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

by Sarah Roark

  “But now that you’ve found us, Master Jervais…what are Ceoris’s instructions?”

  “Instructions, milady?” he repeated.

  “Come, milord.” Perhaps he was imagining it, but her voice seemed to have steeled suddenly. “Ceoris always has instructions.”

  “Ah. Well, there were instructions for me, naturally—I was charged to find you if I could, to see how you fared and report back.”

  “But there is nothing in particular that Ceoris wants us to do? That seems highly…unusual.”

  This was going very bad very quickly. Jervais wished with all his might that he had the power some elders had, to speak mind to mind. He would have reached out to Torgeir and shaken the look of half-panic off the boy’s face. Nor was the young magus’s consternation escaping Deverra, though she pretended not to heed.

  “Now that we know you’re all right, I’m sure instructions will be forthcoming soon. It seemed folly to issue orders to a branch of the House and Clan that might have fallen into some calamity and been unable to obey in any case,” Jervais answered.

  “We could always fall into calamity after you leave,” she pointed out.

  “Oh! Heaven forfend,” he exclaimed.

  “It is not Heaven we look to in these tenuous nights, milord. The servants of Heaven who come here have shown themselves to be anything but friends. And they don’t stop coming. The Sword-Brothers, the German knights with the black crosses, the Danes, the friars…”

  He frowned, his thoughts racing to try to get ahead of hers. “The cross extends its reach across the face of the earth, milady, as it’s always done. I understand that your lands have seen more than their share of bloodshed and tragedy lately, and that must surely interfere with your research—but it can’t be helped. The Church does as it likes. Even Ceoris can’t defy it. You simply must find some way to work around it. The paganism hereabouts is doomed, in the long term, anyway; perhaps even in the short. Surely you see that.”

  She actually closed her eyes for a moment, and he wondered whether she was nursing a great sadness or a great hatred. He dared not let his sight shift to look at her soul. But when she opened them again, she seemed still to have full command of herself.

  “There must…there must be Cainites of the ruling bloods who support the knights and the friars.” Deverra shook her head. “When I left Ceoris, already our Council was laboring to acquire the ears and favor of the mighty among the dead. Has there been no success in that, milord? Have they not proved useful to anyone important? Are we still utterly friendless in the world?”

  She meant it as a diplomatic needling, but the question caught him in the throat. He found he had to recover himself to answer.

  “We have proved our usefulness to dozens of princes hundreds of times over, milady. And there are now many princes who take our counsel, and grant us chantry rights, but…”

  “But no friends.”

  He waved a defeated hand. “I had been going to say that I’m not sure how much influence they even have over these mortals, to say nothing of how much of it they’d exert on our behalf.”

  “Ah, you see. Nothing ever changes really.” She smiled bitterly and smoothed her overdress. “You said, Master Jervais, that you’ve not dwelled at Ceoris recently. Where then have you been?”

  “I go on many errands for the House and Clan, milady.”

  “You must be one of those whose business it is to make himself useful, then.”

  “I suppose that’s a fair enough description.”

  “It sounds like frustrating work to me. I’m afraid I make a much better master than servant. One thing I can say for my situation is that at least there are none here to command me.”

  “Except for the Lord Councilor Etrius, of course,” Jervais demurred.

  “Of course. But he is not here. He has interfered very little to date, and I conduct myself and my endeavors as I see fit. There, looked at that way, I can’t really complain, can I?” She stood and came forward, her watery hazel eyes now alight with that mirror-shine that Cainite eyes often showed in moments of hunger. “Perhaps you’re right, Master Jervais, and soon we’ll all be coming to German castles to pay tax and tribute, and kneeling to take penitential ash on our brows, and every sacred grove will be nothing more than some Saxon count’s deer run. And men like you won’t weep. You’ll say, ‘This is the world,’ and you’ll kiss the ring no matter whose hand it’s on and hope that the boot treads on someone else’s head. Or perhaps someone will order you to put on the boot.”

