Chapter 173 — An Uneasy Wind

The rain began to fall harder.

The cold air brought ever colder rain, and judging by the weather of past years in this region, this might well be the last rainfall before the snows came. The Kant Domain had always been the rainiest place in all the south, and it was no exception now.

The raindrops had already merged into a curtain of rain, slanting across the sky with the wind, pouring over the wilderness, pouring over the towns, and pouring over the ancient outer walls of the Kant family's castle. The rain gathered into streams that ran down the dark red spires and black walls, mottled and pitted by the erosion of time, and in the ever-dimming light of day it took on a sheen like glistening black oil.

But the castle's thick outer walls shut out the sound of the wind and rain, and shut out too the ever-deepening chill. In the great hall of the old castle, magic-crystal lamps lit every corner. That shadowy, flickering quality that had once prevailed no matter how many lamps were lit had somehow vanished; now the whole castle was ablaze with magical light, and together with the roaring hearths and braziers everywhere, the family fortress was filled with an air of brightness and warmth.

Servants busied themselves everywhere, polishing tables and chairs, lamp stands and statues, making all these things of history and family glory gleam in the lamplight. They talked of the ever colder weather outside, of this year's harvest of grain and medicinal herbs on the domain, and of the distinguished guest the viscount would entertain today. The whole castle had been cleaned since two days ago, everything made new again—the guest's identity was no ordinary matter.

Then they saw the castle's old steward, Mr. Carter—advanced in years yet still nimble on his feet—come dashing down the stairs from the great hall, the head maid and head manservant at his heels. They swept through the hall like a gust of wind, racing toward the great doors, while the head maid called out loudly to the clumsy maids: "Put those buckets away at once!" "Don't leave the rags on the tables!" "Silly girl, get back to the kitchen! We can't have the duke seeing some low-ranking maid in a dirty skirt standing in the hall, do you understand?!" "Everyone back to your posts! The guest is here!"

Viscount Victor Kant descended the staircase from the second floor, and just as the steward was about to reach the doors, he came to a stop at the center of the hall—a position that let him spread his arms to welcome the honored guest after precisely the right distance, neither keeping the guest waiting so long as to cause embarrassment nor making the master of the castle seem as eager as a common servant.

The old steward reached the doors, drew out a handkerchief and carefully wiped his hands, while silently counting the time in his head, estimating by the hour the tower guards had relayed the message and by his own pace of movement just when the knock would come.

When he had silently counted to thirty, the great doors were struck.

A distinguished guest like the duke must not be made to knock a second time—even if the one knocking was merely the duke's coachman or guard—but neither could the door be opened at once, for that would be a breach of propriety. So Carter counted three more silently, and before the second knock came, he ordered the soldiers flanking the doors to turn the wheel.

The exceedingly heavy "family door," which could withstand eighty-two blows from a battering ram, swung open under the power of hinges and wheel, and in its creaking, groaning weight seemed to carry the three-hundred-year majesty of the Kant family.

And a man bearing seven hundred years of majesty stepped through the doors, the cold wind and rain swirling into the hall behind him.

Servants came forward at once to take the cloak and hat the guest had removed, and menials ran out to see to the carriage waiting outside. Gao Yang entered the main hall of Kant Castle with Amber and Felician. He saw an old nobleman, his hair nearly all white, his face already marked with many age spots, dressed in a long coat of black and red, spreading his arms and coming to meet him. This Viscount Victor Kant was somewhat older than he had imagined, but his legs were clearly still sound.

"Ah, today Xuanque Castle welcomes the most honored guest in all its history—a living legend!" the viscount declared loudly. "I am so sorry to have you call in such foul weather. If only I had a spell to command the skies."

"As a matter of fact, I rather like rainy weather," said Gao Yang, declining the viscount's embrace and merely shaking hands with him. This was not coldness, but the rule for meetings between high and low rank: the lower must show a considerable degree of warmth and respect, but unless the two are in an explicit relation of subordination, the higher must not accept it, and need only return a certain measure of courtesy. To Gao Yang these muddled traditions were a deadly nuisance, but observing them now and then would not cost him a pound of flesh. "Before the rain came I had already seen the fertile lands of the Kant Domain, and after it fell I saw a fine rainscape. That was worth the trip."

"Then I could not be more pleased," Victor Kant said with a laugh, his smile calm and open, like an utterly ordinary old gentleman of advanced years and good breeding. "I have prepared a welcoming banquet for you, in the dining hall just beyond this one."

Amber had kept her head down behind Gao Yang the whole time. This solemn, proper, thoroughly "aristocratic" occasion was one she was quite unsuited to, and so she had—rarely enough—kept quiet. But at the word "eat," her ears betrayed her: those pointed ears inherited from her elven blood immediately began to twitch, swiveling about on her head like radar, as if searching for any further information related to food.

Gao Yang, meanwhile, smiled and made agreeable replies while covertly studying the old viscount before him.

Aged, but still healthy; an open smile; a mild temperament touched with a certain ease—there was not the faintest trace of anything to do with cultists about him.

But that could not serve as a basis for judgment.

Smiling, he accepted the old viscount's invitation to the banquet and, with Amber and Felician, walked deeper into Kant Castle.

……

At the same time, in the Silver Fortress of Sacred Frost Rest, old King Francis II sat frowning over one secret letter after another.

These letters all came from "Crown faction nobles" directly ennobled by the king throughout the realm, including men of the same kind around the domains of the three border archdukes—or, to put it more plainly, "informants." This institution, handed down from the founding sovereign, had endured unbroken for seven hundred years and was a crucial pillar of the Ansu royal house's control over the whole kingdom. The Fogmoon Rebellion and the "bastard's weakness" of the Second Dynasty had once rendered the system useless, but after a century of rebuilding—above all after the compromises several dukes had made one after another for the kingdom's stability—this intelligence network belonging to the king still operated to this day as effectively as in the time of the First Dynasty.

Most of the nobles directly ennobled by the king were in the south, with a smaller portion scattered elsewhere throughout the kingdom. In ordinary times the letters these informants sent back reported conditions on their respective lands—conditions vastly different, with basically nothing in common. But the letters that had arrived recently showed a tendency that left Francis II vaguely uneasy.

Reports of activity by the various dark sects were growing more and more numerous, and increasing everywhere throughout the kingdom.

Though to this day these added reports still accounted for less than a tenth of the whole realm, they were so widely distributed that it was enough to fill the old king with worry.