Linstrom’s followers appeared, one by one, in the span of about ten minutes. Vane appreciated the wait, for he needed a moment to adjust to the thin air, which froze his lungs with every breath.
Howar attended the meeting. He was deeper in Linstrom’s good graces than Vane had ever hoped; so much the better. Vane himself said little as more and more sorcerers transported in, and few people approached him. One of the first was a woman younger than the duke. Tall for her sex, she couldn’t have been twenty-five. She had free-flowing auburn hair and Terrance’s elegant nose. It came to a point that on her looked dainty.
“I’m Terrance’s cousin,” she introduced herself, offering Vane a hand. “Gertrude. Hate the name, but I didn’t choose it, did I? Your name’s Rickard?”
Had Terrance mentioned him? If so, Vane wondered what he’d said. “Yes, Rickard Holler. I’m the baker’s cousin.”
Gertrude smiled. She seemed a decent enough sort; what was she doing here?
“I’m not a sorceress,” she explained, “though you might think so, with the family connection. I know the future. That’s my talent.”
That was bad news for any spy. Very bad. If she could see what Vane’s eventual plans were…. He tried not to appear disconcerted. “You’re a seer?”
“Not a true seer. I don’t use a crystal ball or read cards. I know what I’ll see around a minute in advance, though. I was at my parents’ deathbeds when a fever took them both, and I realized then I can’t foresee death, but most other things…. It comes as an intuition.”
“You knew what my name was?”
“You repeated it after me, didn’t you?”
A minute in advance, she knew what would happen. She foresaw what would grab her attention. Well, that wasn’t so dangerous. Vane kept her talking about herself.
Terrance was protective of his cousin, and Gertrude loved him for it. She hadn’t applied to the Magic Council herself. She had been too young, but to think of Terrance with a seat there thrilled her, and she took the king’s supposed snub of him personally. The man was a brother to her, and that meant danger; Vane considered how a powerful Kansten might react if someone harmed Walten, or Wilhem.
“I felt so honored when Terrance asked me to help with what we’re doing here. He said that with my magic and my bow, he needed me. Brought it up when we were hunting rabbits, right after I nailed one he’d missed. Maybe that showed him what skills I have. Anyway, I was proud to think he’d trust me with something this important. I swore not to let him down. So far so good.”
She started to flirt with Vane, and he feared to rebuke her for it, feared antagonizing Terrance on her account. He referenced a fiancée in the capital—hardly an insulting reason to discourage his new acquaintance—and that proved enough to check her advances. He’d gotten the impression she favored Rickard’s noble blood over his personality anyway; the Duke of Yangerton, Rickard’s father, was descended from one of Herezoth’s most famous warlords.
Vane and the seer were still talking when the meeting began. Linstrom opened by asking Howar to introduce “Rickard.” Then Linstrom instructed the newcomer to return here tomorrow and pass the day in the library, studying ancient magic and strengthening his repertoire of incantations. Howar could run his bloody bakery on his own.
Vane agreed to the idea, and even found himself intrigued by Herezoth’s most famous collection of spells. He did manage, though, to hint he’d prefer to take books elsewhere rather than stay at the Hall, and met no objections.
“Do you have weapons training?” Linstrom asked. While Vane Unsten did, a baker like Rickard Holler would not, and Rickard declared himself unskilled. That being the case, Linstrom told him to concentrate on magic to confound their enemies. He’d leave books out for him.
With only two weeks before the assault on Partsvale, Linstrom’s plot had reached the final stages of development. Vane mostly listened while the conspirators polished details. They were agreed that, after the first assault, some of their group would sweep east toward the Podra River and Vane’s home village of Fontferry. How the attack on Partsvale should unfold was the larger question.
Half the group, or just about, wanted to begin the assault on the high street. The rest proposed beginning with the guardhouse, near the prison a good three miles away, to take the king’s soldiers unawares before they could defend themselves. Vane and Howar supported the latter faction, because they knew the guard would, in fact, be forewarned.
