by David B. Coe
“Has he been in contact with the duke of Bistari?”
“Bistari?” Pronjed said, with a small breathless laugh. “Surely you jest, my lord.”
“No, but never mind the question.”
The archminister narrowed his eyes, wondering why Tebeo would ask about Bistari’s young duke. Had they been alone, he would have used mind-bending magic to force the duke to explain himself, but with Evanthya watching, he didn’t dare.
Tebeo paced in silence for a moment. Then, “Tell me, Arch-minister, what do you know of the Qirsi conspiracy?”
“Not much, my lord. Probably no more than you do. I know what it’s reputed to have done. The murders in Eibithar, the assassination of Lord Bistari. There are rumors of an attempt on the life of Curlinte’s duchess in Sanbira, though of course we can’t be certain if this is true.”
“What about the death of our own king?”
Perhaps he should have been prepared for this. But Pronjed couldn’t entirely keep his voice from catching as he said, “My lord?”
“The duke of Orvinti and his first minister have wondered if Carden might have been murdered.”
“His Majesty took his own life, my lord. I saw his body, and I can tell you that the evidence of this was unmistakable.”
“We’d heard as much,” Evanthya said. “Fetnalla wondered if someone might have used mind-bending magic to make the king kill himself.”
Pronjed glanced at Tebeo’s first minister. “This is the first time I’ve heard anyone suggest such a thing.”
“Do you possess this magic, Archminister?”
Pronjed held Evanthya’s gaze for another moment before forcing himself to face the duke again. “No, my lord, I don’t.” He could have used his power to make the lie more convincing; delusion worked on Eandi and Qirsi alike. But Evanthya would have been expecting this, and delusion magic, when used against a Qirsi, only worked on the unsuspecting.
“You heard of Lord Orvinti’s death?”
“I’ve heard rumors of it, my lord.” Again he chanced a look at the first minister, but suddenly she was avoiding his gaze. It seemed the rumors were true: Fetnalla had killed Brall.
“Lord Orvinti’s first minister vanished after Brall was killed. I’m wondering if you have any idea of where she might have gone.”
She went north, just as I will. “No, my lord, none.”
Tebeo nodded again. “I thought as much.” He looked as if he might say more, but instead he stopped his pacing and glanced quickly about the chamber. “I take it you’re comfortable enough, Archminister. You’re being fed, you have enough blankets for the nights?”
Pronjed gave a thin smile. “Of course, my lord. For a prison, this is quite comfortable.” He held up his hands, showing Tebeo the silk cords wrapped around his wrists. “That said, I’d have freer movement with normal manacles.”
“Those were my idea,” Evanthya said. “I seem to remember that you have shaping power. In which case, chains wouldn’t do much good, would they?”
“No, I don’t suppose they would.”
“We’ll speak again, Archminister,” Tebeo said, as one of the guards unlocked the door. He stepped into the corridor and paused, as if waiting for Evanthya.
“I’ll be along in a moment, my lord,” she said, stepping closer to Tebeo and lowering her voice. “I have a few more questions to ask the archminister, and I suspect he’ll be more forthcoming if he and I are alone.”
Tebeo frowned, but after a moment he nodded and left the corridor. The guard closed the door once more.
Evanthya crossed to where Pronjed stood. “You intend to escape, don’t you?” she whispered.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Of course you do. It’s just a matter of time. You’re a shaper, you have delusion magic. It should be relatively easy.”
He started to deny it again, but she raised a finger to his lips, stopping him.
“Don’t say anything. I don’t care if you get away. You have no reason to harm my duke or me, and every reason to head northward as quickly as possible.”
His heart was pounding. How could she know all of this?
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I want Fetnalla. You must know that she and I were lovers.”
He’d had an inkling of this.
