Traitor's Knot (69 page)

Summer 5671

In the
caithdein's
lodge deep in Atwood, scouts from the forest's fringe outpost report the latest grim news: that, after scorching the road to reach Shipsport, Lysaer s'Ilessid has just raised the sunwheel standard for war and boarded a galley for Jaelot; now, north-bound messengers bear sealed word to the garrisoned towns across the East Halla peninsula to call on their strength to take the field against Shadow in Alestron…

Bearing his orders to muster the south, Sulfin Evend delivers the dispatches that leave Ithish and Innish seething with the command to take arms, and as the sunwheel flagship dips her oars back to sea, the charge of a flint dagger left in his possession turns her prow towards the forbidding headland of Sanpashir…

Eriegal sweats under Feithan's cold eye, just made aware of the word arrived from the watch camp at the ford by the Arwent: that young Jeynsa never intended to confront the Teir's'Ffalenn directly, but instead has bolted southward to launch her formal inquiry from the clan seat in Melhalla; and though Sidir and Elaira leave on the hour in pursuit, the girl's lead may well be too wide for closure…

Summer 5671

T
he Mad Prophet chose to sulk by going to sleep. Because the night's efforts had left him tired, he snored through the upheaval that arose when the delegation of sunwheel priests arrived from the east and preempted the use of the practise field. Above protesting officers and cursing men, their sealed requisitions commandeered the Light's recruits to erect their elaborate pavilion.

Dakar's nap broke when the balding cooper stumbled in and collapsed, pounding the boards of the trestle, while his whooping journeymen roared with helpless hilarity alongside him.

Uncurled from the blankets where he had passed out, the Mad Prophet arose. Yawning, he shuffled past the stack of planed staves and plonked himself down on the bench between a spaniel-faced craftsman and a dandified boy, sporting tooled-leather bracers.

‘What's funny?' he asked.

The bland inquiry redoubled the explosion of mirth, until the blond apprentice across the boards caught the glower shot off by the cooper's wife. Cheeks already packed, he shoved the crock of fresh cream and the basket of biscuits across to be shared with the wakened guest. Between gasping chuckles, the yard's workers explained that some Shadow-touched mountebank had rifled the Light's chests of tribute.

‘Rocks!' The breathless cooper wheezed out. ‘The coffers came off the wagons chock-full of lichen-stained Skyshiel granite.'

‘No one knows where the strayed bullion's gone,' said the grinning young man with the bracers. ‘The drivers claim that their mule train wasn't raided. Hide nor hair, they saw no trace of barbarians. That leaves the frocked priests, who swear by the avatar's name that they're clean and not lining the nests of their relatives.'

Inquiries and accusations were still flying. Since no one seemed able to finger a culprit, suspicion had started fisticuffs.

The cooper clutched his aching ribs, ruefully shaking his head. ‘The Light's faithful got off with no worse than black eyes, once the bard used his lyranthe to calm them.'

Caught tipping the cream jug, Dakar froze outright. ‘The free singer was there?'

‘Oh, aye. The whole time.' The apprentice swallowed his mouthful, then shot out an arm to right the pitcher and salvage the fat guest's inundated biscuit. ‘The fellow's still out there, impressing the faithful with sanctimonious ballads.'

Dakar all but choked. Stunned by the break-neck speed of events, he pretended amusement by asking after the ballast.

‘What became of the rocks?' The cooper swiped tears off his streaming chin. ‘Who knows? Who cares? Why not ask the singer? He'll have witnessed the whole thing. The priests are already so infatuated with his warbling, they've engaged him for their night's entertainment.'

As Dakar braced to shove to his feet, the adjacent journeyman reached sidewards and jammed his bulk back down on the bench. ‘Man, sit easy. You've no need to scuttle. The singer comes back here for supper each day. Our errand-boy's got the cart-horse already harnessed to fetch him.'

In accord with the shop mistress's solicitous care, the blind singer was shortly led in by the child. The lyranthe he unslung from his shoulder was a nondescript instrument bearing a crudely etched sunwheel on the sound-board.

‘The rocks?' he responded. His blade-thin features tracked only the food, as the beamy matron laid a filled plate and a mug between his supple hands. ‘They were sold for a pittance to a mason who said he wanted to chip them for curb-stone. He brought in slave muscle to haul them away' The singer dug in, and the finish, disinterested, came muffled through mastication. ‘Two conscript barbarians, recently collared, and nursing the scabs of fresh brands.'

Dakar suddenly found the bread sops and cream not settling well in his gut. Since the cooper's wife had a clanblood grandparent, the laborers' rowdiness staggered across a brief silence and discomfortably changed the subject. The bard devoted himself to his meal without comment. Shortly, the craftsmen scraped their plates, and grumbled their way to the work-yard.

