by Dan Abnett
Heretic! his mind screeched out as he died.
Coming from him, the word felt like a compliment.
Site A was dismantled and destroyed by the taskforce, and the faux pylon smashed by sustained orbital fire. Quixos's psykers, and his surviving servants, were imprisoned, and then turned over to the Black Ships of the Inquisition, six of which arrived a few days later, once we had published news of our achievement. Most of the captives were deemed too dangerous or too tainted to keep, even under the closest guard, and were executed. Esarhaddon was one of those.
Many precious texts and artifacts were recovered from Site A, and many more that were diabolic and abominable. He had accumulated a vast resource of esoteric material, and there was supposed to be a great deal more at his fastness on distant Maginor. A further purge would reveal the truth of that.
As the report has it, no trace was ever found of the Malus Codicium, the foul grimoire on which his power had ultimately been based.
By the time I had returned to Gudrun with my followers and allies, the carta issued against me had been abolished. None of Osma's allegations could stand up in the face of the evidence gathered at Farness, or the many statements collected by the Inquisition, statements pleading my innocence made by such individuals as Lord Procurator Madorthene, Inquisitor General Neve, Interrogator Inshabel and, God-Emperor help him, Titus Endor.
I was never offered any sort of official apology, not by Grandmaster Orsini, or by Bezier, and certainly not by Osma. His career didn't suffer one bit. Twenty years later, he was elected Master of the Ordo Malleus Helican after Bezier's sudden, unexpected death.
Grumman's remains, and the remains of his Kasrkin, were buried in one of the lonely field-grave plots on Cadia, to be remembered as long as the Law of Decipherability allowed. Ricci had a library named after him on his home world of Hesperus. Voke was buried with full honours at the Tho-rian Sacristy adjoining the Great Cathedral of the Ministorum on Thracian Primaris. A small brass plaque commemorating the achievements of his long and dedicated career remains on the sacristy wall to this day.
He and I had never been friends, but I own that in the years after he was gone, I missed his caustic manner from time to time.
EPILOGUE
Winter, 345.M41.
The voice was like the sound of some eternal glacier – slow, old, cold, heavy.
It asked simply, 'Why?'
'Because I can.'
The silence lasted for a long time. The thousand candle flames flickered and rippled the carefully inscribed stone walls with echoes of their moving glow.
'Why? Why… have you done this… this wretched thing to me?'
'Because I have power over you where once you had power over me. You used me. You orchestrated my life. You moved me like a regicide piece to the place where I best served your desires. Now, that is reversed.'
It thrashed against its chains and shackles, but it was still too weak from the ordeals of the snaring, the entrapment.
'Damn you…' it whispered, falling limp.
'Understand me. I said I would never help a thing like you, but you tricked me into doing so and almost got away with it. That's why I have done this. That's why I have expended the considerable time and effort involved in raising you, snaring you and binding you. This is a lesson. I will never, ever allow my actions or my life to benefit the Archenemy. You said that from the outset, you knew I was the one who would free you from Quixos's service. It's a shame for you that you failed to see what I might do to you instead.'
'Damn you!' the voice was louder.
There will be a time, Cherubael, daemon-thing, when you will wish with all your putrid soul to be Quixos's plaything again.'
Cherubael threw itself at me as far as it could before the chains went taut and snapped it back. Its scream of rage and malice shook the cell and blew every last one of the candles out.
I sealed the vacuum hatch, engaged the warp dampers and the void shield, and turned the thirteen locks one by one.
From far away in the house, Jarat was ringing the bell for dinner. I was bone-weary from my exertions, but food and wine and good company would refresh me.
I climbed the screwstair from the deep basement stronghold, code-locked the door and wandered to my study. Outside, the snows had come early to Gudran. Light flakes were blowing in through the twilight, across the woods and paddocks, and settling across the lawns of my estate.
In the study, I returned the items I had been carrying to their places. I put the bottles of chrism back on the shelf, and the ritual athame, mirror and lamens in the casket. The Imperial amulet went back on its velvet pad in the locking draw, and I slid the tube-scrolls back into their catalogue rack.
