The Tower of Death cma-2

by Andrew J Offutt

  “As easily as he could dissemble to him about a certain young Goth of Nantes,” Veremund said, returning to resume his chair near Cormac’s.

  “Sorrow and grief are on me that I gave ye the lie as to Clodia, lord King.”

  “Never mind. I knew, in seconds-and have known that you knew I knew-ah, what foolish things come from our lips with this language! Ye but sought to help her. Poor girl, and her father dead or under torture. She’s a pleasant companion. Few would believe how much talking we do.”

  True, Cormac thought, for Clodia’s hardly the sort one chooses for converse! It’s not talking that men are minded of, when they look upon her. But then… 1 suppose Kitcat’s not the sort most would talk with so much as I do, either.

  The Gael said nothing. The king and his-conversations-were no business of his. Nor were the queen’s, he added mentally; whatever that skinny woman did with herself whiles her lordly husband and Clodia… conversed. But… be there no jealousy on the woman?

  “My lady queen has her amusements too,” Veremund said. “We are… not such friends as formerly. Her illness changed her. Ye’ve been told that the lady queen came near to death?”

  “Aye.”

  “Aye,” Veremund said, echoing him. “I’d ha’ thought ye’d know of that-and many other things as well, belike. Yet ye are silent, answering only when I make query. And then with but a laconic ‘aye’.”

  After a time of examining his winecup-which was of silver, and misaffected the flavour of the wine-Cormac said, “I do not discuss queens with their lords, lord King. Nor the trysting of kings, with anyone.”

  “It seems very probable that you are a good man, mac Art of Eirrin.”

  “So thought I of your smith, King of the Galicians. He is most mindful of his own business.”

  The King of the Galicians chuckled, sipped. “Think you wine tastes better from crockery, mac Art?”

  “Lord King, I do.”

  The two men looked at each other, and they laughed.

  “Eirrin. What did you there?”

  “Grew up.”

  “Oh come-a little more. Your father?”

  “My father was the lord Art, commander of an outpost fortress for the King of Connacht. Rath Glondarth, its name. Was my home until I was fourteen.”

  “Umm. And you fell into trouble, there?”

  “Lord Art was murdered.” Cormac shortened the story, then, just short of total veracity, which had never been a religion with him. “For me it was die or flee. I fled Eirrin.”

  He would not say that a nervous High-king feared him for his deeds and his name, which was that of a great High-king over Eirrin of centuries past-and which his father never should have given him. Surely his life had been different, and his father’s longer, had Art called him Conn or Lugh or Conan or Midhir! Even “Niall mac Art” could not have put such nervousness on the High-king, unto treachery. Too, there had been that damned priest. And Bress of the Long Arm. The priest of Iosa Chriost that these called Yesu Christus was nicely dead. As for Bress…

  Some day, Cormac thought. Some day, treacherous Bress Cormac-hater!

  But had been eight years. Bress might by now be commander of all the armies of Leinster… or dead, morelike, the arrogant supercilious roughshodder!

  Veremund was frowning, and Cormac realized from his words that the king was wondering if he’d uncovered cowardice in the pirate called Wolf: “And ye’ve never returned?”

  “The slayer of my father was in the employ of the High-king,” Cormac said shortly. “About that craft Wulfhere saw…”

  “Think ye they were indeed sirens?”

  Veremund had snuffed back in his throat just as he started to speak; he would allow change of subject. Veremund too, Cormac thought, was a good man. One of those precious few on all the ridge of the world who merited the sobriquet “noble,” from the Latin nobilitatas.

  “Lord King, I saw the impossible that night, and fought them. Belief’s on me that Wulfhere saw something unnatural. Peradventure the Greeks’ tale of the Sirenes is based in fact. Peradventure daughters of Ran do indeed lurk asea, luring good seamen. Be that as it may, Something is out there that likes not sea traffic-or rather does like it, as prey! It’s minded I am to be offering them some. As bait.”

  “Umm. Aye, I see. Were best we-that is, yourself-risked not your good Raven to such purpose. What have ye in mind?”

  “One of those scaphae I was seeing in your harbour.”

  “Umm. With a tiny crew, to attract the Sirens?”

