Sanctuary - Lynn Abbey [4]
Atredan could not have looked more displeased if he’d had a plate of worms set before him and his father’s undrinkable wine to wash it down. “Is that what this is about—the great Lord Torchholder dispensing advice on the road to Sanctuary? You’re wasting your time, old man. I know everything I need to know about Naimun and the Dragon, their father, and every other Irrune who matters, and I learned it without your help or my lord father’s, either.”
He’d hoped for a better response, but Molin was too much the diplomat to reveal his disappointments. “Then, forgive an old man who’s seen too many men fail because they forgot to watch their backs.”
“When Arizak’s gone, Naimun will bring Rankan rule to Sanctuary—without the emperor, of course, and without the Dragon. It’s all been settled. I’d think you’d be pleased, Lord Torchholder. Isn’t that what you had in mind all along?”
“Of course,” Molin agreed, and the words weren’t utter falsehood.
The laws of Ranke, when wielded by a strong, yet subtle, ruler were worthy of admiration. Molin would like to see Rankan law return to Sanctuary, but Naimun was neither strong enough nor subtle enough to do so. There was a man in the palace whom Molin liked better for the task—a boy, actually: Raith, Naimun’s brother and the youngest of Arizak’s sons. Raith had it all—the strength and comeliness, the quickness of mind, the flair for leadership and decision. What Raith lacked was experience. He was all of sixteen and needed another four years, three at least, before he could lay claim to the palace.
Damn Arizak for getting drunk and falling off his horse!
“Come,” Molin said with unfeigned weariness. “An old man needs to get moving if he’s going to see his own bed before midnight.”
Molin set the pace, which was slower than he would have liked—another concession to age. He relied on a staff for all but the shortest walks. The wood was gnarled and blackened and older than Molin. He’d found it in a palace storeroom and had no idea to whom it had once belonged. Probably a prince or priest of the Ilsigi; they rarely went anywhere without some symbol of authority clutched in their hands. Molin had made a few improvements. He’d burnt down the shaft and hidden Sanctuary’s Savankh—the scepter with which an Imperial prince-governor ruled an Imperial city—in the tunnel. As an instrument of justice, a Savankh drew the truth out of a man, will he or nil he. The Savankh had transferred its power to the staff, but Molin, like the princes and governors before him, was immune to its sorcerous power.
In competent hands, the blackwood staff was a serviceable weapon, and, despite their years, Molin’s hands were competent. He’d gotten his war-name, Torchholder, in part because of a willingness to use whatever object lay closest to hand when he fought. His strength had ebbed a couple decades earlier and his balance was going, too, but his instincts remained sharp, and the Savankh wasn’t the only trick hidden beneath the staff’s amber finial.
But it was a staff, a plain ordinary staff, that Molin needed as the road widened, and the iron-reinforced Prince’s Gate loomed ahead. He’d been thinking with his heart, not his head, when he’d decided to return to Sanctuary. Night travel was harder on the eyes and every other part of a man’s body. At the very least, he should have insisted on a pony cart; he’d given up riding not long after his seventy-fifth birthday.
“They’re drunk again,” Atredan grumbled, and pointed up at the guard-porch atop the gate, where no men could be seen keeping watch.
“Pull the cord anyway.”
Atredan reached into shadow and hauled on a thick rope. A bell clanged within the tower. Molin, who remained in moonlight, watched for movement on the roof or any of the tower