The Wide World's End (50 page)

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

The Graith Divided

The battle outside the Dome of the Graith grew louder, but it was hard to tell who was winning. Apart from cries of pain, no one spoke: there were no pleas for mercy, no offers of quarter, no boasts or war cries.

“Aloê,” Lernaion began.

“Shut up, and I mean both of you. Any talking you do you can do to the Graith at Station. It sounds like it won't be long now.”

“You're very confident your allies will win.”

“Fairly confident. You'd better hope I'm right. If that door opens and your servant Maijarra lets in your band of thugs, then I'll kill you both and have done.”

Lernaion allowed himself a cold smile. “Very confident. But how will you justify yourself to your peers in the Graith.”

“I have the Graith's mandate, you old fool! I am the Graith's vengeancer, and you three are the murderers of a summoner. Your lives are mine whenever I choose to take them.”

Bleys was looking toward the double doors. The sound of the battle was fading, gone. Booted feet came striding up the hallway.

The doors were unbarred from the outside and Maijarra swung them open. Her silver spear was deeply stained with blood.

Aloê tensed and Bleys laughed aloud.

Through the open doors strode Noreê, Jordel, Illion, Styrth Anvri, Sundra, Callion, Keluaê Hendaij—bloody weapons in their hands, grim looks on their faces. The Awkward Bastards were victorious, but not triumphant. Aloê knew how they felt.

“Vocate Maijarra!” cried Bleys. “How could you betray us?”

Maijarra's milk-pale face was motionless, unmoved. “I am thain to the Graith of Guardians,” she said, “not to you.”

And, at Aloê's command, she put the summoners in chains and led them away to the lockhouse.

The trial of the summoners had to wait for the healing of the Witness Stone. (Illion and Noreê were taking up that task.) But other strings in the conspiratorial web snapped more easily.

Aloê got a writ of authority from the High Arbitrate and rode on Raudhfax up to Big Rock to apprehend Ulvana. She anticipated some difficulty finding Ulvana: the woman must have heard of Naevros' exposure, and she had many places to hide in.

But when Aloê arrived at Big Rock House, the householder told her that Ulvana was being held prisoner at the Arbiter's House . . . by Noreê, who had appeared with a company of thains the night before.

“Thanks, Goodman Parell,” Aloê said.

“Will you be staying with us long, I hope?”

“Only overnight, I think.”

“Are you going to the Arbiter's House instanter?”

“Yes, goodman, if that means what I think it means.”

Parell hesitated a moment and said, “Will you please tell Vocate Noreê to have her things removed from here? It's just that—well, if she wants an explanation, I will make one to her.”

“I'll tell her, Parell.”

“Thanks to you for that. Vocate, I don't know if I'm too old-fashioned or not old-fashioned enough. . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Which would you rather be, goodman?”

“What? What? Oh, too old-fashioned, I suppose. I'm too decrepit to be taking on modish airs—wearing purple shoes and talking about the latest ballads as if I could tell one note from another anymore. But I tell you, Guardian, in the old days it was not done. Your Graith didn't ride into a town like they were a conquering army and we were peasants who had to . . . well, do something peasanty. But I suppose I'm talking too much.”

“Not too much for me. Say it loud and say it often, goodman.”

“Have been. Good day to you, Vocate.”

“Good day, Parell.”

Aloê left the inn and walked across the way to the Arbiter's House. There was a cloud of thains surrounding it, leaning on their spears. There were no townfolk in the street.

A thain held out his spear to prevent Aloê from entering the Arbiter's House. “You'll have to wait here, Vocate. And leave your weapon. Vocate Noreê's orders.”

Aloê always carried her songbow of the runic rose these days, slung over her shoulder. She took it in her hands and struck the thain blocking her to the ground. The others started forward but she ignored them, bending over to rip the gray cape from the fastenings at the fallen man's shoulders.

“I expel you from the Graith,” she said to him, as he stared vacantly up at her. “Hinder me again, and I'll expel you from the Wardlands. Resist me, and I'll banish you from the land of the living. Now get out of my way. Get out of my way, all of you.”

They hesitated.

She grabbed the spear from the ex-thain and said, “By God Avenger, from this moment forward you will give way before a red cloak if it's only hanging on a clothesline. Clear off!”

The fallen man scrambled to one side and the rest stood back, their eyes resentful. She felt they were yielding to her personally, not to the principle. And that wasn't enough. But it was a problem for another day. She cast the spear into the dust of the street and walked past them into the Arbiter's House.

Noreê was walking toward the door, and her pale eyes crossed gazes with Aloê's in an almost audible clash. “You had some trouble getting in?” asked Noreê.

“Yes. Your private army is a problem, Noreê. For the Guarded—the Guardians—the Guard itself.”

Noreê waved a scarred, ice-pale hand. “A temporary measure. I've no longing for kingship, I assure you.”

“What if others long to make you king?” Aloê replied.

“Nonsense. I'm no Ambrose. You came to talk to Ulvana, I guess?”

“I don't speak nonsense, Noreê. I'm telling you something you need to hear. And, yes, I came to speak to Ulvana. If it suits you to permit it, of course.”

“You have the wrong idea about me, Aloê. I was maintaining the Guard before you were born.”

“As Merlin was before you were born. It is
you
who has the wrong idea about
you
, Guardian. Look to it.”

Noreê's pale eyes looked on her patiently and her pale lips actually smiled. She had heard what Aloê had said; she did not regard it in the least.

“This emergency will be over soon,” she said, patting Aloê on the arm. “Let's not quarrel about it.”

It was maddening to Aloê that Noreê didn't take the issue seriously—as if it were a matter of taste, like a disagreement about after-dinner cheeses. If she would not listen to Aloê now, there would come a time soon when she must be made to listen.

