Avenger

TWELVE

3 Alturiak, the Year of Deep Water Drifting (1480 DR)

The Council Guard soldiers came for Mirya in the middle of the night. She was awakened from a fitful sleep by the sound of her cottage’s door breaking open, the angry shouts of the harmach’s soldiers, and their heavy, armored footsteps thundering over the old floorboards. She sat up and started to swing her legs out of the bed with some half-formed notion of fleeing out the back door, but the bedroom door flew open and several soldiers with bared steel in their hands surged forward to seize her. She was dragged stumbling from the bed to the kitchen, where a Council Guard sergeant she didn’t know waited by the banked fire.

“Who are you? What’s this all about?” Mirya managed.

“Shut up, you!” one of the soldiers holding her snarled. He cuffed her across the mouth with the back of his mailed gauntlet-not with his full strength, since no bones broke and her teeth all stayed where they belonged, but still hard enough to buckle her knees and split her lip. Dizzy, she sagged in the soldiers’ grip until they stood her upright again.

“Mirya Erstenwold, we’ve got a writ for your arrest,” the sergeant said. “You’re accused of conspiracy, harborin’ spies, and committin’ acts of rebellion ’gainst the harmach.”

“No-” she began to protest, but a hard look from the soldier who’d hit her brought her protest to a quick end. Then the Council Guards marched her out the door to a waiting wagon and shoved her inside, slamming the door of iron bars shut behind her. In the space of a few heartbeats the wagon was jouncing and rocking as it rolled down the lane back toward the center of town. Mirya huddled inside her nightshirt, trying to make sense of what had happened and where they might be taking her. The night air was cold and dank, and a sour old smell clung to the wagon’s interior. She could hear the clatter of hoofbeats on cobblestones from the team drawing the wagon, the harsh commands of the driver and the sharp flick of the lash, the creaking and jingling of the soldiers’ armor and the wagon’s springs.

Thank the gods that Selsha wasn’t home, she thought dully. She didn’t think the soldiers would have dragged in a girl not even ten years of age yet, but the whole scene would have terrified her daughter beyond words. She had no idea what was about to become of her, but at least Selsha was safe with the Tresterfins.

The wagon finally rattled to a stop. Two more Council Guards unlocked the door and dragged her out. She caught a single glimpse of their surroundings, and recognized the silhouette of the Council Hall’s decorated eaves in the dim orange light of the streetlamps. Then she was ushered inside and down a flight of stairs to the guardrooms below the hall proper. She’d been this way once before, when Geran had been arrested at his cousin Sergen’s order and held here. The guards led her past several cells that were already occupied; she recognized half a dozen of her neighbors, including the bearlike Brun Osting, who was stretched out unconscious on his cell floor. She doubted that they’d brought him in without a fight. The young brewer’s face was a mass of blood and bruises, but two of his kinfolk-fortunately Halla was not among them-were tending to him in the cell. Torm guard us all, she thought. Marstel’s soldiers have caught half the resistance tonight!

The guards came to an empty cell and shoved her in. “Enjoy your stay,” one snarled at her. Then the door slammed shut, its heavy iron bolt sliding shut. Mirya picked herself up off the flagstones, and crawled off to curl up in one corner of the cold stone chamber. Her mouth ached where she’d been struck, and she touched her lip gingerly. I’ll count myself lucky if that’s the worst I have to show for this, she thought.

Hours passed as she waited in the cold cell. To judge by the sounds she heard echoing down the halls, the council dungeons were bustling with activity this night. Doors creaked open and slammed shut, guards moved around with heavy footsteps and jingling mail, voices shouted in protest or suddenly cried out in pain. She found herself cringing at each new outburst, wondering who’d been caught and what was happening to them. Just when Mirya was beginning to wonder if she’d simply been forgotten, she was roused by the sound of keys turning in the lock of her cell. A pair of Council Guards let themselves in, and without speaking a word to her, simply grabbed her by the arms and hustled her out the door.

