The Soul Weaver (12 page)

“Six years ago I was able to talk my way into the palace with the flimsiest of stories,” I said, gulping a mug of ale that Paulo had poured for me as soon as I returned to the garret. “Now you can't step beneath the portcullis without a signed and sealed document from the person you're supposed to meet.”

The night was well on, and Gerick, Paulo, and I were seated at a small table in the cramped chamber as I reported on my futile venture. Radele sat on the scuffed plank floor beside the door.

“I told my story to three different officials, but they said the master-at-arms won't see me unless I bring a letter from a family willing to foster Gerick.”

“I could likely get into the palace grounds if you wanted.” Paulo chewed thoughtfully on a strip of jack, the tough, dried meat he favored over every possible sustenance. “Done it before out at Lord Marchant's castle at Dunfarrie . . . as a lark. Hopped on a wagon loaded with hides. Rode it through a service gate. Looked real grumbly, like I was hating the idea of unloading the stuff. Jumped off, looked about, helped unload, then walked out. Look stupid enough, and no one asks questions.”

“Appropriate to look stupid, if you're doing such a stupid thing,” said Radele, still in a brittle humor. “I saw five clever fellows dangling from gallows a few streets from here. Evidently they'd done nothing but walk someplace they'd no cause to be. Madam, for your safety, I recommend we abandon this absurd venture and leave this stinkhole immediately.”

Gerick, who had remained silent throughout my tale, lifted his head and glared at Radele. “What would an arrogant Dar'Nethi peep-thief know of—?”

“Gerick, mind your tongue!” I disliked rebuking him in front of Radele, but his constant edginess was driving me to distraction. The tension between my son and his bodyguard had become an open sore since the fight with the bandits. No use to let him get caught up in defending Paulo's honor.

Gerick leaped to his feet, knocking over his chair. He kicked it out of his way and threw open the shutters, letting the steamy air and the noise and stench of the streets into the close room.

“What has everyone so terrified, Radele? Have you learned any more about these vanishings?”

His movements ever graceful and efficient, Radele rose and poured himself a mug of ale from a pitcher he'd brought upstairs, coolly ignoring Gerick's flushed complexion and hard mouth. “Everyone's in a lather, prattling about monsters and apparitions being responsible. That's why they're after these deformed sorts.” He glanced at each of us in turn, as if asking if his own report could possibly be true. “The innkeeper says a sorcerer was
burned to death
last week.”

The color drained from Gerick's cheeks. My stomach tied itself into a knot.

“A mob did the burning, so they said.” Radele shuddered slightly as he leaned his back against the door and took a long pull at his ale. “Just imagine what they'd do if they had the slightest inkling of real evil. They'd all go bury themselves in caves.”

“There's more things wrong than that.” Paulo extricated a greasy paper packet from his pocket and pulled another strip of the leathery jack from it, his unhurried sobriety a soothing counter to the rest of us. “A stable lad was telling me about some baron who had to forfeit his land as his soldiers refused to muster for the spring campaign. And the fellow wasn't the first. Another noble got himself and his family killed by his own men. This fellow says no lord in the kingdom is allowing anyone about him unless he knows their face, and even then he'll have no more than two together. I don't know that we're going to be safe anywhere.”

“Mutiny?” I said, rising from my chair. The night, already filled with unease, took a turn for the worse. Something was profoundly wrong in Leire. Honor, duty to one's lord and in turn to his, who was, of course, the king, shedding the blood of your lord's enemies . . . these things were more sacred to a Leiran soldier than our gods or priests, the very sum of his manhood. No Leiran man I had ever known, no matter what his grievance on any matter, would refuse to take up arms at his lord's call any more than he would refuse to breathe. Mutiny. My father would have spit blood at the word. “You're right, Paulo,” I said. “We're not safe here. We need to be on our way as soon as we can.”

Radele nodded and thumped his empty mug on the table. “We can be off within the hour.”

“Well, not quite so soon as that!” I said, shaking my head in exasperation. “We still have to learn what Evard wants. This just makes it more urgent.”

