by DAVID B. COE
After that, Jastanne lost all sense of time, surrendering utterly to his touch and the cadence of their movements in the cool grasses and the soft glow of the fire. His hunger seemed a match for hers, their passion bringing them together again and again, until at last they lay together beneath the star-filled sky, sated and exhausted.
Jastanne felt herself drifting toward slumber, happier than she had been in many years. She felt him beside her, restless and alert, and knew that he wasn’t ready for sleep. But she couldn’t help herself.
Just as she was about to give in to her weariness, he sat up.
Jastanne forced her eyes open. “Forgive me, Weaver,” she said. “But I’m so tired.”
He shook his head, his face somber in the dim light. “It’s all right,” he said. “You should sleep.” He smiled, though it seemed to take some effort. “Thank you for this night. My … my need was great.”
“As was mine.”
“I have one thing more to ask of you.”
“Of course, Weaver. Anything.”
“Tomorrow, when the fighting begins, I’ll be matched against another Weaver. You’ve heard me speak of him before, though others haven’t.”
She nodded. “Grinsa jal Arriet.”
“Yes. Defeating him will take much of my attention. But there’s another who has to die, and I want you to kill her for me. She deceived me and she seeks to destroy all for which we’ve toiled these last several years.”
“Who is she?”
“Her name is Keziah ja Dafydd. She’s the archminister of Eibithar. Her powers are considerable, and they include language of beasts, but she possesses neither shaping nor fire. You shouldn’t have trouble killing her.”
Jastanne nodded. “She won’t survive the day, Weaver. You have my word.”
Again he smiled, easily this time. “You serve me well,” he said, brushing her cheek with his fingers. He stood, naked, glorious, and began to dress. And Jastanne closed her eyes, allowing sleep to take her, hoping that she would dream of him and of what they had shared this night.
* * *
She sat alone by the small fire, staring into the darkness, waiting for Jastanne to return. Silence settled over the camp like a warm blanket—all around her, Qirsi slept, horses stomped and snorted, a gentle wind rustled the grasses and hummed as it moved among the boulders. And still Jastanne didn’t come back from her conversation with the Weaver.
Finally, Nitara realized that the chancellor wouldn’t return, at least not until dawn, and she feared that her heart would simply stop beating. She had expected this since the first time she saw Jastanne, with her exquisite face and lithe form, and her golden eyes, so like Dusaan’s that it seemed Qirsar had marked them for each other.
It would have been easier had she still hated the woman as she did that first day. But Nitara had come to respect her, even to like her. And how could she blame Jastanne for desiring the Weaver, when she herself had imagined a thousand times what it would be like to lie with him?
“The movement is everything,” he had said to her once, before they took the palace from Harel, as he was explaining why he couldn’t love her. “Devote yourself to our cause, and you devote yourself to me; give it your passion, and you give that passion to me.”
“But that’s not enough,” she said at the time.
And he replied plainly, though not without sympathy, “It will have to be.”
As far as she knew, he hadn’t loved any woman since then. That is, until tonight.
Wasn’t it possible then, that with victory within reach, with the Forelands about to be his, he was ready to take a wife? Or perhaps several. Just after joining the Weaver’s army Jastanne sensed Nitara’s jealousy and spoke to her of the possibility that Dusaan would have as many women as had Braedon’s emperor. “Do you really think that a man like that—a Qirsi king—will take but one wife?” Jastanne had asked her that day. Maybe, she suggested, he would choose to love both of them. In which case, didn’t the fact that he was with Jastanne tonight suggest that some time soon he might call Nitara to his bed?
It wasn’t exactly what she would have chosen—if she could claim Dusaan as her own, she would. But Jastanne was right. A man like the Weaver could never belong to but one love. Better she should be one lover among many than never know what it was to give herself to him. That would be too great a loss to contemplate.
So at last, reluctant to give up her vigil, but knowing that she needed to rest before the morrow’s battle, Nitara lay down on her sleeping roll and closed her eyes. She quickly fell asleep, and almost immediately found herself in a dream.
The minister was on a plain and a Qirsi man stood before her, wind whipping his hair around his face. She had heard some of the other Qirsi—the chancellors and a minister from Galdasten—speaking of dreams in which the Weaver came to them, walking in their sleep to give them instructions, and for one disorienting moment, she wondered if this was what was happening to her.
Then she recognized the man, and knew this wasn’t so. His eyes were brighter than Dusaan’s, his face leaner, more youthful. He was neither as tall nor as broad as the Weaver, though he did have a muscular build. She still remembered the smooth, solid feel of his back and chest from the nights they had spent in each other’s arms.
“I’m dreaming,” she said aloud, as if hoping to wake herself.
“Yes,” Kayiv jal Yivanne answered, walking toward her. As he drew near, she saw bloodstains on his ministerial robes and the dagger jutting from his chest. Her dagger.
“What do you want of me?”
He stopped just in front of her, so close that the hilt of the killing blade nearly touched her breasts. “You ride to war. There’s to be a great battle tomorrow.”
“What of it?”
