The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [97]
Nikandr felt his face go hot. Borund wasn’t even watching him, so sure was he of the answer. Nikandr wanted to deny it, but there was no point.
Atiana must have told him.
“I do, but that doesn’t mean our families cannot profit from this wedding.”
“It is not the disease I care about, but that you felt it necessary to hide the fact from us. Was Khalakovo so desperate for these contracts?”
Nikandr did not want to admit that that was true, even though both of them knew it was so. Vostroma needed it as well. Khalakovo had the deepest supply of windwood and alabaster among the islands—crucial to the flow of trade among the Duchies and to Yrstanla—but Vostroma had the shipping lanes. They needed one another, but they had been at odds for so many years that it had been difficult to overcome. If Nikandr wasn’t careful, he’d reopen those wounds.
“I am in the early stages, Borund. I had hoped to find a way...”
“To what? Cure it? When no one has so far been able to?”
Nikandr shrugged, feeling foolish.
“Set aside for the moment the wedding and your lies. There is the seat of a Grand Duchy to fill. Until that is resolved, there is little sense pursuing a union that would only get in the way.”
“I wonder what it would be getting in the way of. You were hardly viewing your sister’s marriage as a nuisance when Ranos showed you the ships that came with it.”
“Those wrecks with wings?”
“You know which ships I mean.”
“Ah, the ones you were so gracious in showing after making an ass of me in front of the entire eyrie.”
“It wasn’t—”
Borund pulled his pony to a stop and regarded Nikandr squarely. “Bolgravya is dead, Nikandr. There is treachery afoot, and my father is hardly unwise for waiting until we hear more of the affair. What I should be hearing instead of a shrill plea for the hand of Vostroma’s daughter is news on what you’ve found after your extensive enquiries.”
“We have been working diligently, Borund.”
“To what end? Why haven’t we heard more about the Motherless qiram and his boy that were spirited into the bowels of Radiskoye?”
Nikandr was not to give out any information of Ashan and Nasim, but this conversation had gone in the completely wrong direction. Borund was his oldest friend—at one time his best friend. If anyone in Vostroma’s camp would see sense, it was him.
“We found them three days after the attack. The qiram is strong, but neither Mother nor Jahalan were abletodetect aguided crossing. Your own mother corroborates that, does she not?”
Borund allowed himself a nod.
“And the boy is just a boy, a boy that has no talent with hezhan.”
As Borund stared, a cold wind passed over the meadow, making the grasses look like waves lapping against the taller heather. Even the tops of the pine trees swayed with a similar rhythm. Berza was sniffing along a rivulet—chasing a meadow mouse, perhaps.
“If this is so why have you not yet freed them?”
“Because of the seriousness. We have to be sure.”
Borund’s face steeled and his eyes thinned. “Then give the boy to us. Let Ellayah question him.”
“I told you, he is not the one. There is little talent within him, certainly none for an elder spirit.”
“Then there is nothing for him to fear. It will take little time—days, a week at the most—and if all is as you say, the boy will be returned, none the worse for the wear.”
Nikandr sat up in his saddle. “You are my friend, Borund, but be careful of your tongue. You are on Khalakovan ground, and our court rules here. Not your father’s. Not Leonid’s, nor his henchmen. Not even Stasa, ancients preserve him, could tell Khalakovo what to do. So, nyet, we will not give you the boy.”
“I understand your father, Nikandr, better than you think. He was always one to ignore the tides around him, to ignore the signs brought to him on the wind. You, I thought, were different. I can see, though, that you have fallen too close to the tree. I was embarrassed for Iaros when I first heard of your offer to come hunting. Had my father not bid me to accept, I would have refused, and I would have spat upon Khalakovo’s table for sending his son when