A Plague of Swords

by Miles Cameron

  His brother grabbed his head. “Good blow!” he shouted, helmet to helmet.

  Damn him and his chivalry, Gabriel thought. But he hugged his brother hard.

  “One more!” Gabriel said.

  This time, the two brothers circled after the allez for far longer than before. Both flicked little thrusts with their spears, and Gabriel considered changing hands—the spear in the right might actually have an advantage—not what the Archaics did, however. They probably threw them.

  Gabriel sidestepped and even as his brother moved, Gabriel struck. It was a matter of timing, of tempo, and he could not have rationally explained why he struck. But he went forward onto his left leg and exploded forward again. The two spears met and crossed and both slid past their targets and both swords rose and cut diagonally, strong blows that met at the center and sparks flew, visible even in the blazing sun, as two sharp swords cut each into the other’s fine edge.

  Gabriel hammered his pommel into his brother’s visor. Only then did he realize his brother was going for a wrestling throw and he lowered his weight. They were too close for anything to be visible—every part of a fight at this range was touch and feel and intuition. Gabriel stepped back, even as his brother’s leg wrap went forward, but Gavin knew his response as well as he did himself, and Gabriel had to writhe like a snake to avoid being thrown in the reverse of his own arm lock, and then they were steel belly to steel belly, locked like two statues.

  Gabriel went for his dagger. His hilt was there under his hand and his hand rose like Ariosto taking flight, the dagger gleaming in the brilliant sun, and no thought in his head that this was his brother and comrade of fifty fights. His brother’s right arm was gone from Gabriel’s left—he wrapped his own left around his brother’s armoured neck and in that moment thought brother and placed the tip of his needle-sharp dagger lovingly atop the mail of his brother’s aventail.

  “Hold!” roared Bad Tom. “Och, the pair o’ you. Yer both that lucky ye lived to be grown.”

  Gabriel’s dagger was pricking at Gavin’s throat.

  Gavin’s dagger point was under Gabriel’s mail skirt, pricking something else.

  The queens began to laugh, and then all of them were laughing.

  The two men embraced, steel breastplate to steel breastplate.

  There was chanting in the crowd, and the roar grew and grew. Gavin tried to say something to Gabriel, and then shook his head and let his brother go.

  There were perhaps twenty thousand sentient beings watching, and the noise was incredible. It was like a living thing, or a storm, or a great monster of the Wild; it rose, and rose.

  Eight Nordikaans appeared at the end of the lists, and there was Ser George Brewes and there was Bad Tom, and Sauce, and Giannis Turkos and Ser Michael.

  They had a shield.

  The crowd roared. The chant rose, intelligible for the first time.

  “Imperator! Ave! Ave! Ave!”

  Gabriel could see Derkensun. He could see them all, and he walked to the shield and stepped onto it as if by right.

  This would be a bad time to fall over, he thought, and then they were raising him, and the storm of sound beat against him, all the approval he could ever have dreamt as an angry child.

  “Ave! Ave! Ave! Imperator!”

  He raised his hands.

  The queen rose to her feet, and raised her arm to him in acknowledgment.

  The sound lifted him, and for a moment he felt a thrill of joy, an almost sexual pleasure. And then, oddly, he heard Wilful Murder’s voice in his head, as clear as if the man were by his side—more clearly, as the sound would have drowned a real voice.

  Wilful Murder’s voice said, Here we go, then.

  * * *

  Forty minutes later, Gabriel was in his solar, sitting in sweat-damp arming clothes, decoding, with Master Julius making a copy and decoding at the same time, and Lady Almspend doing the same—Rebecca could, in fact, write with her right and left hands at the same time.

  All three of them paused to murmur from time to time.

  Outside, the crowd roared.

  “Toby, get Master Smythe,” Gabriel said. “And Harmodius or Amicia.”

  “It’s Anne, Your Grace. Toby is fighting,” his page said from behind him.

  He waved his hand.

  He heard her footsteps going away. He kept writing, and some time later, Harmodius cleared his throat.

  “Read this,” Gabriel said, handing him a smudged sheet of parchment. “I want someone to get me Ser Payamides...the infidel.”

