18: WHAT JARITH FOUND

(Talon’s story)

An ornate sword worked in red metal decorated the sturdy wrought iron gates of the Milligreest estate. The wide, perfect lawn of green grass lapped up against dueling yards, stables, and a horse-riding ring. Any flowers were confined to low decorative strips that could neither trip a guard nor hide an intruder. Palm trees lined the main strip of road like soldiers at attention. The main house was surprisingly undecorated: a plain, three-story building of red-orange plasterwork, with a crenelated top and towers at the four corners. It seemed more fortress than palace: there were no proper windows, and only a single, massive front door. The damn thing even had arrow slits.

His escort left him in the care of another group of soldiers, who brought him to the main gate and the custody of yet another group of soldiers. They led him through the front door and into a courtyard filled with fountains and flowering orange trees.

Kihrin was told to wait and left there, alone.

The courtyard ran through the heart of the building. All three stories looked out onto it, with railings on the second and third stories, and wide archways on the first. Braided reed chairs and tables in the center of the courtyard created an area for informal gatherings. The wall closest to the front door was flat and devoid of windows, but someone had, long ago, painted an elaborate mural over the plaster surface.

Kihrin rubbed his sweaty hands on his multicolored trousers and looked at the mural while he waited. The epic painting featured armored Quuros soldiers fighting the Manol vané, who fought back with bows and magic. Kihrin blinked as he realized the Quuros were losing. Losing might have been too mild a term.

It was more like the Quuros were being slaughtered.

“Kandor’s Bane,” a young woman said. “Painted by the great master Felicia Nacinte^* on request of Laris Milligreest the Fourth. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Kihrin looked around, and then up. A girl his own age stood on the second-story balcony, looking down at him.

She was dressed in a stable-boy outfit of dirty ochre kef pants and a short, cropped, and tightly laced vest that might have been fine white linen before she rolled around in the mud. Her long black hair hung in twin braids wrapped in matching dark gold ribbons a little lighter in color than her liquid-brown eyes. Her face was smudged and, despite the blooming bruise on one cheek, lovely. In Kihrin’s semiprofessional opinion, she would grow only more so as she grew older. Given a few more years, she would be able to make a man fetch or roll over as easily as he suspected she could draw the curved sword that hung from her belt.

“Very impressive,” Kihrin agreed, “if you like battle scenes.”

“They’re the best kind. Anyway, that’s not just a battle scene. That’s the most important single event in my family’s history. Did you know we’re descended from Emperor Atrin Kandor?”

He looked at the painting again. Kandor was there, or at least there was someone wearing a lot of armor with a crown on his head. He’d been shot straight through his chest by a black arrow and was in the middle of dropping a great glowing sword from his hand. Urthaenriel, the Ruin of Kings.

“I didn’t know that, no.” He turned back to her. “Didn’t he get most of the Khorvesh dominion killed?”

“That was a long time ago.” She leaned out over the railing. “Does your father know you’re dressed up like a street performer?”

“Yes, he does. Does your mother know she shouldn’t put your hair in braids like that? People might think you’re a girl.”

She laughed outright. “You’re bolder than I expected. I thought you’d be more of a fainting maid, but you meet me in the practice yards and I’ll show you how much of a girl I can be. I bet I beat the pants off you.”

Kihrin was hardly in the mood for flirting, but he couldn’t let the line pass without comment. “Careful there. I might enjoy that.”

She blushed then, although it wasn’t with any real shame, and the laughter didn’t leave her pretty eyes. “If you didn’t enjoy it, I’d say we were doing it wrong,” she finally said, a little hesitantly, as if she were just learning this flirting business and hadn’t quite finished memorizing all her lines. Then the girl sighed. “Damn it all. Father wouldn’t approve. It wouldn’t be proper.”

“I somehow doubt you only do what’s proper. Not wearing that outfit.”

“Eledore, aren’t you supposed to be practicing?” Captain Jarith asked as he entered the courtyard through a side door.

The young woman grimaced and sighed the quiet complaint of the born martyr. “I was just—”

“Now, Dory.”

