“Aye.” I trudged in silence a moment. Zel’s child would have its mother, at least. But with Zel in hiding, seemed Tir was gaining another fatherless baby.
Welcome to the party, wee one.
I shook the gloomy thought from my mind. “Nice that your family helps while you’re gone.”
Zel snorted. “My mam’s behind that. I think my father would leave Ifmere to starve if it were up to him.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t say that. It ain’t fair. He’s just scared, you know? He’s scared of the king and the guard and the goddesses.”
“He’s scared of the goddesses?”
“Aye. Scared they’ll punish my family because my stories are . . . wild.”
“Wild?”
“Aye. That’s what I said.”
He didn’t offer up anything else.
Karlith’s voice startled me from behind. “Your father needn’t fear the goddesses, Zel. Seeing as they aren’t real.”
I turned to stare at her. Lots of people didn’t believe in the goddesses these days. I mean, only the most superstitious of the peasants truly thought the goddesses were real and might rain hellfire down on the world at any moment. But the priests—they were real, and they could have your head cut off for speaking words against the goddesses or failing to offer the money and food we were supposed to.
Still, I’d never heard anybody say aloud and so plainly that the goddesses weren’t real. It was a shock to the ears.
Zel laughed shortly. “Well, if ever you meet ol’ Farmer Gwelt, you can let him know.”
“I will.” Karlith smiled. “And I’ll tell him all about the Creator too.”
Another thing that could see you on the chopping block or swinging from the end of a rope—mentioning the Creator. Aye, so now I knew why gentle Karlith needed to hide out with the likes of fire-throwing Dylun. She wasn’t a revolutionary rebel, strictly, but she did have a mind about things, and the king wouldn’t be pleased with her conclusions.
I stepped around a big tree root. “You don’t think you’ll ever see your father again to tell him yourself, Zel?”
“Even if I did, he wouldn’t listen to me. He doesn’t understand people with our gifts. Thinks we’re cursed or something.”
I wasn’t sure Farmer Gwelt was wrong about that.
We continued on our perimeter scan, making a fair amount of racket. Then Aeron held up a hand to slow us. “Quiet now. That’s the river. More likely to be guard about.”
Karlith pulled me back, and we let Zel and Aeron go on in front. I was about to ask Karlith about her family—she’d said her name was Ma-Lundir, and the Ma meant she was married—but Aeron’s shout cut me off.
“Down!”
Karlith yanked me to the earth just as an arrow streaked overhead.
I peeked up ahead to see a blur of steel with shorn black locks whirring in the middle of it. Aeron looked like a story strand come to life. Except it wasn’t an actual strand. It was just how she moved. Though to tell the truth, I could swear I saw an odd purple light playing around Aeron’s hands as they gripped her sword—purple light like Karlith’s blue colormastery strands.
Even if she didn’t want to be a weaver, it was plain to see why having Aeron around the Corsyth would be handy. Under her blade, two guardsmen clanked to the forest floor.
But she wasn’t finished. “Zel,” she roared. “The third one’s getting away!”
She took off in a flurry with Zel just behind.
Karlith and I panted on the ground next to each other. She took my shaking hand. “Just stay low. Aeron and Zel will return soon, and we’ll go straight back to the Corsyth. We’ll be safe.”
I nodded but didn’t say anything. Of course she didn’t know we’d be safe. She was just saying the stuff mothers say when their wee ones are scared. My chest pinched at the thought. I squeezed Karlith’s hand a mite tighter.
I wondered. Could it be possible that, even after meeting me only today, Karlith could think of looking out for me like a mother might?
She caught my stare and patted my hand. “They’ll be back, love. Don’t you worry.”
Maybe so.
A few moments later, Aeron and Zel did show up—in one piece, thank the stars.
But Aeron’s scowl could be seen a league off. “Didn’t get him.” She sheathed her sword abruptly.
Karlith climbed to her feet and helped me up after her. “Well, maybe that isn’t a bad thing. No need to be celebrating loss of life, is there?”
