by Glenda Larke
But even love wouldn’t be enough. She wanted to find joy in life, to experience hope, to be challenged.
She glanced around the room. Knots of courtiers formed and re-formed as they laughed and drank and gossiped and waited for the King to arrive. Her gaze moved on until she located Saker Rampion. He was standing next to Lord Juster, talking quietly with a seriousness at odds with most of the others in the Hall. If I could have married someone like him, she thought, I might have been happy. He’d have been a wonderful father to Heather.
As chaperone when the Princess was with the witan, she listened to all their conversations. There was something about Saker’s watchful eye, his quiet, thoughtful air, that both attracted and intrigued.
He and Lord Juster Dornbeck were an unlikely pair. She knew Dornbeck was a buccaneer, a man whose passions always seemed larger than life. Gossip said he loved too well and too often, drank too much and too frequently, played too hard and too dangerously. By contrast, in all the time Rampion had been at court, she’d never heard gossip about him that linked his name to any woman, or to any kind of excess. And yet his friendship with Lord Juster appeared genuine.
Silly, she guessed, to think a man as handsome as Saker, with such a gentle, winning smile, would not bed a willing tavern lass occasionally. Often. Maybe he had a regular lover. Someone he wanted to marry. The thought caused her a stab of pain, and she sighed. Pox on’t, she was such a fool.
Just then, the King entered with the more important courtiers and made his way to the main table. Once they were settled, everyone else sought places at the trestle boards that ran the length of the hall. On their way to their seats, Lord Juster and Witan Saker halted only two paces away from the edge of her skirts.
They were too close. One false step and either of them could trip over her feet. She began to sweat, but didn’t dare wipe the moisture away as it dripped down her brow and into her eyes.
“You’re sure? Those money-grabbing Lowmian merchants managed to make their consortium work?” Lord Juster was asking.
Saker nodded. “The Lowmian Spicerie Trading Company, with the Regal as patron. I’ll wager he’s been playing off one merchant family against another, one port against another.”
Juster nodded. “And collects the gifts bestowed by those striving to reassert their privileged places. One can only wonder how the most frugal and austere of men often seem also to be the most covetous! What in all damp and watery Ustgrind does Vilmar do with his gold? Sit on it, like a mythical dragon on his hoard?”
“Well, he certainly doesn’t wear his wealth. He dresses like a shipping clerk.”
“I heard the Lowmians have already laid the keels of three new fluyts.”
Flights? She wondered if she’d heard the word correctly. Ships of some kind, that was obvious.
Saker nodded.
“While our penny-pinching merchants continue to bicker like children with the King and the shipbuilders,” Juster said in disgust.
“My sources in Lowmeer tell me Kesleer’s carrack the Spice Dragon is being refitted to bring the new fleet up to four. All only lightly armed.”
“No match for my Golden Petrel, then!”
“Is it rigged yet?”
“She is indeed,” Lord Juster corrected. Casually he leaned an arm against the pillar, his hand resting just a finger’s length from Sorrel’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if one of the Regal’s galleons didn’t sail with them to provide more fire power.”
She almost screamed. How could they not see her? Her heart was pounding. She concentrated, pressing herself into the stone. I am not here, not here…
Intent on their conversation, neither of the men noticed her.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how the Petrel matches up to these fluyts,” Lord Juster continued.
Through the blur of sweat trickling into her eyelashes, she saw a golden haze around Saker, misting the air from a point at his hip. They didn’t notice that either. She eyed at it uneasily, mystified.
Dornbeck said, “Don’t look at me like that, Saker! My ship is the only chance we have of being able to obtain spices without paying through the nose for them.”
She heard the words but hardly absorbed their meaning. The space around Saker was filling with golden light, cascades of orange and vermilion, as soft as rolls of satin. Her terror grew. Smells filled her nostrils: the tang of salt borne on a sea wind, the musty damp of a forest floor after heavy rain. Song filled her ears, birdsong, but of no bird she’d ever heard, unearthly, bell-like notes beautiful almost beyond bearing.
