“Most of the time?”
“Well, eventually, as I gained more influence in the movement, he gave me a title. He didn’t use it much, but others did.”
Grinsa felt his heart begin to race. “What title?”
“He made me one of his chancellors.”
“His chancellors,” the gleaner said breathlessly, repeating the words as if they were the name of his first love.
“Does that tell you something?” Cresenne asked, frowning once more.
“Maybe. Most of the kings and queens in the Forelands call their Qirsi ministers. The suzerain of Uulrann refers to all Qirsi as enchanters, but he gives no formal title to those who serve him. The emperor of Braedon, however, has chancellors as well as ministers. His chancellors are those who have been with him the longest, who have the most authority among his advisors.”
“That’s what we were,” Cresenne said. “There were only a few of us-the others in the movement answered to us, rather than to him directly.”
“Braedon,” he whispered. He had seen the Weaver’s face the night before, but he hadn’t noticed much about the moor on which they had been standing. It could have been anywhere in the Forelands.
He stood and walked to the door, calling for a guard.
“Are you going to the feast?”
“Yes,” he answered, as the guard unlocked the door. “I wish to ask the king what he knows about Braedon’s high chancellor.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Curtell, Braedon
He didn’t sleep for the rest of the night, nor did he leave his chambers come morning. Even when the midmorning bells tolled in the city, the echoes drifting through the palace corridors like whispering wraiths, he remained in the chair by his long-dead fire, staring at the blackened remnants of wood, his hands, white knuckled and stiff, gripping the arms of his chair. There was a knock, a timid voice explaining that the emperor was asking for him. But he sent the servant away without bothering to open the door.
“I’m not well today. Offer my apologies to the emperor.” He called these things to the boy, motionless in his chair.
The truth. For he wasn’t well.
He had known that this day would come. No man leading so great a movement could shroud himself in shadows forever. But he had not thought to have his identity exposed so soon, and never had he dreamed that Grinsa jal Arriet would be the first man in the Forelands to see his face and live to speak of it. Just a few turns before he had killed one of his servants, a man in Audun’s Castle, simply to preserve his secret. Paegar jal Berget had been neither the most powerful Qirsi working for his cause nor the most intelligent. But the man had served him loyally for more than two years. His had been a crueler fate by far than what he deserved.
Unlike Cresenne, who by her treachery had earned the painful death he had in mind for her. Instead, the gleaner had saved her, that golden fire in his palm a declaration of sorts, a warning to the Weaver that Grinsa intended to oppose him.
Dusaan couldn’t be certain how much the gleaner had seen-he had severed his contact with Cresenne as quickly as possible in a vain attempt to keep the man from seeing too much. Their eyes had met, so surely Grinsa saw the Weaver’s face. But had he seen Ayvencalde Moor as well? Had he recognized it?
“Damn her!” he muttered through clenched teeth.
He would go to her again this night. He would kill her, painfully to be sure, but quickly as well, so that the gleaner would be powerless to stop him.
It means nothing if Grinsa knows who you are.
The golden light had been on his face for less than a heartbeat, no more than a flicker of lightning on a warm night during the growing. Surely he hadn’t seen enough.
Dusaan spat a curse. He had been leading this movement for too long to allow himself to believe that. He had no choice but to assume that Grinsa had seen everything, that already the gleaner knew where he could be found. So what would the gleaner do next?
He couldn’t leave Cresenne, not if he wanted to keep her alive. As far as Dusaan knew, there wasn’t another Qirsi in the Forelands who could protect her. And as the father of her child, a man who had loved her, he wouldn’t just leave her to die.
The high chancellor felt his grip on the chair begin to relax.
Grinsa couldn’t send anyone to Braedon either. He couldn’t even tell the Eandi nobles with whom he had allied himself what he knew, not without revealing to all that he was a Weaver as well. Even if Grinsa knew his name and his title, he could do nothing.
Dusaan should have been pleased. He had seen Grinsa’s face as plainly as the gleaner had seen his, and for far longer. He didn’t have to rely on Cresenne anymore. Not only did he know the gleaner’s name and face, he even knew where the man was. Audun’s Castle. He could send assassins. Or he could enter the man’s dreams himself and test his strength against the gleaner’s. Surely he could prevail in such a battle, and even if he couldn’t, so long as their encounter took place in Grinsa’s mind, the gleaner could do no worse than drive him away.
Dusaan had lost nothing the previous night. At least this is what he told himself again and again, fighting an urge to scream out in frustration. The truth was, he had lost his first battle. Grinsa might still prove to be no match for him when next they faced each other. But for this one night, the gleaner had bested him. And the chancellor had no one to blame but himself. It had never occurred to him that Grinsa was with the woman, though of course it should have. Who else could have convinced her to defy him, to risk certain death by betraying the movement? She had been searching for Grinsa since the growing turns. Was it so strange that she should have found him in Audun’s Castle? The Weaver should have known, and he should have made certain that she died. Above all else, he needed her dead, so that she could do no more damage to the movement. Instead, he had allowed his thirst for revenge and his lust for her pain to cloud his mind. He had been a fool, a difficult admission for a man who did not willingly suffer fools.
He stayed in his chamber for the entire morning and well past midday. Servants came to his door with food, or with inquiries from the emperor after his health, but he did not move from his chair, and he gave none of them leave to enter. Late in the day, however, when yet another of the emperor’s pages came calling, he roused himself from his brooding and opened the door.
Clearly the boy hadn’t expected this. For several moments he just stared up at the high chancellor, his dark eyes wide and his mouth hanging open.
“What is it you want, boy?”
“The emperor, sir!” he blurted out. “He asks for you. He. . he sounded angry.”
“Tell him I’ll be there shortly.”
The boy bowed, managing to say, “Yes, High Chancellor,” before hurrying away.
Dusaan wasn’t certain that he trusted himself to speak civilly with the emperor just now, but he had little choice. If he passed much more of the day in his chamber, the emperor himself might come looking for him. Better to face the fat fool in the imperial hall, whence he could excuse himself after a time.
Reaching the emperor’s hall, he thrust open the door and strode in, only remembering to pause when he heard the guard by the door call out his name and title. Harel sat on the marble throne, his fleshy face red, his mouth set in a thin line.
“High Chancellor,” he said archly, as if a parent speaking to a tardy child.
Dusaan dropped to one knee, lowering his gaze. When the time came, he would enjoy killing this man. “Your Eminence.”
“I summoned you a number of times. There are matters I’ve wished to discuss.”
“Yes, Your Eminence,” the high chancellor said, still kneeling. “I sent word in return that I wasn’t well.”
“You seem well enough now.”
“The rest you allowed me did much good, Your Eminence. I’m most grateful.”