sound with something of a tremor in it even now. “Let’s
go
!”
They rode out of the stable and the blizzard closed around them in an icy, impenetrable curtain of white, whirling around black horse and gray, roan packpony and bay. It struck their faces like chilled feathers, enfolded them, sifted across their tracks and bleached the vagueness of their outlines until not even the trained eyes of a
taulath
could have told which mass of white was horse and which was rider, and which was merely drifting snow.
And by the time one or other of the
tulathin
had both time and safety enough to look those looked for were gone.
Chapter Four
There was confusion in Cerdor. To those who had lived there during the past thirteen days, it felt as if there had never been anything except confusion in the city, ever since the king had died and all his lords save two had fled back to their own lands. It had little to do with that death anymore, regardless of what the rumors said, but had a far more sinister source that even rumor was reluctant to touch upon: the uncertainty of powerful men.
Granted that King Rynert’s death had been the first cause of all the trouble, still it had stemmed less from his passing than the manner of it. That had been interpreted not merely by uninformed second- and third-hand sources but by men who had been there in person as the action of an overly-ambitious and haughty clan-lord--Hanar Santon--slighted over some matter by the dead king. That the truth of the matter was very different had no significance now, for the error had gathered its own momentum and was impossible either to disprove or to stop for all that its consequences were already spreading across Alba like plague-marks covering the face of a once beautiful woman.
There had been no meeting of the Alban Crown Council since that night, not even to vote on their establishment of a regency to rule the country—Rynert having failed to leave an heir. Most of the lords present at that last fateful meeting were now watching each other from the dubious safety of their respective citadels, setting to rights the fortifications which long years of peace had allowed to fall into disrepair and mustering enfeoffed lesser lords to their defense. None would listen to reason; not since they had seen what they thought was reason conversing with a hired assassin and moments later slashed open and slain on the steps of his own throne…
“At least there are no declarations of faction yet.” Hanar Santon patted the sheets of dispatch reports together, aligning their edges with punctilious neatness for the tenth time since their delivery half an hour before.
“Yet.” His companion’s voice was without inflection, neither echoing nor squashing Hanar’s optimism. “That doesn’t mean anything, either way.” If there was cynicism in the statement, it was not the studied art practiced by younger men. Aymar Dacurre had had many years of experience in which to get his practice right. The old clan-lord had as much faith as anyone else in his fellow men; he simply didn’t anticipate it without proof.
“But you heard the names, didn’t you? Powerful high-clan-lords, all of them.”
Aymar sighed.
These children
, he thought.
They learn history, but they never learn from it
. As if the mere fact of being high-clan-lords was enough to absolve them of blame for anything… It was all written down in
Ylver Vlethanek
, and the Book of Years was being echoed far too closely for Aymar Dacurre’s comfort. The same postures of pugnacious defense had been adopted five hundred years before, and by the ancestors
pi
the same men who were adopting them today. Those disagreements had become the Clan Wars, and so far as Dacurre could see it would require very little force to push the present situation over into a repetition of the conflict which had left such a bloody stain on Alban history. But now there was another factor to take into account, a factor which the old lords
go
!”
They rode out of the stable and the blizzard closed around them in an icy, impenetrable curtain of white, whirling around black horse and gray, roan packpony and bay. It struck their faces like chilled feathers, enfolded them, sifted across their tracks and bleached the vagueness of their outlines until not even the trained eyes of a
taulath
could have told which mass of white was horse and which was rider, and which was merely drifting snow.
And by the time one or other of the
tulathin
had both time and safety enough to look those looked for were gone.
Chapter Four
There was confusion in Cerdor. To those who had lived there during the past thirteen days, it felt as if there had never been anything except confusion in the city, ever since the king had died and all his lords save two had fled back to their own lands. It had little to do with that death anymore, regardless of what the rumors said, but had a far more sinister source that even rumor was reluctant to touch upon: the uncertainty of powerful men.
Granted that King Rynert’s death had been the first cause of all the trouble, still it had stemmed less from his passing than the manner of it. That had been interpreted not merely by uninformed second- and third-hand sources but by men who had been there in person as the action of an overly-ambitious and haughty clan-lord--Hanar Santon--slighted over some matter by the dead king. That the truth of the matter was very different had no significance now, for the error had gathered its own momentum and was impossible either to disprove or to stop for all that its consequences were already spreading across Alba like plague-marks covering the face of a once beautiful woman.
There had been no meeting of the Alban Crown Council since that night, not even to vote on their establishment of a regency to rule the country—Rynert having failed to leave an heir. Most of the lords present at that last fateful meeting were now watching each other from the dubious safety of their respective citadels, setting to rights the fortifications which long years of peace had allowed to fall into disrepair and mustering enfeoffed lesser lords to their defense. None would listen to reason; not since they had seen what they thought was reason conversing with a hired assassin and moments later slashed open and slain on the steps of his own throne…
“At least there are no declarations of faction yet.” Hanar Santon patted the sheets of dispatch reports together, aligning their edges with punctilious neatness for the tenth time since their delivery half an hour before.
“Yet.” His companion’s voice was without inflection, neither echoing nor squashing Hanar’s optimism. “That doesn’t mean anything, either way.” If there was cynicism in the statement, it was not the studied art practiced by younger men. Aymar Dacurre had had many years of experience in which to get his practice right. The old clan-lord had as much faith as anyone else in his fellow men; he simply didn’t anticipate it without proof.
“But you heard the names, didn’t you? Powerful high-clan-lords, all of them.”
Aymar sighed.
These children
, he thought.
They learn history, but they never learn from it
. As if the mere fact of being high-clan-lords was enough to absolve them of blame for anything… It was all written down in
Ylver Vlethanek
, and the Book of Years was being echoed far too closely for Aymar Dacurre’s comfort. The same postures of pugnacious defense had been adopted five hundred years before, and by the ancestors
pi
the same men who were adopting them today. Those disagreements had become the Clan Wars, and so far as Dacurre could see it would require very little force to push the present situation over into a repetition of the conflict which had left such a bloody stain on Alban history. But now there was another factor to take into account, a factor which the old lords
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