Weaving Man: Book One of The Prophecy Series

by Tove Foss Ford

  I will inform you immediately should he return. Take care.

  Kaymar

  (49)

  Therbalt

  Eiren strolled down The Promenade, Erdahn’s largest boulevard. Ifor and Kaymar were nearby, skillfully out of sight.

  Therbalt was back. Kaymar had seen him outside the Palace that morning. It was three weeks since Eiren’s return to Erdahn and she had begun to hope the repulsive man had gone away forever.

  Her heart sank when Kaymar told her Therbalt had returned and she’d made up her mind to find out what he wanted. The endless suspense of waiting him out was grating on her nerves.

  She felt sure, as she appeared to be living with both Kaymar and Ifor, that Therbalt believed she had broken off with Menders and would be a potential source of information about The Shadows. Or, as Kaymar put it, being a ‘wicked little girl’ when away from Menders was the type of thing that would draw Therbalt like a fly to honey.

  She was frightened but she was also determined to stop the cat and mouse game that was disrupting her plans, threatening Katrin and driving Menders insane with frustration.

  Eiren pretended to look in a shop window while watching the reflection of Therbalt approaching from across the street.

  The ridiculous fop, she thought scornfully. He was wearing a scarlet plush jacket with gold braid that made him look like a burlesque show’s notion of a Palace guard. His hair was even more absurd than when she’d seen him before, drooping in long looped curls that practically dripped with fragrant oil. He wore a hat the size of a platter, tipped over his eye in an attempt at rakishness.

  He strolled up beside her and looked in the same shop window. Suddenly he froze with great affectation, looked at her and smiled, showing a mouthful of gold teeth.

  “Why it’s my charming acquaintance from the teacher’s school!” he exclaimed, just as a gust of his perfume assaulted Eiren’s nostrils. She couldn’t help comparing him to Menders, who was always elegant and masculine, even if he was wearing an old pair of trousers and outworn shirt to pitch hay. Menders certainly never wore scent that smelled like a tart’s handkerchief. There was a simpering effeminacy about this man that repulsed her.

  She half-turned and bowed, lowering her eyelids coquettishly.

  “I see you are without your – friends – this morning,” he went on, looking her up and down. His fingernails were dirty and his hands were grubby under a plethora of rings. Many were obviously cheap fakes and most of his fingers were laden with more than one; small rings jammed onto the second knuckle of fingers far too plump for them to be worn properly. Gods, she thought, though Menders likes rings and sometimes wears quite a few, at least his fit – and they’re real!

  “How kind of you to notice,” she murmured, curtseying slightly.

  “A lady such as yourself should not be walking alone,” he said with feigned concern. “Please, permit me to accompany you and see you to your destination safely.”

  She took the arm he proffered. She would burn her gloves the first chance she got. She didn’t dare look round to see if Kaymar and Ifor were nearby. She knew they would be.

  “Do I divine that you are recently from the country?” he asked, his voice unctuous. “You have that bloom that only graces country girls.”

  “How very perceptive of you,” Eiren cooed, while thinking, of course, you idiot, anyone can tell a woman whose been raised in the country because we don’t corset until we’re grown and have normal waists, not like the pinched-in city women corseted from infancy. The extremes of city fashions appalled her with their lack of practicality.

  “I’m very perceptive about women, my dear lady,” he oozed. “You have that certain allure of the fresh, country bud… waiting to be plucked, as it were? Though you certainly have picked up a bit of city gloss here in Erdahn. Have you been here long?”

  Gloss, Eiren thought sarcastically. Why, the city is the dirtiest I’ve seen it. Streets unswept, buildings grimy and shabby, air heavy with smoke and soot… what’s glossy about that? Women go about dressed somberly like widows or garnished like tarts, their clothes overly tight, long trains always dragging and catching. For Eiren, Erdhan had lost a lot of its allure.