“Yes, Jarith,” she muttered, and retreated into one of the side passages. She did, however, stop to wink at Kihrin before leaving.

Jarith shook his head. “It’s a good thing I rescued you. If I’d come in fifteen minutes later, she’d have you down by the practice yards, betting sword hits against your clothes.”

Kihrin smirked. “Most men would fight to lose in a situation like that.”

“Yes, but I doubt the High General would be happy to find a minstrel’s son from the Lower Circle playing sword games with his pride and joy. That would be unhealthier for you than an encounter with a demon prince.”

Kihrin’s mouth felt dry as the Wastelands. “That was the High General’s daughter?”

“Yes, it was, so don’t get any ideas. It hasn’t quite gotten so bad that I’m literally fighting off marriage offers, but I can see the day coming. I think when I marry it will be a commoner, just so I can hear the screams of rage from all the royal mothers who have been angling for me like fishermen with poles.”

Kihrin felt stupid. “You’re a Milligreest too?”

“Do you really think I’d have made Captain so young otherwise? Nepotism is alive and well in the Capital City of our great nation,” Captain Jarith said with surprising bitterness.

“Crap.” Kihrin grimaced. “I really stuck my foot in it, didn’t I?”

“So deep I should fetch you a shovel.” Despite his words, Jarith smiled. “I must admit she was dressed like a stable boy. I should take it as a compliment that you could see past the grime enough to think her pretty. Better than the men who only want her because of her father’s connections.” Captain Jarith gestured, the sweep of his hand taking in the manor. “My family is in a strange situation. We are not royalty, but so many of our family have held high office, as Voices of the Council, generals, or the like, that we might as well be. Those who want power court us, even though we have our distressing Khorveshan ways.”

Kihrin shifted awkwardly.

“Yes?” Jarith asked him.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Jarith chewed on his lip for a minute. “You did a brave thing with that demon, and another brave thing asking me to look for that slave girl. I suppose I don’t want you to think too ill of us.”

“Why would I?” Kihrin paused. “Morea’s sister? Talea? You’ve found out something?”

“I’m very sorry.”

Kihrin ground his teeth and looked away. “She’s dead?”

“She might as well be. She was sold to a man who counts torture as one of his favorite sports. His slaves don’t meet happy ends.”

“I could buy her.”

“You don’t have enough money.”

“You don’t know that.” Kihrin crossed his arms over his chest and bit down hard on the urge to explain how he spent his evenings.

Jarith sighed. “Yes, I do. Because it doesn’t matter how much money you have. You don’t have enough. You could be a prince of a Royal House and it wouldn’t matter. Darzin D’Mon is the kind of man who would invite you over with an offer to return her to you, and then torture her to death right there just to see the look on your face. He loves breaking spirits. It’s my shame to think that the same blood flows through his veins as mine.”

“What do you mean?”

“He is my cousin.” Jarith Milligreest shook his head. “We’re a proud family, and our history—” He gestured at the same mural. “We have lived and died in service to the Empire. He is a blight on my family’s honor, but at least he doesn’t wear the Milligreest name. Unfortunately, I can’t make him free a slave he owns by law. If he wishes to kill her, the law says he may.”

“It’s not right. He can just murder her, and you’ll do nothing?”

“She’s not legally a person and thus it is not legally murder.” Jarith shook his head. “I am sorry. If there were anyone else who had bought her, I could use my father’s name to apply some pressure. However, if I ask after her, it would mean her death. My cousin loves me as much as I love him. He’d do it out of spite.”

Kihrin shut his eyes and clenched his fists, tried to force down the taste of bile and hate. He looked up at the mural, at the fallen, twisted bodies of Quuros soldiers, dying as pawns in a game they did not understand and probably had wanted no part in. That hadn’t spared them.

Jarith clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Come. We have a pleasant library, and good strong ginger brandy, and after the day you’ve had I think you could use the latter. I will leave you there to wait until my father is ready to speak with you.”

Kihrin nodded, and allowed Jarith to lead him inside.