by Tad Williams
“You have made a horrible mistake,” he rasped. “You are a foolish old man and your great Mother Church is a child’s toy made of parchment and glue.” He was quivering with surprised fury. “We shall put a torch to it ere long. The howling will be great when it burns. You have made a mistake.”
He turned and stalked from the dining hall, his bootheels clocking on the tiled floor, his robes billowing like flame. Dinivan thought he heard a terrible intimation of holocaust in the priest’s departing footsteps, of a great and final conflagration, a black scorching of the pages of history.
Miriamele was sewing a wooden button onto her cloak when someone rapped on the door. Startled, she slid off the cot and padded to answer, her bare feet chill against the cold floor.
“Who is it?”
“Open the door, Prin ... Malachias. Please open the door.”
She drew the bolt. Cadrach stood in the poorly lit hallway, his sweaty face gleaming in the candlelight. He pushed past her into the small cell and elbowed the door shut so abruptly that Miriamele felt a breeze as it swept by her nose.
“Are you mad?” she demanded. “You cannot just push in like this!”
“Please, Princess ...”
“Get out! Now!”
“Lady ...” Astonishingly, Cadrach fell to his knees. His normally ruddy face was quite pale. “We must flee the Sancellan Aedonitis. Tonight.”
She stared down. “You have gone mad.” Her tone was imperious. “What are you talking about? Have you stolen something? I don’t know if I should protect you any longer, and I certainly will not go charging out of...”
He cut her off in mid-speech. “No. It is nothing I have done—at least, nothing I have done tonight—and the danger is not to me so much as to you. But that danger is very great. We must flee!”
For several moments Miriamele could not think of a thing to say. Cadrach indeed looked very frightened, a change from his usual veiled expression.
He broke the silence at last. “Please, my lady, I know I have been a faithless companion, but I have done some good, as well. Please trust me this once. You are in terrible danger!”
“Danger from what?”
“Pryrates is here.”
She felt a wave of relief wash over her. Cadrach’s wild words had frightened her after all. “Idiot. I know that. I spoke to the lector yesterday. I know all about Pryrates.”
The stocky monk rose to his feet. His jaw was set in a very determined way. “That is one of the most foolish things you have ever said, Princess. You know very little about him, and you should be grateful for that. Grateful!” He reached out and seized her arm.
“Stop that! How dare you!” She tried to slap at his face, but Cadrach leaned away from the blow, maintaining his grip. He was surprisingly strong.
“Saint Muirfath’s Bones!” he hissed. “Don’t be such a fool, Miriamele!” He leaned toward her, holding her gaze with his own wide eyes. There was, she fleetingly noticed, no smell of wine about him. “If I must treat you like a child, I will,” the monk growled. He pushed her backward until she toppled onto the cot, then stood over her, angry yet fearful. “The lector has declared Pryrates and your father excommunicate. Do you know what that means?”
“Yes!” she said, her voice almost a shout. “I’m glad!”
“But Pryrates is not glad, and something bad will happen. It will happen very soon. You should not be here when it does.”
“Bad? What do you mean? Pryrates is alone in the Sancellan. He came with half a dozen of my father’s guardsmen. What can he do?”
“And you claim to know all about him.” Cadrach shook his head in disgust, then turned and began scooping Miriamele’s loose clothing and few possessions into her traveling bag. “I, for one,” he said, “do not want to see whatever he will be getting up to.”
She watched him for a moment, dumbfounded. Who was this person who looked like Cadrach, but shouted and ordered and grabbed her arm like a river-barge bravo? “I will not go anywhere until I talk to Father Dinivan,” she said at last. Some of the edge had disappeared from her voice.
“Splendid,” Cadrach said. “Whatever you wish. Just prepare yourself to go. I’m sure that Dinivan will agree with me—if we can find him at all.”
Reluctantly, she bent to help him. “Just tell me this,” she said. “Do you swear that we’re in danger? And that it’s not something you did?”
