A Sea of Skulls (Arts of Dark and Light Book 2)

by Vox Day

  “It was the sheerest and most deplorable idiocy!” For a moment, Theuderic forgot to whom he spoke and his rage, suppressed for months, momentarily boiled over.

  Du Moulin shook his head sympathetically. “You could not have saved him even had you been there. Do not torture yourself, de Merovech. The prince had Blancas and de Foix with him and neither are incompetents. You were there that day, at the meeting of the Haut Conseil. His Majesty could have no more kept Charles-Phillippe away from the Wolf Isles than he did from Montrove. Once the prince caught the scent of battle, he was drawn to it like a hound after a rabbit.”

  Theuderic couldn’t argue. He had fought too many times at Charles-Phillippe’s side to deny that the Red Prince had been cursed with a love for war that bordered on the fey. Nor was it entirely a surprise that he had been cut down by that curse before succeeding his father. But to have been leagues away, to have been on the wrong side of the White Sea when his friend fell, was almost more than he could bear to contemplate or endure. And, more than any other man, du Moulin had been responsible for that absence.

  The two men stared at each other. Theuderic was the first to look away. He cursed under his breath and glared again at the chancelier.

  “Why do you wish me to spy on Étienne-Henri if he was not culpable? He is now but a step from the throne. Surely you do not think him so impatient as to plot against his father when his brother’s corpse is barely cold! Or so foolish!”

  “You mistake me. I do not wish you to spy upon to the heir to the throne. That would be unthinkable, you understand, and would surely be accounted a deplorable crime of lèse-majesté. I merely wish for you to become a trusted advisor to him, a valued tool upon which he will learn to rely. The men with whom he has surrounded himself are mostly unreliable non-entities, thugs and clowns and fools, with one notable exception. I wish you to provide the counterbalance to that exception.”

  “Does this notable exception have a name?” He must be formidable, Theuderic thought, to render the thugs and fools of no concern.

  “Guilhem Donzeau. By all accounts a dangerous man. It is said he is the Duc’s wizard, although I found no record of him in the archives here.”

  “A hedge wizard.” Theuderic dismissed the man as a potential threat. “You couldn’t have sent a clerk to tell me this?”

  “I couldn’t have trusted a clerk. Nor would you have obeyed my summons with the alacrity I require had I sent one.”

  Theuderic shrugged. Du Moulin wasn’t incorrect. Being ordered to attach himself to the cowardly de Chênevin’s entourage was hardly the sort of thing to inspire a man to precipitate action.

  “What am I to do? Why do you expect the duc to welcome a known friend of his brother’s into his pack of unreliables? He hated Charles!”

  “Welcome you? I expect him to embrace you in much the same way a drowning man clings to a rope!” Du Moulin chuckled unexpectedly. “He will welcome you, my dear mage, because the king is going to give him the chance to win his spurs. De Beaumille is too old and the Grand Duc is too busy deciding when is the right moment to rebel against the crown for either of them to be given the honor of commanding the royal forces against the orc incursion.”

  As Theuderic blinked in astonishment, rapid movement to his right caught his eye. One of the matrons charged with overseeing the young maids had descended upon them and was now gesturing angrily at the juggler. The two girls were giggling as they gathered up their skirts and obediently returned to their dormitory. He shook his head. The king might as reasonably give command of the royal forces to that matron as to his newly acquired heir. In fact, based on how effectively she was chasing off the lads, the woman would probably prove more effective.

  “Is His Majesty mad with grief?”

  “Not in the slightest. His Majesty is well aware of the martial shortcomings of his present heir-apparent as well as his son’s distaste for taking counsel. Those shortcomings must be rectified, in fact, I can say that they will be rectified, before His Majesty will permit the Duc de Chênevin to be formally crowned and recognized as his heir.”

  Ah, so his first instinct had been correct after all! Except du Moulin was not intriguing against the king, he was, rather, the hand of the king. And Theuderic realized that he himself was to be, if necessary, the royal knife in the back that would keep an unworthy successor from the throne. His eyes must have betrayed something of his understanding, because du Moulin was quick to clarify the matter as much as he dared aloud.

