Bonds of Vengeance (59 page)
Keziah nodded, although her expression didn’t change. For some time, she merely continued to stare at him. Then she took a breath. “Very well. It should have been obvious to you that I support the idea of having a loyal Qirsi attempt to join the conspiracy. As it happens, I’ve done more than just consider the notion. I’ve acted on it. I’ve spoken with the Weaver, and I’ve begun to win his trust.”
“I suspected as much, Archminister.”
Keziah’s face whitened so that it was nearly a match for her hair. “You what?”
“Please don’t be afraid. I don’t think any of the others would have drawn the same conclusion. Indeed, I believe Xivled thinks you a traitor.”
That brought a smile to her lips, though she still looked frightened. “I’m sure he does. He as much as told me so the last time we spoke.”
“You have nothing to fear from me, Archminister. I’ll tell no one what I’ve heard here, and I’ll do everything in my power to help you. You have my word.”
“And you my thanks, First Minister.”
“You wished to speak with us, Kezi,” Grinsa said. “What’s happened?”
“He’s instructed me to kill Cresenne.”
The other woman blanched, much as the archminister had done moments before.
“What about Bryntelle?” she asked, her voice unsteady.
“He told me to spare the child.”
“Gods be praised.”
“And me?” Grinsa asked.
“As you guessed yesterday, I’m to win your trust, so that I can get close enough to Cresenne to kill her, and so I can help the Weaver find you when he decides it’s your turn to die.”
For the first time that day, Fotir truly felt afraid. “He knows about you?” he asked the gleaner.
“Yes. In order to save Cresenne’s life, I had to enter her dream. He saw my face. And I saw his.”
Fotir gaped at him, fear giving way to hope. “Did you know him?”
“No.” But even as Grinsa said this, he appeared to be thinking of something else. “I had hoped to speak with the king last night, but I never had the opportunity.” He looked first at Keziah, and then at Fotir. “I suppose I could ask the two of you, though. What do you know of Braedon’s high chancellor?”
“Almost nothing,” Keziah answered. “We’ve never met, and with the king preoccupied with Kentigern and his allies, he’s had little opportunity to look beyond Eibithar’s borders.”
Fotir shook his head. “I know very little, as well, beyond his reputation.”
“Even that would be more than I know,” Grinsa said.
The minister shrugged. “His name is Dusaan jal Kania. From what I hear, he’s intelligent, powerful, and ambitious, just as one might expect of the most influential Qirsi in the empire.”
“Do you know what he looks like?”
“No. I’ve heard that he’s tall, that he’s built more like a warrior than a minister. But that could be said of you as well.”
“Precisely.”
“You think he’s the Weaver?”
“When I was with the movement,” Cresenne said, answering for the gleaner, “I was one of the Weaver’s highest-ranking servants. He called us his chancellors.”
“It doesn’t prove anything,” Grinsa said. “But it’s worth considering.”
Fotir thought so as well. “With Aylyn the Second and Filib the Elder of Thorald dead, I can think of no one in Eibithar who has met the emperor or the high chancellor.”
“What about elsewhere?”
“Perhaps Sanbira’s queen. Certainly the Archduke of Wethyrn.”
“I’ll have the king send a message to them both,” Keziah said. “Perhaps one of them can offer a better description of the chancellor.”
“That’s fine,” Cresenne said, her cheeks still drained of color. “But in the meantime, Keziah is supposed to kill me. And when she doesn’t, the Weaver won’t only come after me, he’ll start to question her loyalty to the movement as well.”
Grinsa took her hand. “We have some time, Cresenne. You heard what she said. She’s supposed to win my trust first. He can’t think that will happen immediately. And as long as the Weaver expects her to kill you, he won’t try it himself.”
“So I can sleep at night again?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. But at least you can rest during the days assured that he’s not determined to kill you himself.”
She grimaced. “That’s hardly comforting.”
Fotir had to agree.
