by Judith Tarr
Richer smiled, though his heart was cold. “That’s something to look forward to.”
Gerbert shot him a glance. “It’s moonshine. It keeps me going when I’d like to lie down and die.”
“You can’t. You have too much to do.”
“Exactly.” Gerbert drew a long breath, let it go again. “And first, I have to get my magic back. I have... to...”
He was asleep. Richer drew the blanket over him and tried not to cry. Idiot, he mocked himself. Now that Gerbert was out of danger, now he broke down and bawled like a baby.
And why not? cried the child in him. He buried his face in the blankets and let his heart wash itself clean.
12.
Poor, frail, broken Gerbert won much pity when he hobbled back to his duties. Even Richer, who knew what he was doing, was almost taken in by it. But Gerbert was too honest to lie to one who knew him well. People who believed him saw the gaunt face and the whitened hair and the frequent pauses to rest, and looked no further. They did not see what Richer saw: that his eyes were the color of thunder.
Gerbert was angry; the more so, the more he saw of what winter and a standing army were doing to Rheims. It was anger that gave him strength to do a strong man’s work; for without him the city had floundered, sinking into confusion and despair. He whipped it to life again.
His guards had not come back. He was watched, but not with endless vigilance.
As soon as winter broke, staggering, starving Rheims won a reprieve: Charles divided his army and took two parts of the three to harry the king’s lands. Gerbert put the remainder to work repairing what they and their fellows had broken. They did not like it, but Arnulf was giving Gerbert a free hand, and Arnulf was their lord’s kinsman. They began, in some small measure at least, to earn their keep.
“And where’s the king through all of this?” Richer wanted to know, querulously.
Gerbert looked up from a packet of letters. “Senlis,” he answered.
Richer blinked, diverted from his complaint. “What?”
“The king is in Senlis,” Gerbert said with remarkable patience. “Convoking his bishops. Discussing this predicament of ours.”
“Discussing! All he needs is cold steel.”
“Not quite. Charles, he’s dealing with as a king may. Arnulf is another matter. They’ve excommunicated Alger, and a baron or two who helped him. His excellency, they don’t seem to know of yet; or else they have no evidence. He could be acting under duress, after all; as am I.”
“Arnulf never did anything he didn’t want to do.” Richer peered at the letter that had told Gerbert all of this. “Who wrote that? Ah — Archbishop Ascelin. So he’s managed to get out of Laon, Carolingian captors or no. Far be it from me to speak ill of my lord Adalberon’s favorite nephew, but sometimes I think that man is as slippery as Arnulf himself.”
“He is. He also knows the significance of a solemn oath, which Arnulf all too plainly does not. You won’t catch him swearing on the body of Christ when he fully intends to break his oath.”
“No: he’d find a way to get out of it.” Richer paused. “Maybe Arnulf meant it when he swore it.”
“He broke it.” Gerbert’s voice was iron. “Are you done with that letter? Here, take this packet to the cathedral; tell Father Infirmarer it’s the best I can do, he knows what the roads have been like since last autumn.”
Full of Carolingian brigands, Gerbert meant. Richer tucked the packet into his sleeve, catching its pungent herbal scent. It was not one he recalled offhand.
Father Martin the infirmarer would tell him what it was. At length, no doubt, and on the run. There had been no lack of sickness in the city, much of it born of hunger and fear.
Things were quieter now. He could almost imagine that Rheims was at peace under its proper lord, lean from a hard winter but looking to the summer with hope and gladness.
Then he remembered Gerbert and shivered. Gerbert had changed as he mended. He spoke less; he smiled seldom. With Arnulf he was icily, flawlessly correct.
Richer did not want to be in the way when Gerbert’s temper slipped its chain. That calm of his when the archbishopric went to Arnulf, that was hard won and harder kept. Arnulf’s oathbreaking had won the young idiot an enemy, and a bad one.
