“Hush, child.”
The Qirsi man pulled the prelate with him until they stood before the Weaver. Then he threw Coulson to the ground and handed the Weaver the hilt of a shattered sword.
“This is his?” the Weaver asked.
“Yes, Weaver.”
The Qirsi nodded. “Thank you, Uestem.” He looked down at Coulson, a smile playing at the corners of his broad mouth. “So you fancy yourself a warrior, do you, Father Prelate?”
“I’m a man of the cloister,” he answered in a quaking voice. “But I’ll gladly take up arms to defend my house and my realm.”
“Bravely said. Of course, your house is defeated, and your realm will soon be mine. So it seems your courage has been wasted.”
Without another word, the Weaver raised his weapon once more and hacked off the prelate’s head.
Adler screamed, Rory’s sobbing grew louder.
Several of Galdasten’s soldiers looked away. Others shouted angrily, a few of them taking a step toward their weapons.
There was a strange, dry cracking sound, and the nearest of these men collapsed to the ground clutching his leg and howling with pain.
“That was his leg,” the Weaver said, his voice carrying across the ward. “It could just as easily have been his neck. And it will be for the next man who takes even a single step toward those weapons. Do I make myself clear?”
The others who had started toward the weapons stood utterly still, but several of them continued to eye the swords.
Apparently the Weaver noticed this as well, for a moment later there was a second snapping noise and another soldier fell to the ground. This one, however, didn’t cry out, nor did he writhe in pain. He simply lay still, his head tipped at a wrong angle, his eyes gazing sightless at the sky. The other men stepped back.
“You’re going to kill us, too, aren’t you?” Renald said, drawing the Weaver’s gaze.
“I have no intention of killing you today, Lord Galdasten.”
“What about tomorrow, or the day after that?”
The man smiled thinly. “Gleaning has always been my least favorite of the Qirsi magics.”
Renald said nothing.
“For now, you’ll be placed in the prison tower with your mother and your brothers. Beyond that, I can’t say.”
“You intend to rule the Forelands, and to be served by Qirsi lords, just as our king is served now by Eandi nobles. You can’t have men like me about, reminding your subjects of the day when the great houses ruled the seven realms.”
For some time the Qirsi just stared at him. Then he smiled faintly and said, “No, I don’t suppose we can.” With that, he turned away and beckoned to another of his Qirsi soldiers. “Take them to the prison tower,” he said, his voice so low that Elspeth had to strain to hear any of it. “Put the mother in one chamber, the boys in another. Make them comfortable, be certain that they’re fed, but don’t allow any of the Eandi to see them.”
“Yes, Weaver.”
“Can’t we be in the same chamber?” the duchess asked. “The younger ones are frightened.”
The Weaver frowned at her, as if annoyed that she had overheard. “I don’t think that would be wise.”
Rory still clung to her and now she indicated the boy with an open hand.
“But look at him. He’s only a boy. Surely there would be no harm-”
“I said no!” He spun toward the Qirsi soldier. “Take them away from here now!”
There could no longer be any doubt. Renald was right. The Qirsi intended to kill all three boys. Perhaps her as well, though she cared far less about that. They wouldn’t do it here. The executions of the captains and prelate had been intended to dishearten Galdasten’s soldiers, to sap them of their will to fight. But the killing of the duchess and her sons would enrage them. No, they would have to wait, though not long, for there was also danger in keeping them imprisoned for too long. It would be this night, perhaps the morning. No later. Elspeth felt her legs give way and suddenly found herself sitting on the grass only a short distance from the headless body of Father Coulson. Rory stared at her, a puzzled look on his puffy, tear-streaked face.
“Mother?”
“Get up,” the Qirsi soldier said, his voice flat.
“Please,” she sobbed, hot tears coursing down her cheeks. “Don’t do this.”
The Weaver kept his back to her, speaking in low tones with another of his soldiers.
“For pity’s sake, they’re just children!”
At that, he glanced back. “Yes. But one day they’d be men.”
Chapter Ten
The Weaver had told Nitara that they would be there, much the way a parent might tell a child that she was to have a younger sibling.
Two of my chancellors await us in the city, to join our assault on the castle and add their number to my army.
They had been at Galdasten’s pier waiting to greet the ship. When Dusaan stepped off the vessel, they knelt before him, compelling the rest in the army, those who had already ridden with him and killed with him, to do the same. A man and a woman. The man was a merchant, with an air of success and wealth about him. He was lean of face, but his body was thick and his belly round. He had lived well.
The woman was said to be a merchant as well, but Nitara found that difficult to believe. She was as young as Nitara, perhaps younger, with thick white hair that she wore loose to her shoulders, and brilliant yellow eyes that were almost a match for Dusaan’s. She was as lean as the other merchant was broad, as beautiful as he was plain. It took Nitara but a moment to understand that they weren’t a couple, that this woman had her sights set higher. One need only see how she looked at Dusaan to know just how high. Nitara hated her before they left the pier. By the time they reached the walls of Galdasten Castle, she was ready to plunge her blade into the woman’s back.
Jastanne ja Triln. The man’s name she already had forgotten, but the woman’s name stuck in her mind like a child’s rhyme, repeating itself again and again. Both merchants had shaping power and mists and winds-it was small wonder they had become chancellors in the Weaver’s movement, or that Dusaan welcomed them into his army with such enthusiasm.
Perhaps he didn’t notice how this woman eyed him, how her cheeks reddened every time their eyes met. Surely he would have been as discomfited by her affections as he had been by Nitara’s. This was no time for such thoughts. They were at war, fighting for the freedom of all Qirsi in the Forelands, fulfilling the dream that had brought them all to the Weaver’s cause in the first place. That was what the Weaver had told her, and that was what he would have told this woman, this Jastanne ja Triln, had he only noticed.
Except that as the Weaver strode toward the great fortress, flanked by his two chancellors, and followed by the rest, including Nitara, Dusaan did appear to notice. When had she ever known him to miss anything? In Jastanne’s case, it seemed he simply didn’t mind.
The ease with which they took the castle should have been cause for rejoicing. Even the unfortunate but necessary execution of Galdasten’s three young lords the following morning would not have been enough to dampen such a victory. But Nitara could think only of how the Weaver had trusted Jastanne and the other chancellor with tasks that would have fallen to her just a day before. He sent Jastanne into the city to find other Qirsi to join their cause; he had the man lead a group of several shapers to imprison Galdasten’s soldiers. In the span of a single day, she had become merely another servant of the Weaver, but a single soldier in a growing army.
The morning after their victory, with the grievous cries of the duchess still echoing through the castle and many of the newly recruited Qirsi guarding the fortress walls, they took nearly every horse in the city and castle, and started southward in pursuit of Galdasten’s army. Again, the chancellors rode with the Weaver; the rest trailed behind. Dusaan had barely said a word to Nitara since they docked in Galdasten; she had little choice but to ride with B’Serre, Rov, and the others from the court of Curtell. If the other ministers had noted her fall from the Weaver’s favor, they had the good sense not to mention it. They made room for her, so that she could ride beside them, and they continued their conversation. Nitara said nothing-she couldn’t take her eyes off the woman riding with her Weaver-but at least she didn’t have to ride alone, looking foolish and pitiable.