Carol Berg - THE SOUL WEAVER

“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.”