Traitor's Knot (epub)

by Janny Wurts

  And so the night passed, with no suspicious attendant from Simshane's the wiser. When at last a red sunrise spilled through the screens, it lit the wracked sheets, splintered stools, and frayed ends of rope knotted onto the posts of the bed. The restraints still left fastened to the older boys' limbs showed crusted traces of blood.

  The breeze wafted eddies through the loose down and dried the degenerate stains marring rucked carpets and floor-tiles. On the bed, huddled into an exhausted, bruised heap, the boys who were wakeful glared at the eunuch who unbarred the door to the corridor. Among them, Dakar snored replete, naked, and scratched, and flushed pink in the sweat of indulgence. The beaten, raw circles under his eyes were not feigned, to the eunuch's professional eye. Nor was the brisk shake required to restore him back to his overslaked senses.

  'Splendid entertainment,' Dakar murmured, thick. 'Exquisitely violent. Clean them up in the bath. Over breakfast, we'll seal the terms on your gold and arrange the hour for the coaches to come and collect them.'

  Noon broiled the craft shacks by the drill field. In the dusty, thick air, the sun blazed like lye, and heat trembled, redolent of baked earth, goose-greased leather, and horse sweat. The crossbuck doors of the cooper's shed were propped open to scoop the weak breeze, when Dakar blundered over the threshold.

  The blind man who was no common craftsfolk's relation arose from the shadows to meet him. 'They scratch?' he said gently.

  A hand far too steady to be an old man's eased the spellbinder into a seat at the trestle. There, plain fare waited, and a pitcher of water that was cold and clean, and not tainted with exotic aphrodisiacs.

  'I could fake bruises by sleight-of-hand spells and illusion. Not the blood, or the fluids, which were mine. And for that, damn your secretive viciousness!' Too distraught to do more than sip at the mug shoved into his shaken fingers, Dakar settled his damp head in a bitten hand that throbbed with an angry swelling. He was scarcely aware of the other fresh scabs, caused by an older boy too riddled with terror to listen, or trust him.

  When Arithon did not speak, the silence hurt worse. Dakar could not suffer the poisonous ache or sustain the frayed thread of detachment. 'They are all under ten, and out of their natural minds, frightened. Why in Ath's sweet name didn't you tell me?'

  'You never enquired,' came the soft-spoken reply.

  Movement, to his left, then the chink of a crock; a cool compress that smelled of an astringent herb was pressed over the festering wound on his thumb.

  'Just as well,' stated Arithon, braced as his healer's touch was slapped off. He caught the wad of soaked rag just sent flying and tossed it within easy reach on the trestle. 'Given the muddled state you were in, I didn't think you would listen.'

  The unfriendly truth pinched. Dakar expelled a wracked breath. 'That letter I delivered to Simshane's proprietor - it will in fact arrange for those branded clan children to recover their freedom from conscript captivity?'

  'Merciful grace, Dakar! You have to ask?' A pause ensued. In the yard, the cooper's mallets banged on, while the matron harangued an apprentice for indecent language. Then, the lash of resentment too seamlessly masked, 'For a thousand gold coin weight, sunwheel-stamped, we get all twenty-four -'

  'How!' Dakar interrupted. 'You couldn't arrange that -'

  A raised hand jerked him down, while the Masterbard finished,'- complete with a signed bill of sale. You can burn that, once the children are back in safe custody. At this time tomorrow, if all goes well, they'll be on the way home to their families. Untouched. Unless, last night, you couldn't restrain yourself?'

  Another pause, this one drivingly vicious. Dakar managed to choke his galled rage, just barely.

  Rathain's crown prince resumed against censuring silence. 'Simshane's was vying to purchase them, anyway' In that sharp change of course that always drowned fury beneath the moil of deeper waters, he added, 'The girls went last week. To an unknown client who made his transactions by night and refused to receive their delivery in daylight.'

  Cold fear shot a jolt straight through a seized heart. Dakar raised his head. 'Dharkaron avert!' Somehow, he forced his hazed wits to respond. 'You think the females were purchased for necromancy?'

