the acolytes nursed at his back.
A servant could not bridle his master’s audacity, while the northland days passed one by one and assumed the cadence of habit.
The master arose before dawn. Shaved and dressed, he sat for his breakfast, then left on his own, clad informally. Chores left Dace no recourse to track what transpired in the misty streets. He tidied the bed, dropped yesterday’s clothes at the laundress, fetched those cleaned, and made purchases at the market. Back by daybreak to attend daily practice at arms, he carried his liege’s light armour and sword. After the Light’s officers dispersed to their duties, Lysaer ordered a meal at one of the wine-shops frequented by the idle rich. A servant was privy to their casual talk though he was forbidden to sit at table. Dismissed to lug his master’s kit back to the boarding-house, Dace fetched water, cleaned harness, and freshened the clothes chests, wash-basin, and towels.
His liege retired in the early afternoon, closeted with his correspondence. The letters were never left at large, unsealed. Lysaer hired the couriers himself. The wax for his cover sheets was frugal brown, impressed with a flourished initial, but use of the red wax tucked in the drawer suggested a second seal, nested inside, the weightiest dispatches signed under the Lord Governor’s cartouche. Those would be destined for recipients linked into the network allied to Etarra. Exiled under alias at Miralt Head, Lysaer kept in touch with his informants elsewhere.
Dace never rifled the missives or pried in his master’s absence. The exemplary servant knew trust must be earned.
Meanwhile, the dread wracked him, deep in the night and through the agonized days while the sun baked the roof-tiles outside the dormer. His facade masked the turmoil of uncertain thought and strained ears constantly listening. To the pulse of temple processions and prayer bells, Dace memorized the back alleys and by-lanes, and tracked the overheard talk within the walled courtyards. Under noon heat, and the limp flap of the Sunwheel banners, he walked wary, past the hypnotic chants of the priests. He observed idlers, striped azure in afternoon’s shade, where dicers and craftsmen mingled over beer for the latest news from the port.
His hours of solitude could have dragged, awaiting his master’s whim. But Dace seized the chance to polish his expertise. He thoroughly knew how to maintain a wardrobe but redressed his inability to barber hair. A seamstress taught him to turn hems like a tailor. He practised the poise of a genteel valet, then callused his hands buffing buttons and boots until the temple’s burnished-gold spires dimmed against the citrine sunset. Lysaer always returned when the bell towers shivered the air with the evening carillons.
His Lordship expected his bath and a change of wardrobe. Immersed in the finicky details, Dace saw his master dressed in style for Miralt’s elite society. Whether his liege stalked the ball-rooms, or pursued the High-Temple’s secretive policy amid the crush of the aristocrats’ wine parlours, the servant who botched his personal appointments would receive short shrift and dismissal.
Grateful the close air masked his sweating nerves, Dace laced and tied off silken-cord points and blessed the simplicity of summer attire. Dagged sleeves, starched cuffs, and velvet doublets were not fashionable until autumn. Left at leisure, he could eat his frugal meal, then wash before he emptied the bath.
“You needn’t wait up,” Lysaer always said, arisen to leave in the shadow of dusk.
“My lord is too gracious.” Ever deferent, Dace clicked the door shut after his liege’s departure.
Yet he never retired to his cot in the closet under the eaves. Dace sat wakeful by the open casement and lit the lamp when his master’s tread mounted the outside stair. Silent as Lysaer undressed, he received and hung the used clothes, gleaning sparse clues from the fabric: often the musk of temple incense, combined with the dampness of tensioned sweat, or the whiff of acrid smoke ingrained from the taverns. Watchfulness gauged his master’s mood, and accounted the hours of restless sleep from Lysaer’s crumpled sheets come the morning.
The frisson of Dace’s instincts led to clenched teeth to keep his own counsel. He smothered the impulse to flinch when the pigeons winged aloft, bearing temple messages over distance.
Lysaer s’Ilessid refused to confide. A spirit bent on a vengeful mission, he acted, implacably fuelled by royal justice, and shame, haunted guilt, and the pattern of inward self-loathing. The grievance of Sulfin Evend’s demise would be driving his deep-set recrimination. To stir the poison would undermine hope and destroy what must be a precarious bid for requital.
Summer’s height brought the shimmering heat of a glass furnace, and no crack in the shield of propriety. The master pursued his pitched course, while the servant recorded the creeping change: slight differences, adequate cause for alarm as Lysaer altered his style on the practice floor, extending himself just enough to decisively win a few matches. Dace observed the most astute veterans shift their outlook, snapped short by an unforeseen depth of experience. Fair-haired and serene, Lysaer fielded their surprise. He smoothed over the stinging transition from arrogant superiority with cool wit, while a stunned hush fell over the officers’ bath, and the faces of the attendant novices resharpened to salacious suspicion.
There came the late night under candlelight when Dace found a mark scorched by Light on his master’s linen cuff. Somewhere, tonight, a select few in Miralt shared the dangerous secret of Lysaer’s identity. The only reason would be to spear-head an inside conspiracy. Frozen by dread, Dace hung the singed garment. He poured the warmed wash-water, hoping his trembling would pass unremarked in the flow of routine.
“Ath above, you’re drained white!” Lysaer lowered his hands, wet from rinsing his face in the basin.
“A man comes to care,” murmured Dace without blinking. “Should that cause astonishment?”
Lysaer regarded him, blue eyes level with frightening honesty. “No. As well as I, you must be aware I’ve been courting the leap to disaster.”
Dace proffered the towel. “What use to speak out of turn?” A single mis-step could upset the game, either through a zealot’s public exposure or by the swift back-stab of righteous betrayal.
“A man comes to care,” Lysaer shot back, shoved erect without taking the offering. Blank as a cameo, he added, “By every honourable code, I ought to dismiss you for your own safety.”
Dace’s heart-beat slammed under his ribs. “You would have to use force.”
Lysaer bridled. Paced to a nearby stuffed chair, dangerous as a spread cobra, he matched his valet’s spaniel loyalty with fury. “I expect a betrayal! Have invited the prospect. Why set yourself up as a pawn in the path of near-certain destruction?”
“Because,” Dace demurred, moved by deferent steps to resume his lapsed duties. Instinct prompted him to risk everything. “After the spying of East Bransing’s priests, I’m convinced the servant behind you cannot be a stranger.”
Under his applied towel, Lysaer’s alarmed start verified every foreboding. Dace blotted his master’s chin fast enough to stifle an argument. S’Ilessid justice demanded the uncompromised move in redress: against reason, against odds, his liege planned to challenge the might that enforced the True Sect Canon.
Against desperate stakes, Dace seized the initiative. “All I ask is sufficient notice and coin for the quiet purchase of two decent horses.” Which meek request floundered into a strained silence.
When Lysaer retired and the lamp had been snuffed, Dace sought his cot in the darkness, terrified he had overstepped.
Then only, his liege relented. “You’ll have five days.
