Fire Dragon - Katharine Kerr [108]
As this procession went past, Niffa flattened herself against the retaining wall on the uphill side. None of the men deigned to acknowledge her, but Zatcheka looked her way, nodded pleasantly, and smiled, revealing a mouthful of long needle teeth, most likely filed into that shape, since none of the Gel da'Thae men had teeth like them. Niffa curtsied, which brought another smile. The procession went on past, leaving Niffa to follow after. There be a need on me to tell her about her son, Niffa was thinking. Zatcheka seemed much less frightening than she'd thought.
Niffa followed the Council of Five all the way to the top of Citadel and the public plaza, but they crossed it and went into the Council House at the far side while Niffa, of course, stopped at the public well. She watched as the council and their guests entered the colonnade and disappeared into an open door. Already the usual crowd had gathered at the well to wait their turns to draw, though Niffa noticed that there was more gawking than dipping going on. Harl hurried over to join her.
“The master's sore troubled,” Harl said. “There be some great thing afoot, I think me.”
“The Gel da'Thae always mean trouble,” Niffa said. “Bain't?”
“True spoken, but better they are than the Horsekin. That be what the master did say to me, when I was a-bringing him his cloak. Ah well, better them than Horsekin, though I fear me that this visit does concern them somehow.”
Niffa felt as if someone had grabbed her lungs with cold hands and made her gasp, just from the witchcertainty of it.
“I do agree with you,” she said. “But ai! There's a hope on me that I be wrong.”
“The wild Horsekin, they be on the move,” Zatcheka said. “I come with warnings.”
“A great fear did lie on me that such was true,” Admi said. “I thank you for the town's sake.”
She inclined her head in his direction, a move that made the talismans on her cap dance and glint in the sunlight streaming through the window. The council was meeting in its usual chamber, a great high-ceilinged stone room with a low dais at one end. On the dais, in front of a long window, stood a round wood table and plain wood chairs; the rest of the room stood empty. With the table round there could be no question of precedent, an arrangement that had pleased Zatcheka. She lounged at ease in one of the chairs, while her adopted daughter sat on the floor beside her and her two guards stood behind. The five council-men sat in their usual places, but none of them looked in the least bit calm. Verrarc felt as tight-wound as new rope.
“Honored Zatcheka,” Admi went on. “Is it that you do know why the savages are ready for war?”
“I do, and a sinful thing it be.” Zatcheka laid a pale hand over the clutch of talismans at her throat. “An impiety of the worst sort, a blasphemy to all the true gods and their servants. They claim they serve a new goddess. Some call her The Hidden One; others, Alshandra, Mistress of Storm. I call her fraud.”
The entire council gawked like children. Zatcheka smiled, but she kept her lips tightly drawn over her pointed teeth. Old Hennis, a skinny stick of a man with no teeth at all and precious little respect for gods of any kind, gave Verrarc a sideways glance that came too close to a dismissive smile. Verrarc scowled at him. He knew the Gel da'Thae way of telling stories; they always began with gods and ended with them, too. What counted was the middle.
“Honored council, I had two sons once,” she went on. “One of them was a great warrior, but he brought naught but shame to his people. He too did serve this foul demoness, this Alshandra. I foreswore him, I cast him out of my heart. My second son be, as you do know, Meer the Bard, and him I did send after his brother to bring back news of him.”
“Just so,” Admi said. “A sad thing, truly.”
“It was. And I hope and pray to the true gods that I have not a second sadness waiting me. I do fear in