The Censor's Hand: Book One of the Thrice~Crossed Swords Trilogy

by A. M. Steiner

  “To make the past confess is the greatest weapon of the censor. Even the threat of it can prove more powerful than a blade or a law. Confession is how the gods guide our hands.”

  Daniel felt Lang’s impersonal gaze hard on his face and broke into a cold sweat. Don’t just stand there looking like an idiot, he told himself. He grasped the charcoal and began to scratch out a pattern on the altar cloth.

  First, a waving line for the ocean that was once called Nuun, abyssal home of the Dreamer:

  He-who-sleeps-in-the-ocean.

  Rising from the waves a triangle, the Mound of Creation, domain of the Devourer, eater of souls:

  He-who-trembles-the-earth.

  An eye inside the triangle, the unblinking gaze of the Judge, the Preserver of Balance:

  He-who-sits-upon-the-mountain.

  Upon the apex of the triangle, two gentle curves, the wings of the All-seeing:

  He-who-sails-the-wind.

  Finally above them all, the circle of proud Father Sun, and within it the crescent of the moon, his wise consort, the Mother of Man.

  He-who-lights-the-way,

  She-who-reflects-his-glory.

  A symbol for every god of the Rational Pantheon combined: the Sigil of the Gods was complete.

  Daniel knelt, presented the charcoal skywards in outstretched hands and tried to empty a mind that buzzed with anxiety and distraction. He breathed deeply, ran through the stages of the meditation ritual, at the same time knowing that such a conscious act was a mistake in itself. The sound of my heart, Daniel thought, the air passing through my nose. Focus on these things only. He tried to picture what he wanted. To be a censor, to help my brother. No! He screamed inside, trying to stay in the moment. See this altar in time, through time. Start again. State your belief. The Sigil of the Gods holds the meaning of my intention. Good. Now, believe it. Gods, let me see how this place has unfolded. He observed the thought, tried to know it to be true, waited for the world apparent to shift.

  The world remained resolutely in place. A gulp of hot tears ran down the back of his throat. It was impossible. He was destined to be a censor – he knew it in his heart. He squeezed his eyes tight, to force out the world. For a moment, his vision edged with a ghostly blue light and he felt the calm attentiveness he required. He saw his sister smiling proudly and his heart leaped with joy. Then the divine sight wafted from his mind like the breeze from a dove’s wing.

  He opened his eyes. Magistrate Lang was looking down on him pityingly, as if Daniel were a cripple. Somehow, he knew. Lang had said it himself. Sight was the essential skill of a censor. You couldn’t be a censor if you couldn’t take confession. Daniel rose to his feet and, in a blind panic, placed each of the objects into a box. He bowed jerkily. Without looking at the magistrate, he turned and fled the sanctum. By the time he had returned to the axis, he couldn’t even remember which boxes he had chosen.

  He made his way mournfully to the refectory. His stomach ached as if he had not eaten in a week. He railed at his stupidity, and replayed the test in his mind. If only he had been less arrogant, practised more, waited another year.

  He bit on his wrist like a child. What would he tell Jon?

  Then the after-effects of his attempt at confession struck. His brow burned and terrible images formed in his mind: the mill-house on fire, his brother fighting the flames, Anna and the baby nowhere to be seen. Gangs of men rioting through Turbulence. His sister being dragged away by unseen hands. The gods were punishing him and who could blame them? If he couldn’t protect his family all those years ago, why should they trust him now?

  Bridges burned

  It was three hundred miles of bumpy road from Lundenwic to the Convergence. A convoy of stagecoaches could cover forty miles a day until the mountains, then twenty at best. Miranda had expected the journey to be long and tedious. As it turned out, travelling as the only woman and surrounded by men who did nothing but loudly predict the vertical trajectory of their careers, was torture.

