Traitor's Knot

by Janny Wurts

  ‘Sleep,’ murmured Lysaer. ‘You look pounded to pulp. The least I could do was to grant you relief from a duty too harsh for the asking. Let go and rest. The matter at hand can be left to wait until you’ve made a recovery. As well, my friend, we’ll fare best by appearance if you play the one fallen sick.’

  Sulfin Evend awakened to someone’s hand, urgently shaking his shoulder. The fragrance of expensive soap let him know he had not been returned to the field camp. His eyes felt stuck with horse glue, and the coverlets were stifling. He pushed off the valet’s bothersome fingers, snapped a curse, and shoved erect in a nest of down pillows.

  He was in Lysaer’s bed. It was daylight. His sinews felt slackened to caramel, and every bone in his body seemed recast in lead. ‘Damn you for meddling,’ he said in gruff fury.

  The Divine Prince sat in the stuffed chair by the bedside, immaculately dressed. Lace cuffs masked his wrists and shadowed his rings, and a sumptuous white doublet smothered everything else up to his clean-shaven chin. The impact was one of forceful, pale elegance, composed as a sword-blade in ice. ‘The soporific you drank was too weak to lay you out for as long as you’ve rested.’

  ‘How long?’ croaked Sulfin Evend, then swore with invention to learn he had slept the day and night through, and lost most of the following morning. ‘Why didn’t somebody waken me?’

  ‘Somebody has.’ Lysaer’s prankish smile and arched eyebrows almost concealed the bruised shadows left by his ordeal. ‘You are meant to be ill. Why disturb the felicitous appearance?’ Still seamlessly talking, he encouraged the valet, who, undaunted, bore in with a razor and basin. ‘The fibbing gets tiresome. I don’t have your field captain’s knack for singeing language, or your uncle Raiett’s charmed gift for dissembling diversion.’

  ‘Raiett doesn’t lie. He evades, that’s his secret.’ Sulfin Evend shoved back his rat’s tangle of dark hair, scowling to fend off the servant. ‘I don’t care for charades. What’s changed?’

  Succinct, Lysaer stated, ‘I need you awake.’ His piercing assessment suggested far more, as he watched his Lord Commander seethe with clenched fists amid the rumpled billow of bed-clothes. ‘Are we not under threat?’

  Blue eyes locked with inimical steel grey, and Sulfin Evend attacked first. ‘Liege, you shouldn’t be upright.’

  ‘Appearances are everything,’ Lysaer amended. ‘You’re in that bed, sick, upon my direct orders. The Mayor of Erdane is due momentarily. He’s expecting an audience. I suggest, for time’s sake, that you let my valet do his work to make you presentable. Or not, of course. You may stay looking furious and degenerate, as you wish.’

  The accents of refined Hanshire breeding clashed with a phrase borrowed straight from the barracks. His hawk’s profile livid, Sulfin Evend concluded, ‘I don’t fancy another man’s mincing hand, gripping cold steel at my throat.’

  ‘Well, I don’t care for strewn lather spoiling my bed,’ Lysaer said with disarming delicacy. His nod summoned the valet. ‘You’d make a poor job. One look, and you’d notice. Your fingers aren’t steady. Allow you the razor, you’d rip your own veins without someone’s outside assistance.’

  Pinned as the valet raked back his loose hair and fingered his chin with light expertise, Sulfin Evend clamped his jaw in offended forbearance.

  ‘I do realize, today, that I owe you everything,’ Lysaer stated point-blank.

  No rage could withstand that aimed barb to the heart. Given the accolade of absolute trust, Sulfin Evend suffered himself to be handled. Combed, shaved, and tucked back like an invalid under perfumed sheets, he endured the ignominy as the Mayor of Erdane was ushered in by no less than the same callow page. Insult to injury, the rabbit-faced chamber steward also manned the ante-room door. Both had been restored to their posts, a folly too late to redress on the verge of a royal audience.

  Already, Lord Mayor Helfin ploughed in, a heavy-set man who had married into his wealth. Curled hair, a clipped silver beard, and pouched features wearing a strawberry flush reflected his choleric temperament. His quilted velvet clanked with jewelled chains, a threat to the ornate furnishings. While the steward hopped after him, rescuing candlesticks, he encountered the sangfroid glimmer of Lysaer’s state dress and diamonds.

