LITMIR.BIZ

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calling their children; by the time they reached the edge of a settlement, only a few armed men would be in sight. These men made no threats, but offered no hospitality.

      Lhel’s welcome had surprised them when they’d happened across her lonely hut. Not only had she welcomed them properly, setting out water, cider, and cheese, but she claimed to have been expecting them.

      Iya spoke the witch’s language, and Lhel had picked up a few words of Skalan somewhere. From what Arkoniel could make out between them, the witch was not surprised by their request. She claimed her moon goddess had shown them to her in a dream.

      Arkoniel felt very awkward around the woman. Her magic radiated from her like the musky heat of her body, but it was more than that. Lhel was a woman in her prime. Her black hair hung in a tangled, curling mass to her waist and her loose woollen dress couldn’t mask the curves of hip and breast as she sauntered around her little hut, bringing him food and the makings for a pallet. He didn’t need an interpreter to know that she asked Iya if she might sleep with him that night or that she was both offended and amused when Iya explained the concept of wizards’ celibacy to her. The Orëska wizards reserved all their vitality for their magic.

      Arkoniel feared that the witch might change her mind then, but the following morning they woke to find her waiting for them outside the door, a travelling bundle slung ready behind the saddle of her shaggy pony.

      The long journey back to Ero had been an awkward time for the young man. Lhel delighted in teasing him, making certain that he saw when she lifted her skirts to wash, and losing no opportunity to bump against him as she moved about their camp each night, plucking the year’s last herbs with her knobby, stained fingers. Vows or not, Arkoniel couldn’t help but notice and something in him stirred uneasily.

      When their work in Ero was finished this night, he would never see her again and for that he would be most thankful.

      As they rode across an open square, Lhel pointed up at the red full moon and clucked her tongue. ‘Baby caller moon, all fat and bloody. We hurry. No shaimari.’

      She brought two fingers towards her nostrils in a graceful flourish, mimicking the intake of breath. Arkoniel shuddered.

      Iya pressed one hand over her eyes and Arkoniel felt a moment’s hope. Perhaps she would relent after all. But she was merely sending a sighting spell up to the Palatine ahead of them.

      After a moment she shook her head. ‘No. We have time.’

      A cold salt breeze tugged at their cloaks as they reached the seaward side of the citadel and approached the Palatine gate. Arkoniel inhaled deeply, trying to ease the growing tightness in his chest. A party of revellers passed them, and by the light of the linkboys’ lanterns Arkoniel stole another look at Iya. The wizard’s pale, square face betrayed nothing.

      It is the will of Illior, Arkoniel repeated silently. There could be no turning aside.

      Since the death of the King’s only female heir, women and girls of close royal blood had died at an alarming rate. Few dared speak of it aloud in the city, but in too many cases it was not plague or hunger that carried them down to Bilairy’s gate.

      The King’s cousin took ill after a banquet in town and did not awaken the next morning. Another somehow managed to fall from her tower window. His two pretty young nieces, daughters of his own brother, were drowned sailing on a sunny day. Babies born to more distant relations, all girls, were found dead in their cradles. Their nurses whispered of night spirits. As potential female claimants to the throne dropped away one by one, the people of Ero turned nervous eyes towards the King’s young half sister and the unborn child she carried.

      Her husband, Duke Rhius, was fifteen years older than his pretty young wife and owned vast holdings of castles and lands, the greatest of which lay at Atyion, half a day’s ride north of the city. Some said that the marriage had been a love match between the Duke’s lands and the Royal Treasury, but Iya thought otherwise.

      The couple lived at the grand castle at Atyion when Rhius was not serving at court. When Ariani became pregnant, however, they had taken up residence at Ero, in her house beside the Old Palace.

      Iya guessed that the choice was the King’s rather than hers, and Ariani had confirmed her suspicions during their visit that summer.

      ‘May Illior and Dalna grant us a son,’ Ariani had whispered as she and Iya sat together in the garden court of her house, hands to her swelling belly.

      As a child Ariani had adored her handsome older brother, who’d been more like a father to her. Now she understood all too well that she lived at his whim; in these uncertain times, any girl claiming Ghërilain’s blood posed a threat to the new male succession, should the Illioran faction fight to re-establish the sacred authority of Afra.

      With every new bout of plague or famine, the whispers of doubt grew stronger.

      In a darkened side street outside the gate Iya cloaked herself and Lhel in invisibility, and Arkoniel approached the guards as if alone.

      There were still a great many people abroad at this hour, but the sergeant-at-arms took special note of the silver amulet Arkoniel wore and called him aside.

      ‘What’s your business here so late, Wizard?’

      ‘I’m expected. I’ve come to visit my patron, Duke Rhius.’

      ‘Your name?’

      ‘Arkoniel of Rhemair.’

      A scribe noted this down on a wax tablet and Arkoniel strolled on into the labyrinth of houses and gardens that ringed this side of the Palatine. To the right loomed the great bulk of the New Palace, which Queen Agnalain had begun and her son was finishing. To the left lay the rambling bulk of the Old Palace.

      Iya’s magic was so strong even he couldn’t tell if she and the witch were still with him, but he didn’t dare turn or whisper to them.

      Ariani’s fine house stood surrounded by its own walls and courtyards; Arkoniel entered by the front gate and barred it behind him as soon as he felt Iya’s touch on his arm. He looked around nervously, half expecting to find the King’s Guard lurking behind the bare trees and statuary in the shadowed garden, or the familiar faces of the Duke’s personal guard. There was no one here, not even a watchman or porter. The garden was silent, the air heavy with the scent of some last hardy bloom of autumn.

      Iya and the witch reappeared beside him and together they headed across the courtyard towards the arched entrance. They hadn’t gone three steps when a horned owl swooped down and pounced on a young rat not ten feet from where they stood. Flapping for balance, it dispatched the squeaking rodent, then looked up at them, eyes like gold sester coins. Such birds were not uncommon in the city, but Arkoniel felt a thrill of awe; owls were the messengers of Illior.

      ‘A favourable omen,’ Iya murmured as it flapped away, leaving the dead rat behind.

      The Duke’s steward, Mynir, answered her knock. A thin, solemn, stoop-shouldered old fellow, he’d always reminded Arkoniel of a cricket. He was one of the few who would help carry his master’s burden in the years to come.

      ‘Thank the Maker!’ the old man whispered, grasping Iya’s hand. ‘The Duke is half out of his mind –’ He broke off at the sight of Lhel.

      Arkoniel could guess the man’s thoughts: witch, unclean, handler of the dead, a necromancer who called up demons and ghosts.

      Iya touched his shoulder. ‘It’s all right, Mynir, your master knows. Where is he?’

      ‘Upstairs, Mistress. I’ll fetch him.’

      Iya held him a moment longer. ‘And Captain Tharin?’ Tharin, the knight in charge of the Duke’s personal guard, was seldom far from Rhius’ side. Illior had not spoken for him, but Iya and Rhius had not discussed how he was to be kept away from this night’s business.

      ‘The Duke sent him and the men to Atyion for the rents.’ Mynir led them into the darkened audience hall. ‘The women have all been

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