  He rose as she came up to him. It was quite clear now that they were no longer speaking of Saxon princes or Teutonic Knights. “Madame, we friendless wizards, as you’ve so rightly pointed out, must do without a lot of luxuries others take for granted. Pride, ambition, discontent, must all be hidden from those who would crush us as the threat we truly are. But above all, what we can’t afford is to break apart within. To be divided against ourselves.”

  “How right you are, Master Jervais. Shall we make that the toast, then? It is the guest’s duty to think one up, after all.”

  She beckoned with one gnarled, braceleted hand. A group of mortals filed in, dressed in fresh garments and neatly coifed, carrying bowls. A fair, plump, light-haired girl of betrothal age walked proudly at their head, garbed in white and adorned with what was probably a chieftain’s ransom in these parts. She came directly up to Torgeir without a word and got down on both knees before him.

  He gazed upon her—astounded, appreciative, or most likely both—for a long moment before seeming to realize that a response was required of him. He looked up at Jervais.

  “Well, go on,” Jervais encouraged him, not without a tinge of jealousy. “Not your standard chantry fare, eh? Obviously you didn’t realize there was a bright side to this…”

  He nodded, then laid a hand on her shoulder and gave her a self-conscious smile. The mortals were so well behaved that Jervais hadn’t noticed any tension in their frames, but they all seemed to soften in relief. The girl smiled in return and stood, taking his hand. He began to rise as well, uncertainly.

  “Master, I think…should I…”

  “Yes, Torgeir, go with her, off, off. Mustn’t insult our hosts.”

  He could just imagine what Etrius would have said. At least the boy could claim later that diplomacy forced him.

  “Now I trust you see that our land is not without its beauties,” Deverra said dryly as the other mortals assembled themselves in a group and began bleeding each other in turn. Bowls were passed to all the company, the largest two to Jervais and Deverra.

  “Not at all without,” he agreed. He took the bowl, a fine bronze implement cast in curious patterns. At least the blood within was quite fresh, but it would not remain warm or perfectly liquefied for long. Divorced from its source, it was already beginning to die. He turned to his hostess and raised the bowl to her in salute.

  She took hers, but before raising it to him, she went to the north side of the tent where a bench holding a collection of little felt and wooden figures stood. She daubed the mouth of each with a bit of blood and then further poured a splash of it onto the ground before them. Then she returned to the center of the tent and flicked a few drops into the cold fire pit.

  “Gabija, be satisfied,” she murmured.

  “You serve your gods before yourself,” Jervais commented.

  “Of course. They are greater than myself.”

  But nothing is supposed to be greater than the House and Clan, Jervais thought grimly. It’s for that you die, not for being pagan. If only you had realized that…

  This thought needed chasing out. “The toast.”

  “Of course, Master Jervais.”

  “To the eternal unity of House and Clan. May it never falter in a thousand centuries.”

  She nodded, “Indeed,” and drank readily. Jervais noticed, however, that she cast a quick look around to be sure her followers did likewise. “And may none of us here find ourselves divided against ourselve
s. Especially you, Master Jervais. For such a fate is not to be wished even on one’s enemy, to say nothing of our ranking Tremere upon whom the fate of us all depends.”

  He raised the bowl again, accepting her toast both as it was said and as it was meant.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “How very interesting,” Osobei said the next evening, swinging elegantly down from the saddle. “I’d assumed that it was me she wanted to keep out of trouble with this little trip away. But it seems she has other company…important company, if the music is any guide. Perhaps I’m not actually the one she’s worried about?”

  He turned to smile at the raider, who shrugged stonily. He didn’t even stop to take the packs off his mount, although he did study himself in a little mirror he kept in his sleeve before walking into the center of the camp.

  A mortal woman was dancing before the communal fire in front of the great ger, robed in a gown with sleeves that fell down well past her hands. She moved them like streamers, in circles and sinuous waves. A man played on a knee-fiddle with a carved horse’s head for a pegbox—an instrument that, if Osobei recalled correctly, had been reconstructed from the great khan’s memory at his special request. Bells and gongs struck at intervals. Sitting before the woman, bemused, were a pair of nemci in long heavy Western robes. He had to squint through the heat haze to get a better look at them.

