Seeds of Betrayal (44 page)

He awoke early again the next day and followed the river road to the Solkara bridge. Crossing over the roiling waters of the Kett, Shurik soon came to the east gate of the royal city. The guards there let him through without so much as a question. In fact, they barely looked at him. Glancing around, Shurik saw that there were a great many of his people in the city, more than one might usually find in even the southernmost cities of the Forelands. It took him several moments to realize why.

In his single-minded haste to find Yaella, he had lost track of the days. Tonight would be Pitch Night, the last night not only of this turn, but of the year as well. Tomorrow began the turn of Qirsar, god of magic and creator of the Qirsi. Few cities in the Forelands honored Qirsar with a sanctuary-Adlana in Caerisse, Listaal and Prentarlo in Sanbira, and Olfan in Wethyrn-but on the first day of Qirsar’s turn, Qirsi flocked to whatever sanctuaries they could, to pay homage to all the gods, and to Qirsar in particular. A Qirsi hoping to slip unnoticed into one of the kingdom’s walled cities could not choose to do so on a better day. Truly the gods were with him.

Shurik rode through the marketplace, but soon decided that a Qirsi on horseback was more likely to draw someone’s attention than one on foot. There was a good chance that Grinsa was here, not to mention the company of soldiers who had ridden with Yaella and Rowan to the king’s funeral. He had already taken a terrible risk by coming here. He might be able to convince his duke that he had left Mertesse only after hearing of the poisoning, but he hoped that wouldn’t be necessary. Glancing about to see if anyone was watching, he dismounted and led the horse the rest of the way to the castle.

He found a smithy just outside the castle walls and offered the man seven qinde to shoe the beast. The horse probably didn’t need to be reshod, but this way Shurik could leave the animal with the smith and enter the castle alone.

As he expected, the guards at the castle’s outer gate stopped him before he even reached the wicket door.

“Where do you think you’re going, white-hair?” one of them asked.

Shurik briefly considered saying that he had been summoned by the castle’s master healer, but he remembered at the last moment that Carden had no Qirsi healers. He shivered at the thought.
Let her be alive
.

Instead, he told the man the truth.

“I’ve come to see one of the ministers who was poisoned. Her name is Yaella ja Banvel; she’s first minister to the duke of Mertesse.”

The guard eyed him closely, looking doubtful. “And who are you?”

“I’m her brother.” The truth had its limits, and “I’m her lover” wasn’t likely to get him through the gate.

The man stood there another moment, considering this. “I’ll have to speak with my captain,” he finally said.

Shurik nodded. “That’s fine. Just hurry, please. I’m… concerned for her.”

The guard stepped away from the wicket gate, disappearing from view. The other guards remained there, watching Shurik but saying nothing. After what seemed an eternity, the first man returned.

“All right,” he said. “You can go to her. But if you have any weapons you have to leave them here with me.”

“What good will that do?” one of the other men asked. “He’s a sorcerer.”

“That’s what the captain told me to do,” the man said with a shrug. “Talk to him if you don’t like it.”

Shurik handed the guard his dagger. “Where is she?”

“All the ministers who survived the poisoning are in the chambers on the north side of the inner keep. If she’s alive she’d be there.”

The Qirsi swallowed, feeling his hands start to tremble. He hurried through the gate, to the north end of the castle, and climbed the tower stairs two steps at a time. He was badly winded when he reached the upper corridor, but he didn’t stop to rest. Finding the nearest guard, he asked where Yaella could be found. Not surprisingly, the man couldn’t answer.

“I know they’re ministers and all,” he said, “but I don’t know one Qirsi from another.”

“Well, have you seen the duke of Mertesse up here?”

“He came up here earlier today.” He pointed to one of the doors. “He was in there for a while.”

Shurik turned, not even bothering to thank the man, and strode to the door. He hesitated a moment, wondering if he should knock. But in the end, he merely opened the door quietly and stepped into the chamber.

She was lying on the bed, her eyes closed, her skin so white she might well have been dead, her lips pale and dry. Her face looked far thinner than it usually did, and her hands, which were resting at her sides, appeared tiny and frail, like those of a small child. Shurik walked carefully to the chair by the side of her bed and gazed down at her, relieved to see her chest rising and falling.

