Ars Magica

by Judith Tarr

Arnulf was not so ungracious as to gloat over his victory. “You know what you do best,” he said to Gerbert when it was over. The election, without Gerbert’s rivalry to slow it, had been a simple thing; less simple the task of transforming a clerk into an archbishop. He was still rubbing his new tonsure when he spoke to Gerbert, ruefully, for as a clerk he had not been as scrupulous in maintaining it as a priest and an archbishop must be; and he had been vain of his yellow curls. “What you’ve done, by all means, go on doing. I’ll not meddle except as I must.”

  Nor had he, as spring bloomed into summer, and as the king’s war with Charles showed no sign of abating for any of Arnulf’s doing. Little as he could do, with an archdiocese to settle. He was not doing badly, Gerbert judged, though he was learning that wide blue eyes and an air of invincible innocence were of little use in contending with fractious underlings.

  Now they were all here in the mellow gold of harvest time, gathered in council by their archbishop’s command. Gerbert, absorbed in the complexities of housing, feeding, and entertaining all the bishops and half the lords of the see, hardly noticed that Arnulf was making himself scarce. He did notice that the inner school had gone rather abruptly out of session.

  “The archbishop ordered it.” Richer was still there, but clearly that was his own choice. “What with the council and the uproar and the scarcity of lodgings, his excellency has given us all a holiday.”

  Gerbert had thought that his anger was long since cooled. It startled him with sudden, searing heat. “His excellency? His excellency, was it? Who is the master of this school? He or I?”

  Richer was quite unfrightened. If anything, he looked as if he was enjoying himself. “He said that you were occupied completely in setting up the council; you didn’t need to fret yourself with other matters, when he could take them so well in hand.”

  Gerbert half rose from his worktable. But behind the flare of temper was cold logic, and cold logic reminded him that Arnulf was, after all, archbishop. There would be time enough later to teach him where not to trespass.

  Richer poked his long nose into the letter which Gerbert had been reading. Gerbert forbore to snatch it away. “So,” the monk said. “You’ve still got friends at the imperial court.”

  “To little enough purpose,” Gerbert muttered.

  “Yet.” Richer picked through the books on the table. “Will the empress offer you a place in her following, do you think?”

  “Why should she? She has troubles enough of her own, without fretting over a single very minor servant who happens to have fallen into a trap of his own making.”

  Gerbert made little effort to hide his bitterness. Richer stopped fidgeting and regarded him steadily. “You could leave.”

  “No,” said Gerbert. “I’ll go only if I go to something better. Arnulf hasn’t meddled with me before this; I’m not so wretched as you might think.”

  “I never thought you were.” Richer paused. “Is it true, what they say of her? That she’s mastered the Greek magic?”

  “Mastered it,” Gerbert said, “no. She married too young; she centered too much of herself on being queen. But she has magic, and some little wisdom in its ways. Once it seemed that she might want to learn from me. Now... who knows? An empire is as demanding a master as any on this earth.”

  “As demanding as you?”

  Gerbert glared; then, unwillingly, he laughed. “Almost. Do you have something useful to do here, or are you trying to waste my time?”

  The boy did not even trouble to blush. “I’m wasting your time, of course. You forgot dinner again, did you know that?”

  “Bruno remembered,” said Gerbert, rising. “Since you have time on your hands, you can spare a little of it, surely, in aid of your education. When did you last trouble your head with astronomy?”

  Richer managed to look both eager and dismayed. Music and medicine were his first loves. Astronomy, he had no great talent for. He tended to fall asleep. Still, he said, “I haven’t forgotten too much of it.”

  “Good,” said Gerbert. “You can do my calculations for me.”

  oOo

  By a shielded lantern, on the roof, while Gerbert compared the sky to his charts and added new figures to his old ones. Richer did not mind. He had the abacus to play with, that miracle of the Moors which Gerbert had brought back with him from Spain. The stars were singing their high cold song. The roofs of Rheims spread below, and beyond them the walls, and the darkness of field and river and wood. It was a fine warm night. Almost too warm for a woolen habit. Richer rolled up the sleeves and bared his knobby knees and an inch or so of linen trews, letting the soft air cool him.

