by Mark Smylie
That morning he had been surprised when his sister had arisen from her bed at last. He had been thinking that the silver lining to her illness would have been that she could have skipped Harvald’s funeral, and indeed if he could have thought of some excuse to leave her behind and be spared this humiliation, he would have. He had even suggested to her that perhaps staying home would have been the best course for her, given her condition; but in a weak and halting voice, she had insisted on coming, and he had known that her absence would have been just as remarked upon as her presence. But at least then she would not have had to directly endure their insincere condolences, their condemning glances, their whispers and snide giggles. The Duke had been right; all it had taken was the whiff of some fresh disgrace, and the decade-old scandal of his sister had been revived right along with it as though it had happened yesterday. Harvald, you’ve ruined us, he thought.
He had hoped for some word from Duke Pergwyn during the week, some note of condolence and confirmation that he would be summoned for the summer campaign against the Rebel Earl, but the Duke had been silent. So that is likely how it will be, then, he thought. What chance of a marriage now? What opportunity to prove our worth to the High King? We will be known as a cursed house of fornicators and occultists. Scandal, ignominy, decline, and inevitably an end to our line. That will be our fate.
And now, as if to add a final insult to injury, the crowd at the funeral had definitely taken on a rather low-rent quality. At first it had just been a few friends of Harvald’s from his days at the University and members of the Chancery congregating off to one side of the plaza, respectable enough men from the lettered class of the city who had studied or worked with his brother. But Arduin had watched with increasing unhappiness as their ranks had been swollen by the arrival of a decidedly unsavory and increasingly peculiar cast of characters, most of whom seemed to be content to just mingle amongst themselves. He knew, of course, that Harvald had been connected to some sordid parts of the city ever since the street fighting around the University the year before scandal befell their family. He had often wondered if the fires of that tense autumn had been the precursor to all the troubles that befell them.
But quite another thing to have them all show up to his funeral.
He was barely listening to the prattling yet seemingly sincere moron in front of him, his eyes drawn increasingly to the ruffians and ne’er-do-wells that mixed and mingled with the University crowd. He could definitely tell that some amongst the city gentry had also noticed the divide, and their scandalized glances were now split between his sister and the rest of the crowd. A small comfort, he supposed, that at least they were no longer focused solely on Annwyn’s shame and condition.
He wondered if anyone else had noticed, and glanced quickly about. To his right, several paces away, stood Rodrick Urgoar, the High Priest of the Public Temple; he, at least, seemed happy and blissfully unaware, noted Arduin ruefully. The Urgoars were not highborn, but they had risen to power and position over many years of service in the Inquisition and the priestly hierarchies of the Sun Court and the temples of the Divine King. Rodrick Urgoar had been less than pleased with his posting to be High Priest of the Public Temple, something that he had made abundantly and publicly clear, much to the chagrin of many of his parishioners. Rodrick might normally be expected to officiate at the funeral or wedding of at best a wealthy merchant, or perhaps some member of the city’s lettered class, perhaps an Under-Magister at the University; all of which he considered beneath him. But despite the scandal surrounding Harvald’s death and his family, the Orwains of Araswell were vassals of the High King. So Rodrick Urgoar was having a banner day.
Several paces to his left by the bier swayed his sister, Annwyn, barely able to stand. Malia and Ilona stood on each side of her, partly holding her by her elbows, and around them was another protective layer of a half dozen handmaidens, acting as a shield and cushion against the intrusions of well-wishers. She seemed insensible, barely cognizant of her surroundings. He thought about sending her back to her coach.
“. . . and if my actions that day played some small part in Harvald’s death, I humbly beseech your forgiveness,” the man in front of him was saying. Arduin frowned and focused on him again. The man—some sort of clerk?—seemed genuinely broken up about something. “I cannot say he took me into his private confidences, for I know much of his work was confidential to the Court, but I believe ours was a friendship based on mutual respect. And nothing in his behavior that day would have led me to suspect that something was amiss.” The man dabbed at his eyes. “He and I were supposed to have drinks this past week, you know. It shall forever weigh on my mind that we didn’t get a chance to share a last pint of bitters.” The man leaned in a little closer than made Arduin comfortable, and added in conspiratorial airs, “He was going to tell me what he could about the work he’d been doing for . . . you know who.”