  Hot water crashed against glacial ice. Erdane’s mayor took the padded chair the valet had set to receive him.

  The Light’s avatar, Prince Exalted of Avenor, inclined his head and ceded his gracious permission to speak.

  The mayor’s chest heaved. ‘I have received a letter in my daughter’s hand, the first since her marriage that was not set under the seal of your regency secretary’

  The Alliance commander looked on, unsurprised by the floundering pause. The magisterial elegance seated, coiled, in pearl silk, had a way of peeling even an honest man’s nerves.

  ‘She has fled Avenor?’ Lysaer said, as though some sixth sense informed him. Habit sustained that colourless tone. Not the eyes, focused with the same, fearsome intensity last seen on a wind-swept night in Daon Ramon: when, from breaking news of a son’s tragic death, the Divine Prince had been incited to close in and attack the small force defending the Master of Shadow.

  The deployment had launched a disaster. Every man standing had been burned alive, with Sulfin Evend left as the last, living witness. Chilled where he lay, he watched the mayor’s bluster lose force.

  ‘For fear of her life, Ellaine’s fled into hiding,’ he admitted at cringing length.

  No move eased the tension, no whisper of lace issued from the man in the chair.

  The mayor moistened dry lips.

  Before he spoke further, Lysaer bore in, furious, his majesty unimpeachable. ‘Ellaine is my wedded wife, and the mother of the child who was the crown heir of Tysan. Tell me this. Who has dared threaten the Princess of Avenor in her own home, under the Light of my justice?’

  The mayor flushed crimson. ‘Your own crown council, who also arranged and paid for her predecessor, Talith’s assassination.’ While springing sweat matted his fur collar, he delivered the raw gist. ‘My daughter has seen documents, under Cerebeld’s seal and signature, stating the name of the marksman who fired the crossbolt. Ellaine’s testament, as proof, arrived in the pouch of our courier from Quarn. He rides routine post, and doesn’t know where on his route the letter was slipped into his dispatches.’

  A detail had changed: illness, perhaps, slipped the mask of cool sovereignty. After an unremarked little silence, Lysaer’s stopped breathing resumed. ‘Cerebeld?’ he said, glacial.

  Lord Mayor Helfin wisely said nothing.

  One royal palm turned. The fingers snapped, causing the by-standing servants to startle. ‘I’ll have your state scribe draw up the indictment. Now!’ cracked the living voice of Divine Light. ‘Be very sure of your evidence, my Lord Mayor. A sentence of treason does not carry an appeal. Upon your daughter’s unimpeachable word, I will expose the truth. The trial will be public. The party responsible will be arraigned as a criminal. He and all who have served as collaborators will be put to death under the law. You will tell my commanding officer immediately, and say where my wife has sought shelter.’

  ‘I don’t know where she is!’ the Lord Mayor said, panicked. More than Avenor’s commander of armies had moved him to blurt out, appalled, ‘My Blessed Prince, you didn’t know!’

  ‘That my vested high priest has sanctioned a murder?’ Lysaer’s rebuke stung like bale-fire. ‘Do you think so little of the cause that I ask men to die for? I am no tool of politics, no weapon of factions that kill innocents in clandestine secrecy. Where is my wife, Princess Ellaine?’

  Afraid, the Lord Mayor shook in his seat. ‘She hasn’t told any-one her location. Her letter implied her earnest belief that your son also died by design. Blessed lord, I beg you, forgive her! How could the princess have known that your orders were not behind the criminal acts of your high council officers?’ Through a searing, drawn moment, flames crackled in the hearth. Dumb wind rattled the casements. Then Lysaer said
, ‘I will read Ellaine’s letter.’

  The Lord Mayor of Erdane fumbled into his doublet. The creased sheet he surrendered had been made from pulped rags, unbleached for workaday commerce. The ragged, left edge might have been torn from some wayside inn’s string-bound ledger.

  Lysaer settled the document in his lap, to a flashfire glitter of rings. ‘Your amazement demeans all that is wholesome,’ he responded, his voice chill as the gleam on a sword-blade. ‘As of this moment, every household resource you have has been requisitioned by the Light. My officers will spend every coin in your coffers to secure the life of your daughter, who is my princess. She is not your prestige. Nor is she my callous possession, to be discussed like a string of dropped pearls.’ The rebuke gathered force, shame distilled to bleak venom. ‘No mercy! Those who have threatened her may ask for no quarter, whether or not she is brought home unharmed.’ Lysaer ended the audience. ‘My Lord Mayor Helfin, you have leave to go.’

