Arrow's Fall (23 page)

Had there been uneasiness when the woman spoke Ancar’s name?

“Flooding, for fair. Crops and herds wiped out, rivers’changing course even. Young Elspeth has been at the Queen to let her be about the countryside doing what she can—but of course that’s out of the question while she’s still in schooling. Once she’s older though, I’ve no doubt she’ll be the Queen’s own right hand. Surely Ancar has been seeing to things for his father?”

“No ... no, not really. The ... the factors take care of all that, you know. And ... we really don’t want to be seeing Ancar ... it isn’t fitting for someone in his station to be going among the common folk. He has his own Court-—has since he came of age, you know. He has—other interests.”

“Ah,” Talia replied, and allowed the conversation to turn to another topic.

“Not very conclusive,” Kris mused. “But it’s looking odd.”

Talia nodded; they’d waited again until they were on the road before talking.

“I’ve gotten a similar sort of impression,” he began.

“As if things were reasonably well
now
, but that folk are not entirely sure of what the morrow might bring.”

“
Damn
that goatsfoot! If we could just have some idea bow deeply this goes—if it’s more than just the usual worries about ‘better the straw king than the lion king’ —
gods
, we need your Gift!”

“Ifs still not reliable,” she told him regretfully.

“Well, we just have to muddle along on our own.” He sighed, “This is exactly the kind of reason we’ve been Sent on ahead, and we
have
to have clearer information than we’ve got. Selenay can’t act on anything this vague.”

“I know,” she said, biting her lip. “I know.”

That night Talia tackled an elderly clerk. When she brought up the topic of the King, he was voluble in his praise of Alessandar.

“Look at these hostels—wonderful idea, wonderful! I remember when I was just a lad, my first post as tax-collector—Lord Sun, the inns I had to stay in, verminous, filthy, and costing so high you wondered why they didn’t just put a knife to your throat and have done with it! And he’s cleaned out most of the brigands and robbers, him and his Army; Karse daren’t even think about invading anymore. Oh, aye, he’s a great King—but he’s old . . .”

“Surely Ancar—”

“Well, that’s as may be. The Prince is a one for protocol and position; he doesn’t seem to be as open-handed as his sire. And there’s the rumors. . . .”

“Oh?”

“Oh, you know, young m’lady—there’s always rumors.”

Indeed there were rumors; and now Kris actually suspected listeners, so he signaled Talia to wait to talk until they were on an open stretch of road the next day, with no one else near.

She told him what she’d gotten, and what she’d guessed.

“So Ancar has his own little Court, hm?” Kris mused. “And his own circle of followers and hangers-on. I can’t say as I like the sound of that. Even if the Prince is innocent and fair-minded, there’s likely to be those that would use him in a situation like that.”

“He doesn’t sound innocent or fair-minded from the little I’ve pried out of anyone,” Talia replied. “Granted in fairness—he may just be a naturally cold and hard man. Goddess knows he’s seen enough warfare at his age to have turned him hard.”

“Oh? This is news to me—say on.”

“At fourteen he participated in a series of campaigns that wiped out every trace of the Northern barbarians along therr North Border. That set of campaigns lasted almost two years. At seventeen he led the Army against the last raid Karse ever dared make on them—and again, the raiders were utterly wiped out. At twenty he personally mounted a campaign against highwaymen, with the result that nearly every tree from here to the capital was bearing gallows’ fruit that summer.”

“Sounds like he should be regarded as a hero.”

“Instead of with fear? It was apparently the
way
he conducted himself that has people afraid. He makes no effort to hide the fact that he enjoys killing—and he’s utterly, utterly ruthless. He hanged more than a few of those ‘highwaymen’ on merest suspicion of wrongdoing, and lingered with a winecup in his hand to watch while they died.”

“Lovely lad. Sounds like just the mate for our Elspeth.”

“Don’t even say that as a joke!” Talia all but hissed. “Or haven’t you been granted any of the tales of his conduct with women?
I
was told it isn’t a good idea to attract his attention, and to stay out of his sight as much as possible.”

“Probably more than you; if you believe what you hear, young Ancar’s taste runs to rape, and the younger, the better, so long as they’re nubile and attractive. But that’s the tale only if you read between the lines. Nobody’s told me anything about that straight out.”

:They haven’t said anything straight out about the wizards he keeps either,:
Tantris put in unexpectedly.

“What?” Kris replied in surprise.

:I’ve been keeping my ears open in the stable. The hostelkeepers have been frightening the stablehands into line with threats about turning them over to Ancar’s wizards if they don’t move briskly and keep to their work.:

“So? That’s an old wives’ trick.”

:Not when it’s being used on “stableboys” old enough to have families of their own. And not when the threat genuinely terrified them.:

“Lord of Light, this is beginning to look grim—” Kris relayed Tantris’ words to Talia.

“We’ve
got
to find someone willing to speak out,” she replied. “We daren’t turn back with nothing in our hands but rumors. Selenay needs
facts
—and if we turned back now, we might well precipitate a diplomatic incident.”

“I agree,” Kris replied, even more firmly. “And if we’re being watched, well—-we just might not reach the Border again.”

“You think it’s possible? You think he’d dare?”

“I think he would, if what the rumors hint at is true, and enough was at stake. And the only way we’re going to get any idea of what Ancar is like and what his plans are, is to get in close to him. And I’m afraid we
need
that information; I’m afraid more than Elspeth’s betrothal hinges on us now.”

“That,” she replied, “is what I feared you’d say.”

A day from the capital they finally found someone who would discuss the “rumors.” It was pure luck, plainly and simply.