He stopped. For the first time since he had entered the room, Cadrach’s odd half-smile appeared, but this one twisted his face into a mask of terrible sorrow. “We have all done things that we regret, Miriamele. I have made mistakes that set God the Highest to weeping on His great throne.” He shook his head, angry at wasting time with talk. “But this danger is real and immediate, and there is nothing we can either of us do to make it less. Thus, we shall flee. Cowards always survive.”
Seeing his face, Miriamele suddenly did not ever want to know what Cadrach had done to make him hate himself so much. She shuddered and turned away, looking for her boots.
The Sancellan Aedonitis seemed strangely deserted, even for the late evening hour. A few priests had gathered in the various common rooms where they sat gossiping in hushed tones; a handful more strode the corridors with lighted candles, on errands of one sort or another. Except for these few, the halls were empty. The torches burned fitfully in their sockets, as though troubled by restless breezes.
Miriamele and Cadrach were in a deserted upstairs gallery, passing from the chambers where visiting churchmen stayed and into the administrative and ceremonial heart of God’s House, when the monk pulled Miriamele over to a shadowed window alcove.
“Put the candle down and come look,” he said quietly. She wedged the taper in a crevice between two tiles and leaned forward. The cold air struck her face like a slap.
“What should I look at?”
“There, below. Do you see all those men with torches?” He tried to point within the confines of the narrow window. Miriamele could see at least a score of men in the courtyard below, amored and cloaked, bearing spears on their shoulders.
“Yes,” she said slowly. The soldiers did not appear to be doing much more than warming their hands at the courtyard fire-cairns. “So?”
“Those are from Duke Benigaris’ household guard,” Cadrach said grimly. “Someone is expecting trouble tonight, and expecting it to be here.”
“But I thought soldiers were never allowed to bear arms in the Sancellan Aedonitis.” The spearpoints caught the torchlight like tongues of flame.
“Ah, but Duke Benigaris himself is a guest here tonight, since he attended the lector’s banquet.”
“Why didn’t he go back to the Sancellan Mahistrevis?” She stepped away from the drafty window. “It’s not very far.”
“An excellent question,” Cadrach replied, a sour smile playing over his shadow-striped face. “Why indeed?”
Duke Isgrimnur tested Kvalnir’s keen edge with his thumb and nodded with satisfaction. He slipped his whetstone and jar of oil back into his bag. There was something very calming about sharpening his sword. A pity he had to leave it behind. He sighed and wrapped it in rags once more, then pushed it underneath his pallet.
It wouldn’t do to go see the lector carrying a sword, he thought, no matter how much better it’d make me feel. I doubt his guards would take kindly to it.
Not that Isgrimnur was going to see the lector directly. It was very unlikely that a strange monk would be allowed into the Shepherd of Mother Church’s bedchamber, but Dinivan’s chambers were close by. The lector’s secretary had no guards. Also, Dinivan knew Isgrimnur and thought highly of him. When the priest realized who his late-night visitor really was, he would listen carefully to what the duke had to say.
Still, Isgrimnur felt his stomach fluttering, as it had before countless battles. That had been the reason he’d brought out his sword: Kvalnir hadn’t been unsheathed more than twice since he’d left Naglimund, and certainly hadn’t seen any duty that would have d
ulled her Dverning-forged blade, but honing his sword gave a man something to do when the waiting became difficult. There was something in the air tonight, a queasy expectancy that reminded Isgrimnur of the shores of Clodu during the Battle of the Lakelands.
Even King John, blooded war-hawk that he was, had been nervous that night, knowing that ten thousand Thrithings-men waited somewhere in the darkness beyond the sentry fires, and knowing also that the plains-dwellers were no adherents of orderly dawn starting-times for battles or any other such conventions of civilized warfare.
Prester John had come to the fire that night, joining his young Rimmersman friend—Isgrimnur had not yet inherited his father’s dukedom—for a jug of wine and a bit of conversation. As they talked, the king had taken stone and polishing rag to fabled Bright-Nail. They spent the night yarning away, a little self-consciously at first, with many a pause to listen for unusual noises, then with increasing ease as dawn approached and it became obvious the Thrithings-men planned no nighttime raids.