“What is it?” Mirya asked. “Where are we going?” But her jailers didn’t answer. They showed her into a small, windowless room, sat her down in a sturdy wooden chair in its center with her arms behind her back, and bolted her manacles to a shackle in the floor. Then the two of them took station behind her.

A short time after that, the room’s door opened again, and a short, broad-shouldered officer with sandy hair and a stern frown fixed over his small goatee entered the room. She recognized him as Edelmark, the captain of the Council Guard; they’d never met, but she’d seen him a few times. A clerk followed him in, taking a seat in the corner and laying out a quill and parchment by a small writing desk there.

Edelmark regarded her in silence for a moment before taking a seat behind a wooden table and setting his helm-the brow marked by a device of a golden stag-on top. “Well, what are we to do with you?” he finally said.

Mirya wasn’t entirely sure that the question was meant for her, but she did her best to meet his steely eyes without cringing. “I suppose that depends on what you think I’ve done,” she replied. If Edelmark knew about her involvement in the resistance, then he had ample reason to have her executed at once. She and her small band had struck several times in the last few tendays, and blood had been spilled more than once. On the other hand, it was just barely possible that she’d been swept up with the rest on suspicion alone, and that she might still walk free.

Edelmark studied her without expression. “I think that you’re one of the people behind some of the little troubles we’ve seen of late, which makes you quite possibly a rebel, a murderer, and a traitor. Any one of those things would be ample grounds for me to have you hanged at dawn. On the other hand, I’m a reasonable fellow. If you’re honest with me and simply explain what part you’ve played in some of these events, I’ll urge Harmach Marstel to exercise leniency in your case. You have an opportunity to make up for whatever misjudgments you might have made lately. I sincerely suggest that you take it.”

A chill ran down Mirya’s spine. A small, frightened part of her whimpered and begged to throw herself on Edelmark’s mercy, hoping that she might save herself by doing as he asked. But she guessed that Edelmark’s definition of “mercy” probably did not extend to letting her go, not after the part she’d played in Hulburg’s incipient resistance. And she’d never be able to live with herself if she offered someone else to face justice-well, Harmach Marstel’s so-called justice-in her place. She simply shook her head. “I’ve done nothing wrong,” she told him.

Edelmark allowed himself a small smile. “Indeed,” he said. “Two days ago, someone shot half-a-dozen crossbow bolts at a Council Guard patrol on the Vale Road. One man was badly wounded, and two more injured. It was a carefully planned ambush by someone who knew the woods in that area quite well. Do you know anything about that?”

“No,” she answered, doing her best to lie with a straight face. She’d put Brun and Senna up to it a tenday earlier; they’d spent days choosing the right spot. It had been a risky attack, but she wanted the Council Guards to think twice about where they went and in what numbers.

“An attack on the harmach’s soldiers is a capital offense. The only way you’d avoid execution for involvement in something like that is by admitting your guilt and showing you sincerely regretted your actions by helping us to locate everyone involved.”

Mirya said nothing. Edelmark waited, simply watching her. Then he sighed and continued. “Two Iron Ring armsmen were murdered in an alleyway behind the Siren Song festhall three nights ago. They were seen to leave the place in the company of a dark-haired woman who’d apparently promised them her favors.”

“It certainly wasn’t me!” Mirya snapped, and she meant it. “I wouldn’t set foot in such a place.”

“Of course not,” Edelmark replied, but his eyes remained as cold as a drawn blade. He leaned back, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. “A little more than three tendays ago-on the 8th of Hammer, to be precise-a House Veruna supply caravan bound for the Galena camps was attacked by ten masked bandits. They killed five Veruna armsmen and pillaged the wagons, but they spared the drivers. Do you know who might have been involved in that?”

Keep calm, Mirya! she admonished herself. She allowed herself a frown of disapproval. “So far you’ve suggested I might be involved in prostitution, murder, and now brigandage,” Mirya answered. “Have there been any kidnappings or rapes lately? We might as well go through those as well.”

