the Fist of Weru. Before his reign that had always been a meaningless title, but from the first Stralg had intended to claim his right to rule all the Werists of Vigaelia. His wounds had barely healed before he overthrew Skjar's city elders and began using the city's wealth to finance his campaign. In a mere ten years he ruled the entire Face, Werists and extrinsics both. He had kept Skjar as his capital mostly because it was central and had good communications. It was convenient. Insufferable, but convenient. Also, it was rich, able to support a standing army and the cumbersome machinery of government.
When Stralg went off to conquer Florengia, he had 6ffi-cially left his brothers and brother-in-law to rule Vigaelia for him, and in practice left Saltaja to rule them. Karvak had died when Jat-Nogul rose in rebellion. Therek, Horold, and Eide had promptly crushed the rebellion and sacked the city in reprisal. Otherwise nothing much had changed in fifteen years.
She began pacing again, homy feet scuffing on the tiles. 'Next?'
The next item was another of Stralg's rants about the need for more men, and she ignored it. Recruitment was becoming harder and harder as the war dragged on with no sign of any Heroes returning, other than the few who were too badly maimed to continue fighting yet could still manage the return crossing. Training a Werist took years, so there were still as many men being initiated as Therek could ram over Nardalborg Pass in a season. The manpower problem could wait. 'Next?'
Next was a demand for gold. That was new. At first Stralg's campaign had sent a torrent of loot and slaves back to Vigaelia. The flow had dwindled as resistance sprouted, and this new demand meant he must be having trouble feeding and housing his horde. She dictated a letter to be sent out to all the cities in Eide's satrapy and made a mental note to call in the bursar from the temple of Weru, where most of Skjar's wealth was stored. She would have to fleece the local Ucrists, also.
Whatever was keeping her moronic husband? She pushed through the drape into the lamplit room. The air was stifling. The two scribes and the boy looked up in alarm.
'Guard!' she barked.
A Werist materialized in the far doorway, practically filling it. 'My lady?'
She noted with satisfaction that he was as frightened of her as the two clerks were, although he was twice her size and a fraction of her age.
'Where is the satrap?'
The boy gulped, looked behind him, and stepped aside with a gasp of relief. 'Here he is, my lady!'
Eide lumbered in, unarmed and barefoot, wearing his pall wrapped around him like a towel instead of properly draped. Eide had always been a bull of a man, and now he was twice as big, three times as hairy, and much more bovine, with two stub horns and an animal smell. Obviously—obvious to Saltaja, if not to others—he hadbeen fetched from some woman's bed, but that was normal for him. She had not let him touch her in years. He was out of breath, which was a satisfactory demonstration of obedience.
His entry made the room crowded. The scribes moved hastily into corners and tried not to stare at his feet, which he rarely left uncovered. The Witness of Mayn who followed him in was tiny, swathed completely in white, without even her hands showing. She looked like a discarded pillow alongside the giant.
Eide grunted a surly '?' and yawned.
'I want to know where the three Celebre hostages are. Ask her.' Under the compact, the Witnesses would answer only Stralg himself and his three hostleaders, Eide, Therek, and Horold. Saltaja had to send all her queries through one of them.
Eide growled, 'Answer the question.'
Some Maynists would insist he repeat it. This one was either more obliging or anxious to go back to bed. 'None of them is within my range.'
'What is the Wisdom on them?' Saltaja asked. The Wisdom was the collective knowledge of the cult, but how it worked was part of the mystery, a secret known only within the Ivory Cloisters at Bergashamm.
'Answer,' Eide said.
'The girl has gone inland, to her guardian's estate at Kyrn. We have no reason to believe that the hostage Benard Celebre is not still in Kosord or the hostage Orlando Celebre at Nardalborg.'
'The Ucrist Wigson is here in Skjar?'
'He is. Working in his counting office.' Witnesses rarely volunteered information. This one sounded young and might be showing off the range of her sight.
Satisfactory. Saltaja was about to dismiss the two of them, when her native caution stirred. 'The first Celebre hostage, the eldest—tell me of him.'
'He died,' said the woman in the shroud.
'You confirm that he did physically die in the commonly understood sense of the word? You are not using the expression in some special cultish way?' She had caught them out in half-truths before now.
'The boy Dantio Celebre died fourteen years ago from shock and loss of blood, and his heart stopped beating. It is so recorded in the Wisdom. You have been informed of this three times.'
'You may go.' Saltaja nodded to the satrap. 'And you also, my sweet. But send me Huntleader Perag Hrothgatson. I have a job for him.'
'Send for him yourself.' Eide turned to follow the seer out.
Saltaja said, 'No. You will
He froze, and for a moment she thought she would have to discipline him. Then he snorted a surrender noise and left, his feet clopping like hooves on the tiles.
So it was decided. She would deliver the girl to Tryfors in person. Not by chariot, of course. Not for the Queen of Shadows that endless bouncing, the dust and heat and rain. They would travel by riverboat.
