The Spider

by Leo Carew

  They shared a look and nodded. “How did the fire start?” asked one with dark eyebrows. “Did someone spill an oil lamp?”

  “Oh, maybe,” said Inger. “I’m not sure. But then we found someone who wasn’t supposed to be here.”

  “Doing what?” asked another of the tutors. The question seemed a little abrupt to Inger and she stored it away, next to an image of the speaker’s face.

  “We didn’t find out,” she said, “but there is a good chance it’s connected with the death here two weeks ago.”

  “I thought that was a rival herd,” said the first speaker.

  “Maybe, maybe,” she said, shrugging. “But last night might suggest otherwise. Did any of you see anything before the fire started?”

  They all shook their heads. “No. We had all gone to bed.”

  “Of course you didn’t see anything,” snapped the final tutor, looking at the tutor with dark eyebrows. “You’d lost your torch.”

  The one who had lost his torch looked flatly at his companion. “What need did I have for a torch? The entire courtyard was lit up like sunset.”

  It felt as though a hand had been laid on Inger’s shoulder. “You lost your torch?” she asked.

  “Must have left it somewhere.”

  “And it hasn’t turned up?”

  The tutor shook his head.

  “Have any of the rest of you seen a torch where it shouldn’t have been?” They frowned at this and murmured that they had not. “Any unexplained lights, before the fire started? Or after?” More refutation. “Well thank you,” said Inger, smiling at them all again and offering the first half of a bow.

  She turned away, surveying the upper windows of the longhouse Ormur had slept in the night before. She walked to the base of the wall and followed it round the courtyard, eyes on the ground. At the end of the longhouse, facing out onto the bleak mountains beyond, she found what she was looking for. A dark smear of ash on the stones, faint from last night’s rain. She looked up and found it beneath a high unglazed window.

  “That’s interesting,” she noted.

  Before Ormur returned from his run, Inger spent the rest of her time searching his longhouse, especially the window above that ash smear. She found nothing else to occupy her, however, and ended up waiting in the courtyard with Leon until the boy reappeared. On their return the students were encouraged to take a tooth-aching drink from a hole smashed in the frozen lake before committing to wrestling. This was the pattern of education here, Inger was noticing: intense bursts of activity one after another, followed by prolonged reflection.

  Ormur hurled himself into the wrestling, his bare limbs and tunic caked in filth as he tried to throw his larger opponent. “The boy’s good,” said Leon, without looking at Inger. “Most of the others are bigger than him and I’ve not seen him lose yet.”

  Inger rested cool eyes on Ormur. “He doesn’t look good, though.” She meant his face; simultaneously wretched and detached.

  Leon grunted. “Found anything?”

  “One of the tutors says he lost his torch last night. There aren’t a lot of places to mislay things here: I think it more likely stolen. Then I found an ash smear over there. I think the killer’s accomplice took that torch to signal out to the mountains from the upper window, showing where Ormur was sleeping.”

  The two of them were momentarily distracted by Ormur himself. The boy had hooked his opponent’s knee and was lifting it high, his opponent hopping back in an effort to dislodge himself. There was a sudden flurry of dirt as both boys crashed to the floor. The courtyard writhed with dusted figures, and another pair of boys was waiting by the longhouse for space to fight. Inger noticed they were edging closer to Leon, exchanging comments, eyes fixed on his silver bracelet: a rare Prize of Valour.

  Leon turned his head very slowly towards them. “Stand back. Or I’ll put you in the lake and hold you still until you freeze in.” The boys retreated and Leon settled back to watch Ormur.

  “So we have about a week,” said Inger.

  “A week?” Just five days in the Black Kingdom.