Then I placed the ranestaff on its hooks in the lit alcove above the glass case containing the broken pieces of proud Barbarisater.
Finally, I opened the void safe in the floor behind my bureau, and gently laid the Malus Codicium inside.
Jarat was ringing the bell again.
I sealed the safe and went down to dinner.
BACKCLOTH
FOR A CROWN
ADDITIONAL
Lord Froigre, much to everyone's dismay including, I'm sure, his own, was dead.
It was a dry, summer morning in 355.M41 and I was taking breakfast with Alizebeth Bequin on the terrace of Spaeton House when I received the news. The sky was a blurry blue, the colour of Sameterware porcelain, and down in the bay the water was a pale lilac, shot through with glittering frills of silver. Sand doves warbled from the drowsy shade of the estate orchards.
Jubal Kircher, my craggy, dependable chief of household security, came out into the day's heat from the garden room, apologised courteously for interrupting our private meal, and handed me a folded square of thin transmission paper.
Trouble?' asked Bequin, pushing aside her dish of ploin crepes.
'Froigre's dead,' I replied, studying the missive.
'Froigre who?'
'Lord Froigre of House Froigre.'
'You knew him?'
Very well. I would count him as a friend. Well, how very miserable. Dead at eighty-two. That's no age.'
"Was he ill?' Bequin asked.
'No. Aen Froigre was, if anything, maddeningly robust and healthy. Not a scrap of augmetics about him. You know the sort.' I made this remark pointedly. My career had not been kind to my body. I had been repaired, rebuilt, augmented and generally sewn back together more times than I cared to remember. I was a walking testimonial to Imperial Medicae reconstruction sur-gery. Alizebeth, on the other hand, still looked like a
woman in her prime, a beautiful woman at that, and only the barest minimum of juvenat work had preserved her so.
'According to this, he died following a seizure at his home last night. His family are conducting thorough investigations, of course, but…' I drummed my fingers on the table-top.
'Foul play?'
'He was an influential man/
'Such men have enemies/
'And friends/ I said. I handed her the communique. That's why his widow has requested my assistance/
But for my friendship with Aen, I'd have turned the matter down. Alizebeth had only just arrived on Gudrun after an absence of almost eighteen months, and would be gone again in a week, so I had resolved to spend as much time with her as possible. The operational demands of the Distaff, based on Messina, kept her away from my side far more than I would have liked.
But this was important, and Lady Froigre's plea too distraught to ignore.
'I'll come with you/ Alizebeth suggested. 'I feel like a jaunt in the country/ She called for a staff car to be brought round from the stable block and we were on our way in under an hour.
Felippe Gabon, one of Kircher's security detail, acted as our driver. He guided the car up from Spaeton on a whisper of thrust and laid in a course for Menizerre. Soon we were cruising south-west over the forest tracts and the verdant cultivated belt outside Dorsay and leaving the Insume headland behind.
There have been Froigres on Gudrun since the days of the first colonies. Their house is one of the Twenty-Six Venerables, that is to say one of the twenty-six original noble fiefs, and as such has an hereditary seat in the Upper Legislature of the planetary government. Other, newer houses have considerably more power and land these days, but nothing can quite eclipse the prestige of the Venerables. Houses like Froigre, Sangral, Meiss-ian. And Glaw/
She smiled impishly at my inclusion of that last name.
'So… power, land, prestige… a honeytrap for rivals and enemies. Did your friend have any?'
I shrugged. I'd brought with me several data-slates Psullus had looked out for me from the library. They contained heraldic ledgers, family histories, biographies and memoirs. And very little that seemed pertinent.
'House Froigre vied with House Athensae and House Brudish in the early years of Gudrun, but that's literally ancient history. Besides, House Brudish became extinct after another feud with House Pariti eight hundred years ago. Aen's grandfather famously clashed with Lord Sangral and the then Governor Lord Dougray over the introduction of
Founding Levy in the one-nineties, but that was just political, though Dougray never forgave him and later snubbed him by making Richtien chancellor. In recent times, House Froigre has been very much a quiet, solid, traditional seat in the Legislature. No feuds, that I know of. In fact, there hasn't been an inter-house war on Gudrun for seven generations.