  Gerbert seemed not to notice. He was never anything but properly covered, winter or summer. The students liked to wonder what was under it. Maybe he had a tail, like an Englishman; or a cloven hoof. Though Richer had seen his feet in sandals, and they were perfectly ordinary feet.

  “Asleep already?” Gerbert asked a little sharply.

  He started, blushing fiercely in the dark. “No! My mind was wandering.”

  “So it was,” said Gerbert. “There, now. Where did you leave off?”

  Richer began to tell him, paused.

  Gerbert was on his feet. The city, the wall, the field: all lay wrapped in night. On the field, something glittered; something rang, far and faint. Like metal on metal.

  Like a gate opened that should have been locked fast; like armed men let into the sleeping city. Like — very like treachery.

  Gerbert’s face in the starlight was white and shocked. Not that it had happened. That he had had no warning at all.

  Richer rifled his memory for an idea, a spell, anything. He found only emptiness.

  Armed feet rang on the stone of the stair. The trapdoor was open in all good faith; it belched forth helmets, armor, drawn swords. Gerbert made no sound as they seized him. Richer fought, and got a drubbing for his pains. Gerbert was wiser. The one man who raised a fist against him, met his eyes and drew back muttering.

  oOo

  They were all penned in the archbishop’s hall: a fine catch of notables in every stage of dress and undress. One young lord was as naked as he was born, and loudly furious. A lissome figure clung to him, darting glances through a veil of hair. If she was frightened, she had it well in hand, and her lover with it, and the cloak that slipped just far enough to bare a white curve of shoulder. Richer would remember that afterward: the bold brown eyes, the soft white skin amid the bobbing tonsures.

  Arnulf was in the middle of it, as ruffled and seemingly as astonished as anyone, in his habit but without cincture or pectoral cross. He had, Richer observed, taken time to put on his ring of office. Or perhaps he slept in it. The amethyst glowed as he threw up his hands. His high voice rang over the tumult. “In heaven’s name, brothers, I know no more than you.”

  “Indeed.” Gerbert’s voice, a soft growl. People clamored at him; he ignored them. “Look to your archbishop,” was all he would say.

  The uproar muted abruptly. A man entered under armed escort as had they all, but this one was armed himself, his helmet under his arm, his mail-coif pushed back on his shoulders. A wind seemed to pass through the hall: a long sigh.

  Arnulf favored his mother for looks. Charles the duke, who called himself Charles the king, was a truer Caroling. Like Lothair his brother, he was a sand-colored man, long-faced, mild and almost scholarly to look at, even in armor. Even crowned.

  Richer’s knees had been bred to bend to men of that line. Even angry and betrayed, he was hard put not to bow. It was Gerbert who showed him sanity. The master seemed calm enough, but he did not move.

  “Sir!” Arnulf strode from among his bishops in a fine fire of outrage, and faced his uncle. “Sir, what is this? What right have you to stand in this hall?”

  “As much right as you,” Charles answered him, “nephew. How is it that I find you running like a hound at the usurper’s heel?”

  Arnulf raised his chin. “He is the duly elected king of the F
ranks.”

  “Not here,” said Charles coolly, “and not now. Rheims is mine.”

  “Yours by treachery!” Arnulf cried. “Who has done it? Tell me!”

  “You don’t know?” Charles beckoned. A man in a priest’s robe emerged slowly from the shelter of guards. “Come, Father Alger. Show these men what loyalty is.”

  Defiant, Richer judged, and afraid. The man kept darting glances at Arnulf, who disdained to acknowledge his existence. Others, less haughty, snarled like dogs. Alger retreated to safety.

  Charles shrugged, smiling. As well he could afford to. Had he not snatched this jewel from the very hand of the King of the Franks? To his nephew he said, “Will you submit?”

  “Never,” said Arnulf.

  “You grieve me.” Charles did not sound as if he would die of it. He raised his voice slightly, to be heard in the hall. “Any who will bow and swear fealty to me may go free.”

