Grand Conspiracy

by Janny Wurts

  At considered length, the enchantress stalked obliquely toward the original bent of her inquiry. ‘You were young, but do you recall the healing of the fisherman’s son who dismembered his wrist in a squall line?’

  Feylind took a shaky, sharp breath, and chose to be first to state the unsafe name outright. ‘The one who caused the Master of Shadow to leave us, and you to pack up and flee Merior? I recall.’

  Elaira’s tension broke into laughter. ‘I don’t know what’s worse, your fearless brashness or your brother’s habit of throwing small stones with horrible, stinging accuracy.’ She set another stitch, then asked the mate to trim the lamp. A sip of her cooling tea eased the interval while she pondered, or perhaps wet a throat grown too fear parched to speak. Aware of the steel in the depths of her eyes, Feylind could not but admire her trust, as she laid herself bare to a stranger.

  ‘There were spells done that night, supported by the gift of the Masterbard’s music.’ Elaira set down her drained mug. Her neat movements showed resolve as she rethreaded the curved needle. ‘The jointure of my art and his talent came at a price. An empathic link still remains in place between us. Distance and ocean blur the clarity of thought, but not the strength of emotion. He knows I’m concerned for him. Until you crossed my threshold, I had no means at all to safely let Arithon know why.’

  That name, on her lips, held a bittersweet sorrow, touched to a tragic note of trapped longing.

  Feylind caught back an unexpected rush of tears. Hands pressed to her face, as though bone and flesh could eclipse the relentless pain of his absence, she said softly, ‘He sings for you. At sea, alone at his ship’s helm, I’ve heard him. Sky and earth can but weep for the beauty of those melodies. He loves you, Elaira. His heart is still yours as no other’s.’ The last words came hardest; the only poor token of sympathy she could give to ease a separation as relentless as this one. ‘I take comfort in knowing you feel the same way, no matter the distance between you.’

  Any two other women could have indulged their paired grief and wept in each other’s arms.

  Elaira just swallowed. Her eyes shimmered, too bright, but only for a second before a smile like fire lit her elfin features from within. ‘Thank you for that, from the core of my spirit.’ She had to wait for her fingers to steady before she assayed the last stitches. Poultice paste, then the flash-point-bright sigils of healing and closure, and a clean dressing put the finishing touch on her handiwork.

  ‘Your sailor should rest through tomorrow,’ she said, brisk. ‘If he rises too soon, that last seal will make him miserable with nausea. The hand will recover, but the closed wound must be kept stringently clean. No swabbing decks, and no labor in the rigging for at least the next fortnight.’ Face tipped up to encompass the steady presence of the ship’s mate, she finished, ‘You can dim back the flame in the lamp.’

  The shadows closed in like a flood as she rose. By touch, or long habit, she found her rusted bucket of seawater and rinsed her hands. Her words were grained velvet, fast and low, as she added her message for Arithon.

  ‘Tell my beloved, the unbroken calm at Avenor bodes ill. The merchants grow fat and satisfied, unaware they are part of a masking design. Know this: Lysaer’s false priesthood has begun to wield magic. Unclean little spells that link minds and send images. Those powers bend lane force to subtle disharmony, enough that some with the talent of birth-gifted mage-sight take notice.’ She paused, deadly careful; by word or gesture, she must not reveal any more secrets than the ordinary hedge witch might glean, from watching the flight patterns of birds or touching the awareness of stones in the stream bottoms. ‘The deflections are less likely to be felt at sea since they don’t carry well over salt water. For Arithon, the new danger will come to bear on the Mistwraith’s curse, and must not surface as a surprise: Avenor will soon be equipped to share communication on an instant with other enclaves sworn to the Light. The network will eventually span the five kingdoms. Once that happens, a single informant could trigger a coordinated muster. His Grace of Rathain must not set foot ashore on the continent.’

  In a vehemence of desperate and frightful intensity, Elaira locked glances with the Evenstar’s blond-haired captain. ‘Hear me clearly. No matter what happens, regardless of provocation, he should keep to the sea and stay safe.’

  A winter-sharp chill ranged down Feylind’s spine. ‘There’s more you’re not saying.’