  Laid raw, the fat townsman slammed to his feet. He stamped out in a rage that would empty his treasury, if only to protest the ruthless slur just dealt to his family pride.

  As the door banged shut with hammering force, Sulfin Evend shoved straight, to applaud. Lysaer’s statecraft was masterful. This superb play would replenish the coffers left emptied since Daon Ramon Barrens.

  Yet Lysaer’s expostulation cut across his commander’s sardonic praise. ‘Leave!’ The word smashed the composure of his hovering chamber servant. He jumped, with the page-boy hard at his heels. The valet hesitated, and found himself curtly dismissed by a summary gesture. The man went, contrite. In the emptied, cold room, light gleamed on blond hair: the Exalted Prince had tipped his head to rest against the high back of his chair.

  Sulfin Evend was left to try tacit address. ‘My liege?’

  The imperious face turned. Eyes wide, pupils distended with vacuous shock, Lysaer’s unseeing gaze encompassed the ranking retainer his royal orders had installed in the bed.

  He had no words in him, to dismiss this last witness, no strength left, to constrain his deep horror. He crumpled, undone by his heart-sore grief. His forehead rested upon his closed fist, while the tears welled and spilled, soaking the fine, thread lace of his sleeve and spoiling priceless white velvet.

  ‘She had your love,’ Sulfin Evend said, his gravel-rough pity subdued.

  ‘My joy,’ Lysaer gasped. ‘All my joy. Ended, I find, by an ambitious animal who had her dispatched by a thug with a quarrel.’ Not Ellaine: his deceased Talith had moved him to agony. Pushed straight, rings trembling, he collected himself and considered the rest of his family. ‘What have I created under the sun, that corruption has twisted into a force that would slaughter a woman and child?’

  ‘Ambition serves power,’ Sulfin Evend said, harsh. The lives burned to cinders in Daon Ramon Barrens even still kept him haunted beyond equanimity. ‘You were never Ath’s sword, to see into small minds.’

  ‘I will have to be, now.’ Lysaer’s blue eyes stayed direct, still wide-open to turbulent grief, and a revulsion that stopped thought to witness.

  Sulfin Evend threw off the bed-clothes. Naked, he strode over the rug, wrenched open the armoire, but found only rows of white-satin sleeves, and marmalade silk, cut for banquets.

  ‘I will have my weapons and armour returned.’ He stood planted, uncaring that he had not a stitch of cloth on him. ‘This foolish pretence is over. I am not sick, and you are not god sent, and your Talith was surely cut dead by a faction whose backing is rooted in necromancy. The cultists are secretive. They are powerful enemies. You have no trained knowledge, and less overt power, to withstand their black spells and vile practice. I have not just risked my life, or set my spirit in jeopardy, to watch you destroy all you have built for a woman who’s seventeen years in the grave. You must not return to Avenor! On my sword, if you try, I shall stop you.’

  Lysaer was too depleted to rise from the chair. Yet the stare he returned raked with scouring contempt. ‘How dare you imply I should run for your sake.’

  ‘For all our sakes,’ Sulfin Evend said, wild. ‘Now, what have you done with my clothing?’

  ‘You don’t have the requisite power to stop me, with your breeches and sword, or without them!’ Rushed, Lysaer appended, ‘I am not ungrateful. I trust you to leave, if you fear your life’s compromised. Your possessions are there, in that chest. You may dress and take arms at will. Shall I date and sign your discharge today? Or will you deign to accompany my retinue, and maintain your post through the journey I’ll make, by way of the south road, to Hanshire?’

  Which insufferable dismissal at last insulted Sulfin Evend’s intelligence. ‘You can’t haze my nerve, that way’

  Violent as a winter-lean wolf, he flung open the clothes-chest, but found he could not stop listening. The proposal to take the roundabout route to Avenor at least showed a shred of good sense. The strong-box, as well, was sequestered and safe. The thoughtful valet had left that dread charge discreetly wrapped in his field cloak.

  All brisk business, the Lord Commander snatched up his breeches. ‘You’ll need Hanshire’s backing if you’re set to pursue this. Also, the records found in the sealed vault underneath of Erdane’s library. If the mayor is convinced to make free with those, he’ll do so at sword-point, and not one bit for the love of his missing daughter.’