  “I’ve lived here before, but have recently returned from the country after a period of some years,” Eiren replied, watching him under the brim of her hat, pretending to be coy. She’d found the right words; his jaw tightened. She arranged her features to look pensive and forlorn and let her lower lip tremble slightly.

  “I sense - was there some disappointment in love that caused you to return to Erdahn?” he queried. She could feel the muscles in his arm tightening under her hand.

  “Why, how did you know?” she asked, making her voice sound like a little girl’s, all wonder and surprise. They began to walk slowly towards the Teacher’s College, Eiren stifling an urge to break into a run.

  “As I said, I’m very perceptive about ladies. There is a certain piquant sadness in your eyes that touches me.”

  Oh, I wish Menders was here to pull your eyebrows out, Eiren thought.

  “How sweet of you to caree,” Eiren said, lowering her eyes again, peeping up at him under her lashes.

  “I do believe, however, that you have two admirers,” he continued archly. Eiren simpered and made herself blush.

  “Why my dear!” he cried expansively. “It is nothing to be ashamed of! It’s the man in the country who broke with you who should be ashamed. No wonder a woman of your beauty and quality has already found suitors? Or dare I be bold and say – lovers. The men of Erdahn know what to appreciate in a lady, including the quality of being daring.”

  “I thank you, sir,” Eiren murmured. “It has been very difficult, and all very new to me, and coming so soon after…”

  “Ah, my dear, it saddens me to see that you still feel the pain of the demise of your recent love affair. Should you ever wish to confide, remember Lord Therbalt as a friend who will always understand. Now then, I see we’re at your destination, so I will leave you, with hope that we will meet again very soon.”

  He took her hand and kissed it, leaving a faint pink smear on the back of her glove. She curtseyed again, slightly, giving him a half-lovestruck look that elicited a smug smile. He doffed his platterlike hat, bowed with a flourish and then strolled away.

  Eiren walked around a corner. When she was certain Therbalt could not see her, she slumped against the wall.

  Kaymar materialized from the shadows. Ifor emerged from a side passageway.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Eiren nodded, unable to speak for a moment as a wave of revulsion and anger swept through her.

  “That was absolutely brilliant!” Kaymar crowed in a whisper. “Your ‘I’m a poor rejected little country miss’ act was priceless.”

  “Menders would have her head, and ours, on a platter for that,” Ifor said.

  “Ours, yes, but not Eiren’s.” Kaymar retorted.

  “We have to do something,” Eiren said heatedly, turning to Ifor. “This situation could drag on forever otherwise. Menders cannot risk leaving Katrin to come and see to things himself and I cannot live in fear and trembling of this man for the rest of a year.” She stripped off her gloves in disgust, glaring at the pink smear. “The greasy wretch wears lip rouge,” she snapped, flinging them down in the gutter.

  “He’s a piece of work,” Kaymar agreed, patting her shoulder. “Don’t let it rattle you, my dear. He wants information about Menders and The Shadows. There were plenty of hints dropped but you used just the right amount of dumb country girl to avoid them. So our suspicions are right and we can lead him on into a situation where he can be dealt with. I want an end to this too. I’m tired of being stuck here, sleeping in a trundle bed like your baby brother.”

  “Menders still won’t like it,” Ifor said. “And I don’t think we should proceed without telling him.”

  “Please,” Eiren protested, “don’t tell him just yet. I know that isn’t what he wo
uld want but he’s being so cautious that this is going nowhere. It takes so long to get a message to him that the entire situation can change here before he has a chance to get instructions back. What I hope to do is make this wretched man so confident that I can lure him somewhere into a situation where… you two can finish him off.”

  Eiren felt herself go pale. Though she despised Therbalt for his intent to kill both Menders and Katrin, she felt sickened by the thought of arranging his death.

  Kaymar placed a hand on her arm.

  “Eiren, we all feel it. It’s perfectly natural to quail when you’re thinking about killing someone in cold blood, no matter how deserving they may be. When an assassin no longer feels that, it’s time to stop being an assassin, because you’re either going to become so blasé about killing that you become careless or you’re going to begin enjoying it. I’m all for not letting Menders know what we’re doing. Ifor, are you with us?”

