"Yes, including my king."

"I see." She eyed him for a some time, her expression revealing nothing of her thoughts. "You don't look well, Lord Kentigern," she said at last. There was no concern in her tone, no sympathy. She might as well have been commenting on the prevailing winds.

"I'm well enough."

"Then perhaps you should tell me why you're here. I'm certain that you're no more eager to prolong this encounter than I am."

He faltered, unsure of how to proceed. For better or worse, he had cast his lot with the conspiracy. He had even been so foolish as to sign a pledge to that effecta"a token of his good faith, the Qirsi had called it at the time. Now it was a noose around his throat. Their failure would bring with it his downfall and the disgrace of his house. But while he had little choice but to help them, he needed first to know the truth. If their deceit ran as deep as he feared, he would have to find some way to undo all that he had wrought with his own betrayal.

"Very well," he began. "I've received a message from Kearney. In it he claims to have evidence that the conspiracy was responsible for my daughter's murder."

The woman shrugged. "This is nothing new. Glyndwr and Curgh have been telling you much the same thing since Lady Brienne's death. Isn't that so?"

"Yes."

"Then what makes this message so different that you'd ride all the way here?"

"This time he says he's captured a member of your conspiracy, a woman who acknowledges her involvement in the murder."

Jastanne sat forward, the blood draining from her cheeks. For the first time since he met her, she looked truly frightened. "Did he tell you her name?"

Aindreas shook his head.

"Did you bring the message with you?"

He pulled it from his cloak and handed it to her. Watching her read the note by the light of the lamp beside her, seeing how appalled she was by these tidings, the duke found himself sifting through his memory of their previous encounter. At no time had she denied that the Qirsi ordered Brienne's death, because he never asked. No matter the truth, this woman hadn't lied to him. Aside from Shurik, whose treachery lay at the root of all that had happened since, no one had. Not Javan, not Kearney, not the white-hairs. He had done this to himself.

"Is it possible that this is a deception?" she asked at last, handing the parchment back to him.

"You tell me."

"What do you mean?"

"Was the conspiracy responsible for my daughter's murder?"

She hesitated. It was only for an instant, but that was long enough. "This seems a strange time to ask, Lord Kentigern. You're one of us now."

"I want an answer, damn you!"

"I have none to offer. I don't know who killed your daughter."

"You're lying! The first time we met you claimed to be one of the leaders of your conspiracy."

"I am. But this is a vast movement, Lord Kentigern, and its success depends in part upon secrecy. Even its leaders don't know everything. That way, if one of us is captured and tortured, he or she will not reveal enough to jeopardize the Cause. Surely you can understand that."

There was a certain logic to what she said, but still he doubted her word.

"Do you think the king could be lying to you?" she asked again.

"No. Not that he's not capable of it, but this isn't how he'd go about doing it. This woman exists, and I have little choice but to believe that she had a hand in my daughter's murder."

Jastanne just stared at him, as if appraising a rival captain's ship. "That puts you in an awkward position, doesn't it? You sought an alliance with the movement believing that Tavis of Curgh was the killer, and that Kearney, in offering asylum to the boy and taking the throne with Javan's consent, was an enemy of Kentigern. Now, I would imagine, you see the Qirsi as your enemy. What do you intend to do?"

Aindreas looked away. "What can I do?"

"Very little. I suppose that's my point."

He faced her again, longing once more to draw his blade. "Meaning what?"

"You pledged yourself to this movement, Lord Kentigern. You did so in writing, on parchment bearing your mark and seal. If you turn on us now, if you seek revenge for what you believe was our complicity in Lady Brienne's murder, we'll destroy you and your family. You'll gain nothing, and lose all. You understand that?"

Of course he did. Truth be told, he had known it that first night, only moments after signing the paper and watching the Qirsi he had tortureda"what was his name?a"carry it from the chamber. They had defeated him, made him their slave, and he had forged the manacles himself.

"Yes," he said dully. "I understand."

"Good. I don't know who this woman is, and despite your assertions to the contrary, I still think it possible that the king intended this message as a trick, to lure you to the City of Kings." She paused, eyeing him once more. "Do you intend to go?"

"No." He had given it little thought, but he knew that he couldn't face the king and his fellow dukes. Not now, not knowing how he had betrayed them, how he would be disgraced in their eyes.

"Are you certain it's wise to defy him so soon?"

