by Brian Craig
"Semjaza undoubtedly has many ways of discovering the truth,"
replied Rodrigo. "And I have no doubt that he is making most urgent enquiries on the Duke's behalf at this very moment. If there is a plot against the Duke which involves men in his own service, then Semjaza will surely discover it—unless, of course, Semjaza is with the plotters."
Sceberra scowled at the suggestion and shook his head. "No,"
he said, firmly. "I could doubt any other man in the realm, but not Semjaza."
"I cannot see why not," said Rodrigo, who was intent on making Sceberra more uncomfortable than he already was. "He is a very powerful wizard, is he not? I have often wondered why it is that wizards do not use the power of their will to seize the crowns from the heads of common men. I cannot believe that they have no ambition, when they sacrifice so much to their learning, and take such terrible risks in their dealings with daemons and the 99
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legions of the undead."
"The ambition of wizards is not towards temporal power,"
Sceberra told him. "It takes them in another direction. Semjaza is as loyal a friend to the diAvilas as you are yourself, Don Rodrigo."
"There is another way to look at it," said Orfeo, mildly.
Sceberra looked at him with affected contempt, implying by his disdain that a common man ought not to interrupt his betters in such a fashion, but Cordova said: "What way?"
"I have heard it argued," Orfeo continued, in the same mild tone, "That wizards are already the true rulers of most earthly realms, and that the men who actually sit on thrones are mere instruments of their power, whose duty it is to deflect and bear for them the burden of hatred and mistrust which naturally accumulates to the debit of oppressors."
"If a man were to believe one tenth of all that he heard argued,"
Sceberra opined, "he would be not a man at all, but a radish.
There is nothing more absurd than the resentful arguments of the envious and the stupid."
"Oh, you are right," said Orfeo, with little evident trace of irony.
"You are undoubtedly right, my lord, to argue thus."
Sceberra looked at Rodrigo Cordova, his stare quite stony. "If there is one man in the realm I could not trust, Don Rodrigo,"
he said, "it is the one who sits at your elbow and pretends to be your friend. Semjaza examined him last night and pronounced him honest, but the spellcaster was tired and may have been more easily misled than on another occasion. I have heard that the player hurt a child this morning, by striking him about the head and making him fell, and I cannot help but wonder whether his tale of a mysterious conversation overheard in darkness might not be a malicious invention."
"You think this player is a wizard, then?" said Rodrigo, mockingly. "Wizard enough to make a fool of Semjaza?"
Sceberra merely scowled, and made no reply.
"How is the child?" asked Orfeo.
"He recovered from the blow," replied Sceberra, ungraciously.
"And did he say that someone hit him?" Orfeo riposted, with the tiniest emphasis on the word someone.
"No," said Sceberra. "He said that he stumbled and fell. But I do not think that he was telling the truth."
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"Then you must send him to Semjaza," said Orfeo, "and let the sorcerer make sure—though I do not think he can possibly be the mastermind in this plot to murder the Duke's loyal subjects."
Sceberra stood up then, and placed the goblet of wine, unfinished, on the table nearby. "I must be about my business,"
he said, gruffly. "There is treason in the realm, and I must root it out. I do not need to tell you, Don Rodrigo, that you must be on your guard at all times. Trust no one, I beg of you—including myself, if you will. Wherever we may choose to point our accusing fingers, one thing remains certain: a plot which extends into the castle itself can extend into every house in Zaragoz. No man should sleep too soundly until this affair is finished, lest he foil to awake."
Rodrigo Cordova stood too, and went to the door with his guest.
Orfeo remained in the room until his host returned. He looked at the Lady, to see what her reaction might be to the guarded hostility of the conversation, but she did not say anything to him.
Nor did Rodrigo Cordova say anything about the minister's attitude when he returned—though it had been plain all along that he did not like it.
"We still do not know the source of the danger which threatens you, Don Rodrigo," said Orfeo, softly. "And while that is the case, the minister's advice is good. Be on your guard against everyone."
"I have not yet asked Cristoforo to move your belongings to a better room," Cordova said, deliberately passing over what Orfeo had said. "Would you like me to do it now?"
"No," Orfeo replied. "I shall be quite comfortable there." He knew that the remark about his room was a hint that he should go, though the hour was not so very late, and so he stood up. No doubt young Cordova had a great deal to think about, and felt that he could do it better in solitude. But the Lady Marguerite came to her feet also, and spoke to him.
"You have saved my son's life today," she said, "and we owe you a greater debt than we can easily repay. May this house protect you as it has always protected me."
She spoke, of course, as one who had married into the House of Cordova, and so had come under its 'protection'. Orfeo wondered, privately, how much benefit that protection had really been to her, and how much benefit it could continue to be, now that some secret curse might have been awakened in Cordovan 101
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walls or Cordovan blood.
There was a sword-bearing servant waiting in the corridor when he came out—which did not surprise him, given that the staff had been called to arms and placed to keep a watch upon their master.
Orfeo acknowledged the man's presence, then went up the main staircase.
There was another man on guard on the upper floor, who watched Orfeo as he went to the foot of the smaller stairway which led to the servants' attics. The upper floors were dimly lit, by candles which were poorer than those used downstairs and fewer in number. They cast strange shadows in the alcoves and the doorways.
