Weaving Man: Book One of The Prophecy Series

by Tove Foss Ford

  Borsen, ready to use every bit of self control he had to avoid howling in despair, suddenly realized what he’d heard. The man was telling him indirectly that he’d passed, that he was a Guild tailor!

  “Thank you, sir!” he beamed.

  “You’re more than welcome. You gave an impressive account of yourself and your talents,” Ferensen responded. Then he looked closely at Borsen.

  “I was wondering if you would care to join me…” he began. Then he cut himself off and stepped back, shaking his head slightly. “No, never mind. I wish you great good fortune in your future endeavors, Mister Menders.” With that he tipped his hat, turned and walked rapidly away.

  Borsen restrained himself from dancing wildly along the pier but did spin his walking stick repeatedly out of giddy glee. It wasn’t until he was in the bathtub in his suite that he realized the import of Seran Ferensen’s cut off question.

  He was asking me to dinner, Borsen thought, sitting bolt upright in the tub. Gods! And he must have wanted more than that because he cut himself off so abruptly. Well of course, I’m sixteen and he knows it, but for a moment he reacted to me for myself.

  He sat back for a while, contemplating the abortive invitation and what it meant. He’d been perceived as an attractive man by someone he could easily have been interested in.

  He let his mind drift on the idea of sleeping with Ferensen. Though Borsen had no experience, he had plenty of imagination and a great deal of information imparted to him by Kaymar. The thought was nice – very. But he wanted more. Kaymar had warned him against becoming involved very young or being promiscuous. Borsen already knew he wanted what Kaymar had – a good, steady, loving man who wanted to be with him for the rest of his life. Looks didn’t matter, elegance didn’t matter. What mattered was love and devotion, like what Ifor gave Kaymar and received in return.

  So no, Mister Ferensen, I would not have gotten into bed with you, Borsen thought as he dried himself. I will wait until I have what I want, in all things, and that includes in a man.

  Then, remembering that he was now a Guild tailor and the youngest person ever to have become one, and because he was sixteen and had forced himself to be much older for a week, he climbed up on the big hotel bed and spent several jubilant moments jumping up and down like a lunatic.

  (52)

  A Pair of Amateurs

  Eiren returned to Erdhan and Menders tried to put his reservations aside. He was troubled. Despite his intense diligence, Vannik’s plot had surfaced like a crocodile, carefully constructed, artfully executed. It had nearly cost the lives of two of his best and had placed his beloved Eiren in danger.

  There had been no sign of Therbalt since the night of Vannik’s death and the threads leading to Vannik’s organization seemed to have been severed, leaving little trace of the plot that had been averted. There were no connections, no links to individuals or other factions. It was all too neat and clean for Menders’ liking. He knew that somewhere a connection to unseen enemies went undiscovered.

  Menders sorted recent events again, turning everything over in his mind while staring absently through his office window. In the distance, Marjana Spaltz’s blue bonnet showed her progress across the fields. He wondered idly why she was up and around again so soon after her recent illness.

  ***

  Sometimes Katrin seemed to hear voices in her head. As a child she had wanted to believe she was hearing the voice of her mother, trying to contact her. Why she thought this she couldn’t say. If her mother, the Queen, wanted to contact her, all she had to do was write a letter.

  After Kaymar had described his madness to her, Katrin had confided in him about the voices. She’d been shocked to see his eyes widen in fear – then he’d shaken his head vigorously.

  “I’ve been watching you for hours almost every day since you were four,” he said. “You are definitely not mad. You’ve never said anything about hearing voices before.”

  “I just accepted it when I was little.” Katrin struggled to explain. “I – I thought it might be my mother trying to help me. I believed some very strange things when I was small.”

  “As do we all,” Kaymar said with a touch of bitterness. He was not having a good day. Katrin had decided to ask him about the voices to bring him out of himself. He’d been muttering and fingering the knife at his side, as he tended to do before he cut himself. “What does this voice sound like?”

