by Carol Berg
The light wavered. For a moment I thought the flames in the braziers had gone out. But rather the shadows were creeping in from the corners and vaults to envelop the prince and his kneeling servant, roiling and thickening until I could scarcely see the two men. Sweat beaded the base of my spine beneath my fine layers, even while the night air pouring through the empty window frames froze my cheeks.
A quick strike of red light fractured the gathered darkness. Voushanti’s shoulders jerked, and he could not fully muffle a groan. Twice more, each eliciting a similar cry, and then the mardane bent down as if to kiss Osriel’s feet.
The prince, shapeless in his enveloping robes, leaned back in his chair. Voushanti climbed slowly to his feet. Stepping back a few paces, the mardane motioned me to approach.
Wishing myself five thousand quellae from this place, I took a deep breath and crossed the expanse of floor through the swirling dust and snow. Heat radiated from Voushanti’s body as if he had swallowed the sun. As he bowed and withdrew, blood trickled from the unscarred corner of his mouth. Mighty gods…
Remembering Osriel’s instruction from our last meeting, I whisked off my mask and looped it over my belt. My knees felt like porridge, my skin like cold fish.
“My lord prince,” I said, touching my fingers to my forehead and bending one knee—the proper pureblood obeisance to his contracted master.
The flames in the two braziers shot into the air in spouts of blue and white flame, pushing back the rippling shadows. Not enough to reveal the prince’s face. Only his hands were exposed. Long, slender, pale fingers, one adorned with a heavy gold ring. Their smooth firmness reminded me that Osriel was no older than I. He twitched the ringed finger, and I rose to my feet.
“Magnus Valentia.” The harsh whisper came from behind and beside and before me, raising the hair on my arms. “The reports of your behavior puzzle me.”
In our previous interview, the prince had expressed a preference for honesty over feigned deference, for boldness over cowering. Swallowing hard, I shoved fear aside, clasped my hands at my back, and hoped he’d meant it.
“How puzzled, my lord? Since leaving your side in Palinur, I have followed Mardane Voushanti’s direction, and I’ve not strayed from his sight save when his sight was clouded with sleep. We traveled companionably. Indeed, we worked together to preserve the lives of your Evanori subjects on our journey from Palinur. Never once, even when Mardane Voushanti and his men were…debilitated…by the severities of that journey and we were separated by necessity, did I break my submission to you. Nor did I have any intention of doing so this morning when I aided the good prior to retrieve one of his abbey’s lost children. Mardane Voushanti had no basis to assume I would run away.” The weight of Osriel’s attention slowed my words.
“Yet this morning’s excursion occurred over his objections, and only after a monkish potion laid him low—he has reaped his proper harvest for that slip of attention. I instructed you to obey him as if his word were my own. So tell me, shall I punish you for disobedience, or shall I punish this Karish prior for poisoning my servants and abducting my pureblood for his own purposes?”
The questions and accusations nipped at my skin like the claws of demon gatzi. I kneaded my hands at my back, expecting to feel bloody pricks and scratches. Hold on to your mind, Valen, I thought. No supernatural power exists in this room. You have felt the stirrings of true mystery in the Gillarine cloisters, and you have witnessed a living Dané dance his grief. Whatever Osriel of Evanore might be—and I had no doubts he possessed power unknown to any of my acquaintance—he was neither god nor demon.
“Prior Nemesio believes that my novice vows, made but a few weeks ago, give him a claim on my loyalty. Though my oath to you is more recent, I saw no compromise of your interests in helping him retrieve a dead child.”
I stepped closer to the chair and did not squirm. “As for potions and poisons, the unfortunate effect of the abbey’s blessed water on Mardane Voushanti and his men is perhaps a reproof from their gods at some failure in their devotions. For surely, my cup was filled from the same pitcher, yet I did not fall asleep. Then, too, Mardane Voushanti arrived at the sad scene of this boy’s death not half an hour after I did, thus he could not have been much affected. Were the prior’s water poisoned, would not the mardane have suffered its effects longer? Or is there some reason his constitution does not succumb to the effects of potions or poisons?” I braced, expecting red lightning to strike.