Arduin’s face was a complete blank.
“You know . . . Lord Rohan,” the man said, almost in a whisper.
Lord Rohan Brigadim? thought Arduin. What on earth would my brother have had to do with Lord Rohan? Is that what people are saying now? That he worked for the king’s spymaster? He sighed inwardly. Arduin stared at the man a moment, realizing that he should be offering some sort of response, and then found himself saying, “Yes, well, I’m sure that Harvald would be grateful for your discretion in matters related to his work and the Court, whatever they might have been. And I’m also sure that he would be grateful for your presence and prayers here today, as I am.”
“It is an honor to be here to help him finish his final journey,” said the man with heartfelt conviction. “Should you ever need my help, you need but ask in his name.” He gave a great bow, and backed away, continuing to bow, until he disappeared into the crowd.
Arduin stared after him a moment, his mouth hanging open and a frown on his face, before finally shaking himself. He glanced about. Thankfully the line of well-wishers had gotten bottled up behind three old dowagers speaking to the High Priest, and he had a moment’s respite. Sir Helgi handed him a flask of water, and he nodded his thanks as he took a sip.
“Who in the Six Hells are this lot?” asked Sir Helgi, indicating the growing crowd of well-dressed ruffians on the other side of the plaza.
“Since that is almost certainly where they are all going, I’m not sure their names really matter,” Arduin said drily. “Perhaps the Public Temple gives away free food after a funeral.”
“I wouldn’t mind knowing the name of that one,” said Sir Helgi, indicating a young exotic-looking foreign woman, dressed rather scandalously for a funeral. Whoever she was, Arduin was actually somewhat glad she was there, as her dress was proving a small distraction from his sister amongst the gossip queens.
“And who are that tall couple the rest of them keep bowing to?” asked Sir Holgar.
Arduin squinted and shrugged. “I don’t recognize them. Perhaps someone of importance from one of the Merchant Courts?” he ventured. “They’re not nobles.” He scanned the sundry crowd, spotting the young clerk from the High King’s Court that had been so helpful the other day there, and then a few others he knew by name. “I don’t know the names of many of Harvald’s old University friends. There’s a few of them over there. That one, I remember. The Athairi. Stjepan, I think. His mother was some sort of witch, got burned at the stake. They call him the Black Heart or some sort of ridiculous thing.”
At the mention of those two words, black and heart, Annwyn’s mind woke up. She took a deep breath of air, a long gasping intake as though she had been underwater. She struggled for a moment, trying to focus, pulling herself from the supporting grips of her handmaidens and trying to stand on her own.
“My Lady, are you sure you are all right?” whispered Malia at her side.
Annwyn didn’t respond. She swayed slightly, like a reed in the wind, and tried to take a step forward. Her body felt awkward, alien, as though it had not been used for months
and the muscles had atrophied. Thirst and hunger struck her to her core. When did I last eat? she wondered, then shook her head. That doesn’t matter. That name. I know that name. Why do I know that name?
That name is why I am here.
“Right, I’ve heard of him,” said Sir Helgi, frowning. “He’s the one that supposedly killed six men during all that fighting up at the University a few years ago, yes, but was never charged? Doesn’t look too dangerous to me.”
Stjepan’s gaze scanned the mourning crowd, took in the high hill of the city with its halls and towers, swept out to sea and eyed ships tacking in the bay or resting at anchorage. Gulls, terns, pelicans and cormorants floated and circled in the air above, keeping a respectful distance from a single vulture high above them. He listened to the wind, heard the distant rattle of the city rising up behind them, the call of sea birds, the crash of wave and surf. He sniffed the air, smelt perfume and incense and the salty brine of the bay, and somewhere near the hint of something dead and rotting. He felt inconsolably sad.