"It's what he'll expect. I'm a rebel, remember. I don't accept him as my king, and I see every effort at reconciliation as a thinly veiled attempt to force my capitulation. If I give in to him now, I'll lose the support of the other houses opposing him. Surely you don't want that."

"No, we don't."

"I'll send a message back to Kearney telling him that I remain convinced of Tavis's guilt and that I won't be lured to the City of Kings by Curgh trickery." He forced a smile, though he felt ill. "As you say, that's probably what this is."

"I'm pleased to hear you say so, Lord Kentigern. I was growing concerned."

He stood, the room seeming to pitch and roll. Was it the ship or his mind? "I should be riding back to Kentigern before I'm missed."

"Of course. If you receive further news of this woman, you'll let me know. Naturally I'll do the same."

"Naturally."

She was watching, as if waiting for him to leave, but the duke continued to stand where he was.

"I'm surprised that I found you here," he said, his gaze fixed on the floor, his hand again on the hilt of his sword. "You told me that your travels take you from one end of the Forelands to the other, and yet the one night I come looking for you on the Tarbin I'm fortunate enough to find you."

"I told you, Lord Kentigern. I dreamed three nights ago that you would come to me. I was already in the Scabbard at the time, and so I sailed to Tarbin Port. I assure you, there was nothing more to it than that."

Aindreas nodded, and let himself out of the chamber. To his surprise, there were no men waiting for him outside her door. Apparently they didn't think he posed any real danger to their captain, even armed. Once more, he thought back to their first meeting when she had used magic to shatter her wine goblet, merely by way of telling him that the Qirsi movement had no need for Kentigern's arms. That was why they didn't bother guarding her. Jastanne was a shaper. She could have broken the duke's sword with a thought. Indeed, she could have done the same with his neck.

He left the ship as swiftly as he could, retreating from the quay and returning to the small cluster of trees where his mount was tied.

As he approached the horse he realized that there was something on his saddle, glittering in the moonlight that shone through the bare limbs of the trees. Slowing, he glanced around, but saw no one. He walked cautiously to the beast and looked more closely at what lay on the saddle. It was a dagger, the blade of which had been broken in two. Instinctively he reached for his own blade, but it was still there. This one must have belonged to the Qirsi.

There was a message here, he felt certain. This, it seemed, was a day of messages. But he couldn't say what this one meant. He knew only that he wanted to be back in his castle, where, at least for this night, he would be safe.

Only when the duke was gone, his lumbering footsteps no longer echoing through her ship, did Jastanne allow herself to slump back in her chair, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Demons and fire!" she muttered, rubbing her brow with her thumb and forefinger.

There could be no doubt but that Kearney's message was genuine. She had been telling Aindreas the truth when she said that even chancellors in the Weaver's movement didn't know all that was done in his name, but she had no doubt that the Weaver's will had been behind Brienne's death. Not that he had told her so, or that she had asked. She merely understood him, as she did the sea. She could read his thoughts as she could currents, his moods like she could the sky. And she knew that in his own way the Weaver was as powerful as Amon's Ocean. She would no more defy him than she would steer her vessel into a storm. In the depths of his magic she glimpsed her own future, and a brilliant future it was. His wisdom and strength would sustain her and carry her to glory, and if he asked it of her, she would give all to him.

Right now, serving him meant learning all she could of this traitor disgracing herself in Kearney's prison tower. What kind of a woman would betray her people this way? What means had they used to compel her confession? Certainly mere torture shouldn't have been enough. True, it had been sufficient for Qerle, the cloth merchant Aindreas had used to find Jastanne. Qerle, however, was but a courier in the movement. He was no one.

But this woman, if the missive from the king was to be believed, had a hand in Lady Brienne's death. She had to be someone of importance, perhaps another of the Weaver's chancellors. In which case, she should have been willing to die for the movement. She should have been capable of withstanding all forms of torture and coercion.

Had Jastanne been there with her, she would have shattered her skull like a clay bowl. Traitors to the cause deserved no better.

She stood and began to undress. It was growing late and there was a chance the Weaver would come to her tonight, walking like a god in her dreams. Jastanne slept unclothed for him. She thought of it as an offering of sorts, a way of showing him that she was devoted to him and to his movement, a way of telling him that her mind and body were his.

And he had responded by making her a chancellor, and so much more.

For the Weaver had plans for her, important plans. Only half a turn before he had ordered Jastanne to the western waters. Again, there had been some truth in what she told the duke. She had dreamed that he would come. But her return to the Scabbard had been no coincidence.

