The Rose of the World

by Jude Fisher

  And if they were dead, he thought, his jaw firming against the pain of such a possibility, then he would avenge them, and lose his life in the process.

  The lassitude which had afflicted him since his discovery of the disaster that had come to Rockfall began to slough away with each pull of the oar through these foreign waters. The very obstinacy which had brought him under the thrall of magic – to Virelai’s map and the lure of gold, to Sanctuary and the wiles of the mage – now formed a hardpan of determination through which nothing else could permeate. Purpose put backbone into his stroke and iron into his soul.

  As a cloaking mist gathered around them, it was a very different Aran Aranson who advanced into enemy territory to the broken man who had left the smoking ruins of his home.

  Just before first light, Tycho Issian rose from the bed beside the torpid body of the Rose of the World and joined his sentries on the battlements. There was little to be seen. An enveloping mist lay over the landscape below, blanketing the vista. Only the tops of the highest hills poked through the inversion layer, stark against the white as if all the colour in the world had seeped away in the night.

  A single shape moved above the mist: its wings wide, primary feathers spread like fingers. Sideways it slipped on an unseen air current and vanished.

  Tycho Issian turned to the captain of the sentry.‘Do ravens make their home in these parts?’

  The man he addressed was young and town-bred: his eyes went wide at the enquiry. Impatiently, the Lord of Cantara repeated his question, addressing all the men lined along the crenellations.

  They avoided his eye; all but one, an ancient soldier oiling the mechanism on his crossbow. ‘Not around here, no, sir,’ he said softly. ‘Not since the forest was cut down.’

  He inserted a quarrel, lifted the weapon and sighted down its length; but the raven was gone and nothing else stirred.

  Tycho Issian felt a tremor in his stomach.

  ‘Summon the archers,’ he told the captain. ‘Every man of them. Make sure they are well supplied with ammunition. When this mist clears they may have many targets to test their skill.’

  Then he turned on his heel and fled down the stairs, his heart hammering in his chest.

  The raven brought curious news.

  Ravn wound the knotted string thoughtfully around his hand and stashed it in his jerkin. Then he turned to Rahe. ‘Thank you for the mist, Master Sorcerer, but I think it is now time for us to survey our whereabouts and treat the enemy to a view they will never forget.’

  Rahe inclined his head. He muttered words into the ether, and waited. Nothing happened. He pursed his lips. It would hardly do for the northern king to realise this useful weather event had been little of his doing: the mist was a natural phenomenon, though he had gathered the threads of it and drawn it more closely over their fleet than might otherwise have been the case.

  ‘Well?’ said Ravn impatiently. ‘Come along, get rid of the stuff now that it has served its purpose.’

  ‘Patience, my lord, patience. There are a million million droplets of water suspended in the air above us: do you wish them to turn to a torrent and overwhelm the ships?’

  Ravn ground his teeth. He gave the signal for oars to be shipped and watched as the crew of Sur’s Raven moved quickly and expertly to his will. The signal was passed from ship to ship; and from ship to ship a great hush spread as everyone waited further command. Ravn unsheathed his blade and touched its pommel to his forehead. The metal was cool against his hot skin: he could feel his blood boiling inside him, ready to fuel his muscles to action. All around him men hunched over their weapons, testing the edges of their swords and spears, checking the fixings on their bowstrings, running their fingers down the fletchings of arrows: the things men always did in the unsettling lull before conflict: automatic actions designed to divert their minds from inevitable thoughts of pain and death.

  At last the sun began to do its work, the first rays lancing down through the cloud layer to touch the water with chilly light, and now Rahe made a great effort to help it on its way.

  As the mist began to clear, they saw the city of Cera before them, its towers gleaming golden in the new light. All along the battlements of its walls, men in the bright armour and red tabards of the city stood ranged.

  ‘It seems we are expected,’ Ravn said softly.‘But no matter: they would have known of our presence soon enough.’

