I nodded and turned on my heel, Casuel hurrying after, muttering crossly. Luckily for him he’d run out of indignation when we reached a vine-covered bower shading a ring of low benches. At least that meant my continued good reputation was safe because I couldn’t have stood much more of his nonsense without shutting his mouth with a fist.
With evening drawing on, cool, dark leaves swathed the little yard with moist, green fragrance. I sat and closed my eyes and forced myself to take slow, even breaths as the blood pulsed in my head. Noises from the stable yard over in the distance and from the crowd in the road just beyond the wall contrasted with the stillness within the empty bower.
It didn’t last. Casuel started talking again. “I want a runner sent to D’Olbriot, to the Sieur himself. Ryshad, I want paper and ink, do you hear? And sealing wax, at once. No, wait, Esquire Camarl must still be here? Yes, that’s it. I need to see him. No, you need to ask if he’ll see me. Ryshad? Are you listening? Esquire Camarl will vouch for me, won’t he? But what will the Sieur think? Why did that foolish boy go dragging the D’Olbriot Name into some needless turmoil?”
Just as I was thinking I’d better sit on my hands I heard boots falling in measured tread on the gravel.
“Good evening to you.” A scar-faced man with sharply receding hair stepped into the bower, face impassive as he bowed to the wizard and gave me a brief nod of acknowledgement. “I’m Oram Triss, proven man to Tor Kanselin and by the Emperor’s grace Captain of the House Cohort.”
I hoped Casuel knew enough to realise this was Tor Kanselin’s most senior soldier, the man who would answer to the Emperor if the Cohorts were ever summoned to fight a war for Tormalin. Judging by his strangled murmur, the wizard did.
“Raman Zelet, chosen man,” continued Triss, indicating his companion. The tall man had skin tanned a deep copper brown and I noted leather oil deeply ingrained around his fingernails as he set a lacquered tray on a broad stone trough planted with bright summer flowers. He poured wordlessly from a jug of water beaded with condensation and Triss handed Casuel a greenish glass. The wizard drank in hasty gulps, hand shaking to spill cold drops that spotted his shirt.
The proven man smiled reassurance at Casuel. “May I know your name?”
“Fair Festival to you.” Casuel cleared his throat with a creditable assumption of ease. “I am Casuel Devoir, mage of Hadrumal, at present envoy from Archmage Planir the Black to Messire Guliel D’Olbriot, Sieur of that House.” He brushed at the droplets bright on his shirt front but still spilled more water as he put his glass back on the tray.
Zelet raised an eyebrow as he passed me some welcome water. “You’re a wizard.”
Casuel lifted his chin defiantly at the faint distaste in the other man’s face. “And a rational man of good family and disciplined habits.”
Proven Triss laced long fingers with work-hardened joints together. “So what happened?”
“I really have no idea,” Casuel protested. “We got separated in the crowd. I’d been telling him to stay close—” he reached for his glass and took another sip of water. “Then I saw the commotion by the portico. When I got through the mob, I saw Temar had been stabbed.” He appealed to the expressionless Zelet. “You saw that for yourself.”.
“The doorkeeper reckoned someone smashed the lad’s head against the stonework deliberately,” Zelet said to Triss.
The proven man ran a pensive finger along a fine cicatrice beneath his cheekbone. “If this was some cutpurse losing his head and using a knife that’s straightforward enough. We’ve sent word to every barracks, and with Raeponin’s grace someone’ll string the cur up on the nearest gibbet before he uses his blade again.” He turned to me. “But who’d want to dash your boy’s brains out? If this is some private quarrel, some personal grudge, it’s D’Olbriot’s right and duty to deal with it. Tor Kanselin shouldn’t interfere.”
“Why would some cutpurse stab him?” Zelet’s dark eyes bored into Casuel. “In that crowd he could’ve taken the lad’s money and been gone before you drew breath. Why break the lad’s head? Do you know more than you’re saying, master wizard?”
“Your companion certainly seems apprehensive,” Triss remarked to me.
“The sight of blood distresses me,” Casuel’s eyes darted between the two men, making him look more weaselly than ever. “I’m a mage and a scholar, no swordsman.”
