No matter. If the thug came out satisfied, the girl was innocent and would just have to take her chances with her future husband. If he wandered out obviously Controlled or didn’t come out at all, then it would be time for Saltaja to sit down with the filly for the confidential chat they had been unable to share on the river. To convince Fabia of the advantages of cooperation, Saltaja would begin by conceding that her nephew, Cutrath Horoldson, was a repulsive choice of husband and then go on to instruct her in means to put him to rights as easily a skilled seamstress could reshape a gown. More easily, in fact. Grain needed thrashing, grinding, kneading, and baking before it became usable; men were much the same.
A knock on the door disturbed her reverie.
Profoundly.
Blazing with fury, she swept along the stark stone corridors. Werists trotted at her heels and hurried ahead of her, their torsos wrapped in striped palls, leaving brawny arms and legs bare. She swept through the outer room, where more Werists pressed back against the walls looking scared. As well they might.
The room beyond was a barren box without even a sleeping platform. The girl’s baggage and clothes lay scattered everywhere, as if the idiots had ransacked them looking for her. Saltaja strode over to examine the single window with its two bronze bars. Satisfied that they were still solid, corroded in place, ancient as the wall, she laid her hand on the stonework and detected only a frail trace of the Old One’s power filtering up from the heart of the world. Even she, with sixty years’ more experience, would never contrive an escape from here. Supposing she could somehow trick the jailers outside into opening the door, she could not Control eight at once. Chosen or not, the girl must have had help.
Outside, a heavy drizzle was sending sheets of water coursing over the paving, making pedestrians hurry. Take away that rain and the daylight, and this was the street in her dream. So Benard Celebre had rescued his sister, had he? That had been the Dark One’s message.
She turned to face the Werists. Her two Controlled bodyguards, Ern and Brarag, were standing close to her, keeping watch on the rest. Six of the incompetent jailers had packed in after her, another two were outside, peering through the door. She could not remember the name of their leader, but it mattered not at all and soon would matter even less.
“Guarding a slip of a girl is beyond your ability?”
The flankleader bared his teeth at her. “All of us spent the night in the outer room. There were no visitors, no coming and going-”
“Except the prisoner.”
“We can’t fight gods! No mortal let that woman out of here.”
“Since when does holy Weru accept excuses? Track her!”
“We tried, my lady.” His stubbled hair and beard were wet. “The rain… We could not pick up her scent at all.”
“And the Ucrist, Wigson? I suppose he’s gone, too? Did you send someone to look?”
Nod.
“I expect he bribed his guards,” she said. “The Witnesses will get the truth out of them.”
“The jail guards have disappeared.” The flankleader obviously wished he could.
“The Witnesses will locate them, and him,” Saltaja said confidently. Even if they had moved out of range already, the seers should be able to tell Therek which way they had gone.
She should not have expected the public jail to hold the richest man in all Vigaelia. Horth Wigson was important only as surety for Fabia’s good behavior. He could have bought his way out even if he had to pay his jailers enough to let them flee the satrap’s anger and make new lives somewhere else. It would have been cheaper to have them permanently silenced, but that was not Wigson’s style. Clever people don’t need to break laws, he said-they can bend them. But even he could not bribe Werists.
Saltaja headed for the door. “Lock this bunch of imbeciles in here until I have spoken with the satrap.”
Suddenly the air reeked of murder and mutiny. Saltaja Hragsdor might be the satrap’s sister, the bloodlord’s sister, a reputed chthonian, but no woman gave orders to Heroes of Weru!
Except she. The six remained inside, the two outside reluctantly joined them, and Ern slid the huge bronze bolts. He looked around, astonished, sweat shining on his forehead.
“How long will it hold them?” she asked.
He shrugged helplessly. “Until they decide to rip out the bars or tear up the floorboards, my lady. Battleformed, some of them could get out between the bars, given time. You can’t imprison Werists!”
“Then we must bring this scum to justice quickly. They are a disgrace to your cult. Stay here, let no one in, no one out. Brarag, go and find the satrap. Tell him to come to my room. At once!”
Warrior Brarag flinched at the thought of giving orders to the Vulture, but he could not refuse. He saluted and ran off.
Alone, Saltaja stalked back toward her dreary room, thinking furiously. What god was meddling? Anziel? Thanks to the Mother’s sending she knew that Benard Celebre was here in Tryfors, instead of tidily rotting in a pauper’s grave in Kosord. The boy was a scatterbrained dreamer, but he was a Hand of Anziel. He was certainly not capable of springing his sister from that cell, but his goddess was, if She chose to answer Her devotee’s prayers.
What of the other brother, the Hero? No, the only god who would answer a prayer from him would be Weru, and this was certainly not Weru’s work. Young Orlad was due to die right about now, murdered so that Therek could gloat over a dead Florengian.
Last night’s dream had not been trivial; it had been a very important warning, perhaps even a hint that Fabia Celebre was now in favor and Saltaja Hragsdor was not. Of course the girl’s sacrifice of Perag Hrothgatson would have raised her in Mother Xaran’s esteem, but if the girl thought she could outbid Saltaja Hragsdor in offerings to the Old One, she had another think coming.
At that point in her journey, the Queen of Shadows stopped to open a creaky little door in a cobwebby alcove and peer out at a small enclosure, a neglected jungle surrounded by blank stone walls. This weed patch was known as the herb garden, and no doubt some long-ago queen of Tryfors had nurtured herbs there as a time-out from her royal duty of breeding princes, but the moment Saltaja had first seen it, years ago, she had known it to be accursed ground, dedicated to the Old One. In today’s gloom and drizzle it seemed more baleful than ever.
Yes, it must be done there.
Back at her room, Saltaja found clothes all over the floor and Guitha sitting staring at the wall because she had been given no specific orders to tidy up. She would not even eat now unless told to do so. Saltaja was still hitting her when Brarag arrived, panting as if he had run all the way up the tower and back.
“Hostleader… not presently in the… palace, my lady… drove off in his chariot, short while ago.”
She almost blurted out a curse but caught herself in time-her curses worked better than most people’s. Obviously Therek had gone to the hill because in this weather he could not watch Orlad’s murder from his tower. Death and corruption! Was that a trap?
“ Bring me Huntleader Fellard! Now! Right away! Tell him it’s urgent.”
Huntleader Fellard Lokison, commander of Fist’s Own Hunt, was young to be so senior, even nowadays, when Stralg had stripped the Face of older Werists. He was also an arrogant fool. Yesterday he had deliberately snubbed Saltaja, leaving her standing on the beach when he drove away in his chariot with Fabia. To insult his hostleader’s sister like that would have been stupid even if the rumors of Saltaja being a Chosen were unfounded. Since they were not, he was about to pay dearly for his folly.
He strode in, offering Saltaja a mocking smile and a devil-may-care nod instead of a bow. He was tall and lean, typical Werist arrogance sparkling in typically Vigaelian blue eyes. With chiseled jaw clean-shaven and scalp gold-stubbled, he would have been winsome had his face not been marred by four vertical claw scars that had left his mouth twisted. Saltaja, perversely, found this model of beauty marred quite appealing. He folded his arms and watched with no visible alarm as she advanced to meet him, bare feet on stone floor.