  “Sometimes just whispers. Quite low pitched, like an older woman. Sometimes it sounds harsh.”

  Kaymar shook his head.

  “If you’ll remember, your mother’s voice is remarkably like yours, medium pitched, very musical and gentle. Unless, of course, you’re declaiming, which you both have a habit of doing,” he said. Katrin shoved him, hard, and he shoved back, playfully.

  “Don’t get rough with me, Your Royal Highness, you could end up with more than you bargained for,” he snickered.

  Katrin was glad to hear him joke, but he was also being forthcoming and she wanted to get as much information from him as she could while his mood lasted.

  “Sometimes it even sounds like more than one voice – like many women all whispering at once.” She sighed in frustration. Now that she was talking about the voices, it all sounded either very stupid or rather mad.

  “When do you hear these voices?” Kaymar asked.

  “When I’m angry or very nervous,” Katrin answered. “Sometimes when I’m in a situation that could turn dangerous. The time Trouble started kicking up his stall when I was saddling him, I heard them say he was going to kick a moment before he started. I got out of the way in time but if I hadn’t heard them, I wouldn’t have.”

  Kaymar studied her long and hard.

  “Could be your own intuition,” he said. “When you hear the voices, do they tell you to do things to yourself, to harm yourself? Or do they deride you, ridicule you? Tell you to harm others?”

  Katrin shook her head.

  “I don’t think you need to worry about them,” Kaymar continued, looking relieved. “I don’t like to use the words ‘overactive imagination’ because I’ve had them flung at me when what I deal with is anything but. I’m not that well educated, Katrin, so I don’t know just how to put it into words. I would say it’s your own mind, the part of it that you’re not conscious of, perceiving things and warning you about them if there is danger.”

  Katrin had to be content with that. She didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of telling Menders or Eiren about the voices. They would be alarmed and she felt that the voices meant no harm. She tried to analyze the phenomenon in an adult way. She came to the conclusion that what she heard resembled intense thought more than actual voices perceived by the ear.

  The voices often let her know when someone was walking up behind her. She would turn around at their prompting, never surprised to find it was exactly who she thought it would be.

  So as Katrin stood in her soapmaking shed, watching freshly poured soap cool in the mold as she prepared to dump out the remnants of the lye she had used, she knew with certainty that someone had come up behind her – and that the person was not someone she knew. Instead of the warm familiarity of a friend approaching, there was a feeling like the touch of a cold, wet hand on the back of her neck beneath her pinned up hair. The voices whispered in layers of alarm.

  Katrin turned around slowly, the bucket of lye clutched in both hands. She was surprised to see Marjana Spaltz’s familiar blue bonnet. Then she saw that the hollow-eyed woman wearing the bonnet wasn’t Marjana Spaltz.

  “Miss, is this where I can buy soap?” the woman asked. The gun in her hand pointed down towards the floor, wavering back and forth like a charmed snake. Katrin’s eyes fixed on the weapon. Her own gun was in the pocket of her dress, her knife strapped to her hip. Both would take too long to reach. The only weapon immediately available was the bucket of lye in her hands.

  “It is,” Katrin said quietly. “Is there something I can do to help you?”

&n
bsp; The woman looked directly at her and Katrin could see that her eyes were mad in the depths of the bonnet, desperate and frightened.

  I could distract her enough to throw the lye in her face, Katrin thought, her mind suddenly frantic. She seems dazed or demented. But could I really throw lye into a woman’s face, into her eyes? She shuddered inwardly.

  “Yes, you can help me,” the woman said, her face twisting into a dreamy and terribly mad smile. “You can die. That’s what will help me.” Her voice was small, almost whispery, as if she was one of those people who had never spoken up in their lives.

  Katrin’s grasp tightened on the bucket handle as the muzzle of the gun came up.

  ***

  Eiren loved hats. She paused to glance in a shop window where a light green straw trimmed with a cream ribbon and a small cluster of silk snowflowers was on display. It would be marvelous against Katrin’s golden hair, the perfect springtime hat.