The chair creaked when he sat, and she stirred, turning toward the sound.

When she saw him, she smiled, her eyes widening.

“What are you doing here?” she said, her voice barely more than a breath of wind.

“I came to see you, of course. How are you feeling?”

“Weak still, but better than I was.” She sat up.

Shurik shook his head. “You should be lying down, Yaella.”

“It’s been six days since the poisoning. You really think this is the first time I’ve sat up?”

Her voice sounded stronger now. It occurred to Shurik that he had probably woken her from a sound sleep.

Yaella frowned. “You shouldn’t be here. If the duke finds you-”

“If the duke finds me I’ll tell him I rode south upon hearing of what had happened. He may be angry, but I don’t very much care. I wanted to make certain you were all right.” He leaned forward and kissed her forehead, which felt cool and smooth against his lips.

She smiled again. “I’m grateful. Truly. But now you need to get back to Mertesse.”

Shurik looked away. “I’m not going back to Mertesse, at least not for some time.”

“What?” He heard the shock in her voice and could imagine the way she was looking at him, a pained expression in those deep yellow eyes.

“I had already left Mertesse when I encountered the messenger sent from Solkara. The Weaver came to me just after you and the duke left the castle, and instructed me to find the Revel gleaner, the one who I thought might be a Weaver himself.”

“Why does he want you?” she asked dully.

“Because I know this man. I know what he looks like, and I’m the one person, aside from you, who knows that he might be a Weaver. I guess our Weaver has finally realized how important I am.” He chanced a look at her and made himself grin.

Yaella’s expression didn’t change. “If he really is a Weaver, he’s just as dangerous as our Weaver. You could be killed.”

“I’m only supposed to find him.”
If you have the opportunity to kill him, you may
. That seemed unlikely. If all went as Shurik hoped, Grinsa would never see him, and all he would have to do was wait for his next dream of the Weaver and tell the man where the gleaner could be found.

“Where do you think he is?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he were here, in Solkara. But I don’t plan to begin my search for another few days. For now, I only care about sitting with you and seeing to it that you recover fully from this.”

She nodded, taking his hand.

“Do you think Gngor did this to you?” he asked her after a brief silence.

Yaella shrugged. “I don’t know. The archminister seems to think so, as does my duke.”

“How is your duke?”

“He’s fine. It helps to be young and strong.”

And Eandi. Neither of them had to say it; Shurik knew they were both thinking it.

“What of the queen?”

“She’ll live, but the poison was very nearly too much for her.”

He nodded, still thinking about Gngor. “Do you think it’s possible that the Weaver was responsible for this?”

She stared at him for several moments. “I’ve been asking myself the same question.”

“And?”

“I don’t know, Shurik. The poison killed more Qirsi than it did Eandi, but they were all ministers. I don’t know if the Weaver would care that he was killing them.”

“He wouldn’t have wanted to kill you.”

“I suppose not. But if for some reason he was intent on keeping Gngor from the throne, I’m not sure that sparing me would have been reason enough not to do this.”

They both fell silent again. Eventually, Yaella began to shake her head. “The Weaver wouldn’t have done this, not if he wanted to weaken the kingdom.”

“Why not?”

“Because Grigor would have been a terrible king. The dukes would have hated him; given time, they might even have rebelled. Now it seems that they’ve turned to Numar, the youngest of Carden’s brothers, to be regent for Chofya’s daughter. Strange as it may seem, Aneira is stronger for this having happened.”

“Well, good,” Shurik said. “I’d rather that this was the act of a madman. I would have been forced to hate the Weaver had I thought he had poisoned you.”

Yaella gazed toward the hearth. “You mean the way I hate him now for ordering you away from Mertesse?”

“I won’t be gone long. I’ll make certain of it.”

She nodded, but still wouldn’t look at him.

“You don’t know when he’s going to come to you, Yaella. It’s too dangerous to hate him.”

“He’ll never know.”

