by Sarah Ash
Ruaud sighed. “Proof. I need proof, Visant, before I can order her arrest.”
“If the Commanderie is seen to condone such dangerous arts, your reputation will be tarnished beyond repair. You must make an example of her.”
“How can we bring her to trial without firm evidence?” insisted Ruaud.
“One could almost believe that she has bewitched you too, Maistre, with those angelic blue eyes.”
“That is a very serious allegation, Inquisitor,” said Ruaud coldly.
“Which can easily be disproved by bringing the young woman before a Commanderie tribunal. If she is innocent, she will walk free. If guilty…”
Ruaud stared at Visant, knowing himself outmaneuvered. What, I wonder, do you really wish to gain from this, Inquisitor? Are you out to discredit me, so that you can become Grand Maistre in your turn?
“Then recall her. But be prepared. If she is guilty, as I strongly suspect she is, she will try to escape. And she knows far too much to be allowed to go blabbing our secrets to our enemies.”
“I think you have misread Celestine de Joyeuse's character,” said Ruaud. He was sure that she would comply with his request and prove Visant wrong. “But I will have her brought back from Smarna. And then she is yours for questioning.”
A knock at the door interrupted them; one of the king's household came in and bowed. “His majesty requests your presence urgently, Maistre.”
Ruaud rose from his desk, wondering what this urgent summons might mean. Enguerrand had been behaving rather strangely of late and the king's obsession with defeating the Drakhaouls had begun to worry him. “Is he ill?”
“Let me take care of this little matter, Ruaud,” said Visant smoothly. “All I need is your authorization.”
“What?” Ruaud's mind was already elsewhere. “Oh, yes; of course…” He hastily scribbled an order, sealed it, and handed it to Visant, before hurrying after the servant to attend to the king.
“There must be something I can do…” Celestine leafed through her father's grimoire. She was almost sick with boredom and inactivity.
Was it by accident that the pages fell open at a glamour that proclaimed it would “draw out the truth from the unsuspecting? It loosens the tongues of the unwary, causing them to reveal all manner of secrets,” read the spidery writing. “But to transmute the ingredients, to imbue them with your own life essence so that they become an agent of your will, is a risky enterprise and not one to be lightly undertaken.”
This was one errand that Celestine could not entrust to her maid; she had even begun to wonder whether Nanette might be an agent of the Inquisition, sent by Visant to spy on her. So she set off alone, taking a parasol to protect her complexion from the sun, and informing Nanette that she was going to take a stroll along the cliff path to admire the view.
The blinds were pulled down in the windows of the apothecary's shop in Colchise to protect the wares from the fierce midday sun. The bell tinkled as Celestine pushed open the door, and the apothecary appeared from the back room—a wizened old man who stared at her suspiciously. The atmosphere was dry and made her want to cough, as though a fine film of dust from his medicinal herbs hung in the air.
“Purple hellebore?” He tutted disapprovingly. “Why would you need such a rare and potent drug?”
“Rare?”
“It only grows on the lower mountain slopes around Lake Taigal. I have to import it from Khitari.”
So it would be expensive. “My physician in Lutèce prescribed it. I have terrible headaches.” She placed gold coins on the counter. “Nothing else will do.”
The apothecary nodded and swiftly pocketed the coins. While he was busy in his dispensing room, Celestine stared at the rows of painted jars, each labeled with the names of herbs or chymical compounds. If she closed her eyes for a moment, that evocative dusty smell took her back to her father's study.
Had he ever been driven to use the spells in the grimoire? It grieved her that she knew so little about her own father, and even more so that it had to be Kaspar Linnaius, his treacherous partner, who held the information she longed to learn.
“Every time you use one of the glamours, it will deprive you of some of that essential life force that the magi call the Essence.”
Hervé's warning echoed through Celestine's mind as she locked her bedchamber door and began to prepare the substances she had purchased in the little shop in the citadel.