  “I have spoken with the Master,” she explained. “We need Ormur close at hand so that he doesn’t die before we’ve made any progress. He was safe this morning: the killer muddied the waters last night and will have wanted to lie still and wait for them to settle. But I don’t want Ormur leaving the school again, so I negotiated with the Master for a week’s lessons here. It’ll be easier for you to stand guard. Then they will have the Trial, which the Master says is too sacred to be moved. And the boys will need to start training beyond the school again, giving the assassin quite a few opportunities to finish his objective.” If Ormur is the objective, she thought. It seemed the most likely explanation for his continued presence in these mountains, but he might be after something else entirely.

  The guardsman absorbed this news in silence. “Five days to catch a murderer?” he asked, after a while.

  “That’s what we’ve got, for now.”

  Leon observed his young charge, now on the ground seeking advantage over his wrestling partner. “Where do you start?”

  “The accomplice, here at the school. He is our path to the assassin. But I fear this will not be a clean investigation.” She smiled sadly at Ormur’s efforts. “There are already more people involved than I had hoped, and usually that means we are gnawing at the edge of something. Someone powerful stands behind Numa’s death. Someone who doesn’t care about trying to burn to death a Sacred Guardsman and a Maven Inquisitor.”

  “Perhaps Salbjorn will catch him today,” said Leon. “He is a fine tracker.”

  So they waited for the guardsman, and the news he might bring. Inger went inside and began conducting interviews with the tutors, looking for inconsistencies that might identify the accomplice, and glancing frequently out of the large window to observe the lessons of the boys outside. She was struck by how they were not mere classes, but rituals. Before they wrestled, the boys had prayed together, and then been dusted in ash. Each student wore one white ptarmigan’s claw at their belt for every year they had been in the mountains and, a tutor informed her, they were presented with an eagle’s talon upon successful graduation. Each day finished with the boys ritually shaving each other’s hair, which they would only be permitted to grow when they had finished their education and reached the rank of subject. This was not just a school, but a temple, in which these boys were initiated into the skills of war. That was why it was set high in the mountains: this was the air in which the thunderclouds soared, the birds flew, and water was born. Inger found herself at once captivated by the focus of every soul here, and a little disturbed by their single-mindedness. From the outside, this academy was an unyielding place.

  Staring over the lessons also gave her an opportunity to look out for Salbjorn. She imagined seeing the blond guardsman clattering down the mountain, perhaps with the assassin bound and gagged on his back, or dragged behind him in a vice-like grip. But though the sun sank low and its burning glow began to crown the snow-capped peaks, Salbjorn did not return.

  The dog star began to shine overhead, and Inger returned to the cold of the courtyard. Leon was there, huddled by the longhouse into which Ormur had retired for the night, breath steaming before him. “No sign of Salbjorn?” asked Inger.

  “None.”

  They were quiet for a moment, both gazing over the jagged horizon. “Do you think he would usually stay out after dark?”

  Leon frowned at the last light in the west, giving no sign that he had heard her. “I wouldn’t have thought so,” he said at last.

  Inger sat with Leon, pulling her cloak tight about her as the air grew freezing. First the stars pricked the sky above, then the clouds began to drift overhead. They shed perfect snowflakes over the pair, like an icy rain of stars, as they waited on their missing companion. When Inger had begun to tremble, she placed a hand on Leon’s shoulder and got stiffly to her feet. Leon nodded brusquely, and she retired to bed, shivering in
to her blankets. When she awoke the next morning, the snow was still falling, and Leon just where she had left him, cloaked in white.

  “Still no Salbjorn?”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m sure he’s just lost in the chase,” she said. “He’ll come back.”

  But he did not.

  They waited the whole day, she questioning the tutors once more, and Leon standing guard over Ormur. They both knew now that something had happened. The snow, still falling like down, would have obliterated the trail Salbjorn had been following. When Ormur retired that evening, they took a vigil together in the courtyard once more, accompanied only by the belch of the ptarmigan and the hiss of settling snow. Again, Inger stayed until she began to shiver.

  “Go inside,” said Leon. “He’ll come, or he won’t. I’ll find you if he does.”

  “He’ll come,” said Inger, placing a numb hand on Leon’s shoulder.