Did he even know? Gerbert had been acting like a beaten man, at least to Arnulf’s face: quiet, obedient, humble. But that was the quiet of the storm building. Magic or no magic, it would break.
Soon, Richer suspected. He had seen Gerbert’s face in the cathedral at the Easter Mass. It had been transfigured; and not, for all its pallor, with light. His eyes had fixed on Arnulf’s hands elevating the Host, and they had blazed.
Richer hesitated, stumbling on the cathedral steps, and almost went down. Light and color flamed above the door: the mosaic wrought by artists from Ravenna, Christ enthroned in judgment, with the souls of the blessed shining white and gold on his right hand, and the damned black as soot beneath his heel. Their faces filled Richer’s vision, contorted with terror.
The grimoire. The book of magic which Richer had taken the day he spoke with the Jinniyah, because she bade him; which he had laid in his clothing chest and forgotten. Forgotten, that is, until looking for help and hope in the midst of Gerbert’s sickness he had hunted out the copy of Hippocrates and brought the other with it. He had remembered it again in the deeps of the winter, and because he found it comforting, had told Gerbert where it was.
Gerbert had seemed barely interested. He was still weak then, working less hard than he liked but much too hard for Richer’s peace of mind. He had said what he said of the image which Arnulf had stolen: “Let be. It’s not time. When Rheims has won through the winter, then we think of breaking free.”
Now he had somewhere to go: Senlis, and the synod, and the king. He had a long grievance that had festered into something appallingly like madness, and as much of his old strength as he was likely to gain. In that grimoire were spells of the white magic, good ones, strong ones. But in it also were spells which shaded to grey. Dark grey, some of them, and deadly dangerous.
The herbs which Richer carried were not all that Gerbert had bought.
Richer staggered up the steps. He barely remembered finding the canons’ cloister, the infirmary, the infirmarer. He flung the packet in Father Martin’s astonished face and bolted like a hare.
Hippocrates was where he belonged. The grimoire was gone.
Richer whirled to run. Halted. Collapsed in a tangle. If Arnulf had taken the book, then that was that. If it had been Gerbert, then had he not the right? It was his book. The Jinniyah had foreseen that he would need it. With its aid he might be able to work a white enchantment, an escape from this prison. He would not try for revenge. The bishops in Senlis would give him that. The king might even give him Arnulf’s head into the bargain.
Richer wound his fingers in his hair and pulled it until it hurt. When had Gerbert ever relied on anyone else to pay his debts for him?
Inspiration struck like an arrow in the brain. The Jinniyah. She could talk sense into Gerbert. Richer knew she could. And she had his magic. If he had it back, it would heal him; it would make him remember his wisdom. Then they could fly from Rheims and cast their troubles into the lap of Mother Church.
And how was Richer going to win her? Walk up to Arnulf and ask him for her? Buy her from him? Steal her?
Steal her, indeed. No doubt Richer could find an excuse to wander into the archbishop’s bedchamber. But the bronze was quite as large as life, and correspondingly difficult to hide even under a monk’s voluminous habit. If he tucked it under his arm and walked blithely out...
He lowered his hands from his tormented hair, and stared at them as if he had never seen them before. Big, rawboned, ruddy-furred and copiously freckled: a perfect clown’s.
Suppose, just suppose, he carried it off. In all senses. He was the master’s dog, everyone knew that. If they noticed him at all, they looked at his gangling awkwardness and laughed. Poor, feebl
e Gerbert and his tame fool. Who would expect either of them to turn dangerous?
He had to do it in broad daylight. Night was no good, with Arnulf sleeping there, and half the episcopal army camped in the corridor. He was going to need all his courage and most of his store of lunacy. Then he had to hope that Gerbert would not have acted before Richer could.
“No buts,” he said aloud. “No wobbles. Just do it.”
Today he could not. It was too late. Tomorrow was Sunday. Arnulf would sing the high mass, and most of Rheims would be there to hear him. Even Gerbert. Arnulf liked people to see that his rival was now his faithful servant. He was not likely to care where his servant’s servant was, or what he was up to.
