Raven's Shadow (Raven #1)(66)

"Then you know how it is done," Tier said. "Jes will stay with us, and you will teach me how to raise a Guardian who will die of ripe old age."

Her face had come alive then, and he saw what it had cost her to be honest with him. When he cradled his family against him, mother and child, she'd whispered, "I'd have killed anyone who would have tried to take him."

"Me, too," Tier had said fiercely into her moon-colored hair. No one would ever separate them.

"Me, too," said Tier, in his cell in the palace at Taela.

How best to weather this captivity? The answers came to him in Gerant's dry tenor. Know your enemy. Know what they want so you know where to expect their next attack. Discover their strengths and avoid them. Find their weaknesses and exploit them with your strengths. Knowledge is a better weapon than a sword.

He smiled affably when Myrceria entered his room.

"If you would come with me, sir," she said. "We'll make you ready for presentation. After the ceremony you'll be given the freedom of the Eyrie and all the pleasures it can provide you."

The women who'd tried to bathe him once before were back in the bathing pool, and this time Myrceria wouldn't let him send them out. They scrubbed, combed, shaved, trimmed, and ignored his blushes and protests.

When one of the women started after his hair, Myrceria caught her hand, "No, leave it long. We'll braid it and it will look properly exotic."

They persuaded him into court clothing, the like of which he'd have never willingly put on. He might actually have refused to wear them, even with his resolution to be a meek and mild guest while he gathered knowledge of his enemy, if it weren't for the fear in their eyes. He could see that, if they didn't turn him out pretty as a lady's mare, it wouldn't be him that suffered. So he protested and made rude comments, but he wore the silly things.

There was a polished metal mirror embedded in the wall, and the women pushed and shoved him until he stood in front of it.

Baggy red velvet trousers, tight at waist and ankles, were half-concealed by a tunic that hung straight from shoulder to knees. From the weight of it, the tunic was real cloth of gold. Under the tunic, his shirt was blood-red silk embroidered with metallic gold thread. They'd shaved his face smooth, then oiled his hair with something that left flakes of metal in it that caught the light as he moved. Then they'd braided it with gold and red cords that gradually replaced his own hair so the braid hung down to his hips, where it ended in gold and red tassels. On his feet were gold slippers encrusted with bits of red glass. At least he hoped it was glass.

After looking at the full effect, he hung his head and closed his eyes.

"Lassies, if my wife ever saw me like this she'd never let me live it down."

Myrceria tapped him playfully with one manicured finger. "You look handsome, admit it. We did a good job, ladies, although he wasn't so bad to start out."

Tier looked at himself in the mirror again. If he looked carefully, he could see how the outfit might have been inspired by Traveler's garments. They wore the loose pants and the knee-length tunic - but one of the things that Seraph liked about Rederni clothes was the bright colors. Her own people wore mostly undyed fabrics or earth tones.

Tier sighed, "I'm glad there's no one here who knows me. I'd never live this down."

They covered his magnificent gaudiness with a brown robe and pulled its hood down to hide his face.

"There now," said Myrceria. "You are ready." She hesitated, and the practiced manner of a court whore faded a little. "You've made our job easier," she said. "Let me help you a little. The wizards will be waiting when we take you out the door. Go with them quietly; they won't hurt you. They'll escort you through the Eyrie - the largest room that belongs to the Path. It's an auditorium tonight, but usually it is just a room for people to gather in. The wizards will take you to the stage at the end and introduce you to the Passerines and whatever Raptors decided to come."

He took her hand in his and bent to kiss it. "Thank you for your kindness, Myrceria. Ladies."

There were four men in black robes waiting for him, just as Myrceria had promised. Like him, their hoods were pulled over their faces.

Tier hesitated in the doorway, unprepared for the fearful reluctance he felt at the sight of them and the sudden conviction that he'd seen the knobby hands of the man nearest him holding a small knife wet with blood.

He repressed his fear and the anger it called. With a small smile he set himself in the center of the procession.

"Shall we go, gentlemen?" he said pleasantly.

The Eyrie was made up of broad shelves of level flooring with short drops between sections; the level shelves narrowed as they neared the stage at the far side of the room.

The uppermost section, where Tier and his escort entered, was mostly occupied by a bar laden with food. Behind the bar was an open doorway where servants appeared with trays of food or armloads of ale mugs.

There were a few tables against the wall with white-robed men who watched Tier mostly indifferently. But most of the people in the room were young men in blue robes who quieted as the procession passed them by. By the time they reached the stage, the room was eerily silent.

The wizards walked Tier onto the stage and stopped in the middle, turning as one to face the audience. As soon as they stood there, the lights in the Eyrie dimmed except for the stones that lined the edge of the stage.