  No one moved; no one spoke. Richer could admire that kind of courage. Though perhaps it was plain paralysis.

  “So, then,” said the duke. “Is it prison you choose?”

  Still, silence. One or two, perhaps, would have spoken, but the others quelled them.

  “Take them,” said the duke.

  Richer had to get a grip on Gerbert’s habit and refuse to let go, but he had his way: he was locked with his master in a single cell. It had belonged to one of the archbishop’s servants; it had a pallet spread on the floor, a box of oddments, even a bottle of appallingly bad wine. A slit of window let in a little air and a great deal of uproar.

  “They’re sacking the city,” Richer said. He did not know why he should be surprised.

  Gerbert had refused the wine, for which Richer could hardly blame him. He sat against the wall, clasping his knees, and seemed content to drowse. When Richer spoke, he opened an eye. “Of course they are. How do you think a commander pays his troops?”

  “But it’s the city,” Richer repeated, like an idiot.

  Gerbert sighed. “It always is.”

  Richer spun about, fists clenching and unclenching, eyes darting. “We can get out. We can call up the magic. We can blast them all.”

  “Try it,” said Gerbert.

  His tone stung Richer almost to madness: half resigned, half mocking. Richer snatched at fire, at magic, at the roots of his rage.

  At nothing. It was there. He could not grasp it. When he tried, it turned to air and scattered.

  “Yes,” Gerbert said as if he had spoken. “He came prepared for us. There’s a warding on his army; there’s a mage sustaining it. Otric, I think: an old rival of mine from the emperor’s court; or a pupil of his. He was always a master of windy emptiness.”

  Richer dropped down in an untidy tangle of limbs. “Damn them.”

  Gerbert did not rebuke him, which was as good as agreement. After a little while the master stretched out on the pallet and went peacefully to sleep.

  Richer was no such master of his fears. He paced until his feet ached. He tried the door, which would not budge. It had an iron bar, a cold bite on the edge of his magic. He peered out of the window, which granted a view only of a wall and a sliver of paling sky. He crouched in a corner and twitched, and tried to find some shadow of his master’s patience.

  oOo

  Gerbert was biding his time. There was nothing else that he could do. He slept a little, less than he needed. Mostly he waited. None of the others had been taken away alone. As alone, at least, as Richer would allow. He could not help but conclude that he was wanted for something in particular. Not his magic, surely, if Charles had his own tame magus. Though even as a young mage not yet raised to mastery, Gerbert had managed to best Otric on his own chosen ground.

  He could only wait, and hoard his power and his body’s strength, and rest as best he might. His dreams were dim and troubled. He kept hearing a sound like shaken bronze, or like the Jinniyah’s voice; but he could not understand the words. Only their urgency.

  He started awake. By the light, it was full morning. Richer had fallen asleep propped against the wall; he snored softly. For all his gangling length and the bristle of stubble on his chin, he looked like a child. Gerbert eased him down to the pallet, waking him not at all, except to a dreamy murmur and a drawing together on the mat. His snoring had stopped, which was a mercy.

  Gerbert stretched the stiffness out of his bones, rubbing eyes that felt sandy with tiredness. Thus far he had resisted the temptation to castigate himself for seven different kinds of fool. He should have known that this would happen. He should have planned for it; guarded against it.

  How was he to know that, when it came, it would not come from Arnulf?

  Had it not?

  His mind saw again the scene in the hall. A drama worthy of Seneca. The uncle, triumphant. The nephew, betrayed. The audience, deceived.

  Alger had not played his part as well as he might. He had not looked to the duke; he had looked to Arnulf. He should have known what he would get for his pains. No gratitude, and precious little silver. Traitors were not cherished even by those who bought them.

  Gerbert was ready when the guards came to fetch him. They barely woke Richer, and Gerbert did not try. He staggered as he rose; the guards had to hold him up. They were not unkind. He would remember that.

  The new master of Rheims had had the grace, at least, not to claim the archbishop’s palace. The king’s high house was more suited to the scope of his ambition. The road between was paved with ruin.