  “Don’t assume too much, de Merovech. It is sincerely hoped that Chênevin will rise to the occasion. And it is expected that the mage who stood so steadfastly at the side of the Red Prince will do no less for his brother. I have no doubt you will be able to advise Étienne-Henri well. We may even hope that he will see fit to lend an ear to a man with your considerable experience in battle.”

  Theuderic wasn’t fooled. Of course he would advise the prince to the best of his ability. It was his sworn duty, and in any event, only a lunatic would seek to find an advantage in permitting a savage army of orcs to ravage the southeastern portion of the kingdom. Even the most rabid supporter of the Grand Duc and his incipient bid for Écarlatean independence would not dream of drawing swords against the Miridines until the orcs were driven back to their mountainous wastelands. But he knew du Moulin, he had killed more than a handful of men at the chancelier’s command, and he was certain du Moulin would not hesitate to order him to arrange the prince’s death if it was deemed to be in the interest of the realm.

  “I’m not concerned whether he will listen to me or not, monseigneur chancelier. My fear is not for the corpse, but for the blade. What assurances will you give it that once used, it will not be discarded?”

  Du Moulin was silent for a moment, and he looked out over the now-empty quad. “I was under the impression that as both kingsmage and vassal, you swore to serve His Majesty even unto death. I should imagine that no matter what sacrifice was deemed vital to the crown, you would not hesitate to make it!”

  “You have a powerful imagination, mon seigneur.” They locked eyes again and this time Theuderic didn’t look away. “If you trust me to hold my tongue now, why would you doubt my ability to do so at any point in the future?”

  “Hold your tongue now? Concerning what? I have told you nothing you could not repeat before the entire court.” Du Moulin affected mild surprise. “Your inferences and interpretations are your own, monsieur magus. Nevertheless, you need not worry about the proverbial knife in the back, at least, not mine. You may recall I am not in the habit of throwing away useful men. Guilhem Donzeau, on the other hand, should be watched closely if ever he comes to see you as his rival in the prince’s confidence. But if you would fear something, fear the prince’s generalship, for I intend you to be at his side. If you cannot talk sense into him, you may one day soon find yourself surrounded by ten thousand orcs bent upon your destruction. In such an event, there would be nothing I could do to save you.”

  Theuderic nodded, pretending to be reassured. But I do not fear orcs or charlatans, or even the foolishness of princes, monseigneur le Chancelier. I fear you, spider. I may be a dagger in your hand, but I know full well there are others. And I know how readily you will cast a bloody blade aside, lest it stain your lily-white hands.

  “I am, as you have so graciously reminded me, at the king’s service in all things, even unto the most bitter of ends. When would you have me depart and where shall I go? Is Étienne-Henri even aware of the duty that has befallen him yet?”

  “He is not, but he will be upon my return to Lutèce. I would have you depart upon the morrow; that should give you the opportunity to be sure that your seed is well and truly sown.”

  “You are too kind.”

  Du Moulin acknowledged his sarcasm with a ghost of a smile and a brief inclination of his head. “Do not the priests tell us not to bind the mouths of the kine? And in truth, the loss of your bloodline would be a loss to the kingdom.”

  The wor
ds cost the chancelier nothing, Theuderic knew. And yet, even so small a gesture, so casual a compliment, reassured him in a way du Moulin’s earlier assurances had not. Not that du Moulin wouldn’t kill him if his death was determined to be necessary; if the ruthless chancelier was willing to murder the king’s heir apparent, he would not shirk at a mere comte and kingsmage. But the chancelier had made it clear that he would only do so if it was absolutely necessary, and Theuderic was determined to ensure that would never be the case.

  In any event, forewarned was forearmed. If worst came to worst, and it began to look as if he’d been chosen to play the scapegoat, he could always flee to Merithaim. Although, he reflected, du Moulin would almost certainly give him a quicker and more painless death than the lady Lithriel, should she ever learn the whole truth about her rescue from Malkan.