  ‘Ath, how much, you can’t fathom. My senior sisters spin secretive webs.’ Even inside the order, few realized a fraction of what transpired when an enchantress put off the gray sleeves of charitable service and donned the robes of high administrative rank with their banded scarlet borders. Bleak as scaled granite, Elaira lifted her shoulders in an oblique shrug. ‘Arithon’s grandfather was wise, in his way. Politics and spelled conjury don’t mix.’

  Nor was Feylind a fool. She knew from her brother’s brokerage in Shand how the westshore merchants who paid tithe to the Alliance had been lulled into silk-wound complacency. Tysan’s cities had received sheltered protection for years, with Avenor’s crown garrison defending their trade routes until coffers overflowed from the profits. That trend gave rise to ominous overtones set against this fresh news of a high priesthood versant in magelore. The unpleasant conclusion sat uneasily on her shoulders. ‘Enchantress, you’ve implied there are reasons, beyond practice of sorcery, why the Alliance wants gifted talent driven out of town walls.’

  ‘Talent reads pattern and lines of intent.’ Elaira blotted her damp hands on her blouse, not owning a towel for the purpose. ‘And small conjury affects lane force, everywhere, for anyone with mage-sight to read.’

  ‘Then the powerful don’t want back-alley eyes befouling the works of their covert conspiracies.’ Feylind’s snapped gesture encompassed the made-over fish shack, with its gapped boards and flimsy construction. ‘You don’t seem terribly concerned, for yourself.’

  ‘Well, Lysaer’s no idiot.’ Elaira rummaged after her flask of alcohol. One by one, she wiped clean her specialized array of steel needles. ‘The Koriani Order’s too massive and too organized to suffer persecution from his cult of amateur priests. Morriel hates hedge witches and necromancers of all stripes. The sisterhood has always regarded their works as an undisciplined nuisance, sometimes with good reason since chicanery too often becomes mixed with dangerous, slipshod practice. As long as the Alliance examiners stay focused on lay talent, our Senior Circle won’t be moved to interfere.’ Which implied, as well, that Alliance interests and Koriani policy trod the same paths, near enough. ‘If there’s a succession, the new Prime Matriarch may or may not take a stand against the Crown Examiner’s practices.’

  Which perilously was more than ought to be said, out of safety for the herbalist who had sworn over the key to her consciousness to bind the order’s stern vow of obedience.

  Feylind gripped Elaira’s forearm in profound understanding and thanks. ‘Your word will be sent on through trusted hands. Leave the method for me to arrange.’

  Only brisk and impersonal details remained to finish a routine transaction. ‘My fee for the healing is ten Morvain silvers or the same weight in another town’s coinage,’ Elaira said. ‘You may discharge the debt to the matron who sells fish by the landing. What I send, she will use to feed beggar children.’ In parting, the enchantress caught Feylind’s callused hand, her sure touch now undone by trembling. ‘Go safely. Give the Prince of Rathain my sweet blessing, but hear me: if Daelion Fatemaster shows us Ath’s mercy, he must not meet me again in this lifetime.’

  ‘What do you know that’s too dreadful to tell me?’ Feylind pressured in whispered dread.

  But Elaira shook her head. She chivvied the larger frame of the Evenstar’s captain firmly on past her worktable and toward the shack’s single doorway.

  The ship’s mate understood well enough the enchantress was desperately compromised; he bent to the cot and hefted the unconscious deckhand over his capable shoulders. ‘Feylind, come away. Any more tha
t you say could be dangerous.’

  ‘Go at once. Your mate’s sensibilities are most wise. Trust me, I’m content as things are. It’s enough that you bear word for Arithon Teir’s’Ffalenn.’ Elaira unlatched the plank door and stood back, her gut a clenched stone for the inevitable fact, that if her beloved paid heed to her warning, if he steered clear of danger as she pleaded, then the boy, a goatherd’s son from Araethura, might be left to die for the sacrifice.

  That dichotomy brought torment, two-edged as cut glass. Yet the love she bore the man demanded her honor. News of High Priest Cerebeld’s twisted practices must reach Arithon, come what might. He already shared her unquiet apprehension. Through the thrummed cord of tension transmitted across the gulf of an unendurable separation, he must sense her conflicted integrity. The extreme, forceful phrases she had imparted to Feylind would let him extrapolate much more. If he had access to scrying, his own mage-schooled insight might forewarn that Morriel’s snare of conspiracy against him had grown to embrace an appalling, dark practice that transgressed every limit of decency.