  There were twelve carriages in the train now. Four had left from Lundenwic; the others had joined later from Alchester, Boudicon and Brightstowe, the best universities in the Unity. Each carried a cargo of rich men’s sons, expensively educated. Nice in theory, Miranda thought, but they all look the same. Despite highly developed grasps of algebra, logic, philosophy and theology, and a shared ability to recite The Philosophies of Ptahhotep without pause, there was not one ounce of charm between them. One wit, one gallant was all the companionship Miranda required. At the very least a rippling wall of muscle, pleasing to the eye. Was that too much to ask? Really?

  They’re not even men, Miranda thought as she watched craggy mountainside crawl past the gilded window of her carriage, just libidinous boys, giddily excited to have escaped from their parents. She ran her elegant fingers absentmindedly through her short black bob and tucked it behind her ears, recalled her governess scolding her for doing so and smiled.

  She considered today’s fellow travellers. Next to him, Bartholomew slouched backwards, a fashionable blue cap laid over his face. She could see little more of him than the underside of his chin and the insides of his nostrils. Portly Lloyd snored by her side, thankfully leaning away. Nathan, who sat opposite her, alternated between concentrating fiercely on his palm book and trying to look up her skirt.

  Miranda knew that men found her attractive. She did not demand attention and it sometimes surprised her, but she was not the type to contrive complicated delusions to exaggerate or deny her beauty. She wasn’t vain. Her beauty was simply an objective fact, attested to by a lifetime of attention. Compared to the flirtatious knights of the city and the difficult friends of Mother, these bookish squires could be fended off with ease. Her governess had stashed a long pillow knife amongst the bed linen in her traveller’s trunk, for emergencies, but there was no need. A slow, contemptuous roll of the eyes was usually enough.

  Maintaining her self-respect came with a price, of course. At the beginning of the journey the boys had called her slender, gamine and mysterious. Those same aspects had slowly transformed into skinny, boyish and aloof. Sometimes, when presumed out of earshot, she heard them call her ‘the bitch’. At first, she had tried to revel in the transfiguration, to imagine herself a vixen or she-wolf, to accept pettiness as evidence of her superiority. It didn’t work. These boys were as bored as she was, and unaccustomed to rejection. Faced with a lady of station they had no other means of revenge. Neither did she, and so many hours of travel were spent daydreaming of happy comeuppances and reversals of fortune.

  Miranda imagined the long train of horses and carriages, carrying the best young minds in the Unity to their new home, plunging over the edge of a narrow clifftop road.

  “Let’s see if rhetoric can get you out of that,” she mumbled at the window.

  “Pardon me?” foppishly dressed Nathan said, after a confused pause. Bartholomew was asleep or uninterested.

  “Nothing,” Miranda replied without turning from the mountainous view, and congratulated herself on another teaspoon of cement poured onto her reputation as a distracted oddball.

  It was a childish thought anyway. If some tragedy were to befall the convoy, its precious cargo would be missed, and not just by bereaved parents. The Unity needed these brains. The cunning arts had transformed the land. What had once been a modest and constantly threatened trading island was becoming one of the wealthiest and most powerful lands in the Empire. The Convergence was now a priority of state and Miranda had chosen to make herself part of that process.

  ***

  Rain streamed from the grey autumn sky, drummed insistently on the coach’s roof. An inescapable smell of damp leather hinted at nausea. Miranda breathed softly on the coach’s window, drew a spiral in the condensation with a silvered fingernail then rubbed the pattern away, leaving her fingers cold and wet.

  “What’s that symbol?” Nat
han was intrigued. She smiled at him enigmatically. It was just a childish doodle, of course. That was the one thing she had in common with her peers. None of them knew anything about magic. They had trinkets, sentimental enchantments manufactured at the Verge: compasses that always pointed towards home, lockets that concealed animated portraits of families and the like. Magic touched all of their lives, but not one of them possessed the slightest understanding of cunning – the secret to how or why it all worked.

  Surrounded by the brightest and best, she thought this a little surprising. She knew that the Convergence guarded its secrets fiercely, but it seemed a little odd that the most coveted profession in the Unity was one held in total ignorance by those who sought it.