They went together, but not in the same mind, to the Arbiter's Hall of Audience.

Ulvana was sitting in the Arbiter's chair. There was no one in the room with her; she was not reading or writing or doing anything—just sitting there with a vacant look on her face.

“Ulvana,” said Aloê, “the Graith of Guardians has a claim of vengeance against you. I have a writ from the Arbitrate deposing you from your rank as Arbiter and waiving vengeance on your behalf. Do you have anyone else who would choose to act for you?”

“No,” said Ulvana in a monotone. “My family has washed their hands of me. My life is yours.”

“The Graith will give you death or exile, on my recommendation. Will you answer my questions?”

“I don't care. Yes. Ask them.”

“Did you participate in the murders of Summoner Earno and of Necrophor Oluma Cyning?”

“No! Not exactly.”

“Did you participate in
any
way in those murders? Did you know about them in advance? Did you assist the murderer afterwards?”

Ulvana looked down for a moment, saying nothing. Then she raised her head again and gave each of the Guardians a defiant look. “The murderer. The murderer. Can't you say his name? Is he nothing more to you than that?”

“Tell me his name. Tell me what you know about this business, and I will exercise the Graith's mercy. If not, I will execute the Graith's vengeance.”

“Mercy!” said Ulvana, and laughed sobbingly. “Mercy! What can you do to me that's worse than what you've already done?”

“Why, I don't know,” said Aloê courteously. “I would ask Earno and Oluma what they think, only they're dead, you see.”

“It had to be you,” Ulvana moaned. “The both of you. The unattainable ice princesses, white and black. The ones he never felt worthy of, so that he had to grovel in the muck. Muck like me. Like me.”

“Listen, Ulvana, I'm no princess. I work for a living. And I'm not unattainable; just married.”

“To that thing. That Morlock. He's probably had you both.”

Grim, white-haired Noreê, one of the great seers of the world and one of the three Victors of Kaen, snorted with surprised laughter. She turned away to regain her composure.

“Here's where it stands with me, Ulvana,” Aloê said. “I am the Graith's vengeancer. I could kill you now, if I chose, with only the Graith to answer to.”

“Go ahead. I want you to. I'm sick of everything.”

“I could, and I may do the same thing to Naevros syr Tol.”

Ulvana grew very still.

“Or,” Aloê added, “I could exile you both. Strictly speaking, that prerogative rests with the Summoner of the City, but he is in disgrace at the moment and the Graith has delegated his power in this matter to me. I can kill you, and I assure you it will be an easy death. But I would prefer to send you into exile. With Naevros, if possible. But I need a reason to do so, a reason for the Graith to forego vengeance. Tell me what happened. Make me understand.”

“He'd hate me,” Ulvana said, looking at something far beyond the walls of this room. “He'd hate me for the rest of his life.”

Taking a risk, Aloê said, “He hates you now. If he loved you, he would not have put you in this hole. The question is not what he wants for you. The question is what you want for him—and what you still may get from him. If he dies, all hope dies with him. If he lives, someday he may turn to you. Who else would he have?”

Ulvana completely broke down, weeping into her hands for what seemed an endless time. At last, she told Aloê everything she knew.

Naevros had come back into her life a year ago, riding up to Big Rock from A Thousand Towers on some sort of business. He said he had come to respect her for making her own way in the world—that he was sorry for the way he had treated her—that he hoped it could be different now. He deployed as many lies as he needed to seduce her again, and Aloê got them all from Ulvana.

It was about five months ago that he revealed he had an ulterior purpose in resuming the affair. That was when she knew everything he'd said was a lie. And he knew that she knew—smiled to himself as he watched her realize it. But she had already yielded her pride to him, and found that she couldn't reclaim it—didn't want it.

Ulvana said, “I could feel again—really feel—surrender myself to it—not have to, to watch myself and correct myself, but be what I was meant to be! I don't suppose either of you can understand that.”

Aloê wasn't interested enough in the subject to express a thought on it. What she wanted to know was what Naevros had said and done before the murder. She said placatingly to Ulvana, “We want to understand your experience so that the Graith can judge you fairly. What did Naevros say to you about the plot? What did he want done?”

Ulvana sighed. “He said he and his allies had a plan to save the Wardlands, but that it was risky, and not all of the Graith would be willing to take the risk. He said that he was to eliminate the Summoner Earno, and perhaps others if it came to it. He said—he said—I was the only person he could trust!”

“I'm sure he did.”

“Are you? Are you? I wish I could be. I had timber lodges near the Road, and he knew it. I knew the lands all around here, and he knew it. I was Arbiter of the Peace, charged with investigating murders hereabouts, and he knew it. But I think he trusted me, too. Don't you think so?”

“He must have, to let you so deeply into his counsels.”

“Yes. Yes, exactly!” Ulvana's reply was frantic—so frantic that Aloê wondered if she was also worried about the alternative: that Naevros told her so much because he planned to stop her mouth with death when he was done with her.

“What did he tell you about Oluma Cyning?”

“Nothing, except that he had corrupted a necrophor and that she would assist in the investigation of Earno's murder. Or do you mean afterward? When he. . . . When he. . . .”

“Tell me about all of it.”

“Well—he told me what I told you. When the necrophor—”

“Oluma?”

“Yes, her. When she came to town she told me what she knew about the plot, and warned me not to trust the healer—”

“Denynê.”

“Yes, her. The necrophor warned me not to trust the healer, as Naevros had been unable to get at her.”

“Seduce her, you mean?”

“I suppose. I suppose that was what she meant. She laughed when she said it.”