“If you’ll tell me about the conspiracy,” the duke said dully, “I swear to you, your suffering will end.” The words had started to lose meaning for him, the way he thought a litany must for new adherents in the cloister. He held a torch to the man’s back again. “Don’t you want to stop the pain?”
The Qirsi wailed, tears streaming down his face.
“All right,” he gasped, as Aindreas pulled back the torch. “Yes, I’m with the conspiracy. Ask your questions. Just don’t hurt me anymore.”
Aindreas had heard this too many times to allow himself much excitement. A tortured man would say almost anything when he reached the limits of his endurance. It was almost enough to make him admire Tavis of Curgh, who never confessed to Brienne’s murder, though Aindreas inflicted far more pain on the boy than he had on any of these frail sorcerers.
“What do you do for the conspiracy?” he asked, his voice flat.
“Mostly I gather information,” the man said, his voice scraped raw. “But I’ve also delivered gold and carried messages.”
Aindreas gaped at him, scarcely believing what he had heard.
“What did you say?”
“I gather information. I carry messages and I deliver gold.”
The duke just stood there, too astonished to speak. After some time the man began to flinch, as if expecting his torture to resume at any moment.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt me anymore,” he whimpered.
Aindreas grabbed at the parchment resting on the floor at his feet. The man’s name was Qerle jal Brishta. He was a cloth merchant who frequented one of the taverns in the marketplace. He claimed to be a gleaner and nothing more, but Aindreas had learned in the past few days that an alarming number of Qirsi lied about their abilities. Many, it seemed, possessed more than one type of magic.
“You go by Qerle?” Aindreas asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you ever bring gold to the castle, Qerle?”
“Yes, to your first minister.”
“And messages as well?”
“Only written ones that were placed in the pouches of gold. Our leaders don’t like us couriers speaking with the others.”
“Do you know the leaders? Have you met them?”
“Never.”
Aindreas waved the torch at the man’s side.
“I swear it!” he screamed. “I’ve never met them. I don’t know anyone who has, at least not so that they could see who it was.”
The duke stepped closer to the man. “What do you mean by that? ‘Not so that they could see.’ ”
The Qirsi hesitated and Aindreas swung his torch, making the flame flutter, like a windblown pennon. He didn’t hold it close to Qerle, but the sound itself spurred the man to speak.
“There are rumors,” he said. “Nothing more than that. But some say that the movement is led by a Weaver, and that he enters the dreams of his more trusted servants.”
A Weaver. Maybe Aindreas should have been appalled, but after all that had befallen him in the past half year-Brienne’s death, Shurik’s treason, the siege by Mertesse that nearly cost him his castle-even the revelation of a Weaver didn’t disturb him anymore.
“Has this Weaver ever entered your dreams?”
Qerle shook his head and grimaced. It took Aindreas a moment to realize that he was trying to smile. “The Weaver commands ministers throughout the Forelands. Compared with them, I’m nothing. You’ve captured a sparrow, Eandi. That’s all you’ve done today.”
“That remains to be seen,” the duke said. But he burned the man’s arm as punishment for his impudence.
“Where does the gold come from?” the duke asked, when it seemed that Qerle’s newest pain had receded.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, when you paid Shunk, where did you get his money?”
“From another courier.”
“And what was his name?”
“That I won’t tell you. You can torture me until I die, but I won’t give you the names of any others. I swear it on all that I have left in this world.”
Aindreas briefly considered resorting to the torch again, just to see if the man was as brave as his words. He quickly thought better of it, though. There was much this Qirsi needed to do for him before he died and it struck the duke as foolish to waste this life in the pursuit of yet another sparrow, as Qerle put it. Besides, there was something almost admirable in the way he protected his comrades.
“Do you know where this man got the gold?” he asked instead.
“I believe it came from a merchant, but that’s all I know.”
The duke nodded. He had little doubt that this was true. The gold was the movement’s weakness, the one path a determined enemy might follow back to its leaders. In all likelihood that path twisted and turned like a Revel dancer. No mere courier would know much about it. Indeed, Aindreas would have wagered a hundred qinde that even a man as important as Shunk knew little beyond what Qerle had just told him.