  Du Moulin produced a pair of sealed scrolls that had been secreted in his tunic. The wax was the blue one that Theuderic recognized as belonging to l’Académie and the seal was the Grandmagicien’s own. He handed them to Theuderic; one was thicker than the other.

  “The larger one is your credentials, as well as those belonging to the four mages who will accompany you. Give it to the prince when you are brought before him. They will all be young men, recently raised to the blue, and answerable to you as their superior. I told D’Arseille I wanted the best he had, so I expect you’ll find them useful on the battlefield. They should suffice to give you a status that Donzeau cannot contest and ensure you a place in the prince’s conseil.”

  Theuderic nodded. Du Moulin’s plan was, unsurprisingly, well-conceived. Five battlemages was a military asset at which no general facing a larger army could afford to turn up his nose, no matter how suspicious he might be.

  “And the other?” He raised the smaller scroll.

  “Your secret orders from me to spy upon the prince and report upon his loyalty to his father. Open it once you have been accepted into his entourage and be sure to hide it where it will be found. But hide it well, don’t make it too obvious! Like all connivers, Chênevin is a suspicious man, and his mind won’t be at ease about you unless he is convinced he knows your purpose. This will suffice to convince him you are harmless. He is loyal enough. As far as he is concerned, he has only to wait and the throne will be his.”

  “His brother was less convinced of Étienne-Henri’s patience.”

  “His brother, and his brother’s heirs, stood in his way.” Du Moulin sniffed contemptuously. “And I should not be surprised if this small taste of responsibility will be sufficient to inspire him to pray God grant his father a long and active life. It is one thing to desire a crown from afar, but the nearer one comes to it, the heavier it is seen to weigh. In any event, try not to despise him, Theuderic, no matter how much he merits it. All Chênevin truly seeks is approval from men he finds admirable. He’ll never get it from Charles-Phillippe now, so see that you dole it out to him slowly, even reluctantly, as his brother’s proxy, and soon you’ll acquire all the influence with him you require.”

  “Will that do any good?” Theuderic said bitterly. He found it hard to imagine.

  “See that it does,” du Moulin replied.

  Marcus

  The afternoon ride through the green rolling hills of southern Savondir was quite possibly the most relaxing thing he’d done in months, Marcus realized, and yet the warmth of the late spring afternoon did nothing to calm the helpless fury that boiled within him. It was with no little difficulty that he choked down his rage and maintained a tranquil facade for the benefit of his companions, both Amorran and Savonderic. There was a time for anger, just as there was a time for all things, but that time was not now. Now there were too many decisions to be made, too many decisions for which he did not have sufficient information. And too many decisions that were bound to cost lives, many lives, no matter what he decided.

  He was well aware of the fact that he was not up to the responsibility placed upon him. He lacked information, he lacked experience, and worst of all, he lacked reliable advisors. The situation was utterly ludicrous. Here he was contemplating the fate of kingdoms and empires while riding a borrowed horse and accompanied by an imposed bodyguard through a foreign land that had, for most of the previous century, been formally at war with the Senate and People.

  On the positive side, Marcus reminded himself, he was alive and he was on the right side of the grass. There was much to be said for the ground beneath one’s feet, he found, especially after spending more than a month with it above his head. It was only three weeks ago that Legio XVII emerged from the tunnels that the legionary wags labeled the Via Pumilia, and there still was not a morning in which Marcus did not find himself lifting his eyes to the sky and giving thanks to God for the light of the sun upon his face. However grey the day might be, there was no cloud thick enough to obscure the light completely.

  Decisions. In such circumstances, even to delay a decision was to make one. He wished he had a better grasp on Savonderic politics, as the one thing that had become very clear to him in his recent meeting with the two members of the king’s concilium altum was that the distribution of power throughout the northern realm was not as clearly defined as it appeared from afar. It hadn’t taken him long after Marcus Saturnius’s death to learn how little direct control the legate held over the legion, and it was readily apparent that the king of Savondir faced even greater difficulties. Even in a legion of six thousand men, there were far too many details and decisions required for any one man to make them, and Marcus couldn’t imagine how much worse the problem must be in a kingdom of more than ten million.