  “He’s with the queen and Blanche,” Anne said quietly. “He just fought.”

  “Get him,” Gabriel said.

  Harmodius was already reading. Gabriel felt, rather than saw, the dragon enter. Then Blanche—he knew her step. She put a hand on his shoulder and he squeezed it, surprised by how comforting it was to have her there, and he heard her working with Anne—fetching wine, pouring.

  “Ser Payam,” Anne said.

  Gabriel raised his head. The room was full of people, reading, writing, working.

  “Ser Pavalo,” Gabriel said formally, rising to his feet. “Tell me, have you fought the not-dead?” he asked.

  “Many times,” Payam said. He did not smile, and his hand went to the sword he wore. “Many times.”

  Gabriel nodded, excited. “Do you carry...any of the drug that you take...there is a drug, is there not? That you take to keep the not-dead from taking you?”

  Payam paused. He looked at Harmodius.

  Harmodius frowned. In Askepiles form, the scowl looked very dangerous. “Al Rashidi would tell you...”

  The black man shrugged. “It is not so secret,” he admitted. He reached into his purse, and Harmodius, who had just finished reading, leaned forward in expectation. So did Gabriel.

  “I know it is made with the powdered bones,” he said apologetically. “From the Umroth.”

  Harmodius snatched it. He didn’t even speak. He ran from the room.

  Payam watched him. “What is wrong?” he asked.

  Everyone was watching the closing door and then Gabriel. Gabriel wanted to speak, but was afraid—so afraid—to be proven incorrect, even as he was heartened that the old man had come to the same conclusion he had.

  Gabriel looked around the room. “Give Harmodius time,” he said. “We may have a solution to one problem.”

  He didn’t say, While the others grow deeper.

  * * *

  A long evening, and archers lofted shafts, crossbowmen shot, swords danced and rang together, lances were lifted, and Ser Danved avenged his defeat in the melee by throwing Ser Berengar over his hip in a poleaxe fight that had the crowd on their feet. Toby won several matches with the long sword before going down to defeat at the hands of Francis Atcourt’s squire, Bethany, and came back sweaty and glowing with pride. He was not a natural swordsman and had to work hard to do well, and Bethany, who went on to win the squire’s prize, stated loudly that he had been her hardest match.

  But Isabeau fought the prize match without either of the queens in attendance. The stands were full, the twilight still strong, but none of the great nobles of Alba, Morea, or the Wild were present.

  They were in the paneled room of the old common room. Sauce, who was triumphantly wearing a crown of laurel, was pushed into an uncommonly small space next to Lord Kerak, whose large, reptilian bulk was, Sauce had to admit, very comfortable, smooth, and cool. And well muscled.

  The table was no longer a long rectangle, but had been replaced with a big, round table, and the room itself seemed to have changed shape, although the crucifix in the niche was the same, as were the oak panels.

  The Red Knight—now the emperor, at least to some—had a pile of parchments crackling under his right elbow, and he was covered in ink so that he looked piebald. Next to him was Master Smythe, who looked like a manuscript illustration of a great noble, with every hair perfect. On his right sat the Queen of Alba, and next to her the Faery Knight with his queen,
and then Count Zac as the senior imperial officer present and Tom Lachlan as Drover and the Keeper and his son, and then Wayland as the Captain of Albinkirk, Ser Ricar Fitzroy as the queen’s captain, Gavin as Earl of Westwall, Flint and Kerak and Nita Qwan for their people with Mogon. Ser Michael sat behind Ser Gabriel, and he, too, wore a crown of laurel, having bested both Tom Lachlan and Ser Gavin in the jousting. He had a pile of parchment too, and next to him sat Master Julius, scribbling.

  There were four empty seats, for Harmodius and Mortirmir, Amicia and Gas-a-ho. And around the outside of the room, dozens of men and women: Rebecca Almspend, Blanche, Mary, and Natalia all perched on stools, Francis Atcourt and the Grand Squire and Giorgos Comnenos and many others. It should have been too close and hot to breathe, but it was not.

  Master Smythe looked around and his face wore a look of pleasure.