'They all play nicely together, these days, do they?' she asked.
'Pretty much. One of the things I like about Gudrun is that it is so damned civilised.'
'Too damned civilised/ she admonished. 'One day, Gregor, one day this place will lull you into such a deep sense of tranquil seclusion that you'll be caught with your pants down.'
'I hardly think so. It's not complacency, before you jump down my throat. Gudrun – Spaeton House itself – is just a safe place. A sanctuary, given my line of work.'
'Your friend's still dead,' she reminded me.
I sat back. 'He liked to live well. Good food, fine wines. He could drink Nayl under the table.'
'No!'
'I'm not joking. Five years ago, at the wedding of Aen's daughter. I was invited and I took Harlon along as… as I don't know what, actually. You weren't around and I didn't want to go alone. Harlon started bending his lordship's ear with tales of bounty hunting and the last I saw of them they were sprinting their way down their fourth bottle of anise at five in the morning. Aen was up at nine the next day to see his daughter off. Nayl was still asleep at nine the following day.'
She grinned. 'So a life of great appetites may have just caught up with him?'
'Perhaps. Though you'd think that would have shown up on the med-icae mortus's report.'
'So you do suspect foul play?'
'I can't shake that idea.'
I was silent for a few minutes, and Alizebeth scrolled her way through several of the slates.
'House Froigre's main income was from mercantile dealings. They hold a twelve point stock in Brade ent Cie and a fifteen per cent share in Heli-can SubSid Shipping. What about trade rivals?'
'We'd have to expand our scope off-planet. I suppose assassination is possible, but that's a strange way to hit back at a trade rival. I'll have to examine their records. If we can turn up signs of a clandestine trade fight, then maybe assassination is the answer.'
'Your friend spoke out against the Ophidian Campaign/
'So did his father. Neither believed it was appropriate to divert funds and manpower into a war of reconquest in the sub-sector next door when there was so much to put in order on the home front/
'I was just wondering../ she said.
'Wonder away, but I think that's a dead end. The Ophidian War's long since over and done with and I don't think anyone cares what Aen thought about it/
'So have you got a theory?'
'Only the obvious ones. None of them with any substantiating data. An internecine feud, targeting Aen from inside the family. A murder driven by some secret affair of the heart. A darker conspiracy that remains quite invisible for now. Or../
'Or?'
'Too much good living, in which case we'll be home before nightfall/
Froigre Hall, the ancestral pile of the noble House Froigre, was a splendid stack of ivy-swathed ouslite and copper tiles overlooking the Vale of Fiegg, ten kilometres south of Menizerre. Water meadows sloped back from the river, becoming wildflower pastures that climbed through spinneys of larch and fintle to hem the magnificent planned gardens of the house; geometric designs of box-hedge, trim lawn, flowering beds and symmetrical ponds. Beyond the sandy drive, darkened woods came right down to skirt the back of the great hall, except for where a near-perfect sulleq lawn had been laid. Aen and I had spent several diverting afternoons there, playing against each other. A kilometre north of the house, the gnarled stone finger of the Folly rose from the ascending woods.
Where to put down, sir?' Gabon asked over the intercom.
'On the drive in front of the portico, if you'd be so kind/
What's been going on here?' Alizebeth asked as we came in lower. She pointed. The lawn areas nearest to the hall were littered with scraps of rubbish – paper waste and glittery bits of foil. Some sections of grass were flat and yellow as if compressed and starved of light.
Tiny stones, whipped up by our downwash, ticked off the car's bodywork as we settled in to land.
'Oh, my dear Gregor!' Lady Freyl Froigre almost fell into my arms. I held her in a comforting embrace for a few patient moments as she sobbed against my chest.
'Forgive me!' she said suddenly, pulling away and dabbing her eyes with a black lace handkerchief. This is all so very terrible. So very, very terrible/
'My deepest sympathies for your loss, lady/ I said, feeling awkward.
