Dark Ages Clan Novel Tremere: Book 11 of the Dark Ages Clan Novel Saga

by Sarah Roark

  “And you, milady sire, look far better than merely well. As always.” Damn. What was the matter with him? Could he conjure no finer flattery than that? Her face fell very slightly, but then she smiled. “Ah, I can always count on you, Jervais. I’ve missed you. You have no idea what I’ve suffered since you left.”

  Oh, I have some idea, he thought. In fact I think half the chantry must, unless they’re deaf.

  “You were always my pillar. These…children, they’re no help at all.” She shrugged ruefully. “And His Porcine Majesty has taken advantage of the situation to fill out his stable of toadies, of course.”

  “Yes, so I’ve seen.”

  “Yes. Can you believe it? He’s gotten even less subtle with age. He sends his lackeys to spy on me, and they don’t even have the decency to pretend they’re doing something else anymore! Jervais, I caught one of them, that little albino rat, in my very laboratory just last night.”

  He was supposed to be astounded and infuriated, he knew. Plainly she had no idea how their voices had carried, or else she was deliberately oblivious. And to intrude on a magician’s sacred privacy, there were few graver (or more common) violations of custom or Code. He nodded as fervently as he could make himself.

  “That one! Yes, I wouldn’t put it past him at all.”

  She looked even more distraught. A hint of menace entered her smooth voice. “No, Jervais—my heart, you don’t understand. There is no way the little pestilence could possibly manage to get past my ward without direct help from Etrius himself, or Curaferrum at the very least. Curaferrum most likely.” She pronounced his name in the same tones most Tremere reserved for Rustovitch. “After all, he’s the one protecting the brat now. I caught him red-handed, mind you. Red-handed, and that…functionary has the gall to say he has only my word to go on. Only my word! I sit in the High Chantry council chamber on our lord Goratrix’s behalf! And yet do you think I will see a moment’s justice for any of it in this tower of iniquity?”

  She was rigid with outrage, staring at him. He remembered—or thought he remembered—towering rages, fits worthy of the maenads, which left him gasping. At the moment all he could think of was how much shorter she was than himself, and how had he failed to notice something that obvious for that long? He turned back toward his trunk: a mistake, he knew, but not as great a mistake as continuing to stand there staring back at her blankly.

  “I don’t seem to recall your ladyship ever waiting for anyone to serve justice on your behalf,” he said.

  “How right you are, my heart.” Her voice grew silky again at that. “Yes…thank you for bringing me back to myself.”

  Yourself? he thought whirlingly. Where is it? Where are you?

  The next moment, arms delicate as herb-roots were twining around his chest. Once again he knew what was supposed to happen. He was to fold himself around her now and wait in agony for the slightest taste of her blood, so enticingly forbidden by the Code they’d both sworn to. He was to promise to do any tomfool thing to ease her burdens and earn her smile. He, who hated nothing more than to subject his will to another, ached to want that now. He couldn’ t recall ever not wanting it with Malgorzata. It had been his temptation and his guilty pleasure. Now he just felt at a loss. However she might play the part now, she was not the helpless female, she had spells he didn’t even know about, and if she determined that she was reaching out toward something that was simply, inexplicably no longer there it could be very dangerous for him indeed.

  “Don’t—don’t risk your position, madame. Don’t lower yourself, please,” he said, and at least he didn’t have to struggle to make his voice husky.

  “You would have me endure such insults?”

  “No! No, of course not. I’ll take care of it for you, madame, that is what I meant.”

  “Ah, my heart. I can’t have you risk yourself so soon after your return. Etrius will be looking for the first excuse to hurt you, hurt us both, and you know it.”

  He could not believe in her feint at concern. It was excruciating not to, but he couldn’t force himself.

  “Besides, what would you do?” she asked quietly.

  I don’t know yet, madame. But it’s bound to be better than whatever overcomplicated scheme you were cooking up to involve me in.

  “You’ll see,” he answered, kissing her hand reverently.