“If you must resort to such desperate measures, do it only when your life depends on it. There is always a price to be paid for the use of magic, and you have not been trained how to conserve your strength.”
Jagu arrived at Celestine's rented villa at five in the afternoon to rehearse for the recital. Her maid, Nanette, asked him to wait in the parlor.
“Where's your mistress?”
“Sitting for her portrait,” said Nanette.
The instant he crossed the threshold, Jagu sensed something strange in the air: the faintest taint of magic. But before he could investigate further, he heard women's voices in the hall.
“Nanette!” Celestine called. “Madame Andar is feeling a little faint; she'll go home in my carriage.”
The portraitist was leaving. Jagu opened the door a crack and watched as Celestine helped Elysia Andar across the cool of the marble-floored hall. Nanette followed, carrying the artist's sketchbook, easel, and paints. While the women went outside to await the carriage, Jagu slipped into the salon. His senses told him that some spell or glamour had been worked just a short while ago, and it was not long before he found the empty tea glass by the portraitist's chair. Warily sniffing the dregs, he detected the lingering presence of a substance that had been subtly altered by magic; it made the sensitive lining of his nostrils tingle.
He set the glass down with a bang. Celestine had given him her word never to use the grimoire again. He didn't know whether he was more angry with her for breaking her word or himself for leaving her alone for too long.
The sound of horses’ hooves on gravel announced the departure of the carriage. He opened the lid of the fortepiano and listlessly tried a few notes. He had been looking forward to playing for her, hoping that they might, through music-making, reestablish something of their old intimacy. He wondered if he had been deceiving himself.
Celestine came back in; her face was a little flushed and her eyes sparkled, as though she had been drinking wine.
“How could you?” he said sternly. “How could you risk using your father's grimoire again?”
“What if I have?” she said, pushing past him to seat herself at the fortepiano. “I've learned more this afternoon than the Maistre's spies have in a year.”
“You promised me, Celestine. And it's so dangerous—for you, as well as your victims.” She didn't seem to be listening. “Don't you know how insidiously these Forbidden Arts work? They deceive you. You think that you are using them, but in reality, they are using you.”
“I hate it when you preach, Jagu.” She was shuffling through the music on the fortepiano and suddenly threw all the sheets up in the air. “She told me so much.” Jagu bent to retrieve the scattered sheets. “She told me that Professor Lukan was like a second father to Gavril Nagarian. But best of all, she told me that there's a Muscobite scientist called Kazimir who knows how to make a potion to subdue the Drakhaoul and drain him of all his powers!”
She seemed almost intoxicated with her achievement.
“And when the Maistre asks how you came by this information, what will you say to him? You'll have to lie. And then one lie will only lead to another—and another.” Jagu took her hand in his own. “Don't do this to yourself, Celestine. Don't perjure your immortal soul. Burn the book.”
Celestine snatched her hand from his.
“Or if you aren't strong enough to do it, let me do it for you.”
“No!” Celestine backed away from him. “It's all I have left of my father. I forbid you to touch it. If you really cared for me, Jagu, you'd understand.�
��
He stared at her. It's because I care so much about you, that I'm saying this. But he could never say those words aloud. It would mean breaking his vow.
“I don't feel like rehearsing.” She seized the music from his hands and banged it down on top of the fortepiano. “I'll send a report on my findings to the Maistre.”
“But the recital—”
“If you want something to do, go and try out the fortepiano at the ambassador's house. It probably needs tuning.”
There was no point in arguing with her while she was in this capricious mood. He turned and, without another word, left the room.
CHAPTER 18
Enguerrand waited, in the same agony of longing as a lover waits for his beloved, for his guardian angel to speak to him again.
The evening was still and close, tainted by a threat of distant thunder. Enguerrand rose from his prie-dieu and went anxiously to stand in front of his mirror. The angel had appeared to him in the glass before, superimposing his radiant image over Enguerrand's own so that Enguerrand saw himself transformed, transfigured by the angelic presence.
