Zanna remembered with shame how she had berated her father for his pursuit of power when Aurian had so lately been lost. He had been right, though. With Nexis leaderless, the people had been desperate for someone to fill the lack.—With Sangra’s assistance, Vannor had sobered up the grieving Parric with brutal efficiency and enlisted the Cavalrymaster’s help, and that of the rebel and exiled communities. Yanis had provided ships and the armed support of the Nightrunners—and within a month, the former Head of the Merchants’ Guild had become High Lord of Nexis.
Then the changes had begun. With the Magefolk gone, the shadows of awe and fear had been lifted from the Nexians, and a new age had blossomed under Vannor’s beneficent rule. The accessible items from Miathan’s hoarded supplies had been released from the Academy, and new recruits for the Garrison had been trained hastily by Parric and Sangra. Robbers and footpads had been dealt with, making the night safer for folk to walk abroad. The merchants who exploited the Nexians had been persuaded to mend their ways by the disciplined troops backing Vannor’s authority. Homes were rebuilt for the poor and dispossessed, and the wretched beggars vanished from the streets. Jarvas’s sanctuary was rebuilt as a shelter for the old and needy, and a school for healers had been established there, under the auspices of an unusually sober Benziorn.
Vannor had given the citizens of Nexis years of peace and plenty—yet Zanna was aware that not everyone favored the new High Lord of Nexis, and what he had wrought. The one great disaster of Vannor’s reign had been his failure to deal with the sporadic attacks by the Phaerie, and people who had lost family and friends blamed him for the disappearance of their loved ones. The merchants, also, were incensed by the decimation of their profits and what they saw as unwarranted interference in their affairs. The fact that Vannor had once been Head of the Merchants’ Guild added insult to injury. In the fulfillment of a long-cherished dream, he had overridden their objections and outlawed the practice of bonding—and that, Zanna knew, might well have been the final outrage that had precipitated this attack.
As the darkness began to give way in the east, the ship turned into the estuary. Soon the docks of Easthaven, grey and indistinct in the ghostly morning light, loomed into sight and passed like slowly moving shadows as the ship continued upriver. Zanna closed her eyes in pain. It seemed that everything was conspiring to remind her of her father today, for the river passage was another of Vannor’s innovations. In consultation with Yanis and the other merchant captains, he had had the river dredged, the weir removed, and a series of locks installed to allow the passage of ships all the way to Nexis itself. Today, Zanna blessed her father’s foresight. It would allow her to reach his side all the quicker.
Zanna and Tarnal wasted no time waiting for the ship to dock at Nexis.—Instead, they had themselves put ashore where the gardens of Vannor’s mansion stretched right down to th river. Zanna was shocked by the number of armed soldiers guarding the flimsy jetty and patrolling the grounds, but to her relief, Sangra was commanding them and allowed herself and Tamal to pass immediately, without delaying them with unnecessary talk. After running hand in hand up the steep graveled paths, they arrived breathless at the house.—Dulsina herself opened the door to them, her face white and her eyes red from weeping and bruised beneath from sleeplessness and strain. Without a word, the two women fell into one another’s arms.
“Is he ... ?” Zanna was the first to pull away. Whatever the nature of the news, she could bear the suspense no longer.
“No—not yet. He’s still fighting, but . . .” Dulsina shook her head as she guided Zanna and Tarnal across the hall and into Vannor’s study. Parric was already there, pacing restlessly back and forth in front of the fire.
“Zanna . . .” The Cavalrymaster’s voice was choked as he held out his arms to her. “I’m sorry, love,” he said hoarsely. “I blame myself. If the Garrison had guarded him better ...”
“Nonsense,” Dulsina interrupted crisply. “Don’t be so daft, Parric. Things are bad enough here without that kind of stupid self-recrimination. Make yourself useful instead, and get Zanna and Tarnal a glass of wine.” She turned to Zanna. “The Gods only know how someone could have got into the house to do this terrible thing. It seems to have been the bread that was poisoned, but we’ve lost the cook along with the rest of the servants, so I don’t suppose we’ll ever find out. I only escaped because I was staying overnight in the city with Hebba—she hasn’t been too well of late.” Dulsina bit her lip. “We have to face it, Zanna—this is a cruel poison. Your poor father is suffering so greatly that death would be a merciful release.” Fresh tears shone in her eyes. “I’m sorry, my dear. Even Benziorn says that nothing can be done. He can only give soporifics to Vannor, to ease his passing from this world.”
Dulsina’s face shimmered into a blur as Zanna’s own eyes filled with tears.—Her breath caught in her throat to become a convulsive sob. Tarnal, visibly mastering his own grief to support his wife, put his arms around her, and Zanna drew strength from the embrace. “Can I see him now?” she asked in a small voice that she scarcely recognized as her own.
Zanna had no idea how many hours she had sat at her father’s bedside, but darkness had fallen outside the window long ago, and her eyes felt like burning coals in her head. Dulsina sat opposite, shivering with weariness, and Benziorn would come in from time to time to check on his patient, shake his head, and leave again with a sigh. Vannor lay cold and still as though he were a corpse already, his eyes half-open but glazed and unseeing, and his breathing so shallow as to be barely perceptible. His limp hand felt chill and clammy in Zanna’s grasp. The waiting was unbearable—this knowing that it could only be a matter of time. Almost, Zanna wished that it could be over, to spare both her father and herself—yet while he lived, how could she help but hope for a miracle? She remembered the time she had rescued him from the clutches of the Magefolk, and led him to safety through the pitch-black maze of the library archives, and the dreadful, stinking sewers. Now Vannor was embarking on a darker road still—and this time, there seemed to be no way that she could bring him home.
She must have dozed a little—Zanna jumped guiltily awake as her sleep was disturbed. Faint grey daylight glimmered at the window, and there was a low hubbub of voices coming from the hall downstairs. Now what? She scowled. Why were Tarnal and Parric allowing this to happen? There was a sick man up here—he shouldn’t be disturbed. After a few moments the door opened, and Tarnal put his head into the room, beckoning Zanna and Dulsina away from Vannor’s bedside and out into the upstairs hall. “I thought you should know,” he whispered. “There’s someone at the door—an old crone by the look—she’s all muffled up in shawls and stuff. She says she’s an herbwife, and swears she has an ancient remedy handed down from her grandmother that can save Vannor’s life. It’s probably a lot of nonsense, but . . .” He held out his hands and shrugged. “What is there to lose? The only thing is, Benziorn is furious—he says she’s a fraud and there is no cure, but she’s after a reward for trying.—He’s insisting that we send her away.”
Zanna and Dulsina looked at each other. “Send her up,” they replied in unison.—The crone insisted on being alone in the room while she worked. This gave Zanna a shiver of unease, then she thought: Let her. What harm can she do at this stage? Then the old woman went inside, the door closed firmly behind her, and there was nothing to do but wait—and pray. Dulsina, Zanna, and Tarnal gathered in an uneasy knot outside the door, and after a short time, Parric, looking pale and strained, came up to join them, carrying a tray with cups and a bottle of spirits that he put down on a little table by the wall. They waited, saying little, sipping sparingly at the warming brandy while Benziorn paced below in the hall, muttering and cursing under his breath, and occasionally casting black looks up at Vannor’s closed door.