Traitor's Knot

by Janny Wurts

  Feylind shrugged. ‘You’d think the damned vultures would tire of picking for carrion on a clean slate.’

  No thanks to her brother, for the obdurate fact that her registry stayed aboveboard. Her late trials had been no whit less, for that honesty. Long delay, a spoiled cargo, and an unscheduled hold-over to refit storm damage at Southshire had ruffled the hair of the clerks. The custom keeper’s grilling had been worse than cantankerous.

  Fiark’s wry delight stayed undimmed behind the privacy of shuttered windows. ‘They didn’t much like the fact you switched shipyards?’

  ‘Not!’ Feylind snapped. The tapping search for hidden compartments had lasted two nerve-wracking days. ‘The old outfitter’s peeved that we took business elsewhere. And Southshire’s so dazzled by sunwheel banners, I daren’t explain that some Innish port rat with a grievance sold us out for a Koriani sigil meant to entrap the Master of Shadow.’

  ‘They wanted Fionn Areth,’ Fiark corrected, as always averse to high drama. ‘So you swore them to prostration and headaches instead?’ His timely snatch saved his stacked papers, as his sister lounged back with intent to plant her sea-booted feet on his desk. ‘I know better than to think a few reddened ears might civilize your randy tongue.’

  ‘If oaths could snip bollocks, I’d have gelded the lot,’ Feylind agreed with bad humour. She delved into the satchel strapped at her waist. ‘So what have you done in redress?’

  ‘Sent an inquiry’ Fiark neatly fielded the catch as a sealed packet was tossed his way, granting discharge on the Evenstar’s bill of inspection. ‘I have a man, a desert tribe half-breed, who works an orange press at the docks. He’ll track down your spy. Although I suspect he will find nothing worse than a shamefaced labourer caught up in a sworn oath of debt.’

  ‘I’d spit him, regardless. You’d better check out the excisemen here, too. One of them wouldn’t look me in the eye the last time we got laced by a round of impounded inspection.’ Feylind trained her far-sighted squint on the disarranged letters on Fiark’s desk. ‘That’s King Eldir’s seal? Did he sign you a trade grant? He should, for the service you gave through the famine.’

  ‘You’re digging for news?’ Fiark raised his eyebrows. ‘Don’t say! The Southshire yards were that starved for new gossip?’

  His sister tossed back her wisped rope of hair, her shore manners in place: at sea, she would have spat over the rail in excoriating contempt. ‘That port has the Light in its eyes to the point where the adult population couldn’t whack the butt end of itself with a stick! Teive’s with the children so I could come here and badger you for the truth.’

  Fiark flicked the ship’s papers. ‘Insurance, first,’ he stated point-blank. ‘Your happy rendezvous on the high seas happens to have lost me a cargo.’

  Feylind stretched forward and snatched up a pen. ‘I’ll sign three blank sheets. You can copy the rest. The manifest’s been inventoried five times at least, by the custom keeper’s zealot accountants.’

  ‘They would inflate the values,’ Fiark said, douce. ‘I’d much rather settle this quietly’

  Which careful comment made Feylind glance up. ‘You talk like a merchant expecting a war.’

  Fiark blinked. The uncanny way that his twin shared his mind was not always a comfort. While his sister uncapped the ink and scrawled signatures in her emphatic capitals, he recited the gist of the scandal that had all of the north taking pause—a blistering purge of Avenor’s high council from a covert incursion of necromancy. Lysaer’s summons in appeal to rectify damages had followed the shock to his dependent allies. Representatives were sent by Alliance-sworn mayors to help draft astringent new laws. These returned to their towns, clad in white robes and gold sashes, and quoting policy with assured serenity; of young talent recruited to speak for the Light, and a new order of priesthood expressly dedicated to expose the secretive workings of sorcery.

  ‘This batch has arcane awareness guarding its works, fledgling seers declared for the Light. Far from shaken in faith, we’re seeing complacent delusion. Lysaer’s distrust of sorcery is fast becoming a rigid doctrine,’ Fiark finished, saddened. ‘After such a betrayal, which threatened a black nightmare, we are now promised that any man taking arms against Shadow will receive the reward of death without Darkness. Avenor’s sent out a starry-eyed flock of recruiters—’

  Feylind broke in, ‘Those fanatics who pitch sunwheel tents in the fields and hold meetings? Folk wander in out of friendly curiosity, and leave euphoric with strong wine and slogans.’

