Then what? If he would not see the danger, could she turn to Mother? What would she make of Miranda’s bold assertions? Her stomach rebelled again, and she stifled a groan.
By the time she had reached Gleame’s office, she could barely walk in a straight line. Each of her footsteps hovered in the air for a moment too long, as if the floor repelled contact. She wondered what she would say to the guards at the door. They raised their spear-staffs and stood to attention.
It seems that I am expected.
***
As Miranda crossed the threshold of Gleame’s office, her vision cleared and her stomach settled. She regathered her poise and took a moment to savour the absence of pain. Gleame sat alone in one of his high-backed chairs, staring through the panoramic window, locked in contemplation.
Beyond, magic swarmed above angry waves in slowly turning tornadoes of sparkling dust and ice. It was as if the whole island were a hive disturbed. The startling vista bathed the room in an uneasy grey light. Seeing the wild power of the magic, Miranda hurried to take the companion chair beside the grandmaster.
Miranda placed Gahst’s codex gently on the table between them, and waited for Gleame to notice. He glanced at it sidelong.
“Dear Miranda, what treasure have you brought for me today?”
There was a distance in Gleame’s voice, a hardness to his expression. He rested his hand on the cover of the codex and tapped on its thick leather binding with the beat of a funeral drum. For the first time she noticed how the veins bulged blue on his hand, that he had the skin of an old man.
Is he not even curious? she wondered. If he would not open the book then she would have to explain.
“This book…”
“Belonged to Master Riven Gahst.” Miranda was shocked. She had assumed the advantage of surprise. Now her plans lay confused. He took the book and flipped it open, skimmed its pages. “I am well aware of what it is, and when you visited him. So are the censors.”
Miranda thought of Edmund and was enraged by the distraction. Her skin prickled and her head throbbed. She hurried to calm herself.
Gleame snapped the book shut. “You have become their concern.”
“What business am I of the censors?”
“Gahst is dead.”
Miranda’s head began to spin. At that moment, more than anything else, Miranda simply wanted to go home. Her heart yearned for the person to whom she had once turned for comfort, but the memory of who that was had become grey and indistinct.
“How?”
“I am told it was suicide. I can’t imagine they suspect you were involved. That would be absurd.”
“Do you know why I brought the hand to you?” she said weakly.
He grunted. “I am powerful, but I cannot read minds.”
“Bolb’s hand. This book decodes its contents. I was investigating.”
“Why?”
“I have become interested in Gahst’s theories. I think the hand proves them worthy of investigation, at least to an extent. You must have felt the disturbance. Seen what is happening outside.”
Gleame sighed deeply.
“The fluctuation. I am aware of it, of course. I share your peculiar sensitivity to magic. That is why I have surrounded my chambers with a construct to shield us from it.”
Miranda felt a misplaced sense of relief that the catastrophe she had been feeling was real. At least I am not going mad.
“What are you going to do?”
“Do?” Gleame’s brow twitched. “Nothing. It will pass, eventually. Or do you mean about yourself? This business with the censors.”
Miranda stood up, stepped between Gleame and the window. Her eyes were ablaze. She pointed at the maelstrom behind her.
“How could I think of myself at a time like this? Look at it, all around us. The chaos in the magic. Our hold on it is collapsing. It is becoming wild again.”
“You are confused, child. Master Gahst’s death has upset you.”
Miranda struggled to recall the brilliant arguments she had rehearsed in the hallways. “The balance of the Convergence. Gahst believed that if the Hidden Makers lose confidence in our enterprise, in our ability to repay them, something terrible will happen.”
“Is that what Gahst would have had us believe? That his so-called Hidden Makers are calling magic back? You make them sound like the managers of a bank. Miranda, that is stuff and nonsense. The Hidden Makers are just an idea, like the gods. Magic is a power to be used. Nothing more. If this fluctuation is a problem, it should be resolved through calm thinking, not youthful haste.”
“We must tell people. Warn them.”
“What would they do? Just to suggest the idea that the Convergence is dangerous, that cunning might be dangerous, might bring about the very cataclysm you imagine.”
Miranda shook her head in angry disbelief.
“If we explained…”
“Then we would burn. Ordinary people are not qualified to understand the dangers of magic. They would use these stories as an excuse to destroy everything I have built. We cannot go back to the old ways, Miranda. You are too young to understand what it was like. The murders, the crucifixions, people like us living like animals, hunted in the night.”
“This has to stop.”
“No, Miranda,” Gleame said sombrely, “we must continue. If there is something wrong with the Convergence then it is our responsibility to find a solution, to work our way through the problem. Our responsibility to each other and to the Unity. To the North. To your mother.”
“Yes,” Miranda said excitedly, “we should let the Convergence recover. Cease the structuring of constructs for a while. Make more offerings.”
“Impossible. The public only abide us because of the wealth that we bring them. We are clever, we are rich and we are powerful – so in their hearts, they despise us, and everything that we do. If we slow our efforts, and allow people to believe that our power is on the wane, support will disappear. We are already engulfed in this scandal of the hand. How could I possibly explain a fall in profits?”