Aeron frowned. “Yes, but I heard him shouting back to the rest of his unit, in case we stuck him with an arrow before he could get out of range, I guess.”
Karlith’s half-lidded blue eyes suddenly looked concerned. “He saw Tannie?”
Hearing my nickname in her voice warmed my achy insides.
But Aeron shook her head and stared stone-hard at Karlith. “No, I don’t think they saw Tanwen. But I did hear him shout a name to his wretched fellows.” Aeron’s gaze turned from stone to steel. “Karlith Ma-Lundir.”
Chapter 18
Braith
The prisoner’s chains rattled. Braith’s gaze kept wandering to his eyes—hollow, dead, yet still desperate. She forced her attention back to his voice.
“Majesty, please. My family will starve without me. My wife has a baby on the way, and four others besides. Mercy, my king!”
“Ah, so that’s where my taxes have gone.” The king scratched his beard. “Into your brats’ mouths.”
The man collapsed to his knees. A piece of his shirt fairly disintegrated with the motion.
Dray’s nose wrinkled. “Goddesses’ tears. How long has he been in the dungeon? He looks a sight.”
The prisoner clasped his hands together. “Majesty, surely you would not execute a poor peasant for putting food in the mouths of his children. Mercy, I beg you.”
Braith winced. She could hope the king would have mercy—for once. But history suggested this hope would be vain.
The king leaned back in his chair. “I would not fault a man for feeding his own children.” He reached over to Braith and patted her arm. “Do not forget I am a father myself.”
He must not have noticed Braith’s rod-straight back and clenched fists.
“But I will fault a man for taking food off my table. Which is exactly what each peasant does when he refuses to pay the tax.” The king sighed. “I do not understand why this is so difficult to grasp. It’s such a simple idea, and yet the rustics fill my hall day in and day out, complaining of my punishments. Is the law not clear?”
The council members nodded concurrence. Except Braith.
“See this?” The king looked like he might smile. “My council says the law is clear. Are you simple, man? Do you not understand the law?”
“No, Your Majesty. I understand it.”
The king sighed. “You do not claim ignorance. And so, by your own admission, you chose disobedience. There is no mercy to be had here. You will be punished to the fullest extent of the law.”
Braith gasped. “Death, Your Majesty? This man is a father of five. Surely there can be mercy for him, if for anyone.”
“Never saw such a tenderhearted creature in my life, Majesty.” Dray’s voice dripped flattery. “Your daughter’s kindness does you credit as a father.”
Braith cast a reproachful glance at Dray. That man had the ears of a night-flier.
“Yes,” the king said, tone clipped, “but her tenderness borders dangerously on weakness, and one ought never to show weakness. Ever.”
Dray’s gaze stayed fixed on Braith as if welded there. “Indeed, Majesty.”
“Majesty . . .” Braith cast a desperate glance at the prisoner bowing face down on the throne room floor. “Father, please.”
“Braith, you would show mercy to every piece of rubbish that kneels before this throne.”
“But Father, this man has only done what is right.”
The king wrenched his arm away from Braith. The familiar storm brewed in his ey
es. “Breaking the law is right? Did you just suggest that?”
Braith bit her lip. “Your Majesty, a man fed his children. Fed them food he grew himself, with his own two hands. If he must break a law to do so, perhaps it is the law which is not right. It seems to me he has acted in accordance with his conscience and with what natural law would demand. Surely natural law is higher than kingdom law.”
The king eyed Braith for a full minute. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking, except that he was displeased.
Finally, he spoke. “Braith, you overstep your bounds.”
Braith took a deep breath—weighed her options. Then she placed her hands on either side of her throne. It took every fiber of muscle in her arms and legs, but she pushed herself up, heavy velvet dress and cinched corset notwithstanding. She lifted her voice so every council member and courtier in the hall might hear.
“I demand mercy for this man and his family!”