Radele frowned. “But madam, you just said—”

“This meeting is not to serve idle curiosity, Radele. Something has turned this kingdom wrong way out and people are blaming sorcerers. There was a time when I would have dismissed such accusations as the usual nonsense, but now . . . What if there's something to it? What if the Lords are involved? We need to learn more if we can. I promise we won't dawdle once we've heard what we need to hear.”

Sighing deeply, Radele bowed and pulled open the door. “I think you've sorely misjudged your risk, my lady. But, as I can't persuade you otherwise, I'll keep watch. Please lock this door tonight.” His footsteps down the passage and the stair soon faded.

“I'd best be off, too,” said Paulo, yawning as he stood and threw his jacket over his shoulder, ready to head for the stables to guard his horses. He paused in the doorway, turning back for a moment, looking at me square on. “Radele's not wrong about the danger hereabouts, my lady. You wouldn't think to go to this meeting with the king alone?”

“No. We'll stay together. And truly, we may be on our way home almost as quickly as Radele wishes. I can't imagine how Evard expects me to get past the gates at Windham. I don't know who holds the Gault titles now or even how I'll find out.”

Paulo hesitated, looking thoughtful, running his long fingers over the tarnished door latch.

“By the way,” I said, “well done at the gates today. We'd likely be there yet, if it weren't for you. And all the rumors about an early gate-closing . . . they helped as well. You wouldn't have seen who started those, would you?”

Paulo's eyes flicked to Gerick. “I had a bit of help with that part. More than this Dar'Nethi fellow are watching out for you.”

He straightened up and pulled open the door. “And you needn't worry about getting into Windham tomorrow. Hasn't been no lord there since the last one was done for.”

“Where did you hear that?”

He colored a little. “All those years when you lived at Dunfarrie, and Sheriff took you to the Petitioner's Rite . . . he listened to all the talk about you, and then he'd come back and grouse about how high and mighty you were. I was only a nub back then, hanging about the sheriff where I had no cause to be, but I heard a lot of things. King Evard had the place knocked down and burnt.”

 

The night passed uneasily. The thought of Evard destroying Windham had me alternately seething and weeping. Rain drizzled mournfully as midnight tolled from the palace clock tower. At least Gerick had finally succumbed to sleep. No nightmares, either. Even a drunken commotion outside in the street didn't stir him.

About the time blackness yielded to faint gray, someone tapped on the door. “It's Paulo, ma'am.” I cracked open the door and peered into the gloom. A straw poked out of Paulo's tousled hair. “Radele asks that you please come to the stable, ma'am. Quiet-like, he says.”

I threw on my cloak and followed him, leaving Gerick curled on the floor. He hadn't so much as changed position.

The innyard was pooled and pocketed with muddy rainwater. Servants stepped gingerly through the mud, carrying slops jars and water jugs, while boys with soaked leggings staggered toward the kitchens hauling heavy coal hods. Wagon wheels splattered through the muddy streets beyond the fence. Though the gray morning already rang with jangling harness, clattering pots, and orders yelled at the legions of kitchen maids, the stable was dim and quiet when we shut the door behind us. Gerick's Jasyr nickered softly as we walked past him and Paulo fondled his ears. A mouse skittered past my foot. We found Radele in the farthest corner stall sitting atop a pile of straw in the near dark.

“What is it, Radele?” I said.

As Radele jumped to his feet, the straw seemed to shift. The Dar'Nethi swept the straw aside to reveal a strongly built man in ill-fitting clothes huddled in the dirt. Only after a startled moment did I notice the ropes binding his hands and feet. The man strained against his bonds, twisting around so that he could glare up at me. A purple bruise covered half his forehead, and the unintelligible words trapped by the rag tied around his mouth could be nothing polite.

“When I left your bedchamber last night, I met this fellow skulking about in the passage. Not someone I wanted nearby, so I ran him off. But then, on my rounds this morning, wasn't he in the stableyard telling another fellow that he'd heard some treasonous gossip that was going to make his fortune if he could just locate a constable to tell? And this time he carried quite an ugly introduction.”