Which left one final dilemma. Could a thief pray that his theft might succeed?
No matter. He would pray. Let God decide whether He would listen.
oOo
Gerbert suspected that he had gone a little mad. Maybe more than a little. It was the whole of it together. Losing the archbishopric, then seeing it betrayed; enduring servitude to its betrayer; fighting for his city. And all of it with half of him torn away, the rest groping in the dark, seeking blindly to be whole again.
He should not have waited — first for the city, then for his sickness, then again for the city’s sake. He should have snatched his Jinniyah and run, the moment Arnulf became archbishop of Rheims.
Such wisdom, one had, when one could look back on one’s follies. If he had been wise at all, he would never have left Aurillac.
He knew where the grimoire was. It was like a fire in the darkness. Most of it was no use without the spark of magic; but there were a few spells that needed little more than strength of will and strength of voice, and all the makings in their proper order. Not that they were simple, but because they needed so little of true magic, they were perilous. Any man with discipline and determination and a little learning could avail himself of them. And, thereby, gain a new kind of power.
It was not quite the black art. But neither was it the high white magic which grew out of true power. It partook of compulsion; of the pact arcane.
Of which, Master Ibrahim had had little good to say. “The pact,” he had taught his apprentice, “is a sign of weakness. A true mage has no need of it. Either his magic suffices to work his will, or if he be of the darkness that makes slaves of men and spirits, he can compel obedience without need of bargaining. He who chaffers like a merchant with the beings of the greater or the lesser worlds is merchant indeed, and no magus.”
True enough, Gerbert thought. But a man bereft of magic must take power where he might. Once he had his Jinniyah back, then he could forsake this shame and be again the master of magic.
There was one great advantage in this kind of spell. Since it called power from without, it did not tax the body’s strength as true power did. He need not wait until he was all healed, if indeed he ever would be. Something had broken in him; he was beginning to suspect that it would never wholly be mended.
He wasted no time in feeling sorry for himself. He knew who had done this. He would see that Arnulf paid, and paid high.
He had, to be sure, sworn oaths. But this was no matter of power in the world or in the Church; only of magic that had been taken away. And he would not harm Arnulf. Not he; not his own, inborn power. Arnulf himself had seen to that.
Arnulf, in whom he had centered all his hate. Arnulf, who had broken him in body and in power.
Carefully, in secret even from Richer — especially from Richer — he had gathered what he needed. Now he had all of it, both what he could buy and what he must make. The virgin parchment had not been easy, nor the athame: the dagger forged of silver under the moon. That had cost him somewhat of his recovery, and some suspicion from Richer, who had needed a potion or two to make him sleep.
Tonight Gerbert would do it. The day was quiet, its only labor the ordeal of the mass, which Arnulf made him serve like an acolyte. He suffered it because he must, and begged off from dinner afterward. Richer would not have been so easy to dispose of, but the boy had taken a well-earned holiday. He would have gone to St.-Rémi to be among his brothers, one of blood and the rest of the cloth. Alone and fasting, dreading what he must do yet fixed upon it, Gerbert missed that endless, faithful, frequently exasperating presence.
Best that he be out of it. This sin would be Gerbert’s, and Gerbert’s alone.
oOo
Richer had been thinking much the same, but turned about. He had not exactly lied regarding his reasons for disappearing after matins; he had simply let people decide that they knew where he was going. He helped them by setting out in the direction of the abbey. But, having diverted anyone who might see through as bad a liar as Richer was, he drew up his cowl and slouched to lessen his height and became simply another anonymous monk in a city full of them.
It was natural enough that he should hang about the archbishop’s palace. The prayers he muttered, audibly lest anyone try to question him, were quite real, and quite heartfelt. The beads were cool in his hands, comforting.