“Did you ever take a message from Shurik back to the leaders, or those who could contact them?”
“No, never.”
“Would you know how to do such a thing?”
“Even if I did, I’d refuse. I already told you: I will not betray any of the others.”
“That’s not what I’m asking you to do.”
“Then what?”
Abruptly Aindreas was trembling. For more than a turn, since his troubling conversation with the thane of Shanstead, he had pursued the Qirsi, arresting them, torturing them, and all the while, lying to Villyd and the rest about his reasons. Now, at last, he had the man he sought, the one who could lead him to the conspiracy and bring his plans to fruition. And Aindreas felt himself waver. Once he started down the road before him, there could be no turning from it. Certainly, he could never return to where he stood now. His house, his kingdom, would never be the same.
An image of Ennis entered his mind. His boy, his heir. Seeing that face, he shivered, and nearly reached for his sword to finish the Qirsi without speaking another word. But then another image came to him. Brienne. Not as he last saw her, a bloodied corpse on Tavis’s bed, but rather as she had appeared the night before she died, golden and spirited and so beautiful that it made his chest ache. Her murderer was free, and the man who guarded his life when Aindreas sought vengeance now sat on the Oaken Throne. It was more than Aindreas could bear.
He took a step forward, extending a hand toward Qerle’s head. The Qirsi flinched again, turning his face away and wincing in anticipation of more pain. Aindreas waited a moment, until the man relaxed. Then he removed the blindfold from Qerle’s eyes.
The white-hair blinked several times, as if even the dim glow of the torches was too bright for him.
“Why did you do that?” he asked, regarding the duke warily.
“I want you to help me contact the leaders of your conspiracy.”
“Why?”
“I want their help. And I think they might be interested in having mine as well.”
“You can’t be serious.”
That of all things made the duke laugh. “You doubt that I’m serious? You, who I’ve tortured for the better part of a day?”
“You’re mad.”
“Perhaps I am. But my land is ruled by a king I hate, a king who offered refuge to the man who killed my daughter. Your leaders hate the Eandi courts, but can they deny the value of allying themselves with one as powerful as Kentigern? I’m offering them a chance to bring down Eibithar’s king, and in exchange all I ask is that my court be spared, perhaps even given a place of influence in the new order their rebellion creates. Do you really expect them to say no?”
The Qirsi shook his head, his pale eyes wide, as if he feared Aindreas more now than he had when the duke was torturing him.
“I don’t know what they’ll say,” he said softly. “But I’m sure they never even thought this possible.”
“You have to convince them that it is. You have to make them believe that I can help their movement.”
“So, you’re going to let me go?”
“I need someone to speak with the Qirsi leaders for me. Who else is there? I’m willing to pay you quite handsomely if you succeed.” He lifted one of the torches again. “But I want you to remember this day, and what I did to you. If you fail me, your next visit to this dungeon will make today’s torture seem mild by comparison.”
The man nodded. Aindreas could see hatred in his pale eyes.
“You’d like to kill me,” the duke said. “I understand. I’d probably feel the same way, were I in your position. But you’re going to have to swallow your anger. If you betray me, or if you attempt to flee Kentigern, I’ll find you. My men will be watching your every movement, and they’ll be watching your wife and children as well. From what I hear, it seems you have a lovely family. You wouldn’t want to see any of them down here, would you?”
“You wouldn’t,” the Qirsi breathed.
“I’ve just told you I want to ally my house with the Qirsi conspiracy. You honestly think I’d hesitate to torture another white-hair or two?”
“The movement’s leaders will think I’m luring them into a trap. They may kill me when they hear what I have to say, fearing that you intend to use me as a means of capturing them.”
