Godless World 3 - Fall of Thanes

by Brian Ruckley

  Mordyn was a deadening, darkening presence; nothing like the casually confident and eloquent man Anyara remembered from Kolkyre. He barely acknowledged her arrival at the table. His eyes flicked briefly in her direction and then sank back towards his food. He sat in a tight knot, his arms pressed close in at his side, his chin nestled down into his chest.

  Tara Jerain said nothing. She greeted Anyara with a nod and a small smile, but they were frail tokens, the afterthoughts of a mind entirely elsewhere. In countless little ways, she betrayed her disquiet: snatched glances at her returned husband, the restless movement of her hands from platter to mouth to lap to table, the concern that pinched the skin at the corner of her eyes into nests of lines. Anyara was silenced by the oppressive unease. Even the serving girls moved quietly and hesitantly about their business.

  There were a dozen questions Anyara could have asked. Longed to ask. She did not dare to utter any of them. Mordyn Jerain had always intimidated her, but this was different. Now the bleak silence he imposed simply felt too weighty to disturb.

  She picked half-heartedly at the food before her. Her heart sank with the realisation that despite her determination to resist, she had come to believe the many subtle hints that once the Chancellor returned, all might be resolved in a satisfactory way. She had permitted a tentative blossoming of hope, seduced perhaps by Tara's companionship and the comforts of the Palace of Red Stone, and sloughed a few fragments of her caution and suspicion. Well, the Chancellor had returned, and he brought not relief but some strange shadow. Anyara glanced at him.

  Mordyn Jerain was staring at her. For an instant his gaze was unguarded, piercing, then he appeared to realise she was watching him and his expression went blank, his eyelids fluttered and he lowered his head once more. But in that brief moment she had glimpsed such naked contempt, such loathing, that she was suddenly afraid.

  Anyara spent that day in restless distraction. Eleth, the maid, sensed her mood and produced from somewhere materials and needles. She suggested she might show Anyara how to produce the patterns of decorative threadwork that had become popular in Vaymouth in the last year or two. It was a kind, sincere offer, but wholly impotent as a cure for Anyara's agitation.

  She could not settle, could not sit still for more than a moment or two. She snapped irritably at Coinach without cause. He exiled himself to the passageway outside her rooms. Eleth came and went in an increasingly desperate attempt to provide some amusement. She fetched dainty cakes from the kitchens. Anyara dutifully ate them, and though she recognised that they were delicious, she found they gave her no pleasure. Eleth brought singing cagebirds. To the maid's consternation, Anyara only laughed bitterly at them, and bade her remove them.

  At last, as the afternoon stumbled towards a grey dusk, Anyara sprang up from her chair with a sigh of frustration.

  "There must be parts of this palace I haven't seen yet," she said to Eleth. "Show me something. Anything. I can't sit around here any more. I have to move."

  "Of course, my lady," Eleth said promptly, evidently relieved. "There must be somewhere..."

  "Anywhere," Anyara said, and stepped out into the corridor.

  Coinach was waiting there. He was a touch startled by her sudden appearance, and gave her a somewhat anxious look, as if in anticipation of a scolding.

  "Come," said Anyara briskly. "We're exploring. Or just wandering."

  Eleth led the way, walking with quick, small steps.

  "Are you warm enough?" Coinach murmured at Anyara's side.

  "I'm fine," she said, which was not entirely true. Some of the passageways of the Chancellor's palace gathered and retained enough heat from the kitchens and bedchambers and communal rooms to remain comfortable all day, others--such as this one--did not. She had left too hurriedly to think of bringing a cloak, but had no intention of turning back now.

  As they rounded a corner, Eleth gave a soft gasp of surprise and drew to an abrupt halt. Anyara almost walked into her. Mordyn Jerain was there, standing motionless in the corridor ahead of them. His arms hung limp at his side. He was staring blankly at the wall. If he breathed, he did so soundlessly, and without discernible movement of his chest. He did not, Anyara realised after a moment or two's tense observation, blink. His eyes were glassy, unfocused.

  She took a step forward, gently easing Eleth to one side. Coinach whispered something cautionary, but she ignored him. There was something eerily unreal about the scene. The Shadowhand looked like a man who had simply... stopped; as if his body had been unexpectedly abandoned by whatever enlivening force had once inhabited it.