It had first appeared to him at sea but since then it had spoken to him only in his dreams. But every time, its sacred golden presence had filled his heart with courage and its stirring voice had repeated the same words. “You have been chosen. Chosen to be Sergius's successor.”
“Sergius's Staff has been reforged,” he whispered. “Tell me what I must do now.”
The stifling atmosphere in the room began to pulse as he gazed eagerly into the mirror. The evening shadows twisted and writhed. The angel was going to appear at last, he was sure of it.
“You have done well, Enguerrand.”
At the sound of that deep, resonant voice, so strong and yet so kind, his heart began to beat faster. He leaned closer, his breath misting the glass. Eyes of burnished gold burned into his until he felt as if the angel was staring into the deepest recesses of his soul.
“But are you ready to use the Staff against the Drakhaouls?”
Enguerrand's throat felt suddenly tight and the words that he wanted to say would not come.
“You're frightened. I understand. And that is why I have come to help you, to lend you my powers. Just as Galizur once did for Sergius.”
As Enguerrand stared into the mirror he saw the angel a little more clearly: a long, leonine mane of golden hair and strong features, majestic, yet of a noble beauty. Just as he had always imagined when he was a child…
“You'll help me? Oh thank you…” Enguerrand felt all his fears melt away as he gazed into his angel's lambent eyes.
“You must defeat the Drakhaoul of Azhkendir first; he is the most powerful of all. And to that end, you must lure him to you. You still have the rubies in your possession, don't you, the ones they call the Tears of Artamon? The Drakhaouls are drawn to those jewels, as to no others.”
“Not only do I have the rubies, I also have two of the Drakhaon's bodyguard imprisoned here. It's only a matter of time before he comes to their rescue.”
“May I come in, sire?” He recognized Ruaud de Lanvaux's voice.
“Very well.” He turned swiftly around, his back to the mirror, as if trying to hide the angelic presence—but it had faded even before his bedchamber door opened.
Ruaud presented Sergius's Staff, wrapped in white linen, to the king.
Enguerrand unwound the bindings and lifted the Staff, weighing it in his hands, as a swordsman tests the feel of a new blade.
“Well, sire?” Ruaud waited for his response. “The craftsmen did a fine job, didn't they?”
“The time has come.” Enguerrand looked up at Ruaud, his face transformed by a calm, almost beatific smile. “I'm ready.”
“Ready, sire?”
“To summon the Drakhaoul. I'm ready to do battle. My angel has prepared me.”
Ruaud felt again that nagging feeling of doubt that had been troubling him ever since the king had told him about the angel. “Your guardian angel, majesty. Has it revealed its name to you yet?”
“He is called Nilaihah,” said Enguerrand in soft, reverent tones.
He was still holding the Staff across his body and for a moment Ruaud thought he caught a gleam of gold flicker in the king's dark eyes. When he looked again, it had gone; it must just have been a glint reflecting off the polished gold of the crook.
“Nilaihah,” repeated Ruaud. The name was not familiar but it was many years since he had studied angelography.
“You want to send the Drakhaouls back to the shadows as much as I do, don't you?”
Ruaud looked into the king's radiant eyes. “You are very precious to me, sire—and to the people of Francia…” Enguerrand's expression undid him. Faced with that look of unquestioning conviction, he knew that there was nothing he could say to dissuade the king from confronting the Drakhaon.
Captain Friard knocked on the door of the Grand Maistre's study and waited for a reply.
“Come in.” The Maistre's face looked drawn as if he hadn't slept, Friard noted, the fine skin beneath his eyes smudged grey. Perhaps the long journey back from Smarna in the summer's heat had worn him out.
“The king,” said Ruaud, “tells me that he has been visited by an angel. A guardian angel who has told him he has been chosen to be Sergius's successor. Of course, this is wonderful news. But I…”
“Maistre?”