What to do for the best, I wondered. “It’s just possible that an enemy already known to the Sieur D’Olbriot might have attacked D’Alsennin,” I said slowly.
“Who?” demanded Zelet.
“Blond men, shorter than common height, enemies of the Empire from across the Ocean,” I began.
“Then it was them ransacked D’Alsennin’s goods in Bremilayne? Why didn’t you warn me? But they’re killers, merciless, evil—” blurted out Casuel before I silenced him with a glare.
“Yellow-haired men?” Zelet’s dark eyes were fixed on me. “Mountain Men?”
“Not as such, though perhaps they were once of the same blood,” I said slowly. “Elietimm they call themselves, Men of the Ice. They live on islands far out in the northern ocean and they’ve ambitions to better themselves by kicking the colonists out of Kellarin or maybe even grabbing land in Dalasor.”
“How would killing Esquire D’Alsennin help them?” Proven Triss wasn’t going to unleash his men until he was good and satisfied this was a true scent.
“He’s the closest thing Kellarin has to a leader.” I’d been thinking about that. “There were precious few nobles on the original sailing, just D’Alsennin, Den Fellaemion and Den Rannion.” I wasn’t about to complicate matters by mentioning Guinalle and Avila. Both were noble born but primarily valued for their skills in Artifice. “Den Fellaemion and Den Rannion were killed, so D’Alsennin’s the only one left with rank to deal with the Names on this side of the ocean.”
“What happens if someone gets a blade through his heart next time?” asked Zelet with frank curiosity.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, and I don’t suppose anyone else does. But the Elietimm will take full advantage of any confusion, Dastennin curse them to drowning.”
“But you don’t know this was these Elietimm,” Proven Triss reminded me.
“Who else could it be?” cried Casuel. “They use knives all the time, lurking in corners to leave innocent men bleeding in the dust.” As the mage clutched unconsciously at his stomach I remembered he carried a twisted line of vivid scarring on his soft pale skin, memento of an Elietimm attack that had left him for dead. Perhaps I should have more sympathy for his panic.
“Did anyone see anything out of the ordinary?” I asked.
Zelet shook his head, acknowledging my grimace of frustration. “The streets were packed like a market stockyard.”
“Of course no one saw anything! Elietimm use enchantments to baffle and deceive.” Casuel turned on me with a weak man’s fury born of fear. “You should’ve pursued them in Bremilayne when you had the chance! They got away! They followed us here! Saedrin’s stones, it could have been me with a knife in my back—”
He threw out a hand in emphasis, sending the tray crashing to the ground where jug and glasses broke into glittering shards, the water spreading dark on the pale gravel. Zelet grunted with faint disdain as he knelt to pick up the pieces.
“Permit me,” said Casuel tightly. The mage snapped his fingers and emerald light flared in every drop of water. The shattered glass glowed golden along each broken edge and the fragments slid noiselessly over each other, fitting themselves into their remembered places. Whole, the jug righted itself as a tracery of magelight glowed with a furnace intensity that seared the eye before suddenly blinking into nothingness. Trickles of spilled water were gathering themselves around the base and rolled into a glistening braid that twisted up and around the swollen belly of the jug. The water reached up and poured itself back over the lip, swirling into an aquamarine spiral, bubbles of green fire sparking from the surface. Casuel plucked a
newly mended glass from the floor, refilled it with surprisingly steady hands, and toasted the two liveried men. “Perhaps the reality of my magic will make you take the possibility of Elietimm sorcery more seriously.”
Triss and Zelet looked steadily at the mage without answering.
“I’ll see you back at the D’Olbriot residence, Chosen Tathel.” With a tide of colour rising from his collar, Casuel got to his feet. “I expect your full report since I have a duty to keep the Archmage informed.”
Triss nodded to Zelet. “Get Master Devoir a carriage. If there are knives with a purpose out there, I don’t want a second D’Olbriot guest stabbed on my watch.”