  “Aye, lord King, and weapons ready! My thinking goes thus. The kelp is ghastly, and to be dealt with. Ne’ertheless, it’s surely but a tool it is. Sent by the… wreckers, sirens… sent to darken the true beacon, that they may display their own. It’s the wreckers are the enemy, then. It’s they I’d be going against, direct.”

  The king contemplated that for a space, nodding, and then showed his nod to Cormac. “In your hands, mac Art. And next time we’ll have our wine from good fired mugs, umm?” He rose, and the Gael stood instantly. “Irnic awaits outside, I know-with some others. Time I returned to kinging it, whilst you do put a pirate’s knowledge to work against an unnatural enemy!”

  Outside the chamber, Veremund said a few words to Irnic Break-ax, and shortly that Roman-cloaked warrior and mac Art were on their way to the harbour. Irnic made the great concession of walking on his own feet.

  At old Brigantium harbour, once handsomer and more bustling than now, they two chose a boat for Cormac’s purpose. The scapha or coaster was a flat-bottomed skiff used for commerce, mainly in riverways and along coastal waters. Square and ugly was its stern and unusually large its sail.

  “And the lighthouse?” Irnic asked, as he and the Gael paced the coaster they had chosen. Irnic had sent a rider for Wulfhere and Ordlaf.

  “It’s unmanned we’ll be leaving that place,” Cormac said, “with its beacon unlit. We’ll want the tower close watched, though.”

  “My part,” Irnic said and, when the Gael nodded, “I’ll see to that.”

  “I’m wondering if there mayn’t be a dark sail available…”

  Wulfhere and the steersman arrived, along with Jostein, and the five men conferred aboard the scapha. The reivers detailed how it must be equipped and Irnic called over the burly man who was overseer of stevedores. He gave listen to plans for the skiff’s modification, nor did he make mention that his men were hardly carpenters. Indeed he began issuing instructions for the work at once. He’d but few questions, and none regarding the purpose of Lord Irnic and the reivers from oversea. These harbour-men knew of the horror in the lighthouse, and its menace to them and their livelihood.

  Still another good man, mac Art thought; this is my day for dealing with such. And he told Wulfhere a few little things, in private. Irnic was off to make a to-do of picking men for the lighthouse watch, and Ordlaf and Jostein would remain with the workers in their modification of the scapha.

  Cormac asked his giant battle-brother if he’d been “having do with” Queen Venhilda.

  “No!”

  “Apology, Wulfhere. I assumed the answer, but needed to clear my mind of the matter.”

  “What about yourself and that bottomy little princess?”

  “Absolutely nothing, Wulf-it’s off princesses I am for life! Note how discreet I am-ye know naught of me and the bosomy Marcovanda, eh?”

  “The little one with-”

  “The same.”

  Wulfhere chuckled. Abruptly he sobered, gave Cormac a keen look from eyes like nuggets of sky. “Ye asked because of Veremund, who’s having so much ‘to do’ with Clodia.”

  “He says they talk a lot.”

  Wulfhere snorted. “So do I, to my sword. Well, I can tell ye this, Wolf. My, ahh, night-friends and I have twice seen her leave the royal hall by night, and head into the city furtive as a thief with a chill.”

  “Clodia?”

  “No, dense son of a pig-farming Eirrisher! Ven-” Wulfhere lowered his voice-“hilda
.”

  “Uh!” Cormac frowned, sighed. “Bad business. She must have a lover. Now her royal husband has. Bad business. We’re after bringing him his consolation.”

  Cormac was sure now that it was Queen Venhilda he’d seen ghosting from the hall so clandestinely, that first night here. Who out in Brigantium-town be admiring her leanness and that Starry Night of hers? For he’d learned the queen’s magnificent colour-splashed opal bore a name, as did some swords and other possessions. Starry Night, she called it.

  That evening he was to see still another fascinating ring. Quite an interesting collection surrounded him; the Egyptian winged serpent he wore on its silver chain under his tunic and the winged sun-disk Zarabdas wore over his; Zarabdas’s golden ring of twining serpents; the queen’s Starry Night… and now the Antiochite’s Aquarius.

  Cormac was not alone that evening when a sentry brought word that someone was without and would have word with him. He donned tunic and went down reluctantly, to find an oldish woman at the door, straggly of thin grey hair and wrapped in a cloak of plain dun hue, its scarlet bordering long since faded nigh to invisibility. Someone, she advised, would have converse with mac Art, elsewhere.