The final choice was Linstrom’s. To Vane’s relief, he saw the guardhouse’s merit as a target, and after an hour of listening to arguments, decided the assault would end with the high street as its apex. Only after settling that business did Linstrom allow Terrance—his second in command, by all appearances—to report on his personal assignment.
“You’ve claimed you have good news. It had best be related to that diversion I told you to create in Podrar, because you’ve given me no briefing.”
Terrance smiled. “Calm yourself. I’m not one to forsake my duties.”
Linstrom was growing impatient. “I’m all ears.”
Terrance began, directing himself to the group at large, “We’re a motley enough band, I think we can agree. There are two things that bind us: our respect for magic, and how we loathe the king. When Linstrom ordered me to cause a stir in the capital, my first thought was to vandalize a shop or two, something along those lines. Then I realized Podrar’s the seat of the court and that council the king judged too good for us. Perhaps I could fulfill my orders and grieve his Magic Council at the same time. After all, most people who oppose it are prejudiced pigs who want to see the magicked put in their place. If the council was attacked, no one would blame a group of sorcerers.”
Linstrom smirked, clearly pleased, though he rolled his eyes in impatience. “Have you slain a council member? We haven’t all night, Terrance.”
Vane surely didn’t. He had to be at the Palace by midnight, or the king would believe him dead. Vane had to get back to Podrar and report—report what? What had Terrance done? Would the king already know? Vane fought the impulse to vomit as Linstrom prompted his subordinate to continue; he could not be sick, not here.
“No one’s been slain yet. I abducted Francie Rafe from her home last night. Thought you’d appreciate the honor of finishing her off. She’s tied in the library.”
Vane’s oldest friend. The council’s most devoted member. Vane’s heart was beating so hard and fast his chest felt on fire now, a far cry from the icy pain the lack of air had caused before.
Without a word, Linstrom led the way out the Hall. What could Vane do? How could he save Francie? He could try to grab her quickly, transport her away, but Gertrude’s foresight would expose him. Even if he succeeded, he’d leave Howar to the mercy of Linstrom’s band, and he couldn’t abandon his ally that way. Nor could he let Linstrom kill Francie. How…?
The burst of mountain chill when Vane stepped in open air froze his thoughts. Thankfully, it also numbed his stomach. He rushed to the library and its stained glass windows. As he stepped inside he saw Francie, and he tried to think.
Terrance had bound her to a wooden pole he must have driven in the floor in the library’s center. All around Francie, twisted, levitating shelves made of metal would impede access to her, unless Vane were to transport to her side. Her limp blonde hair, longer now than when she’d joined the Magic Council ten years before, was bound in a bun that had mostly fallen since her abduction. Terrance had bruised her large eyes, and her swollen upper lip bled. An inflamed scratch marred her cheek. One sleeve of her cotton house frock was torn, and her skirt had been ripped at the side. Vane knew Francie well enough to tell she struggled to project an air of bravery, but her panicked, dry gulps were visible, as were her winces of pain.
THINK! Good God, I have to do something. How do I…?
THE LIFESTONE.
Vane reached his hand into his pocket, enclosed his enchanted ruby in his fist: a transfer spell. When the time was right,
he could transfer the Lifestone to Francie, hope she wouldn’t react, and then pray Linstrom would accept his offer to dispose of her corpse. The strategy was risky, horribly risky, and Francie would suffer much. Vane paled to consider what horrors she might endure, what horrors she already had—rape, by the state of her garments—but the woman would live. If Vane’s plan worked, she would live, and so would he and Howar.
Linstrom’s followers held back while their leader approached Terrance’s captive. The woman bit her bottom lip. “Are you Councilor Francie Rafe?”
Francie answered in the negative with a shake of her head. Terrance said, “She’s a liar, and she can’t speak. I had to silence her with a spell because I couldn’t gag her. She kept vomiting, kept saying the bonds made her ill, the emotions her power filtered out from them. She begged me to bind her with magic instead of rope. The rope remains, and I assure you, this is Francie Rafe. No one else in Podrar can touch an object and know what the last person to handle it was feeling.”
Francie’s forehead glistened with sweat. A few wet strands of hair lay plastered to her face. Linstrom slapped her unscratched cheek. “You’ll regret it if you lie to me again. Are you Councilor Rafe?”