Rampion and Dornbeck moved to be seated at the tables, and the colours and sounds faded, leaving Sorrel shaking and wet with sweat. No one was looking at her. No one else had noticed anything unusual.
She stayed where she was, her fright gradually fading. Some kind of vision, she decided, caused by the fear of being caught. Nothing more, please Va. Nothing more. I couldn’t take on another burden to worry about.
After dinner was over, as the tables were dismantled and the hall was prepared for dancing, Sorrel caught sight of Saker again. He had ensconced himself behind a pillar, and to her amusement he was eavesdropping on a conversation between Tonias Pedding, the Prime’s secretary, and the palace resident prelate, Conrid Masterton. Well, two could play the same game, she supposed. Without further thought, she crossed to stand where she could both watch and listen. Blurred into the wall, she went unnoticed.
“…Horned Death,” Pedding was saying.
“The Lowmian disease?” the prelate asked.
“Not just Lowmian. Prime Fox has sent word from the north. Quite a few deaths up in the Shenat strongholds of Ardrone, near the border with Valence.”
Prelate Masterton was appalled. “Va above! I trust the Prime has left the area.”
“His letter said he thought it was his duty to stay,” Secretary Pedding replied, shaking his head. He was a nondescript man, dour by nature and dull in dress. His support of Fox was so devout that courtiers joked he worshipped the Prime rather than Va. “We’re not to say anything. He doesn’t want any panic.”
“The Prime is brave, but he ought to put his safety first.” Masterton was unable to conceal his anxiety.
“He never does that,” Pedding said proudly. “He’s a man of courage. I should be with him, but he refuses to take me on his travels. Says that being responsible for his own affairs prevents him from being too prideful. But this plague has me worried.”
“I’ve heard it’s been spreading in Lowmeer, too. Pestilence doesn’t take any notice of borders, after all.”
“Spice pomanders protect you.” The secretary sounded hopeful, as if he wanted reassurance.
“Have you heard what that belief has done to the price of spices? Only the wealthy can afford nutmeg or cloves in the kitchen these days. And who benefits? Lowmians, drat their waterlogged hides.”
The conversation ended there as the musicians started up and the two men went their separate ways.
Saker vanished into the crowd, and Sorrel doubted she’d hear much more that was interesting, so she left the festivities and headed for the Princess’s solar, hoping to snatch some sleep before Mathilda and her ladies-in-waiting returned.
Her sleeping quarters did not merit being described as anything except a cupboard. Containing only a truckle bed and a wooden trunk, the tiny room had a single door leading into Lady Mathilda’s bedroom, which eliminated any chance of Sorrel being seen by other servants while asleep and unable to control her glamour.
Sleep, however, did not come easily when she returned that night. Even here I’m not really safe, she thought. If I upset Mathilda, I could be dismissed and she wouldn’t even realise how hard it is for a woman alone to survive…
She wished she could talk about her problem with Saker Rampion, but how could she embroil him in her tangles? It wouldn’t be fair to him, and Mathilda would be furious. Besides, perhaps he’d think it his duty to hand her over to the assizes for murder.
When she finally slept, she dreamed of lying naked, warm and protected in Saker’s muscled arms. When the dream faded with her wakening, she grieved its loss.
13
A Touch of Dusk
When Saker was ushered into the Prime’s office not long after Fox had returned from the north, he thought the man had lost weight. Sunken cheeks gave him a gaunt appearance.
Remembering his own brief view of a victim of the Horned Death, he wasn’t surprised. If Fox had been attempting to succour the ill, he’d had an experience that would drain the vitality from any man.
“You asked to see me, your eminence?” As he took the hand the Prime proffered and raised it to his lips in the ritual kiss, Fox’s fingers tightened around his own in a gesture he couldn’t read. An acknowledgement of their mutual status as clerics was unlikely, so he took it as a gesture of dominance. “We’ve heard rumours of the Horned Death in Shenat country.”
“Two hundred deaths that I know of,” the Prime acknowledged, with a flat neutrality.