  He gave orders for the fleet to be beached where a great shallow curve in the river offered a long muddy strand; then the Sur’s Raven and two flanking ships sailed on, anchoring the vessels just out of arrowshot. Ravn vaulted over the gunwale, splashed through the shallow water, to stare up at the castle. It was indeed as the message had told: the city’s ancient guard wall was gone – he could see the shattered remnants at the eastern end of the fosse. What lay within was an elegant castle and behind that an extensive and lovely town; but one which was no longer well fortified. A wide, and rather muddy, lake stretched out all around so that a second Cera shimmered in reflection of the original and a rickety-looking bridge had been erected from the great iron-bound gate at the front of the castle to a patch of churned ground on the river side of the lake. It looked new, for the wood was not yet silvered by the elements.

  Beyond the muddy moat, smooth walls of dressed stone rose to turreted towers and a narrow battlement. Somewhere inside those walls his wife and child were captive. If the power of his gaze could have burned through rock, Cera’s pretty castle would surely have been incinerated at that moment.

  His men ranged up behind him, spearheads glittering. Behind them, the beached fleet made a forest of prows and masts as far as the eye could see. It was a sight to strike terror into the heart of any Istrian. Ravn gathered his breath to hail the inhabitants of the castle and challenge his enemy to emerge, when suddenly a door within the great gate opened and two splendidly caparisoned horsemen issued out of it and trotted nervously out onto the bridge.

  Ravn held up his hand before his bowmen shot them full of quills. ‘Let them come!’ he cried.

  The two young riders bore white pennants and looked fearful, despite their rich trappings.

  Ravn turned to Stormway. ‘Have they come to surrender already, Bran?’ he wondered aloud; but the old man laughed. ‘Not the Lord of Cantara,’ he said. ‘The man’s a fanatic by all accounts. They probably come to offer you terms of surrender.’

  Ravn snorted; but Stormway was not short of the mark.

  The riders dismounted and one of them approached. ‘Which of you is the leader of this force?’ he enquired in a heavily accented Old Tongue.

  ‘I am.’

  The man looked Ravn up and down disbelievingly: he was more finely turned out by far than the dirty-looking barbarian who stood before him in his scuffed leather armour covered in rust-spotted iron discs, his patched leather breeches, salt-stained boots, and tangled black hair. But the piercing eyes which looked haughtily down at his were hard and unwavering. He decided not to query the speaker’s claim.

  ‘I bring a missive from the Lord of Cantara, commander of the City of Cera,’ he said.

  Ravn put out his hand, but the messenger shook his head.

  ‘My lord of Cantara says that you are to leave here at once, you and your army: you must set sail at once and be gone by noon.’

  ‘And if I do not?’ Ravn was visibly amused by such effrontery.

  ‘That is all I am to tell you.’ The first rider took a step back, but Ravn gripped him swiftly by the arm and gave him into the custody of the Earl of Stormway. ‘Not so fast, messenger. There is more, I know it.’

  The man bowed his head and shot a glance back at his companion. This young man was trembling visibly. He held onto his horse’s reins so hard it seemed that he feared he might simply crumple to the ground if he let go.‘Flavo, give the Eyran king the rest of the message.’

  Staring at the mud between his boots, the second rider mumbled something inaudible.

  ‘Speak up, son!’
Bran roared, and the boy leapt as if bee-stung.

  ‘He says: your wife and child will remain unharmed as long as you leave here by noon and do not return.’

  Ravn took a step forward, but the boy’s terror had taken hold of him. He tried to mount his horse, but the animal shied and stepped away, leaving him sprawling on the ground. River mud seeped into his silver-trimmed cloak and fine silk hose. Then he was on his feet again and running for his life back towards the citadel. One of the archers drew his bow, but Ravn knocked it down.

  ‘No,’ he said curtly, his face suffused with blood. ‘Let him go. My message to the Istrian lord will make all the more impact if they see the state in which he returns.’

  At his elbow, Egg Forstson looked puzzled. ‘But your grace has not sent a message back to them.’

  ‘That may take a little time.’

  The screams of the first messenger lasted for many spine-chilling minutes, then were abruptly cut off. In Cera’s castle, men looked fearfully at one another and talked in low voices. Nothing happened for the best part of an hour, during which time Tycho Issian paced furiously up and down the battlements. Then a horse broke loose from the Eyran lines and hammered its way back over the bridge towards the city.