  "Chancellor?" Anyara said quietly as she took another pace closer. Here was an opportunity to undo her reticence of the morning, if Mordyn could be roused from whatever stupor had taken hold of him. Here was the chance to find out what he knew of Orisian; what role he might play in untangling her own uncomfortable situation. She firmly crushed the urge to slip away before this troubling man noticed her presence. If she was to be of any use at all to her brother, her Blood, herself, it would not be by hiding away, by giving in to the fears that flocked about her.

  And then, slowly, he turned his head. She met his cold eyes, and was reminded of the predatory gaze of the hunting hawks her family had kept at Kolglas. It brought her to an instant halt. Yet he said nothing. He simply stared at her. In the space of a few heartbeats, the silence became so potent that she imagined she could feel its pressure upon her skin.

  "Chancellor?" she said again, aware of the tremor in her voice. She quelled it. "I wondered if I might speak with you?"

  He tipped his head slightly to one side, narrowed those eyes a touch.

  "You..." he said slowly, clumsily. "You were in the forest. You were at Anduran."

  Anyara frowned. "Anduran? Yes, yes, of course. Many times. Never... We met in Kolkyre, though, for the first time."

  "Indeed." He fell silent once more, yet continued to stare at Anyara. There was nothing in his gaze now: no life, no interest. No hostility even. Just that dead regard.

  Coinach came up beside Anyara. The Chancellor did not seem to notice him.

  "Perhaps you should return to your chambers, lady," Coinach murmured.

  "I thought perhaps we might discuss my future," Anyara said stubbornly to Mordyn. He would surely understand the absurdity of the circumstance they all found themselves in. Had he not been absent from Kolkyre at the crucial time, she doubted Aewult's idiocy would have been permitted to follow its mad course. "I am sure this misunderstanding can be easily tidied away, now that you have returned. The High Thane will surely listen to you..."

  "Yes," said Mordyn. He still held his head at that strange angle, like a bird. "He will. He already does. You are too late, though, to exert any influence upon what it is I choose to say to him. How unfortunate."

  He took a single step towards them. Coinach edged his shoulder in front of Anyara, and for once she did not find his protective instincts foolish or misplaced. There was something in the Shadowhand's manner so unnatural that it was impossible not to read threat into it. The corridor suddenly felt constricted: tight, like a trap.

  "Things change too fast for you," the Shadowhand said. "You're nothing now. The struggle stopped being about you, your Blood, a long time ago."

  "Come away," Anyara whispered to Coinach, tugging at his arm. There was, she now realised, nothing to be gained here. Quite the opposite, in fact: for the first time since she had arrived in this city, she sensed true danger rather than mere hostility or cold contempt, stirring in the shadows, in the edges. Drawing closer.

  Coinach kept himself between her and the Chancellor as they walked away. Eleth was watching with a shocked expression, one hand lightly touching her lips as if in a forgotten attempt to hide her reaction. Anyara glanced back over her shoulder as they went. Still Mordyn Jerain was staring at her, leaning forward slightly, as if his own sudden, intense interest had overbalanced him.

  "Hide," he said. "Hide away. It doesn't matter. What's coming will fi
nd you; find everyone."

  Anyara grimaced, filled with both detestation for the man and irritation at how deeply his words and his demeanour troubled her. She gathered in Eleth with an outstretched arm, and shepherded the alarmed maid away, back around the corner.

  "Stay away from my table, lady," she heard the Shadowhand saying behind them, out of sight. "I will not break bread with you. Stay out of my sight, lest you draw my attention down upon you too soon."

  Anyara walked quickly away. She shivered as she did so.

  III

  Snow could conceal many shortcomings, but even its gentle blanket was insufficient to render Ash Pit appealing or graceful to the eye. Vaymouth's most ill-reputed ward stubbornly asserted its infamous character. The dilapidated houses remained grimy and tight-packed; whores still haunted shadowed doorways; rats still scurried brazenly through the debris of destitution; odious liquids still ran in the streets, cutting steaming channels in the snow.