  1 don't think. I know,' stated Arithon s'Ffalenn, motionless in his disguise. Kewar had deepened him. The veiling illusion cast over his form was not visible, even to the extended awareness of a Fellowship-trained spellbinder's mage-sight. 'After all, I have been in Etarra five days, pursuing the purpose that brought me.'

  'Enough!' cracked Dakar. 'I suppose I deserved that. Though when all's said and done, I don't feel the least scrap of need to grovel and beg your forgiveness.'

  Arithon stared back through milky-white eyes that might, or might not, cloud his vision. A sorcerer cloaked in a stilled well of mastery, he would not be blinded to resource. 'Should you feel sorry? That was, after all, an inflicted, unconscious sacrifice.' Almost no stain of rancour darkened the words of a man whose private will had been torn wholesale from the grasp of his dignity. 'I gave the permission that granted you power in trust. What use to blame, that you and Kharadmon saw fit to use what you held for expediency? Apologize to Elaira,' Prince Arithon said. 'It is she who should grant absolution.'

  Dakar stood, furious. Fresh sweat stung his eyes. Between them, the crockery jug was a weapon he refrained from using, but only out of civil respect for a stranger's hospitality. 'In my shoes, you would have risked walking away? You would have dared the dread consequence? Athera may have come to suffer the price! How much worse, had you shouldered the failure?'

  Eyes locked, Arithon turned away first. 'What is our experience, but the reflected truth of our misapprehensions and short-falls? And also the grace of our beauty and strength, and the wise choices that make up our character?' He laid his slender, musician's hands out flat on the battered board trestle. Then gave his last line with the vulnerable quiet that stripped beyond grief to the core of him. 'We'll never know, will we?' Dakar swallowed. He cursed his own tears, which welled down his face in remorse and raw pain and stung sympathy. 'You love her that much, that the whole world should burn?'

  'You don't,' said Arithon. 'The world has stayed whole. Every-one else can rejoice for the fact. But not me.' He moved at last, too scalded to stay still or contain the bright blaze of his anguish. 'Without her, what else in my life keeps its meaning? We may as well stop this and just be ourselves. Plans set in motion must be carried through. Or Simshane's will be gelding your innocent boys, while their sisters get sacrificed to necromancy.'

  * * *

  Summer 5671

  Lines

  In the caithdein's lodge deep in Atwood, scouts from the forest's fringe outpost report the latest grim news: that, after scorching the road to reach Shipsport, Lysaer s'Ilessid has just raised the sunwheel standard for war and boarded a galley for Jaelot; now, north-bound messengers bear sealed word to the garrisoned towns across the East Halla peninsula to call on their strength to take the field against Shadow in Alestron . . .

  Bearing his orders to muster the south, Sulfin Evend delivers the dispatches that leave Ithish and Innish seething with the command to take arms, and as the sunwheel flagship dips her oars back to sea, the charge of a flint dagger left in his possession turns her prow towards the forbidding headland of Sanpashir . . .

  Eriegal sweats under Feithan's cold eye, just made aware of the word arrived from the watch camp at the ford by the Arwent: that young Jeynsa never intended to confront the Teir's'Ffalenn directly, but instead has bolted southward to launch her formal inquiry from the clan seat in Melhalla; and though Sidir and Elaira leave on the hour in pursuit, the girl's lead may well be too wide for closure . . .

  * * *

  Previous Chapter Contents Glossary

  Summer 5671

  XIV. Sinkers and Hooks

  The Mad Prophet chose to sulk by going to sleep. Because the night's efforts had left him tired, he snored through the upheaval that arose when the delegation of sun wheel priests a
rrived from the east and preempted the use of the practise field. Above protesting officers and cursing men, their sealed requisitions commandeered the Light's recruits to erect their elaborate pavilion.

  Dakar's nap broke when the balding cooper stumbled in and collapsed, pounding the boards of the trestle, while his whooping journeymen roared with helpless hilarity alongside him.

  Uncurled from the blankets where he had passed out, the Mad Prophet arose. Yawning, he shuffled past the stack of planed staves and plonked himself down on the bench between a spaniel-faced craftsman and a dandified boy, sporting tooled-leather bracers.

  'What's funny?' he asked.