I stood too, ready to be dismissed, but Proven Triss waved me back into my seat as Zelet escorted Casuel away. “I’m not asking you to break confidences, but there are all manner of rumours about this supposed colony D’Alsennin’s from. Are we really supposed to believe enchantments held this people in sleep over countless generations after some unholy magic wrecked their hopes in Nemith’s day? But there’s no question the Archmage took an interest last year, and D’Olbriot’s had mages like your friend there in his confidence ever since. Now I’m a rational man; I don’t believe a tenth of what I hear, but there’s no denying the truth of magic. I’ll hunt thieves and bandits from one side of the Empire to the other, but I won’t send my men up against fire called to melt the flesh from an honest man’s bones. If D’Olbriot chooses to, that’s for him to justify to his oath-bound.”
“The Elietimm have a style of magic all their own.” I picked my words carefully, thinking rational probably described Proven Triss’s philosophy as well as his character. “It’s not fire and lightning but tangling the wits inside your head. But wise women among the colonists can match it; one’s here with D’Alsennin, the Demoiselle Tor Arrial. She’s been using her skills to heal his wounds.” If Avila could demonstrably cure illness and mend injury, the sooner we’d persuade men like Triss that Artifice wasn’t some dark enchantment to be either feared or banished. I looked him in the eye. “If it was Elietimm did this, we can use mages and Artifice both to draw their teeth without any of yours or D’Olbriot’s risking their neck.”
“If they’re in the city at all,” commented Triss.
“Do you recall Esquire Robel D’Olbriot being attacked the year before last?” I said slowly. “That was the work of those whore-begotten Elietimm.”
Triss scowled. “I heard they didn’t even kill him cleanly.”
“Left him blind and helpless as a swaddled infant.” Anger sharpened my voice. “That was the first of their offences against the Name and they’ve earned our enmity thrice over since. The Sieur D’Olbriot wouldn’t be dealing with wizards otherwise.”
“D’Alsennin wasn’t carrying a purse,” mused Triss. “The knife could just have been spite because there wasn’t any coin.”
“I’ll buy wine for your whole Cohort if you find me some cutpurse with the boy’s blood on his cuffs,” I assured him.
“It’ll empty your purse,” Triss warned me with a grin.
“Coin well spent,” I replied. “Of course it could be happenstance, I know that. It’s Festival after all, there’s always trouble in the lower city, and it wouldn’t be the first time vermin climbed higher.” And the way Casuel’s luck ran, my mother would say he’d get hit by a bowl if it was raining soup. “Does the knife give some hint?”
Triss drew a blade from his belt with a private smile.
“So do you owe Zelet or is he buying the wine tonight?” I turned the cheap blade in my hands, feeling a peculiar frisson at the dark lines of Temar’s blood caught in the binding of the handle.
“I said you’d want to see it,” admitted Triss. “Zelet called no wager.”
“Let me guess, half the Festival hawkers are selling these?” If this were a puppetry tale, I thought ruefully, the blade would be unique to the knifeman and some innocent bystander would helpfully recall seeing him with it. But real life is never that straightforward.
“Three peddlers out of five.” Triss shrugged. “I expect we could find whatever back-alley smithy is knocking out that particular style by the barrel full, but we’d learn no more than that.”
“Of course,” I said lightly, handing the useless blade back.
“I’ll send word if I hear anything, but frankly I doubt there’ll be news.” Triss pursed his lips.
“You and me both.” I nodded ruefully.
“Keep your eyes and ears open, though. Let me know if you learn anything.” Proven Triss got to his feet and I followed him out of the little bower. “We’ll catch the cur if we’ve a scent to follow, and I take it very personally when a guest of my Sieur can’t walk hereabouts in safety.”
“You and me both,” I repeated curtly.
Movement by the residence caught my eye and I saw a blanket-covered litter being gently carried down the steps.
“Permit me to take my leave, Proven Triss?” I said formally.
Triss nodded and turned towards the gatehouse. Avila was walking beside the litter and beckoned to me. “On the other side, if you please, Ryshad.”
I helped steady the burden as Tor Kanselin’s servants and D’Olbriot’s footmen eased the unconscious Temar inside the wide-bodied coach. His face was white as bone in the dim interior and I saw an angry bruise at the edge of a poultice strapped to his temple.
I turned to Avila. “Is he going to be all right?” I asked with a qualm at his stillness.