“. . . Rumors are flying everywhere about how he died,” Gilgwyr was saying. “It’s probably why there are so many people here; their curiosity has overcome their fear.”
Coogan and Cynyr glanced at each other. “So,” said Coogan after a moment. “How did he die?”
“Map had a curse on it, apparently,” said Stjepan with a shrug, and then he grimaced. “Harvald wound up burning a copy of De Malifir Magicis of Ymaire. Presumably he was trying to use it to remove the curse. Fucking book was priceless. He was supposedly trying to use a Middle Tongue translation of it as well, perhaps without realizing that the translation was flawed.”
“Did the map survive?” asked Cynyr, his mad-dog eyes glinting.
“Nope,” said Stjepan, shaking his head. “Burned to ash, along with whatever notes or copies he was trying to make.” They all stared at the ground for a moment.
“Shame, that,” said Coogan with a sigh. He frowned. “De Malifir Magicis? Isn’t that book forbidden? How’d he get a copy of it?”
“Somehow he broke into the Forbidden Rooms of the Library,” Jonas said quietly.
Coogan’s frown grew deeper and Cynyr whistled. “How many times did we try that when we were students?” Cynyr asked. “And he managed it by himself? How the fuck did he do that?”
“They’re not sure,” replied Jonas. “He had a particularly strong talisman upon his person, an unusual source of great occult power; it was undamaged, and the Magisters have locked it away for safekeeping, but the thought is that it might have aided him in overcoming the wards.”
“What the fuck? Where’d he get it from?” asked Coogan.
“No one knows. Official word is going to be that he died in a . . . research accident, attempting to decipher a particularly venomous curse,” Jonas said quietly. “But there’s all sorts of questions that have drawn unwanted attention. Where he got the talisman, how he got into the Forbidden Rooms and found the book he was looking for; what the curse was on, since the map was destroyed; what spell he was casting when the curse killed him. And why he was trying to do it at all, since it clearly wasn’t Court business and he lied his way into the Rare Books hall, claiming to be on a mission from Lord Rohan.”
“That takes some balls,” laughed Coogan. “Well, unless it was true.” He seemed to think that possibility even more amusing.
“Do you suppose anyone knows what we were up to?” Erim asked Stjepan furtively. “They asked so many questions . . .”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think all of the Magisters were entirely convinced of our ignorance of Harvald’s actions and intentions, some of them know our lot too well,” said Stjepan. He shrugged. “But it doesn’t matter anymore. There’s nothing left of the map, and we don’t even know if it was real to begin with . . .” he trailed off slowly, and frowned, as he saw that Harvald’s sister had turned toward him and seemed to be looking in his direction.
“Islik’s balls, it’ll haunt my dreams the rest of my life,” groaned Gilgwyr. “That we might’ve had in our grasp a map to the Barrow of Azharad, a map to Gladringer. And instead . . . our hands close on empty air. I can’t believe that bastard burned the fucking map.”
“And by doing so likely saved us from the curse that claimed him. Are you so ungrateful?” Erim asked, glancing at him with narrowed eyes.
Alas, poor Erim, you have no idea the depth of my ingratitude, thought Gilgwyr sourly.
Annwyn’s gaze fell upon a man on the other side of the plaza. Athairi, tall, lean, weathered, dark-haired, dark-eyed. A dark humor seemed to be upon him, as though his core was filled with sadness and hate. That’s him, she said to herself. Who else could it be? Black-Heart.
Her head swam, and her eyes fluttered, and she teetered for a moment as she tried hard to focus. She blinked her eyes open, and just like that he was looking at her from across the plaza. Their eyes locked, and suddenly she felt clear-headed for a moment, as a spark of fear leapt like lightning up her spine. There was an intense sternness in his expression, a sharpness to his gaze, that filled her with trepidation. But at the same time she thought she saw something else there. Curiosity? Compassion? Did she imagine it?
She stepped forward with difficulty, her body unresponsive to her commands. She took one hesitating step, then another, and slowly started to make her way across the plaza, her eyes still locked with his.