John told Isgrimnur tales of his youth on Warinsten—which he described as an island of backward and superstition-plagued bumpkins—and of his early travels on the mainland of Osten Ard. Isgrimnur was fascinated by these unexpected glimpses of the king’s early life: Prester John was already nearly fifty years old as they sat by the fire at Lake Clodu, and to the young Rimmersman might as well have been king since the beginning of time. But when asked about his legendary destruction of the red worm Shurakai, John had waved the question away like an irritating fly. He proved no more willing to discuss how he had received Bright-Nail, saying that those stories were overtold and tiresome.
Now, forty years later, in a monk’s cell at the Sancellan Aedonitis, Isgrimnur remembered and smiled. John’s nervous whetting of Bright-Nail was the closest the duke had ever seen his lord come to anything approaching fear—fear about combat, at least.
The duke snorted. Now, with that good old man two years in his grave, here sat his friend Isgrimnur, moping about when there were tasks to be done for the good of John’s kingdom.
Lord willing, Dinivan will be my herald. He’s a clever man. He’ll put Lector Ranessin on my side and we’ll track Miriamele down.
He pulled his hood low on his head, then opened the doorway, letting the torchlight spill in from the corridor. He recrossed the room to put out the candle. It wouldn’t do to have it fall over on his pallet and catch the place on fire.
Cadrach was becoming increasingly agitated. They had been waiting inside Dinivan’s study for some time; high above, the Clavean bell had just sounded the eleventh hour.
“He is not returning, Princess, and I do not know where his private chambers are. We must go.”
Miriamele was peering into the lector’s great audience hall through the curtain at the back of the secretary’s work room. Lit by only a single torch, the painted figures on the high ceiling seemed to swim in muddy water. “Knowing Dinivan, his private chambers are probably close to where he works,” she said. The monk’s worried tone made her feel a little superior once more. “He’ll come back here. He left all his candles burning, didn’t he? Why are you so worried?”
Cadrach looked up from Dinivan’s papers, which he had been surreptitiously examining. “I was at the banquet tonight. I saw Pryrates’ face. He is a man not accustomed to being balked.”
“How do you know that? And what were you doing at the banquet?”
“Doing what was necessary. Keeping an eye open.”
Miriamele let the drapery slide back into place. “You are full of hidden talents, aren’t you? Where did you learn to open a door without a key, like you did to this room?”
Cadrach looked stung. “You said you wanted to see him, my lady. You insisted on coming here. I thought it was better we came inside than stand around in the halls waiting for the lector’s guards to go by, or one of the other priests who might want to know what we were doing in this part of the Sancellan.”
“Lock-pick, spy, kidnapper—unusual talents for a monk.”
“You may make fun if you wish, Princess.” He seemed almost ashamed. “I have not had the life of my choice, or rather, I suppose, my choices have not been good ones. But spare me your nasty jibes until we are out of here and safe.”
She slid into Dinivan’s chair and rubbed her cold hands together, fixing the monk with her best level gaze. “Where do you come from, Cadrach?”
He shook his head. “I do not wish to talk of such things. I grow increasingly doubtful that Dinivan will return. We must go.”
“No. And if you don’t stop saying that, I will scream. Then we’ll see how that will go down with the lector’s guards, won’t we?”
Cadrach peeked out into the hallway, then quickly closed the door again. For all the chill, his tonsured hair hung on the side of his head in sweaty strands. “My lady, I beg you, I am beseeching you, for your own life and safety, please let us leave now. It is approaching midnight and the danger is increasing every moment. Just ... believe me!” Now he sounded truly desperate. “We cannot wait any longer ...”
“You’re wrong.” Miriamele was enjoying the way that things had shifted back in her direction. She put her booted feet up on Dinivan’s cluttered table. “I can wait all night if need be.” She tried to fix Cadrach with a stern eye once more, but he was pacing behind her, out of sight. “And we are not going to go fleeing into the night like idiots without talking to Dinivan first. I trust him a great deal more than I trust you.”