“You expect to win. You think that your victory will justify what you did to me, what your Weaver has done to the Eandi in Curtell and Ayvencalde and Galdasten, what all of you will do to the armies of Eibithar and Braedon.”
“It does justify it. We’re going to change the world. You never understood that.”
“I understood. I just chose not to be a part of it.” He smiled, a dark, terrible smile. “And for that, I died by your hand.”
“I won’t listen to this.”
“Then send me away, if you can.”
She tried to wake herself, or she thought she did. It was so hard to know what she was dreaming and what was real.
“Do you remember what I said to you?”
“When?” she asked. But she knew. Gods, she knew. His last words, whispered on a dying breath.
The smile faded, chased away by a single tear, which was far worse. “I loved you so.”
Nitara closed her eyes. Or did she? Wasn’t she already asleep?
“That’s what I said. ‘I loved you so.’”
“I remember,” she said, shuddering.
“And now your Weaver loves another.”
“No!”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have killed me after all.”
“I had to!”
“For him,” Kayiv said.
“Yes, for him.”
“Then I have to do this for all the others, all who would die if I didn’t.”
He pulled the dagger free from his chest, the blade emerging as clean and brilliant as the day she bought it. And raising it high, so that it gleamed in the morning sun, he plunged it into her neck.
Nitara screamed. Yet somehow she still heard him say, his voice so sad that it made her want to weep, “I loved you so.”
She opened her eyes to starlight and the dim glow of the moons. Her heart was pounding so hard that her chest hurt, and her clothes were soaked with sweat. She raised herself up on one elbow and looked around the camp. No one else appeared to be awake. Jastanne was nowhere to be seen.
“Damn,” she whispered, running a hand through her hair.
After a few moments she lay back down, staring up at the stars, knowing she should sleep, but afraid to close h
er eyes again.
“We’re going to change the world,” she said to the darkness, as if Kayiv might hear her. “That’s why I had to do it.”
Chapter Twenty-one
The Moorlands, Eibithar
Keziah awoke as soon as the Weaver left her dream, opening her eyes to find Grinsa still sitting beside her, concern etched on his face.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded. As encounters with the Weaver went, this one had been relatively easy for her. “Are you?”
He shrugged, glowering at the fire that burned a short distance away. “I had him. Twice, really. And both times he managed to fight me off.”
“You hurt him, Grinsa. And maybe more important than that, you frightened him. He won’t be so confident tomorrow, and that has to be to our advantage.”
“Maybe. I fear he was right though. Any victory I might have won just now will be meaningless in the end. In order to defeat him I needed to kill him, and I couldn’t.” He swung his gaze back to her. “You’ll have to be especially watchful tomorrow, Kezi. He’s vengeful—we know that—and now he has ample reason to want to punish you.”
She sat up, her head spinning, though not as it had after previous dreams of the Weaver. Could it be that she was getting used to this?
“I’ll be careful,” she said, “although I imagine he’ll be most intent on killing you. Every time he thinks he’s added a woman to his movement, you seem to take her away. I can’t imagine that he likes that.”
Her brother grinned. “No, probably not.”
“We should tell Kearney what’s happened. He’ll want to know.”
Grinsa nodded, standing and helping Keziah to her feet. They crossed the camp and found the king sitting outside his tent with Gershon Trasker.
Keziah and Gershon had hardly spoken since the swordmaster’s arrival on the battle plain. Once they had been fierce rivals for the king’s ear and had disliked and distrusted each other. Later, when Keziah began trying to join the conspiracy, she was forced to rely on Gershon as a confidant, and they came to an understanding of sorts. More than once during the march north from the City of Kings, Keziah had been surprised to find that she missed his company. She thought about seeking him out upon his arrival, but at the time she was still posing as a traitor, and she couldn’t risk being seen with him.
Both Gershon and the king stood as Keziah and Grinsa approached.
“Are you all right?” Kearney asked, looking the archminister up and down as if he expected to see wounds on her.
“I’m fine. Both of us are.”
“Did it work?”
“No, Your Majesty,” Grinsa said. “I’m sorry.”
“Damn. What happened?”
“Grinsa tried!” Keziah said.
Kearney cast a dark look her way. “I don’t doubt that he did, Archminister. I’m merely asking that he tell me what happened.”
Grinsa laid a hand on her shoulder, as he briefly described for Kearney their encounter with the Weaver.
“I’m certain that you did all you could, gleaner,” the king said when he had finished. “I’m grateful to you for making the effort. And I’m grateful to you, Archminister. I have some idea of how much you risked.”
“You honor me, Your Majesty,” she said, her gaze lowered.
Gershon looked at Kearney and then at Grinsa. “So what do we do now?”
“We ready ourselves for war. Isn’t that so, gleaner?”
“Yes, Your Majesty, I suppose it is.”
“You’ll lead the Qirsi, of course.”
“The few I have left.”
“How do you suggest we array the armies?”
Grinsa rubbed a hand over his face. “To be honest, I’m not very knowledgeable when it comes to military tactics. The swordmaster probably knows better than I.”
“I doubt that,” Gershon said. “I’ve never fought a Qirsi army.”
