“We don’t have forever, Wiezal.”
“Shouldn’t take forever. Just got misled, that’s all.”
“Purposefully misled, do you think?”
As he thought seriously on the question, Wiezal lifted a nostril, which lifted one side of his lip, letting a sharp tooth show at the corner. “No. Seems the Colonel promised this wedding long ago. Not something he just thought up. Coincidental, more like.”
“I understood the Colonel was in love with the girl.” Wiezal shrugged. “Nobody saw them together. Not without her maid or somebody there. Maybe she loves him. Or visus vercy. It didn’t get far, if so. Besides, Marshal wouldn’t have it.”
So the Marshal wouldn’t have it, ah? Which might explain the fact she’d run off without her lover! That was a complication to keep in mind. “Wiezal, find Colonel Aufors Leys. I want him here, before me, soonest. And Wiezal . . .”
“Sir?”
“I don’t want him damaged. I need him in good working order.”
“Ah. Soon as may be.”
“Sooner than that.”
Wiezal slipped out and away while Delganor sat in his chair and brooded. No matter how well he planned, there were always these little glitches. The flow of his life was not clear and straight. There were opacities. Eddies. But small, small, nothing in the way of a maelstrom or a tidal wave. Not that Haven needed fear tidal waves. It took long, sloping shores for tidal waves to build their force, and there were no long, sloping shores around Haven. No long sloping shores in Delganor’s life, either. His way was straight up, a cliff to scale, a peak to ascend. There was only one height beyond his own, the rule of Haven, including Mahahm, which would belong to him in time.
In fact, Mahahm might belong to him before the rest of Haven did.
They were a poor people in Mahahm, and this mission to offer them royalties for P’naki would whet their appetites. Later he would make another such trip, to offer something else they hungered for. Delganor had seen Mahahm. There was only one thing there to satisfy any hunger at all, and with that one satisfied, they had to hunger for something else. He would find out what it was, just as he would find Genevieve, sooner or later. These were not major matters. They were merely, annoyances.
They were not the only annoyances of that morning. Before noon, another visitor was announced: a messenger from Lord Solven, Earl of Ruckward.
He came in at a march, clicked his heels, bowed, and said: “My master the Earl of Ruckward presents his compliments, Your Highness.”
“No doubt,” said Delganor. “And does he present else?”
“His apologies, Your Highness. The Right Honorable Earl of Ruckward wishes you to know well in advance that he may be unable to accompany Your Highness on the trade mission scheduled for later this year. Lady Lyndafal, the Countess of Ruckward, has unaccountably disappeared, and the Right Honorable Earl is greatly distraught.”
The Prince sat as one petrified, unmoving, seeming scarcely to breathe. At last, barely above a whisper, he murmured, “The child.”
“Sir?”
“She had a child? Didn’t she?”
“Two children, Your Highness. A toddler daughter, and the infant, also a girl.”
“And where are they?”
“The older child is with her father at Ruckton, sir. The baby disappeared with the Countess. Both mother and child are feared drowned.”
Delganor’s teeth ground together audibly. He took a deep breath and said, “Tell the Earl that I sympathize with his feelings and appreciate his timely information. Tell him, please, that I will be in touch at a later time.”
The messenger bowed and left. The Prince sat still as stone, occasionally baring his teeth and drawing back his upper lip, almost as Wiezal had done, though the teeth thus displayed were gray-white, lifeless as dry bone. He sniffed the air, as though he smelled something inimical but could not identify its source. Once, as though barely able to believe what he said, he murmured almost inaudibly, “Another one.”
* * *
Long before Genevieve’s departure, Aufors Leys had obtained leave from the Marshal and scheduled his trip to attend Enkors’s wedding in Reusel-on-mere. With Genevieve gone, there was no reason to change his plans. He anchored Enkors in his determination to wed after forty-some-odd years of single life, and blessed the bride, a no-longer-young but no-less-for-that maiden with more good sense than beauty and a body, Aufors judged, that would come as a happy surprise to his old colleague. During their several long conversations, Aufors enlightened Enkors as to his discoveries in the archives.