“As you should, I suppose,” Cadrach sighed. He sketched the sign of the Tree in the air, then lifted one of Dinivan’s heavy books and smashed it down on top of her head, tumbling her senseless to the carpeted floor. Cursing himself, he bent to lift her, then stopped as he heard voices in the corridor.
“You really must go,” the lector said sleepily. He was propped up in his wide bed, a copy of En Semblis Aedonitis open on his lap. “I shall read for a short while. You really must get some rest yourself, Dinivan. It has been a very trying day for all.”
His secretary turned from his inspection of the painted panels on the wall. “Very well, but don’t read long, Sacredness.”
“I won’t. My eyes tire very quickly by candlelight.”
Dinivan stared at the old man for a moment, then impulsively knelt and took the lector’s right hand, kissing the ilenite ring he wore. “Bless you, Your Sacredness.”
Ranessin looked at him with worried fondness. “You must indeed be overtired, dear friend. Your behavior is quite unusual.”
Dinivan stood. “You have just excommunicated the High King, Sacredness. That makes for a somewhat unusual day, does it not?”
The lector waved his hand dismissively. “Not that it will do anything. The king and Pryrates will do as they please. The people will wait to see what happens. Elias is not the first ruler to suffer Mother Church’s censure.”
“Then why do it? Why pit ourselves against him?”
Ranessin stared at him shrewdly. “You speak as though this excommunication was not your own fondest hope. You of all people know why, Dinivan: we must speak out when evil shows itself, whether there is any hope of changing it or not.” He closed the book before him. “I really am too tired even to read. Tell the truth, Dinivan. Is there much hope?”
The priest looked at him, surprised. “Why do you ask me, Sacredness?”
“Again you are ingenuous, my son. I know that there are many things with which you do not trouble a weary old man. I also know that there are good reasons for your secrecy. But tell me, from your own knowledge—is there hope?”
“There is always hope, Sacredness. You taught me that.”
“Ah.” Ranessin’s smile was oddly satisfied. He settled down into his cushions.
Dinivan turned to the young acolyte who slept at the foot of the lector’s bed. “Make sure you bolt the door behind me when I go.” The youth, who had been dozing, nodded his head. “And do not let anyone into your master’s chamber this night.”
“No
, Father, I won’t.”
“Good.” Dinivan stepped to the heavy door. “Good night, Sacredness. God be with you.”
“And you,” Ranessin said, muffled in his pillows. As Dinivan stepped out into the hallway the acolyte shuffled over to push the door closed.
The hall was even more poorly lit than the lector’s bedchamber. Dinivan squinted anxiously until he spotted the lector’s four guards standing at attention against the shadowed wall, swords scabbarded at their sides, pikes in their mailed fists. He let out his breath in relief, then walked toward them down the long, high-arched corridor. Perhaps he should ask for another two pairs to join these. He wouldn’t be sure of the lector’s safety until Pryrates had gone back to the Hayholt and treacherous Benigaris had returned to the ducal palace.
He rubbed his eyes as he approached the guards. He did indeed feel very tired, wrung out and hung up to dry. He would just stop and get some things from his workroom, then go to bed. Morning services were only a few hours away ...
“Ho, Captain,” he said to the one whose helmet bore the white plume, “I think it might be best if you called ... called...” He broke off, staring. The guard’s eyes gleamed like pinpoints in the depth of his helm, but they were fixed on some point beyond Dinivan, as were the eyes of his companions. They were all as motionless as statues. “Captain?” He touched the man’s arm, which was rigid as stone. “In the name of Usires Aedon,” he muttered, “what has happened here?”
“They do not see or hear you.”
It was a familiar rasping voice. Dinivan whirled to see a glint of red at the far end of the hallway.
“Devil! What have you done!?”
“They are sleeping,” Pryrates laughed. “In the morning, they will remember nothing. How the villains got past them to kill the lector will be a mystery. Perhaps it will be viewed by some—the Fire Dancers, for instance—as a kind of ... black miracle.”