Nightrunners 03 - Traitor's Moon (61 page)

Thero shook his head. "She's far too ill to move."

"What about by magic?"

"Especially not by magic," Thero replied. "Even if we could find someone to do a translocation, the flux would kill her."

"She's safe here," said Seregil.

"How can you say that? Beka snapped, rounding on him. "Take a good look at her! This is what all their talk of guest laws and sacred ground amounts to. Now they're fighting each other in the streets!"

"I wouldn't have thought it possible, not in Sarikali," Seregil admitted. "But now we know the danger, and we're guarded by your riders and by the Bokthersans."

"I've put protections in place around the grounds," Thero added. "No one will get in or visit any magicks on us without my knowing about it."

"That still leaves us trapped here when word of Korathan's mission gets out," Beka growled.

"I know," said Seregil. "That's why we've got to do as Magyana's asked—try to head him off before anyone's the wiser."

"How do you suggest we manage that? I doubt sending him a polite note is going to do it, even if it got to him in time."

Seregil exchanged a veiled look with Alec. "I think it's time I prove Idrilain right in sending me along."

"There's a traitor's moon tonight," Alec told her, as if that explained everything.

Seregil chuckled. "How's that for an omen, eh?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Beka demanded. "We've got to find a way to stop Korathan—" Breaking off, she stared at him. "You're not saying
you
mean to go?"

"Well, Alec and I."

Alec grinned. "Know anyone else you trust with this information who can pass as Aurenfaie?"

"But the proscriptions! If you're caught they'll kill you. And maybe Alec, too!"

Suddenly it wasn't a spy or coconspirator she was looking at but the man who'd been friend and uncle to her since her birth, who'd carried her on his shoulders, brought exotic presents, and taught her the finer points of fighting. And Alec—-Tears stung her eyes and she turned quickly away.

Seregil clasped her shoulders, turning her to face him again. "Then we'd damn well better not get caught," he told her. "Besides, we'll be in Akhendi territory, then Gedre. They may haul me

back, but they won't hurt me. I know it's risky, but there's no other way. Your father would understand. I'm hoping you will, too. We need your help, Captain."

The subtle rebuke stung just enough to clear her head. "All right, then. What's the soonest Korathan will reach Gedre?"

"With a good following wind? Four or five days. We can reach the coast in three and sail out to meet him before he comes in sight of the port."

"Time enough, barring accidents," she said, frowning. "But I still say it's suicide for you to go. Perhaps Alec and I could pull it off, or Thero."

Seregil shook his head. "Korathan is going to take a lot of convincing to cross his sister, and with all due respect, I think I'm the one who can best carry that off. He knows me, and he knows the regard his mother had for me. Loyal as he is to Phoria, he's the more reasonable of the pair. I think I can sway him."

"How do you plan to reach Gedre without getting caught? I assume someone will go after you as soon as they find out you're missing."

"They'll have to find us first. There are other routes over the mountains. The one I have in mind is tough going in places, but shorter than the trail we came over. My uncle used to bring us down that way on smuggling runs."

"Are those passes protected by magic, too?" asked Thero. "If anything happens to you, what will Alec do? He can't get through that any more than we could."

"We'll worry about that when we need to," Seregil replied. "Right now we need to figure out a way to get out of the city without being seen."

"The moon's in our favor, at least," said Alec. "With Aurenfaie clothes and horses, we shouldn't attract much attention. It could be morning before we're missed."

"Perhaps longer, if I can manage a few tricks," said the wizard.

"You could go out as escorts with one of my dispatch riders," Beka mused. "Steal different horses once you're well away from the city, while the rider takes yours with her and leaves a false trail."

"Sometimes I forget whose daughter you are," chuckled Seregil. His smile faded as he continued, however. "We have to keep this among ourselves. Except for the rider, no one else can know, not even our own people, since anyone who does will be forced to lie sooner or later.

"Play up Klia's illness, Beka. Keep the Iia'sidra away from her as long as you can. If you do get trapped here, Adzriel will protect you, even if it means claiming you as hostages." He shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe you'll see Bokthersa before I do."

"That still leaves us penned in here with a spy." Thero shook his head in disgust. "Ever since I read that letter, I've been wondering how someone could have been spying on us under our very noses. If they'd used magic, I swear I'd have sensed it!"

"Torsin managed to carry on his business without our tumbling for quite some time," Seregil reminded him. "That didn't take any magic."

"But with Klia's knowledge," the wizard countered.

"When I find out who it is, they'll wish for poison!" hissed Beka, clenching a fist against her thigh. "There must be some way of flushing them out."

"I was thinking about that earlier," Alec said. "You're not going to like this, but what about the dispatch riders? It would be easy enough for them to slip a message through, since they're the ones carrying them. They're also the last ones to handle the pouch before it's sealed."

"Mercalle's decuria?" Beka snorted. "By the Flame, Alec, we've been through Bilairy's gate and back together!"

"Not all of them. What about the new ones? Phoria could have turned one of them."

"Or had them placed in Urgazhi Turma before this ever started," added Seregil. "In her place, that's what I'd have done. Knowing Phoria, she'd want eyes and ears anywhere she could get them— especially among Klia's troops."

Beka shook her head stubbornly. "We lost half of Mercalle's decuria during the battle on the way over here. Ileah, Urien, and Ari are all that are left of the new recruits, and they're just pups. As for the rest, Zir and Marten have been with me since the turma was formed. I know them. They've saved my life a dozen times over and I've done the same for them. They're loyal to the marrow of their bones."

"Just let me speak with Mercalle," Alec persisted. "She's closer to them than anyone. Maybe she's seen something, something she didn't even know was suspicious."

But Beka still hesitated. "Do you know what even the hint of this could do to the others? I need them united."