It was easy to believe, as Orfeo looked about him here, that the ancient walls might somehow be alive, ready to awaken from their stillness. Whether there were daemons hiding in the pools of darkness he could not tell, but he had cause enough to feel uneasy as he searched for the little stairway which would take him up to his room.
As he climbed that gloomy flight he reflected that he was, in fact, very tired. That was only to be expected, given that he had had such an active day in hot pursuit of a more than usually active night. He felt in dire need of a period of quiet solitude, safe from all threats, when he could put aside the mysteries which troubled him in favour of healing sleep.
As he opened the door of his room and passed through it, though, he was promptly clubbed from behind, with sufficient force and precision to rob him instantly of his senses.
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Chapter Eight
Orfeo was brought rudely back to consciousness by a bucketful of icy water which was poured over his head as he lay on a cold stone floor.
His head felt very thick and heavy, and he could not immediately raise it from its uncomfortable resting-place, but as soon as he stirred his shoulders were grabbed and he was hauled unceremoniously to his feet. Held erect from behind, by hands which felt as though they must be unnaturally large, he had to fight hard to keep his head from lolling sideways, but he managed in the end to hold it up.
He blinked hard and his vision gradually cleared. Then he saw that he was looking into the face of Estevan Sceberra.
Sceberra, seeing that he was recognized, smiled.
Orfeo looked down at the hands which gripped his arms, which were indeed the largest he had ever seen. Then he looked from side to side. He was in a gloomy cellar, whose air was dank and damp. It had no windows, and he guessed that it mus
t be in the deepest regions of the castle. There was a big stone slab which served as a table—though it seemed more suited to be an altar—and laid out on the slab in neat rows were various iron instruments, including pincers, broad-headed irons, knives and crushing vices.
His sword was also there, and the knife which he used when he 103
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cut meat or cheese.
He tried, rather feebly, to return Sceberra's smile.
"No rack?" he said, faintly. "I had thought that Zaragoz was a civilized realm."
Sceberra's smile did not alter in the least. "Zaragoz is not known for its carpenters," he said, grimly. "The trees grow too thin and crooked in our poor soil to yield an abundance of timber. My predecessors have been known to use common ladders for stretching, but in my reckoning that is a method best suited to the encouragement of women's tongues. Or have you been upon the rack before, and liked it? Perhaps that was how you came to be so tall and thin!"
He signalled then to his huge assistant, who released Orfeo's upper arms and grabbed his wrists instead. Orfeo could not struggle, for the wrists were tightly bound behind his back.
While Orfeo concentrated on retaining his balance the man behind him threaded a long rope around the one which bound him, knotting it around, and then threw the other end of the rope over an iron hook embedded in the ceiling. Then, standing back, he pulled the rope taut, so that Orfeo's bound arms were lifted up behind him, forcing his head forward. He tried to remain standing, but could not, and was lifted clear of the ground by the giant's tugging. The strain on his shoulders firom being held aloft in that position was very great, and the subsequent twisting of his arms hurt him a good deal. He could only do his best not to struggle, thus to minimize the agony.
His body began to rotate, but Sceberra stopped it by putting a hand on Orfeo's shoulder.
"Are you racked enough now, my friend?" asked the minister.
"Please do not fear for my servant—he is very strong, and can hold you there as long as I ask him to. If you become bored, I will ask him to bounce you up and down a little. It is a game which he has enjoyed with several of my guests, and it never Ms to amuse them. Sometimes, they laugh so hard that their arms come out of their sockets at the shoulder—oh, what tears they cry, and what songs they sing! I would wager that you would sing finer songs than most—so fine I might keep you here for ever, that I may hear your repertoire entire!"
But then Sceberra signalled again to his servant, who let his 104
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prisoner down, so that his feet could touch the floor again. Sceberra took his shoulder to help him stand erect.
"I am forgetting myself," said the minister, with mocking concern. "I must not damage your hands, for the lady Veronique would be hurt if you were too bruised to play the lute for her on the Night of Masks."
Orfeo was too confused to plan what to say, and could only say what came into his head. "Does Semjaza know that you have brought me here?" he asked.
"Semjaza!" exclaimed the other, laughing with delight. "Do you think Semjaza would protect you? I fear that you mistook his friendly concern, and the advice which he gave you. He commanded you not to meddle in our affairs, and you repaid his kindness in discovering your innocence by promptly becoming guilty! He would be very disappointed in you, if he knew—but for what it is worth, your presence here is my own secret. You thought that I had used magic to steal you away from Don Rodrigo, did you not? You thought, no doubt, that it was a daemon who plucked you from your room and flew with you out of the window?
But no, it was only a man, and not an invisible one. No one sends a daemon to perform a task which a man can do, and no one uses magic when the task can be done without. Don Rodrigo has many loyal servants, but there are some of his company who owe a higher loyalty than that."
This speech was long enough to allow Orfeo to recover some of his presence of mind, but not quite all.
"Have you only brought me here to hurt me for your pleasure?"
he asked. "Or had you some rational purpose in mind as well?"