“He sleeps deep in the shades, by grace of Arimelin’s Artifice,” said Avila calmly. “That will do much to restore him. Tor Kanselin’s surgeon knows his herbs well enough, so I have everything I need for the night.”
“You’ll be sitting with him?” I’d been wondering if I should do that; head injuries can turn nasty in a hurry.
Avila nodded. “So you can find out who did this,” she ordered sternly.
“Casuel thinks it must be the Elietimm,” I said, still looking at Temar.
“Just because the master mage is one part flash and nine parts foolish, do not assume he must be wrong,” Avila commented brusquely.
“True enough.” And if the wizard were right he wouldn’t let me or anyone else forget it this side of the Otherworld.
“Ryshad!” I turned to see Esquire Camarl standing by the door at the top of the steps. He summoned me with a snap of his fingers.
“Esquire.” I bowed as I arrived on the step below him.
“Where were you, Ryshad?” he demanded without preamble.
I hesitated. “Temar wanted me to make some enquiries around the Houses he thinks may have these artefacts he’s searching for. We thought it would save time if I made a start while he was here.”
“D’Olbriot holds your oath, Ryshad, not D’Alsennin.” There was an edge to Camarl’s voice. “Your place was at his side.”
“He should have been safe here. Tor Kanselin’s men are on a par with our own,” I said before realising I was sounding like Casuel trying to excuse himself. I shut my mouth.
“He was hardly safe outside, was he?” snapped Esquire Camarl.
“No.” I admitted with honest regret. “Your pardon, Esquire. I was at fault.”
“There’s more than enough blame to go round, Ryshad. I shouldn’t have spent so much time listening to Irianne’s plans for her wedding dress.” Camarl sighed and his face relaxed a little. “And Temar needs to understand the dignity of his rank these days, that he can’t just go wandering around like some junior son of a cadet line. He should’ve taken a carriage or at least requested a proper escort.” He raised a reprimanding finger at me. “And you need to understand chosen duties a bit better. I know you’re used to using your own initiative when the Sieur sends you on a task halfway across some backward province, but this is Toremal. You send sworn men out on errands, five at a time if you need to, and when they bring back the word you come to me with what I need to know. You’re an upper servant now, and it’s time you acted like one.”
“Esquire.” I waited a moment before speaking again, trying to strike that fine line between dutiful respect and the assertion that would get me my own way. “But we have no sworn men who know anything about the Elietimm. Surely the most important thing now is to look for any trace of them in the city? I’m the only man you can send to do that.”
Camarl looked at me with narrowed eyes. “I suppose that’s true enough. But if you get any sniff of them, you come back and rouse the entire barracks, do you hear?”
“I won’t take any Elietimm on without a full Cohort at my back, on Aiten’s oath,” I promised him.
Camarl smiled sadly. “You learned that lesson the hard way, didn’t you? He was a good man, Aiten, too good to lose to those bastards, and the same is true for you, Ryshad. Be careful.”
“I will,” I assured him. “Do you want me to report to you as soon as I get back?”
“Whatever the chime,” Camarl confirmed. “Wake me if you need to.”
“Watch your back,” Stolley called as I passed him on my way through the gatehouse. I spared him a wave and broke into a jog trot, ignoring the protests of my weary feet. If anyone in the lower city had the answers, I’d take them on the point of my sword if need be.
CHAPTER THREE
Preface to the Chronicle of the House,
As Given by Sieur Loedain D’Olbriot,
Winter Solstice of the 50th Year of
Bezaemar the Canny
It has fallen to few Sieurs of this House to record any Emperor completing a second full generation on the throne, but I find myself thus honoured. Indeed, as I look over the Imperial Rote, I see we have been blessed with more long-lived rulers over the last handful of generations than at any time since the Chaos. The world is a very different place since the days of Decabral, when the Eager, the Nervous and the Merciful all died by the sword. I wonder if Bezaemar the Canny will equal Aleonne the Gallant’s fifty-six years of rule; he has certainly faithfully followed the wise man’s example in using diplomacy to bring us peace instead of the warfare that once so often drained our resources of coin and youth.
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