The Witches of Wenshar

by Barbara Hambly

  She began to pace again like her brother, moving with a leashed, animal grace. “The fools. They let their enemies pour out the wine that they themselves had to drink. The northern lords held the passes of Wenshar, and from there it was a simple matter for them to conquer the desert as well.” The anger in her voice was as harsh as if the women who had wronged her had done so personally and were still alive, not generations dead and turned to ash. “And so the Witches brought ill upon us all. And even when the northern lords were destroyed, it was not the same as it had been before. Their power was taken by the sons of slaves, the scum of the mines, who know nothing of this land and care less—dispossessing us, the shirdar, from our rightful rule. They only want its silver, like a man who buys a horse, thinking only to eat it and not of the grace of its legs, the softness of its muzzle, or the speed of its shadow over the land. They are pigs, their noses flat from pressing them to piles of gold...” She turned back to him, somber eyes dark with ancient rage. “And they hire what armies they will, to destroy what is good and beautiful and turn it only into money, which is all they understand. There is not a shirdar lord who does not feel this at heart—for they destroyed not only our power, but the order of things as they should be.”

  As if suddenly aware of how far her anger had brought her, she halted in her pacing and looked down at him again, cold and withdrawn once more. “So I tell you this,” she finished quietly. “My brother will never marry the seed of that doubled evil, the offspring of witches and slaves. Not for all the alliances in the desert, nor all the silver which they can grub from the ground.”

  Her eyes narrowed, returning to him. “And you, Sun Wolf,” she said. “If you do not serve me, whom then will you serve?”

  He shook his head and said, “Lady, I do not know.”

  Chapter 12

  WITH THE FINAL SINKING of the sun, the wind had risen to nearly gale velocities; Sun Wolf had to fight his way along the rope stretched across the court of the shirdar, his hands and face torn by sand and flying pebbles like stinging insects. Even in the shelter of the small courts and pillared colonnades on the west side of the Hall, visibility wasn’t much better, the thick haze of hot, gray dust adding to the blackness of the night. Ghostly flashes of dry lightning illuminated the murk, but gave no clear light.

  In the Hall, most of the Household was still at supper or lingering over its remains. The moment he entered the big, shadowy chamber, Sun Wolf felt the tension, the smell of barely masked fear—the sense of being in a plague city, where no man knew which neighbor’s chance touch might end his life. Torchlight, blurred by the dust in the air, skittered over the faces of guards and servants, retainers, gentlemen, and ladies-in-waiting who, in ordinary circumstances, would long have retired to their rooms. To this and to the keyed-up tension of the storm was added also the baking dryness of the air. Men were drinking more heavily than usual, and their voices grated against the uneasy hush in the Hall.

  In spite of the unusually large number of people in the Hall, the gap around Kaletha’s table was noticeable. The White Witch sat, staring ahead numbly, a plate of untouched eggs and greens before her. Anshebbeth, at her side, was talking gently to her, trying to draw her out of herself with a patience the Wolf would scarcely have expected from the twitchy old maid. With a mercenary’s usual practicality, Starhawk was downing her dinner, but Sun Wolf didn’t deceive himself into believing her oblivious to those covert glances and fearful whispers all around.

  Kaletha looked bad—drained and shaken and ill. She might have killed her lover to preserve her pride and her power, the Wolf thought unwillingly, but she had loved him. Some of the Hawk’s words came back to him, and he wondered what it would do to him, to lie, against his better judgment, with someone, not out of caring, but solely in order to keep his power over them—to make, in essence, a whore of himself for power. Would he then kill the person who had done that to him?

  Could she? Starhawk had asked.

  He now knew what he had formerly only suspected, that indeed she could. And, moreover, if the magic of the Witches somehow corrupted those who used it, she very likely would.

  As Egaldus had done when the Bishop had sat at the High Table, Sun Wolf cloaked himself in shadow and illusion to cross the Hall. As he did so, he wondered obliquely whether Kaletha would have killed Galdron to protect Egaldus, if she were already jealous of Egaldus...or if, when dealing with love, any logic mattered.

  Starhawk looked up at him in surprise when he sat beside her. Since Kaletha and Anshebbeth were far too wrapped up in one another to do so, she spooned him up stew from the common dish and poured him some ale, which he drank thirstily. At the High Table, Osgard took no notice.