  “My friends,” he said. “If goodwill and shared knowledge can triumph over ignorance and evil, then you are the very people to win the contest. I will encourage Gabriel to speak, because he understands most of what is at stake.”

  Gabriel didn’t fidget. He rose to his feet. “The first and most pressing issue is the cough,” he said. “Lord Kerak?”

  Lord Kerak rose and bowed, forcing Sauce to fit into an even smaller space by the chimney.

  “First experiments were successful,” he said. “We have high hopes. Shall I speak on?”

  Gabriel nodded. “Everyone here needs some hope.”

  “Perhaps...” The irk nodded. “Perhaps I am the right one for this. We believe we have solved the riddle of the plague.”

  The room erupted, and the irk held out a hand for silence but had to wait some time.

  “Listen, the thing is not yet done.” That got him silence. “But it is well begun.”

  “What is it?” Lord Weyland asked.

  Kerak spread his hands expressively. “The cough, or the plague—it is a trident,” he said. “It attacks the host three ways. Or rather, it uses three theories of hermetical working, all at the same time. It is green, and gold. And black.”

  As he said black, every person flinched.

  “We do not usually speak of black,” the queen said.

  Kerak nodded. “Yet perhaps we should, loud and often. And in this case...” He looked around. “Black is the colour of death and decay. It is not particularly powerful. No, this is a falsehood. It is very powerful, so long as all you desire to accomplish is death and decay. It is useless else.”

  Gabriel leaned forward. “Black is the colour we ascribe to the workings of the Necromancer and his followers.”

  Mogon nodded. “Black was the colour of many of the workings of the Odine,” she said.

  Master Smythe said, “It was the emanations of the black, and the utilization of black by Thorn, that caused me first to take an interest in all of you.”

  Becca Almspend shrugged. “I have studied these matters all my life, and my first encounter with black was under the Old Keep in Harndon, with you, Your Grace.” She nodded to the Queen of Alba, who frowned.

  Lord Kerak waited for the comments to die away and then nodded.

  “So...” he said. “We understood the basic animicule that attacks its host, although it is far too small to see, and that rendered any form of counterworking very difficult. Imagine hunting ants with a poleaxe.” He shrugged. “On the other hand, far away in Liviapolis, scholars, including Mortirmir, rediscovered a technique of the Archaics. I confess I had never heard of it; human working can be very subtle. This working attacks the animicules. This green working should have given us instant control of the plague, but it did not, although Lord Morgon’s potion both isolated and slowed the attack of the pestilence. Harmodius and I found a way to identify victims by means of a tag or trigger set off in every victim’s body by the disease; with luck and some analysis, we were able to deconstruct the Archaic working and then, using the diagnostic working as a targeting solution...”

  The queen raised her hand. “We understand that you have identified everyone affected and that, at an enormous cost in casting strength, most of the affected people, are stable.”

  “Stable, but decaying,” the irk said, “because we don’t have an answer to the necrotic portion of the working. We have all worked to slow it, and, hypothetically, any technique that slows any hermetical working should, at some greater level of power, cancel it, but this was not our experience. There was some component to the black working that was...not responding to our efforts. Like attempting to push oil against water.”

  He looked at Gabriel.

  Gabriel stood up again. “We have agents in Antica Terra,” he said. “One of them recently had to fight against the not-dead. In the process he discovered...no, let me start again. He was provided with an antidote to the not-death. He was told that of course, the Necromancer’s power can be cancelled in the usual way. Like to like. Unlike to unlike.” He waved at Kerak.

  But the door opened and Amicia came in.

  Amicia glowed with power. Her skin was not the smooth, browned skin of youth and vigour, but golden skin as if she were a living icon, and her eyes were lit with a fire too bright for most to endure.

  “It is done,” she said. Her voice sounded not like one woman’s voice, but like the voice of woman. She went first to Blanche, who had the young king on her lap, and then Harmodius entered with a basket that any goodwife might use for her baking.

  “One dose per person,” Harmodius said. “It works.”