But instead, the prince leaned his elbow on the arm of the chair and propped his chin on his hand. “Ah, Magnus, your tongue is as soft and quick as a spring zephyr in the Month of Storms…and just as deceitful. Unfortunately I’ve not the time to test your stamina at this game tonight. But I believe I shall reap great pleasure from our sparring in the deeps of this coming winter. Snug in my house, I shall strip you of your pureblood finery and raise the stakes for untruth.”
I bowed, hiding my satisfaction, as well as my face, which his throaty humor had surely left void of color.
“And now we must discuss a few things before my guests arrive.”
“Of course, my lord.” I straightened my back and forced myself to breathe.
The prince angled his head upward, then waggled his hand toward the floor. “Sit,” he said impatiently. “I’ve no wish to break my neck gaping upward. Is your father or brother so tall as you? Your grandfather, perhaps? Purebloods are of wholly modest stature.”
“I am an aberration of pureblood lineage in countless ways, my lord. My own father would gleefully deny my birth had he not scribed it in the Register himself and seen the entry countersigned by two unimpeachable witnesses.”
Off balance from his abrupt shift from chilling threat to peckish complaint, I settled on the wood floor and wrapped my arms about my knees. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. The shadows that reeled and twirled on the refectory walls had no correspondence to the flames in the braziers. Nor did their shapes—heads, limbs, writhing torsos—correspond to those of the prince or my own body.
“An aberration? Yes, I suppose you could be,” the prince mumbled.
I did not flinch or turn my head when his next comment seemed to come from behind my left ear. “So tell me who would be considered unimpeachable witnesses to a child’s birth? Truth and lies are of infinite interest to me. I might like to interview such a person.”
At least this answer was easy, though I could not fathom the intent of the question. “For good or ill, lord, the witnesses to my birth are beyond your inquiries. Indeed, they are more a part of your own history than mine. Two of my grandfather’s oldest friends happened to be visiting our house on the day I was born—Sinduré Tobrecan of Evanore and Angnecy, the seventh Hierarch of Ardra, the very two clergymen who brought your father to Navronne from the realm of…angels.”
“A most interesting coincidence.”
Though forced to parrot the facts and validation of my lineage since I could speak, I’d never considered them at all interesting.
The prince settled back in his chair and did not move. Thinking, surely. Watching, too. The velvet hood might mask his own face, but I did not believe it obscured anything he wished to look on. Rather than squirm under his scrutiny, I stared back at him. From this angle I could glimpse his jaw—fine boned, square, clean shaven—and mouth—generously wide, lips pale but even. Unsettling. Well, of course, I thought, after a moment, he is Eodward’s son. Though I had met the king only once, every coin in the realm bore the imprint of those fine bones. What was so dreadful about Osriel’s face that he kept it hidden, when his man Voushanti walked freely with his own ruined flesh bared for all to see?
“Tell me, Magnus, what magics can you work? You’ve said that you paid no mind to your tutors and that your inability to read prevented your study of pureblood arcana, but Voushanti’s report indicates you are not incapable of spellworking. What have I received for my hundredweight of gold?”
No wisdom lay in underreporting my paltry s
kills in some hope that Osriel would set me free of my contract. He might decide my best use was that he made of corpses. Overreporting might yield me a better position in his house. My grandfather constantly babbled that I had talent beyond the usual for purebloods. Of course, even before he went mad, my grandfather had an overblown opinion of our family’s talents, and I’d never seen evidence of anything extraordinary in myself.
“Honestly, my lord—you see, I remember you are very strict about honesty, even if the honest statement fails to please you—my catalogue of spells is thin. Beyond my family bent of route finding, tracking, identifying footsteps, and the like, I’ve meager skills in spellworking. Opening locks is perhaps my strongest, and I can accomplish voiding spells—making holes in things.” I closed my eyes and wished I had more to report so that I might hold back some small secret advantage for the future. “I can work inflation spells—that is, I can create an illusion by exaggerating an existing object. For example, I once conjured a tree stump from a weed with spreading roots. Creating an illusion from nothing is beyond me…” Truly it was a pitiful collection when one considered the vast possibilities of magic.