He was trying to appear brave, though he knew how foolhardy it was to taunt his captor.
"I have a reason for everything," said the minister.
"What reason did you have for sending the Duke's men-at-arms to murder one of his loyal subjects and take another prisoner?"
The minister shook his head. "You forget, my friend, that it is my turn to ask the questions now."
"Do you really think that I lied to Semjaza?" asked Orfeo. "Do you think that I could have lied to him?"
"I do not know," said the other. "I do not think so, but I might be wrong. Perhaps your friend the man of Law enchanted your 105
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tongue—I cannot tell what ways magicians may have of deceiving one another. But this I do know—that you are no friend of Marsilio diAvila, and must be reckoned to be leagued against him."
"Because I saved his loyal subject from a vile plot? If I have proved myself today the friend of Rodrigo Cordova, does that not make me a friend of Marsilio diAvila too? If it does not, I would like to hear the reason why."
"You are too clever for your own good, my friend," hissed Sceberra, "but your reckoning will come soon enough, now that I have you."
"I cannot see that you need me," said Orfeo, sourly. "Indeed, I cannot see why you are anxious, when you have the priest of Law safe and sound."
Even as he said the words, he realized their significance, and Sceberra could not keep his face straight enough to stop his prisoner seeing the truth.
"By all the gods," said Orfeo, "you do not have him safe and sound, do you? Despite that Semjaza knocked him down, he had strength and cunning enough to escape your clutches!"
"Aye," growled the minister. "He escaped from this prison last night—while Semjaza was questioning you. Had he and I not been so occupied, I do not think he could have got away—which makes me think that you served his cause, knowingly or not."
Orfeo held his tongue then, not wanting to tell the minister what other conjectures came into his mind. But he could not help but wonder whether Arcangelo had gone into the hollow mountain, and whether Semjaza might be afraid of what he might find and do there. And he could not help wondering, either, whether Semjaza might be anxious that his enemy would find the way within the crag which led to Rodrigo Codova's house—and whether that had been the reason that the Duke's men had been sent to take Rodrigo prisoner. At last, he thought, he had begun to see the pattern which this web of intrigue had.
But what good could it possibly do him now?
"Semjaza has such faith in himself," said the minister, "that he still believes you innocent. For myself, I do not care whether you are innocent or not. You have done what we warned you not to do, and now you must bear the consequence of that."
Sceberra's hand lay quietly on Orfeo's shoulder while he spoke, 106
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but when he finished he lifted it to see if Orfeo could stand alone.
Then, finding that Orfeo could stand, he took the hand away, and carefully opened his prisoner's shirt by the cord which tightened the neck. Though it was not part of the player's finery it was a flimsy garment, and when Sceberra suddenly ripped at it the material tore all the way down, leaving Orfeo's left breast bare.
Sceberra touched the nipple on the breast, and said: "How stupid the hand which shaped us was, to give to men what only women need and use—do you not agree?"
"It is no great inconvenience to have it there," Orfeo replied.
"You do not think so?" said Sceberra with a laugh. "You are such a disagreeable man, Master Player, that I feel a need to make you see my point of view for once."
So saying, the minister picked up from the stone table one of the several sets of pincers which were there, and with one hand on each handle he opened the jaws wide, placing them upon Orfeo's chest, on either side of the useless nipple. He paused for a few seconds, permitting Orfeo to contemplate the prospec
t, and then he closed the jaws with a convulsive thrust, savagely crushing the flesh which they pinched.
Orfeo screamed with agony, and feinted dead away.
Oddly enough, though he was sure that his senses had deserted him, he could still feel the pain—not only the agony beside his heart, but also the cruel wrenching of his wrists as he fell. It was not fair, he thought, as he seemed becalmed in a world of pure pain, that he could not find release even in oblivion.
But then, mercifully, he did, and hoped that in finding it he was cheating his torturer of some small measure of his cruel satisfaction.
So exhausted was poor Orfeo that his oblivion ultimately gave way to sleep, which no doubt did its healing work at last—but it seemed at the time no proper release, because his sleep was full of dreams and the dreams were born of pain, which made them nightmares.
In those nightmares the luckless player was put to the question more severely than he had been in fact, racked by ropes and rent by pincers, with Sceberra's face—distorted by malice—forever thrusting itself into his to spit at him and laugh at his distress.
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Semjaza's face was there too, distorted by that corruption of his being which marked him as a servant of things unknown and unnamable, but which gave him a power to hurt which was far beyond the crudity of Sceberra's tools.
Orfeo's sleep was such a hell of anguish, in fact, that it seemed a better release when he finally managed to thrust his soul back to the surface of wakefulness, where the pains which he felt were found to be ordinary after all.
His wrists were sore, but no longer bound. There was a dull fire close to his heart. His whole body had been jarred and bruised.
But all of this was superficial, and it was bearable.
He opened his eyes to yellow candlelight, which would have seemed far dimmer but for the glister of the slime upon the walls of the chamber which contained him. The candle-tray was close beside him, near to his head. He was lying on a thin-laid pallet of dirty straw, which did not entirely conceal the hardness of the cold stone floor.