Francie squeezed her bruised eyelids shut, and nodded. She shook all the way down to her slippered feet: closed toe slippers. Vane could send the Lifestone to her shoe, beneath her instep, and pray his spell worked. He had used it once or twice, to practice it, but never had mastered the incantation. The transfer didn’t work for him one hundred percent of the time; sometimes the object to be relocated fell short of its intended placement.
Linstrom asked, “Do you know why you’re here?”
Francie shook her head again.
“You’re here because your king’s as great a liar as you are. Because your council’s mission is a masquerade. Were the king truly interested in a Magic Council, he’d have powerful councilors. Sorcerers. People with real magic, not the talent for vomiting.”
A woman behind Vane chuckled, but Vane hardly noticed. He was staring at Francie’s right foot. Envisioning it. Remembering the thin white scar on her big toe where a chicken had pecked her at the age of nine. As a sorcerer at Vane’s side laughed softly to himself, a delayed reaction, sycophantic, Vane used the sound as cover to whisper “Cambway Seetyo.”
The smooth, hard texture of the stone against his fingers vanished. He clutched air. He studied the floor between where he stood and Francie, yards away, and caught no sign of glinting red. As far as Vane could tell, the spell had worked. Francie stood upon the Lifestone, her attention so monopolized by Linstrom that she took no note of the gem in her shoe.
A woman toward the front, one with cropped blonde hair, walked up with a determined gait and pulled Linstrom away from the cowering councilor. She was around Vane’s age, near thirty by her looks, for her face was unlined and not at all plain of feature, though neither was she a great beauty. Her cheeks were too thick for that. She clenched her jaw, and her eyes smoldered with ire. Her dress was most becoming, of the latest fashion, and her skirt settled back in place as she told her superior, “I must protest this.”
Linstrom tried to wave her off. “Not now, Lottie.”
Lottie grabbed his arm. “I protest this, as a sorceress and a woman. Rafe’s the enemy, and she has to die, now Terrance brought her here. I understand that, Evant. You need to understand she’s suffered enough. Terrance clearly had his way with her. I’ve called him a cur to his back, and I charge him a sadist after this. We’ll not torment this creature further. You will kill her, and mercifully, or I shall. It only takes a word.”
There was no mistaking the leer in Linstrom’s eyes as he gazed back at the sorceress. The fact that she had called him Evant, and only she, all evening, was not lost upon Vane either; to consider this Lottie caused far less pain than watching his childhood companion. Vane inwardly blessed the stranger. She and Linstrom must be lovers. Perhaps married?
At that point, the woman behind Vane spoke out, stepping forward. She was the one he’d heard laugh at Francie’s expense. She wore a plain dress, a housedress of simple cotton, but it was clean, looked new, and accentuated her busty figure. She had pinned her hair away from her heart-shaped face: no simple operation with her mass of long, rust-colored curls, though the look suited her. By the way she gave Lottie a good shove, Vane guessed the two were rivals. This second woman looked older than the full-faced blonde, but not by much, and she addressed Linstrom specifically.
“Lottie’s a sentimental fool. The councilor’s not a child, and she sure isn’t innocent. She took a seat on our council and then lied to our faces about who she is. We should punish her for that. To lie about her name…. I’ll cast befuddlement spells so strong the creature won’t know her name from mine. If you think she’s panicked now….”
Lottie fixed her rival with a cool glare. “What’s the point in that? To teach her a lesson she’ll hold for some minutes before we end her life? Agatha….”
Agatha rose to the challenge, straightening up, puffing out her chest. “That loathsome cretin is Francie Rafe. She with her barely existent magic stole sorcery’s place from the Magic Council. From history. We all deserve our shot at her, not just Terrance! I most certainly do. I’ve spent the last three days figuring out how to get word to three Yangerton papers about the interview scandal. Found a couple of scribes who write for each and who, I figure, we can bully easily enough to print the story. What makes Terrance worthier than me to… express my displeasure with the councilor?”