“I want to find her. She’s joined your conspiracy and she’s gone north to find the Weaver.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It sounded hollow, forced. For several turns now he had been lying to Numar and Henthas, Kalyi and Chofya. For years before that, he had lied to his king. He felt as comfortable with deception as he did with the truth. But somehow this woman had seen into his mind, as if she were a Weaver and he a simple festival Qirsi.
“I won’t help you escape, but neither will I alert my duke to the danger. In return, you’re to leave here directly without harming anyone.” She hesitated, her eyes locked on his. “And if by some chance you sense that you’re being followed, you’re to do nothing about it.”
“What’s to stop me from killing you once we’re away from Dantrielle?”
“Nothing, if you can catch me. But if you can’t, and I make it all the way north to your Weaver, I’ll make certain that he learns you allowed yourself to be followed. I can’t imagine he’d be pleased.”
“I can’t do this.”
“I just want her back, Pronjed. I don’t give a damn about the rest. Not anymore. I just want Fetnalla. And even if I did want to stop your conspiracy, I couldn’t. I’d be one Qirsi against an army, against a Weaver.”
He shook his head, opened his mouth, then closed it again. He’d almost said, He’ll kill me. But he stopped himself in time. What if this were a trick, an attempt on her part to make him admit that there was in fact a Weaver?
Except that she didn’t seem to be lying. Did she have delusion magic as well? Was that how she had learned that he did?
“He’ll never know,” she whispered. “Just ride north, and don’t look back.”
She gazed up at him for another moment, her eyes as golden and bright as a setting sun. Then she turned away and left him.
Chapter
Twenty-five
Kentigern, Eibithar, Adriel’s Moon waxing
he smells of the siege had become as familiar to him as the scent of Ioanna’s perfume, as ordinary as the aroma of freshly baked bread rising from the kitchens. Burning tar and oil, boiled sweetwort and betony, gangrene and blood, sweat and fear. There were sounds as well-—death cries, the moaning of the wounded, the distant singing of the Aneiran soldiers—and, of course, so many horrors to see. But the smells were what stuck in Aindreas’s mind. Long after the siege ended, either with the fall of his castle or the defeat of his enemy, the duke would remember breathing in this air that blanketed Kentigern, redolent with the stench of war.
After the successes his men enjoyed during the first day or two of the siege, Aindreas had begun to think that he might break the siege with ease. And though he had known that his Qirsi allies would not be pleased by this, he had secretly rejoiced at the possibility, seeing in the Aneirans’ failure a setback for the conspiracy as well. If the armies of Mertesse and Solkara could not maintain their siege, they certainly couldn’t send any men northward to join the fighting near Galdasten. There was nothing he could do to atone for his crime. He had allied himself with the renegade white-hairs; he was a traitor. But perhaps, merely by fighting to protect his house, he could thwart the Qirsi’s plans and thus undo some of what he had wrought.
But after losing so many men, and seeing their hurling arms burned beyond use, the Aneiran army rallied. Redoubling their assault on the gates and walls, they broke through the drawbridge at the Tarbin gate and turned their rams against the portcullises. During the second night of the siege, hours after the ringing of the midnight bells, a large group of Solkaran soldiers gained the top of the outer wall and held it into the morning before being overrun by Aindreas’s men. The did no lasting damage to
the castle and Kentigern’s losses were not great, but the duke could see that his men were shaken by the incursion. Up until the previous year, Kentigern Castle had enjoyed a centuries-old reputation as one of the most unassailable fortresses in the Forelands. The near success of Mertesse’s siege the year before was a black mark on the castle’s history, but one that could be explained away by Shurik’s betrayal. Now, however, as the Aneirans began to exact a toll on the defenders, Aindreas sensed that doubt was growing in the minds of his men.
By the end of the eighth day, the Aneirans had managed to build four new hurling arms. As soon as all four were functioning, the men of Mertesse and Solkara began their assault on the castle battlements, heaving great stones, pots of burning oil, and dead animal carcasses at the walls. Aindreas sent out a raiding party, hoping to destroy these siege engines as he had the last, but the Aneirans were watching for this, and Kentigern’s men, suffering heavy losses, were driven back.