  “Someone? Who?”

  She would not say.

  Cormac considered. “Do you wait then,” he said coldly, “whilst I arm and armour myself.” And he returned to his room without awaiting her reply.

  “I will be back,” he told the tousled head and pair of bright-and disappointed-blue eyes peering at him from the bed, while he pulled on leggings. “If I am not, I’ll ha’ been slain. Sure and that’s not likely. Sleep, lass.” He shrugged into a padded jack.

  “Cor-macc…”

  He said nothing, performing the hardly simple task of getting forty pounds of linked mailcoat over his head. With a jingly little rustle of chain, the armour settled over him. He picked up the belt supporting his sword’s worn scabbard. He gave her a grin.

  “I’ll wake ye, Kit-cat,” he said, and left his room.

  In the corridor, the sentry stayed him long enough to mutter, “Would ye be followed, mac Art?”

  “No, and no. Yon hag hardly carries my death-and if she has friends, I can handle myself.” He showed the man the steel under his cloak.

  “Uh… pardon, mac Art, but… Marcovanda…” Cormac flashed him a warning smile. “See ye stay away from my chamber and Marcovanda Kit-cat, Hermodh, or I’ll be telling terrible things to your Berilda. Carrying a boy, I’d make wager.”

  “One hopes,” Hermodh said. “It’s time. She’s borne two daughters, and she who lived is a joy. Still a man wants-”

  “Aye,” Cormac said, and departed the hall.

  Following the old woman in her much-worn cloak, the Gael soon departed the king’s grounds as well, and entered into dark Brigantium. Oil and waxen candles were dear, and he saw few lights. People who rose with the sun were wont to lie down with its daily dying, and so it was the world over. He noted how his guide clung to outer streets, skirting the city rather than actually entering it. Though Brigantium was Roman once, it was no longer; they were untroubled by footpads. Over past the city’s edge they came to a smallish, darkened old temple that was apparently no longer in use. Cormac saw a cracked column and strewn bits of stone from the interior of the portico’s roof. Just beyond that grove squatted a nice enough house, and it was to its door she led him. She knocked twice, paused, knocked thrice. And opened the door.

  Inside was darkness deeper than that in which mac Art stood, and he ignored her gesture that bade him enter.

  “Cormac mac Art,” a voice said from within, “come in.” Just that, and Cormac knew this man’s German was as accented as his.

  “Who asks?”

  “Lucanor Antiochos.”

  “Ah. I enter then,” Cormac said, and did, but cleared his cloak of his right arm as he stepped into darkness. “D’ye have Latin, Lucanor Antiochus?” he asked, Latinizing the leech’s sobriquet.

  “Aye. In here.” The leech who was formerly the royal leech lifted a hanging to reveal a yellow-lit room.

  “After yourself, host,” Cormac said, and after a moment the other man entered. Cormac followed.

  An oil-lamp burned on a table in that chamber, and Cormac saw that it was of Grecian design. The room was cozy, carpeted and wall-hung and furnished with two Roman chairs and a couch Cormac thought came from the north of Africa. The room bore the aroma of herbs; Lucanor’s stock-in-trade.

  The Antiochite stood not tall. His crown rose little above Cormac’s shoulder. There was a bit of curl to his long hair and short, kempt beard, and both looked greasy whether they were or not. Black was the hair and dark was Lucanor of Antioch to the east, darker than his visitor. He had, as Cormac had noted earlier from a distance, the look of a man whose veins bore both Greek and Hyrcanian blood. His excellent robe of silky-looking green fitted him so that Cormac reaffirmed that the man was well fed. His forehead was very high; Lucanor’s hair, at about his age twoscore, was withdrawing as if in fright from eyes like two heated onyxes under thickets of brows just as black.

  “Will you join me in-ah! I see you’ve come armed!”

  “So I have. And mailed. When I’m called from my bed by one who will not tell me who desires my company, suspicion thins my blood.”

  “My housekeeper is unnecessarily mysterious. She thinks I am the equal of kings and is high-handed. She-”

  “Does Lucanor think so?”

  Lucanor waved a hand on which a single ring flashed. “The question need not be answered. I am but a tender to the sick and injured. I was about to offer wine.”