  ‘You heard about those?’ Fiark said, surprised. ‘But that trend is recent!’

  His sister chuckled. ‘Word’s carried, and fast. The water-front landlords are loudly displeased. Free drink dents their profits. The brothels haven’t loved Lysaer for years. Not with the herb witches hounded from practice. The simples business has gone over to Koriathain, which change has raised venomous catfights. The order’s always been greedy for girl-children. Any tincture they brew to stay pregnancy goes at an extortionate rate.’ Paused for assessment, Feylind shook her head, serious. ‘What does King Eldir say? Is he worried that s’Ilessid evangelists are foaming too much at the mouth?’

  ‘Not words. A crown warning.’ Fiark ticked the sealed paper. ‘Lysaer’s priesthood’s not welcome in Havish. Their ruling on sorcery threatens the compact, and their blithe stance on cult practice is dangerous.’

  Feylind moved, straightened, then lifted her crossed ankles and assumed the first sober posture her brother could remember, away from command on a ship’s deck. ‘The High King would dare close the ports to this threat?’

  Fiark winced. ‘It must lead to a royal edict eventually, but you’re right. For now, the subject’s too volatile. Lysaer himself does not preach violence. Nevertheless, the view is wide-spread: the guild merchant who shares his wealth with the Blessed gets an armed pack of sunwheel dedicates to defend his interests from clan predation.’ He shot his neat cuffs, then searched out a sheet and read in direct quotation, ‘“Teach them kindness, that the masses will learn to despise evil. Attach them to beauty, security, and allegiance, and they will grow to resent the least hint of a threatened intrusion. Let the Master of Shadow assume his due blame for all discord. Outrage will set the more deeply and grant us the strength of a fear-based response.”’

  ‘Whose lines?’ Feylind gasped. ‘Ath on earth! What a bundle of cock-and-bull rhetoric!’

  ‘Etarra’s new Minister of the Peace at his finest.’ Fiark sighed. ‘A misnomer, truly. War’s brewing. Not quickly. The Alliance of Light has to rebuild its troops. My contacts assure that Lysaer will move first to secure his runaway wife. He’s launched stringent inquiries concerning a rumour that questions the fate of his son. Deeper intrigues are moving. I have inside word that the s’Brydion at Alestron may have been exposed. Their transgressions will be probed through diplomacy to mark time as the Light’s new war host is mustered. If there won’t be bloodshed next season, the tone at large is brewing towards resonant hatred. Is Prince Arithon warned of the danger that’s rising against him?’

  ‘Oh, he knows.’ Feylind frowned, conflicted by difficulty. How to explain the change in the man who had emerged from Kewar’s trials alive? Liaison with an eagle who shapechanged to a Sorcerer kept Arithon tightly apprised. Yet against the shifting tangle of politics, even Davien dared not presume to foretell the Master of Shadow’s’ response. ‘Who can guess what his Grace will do next? Let me tell you, Dakar squirmed like a moth in hot wax each time the subject was mentioned.’

  ‘Well, the question’s not dangling,’ Fiark said, drained. He tossed the damning copy of Etarra’s state document onto his disarranged desk. ‘The Prince of Rathain is coming ashore; I received his royal word yesterday. I’ve pleaded with him to stay at sea with the Khetienn, again and again, to no use. When his Grace decides he has unfinished business, no one alive can gainsay him.’

  ‘Not now, they couldn’t. Nor Dharkaron himself, with his damnable Chariot and Horses.’ Feylind
met her twin’s splintering stare. Then she locked shaking hands, sucked a deep breath, and came to an inward decision. ‘You’ve got a cargo outbound for Havish? Then I beg you, send Evenstar west.’

  Fiark considered this, quiet. On matters that counted, he could become the very soul of considerate tact. ‘Teive doesn’t like Arithon?’

  A desperate, fast head-shake came back in reply. For drawn moments, Feylind managed no speech at all, while the razor-thin mote that glanced through the cracked shutter splintered against the seal of the High King’s distressed correspondence.

  Feylind masked the sight behind her taut hands, then admitted, aggrieved, ‘Teive likes our difficult friend all too well. Honest as pig-iron about it, forbye!’ Defeat, when it came, was all bitterness, tempered by an ineffable sorrow. ‘So I’ll choose life, for both of us. I don’t want my mate pulped, or my children left parentless. Not for one of us speaking our mind in the breach to these packs of Light-blinded fanatics!’

