The Threads of Magic by Alison Croggon (best ereader for pdf and epub .txt) 📕

“Delicate female? Deceitful, lying little hussy, more like,” growled the king. “You can’t trust the female sex. You never know what’s going on inside those heads.”

The duchess decided it was time to divert his rage. “We very much fear she has been taken away by supernatural means,” said the duchess. She didn’t dare to say the word witch in the king’s presence. “Several guards told us that something strange happened in the palace last night. As if it were put under an evil spell.”

“Witchcraft?” The king’s eyebrows bristled. “Witchcraft in my kingdom? In this very palace?”

“She has vanished without trace, sire. It seems like the only explanation.”

“Hmmm.” The king began to look thoughtful. Like his father, he was an unimaginative, pragmatic man, and he didn’t really believe in witches. Axel I had kept the Office for Witchcraft Extermination going after he took power because it was useful: its assassins were skillful at spycraft and were deadly. Axel II himself had used the office to get rid of quite a few troublesome peasants. In this case, blaming witchcraft might be a handy way of avoiding diplomatic repercussions with Awemt.

He called to mind Georgette’s disobedience when she first arrived at the palace. He had honestly thought that the princess was reformed. She had appeared so biddable, her youthful rebellions tamed to a charming liveliness, and she had always displayed a proper meekness when the occasion required. But even so, there was always something he had never quite liked, a sense that she kept her own counsel and had her own plans. She was too clever for a mere girl.

For a moment, with a pang of apprehension, he had a vision of the princess dressed in silver armor, a sword raised, leading an army against the palace. What army? The thought was ridiculous.

He was personally almost sure the princess had left the palace willingly, but perhaps it would be more politic to pretend that she had been abducted. Traitress or no, the palace needed the princess back. The alliance between Clarel and Awemt could still go ahead without the marriage, but King Oswald would consider an absconding bride a mortal insult.

The important thing was to ensure that Oswald punished the person who deserved it, Princess Georgette, and not the kingdom of Clarel. When he married her, he could make her as miserable as he liked.

A BRISK BREEZE SWEPT THE LAST STORM CLOUDS from the sky and then died down, its task completed. On the eastern horizon, an amber glow presaged the coming dawn. High above, stars twinkled in a deep azure field as if they had been newly washed.

Across the city of Clarel, roosters fluffed their feathers, threw out their chests, and began their morning announcements. It was going to be a beautiful Midsummer Day.

In the Weavers’ Quarter, it was the best day of the year. Everyone prepared for weeks: homes were polished until they sparkled, and everyone practiced their steps for the midsummer dances that wound through the streets, blessing all the houses. Bakers worked from midnight, kneading the traditional sweet pastries and breads. The almond bonbons that were distributed to all the children of Clarel had been long prepared and were stacked in muslin bags tied up with yellow ribbons.

But this year there would be no festival.

In the small hours, under cover of darkness, the cardinal’s soldiers set up roadblocks on all the major streets. Then hundreds of them marched into the Weavers’ Quarter, their chain mail clinking ominously, and stationed themselves in the squares.

Although the soldiers thought the quarter was asleep, many eyes watched them arrive. Rats watched from the gutters, dogs barked in the workshop yards, cats hissed and leaped onto walls, their hackles bristling. Some of those animals weren’t what they appeared to be.

The raids began just before dawn. The Eradians weren’t unprepared. Amina had sent word of her arrest to her sister Zoa the night before, and within an hour the news had reached every home in the Weavers’ Quarter. The senior members of the Weavers’ Guild had held a midnight meeting.

Everyone was alarmed that such a respected citizen as Amina Bemare had been arrested. It had been at least a hundred years since any Eradian had been accused of witchcraft. Every family had stories of the bad old days, when the Weavers’ Quarter had suffered under regular persecutions, and evil memories die hard.

Not many people slept that night. Zoa, who had a sharp nose for trouble, advised that all children be sent elsewhere in the city. In the quiet hours before the soldiers arrived, carts rumbled all over Clarel, taking sleepy children to safe houses for surprise visits. Precious possessions were hidden in secret caches, and witches were posted to every street in the Weavers’ Quarter to provide as much protection as possible. Witches could calm people down and ensure that people weren’t hurt. And in the last resort, they could fight.

The first houses to be hit were, as everyone had suspected, those belonging to the Bemare family. The soldiers were greeted by outraged citizens, already washed and dressed for the day. All of Amina’s relations were bundled at swordpoint into closed wagons and sent to the Office for Witchcraft Extermination, and then their houses were searched and pillaged by the soldiers. Once all the Bemare houses were dealt with, the troops moved on to the rest of the Weavers’ Quarter, working methodically, street by street.

It didn’t occur to the soldiers until much later that it was strange that they’d found no children.

Even the most pessimistic of the guild hadn’t expected that the raids would spread beyond the Bemares. As the sun rose higher and the raids spread, anger grew. In some streets, punches were thrown. One old man was beaten up badly by soldiers, prompting the entire crowd to turn on the troops despite the best calming spells the witches could muster.

As the day broadened, the people of Clarel, expecting