Aindreas shrugged. “You’ll have to convince them otherwise.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, Qerle. Frankly, I don’t care. These are your people, not mine. Talk to them. Tell them whatever you have to. But be persuasive. Your life, and the lives of those you love, hang in the balance.” The duke hesitated. “I can offer you some token to prove to the others that your message truly comes from me-a gold round perhaps, or a piece of cloth bearing the seal of my house.”
Qerle glanced down at the raw, angry burns on his arms and chest. “I think you’ve given me all the tokens I need, Lord Kentigern.”
Aindreas raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps you’re right. The scars you’ll keep, but we can ease your pain a bit.” He looked up at the prison door. “Guards!” he called, his voice pealing like sanctuary bells in the stone prison.
He heard his men hurrying to the door, and, after a moment, he heard the lock turn.
“Yes, my lord?” a soldier asked from the top of the stairs.
“It seems this man is not guilty of any crime. Remove the bonds from his hands and feet, and take him up into the tower. Then find a Qirsi healer in the city and have him or her brought here. I want this prisoner made whole again and released.”
“A Qirsi healer, my lord?” the guard asked.
There hadn’t been a Qirsi in the castle since Shurik’s betrayal, at least not one who wasn’t taken immediately to the dungeon.
The duke nodded. “I want his injuries mended as soon as possible.”
Two guards descended the stairs, and began to release Qerle from the bonds holding him to the wall.
“I’ll look forward to speaking with you again, Qerle,” Aindreas said, as he started up the stairs. “Don’t keep me waiting long.”
“Of course… my lord.”
Something in the man’s voice made the duke pause at the top of the stairs. Looking back at Qerle, however, he saw that the Qirsi had his eyes closed, and his head tipped back against the wall. After a moment the duke left the prison, thinking that he must have imagined it.
Aindreas waited several days for Qerle to return, his patience strained almost from the start. Despite his warnings to the Qirsi, he knew better than to have his soldiers follow the man. The conspiracy’s leaders had not enjoyed so much success by allowing themselves to be observed by the soldiers of Eandi nobles. If he had guards follow Qerle, the Qirsi would never speak with him. Instead, he had his men watch Qerle’s home, and he didn’t have them make any effort to hide themselves. As long as Qerle knew his wife and children were in danger, he wouldn’t knowingly betray the duke.
This at least was what Aindreas told himself. After five days of waiting for the Qirsi to return to Kentigern Castle, the duke began to wonder if the man had fled anyway, or worse, if he had been killed as a traitor by others in his movement.
At last, just after dark on the sixth day, a knock at the duke’s door interrupted his supper. He had taken to wine once again, much as he had in the days following Brienne’s murder, and he was already on his third goblet, having barely touched his meal.
“What is it?” he called.
A guard opened the door and poked his head in the chamber, looking, for all his brawn, like a timid boy.
“There’s someone come to see you, my lord. A Qirsi man. He says-
Aindreas was striding toward the door before the fool could finish whatever it was he was trying to say.
“Where is he?” he asked, pushing past the man and into the corridor.
“We’ve held him at the gate, knowing how you feel about their kind. We were going to send him away, but he-”
“If you’d sent him away, I’d have had your head on a pike.”
The man swallowed, then nodded. “Yes, my lord.”
Aindreas walked swiftly to the north gate and through the outer ward, reaching the city gate several steps ahead of the guard, who was panting with the effort of keeping up with him.
Qerle stood alone by the wicket gate, flanked by soldiers and looking like a boy beside them.
The duke stopped a short distance from the Qirsi and regarded him cautiously.
“He’s alone?” he asked the guards.
“Yes, my lord.”
Aindreas frowned. He’d expected that Qerle would have at least one other Qirsi with him, though he now realized that he’d been foolish to think so. Why would they reveal more than they had to? Qerle was to be a messenger between the conspiracy and Kentigern. It made perfect sense, but the duke couldn’t help but feel that he was in the weaker position. He had revealed himself to them, only to be denied a similar gesture on their part.
“Very well,” he finally said. “Come with me, Qerle.”
He turned and started back toward his chambers, sensing that the Qirsi was following.
“Shall we accompany you, my lord?” a soldier asked.