, Ankennes, and six other men lounged at their ease around a carved table.
All of the men looked up when Taudde entered the room, some amused but others clearly annoyed. Taudde had the impression that they had been arguing about some issue that had tempers running high. He also guessed that, though some of them were happy to have an interruption, others were not.
Oddly, although it was his house, Miennes had not taken the place at the head of the table, but rather the first place to the left. He said with sleek satisfaction, “Come in, come in—my lords, this is the foreign lord whom I had mentioned.”
Taudde took a step forward and paused. The place at the head of the table was occupied by a young man with a thin, strong-featured face and elegant hands. He had dark, serious eyes under straw-pale brows and a rather arrogant mouth; his hair, a shade lighter than his brows, was long, straight, and caught back at the base of his neck with a clip of jet and gold. He wore black cut through by an abstract pattern of saffron.
It was that particular saffron shade that allowed Taudde to recognize the young man: This must surely be one of the princes of Lonne. A son of Geriodde Nerenne ken Seriantes himself, and some remarkable tide of chance had cast this young man at Taudde’s feet? For this prince of Lirionne must, without doubt, be Miennes’s intended target. It was impossible that a Seriantes prince should be at this table, and yet Miennes’s target be some other man. It seemed likely that Miennes would demand Taudde do murder upon a son of the very Dragon of Lirionne. The prospect all but stopped breath.
Taudde had once promised his grandfather, swearing on his own father’s grave, that he would never seek personal vengeance against the King of Lirionne. The Treaty of Brenedde specifically forbade such acts, and Taudde, of all men, was surely required to abide by its terms. In the note he’d left for his grandfather, he’d sworn again that vengeance had no part in his reasons for coming to Lonne.