The audience with Eibithar’s king lasted throughout the morning and well past the ringing of the midday bells. Kearney informed the dukes of what he and his advisors had learned from the traitor, and Marston spoke in greater detail of Enid’s betrayal and what little he and his father had managed to learn from the woman before she took her own
life. It was a sobering discussion, one that clearly left Lathrop of Tremain disturbed. The others in the presence chamber—the king, Javan, Marston himself—had known something of these tidings prior to this day’s gathering. Lathrop had not.
“Filib the Younger,” the duke said softly, still sitting though the others had stood, intending to leave the chamber. “Lady Brienne.” He glanced at Javan. “It seems your son is a victim of their treachery as well, Lord Curgh, albeit a living one. They strike at our youth, our children, because they know that’s where we’re most vulnerable.”
“All the more reason for us to be watchful,” Marston said. “We can’t trust the Qirsi as we once did. We have to be willing to see them all, even those we consider our friends, through critical eyes, searching for signs of treachery where we never would have thought to look before.” He spoke to the duke, but he intended the words for Kearney.
The king, he believed, was incapable of seeing his archminister in this way. Perhaps he still loved her. Perhaps she had served him for so long that he had come to take her loyalty for granted. Whatever the reason, Marston thought the woman Eibithar’s greatest weakness. He couldn’t be certain that she was a traitor, though he hoped that Xivled might discover the truth about her before long, but he certainly wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that she had cast her lot with the renegades. All that Gershon Trasker had told him of her recent behavior had left the thane truly frightened.
“Have you come to question the loyalty of your minister, Lord Shanstead,” the king asked, his tone making it clear that he knew just what Marston had meant to imply.
“No, my liege. I’ve known Xivled since we were children, and he’s never given me cause to doubt that my faith in him is misplaced.”
“As my archminister has.”
Marston hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, my liege.”
“And what is it you’d have me do? Shall I imprison her simply on the basis of your suspicions? Shall I torture her until she confesses to crimes she hasn’t committed?”
“No, my liege,” the thane answered, with as much asperity as he dared allow to creep into his voice. “I don’t hate the Qirsi, no matter what you may think. Nor do I think it just to imprison or torture anyone without cause. But I fear the archminister is a threat to you and this realm, and I believe she should be sent away from the castle.”
Kearney shook his head. “I won’t do that.”
“With all respect, my liege, I think that you offer more loyalty to this woman than she deserves.”
“I disagree.”
Marston wanted to say more, but Javan caught his eye and gave a slight shake of his head.
“Very well, my liege,” the thane said instead. He bowed to the king and left the chamber, his jaw clenched so tightly that his temples ached.
Xiv was waiting for him in the corridor outside the chamber, leaning against the stone wall. Seeing Marston, he straightened and fell in step beside him as they walked to the nearest tower.
“What happened?” the minister asked. “You look as if the king branded you a traitor.”
“It didn’t go quite that badly. But if Thorald’s standing in the realm turned on my friendship with Kearney, we’d be in a good deal of trouble right now.” He waited to say more until they were out of the stairway and in the castle ward. “The king remains convinced that his archminister can be trusted,” he finally said, squinting in the sunlight, “though from all I hear, she’s behaved erratically for the past several turns.” He glanced at the minister. “Have you learned anything from your conversations with her?”
“Very little. If she is a traitor, she’s far more clever about hiding it than Enid was. She denies nothing, but neither does she say anything that suggests she’s with the conspiracy. At least not when questioned directly about it.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Xiv raked a hand through his short hair. “There was something strange about our discussion today. We were speaking of the need to find the source of the conspiracy’s gold, and I suggested that we might be well served to have a loyal Qirsi join the movement. I had the impression that she agreed with me, but when the king’s other Qirsi opposed the idea, she seemed to go out of her way to give in to their point of view. She almost seemed relieved when the vote went their way.”
