Shapers of Darkness (41 page)

“You ask this of me, Your Eminence, and yet you treat me as if I had betrayed you. Does this mean that you have others looking for evidence that I’m with the conspiracy?”

For some time the emperor said nothing, although the Weaver sensed that he had stopped walking again. “I have to check on everyone, Dusaan. Surely you understand that.”

Of course I do, you fat fool. But who have you asked to find evidence of my betrayal?
If it was merely the palace guards, Dusaan didn’t care. They would find nothing, and they would soon be dead or in the palace dungeon. But what if he had found a minister or chancellor to do his spying? What if he had already managed to divide the palace Qirsi?

“Of course I understand, Your Eminence. But I also know that the precautions you’ve taken today—disarming me, hooding me—are a humiliation. I’ve served you well for nine years. Don’t I deserve better than this?”

“Perhaps. But I expect that today’s experience will convince
you of how seriously I take this matter, and maybe it will encourage you to find the traitors more quickly.”

The high chancellor had to smile. Again, the man had surprised him with his cunning. Could there be more to the emperor than he had realized?

“Is this why you called me here today, Your Eminence? To impress upon me how eager you are to find the renegades?”

“In part, yes. I also wish to ask you about the fee accountings.”

For the first time, Dusaan knew a moment of fear. Harel had long entrusted him with the fee accountings for all the realm, and Dusaan had used Braedon’s treasury to pay those he turned to his cause. A friend of his, a Qirsi merchant named Tihod jal Brossa, had created a network of couriers who delivered the gold to those who had earned payment through their efforts on behalf of the movement. Without access to Harel’s coffers, he would never have gotten this close to the realization of his ambitions. At this point, with success so near, his need for the emperor’s gold was not as great as once it had been, but nevertheless, he was loath to lose access to the accountings. And the mere thought of it raised a deeper fear, one that he had managed to keep from his mind so far this day.

“What about them, Your Eminence?” His voice remained even, though he felt sweat running down his temples.

“I’ve been thinking that perhaps it would be best to let Uriad have control of them until the war is over. Most of the gold we pay out right now goes to the fleet and army anyway, and it seems to make sense that the master of arms should oversee the accountings. That way he can send gold where it’s needed without having to bother you.”

Dusaan should have expected it. On some level he had. None of what he had done with Harel’s gold could ever be traced; he had made certain of that from the very beginning. But once more his rage threatened to overwhelm him. That he should have to debase himself before this man was bad enough. That Dusaan’s movement should suffer for Harel’s fear and mistrust, however justified they might be, was nearly intolerable.

“As you wish, of course, Your Eminence. But let’s not weave mists with our words. You wish to give Uriad control of the fee accountings because you no longer trust me with them. Isn’t that so?”

He sensed the emperor’s discomfort and knew that he was right.

“Until I know for certain that you can be trusted, wouldn’t I be a fool to allow you such open access to my treasury?”

“I see your point, Your Eminence.”

“Good. When all this unpleasantness is over, I’m certain that everything will go back to the way it was before.”

“I hope you’re right, Your Eminence.”

“You disagree?”

He regretted his choice of words. No doubt it would have been safer to let the conversation end with the emperor’s false hope. But he had spoken and now had little choice but to respond.

“I think that when you make clear your mistrust, you risk driving away those who have served you loyally. I won’t lie to you, Your Eminence. There are many among your ministers and chancellors who are offended by the treatment they’ve received over the past turn.”

“And are you as well?”

Dusaan could hear indignation in the emperor’s voice, and he knew that he had angered him. Not that he cared anymore. If Harel was intent on taking the fee accountings from him, there was nothing more to be gained by flattering the man or humbling himself. He wasn’t about to give the emperor grounds to banish him from the court, but he saw no need to continue offering obeisance at every turn.

“Yes, Your Eminence, I suppose I am.”

“Well, that’s too bad! I would have thought that you would understand, High Chancellor! You of all people know what kind of man I am! I would never do these things unless I believed the danger was real. And if you can’t understand that, then perhaps I don’t know you as I thought I did.” Dusaan heard the scrape of a shoe on stone, and he could almost see Harel turning his back to the high chancellor in pique. “You
can go, High Chancellor. Send word to me when you’ve found the traitors. Until then, I don’t expect to hear from you.”

“Yes, Your Eminence.” He bowed, though he knew that Harel couldn’t see. The guards could, and they would be all too quick to say something if he failed to show the proper respect.

Once more, two men took hold of his arms. They turned him and led him back into the corridor. Once there, they removed the hood from his head.

His face and neck sticky with sweat, Dusaan held out his hand. “My dagger.”

“Yes, High Chancellor.”

He heard the change in their voices. They had seen how Harel treated him, they had tied a hood over his head. There had been deference in their greeting when he reached the chamber a short time before. It was gone now. Damn the man to Bian’s fires.

He sheathed his weapon, then turned smartly on his heel and walked away, saying nothing more to the soldiers.

Nitara was waiting for him in the corridor near his chambers. He sensed her there before she stepped from the shadows, diffident and alluring.

“Can I speak with you, High Chancellor?”

He nodded, though he would have preferred to be alone. She followed him into his chambers, stepping to his window as he closed the door.

“What is it you want? I’ve told you before, it’s dangerous for us to be seen together too often.”

“I wanted to make certain that I hadn’t angered you today.”

“When?”

“During our conversation with Gorlan. I wasn’t sure what you wanted me to say, how honest you wanted me to be.”

He forced a smile. He was growing increasingly impatient with her weakness, yet he knew that he needed her, particularly now that his source of gold was gone, at least temporarily. He couldn’t afford to lose any of his servants just now. “You did just fine. I want him to join our cause and I believe he will, thanks in part to what you said. I’m . . . I’m pleased.”