I was straining to come up with something more to boost my worth, when the refectory door burst open and Voushanti hurried toward us. “My lord prince, your guest has arrived. As you commanded, I informed him that only the two principals and his pureblood would be allowed in your presence. He was not pleased, but neither did he leave.”
“Well done, Mardane. You’ve taken the measure of his desperation, it would seem. Let him cool his heels for a moment, while I instruct my sorcerer.”
The visitor had a pureblood in attendance. He was nobility, then, or clergy, or a civic official wealthy enough to purchase a pureblood contract, someone who thought to profit from traveling to this remote site to wait on the Bastard Prince, even as Osriel’s eldest brother was ready to declare victory in Navronne. All parties to this war were realigning themselves since Prince Bayard’s alliance with Sila Diaglou and the Harrowers had broken three years of stalemate.
Voushanti left as he had come. Once the door had closed behind him, Prince Osriel returned his attention to me. “I require your complete obedience tonight, sorcerer. Without reservation or any of your clever deceptions. You will stand to my right and slightly in front of me, angled where you can see my hands and I can see your face without moving my head. I wish you to listen carefully to all that’s spoken and observe all that remains unspoken. You will say nothing without my permission. Do you understand? Nothing, even if you are addressed directly. But if I require you to respond or offer an opinion, you will speak in perfect honesty, without subterfuge or withholding. Is this clear or must we argue it? I promise you, I will prevail.”
Though such threats could not but raise my hackles, innate perversity no longer drove me to pointless rebellion. For the sake of my friends in the cabal, I needed to learn what I could of Evanore’s prince and those who came seeking his favor. So I rose and bowed, touching my forehead. “As you command, Your Grace.”
If my master thought my presence would lend him some kind of prestige in a lordly negotiation, he had an unhappy lesson coming. By now every pureblood in the kingdom would know of Osriel’s contract with the infamous Cartamandua renegade.
Moments after I slipped on my mask, straightened my cloak, and took my position at Prince Osriel’s right hand, the great door burst open, and I gaped as if I’d seen a fish walk out of the ocean. Prince Bayard of Morian walked in, followed by his half-brother, Perryn of Ardra, and Bayard’s attendant pureblood sorcerer—my own brother, Max.
Chapter 4
Bayard and Max, layered in mail, leather, and fur-lined traveling cloaks, each made a quick survey of the room. The two of them were similar in build, though Max’s tight bulk came in a smaller package than the Duc of Morian, called the Smith for his brutal manners. The last I’d seen of Max, he had been chortling at the news of my father contracting his rebellious younger brother to the most feared man in Navronne.
Perryn, Duc of Ardra, remained near the door, shivering in grimed silk and torn lace, his once golden hair greasy and unkempt, his head bent, and his arms wrapped about his middle. His furtive glance took in Osriel and the dancing shadows. Then, as if he had seen enough, he hugged himself tighter and closed his eyes.
Max bowed respectfully to Osriel, touching his forehead with his fingertips. His eyes reflected humorous irony as he pivoted to face me, touching one middle finger to the center of his brow—the proper greeting of one pureblood to another while in the presence of ordinaries.
I made sure to close my mouth, which still hung open in astonishment. Unsure whether my master would consider a returned greeting as speech, I remained motionless, my hands at my back, grateful for the mask that might hide the extent of my surprise. What possible circumstance could bring Bayard supplicant to his despised youngest brother in the very hour of his triumph? Every notion of politics claimed the Smith should be seated on Caedmon’s throne at this moment, planting his brutish foot on the necks of groveling Ardran nobles.
“So is this the kind of foolery the terrifying Osriel spends his time on? Playing with shades and gargoyles in a Karish ruin?” Bayard’s posture, feet apart, hands resting lightly at his waist, spoke everything of self-assurance. But deep creases in his brow and stretched smudges about his eyes hinted that victory did not rest firmly within his grasp…as if his presence at this assignation so far from Palinur was not indication enough.