“As if she feared that your plan would reveal her betrayal?”
“Perhaps,” the minister said, frowning. “Or else . . .”
“Or else what?”
For several moments Xiv just walked, silent and pensive. At last, he shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s probably nothing.”
“It sounds to me as if she’s hiding something, which merely confirms what I’ve known since we arrived here. This woman is dangerous; I’m certain of it. And the king is too blinded by the love they once shared to see it. It’s up to us, Xiv. We need to do everything in our power to make Kearney see her for what she really is. We have to convince him to banish her from the castle.”
Xiv nodded, though there was an uneasy look in his yellow eyes that Marston couldn’t quite explain.
He could see them fighting, both men crouched low, their blades held ready as they circled one another, looking for any opening to attack. It seemed that Tavis bled from a wound on his forearm and another on the side of his neck, but Grinsa couldn’t be certain. The distance was too great, and though he was moving as swiftly as he could, the terrain was difficult. He picked his way across the great boulders with an eye toward the combatants, glancing down only occasionally to check his footing. Twice he nearly fell, for the stone was slick. He could feel sea spray on his face, he could smell brine and a coming storm riding the wind. Gulls cried overhead.
I’m on the Crown
, he thought to himself. He paused, looking around, suddenly more aware of his surroundings than of the battle before him. He could see the dark mass of Enwyl Island in the distance, and to the west of that, the cliffs of Eibithar’s eastern shore.
This is the Wethy Crown
.
He heard laughter and looked ahead once more. The two figures before him continued to circle, the other man, dark haired and tall, just as the gleaner remembered from Mertesse, switching his dagger from one hand to the other, the motion so fluid he seemed a dancer rather than a musician. He was smiling now, his confidence written in his expression, his stance, his pale blue eyes. The singer made a feint with
his blade hand, and Tavis flinched. The man laughed a second time. Grinsa was nearly close enough now, though for what he couldn’t be certain. He wanted to cry out to Tavis, to warn the young lord away from this man, from this fight, but he kept his silence, fearing that if he distracted Tavis for even a moment, it would mean the boy’s death. He sensed that he was supposed to do something, that Tavis expected him to use magic against the singer, but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to do anything more than watch.
Again the singer pretended to lunge, and when Tavis moved to protect himself—a desperate, clumsy movement with his blade hand—the singer launched himself at the boy. They struggled briefly, a tangle of arms and legs and flashing steel. Then they fell to the stone, rolling to the side. Tavis cried out the gleaner’s name, then shouted something else. Grinsa couldn’t make out what he said, and in the next instant the two figures rolled again, reaching the crest of the boulder on which they fought and dropping out of view. Grinsa hurried toward them, calling to the young lord even as he stumbled again. To his left a wave crashed, sending a towering fountain of foam and spray over the huge rocks. Lightning carved across the purple sky, seeming to plunge into the Gulf of Kreanna like a dagger into flesh. Thunder followed a moment later, the clap so sudden and fierce that it staggered him, as if a blow. In an instant it was raining. But this was not the soft rain that presages a storm during the growing turns, building gradually as the storm grows near. Rather, this rain came like a hail of arrows during a siege. Abrupt and merciless, and so thick he could barely see what was before him. He cried out for Tavis, but the torrent drowned out his voice and swallowed the light. Thunder crashed again, and a voice beside him made the gleaner jump.
“It’s raining.”
Grinsa opened his eyes. Lightning flickered like a flame in the narrow window near his bed. He could hear rain slapping against the stone walls of Audun’s Castle.
Tavis was sitting up in his bed, gazing toward the window as well. Grinsa rubbed a hand over his face, trying to clear his mind. They were in Audun’s Castle still; they weren’t in Wethyrn at all. It had been several days since the arrival of Marston of Shanstead and the discussion among the Qirsi to which he had been party. Little had happened in the intervening days, though the dukes of Heneagh and Labruinn had reached the castle the previous morning.