Raven's Shadow (Raven #1)(93)

"I don't know exactly - I was about four at the time, Phoran. The younger sons who inherited unexpectedly... oh, Seal Hold, Telleridge, Jenne, and a few others. You aren't going to tell me that the Secret Path is responsible for the plague, are you?" Avar shook his head. "A lot of people died, Phoran. Most of them weren't Septs with heirs who happened to be members of the Secret Club."

"Doubtless, you're right." Phoran smiled and changed the subject. "I am calling a Council Seating for tomorrow," he said.

"You are?" asked Avar, surprised into insult.

Phoran smiled at him grimly. "It may have become usual, since my uncle died, for Gorrish to call the Seat, but it is the imperial prerogative he uses. I am calling it, and I'd like you to deliver the messages. See if you can convince them that it's just a silly whim of mine - that I said something about being bored."

Avar stared at him for a long time, then nodded his head. "I'll do that. Tell me what time you'd like to meet."

The Memory came again that night. Phoran waited impatiently for it to finish. At last the cold tongue licked the puncture wounds clean and the Memory gave him the usual offer.

"Were you a Traveler held by the Secret Path?" Phoran asked.

"Yes," it said and was gone with its usual abruptness.

Pale and a little dizzy, the Emperor went to his closet and pulled on a robe. With only a little caution - because the Path's rooms were in an obscure corner of the palace - Phoran made it back to the bard's cell with little trouble. He found Tier's door unlocked, but when he went in, Tier lay unmoving on his bed and nothing Phoran could do would awaken him.

Phoran took up a seat on the end of the bed and stared at Tier's face - but other than being a little pale, he seemed healthy enough. At last Phoran arose unhappily and returned to his suite.

When Tier awoke, he knew they'd come for him again, though his last memory was of settling in to play a bit of music after leaving the party in the Eyrie. He moved and the lute tucked beside him dug into his ribs.

He sat up with sudden anxiety and inspected it for any damage it might have taken. He found something that could have been a new scratch on the finish, but nothing that would impair its use. He settled back against the wall with a sigh of relief. His head throbbed, his body ached, and his mouth was uncomfortably dry - but the lute could not heal itself.

He hugged the lute against his body.

What was it that they did to him?

Someone knocked on the door. Tier gathered himself together and stood up.

"It's dinnertime, sir," Myrceria explained after he'd opened the door to her. "I can have food brought to you, or you can eat in the Eyrie with the Passerines." She hesitated, then said, "You might have noticed that your movements have been restricted unless you have an escort. I was told to inform you that you now can move freely around most of the rooms used by the Passerines. If you'd like to wait and go alone, you may do that also. Food will be provided at any time upon your request."

He stood up slowly, but the movement seemed to help some of his aches and pains. "By all means," he said with as much charm as he could muster over his fading headache. "Let us go to the Eyrie."

The room was almost full to bursting. When Tier stepped inside, the dull roar quieted as the young men all watched him. Like a duck who had the ill luck to drop to earth in the midst of a pack of wolves, Tier thought with amusement.

Food of every description was spread out on the bar for the taking. Tier, following Myrceria's example, took a wooden platter and began filling it. When she led the way to an unoccupied table he followed her.

He ate without seeming to look up, but his peripheral vision was very good. He saw the boys' cautious approach.

The first to arrive and sit at Tier's table was a tall boy, too thin for his height. Before he opened his mouth, Tier knew a few things about him. The first was that he was a loner. The Passerines, he noticed, tended to travel in packs, and there was no one moving with this boy. The pads of his fingers were calloused from instrument strings and in one of those calloused hands was a large case.

He sat down beside Myrceria and put the case on their table in the place of the food dishes that an efficient servant had just whisked away.

"You said last night that a Bard could play any instrument," he said. "Try this one."

"What's your name?" asked Tier. He ignored the shuffle as a number of young men pulled up stools and benches to listen in on their conversation; instead, he kept his eyes on the case as he undid the various hooks that kept it closed.

"Collarn," said the boy. "I am an assistant at the Imperial College of Music. What do you think?"

The challenge in Collarn's voice was such that Tier wasn't surprised to discover that the case held an instrument he'd never seen before. He coaxed the thing out of its close-fitting case and scooted his stool back so that he could rest it on his lap for a closer look.

It looked somewhat like a lute, he decided, but it was squarer and deeper-bodied. There were tuning pegs, but the strings were hidden inside the body. Below the pegs it had two rows of buttons on the side.

On the side was a - "A handle?" Tier said, and turned it. At once an odd, penetrating, grinding sound issued from the bowels of the instrument. He grinned in delight.

Tier tilted his head and closed his eyes, turning the handle again. "It's like a violin," he said. "Or pipes. What do you call it, Collarn of the College of Music?"