  “Excuse me, madame. Can you direct me to the train station?”

  Eiren felt her muscles coiling with tension. You’d have to be blind to not see the train station from here – it was one of the largest and grandest buildings in Erdhan.

  Turning, Eiren saw a tall woman with curling blonde hair standing only a couple of feet from her. She hadn’t even seen a reflection in the window. The woman had been careful to stand where her image wouldn’t be cast.

  Then Eiren saw the knife. The woman held it at waist level. It was shaking. Caught off guard, there was no time to reach her own weapon. Menders’ training took over.

  She flung herself down, scything her legs around into the woman’s knees, catching her off guard and knocking her to the ground.

  Kaymar was there in an instant, kicking the woman’s weapon away into the gutter as his own knife flashed out. He held it firmly against the stranger’s throat.

  ***

  “Please, madame, you’re overwrought,” Katrin said quietly. “Why would you want to kill me? Put the gun away and I’ll do what I can to help you.”

  “He has my boy. My little boy, only two years old. He says if I kill you, he’ll give him back to me.” The woman’s eyes jigged back and forth. Katrin tried to see a rhythm in the motion, an unguarded moment where she could jump out of the way or hurl the bucket of lye.

  “If someone has taken your little boy, I can help you,” Katrin said, trying to sound soothing. “I’m a Princess of Mordania. I have some powerful people here with me. Won’t you put the gun down?”

  “He said if I don’t kill you, he’ll rip my boy open,” the woman went on, her voice bizarrely level and soft. The gun no longer wavered.

  If being brave meant keeping calm while trying not to pass out or vomit, then Katrin was certainly feeling brave. From the dark recesses of her mind the spidery voices hissed.

  “Kill her! Throw the lye, burn her eyes out!” the voices commanded.

  “He must be a very terrible man,” Katrin answered, her own voice barely under control. “Tell me about him.”

  A movement behind the woman caught Katrin’s eye but she didn’t dare look in that direction. Another second revealed Borsen, advancing toward them from the goats’ shed, a heavy axe handle in his hand.

  “He’s a demon, cruel as can be,” the woman whispered. “He’d kill my little one even though he’s the father. He loves nothing and nobody except himself.”

  “That is very wrong,” Katrin soothed, seeing Borsen stealing ever closer. “The people here can help you, madame, but if you kill me, believe me, they will kill you and there will be no-one to care for your little boy. Put the gun away. Tell me where this man is and I will help you.”

  “In Surelia. You have no power there,” the woman said mournfully. “You’re just a ghost now, a shadow of things best left unbred. Better off dead, really.”

  Katrin thought the woman’s rambling sounded rehearsed, like words she had learned to recite.

  “I know people who can go anywhere. Please, my dear, put the gun away,” Katrin answered, trying to sound comforting. The woman’s mad eyes met hers and blinked.

  Borsen, now within range, raised himself up and swung the axe handle. It struck the woman a heavy blow across her gun arm, knocking the muzzle down. Simultaneously, Katrin flung the bucket of lye, drenching the woman’s dress and her own.

  The woman screamed and brought her arms up to her face before doubling over. Borsen grabbed the hand holding the gun. It went off again, the bullet smacking the side of the house as Borsen wrested it away from her.

  Ifor leapt in from the opposite side of the shed and knocked the woman to the ground.

  “Get your skirt off, Katrin, you’ll be burnt to the bone!” he shouted. Borsen pulled out one of his knives, and began slashing through the fabric of Katrin’s dress, pulling the rapidly disintegrating cloth away from her.

  ***

  Kaymar moved quickly, dragging the woman into a nearby alley before anyone passing by knew there had been an altercation.

  “Who sent you?” he growled. Eiren stood by, holding her pistol ready.

  The woman shook her head violently. Kaymar pressed his knife hard against her throat.

  “It was Therbalt, wasn’t it?” he hissed. “Tell me, if your life is worth anything to you.”