  Given the context of Feylind’s message, Arithon would be granted the gift of awareness to assess the grave peril which faced him. He could call upon Dakar’s wise counsel to guide him. If he chose not to listen on the hour the trap became sprung, he would come prepared, with guarded knowledge in advance of the danger.

  Summer 5667

  Forerunners

  From his vantage tower eyrie at Avenor, Cerebeld, High Priest of the Light, leans on his windowsill, brooding while the late-night festival brands burn to coals, and Gace Steward brings news of the words too closely guarded to overhear between the grandame s’Brydion and Lysaer s’Ilessid’s princess; the meeting prompts his immediate disposition: ‘High time Alestron receives an Alliance representative who wears the sunwheel seal of a man sworn and bound to the Light …’

  In the chill hour before dawn, Princess Ellaine of Avenor sits at the window seat of her private apartment, firm in her resolve to expose the faction that arranged for the murder of her predecessor; and an impulse in forethought prompts her to cast a charitable gold coin to the slop taker’s woman, whose wagon pulls up at the curbside below to collect refuse and night soil from the palace …

  Far east, under the massive vaulted dome of Etarra’s council hall, a gathering of officials assembles to hear the first minister of the city, who announces, ‘As you all know, our Lord Governor Supreme is failing in health. Therefore, time has come to set seal to his document of succession and approve the candidate he sets forth to defend his seat for the challenge of the public vote …’

  Summer 5667

  IX.

  Discourse and Documents

  Dawn the day after the solstice festival saw Dame Dawr s’Brydion out and about before the city lampsmen began their rounds to douse the lights at the watch change. She paid her parting respects to the duke’s posted envoy over breakfast. Then she gathered her silver-and-ebony stick and departed with a packet of sealed dispatches bound to destinations south and east. The new-risen sun burned pale gold through the sea mist while her escort of clan guard assembled in the yard. She spurned the envoy’s kindly meant offer of a litter in scathing language, and set off on foot for the harbor.

  Her six retainers knew better than to smile over her irascible independence. Dame Dawr was tough as old boot leather, and even more stubbornly set in her ways. She traveled nowhere in sedan chairs, not when she could still manage a saddle; and she never rode when brisk walking was more sensible. Here in Tysan, a livery mount cost a coin tax for the Light, which offended her belief in Ath’s natural order, as well as her ingrained ancestral respect for dumb beasts.

  ‘No horse I know would become willing party to the backstabbing stupidities of town politics.’ The black stick jabbed air to nail home her point, driving an inadvertent trio of bystanders to leap with a splash of dismay into the gutter. Dawr bade them good morning in frosty clan accents, then resumed her diatribe in the same breath. Lysaer s’Ilessid’s pretty fortress of Avenor, she insisted, was small enough that an insolent boy could spit from one wall and strike the sunwheel surcoats of the garrison sentries who stood rounds of duty on the other.

  The old lady reached the harborside, her prickly high spirits undimmed. The early air warmed, thick and tepid as new milk, as the mist thinned and broke off the waterfront. Sweating, bare-chested stevedores ferried the piled boxes and bales to the docked trade galleys before the burgeoning heat steamed the last dew off the cobbles. Dying embers from the festival fires painted the smoky scent of ash and carbon through the seaside taints of drying fishnets and tide wrack. The crushed garlands dropped by the dancers and celebrants wilted, the perfume of bruised blossoms mingled with the damp oak miasma of salt barrels bound for the stockyards.

  Dame Dawr waded into the bustle, undaunted. She thumped her stick on the boards of the dock as though testing for rot or unsoundness. Her shrewd glance took note of the quantity and quality of the trade goods and provisions awaiting transport. Only her guard respected her whetted acumen enough to realize her mental survey missed nothing. She might learn more on a short, morning stroll than Avenor’s ranking guildsmen could glean from their closeted ledgers. Men respected Grandame Dawr, as wary in her presence as unarmed boys who faced a berserker gone amok with naked steel. Experience branded that caution into them. Duke Bransian’s grandmother saw like a hawk, and played deaf as a post anytime she saw fit to indulge in her scathing, inimical temperament.