“Is one fool’s occupation to be preferred to another’s? My shades leave no one bleeding.” Prince Osriel’s cool jibe heated his elder brother’s cheeks. “You requested this parley, brother. And you said I should choose a neutral venue.”
Osriel snapped his fingers. The flames in the twin braziers surged to the height of a man, causing the shadows to lengthen and dance wildly. Two armless wooden chairs took shape out of nothing, positioned to face him. Bayard paled and shifted uneasily.
My master gestured toward the chairs. “Come, brothers, sit. I would not have you stand like servants or courtiers. I’ve missed our long dinners with Father, talking of history and geography, building and art. Should I send for food and wine? Perhaps we could begin again in his memory.” The words pelted the faces of his brothers like hailstones, evoking a cascade of expressions, even as they whetted my own curiosity.
“No need for games, Bastard. You know why I’m here.” Bayard snatched one of the chairs, realizing only after he’d sat how awkwardly it suited. It was much too small for his blacksmith’s frame. Max moved to Perryn’s side, touched his arm, and gestured to the second chair. The blond prince shook his head and huddled deeper into his own embrace. One might have thought him cowed, save for the occasional glance of purest hate that speared Bayard’s back.
“I am guessing you’ve at last seen Father’s writ of succession,” said Osriel. “And that you are preparing to proclaim to the people of Navronne that it names you heir, just as you’ve insisted all these years that it would. But we know the truth of that, don’t we? As does our frighted brother. Have you found a better forger than his?”
The truth laid out so quietly exploded in my head. My gaze snapped from one to the other. Osriel—Eodward’s named successor? I recalled the grand depiction of the ordo mundi painted on the walls of the Gillarine guesthouse and imagined it flipped end over end, the denizens of heaven and hell dislodged and poured out to mingle with the tangled creatures of earth’s sphere. Horror, wonder, denial, and awe mastered me in rapid succession.
One would think Bayard chewed iron. “You will never wear my father’s crown, Bastard. I’ll gift it to a Hansker chieftain first.”
“So what do you propose to do about this little disappointment?” Osriel’s throaty whisper exuded subtle menace. “Do you think to snatch those few who know the truth and feed them to Sila Diaglou? I hear her executions are most efficient, if a bit gruesome. I quite resent your allowing the bloodthirsty priestess to destroy my city
and slaughter my subjects—even holy monks, I’ve heard.”
All confused bulk and outrage, Bayard spluttered. “Navrons will never accept a crippled, half-mad sorcerer as king. You’ve no warrior legion and no strength to lead one. That’s why you’ve never pressed a claim. Fires of Magrog, you sneak onto our battlefields and mutilate the dead. You squat on your treasure, waiting for the two of us to kill each other off—”
“You and Perryn chose your own course of fraternal mayhem,” snapped Osriel. “I warned you at the beginning I would not play. As for the rest, I have my own purposes. Now, what do you want of me? I will never kneel to you. Put that right out of your thoughts.”
Osriel…king. Every belief must shift and skew at the imagining.
Bayard burst from his chair, swung around behind it, and gripped the squared oak back, as if wrestling a hurricane into submission. Both face and posture declared he would prefer to open his belly with a dagger than speak what he had come to say. “The woman Sila Diaglou is a demon gatzé. But using her legion of madmen was the only way I could get this sniveling imbecile to heel before he burnt my ships and yards—our only hope to hold off the spring raids from Hansk. I agreed to cede her territory—some wild lands, a few villages, a town or two. She said that with sovereign territory ‘properly cleansed,’ she could prove to the rest of us the power of her Gehoum. But this lunacy she’s wrought in Palinur…” He spat his words through the bitter edge of humiliation. “I gave her no mandate for executions. I ordered her to stand down and withdraw her filthy lunatics from the city, but her partisans goad everyone to their own madness. Now the witch has presented me with a list of demands, threatening to raze Palinur and set her madmen on Avenus and other cities if I don’t comply. I’ve squeezed Morian’s treasury dry to get this far, believing I’d have Navronne’s wealth—mine by right—to control her at the end. But what have I found?”