  The Lord of Cantara took the stairs down to the courtyard at a run.

  No one had yet dared to open the gate. He berated the guards roundly and slid the bolts back himself. Moments later, he wished he had not done so, for in through the stone arch came a monstrosity. The elegant bay and its richly dressed rider which had left the castle a short time before now returned horribly changed. One guard promptly vomited onto the flagstones; another fainted clean away. Bucking and rolling its eyes, it took four men to control the animal; but not before it had dislodged the larger part of its obscene cargo. It stood, looking down at the thing it had borne, whickering in distress, its new, second, head hanging limply from the coarse stitches which held it to its neck.

  At its feet lay the rest of what remained of the messenger: namely, his skin. It had been flayed, with supernatural exactitude, from his body, and stretched upon a framework of branches. A message had been carved into it; and judging by the amount of blood smeared across the letters, carved while the hide was still on the unfortunate messenger.

  SEND OUT MY WIFE + BOY

  OR WE TAKE DOWN YR CITY

  STONE BY STONE

  + FLAY ALIVE ALL WITHIN

  A MAGE RIDES WITH US: THIS IS HIS WORK

  EXPECT NO REINFORCEMENTS

  YR PIGEONS ARE DEAD

  It was signed with a barely legible flourish: Ravn Asharson had never devoted a great deal of his time to learning the universal written code on parchment, let alone on skin.

  White with rage, Tycho Issian dropped the foul thing onto the ground, then kicked it viciously around the courtyard till it was broken and indecipherable, and he was sweating and bespattered. The onlookers watched, appalled. If this was the prepossession of the man in command, surely they were better to flee the city now and take their chances. Indeed, as soon as the lord went back into the castle, some did just that, casting off their uniforms and running to fetch their wives and children. No one stopped them.

  On the stairs, the Lord of Cantara found Virelai cowering forlornly by an arrow slit. He looked even paler than usual. Tears coursed down his cheeks.

  ‘A mage!’ Tycho howled, hauling him upright. ‘They say they have a mage with them. I have a sorcerer: how many of you damned magicmakers are there in this world?’

  ‘It is Rahe,’ Virelai whispered. ‘He has come for me.’

  ‘Rahay? Who is this Rahay?’

  ‘My master,’ the pale man murmured, wringing his hands. ‘I stole his magic. I stole the Rose from him . . .’

  Now Tycho looked thunderous. ‘The Rose? The woman I rescued from the Eyran king? The Rosa Eldi? My Rose?’

  Virelai nodded dumbly.

  The Lord of Cantara regarded him through narrowed eyes, taking this in. Then his face went shuttered and still, a sign that he was calculating something. ‘But if she was his, why has he allied himself to Ravn Asharson . . . Is it a ruse? Does he use the barbarian as his stalking horse, I wonder? Perhaps all is not lost . . .’ He caught Virelai by the shoulders, shook him roughly. ‘Stop this. I need your arts. Pull yourself together, man!’

  By the time the lord holding Cera responded to the message, the sun was climbing in the sky and Ravn Asharson was twitching with impatience. Tycho Issian appeared on the battlements in his finest garb: beside him stood a tall figure in the flowing green silk of an Istrian sabatka. In her arms, a baby was cradled.

  Ravn caught his breath, felt a stabbing pain in his heart.

  ‘It is her!’ he cried.

  Rahe frowned. ‘It is a veiled woman. It could be anyone.’

  ‘I would know my wife anywhere.’

  Rahe stared up at the battlements, his white beard bristling with distrust. Then he made an incantation and, shuddering, disappeared. In his place, a kestrel hovered. It perched for a second on the startled king’s shoulder then, digging its talons sharply into the skin, it gathered itself and soared into the air. Straight as an arrow it flew for the castle, circled briefly over the heads of the Lord of Cantara and his entourage, then planed swiftly sideways and returned to the Eyran lines. It came to rest on the grassy sward by the river, where it stood, head down, tiny breast visibly palpating. Just as Ravn thought it was about to expire, its shape shimmered blearily, and in its place an old man lay prostrate on the ground, gasping for breath.

  After what seemed an age, Rahe pushed himself clumsily to his feet and, swaying, lurched back to the King, who regarded him ruefully.