  Leon said nothing. But something else replied. A voice, faint as starlight, brittle as ice.

  It said: “Leon.”

  Inquisitor and guardsmen stared wide-eyed at one another. The word had sounded straight from the Otherworld, lacking the substance of reality. If each had not been so certain from the other’s face that they had heard it too, they would have dismissed it as some animal croak, or a settling of the snow-pack.

  “Did you—” Leon began, but Inger hushed him. She tried to still her shivering and listen.

  Then it came again.

  “Help me,” it said.

  5

  The Stones

  It was a cold stone dawn as Roper and his small party trotted clear of the Hindrunn walls. At Roper’s side was Tekoa, dressed in his shimmering cloak of eagle feathers, brought to impress the Unhieru. They were backed by Pryce and two Skiritai rangers recommended by Tekoa as “so savage they’re barely capable of speech.” They certainly looked the part, with weathered faces and unremitting eyes. Their weapons and armour were lean and worn, and even their horses looked assured. Each Skiritai wore a falcon wing hanging from his hair, issued upon joining the legion, and theirs were so tattered that barely any feathers remained upon them. Bringing up the rear was a pale Keturah, riding between Uvoren’s widow, Hafdis, and Gray. These three would accompany the party to the freyi, while the rest crossed the Abus into Unhierea.

  They set off fast, first skirting the Hindrunn’s outer wall, then plunging into a grass ocean. For a league they rode, obliterating hoar crystals and startling sheep out of their way until they came to the layers of sparse birch that marked the start of the forest. They breakfasted on the move, Roper rummaging in a saddlebag for flakes of hard salty cheese which he shared with Gray. The two of them had dropped to the back, the Skiritai leading the way. They discussed how they missed Helmec, what that image of him floating in Roper’s mind might mean; the death of Numa, and whether Inger was likely to catch the killer. They agreed they were impressed by the demeanour of the two Skiritai brought by Tekoa and discussed how they might acquire such an aura themselves. Gray related the sad tale of a guardsman whose wife had just died in childbirth, and, checking the sprinter was well out of earshot, they discussed whether Pryce had been right to obliterate Uvoren’s body.

  “I do have some concerns about your mission, lord,” said the captain suddenly. Roper glanced at his companion in surprise. Gray’s words were tailored carefully to the needs of those around him, and he would not undermine the mission to Unhierea unless he had decided there was something even more important to say. “I do not trust Vigtyr,” he said. “I do not like that you will be accompanied by that man on a task that is already filled with danger and uncertainty.”

  Roper gave that a moment’s thought. “Surely you don’t think we’d be safer without him? He is an extraordinary warrior. And highly resourceful.”

  “I firmly believe you would be safer without him, lord,” said Gray. “I do not believe fighting skill will come into your mission. There are only six of you. If the Unhieru decide that they want you dead, a good swordsman will not prevent that.” He glanced at Roper. “Forgive me, lord.”

  “Go on.”

  “But someone unreliable, with their own motives, who is beyond caring what happens to the rest of you, will give cause for worry within your group as well as beyond it.” Gray was quiet for a moment. They paused as the progress of those in front slowed and were forced to drop back a little so they could continue speaking in private. “Why are you trying to bring him close, lord?” Gray asked at last. “Everyone has told you that you cannot trust him. He is devious, he is manipulative, and he is sick with ambition.”

  “I have been told that many times,” said Roper, trying to express something he felt others did not understand intuitively. “But people are wrong about so much! I have been told so many things that turned out not to be true. I was assured over and over again in the haskoli that the Sutherner is thoughtless, reckless and short-sighted. And then I fought Bellamus. I have met people who claimed to know that I had been unfaithful to Keturah, or that I had traded the eastern kingdom in exchange for the Suthern withdrawal last year: both lies invented by Uvoren. One person tells a spiteful lie, or makes an ill-informed supposition, tells a friend and through the retelling it becomes fact, until everyone knows it to be ‘true.’ I am sceptical of what I am told. Everyone who knows we are going to Unhierea has told me that it is suicide, but how would they know? I believe what I see, especially about people. Vigtyr has served me well, and has been gracious and generous. That is the best evidence I have. It is better than the rumours of people who don’t know him.”