“Why am I having these doubts, Alain?” Ruaud raised his head to gaze at him with haggard eyes. “I've been Enguerrand's mentor and confessor since he was a boy. I, of all people, should be honored that my pupil has been chosen. But…” Again he left his thought unfinished and Friard, saddened to see him so conflicted, did not know how to reply. “I want you to do some research for me.”
“Of course.” Friard was glad to do anything if it would help ease the Maistre's troubled state of mind.
“It's a name. It may be Ancient Enhirran in origin, so I'll write it in Francian and Enhirran script.” Ruaud dipped his pen in the shell-shaped inkwell on the desk and put down the two versions of the name.
“Ni—lai—hah.” Friard spelled out the syllables.
“Don't say it aloud.”
“Is this the name of… ?”
“The king's guardian angel. Only it's not a name that I remember encountering in my studies with Père Judicael. Of course, there are an infinite number of guardians in the hosts of heaven, so it's more than likely that my doubts are completely unjustified. But bring me every scrap of information you can find, no matter how insignificant …”
Alain Friard rubbed his aching eyes, leaned back on the wooden bench, and stretched. He had been researching for several days and he had moved from the vast, echoing hall of the Commanderie Library to an obscure and little-known collection hidden away in the vaults. Père Judicael had brought him here to examine an ancient text that had been brought out of Djihan-Djihar in the previous century. The book had been rescued from a burning library, and the old vellum was blackened by fire, with some of the text burned away. Scholars had argued for years over the authenticity of The Warriors of Heaven, whose anonymous author claimed to have recorded every known angelic appearance. There were even exquisite little illuminations in the margins. But The Warriors of Heaven was kept locked away, and only a few select members of the Commanderie were allowed access, for fear that unscrupulous scholars might use the information to initiate forbidden cabalistic rites.
Once Friard had reminded himself how to decipher the intricate Djihari script (which read from right to left), he began the laborious search for the name the Maistre had given him.
And at last he thought he had found the king's angel: the poet Nilaihah. “Nilaihah,” translated Friard, “has influence over wise men who love peace and wisdom.”
But this was only one reference and the Maistre had asked him to bring “every scrap of information, no matter how insignificant.” And one fact had been bothering Friard: Someone had scrawled an unfamiliar sigil in crimson ink beside t
he angel's name. He turned the fragile vellum over and scanned the next page and the next, searching for another occurrence. Frustrated, he went in search of Père Judicael, who stared at the sigil first through his spectacles then, raising them, peered so closely that the tip of his nose touched the page.
“Leave this with me,” he said. “I'm certain I've encountered that sigil before; but it's an ancient and obscure script, an Enhirran variant maybe, on the Djihari alphabet…”
“‘A poet-angel,’” Friard transcribed the translation for Ruaud, “‘who has influence over wise men…’”
CHAPTER 19
The roar of an angry crowd penetrated the thick walls of the old citadel.
“You sent for me, Inquisitor?” Jagu saluted. The officer of the Inquisition who had summoned him was Prosper Eguiner, the man who had authorized the arrest and trial of Professor Lukan. Now that the guilty verdict had been announced, Colchise was in an uproar and the students were massing outside the citadel.
“I need every Guerrier I've got right here at the citadel. All leave is canceled.” Eguiner had to raise his voice to make himself heard above the shouting of the protestors. A redhead, he was evidently finding the late afternoon's heat difficult to tolerate, and Jagu could see a film of sweat on his freckled face.
“I have a rehearsal for the recital at the ambassador's.”
“That'll have to wait, Lieutenant. I need every able-bodied Guerrier in Colchise here to guard the prisoner. Have you heard that crowd? They stormed the citadel when the Tielens were here. I wouldn't put it past them to attack again.”
“Was it really necessary to arrest Professor Lukan?”
“Rafael Lukan is a dangerous and heretical freethinker.” Eguiner took out a spotless linen handkerchief and dabbed at his gleaming face. “An undesirable influence on impressionable young minds.”
“But look at the trouble it's caused.” Eguiner might be Visant's second-in-command, but Jagu was not intimidated by him.