  “Ah. I do enjoy it when you surprise me. I always believe in you, Jervais, even when others are too foolish to see. I knew the Paris master was wrong the very moment I met you. And time proved me right, did it not? No, you. You proved me right.” She laid her head on his shoulder. He could hear that she was smiling. He used to feel so proud when she said such things. He implored her in his mind to leave.

  “Well, I won’t keep you from your settling in,” she said after a moment. “But come and see me afterward. I have some very interesting research to show you—research which, thankfully, the rat did not manage to ferret out.”

  “Of course, madame.” And her light footsteps padded out, leaving him alone once again with only her perfume lingering.

  He tried to concentrate on re-assembling his orrery. He found himself blinking rather more than usual.

  Chapter Seven

  “You have to be gentle with her. She’s very sensitive.”

  Lady Virstania hitched up her diaphanous robe and frowned thunderously at Fidus, who’d just tendered the knobby gargoyle looming over him a peace offering of fresh rabbit and nearly gotten his fingers bitten off along with it.

  “Just back up slowly and don’t look away,” Jervais advised him with a half-smothered smile. “Oh, and raise your shoulders with arms akimbo, you’ll look bigger.”

  “Maître Jervais thinks he’s a gargoyle expert. Rixatrix is a female, Fidus.”

  “It is?” Fidus stammered, transfixed by the hand-sized yellow eyes blinking at him from scant inches away. They were level with his only because their owner had bent nearly double to put them there; nor did he seem to appreciate the courtesy of that gesture.

  “She is.” Virstania dimpled her plump cheeks at the creature, patted its haunch and began to carefully clean its talons out with an iron pick. It submitted to her with a lamb’s patience. “And that means the last thing you want to do is look bigger than her mate.”

  “No danger of that, I’m sure,” Jervais scoffed, but then he stared at the creature that swooped in from the heights in back of the cave. It wasn’t quite Jervais’s size in the body, and its wings looked barely wide enough to carry it. It landed with room to spare on Rixatrix’ craggy shoulder and hunched its back into a hump.

  “What is this, a bantam rooster?”

  Virstania left off her polyglot cooing over the big female. In an instant, her voice changed from beatifically maternal to cool as the surrounding cavern air. “I was told, maître, that you required two of my adult flock for scouting and fighting. Dear Falco is an excellent spy, and I’ve never seen my sweetheart lose a battle yet. They’re a mated pair. They all but dream in concert. They will gladly die for each other and even more gladly die for you.” Clearly she had her doubts as to whether Jervais, or anyone else, was worthy of such an honor. “I trust that will be satisfactory.”

  Jervais nodded gamely.

  “They mustn’t be made to fly for more than three hours in a row,” she went on. “Falco has a quirky gut, and shouldn’t hunt game alone. Rixatrix will see to his proper diet if she is with him. If she’s not, then you must make sure he stays clear of horses and deer, or indeed any large herbivores. Why is your boy not taking this down?”

  Fidus jumped as if struck and immediately picked up the little wax tablet that hung from his belt.

  “Quirky gut, no game alone, no big herbivores…”

  Virstania glared at him. Rixatrix, the perfect weathervane for her mistress’s mood, growled. It sounded like an avalanche in progress.

  “Sh, sweetheart. You’re scaring your love. He’ll think he’s done something wrong again.”

  Falc
o chittered and nibbled at his mate’s stony ear. Rixatrix gave an angry moan and swatted idly at him.

  “It’s also very important to clean their claws after any real fighting, because they’re prone to split if kept wet…”

  “What, can’t the miraculous creatures clean their own claws?” Jervais prodded her.

  “They’re gargoyles, maître,” she said heavily. “Not cats.”

  “Rix want cat. Little rabbit gone in one drink.”

  “Not just now, dearest. Mother hasn’t got any cats to hand. We can get you both a nice juicy man though. I seem to recall one of Epistatia’s raiders offended her recently. Wouldn’t that be yummy?”

  “What about our Ventrue friend?” Jervais asked. “How do we keep them from eating him, and the other Ventrue and their mortals?”