  “As if I could choose another course with you two decided?” Ifor said laconically. “If Menders goes spare, we’ll just release Eiren on him. She’ll let her lovely lower lip tremble and he’ll go all shivery inside.”

  Eiren burst out laughing, even as she tried to scold him, thankful for the release of tension. He just stood there looking wicked.

  “Would you like to go back to the house, Eiren?” Kaymar asked after he’d playfully punched Ifor a time or two. “I know you’re very shaken.”

  “No. I came to Erdahn to go to school and to school I shall go,” she declared. “I’m all right now. Shall we go to class, gentlemen?”

  They melted away into the shadows, but she knew they would be with her, all through the day.

  ***

  Eiren hated hiding anything from Menders. They were very close and were more than simply lovers to each other. They were friends, they acted as parents for Katrin, Hemmett and Borsen, they shared their lives almost entirely with one another. Menders didn’t speak about his past but reveled in the happiness of hers. She respected his reticence about certain topics and rejoiced when he confided in her. She knew he loved her in all ways, as she loved him. Lying to him by omission now was weighing heavily on her.

  She had encountered Therbalt “accidentally” a number of times recently and knew he was shadowing her because he turned up in so many places; as she was leaving class, as she walked to the library, while she was shopping. He would always offer an arm and his condescending and transparent “confide in me, my dear little countrywoman” routine. If he likened her to a bud in need of plucking just one more time she thought she might just scream.

  He sickened her. She could tell that he truly did not like women, despite his guise of sexual attraction to her. He probably didn’t truly like men either. Even Kaymar, who was difficult to rattle, admitted to being unnerved by the man. There was a strange other-worldliness to him that was difficult to read. Such a person could be capable of anything. As Kaymar said, if you cannot find what someone truly loves, then you should fear him, for he is likely to hate everything and everyone – and that hatred makes him infinitely dangerous.

  She had fed Therbalt a morsel of information at a time, luring him to come looking for her again and again. She let him think he was winkling facts about Menders and The Shadows from her, though the information she had given so far was incorrect and entirely useless.

  “Tell me, my dear,” he said during one encounter, “I have heard of a man who is the guardian of the younger Princess. It is said he was involved with a young, attractive schoolteacher on an estate near Erdstrom. I was not sure, but could this possibly have been the man who was foolish enough to lose you?”

  She blushed and nodded.

  “I hear that he is a most formidable person,” Therbalt prompted. “I do hope that he wasn’t unkind.”

  “He was in withdrawing his affection from me,” she quavered, utilizing Kaymar’s trick of stretching the back of her throat in order to make tears come to her eyes.

  “Ah now, my dear, it is never worth weeping over such as he,” Therbalt said expansively. “I myself have had many affairs and frequently have endured a broken heart, but time always heals it. Now, when I think back on those times, I say ‘what care I?’ You have not hesitated to find gentlemen willing to console you. This is most healthy and shows an admirable resilience on your part.”

  Dear Gods, the idea that I would sleep with two men at one time is admirable in your eyes, Eiren thought.

  “They were most persuasive,” Eiren responded, eyes downcast. “And I found that I like it.” She bridled and tossed her head up, meeting his gaze boldly, as if daring him to be put off by her libertine ways.

  “Good for you! I think that it is much better for you than being mewed up in the country, trying to please a man who is so hard and ungiving.”

  “He could be very difficult,” she sighed. “Most distant.”

  “Ah. That would be very trying to such a warm heart as yours. And the house, being kept in a place that is so very remote. Tell me, were you alone or does he employ many servants?”

  “Oh there are a great many, all trained to arms,” Eiren answered. “He traveled quite often, taking the Princess with him, leaving me behind.” She was determined that he not have a clear or true picture of life at The Shadows. “They go incognito, of course.”

  “How interesting! I had heard that they are always in residence there, that he won’t stir from the place.”