  They were not killing people yet. But there were other horrors than killing. Women raped. Men beaten for defending what was theirs. Doors broken down, houses ransacked, belongings both precious and common scattered in the streets. Gerbert saw a soldier with his breeks undone and a great silver chain about his neck, guzzling ale out of a cookpot. He saw men pouring out grain like gold and trampling it. He saw real gold flung about like offal, the moneyers’ stock turned to a plaything for drunken robbers. He saw a broken city and a bitter winter; he saw a white clarity of wrath.

  That wrath brought him into the conqueror’s presence. Charles was taking what seemed to be his ease among his vassals, dandling the woman who, only the night before, had clung so touchingly to her young lord. She seemed quite content with the change.

  Gerbert, whose eyes were bitterly clear, could not see cause to despise her. She was merely surviving.

  An art which he might do well to learn. He stood in front of the duke and held up his head, and said, “You are destroying this city.”

  He had shocked the rest, but not Charles of Lorraine. “I am chastising it. It turned away from the true line of kingship to a shabby pretender.”

  “Much the same was said of your ancestors when they displaced the long-haired kings.”

  “Ah,” said Charles with a curl of his lip. “An old argument, and weak. I had thought better of you, sir — what shall I call you? Father? Magister? Lord magus?”

  “Whatever you name me, I remain myself. The city remains, and it is suffering. That is its winter store which your men are dissipating in the gutters. That is its gold which they take, the gold which might preserve its people from starvation.”

  “Armies hunger also,” Charles said. “Armies eat. Armies die unless they are fed.”

  “Armies burn or trample whatever they themselves cannot eat.”

  Charles sat up, dislodging the woman, who retreated with an angry glance at Gerbert. “Some excess is inevitable. That will be seen to. You may hang an offender or two yourself, if it will appease you.”

  “Why do you care to appease me?”

  “I need you.” The simplicity of that brought Gerbert up short. Charles smiled faintly. “You make a career out of that, it seems. The indispensable man. Hugh the Monk was hard put to it to conceive of Rheims without you. My nephew had to promise to make you his secretary and to give you anything you asked for, before his pretended majesty would begin to consider handing over the miter.”

  “It was my impression that
you were part of the bargain.”

  Charles’ smile widened. “And so I was: but not as any of you had imagined. What ever made you think that my dear brother’s son would turn on his own family?”

  “Where is he now?”

  “With all the rest of Hugh’s loyal fools. In my prison in Laon.”

  Gerbert shook his head. “Why does he trouble? An idiot could deduce who plotted this.”

  “No one but an idiot would have given him the archbishopric while I live to command his loyalty. Hugh Capet will bow to me yet, Master Gerbert. Then Arnulf will rule Rheims as Hugh himself gave him leave to do, and as the Church has chosen.”

  “The Church chose a lie.”

  “It chose,” said Charles. “You bowed to it.”

  “I bowed to necessity,” Gerbert said.

  The duke nodded. “They say that you are a practical man. This city will need practicality if it wishes to survive intact until spring. You can defy me, sir, and take the city with you. Or you can serve the city by accepting the necessity of my presence in it.”

  Gerbert’s jaw tightened. Beautiful Maryam who had only been in the way — Maryam had died for his anger. This sacker of cities, this wielder of traitors, would live unsmitten. Because Gerbert had sworn oaths which he was not prepared, even yet, to break. And because, even if he would, he had no power to break them.

  “There will, of course, be conditions,” said Charles. “You will not attempt to escape. Nor will you communicate with our enemies. You will be guarded, for your safety as much as for mine.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “I throw Rheims to the dogs.”

  “What profit in that for you? You need a kingdom intact, if you hope to rule it.”

  “I need an example to prove that I am not to be trifled with. Rheims will do — better than most. It is large enough to matter.”

  He meant it. Gerbert was no stranger to ruthlessness, in others or in himself. But this was his city. His labor had helped to make it. His love had gone into it. His lord and friend was buried in it.

  He would not bow his head. He would not go that far. But he said, “I will do as I must. Will you stop the looting?”