by a plainly clad cadre of men-at-arms, his strict orders were to observe without interference. The restraint left him uneasy since the crowd showed defiance. Grumbles from the fringes held distinct, unfriendly overtones concerning the presumption of outsiders.
Lysaer gave such talk small chance to blossom into strife. ‘We are gathered here to begin a celebration,’ he announced.
The background buzz of speculation choked off in stiff outrage. ‘Yer war galleys scarcely be welcomed here!’ cried one of the elders from the boardinghouse.
Other men called gruff agreement. Lysaer waited them out in elegant stillness while the piped cry of a killdeer sliced the soughing snap of the torch flames, and the air pressed rain-laden gusts to flap sullen folds in the standards of Alestron and Avenor that flanked his commanding stance upon the dais. ‘The cask for the occasion shall be provided from my stores.’
‘We had peace before ye set foot here!’ called a good-wife. ‘When our fish wagon to Shaddorn’s turned back by armed troops, I’d say that’s muckle poor cause for dancing!’
Again Lysaer waited for the shouts to die down. ‘Your village has just been spared from the designs of great evil, and the grasp of a man of such resource and cunning, none here could know the extent of his ill intentions. I speak of the one you call Arithon, known in the north as Teir’s‘Ffalenn and the Master of Shadow.’
This time when hubbub arose, Lysaer cut clearly through the clamour. ‘During his years among you, he has exploited your trust, lured blameless craftsmen into dishonest service, and spent stolen funds to outfit a fleet designed and intended for piracy. I’m here tonight to expose his bloody history, and to dispel without question every doubt to be raised against the criminal intent he sought to hide.’
The quiet at this grew profound. Muscular men in patched oilskins and their goodwives in their aprons spangled with cod scales packed into a solid and threatening body. Before the ranks of inimical faces, Lysaer resumed unperturbed. In clear, magisterial elegance, he presented his case, beginning with the wrongs done his family on his homeworld of Dascen Elur. There, the s’Ffalenn bent for sea raids had been documented by royal magistrates for seven generations. The toll of damaged lives was impressive. Stirred to forceful resolve, the fair-haired prince related his eyewitness account of the slaughter at Deshir Forest. Other transgressions at Jaelot and Alestron were confirmed by Duke Bransian’s officer. He ended with the broad-scale act of destruction which had torched the trade fleet at Minderl Bay.
The villagers remained unconvinced.
A few in the front ranks crossed their arms in disgust, unimpressed with foreign news that held little bearing upon the daily concerns of their fishing fleet.
‘Is it possible you think the man who sheltered here was not one and the same person?’ Lysaer asked. ‘Let me say why that fails to surprise me.’ He went on to describe the Shadow Master’s appearance and habits in a damning array of detail. He spoke of innocents diabolically corrupted, small children taught to cut the throats of the wounded lying helpless in their blood on the field. His description was dire and graphic enough to wring any parent to distress.
Before Lysaer’s forthright and painful self-honesty, Arithon, in retrospect, seemed shady as a night thief. Natural reticence felt like dishonest concealment, and leashed emotion, the mark of a cold, scheming mind.
‘This is a man whose kindness is drawn in sharp calculation, whose every word and act masks a hidden motive. Pity does not move him. His code is base deceit. The people he befriends are as game pieces, and if violent death suits the stripe of his design, not even babes are exempt.’
‘Now that’s a foul lie!’ objected the boardinghouse landlady. ‘The shipyard master we knew here had as much compassion for children as any man gifted with fatherhood. The young ones adored him. Jinesse there will say as much.’
Lysaer focused where the matron pointed, and picked out the figure in the dark shawl who shrank at the mention of her name: a woman on the fringes, faceless in the gloom except for the wheaten coil of hair pinned over her blurred, oval features.
‘Lady, come here,’ Lysaer commanded. He stepped down from the dais. His instinctive, lordly grace caused the villagers to part and give him way. At her evident reluctance, he waved to his officer to unsocket a torch and bring it forward. Trapped isolate amid a sudden, brilliant ring of light, the widow could do naught else but confront him.
Golden, majestic, the Prince of the West did not address her on the level of the crowd. He caught her bird-boned hand in a sure, warm grip, and as if she were wellborn and precious, drew her up the plank step to the dais. He gave her no chance for embarrassed recrimination. His gaze, blue as unflawed sky, stayed direct and fixed on her face. ‘I’m grieved indeed to see a man with no scruples delude an upright goodwife such as you.’
Jinesse heaved a tight breath, her fingers grown damp and starting to tremble. She searched the heart-stopping, beautiful male features beneath the circlet and cap of pale hair. She found no reassurance, no trace of the charlatan in the square, honest line of his jaw and the sculptured slope of his cheekbones. His unclouded eyes reflected back calm concern and unimpeachable sincerity.
‘Forgive me,’ said the prince in a gentleness very different than the mettlesome, biting irony of the Shadow Master. ‘I see I’ve struck hurtfully close to the mark. I never intended to grieve you.’
Jinesse pushed away the uneasy recollection of green eyes, heavy with shadows too impenetrably deep to yield their mystery. ‘Master Arithon showed only kindness to my twins. I cannot believe he’d cause them harm.’
‘Young children?’ Lysaer probed. ‘Lady, hear my warning, Arithon’s past is a history of misdirection. He may indeed have shown only his finest intentions in your presence. But where are your little ones now?’ Informed by the small jerk of the hand he still clasped, Lysaer returned a squeeze of commiseration. ‘The man has succeeded in luring your offspring from your side, I see. You were very right to say children love him. They are as clay in his hands. I can see I need not say more.’
Jinesse clenched her lip to stop a fierce quiver. She did not trust herself to speak.
‘It may not be too late,’ the prince reassured, his voice pitched as well for the villagers gathered beneath the dais. The people, all unwitting, had crowded closer to hang on each word as he spoke. ‘I have an army and Alestron’s fleet of war galleys. We are highly mobile, well supplied, and most able to mount swift pursuit. I only need know where the Master of Shadow has gone. Prompt action could restore your lost twins to your side.’
Jinesse recovered the courage to draw back. ‘What you offer is a war! That could as easily drown them in Ath’s oceans to share a grave in the deeps with their father.’
‘Perhaps,’ Lysaer said equably. ‘Would you rather Dharkaron Avenger should meet and judge their spirits first? If the Wheel’s turning took them in some machination of the Shadow Master’s, they could find their damnation as well.’
‘How dramatic,’ Jinesse said in a stiff-backed distaste that deplored his choice of public venue. ‘We’ve known Arithon as a fair-minded man for the better part of a year. On your word, in just one afternoon, we’re to accept the greater mercy of your judgment?’
Yet her composure crumbled just enough for Lysaer to glean a ruler’s insight: if the villagers of Merior had sheltered Arithon in ignorance, this one woman had been aware of his identity beforetime. An added depth of grief pinched her features as she challenged, ‘What of the crew who