He blanched. Far more than any single Lowmian outbreak … A tickle against his thigh under his robe made his heart skip a beat. That dammed Chenderawasi blade was rippling in its sheath again. Would that he could rid himself of the wretched canker of an island sorcery! Yet he couldn’t even bear to leave it in his room when he went out.
“Odd, isn’t it, that the plague now strikes at the heart of Shenat,” Fox said. It wasn’t a question.
Saker shrugged, but his chest tightened. “Quite logical if it’s an A’Va-inspired illness. Where better to attack than at the heart of the Faith?”
“The heart of the Faith lies in the Pontificate, not the wastes of northern Ardrone, among ignorant farmers and shepherds,” Fox snapped. “More to the point, why does Va do nothing when it strikes where Va-Faith was supposedly birthed? This disease has shaken my belief in the authenticity of the Shenat-based Way of the Oak. Twenty-five of those who died were shrine-keepers. Not a single shrine-keeper who fell ill recovered, in spite of the heartfelt prayers of the shrine’s adherents.”
He was dizzy with shock. “What – what are you saying, your eminence?”
“Shenat is no more than a withered root to a much greater faith. We city clerics worked among the sick with impunity. The shrine-keepers died. Va rules, not the Way of the Oak. We must learn to bend our knees to the greater deity, not to an oak tree and its supposed unseen guardian! The Horned Death is indeed sent by A’Va, and he attacks our weakest point, an old and crumbling idea that barely scratches the glory of Va’s creation.”
Saker stared at him, horror rising like bile. Against his thigh, the dagger twisted and turned, as if trying to free itself from its containment. He held his arm flat to his side to subdue it. It was a moment before he could give voice to his strangled protest, “You can’t be serious! The Way makes Va’s wishes comprehensible to mankind. By adhering to the Way of the Oak and the Way of the Flow, we protect all of Va’s creation. You can’t separate one from the other!”
“I’ve seen the proof that says otherwise. Our generation will oversee the death of the Ways.” He turned to face Saker. “This is your chance, Witan Saker, your only chance to choose the true path. I beg you, think deeply on this.”
“You’re out of your mind,” he blurted. No sooner were the words said than he knew he’d made a terrible mistake. He should’ve dissembled; he should have done anything rather than outright contradict the Prime. He said, more carefully, “Your eminence, perhaps we should discuss this another time, once you have rested from your long and arduous journey and I’ve had time to think on your words.”
There was a long silence and then Fox said, “Perhaps.” His voice held a world-weariness in its tone that might have moved Saker if it hadn’t been matched by an implacable look in his eyes as cold as wind-borne northern snows – and far more frightening.
“One other matter, witan,” Fox added. “The King is concerned at signs of rebellion in the Princess. Please remind her that it is a daughter’s bounden duty to obey her father, just as it is a father’s duty to do what is best for his daughter. I have counselled him to that effect; you must do likewise for the Lady Mathilda. See to it that she accepts with regal grace and dignity whatever decision King Edwayn makes, knowing that it will be in her interest. You may go.”
As he walked away from the Prime’s door, his thoughts seethed like an agitated sea. For once he wasn’t interested in the numerous clerics scurrying through the corridors with their files, all part of Fox’s administration of Ardrone’s Va-Faith.
What he wanted most of all was to speak to the Pontifect. With a sinking heart, he realised that all he believed to be true – Shenat, the sanctity of shrines and the Way of the Oak – was tumbling towards disaster. There was something at work here that was deeper, more sinister than he knew how to tackle. A pox on Fritillary for tying him down to this post when he could have done so much more as a spy!
When he reached his room, he sat down and wrote to her using their long established codes, detailing all that Fox had said. Dressed in the drabbest of undistinguished clothing, he walked into the city to deliver the missive to her courier, using all his normal ways of ensuring he wasn’t followed. He dived unexpectedly into a crowd, changed direction once and doubled back twice. He saw nothing unexpected, no one who seemed out of place, and yet, halfway to the courier’s house, the lascar’s dagger started to writhe in its scabbard.
As an added precaution, he then stepped into a baker’s through one door and immediately exited through the back kitchen. Lurking in a nearby alley, he watched the kitchen entrance. No one emerged.
