He smiled in his turn. “But surely you must at least recognize the practical difficulties involved in fulfilling such an edict, especially at a time like this. The Torunnans are crying out for reinforcements to halt the Merduk push and hold the Searil line. I am not sure”—here Abeleyn’s smile took on a particular sweetness—“I am not sure I can spare you the men to carry out your edict.”
The Prelate beamed back. “Your concern does you credit, my son. I know that the temporal cares of the moment lie heavy on your shoulders, but do not fear. God’s will shall be done. I have asked for a contingent of the Knights Militant to be dispatched from the home of our order at Charibon. They will relieve you somewhat of the burden you bear. Your soldiers will be freed for service elsewhere, in the defence of the Ramusian kingdoms and the True Faith.”
Abeleyn went white, and at his look even the Prelate seemed to shrink.
“I do what I can for the good of the kingdom, my lord King.”
“Indeed.” The Prelate was playing for higher stakes than Abeleyn had thought. Whilst his own soldiers were off on the frontier helping the Torunnans, the Knights Militant—the military arm of the Church—would have free rein in Abrusio. His spies should have informed him of this before today, but it was notoriously difficult to eavesdrop on the doings of the Inceptines. They were as tightly knit as chainmail. Abeleyn beat down the simmering fury and chose his words with care.
“Far be it for me, Father, to point out to you, one of the lords of the Church, what may or may not be necessary or desirable in God’s eyes. But I do feel bound to say that your edict—our edict—has not been well received among the populace. Abrusio, as you are well aware, is a port, the most important in the west. It survives on trade, trade with other kingdoms, other nations and other peoples. Therefore in the way of things a certain number of foreigners filter through and make lives for themselves here in Hebrion. And there are Hebrians living in a dozen other countries of Normannia—even in Calmar and distant Ridawan.”
The Prelate said nothing. His eyes were like two sea-polished shards of jet. Abeleyn ground on.
“Trade lives on goodwill, on accommodation, and on compromise. It has been represented to me that this latest edict could do much towards strangling our trade with the southern kingdoms and the city-states of the Levangore—Merduk lands, yes, but they have not lifted a finger against us since Azbakir, forty years ago, and their galleys help us keep the Malacar Straits free of the corsairs.”
“My son,” the Prelate said, his smile as warm as flint, “it grieves me to hear you speak thus, as though your concerns were those of a common merchant rather than those of a Ramusian king.”
There was a sudden, dead silence in the chamber. The scribe’s quill described an inky screech across his parchment. No one spoke thus to a king in his own kingdom.
“It is unfortunate,” Abeleyn said into the hush, “but I feel I cannot send to Torunna the reinforcements which are so needed there. I feel, Holy Father, that the True Faith can be safeguarded here by my men as well as on the frontier. As you have so ably made clear to me, threats to the crown can come from any quarter, within and without its borders. I think it prudent that my troops continue their work in conjunction with the Church here, in Abrusio; and though you have not, in your graciousness, rebuked me, I feel I have not taken a responsible enough role in these matters until now. Henceforth the lists of the suspects, the heretics, the foreigners—and the sorcerers, of course—will be brought to me so that I may confirm them. I will then pass them on to you. As you say, these are trialling times. It grieves me to think that a man of your piety and advanced years should have the twilight of his life disturbed by such distasteful matters. I will endeavour to lift some of your burden. It is the least I can do.”
The Prelate, a vigorous man in his fifties, inclined his head, but not before Abeleyn had glimpsed the fire in his cold eyes. They had both revealed their weapons, had put their pieces on the board and shifted them in the opening moves. Now the real negotiations would have to begin, the haggling for advantage that men called diplomacy. And Abeleyn had the upper hand. The Prelate had revealed his strategy too soon.
So I must debate with this old man, Abeleyn thought darkly, manoeuvre for advantage in my own kingdom. And the Torunnans; they will have to stand alone for a while longer because this grasping cleric chooses to see how far he can flex his muscles with me.
THREE
B ARDOLIN’S imp was restless. It was the heat. The little creature darted from inkwell to table lantern, its green tongue lolling. Finally it collapsed in a heap atop the parchment the wizard had been working on and scratched behind one hairy ear with the nub of an old quill, covering itself with ink.
