The White Gryphon

Winterhart just shook her head and shrugged helplessly. "Whatever you and Skan decide is fine with me," she told him. "I'm out of my depth with all this skulking-about talk. The best I can do is keep up my part of the deception. You just tell me what you want me to say and do, and I will."

Good gods, am I becoming a leader? Surely not.

"Exactly as you have been doing." He tilted his head back in open invitation, and she leaned down and planted a warm and lingering kiss, sweet and bitter at the same time, on his lips. "I wonder if you know how remarkable you are," he breathed to her, as her lips left his.

"Oh, I know," she said, with a smile. "But only if you keep telling me."

"In that case," he said, as she reached down to him, ignoring the danger to her robe, and despite the fact that he was soaking wet, "I shall never stop."

They were all together in the gryphons' garden when Leyuet walked in on them with the stiff expression and gray cast around the lips that they had all come to associate with very bad news. This time, at least, he did not bring the Spears with him, but his face betrayed his thoughts, and they were as dark as his skin.

They stared at him in shocked silence for a moment. The sound of falling water seemed u

Only one thing can have put that particular expression on his face.

"Oh, gods—" Amberdrake exclaimed. "Not another—"

He did not have to say anything more. Leyuet nodded grimly, and sat down in a carved wooden seat as if he were exhausted.

He probably is. This is very, very hard on him.

"We discovered it not long ago, but it happened last night, and I'm certain there will be more folk than I who will recall that Skandranon was flying at the time," the Truthsayer said through clenched teeth. "This is the insidious part; whoever is behind this must know where the two of you are at all times now, and makes the murder appear to be the work of the one without an alibi at that time. He must be learning from his mistake the first time."

"I would be surprised if he were not," Amberdrake said, and ran a hand through his hair. "Can I assume that our killer left evidence pointing to Skan?"

"Are marks of a gryphon's claw enough?" Leyuet countered, but now with an odd and ironic air of triumph. "This victim appeared to have been clawed to death by something that came in by way of the open door of the balcony."

He's holding back something,Amberdrake realized—but also realized that he should allow the man to reveal whatever it was in his own good time. One does not force the conjurer's hand. It isn't polite, and it spoils the trick for everyone, especially the conjurer.

"And Palisar isn't beating down our door?" Skan said in surprise—obviously the gryphon hadn't seen what Amberdrake had. "I am astonished! How have you kept him muzzled?"

"He kept himself muzzled," Leyuet told them, and fished in the capacious sleeve of his robe for something, the sleeves that every Haighlei seemed to use instead of pockets or pouches.

Ah. Now we have the moment of revelation.

He found whatever it was he was looking for, and held out a silk-wrapped trifle in triumph. Whatever it was, it was about the size of a human finger under the wrapping of black silk.

No one touched it, and Leyuet carefully undid the folds of silk from around it. The last fold fell away, revealing a bit of wood.

Very hard, dark wood from the look of it—and very skillfully carved into the shape of a gryphon's talon. By the rough bit ending the third "knuckle," there had been a weakness in the wood the carver hadn't noticed, and it had broken off.

"Well!" Amberdrake said, picking the thing up with a bit of silk between it and his fingers, and holding it up to the light. If there were any traces of the carver's identity still on it after contact with so much blood and pain, he didn't want to muddle them by leaving his own traces. "So Palisar is finally convinced?"

Odd. Something about the carving seemed familiar, but he just couldn't place it.

"He couldn't explain thataway," Leyuet countered, with a grim smile. "He's had temple mages on it, and so far they've found nothing, but he thinks the problem is with them and not the claw; you know how magic is these days. By evening their spells could suddenly go right again."

"Hmm." Amberdrake put the claw back in Leyuet's hand, wrapped again in the insulating silk. "Does anyone else know?"

Leyuet shook his head, and tucked the betraying bit of evidence away again. "Not even the temple mages; Palisar told them nothing. Only the King, the Advisors, and now you know where it was found."

This is important. This might be just what we've been hoping for."Suppress it," Amberdrake decided instantly. "Let it leak that the victim was clawed to death by something like a huge lion. It isn't going to hurt anything at this stage if Skan goes back on the list of suspects, and if he doesn't—then a rumor just might spread that I'm a mighty mage and can call up demonic creatures to murder my enemies at a distance." He smiled grimly himself. "The latter rumor might help keep me in one piece. If people think I can call up demons, they may think twice about attacking me on their own."

Leyuet nodded; Skan must have told him about the arrow at Morning Court. "The King is coming here to discuss this in a moment, as soon as he can free himself from his guards. Technically, he is coming to have a private moment with Winterhart—"

"Which is an excellent excuse for conferring with all of you," said the King from the door into the gryphons' garden. "No one will dare intrude on the Emperor and his affianced."

Shalaman's baritone voice and steps were full of the vigor and energy of a man many years his junior, and he had do

"We'd counted on that, Serenity," Amberdrake replied, pleased by the King's casual ma

It tells me also that Shalaman was not exactly in love with Winterhart; he was in love— or at least desired— what she represented. That's rather different from being in love with the person, and easier to get over.Evidently Shalaman had gotten over both his desire for Winterhart and his disappointment in a remarkably short time. That is an old lesson of the kestra'chern; often, one can be in love with who they think someone is, while being blinded by their own desires. And just as often, instead of being in love with a lover, one is in love with love.

"Another murder—" Shalaman shook his head, grimacing, but as if he were discussing the death of a complete stranger. Perhaps he was—his Court was enormous, and there was no reason to assume he knew everyone in it personally. "It is interesting that all of the victims have been rather outspoken people with both powerful and disagreeable personalities. They all had—or had at one time—considerable influence, they all had great wealth and personal power, and they all collected many enemies. And—this is not the sort of thing that one wishes an ally to know, but I fear that assassination has been something of a way of life in the Haighlei Courts of the past. Not in myCourt, or not until this moment, but it still happens in the Courts of some of the other Emperors. If all the signs did not point so forcefully to you foreigners, it might have been accepted as the result of acquiring too many enemies."