Next was a demand for gold. That was new. At first Stralg's campaign had sent a torrent of loot and slaves back to Vigaelia. The flow had dwindled as resistance sprouted, and this new demand meant he must be having trouble feeding and housing his horde. She dictated a letter to be sent out to all the cities in Eide's satrapy and made a mental note to call in the bursar from the temple of Weru, where most of Skjar's wealth was stored. She would have to fleece the local Ucrists, also.
Whatever was keeping her moronic husband? She pushed through the drape into the lamplit room. The air was stifling. The two scribes and the boy looked up in alarm.
"Guard!" she barked.
A Werist materialized in the far doorway, practically filling it. "My lady?"
She noted with satisfaction that he was as frightened of her as the two clerks were, although he was twice her size and a fraction of her age.
"Where is the satrap?"
The boy gulped, looked behind him, and stepped aside with a gasp of relief. "Here he is, my lady!"
Eide lumbered in, unarmed and barefoot, wearing his pall wrapped around him like a towel instead of properly draped. Eide had always been a bull of a man, and now he was twice as big, three times as hairy, and much more bovine, with two stub horns and an animal smell. Obviously—obvious to Saltaja, if not to others—he hadbeen fetched from some woman's bed, but that was normal for him. She had not let him touch her in years. He was out of breath, which was a satisfactory demonstration of obedience.
His entry made the room crowded. The scribes moved hastily into corners and tried not to stare at his feet, which he rarely left uncovered. The Witness of Mayn who followed him in was tiny, swathed completely in white, without even her hands showing. She looked like a discarded pillow alongside the giant.
Eide grunted a surly "?" and yawned.
"I want to know where the three Celebre hostages are. Ask her." Under the compact, the Witnesses would answer only Stralg himself and his three hostleaders, Eide, Therek, and Horold. Saltaja had to send all her queries through one of them.
Eide growled, "Answer the question."
Some Maynists would insist he repeat it. This one was either more obliging or anxious to go back to bed. "None of them is within my range."
"What is the Wisdom on them?" Saltaja asked. The Wisdom was the collective knowledge of the cult, but how it worked was part of the mystery, a secret known only within the Ivory Cloisters at Bergashamm.
"Answer," Eide said.
"The girl has gone inland, to her guardian's estate at Kyrn. We have no reason to believe that the hostage Benard Celebre is not still in Kosord or the hostage Orlando Celebre at Nardalborg."
"The Ucrist Wigson is here in Skjar?"
"He is. Working in his counting office." Witnesses rarely volunteered information. This one sounded young and might be showing off the range of her sight.
Satisfactory. Saltaja was about to dismiss the two of them, when her native caution stirred. "The first Celebre hostage, the eldest—tell me of him."
"He died," said the woman in the shroud.
"You confirm that he did physically die in the commonly understood sense of the word? You are not using the expression in some special cultish way?" She had caught them out in half-truths before now.
"The boy Dantio Celebre died fourteen years ago from shock and loss of blood, and his heart stopped beating. It is so recorded in the Wisdom. You have been informed of this three times."
"You may go." Saltaja nodded to the satrap. "And you also, my sweet. But send me Huntleader Perag Hrothgatson. I have a job for him."
"Send for him yourself." Eide turned to follow the seer out.
Saltaja said, "No. You will go and bring him to me."
He froze, and for a moment she thought she would have to discipline him. Then he snorted a surrender noise and left, his feet clopping like hooves on the tiles.
So it was decided. She would deliver the girl to Tryfors in person. Not by chariot, of course. Not for the Queen of Shadows that endless bouncing, the dust and heat and rain. They would travel by riverboat.
four
THE ELDEST
awoke and saw that she was dying. Death was all through her, like ivy in a forest, spreading fast. Whatever the common folk might think, the Witnesses of Mayn did not prophesy; the word was a joke among them, a reminder that the gods could not be bound. The seers' blessing was knowledge, and the Eldest knew that she would not rise from her bed. That was not prophecy, it was accomplished fact. Already her feet and hands were cold, no longer hers or part of her. She lay still, composing herself, calming that faltering, frail heart. Reproaching herself for feeling fear. Chiding herself for her sorrow. Many, many things she had wanted to finish, but death was no respecter of agendas. She should be grateful for these few last moments, a grace from holy Mayn. Always the Eldest of the Witnesses was granted a farewell, so that she might name her successor. Some were also permitted to pass on some special insight from the goddess.
She had been given so many years! She was Eldest of this, the mother lodge in the Ivory Cloisters at Bergashamm, and thus Eldest to all the Witnesses on the Vigaelian Face, and although "eldest" was her title, it was close to literal truth in her case. She had been already old when she was appointed vicar of the goddess, so many years ago. Her name then had been Raven, but she had not heard it used in all those years. Her reign had not been an easy one, perhaps the hardest ever, and she still could not be sure that she had made the right choice. She, who should be the wisest of all the gods' children must withhold judgment on her own life's work. But she need not worry about that now. Very soon the goddess would reveal the answers, solve all mysteries.
Sunlight on the wall showed that it was still very early. Taking her last farewell of the worn old stones and silvered beams, of the threadbare rugs she had knotted herself long years ago, the Eldest was reminded that she was blind. It had happened gradually as she aged, and she had barely noticed, still seeing the world with the goddess's eyes, which worked much better than her own ever had. Here on her deathbed, the Eldest saw into kitchens and laundry and larders; the refectory where novices were laying out bowls for the morning meal; the great weaving hall where the goddess's work was done. The fields beyond the walls she could no longer reach; her sight was dwindling.
Urgently she needed the members of her hand, but the blessings Mayn granted did not include summoning. Not that the Maynists' abilities were limited to sight. Their other senses were also blessed. The Witnesses took the sacred number to extremes: five edges of each Face of the world, five senses, five blessings, five fingers to a hand. The sisters themselves were grouped in hands—five reported directly to the Eldest, five to each of them, and so on. All five of the Eldest's hand were in residence at the moment. They would see her. The range of seeing depended on the importance of what was to be seen, and her passing would matter greatly to them.
Meanwhile she must consider her successor, because the name she spoke would control the course of the cult for years. Werists did not live to be old men. Even if they did not die at the hands of their own kind in battle or brawl, the gross demands their god's blessing made upon their bodies led to early death. They professed to glory in their choice of fame over long life, but they made that decision while still too young to comprehend the cost. Stralg would die; the evil would pass.