David Coe - Bonds of Vengeance

“I’m afraid you’re too late, Kayiv. Your lives are in my hands. You need to make your peace with that. Serve the movement well and I assure you, you have nothing to fear from me.”

Kayiv looked down at Nitara again. After several moments, he nodded, all the time gazing into her eyes. “Very well.”

“Good. Leave me now. I must see the emperor. You’ll receive your gold shortly and we’ll speak again after our daily discussion two days hence.” Dusaan paused briefly, thinking. “Kayiv, during that discussion you’ll say something to Stavel that will anger me, that will force me to ask you to remain here again after the others have gone. I don’t know what we’ll be speaking of, so you’ll have to think of it on your own.” He grinned. “You seem quite adept at saying the inappropriate thing, however. I don’t expect you’ll have much trouble finding the right words.”

That, of all things, brought a smile to the young minister’s lips. “No, I don’t suppose I will.”

The two of them rose and started toward the door.

“Neither of you has asked me how much gold you’ll be receiving,” he said, stopping them once more. “That pleases me.”

Kayiv turned. “I had wondered.”

“I don’t doubt it. It should be approximately one hundred qinde, imperial, of course.”

Kayiv raised an eyebrow at this, but Dusaan merely smiled.

“I’m paid in imperials, as well,” he said, the first direct falsehood he had told them. “If we were to start spending common currency in the markets in Curtell it would draw unwanted attention.”

Actually, Dusaan usually paid those who served him in the common currency used by the other realms. Imperial qinde were held to have less value than the qinde used by the six; his underlings would prefer the common currency. More to the point, he feared that paying imperial qinde to his servants in Sanbira or Aneira or any of the other realms might reveal his identity. Few Qirsi in Braedon had access to so much gold and it wouldn’t take the more clever ones much time to realize that he was the mysterious Weaver who entered their dreams at night. By the same token, he feared that paying the more valuable currency to these two would raise their suspicions. Why would the high chancellor of Braedon have access to so much common currency if he were merely another soldier in the Weaver’s army?

“That’s a good deal of gold,” Kayiv said.

“One hundred is a guess. It may be a bit more, it may be less. Either way, you’re right, it’s more than you make in an entire year. Don’t spend it like a drunken Eandi. You’ll only draw the emperor’s attention.”

“How is it that the Qirsi we now serve have become so wealthy?”

The Weaver gave a thin smile. “You’ll find, Minister, that the movement’s leaders have little tolerance for such questions. The Weaver has resources that you can’t even fathom, and power to match. Leave it at that, and be grateful that he’s asked you to be his ally in this fight.”

Kayiv nodded, and a moment later he and Nitara stepped into the corridor, pulling Dusaan’s door closed behind them.

Dusaan returned to his writing table and pulled the imperial treasury accounting from the shelf beside it. Arranging for the ministers’ gold would be easy. The wages of all the emperor’s ministers and chancellors were paid at the end of the waxing, as were those of his soldiers and laborers. Finding two hundred qinde for these two would be no more difficult than it had been appropriating gold for his other servants.

He had no doubt that Nitara would serve him well, as long as she listened more to him than to her lover. Kayiv, however, was another matter. He possessed three magics, two of which-shaping and language of beasts-were among the more potent Qirsi powers. He had a keen intellect and great confidence in his own abilities, qualities that Dusaan looked for in his most trusted servants. But he was contentious and too quick to question his superiors. Since the young man’s arrival in the palace several years before, Dusaan had attributed his difficult manner to dissatisfaction with Eandi rule in general and Harel’s ineptitude in particular, sentiments the Weaver shared. After this day’s conversation, however, he was forced to wonder if it was something inherent in Kayiv himself.

Dusaan had long been reluctant to turn any of Harel’s Qirsi to his cause, fearing that working so closely with those who served him might make it impossible to maintain the secrecy on which his very life depended. But in this instance, he drew some comfort from the fact that he would be able to keep watch on Kayiv himself. The man struck him as a most dangerous addition to the movement.

They didn’t dare say a word until they were back in her chamber, and even with her door closed, Nitara was afraid to speak in anything more than a whisper. Despite her fear of what the high chancellor had suddenly become, seemingly before their eyes, she could barely contain the mixture of exhilaration and apprehension that gripped her now. For nearly a year, she and Kayiv had spoken of joining the conspiracy, sharing their dreams of a new Qirsi Supremacy in hushed tones as they lay together in her bed, still breathless, their passion sated. It had never occurred to either of them that others in the palace shared this dream. Certainly they had never guessed that Dusaan might be anything less than completely loyal to the emperor.

Learning that he had joined the movement years ago, that he had guessed that they would be open to doing the same simply by observing them in their daily discussions, both thrilled her and frightened her. Had they really been so obvious? Or was the high chancellor simply far more formidable than they had ever believed? In either case she could not help but wonder at her own carelessness.

Kayiv dropped himself into the chair by her hearth and Nitara sat on the bed, watching him. He had surprised her with his reluctance to join the movement, and even now, alone with her, he appeared uncertain, as if he feared they had made a terrible mistake.

“What is it?” she asked, her voice low. “What’s bothering you so?”

He gave a small shake of his head. “I honestly don’t know. I sense that Dusaan isn’t telling us everything. I suppose I’m still not convinced that he’s really with the conspiracy. What if he goes to the emperor? We’ve just committed treason against the empire, and though we’ve spoken of doing so for some time, I feel that we were coerced into pledging ourselves to the movement. It almost seemed that the high chancellor had a blade pointed at my heart.”

“Well, he did threaten us. But I don’t see that he had much choice. He confessed to being a traitor, too. He needed to be certain that we wouldn’t betray him to Harel.”

“No, he didn’t.” Kayiv stood, walking to the tapestry that hung on her wall and pushing it to the side so that he could gaze out the narrow window onto the palace courtyard. Cold air swirled through the room. “He said it himself. If we tried to betray him, he’d claim that it had been a deception, a test of our loyalty to the throne.”

“I’m not certain that would have saved him. A turn or two ago it might have, but with Lachmas’s death the emperor sees traitors everywhere. He might not have believed such a story, even hearing it from Dusaan. And I think the chancellor knew that as well.”

“Maybe,” he said, sounding unconvinced.

“It’s getting cold in here.”

Kayiv glanced at her, then let the tapestry fall over the window once more. He returned to his chair and sat again, rubbing his hands together, his jaw clenched.

“I sensed the same thing you did,” she told him. “He wasn’t telling us everything. But I don’t think he was lying to us about where his loyalties lie. He’s with the conspiracy. And now we are as well. Isn’t that what you want?”