A murmur rippled through the crowd. Tirian tradition required that a royal lady’s call for mercy be obeyed. Braith did not dare to exercise the right often. The king would remove her from council faster than she could swoon. And what good could she ever do if she didn’t sit on council?
But she must take the risk sometimes.
King Gareth shifted in his seat, then glared at Braith with disapproving eyes. Finally, he rose. “Very well. Princess Braith calls for mercy, and mercy the prisoner shall have.” He lowered his voice so that only those advisors at the council table in front of the dais could hear—Dray, High Priest Naith, and a handful of others.
“The princess must know how displeased I am.”
Braith bowed her head. “Forgive me, Majesty. My heart is too soft. But I could not sleep tonight knowing we had made a widow and a cottage full of orphans today. Not when our table is full and this man’s taxes mean little to us. I ask your mercy for myself too.”
Braith did not look up for a long time but kept her head bowed before the king and prayed. Not to the goddesses, for she knew them to be fables. But to whatever force of good and justice might exist in the world.
If there were one.
The moments stretched excruciatingly.
But then the king reached out and roughly patted Braith’s hand. “There, there. You know, a fair few people thought I’d gone mad when I put my daughter on the council. They prophesied womanly weaknesses such as these. I had hoped you’d try harder to prove the naysayers false. You must not realize you have detractors, daughter.”
As if Braith could forget her enemies when she sat at the council table with them every day.
A swell of loneliness surged through her. “Yes, Father. Thank you, Your Majesty.”
The king took his seat again, then waved at the guardsman next to the prisoner. “See to it that this man is released.”
The guardsman bowed and hoisted the prisoner off the floor.
The peasant locked onto Braith’s gaze. “Thank you, Highness. Bless you!”
Braith nodded to him. Poor soul.
The king cleared his throat. “One last prisoner for the day. Dray, do tell them to bring in the next.”
But the king’s chief advisor wasn’t there.
The king swiveled around as far as his ever-growing stomach would allow. “Where is that man? Supposed to be my advisor, isn’t he? A bit hard to advise me when he’s so far from my person, I daresay.”
But then Dray appeared at the back of the hall. He must have slipped out when Braith and the king had been speaking. Now a guardsman was with him, but Braith didn’t recognize the soldier. He must not be high ranking.
Dray lowered himself to one knee with a flourish of his hand. “Forgive me, Majesty. But this soldier called me out of council on urgent business.”
The king nodded to him, and Dray rose and reclaimed his position at the table below the royal dais. The guardsman stood at attention and waited to be addressed.
“Well,” the king said, “what was so important as to divert the attention of my chief advisor in the middle of council?”
The soldier spoke. “Majesty, we just received a message. We set a watch in the aerie to bring you word as soon as we heard anything about the”—he cleared his throat—“ah, troubling matter of the Pembroni story peddler.”
The boredom drained from the king’s face. “And?”
The guardsman unrolled a piece of parchment. “She managed to escape all the guard’s checkpoints, Majesty.”
The king’s jaw tensed. “And?”
“It is believed she had help.”
“From?”
The guard shifted his weight. “The rebel band of weavers, Majesty.”
Braith turned to the king. His face showed no surprise. Only anger and something else. Dread, perhaps. But clearly these rebel weavers existed within her father’s knowledge, even if Braith had never heard of them.
“Majesty,” Dray cut in. “Might I speak?” An expression of sincerest obedience was plastered over his fine-featured face.
The king nodded curtly.
“My advice would be to pursue this matter with the full force of your power. Rebellion must be stamped out.” Dray glanced at Braith. “There is no mercy to be had in such matters. These weavers, or so they call themselves, have plagued you with their insurgence long enough.”
A loud yawn from the other side of the council table startled Braith. Naith, who had been relatively quiet this afternoon, daintily touched his lips. “Oh, do forgive me. Let me guess what the great chief advisor’s counsel will be.” He steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “Kill or capture?”