The matron departed to boil more glue. The instant she passed the threshold,
Dakar accosted the singer's complacency. ‘That gold was masked under a powerful glamour! Else the resonance of conjury would have never gone past Lysaer's twitchy examiners. You had help for that sleight of hand, or I'm dead, and those conscripts weren't shackled, or branded.'

Turbid eyes stayed trained straight ahead, unperturbed by badgering anxiety. ‘They were, in fact. But parents who have cherished offspring at risk won't balk at necessity to save them.'

‘Who is the mason?' Dakar said, wrung to shaking as the high-stakes course of Arithon's effrontery shredded his last, cringing nerve. ‘Dare I suppose? I'm to wander across for a social call before I engage two hack teams and a pair of closed carriages?' The lethal surmise remained beyond speech:
that the hot gold purloined from the tribute chests now would be destined for Simshane's, as barter for captive flesh.

‘Don't flare up in smoke,' the bard stated, nonplussed. ‘I still have some friends from my travels as Medlir. Traithe also left me some trustworthy names. The mason's family was first on the list.'

Dakar's queasy stomach failed to unclench. ‘You could still be sold out.' The allure of the tribute, or the excessive bounty Avenor's edict had set upon Arithon's head, might tempt the most reliable acquaintance to turn coat.

The bard shrugged, unconcerned.

Which gesture raised Dakar to more anxious sweat. ‘You plan to expose Simshane's?' Then, impelled into terrified disbelief,
‘Disenfranchise the priests?'

‘Watch and see,' said Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn. The daylight reflected off those white eyes glinted cold as a headsman's axe blade. ‘Since the Light left its game-pieces all in a row, do you trust they'll stay planted for gravity?'

That glib statement veiled more than Dakar cared to know: had, at Jaelot, and Riverton, and Dier Kenton Vale, tripped a balance that launched off a massacre. Wrong step or right move, one bold action might rend the whole web; and Etarra was tinder, primed for the torch to ignite a broadscale disaster. ‘If I'm to masquerade as the pimp, what part are you playing to back me?'

‘The merry measures that whirl all the dancers to hell.' One languid finger plucked a taut string. The struck note speared across trembling air and rang like the shine on a promise. ‘I'll be the performance out in plain sight, singing pap that will blindfold the priests.' A damping thumb left the counterpoint thunder of mallets against the dauntless conclusion. ‘The stonemason has your instructions, my friend. All told, the outcome relies upon luck, subtle cues, and a clock-work array of stage timing.'

Yet how daring the reel, and how giddy the pace, Dakar failed to anticipate. Not until after the sunwheel gold was unveiled in the dusty glare of the stone-yard. The mason cocked back his filthy, slouch hat and related the audacious scope of Prince Arithon's planned machinations.

Much too late, the sane man found the sense to refuse. In the stifling sheds, helped by an anxious wife and three boys, the shop's craftsmen packed their
tools and belongings in preparation for swift flight. They were town-bred and upholding a choice that would see their home and livelihood abandoned against certain charges of treason. The spellbinder regarded the two close-mouthed clansmen, for whose sake these stout folk offered sacrifice. The strapping fellows were half-stripped to load wagons, and collared, if not actually captive. The price of their ruse had been paid all the same. Both sweated in pain from the heated iron that had disfigured their muscular forearms.

‘Why are these people doing this?' Dakar asked point-blank, as the displaced family bustled around him.

Both clansmen stopped work. One replied in Paravian. ‘They act for what's right. It's an ironic twist out of history'

When Dakar's distrustful glower stayed fixed, the other posed conscript explained. ‘Apparently their mother was once taken prisoner by Earl Jieret's war captain, Caolle. He'd slaughtered her brother during a caravan raid to save the secret of our liege's whereabouts. But the sister was weaponless. She had two weans. Stuck holding the knife, Caolle lost his nerve. Since he couldn't slit three helpless throats in cold blood, the bunch was held in Daon Ramon, then released when their news lost its value. The old lady's stayed bitter. Still funds the league's bounties. But her older boy had seen through the lies that drive townsmen to kill for our differences. The mason who helps us is that man, grown, and now it's our children he's saving.'

Dakar mopped his face, seized clammy with dread. Having heard tonight's plans in their damning entirety, he found no assurance to allay the fear that still leached at his shrinking resolve. ‘We're not just effecting a rescue,' he challenged. ‘Follow this through, and you set your young sons at worse risk than gelding abuse by a brothel.'

