“And women!” Koris interrupted him. “There is one whom we should have found here that we have not seen— Aldis!”
The witch was frowning. “Aldis answered to the sending in the Battle of Power before the assault on Gorm. It may be that thereafter she had no place in Kars.”
“There’s one way to find out!” Simon strode to where Ingvald sat at a table recording data on a small voice machine the Falconers had brought, a refinement of those carried by their hawks on aerial scouts.
“What mention has there been of the Lady Aldis?”
Ingvald half smiled. “More than a little. Three times those messages which set these wolves at each other’s throats were delivered by that lady. And she, being who she was in Yvian’s confidence, they took her words as sober truth. Whatever coil was woven here that one had a hand deep in its spinning.”
The witch had followed Simon across the chamber and now she rubbed her hands together, between their palms the smoky gem of her profession.
“I would see the private chamber of this woman,” she said abruptly.
They went in a body—the witch, Simon, Koris, and Ingvald. It was a dainty bower and a rich one, opening from the same upper hall as that room in which they had discovered the dying Yvian. At the room’s end long windows opened upon a balcony and the wind stirred the silken curtains of the bed, fluttered a lace scarf drifting from a chest. There was a musky scent which sickened Simon and he went to the open windows.
The witch, her gem still tight between her palms, walked about the room, her hands well out from her at breast level. What she was doing Simon could not guess, but that it had serious meaning he knew. Those hands passed over the bed, down its full length, swept across the two chests, the mirrored toilet table with its assortment of small boxes and vials carved from polished stones. Then, in mid-passage over that array, the clasped hands hesitated, poised hawk fashion, and came down in a swoop, though nothing lay below that Simon could see.
She turned to face the men. “There was a talisman here—a thing of power which had been used many times—but not our power. Kolder!” She spat that in disgust. “It is a thing of changing—”
“Shape-changing!” Koris cried. “Then she who seemed to be Aldis might not be her at all!”
But the witch shook her head. “Not so, lord captains! This is not the matter of shape-changing which we have long used, this is a changing within, not without. Did you not tell me that Fulk was not Fulk, and still not completely possessed? He was different in that he fled battle where once he would have led his men to the end. But he ran to protect that which was in him, choosing to fall at the last to his death rather than be taken by you while it was a part of him. So will this woman be. For it is firm in my mind that she also carries that inside her which is from Kolder.”
“Kolder,” Koris repeated between set teeth. Then his eyes went wide and he said that word with a different inflection altogether. “Kolder!”
“What—?” Simon began, but Koris was already continuing.
“Where is the last stronghold of those cursed man stealers? Yle! I tell you—this thing which was once Aldis has taken Loyse and they head for Yle!”
“That’s only guessing,” countered Simon. Though, he added silently, it was a logical guess. “And even if you are right, Yle’s a long way from here, we have good chance to intercept them.” And so an excellent reason for prying you out of Kars before disaster is upon us, again he added mentally.
“Yle?” The witch visibly considered that. Simon waited for an added comment. The witches of Estcarp were no mean strategists, if she had some contribution to make it would be to the point and worth listening to. But, save for that one word, she was silent. Only her gaze went from Koris to Simon and back as if she saw something that neither man could sense. However, she did not speak, and there was no chance of getting it from her by questioning, as Simon knew of old.
That Koris might be right they had proof before moonrise. Not wishing to linger in Kars, the raiders had withdrawn to the ships in the harbor, commandeering transports to take them west to the sea. The sullen crews worked under the guard of Estcarpian forces with a Sulcar commander in each ship.
Ingvald led the rearguard onto the last of the round-bellied merchant vessels and stood with Simon, looking back at the city where the whirlwind, partly of their making, had hit a day earlier.
“We leave a boiling pot behind us,” the Borderer commented.
“Since you are of Karsten, would it have been more to your mind to stay to tend this pot?” Simon asked.
Ingvald laughed harshly. “When Yvian’s murderers fired my garth and sent their darts into my father and brother, then did I swear that this was no land of mine! We are not of this new breed in Kars and it is better for us that we ride now with Estcarp, since we are of the Old Race. No, let this pot be tended now by who wills. I hold with the Guardians in the thought that Estcarp wants no land or rule beyond her own borders. Look you—do we strive to make Karsten ours now? Then we needs must stamp out a hundred rebel fires down the full length of the duchy. And to do that we should strip the northern keeps. For that Alizon waits—
“We have rid this city of Yvian, the strong man who crested its rule for long. Now will there be five, six of the coastwise lords tearing at each other’s flanks to take his place. And, so embroiled, they will have no mind to trouble the north for a space. Anarchy here serves our cause better than any occupation force.”
“Lord!” Simon turned as the Sulcar captain of the ship came up. “I have one here with a story. He thinks it worth selling, perhaps he is right.”
He shoved forward a man wearing the grimed and stained clothing of a common sailor, who promptly bent knee in the servility of Yvian’s enforcement.
“Well?” Simon asked.
“It is thus, lord. There was this ship. She was a coaster, but not of the usual order. Her men, they did not go ashore, though she was dock set for two days, maybe three. And they sent no cargo to the wharves, nor did they ride hold-filled when they came in. So we watched her, m’ mate and me. And we saw naught, save that she was so quiet. But when the fighting started in the city, then she came to life. The men, they take out their sculls and cast off. But so did a lot of others, so that was not so different. Only all the others they kept goin’ once they started—”
“And this ship did not?” Simon could not see the purpose, but he had confidence enough in the Sulcar captain’s recommendation to listen the tale out.
“Just to over stream—” The sailor nodded to the opposite bank of the river, keeping his eyes respectfully on the deck planking. “There they sat on their sculls while the rest of those on the run headed up river. Then there was this boat, a small skiff just drifting along—like lost from a tow. But they did some fast sculling to get it on the port side where it was hid. And it didn’t come out again. Only after that they were on the move, headin’ downstream instead of up.”
“And you thought that odd?” Simon prompted.
“Well, yes, seein’ as how your men were coming from that direction. O’ course most of them were ferried across the river by then and hittin’ the city. Maybe those others—they thought a try at gettin’ back down to the coast was better than headin’ inland on the river.”
“Picked someone up from the skiff,” Ingvald said.
“So it would seem,” Simon agreed. “But who? One of their own officers?”