The Witches of Wenshar

by Barbara Hambly

  “Uncle, is Father all right?” she demanded as soon as she got near enough to Sun Wolf and Nanciormis to speak. “Anshebbeth says—”

  “Your father’s fine, Tazey.”

  “You ought to send at once for the Lady Kaletha,” the black-clothed woman panted, fussing up behind them. “She can—”

  “We already did, Anshebbeth.”

  “I could go look for her—I know right where she is...”

  “It’s been taken care of.” Nanciormis’ voice was soothing. Anshebbeth’s long white fingers clasped and unclasped nervously; her huge, dark eyes darted to Nanciormis’ face, then to Sun Wolf’s body—a look that was covert but unmistakable—then back again, her cheeks coloring slightly. Sun Wolf wondered whether the blush was because he was aware of the thoughts behind that look or simply that she was. Unaware, Nanciormis went on easily, “Captain Sun Wolf—my niece, the Princess Taswind—her governess the Lady Anshebbeth.”

  Guards were carrying the unconscious King into the hall. Gentlemen and ladies hurried to open the door through to the solar and to kindle lamps there; Tazey sprang after them, catching up her skirts as if impatient with their weight. Sun Wolf observed the lace trim of her petticoat and the slim strength of her calf in its soft boot before the sharp jab of a bony knee in his thigh made him look around; but Starhawk, who had materialized at his side, was looking around the room, innocently impassive.

  Down in the hall, one of the underservants, a thickset hag with puffy ankles showing under a kilted-up skirt and black eyes glinting through a straggling pelt of gray hair, called out in a screechy voice, “Slow getting out the back window, was he, when the husband came home? Hard to run with his breeches around his ankles!”

  Tazey didn’t even check her stride, but Anshebbeth stopped, stiff with rage and indignation, torn for a moment between staying to take issue with the old woman and remaining with her nurseling. Then, as if she realized she would not come off the better in any battle of words, she spun and hurried after Tazey into the narrow solar door.

  “Did you see who they were?” Nanciormis asked quietly, as he led Sun Wolf and the Hawk toward the carved chairs on the dais near the fire. A servant girl came up to take his heavy white cloak and returned his smile with a saucy wink; Sun Wolf, as he and Starhawk divested themselves of their scarred sheepskin coats, observed that Nanciormis drew the admiring eyes of several of the women of the Household. Though corpulent, he was a good-looking man still; but beyond that, Sun Wolf guessed he was the type of man whose vitality would attract women, no matter how fat he became. Even on short acquaintance and in spite of his carelessness about breaking into the delicate concentration needed for the war dance, Sun Wolf found the man likable.

  He made a mental note to take that into account.

  “Your people, it looked like.”

  Nanciormis checked his stride. His long hair, braided down from the temples and hanging in a loose mane of black curls behind, caught the sheen of the lamps as he jerked his head around.

  “The shirdar—the desert folk,” the Wolf went on. “There was a little trouble at the Longhorn—four of ’em proposed a toast to the Princess Taswind’s prospective husband—I take it the match is about as popular as maggots in the beer hereabouts. A man named Norbas Milkom was the cause of it, though why they attacked the King...”

  The commander groaned, and all wariness fled from his eyes. “I should have known. No, the match isn’t a popular one.” He grinned ruefully and took a seat in one of the chairs by the hearth—heavy ebony from the forests of Kimbu in the south, recushioned with local work of red leather. “Beyond a doubt, they attacked the King because he was foolish enough to walk back alone—unlike our canny Norbas. It’s known throughout the desert they’ve been friends for forty years—if indeed they were the same shirdar as the ones at the Longhorn.”

  A servant came up—the same who had taken their coats—with an intricately worked brass tray holding wine cups and dates in a hammered silver bowl. Sun Wolf saw now that she, like Nanciormis and, he guessed, Anshebbeth also, was of the shirdar, though without the reserved dignity of their ways. Along the foothills, they must have been living among and marrying with the ex-slaves of the north for generations. When she thought no one was looking, she mouthed a kiss at Nanciormis; he received it with a suppressed smile and a dance of pleasure in his pouchy dark eyes.

