Grand Conspiracy: Second Book of The Alliance of Light. Janny Wurts

his gold hair. The stark purity of white velvets and diamonds amid the workaday grime of the ropewalk appeared as incongruous as a snowdrift arrived out of season.

      To Ivel, the prince said, ‘Bide in the grace of my tolerance and continue to place your best work into splicing new ropes for my ships.’

      Ivel spat. His ejected gobbet landed just shy of the elegantly shod royal toe. ‘My best work,’ he said carefully, ‘is saved for my leave time with wenches. And the joins in my lines will hold only as true as the quality of the hemp you import for their making. Supply’s been second-rate, and your pay could be better.’

      Lysaer blinked. A solemn corner of his mouth twitched. Then he laughed and swung his piercing regard back to his master shipwright. ‘Am I given to understand my treasury’s funding for this yard is fallen short of sufficient?’

      While the gulls wheeled, crying, to a shift in the breeze, and the harbor bell pealed to signal the turn of ebb tide, Cattrick played his narrow-eyed survey across the row of ribbed hulls, the smoking brick chimneys of the boiler sheds, and the raw lengths of lumber, interlaced into stacks for the air to season the planks. He said, noncommittal, ‘Your Grace, you’ve read the reports. We’ve had setbacks aplenty since the upsets involved with your rout of the Shadow Master last springtide.’

      The offshore pursuit of that quarry to the Isles of Min Pierens had told worst, with no authorized crown officer left at Avenor to rectify the flow of supply and demand. The stalled requisitions, the delays, the missed deadlines which sprang from the bottleneck were inked in hard figures by the scribes. If Prince Lysaer had come properly primed for this meeting, he must already know the details: quality had suffered to meet the decreed royal schedule. The accounts contained each laborious detail: the lists of forged fittings bought lacking the ideal, tested temper; of the green spruce that had dried too checked to be steam-bent; of the varnish that bloomed and then flaked from the brightwork, inviting premature rot.

      When Lysaer s’Ilessid declined the proffered opening to shoulder his due part, Cattrick picked words with a deference at odds with the powerful, bear’s bellow he used to command his skilled craftsmen. ‘It’s scarcely my place to fault the crown treasury, your Grace. The inspection will show you our shortfalls.’

      Lysaer’s relaxed smile returned like lost warmth. As if the blind splicer had caused no sour note, he gestured his readiness to proceed.

      For Cattrick, that day, the hard edge to the breeze forewarned of the keen chill of winter. He led the prince and his three guardsmen through the shipworks the same way he measured his planks: with direct and exacting attentiveness. The steam boxes puffed like somnolent dragons. The shadows cast from raw ribs and keelsons, and the golden lengths of spruce being shaped in the sawpits seemed glued into the abundant, rich scents of salt air, pine pitch, and hot tar.

      Lysaer did not rush. Nor did he expect to be spoon-fed the facts. As though his jewels and spotless white velvet represented no difference of station, he engaged the laborers in conversation. He shook the men’s hands as though they were not coarsely clad, rinsed in running sweat turned sticky with shavings and filth. If his majesty stunned them, or his unearthly grace, he gave no credence to awe. Nor did he seek either fault or restitution for the stupefying losses set in train by the Shadow Master’s plotting.

      The spontaneous contact touched off admiration and camaraderie. The laborers opened and laughed. Through their loosened ease, the Prince of the Light learned the workings of the yard in utmost, gritty detail. He found Cattrick’s steady competence was held in respect. At each site, he tested and observed and moved on, while the rapport that he engendered between disparate men gained focus and became a unified cord of tied force.

      Few could escape the drawing pull of the Prince of the Light’s bright charisma. From the dusty boys who shoveled the shavings from the sawpits, to the ox goads who kept the creaking wheels of the ropewalks slowly turning, to the sailmakers in their swept loft, stitching yards of oak-dyed canvas, the craftsmen sharpened to purposeful unity. Their industry flowed with their source of inspiration. At one crook of Lysaer’s diamond-jeweled finger, each one appeared ready to throw down his tools and beg for a place in armed service. The adulation was euphoric, as if within the prince’s magnetic presence, plain sunlight shone brighter, and the toils of exertion came sweetened, enriched to scintillant meaning.

      Cattrick watched the transformation. The lined, wary squint never left his expression, and his broad hands stayed jammed in his breeches. He volunteered little, but gave answers like ruled lines to those questions Lysaer posed directly. Afternoon wore away toward sundown. The shadows lost edges, elongated to the texture of torn felt, and blended without seam into twilight. The royal party climbed the outdoor stairway to the sanctum of Cattrick’s chartloft. There, huddled under the glimmer of cheap tallow dips, they reviewed the close-guarded leaves penned with the lines of ships’ plans.

      The moment was inopportune for interruption, yet one came in the form of a riled yell from the royal man-at-arms posted on watch outside.

      A voice pealed through commotion, demanding. ‘Damn you, I’m an ally! If you don’t want a fight, put up your fool sword. One grunt’s length of steel is scarcely enough to keep me from going inside.’

      Something responded with an indignant clang.

      ‘Told you,’ said the intruder, disgusted. ‘Now use the brains that Ath gave a mule and don’t try to stab me in the back.’

      Speedy, light footsteps ascended the stair. An imperious fist banged on the door, and the latch gave way and flew open.

      Mearn s’Brydion, youngest brother of the clanborn Duke of Alestron, arrived at the entry, slit-eyed and poised as a cat with a bristled tail. His gaze fastened instantly on Lysaer. ‘You know how far and long I’ve had to ride to gain your ear for this audience?’ Neither honorific nor apology was offered in his testy habit of old clanblood arrogance and quicksilver, unvarnished nerve.

      He strode in. Leathers left sweat-damp and redolent of horse cracked to his brisk stride. Brown hair peeled up and spiked by chill wind threw sliding lines of shadow across his frowning agitation. ‘Your lady is dead.’

      For the second time, Lysaer’s raised arm checked the defensive rush of his bodyguard. ‘That’s surely no news, though you were in King Eldir’s court, I understand, on the day I blessed and settled her ashes.’

      Mearn bore in like a terrier. ‘If I was in Havish, that doesn’t change that you honored her shade four months after the hour Princess Talith passed the Wheel!’

      Resigned, Lysaer straightened from his perusal of a chart. Unruffled by the hard length of his day, he confronted the s’Brydion style of ripping censure with calm like grounded bedrock. ‘Should you concern yourself?’

      Mearn reached the edge of the trestle, stopped. He planted gauntleted fists on the edge. The studs bit into creaking wood as he leaned and bore down on his knuckles. ‘Your seneschal claims she committed suicide.’

      His blue eyes serene, Lysaer replied, ‘I believe him.’

      For one second, two, prince and clansman locked stares, the former all fired, untarnished elegance, and the latter rumpled and taut as stressed cord. Cattrick looked on with folded arms, while the tense royal guardsmen stood by with mailed hands welded to their sword grips.

      Then Mearn spun about in abrupt, liquid grace. ‘You believe him.’ He paced, the short, blunt spurs on his boots flicking off small points of light. He expected no answer. When he reached the shuttered window, he faced about and braced his angular frame against the sill. ‘They say on the streets that you have pressed suit for the Mayor of Erdane’s eldest daughter.’

      ‘My offer for her hand in marriage has been accepted.’ Lysaer was not smiling. His jewels might have been frozen stars, so controlled was his breathing. ‘The official announcement will be made next week.’

      Mearn pushed back his cuffs and latched his thumbs through his sword belt. He might not bow, had never acknowledged Lysaer’s claim to title. As the scabbard and sheath at his hip were not