The following morning, the first of the Tarbin gate portcullises fell, and though three more remained, this further eroded the confidence of the duke’s men. His bowmen, using the archer chambers built into the walls of the gate, and the murder holes built into the ceiling, kept up a withering assault on the attackers. But the enemy’s rams still offered the Aneirans some protection, enough to allow them to begin their attack on the next portcullis.
By nightfall, the wood and iron were groaning. Aindreas knew that it wouldn’t be long before the second portcullis was defeated as well. The men stationed on his battlements had been forced to seek shelter within the towers, emerging only long enough to loose their arrows and quarrels before being chased back inside by the bombardment from Aneira’s hurling arms. The only saving grace was that with the arms constantly striking at the walls, the enemy soldiers could not risk raising ladders to climb to the ramparts.
Aindreas could do little but watch the siege unfold from his chamber. He would have preferred to fight; despite his girth, he remained a formidable presence on the battlefield, powerful, yet quick with a blade. But this type of war demanded patience, a virtue he had always lacked. Sitting at his desk, the smell of smoke stinging his nostrils, it was all he could do to keep from drowning himself in Sanbiri red.
Early the next morning, as the duke finished a small breakfast, Villyd Temsten, his swordmaster, came to his chamber, face grim, eyes smoldering. He had a bandage on his forearm and an untreated gash above his left eye, but these only served to make him appear even more fearsome than usual.
“What news, swordmaster?” the duke asked, rising from his chair and stepping around his writing table.
“Little has changed, my lord. The second portcullis still stands, though it won’t last the day. Our archers have had some success from the ramparts, but they’re still being chased back to the towers by Rowan’s hurling arms.”
“How are our stores?”
Villyd’s mouth twisted sourly for a moment. “Shrinking, my lord. Slowly, to be sure, but we can’t hold out indefinitely.”
“Neither can they.”
“Actually, Mertesse is near enough that they can reprovision more readily than we can.”
Aindreas frowned. “Is this why you’ve come? To tell me that our stores are running low?”
“No, my lord. There’s something else. I think you should come see for yourself.”
“What is it?”
“Please, my lord. Come with me.”
Aindreas took a long breath, then indicated the door with an open hand and followed Villyd into the corridor. The swordmaster led him from the inner keep to the nearest of the towers on the outer wall. They climbed to the battlements, then strode to the northeast corner of the castle.
“Look,” he said, pointing toward the farmland beyond the city walls.
The duke had known while still in his chamber what it was Villyd intended to show him. Still, he couldn’t keep from muttering a curse.
A long column of Aneiran soldiers was marching north toward Kentigern Wood, some in the black and gold of Mertesse, many in the red and gold of Solkara. They had set fire to two of the nearer farmhouses and were in the process of setting ablaze a field of grain.
“Bastards,” the duke said, staring down at them, feeling helpless and foolish.
They’ll wait until the siege is well under way, Jastanne had said, with the prescience one would expect from a Qirsi. In all likelihood you’ll have little choice but to use all your men in the defense of your city and castle. But just in case you have it in mind to stop them, don’t.
He could hear her voice, so calm and sure of herself. He would have liked to scream her name, and he found himself glancing due north, to the rise on which he had seen her the day the siege began. No one was there now.
“We should stop them, my lord. We should protect the people in your dukedom, and we should keep them from reaching the Moorlands.”
“We can’t,” Aindreas said, his voice thick.
“But, my lord—”
“We can’t!” The words echoed off the fortress walls, drawing the stares of his men. “It’s what they want us to do,” he went on, more quietly this time. “That’s why they’re burning the houses and crops, to draw us into the open.” He knew this was so, just as he knew that if he divided his army his castle would be at risk. Just as he knew that Villyd was right, that he should have been willing to risk Kentigern to save Eibithar.