  He went on, “They may have been merely bandits—there are a lot of them along the cordillera—or they may have been operating by the same logic used by the men of Wenshar when they kill Hasdrozidar of the Dunes or Seifidar of the White Erg in retaliation for Regidar slave-raids, not troubling to inquire the truth. All of our people here are looked upon with mistrust by those who came from the north of the mountains.”

  “With reason,” a quiet voice said at his elbow. Sitting with his back to a corner and his blind side to Starhawk, Sun Wolf had seen the slender old man approach them—he would, indeed, have been difficult to miss. He was wearing what Starhawk irreverently described as the undress uniform of Trinitarian bishops, and his scarlet surcoat and gold tabard picked up the torchlight on their bullion embroidery as if the old man were netted all over with a spiderweb of flame. Garnet and rock crystal flashed from the worked medallions of sacred signs; even the sleeves of his white under-robe were stitched with tiny seed pearls. Under all that finery, the old man would have been as pretty as a girl before he grew his beard; full, slightly pouting red lips showed beneath the silky white mustaches; the eyes with their snowy lashes were the clear blue of morning sky.

  In a soft, light voice, the Bishop went on, “It is fellowship of worship that binds men together in trust, Nanciormis. You have converted to the true faith of the Triple God, but can the same be said of the shirdar in the guards? It can not. They cling to their old superstitions, their familial cults and wind djinns. How can any true worshiper believe their oaths?”

  “I’m sure they can’t,” Starhawk remarked, lying half-slouched in her chair and regarding him with mild gray eyes. “But the question’s rather academic, isn’t it, since the Doctrines of Calcedus say that true worshipers aren’t obliged to keep oaths made to the followers of untrue gods.”

  The old Bishop spread his hands deprecatingly. “We are doves in the midst of serpents, Warlady,” he explained. “We need such subterfuge to survive.”

  She studied the obvious wealth and power reflected in those splendid robes and glanced over at Sun Wolf. “I never met a Trinitarian yet who didn’t have a good explanation for everything.”

  The Bishop inclined his white head. “It is because all truths are revealed to us by Holy Scripture.”

  There was a stirring in the shadows beyond the fireplace; Sun Wolf had already, in his automatic identification of every potential exit from the room, seen the narrow door half-hidden beside the blackened granite of the mantle. Now Kaletha stepped through into the light, followed by another one of her disciples, the only one that afternoon who had not, like her, worn black. Since what he did wear was the blue and gold habit of a Trinitarian novice, he was naturally taken aback when he saw the Bishop. He said, rather loudly, “As I told you, my Lady Kaletha, the King is in his bedchamber beyond the solar.”

  “Thank you, Egaldus.” Kaletha inclined her head graciously and moved toward the dais in a queenly swishing of homespun black robes. After a second’s hesitation, the young man, fair-haired and rather nervous looking, turned with clearly manufactured decisiveness and went bustling away in the other direction. Sun Wolf’s glance slid to the Bishop, but the old man didn’t seem to suspect anything; he was watching Kaletha’s approach with a disapproving eye.

  “A pity,” he said, “that the only healer in the fortress should be a witch.”

  Kaletha paused on the outside of the ring of firelight, regarding them with an expression that could have nipped spring flowers in their buds. Sun Wolf, feeling that frigid glance pause for a moment on him before passing on, was suddenly conscious of the dust in his clothe
s and hair and the bruises from the fight that marked his face; Kaletha looked away, as if to say one could have expected to find Sun Wolf on hand in the aftermath of a brawl. To the Bishop she said, “We’ve been over it time and again, Galdron. It’s scarcely likely that your condemnation of my powers one more time will cause me to go against what I know to be my destiny and my duty.”

  “It is scarcely likely,” agreed the little man mildly, “but, as Bishop of Wenshar and, therefore responsible for the salvation of your soul from the sulfurous hells reserved for witches, I can yet hope.”

  The answer was so pat that Sun Wolf was barely able to stifle a snort of laughter; Kaletha’s eye flicked to him, like a chilly draft, and then away again. If wishes were horses, Sun Wolf thought wryly, there’d be hoofprints all over my hide...

  “Excuse me, Commander, Captain,” the Bishop said, as Kaletha turned and crossed the dais to the doorway of the King’s solar. “I should probably be present when she attends to the King.”

