“Would you rouse out the Duke’s companies? Let us lay up in a tavern and come back at nightfall.”
“There is no need for that.”
Koris’ ax lifted from his shoulder. Simon’s hand was on his gun. The door showed a wedge of opening and that low, characterless voice had come through it to them.
A young man stood in that crevice between wood and brick. He was much shorter than Simon, less in inches even than Koris, and light of limb. The upper part of his face was overhung with the visor of a battle helm, and he wore mail without the badge of any lord.
From Simon he looked to the Captain, and the sight of Koris appeared oddly to reassure him, for he stepped back and motioned them within. They came into a garden with brittle stalks of winter-killed flowers in precise beds, past a dry fountain rimmed with the mark of ancient scum where a stone bird with only half a beak searched endlessly for a water reflection which no longer existed.
Then another door into a house, and there the stream of light was a banner of welcome. The young man pushed before them, having sped from the barring of the wall door. But another stood to bid them enter.
Simon had seen this woman in rags as she fled from a pack of hunting hounds. And he had seen her in council, wearing the sober robes of her chosen order. He had ridden beside her when she went girt in mail with the Guards. Now she wore scarlet and gold, with gems on her fingers and a jeweled net coifing her short hair.
“Simon!” She did not hold out her hands to him, offered no other greeting save the naming of his name, yet he was warmed and at peace. “And Koris.” She voiced a gentle laughter which invited them both to are some private joke, and swept them the grand surtsy of a court lady. “Have you come, lords, to consult the Wise Woman of Kars?”
Koris grounded the half of his ax on the floor and dropped the saddle bags which had been looped over his wide shoulder. “We have come at your bidding, or rather your bidding to Simon. And what we do here is for your saying. Though it is good to know that you are safe.”
Simon only nodded. Once again he could not find the proper words to express feelings he shrank from defining too closely.
* * *
* * *
IV
LOVE POTION
Koris put down his goblet with a sigh. “First a bed such as no barracks ever boasted and then two meals like this. I have not tasted equal wine since I rode out of Estcarp. Nor have I feasted in such good company.”
The witch clapped her hands lightly. “Koris the courtier! And Koris and Simon the patient. Neither of you have yet asked what we do in Kars, though you have been a night and part of a day under this roof.”
“Under this roof,” Simon repeated thoughtfully. “Is this perchance the Estcarp embassy?”
She smiled. “Now that is clever of you, Simon. But, no, we are not official. There is an Estcarp embassy in Kars, housing a lord with impeccable background and not a single smell of witchcraft about him. He dines with the Duke upon formal occasions and provides a splendid representation of respectability. This house is located in quite a different quarter. What we do here—”
When she paused Koris asked lightly:
“I gather our aid is needed or Simon would not have had that aching head of his. Do we kidnap Yvian for your pleasure, or merely split a few skulls here and there?”
The young man who moved quietly, spoke little, but was always there, whom the witch named Briant and yet had not explained to the Guardsmen, reached for a dish of pastry balls. Stripped of the mail and helm he had worn at their first meeting, he was a slender, almost frail youngster, far too young to be well-schooled in the use of the weapons he bore. Yet there was a firm set to his mouth and chin, a steady purpose in his eyes which argued that the woman from Estcarp had perhaps chosen wisely in her recruiting after all.
“How, Briant,” she said to him now, “shall they bring us Yvian?” There was something approaching mischief in that inquiry.
He shrugged as he bit into the pastry. “If you wish to see him. I do not.” And that faint emphasis on the “I” was lost on neither of the men.
“No, it is not the Duke we plan to entertain. It is another member of his household, the Lady Aldis.”
Koris whistled. “Aldis! I would not think—”
“That we have any business with the Duke’s leman? Ah, you make the mistake of your sex there, Koris. There is a reason I wish to know more of Aldis, and an excellent one to urge her to come.”
“Those being?” prompted Simon.
“Her power within the duchy is founded upon Yvian’s favor alone. While she holds him to her bed she has what she wants most, not gauds and robes, but influence. Men who wish to further some scheme must seek out Aldis as a passage to the Duke’s ear, even if they are of the old nobility. As for women of rank—Aldis has repaid heavily many old slights.
“When she first climbed to Yvian’s notice the gauds and glitter sufficed, but through the years her power has come to mean more. Without that she is no better than a wench in a dockside tavern, as well she knows.”
“Does Yvian grow restive now?” Koris wanted to know.
“Yvian has wed.”
Simon watched the hand at the pastry dish. This time it did not complete its mission, but went instead to the goblet before Briant’s plate.
“We heard talk in the mountains of the wedding of Verlaine’s heiress.”
“Ax marriage,” the witch explained. “He has not seen his new bride yet.”
“And the present lady fears a competition. Is the lady of Verlaine then counted so beautiful?” Simon asked idly but he caught a sudden swift glance from Briant.
And it was the boy who answered. “She is not!” There was a note in that hot denial which baffled Simon with its bitter hurt. Who Briant was or where the witch had found him, they had no idea, but perhaps the boy had nursed a liking for the heiress and was disappointed by his loss.
The witch laughed. “That, too, may be a matter of opinion. But, yet, Simon, I think that Aldis does not lie easy of nights since she heard the decree read forth in Kars’ marketplace—wondering how long Yvian will continue to reach for her. In this state of mind she is ripe for our purpose.”
“I can see why the lady might seek aid,” Simon conceded, “but why yours?”
She was reproachful. “Though I do not go under my colors as a Woman of Power out of Estcarp, I have a small reputation in this city. It is not my first visit here. Men and women, especially women, are ever intrigued to hear of their futures. Two of Aldis’ waiting maids have come here in these past three days, armed with false names and falser stories. When I named them for what they are and told them a few facts, they went scuttling back wry-faced to their mistress. She will come soon enough, never fear.”
“But why do you want her? If her influence with Yvian is on the wane—” Koris shook his head. “I have never pretended to an understanding of women, but truly am I now in a maze. Gorm is our enemy—not Karsten, at least, not actively.”
“Gorm!” There was some emotion stirring behind the smooth facade of her face. “Here also Gorm finds roots.”
“What!” Koris’ hands slapped down hard on the table between them. “How comes Gorm to the duchy?”
“It is the other way around. Karsten goes to Gorm, or a part of her manpower does.” The witch, resting her chin upon her clasped hands, her elbows on the board, spoke earnestly.
“We saw at Sulcarkeep what the Kolder forces did to the men of Gorm, using them for war weapons. But Gorm is only a small island and when she was overrun many of her men must have died in battle before they could be . . . converted.”
“That is true!” Koris’ voice was savage. “They could not have netted too many captives.”
“Just so. And when Sulcarkeep fell Magnis Osberic must have taken with him the major parts of the invading force with the destruction of the hold. In that he served his people. Most of the trading fleet were at sea, and it is the custom of the Sulcarmen to carry their families with them on long voyages. Their haven on this continent is gone, but their nation lives and they can build again. Only, can the Kolder so easily replace the men they lost?”