Shurik gave her hand a squeeze, making her meet his gaze. “I’m serious. This isn’t important enough to risk making him angry. I’ll find the gleaner, tell the Weaver where he is, and that will be the end of it. With you still recovering, and Grinsa probably in Solkara, I may be back in Mertesse before you are.”

“That’s not what you said before. You said it would be some time before you came back to me.”

He let out a breath, rubbing a hand across his brow. “I should let you rest. And I should find an inn before nightfall. I’ve ridden a long way, and I’ve yet to have a decent meal or sleep in a comfortable bed.”

She said nothing.

“You’ll be all right?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll return in the morning. Now that the guards have seen me once, I shouldn’t have any trouble getting in again.”

In spite of everything, she smiled at that. “I’ll look forward to it. Just try to avoid the duke.”

“Of course.”

He kissed her brow again, then rose and left her, closing her door as softly as he could. In just a few moments he was out of the castle. He stopped at the smithy to retrieve his mount and pay the man, then began leading his horse back toward the city marketplace. He knew that there were at least three or four Qirsi inns in the city, one of which was supposed to be quite good. He had forgotten the name, but he knew that it was in the southeast corner of the city, near the Sanctuary of Morna, and he followed the broad lanes in that direction.

He hadn’t gone very far, however, when something-or rather, someone-caught his eye. At first he saw nothing familiar in the face; instead it was the scars that drew his attention. Long, angry, dark gashes marking the youthful face, like muddy lanes in a field of golden grain. But then he saw the young man’s eyes, and he knew. They were so much like those of the lad’s father that there could be no mistaking them. This was Tavis of Curgh.

An instant later, Shurik spied the gleaner as well, and doing so, he marveled that he hadn’t seen him sooner. He was tall and broad, and he stood out among the other Qirsi as Uulranni steel stands out among lesser blades.

Grinsa and the young lord were standing in the entrance of an inn- fortunately, not the one Shurik had in mind-the boy looking up at the gleaner, and Grinsa scanning the marketplace as if looking for someone.
If you try to kill him and fail
… Watching the gleaner now, his heart hammering in his chest like that of a hunted stag, Shurik knew that he would never be able to kill this man, not without help. He was equally certain, however, that this was no lowly gleaner. Power seemed to flow from the man, just as it did from the Weaver. Regardless of whether this man was a Weaver as well, he was definitely more than he claimed to be.

Shurik was still trying to decide if he should try to follow the man when Grinsa’s gaze fell on him. To his relief, Grinsa didn’t appear to recognize him. One moment he was staring right at Shurik, and in the next he was looking past him. An instant later, however, the man’s eyes widened and flew back to Shunk’s face. He said something to Tavis and the two of them began walking in Shurik’s direction.

Not knowing what else to do, Shurik tried to climb onto his mount and get away. Before he could grasp the saddle, however, the horse suddenly reared, neighing loudly and kicking with its front feet. Shurik looked once more at the gleaner, feeling panic grip his throat.

The man wore a fierce grin as he strode across the marketplace. The language of beasts. Grinsa had done this, somehow covering the distance between them with his magic. He had to be so much more than just a gleaner. Shurik had only one hope. The Weaver would be angry-he had never imagined that he might find himself caught between two Weavers- but what choice had Grinsa left him?

“Guards!” he shouted, looking wildly around the marketplace for any Solkaran uniform and pointing toward Tavis and the gleaner. “Soldiers of Solkara! That man is an Eibitharian lord, come to kill our queen! Arrest him!”

Tebeo paced the room restlessly, like a Sanbiri mount held too long in a stable. He looked healthier than he had at any time since the poisoning. His face remained wan and thin-though he had his strength again, he had not yet regained his appetite- but the very fact that he was on his feet once more marked much improvement from just a few days before.

Evanthya watched him, waiting for the questions he had posed every day since that awful night in the queen’s chambers. How was the queen faring? Brail? Fetnalla? The others? It had become a ritual of sorts, a way, no doubt, for the duke to feel that he was more than just another victim of Grigor’s twisted ambition. He was, among all the dukes, the one who had most fully recovered, and though he could not help but be thankful for his good fortune, Evanthya sensed that he felt guilty as well.