A houseman, his arm banded in black, had led us into a stateroom off the main hall where Lady Froigre was waiting. The blinds were drawn, and mourning tapers had been lit, filling the air with a feeble light and a sickly perfume. Freyl Froigre was a stunning woman in her late sixties, her lush red hair, almost flame-pink it was so bright, pulled back and pinned down under a veil coiff of jet scamiscoire. Her grief-gown was slate epinchire, the sleeves ending in delicate interwoven gloves so that not one speck of her flesh was uncovered.
I introduced Alizebeth, who murmured her condolences, and Lady Froi-gre nodded. Then she suddenly looked flustered.
'Oh, my. Where are my manners? I should have the staff bring refreshments for you and-'
'Hush, lady/1 said, taking her arm and walking her down the long room into the soft shade of the shutters. 'You have enough on your mind. Grief is enough. Tell me what you know and I will do the rest.'
'You're a good man, sir. I knew I could trust you.' She paused and waited while her current wracks subsided.
'Aen died just before midnight last night. A seizure. It was quick, the physician said.'
'What else did he say, lady?'
She drew a data-wand from her sleeve and handed it to me. 'It's all here.' I plucked out my slate and plugged it in. The display lit up with the stored files.
Death by tremorous palpitations of the heart and mind. A dysfunction of the spirit. According the the medicae's report, Aen Froigre had died because of a spasm in his anima.
'This means…' I paused, '…nothing. Who is your physician?'
'Genorus Notil of Menizerre. He has been the family medicae since the time of Aen's grandfather.'
'His report is rather… non-specific, lady. Could I present the body for a further examination?'
'I've already done that/ she said softly. The surgeon at Menizerre General who attended said the same. My husband died of terror/
Terror?'
Yes, inquisitor. Now tell me that isn't the work of the infernal powers?'
There had, she told me, been a celebration
. A Grand Fete. Aen's eldest son, Rinton, had returned home two weeks before, having mustered out of his service in the Imperial Guard. Rinton Froigre had been a captain in the Fiftieth Gudrunite and seen six years' service in the Ophidean sub-sector. Such was his father's delight on his return, a fete was called. A carnival feast. Travelling players from all around the canton had attended, along with troupes of musicians, acrobats, armies of stall holders, entertainers, and hundreds of folk from the town. That explained the litter and faded patches on the lawn. Tent pitches. The scars of marques.
'Had he any enemies?' I asked, pacing the shuttered room.
'None that I know of/
'I would like to review his correspondence. Diaries too, if he kept them/
'I'll see. I don't believe he kept a diary, but our rubricator will have a list of correspondence/
On the top of the harpsichord was a framed portrait, a hololith of Aen Froigre, smiling.
I picked it up and studied it.
The last portrait of him/ she said. 'Taken at the fete. My last connection with him/
4Vhere did he die?'
"The Folly/ said Lady Froigre. 'He died in the Folly/
The woods were damp and dark. Boughs creaked in the late afternoon wind and odd birdsong thrilled from the shadows.
The Folly was a stone drum capped by a slate needle. Inside, it was bare and terribly musty. Sand doves fluttered up in the roof spaces. Cobwebs glazed the bare windows.
This is where I found him/ said a voice from behind me.
I turned. Rinton Froigre stooped in under the doorframe. He was a well-made boy of twenty-five, with his mother's lush red hair. His eyes had a curious, hooded aspect.
'Rinton/
'Sir/ he bowed slightly.
'Was he dead when you found him?'
'No, inquisitor. He was laughing and talking. He liked to come up here. He loved the Folly. I came up to thank him for the fete that he had thrown in my honour. We were talking together when suddenly he went into convulsions. Just minutes later, before I could summon help, he was dead/
I didn't know Rinton Froigre well, though his service record was very respectable, and I knew his father had been proud of him. Aen had never mentioned any animosity from his son, but in any noble house there is always the spectre of succession to consider. Rinton had been alone with his father at the time of death. He was a seasoned soldier, undoubtedly no stranger to the act of killing.