“Mind your manners, Mistress Erstenwold,” Edelmark replied. He nodded at the soldiers standing behind Mirya. She heard two quick footsteps and a rattle of chain before her arms-still bound behind her-were jerked upward sharply by the manacles between her wrists. Twin stabs of pain in her shoulders brought a cry from her throat, and her face was forced down toward her knees. Then the pressure was gone, and her arms fell back into their natural place. “Would you like to rephrase your answer?”

Mirya winced. “Captain Edelmark, I’ve no idea who’s behind the attacks.”

The captain studied her for a long time. She expected him to nod at the soldiers behind her again, and found herself tensing for the sudden jerk and sharp pain again, but instead he frowned and leaned back in his chair. “Have you seen Geran Hulmaster since his exile?”

Everybody knows that Geran attacked the Temple of the Wronged Prince, she thought swiftly. He must know that Geran’s looked out for me before. And it might make other things I’ve said ring more true if I show a little honesty now. Carefully, she nodded. “Yes. I saw him the day before the temple burned down.”

Edelmark raised an eyebrow. “So you consorted with an avowed enemy of the harmach?”

“It was no idea of mine,” Mirya replied. “He simply appeared at my storehouse-how, I couldn’t say-and he didn’t stay long. He was gone again within half an hour.”

“And you made no report of this to the Council Guard?”

Mirya scowled. “Geran saved my daughter and me from slavery at the hands of the Black Moon pirates. All of Hulburg knows the tale by now. No, I didn’t see fit to tell the Council Guard that I’d seen him.”

“What did you talk about?”

“He stopped by to see how I was getting along.”

“Did he say anything about his intentions?”

“He blamed Valdarsel for Harmach Grigor’s murder in Thentia. I guessed that he meant to do something about it. But I’d no idea that he’d attack the Cyricists as he did.”

“Do you know where he is, or what he might be planning next?”

Mirya shook her head. “Away from Hulburg by now, I would guess. As for what he intends to do now, I couldn’t say.”

Edelmark paused. He stood slowly, folding his hands behind his back, and paced away, evidently thinking over what she’d said. Mirya watched him, wondering if he was merely making a show of careful consideration or truly digesting the very little she’d actually told him. Absently he motioned to the guards behind her, and she squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation of the pain to come-but this time the guards unlocked her manacles, and freed her wrists. She frowned and rubbed at her bruises.

“I suspect that you haven’t been completely honest with me, Mistress Erstenwold,” the captain said. “However, I can’t easily prove it-at the moment. You may go, but I’ll send you with a warning. If you see or hear from Geran Hulmaster again, you will tell us immediately, or I will charge you with conspiring against the harmach, and that will lead to a short drop and a sudden stop very soon thereafter. Do you understand me?”

“Aye, I understand you,” she answered.

Edelmark looked to the soldiers behind her. “Show her out.” He picked up his helm from the table and left; the clerk followed after him, gathering his parchment. The soldiers behind Mirya came forward and helped her to her feet-somewhat less roughly this time-and quickly ushered her out of the council dungeons. Before she knew it, she was standing on the front steps of the Council Hall, still dressed in her nightclothes, blinking at the sunlight. The guards returned inside without a word, leaving her there.

“Now what was that all about?” she muttered aloud. If Marstel’s men suspected her enough to bring her in, they certainly had reason enough to jail her or hang her. But perhaps Edelmark’s suspicions were as thinly founded as he claimed, and he didn’t want to risk making a martyr of her for the rest of the loyalists to rally around. She shivered in the cold air, drew her robe around her, and hurried toward Erstenwold’s. The first thing she meant to do was to get properly dressed; fortunately she had several changes of clothes at the store and wouldn’t have to walk all the way back home in her stocking feet.

When she reached the store, she found that her clerks had opened without her, but it was a quiet day and nothing had needed her immediate attention. She stayed only long enough to send word to the Therndons that she needed a woodworker to have a look at her door, and then made her way back home.

