“Next time I shatter your skull,” the man said. “I swear it. Now get me down from here.”

Shaken and unwilling to risk asking any more questions, Aindreas fled the prison and sent eight of his archers to kill the man.

“No more shapers,” he whispered to himself. “The others don’t scare me, but no more shapers.”

He soon found, however, that healers could be trouble as well. One woman healed herself for more than an hour as he tortured her with his blade, until at last she just failed, dying almost instantly. She answered not one of his questions. Another woman used magic to set his sleeve on fire and threatened to burn his hair and beard, before he ran her through with his sword. He learned nothing more from her than he had from the others.

After a time, however, he began to enjoy a bit more success. He found no conspirators, but he did learn that the Qirsi could be tortured, provided one was patient and imaginative.

He began to blindfold his victims, so that they couldn’t anticipate his attacks or direct their magic at him with such ease. He also relied more heavily on torches and the breaking of bones, particularly with the healers, who seemed far more adept at closing cuts than soothing other injuries. Finally, he learned to use a lighter hand, for once their magical defenses failed, the Qirsi proved far more delicate than Tavis and other Eandi.

Still, even as he honed his skills, Aindreas learned little from those he brought to his prison. A few told him that they were with the conspiracy after he had hurt them for some time. But when he questioned them more thoroughly, he invariably found that they had been lying, hoping to end their misery.

Before long he had killed off all those Qirsi who once served in his castle, save for one minister who had shaping magic, and had begun to comb the city for other Qirsi to question. He began with the taverns, of course: the Silver Bear, the Grey Boar, and the rest of the establishments that catered to white-hairs. No doubt he was making enemies of all the local Qirsi, but he no longer cared. He was desperate to find someone from their damned movement, and he intended to spare no effort in doing so. As failure followed upon failure, however, he found himself losing hope as well as his appetite for torture. Perhaps Shurik had been working alone here in Kentigern. Perhaps there was less to this conspiracy than the nobles of Eibithar thought. Eager as he was to find a Qirsi who could tell him about their movement, this last possibility held some appeal for him, since it undermined the claims of Javan and others that the conspiracy was behind not only the weakening of Kentigern’s defenses, but also Brienne’s murder.

He was weighing these possibilities while using torches on a slight Qirsi man, with an uncommonly round face and close-cropped white hair. It was late in the day-he had already killed one Qirsi that morning-and this second man had denied repeatedly knowing anything about the conspiracy. The Qirsi’s voice was growing ragged from screaming, and Aindreas sensed that he wouldn’t last much longer, which was fine with the duke. The time had come to rethink his methods.

“If you’ll tell me about the conspiracy,” the duke said dully, “I swear to you, your suffering will end.” The words had started to lose meaning for him, the way he thought a litany must for new adherents in the cloister. He held a torch to the man’s back again. “Don’t you want to stop the pain?”

The Qirsi wailed, tears streaming down his face.

“All right,” he gasped, as Aindreas pulled back the torch. “Yes, I’m with the conspiracy. Ask your questions. Just don’t hurt me anymore.”

Aindreas had heard this too many times to allow himself much excitement. A tortured man would say almost anything when he reached the limits of his endurance. It was almost enough to make him admire Tavis of Curgh, who never confessed to Brienne’s murder, though Aindreas inflicted far more pain on the boy than he had on any of these frail sorcerers.

“What do you do for the conspiracy?” he asked, his voice flat.

“Mostly I gather information,” the man said, his voice scraped raw. “But I’ve also delivered gold and carried messages.”

Aindreas gaped at him, scarcely believing what he had heard.

“What did you say?”

“I gather information. I carry messages and I deliver gold.”

The duke just stood there, too astonished to speak. After some time the man began to flinch, as if expecting his torture to resume at any moment.

“You said you wouldn’t hurt me anymore,” he whimpered.

Aindreas grabbed at the parchment resting on the floor at his feet. The man’s name was Qerle jal Brishta. He was a cloth merchant who frequented one of the taverns in the marketplace. He claimed to be a gleaner and nothing more, but Aindreas had learned in the past few days that an alarming number of Qirsi lied about their abilities. Many, it seemed, possessed more than one type of magic.

“You go by Qerle?” Aindreas asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you ever bring gold to the castle, Qerle?”

“Yes, to your first minister.”

“And messages as well?”

“Only written ones that were placed in the pouches of gold. Our leaders don’t like us couriers speaking with the others.”

“Do you know the leaders? Have you met them?”

“Never.”

Aindreas waved the torch at the man’s side.

“I swear it!” he screamed. “I’ve never met them. I don’t know anyone who has, at least not so that they could see who it was.”

The duke stepped closer to the man. “What do you mean by that? ‘Not so that they could see.’ ”

The Qirsi hesitated and Aindreas swung his torch, making the flame flutter, like a windblown pennon. He didn’t hold it close to Qerle, but the sound itself spurred the man to speak.

“There are rumors,” he said. “Nothing more than that. But some say that the movement is led by a Weaver, and that he enters the dreams of his more trusted servants.”

A Weaver. Maybe Aindreas should have been appalled, but after all that had befallen him in the past half year-Brienne’s death, Shurik’s treason, the siege by Mertesse that nearly cost him his castle-even the revelation of a Weaver didn’t disturb him anymore.

“Has this Weaver ever entered your dreams?”

Qerle shook his head and grimaced. It took Aindreas a moment to realize that he was trying to smile. “The Weaver commands ministers throughout the Forelands. Compared with them, I’m nothing. You’ve captured a sparrow, Eandi. That’s all you’ve done today.”

“That remains to be seen,” the duke said. But he burned the man’s arm as punishment for his impudence.

“Where does the gold come from?” the duke asked, when it seemed that Qerle’s newest pain had receded.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, when you paid Shunk, where did you get his money?”

“From another courier.”

“And what was his name?”

“That I won’t tell you. You can torture me until I die, but I won’t give you the names of any others. I swear it on all that I have left in this world.”

Aindreas briefly considered resorting to the torch again, just to see if the man was as brave as his words. He quickly thought better of it, though. There was much this Qirsi needed to do for him before he died and it struck the duke as foolish to waste this life in the pursuit of yet another sparrow, as Qerle put it. Besides, there was something almost admirable in the way he protected his comrades.

“Do you know where this man got the gold?” he asked instead.

“I believe it came from a merchant, but that’s all I know.”

The duke nodded. He had little doubt that this was true. The gold was the movement’s weakness, the one path a determined enemy might follow back to its leaders. In all likelihood that path twisted and turned like a Revel dancer. No mere courier would know much about it. Indeed, Aindreas would have wagered a hundred qinde that even a man as important as Shunk knew little beyond what Qerle had just told him.