  Deverra, who sat beside them, turned and glared at Osobei as he came closer, but she said nothing. The stouter of the two nemci clapped his hands as the woman finished.

  “Pulchra, pulchra,” he said.

  “The speech of the Western church, in this camp?” Osobei commented, also in Latin. “I am shocked.”

  “As am I,” Deverra returned. “That is, to see you back again so soon. Alas, I must assume our countryside did not beguile you.”

  “On the contrary,” he said easily. “I found it most charming. And I paid my respects to the lake, but I’m not koldun, milady. My devotions are simple. Rude, I am sure some of them would say.”

  He had the satisfaction of seeing the nemci stiffen at that.

  “I am sure they would,” Deverra agreed.

  “But I see, alas, that I should have remained beguiled a little longer regardless. Evidently my presence is an embarrassment.”

  “Not an embarrassment, boyar,” she said wearily. “I simply thought it would be best for all concerned.”

  “So your ladyship entertains emissaries of the voivodes,” the stout one exclaimed.

  “Yes. I entertain any emissary who approaches in peace,” Deverra said.

  “Not just any voivode, sir,” Osobei corrected. “The voivode of voivodes, Vladimir Rustovitch himself. As for me, I am Osobei Vasilevitch vnuk Vladimirov pravnuk Kosczecsykev prapravnuk Triglavlev praprapravnuk Tzimiscev. And you? Do you intend to remain nameless all night?”

  “Jervais bani Tremere,” the nemci said. He did not get up. “However, as Mistress Deverra says, we’ve both come in peace, so I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to overlook it for now.”

  “Don’t you?” Osobei returned with a smirk. “For one thing, it wouldn’t be consistent with any of our mutual history that I’m aware of.”

  “No, his difficulty is with me now,” Deverra put in. “Is that not so, Master Jervais?”

  “Well,” said Master Jervais. “I’m sure you can understand my surprise, milady.”

  “So I could, if I thought there were any. But you seem remarkably unsurprised to me.”

  “Now I don’t know quite what you’re getting at. I wouldn’t think that the Telyavs would see any need to receive envoys from Rustovitch—who has, after all, spent the last several decades making a brutal effort to wipe Ceoris off the face of the earth. Not an insult, boyar, but a fact.”

  “None taken, master sorcerer,” the Tzimisce assured him.

  “But perhaps you have your reasons. If so, then it is for you to justify them to Ceoris. It’s not a matter for my judgment. I am but a messenger. I will merely convey what I have seen.”

  “Ah, but you’re not going back to Ceoris, are you?” A new voice. One of the Telyavs, a dark-haired warlock whom Osobei had often seen in Deverra’s company, rose to his feet. “For if you were, surely you’d rest here for longer than a single day. It’s a long way to Hungary, and hospitality is rare and dear for Tremere in the east. That being the case, why do you shun us?”

  “Bernalt, please.” Deverra cut him off, and added something else in one of the Baltic tongues.

  “I can’t sit here and listen to these lies. What’s the use?”

  “Bernalt?” Master Jervais said. “Now I know I’ve heard that name. Doesn’t sound Livonian. And your face…”

  “Yes. We’ve met,” the Telyav said. He came forward. There was something in his manner that pleased Osobei, an air of violence barely suppressed. “Long ago, before I came out here. Before there was any reason for me to come out here.”

  That seemed to take Master Jervais aback a bit, but then he recovered. “Ah. When you were mortal.”

  “Yes. I was going to stay at Ceoris for a month or so, do some research on optics, then return home to my own chantry. I remember you were very kind to me while I was there. Most helpful in the library. Very generous with the vis.”

  “Ah, yes. Well, that was my job.”

  “And I did indeed leave Ceoris the following month, but I never got to go home again.” The man’s lip trembled. “And you knew. You knew the entire time. And you said nothing. Never once did the smile leave your face!”

  “Bernalt!” Deverra blurted again. Her voice cracked, a dry old woman’s voice.