As they rode into town, Talia spotted a trader’s caravan that she thought she recognized. Traders’ wagons were all built to the same pattern, but their gaudy painting was highly individual. The designs rarely included lettering, since most of a trader’s customers were far from literate, but they were meant to be memorable for the selfsame reason. And Talia thought she remembered the design of cheerful blue cats chasing each other around the lower border.

A few moments later, she saw the shaggy black head of the bearded owner, and couldn’t believe her good fortune. This trader, one Evan by name, was a man who owed Talia his life. He had been accused of murder; she had defended him from an angry mob and found out the real culprit. Having cast Truth Spell on him and touched his mind, she knew she could trust not only his words, but that he would not betray them to anyone.

His wagon was parked in a row of others, in the stable-yard of the “Crown and Candle”, an inn that catered to trade.

When they reached the hostel, and settled down to dinner, Talia tapped Kris’ toe with her own. They didn’t like to use this method of communicating; it was awkward and very easy to detect unless their feet were hidden. But the hostel was nearly empty, and they’d been given a table to themselves in the back; she reckoned it was safe enough this tune.

Follow my lead,
she signaled.

He nodded, eyes half closed, as if in response to a thought of his own.

“I saw an old friend today,” she said—and tapped
Trader—Truth Spell
—knowing that he would readily remember the only circumstance that combined those two subjects.

“Really? Wonder if we could get him to stand us a drink?”

And—
Information source?—
he tapped back.

“Oh, I think so,” she replied cheerfully.
Yes.

“Good! I could stand a drop of good wine. This stuff is not my idea of a drink.”
Reliable?

“Then I’ll see if we can’t talk him into a round or two.”
Yes—Debt of honor.

“Hm.” He pushed his stew around with a bit of bread. Gods—
your Gift?

Back.

Do it.

She summoned one of the little boys that hung around the hostel hoping for just such an opportunity to earn a coin, and sent a carefully worded message to Evan. He replied by the same messenger, asking her to meet him, not at his inn, but at his wagon.

He did not seem surprised to see Kris with her. He opened the back of the wagon and invited both of them inside the tiny living area. The three of them squeezed into seats around a tiny scrap of a table, and Evan poured three cups of wine, then waited expectantly.

Talia let down her shields with caution, and searched about the wagon for any human presence near enough to hear anything. There was nothing, and no one.

“Evan—” she said quietly, then, “traders hear a lot. To come straight to the point, I need to know what
you’ve
heard about Prince Ancar. You know you can trust me—and I promise we aren’t being spied on. I’d know if we were.”

Evan hesitated, but only a moment. “I ... expected something of this sort. If I did not owe you so very much, Lady Herald—but there it is. And you have the right of it, a trader hears much. Aye, there’s rumors, black rumors, about young Ancar. Five, six years agone, when he first came of age and warranted his own court, he began collecting some unchancy sorts about him. Scholars, he calls ‘em. And, aye, some good has come of it—like the signal towers, some aqueducts and the like. But in the last year his scholars have gotten more of a reputation for wizardry and witchcraft than they have for knowledge.”

“Well, now, isn’t that what they say of Heralds here, too?” Kris smiled uneasily.

“But I never heard anyone say your witchcraft was anything but of the Light, young man,” Evan replied, “And I’ve never heard anything but darksome tales of late where Ancar’s friends are concerned. I’ve heard tales that they raise power with the spilling of blood—”

“How likely?” Kris asked.

Evan shrugged. “Can’t say. To be fair, I’ve been places where the same is said of the followers of the One, and you of Valdemar know how wrong
that
is. This I
can
tell for true—he has in the past year turned to wenching. Wenching of the nastier sort. He has his way with any poor young maid that catches his eye, highborn or low, and none dare gainsay him—and his tastes run to leaving them with scars. Well, and that isn’t all. He has men of his own about the countryside these days—’intelligencers’ they call themselves. They claim to be like you twain, being the King’s eyes and ears, to see that all’s well—but I misdoubt that they’re speaking their information in any ears but Ancar’s, and I doubt the King knows they exist.”

“I don’t like that,” Talia whispered.

“I don’t either. I’ve been questioned by ‘em fair often since I crossed the Border, and I mislike some of the questions they’re asking. Who bought like they’d gotten prosperous, who’d told me aught, who bends knee to what god—aye, you can believe old Evan the Shrewd became Evan the Stupid ‘round ‘em.”

His expression changed to one of thick-headed opacity. “Aye, milord, no, milord, talk t’
me
milord?” He wiped the look from his face. “Even let ‘em cheat me right royally t’ convince ‘em. That’s not the end of it. I’ve heard from those I trust that Ancar has raised his own private Army; at least three thousand men, and all of when Ancar takes the throne. Oh, yes,” he shook his head, “I pity them.”

They rode away from their hostel the next morning with grim faces, and paused in a little copse of trees just outside of town, where they could see anyone approaching, but no one could see them.

“I don’t like it,” Talia said flatly. “My vote is to turn around and head back for the Border—but there’s the fact that a move like that could be construed as an insult.”

She wanted badly to run; she was more afraid now than she’d ever been except when she’d lost control over her Gift. She was feeling very like she was walking into something she couldn’t handle now, too—but this was exactly why Selenay had sent them in the first place—to uncover anything that might threaten Valdemar. And there was just the faintest of premonitions that some of this might lead back to Orthallen.

“All the more reason to stick it out,” Kris replied soberly. “We’ve heard the rumors; we need to learn
exactly
how much danger there is, or we can’t properly advise the Queen of the situation. We don’t learn the depth of the problem by turning tail and running. And like I said before—if we turn now, they might decide we’ve learned something, and stop us before we made it back across the Border. If we stick, we should be able to bluff our way out.”

“Kris, it’s dangerous; we’re playing with fire, here.”