  The coach shuddered to a halt, skidding on the wet road. It rocked on its springs and a moment later Big Albert’s head popped up outside the misted window of the stagecoach like a jack from a box. Miranda flinched in surprise and pulled the panel down.

  “Might be a while, lads, milady,” Albert half shouted through the rain that poured from the broad brim of his coachman’s hat. “There’s some bother up ahead. Not to worry though.”

  He hopped back off the footstep and vaulted onto the box seat, rocking the carriage wildly on its springs.

  “Some slack-jaw shepherd has blocked the road,” Bartholomew said with a yawn. The tumult had woken him, and now he sat up, his cap still half covering his face. Lloyd snorted, oblivious to it all. Miranda opened the door to the carriage, wrapped her cloak tight around her shoulders, and stepped out into the rain.

  “Rather drizzle than drivel,” she quipped quietly and smiled at her wit as she made her way towards the front of the train, delighted at the chance to breathe some fresh air and be in her own company.

  The first thing she saw was the desolate panorama of Seascale Bay. It was unmistakable. The Convergence itself was obscured by the impenetrable grey of the downpour, but the famously frail causeway that allowed foot-passage from the mainland stretched thinly into the misty distance. She knew that while secure during the day, that perilous path could be submerged in an instant by the command of a master with cunning of the waves.

  Her journey was near its end.

  Miranda turned her attention to the gathering ahead. Four travelling vendors, stooped under heavy packs, talked nervously among themselves. A man in a white cassock, obviously a godsworn – though she could not see a menat, the sacred collar that would confirm it – stood alone. Further ahead, several of the chaperons gaggled about Master Somney, whose skullcap glistened with raindrops. A man dressed in midnight blue towered above them all, mounted upon a glorious chestnut mare with a terrifying longsword strapped to its flank. A censor.

  Miranda thought him a handsome man, but too old and severe to be beautiful. His sky-blue eyes were piercing but his hair was thinning on top, and his close-cropped beard was badger grey. Judging by the steam rising from the horse’s flanks he had only just arrived, and at some pace.

  “Sabotage, censor?” Somney shouted, pointing towards the bay. Then she noticed. The covered bridge that traversed the last ravine before Seascale Bay had been gutted by fire.

  The rider pulled back the broad collar of his greatcoat to reveal a silver badge. “I was elevated to prosecutor some time ago, Master Somney.” He dismounted and loped to the damaged crossing.

  Within the bridge, he moved cautiously, skirting the side wall, wary of the boards that creaked and cracked under his feet. He drew a hunting knife from his belt and prised a handful of blackened splinters from the scorched aftermath of the conflagration. Back on the safety of the highway, he knelt and carefully arranged the splinters into a pattern on the ground, made the shape of a wave, then a triangle, then a circle in the mud with the point of his knife. Finally, he drew a line around it all.

  “Give the man some space,” Master Somney commanded. The company drew back reluctantly. The travellers’ fear seemed close to panic now. Miranda craned her neck to follow the action. “Will you be able to divine much?” Somney asked.

  The censor did not reply, but raised his hands in front of him with his palms facing upwards, seemingly in supplication to the mountains that surrounded them. Suddenly his shadow began to flicker, as if a gigantic invisible candle was guttering behind his back. For a second the charcoal on the road sparked, glowed red and then white hot. Then all was as before except for a few delicate puffs of steam that rose from the embers. The censor rose to his feet with a look of deep concern.

  “I held the vision for as long as I could and saw little more than shadows. The fire was set at night by two men. They came from the direction of the Convergence in haste. I imagine the fire was prepared in advance, set to slow pursuers. The damage to the bridge was incidental, but I wouldn’t hazard a coach and horses upon it.”

  “If not sabotage, then what?” Somney muttered. “An attack on the Convergence? Dissenters?”

  “I don’t know. They were careful to leave no trace behind.”

