Warhost of Vastmark. Janny Wurts

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 manned the Shearfast? Where was your vaunted pity when your galleys ran them down and let them burn?’

      ‘Your husband was aboard?’ Lysaer probed softly.

      Jinesse jerked her fingers from his clasp. Her wide-eyed flash of resentment transformed to dismay as she spun and flounced off of the dais.

      ‘Go with her,’ Lysaer said in swift order to the officer at the base of the stair. ‘See her home safely and stay there until I can send someone to console her. There were survivors from that vessel. I don’t know how many, but her loved one could possibly be among them.’

      Mollified by the kindness shown to one of their own, the villagers of Merior gave way to a grudging, gruff patience as Lysaer concluded his speech. ‘I’ve scarcely touched on the danger this conniving pirate presents. If you never saw him work shadows or sorcery, you will be shown that his gifts are no tale without substance. Among you stand my officers, who saw the sunlight over Minderl Bay become strangled into darkness. They will stay and hear your questions. Lord Diegan will tell of the massacre he survived on the banks of Tal Quorin in Deshir. We have a man from Jaelot and another from Alestron, who witnessed the felonies there. But lest what they say turn your hearts to rank fear, I would have you understand you’re not alone.’

      Lysaer raised his arms. His full, embroidered sleeves fell away from his wrists as he stretched his hands wide and summoned the powers of his birth gift. A flood of golden light washed the fish market. It rinsed through the flames in the torches, and built, blinding, dazzling, until the eye could not separate the figure of the prince from the overwhelming, miraculous glare.

      Lysaer’s voice rolled over the dismayed gasps of the awestruck fisherfolk at his feet. ‘My gift of light is a full match for the Master of Shadow! Be assured I shall not rest until this land is safe, and his evil designs are eradicated.’

      From the boardinghouse landlady, who called with a basket of scones, Jinesse learned how opinion had turned once Prince Lysaer had left the villagers to enjoy his hospitality. The beer and the wine had flowed freely, while talk loosened. The old gossip concerning the Black Drake and the widow’s past voyage on Talliarthe were resurrected and bandied about with fresh fervour. Most telling of all was Arithon’s reticence. The fact he had no confidant, that he never shared the least clue to his intentions became the most damning fact against him. Paired with first-hand accounts of his atrocities in the north, such self-possessed privacy in hindsight became the quiet of a secret, scheming mind.

      By roundabout means, the landlady reached the news she had been appointed to deliver. ‘When the galley’s crew boarded and took Shearfast, they insist only two of Arithon’s sailors met them. Those refused quarter and fought to the death, but not to save their command. They had already fired the new hull to scuttle her. Despite the flames, the duke’s officers searched the hold. They found a bound man held captive below decks. He was cut loose while unconscious, and is now in the care of Prince Lysaer’s personal healer.’

      Jinesse looked up from the skirt she had been mending, her needle poised at an agonized angle between stitches she had jerked much too tight. The name of Tharrick hung unspoken as she said, ‘But Arithon kept no one prisoner.’

      The boardinghouse landlady sniffed and drizzled honey over one of the pastries. ‘I said so. The Prince of the West showed no opinion on the matter, but looked me through as though I were a child in sad want of wisdom.’

      Unbleached homespun crumpled under Jinesse’s knuckles. She, too, kept her thoughts to herself. For the ruinous delay which Tharrick’s retribution