  “Oh no! That’s what he would like everyone to think, but they are often gone, particularly in the winter months. He has permission from the Queen to raise Her Highness in any way that he sees fit.”

  “And the Princess... as I understand it, she’s quite a precocious child?”

  “No. I had the teaching of her for a while and she was unable to keep up with lessons,” Eiren answered. “I had to give up on her, which angered him greatly, because he dotes on her and believes she is very gifted. But as a trained teacher, I assure you it is otherwise. Spoiled, overindulged, with a willful streak that’s not been corrected. In general, not very bright or imaginative.”

  “Just like her sister. How very interesting,” he muttered, and Eiren knew he’d risen to the bait. Good, she thought viciously, let him believe Katrin is not the threat to Aidelia that he thinks she is. Time to add the final tug on the line to hook this fish.

  “In truth, I don’t like the child. Not at all,” Eiren confided.

  Therbalt smiled widely, reminding Eiren of a snake with gold teeth. “Well, well now - isn’t that interesting?”

  ***

  Bit by bit, with input from Kaymar and Ifor, Eiren wove an absurd picture of The Shadows for Therbalt, loaded with incorrect locations, foggy details and outright nonsense. She claimed that Menders employed an armed guard of sixty men secretly granted him by the Queen, that Katrin could barely read and couldn’t write, that the road from Erdstrom was heavily guarded by more men of the Queen’s army and that The Shadows was a veritable fortress with guns bristling on the roof and guards posted all around. She could see that he was confused and irritated, probably with whoever had given him intelligence about The Shadows. He never acted at all terse or angry toward her.

  He was trying to romance her, though he had no inherent intuition of what a woman would find appealing. She led him along with tremulous sighs and longing looks, ignoring the temptation to scrub her eyes with soap after seeing him. She began to snuggle into his arm and smile up at him with a cow-eyed, lovesick gaze when she walked with him, while she told him lie after lie about The Shadows, Menders and Katrin. His expression told her he was delighted, as if it was all too good to be true.

  Eiren could tell Therbalt was disappointed when she repeatedly described Katrin as simpleminded and could have cheered when he asked her if, in her opinion, the girl could ever be considered a suitable Queen.

  “Only if Mordania wants a dullard for a Queen,” she said in her most scathing tone, “I would be terribly surprised if the Queen’s Council would consider he
r fit to be an Heiress. They would likely wish to pass her over for a cousin or such, if it ever came to it – but there’s an older Princess in line to inherit.”

  “Oh yes, most unlikely that your former pupil would ever be called upon to take the Throne,” he replied, and rapidly changed the subject.

  Not wanting him to become bored, she deliberately appeared to withhold information about Menders. When asked if Menders had really been Lord Stettan, a great assassin with more than two hundred kills, Eiren suddenly went white and silent.

  “Oh, my dear, I have upset you,” Therbalt blubbered, feigning dismay. “Please forgive me! It is simply that I have become very enamored of you and wish to know everything about you. We shall speak no more of this man who has used and misused you so cruelly and has failed to appreciate the value of a lady so experienced and daring.” He bent forward. Before she realized what he was about, he’d planted a sickening, slobbery kiss on her cheek.

  Eiren had learned that anger was her best defense against the moments when Therbalt frightened or rattled her. She drew on it now.

  I was a virgin when I first slept with Menders, she thought fiercely. I never wanted another man from the moment I first saw him, with his pure face and beautiful body and complex mind, and I never, ever will. If I could kill you now and not endanger us all, I would!

  To Therbalt’s eyes, she blushed and shivered. He couldn’t know that the blush was a blood rush of rage and the shiver was her desperate attempt to keep from tearing her pistol from its concealed sheath and putting a bullet through his eye.

  He reached around and tucked her hand more securely into the crook of his arm. She was infinitely grateful when he left her at school and she could rush to the ladies’ room to scrub her face clean.

  Kaymar and Ifor sat with her that night and went over and over the conversation, trying to divine Therbalt’s intentions.