Read Online Assassins' Dawn by Stephen Leigh - Free Book Online Page B

That would be easier. But don’t make excuses. I want truth, not evasions.” Her voice was dangerously gentle. “Damn you, I still care for you—it doesn’t matter if that’s no longer mutual. It doesn’t change the feelings. But tell me the truth, kin to kin.”
    “I don’t know myself any more. Damn it, Valdisa, we’ve had this argument before. It never does any good, and we go about for the next few days angry with ourselves because we’ve hurt one another. That’s something I have no interest in doing.” He paused, searching her eyes and drifting down to her set lips. “That’s the truth.”
    “And I said I wouldn’t bring it up again. I know.” She pressed her lips together in a half-smile, a sad amusement. “I’m sorry. If you change your mind, you know where to find me. I’ll go post the names for the Claswell contract. Aldhelm and yourself? You won’t change that?”
    “Neh. Aldhelm and myself.” The Thane paused a moment, began to speak, then lapsed into silence.
    “Go on.” Valdisa touched his hand, her forefinger moving from the wrist to the back of his veined hand and back again.
    “It’s nothing,” he said, his eyes watching the slow caress of her finger. Then he looked up to see her watching. “I feel old, somehow, and I’ve never felt so uncertain before. And it’s not age, but . . .” He shook his head. “I’m just tired of the intrigue, tired of the chase, the hunt. What was it Cranmer called us, an ‘adolescent fantasy in a prepubescent world’? I’m weary of blood, and I keep looking for other solutions to our problems. And there don’t seem to be any. Kin fight other kin, and kin always fight lassari, and Dame Fate laughs while Hag Death collects her due.”
    “You should hear yourself. Maudlin, love, maudlin.”
    “You should feel this way.”
    “Are you telling me you should step down as Thane?”
    “No!” His denial was vigorous, and the vehemence startled even himself. “No,” he repeated more gently. “Not yet, in any event. Post the names, would you?”
    “As you wish.” Valdisa rose, then stepped toward the Thane. She stopped an arm’s length from him and touched his face with her hand. She traced the line of his cheekbone, the furrow running from nostril to mouth. “I’m not angry. I just see you changing. You don’t seem as confident in yourself as you once did, and I worry for you. For Hoorka, and for you. Because I still care.”
    Her hand dropped, and she walked quickly to the doorshield, stepping through it before he could formulate a reply. The Thane sat on the bed for a long hour, steeping himself in frustration.
    •   •   •
    The domed roof of the Neweden Assembly Hall was set with stained-glass murals depicting the fall of Huard, works of art as famous for their beauty as for the difficulties involved in appeasing the seven major artisan’s guilds. Each had wanted their guild commissioned for the work, and it was only through the determined efforts of the Assembly that the work had been done at all. Seven panes there were, and through each jeweled shafts of light fell in dusty pillars to the distant floor. Birds roosted in the gutters of the dome, spotting the murals with whitish droppings that were daily cleaned. Today, the birds’ rest was disturbed by the faint sound of shouting voices below; bureaucratic strife and political dueling among the various guild-kin that composed the Assembly.
    “The ruling guild of Sirrah Gunnar is at least concerned with the welfare of those people on Neweden that haven’t the advantages of the Li-Gallant.”
    Potok leaned forward at his desk, shouting across the length of the Assembly Hall to the high dais where Vingi sat behind a bank of viewscreens. A stylus, held between forefinger and thumb, stabbed the air in Vingi’s direction, and if Potok seemed a trifle more theatrical than was his wont—as a trio of holocameras recorded the scene with cyclopian indifference, broadcasting the