“If she had run—” he began.
“Then perhaps she would have been seen,” Simon agreed. “Think now: why would she have been taken? We come to this place and find that mischief was made among the duke’s men. And that purpose could have been the death of Yvian or—”
“Some other reason.” The voice made them both turn to face the witch who had ridden in with the Borderers. “For another reason,” she continued, almost as if she were clearing her thoughts by putting them into words.
“Do you not see, my lord captains, with Duke Yvian dead, his duchess has some claim to Karsten, especially since Loyse is of the old nobility and those clans would rally behind her. They would put her in rule so that they might use her as a shadow screen to cover their own power. This was all done by purpose, but whose purpose? Who is missing—from among the slain, from your prisoners? It would be better not to ask who is dead and why, but who is gone, and the why of that?”
Simon nodded. Good sense—bring Loyse to Kars, confirm her before the duchy as Yvian’s consort—with Yvian, perhaps, knowing only a portion of that and believing that portion to be his own plan—and then, dispose of Yvian, use Loyse as a puppet to establish another rule. But which one of the nobles had so devious a mind, such a smoothly running organization as to make it work? As far as Borderer intelligence knew and that was, or Simon had thought it was, very thorough, there was none among the five or six leading families who had either the courage or the ability to set such a complicated plot in action. Yvian would not have trusted any of the once powerful clans to the point that any of their members could have operated so freely within his citadel. And Simon said as much.
“Fulk was not wholly Fulk,” the witch replied. “There may be those here who are not wholly what they seem!”
“Kolder!” Koris pounded the fist of one hand into the open palm of the other. “Always Kolder!”
“Yes,” Simon replied wearily. “We could not believe that they would give up the struggle with the fall of Sippar, could we? Manpower—or its lack—did we not long ago think that perhaps their greatest weakness? It may be that they can no longer process their possessed armies—at least not here—that what we captured at Gorm has seriously weakened them. If that be so, they may have decided to substitute quality for quantity in their forces, taking over key men—”
“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.