She lowered her gaze. “Thank you, Weaver,” she whispered.

“Now, go. I have matters to which I must attend.”

“Yes, of course.” But still she made no movement toward the door.

“Is there something else?”

Clearly there was. He felt her confusion, the turmoil within her heart. He had no time for this.

“No, Weaver,” she said at last. She made a vain attempt at a smile and crossed to the door, hesitating once more as she gripped the handle.

She had been this way since killing Kayiv. It almost seemed that she had still harbored some affection for the man after all. He found himself thinking of Cresenne, of how her seduction of Grinsa jal Arriet had turned to love, rendering her useless to his movement, and then leading her to betray the cause entirely. Brilliant and strong as she was, she had also been terribly young to bear the burdens he had placed upon her. Much like Nitara. Too late, he had come to understand that matters of the heart were more difficult for the younger ones. He would have to take care that this one didn’t turn on him as well.

Matters of the heart. He walked to where she still stood, taking her hands in his and forcing her to meet his gaze.

“You’ve served me well these past several turns. You’ve done more in so short a time than many have done for me over the course of years. And I’m grateful.”

He could feel her trembling as she whispered, “I could do so much more.”

“Soon. We can’t allow ourselves to be distracted now, when we’re so close. But those things that would be distractions before victory will become rewards after. Do you understand?”

She managed a smile. “Yes, Weaver.”

“Excellent.” He kissed one of her hands, then the other, never taking his eyes off of hers. Her smile deepened and her cheeks shaded to scarlet. “Now go,” he said again.

One might have thought that he had commanded her to remove her clothes, so eager was she to obey.

“Yes, Weaver,” she said, pulling her hands free and hurrying from his chamber. Once in the corridor, she looked back at him one last time.

“We’ll speak again shortly,” he assured her, and closed his door.

He listened for the sound of her footsteps retreating down the hallway. Only when he was certain that she had gone did he pull out the fee accountings and begin to pore over them, making certain that there were no entries that would raise the suspicions of Harel’s master of arms. It took him the rest of the day to examine all the volumes—there were fourteen in all, and he didn’t close the last of them until well after the ringing of the twilight bells—but he was satisfied that they would reveal nothing of his movement to Uriad. A servant came to his door with supper, and the high chancellor ordered the boy to fetch the palace guards.

When the soldiers arrived, he had them remove the volumes from his chamber. They were of no use to him now; they were but reminders of Harel’s continued power over him. He didn’t want to have to look at them anymore.

“Take them to the master of arms,” he commanded. “He’s in charge of the fees from now on.”

The two soldiers began to carry the volumes off, though they could only carry a few of them at one time. “We’ll be back for the rest,” one of the men said, straining under the weight of three volumes.

“Yes, fine. Bring two more men with you when you return. I don’t want this taking all night.”

“Yes, High Chancellor.”

The soldiers returned a short time later with two more men, and together they removed what remained of the accountings. Dusaan stood near the window the entire time, staring out at the emerging stars and ignoring the guards. Long after they had gone, he remained there. His meal sat undisturbed on his writing table until some time later, when the servant returned and took it away.

Tihod needed to be informed that there would be no more gold, at least from this source. No doubt some gold remained in the merchant’s network, converted from imperial qinde to common currency so that it couldn’t be traced back to Dusaan, but not yet disbursed to the Weaver’s various underlings. Dusaan needed to know how much was left.

But first he needed to know that Tihod was still alive. He hadn’t spoken to his friend in nearly a turn, since the latter half of Amon’s waning. At that time Tihod had been on the Wethy Crown, tracking Grinsa, the Weaver who threatened all that Dusaan hoped to accomplish with his movement. Tihod had spoken of killing the man, or at least making the attempt, and though Dusaan had tried to dissuade him, though he had warned the merchant of how dangerous it was for any ordinary Qirsi to pit his powers against those of a Weaver, he had little doubt that Tihod had made the attempt anyway.

As a merchant, and a successful one, Tihod was often a difficult man to find. He conducted business all along the shores of the Forelands, from the Bay of Zahid, in Uulrann, to Sanbira’s southern coast and the Sea of Stars. There had been times in the past when Dusaan had reached for Tihod, intending to speak to the man through his dreams, only to discover that the merchant’s ship wasn’t where he had thought it would be. Since he couldn’t cast his mind over all the realms of the Forelands in search of a single man without exhausting even his considerable powers, they often went half a turn or more without speaking.

And perhaps that was the case this time as well. It might have been that Tihod had been forced by business matters to cut short his pursuit of Grinsa, return to his ship, and set sail for another port.

But Dusaan didn’t think so. Though he made himself search for the merchant once more, casting his mind eastward over the Strait of Wantrae and along the shores of Eibithar and Wethyrn and Sanbira, he knew that he would fail. If Tihod still lived, the Weaver would have found him by now. Dusaan didn’t want to give up what little hope he still grasped, but reason demanded that he do so. Tihod was dead. Grinsa had killed him. That was the only explanation that made any sense.

First this other Weaver had saved Tavis of Curgh from the dungeons of Kentigern, allowing Eibithar to avert a civil war Dusaan had worked for years to ignite. Then Grinsa had taken Cresenne from him, making her fall in love, turning her
against the movement. And now he had killed Tihod, Dusaan’s most trusted friend, and the only man in the movement he could never replace.

He opened his eyes, breaking off his search for Tihod. “Enough,” he said to the darkness in his chamber.

Time after time the gleaner had thwarted him, and Dusaan had allowed it to happen, fearing that he might reveal too much of himself. But the time had come to put an end to this foolishness. Enough, indeed.

Chapter
Sixteen