  “You’ll have to introduce them, of course,” Virstania answered. “Let them get a scent of everyone in the company, one by one. A few times if you can manage it.”

  “Well, that’ll be entertaining to watch at least.”

  A mortal apprentice scuttled into the room. He fairly staggered back, eyes wide, as three white vampire faces turned to stare at him and a cave full of gargoyles stirred.

  “Your pardon, masters, but I was told Master Jervais would be here.”

  “Yes? What is it? Hurry up.”

  “Master Jervais, you’re wanted upstairs. Master Antal has arrived from Bistritz.”

  “Very well. That means we’ll be leaving, Lady Virstania. Are these beasts ready to travel?”

  “I’m sure they’re in at least as good a shape for that as you are, maître,” Virstania assured him.

  “Excellent. Thank you, milady.” Jervais was not about to let to a cutting remark keep him from making the fastest possible exit.

  “You, boy.” Halfway up the tunnel Jervais put a hand on the shoulder of the mortal apprentice and stopped him. Without further ado he gouged his fangs into the lad’s wrist. The apprentice leaned against the tunnel wall for support until it was over.

  “That’s better,” said Jervais. “So much easier to face the vultures on a full stomach. Well, lead on.”

  “Yes, master.”

  The boy conducted them to the great main library, where Etrius usually received magi who were neither as disfavored as Jervais nor of especially exalted rank. Over centuries of acquisition and only the most occasional reorganizing, the room—originally designed in a spacious Roman aesthetic—had become a rat’s warren of rough-hewn bookcases and stacks of multicolored books nearly as tall as a man. Every so often a reading desk or chair would randomly and maliciously appear in one’s path, necessitating a winding detour. Jervais, who generally preferred cleanliness and luxury and had long since come to hate nearly every cubic inch of Ceoris, had nevertheless fallen in love with the library the moment he’d set foot in it. Especially the scent of the musty old leather and parchment. He felt like the richest man in the world when he smelled it, never mind that none of the books truly belonged to him.

  But the sound, unlike the scent, was troubling. There were too many voices in here…not shouting, but still overlapping one another in a way that suggested argument.

  “I demand that something be done, milord Councilor.” Malgorzata’s voice. So much for not lowering herself and waiting for him to think of a plan.

  “Ah, Jervais,” Etrius said as Jervais rounded the corner. For once, he seemed less than utterly disgusted to see him—glad more of the interruption than of Jervais himself, doubtless. “There you are. This was to have been the occasion of presenting you and Master Antal to each other. Master Jervais, Master Antal Garaboncias of Bistritz; Master Antal, our vis-master, Master Jervais fils de Malgorzata…”

  Etrius laid his hand on the shoulder of a dour, dark-bearded, rather monkish magus who wore robes of mulberry broadcloth with singe marks on the sleeves. Something in his look suggested that if Etrius were to let go of him for one instant he would shake himself out like a wet cat and then bolt for the door.

  “Master Antal.” Jervais bowed in response to Antal’s grudging courtesy. “I’ve heard stories of your heroic struggle against the Fiends.”

  “Yes,” Antal replied. His Latin was heavily inflected by the Magyar accent. “The most august Councilor has informed me that we in Bistritz have many long-distance admirers. It is most heartening, of course.”

  “And now Master Jervais can admire your work up close,” Etrius said amiably. “I have promised him he shall find your assistance invaluable. I know that you won’t disappoint him, or me.”

  So Antal needed reminding of who was in charge. Well, at least Etrius himself was undertaking to perform that duty. Jervais couldn’t quite find it in himself to feel grateful, but he did make note. It was a hopeful sign that perhaps he truly was intended to succeed and not to die—though he was quite sure Etrius would make the best of either outcome.