As she’d thought, the front door was well and truly ruined; the harmach’s men had simply stood it up in the doorway, but it was no longer attached. She sighed and worked her way inside, pausing to take in the damage to her cottage. As she’d expected, it had been searched violently and thoroughly. Many of her best plates were broken on the kitchen floor, the cupboards were bare, the sheets and blankets were dumped on the floor … “What a mess,” she muttered. If she weren’t so angry about the senselessness of it, she would’ve thrown herself down in one of the chairs and cried.

She looked around, trying to determine the best place to start, but an envelope on top of her mantle caught her eye. Frowning, she went and took it down. It was addressed simply “Mirya” in a graceful, feminine hand. Somehow she doubted that the soldiers would have bothered to leave her a letter; they’d delivered their message by ransacking the house. Curious, she broke the plain wax seal and drew out a short note:

Dearest Mirya,

It is imperative that we speak at once.

— S.

“Sennifyr,” Mirya breathed. She frowned at the note, wondering what to do. Once upon a time she would have answered such a summons without a moment’s hesitation; junior initiates in the Sisterhood of the Black Veil were expected to obey. But she’d parted ways with the Sisterhood years earlier, until the troubles plaguing Hulburg in the last few months had led her to seek Mistress Sennifyr’s counsel again. The First Sister was very well informed about events in Hulburg. Every devotee of Shar in the town-many of them women who were well-placed to see and hear many of the town’s secrets-owed Sennifyr fealty, and reported to her a myriad of rumors, gossip, and observations. Mirya no longer devoted herself to the goddess of secrets and sorrow, but that didn’t mean Sennifyr wouldn’t help her if it suited her purposes to do so. Of course, Sennifyr meant to draw her back into the Sisterhood’s orbit, so Mirya would have to be on her guard.

“What is it Sennifyr thinks I should know?” Mirya murmured to herself. She frowned, trying to decide whether to answer or not. Finally she sighed, drew a warm hooded cloak around her shoulders, and hurried back out into the cold. A quarter-hour’s walk brought her around the foot of Griffonwatch and then up Hill Street toward the houses of the wealthy that dotted the higher slopes of Easthead. The houses were grand old places with gated drives and manicured gardens, although those were brown and bare with winter.

She found the house she was looking for, a fine mansion that stood amid wind-swept cedars. Before she could reconsider, she let herself in the wrought-iron gate, climbed the stone steps to the door, and gave the pull chain for the bell a deliberate tug. Chimes echoed inside. After a short time, she heard light footsteps approaching, and a young woman with long dark hair opened the door-the same attendant who’d greeted Mirya the last time she had called on Sennifyr. “The mistress is expecting you,” she said. “This way, if you please.”

Mirya followed the young woman to the mansion’s parlor, where she found Sennifyr reading a book by the fire. Sennifyr was a woman of forty-five years or so, but her face possessed an almost ageless serenity, and no gray touched her light brown hair, piled high above her head in an elegant coiffure. Sennifyr smiled and set down her book, rising smoothly to her feet. “Ah, Mirya, how good of you to come! I was afraid that you might not see the note Lana left in your house amid all the dreadful mess she found there. Tell me, are you all right?”

“I’m well enough,” Mirya replied. At Sennifyr’s gesture, she took the other seat by the fire as the young woman-Lana, or so Mirya supposed-stepped forward to take her hood.

Sennifyr returned to her seat, but she leaned forward, peering at Mirya. “Oh, by the Lady,” the noblewoman said, her hand rising to her mouth. “Mirya, your face! Why, they’ve beaten you black-and-blue!” She made several small tsking sounds, leaning across to gently caress Mirya’s cheek. Mirya steeled herself not to draw away; she did not intend to let Sennifyr see anything that might be taken as fear or weakness on her part. “I should tend to that!”

“It’s not so bad as it looks,” Mirya replied. “A few hours’ rest and I’ll be right as rain.”

“You must have been terrified, my dear. Tell me, what happened?” Sennifyr nodded to Lana; the young woman rolled a small teacart close, and began to arrange the cups and saucers.