Does he protect the Convergence, or himself? Miranda thought. Whether Gleame was right or wrong, it was clear there would be no convincing him. She had failed. Miranda imagined the magic born of the Convergence returning all at once, sucked out of the world like water down a drain. Unfathomable quantities of power ripped loose from the structures that contained them. A million souls burnt and torn by their dissolution.
She stared despondently at the swarm outside.
Why can’t Gleame see that nothing can grow forever?
What now? Should I run away? Go home?
“Come and look at this,” Gleame said. Balanced on a quartz plinth was a crystal mask engraved with the shape of a bennu, its outstretched wings reaching the temples, its long beak marking the ridge of the nose. “They say that it took Mestrakus more than fifty years to carve this masterpiece. Half a lifetime of drilling and grinding with fine powder. Imagine what it must have done to his fingers, his eyes. Yet the slightest tap of a hammer in the wrong place and it would shatter into a thousand pieces.”
“I understand,” Miranda said, defeated.
“I need to find a way to protect what I have built. I want you to help me find that way.”
“Help you?”
“I have always known your power. It runs deep. You are exactly what the Honourable Company requires to make up for the loss of Gahst.”
“What do you mean?”
“I called a meeting not an hour ago. I have persuaded the Convocation that we need a new master to replace him. They are ready to proclaim you the first woman of the Convocation.”
Miranda’s mouth became dry. She licked her lips.
“Do they know? About this?” She pointed out of the window. “Have you told them?”
“They know what they
need to know.”
“This is wrong.”
“Restoring the balance of the Verge will be your first responsibility. There will be no limit on your agency. We will do it together, quietly, with every resource at our disposal. You will become my new apprentice. In time, I will teach you everything I know. You will become a colossus amongst men.”
“What about the censors?”
“I will inform Corbin that you learnt of Gahst’s treason from your analysis of the hand. That you came to me of your own free will to present your findings.”
“I don’t understand. What treason?”
“That Gahst planned to sell our secrets to our enemies. That his mad theories were simply a disguise. That he was not a rebel, but a traitor.”
“I don’t believe it. The trial will prove his innocence.”
Gleame stood, walked to the window and stared at the horizon. A bitter look creased his face.
“It has been proved. Prosecutor Corbin has uncovered everything. That is what provoked Gahst to take his own his life.”
That’s not true, Miranda thought. Gahst decided to die when he realised that the hand had been discovered. My curiosity killed him. The thought sickened her and she prepared to fight back tears, but was surprised to find she had none.
“You ask me to perjure myself?”
“Not at all.”
“All of this is my fault.”
“Corbin is a strange man. He cares greatly about the following of rules, and not at all about the consequences of doing so. I fear for Master Bolb. We cannot afford to lose two masters in as many days. Miranda, you are a ward of the duchess.”
“Yes,” she said through gritted teeth.
He cleared his throat. “Do you know why they call your kind ‘her sorrow and her joy’?”
“Of course.”
“The duchess will not let the North fall into the hands of another family, yet her body has produced only girls, who cannot inherit.”
“The law is unfair in that regard.”
“If a man were to marry one of them, his family would stand to inherit the North.”
“A living daughter could put her power at great risk.”
“And her life. So the little ones are given to the gods. I could not allow that to happen to a daughter of my own. I would find another way.”
Gleame made the offerings sound selfish, evil. That was close to sedition.
“It is no sin if it happens before the soul arrives in the body,” Miranda said defensively.
“So they say. Yet Her Grace must feel guilt. For every baby that has suffered she has rescued twenty from the streets. Accepted them as her own. Saved them from poverty or ruination.” Now the tears came, sluicing Miranda’s cheeks with kohl.
“We say a prayer for the lost ones every night – light candles in their memory.”
“You owe your entire life to an atonement. You understand the nature of sacrifice, the ambiguity of right and wrong action. Now it is time to master these things for yourself.” He turned to face Miranda, reached out his hand across the table. “Work with me, Miranda. Take up your rightful place by my side. We will repair the Convergence together.”
Miranda looked out to sea. The dark waters that surrounded the island were in confusion, the waves topped with sharp spikes, as if provoked. Her mind filled with the consequences of Gahst’s prediction; images of the cities of the Unity adorned with flame, drowned in blood. What she might have to do to stop it. She smirked humourlessly at herself. Now that the prize she had been dreaming of was finally in her grasp, she didn’t really want it.
The battle
The bullet hole in the Freeborn’s buff coat was wider than Jon’s thumb. It was no wonder the poor fellow had passed away so quickly. Jon wiped the blood from the inside of the leather, pulled it on tight and hoped that wearing a dead man’s armour wasn’t back luck. Next, he took a belted backsword from one of Peacock’s men and looped it around his waist. Now I might stand a chance, he thought, outlawed in the wilderness. He felt ridiculous though, dressed as a soldier.
He picked up the last bucket of lamp oil, poured it over the corpses that carpeted his hall and tossed the empty container into his fireless hearth. That’s that then, he thought.