"It is all coming together," the Weaver had told her that night, caressing her body with his mind. "Soon, very soon, we will begin the final battle with the Eandi. And you will be there when I reveal myself. You will be there to share my victory."

His caresses had grown more urgent then, more powerful, until she cried out in her sleep with pleasure and desire.

She was to be his queen. He hadn't said so, not yet. But she knew from the way he touched her. She knew him as she did the sea. He would return to her soon, to tell her how she could serve him next, and to touch her again.

It was yet another measure of the Weaver's power and of the strength of the movement he commanded that Jastanne could exact her revenge against the traitor without even leaving port. She climbed into bed, already anticipating the Weaver's caresses. Tonight, perhaps. Or tomorrow. No later than that. He would appear before her, framed against the brilliant sun, and he would speak to her again of his plans, of the future he was shaping for them all. And she would tell him then of the message from Kearney, trusting him to strike at the woman for her, for all Qirsi. He would know who this traitor was. He would know how to reach her. And he would make her pay dearly for her treachery.

CHAPTER.

Seventeen.

Galdasten, Eibithar It was always the same dream. He was in Audun's Castle in the City of Kings, standing at the front of the fortress's magnificent great hall, with the Oaken Throne just behind him. All the dukes, thanes, earls, and barons of Eibithar sat before him, along with the queen of Sanbira, the king of Caerisse, the archduke of Wethyrn, and many nobles he didn't recognize. All had come, he knew, for his investiture. Renald of Galdasten, the first king of Eibithar to come from the house of eagles in nearly a century. Above them all flew the pennons of all the houses of the realm, led by the bronze, black, and yellow of Galdasten, and beside him, seated in a smaller version of his own great throne, sat Elspeth, looking resplendent in a red velvet gown. His three boys stood beside her, all of them dressed as young soldiers, in the colors of their house with golden hilted swords on their belts.

A prelate he didn't recognize stood with him, holding the jeweled golden circlet that was to go on Renald's brow. But before the man could give him the crown, the ceremony was interrupted by a disturbance at the rear of the hall. Everyone stood, so that Renald, standing farthest from the noise, could not see. A woman screamed, then several more, and in a moment the hall was in turmoil. The would-be king strained to get a glimpse of what was causing such panic, but though the tumult seemed to be drawing nearer, he still could see nothing.

Beside him, Elspeth stood, calmly bowed to him, and walked away, leading their sons out of the hall through a small door that had escaped Renald's notice until then. He called to her, even took a step as if to follow. But before he could, the horde before him finally parted revealing a horror beyond his imagining. A man was striding toward him, a Qirsi. The stranger's face was flushed and bathed in sweat, and his limbs were covered with swollen red weltsa"bites from vermin. The front of his shirt was stained with vomit and blood and in each hand he held a mouse. Renald wanted desperately to flee, to follow his wife through the doorway, but his feet would not move. And as the man stopped before him, laughing so that his foul, hot breath blasted the duke's face, he held out the rodents he carried, crushing their fur against Renald's face.

Always he woke then, gasping for air, his bedding damp with his own sweat, his stomach knotted like wet rope. He had never spoken of the dream with anyone. He hardly needed to. No one who knew the recent history of the house of Galdasten could have any doubt as to whence this vision had come. It had been but eight years since the madman brought the pestilence to Kell's Feast, killing the old duke and his family, and so many other men and women of the dukedom that it almost defied comprehension.

Before that growing season, Renald had long lamented the cruelty of his fate. He was far more clever than his older cousin. Indeed, he thought himself the most intelligent and most capable among all the grandchildren of Wistel the Eleventh. But while Kell, as the eldest son of Wistel the Twelfth, could lay claim to the house and its lofty position in the Order of Ascension, Renald, the eldest son of the second brother, was relegated to the small castle in Lynde and a thaneship that led nowhere. In the wake of the tragedy, however, if it could be called that, he began to see that the gods had far greater plans for him and his line than he had ever imagined. It was almost enough to turn him from Ean's Path, back to the Old Faith.

Yet the vision continued to haunt his dreams, as if warning him against taking too much pleasure in his good fortune. This was the fourth night in Osya's waxing alone that he had been tormented by the dream, and he had begun to suffer for lack of sleep.