  At least in the legion, he knew his officers were more or less loyal. That didn’t seem to be the case with many of the king’s nobles.

  As nearly as he could tell, there were two rival factions that currently had the king’s ear. One, led by the chancelier and supported by the royal general, saw Legio XVII as a divine blessing given to them in a time of need, and was eager to provide its legate all the resources he required. The other faction, which was more amorphous and lacked any leader known to him, seemed to view the Amorrans as a threat potentially more dangerous than the vast horde of orcs and goblins now threatening the eastern borderlands. Fortunately, it was the chancelier who held the purse strings, and though his main ally on the concilium was elderly and set in his ways, the Maréchal de Savonne clearly understood the difference between a minor incursion and a major invasion, as well as what was required to deal with the latter.

  Gold, horses, food, and information. That was what Marcus had obtained in the little walled town of Sainte Jorat sur le Lac where he met the royal representatives. Or, rather, he had obtained assurances of them. Once it became clear that he was willing to lead his legion against the orc tribes on behalf of the realm, the royal councillors were willing enough to make promises. Whether those handsome promises would be fulfilled was still an open question, but he was confident that the general, at least, had understood that without four hundred horses to replace the beasts they had slaughtered and eaten under the mountain, the legion’s cavalry would be nonexistent.

  Both he and the decurion who accompanied him, Vitalis, rode rather better mounts now than the poorly fed nags Proculus bought from a farmer prior to their journey to Sainte Jorac sur le Lac. The animals were bigger than the horses to which the Amorrans were accustomed; they had to be in order to bear the weight of the heavily armored Savonderic knights. Marcus wished the legionary cavalry of the XVth had been riding big brutes like these last autumn in the Battle of the Three Legions. If they had, they would have ridden down Magnus’s outnumbered cavalry before his uncle’s damned knights managed to spring the trap that was the turning point of the battle.

  He sighed, refusing to indulge himself by picking again at that oft-revisited wound. South or northeast, that was the first question he had to answer, and the one from which all the others would follow. His heart, and the fury bubbling within him, urged him south. His head, his word, and his sense o
f duty called him northeast. So, too, did the scrolls which bore stylized signatures and elaborate wax stamps and were stowed away in his saddlebags, but he wasn’t overly concerned about the agreements he’d signed. Only the king, and perhaps the king’s troublesome Grand Duc, possessed larger armies than he presently commanded, which meant that no matter what the agreements might say, he was at liberty to change his mind at any time.

  No doubt that was why the royal councillors and their various priests and scribes had been so determined to try binding him through the web of words that were spun throughout the beautifully inscribed scrolls he now carried. But what they didn’t realize is that Marcus had been speaking solely for the legion, not himself, and though a patrician’s word was famously his bond, a legate’s word was nothing more than one of the thousands of weapons at his disposal in defense of the Senate and People.

  Still, he would like to keep it, if possible. If nothing else, it would be one less sin to confess to Father Gennadius.

  It was with a mild pang of regret that he spotted a pair of legionaries seated in the shade of a small copse of trees that topped the highest hill in the area. They had surely been gambling, but they were alert enough. No sooner had the sound of creaking wagon axles reached them than they were on their feet, one hand on their sword hilts and the other over their eyes as they peered into the western sun. He sighed, knowing his responsibilities were about to fall upon him again, and the time for decisions was rapidly approaching. He felt the weight of them all the heavier in light of the grim news he had learned in Sainte Jorac sur le Lac.

  “Surely your men don’t fear an attack,” scoffed de Forbonnais, the Utruccan-speaking comte whom the king's Chancelier had named the royal liaison to the legion. That was his official assignation, but Marcus assumed that in addition to spying on the Amorrans, the cocksure young noble was almost surely a sorcerer in the mode of the departed, and deeply unlamented, Theuderic de Merovech. De Forbonnais was likable enough, although his long, flowing brown hair made him look rather like a woman amongst all the shaved and close-cropped heads favored by the Amorran legionaries. It didn’t help that the man’s Savonderic accent also made his Utruccan sound a little less than entirely masculine.