  Gray looked unconvinced. “That is a wise path, lord,” he said.

  “But?”

  “But look what he did to your enemies in the name of his ambition. Men died, or were imprisoned and disgraced. And is there not some instinct in you which says there is something wrong with Vigtyr? Do you not get the feeling I do when you speak to him that says: Be careful, this man does not value you or anyone else?”

  “I do get that instinct,” said Roper. “But maybe that is why there are so many unpleasant rumours about him. People feel uncomfortable in his presence and know how influential he is, and it drives them to spite. I shall judge his actions, not his manner. And as for your first point, he did all that on my orders. I can hardly blame him for it. It seems to me that the best way to ensure that he is disillusioned would be if I now pushed him away, having dispensed with his services. That is not how I wish to treat my allies. I will honour and value him, and hope to ensure he is a servant to us and nobody else.” Roper thought for a heartbeat longer. “I would rather make my own mistakes, Gray, than somebody else’s.”

  Gray nodded. “I see, lord, I see. You have always had assurance in your own beliefs and that is undoubtedly one of your great strengths. My service to you is and always will be without condition, but may I beg one favour from you?”

  Roper blinked. “Name it, my friend.”

  “Please do not forget what I have said. You may be right and I wrong. And you convince me that it is right to give him this chance. But please remember my words when the time comes.”

  “Of course,” said Roper, though he did not understand. “Of course.”

  Gray nodded, evidently unsatisfied but determined to leave it there.

  Roper was deaf to Gray’s warnings, and oblivious to what lay before them in Unhierea, for the forest had bewitched him. Outside these ancient trees the sun and wind blasted the hills, and everything that moved did so in straight lines. The forest was more subtle. The sunlight dripped through the leaves, the wind was a cool breath and the animals prowled and twisted. The colours were soft, the shifting of the trees was gentle, and the trunks rendered the movements of Roper’s peers in subtle fragments. He could smell the new leaves and shoots bursting from walls and floor, the earth, and the musky scent of a deer couch that they passed. Each breath of this air was like a kind word in a nest of enemies. He relished the blow of the cuckoo, the flashes of mo
vement all around as squirrels, mice, martens, birds and deer dissolved between the trunks and the leaf litter; the silver notes of a stream. It was Gurstala: the week the bluebells flower, and their horses cantered over a dense lilac fog. Did they really need to march south and say goodbye to all of this? Would the canal they were building not secure the north for future generations? But Roper knew those thoughts came from his stomach, and the fear knotted there.

  They slept those first few nights in the forest, and by the third day, Keturah was pointing out familiar landmarks that she recognised from her own time in the freyi. There was the ravine she had fallen down on a moonless night, plunging through the dark to crash onto the stream bed below and wrench her ankle. There the gentle river overhung with willows, at which they simply must stop to collect her favourite crayfish. Although Anakim men could not swim, the women could, and Keturah had learned in that river. Ah! Did they see those ragged wingbeats? It must be the heron that had haunted this water in her own time here.

  The forest was choked with mist, the trees charcoal pillars, and the day old and grey before they reached the school. You might ride right past it if you did not know to look up. There, hovering some thirty feet above the ground, was a score of treehouses. They ringed the tallest and strongest trees, supported on struts that bowed out from the trunks. The roofs were thatched in bracken, there were no rails to mark the point where security ended and the void began, and each flickered and smoked in the dying light. At the heart of the school was a house bigger than all the others, worn lightly on a mountainous hornbeam. Narrow walkways like trails of cobweb drew each treehouse to this central hub, which glowed brighter than those around it. There was a silhouetted figure standing by a flickering hearth, facing away from them and addressing an audience before her.