  * * *

  An hour was spent planning the counteroffensive against the cough. It was loose throughout Alba and as far south as Harndon, and as far east as Liviapolis. The Prince of Occitan was justifiably anxious for his own lands, and the Outwallers feared the plague more than they feared Ash.

  The queen summarized.

  “We must raise every scrap of hermetical talent we have, train them to work these new patterns, and provide them with hundreds of pounds of powdered Umroth.” She looked around. Many men wore Umroth ivory; the hilts of almost every baselard and rondel dagger in the room were of the stuff. But it was legendary for its value.

  “Really,” Lord Kerak said clinically, “any bones of not-dead will do.”

  Gabriel made a face. “That is an ugly picture,” he said, and would say no more.

  Harmodius looked at Morgon Mortirmir, who had aged five years. “I will stay and heal,” he said. “Amicia too, as long as we have her.”

  She was sitting by the queen, glowing like a living statue.

  “But one of us needs to go with Gabriel.”

  Every head turned. Most of the people in the room knew, at least in outline, the plan...the grand plan for the next few weeks. But not all, and one who did not was Blanche.

  “Go with Gabriel?” she said aloud.

  Morgon nodded. “I will go with Ser Gabriel,” he said. “As long as I get some sleep first.”

  “Best go to bed now then, laddie,” Bad Tom said. “Are ye the emperor now, boyo?”

  Master Julius, notary and sometime advocate of Harndon, looked up from the gigantic tome of bound parchment he had brought in. “In my opinion,” he said, a little portentously. Lord Gregario paused, in mid-description of an item of horse tack he wanted ordered; Amicia paused and looked up from where her golden skin illuminated Blanche’s. Adrian Goldsmith, journeyman goldsmith and artist, sketched furiously, trying to capture that moment, and his charcoal was the only sound.

  Master Julius was almost never the center of attention, and he swallowed. “Well. The precedents are...yes. But really. As far back as...never mind. There has been acclamation. Unless there’s a counterclaim, you have been emperor since Gilson’s Hole. Your...Grace.” Pause. “Er, Eminence. Holiness? Majesty?” Master Julius subsided, looking annoyed with himself.

  People laughed. It was a matter of relief—the plague, the war. The laughter went on too long and was too shrill, but it was laughter nonetheless.

  Gabriel laughed with the rest, but when the laughter
quieted, he looked at Master Smythe. “There’s another thing,” he said. “I assume that the fact that the Umroth ivory works as a specific against the cough means that Ash is in league with the Necromancer.”

  Master Smythe sighed. “I have to admit that is the most likely scenario,” he said. “That means...a variety of things. Please tell me in detail of your encounter with the power of the black in Harndon,” he said to the queen.

  But it was Becca Almspend who told the story. When she was done, occasionally interrupted by the queen, Master Smythe steepled his fingers. “I see,” he said, as if the words hurt him.

  “Don’t we think there is a gate in Harndon?” Gabriel asked.

  Smythe shrugged. “Perhaps. There are, in fact, too many damned gates.”

  Gabriel produced another sheet of parchment. This one was a work of art, with the whole background a beautiful dark blue, and foreground figures in zodiacal signs and with tiny gilded stars; the night sky, in fact, although divided into seven portions.

  He held it up for all to see. “This is the decoration of the ceiling of the gate chamber at Lissen Carak,” he said.

  Master Smythe half rose to his feet.

  Gabriel went on. “It shows seven sets of constellations. My first theory was that it showed a single sky. My second theory was that it showed the sky from seven places.”

  Master Smythe put his good right hand on the Red Knight’s shoulder. “This is not...”

  Gabriel shook off his hand. “I thought these were seven night skies,” he said. “But now I think that I understand the machine they’ve made of our sphere better. These are seven situations and each corresponds to an opening of the gates. And when the gates open, they go to that place. The place with the correspondence. Exactly like using a memory palace to build the codes for a hermetical working except on a larger scale.”

  Master Smythe sat down. He was shaken—his face registered a dozen emotions, some utterly wrong, as he sought for an expression suitable for his state.

  There were people present who had no idea what the Red Knight had just said, but they were few. Most of the people present, regardless of race, had been present for the council at Albinkirk, or had heard what was discussed.