“What are your orders, my lord?” the swordmaster asked, his voice so flat, it made Aindreas’s throat constrict just to hear it.
“We’ll go after the hurling arms again. If we can destroy them, we might be able to break the siege. Rowan has fewer men now.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Villyd turned and walked away, his shoulders hunched and his head low. Protocol demanded that he await permission from Aindreas before leaving, but the duke hadn’t the heart to call him back.
“People are dying, father.”
Aindreas turned to see Brienne standing beside him, her golden hair rising and falling in the warm wind.
“They’re dying because of you. And because of you, the kingdom is in peril of being overrun.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Tell them the truth.”
“I’ll be hanged, and Ennis will be left to rule a shamed house.”
“Yes. But still, you have to.”
He turned away from her, searching the rise once more for Jastanne, fearing that he might see her.
“Our best hope now lies with the Qirsi. As long as they prevail, we’ll be fine.”
“The Qirsi killed me. You know they did, and yet you continue to help them.”
Tears stung his eyes and he squeezed them shut rather than look at her, rather than allow any of his men to see him weep.
“You should be ashamed,” he heard her whisper.
You ‘re a ghost. You ‘re not real.
When at last he opened his eyes, she was gone. Several of his soldiers were eyeing him, some with open curiosity, others more discreetly, though with apprehensive looks on their faces.
In the next instant, the castle shook, and their attention was drawn once more to the Aneirans and their ram, which was hammering again at the Tarbin gate. A moment later, several of the men shouted warnings, pointing toward the sky. Mertesse’s soldiers had returned to the hurling arms as well. One of the great stones crashed harmlessly against the outer wall, and another passed over the ramparts and landed in the castle’s outer ward. But two clay oil pots found their mark, shattering on the walkways atop the wall and splattering flaming oil in all directions. Several men dropped to the stone, rolling frantically back and forth, trying to put out the fires on their uniforms and hair. Aindreas rushed to help them, batting at the blazes with his hands, tearing off his cape and throwing it over one man whose clothes were fully engulfed.
When the flames had finally been put out and healers summoned, an uninjured soldier approached the duke.
“You must lea
ve the walls, my lord. They’re certain to attack again, and you could be killed.”
Aindreas glared at the man, ready to tell him to mind his own affairs. But he knew the soldier was right. He was no good to the army dead. Indeed, his death might well hasten the castle’s fall.
“Fine,” he said. “Where’s the swordmaster?”
“I don’t know, my lord.”
He glanced toward Kentigern Wood once more. Smoke continued to rise from farmhouses and fields, and the column of Solkaran soldiers was still in view, farther from the castle, but near enough to be overtaken by an army on foot.
They’ll tell the world what you ‘ve done. Think of Ennis and Affery. Think of Ioanna.
Aindreas entered the nearest tower, descended the stairway to the outer ward, and crossed the courtyard to where Villyd stood, speaking with three of his captains.
“My lord,” the swordmaster said, seeing him approach. The captains fell silent.
Aindreas had intended to pursue the Solkarans. He had been ready to confess all to Villyd, to explain what would happen when the Qirsi learned that he had stopped the Aneirans’ march northward. But faced with the prospect of doing so, seeing the way the captains looked at him, the duke couldn’t bring himself to speak the words.
“Was there something you wanted, my lord?”
“Yes. Yes, I—I want you to send out raiding parties against those hurling arms immediately. They’re striking at the battlements again, and I want it to stop.”
“Yes, my lord. We were just discussing that. We had thought to send twice the number of men this time, half through the south sally port, half through the west. Perhaps if we flank them, they’ll have a more difficult time driving back the assault.”
“Very good, swordmaster. That sounds like a fine plan.” His hands were trembling. What he would have given for some wine.
“Very well, my lord. We’ll prepare the raiding parties immediately.”
Aindreas nodded. “Good. I’ll be in my chamber.”
He hurried away, certain that Villyd and the others were staring after him, but too eager to be back in his chamber to care.