  Mordyn Jerain came with a dozen watchful guards, the bulkiest and most uncompromising of the hirelings he paid from his own pocket. No great warriors these, but street fighters and brutes whose loyalty was solely to the man who paid them the most; and the Shadowhand could pay better than anyone save the High Thane himself.

  The party went openly through Ash Pit's noisome roadways, with little of the discretion that had characterised Mordyn's previous forays into this part of the city. Every onlooker--and there were some, even in this cold dusk, for Ash Pit never entirely slept--was driven off or turned away with snarled warnings and brandished cudgels. The Chancellor and his fierce entourage swept along like a savagely cleansing wind, leaving quiet and empty streets behind them.

  When they came to the door they sought, Mordyn's ruffians dispersed, taking up stations at each nearby corner, disappearing down gloomy, tight alleys. Mordyn himself rapped on the weighty portal with his knuckles.

  Magrayn swung the door open and regarded him with suspicious distaste.

  "You are not expected," she said, as distinctly as the King's Rot that had ravaged her face would permit.

  "Nevertheless, I imagine your master will find the time to speak with me."

  Magrayn eyed the Chancellor, and glanced over his shoulder, noting the menacing figures lurking along the street.

  "Won't he?" Mordyn persisted.

  The doorkeeper grudgingly admitted him, and the Shadowhand was taken down into the cellars where the object of his journey was laired.

  "Have I offended you in some way, Chancellor?" Torquentine asked, with a trace of hurt in his voice.

  "What do you mean?" Mordyn asked.

  "You seem a little... cold."

  "Would you have me pay you some pretty compliments? Or embrace you, perhaps?"

  "Hardly. Your reach is famously long, but not, I think, long enough for the task of encompassing my prodigious girth." Torquentine rested his hands on his immense belly with a satisfied smile.

  Mordyn grunted. "I am not in the mood for merry banter. I want to buy your services. Will you hear my offer or not?"

  "Very well, Chancellor," sighed Torquentine. It troubled him to find the Shadowhand so altered in manner, but by all rumour the man had suffered considerable misfortune during his adventures in Kilkry lands. Some allowance might be made for that, perhaps. "You know I am always only too pleased to entertain your proposals. If this one is as interesting as --"

  "Rest your tongue a while and listen. Igryn oc Dargannan-Haig will shortly be leaving Vaymouth. He will be sent to In'Vay, bound for the Lake Tower."

  "The final--and fatal--abode of the last King. Seems not inappropriate, if rather ill-omened for poor Igryn. Dare I guess that the former Thane is shortly to depart for the Sleeping Dark, then?"

  "Be quiet. I want you to seize him before he reaches the Lake Tower, and transport him back to Hoke. To his own lands."

  "Ah... Chancellor, I am... For once, I find myself short of words." Torquentine shifted heavily upon his huge cushions, rare consternation troubling his features. He blinked his one good eye. "You want me to free Igryn? From chains the High Thane himself put upon him? That seems... Well, it's beyond even my not inconsiderable resources."

  "Nonsense. It's the High Thane's own desire you'll be serving. I will ensure that the escort is depleted at the appropriate time. I'll send you word of where and when the opportunity will present itself. Once you have him, it's well within your power to move a single man from one place to another undetected. You've spent your life making much bulkier cargoes disappear and reappear where they are least expected. It's not your resources that fall short, but your courage."

  "Indeed, indeed. Call me coward, then. I'll raise no protest. Craven, I am, when it comes to the matter of preserving my... lack of visibility, shall we say? What you ask runs counter to my most dearly held principles, not the least of which is to refrain from trampling the toes of those whose feet are larger than mine. Not, in other words, to swim in rivers where all the other fish have sharper teeth than I do."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I know my limitations, Chancellor," Torquentine said. The first hint of alarm was stirring in his considerable gut. It was not just the faint flicker of contempt he heard in Mordyn's tone; the Shadowhand's entire demeanour was so brisk, so hasty, it smacked of carelessness. Or convoluted deceit. "Killing Igryn's cousin exhausted my willingness to cavort amongst contending Bloods and Thanes. That wine's too rich for me."

  "You got what you wanted in exchange for that service. Ochan the Cook is dead."