  “I’m dead now,” the woman gasped.

  “Under my hand you’ll wish you were,” Kaymar said. “You’d find you’re actually very much alive. Talk!”

  “He has my son. My little boy, four years old. He’ll kill him if I don’t kill her.” The woman looked at Eiren.

  “Who? Who told you to do this?”

  The woman shook her head.

  “Don’t you understand?” she said quietly. “He’s going to kill my son. He will do it without a thought, like swatting a fly, even though my boy is his son too. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  The woman stiffened and looked over Kaymar’s shoulder, her eyes wide with fear. Instinctively, Kaymar and Eiren turned. A crunching sound reached them, accompanied by a sickening, sticky sweet stench as a soft rustling accompanied the woman falling to the ground. By the time Kaymar crouched beside her, she was dead.

  Eiren closed her eyes in horror. A moment later, Kaymar was leading her from the alley, making her walk quickly toward their safe house.

  “What the hells is going on? She had morric acid hidden in a tooth,” he fumed. “It kills instantly. Assassins use it, but this woman is no assassin.”

  Eiren had no answers. She was trying not to be sick.

  ***

  “I’m afraid she’s dead,” Doctor Franz said with a weary sigh, as he drew the bedcovers up over the burned face of the woman who had held Katrin at gunpoint. Menders had known it the second he’d walked back into the room. The open mouth, the hollowed tooth, the breath scented with morric acid, like crushed nightingale flowers - the deadliest poison in the world. Assassins’ special issue – but this hapless woman had been no assassin.

  Menders stood with his hands on his hips, looking down at the covered body. He’d have to bury her out near the woods, in the quiet corner next to Madame Holz and Mister Enigma.

  The interrogation had gone nowhere. Franz had treated the woman’s facial burns, bandaged her eyes and attended to her other injuries. Ifor had knocked her down hard and she was a sapling of a woman, scrawny and underfed.

  “If you tell me who sent you, I will help you get your child back,” Menders had told her quietly, finding it hard to believe he could feel compassion for anyone who had meant to kill Katrin – but this creature was purely pitiful. She was about as menacing as a kitten once she was divested of her cheap gun and a knife that wouldn’t cut an onion. She shivered constantly, despite the blanket and towels she’d been wrapped in after the lye-soaked dress was taken from her. Her body would heal in time but her mind was another matter. At times she was completely incoherent, at others she wept uncontrollably. Her eyes, until bandaged, were unfocused and roving. She would whisper about her baby and rock back and forth.


  Nothing could get her to give the name of the man who had sent her and who was threatening to kill her child. Menders had used every tone from threatening to tender. Doctor Franz had tried gentle persuasion. Even Katrin had spoken with her, but the woman was somewhere far away. Franz had finally given her a small dose of ramplane, as it was known to loosen inhibitions and tongues, but to no avail.

  “There is no power on the planet like a woman’s protective instinct toward her child,” Franz had sighed to Menders. “I think nothing short of torture, possibly not even that, would make her talk. Her mind is destroyed.”

  Then the wretched creature, left alone for a moment, had poisoned herself with the morric acid hidden in her tooth.

  What did it all mean? Menders thought angrily. This attempt on Katrin’s life by someone not qualified to cut bread was pathetically absurd, but the fact that it had come so close to succeeding was maddening. Therbalt had to be behind it – but so far he was invisible. For him to strike so close to home with a completely incompetent amateur assassin was either a blunder or a ruse intended to deceive.

  Whichever was Therbalt’s motive, for now Menders was going to draw back his forces and close ranks at The Shadows. Ifor had taken the boat to fetch Eiren and Kaymar back from Erdhan.

  ***

  “Could they have been some of Gladdas Dalmanthea’s?” Haakel asked. Menders shook his head and Kaymar snorted in disgust.

  “Glad Dalmanthea’s girls are slick, they aren’t shuddering emotional wrecks,” Ifor retorted.