Radele presented me with a long, curved dagger. “His friend seemed to have an antipathy for constables and ran away, so I used the opportunity to snag this one. I wasn't sure what to do with him. We should probably dispatch the villain, but I thought perhaps a corpse or another disappearance might draw more attention than whatever he might babble.”

Horrified at the thought of our careless conversation last evening—sneaking into the palace, my low opinions of the king, the upcoming meeting, sorcery—I couldn't think what to do. If the man had heard any of it . . . “No, of course, we can't kill him,” I said, shaking off my urge to do that very thing. I'd never faced this particular dilemma before. Danger had always come from my enemies, not balding, inept thieves. “We just want him to keep quiet.”

“Pay him, maybe?” said Paulo, scratching his head.

I pulled my cloak tighter. “We don't have much to offer. And bribes are unreliable. Too easily overbid.”

Straining grunts and growls had the veins in the man's beefy neck bulging. His eyes blazed in the dusty light.

“But silencing is easily done.” Radele cocked his head thoughtfully.

“We should question—”

The teasing, unmistakable telltale of enchantment filled the air, as Radele laid his hand over the captive man's eyes and murmured a few words. The man's struggles grew feeble and then ceased; his wordless protests fell silent. When Radele removed his hand, the stranger's eyes no longer burned, but wandered over the stall, the straw, and our faces with equal disinterest. Radele motioned us to step back as he untied his prisoner and dragged the fellow to his feet—a big man, dressed in the kersey tunic and shapeless trousers of a common laborer.

“My grandfather taught me this,” said Radele, straightening the man's tangled clothes and nudging him toward the stable door. “It's designed especially for those who have dangerous mouths.”

Without so much as a word or a glance, the man stumbled away, straw sticking up from his rumpled hair and clothes as if he were a scarecrow come to life. Paulo and I followed as far as the stable door, watching as the man walked into the busy lane and halted uncertainly. A woman bumped into him. He staggered, but stayed upright. And then a wagon narrowly missed knocking him flat. Soon he was being brushed from one place to another like a splinter of driftwood floating on the tide.

“What have you done, Radele?” I said, uneasy. “We should have questioned him, found out what he heard, what he was after . . .”

Radele stood at my shoulder, arms crossed, his face sober. “It would have taken us three days to sort out his lies. This is much better. Your secrets will be quite safe. Unless he can recite a list of names he has no possible reason to know, he'll be able to tell no one anything about what he's heard. And you needn't trouble yourself about him. He'll remember how to eat and drink, just not much beyond that. My family is very good at these things.”

“Shit,” said Paulo, quietly.

In slightly less earthy terms, I echoed his sentiments.

“We must leave this city, madam,” said Radele. “You've seen the risk.”

“We'll set out for Verdillon the moment my meeting with King Evard is done. And, Radele, I thank you again for protecting us, but what you did here . . . I can't think the Prince would approve.”

“Your safety is imperative. The Prince was most emphatic.”

“But in this world some things are not permissible for even the best of reasons. Some things are not right in any world.”

Radele dropped his hands to his sides with an exasperated sigh.

 

Leaving Montevial and its poisonous atmosphere behind us felt like walking out of prison. We abandoned our disguises. Paulo had sold the pony trap and his extra horses, and we rode our own mounts through the southern gates of the city in early afternoon. Only after a wide detour did we circle northward toward Windham. The shadows were long when we first caught sight of the towers rising above the leafy sea of its vast parkland. A host of chittering blackbirds heralded our approach from the spreading beech and lime trees that lined the road.

Windham's graceful towers symbolized everything joyous in my girlhood. For a girl of seventeen, they had represented the stimulating company and unending entertainment so at odds with sober Comigor. For a naive young woman of one and twenty, romantic encounters with Martin's mysterious and charming protégé. For a worldly matron of five and twenty, a haven of friendship, the one place Karon and I could go where there need be no secrecy, no deceit, and no fear. Windham had been the most beautiful place I knew, welcoming the wide vistas of the world through its tall windows, just as its master welcomed the vast landscape of ideas into his great heart. How my cousin would have relished our strange adventures.