“I’m not interested in hearing which of you knows less about fighting this kind of war! I simply want your recommendations.”
“Let me ask you this, gleaner,” Gershon said. “If you were leading an army of Qirsi against us, what could I do that would confound you the most?”
Grinsa appeared to consider this for several moments. “It all comes down to the archers,” he said at last. “Swordsmen will never get close enough to do any damage, but the archers may be able to reach them.”
“How?”
“Spread them. Have arrows flying at the Qirsi from as many different positions as possible. Force them to summon winds from several directions at once. Either the Weaver will have to relinquish his hold on some of those who have mists and winds, which will make the gales they raise less effective, or he’ll have to keep his full attention on sustaining all the winds. One way or another it helps us.”
“Good,” Kearney said. “What else?”
Grinsa fell silent once more, staring at the fire, slowly shaking his head. “The queen’s army should remain on foot,” he said after some time. “All of us should.”
“But won’t the Qirsi be mounted?”
“Yes. But the Weaver will have many warriors with language of beasts.”
Neither Kearney nor Gershon appeared convinced.
“You can’t think of them as you would an Eandi enemy, Your Majesty,” the gleaner went on. “As simple fighters, they won’t be the equal of your soldiers. It’s their magic that makes them dangerous, and so we must do everything we can to eliminate that advantage. They will be mounted, which means that I can use magic against their horses. We’ll be better off if they can’t do the same.”
The king nodded, though he still looked unhappy. “Very well, gleaner. Anything else?”
“Not that I can think of, Your Majesty. But if more comes to me, I’ll let you know.”
“Of course. You’re probably weary. Get some sleep, gleaner. And again, you have my thanks for all you’ve done.”
Grinsa bowed. Then he turned to Keziah. “You’ll be all right?”
“Yes.”
“If you find that you’re having trouble remaining awake, find me, and wake me. I’ll watch over you.”
“That’s kind of you, but it’s more important that you get some rest.”
Gershon frowned. “Why can’t she sleep?”
“The Weaver threatened me at the end of our encounter tonight,” she answered. “I’m not certain that he’d really make an attempt on my life on the eve of battle, but it’s probably best that I don’t give him the opportunity.”
“Until the morning then,” Grinsa said, kissing her cheek. He nodded to Gershon, then walked toward the Curgh camp.
For several moments the three of them stood silent watching her brother walk away.
Finally, Gershon cleared his throat, and said, “Well, I should probably sleep, too.” He remained where he was, however, eyeing Keziah. “It seems you survived your deception of the Weaver. Whatever happens tomorrow, you don’t have to pretend anymore.”
“No, I don’t. Thank you, swordmaster.”
He glanced at the king, his cheeks shading to crimson. “For what?”
“For keeping my secret. For protecting me.”
“I didn’t do much, Archminister.”
She smiled. “You did more than you know. And like it or not, you gained a Qirsi friend.” She stepped forward, raised herself onto her tiptoes, and kissed him.
Gershon scowled at her. “What was that for?”
“It seemed the best way to aggravate you. I’ve missed doing that.”
Kearney laughed.
“You always did excel at it,” the swordmaster said, sounding cross, though it seemed to take an effort. After a moment, he offered a smile of his own. “You’ve done us all a great service, Archminister. And I promise you that every man under my command will know of it. I’m aware of how they’ve treated you these past several turns and I intend to put a stop to it.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“I belie
ve it is.”
She had no desire to argue with the man. “All right then. Again, you have my thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Gershon bowed to the king. “Your Majesty.”
“Good night, Gershon.”
In recent days, Keziah had tried to avoid being alone with the king, but that was where she now found herself. Kearney stared into the fire, but occasionally his eyes would flick toward her.
“Twice today I’ve feared that I might lose you,” he said, breaking a lengthy silence. “I can’t tell you how the thought of that frightened me.”
“I’m grateful to you, Your Majesty.”
He looked up, his eyes meeting hers. “I didn’t say that as your king.”
Keziah shivered. How long had she waited to hear him say such a thing to her? And yet now that he had at last spoken the words, she wondered if she still wanted him. Her ambivalence surprised her. It even frightened her a bit. She could hardly remember a time when she hadn’t loved this man.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty. But you are my king, and all that you say to me, you say as a king to his archminister.”
“We’ve been so much more than that to each other, Kez. Can’t we be again? I’ve missed you. With everything that’s happened today I’ve realized again how much I still need you.”
She smiled, despite the tears in her eyes. “I’ll always love you, and not only as my king. But it’s been so long…” She faltered. “Maybe too long. I don’t know if I can go back.”
“So we can never be together again? Not even tonight, on the eve of a war that could end all that we’ve known and fought together to preserve?” He smiled playfully. “You have to stay awake anyway.”
Keziah laughed, though her heart was aching. He had always been able to find humor in even the most difficult of circumstances. It was one of the reasons she had fallen in love with him.
She walked to where he stood and put her arms around him, resting her head against his chest. “Not even tonight,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
They stood that way for a long time, until at last she turned her face up to his and kissed him one last time. Then she pulled back and left him, wiping the tears from her cheeks.