  “Milord Councilor.” Jervais turned, instinctively, toward Malgorzata’s voice as it cut in. Only then did he notice what stood behind her—Torgeir, the “albino rat.” (Now that Jervais got his first good look at the Dane’s eyes, he realized that Malgorzata hadn’t been exaggerating at all. The irises appeared somewhat pinkish in the library light, and they jumped oddly about.) Torgeir attempted to edge toward the friendlier clime of his master’s shadow. Malgorzata prevented him with a swift, venomous glance. “All these pleasantries aside, you still have not said—”

  “But milady, these pleasantries are of great and pressing importance to the clan,” Etrius interrupted. “Surely you don’t begrudge our champions against the Telyavs a chance to seal their alliance with a courteous introduction before they leave us with tomorrow’s first darkening?”

  “You still have not said, milord,” she persisted, “when you will even agree to hear the case. What good does it do us to campaign against the Telyavs for whatever wrongs you suppose them to have done you, if justice within Ceoris’s own walls is no longer in order?”

  “Bonisagus, milady!” No one in Ceoris had the otherwise common Tremere habit of swearing by Great Tremere or even his Seven Names. The long-vanished Bonisagus, founder of the Hermetic Order, was far safer. “The case will be heard when such cases are usually heard, especially since you’ve written half of the magi in this part of Europe requesting their attendance, and not all of them can fly.”

  “By which time he’ll have gotten up to who knows what other mischief, and we still have no idea who’s helping him, milord. I should think you should wish to discover the intrigue in your own wing.”

  “I’ll submit him to an oath in the meantime, then,” Etrius said wearily. “With a suitable hex if he disobeys.”

  “Was he not submitted to the great Oath of Tremere, the same as all our initiates? If he dares those eternal consequences without fear, milord, how shall he fear a simple hex even from his own powerful teacher?”

  “I presume your ladyship already has some other suggestion in mind for keeping him out of trouble.”

  “Well, there is always the dungeon, of course,” she said, putting a finger to her jaw and making a thoroughly transparent pretense of deliberating. “And the manacles my sire devised for its prisoners of the Blood. It’s only for a month after all.”

  “Hmm. As you pointed out, much can happen in such a span. And those manacles were designed to hold Fiends.”

  Keeping him out of trouble…

  “If I may, my most august, sage and immortal Councilor, my revered lady sire,” Jervais spoke up.

  Etrius scowled. “Yes?”

  “Is it not tradition that the accused in such a case may offer to undergo an ordeal to prove his loyalty to the House and Clan, in lieu of a trial, on the occasion of the first offense?”

  Torgeir gave him a look of thorough alarm.

  “Yes, it certainly is,” the Councilor answered slowly, “but as young Master Torgeir has expressed no such interest, why would you mention it?”

  “Because it occurs to me, milord, that joining me in
my expedition against the traitors would serve as an excellent test of his loyalty. Put him under my command, and I will very quickly determine out of what stuff he’s made.”

  Etrius’s eyebrows rose so high they seemed in grave danger of disappearing into his hairline. “Yes. Yes, I’m sure you would, Jervais…and you would be one step closer to your full sodalicium as well.”

  To Jervais’s relief, Malgorzata’s face lit with pleasure. Torgeir under Jervais’s authority—where he could be declared a traitor on Jervais’s say-so, sent to his death at leisure, rendered desperately beholden to their faction or at the very least humbled to within an inch of his existence—was clearly an even more delightful thought than Torgeir subjected to Goratrix’s Iron Torment. Just as clearly, she took Etrius to be flummoxed and embarrassed at this turn of events, and not merely astounded at what Jervais knew was the gift he had just tossed into the old archmagus’s lap.

  He was, after all, volunteering to take along a confirmed spy, and thus spare Etrius the labor of a trial which Malgorzata had obviously meant to make as big an embarrassment as possible.

  “Well, Torgeir. It is your right to request such an ordeal…if you wish.” Etrius grimaced. “Ordeal it’ll certainly be, if Master Jervais has aught to do with it. But it may still be preferable to letting milady have her way.”

  Torgeir stared. His lips flopped minutely open and shut a couple of times as though to protest, but it didn’t take much spy-craft to tell where his master’s will lay. He brushed nervous hands down the front of his robe. “Yes, master—most august lord Councilor. It would please me greatly to be given this chance to clear my name.”