  “Do you pour for yourself only, Lucanor; I’ll have none.”

  The physician nodded, gestured to a chair, and himself took the couch. Splashed with yellow and made to glitter by the lamp-light, black eyes gazed on mac Art.

  “Your housekeeper,” the Gael said. “Have you a wife as well, Lucanor?”

  “None. Not ever.”

  “And no… friend, from among the distaff?”

  Lucanor shrugged. “None that lives here.”

  “One awaits me,” Cormac said. “Speak our business.”

  “Very well.”

  The Antiochite leaned forward a bit and his hand stretched out to lie on the table. Now Cormac could see the ring it bore: the stone was milky, though no pearl, and was incused with a sign Cormac recognized. Again he looked on the mix of Persia and Greece: the figure on Lucanor’s ring was of Aquarius, bearer of water. In white opal, perhaps.

  “Mac Art: I would tell you something for the good of yourself and all the Suevi of Galicia.”

  And not the Antiochite of Galicia, eh? Cormac was silent and showed nothing. He’d been told this and that “for his own good” rather more than once. The phrase usually prefaced someone’s advising him against doing something, and that someone usually had a personal reason. He was about to be warned off something, he mused, and composed himself to show no reaction.

  “Sure and a man ever appreciates being told that which is for his own good.”

  “I beg you give up this quest for the so-called Sirens of this coast, mac Art of Eirrin. The danger is enormous, beyond your ken. The consequences of interference will be dire for all the Suevi of Galicia.”

  “And the Antiochite, and the Gael, and the few Danes?” Cormac asked. Surprised, he essayed not to show it. “Ummm. It’s ‘so-called Sirens’ ye said. Ye have knowledge on ye of the creatures, Lucanor? Of what they be?”

  “I will say only that I know them to be terrible enemies when they are thwarted or endangered, or threatened.”

  “Ah, they and I have that in common, then.” Cormac spoke in a light tone, with his gaze level on the other man’s eyes. “Little else, I’m thinking. Is it their ally ye be, Lucanor Antiochus, or merely one who does only good and would warn and protect those of us not so wise?”

  “You are bent on being hostile,” Lucanor said. And he spoke on, but again he gave no direct answer. Instead he talked here and
there and around, dropping dark hints unpurfled by specifics. The gist was that he knew much, and there were more things and forces than Cormac or Veremund knew of; Cormac had better cancel his plans and desist, for the royal house and the people of this land would suffer else.

  “Royal House?” again Cormac sought to hear a threat, rather than carefully worded warnings.

  Lucanor nodded and his butter-soft, middle range voice only reiterated the words. Yet again he refused to be direct, but must mitigate by adding, “and all the people of this land.”

  “And myself?”

  Lucanor met his eyes directly, and spoke without change in expression or tone: “Go asea against the unknown and unknowable, mac Art, and it is your death, sure.”

  “Umm. I am warned from inimical water-creatures by one who wears a ring of the water-carrier. With nervousness one hopes Lucanor Antiochus is not a carrier to the shores of water and its… unknown and unknowable creatures.”

  Cormac had seen his host’s hand tense as he started automatically to withdraw it and the ring from sight. Lucanor was bolder than that, though, and on thinking he left it where it was, closely lit by the lamp. He who had been physician to the royal house said nothing. He stared hard.

  “It’s said, then? All ye had to tell me-and ye will tell me?”

  “You are determined to pay no heed and accept no counsel. I am not in love with words.”

  “Hm-it did seem otherwise to me, when ye were speaking around and around the answers to the questions I posed!” Cormac rose in a rustle of linked rings of steel and stood over the other man, tall, mailed, sword-armed. “Lucanor… if it’s yourself the queen is coming to meet so many nights, ye’d best end it, man. For it’s yourself is endangered thereby, not the house of Veremund or his people.”

  Lucanor stared, face working. Then he rose with the sinuous grace of a panther, and he smiled satirically at the taller man. “Ah, mac Art! The queen, coming to see me? Go to; it’s the Greek ways I learned whilst I grew up, and studied so far from here, and I assure you the queen is not coming to see me!”

  Cormac returned most thoughtfully to the hall of the king and to the young woman he called Kit-cat, who loved to hear piratical tales that fired her blood and who soon put brooding thoughts from his head.