  Late Winter 5671

  Movements

  In the dark of the moon, cowled figures crouch over a fire, savouring the flesh of a slaughtered page, while the fifth, starved lean from an overland flight, speaks of colleagues, whose covert roles as priests of the Light in Rathain must shortly fall into jeopardy: ‘Two are gambits, planted as an intentional sacrifice to Fellowship intervention. The other insinuates his cabal behind Etarra’s new-warded walls. In Asandir’s absence, he’ll be forewarned should Sethvir dispatch a discorporate colleague to disturb him beforetime…’

  As sun glares off the icy mire at Mirthlvain, and streaming mists mantle the lake, the master spellbinder, Verrain, presents his regrets to the guests who have wintered with him at the fortress: the last leg of Princess Ellaine’s journey to Spire must be delayed since the Sorcerer, Traithe, expected as escort, is deferred by a more urgent errand to Atwood…

  On the same day a small pleasure sloop casts her tow-line and charts a course towards the southcoast mainland, a caravan bearing a guild shipment of woven silk leaves Sanshevas for export at Southshire, at the last minute reinforced by the mayor’s train, bearing the tribute gold gathered to bolster the cause of the Light…

  Spring 5671

  IX. Alland

  The small sloop made her landfall just before dawn, disembarked her five passengers, then put back to sea, still under cover of darkness. The party delivered to Shand’s southern shore slipped unnoticed down a small estuary. To avoid leaving tracks, they by-passed the dunes and breasted the reed-beds, ploughing through clouds of blood-sucking insects as they waded the lead pools of the salt-marsh. Dripping, they crossed the packed earth of the trade-road, unseen by the galloping couriers bearing dispatches west through the gloom. Daybreak found them under the shadowed black pines that marked the free wilds of Alland. There, no matter how quiet their step, their presence came under the piercing review of the clan scouts who guarded Selkwood.

  Perhaps warned by the change in the chorus of bird-song, loud under the dappled sunrise, the cloaked figure leading them signalled a halt. ‘Let me handle this,’ he murmured to the paired men-at-arms who hovered in step at his back. To another muffled companion behind, he repeated his earlier warning. ‘Whatever occurs, keep your hands off your swords. The archers here are stealthy as cats. Depend on the fact we’re surrounded.’

  While the fat, huffing laggard scratched his welted arms, the speaker stepped away from his fellows, alone. His trilling whistle signalled the cordon of scouts, concealed in the windless forest. Then he cast off his hood. Brazen, he stood in the burgeoning daylight, though his black hair and sharp, angled features were hunted the breadth of the continent.

  Unconcerned for the bounty promised in gold for his body, living or dead, he announced, ‘Lord Erlien was told to expect me.’

  ‘Your Grace of Rathain?’ someone ventured in cautious response from a nearby screening of pine boughs.

  ‘None other.’ Poised, yet not smiling, Arithon dropped his cloak. Clad in hose, wet suede boots, and a nondescript jerkin, he was not armed. Though the Paravian blade would have affirmed his identity, his sheathed weapon and baldric had been left in the hands of his flaxen-haired liegeman.

  The signal was silent. But twenty archers in plain leathers emerged from the wood with scarcely a rustle of evergreen. Mostly men, but not all; in clan fashion, some of the young women bore arms. Their bows were nocked with plain arrows and primed to be drawn at fast notice. Bristled with swords, long knives, and packed quivers, the party was winter lean and fit as a wolf pack gathered to hunt down rough quarry.

  ‘I’ve seen head-hunters carry less bloodthirsty steel,’ said Arithon in tacit greeting. Apparently careless, he hooked up his mantle and shook out the chaff of caught pine needles.

  His nonchalant manner did not ease strained diplomacy. The bearded scout who stepped to the fore raked his person with tigerish appraisal. He noted the presence of the made double. His wary glance jumped as Dakar stirred behind. But the fat prophet only raised placating hands and parked his panting bulk on a deadfall.

  Mindful of a past hot reception dealt him by the High Earl of Alland, Arithon draped the cloak back over his frame and offered his upturned wrist. ‘What must I do to convince you I’m honest, or is Erlien lining his treasury for bounty gold?’