Bardolin chuckled and lifted it gently up to the shelf. Then he smoothed the parchment and continued to write.
The Prelate of Abrusio is not, of course, an evil man, but he is an ambitious one, and with the fall of Macrobius there is a certain hiatus. All five of the Prelates will be watching events along the Searil with an interest that goes beyond the mere outcome of siege and battle. Will Macrobius surface again? That is the question. It is rumoured that eight thousand of the Knights Militant have already been set aside for policing duties within the borders of the five Kingdoms. Eight thousand! And yet they are to send only five thousand to the Searil defences. This is a war within a war. These holy men will see the Merduk at their altars ere they will lift a finger to help another of their rank. It is the Inceptine disease, this empire-building. It may yet bring the west to its knees.
He paused. It was late, and the stars were hanging bright and heavy over the humid, sleeping city. Now and then he would catch the cry of a night watchman or one of the city patrol. A dog barked and there was the sudden splurge of laughter from some revellers leaving an all-night tavern. The offshore breeze had not yet picked up, and the reek of the burning hung over the city like a shroud.
I tell you, Saffarac: leave Cartigella while there is time. This madness will spread, I am sure of it. Today it is Hebrion, tomorrow it will be Astarac. These holy men will not be happy until they have burnt half the west in their zeal to outdo one another in piety. A city is not a safe place to be.
Again, he stopped. Would it revert to the way it had been in the beginning? The Dweomer-folk reduced to petty oldwifery, the doctoring of dry cows in some mountain village. There would be a welcome in such a place, at least. The country-folk understood these things better. Some of them still worshipped the Horned One in nights of moon up in the Hebros.
He dipped his quill in the inkwell but the pen remained unmoving in his fingers. A drop of ink slipped down the nib and drip, dripped on to the parchment, like a raven tear. The imp watched Bardolin from its shelf, chirruping quietly to itself. It could sense his grief.
He knuckled his bloodshot eyes, grimaced at the blotted page, and then wrote on.
They took away my apprentice today. I have made protests, enquiries, even bribes; but nothing will answer. The Inceptines have begun to whip up fear, and with the news from the east that is no hard task. When it started, the soldiers would sometimes look the other way: now they also have the sniff of fanaticism about them. It is rumoured, though, that King Abeleyn disapproves of the scale of the purge and keeps the Prelate from even worse excesses. They burned forty today, and they hold half a thousand in the catacombs for want of space in the palace cells. God forgive them.
He halted a third time. He could write no more, but it would have to be finished tonight for there might not be time in the morning. He sighed and continued.
You are high in the councils of King Mark. I beg you, Saffarac, use your influence with him. This hysteria must be halted before it sweeps all the Ramusian states. But if you see no hope, you must get some of our folk out. Gabrion will take them, I am sure, and if not Gabrion then the Sea-Merduks.
Desperate times, to suggest such remedies. Take care, my friend. May God’s light shine ever on your path.
He signed and sealed the letter, and his eyes stung with tiredness. He felt worn and old. A dispatch-runner would take it on the morning tide, if this calm lifted and the north-west breeze struck up again.
His imp was asleep. He smiled at the little creature, the last in a long line of familiars. They would come for him tomorrow as they had come today for young Orquil, his apprentice. A promising lad, he had been, already at home in cantrimy and beginning to learn the way of mindrhyming, perhaps the least understood of the Seven Disciplines.
He knew why they had not taken him today.
Bardolin had been a soldier once upon a time. He had served with one of the tercios which currently garrisoned Abrusio and he knew their commanding officer well. His . . . abilities had begun to manifest themselves on a campaign against bandits in the Hebros. They had saved lives. The ensign had recommended him for promotion, but he had left to study thauma-turgics under Golophin, a great name, even then.
That had been thirty years ago, but Bardolin still had the carriage of a soldier. He kept his hair brutally short and his broken nose gave him the appearance of a prize fighter. He did not look like a wizard, a master of at least four of the Realms of Dweomer. He looked more like the hard-bitten sergeant of arquebusiers that he had once been, the tell-tale scars at his temples speaking of long years wearing the iron helmet of the Hebriate soldiery.
That’s why they left me, he thought. But they’ll be back tomorrow, no doubt, with one of the Ravens prodding them on.