Dray glared. “Yes. Kill or capture. Perhaps a man of your deep religious convictions doesn’t understand such matters, but it is the proper way to handle an uprising. And that is exactly what this will become if we don’t act decisively. These weavers claim their gifts come from the goddesses themselves. There is no end to their audacity.”
The king leaned back on his throne. “Kill or capture. Dray, I fear your harshness will scandalize the princess, delicate as she seems to be today.”
Braith forced a smile. “No, Majesty. I’m only surprised. This is the first I’ve heard of a band of rebel weavers.”
Heavy silence filled the room.
Finally, the king nodded to the guardsman. “Bring me that note.”
The soldier stepped forward and handed the note to his king.
As the king read, Naith muttered to the council table. “I suppose Sir Dray will send the king’s men on another expensive vanity campaign. Dray Bo-Anffir’s notion of domination has been insulted, and now blood and coin must be spent at will.”
A retort seemed to be welling up inside Dray, but the king interrupted. “It says here Karlith Ma-Lundir was spotted with the rebels moments before the writing of this note.” His gaze lifted to Naith, and a whisper of amusement danced in the king’s eyes. “That name means something to you, doesn’t it, Naith?”
Naith’s round face colored, then paled. His hands squeezed into fists. “Karlith Ma-Lundir? Were the witnesses sure it was she?”
The king glanced back at the parchment. “Seems so.”
Naith straightened in his chair and looked past Dray to the king. “My lord, I must agree with your advisor’s suggestion. Kill or capture. It is the only way.”
Dray laughed scornfully. “Indeed! Whose vanity campaign is it now?” He leaned forward. “I think I remember this Karlith Ma-Lundir. She’s that colormaster—the one who is a Creator fanatic. Isn’t that right?”
Naith’s fists tightened until his knuckles stood out white, even against the paleness of his flesh.
Dray sat back into his chair. “She had a husband, didn’t she? A songspinner. You speak of the blood on my hands while managing to forget that which stains yours. Lundir’s blood is there, among many others. And didn’t Karlith and Lundir have children? What became of them, I wonder?”
“Enough.” The king waved his hand as though he were shooing flies.
Br
aith leaned toward him. “Father . . .”
“Hush now, Braith. Surely you’ve spoken the word mercy enough for one day.”
The king snapped his fingers, and a scribe appeared at his hand opposite where Braith sat. She stretched in her seat but couldn’t see what the king had scrawled onto the back of the report about the outlaw band of weavers.
The king scribbled his signature, took the wax from his scribe, and placed the royal seal on his words.
Without making a verbal declaration, the king reached across the table and showed the parchment to Dray. Dray scanned it, then met the king’s eyes. A flicker of satisfaction skittered across his face.
The king retrieved the parchment and tucked it into an inside fold of his tunic.
Braith frowned. What had he written? And why did he not wish her or the other council members to see it?
“Well, now,” the king said. “Let us move on to pleasanter matters. Sir Dray, tell me. How went the executions yesterday?”
Chapter 19
Tanwen
Color-smattered trees popped into my vision, and I could have collapsed with relief. “There! It’s the Corsyth, isn’t it?”
Aeron nodded once, then strode ahead as though she hadn’t just been slaying king’s guardsmen and running through the forest like a light-foot. Surely she was more tired than I was, and I felt like I was going to keel over any second.
“Captain Bo-Awirth,” Aeron said.
Warmil looked up, and he seemed to know immediately we’d had trouble. I guess the big streak of blood down Aeron’s white shirt and brown trousers was a clue.
“What is it?”
Whatever summary of happenings Aeron gave the captain, I couldn’t hear it. But I did see her nod over to Karlith once or twice.
Zel’s bandage was soaked through with blood again.
“Zel, your arm.”
He looked down at it. “Guess I overdid it.”
“Want me to rewrap it?”
“Nah.” He shook his head. “I can ask Gryfelle. You need to get some decent sleep.”
Truly, my body was right worn out. I scanned the mossy rocks, knowing there were those crate beds underneath, even if I couldn’t see them. “Where do I . . . ?”
The Story Peddler Page 13