  This was hardly surprising, since the big man had obviously been drinking all afternoon and showed no signs of letting up now. His harsh, blustering voice boomed out over the frightened murmur of muted conversation around him: “...white-livered little coward. He lied about you, Nanciormis. D’you know what he said? What the hell’s gonna come to this country with a lying little coward for a King?”

  Nanciormis, fastidious and elegant in his pearled black doublet and lace ruff, turned his head slightly to regard his brother-in-law with veiled disgust and contempt. Beside the sprawling, wine-soaked giant, Jeryn sat in crushed silence, his unwashed hair and untidy clothes a sorry sight. The Wolf remembered Illyra’s scorn for the sons of slaves and wondered suddenly whether Nanciormis, last scion of the Ancient House of Wenshar, felt it, too. Tazey, on her brother’s right, put down her small fan of ornamental feathers to reach across and touch the boy’s arm, as if to tell him he wasn’t alone.

  In the unvoiced whisper scouts use on night missions, Starhawk murmured, “What did you find?’ ”

  The Wolf shook his head. “I didn’t go. Had an assignation with a lady instead.”

  “I hope she bit you. You want some bread?” She broke a loaf and handed him half. It tasted faintly of dust—there was a skin of dust over the head on the ale, which gritted in the Wolf’s moustache.

  “If she had, I’d be the rest of the night cauterizing the wound. Anything happen that I should know about?”

  “Two fights between guards and Incarsyn’s shirdar, one between a laundress and a scullery maid, and rumors of a strike down at the Vulture Mine in Pardle Sho.”

  “It could just be the storm.”

  “No. They say the miners are afraid to go down the pithead, for fear of meeting whatever’s been doing this killing. Yes, it’s stupid—but this business is going to come to blood fast, Chief.” She wiped her fingers neatly on a piece of bread and reached for one of the oranges in the yellow pottery bowl on the corner of the table. On her other side, Anshebbeth’s gentle, comforting voice ran on. Against the shadows, Kaletha’s ravaged profile was motionless, white as carved bone.

  Quietly, the Wolf said, “It’s just a question of whether the right person’s gets shed.” In a soft voice, he told the Hawk of his interview with the Lady Illyra. “Incarsyn may talk as if women are nothing in the shirdar—and maybe they aren’t, in the things the men lay claim to, like riding and dancing and worshiping the wind—but it’s damn certain some of them can hold power.”

  “Maybe,” Starhawk said quietly. “If you’ve been raised to know how to finesse for it and if that kind of power is what you want.”

  A gust of wind from outside made the torch flame swirl and leap and the massive shutters rattle as if in shock. There was a commotion around the outer doors of the Hall; in the dark arches from the vestibule, Incarsyn stood framed, dust streaming in gray threads as he unwrapped his veils. His white-cloaked warriors were like a silent company of sand djinns behind.

  “My Lord.” Osgard heaved himself to his feet and gestured with his cup to the empty place on Nanciormis’ left. “We feared we’d not see you.” His bass voice drawled with wine.

  Lithe as a puma, the shirdar lord made his way among the benches. Anshebbeth started unwillingly to rise from her place beside Kaletha to be
with Tazey as propriety demanded. But Incarsyn stopped short at the foot of the dais and inclined his head, his braids swinging forward like gold-bound velvet ropes.

  “My Lord,” he said. “It grieves me much to say so, but my esteemed sister has brought me messages of great urgency from my people. It is necessary that, as soon as the storm subsides, I and my men make immediate preparations to return to them as quickly as may be. Please forgive us this unpardonable breach of civility and rest assured that the memory of your hospitality will remain with us, as the memory of campfire light upon a night of cold.”

  In the long moment of silence, the King’s red face flushed still deeper crimson. There was no one in the room unaware of what the young Prince had really said. Osgard’s voice thickened with an intoxicated rage that knew no diplomacy. “And my daughter?”

  The movement of Tazey’s feather fan froze, her brows stood out black on a face suddenly ashen.

  Without a word between them, Sun Wolf and Starhawk slid to their feet and began to make their unobtrusive way to the dais.

  Once more Incarsyn bowed, but he did not meet Tazey’s eyes. His voice was unwilling but still smooth. “I fear that the messages that my sister has brought have made it impossible for me to wed your beautiful daughter, my Lord.”