A distant tumult outside. A rattle of hard voices, feet spattering on the cobbles.
Had they come for him already?
He stood up. The imp sprang awake, its eyes glowing.
The feet pattered past, the shouts faded. Bardolin relaxed, chiding himself for his hammering heart.
An arquebus shot. It ripped the night quiet apart. Another, and then a ragged volley. There was a huge animal howling, and men began to scream.
Bardolin leapt to the window.
Dark streets, the sliver of a moon shining faintly off cobbles. Here and there a yellow light flickering. If he leaned out far enough he could see the glitter of moonlight on the Western Sea. Abrusio slept like a tired old libertine made weary by his excesses.
Where, then?
“Go, my friend; be my eyes for me.”
The imp’s eyes dulled. The useless wings on its back flapped feebly. It darted out of the window and appeared to leap into empty space, though the air was so warm and thick it seemed a different element, capable of buoying the tiny body up like a leaf.
Now, yes. Bardolin was seeing in the spectrum of the imp’s vision. A lantern at a window was a green flare, too bright to look at. A rat made a small luminosity and the imp changed its swift scamper in pursuit, but Bardolin held it to his will again, reproved it gently and sent it on its way.
A leap between two roofs, an unbelievably quick series of gymnastic movements and the imp was in the street scurrying along in the gutter, ignoring the rats now. There was a confused glow up ahead, green figures dancing. But one towered over the rest, and shone as brightly as a bonfire. The heat from it was a palpable thing on the imp’s clammy skin.
A shifter cornered by the city patrol! And it was already badly wounded. Bardolin noted the three corpses which lay in fragments around the street. The shifter was giving a good account of itself, but that last volley had caught it at point-blank range and even its immense vitality was waning. The lead balls had ripped through the great chest and out of the muscles of the back. Already the wounds were repairing themselves, but the arquebusiers were reloading with panicked haste, not daring to go near the dying creature. The darkened street was sickening with the reek of gore and slow-match and powder smoke.
“Damn you all,” the shifter said clearly, despite its beast’s mouth. “You and all black-robed carrion. You have no right—”
A bang. One fellow, reloading faster than the rest, fired his weapon at the huge, long-eared skull. The shifter’s head bounced back to hit the wall behind it. The jaws opened, roaring, and the black tongue lolled wetly.
Others fired. Bardolin’s imp whimpered but remained at its station, impelled by its master’s will. It shut its sensitive eyes to the flashes of the volley, poked tiny fingers in its ears and cowered appalled as the patrol fired ball after ball into the massive beast. Pieces of flesh, dark-furred, were blasted off to litter the cobbles. One of the luminous yellow eyes went dark.
People began coming out of their houses. The entire district was waking to what sounded like a small battle being fought in their midst. Lantern light spilled out in pools and wands on the cobbles. The stouter-hearted ventured close to the inferno of noise and light that was the firing patrol, saw what they were aiming at and hurried back into their homes, barring their doors.
The noise stopped. The street was an opaque fog of powder smoke and the patrolmen shouted to one another reassuringly in the midst of it. They had used all their charges, but the beast was dead—sure to be after having thirty rounds blasted into it.
“Ho, Harlan, where are you? Can’t see a thing in this powder brew!”
“I claim its paw, Ellon. It’s the biggest I’ve ever seen.”
“Where in the name of the Saint is it?”
There was a silence, heavy with fear. The powder smoke refused to clear; in fact if anything it was growing thicker by the moment. The arquebusiers blundered around, terrified, sure that the shifter had somehow called up a fog and was still alive in the midst of it, biding its time.
“Sorcery!” one wailed. “The beast lives! It’ll be at our throats in a moment. This is no gunpowder smoke!”
Their sergeant tried to rally them, but they made off, some dropping their weapons, seeking only to get away from the unnatural smoke. They scattered, shouting, whilst the folk who lived on the street shuttered their windows despite the heat of the night and knelt behind locked doors, quaking.
S LOWLY , my little comrade, slowly. Look into him. Can you see the heat? Is that the radiance of his heart, beating yet? Yes! See how the bright bloodlines clot and heal themselves, the darker holes knit together and close. And there is the eye rebuilding itself, pushing out again like an air-filled bladder.