  "Of course, of course. Most grateful to you for that, sincerely. But Igryn's a rebel, a prize of war. His lands are still unsettled, to say the least--growing more so, from what I hear. Blinded he may be, but if he's returned to his people a free man, an enemy of the Thane of Thanes... my wit is unequal to the task of discerning the benefit--to Gryvan, or you, or any of us--in such a development."

  "You are not required to discern such things." Again that dismissive, curt edge to the words. The Chancellor had never, in Torquentine's experience, been quite so verbally rough.

  "But how could renewed unrest--war, even--on our southern borders be in anybody's interest, when the Black Road is --"

  "None of that is your concern."

  "Well, with regret, I must differ on that." Torquentine recognised dangerous ground when he felt it beneath his feet, but he found himself unable to meekly submit. This vaunted Chancellor owed him a good deal; owed him at least an acknowledgement that the two of them were masters in their own, very different, arenas. "War presents its opportunities, certainly, but they diminish precipitately if that war becomes too extensive, too disruptive. I, like everyone else, was under the impression all of this trouble with the Black Road would be tidied up rather more quickly--rather more victoriously, in fact--than is proving the case. Now you seem to be tempting yet more unpleasantness from an entirely different direction."

  "You will be very adequately rewarded for your assistance. And there's more. I want fires set in every warehouse and storehouse of the Goldsmiths you can reach. And the Gemsmiths, and the Furriers. I need it done urgently."

  Torquentine could barely believe what he was hearing.

  "Oh, this is madness. You mean to make a fool of me. This is some strange jest, isn't it?"

  "No."

  "You want the whole city given over to riot and mayhem?"

  "I want you to do as I bid, and to enjoy the fruits of your efforts. I will give you fifty times the payment you've received for any other service you've done me."

  "Now I know you are jesting."

  "Not at all. And not in this, either: if you refuse me, you corpulent slug, I'll have you dug out of this burrow and burned alive on one of Ash Pit's famous fires. The world is changing, Torquentine. Those who don't change with it will pay a heavy price for their intransigence."

  After Mordyn Jerain had departed, Torquentine lay in such deep thoughtfulness, for so long, that the candles guttered around him. They failed, one
by one, and his chamber eased its way into gloom. At length he stirred and summoned his doorkeeper. She came, Rot-faced, and knelt at his side.

  "Magrayn, we are in an unenviable position," he said distractedly, with none of the humour or affection that usually coloured his dealings with his disfigured attendant. "I am required by the Shadowhand to court disaster, and to wage war upon enemies I do not want. He offers me absurd riches if I agree, and threatens, if I refuse, to instead wage war upon me."

  "You could kill him," Magrayn suggested promptly. Her tendency towards a practical way of thinking was one of the things he treasured about her.

  "Perhaps, though that would be an undertaking no more palatable. To kill a Chancellor? Insanely ambitious."

  "Then we must find a way to satisfy him with the least risk possible."

  "There might be ways. Might." Torquentine shook his heavy head, wishing the tangle of his thoughts might be so easily unwound. "But there's a foul taste to all this, Magrayn. We're already in the midst of war, and he seems intent on starting another one inside our own house. He invites chaos in Dargannan-Haig, vengeful fury amongst the Crafts. I don't see the sense in any of it. There's nothing to be gained by it."

  "The Shadowhand can unearth gain where others see only dirt," Magrayn said, brushing a flake of forgotten food from Torquentine's fat cheek.

  "Indeed. What if his gain wears the same cloak as our loss, though?" He sighed. "We've little choice but to play the Shadowhand's game for now. Make such arrangements as would be needed to move a man, in total secrecy, from here to Hoke. A blind man. Put some eyes on every warehouse used by the Goldsmiths, the Gemsmiths and the Furriers. We need to know every nook and cranny of whatever nocturnal routine the guards keep. And find someone in the Palace of Red Stone who can tell us what's happening in there."

  "We've tried that before, without success. The Chancellor's household is... tightly controlled."

  "Try again, harder. We shied away from too much risk in our previous attempts; now, we may bear a little more of it, I think. Desperate times, my dear. Also, examine all our plans for making a hasty departure from this burrow, as the Shadowhand saw fit to call it. Make sure they remain both sound and secret. And bring the best killers we know to Vaymouth--those who can be here within, say, three or four days. I want them close at hand. When troubles gather, it's best to have troublesome friends within reach."