  Osgard surged to his feet. “You mean you won’t have her—is that what you’re saying?” he bellowed. “My daughter, the Princess of Wenshar...”

  “Father...” Tazey began pleadingly, and Nanciormis, alarmed, started to get up.

  Face purple with rage, Osgard hurled his chair aside. “You louse-picking, pox-rotted, djinn-worshiping horse kisser! My daughter...” He lunged for the young man, hands outstretched to kill. Nanciormis, taken entirely by surprise, leaped after him and caught him from one side, as Incarsyn stepped back, his hand going to his dagger hilt. Sun Wolf and Starhawk got the King’s other arm just as Nanciormis buckled from a booted kick to his thigh that nearly broke the bone. As he stumbled back, Sun Wolf grimly held onto the heaving, swearing drunkard, reflecting that all the commander’s fighting had obviously been done, sword in hand, on battlefields. He himself had gone through more tavern brawls than he could count and had dealt with enough drunks to constitute a more formidable army than many small cities could have mustered. He and Starhawk dragged the clawing, cursing King backward over the ruins of the chair toward the door of the solar, which Jeryn, the only person at the table who seemed to have retained his wits, dashed ahead of them to open.

  The minute they were out of sight in the darkened solar, Sun Wolf pulled a hand free and slugged Osgard a hard blow to the jaw to knock him out. It took him three tries and left both him and Starhawk covered with bruises, spilled wine, and fingernail scratches, before they shoveled the King’s inert body onto the divan.

  “Mother!” Starhawk swore, as Sun Wolf flexed his bruised hand. “I’ve seen you coldcock a horse for a bet, Chief...”

  “It was a sober horse,” the Wolf growled. Still shaking his knuckles, he turned disgustedly to the door. When they emerged from the solar, the dais seemed to be jammed with people: servants all talking excitedly and guards looking at one another, wondering whether they should arrest Sun Wolf for lèse majesté. Nanciormis was standing with Incarsyn, who had not moved from his place before the High Table; his beautiful voice, too low for them to catch the exact words, was smooth and rapid, every beautifully wrought gesture speaking of conciliation and apology for a father’s very real, though regrettable, anger for what he felt, however wrongly, to be a slight upon his daughter...

  “And he was picked as King by his predecessor?” Starhawk wondered quietly, glancing back at the sodden, snoring form in the chamber behind them. “It’s a wonder they haven’t been at war continually for years.”

  Sun Wolf shook his head. “Drinking like that grows on them, Hawk,” he said softly. “He probably hasn’t been like this for more than a year or so. I’d bet a week’s pay it takes less now to set him off than it did, and he’d tell you himself he’s had more reason these days...” Still rubbing his aching hand, he glanced down to see Jeryn at his side within the solar door. “You always that quick, Scout, or you been in tavern brawls before?”

  Jeryn gave a cracked laugh and looked away so Sun Wolf wouldn’t see him sneak a hand up to wipe his eyes; the Wolf dropped a casual hand to the boy’s quilted velvet shoulder. At the foot of the dais, Nanciormis seemed to be making headway. Sun Wolf caught the shirdane word for storm. Around the clustered backs of shirdar and green-clothed Fortress guards, Incarsyn could be seen to be nodding, unwilling but mollified. In the strange dust haze of the lamplight, Anshebbeth was at Tazey’s side, holding the girl’s hand, furiously protective and nearly in tears herself. Tazey, fan trembling in her shaking fingers, looked gray around the mouth, as if she were about to be sick.

  Again he caught the word for storms in the babble of the shirdane and the phrase, the season of witches. Glancing down at the boy beside him he asked softly, “How’s your etymology, Scout?”

  Jeryn looked up at him, surprised.

  “Can you tell me the difference between a wizard and a witch?”

  “Sure,” Starhawk remarked. “A wizard is what they call you when they want to hire you, and a witch is what they call you when they’re getting ready to run you out of town.”

  Nanciormis and Incarsyn made deep mutual bows. The Lord of the Dunes turned away. Her face set and white, Tazey rose from her place, handing her fan to the startled Anshebbeth and slipping through the crowd toward the two Desert Lords. In the grimy orange torchlight she looked older, haggard, and shaken; when she stopped before Incarsyn, Sun Wolf could see by the tremor of her girlish gown how badly her legs were shaking.

