Peril’s Gate. Janny Wurts

       Winter 5670

      High Priest

      Dedicated to his post in far-distant Tysan, Cerebeld, High Priest of the Light, was a disciplined early riser. Candles burned in his chamber before the glimmer of daybreak lit the roofs of Avenor the colors of pewter and poured lead. For the watch, shivering through the bitter misery of the night, the carmine glow from the priest’s tower windows infallibly signaled the final hour before dawn. The taciturn pair of novices who attended his eminence had learned not to trouble his solitude. Cerebeld refused to have servants assist with his dress. He donned his layered white robes on arising, and arranged the seven roped chains of high office. Washed, face and hands, in the chill basin filled for his use the past evening, he followed his rigid habit of keeping devotions until after sunrise. None dared cross his threshold before his sharp clap summoned the hot bread he preferred for his breakfast.

      No aspirant who demanded an earlier audience would be admitted into his presence. The novices turned petitioners away regardless of rank, no matter their reason or urgency.

      Yet predawn on this day, six men-at-arms clad in royal blue tabards with the eight-point gold star of Tysan delivered an irresistible force of persuasion. The steel-strapped oak door to Cerebeld’s chamber crashed back. The lead pair held the novices pinned to the wall, their mailed gauntlets and battle-trained strength overriding the howled chorus of protest. The ruffian in front still brandished the mace just used to mangle the door latch. With a flash of white teeth, the burly henchman who had rammed the locked panel refused any grace of apology. He offered his arm, inviting someone else poised in the stairwell across the High Priest’s breached threshold.

      A suave power who matched brute force with calculation, Cerebeld arose from the sunwheel cushion that enthroned him in meditation. He knew who had come. With Prince Lysaer away on campaign in the east, only one voice dared command the elite royal guard from the garrison.

      ‘Her Grace, the Princess of Tysan,’ announced the rogue who intruded, his sneer for the effete scent of sandalwood wafted from the priest’s inner quarters.

      Cerebeld looked down his axe-blade nose, his eyes colorless as rimed ice. His dark hair was slicked as a seal’s coat with ambergris. Even this early, he was ceremonially clothed, his sunwheel vestments of stainless white mirrored in the wax-polished floor. The gray bristles of his beard were trimmed to a point, accent to the wrought gold of yoked chains whose links were interlocked dragons. His beeswax complexion showed no flush of anger. Erect, unblinking, he displayed a sangfroid intimidation more effective than bluster or speech.

      On that cold, predawn morning, the Princess of Tysan swept into his presence, unfazed. She shed her cloud of ermine cloak into the hands of her armed attendants. The candles on Cerebeld’s locked aumbries lit her crisp dazzle of sapphire silk and wired jewelry. For this audience, the lady wore formal state trappings, the stamped brilliance of gemstones and shining gold circlet a blaze of royal authority. Unasked, she sat in the chamber’s sole chair. Her skirts pooled around her demurely crossed ankles, damascened blue against her ringed hands, clasped in graceful deportment in her lap.

      Doe brown eyes matched Cerebeld’s hauteur with a mutual bristle of antagonism. ‘I’m here on account of the prince, my blood son.’

      The High Priest’s plum lips thinned with distaste. ‘The boy’s doings are none of my affair, your Grace, unless he strays into liaison with unwholesome powers of darkness.’

      Ellaine firmed her chin. Her spring-rose beauty had lost its fresh dew. The small, timeworn lines tooled into her complexion by year upon year of resignation today underscored her striking determination. ‘The heir apparent of this kingdom has left for Karfael with the guard. I find your seal of approval gave him leave. He’s a fifteen-year-old boy. In the company of veteran field troops, he goes armed with only a ceremonial blade, and a head full of dreams that don’t match his strength, or his inept grasp of tournament swordplay. If that’s not a meddling interest in his welfare, I’ll see you clapped in irons for deceit.’

      Cerebeld linked taloned hands at his waist. ‘Princess, your accusation is pure hearsay.’

      ‘The palace steward’s a weasel at evasion, but he draws clear distinction against lying.’ Ellaine pinned the High Priest without quarter, her retiring nature ignited to flash-point resolve. ‘Gace insists that your writ gave the prince due permission to accompany the troops out on road watch.’

      A presence of razor-cut, glittering white against the night-darkened panes of the casements, the High Priest of the Light checked his sigh of exasperation. ‘The boy is this realm’s heir apparent, if not yet a man. He can’t learn to rule in Avenor sequestered behind the skirts of your chattering women.’ The sharp flick of a glance cut and measured the uncowed, closed hands and tense flush of the lady seated before him. The tragic fact that the princess’s late predecessor had died of a suicidal leap from the battlements above had plainly not served to intimidate. Outraged motherhood was not going to back down. ‘No,’ Cerebeld stated in quelling authority. ‘Stay your hand-wringing, you’re quite wrong. The young prince’s permission arose from a higher authority than mine.’

      ‘What, the Word of the Light?’ Ellaine’s contempt raked him. ‘For your posturing sham of serving divinity, you’ve dared send my son on a winter campaign?’

      ‘A routine patrol,’ High Priest Cerebeld corrected. Attacks never ruffled him. He unclasped his jeweled fingers, his serenity built on the granite of utter conviction. ‘Have you ever known me to speak false concerning your husband’s divine will? My task while I wear the grace of this mantle is to hear and act for the Light. I say again, permission was served through the mouth of my office, not by my personal preference. Your son was sent to Karfael to mature his experience. He remains in the field until his royal father sees fit to send word and recall him.’

      Ellaine clamped back a furious retort, too seasoned to battle the High Priest’s righteous duty head-on. The brute rigors of politics had tested his primacy. Time and again, Lysaer s’Ilessid had affirmed the man’s power to deliver his royal state edicts. Even Avenor’s most avaricious trade ministers bowed to Cerebeld’s decrees concerning the will of the Divine Prince.

      Taut-faced, white-knuckled, Ellaine refused setback. ‘If the heir apparent rides for Karfael, then I go as well. My train and escort will include his Grace’s tutors. Two pages from Avenor’s prominent families will serve the young prince as companions. Let my royal husband understand this: I will not have our son in the forests of Westwood haring after the scalps of barbarians!’

      ‘You will not leave for Karfael, or anywhere else.’ Cerebeld’s velvet-clothed certainty shot dangerous currents through the spice-burdened air of the room. The edged play of the light on his sunwheel emblems gained sharpened menace as he served his ultimatum. ‘The last princess before you left this city with war pending. She fell victim to the Spinner of Darkness. The Blessed Prince will not see her tragedy repeated. Dear lady, by my oath of service to the Light, you will not pass the gates of Avenor.’

      Spark to struck tinder, Ellaine surged to her feet. ‘Spinner of Darkness? What is he, but the name of an absent threat? I have never met him, never seen him! Nor have I stood witness to one concrete act that was his, and not some machination used to further the interests of politics. What is Arithon s’Ffalenn but convenience and hearsay that feeds the excuse for trade factions to raise arms and curb the predations of barbarians!’

      ‘But the Master of Shadow is no longer in hiding,’ Cerebeld explained after the gravid, barbed pause he used to lend weight to his arguments. ‘The enemy is back in Rathain at this moment, and your husband is across Instrell Bay, raising town garrisons to challenge him.’

      The High Priest waved aside Ellaine’s rebuttal, that deep winter would hamper the muster.