  “Is this why you came to visit us?” Master Somney asked. The censor did not reply but began to pace in neat circles, staring at his feet. For a few seconds Miranda assumed this was the beginning of another mystic ritual, then she realised that he was searching the ground for anything that might provide a greater insight. Instinctively she began to look for clues herself. After a few minutes of fruitless searching, the censor replied.

  “Maybe. My presence was requested by Chairman Gleame and the Chief Constable. I come to investigate the murder of one of my brothers.”

  Somney’s face fell. “Adelmus? That is grave news indeed.” The travellers began talking frantically amongst themselves.

  The censor nodded.

  “Will you walk with me? And may I have the honour of calling you by your given name, Prosecutor Corbin?”

  “You may, Master Somney, but before we renew our acquaintance, that godsworn, the mendicant; I see he serves He-who-sails-the-wind.”

  “It could be worse.”

  Corbin frowned at the blasphemy, spat onto the ground. “Have some respect. Ask if he will perform the rites for a brother who has fallen, help guide his soul to the realm of the dead.”

  Somney spoke to the godsworn in clipped tones.

  “Well?”

  “He says yes.” Somney sighed. “I understand why censors and the godsworn cannot converse directly, but I find the tradition tiresome. It is thirty years since the Great Cleansing. The world should move on.”

  “The law is the law. In my opinion the Cunning are far too eager for the world to move on.”

  Somney laughed mirthlessly and the two men shook hands. They walked together, passed out of earshot. Corbin’s mare followed by his side.

  Miranda felt a heavy leather gauntlet clamp down on her shoulder and jumped.

  “I’m sorry, milady,” Big Albert said, “but we’re on foot from here. I have the honour of escorting you. Your luggage will be brought after-ways.” Relieved by his presence, Miranda turned to see Nathan, Bartholomew and Lloyd standing next to him in degrees of sodden misery.

  They set off on foot down a narrow seafront track that led towards the causeway. Miranda and Albert walked side by side in the lightening rain. Nathan, Lloyd and Bartholomew trailed far behind, having fallen into a discussion about sports with the occupants of the coach from Urikon. She was glad to be rid of them, and of her fur-lined ankle boots, which were warm and well heeled. Ahead, Somney and Corbin conversed animatedly, arguing or righting the world.

  “Are they friends?” Miranda asked.

  “They’ve known each other a long time.”

  “I presume your name isn’t really Big Albert.”

  “You can call me Albertus if you prefer.”

  “Albertus, that ritual of Corbin’s?”

  “Taking confession, the censors call it.”

  “Was it magic?”

 
“It’s not my place to say, milady.”

  “Would you rather we discussed the weather?”

  Albertus chuckled. “Some believe that the censors are favoured by the gods, that their powers are a blessing. Some of the masters don’t believe in the divine – they think the censors use magic without understanding. But I don’t want to get ahead of your training.”

  He’s much smarter than he pretends to be, Miranda decided, and took his arm. “What do you believe?”

  “I believe in leaving difficult questions to censors.”

  Miranda laughed at that and they exchanged pleasantries for a while. Albertus pointed out the native sea holly, an ice-blue thistle with purple flowers, and lifted a stone to reveal a natterjack toad. Miranda joked that he was acting like a governess. Embarrassed, Albertus changed tack, asking her questions about Lundenwic. Miranda asked about life inside the Verge.

  “That’s hard to say,” Albertus said. “I suppose it depends if you’re a chambermaid or a master. It’s become more like a town than a house. Near three hundred workers and servants supporting the twenty-three masters.”

  “Why twenty-three?”

  “Because of the stones.” As if that makes any sense. “Then there’s sixty or so demi-masters – and that number grows by the year. Plenty of visitors from academies and abroad, guests and customers. Two men might abide in the Verge and not meet for weeks.”

  “Did things use to be so different?”

  “In the old days it was a small place. Youngsters came to the Convergence by way of natural talent – sensed its power from afar, did the dirty work, hoping to earn a scrap of teaching. We called them apprentices, jobbers. Nowadays we’re sent the sons of the rich, and we’re supposed to call them demi-masters. You don’t see any of them mucking out the stables.”