  That her vicious moods marched hand in glove with keen wits gave the s’Brydion retainers sharp reason to humor her. Another five strides, and the petulant twist to her lips warned them of pending trouble.

  ‘Dharkaron’s immortal bollocks!’ Dawr snapped under her breath. A virulent rap of her stick punctuated her abrupt stop. ‘Will you look at that fool, yapping lapdog?’

  Several yards down the wharf, where the deepwater ships berthed, half-hitched to the gray, weathered bollards, the target of her insult stood unsuspecting, his sunwheel robe a scream of bright white against the sun-faded red tunics of two stolid s’Brydion men-at-arms. These had planted themselves in determination across the gangway to the Duke of Alestron’s state galley.

  Dame Dawr straightened frail shoulders. ‘We’ll just see what sort of mannerless numskull seeks to board our decks uninvited.’

  ‘That’s an ally,’ the hard-bitten captain of her escort reminded in a low voice.

  ‘Aye, an ally, you insist.’ A brimstone glint of joy lit Dawr’s dark eyes. ‘Then we agree. We’ll have to leave weapons out of this.’ She tipped up her chin and bored in with a swirl of silk skirts straight down the throat of the argument.

  Arrived like a pestering black gnat, she placed a hand on the arm of the sunwheel acolyte. ‘Young man,’ she announced in grandmotherly sympathy, ‘you must be misguided or lost. This galley takes no paying passengers.’

  The victim spun and glared. His jaw clenched tight with renewed irritation as he realized he could not dismiss the mistress of the duke’s ship or brush off her senseless nattering.

  Dawr smiled. ‘I see you’re distressed.’ She patted his hand, all pearl teeth and daft kindness. ‘Will you accept my assistance? One of the duke’s men would be pleased to take you to the harbormaster’s, where a list will be kept of those vessels prepared to sell transport.’

  The man flushed to his eyebrows. His combed, satin hair wisped in the breeze as he curbed bursting temper and mastered his first impulse to snatch back his arm. ‘I seek no paid passage, madam.’ All icy civility, he made introductions. ‘I’m Acolyte Cowill, sent here by appointment of Cerebeld, High Priest of the Light, to return as ambassador to your duke.’

  Dawr’s pity melted into concern. ‘No coin, did you say? How misfortunate.’ She turned, craned her neck, then beckoned to the closest man of her guard and told him to empty her purse of small silver. ‘Clan custom,’ she piped, cheerful as she returned her bright, sparrow’s gaze to her victim. ‘We refuse no
one alms. Brings in ill luck if beggars are slighted, and the needy are left to go hungry.’

  The acolyte glanced in flustered appeal to Dawr’s escort. ‘Tell your mistress her silver’s not asked. Please explain. Avenor has appointed me to serve the Light’s glory in the duke’s court at Alestron.’

  Dame Dawr observed this exchange, eyebrows raised in obstructive epiphany. ‘You want guest passage to appeal to my grandson, Bransian Teir’s’Brydion?’ A doddering step marched her into the acolyte’s face, where, nonplussed, she reached out and gave his biceps a testing, firm pinch. ‘Scrawny, I’d say. Definitely too weak, if you’re asking to train for the field troops. That’s nothing a few shifts at the oar won’t set right. But I’d advise you, throw out that doublet. We’re bound south through Havish. King Eldir’s officials have no love of priests. White-and-gold cloth with that upstart blazon will certainly set you on the wrong foot with the locals.’

  While the grandame regarded him with benign expectation, the acolyte shrugged, then drew breath to restate his request to her guardsmen.

  He managed no words.

  Dame Dawr banged her stick on the wharf timbers with a thunderous report that startled every uninvolved party within earshot. ‘Well, what under sky are you waiting for, young man? Do you ask for guest passage to Alestron, or not?’ Not content with waspish railing, Dawr prodded him square in the chest with her stick. ‘If you’re coming along, then by Dharkaron’s Black Chariot and Spear, I’m too frail to carry you aboard! March yourself onto the galley at once. Ath’s tide won’t wait while we stand here.’

  Dealt the unceremonious choice of being left flat-footed on the dock, the acolyte fled up the gangway.

  The s’Brydion matriarch and her escort crowded onto the deck at his heels. The last pair of men-at-arms hauled in the gangway with a speed that suggested they forestalled his last means of escape.