For several years he had just accepted the dream as a burden he had to bear as leader of his house, the cost of his dukedom, as it were. It had never occurred to him to question it beyond that. But as word of the Qirsi conspiracy spread through the Forelands, and, in particular, after the murder of Lady Brienne of Kentigern and the subsequent defection of Aindreas's first minister, Renald had started to consider the dream anew. The commoner who brought the pestilence to Galdasten had been Eandi, not Qirsi. No one in Eibithar had ever suggested that the incident had been anything more than an act of insanity and griefa"the man in question, it seemed, had lost his child to the pestilence five years before, and his wife to some other illness a few years after that. This was no mask for an assassination plot; it was not an attempt to disrupt the Order of Ascension, as Brienne's murder might have been. It was just what it seemed: the desperate, foolish act of a crazed man.

So why was the diseased man in his vision a white-hair? Was this some strange trick of his mind born of his fears of the conspiracy, fears he was certain he shared with every Eandi noble in the land? He would have liked to think so, but the vision hadn't changed at all since he first dreamed it during the harvest of 872, and he had known nothing of the conspiracy in his first years as duke. For all he knew, it hadn't even existed then.

Once more, he found himself wondering if the dream might be a warning. But of what? He had ambitions for the thronea"were the gods telling him to abandon them? Or were they merely telling him that only the conspiracy could keep him from Audun's Castle, that the real threat to his desires came not from Javan and Kearney, but from the Qirsi?

In recent turns, he had settled on this interpretation, only to see the frequency of the visions increase. Again he found himself lying awake nights, questioning the meaning of this. He briefly considered making his way to the Sanctuary of Amon at the eastern end of the city to ask the priestess there what it might mean. But a duke in Eibithar didn't reveal to anyone the terrors preying on his mind, nor did he turn to the sanctuaries in times of trouble. If the prelate couldn't help hima"and dreams were hardly the province of the cloistersa"no man or woman of the gods could.

Instead, Renald endured his visions alone. Elspeth would have thought him a weak fool for allowing mere dreams to unman him, and there was no other person in the castle in whom the duke placed enough trust to confide such a thing. On this night, as on so many that had come before, the duke rose from his bed and threw on his clothes, though the eastern sky had yet to brighten. He knew that there was no sleeping after the vision came, and he thought it better to occupy his mind with other things rather than lie in bed seeing the Qirsi's face time and again.

Two soldiers stood just outside his bedchamber, two who were often there when the duke emerged from the room in the darkness of night. They had the good sense not to comment on his inability to sleep, silently bowing to him instead, and falling in step behind him as he led them to his ducal chambers.

The room was cold when he stepped inside, and one of the guards hurried to the hearth to light a fire.

"Leave it," the duke said.

"But, my lorda""

"Bring me some tea. That will be warmth enough."

The man bowed again. "Yes, my lord."

In a moment he was alone. The guards had left one of their torches, which cast great, shifting shadows on the chamber walls. Renald lit a lamp on his writing table and a second on the mantle above the hearth. Then he retrieved the missive from Kearney that had arrived two days before, and sat at the table.

The message was quite typical of the Glyndwr kinga"forthright but courteous, intelligently written and free of pretense. It seemed he had proof of Lord Tavis's innocence in the murder of Aindreas's daughter, and, perhaps more to the point, evidence as well of Qirsi involvement in the killing, which he now referred to as an assassination. Renald could only imagine how these tidings would be received in Kentigern.

The king went on to request that Renald make the journey to the City of Kings as soon as weather in the north permitted. With the snows giving way to the milder days and warmer winds of the planting, that time had already come. Still, the duke had made no plans to ride southward, nor did he expect to anytime soon.

He actually liked Kearney, and had been impressed with the king's father the one time they had occasion to meet. Galdasten and Glyndwr had long been on good terms, and why shouldn't they be? Renald's house was ranked second among the five majors in the Order of Ascension; Glyndwr was fifth. They had never truly been rivals and with one on the north shore, buffeted by winds from Amon's Ocean, and the other perched in the highlands, they had never had cause for any sort of land dispute. Renald even believed that Kearney might make a good king, given the chance to rule for several more years.

His opposition to the king had nothing to do with the man himself and everything to do with the future of his own house. Under the rules governing the Eibitharian throne, the death of Kell and his entire line in 872 removed Galdasten from the Order of Ascension for four generations. Renald had inherited the dukedom, but his house could not claim the throne until his grandson's grandson had come of age. And even then, there was no guarantee that the crown would fall to Galdasten. If Kearney's line continued to produce male heirs, Glyndrwr might still hold power, and if it did not, the crown would revert first to Thorald. Indeed, by the time a duke of Galdasten could ascend once more to the throne, any of the other four major houses might have established itself as the royal house.

