There was a deep sincerity in his tone that compelled belief. This was part of his bardic skill, Leilis understood, and yet she felt that beyond the deliberate sincerity lay, well, genuine sincerity. She heard both: deliberate earnestness layered over truth like a descant line above a melody.
She said after a moment, “I think perhaps that is even true. But you might have been more careful, then. Or do your enchantments often go astray, Lord Chontas?”
The foreigner relaxed a little. He even almost smiled. “My name is Taudde, if you will. ‘Lord Chontas’ is several of my uncles and a handful of my cousins, and we may be less formal, surely, under these circumstances? I grant you may not believe this on the evidence you’ve seen. But no. Not often.”
Leilis found she did believe him. “Then why did Karah live?”
“Truly, I do not know. I understand that her sister is an apprentice of Mage Ankennes? I don’t know that her sister saved her, but it seems likely.” Now there was a note of—shame, Leilis was almost sure—in the man’s voice. In the deeper part of his voice, the part she thought was most true. He bowed his head and spoke slowly, one word coming after the last as though each took a physical effort to pronounce. “You need not say it: I know perfectly well I should never have made a sorcerous weapon that mischance might so easily turn to harm the innocent. Like a fool, I never considered that the prince might give away those pipes. My grandfather would call me a hasty, ill-tempered, arrogant, unthinking fool, and I could hardly deny any of that.”
There didn’t seem much Leilis could add to this. She said nothing.
“You might give me those pipes,” coaxed Lord Chontas. Lord Taudde. “At least go back to Cloisonné House without showing them around. Let me try to remove that strange half-magecrafted curse that’s wrapped itself around you. I swear I’ll deal with you honestly and not harm you in any way. Or anyone else in Lonne, except perhaps Ankennes, though that may be beyond my power.”
Leilis understood the unspoken message: Don’t you become an obstacle. But she was so surprised by the mention of the mage that this barely registered. “Ankennes?” she exclaimed.
“Didn’t you know? He constrains me. I can’t leave Lonne until he is distracted. I merely hope a distraction will prove sufficient.”
“But Mage Ankennes is one of our close clients and friends!” Leilis protested.
“Whatever his relationship to Cloisonné House, he was also conspiring with Lord Miennes,” Taudde told her. His voice was soft, but the certainty in his tone was compelling. “You may blame me for those pipes, Leilis, and I am to blame, yes, but you should look closer to home for the ones who wanted them made and then brought them to life.”
Leilis found that she believed this, too. She hesitated.
Then the big man, Lord Taudde’s servant, suddenly came into the room and gestured urgently for their attention.
Lord Taudde turned in alarm, but so did Leilis—uneasy, now, at an intrusion that half an hour earlier she would have welcomed gladly. She was aware, even at that moment, of the irony. Besides, there could be no real reason for alarm. Probably there was a guardsman there, maybe one of the King’s Own, come to escort her to some minor functionary so she could make the accusation she’d come here to make. She would simply tell the guardsman she’d changed her mind—had she changed her mind? All her priorities and fears and hopes had been thoroughly disarranged—
But it was not just guardsmen who followed the servant into the room. It was Lily. She wore her black deisa overrobe with its tracery of keiso blue, and there was no need to wonder why her three guardsman escorts looked dazed: She was stunning. Fine boned and effortlessly poised, Lily was graced by a wonderful fall of straight black hair, a soft pouting mouth, lovely sapphire eyes, and a commanding presence. At the moment, her beautiful eyes were alight with satisfied malice.
“Why, Leilis!” she exclaimed in her soft childlike voice, and laid a hand delicately on the arm of one of the men with her. The guardsman smiled down at her and then glowered at the rest of them. The other guardsmen looked envious of their fellow.
“Rue told Bluefountain,” Lily said softly, “that something had happened to Karah’s pipes, the pipes Prince Tepres so generously gave her, and then you’d gotten all worried and taken the pipes and disappeared. Isn’t that strange, that you’d get all fussed about those pipes? And Bluefountain told Featherreed, and Featherreed happened to mention something about it to Seafoam, and Seafoam told Meadowsweet once everyone started wondering where you’d gone, and Meadowsweet, clever child, thought perhaps I’d be interested to hear the tale. Which I was.”