  ‘If the small matter of shape-shifting can reduce you to near death, I am concerned that your powers may not be such as you vaunted, Master Magician.’

  Rahe drew himself up.‘Shape-shifting is no “small matter”, my boy: it is perhaps the greatest transformation a mage can perform, for it requires both a spell of Making and Unmaking, rather than a mere spell of Seeming.’

  Ravn shifted from one foot to the other, possibly a displacement activity to stop him from kicking the mage. ‘What did you see?’

  ‘It is the Rose,’ the mage pronounced mournfully. ‘Only her lips were visible, but, ah: how well I remember those lips!’

  Ravn crushed the question which begged to be aired. Then he asked: ‘And my son?’

  Rahe shrugged. ‘There was a child in her arms. Ask me no details. Babies are babies: they all look the same.’

  Now a white pigeon came winging its way from the castle.

  Ravn stared at it, one eyebrow raised. ‘A messenger bird, mage, or do they also have a shape-shifter?’

  The old man looked away, irritated.

  ‘Only one way to find out,’ muttered Ravn, taking up his bow.

  Down came the bird, cleanly spitted. A dead bird, that was all. A warrior retrieved it for the king.

  Ravn unwound the fabric from the bird’s tail. ‘The woman and child are my hostages,’ he read. ‘Leave now, or we shall see whether your heir can fly.’ He balled the silk up in his fist. ‘By the god, I shall rip his heart out!’ He turned to Rahe. ‘Can you not turn yourself into a firedrake and incinerate him where he stands?’

  The mage spread his hands apologetically. ‘Unfortunately, my lord king, I can only transform myself into creatures which still exist in this world; and the firedrake has been extinct for a great time now.’

  ‘Well, a lion, then; an eagle – tear his eyes out, then carry my queen and son back to me.’

  ‘A lion could never leap so high; and as an eagle, well . . . they would shoot me down before I ever got the chance to approach their lord, and then you would have squandered your most precious weapon.’

  Ravn looked him up and down distastefully. ‘You do not seem so precious to me at the moment: indeed, word of your presence does not appear to have dismayed them much at all. Damnation. Bran, Egg!’

  The two old advisers came q
uickly to his side.

  ‘He threatens my boy if we do not withdraw.’

  The earls exchanged glances. They looked haggard. Neither wanted to speak first.

  ‘What? Out with it!’

  Egg looked at his feet. Stormway sighed. ‘He has nothing to lose by using one of them as a demonstration of his determination, while he still holds the other as a hostage against your conduct.’

  Ravn’s eyes bulged. ‘He would hurt my son?’ He paused, fury gathering. ‘He would hurt my wife?’

  Egg shook his head quickly. ‘Not your wife, sire: I am sure he will do nothing to harm the lady. But the boy . . .’

  Ravn gritted his teeth. ‘He would not dare.’ He turned to his men. ‘Do we bow to this threat?’ he cried. ‘Do we crawl away from this place like beaten dogs, or do we show its lord what happens to those who steal our loved ones?’

  The Eyrans roared and waved their swords, then beat them, booming, against their linden shields so that a great drumbeat rose up through the ranks.

  Ravn touched his fist to his chest where the drumming reverberated through his breastbone like courage incarnate. ‘You see, Bran? Nothing will stop them. We shall take this castle and I shall tow its lord’s carcass back to Halbo behind my ship!’

  Tycho Issian rubbed his hands together. ‘Well done, Virelai. Magnificent, in fact.’

  Virelai was still trembling uncontrollably. Partly it was that the proximity of the Master was hard to bear, partly that he now knew the identity of the white queen beneath whose robe he now cowered, holding up the child, his arms shuddering with the effort of it. Why did she not strike him down, even now, in her semiconscious state? He had used her unforgivably as they travelled the world; he had shown her no respect, yet she had never once chided him for his lewd schemes, for the money he had taken from her despoliation. And now he had made her walk, to perform this despicable tableau: was there no end to his ignominy?

  ‘Now, give me the boy.’

  Virelai looked up through the slit in the robe. ‘The boy?’

  ‘They have not yet withdrawn.’