Renald had sent letters to Aindreas lamenting the injustices Kentigern had suffered at the hands of Javan of Curgh and the king. He had written similar messages to Kearney, warning the king that Galdasten and its allies among the other houses of the realm would not allow Brienne's killer and those who harbored him to go unpunished. And though he had thought Tavis guilty of the crime, he wouldn't have done anything different had he not. Aindreas's opposition to the king threatened not only to topple Glyndwr from the throne but also to put an end to the Rules of Ascension themselves. And that was just what the duke wanted.

The rules had been challenged before, and the houses had turned away from them a number of times, only to see the kingdom descend into turmoil and violence. Each time, the houses eventually returned to the rules, seeing in the stability of the Thorald Supremacy an imperfect solution, but one that was preferable to civil war.

But what if Renald could convince the other houses that this time the rules themselves were the source of their troubles? Aindreas had been trying to convince anyone who would listen that Javan and Kearney had conspired to steal the throne from him. From all that the duke had heard, however, he believed that Kentigern had agreed to the arrangement. True, the decision came in the difficult hours just after the end of a siege that nearly cost Aindreas his castle, but he had given his consent nevertheless. And Renald had been reminding other dukes of this ever since. The problem lay not with any deception perpetrated by the king but rather with the Rules of Ascension. They were too easily turned to the purposes of one or two determined dukes. They were archaic and unjust. Why should the act of a madman and the assassination of a young prince be enough to remove the two preeminent houses in Eibithar from consideration for the throne? Without the rules, Tobbar of Thorald might be king now, or perhaps Renald, if the duke of Thorald was too ill to serve. In either case, there would be no talk of rebellion and civil war. Eibithar would be able to face the Qirsi challenge united and strong.

This at least is what he had been saying to the other dukes. And they were listening. Eardley, Sussyn, Domnall, and Rennach. Minor houses all, and aside from Eardley, not even the strongest of the minors. But taken together, their armies included nearly four thousand men, and combined with the soldiers of Galdasten and Kentigern, they constituted a considerable fighting force. They were not powerful enough to defeat the royal army, particularly if it was supported by the armies of Glyndwr, Curgh, Labruinn, and Tremain, as seemed likely. But unlike Aindreas, Renald didn't want a war.

The duke of Kentigern was so consumed by his grief and his need for vengeance that he would gladly have destroyed the kingdom so long as he managed to destroy Curgh and Glyndwr in the process. Everyone in the realm knew it. Certainly the other dukes did. Which was why even as he railed against the injustice of Kearney's rule, Renald never spoke of taking the kingdom by force. His was the soothing voice, the antithesis to Aindreas's cries for blood. No, he didn't need a force capable of taking Audun's Castle. He merely needed a credible army, large enough to convince a majority of the dukes that the danger of war was real, and that any peaceful settlement was preferable to the carnage such a conflict would bring.

It was a process he knew would take some time. Even those dukes who were with him still spoke of war, of the injustice done to Aindreas. Many of them believed that Thorald could be turned to their cause and that when Tobbar joined them, Kearney would be forced to surrender the throne. Renald had no such illusions. Tobbar would never be king, nor would Marston, his son. But if Kearney the Younger, the king's boy, failed to produce an heir, Marston's son or grandson could claim the throne as his own. Thorald remained the preeminent house in the land, and as such, its leaders had reason to preserve the Rules of Ascension. The lone hope for Renald and his allies was that Aindreas would lead them to the brink of war, before Kearney was forced to abdicate in order to keep the land whole.

Under any circumstances, his chances of succeeding would have been small. But Kearney's message, versions of which he had no doubt sent to every duke in the realm, made matters that much more difficult. If the king managed to convince the other nobles that Aindreas had been wrong about Tavis, that Glyndwr's offer of asylum had saved an innocent man rather than harboring a murderer, then support for the rebellion would crumble.

The guards returned to Renald's chamber a short time later bearing a pot of tea and breakfast, but from that time until just after the ringing of the midmorning bells, the duke was alone with his thoughts and the damned letter from Kearney. Even as the pealing of the bells continued to echo through the castle, a knock came at his door. Ewan Traylee and Pillad jal Krenaar, his swordmaster and first minister. They met with the duke every morning at this time. But when he called for them to enter, it was Elspeth who opened the door, not the two men.

Renald stood. "Good morrow, my lady." He stepped around the table, taking her hands in his and kissing her forehead.