From Outside. From the wide, free outside, where men existed such as Kontrin had once been. Until now, Outsiders had seen only the shadows of Kontrin; she wondered if they knew—what betas were, or if they had the least comprehension of Kontrin, or realised what she was.
“Sera,” Eln said anxiously. “Please. Please.”
She turned from the strangers, reckoning the open places about them, the chance of ambush. Warrior touched her anxiously, seeking reassurance. She followed the Eln-Kests at what pace they wanted to set, uncertain whether they were evading possible assassins or walking among them.
BOOK FIVE
i
“The old woman has something in mind,” Tand said. “I don’t like it.”
The elder Hald walked a space with his grandnephew, paused to pull a dead bloom from the nightflower. Neighbouring leaves shrank at the touch and remained furled a moment, then relaxed. “Something concrete?”
“Hive-reports. Stacks of them. Statistics. She may be aiming something at Thon. I don’t know. I can’t determine.”
The elder looked about at Tand, his heart labouring with the heavy persistence of dread. Tand was outside the informed circles of the movement. There were many things of which Tand remained ignorant: must. Where Tand stood, it was not good that he know . . . near as he was to the old woman’s hand. If the blow fell, all that he knew could be in Moth’s hands in hours. “What kind of statistics? Involving azi?”
“Among others. She’s asking for more data on Istra. She’s . . . amused by the Meth-maren. So she gives out. But here’s the matter: she muttered something after the committee left. About the Meth-maren serving her interests . . . conscious or unconscious on the Meth-maren’s part, I don’t know. I asked her flatly was the Meth-maren her agent. She denied it and then hedged with that.”
The Hald dropped the dry petals, his pulse no calmer. “The Meth-maren is becoming a persistent Irritant.”
“Another attempt on her—might be advisable.”
The Hald pulled off a frond. Others furled tightly, remained so, twice offended. He began to strip the soft part off the skeleton of the veins. It left a sharp smell in the air. “Tand, go back to the Old Hall. You shouldn’t stay here tonight”
“Now?”
“Now.”
One of Tand’s virtues was his adaptability. The Hald pulled another frond and stripped it, trusting that there would not be the least hesitation in Tand, from the garden walk to the front gate to the City. He heard him walk away, a door close.
His steps would be covered, cloaked in innocence . . . a supposed venture in the City; and back to Alpha, and Old Hall. There were those who would readily lie for him.
The Hald wiped his hand and walked the other path, up to other levels of the Held residence at Ehlvillon, to east-wing, to other resources.
A pattern was shaping.
On Istra . . . things had long been safe from Council inspection. Communications had been carefully channelled through Meron, screened thoroughly before transmission farther.
He walked the balls of panelling and stone, into the shielded area of the house comp, leaned above it and sent a message that consisted of banalities. There was no acknowledgement at the other end.
But three hours later, a little late for callers, an aircraft see down on the Hald grounds, ruffling the waters of the ornamental pond.
The Hald went out to meet it, and walked arm in arm with the man who had come in, paused by the pool in the dark, fed the sleepy old mudsnake which denned there. It gulped down bits of bread, being the omnivore it was, its doublehinged jaws opening and clamping again into a fat sullenness,
“Nigh as old as the house,” the Hald said of it.
Arl Ren-barant stood with folded arms. The Hald stood up and the mudsnake snapped, then levered itself off the bank and eased into the black waters, making a little wake as it curled away.
“Some old business,” said the Hald, “has surfaced again. I’m beginning to think it never left at all. We’ve been very careless in yielding to Eldest’s wishes in this ease. I’m less and less convinced it’s a matter of whim with her.”