  She began, “My Lord Incarsyn...”

  The Lord of the Dunes turned away from her without meeting her eyes. With his retainers behind him, he strode the length of the smoky, silent room and out the door. The wind swirled in their white cloaks, tearing at the torch flames. Then they were gone.

  Only then did the noise rise again, the muted voices like the hrush of the sea.

  Nanciormis walked over to his niece and put a comforting arm around her shoulders. She jerked away from him, the color that had flooded her cheeks an instant earlier bleaching away again, her eyes filmed with blinding tears. After a moment’s stillness, she, too, walked from the room.

  “Having met the Lady Illyra,” the Wolf remarked softly in the brown gloom of the shadowed dais. “I think Tazey’s well out of it.”

  Starhawk rubbed the bridge of her nose, as if seeking to crush out the dry ache within her skull. “She was always well out of it,” she replied. “She never wanted it.”

  Beside them, a sharp, tiny noise and a gasp of pain made them turn. Anshebbeth stood staring down at her bleeding palm, where the furious clench of her hand had broken the delicate ivory sticks of Tazey’s fan. With a muffled sob of embarrassment, the governess fled the room, leaving the broken fan lying on the floor, its feathers dabbed in blood like a slaughtered bird.

  “You’ve got to admit,” Sun Wolf said later, “that Incarsyn did the most tactful thing he could. The business about ‘messages from my people’ was all my granny’s second-best mail shirt, but as a reason for leaving, it would pass. If Osgard hadn’t been damn drunken fool enough to push it, people would have gotten used to the idea in six or ten months that he wasn’t coming back to wed Tazey, without ever having to insult Tazey by saying it out loud.” He picked up his cards. “Isn’t there anything in that deck below a nine?”

  “Stop complaining; you dealt this hand.”

  “Bloody Kaletha’s taught you how to hex decks.”

  “Yeah. And if you’d hung around with her long enough, you’d have learned it, too. How’s that for a crib?”

  “Damn Mother worshipper.”

  “At least I don’t worship sticks and old bottles, like some barbarian ex-commanders of mercenaries I could name but won’t, because they’re present. Fifteen two, fifteen four,
and a pair is six plus those are all the same suit...”

  “I see ’em.”

  “...and two for thirty-one...” She moved the peg neatly around the cribbage board in the flickering ochre firelight.

  Sun Wolf grumbled again, “Damn Mother worshipper.”

  It was growing late, but few people had left the Hall. The storm still howled around the walls; the hot air was thick with dust and electricity and heavy with the unventilated stinks of torch smoke, cooking, and stale sweat. Underservants had taken up the trestle tables, but at least half of those who had eaten supper were still there. Now and then their voices would rise, sharp and angry, as the crackling air shortened tempers and made speech careless. Then silence would fall again as they all realized once more their unwillingness to leave, and the wind would moan among the rafters like the grieving damned.

  It would be a long way, Sun Wolf reflected, down those dark corridors to rooms where they’d lie alone, listening to that wind and wondering whether Nexué and Egaldus had seen anything of their killer before they died. Even the lower servants and guards, whose dormitories opened off the main Hall, clustered still around the hazy pools of muddy torchlight, perfectly prepared to wait out the storm. Contrary to custom, the doors of both the Men’s Hall and the Women’s stood open. Upper servants—the chief cook, the dancing master, musicians, and clerks—who had their own chambers, nodded sleepily over games of cards and backgammon; the chief scribe was curled up, unabashedly asleep in a gloomy corner.

  Sun Wolf stared moodily out past his unsatisfactory collection of fives, sixes, and unmatched royalty, wondering if it was the same in those halls on the fringes of the empty quarter which had been given over to Incarsyn and his retinue. He’d sized them up when he’d been taken through to Illyra’s quarters and knew them as hardened warriors who feared neither man nor the desert’s cruelty.

  But this was different, this death which could be neither fought nor fled. The demons of Wenshar returned to his mind, the moony, phosphorescent forms that had flicked in the corner of his vision in the silence of the empty quarter, and the way those cold, glowing shapes had clustered during the storm, thick as bees at swarming time, beneath the windows of the temple in Wenshar.