“My Lady?” asked Malia, as she started to follow the mistress of her house across the plaza. “What are you doing?” Ilona and Henriette quickly joined her in flanking Annwyn, fluttering about her, but she ignored them and kept her stumbling steps forward. Her other handmaidens trailed behind them, confused. Malia looked over her shoulder for the lord of the house, but three elderly women were besieging Arduin and his two closest knights, busily and loudly explaining that they had been the midwives at Harvald’s birth. She tried to signal Arduin with short waves of her hand, but he didn’t see her.
“Frallas!” she hissed at a matronly blonde handmaiden. “Get the Lord. Quickly!”
Stjepan frowned as Harvald’s sister started walking toward him, trailed by her worried entourage. There was something wrong with her; she almost looked like she was ill, or drunk, she was moving slowly and carefully, almost as if every step took a conscious effort and placed her in danger of toppling over. There was no question now that she was looking straight at him through her veil, her clear blue eyes locked to his. He stepped forward almost involuntarily, wondering what she was doing.
Erim noticed Stjepan move forward and followed his gaze. She blinked when she saw the woman moving toward them. Even with her features partly obscured under a lace mourning veil, it was obvious that she was one of the most beautiful women that Erim had ever seen. “Who is that?” she asked Stjepan. She had seen the woman with the tall, protective Aurian lord by the bier. “Is that Harvald’s sister and her husband?”
“The man’s their older brother Arduin. The Lady Annwyn is unmarried . . .” Stjepan trailed off. He took another step forward as she continued her odd approach.
“A beauty like that, daughter to a landed Baron, unmarried?” Erim asked, but Stjepan ignored her.
Gilgwyr, hearing her question, chimed in. “Ah. The Lady Annwyn was once a fixture of the Court, a beauty of great renown . . . But a scandal has all but guaranteed she will die a spinster. She fell in love with a gallant young knight of Tilfort . . .” He trailed off, joining Stjepan and Erim in staring at Annwyn; everyone in their immediate circle had their eyes on her now. There was no question she was intent on approaching them, approaching Stjepan in particular, in her peculiar stumbling gait.
She was mumbling and moaning to herself as she moved toward them. Her handmaidens moved up around and behind her, uncertainty and distress in their expressions as they tried alternately to help her and stop her, but she ignored them utterly, pushing through their offered arms, intent upon reaching Stjepan. Quiet spread through the nearby crowd of mourners as more and more turned to wat
ch the strange proceeding. Closer, closer, step by excruciating step she struggled, until she was standing before him.
They stood for a moment, looking into each other’s eyes.
“My Lady?” he asked in a low voice, standing very still as though afraid to move and hence startle her to flight.
She stared at him for a long moment, her lips slightly parted.
“Save me, Black-Heart,” she finally whispered.
And then suddenly Annwyn collapsed into his surprised arms and began thrashing about as if in a seizure.
“My Lady!” shrieked several of her handmaidens, and they leapt forward to pull Annwyn out of Stjepan’s gentle grasp, helping her to slump to the paved stone of the plaza at his feet. He didn’t move as they clustered about her. She slowly writhed amongst them, her eyes rolling back into her head.
Malia looked askance at Stjepan, wondering who on earth he could be, but he was just staring at Annwyn with a frown, seemingly as perplexed as she was, and did not seem aware of her or anyone else at all. She turned swiftly and looked toward the bier. She could see Frallas leading Arduin toward them through the gathering crowd. “My Lord!” she cried loudly, waving her arm high in the air. “Please hurry!” Ilona let out a little cry and Malia looked down. Her eyes widened in shock as she saw that Annwyn was suddenly struggling to shed her clothes, tearing at her bodice and its laces. “My Lady! What are you doing?” she asked in alarm. Malia knelt, joining the other handmaidens in trying to stop Annwyn from disrobing, a dark fear and confusion creeping into her. The crowd was pressing in around them, trying to see what was happening, and she was starting to feel as though she was packed into a small box.