Mirya suspected that Sennifyr already knew quite well what had happened, but she answered anyway. “The Council Guard stormed my house and dragged me out in the middle of the night,” she said. “I spent the rest of the night and most of the morning in the Council Hall’s dungeons. Edelmark questioned me about loyalist attacks of late, but he decided he lacked any reason to keep me imprisoned and set me free.”

“Indeed,” the noblewoman breathed. “That seems rather … generous of him.”

“I was surprised too,” Mirya said. Sennifyr simply studied her without saying anything. Mirya frowned, wondering what it was that Sennifyr thought she’d missed. An ugly suspicion dawned in her mind. “You believe that he had some other reason to let me go?”

Sennifyr smiled thinly. “Mirya, if I wanted to find out who was loyal and who was disloyal, I would certainly think about letting at least a few of my catches go and watching to see who they spoke with after I released them. I imagine it might be quite instructive.”

“I shouldn’t have come here,” Mirya murmured. “Now you’ll be under suspicion too.”

The noblewoman laughed softly. “Oh, I think I am safe enough. Unlike you, I have no suspicious activities to answer for and no special connection to House Hulmaster. You are my only flirtation with sedition, and I will of course be very careful to behave myself. But you, on the other hand, you are being watched very closely indeed. You must take great care not to bring suspicion to anyone who might in fact be involved with this show of resistance to Marstel’s reign.”

“How do you know this?” Mirya asked.

Sennifyr shrugged. “One of our Sisters is the mistress of a high-ranking officer in the Council Guard. She hears much of what Edelmark shares with his lieutenants. But even without her reports, I would have been suspicious of your release. For that matter, you must also be careful of any friends you have who are engaged in any … disloyal activities. They may also wonder why you were released, and they may come to their own conclusions.”

“What a fool I am,” Mirya growled at herself. Of course Edelmark wouldn’t have let her go simply because he lacked any proof of her wrongdoing. Lack of evidence hadn’t stopped him for months; a suspicion was all the captain of the Council Guard needed to have someone dragged off to the dungeons and kept there indefinitely.

“I have only your best interests at heart, Mirya. I was not about to let a sister-even one who has gone her own way for a time-walk unwittingly into Edelmark’s little trap.”

Mirya doubted very much whether that was Sennifyr’s only concern, but whatever the noblewoman’s motivation, she might very well have saved her from a very dangerous blunder. “I thank you, Mistress Sennifyr.”

Sennifyr inclined her head, and leaned back in her seat. “Have you any news of Geran Hulmaster? I confess that I am very curious as to what he might do next after that terrible business at the temple of Cyric.”

Now things become clear, Mirya reflected. Sennifyr hadn’t offered her help out of the goodness of her own heart; she knew well enough that Sennifyr didn’t have one. The Sharran hoped that Mirya knew something more than she did about the Hulmasters and their plans. “I’m afraid I haven’t,” she replied. “We spoke briefly before he and Sarth struck at the temple. Geran isn’t done fighting for Hulburg, and he means to challenge Marstel soon enough. But where he is now, I’ve no idea.”

The noblewoman studied her in silence. Then she carefully asked, “Would you like news of him? I will perform a divination for you if you wish. My own viewings are indistinct, but you are much more closely connected to Geran Hulmaster; I believe the results would be much more definitive for you.”

Mirya hesitated, weighing her decision. She feared to accept more of Sennifyr’s help, but on the other hand, she found that she was anxious to know whether Geran had escaped Hulburg or not. Marstel would have trumpeted the news from one end of town to the other if his soldiers had caught or killed Geran, but it was possible that Geran was in hiding and unable to leave now that the harmach’s forces were sweeping up loyalists. He could very well need assistance of some kind … “Very well,” she finally said. “I’m willing.”

Sennifyr nodded. She turned to the teacart, poured a cup, then drew a tiny vial from her sleeve and added a drop or two of a dark liquid to the tea. Murmuring the words of a spell, she carefully stirred the tea. Mirya sensed something taking shape in the darkened room, a stretching of the shadows or simply a dimming of the light; she’d never had much talent for magic herself. Then the noblewoman lifted the cup and offered it to Mirya. “Here, drink this. You will see for a short time.”