  Gratitude restored the hint of a smile before Lysaer spoke, without adamancy ‘I must go back. A conspiracy has tainted my council at Avenor. Far more than my wife and child have been haplessly set in harm’s way. I created this government! Its soundness of principle is my avocation. As Tysan’s regent, the challenge is mine, to restore a just rule. I will not rest, nor will your sword, until this rot has been exposed and cut out.’

  ‘Then you had best pray that Dharkaron Avenger will forgive your rank arrogance and drive his Chariot at your right hand. Naught else can save you.’ Sulfin Evend’s dark head vanished in twill, then reappeared, recent grooming undone. He hooked up his mail to a jangle of rings. ‘You won’t have my sword right away, mercy on you.’ His glare lost no edge as he ducked to slither the field armour over his shoulders. ‘I’ll have to do my sweet best to advise, then rejoin you by galley after the ice breaks.’

  ‘This is not resignation.’ Lysaer smiled then, clean sunlight on snow. If his eyes shone too bright, the embarrassment escaped notice.

  Sulfin Evend sat, busy with hose, boots, and spurs. ‘Help me find grace! I ought to be drunk, to be acting so feckless. I have an errand I have to run first. The bone-knife that enslaved you must be destroyed.’

  Lysaer need say nothing. His point had been won. Wrung limp, he regarded his depleted hands and the letter caged lightly between them.

  Sulfin Evend stood up. As he snatched in nettled haste for his baldric, his sideward glance settled and sharpened. He moved with dispatch after that, hung his scabbard, and wrapped up his discourse forthwith. ‘Liege, I’ll be calling your servants to set you in bed. Then I’m making rounds of my war camp. After two days, I expect to find shambles. Once my officers have orders, I’m taking the best horse in your father-in-law’s stables. Don’t ask where I’m bound. Your vaunted principles assuredly won’t stand it. If I come back unscathed, and if you’re not waiting in state at Hanshire with every fit company we have at your back, then yes. By all means. Give my written discharge into the hands of my family’

  Dressed and fully armed, the Alliance Commander bowed before his liege’s chair. ‘Guard yourself well,’ he murmured in parting.

  Silence answered. Lysaer had passed beyond conscious awareness. The discovery yielded a poisoned advantage: a sane intervention was possible, now. Act upon spurious opportunity, and Sulfin Evend might strip the false tissue of the divine cause. He might break the course of his sovereign’s willed future, through informed mercy and the brute force of his vested command.

  Lysaer slouched in the huge brocade chair. His senseless hands lay loose in his lap, tucked over the desperate words of a wife he had p
layed as a painted game-piece. Yet the hardness that drove every inhumane choice was not written into the man. Care-worn to exhaustion, exposed in the artless sleep of an all-too-human fallibility, the magisterial presence that had stood off Erdane’s mayor should have seemed reduced to its thread of mortality. Instead, the brazen commitment just spoken lost its overtone of brash arrogance.

  The raw courage behind Lysaer’s resolve caught Sulfin Evend like a fist at the throat.

  ‘Mercy on you,’ he whispered, and spun on his heel. Too proud, too heart-torn to break trust with such naked vulnerability, the Alliance Lord Commander retrieved the wrapped strong-box and fled headlong from the room.

  Too late: two sworn oaths and the contrary grain of his honesty pursued him beyond that closed door. Peace had been destroyed by the conflict of loyalties now branded into his skin.

  Late Spring-Summer 5670

  By Land and by Sea

  While dark cultists regroup from their surprise set-back, and a secretive liegeman rides out of Erdane, Sethvir of the Fellowship faces dilemma: with no available help from the field, and no remedy for his invalid weakness, the necromancers who bid to suborn Lysaer’s rule might yet rip the compact apart at one stroke…

  Beating to weather against the stiff winds that presage the turn of the season, Feylind, who captains the merchant brig Evenstar, drives her vessel around the cliffs at Sanpashir, then wears ship, checks her yards, and ploughs a white streamer of wake toward her home port of Innish…

  Trail-weary and silted with summer’s thick dust, a lone clansman crosses the hills of Caith-al-Caen; just past summer’s eve, he crosses the ancient Paravian way, and slips into Halwythwood, bearing the first confirmed news from the north concerning the Prince of Rathain…