  “You shall never deceive us again, Jervais,” he barreled on. “We know you now. We know you’ll smile right up until the ax comes down, and even if the Devil himself was holding your soul in the palm of his hand, you could not tell the truth to save it!”

  “Bernalt, this helps nothing.” Deverra’s voice quickly regained its strength, but it went unheeded.

  “And just what in hell would you have wanted me to say?” Master Jervais exclaimed, bewildered.

  “I was happy in Castile! I had work, good companions and the magic—the magic. Your masters destroyed all that, and you helped them do it to each and every one of us, and now even that’s not enough. What’s the use? Why do we sit here pretending that what’s happening is not happening? Aren’t we too old for this? Don’t we know each other too well? I won’t let you finish off what little we’ve salvaged of ourselves.” Bernalt stopped then, as if astounded at himself. There was dead silence. He seemed to realize he had gone too far to recall things then, and took a deep breath. “I call certámen. To the death.”

  “No,” said Master Jervais. Osobei felt a sting of mixed disgust and envy, that this warlock could dismiss a challenge to honor so easily.

  “Naturally!” Bernalt shot back. “You shrink from justice in any form.”

  “This has nothing to do with justice,” the other Tremere returned irritably. “You have a quarrel with me. Perhaps unfortunately from your point of view, I have none with you. You’ve done me no harm. Why should I want a duel?”

  “Coward.”

  Jervais’s square face creased in a smile. “Come, there must be better words to fling at me than that—”

  Bernalt’s fist cut him short with a cracking blow to the jaw.

  Half the assembled company, mortal and immortal, shot to their feet with noises of dismay, including Deverra. Osobei could barely contain his delight.

  “There. Now I have done you harm!”

  Jervais stared at him silently, wiping away with a fingertip the trickle of blood that appeared on his lip.

  “It is…legitimate grounds for a certámen challenge, on both sides,” Deverra said at last. She picked her way carefully through the sentence, already weighing benefits and detriments. “Even Ceoris would agree.”

  “Ah,” said Osobei, “but I’m afraid that if Master Jervais does not wish to fight—”

  Telya
vs and Tremere alike turned to glare at him. He gave Master Jervais the special light of his most gracious smile. “If Master Jervais does not accept the challenge, then Master Bernalt has broken hospitality.”

  “Hospitality!” Bernalt retorted. “For this serpent, this poisonous slug…”

  “Who is nevertheless Mistress Deverra’s guest,” Osobei pointed out coolly. “And to whom you owe the customary forbearance. Perhaps you forget where you are, Master Bernalt, or perhaps the youth and…innocence of your bloodline serves you ill. But east of the Danube, we still take Tradition seriously—not only in the voivodate but in all the Cainite courts and dwellings of these lands. If it gets out that the Telyavs no longer honor this most ancient and sacred bond, then their word will be worth even less than that of Ceoris.”

  At once the look of loathing on Jervais’s face became one of calculation. Yes, stupid Usurper, think.

  Osobei then gestured toward the young albino who sat aghast in the place beside Master Jervais, and lowered his voice—even though he still spoke Latin. “Besides, I daresay your kine won’t want to see one so clearly god-touched made angry. Will they?”

  Deverra raised a hand to her throat, as though to keep the rage that showed in her eyes from getting past her voice box.

  “Then I suppose the question is whether Master Jervais accepts or not,” she managed.

  “I do not accept,” Jervais said. “As you can surely see, I asked for none of this.”

  “Then… Then we have wronged you.” She faltered, then resolved herself. She held up her hands like a queen about to make a proclamation and spoke in one of the Baltic tongues. There was murmuring, but people sat down again. She then spoke again in Latin.

  “Let it be known here tonight that my sodalis Bernalt has trespassed against the hospitality I offered Master Jervais of Ceoris, and that I as hostess most deeply lament this trespass.” She got down onto one arthritic knee. Osobei felt an odd little twinge of mortal regret at that, something to do with the respect for the aged that had been drummed into him practically from infancy, but the etiquette demanded this gesture of her.