‘None wi’out Dresh’s command, ma’am.’
‘But your curse drives them mad, every one of them. Don’t make me ask the question again.’
‘Ma’am, be well twenty and one. Once their bearin’ days are done. Mostly.’
‘And you have been working hard at keeping the Tiste Edur away.’
‘No business a theirs, ma’am.’
Nor mine. Yet… not entirely true, is it? ‘End the curse, Pully. You’ve done enough.’
‘Boaral killed more Shake than any other Dresh, ma’am. You know that.’
‘End it,’ Twilight said, opening her eyes and facing the two women, ‘or your heads will be in sacks and buried deep in Noose Bog before this night is out.’
Pully and her companion grinned at each other.
‘I am of the shore,’ Yan Tovis said in a hard voice. ‘My Shake name is Twilight.’
The hags suddenly backed away, then sank down onto their knees, heads bowed.
‘End the curse,’ Twilight said again. ‘Will you defy princess of the Last Blood?’
‘Princess no longer,’ Pully said to the floor.
Yan Tovis felt the blood drain from her face-if not for the wall she leaned against she would have staggered.
‘Your mother died be well a year past,’ Pully said in a soft, sad voice.
The other witch added, ‘Crossin’ from the Isle, the boat overturning. They say it was some demon o’ the deep, pushed too close by dark magic out at sea-the same magic, my Queen, as could be well squirted Master at Arms west as they say. A demon, up unner the boat, an’ all drowned. Whisperin’ from the waters, my Queen, dark and well nigh black.’
Yan Tovis drew a deep breath. To be Shake was to know grief. Her mother was dead, now a face emptied of life. Well, she had not seen the woman in over a decade, had she? So, why this pain? Because there is something else. ‘What is the name of the Master at Arms, Pully?’
‘Yedan Derryg, Highness. The Watch.’
The half-brother I have never met. The one who ran-from his blood, from everything. Ran nearly as far as I did. And yet, was that old tale even true? The Watch was here, after all, a mere bell’s ride from the shore. She understood now why he had ridden out on this night. Something else, and this is it.
Yan Tovis drew her cloak about herself, began pulling on her gauntlets. ‘Feed well my soldiers. I will return with Derryg by dawn.’ As she turned to the door she paused. The madness afflicting the Dresh, Pully.’
Behind her the witch replied, ‘Be well too late for him, Highness. But we will scour the Black Stone this night. Before the Edur arrive.’
Oh, yes, I sent for them, didn’t I? ‘I imagine,’ she said, her gaze fixed on the door, ‘the summary execution of Dresh Boaral will be something of a mercy for the poor man.’
You mean to do it before the Edur come here as they say, Highness?’
Yes, Pully. He will die, I suppose, trying to flee arrest.’ After a moment, she asked, ‘Pully, how many shoulder-women are left?’
‘More than two hundred, Highness.’
‘I see.’
‘My Queen,’ ventured the other, ‘word will be sent out, cob to web as they say, before the sun’s rise. You have been j chosen a betrothed.’
‘I have, have I? Who?’
‘Shake Brullyg, of the Isle.’
‘And does my betrothed remain on Second Maiden Fort?’
‘We think so, Highness,’ Pully replied.
At that she turned round. ‘You don’t know?’
‘The web’s been snapped, Highness. Almost a month now. Ice an’ dark and whisperings, we cannot reach across the waves. The shore is blind to the sea, Highness.’
The shore is blind to the sea. ‘Has such a thing ever occurred before?’
Both witches shook their heads.
Twilight swung about and hastened outside. Her riders awaited her, already mounted, silent with fatigue. She strode to the horse bearing her saddle-a chestnut gelding, the fittest of the lot, she could see in the torchlight-and pulled herself onto its broad back.
‘Atri-Preda?’
‘To the coast,’ she said, gathering the reins. ‘At the canter.’
‘What’s wrong with them?’
The Hound Master’s face was ravaged with distress, tears streaming down his wind-burned cheeks and glistening like sweat in his beard. ‘They’ve been poisoned, Atri-Preda! Poisoned meat, left on the ground-I’m going to lose them all!’