For a terrible few moments, he knew that he had failed. Arnulf had not yet gone to the cathedral. He was late, and much displeased, berating the sluggard who had overslept and omitted to wake him. His servants scurried, flustered. Richer found himself pressed into fetching his excellency’s bath, along with another stalwart and a train of lesser luminaries with steaming buckets.
His excellency was waiting in his shirt and in no good temper, being shaved by a tight-lipped barber. Once the razor slipped. Richer wondered if Arnulf had acquired his vocabulary from his uncle’s soldiers.
Richer was maliciously tempted to linger and see if the rest of Arnulf matched his face, but his better nature prevailed. What with the confusion in the outer room, no one noticed one black habit edging toward the inner door.
Someone was behind it, fussing about the bed. Richer froze on the threshold. Not that the room was occupied by anything mortal. That something else was there.
As if a man going blind slowly, had noticed it only because a miracle gave him back all that he had lost. As if his ears, dulled by imperceptible degrees, found again the keenness of his youth. Richer had not known how much of his magic was gone, until it flooded back fullfold, staggering him where he stood.
It was there where report had placed it, on a table by the bed, where Arnulf could lie and gaze at its antique beauty. No doubt it pleased him to have such visible evidence of his rival’s submission. Or else he simply liked to look at it. It was even prettier than he was.
Richer’s heart sank. There was no way in the world that Arnulf could fail to know what the image was, and what was in it. Even if Richer could steal it, it was no good to him if it betrayed him to its new master.
His jaw set. He had to try.
With a great deal of flurry and temper, Arnulf finished his toilet and set out for the cathedral. Most of his servants went with him. Richer ducked into the bedchamber before he could be pressed into service with the bath. He heard the others curse him for escaping, but none thought to look within rather than without. It took them an unconscionably long time to clear away the debris, and themselves with it.
At last he could draw a free breath. He turned toward his quarry, and stopped. An old gammer of a monk had finished tidying the bed. As Richer turned, he turned also, mumbling to himself. He blinked at Richer, clearly none too quick in the wits, or he would not have said, “Here, here, it’s all done, what are you hanging about for?”
Richer could think of any number of things to say. In the end he said nothing, simply walked to the table and set hands on the bronze. The magic roared and flamed in him. There were wards upon it. They had no more substance than shadows.
The old monk was babbling. “What are you doing? Put that down. Put it down, I say!”
The bronze rang like a bell. Richer started and almost dropped it. The old monk’s mouth opened and closed. It was mildly comical, like a fish gasping, and no sound in it at all.
Richer could not move. The man was outside. Richer was within. The wards were between: a sphere of silence, a wall like finest glass, ringing on the utmost edge of hearing. It made him dizzy; it reft him of his wits.
The beautiful inhuman voice soared to the point of pain. “Take me!”
He lurched forward. The old monk stared, eyes half starting from his head. He was staring, Richer realized, at something well beyond the stumbling thief.
Richer tucked the Jinniyah under his arm as he had half-jestingly said he would, and essayed another step. It was rather steadier than the last. He could walk, after a fashion. He giggled as it struck him. He was royally drunk; and no wine anywhere near. It was all magic.
No one either stopped or questioned him. There was magic in that as in all the rest of it, trembling now with effort, but holding fast. He seemed to have no power over his feet. They carried him out of the palace by a back way, through its burgeoning garden, into a dark stone-scented passageway and down a stair. With a small shock, he recognized the crypt of the cathedral. There was the undercroft with its flickering candles, there the tomb of an archbishop who had lacked the pride or the influence to be buried in the upper reaches. Richer set the image on the lid and grinned at it.
It stared levelly back. Its eyes were as disturbing as ever, both lifeless and intensely alive. A smile seemed to curve the graven lips.
“Well?” he said. “What now?”
“You ask me?”
He giggled again. Once he had started, he could not stop. He dropped to the cold floor, shaking with it, helpless as any drunkard.
“You are worthless.”
The Jinniyah’s scorn sobered him. Somewhat. He kept erupting into new fits. “But you see — I can’t — it’s so strong!”