“Someone must go out and placate them,” said Werner, eyeing her with a mixture of craftiness and doubt.
“They are asking for you, my lord.” said the steward cautiously.
Werner smoothed down his fine wool tunic nervously, twining his fingers into the soft leather belt. Its gold buckle was studded ostentatiously with lapis lazuli. “I can’t—it would be too dangerous—” His distracted gaze caught again on Liath and his expression brightened. “Eagle, fetch Prince Sanglant. He will attend me. After all—” He began twisting the rings on his fingers, a habit Liath had seen him indulge in before. They were stunningly beautiful rings, one set with tiny rubies, one with an amethyst, one with an engraved stone of lapis lazuli of a particularly intense blue; the fourth was a thin circle of cunningly-worked cloisonne so delicately done Liath could not imagine how human fingers could have wrought it. “After all he is here to protect Gent, and if the crowd were to grow angry or vengeful, or to threaten me …”
She nodded obediently and withdrew from the hall. Outside, the sun shone. From the safety of the great courtyard, bounded by the palace and great hall on one side, the kitchens and outbuildings on the second, the barracks and stables on the third, and the palisade gates on the fourth, she could hear the crowd that had gathered on the other side of the palace compound gates. They spoke in many voices, but their murmuring was edged with fury and with that kind of desperation past which there is nothing left to lose.
Werner could not afford to have riot within and siege without; abruptly she realized what the artisan in the marketplace had meant by the inner beast. She straightened her tunic and twisted the end of her braid in a hand, then cursed herself for caring what she looked like. Perhaps it was true Prince Sanglant looked at her now and again, but he looked at every remotely attractive woman he came within sight of. Liath only noticed because she would watch him, and try not to watch him, when they were in the hall at the same time or passing in the courtyard or around the stables.
But this was not time to reflect on such trivial concerns. As Da always said, “No point in worrying at a loose thread while the sheep are being eaten by wolves.”
She steadied herself and strode to the stables and then down the long dim passage. She saw no sign of the man and child she had tried to help. Beyond the actual stables, but within the palace stockade, was a stableyard with its own gate. In this yard the Dragons took their ease in the fine spring sun or—most often—practiced with sword and spear. So did they now.