  “I take it she’s the only sawbones you could get?” the Wolf asked, as the Bishop, like a glittering little doll, hastened to follow the tall, red-haired woman through the door. In the hall before them, things were quieting down. The gray-haired hag, in the midst of a gaggle of grooms and laundresses, was recounting some story to snickers of ribald laughter. The Trinitarian novice, Sun Wolf observed, had in truth had no other business—he was still hanging around the archways into the vestibule, talking with two others of Kaletha’s disciples: a fattish boy of sixteen or so and a thin, worried-looking young woman, both dressed, like Kaletha and Anshebbeth, in black.

  “On the contrary,” Nanciormis said, sipping the wine the servant had left and offering Sun Wolf the hammered bowl of dates. “Kaletha’s only recently come to that position, in the absence of anything better. Since she’s decided she’s going to be a wizard, she evidently considers it a part of her much-vaunted ‘destiny.’ But she’s always been part of the Household.”

  “Has she?” the Wolf asked thoughtfully. It would account, he thought, for that bitter defensiveness. It was said that no prophet was without honor except in their own home village. Even he, when he’d announced to his former mercenary troops on his brief visit to Wrynde that spring that he’d become a wizard, had at least done so after going away and coming back. The Wizard King Altiokis had brooked no competition; Kaletha could not have so much as hinted at her powers while he was still alive. She’d had to announce it cold, to people who’d known her all her life. His too-ready imagination framed the notion of claiming wizardy in the village where he’d been raised, and his soul cringed from the thought.

  Nanciormis shrugged casually. “She was lady-in-waiting to my sister, Osgard’s wife, the Lady Ciannis. When Ciannis died, Osgard kept her on in the Household as librarian, since she had a turn for it. It wasn’t until news came of the Wizard King’s death that she declared herself to be mageborn and began to teach others.”

  He laughed, shortly and scornfully. “Not that anything’s ever come of it that I’ve been able to see. Oh, she claims to be able to teach magic, but who are her disciples? A lot of soured spinsters and frustrated virgins who haven’t anything better to do with their lives.”

  “You don’t believe her power’s real, then?” It must have been the reaction of most of the people in the fortress.

  Nanciormis waved a deprecating hand, chubby but strong with its ancient rings of worn gold. “Oh, I’ll admit the woman has magic—perhaps some of those poor fools who follow her do as well. But why pursue it? What can it buy you that money cannot? It’s been a hundred and fifty years since the old city of Wenshar in the desert was destroyed because of the witcheries practiced there, but, believe me, the local feeling toward it hasn’t changed.”

  Sun Wolf cocked his head a little, remembering the way the girl in the inn had made the sign against evil. But she’s a witch, she had said. “Why is that?” he asked. “What happened in Wenshar?”

  The doors of the solar opened, and Tazey emerged without her governess, looking anxious and preoccupied. Nanciormis glanced at the dark doorway behind her and said softly, “Least said of that is best. Have you paid for rooms in town, Captain? Osgard will want to see you in the morning, I’m sure. We can offer you bunks in the Men’s Hall...” He gestured toward a wide arched door halfway down the Hall. “...and the Women’s.” His nod took in the narrow entrance beyond the hearth. “Or if you choose, we can give you a cell to share down near the stable courts, in the empty quarter of the fortress. It’s mostly old workshops, kitchens, and barracks, but the closer rooms still have roofs and they’re shuttered against storms, should one rise in the night.”

  Sun Wolf recognized by the inquiring gleam in the commander’s eye that the offer was prompted as much by curiosity as by hospitality; he said, “We’ll take the room out by the stables,” and saw the big man nod to himself, as if he’d satisfied in his mind the relationship between the two partners and how he must deal with them.

  From the solar door, the Bishop Galdron emerged, looking fastidious and disapproving; behind him came Kaletha, the gold lamplight deepening the lines of tiredness and disapproval on her fine-boned face, showing up her age, which the Wolf guessed at a year one side or the other of thirty. Anshebbeth fussed at her heels, as if Kaletha’s comfort, not Tazey’s, was her primary concern. But Tazey, standing near her uncle Nanciormis’ chair, said nothing—evidently she understood her governess’ discipleship. From across the room, the two other disciples hurried toward their teacher’s side, only the novice keeping his watchful distance.