There was a deep rumble, the sound of crashing bricks and timber and the mill-house rocked on its foundations, pitching Jon to the floor.
What on earth? Jon got up and ran through the mill, checking for damage. A few patches of plaster had fallen from the walls. One of the thick oak columns that supported the tower had a thin split running down it. None of the damage was serious. He patted the solid beams.
The commotion had come from outside, so he went to look. From the rigging deck, he could see that a gable had fallen from the house across The Froggary, scattering bricks and plaster onto the road. That was not all. Newly formed cracks lined its masonry and its haphazard chimney had collapsed inwards, leaving a gaping hole in the roof. The tinker who lived there with his family stumbled into the street in dusty confusion.
An earthquake? Jon had never presumed to feel one in his lifetime. He thanked the Devourer for the mill’s deliverance and then remembered that he had set the place to burn.
Barehill’s voice, frantic and desperate, called out from within.
“Jon! Where are you? Where is she?” Jon was not used to wearing a sword and it tangled with his legs as he dashed back inside the mill.
Barehill stood in the carnage of the hall, hands on knees, breathing hard and soaking wet. A small band of sodden men stood with him, Haythorn and his young compatriot, others Jon did not recognise. They all carried weapons. Some of them were wounded. Blood-tinged water puddled at their feet.
“What happened?” Jon asked.
“The militia came for us,” Barehill said.
A Freeborn wheezed and coughed. “The bastards unblocked the cistern, barricaded the exits.”
“When we tried to escape they cut us down, or forced us back into the water to drown,” another said.
“If you hadn’t sent Haythorn to warn us, we’d all be dead.”
“Where’s Anna?”
The men avoided his gaze. Haythorn pointed towards the loading bay. “We rescued as many as we could, then fought our way back here. I sealed the tunnel behind us with a barrel of powder. The whole lot nearly came down on our heads.”
Laila cried out from Jon’s bedroom. Barehill called her name and ran up the stairs.
“My family. Where is my family?” Jon grabbed Haythorn’s lapels and shook him wildly. His pleading eyes said that he didn’t know. Jon turned to the others. “Where is Anna?” They looked at him with sympathy, but offered no answers. He struggled for breath through his tightening throat.
I have put myself in the hands of the gods. I must trust them to see me right.
He fought to pull himself into shape. To concentrate on the moment. The Freeborn survivors were aimless, bewildered by the shock of their defeat. Barehill was a fool to have left them without orders. Jon picked out the youngest.
“You – head upstairs to the rigging deck. Keep a lookout, but don’t step outside.”
The two men who looked strongest he ordered to prepare a stretcher for Laila, the remainder he instructed to wait in the loading bay. “We’ll be leaving soon, bring the handcart for Laila. Take up positions of defence inside the mill and wait for my command.” They obeyed without question.
Jon ran back upstairs to his bedroom. Barehill stood at Laila’s side, looked down upon her supine body as if he could not believe what he saw.
“What did they do to you?” he whispered. It was a useless moment to start caring about her safety.
“Where is my family?” Jon demanded.
“I don’t know.” Barehill wasn’t paying him much attention. He took Jon’s bowl and rag and used them to mop La
ila’s brow. She opened her eyes a fraction, as much as she could.
“George,” she said, and touched his cheek.
“What did you tell them?” Barehill whispered, his voice stretched thin with disappointment.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Jon bellowed. He drew the sword clumsily, weighed its dull grey blade in his hand. He would give Barehill one more chance to answer.
“George,” Laila moaned deliriously.
“She’s killed us all,” Barehill said bitterly and left her side. “Thank you for saving her. Whatever your reasons, I am grateful.”
“I warned you, didn’t I?” Jon said. “You had to jab the hornets’ nest.” Barehill saw the sword. Kill him, a part of Jon’s mind said, as it twitched in his hand.
There was a cry from the tower and Barehill ran towards it. Jon chased him up the ladder to the bagging floor, roaring, grabbing at his ankles.
“You said you’d protect them.”
The young sentry was cowering by the exit to the reefing deck, spilling powder everywhere as he struggled to load his arquebus. Tears moistened his eyes.
“They’ve arrived,” he said.
Jon and Barehill stood abreast in the doorway and looked out. The remnants of the Trained Band of Turbulence were marching up The Froggary, their huge orange ensign flapping proudly overhead, a drummer rat-a-tatting a marching beat. Two of the militia carried a small battering ram. The bastard Peacock swaggered at the vanguard, the Sharks stolidly by his side. There was no doubting the soldiers’ mood. They were already drunk on killing.
“I see you’ve poured oil,” Barehill said. “Whoever is the last of us should set the fire. We can’t allow Laila to fall back into Peacock’s hands.” Barehill offered his hand. Jon regarded it like a lump of offal.
“Get that rifle loaded, ready for my mark,” Jon said. Barehill nodded and snatched the arquebus from the trembling sentry. Jon stepped out onto the rigging deck. The militia had formed up on the street below.
The Censor's Hand: Book One of the Thrice~Crossed Swords Trilogy Page 38