  The bland inquiry redoubled the explosion of mirth, until the blond apprentice across the boards caught the glower shot off by the cooper's wife. Cheeks already packed, he shoved the crock of fresh cream and the basket of biscuits across to be shared with the wakened guest. Between gasping chuckles, the yard's workers explained that some Shadow-touched mountebank had rifled the Light's chests of tribute. 'Rocks!' The breathless cooper wheezed out. 'The coffers came off the wagons chock-full of lichen-stained Skyshiel granite.'

  'No one knows where the strayed bullion's gone,' said the grinning young man with the bracers. 'The drivers claim that their mule train wasn't raided. Hide nor hair, they saw no trace of barbarians. That leaves the frocked priests, who swear by the avatar's name that they're clean and not lining the nests of their relatives.'

  Inquiries and accusations were still flying. Since no one seemed able to finger a culprit, suspicion had started fisticuffs.

  The cooper clutched his aching ribs, ruefully shaking his head. 'The Light's faithful got off with no worse than black eyes, once the bard used his lyranthe to calm them.'

  Caught tipping the cream jug, Dakar froze outright. 'The free singer was there?'

  'Oh, aye. The whole time.' The apprentice swallowed his mouthful, then shot out an arm to right the pitcher and salvage the fat guest's inundated biscuit. 'The fellow's still out there, impressing the faithful with sanctimonious ballads.'

  Dakar all but choked. Stunned by the break-neck speed of events, he pretended amusement by asking after the ballast.

  'What became of the rocks?' The cooper swiped tears off his streaming chin. 'Who knows? Who cares? Why not ask the singer? He'll have witnessed the whole thing. The priests are already so infatuated with his warbling, they've engaged him for their night's entertainment.'

  As Dakar braced to shove to his feet, the adjacent journeyman reached sidewards and jammed his bulk back down on the bench. 'Man, sit easy. You've no need to scuttle. The singer comes back here for supper each day. Our errand-boy's got the cart-horse already harnessed to fetch him.'

  In accord with the shop mistress's solicitous care, the blind singer was shortly led in by the child. The lyranthe he unslung from his shoulder was a nondescript instrument bearing a crudely etched sunwheel on the sound-board.

  'The rocks?' he responded. His blade-thin features tracked only the food, as the beamy matron laid a filled plate and a mug between his supple hands. 'They were sold for a pittance to a mason who said he wanted to chip them for curb-stone. He brought in slave muscle to haul them away.' The singer dug in, and the finish, disinterested, came muffled through mastication. 'Two conscript barbarians, recently collared, and nursing the scabs of fresh brands.'

  Dakar suddenly found the bread sops and cream not settling well in his gut. Since the cooper's wife had a clanblood grandparent, the laborers' rowdiness staggered across a brief silence and discomfortably changed the subject. The bard devoted himself to his meal without comment. Shortly, the craftsmen scraped their plates, and grumbled their way to the work-yard.

  The matron departed to boil more glue. The instant she passed the threshold, Dakar accosted the singer's complacency. 'That gold was masked under a powerful glamour! Else the resonance of conjury would have never gone past Lysaer's twitchy examiners. You had help for that sleight of hand, or I'm dead, and those conscripts weren't shackled, or branded.'

  Turbid eyes stayed trained straight ahead, unperturbed by badgering anxiety. 'They were, in fact. But parents who have cherished offspring at risk won't balk at necessity to save them.'

  'Who is the mason?' Dakar said, wrung to shaking as the high-stakes course of Arithon's effrontery shredded his last, cringing nerve. 'Dare I suppose? I'm to wander across for a social call before I engage two hack teams and a pair of closed carriages?' The lethal surmise remained beyond speech: that the hot gold purloined from the tribute chests now would be destined for Simshane's, as barter for captive flesh.

  'Don't flare up in smoke,' the bard stated, nonplussed. 'I still have some friends from my travels as Medlir. Traithe also left me some trustworthy names. The mason's family was first on the list.'

  Dakar's queasy stomach failed to unclench. 'You could still be sold out.' The allure of the tribute, or the excessive bounty Avenor's edict had set upon Arithon's head, might tempt the most reliable acquaintance to turn coat.

  The bard shrugged, unconcerned.

  Which gesture raised Dakar to more anxious sweat. 'You plan to expose Simshane's?' Then, impelled into terrified disbelief, 'Disenfranchise the priests?'

