by DAVID B. COE
“She stopped taking it,” Evanthya said. “I think she looks better.”
The healer glanced quickly at Fetnalla. “You’re right, she does. Well done.”
“How’s the duke?”
The man shrugged. “He’s taking the tea, which is something.”
“Do you need my help?”
“No, but others might. Go ask the master surgeon.”
She walked to the end of the table, where the master surgeon was overseeing the care of the queen. There were two other surgeons there, as well as a Qirsi healer. Circling the room once, she found that all those who had survived the poisoning thus far were being treated. She returned to Tebeo, who was still on his back, his eyes closed, and a hand resting under his head.
“My lord?”
He opened one eye. “Yes, Evanthya. What news of the queen?”
She sat beside him. “The master surgeon says it’s too soon to know. She takes the tea, but her breathing is still weak and her face is grey.”
“Demons and fire,” the duke muttered. “What about Brail and Fetnalla?”
“The duke is much the same as the queen. Fetnalla took some tea and has better color than before.”
“I suppose that’s something at least. And the others?”
“Lord Tounstrel is dead, my lord, and Lord Noltierre is failing.”
Tebeo closed his eyes. “Vidor and Bertin. No one hated the Solkarans more. Except maybe poor Chago, and they already took care of him.”
“The first ministers of Kett, Rassor, and Bistan are dead as well.”
“I’m sorry, Evanthya,” he said, opening his eyes again. “Did you know them well?”
“Not very, my lord.”
“Still. This will be remembered as one of Aneira’s darkest nights. I expect such things from the Eibitharians, but for one Aneiran noble to do this to others…” He let the thought go unfinished, shaking his head.
“Have you had enough of the tea, my lord? I know that you’re better off than most, but you did drink some of the poison.”
He made a sour face. “I’ve had more than enough. I never liked Uulranni tea to begin with. The madder root just makes it worse.”
Evanthya smiled, as if at a complaining child. “The taste is secondary, my lord.”
“I know, Evanthya. I’ve had plenty. I promise.”
“Very well.” She started to stand again, then stopped herself. “My lord, thank you for letting me go to Fetnalla. I’m sure she would have survived anyway, but I was able to help her. I’ll always be grateful to you for that.”
“You’re welcome.”
She tried to stand a second time, but the duke grabbed her arm.
“Grigor will hang for this, First Minister. I’ll see to it. I swear it to all the gods who’ll listen, he’ll hang.”
They had placed Grigor in the topmost chamber of the prison tower, manacles on his wrists and ankles holding him to the stone wall facing the iron door. The room was semicircular, with two narrow windows at opposite ends of the arcing wall and a single sputtering torch mounted on the wall just to the left of the door. The room was clean and smelled only of torch smoke and his own sweat. Still, there could be no mistaking it for anything but what it was: a prison. As boys, he and Carden had often played in the tower, pretending to be archers in this very room. Never in his wildest imaginings, though, had he thought to be a prisoner in the castle of his ancestors.
He felt certain that Chofya’s Qirsi had done this to him. Who else could hope to gain so much by turning the entire Council against him?
Chofya herself, perhaps. But while she might have harbored ambitions for her daughter, or even herself, he knew she wasn’t capable of this. It had to be the archminister.
Knowing this did little to help him, however. Unless he could convince someone else, someone other than his brothers, he would be executed before the end of the waning.
He heard footsteps on the tower stairs and strained to see through the small barred grate at the top of the door.
After a moment a guard appeared, and with him Numar.
“I’ll have to take your weapons, my lord,” the soldier said.
Numar nodded. “Of course.”
Gngor heard the ring of steel as his brother drew his sword and dagger and handed them to the man. The door swung open and Numar stepped into the room. After a moment the door closed again and the lock was thrown.
“I’ll be at the base of the tower if you need anything, my lord.”
“Yes, thank you,” Numar said, walking slowly around the chamber. He stopped at one of the small windows and stared out into the night. “I remember this window offering a fine view by day,” he said, looking over at Grigor for just an instant.
“I sent for Henthas,” Grigor said. “Where is he?”
Numar gazed out the window for another few seconds, then resumed his pacing. “Ah, poor Henthas. He thinks you might really have done this, though he’s not certain. And he fears that the soldiers will come for him as well, seeing him as your closest ally in Solkara. At this point, he doesn’t know whether to raise the Renbrere army and attack this tower, or disguise himself as a cloister adherent and flee the castle.” He faced Grigor again. “How is it that I became the Fool and not him?”
In that instant Grigor knew. He felt as though he had been kicked in the groin.
“It was you,” he breathed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Numar said with a grin that gave the lie to his denial.
“You killed all those people, just to keep me from the throne.”
“First of all, I doubt very much that I killed all of them. I used a fairly light hand. Some of the older dukes might die, and a few Qirsi. But Chofya ought to survive, and most of the Council.”
“You’re mad.”