  The circle of archers remained at the ready, while their spokesman accepted the courtesy. ‘Nothing so shady as double cross, your Grace, though the price on your head defies reason.’ The exchanged clasp of amity was brisk. ‘This foray’s been pulled off of an ambush gone bad. We’re moving north, and in a smart hurry. The road will be crawling with townsmen by noon. Jumpy as wall-eyed ponies, the lot. They’re wont to shoot crossbolts at bushes through each twitching change in the breeze.’

  Arithon raised his eyebrows. ‘The bullion train out of Atchaz, I hope? Or else, Ath on earth, I should worry in fact? It’s Erlien’s avarice after all?’

  The scout loosened to wry laughter. ‘Damn the Light’s tribute. We were sent to snatch silk. Would’ve gotten it, too! Except the forsaken guild caravan chose to join up with the mayor’s guard at Sanshevas. We still could have raided. Mind you, the goods would have gained a few blood-stains. We’re not squeamish, your Grace. But the cloth’s for a wedding. Lord Erlien wanted it clean.’

  ‘No titles,’ said Arithon. ‘The formality’s tiresome, and Dakar’s too hot to stay thirsting for beer on a pine-log.’

  Vhandon and Talvish were beckoned forward and introduced. Throughout, the taut scouts held their stance with raised bows. If they marvelled, wide-eyed, at Fionn Areth’s resemblance, their predator’s vigilance kept Arithon’s paired liegemen drawn to the edge of snapped nerves. Caught in between, the Mad Prophet strove to disarm the cranked mood of hostility. ‘Who’s marrying? Not Erlien.’

  While the female scouts masked their reproving grins, the touchy clan spokesman affirmed, ‘Not Erlien.’ His following gesture relaxed the scouts. Through the rustle as nocked arrows were slipped from gut-strings, he expounded, ‘Our High Earl’s got mistresses who’d have his head if he favoured one woman over the rest. They’ve all borne him children. It’s his youngest son, Kyrialt, whose saucy wench has demanded a bride-gift of silk.’

  From the side-lines, another scout snipped, ‘The High Earl’s sprig is a feisty stud, to think he’ll hobble that vixen’s feckless temperament!’

  ‘She’s a gamine?’ asked Arithon, rapt as he sized up the company Shand’s High Earl had dispatched to meet him. ‘You’d think a few blood-stains would heighten the sport.’

  The onlooking clanborn turned their heads, fast.

  ‘Sport, is it?’ Lithe and dark, and hackled to peppery pride, their spokesman narrowed his nailing regard. He had piercing eyes. Grey as pressed ice, they fixed on the prince. ‘With a round hundred lancers in the vanguard alone? Sixty-four foot, the best half packing cross-bows. That’s without counting the outriders consigned with the caravan guard. Their trackers wear head-hunter’s badges from Ganish. They go no
where without four dozen diligent fellows scouring the brush on the flanks at the front and rear. Erlien mentioned that you could be difficult. But how many dead would a visiting prince care to bring to the feast on the eve of his lordship’s son’s wedding?’

  Dakar remarked from the side-lines, ‘Even for bullion, that many men seems an excessive protection.’ A fresh tear in his breeches had made him reappraise the wisdom of sitting on deadfalls. Sidled in closer, he overheard the exchange with ever-increasing suspicion. He knew that bear-baiting style too well; had observed too many men being expertly tuned for who knew what guileful purpose.

  ‘Try amethysts,’ said Arithon, stripped of smiling charm. ‘Mined from the Tiriacs by a rogue prospector who neglected to honour the principles of land rights. Difficult, surely? And Lord Erlien’s charge, since the offender has crossed his ill-gotten gains into Shand.’

  ‘By Ath! How’d you know this?’ Flustered to shock, the scout spokesman reddened.

  The seething mutters exchanged by his company gave rise to a dissident voice. ‘There’s a crook in the road not two leagues distant that we could have primed with an ambush. Looted minerals, you say? For this, we’d have dug a pit trap with stakes, scalpers with cross-bows or not!’

  ‘Leash that! We’re too sorely outnumbered.’ To the prince’s gadding comment, the scout spokesman explained, ‘Our crowd of crack bowmen was sent back to camp. We could thwart the horsemen through a covert strike from the bluff. But without heavy cover and dense flights of arrows in support, we’d be dead meat the moment we moved onto the roadway to rifle the carts.’

  The affable interest on Arithon’s features chased a grue through Dakar’s bones. Talvish and Vhandon stirred, touched uneasy, which in turn cued Fionn Areth.