Mirya took the cup, and drank deeply of the sweet black tea. It had a faint oily taste, and it seemed to cling to her tongue and teeth. The vapors filled her nose, and she felt a mild dizziness. “Good,” Sennifyr said softly. “Now close your eyes, dear, and think of your handsome lordling. Fix your mind’s eye on Geran’s face, the sound of his voice, the color of his eyes, the shape of his mouth.”

She did as Sennifyr instructed, bringing to mind Geran’s features as she thought of him standing in front of the counter at Erstenwold’s on a sunny afternoon, a small smile touching the corner of his mouth as he listened to her recount some story of Selsha’s doings. It was a memory from a few tendays after he’d foiled his cousin’s plots, a brief carefree time in the summer when it seemed that all that was wrong in Hulburg had been set right. Then she felt the power of Sennifyr’s magic begin to take hold; the memory simply drew away into darkness, and she groped blindly after it. Instead, she found a confusing jumble of images, Geran as seen in dozens of brief moments, each lasting for only the blink of an eye before it vanished again into the next. She shook her head and tried to fix the flickering visions in her mind.

Geran was making love with a golden-haired woman, their limbs entwined in the candelight as they lay together in a darkened room. Stunned, Mirya could only stare; as he shifted and drew back for a moment, she saw Nimessa Sokol, her eyes half closed. Somehow Mirya knew she was seeing something that had happened not long before-the divination’s magic at work, she guessed. He slept with Nimessa? she thought dully. How could he do that? A familiar ache welled up under her breastbone, and Mirya hugged her arms close to her body. She wrenched her eyes away, horrified to have stumbled into such an intimate moment, and the vision complied by vanishing from her view. Then she caught a glimpse of Geran dressed in the colors of a Sokol armsman, jogging along on a horse as he rode alongside a creaking caravan leaving Hulburg along the Coastal Way. Two of the gray guardians watched impassively as he rode by, but they did not stir. “He escaped Hulburg,” she murmured aloud. Sennifyr did not reply.

Now she saw Geran standing by the rail of a merchant caravel that plunged and pitched over a sea of leaden gray, bitter spray blowing back from each dip of the bow, his tattered cloak flapping around him. This time she sensed that she saw something that was happening as she watched. “He is at sea,” she said, “but I can’t tell where he is bound.” Hulburg’s port was still icebound, so he had to be on his way to another Moonsea city. A gray coast loomed ahead in the mists and rain, but before she could make out any more, the vision fell away to be replaced by another.

This time she saw Geran fighting in some strange, shadowy place, a great chamber of stone where ghostly warriors streamed from the darkness to beset him. He wielded a black sword in one hand, and his mouth moved silently as he shouted the words of a spell. “Now he’s fighting in a dark place,” she said. Mirya reached out to him, sensing the danger that he was in, but then she realized that what she was seeing hadn’t yet come to pass. The image began to flicker, and she called out, hoping to see just a little more. “Geran! Wait!”

“He does not hear you, my dear,” Sennifyr said.

Mirya blinked her eyes, realizing the visions were over. She surged to her feet, still trying to make sense of what she’d seen. Geran was safe, for now, although terrible danger waited for him soon enough … but the vision that she couldn’t drive out of her mind was the image of Geran lying in Nimessa’s arms. It’s none of my business! she fumed at herself. Why should I care? I have no claim on him, nor does he have any on me. But if that was true, then why did her heart ache as if she’d been pierced with a knife? Mirya, you foolish girl, she told herself. You’ve fallen for him again, and that’s why your heart is breaking. You foolish, foolish girl!

Sennifyr watched her carefully. “Mirya, my dear, what is it? What’s wrong?”

“I–I have to go,” Mirya replied. She took her cloak from the peg where Lana had hung it and hurried out of the mansion into the clean, cold air.