"It won't go beyond this room," Alec promised. "If anything does

come up, Thero can deal with it with total secrecy. But we have to know."

Beka cast an imploring look at Seregil but found no help there. "All right, then, send for Mercalle." She looked down at Klia. "But don't question her here. Not here."

"We can use my room," said Thero. He flicked a tiny message sphere into being and sent it skittering through the wall with a wave of his hand.

The cooler air in the wizard's chamber seemed to clear Seregil's head, enough for him to feel chagrin at not having arrived at Alec's conclusions himself.

Alec had been right all along—and the rhui'auros, too. Since he'd come back to Aurenen, he'd been too wrapped up in his own past, his own demons, to be of much use to anyone. Perhaps it went back even further than that. In rejecting Rhiminee, had he buried the man he'd been there, the Rhiminee Cat?
I'd have been dead a hundred times over, or starved for lack of trade, if I was like this all the time.

He sat down in the chair next to Thero's neatly made bed; the others remained standing.

Mercalle entered a few moments later and came to attention in front of Thero, oblivious to the tension in the room. "You sent for me, my lord?"

"It was me, Sergeant," Alec told her, and Seregil could see him rubbing a thumb nervously over the fingers of one hand. Alec admired the Urgazhi and had always been a bit in awe of them. To bring such an accusation against them was a difficult duty, and no less so for being self-imposed.

Once committed, however, he didn't hesitate. "We have reason to believe that there's a spy in the household," he told her. "Someone who's able to get messages back to Queen Phoria. I'm sorry to say this, but it could be someone in your decuria."

The greying sergeant stared at him in shocked silence, and Seregil felt a cold jolt of certainty.
Oh, hell, she does know something.

"This is hard, I know," Alec went on. "The idea of any Urgazhi putting Klia in danger—"

Mercalle wavered a moment, then sank to her knees in front of Beka. "Forgive me, Captain, I never thought it would come to this!" Eyes averted, she drew the dagger from her belt and offered it hilt foremost.

Beka made no move to accept the offered weapon. Her face had gone blank, but Seregil recognized the pain in her eyes and fought down the impulse to grab the sergeant by the hair and shake her. Mercalle and Braknil had trained Beka when she'd first joined the regiment. Both had requested to serve under her when she earned her lieutenant's gorget. Between the three of them, they'd forged Urgazhi Turma.

That first betrayal
—
it's always the worst, the one that never quite heals.

"Stand and explain yourself," Beka ordered.

Mercalle rose slowly to attention. "I'm glad it's come out, Captain. I offer no excuses, but on my honor I hoped it would be for the best. I swear it by Sakor's Flame."

"Just get on with it."

"General Phoria summoned me the night Queen Idrilain gave Klia this mission," Mercalle said. "She believed her mother wouldn't survive to see this out. As heir, she wanted her own informant on the scene."

"But why
you?"
Beka demanded, and this time there was no mistaking the grief behind the words.

Mercalle stared at the far wall, not looking at her. "Phoria was the first officer I ever served under. With respect, Captain, I came up through the ranks under her before you were born. We saw dark times together—and good ones, too. She was there when I married both my husbands, and when I buried them. I'm not proud of what she's asked of me here, but orders are orders and she was in her rights as High Commander. I thought, 'If not me, then she'll find someone who doesn't feel the loyalty I do to Klia,' and to you, Captain. All I was asked to do was to send observations. That's all I did. I never opened any letters entrusted to me, or mislaid any. If what I wrote contradicted them, it's on my head. I only told the truth as I saw it, and tried to put the best light on it that I could for Commander Klia's sake. If I'd ever thought it would come to this—" A tear rolled slowly down her cheek. "I'd cut off my sword hand before I'd willingly bring harm to any of you."

"Did you send word that we knew of the queen's death?" asked Seregil.

"I sent my respects, my lord. I thought you all had." "Then it was you, listening outside the door of Klia's room when we learned of it," said Alec.

Mercalle shot him another startled look. "Just for a bit. Those were orders, too."

Seregil recalled the bit of stable muck they'd found in the corridor outside and shook his head. Bilairy's Balls, it was a good thing one of them had retained some sense.

"Are any of the other riders involved?" asked Beka.

"On my honor, Captain, none of them. How could I order them to do something I found so repugnant myself?"

"Have you sent Phoria word of what's happened to Klia?" Seregil demanded.

"No, Lord Thero ordered me not to, the day she fell ill."

Seregil snorted. "A spy with honor. I just hope you're telling us the truth, Sergeant. You may have doomed us all as it is."

"When did you last send a report?" asked Alec.

"The day before Klia collapsed."

"And what did you say? "

"That the date of the vote had been set, and that no one seemed very hopeful about the outcome."

"We'll speak more of this later," Beka growled. Going to the door, she called in the two sentries on duty, Ariani and Patra. "Riders, keep Sergeant Mercalle under guard. She's relieved of duty until you hear differently from me."

To their credit, the riders didn't hesitate, though they both looked thunderstruck by the order. When they were gone, Beka rounded on Alec. "You
knew
it was her?"

"I didn't," he assured her. "Not until just now."

"Oh, Alec," Seregil muttered. His own reputation as a clever intriguer was founded on more fortuitous discoveries of this sort than he liked to admit, but he'd always been careful to capitalize on them by making it look intentional after the fact.

"There's a certain logic in what she said," Thero offered. "Perhaps it was better having a friend doing the spying than an enemy."

Beka stalked angrily to the window. "I'm aware of that. If Phoria had given me the same order—" She slammed her hand against the sill. "No! No, damn it! I'd have found a way to tell Klia, protect her. By the Flame, how could Phoria do this? It sounds as if she was counting on her mother's death."