At Agatha’s words, Linstrom lashed out at his right-hand man. “She’s right, hang you. If you’re going to drag the councilor in here, dangle her like a bone before a pack of wild dogs, you could at least have restrained yourself. Kept her in decent condition. Did you feed her at all today? Give her water?”
Terrance shot, “She’d have soiled herself on the library floor. Listen, what’s done is done,” and Lottie rolled her eyes at him. The others watched the argument with expressions varying from interested to hostile to annoyed. A number seemed frustrated with Terrance, including Gertrude. To Vane’s dismay, the young woman told her cousin:
“This fool stole your council seat. You could have left a piece of her for me. You could have….”
Terrance responded, “She’s alive, isn’t she?”
“Barely,” said Gertrude. “Barely, and I don’t…. I wouldn’t want the final blow.”
Then Lottie reclaimed the conversation. She refused to address Terrance. “That woman has suffered enough, Evant. That’s plain to everyone. She won’t last through more harsh treatment.”
Agatha noted, tossing her head lightly enough to avoid disheveling her brownish-red hair, “We could cast some healing spells.”
Lottie argued, still speaking to Linstrom, “We aren’t torturers. If Terrance robbed Agatha of her fun, then she can hold that against him, for he’s the guilty party. You will kindly kill Francie Rafe, right now, or I’ll do so for you, and I won’t be happy about it.”
Linstrom said, “We aren’t torturers, no. I must make that plain to everyone here,” and staring into Francie’s pained face, he muttered, “Dwerma.” A sleeping spell. Francie’s head rolled down against her chest as, still bound to her pole, she fell into enchanted slumber.
“Sangray Muerr!”
Linstrom’s spell opened a gash on the side of Francie’s neck, though no weapon wounded her. She bled in great spurts. Blood splattered Lottie, and the sorceress jumped away, horrified, to clean herself with magic. Waves of crimson soaked Francie’s arm, which her torn sleeve had exposed, and drops trickled down to stain her chest. Agatha, who had stepped back to avoid the spray, smirked to see Lottie aghast.
This was Vane’s moment. So far, his plan was succeeding, though Gratton’s warnings ran through his mind.
Your cover can’t be blown. Linstrom won’t only slit your throat, he’ll know the king’s aware of him and launch his assault the following hour.
“I’ll get
rid of the corpse.”
Linstrom narrowed his eyes at his newest accomplice, and Vane stared right back. Stares held no danger unless the duke buckled beneath them. At eighteen, Vane had never quailed under the Duke of Yangerton’s steady eye; he wouldn’t cower before Linstrom either, not with ten additional years of life behind him.
“I’ll get rid of the corpse,” Vane repeated. Blood continued to trickle down Francie’s neck, but had lost the force to gush outward. By all appearances, the woman was dead. “Hell, I’ll dump her before Ingleton’s front lawn. He worked with the woman. Might even have been fond of her.”
Linstrom would never let him do such a thing, not with Lottie listening. Not if the two were lovers. As Rickard, Vane had to make the suggestion, and Linstrom acknowledged his creativity with a wry smile.
“That’s not necessary. Just dump her in a park somewhere in the capital. Someplace she’ll be found, and found soon.”
Vane would bring Francie to Howar’s living room, above the bakery. Partsvale was close, much closer than Podrar, and he preferred not to move Francie a great distance. Transporting was hard enough on someone healthy.
Rexson’s spy sliced Francie’s bonds with an incantation, made certain he grasped her shoe—he pressed it against her foot as he lifted her damp, limp body in his arms—and he transported after telling Linstrom, “I’ll meet with you tomorrow. I want to wait near the corpse. Make sure someone stumbles across it.”
* * *
Vane laid his friend on Howar’s rug. She bled through it immediately. So much blood….
A spell to heal Francie’s gashed artery. Then one to seal her shoe against her foot, just in case. Vane closed her wound and undid the incantations that had altered his appearance, so she wouldn’t find herself with a stranger when she came to. He cast a vanishing spell to rid her and the room of blood, not bothering with the stains on himself, and then pressed a crimson finger against her freshly cleaned neck. If her foot had lost contact with that ruby….
The King's Sons (The Herezoth Trilogy) Page 9