“Second of all,” he went on, ignoring Grigor for the moment, “there was more to this than just keeping you from the throne. I expect they’ll make the girl queen now, and who do you think they’ll trust with her regency. Henthas? He’s another jackal, just like you. But I’m only a fool. And when they realize that I’m really quite intelligent, they’ll probably beg me to serve.”
“They’ll find out. You won’t be able to hide this forever.”
“Why not? You think they’ll listen to you?”
“Someone will.” But even saying the words, Grigor knew it wasn’t true.
“You know better,” Numar said. “You made this possible for me years ago. You and Carden, and even Henthas, I suppose. The Jackals and the Fool. You’ve hanged yourself, Grigor. It’s not just that the other nobles believe you’re capable of poisoning those dukes. It’s that they want to believe it. You’ve spent so much of your life making them fear you, that you never thought to make them like you.” He smiled again. “They despise you, brother. Bards will write songs of the day you hang. People will dance in the streets. It hardly matters who put the oleander in their goblets. You tied your own noose years ago.”
His brother had planned it perfectly, Grigor realized. Like a Qirsi magician entertaining children, he had deceived all of them, making them see just what he wanted them to see.
“What is it you want, Numar?” he asked, feeling the metal bite at his wrists, desperate now for anyway out of this.
“The same as you. I’m Tomaz’s son, too, remember? I want to sit on Father’s throne. The difference between us is that I’m patient enough to allow the girl to get me there.”
“If you kill her as well, someone’s bound to figure out all of this.”
“It won’t matter by then. I’ll have the Council, and I’ll have the army.”
“I can help you with that. No one will ever trust me with the throne now, or the regency. But they still fear me. They will even more after this. With me at your side, no one will ever think to challenge you.”
Numar stepped closer, stopping just in front of him, the smile still on his lips. “I’m sorry, Grigor, but I know you too well. You could neve
r bring yourself to accept me as your king. Sooner or later you’d try to have me killed. For now, you’re much more valuable to me in chains. And though I hate to see another Solkaran die, I’ll feel a good bit safer once you’ve been executed.”
Screaming his rage, Grigor launched himself at the man, only to find that the chains held him fast. Numar stood just beyond his reach.
“As I said, you’re much more valuable to me in chains.”
He turned away and walked to the door.
“Guard!” he called.
“I’ll stop you, Numar. I’ll find a way. And when I do, I’ll kill you myself.”
Numar glanced back at him and grinned, saying nothing.
“The man’s a murderer!” Grigor shouted as the guard appeared. “He poisoned your queen and the Council of Dukes! Don’t let him out of here!”
The guard unlocked the door and opened it for Numar.
“Thank you,” Numar said. He stopped in the corridor outside the door, gazing back at Grigor as the guard locked the door again. “Take care of him,” he said. “I know what he’s done. But he was once a noble of House Solkara. Even with the shame he’s brought upon us, we must never forget that.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“He’s lying! He’s betrayed our house, our realm! You must believe me!”
The guard didn’t even look at him, and Grigor’s words echoed through the tower like a rumble of thunder that brings no rain, the desperate, empty cries of a condemned man.
Chapter Sixteen
City of Kings, Eibithar
The snows came to southern Eibithar just after dawn on the tenth day of Bohdan’s waning. Unlike most years, when the new season arrived with screaming winds and a blinding, frenzied swirl of snow, this year it came softly and silently. Keziah was still in bed when the snowfall began, though she was awake, her eyes wandering her room as she summoned the courage to leave the warmth of her blankets. Hearing laughter rise to her chamber from the ward below her window, she climbed from bed, wrapped herself in a robe, and stepped to the window. Opening the wood shutters, she saw tiny white flakes falling from a sky of deep somber grey and covering the castle grounds as sawdust coats the floor of a carpenter’s shop. The air was perfectly still, and she could hear the light scratching of the icy snow alighting on the castle walls and roofs.
She was shivering. With the window open and her fire having burned out during the night, her chamber quickly grew as frigid as the kitchen-master’s cellars. Still, the minister couldn’t bring herself to close her shutters again. Instead, she sat on the sill of her window and watched the snow fall, remembering how she and Grinsa had played in drifts on the steppe as children. Like the other castle children, they had spent much time throwing balls of snow and ice at one another, their hands growing numb and sore long before they tired of the sport. At other times, though, when they were alone, they practiced their magic on the pure white fields of Eardley’s outer wards. Young as they were, they hadn’t the power to shape wood. But they could trace patterns in the snow with their minds, drawing flowers, horses, and portraits of each other. As in everything else, Grinsa was better at this than she, though he was always quick to praise her efforts. They spent hours this way, alone, laughing and learning together. And when they were done, fearing that they might be punished for using their powers before their apprenticeships, they would stomp through the snow, erasing all evidence of what they had done. The Qirsi shortened their lives just a bit every time they used their magic, and the danger was greatest for children who had no training in how to control their power and use it sparingly. Had their parents learned of what they were doing, they would have forbidden the children from playing in the snow at all, or worse, kept Keziah and Grinsa apart from each other until the thaw. Such was the danger of the games they played.