The dagger still refused to lie quiet, but this time he decided to ignore it. He continued along to the Three-Horned Ox, where he ordered a slice of roast duck with apple sauce dumplings. Afterwards, as he paid the courier’s wife for the meal, he dropped his letter surreptitiously into her lap.
Back in his room, he unsheathed the dagger and turned it over and over in his hands. It lay there, quiescent, the gold filaments dulled. He placed a fingertip on the blade and then snatched it back. The metal had burned him. A blister was forming on the skin of his forefinger.
“You swag-bellied whelp of a haggard!” he swore. In a futile expression of his anger at his powerlessness, he removed the kris from its sheath and flung it through the window opening into the gardens below.
Useless, of course. It would be back.
The following morning, he resisted the urge to visit the gardens under his window, and walked to the port instead. There he found Juster striding off his ship, now tied up quayside as the final varnish was applied and the rigging tested. He waved when he saw Saker and came across to clap him on the back. “Well met, my friend. Come, let’s wipe that frown from your brow! I was just about to head to the Wharfside Rats to have an ale or two. What’s niggling you this time, you inveterate worrier?”
“Valerian Fox.”
“Ah, our beloved Prime, the snake. Never trusted that man. Always been too … Lowmian.”
“That’s hardly a crime. Or a sin. Or even something nasty. I have some very good Lowmian friends.” With a pang, he thought of Gerelda, and missed her sharp wit and analytical intelligence.
“I know, but I love poking at the purity of your witan’s soul. Tell me what he’s done now.”
As they walked the length of the wharf, dodging the longshoremen trundling barrows and hefting sacks, Saker recounted his conversation with Fox. The buccaneer said nothing until they were in the tavern and had their ales in front of them. Then he leaned back against the wall behind and said, with a grimness in his steady gaze, “Well, there’s something I can tell you immediately. Fox told you for a reason. Certainly had nothing to do with wanting to convert you to his way of thinking. If there is anything he must be certain of, it’s that you’re dedicated to the Way of the Oak.
“The other thing he must know is that you’ll tell the Pontifect. Maybe that’s why he told you. Or maybe he just
wants you to accuse him of denigrating the Shenat so he can deny he ever said any such thing, and squash you like a bug beneath his elegantly shod foot.”
Saker rolled his eyes. “Thank you for that image. Doubtless it will return in a nightmare sometime. Somehow, though, I don’t think I’m big enough to be more than a stingless gnat as far as Fox is concerned. Whatever his plan is, I’m only incidental.”
“So he has something bigger in mind. Sounds as if he’s planning to rid the Faith of both Shenat influence and the Way of the Flow beliefs.”
“The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach has just grown larger,” Saker replied. “I was hoping it was me seeing a monster where there was none. Was it the Prime you meant when you spoke of the danger close to home?”
Juster took a long draught of his ale, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What do you think?”
Saker said slowly, elaborating on his thoughts only with reluctance, “He wants to divide the Faith and ultimately unseat the Pontifect. To take her place.” The idea of the Pontificate without Fritillary to lead it was bad enough; the thought of Valerian Fox instead was unspeakable disaster.
“Very possibly.”
“Va forbid.” Saker played with his mug, still trying to make sense of the unthinkable. “When he was in the north, maybe he recognised an opportunity in the Horned Death, and seized it. The Shenat are dying up there. The very people who support the Pontifect most. Without shrine-keepers, what will happen?”
“He’s not a fool. Wouldn’t do this unless he has substantial backing elsewhere,” Juster said.
“He wouldn’t have much from the Innerlands. They’ve always supported Fritillary Reedling.” But city clerics in Lowmeer and Ardrone? He wasn’t so sure.
Juster leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Any new candidate must have the support of both King Edwayn and Regal Vilmar. They are the real power in the Va-cherished Hemisphere. They can promote a change, or hinder it. If you’re right, no wonder Fox wasn’t happy when the Pontifect sent you, a Shenat-born cleric, as spiritual adviser to Edwayn’s heir, Prince Ryce. Which might be a good reason for him to bring you tumbling down.”