Homeland (The Legend of Drizzt #1)(21)

Even in the fall, though, Drizzt was alert and wise enough to keep his gaze locked on to that of Matron Malice.

“No more a servant!” the matron mother roared. “To continue acting like one would bring disgrace to our family,” She grabbed Drizzt by the throat and dragged him roughly to his feet.

“If you dishonor House Do’Urden,” she promised, her face an inch from his, “I will put needles into your purple eyes.”

Drizzt didn’t blink. In the six years since Vierna had relinquished care of him, putting him into general servitude to all the family, he had come to know Matron Malice well enough to understand all of the subtle connotations of her threats. She was his mother-for whatever that was worth-but Drizzt did not doubt that she would enjoy sticking needles in his eyes.

“This one is different,” Vierna said, “in more than the shade of his eyes.”

“In what way, then?” Zaknafein asked, trying to keep his curiosity at a professional level. Zak had always liked Vierna better than the others, but she recently had been ordained a high priestess, and had since become too eager for her own good.

Vierna slowed the pace of her gait-the door to the chapel’s antechamber was in sight now. “It is hard to say,” she admitted. “Drizzt is as intelligent as any male child I have ever known; he could levitate by the age of five. Yet, after he became the page prince, it took weeks of punishment to teach him the duty of keeping his gaze to the floor, as if such a simple act ran unnaturally counter to his constitution.”

Zaknafein paused and let Vierna move ahead of him. “Unnatural?” he whispered under his b reath, considering the implications of Vierna’s observations. Unusual, perhaps, for a drow, but exactly what Zaknafein would expect-and hope for-from a child of his loins.

He moved behind Vierna into the lightless anteroom. Malice, as always, sat in her throne at the head of the spider idol, but all the other chairs in the room had been moved to the walls, even though the entire family was present. This was to be a formal meeting, Zak realized, for only the matron- mother was accorded the comfort of a seat.

“Matron Malice,” Vierna began in her most reverent voice, “I present to you Zaknafein, as you requested.”

Zak moved up beside Vierna and exchanged nods with Malice, but he was more intent on the youngest Do’Urden, standing naked to the waist at the matron mother’s side.

Malice held up one hand to silence the others, then motioned for Briza, holding a house piwafwi, to continue. An expression of elation brightened Drizzt’s childish face as Briza, chanting through the appropriate incantations, placed the magical cloak, black and shot with streaks of purple and red, over his shoulders.

“Greetings, Zaknafein Do’Urden,” Drizzt said heartily, drawing stunned looks from all in the room. Matron Malice had not granted him privilege to speak; he hadn’t even asked her permission!

“I am Drizzt, secondboy of House Do’Urden, no more the page prince. I can look at you now-I mean at your eyes and not your boots. Mother told me so,” Drizzt’s smile disappeared when he looked up at the burning scowl of Matron Malice.

Vierna stood as if turned to stone, her jaw hanging open and her eyes wide in disbelief.

Zak, too, was amazed, but in a different manner. He brought a hand up to pinch his lips together, to prevent them from spreading into a smile that would have inevitably erupted into belly-shaking laughter. Zak couldn’t remember the last time he had seen the matron mother’s face so very bright!

Briza, in her customary position behind Malice, fumbled with her whip, too confounded by her young brother’s actions to even know what in the Nine Hells she should do.

That was a first, Zak knew, for Malice’s eldest daughter rarely hesitated when punishment was in order.

At the matron’s side, but now prudently a step farther away, Drizzt quieted and stood perfectly still, biting down on his bottom lip. Zak could see, though, that the smile remained in the young drow’s eyes. Drizzt’s informality and disrespect of station had been more than an unconscious slip of the tongue and more than the innocence of inexperience.

The weapon master took a long step forward to deflect the matron mother’s attention from Drizzt.

“Secondboy?” he asked, sounding impressed, both for the sake of Drizzt’s swelling pride and to placate and distract Malice. “Then it is time for you to train.”

Malice let her anger slip away, a rare event. “Only the basics at your hand, Zaknafein. If Drizzt is to replace Nalfein, his place at the Academy will be in Sorcere. Thus the bulk of his preparation will fall upon Rizzen and his knowledge, limited though it may be, of the magical arts.”

“Are you so certain that wizardry is his lot, Matron?” Zak was quick to ask.

“He appears intelligent,” Malice replied. She shot an angry glare at Drizzt. “At least, some of the time. Vierna reported great progress with his command of the innate powers.

Our house needs a new wizard,” Malice snarled reflexively, reminded of Matron Baenre’s pride in her wizard son, the Archmage of the city. It had been sixteen years since Malice’s meeting with the First Matron Mother of Menzoberranzan, but she had never forgotten even the tiniest detail of that encounter. “Sorcerer seems the natural course.”

Zak took a flat coin from his neck-purse, flipped it into a spin, and snatched it out of the air. “Might we see?” he asked.