  'Watch and see,' said Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn. The daylight reflected off those white eyes glinted cold as a headsman's axe blade. 'Since the Light left its game-pieces all in a row, do you trust they'll stay planted for gravity?'

  That glib statement veiled more than Dakar cared to know: had, at Jaelot, and Riverton, and Dier Kenton Vale, tripped a balance that launched off a massacre. Wrong step or right move, one bold action might rend the whole web; and Etarra was tinder, primed for the torch to ignite a broadscale disaster. 'If I'm to masquerade as the pimp, what part are you playing to back me?'

  'The merry measures that whirl all the dancers to hell.' One languid finger plucked a taut string. The struck note speared across trembling air and rang like the shine on a promise. 'I'll be the performance out in plain sight, singing pap that will blindfold the priests.' A damping thumb left the counterpoint thunder of mallets against the dauntless conclusion. 'The stonemason has your instructions, my friend. All told, the outcome relies upon luck, subtle cues, and a clock-work array of stage timing.'

  Yet how daring the reel, and how giddy the pace, Dakar failed to anticipate. Not until after the sunwheel gold was unveiled in the dusty glare of the stone-yard. The mason cocked back his filthy, slouch hat and related the audacious scope of Prince Arithon's planned machinations.

  Much too late, the sane man found the sense to refuse. In the stifling sheds, helped by an anxious wife and three boys, the shop's craftsmen packed their tools and belongings in preparation for swift flight. They were town-bred and upholding a choice that would see their home and livelihood abandoned against certain charges of treason. The spellbinder regarded the two close-mouthed clansmen, for whose sake these stout folk offered sacrifice. The strapping fellows were half-stripped to load wagons, and collared, if not actually captive. The price of their ruse had been paid all the same. Both sweated in pain from the heated iron that had disfigured their muscular forearms.

  'Why are these people doing this?' Dakar asked point-blank, as the displaced family bustled around him.

  Both clansmen stopped work. One replied in Paravian. 'They act for what's right. It's an ironic twist out of history.'

  When Dakar's distrustful glower stayed fixed, the other posed conscript explained. 'Apparently their mother was once taken prisoner by Earl Jieret's war captain, Caolle. He'd slaughtered her brother during a caravan raid to save the secret of our liege's whereabouts. But the sister was weaponless. She had two weans. Stuck holding the knife, Caolle lost his nerve. Since he couldn't slit three helpless throats in cold blood, the bunch was held in Daon Ramon, then released when their news lost its value. The old lady's stayed bitter. Still funds the league's bounties. But her older boy had seen through the lies that drive townsmen to kill for our differences. The mason who helps us is that ma
n, grown, and now it's our children he's saving.'

  Dakar mopped his face, seized clammy with dread. Having heard tonight's plans in their damning entirety, he found no assurance to allay the fear that still leached at his shrinking resolve. 'We're not just effecting a rescue,' he challenged. 'Follow this through, and you set your young sons at worse risk than gelding abuse by a brothel.'

  Both of the clanborn fathers stared back. The one with the bruised look around his eyes said, 'For all the bodily harm they might see, their lost sisters stand to lose more than their lives. As a Fellowship spellbinder sent here to curb necromancy, if you can't find the gall to lead these coaches up-town, then charter law binds us to force you.'

  Dakar mounted the driver's box with shaking knees. The reins of the team weighed like lead in his sweating grasp. He rousted the horses, set the front vehicle rolling, not by choice, not for courage or duty, but for the lives of twenty-four boys, and for the friend whose unreserved trust relied on a flawless deception at Simshane's.

  By then, the Master of Shadow was installed at the sunwheel pavilion, strings tuned for the priests, with the first set already in motion.

  The most infamous night in Etarran history since the renegade prince's failed accession began with a murmur, as the reddened sun dipped into the haze of a fair-weather twilight. The routine, written summary that detailed the Light's vanished tribute gold had cleared the torpid delay of officialdom and reached the Lord Marshal's desk. A dispatch runner was bearing the customary sealed copy to Raiett Raven, when the closed coaches led by a grim-faced, fat driver reined up at the rear entrance of Simshane's House of Exotic Delights.