Both of the clanborn fathers stared back. The one with the bruised look around his eyes said, ‘For all the bodily harm they might see, their lost sisters stand to lose more than their lives. As a Fellowship spellbinder sent here to curb necromancy, if you can't find the gall to lead these coaches up-town, then charter law binds us to force you.'

Dakar mounted the driver's box with shaking knees. The reins of the team weighed like lead in his sweating grasp. He rousted the horses, set the front vehicle rolling, not by choice, not for courage or duty, but for the lives of twenty-four boys, and for the friend whose unreserved trust relied on a flawless deception at Simshane's.

By then, the Master of Shadow was installed at the sunwheel pavilion, strings tuned for the priests, with the first set already in motion.

The most infamous night in Etarran history since the renegade prince's failed accession began with a murmur, as the reddened sun dipped into the haze of a fair-weather twilight. The routine, written summary that detailed the Light's vanished tribute gold had cleared the torpid delay of officialdom and reached
the Lord Marshal's desk. A dispatch runner was bearing the customary sealed copy to Raiett Raven, when the closed coaches led by a grim-faced, fat driver reined up at the rear entrance of Simshane's House of Exotic Delights.

There, two massive chests were unloaded by eunuchs. The lids were pried open, and what had worn the semblance of plain, Skyshiel granite chimed through the proprietor's covetous hands. His nod to his staff tied up the exchange: two dozen young boys clad in bangles and paint were loaded and sent on their way. The packed coaches that bore them ground through darkening streets, wheel-spokes glinting by lamplight. A bribe ensured that they cleared the south gate. More coin, and a discreet, spelled deception circumvented the routine inspection. The draft teams lumbered slowly downhill, while inside the town, a tip-off enclosed in a sealed affidavit was slipped into the Etarran Lord Magistrate's evening docket.

By then, the news of the infamous gold theft had been sorted by Raiett Raven's secretary. Since the High Chancellor now changed his state robes for his customary light supper, and given that he preferred to reflect in solitude as he dined on his private balcony, his staff withheld the interruption until the steward brought the dessert wine.

Across town, the anonymous affidavit planted with the magistrate encountered a different frame of delay: it was readdressed and turned into the hands of the acting officer of Etarra's garrison. The parchment arrived at the watch change, as the Lord Marshal departed for home. His night sergeant signed in, a gaunt creature known for blunt fists and a vicious temper. His ambitious, hard eyes perused the sealed statement, and widened. ‘Dharkaron's trampling Five Horses avenge!' he exclaimed. ‘Will you
look
where those thieving priests cashed their tribute?' Seasoned troops were rushed off to ransack Simshane's brothel before its pervert staff could snatch time to melt down the critical evidence.

Dakar's rented coaches, by then, were reined up by the verge, apparently stalled by the failure of one wheel's linchpin. When a passing carter pulled over to offer assistance, the livery barn's borrowed driver agreed to shoulder the nuisance of the repair. The fat lackey's live cargo was transferred to the volunteered vehicle, bound and gagged, and bundled from sight under blankets. More coin changed hands. Slightly mussed, and reeking of scent, the boys rolled on their way in a slatted dray crammed with hogsheads.

In the sunwheel pavilion, the Light's oblivious priesthood dined on roast swan and wine, their snowy raiment resplendent under candles and torch-light. If the loss of their gold left them with galled nerves, the skill of the bard was a tonic. Their rankled mood eased to his hand on the strings, and the honeyed gift of his singing. His talent raised no taint of distrust. Under the sighted acolytes' scrutiny, he had pressed his bare lips to the relic containing the Blessed Prince's plucked hair. That potent talisman should have unmasked any minion of Darkness. If free singers elsewhere were held in suspicion, this one had
established his harmlessness. Since his repertoire extolled the Light's glory with every sincere sign of reverence, by the hour the picked bones were cleared from the boards, his credentials were taken as sterling.

Up-town, the High Chancellor's repast enjoyed no such felicitous tranquillity: the belatedly delivered official parchment caused the decanted wine to be abandoned beside a fluttering candle. Black-clad and grim, Raiett Raven raced from his balcony, shouting for spurs and boots, to be followed by an armed company of light horse to escort him at speed through the gate.

Across town at Simshane's, beside the gutted wreck of his desk, the distressed proprietor now pleaded in irons, alongside his weeping head eunuch. The purchase document bearing the sunwheel seal was being read off by an astonished equerry. Given the two chests of Alliance-stamped gold as firm evidence, Etarra's night sergeant realized he was in over his head. He dispatched two men, who rushed word of the horrific scandal to the senior ear of the off-duty Lord Marshal.