  Pointedly ignoring Sun Wolf, the little group made for the doors.

  Sun Wolf sighed. He had wanted to put this off until they were not in public, but his sense of timing warned him that to do so would only make the situation worse. There were some things which had to be done at the first available opportunity. He got to his feet and said, “Lady Kaletha.”

  Her step wavered. She was debating, he thought, whether to make him call out to her and follow her. If she does, he thought grimly, with a momentary vision of shaking her until her pearly teeth rattled...Then he let it go. Whatever she had, it was what he desperately needed. He would have to ask for it, in whatever fashion she dictated. Stubborn, cake-mouthed female...

  Kaletha took another step, then seemed to change her mind, and stopped. She turned back, chin elevated, cornflower blue eyes regarding him as if he were a beggar.

  He’d had runs up to enemy siege towers under fire that he’d enjoyed more. “My lady,” he said, his raw, rasping voice neither loud nor furtively quiet, “I’m sorry. I had no right to say what I said to you today, and I ask your forgiveness for speaking stupidly.” He forced his single eye to meet hers, aware of the stares of her disciples and of the others—servants, grooms, laundresses, guards, Taswind, and Nanciormis—in the Hall. He felt as he had during the Rites of Manhood in his village in the north long ago, stripped before the eyes of the tribe and obliged to take whatever abuse the shaman chose to give him. Only in that case, he thought dryly, at least those who watched him approved of what he sought to gain by the humiliation. That had been the last time, he realized, that he had ever asked for anything.

  The chilly sweetness of her voice was as he remembered it from the gardens. “Do you say that because you are truly sorry,” she asked, “or because you know that I will not share my wisdom with you unless you apologize?”

  Sun Wolf took a deep breath. At least she had answered him, and spoken to him as if she would listen to what he said. “Both,” he said.

  It took away any possibility of an accusation of untruth and left her momentarily nonplussed. Then her blue eyes narrowed again. “At least you’re honest,” she said, as if sorry to learn of it. “That is the first thing you’ll have to learn about the arts of wizardry, if you pursue them, Captain. Honesty is almost as important to the study of wizardry as is purity of the body and the soul. You must be honest—utterly honest—at all times, and you must learn to accep
t the honesty of others.”

  “You weren’t too pleased about my honesty this afternoon.”

  She didn’t miss a beat. “Those were not your true feelings. If you look into your heart, I think you’ll find that it was your jealousy of me speaking what you wished to see, not what you actually saw.”

  With great effort Sun Wolf stifled the first words that came to his lips. She can teach me, he reminded himself grimly. She’s the only one I have found to teach me. The rest of it is none of my affair. But he couldn’t resist saying, carefully keeping the irony from his voice, “I expect you’d know more about that than I would, my lady.”

  From the corner of his eye he saw the impassive Starhawk put her tongue in her cheek, raise her eyebrows, and look away. But Kaletha nodded gravely, accepting his words on their face value and taking them as a deserved tribute to her clarity of insight. “It is something that comes when one has achieved a certain level of understanding.” Behind her, her disciples nodded wisely, like a well-trained chorus. “You must learn to accept discipline, to understand self-control. They may be alien to you...”

  “I’ve been a warrior all my life,” Sun Wolf said, annoyed. “There is discipline involved in that, you know.”

  “It isn’t at all the same thing,” she responded serenely, and he bit back, How the hell would you know?

  Patronizingly, she went on, “I’ve studied long and hard to achieve my power, Captain. It is my destiny to teach. With meditation and with spells, I can reach the deepest parts of the mind. The mind is all, if the body is pure—all magic comes from the purified intellect. I can wake powers in anyone, even in those who are not mageborn, if they are willing, honest, and pure.” She cast another chilly look up and down his big, heavily muscled form, as if seeing through his dusty clothes and disapproving of what she saw. Her glance moved past him, touched Starhawk, and the lines of disapproval pinched a little deeper at the corners of her mouth. “That’s something you’ll have to learn to accept, if you wish to enter into your powers.”