Thinking of Grinsa, her mind turned southward, to Aneira and all that she had heard recently of events there. It had been some time since her brother last entered her dreams, and Keziah wondered where he was and whether he and Tavis of Curgh were any closer to finding Brienne’s killer. She still wished that Grinsa hadn’t gone with the boy. For all her brother’s power, she didn’t like the idea of him tracking a hired blade.
Someone knocked at her door, forcing her abruptly from her musings and memories. Pulling her robe tighter around her shoulders and passing a hand through her tangled white hair, she faced the door.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s Paegar.”
Keziah smiled. In a castle and city that had long seemed empty of warmth and companionship, the high minister had in recent days become her closest friend, really her only friend. They had spent a good deal of time together since the waning began, talking as they walked through the corridors and wards, and laughing in the kitchens over midday meals. The night before, they had left the castle for a Qirsi tavern Paegar knew in the northern quarter of the marketplace. Keziah hadn’t been to a tavern in years. In Glyndwr, as Kearney’s first minister and lover, she had rarely left his side, much less his castle. Though she missed terribly the nights they spent together, she had found herself reveling in the freedom of being able to leave the confines of the castle walls and breathe in the life she found in the city. For too long, Keziah realized the previous night, she had allowed herself to steep like tea leaves in the grief that followed Kearney’s ascension and the end of their love affair. Without saying a word, perhaps without even knowing it, Paegar had helped her see this. All it had taken was a friend inviting her to live again, to find mirth and good company without the man with whom she had shared her bed. She hadn’t known how to thank the minister, and in a sense, she didn’t have to. It was enough that they enjoyed their time together.
“Come in!” she said. Then remembering that the door was bolted, she crossed the room and unlocked it.
“Good morning, Paegar,” she said, waving him into the room.
He smiled. “And to you, Archmimster.” Noticing her robe, he halted, his face falling. “Did I wake you?”
“Not at all. I was watching the snow.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That would explain why yours is the only chamber in the castle in which I can see my breath.”
Keziah gave a small laugh. “I know. I should start a new fire.” She turned to face the window again and sighed. “But isn’t it lovely? I’ve missed the snows.”
“Spoken like a woman raised on the steppe. To me the snows are a bother. I never feel so old as I do in the cold turns.”
She walked back to the window to push the shutters closed again. “You’re not old, Paegar,” she said, glancing back at him. “Not even for a Qirsi.”
The high minister had stepped to the hearth and was piling new wood for a fire. “You’re most kind, Archmimster, but I’m a good deal older than you and far closer to the end of my life than I am to the beginning of it.”
Bolting the shutters, she turned to look at the man. In many ways he reminded Keziah of her father. Like Dafydd, and unlike most older Qirsi, he had a full, healthy face. To be sure, there were lines around his eyes and the corners of his mouth, but his cheeks weren’t sunken like those of some, and his color remained a healthy white, rather than the sallow yellow that crept into the faces of Qirsi nearing the end of their lives.
“I’d say you have some years left,” she told him with a grin. “I expect you to be showing me the city’s better taverns for a long time to come.”
“Hardly a pursuit worthy of the king’s ministers.” Paegar placed one last log in the hearth and sat back on his heels. “The wood is ready, Archminister, but I’m afraid I don’t have fire magic. Only gleaning and mists and winds.” He gestured toward the hearth. “Can you?”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid not. Gleaning, mists and winds, and language of beasts. How embarrassing. Here we are, two of the king’s most trusted Qirsi, and between us we can’t even light a fire.”
Paegar grinned. “Indeed.” He glanced around the chamber, but Keziah kept no can
dles or lamps burning during the night.
“Wait just a moment,” Keziah said. She stepped into the corridor, lit a tinder with the torch mounted by her door, and, returning to the hearth, handed it to the minister.
Watching him light the fire, she had to smile at what had just passed between them. She usually told no one what powers she possessed. Grinsa knew, of course, and Kearney, but that was all. Since Paegar had confided in her, however, she felt that she should do the same. More than that, though, she wanted to tell him. She viewed it as a measure of how quickly their friendship was deepening that they could share this so soon.
Which raised another point. “You need to stop calling me Archminister, Paegar. Please.”
“It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to call you Keziah in front of the king or the other ministers,” he said, standing once more.
She considered this. “All right, but certainly there’s no harm in it when we’re alone.”
Paegar shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “I suppose not.”
In a few moments, the fire in her hearth was burning bright and hot, warming the chamber.
“Thank you, Paegar,” she said. “But I can’t imagine you came here only to build a fire for me.”
His ears turned red, though he managed a smile. “No, I didn’t. I was hoping you’d join me for a quick breakfast in the kitchens before we meet with the king.”
“Of course,” she said. “I need to dress first. Will you wait for me?”