by Simon Morden
“I have a hundred—”
“Three hundred, my lord,” said Trommler to Gerhard, his interruption perfectly timed.
Walter scowled and grimaced.
“And I believe both the road and the pass belong to you, my lord.”
“And the land beyond the pass, Chamberlain?”
“Yours also, my lord.”
“Ah.” Gerhard stroked his lips and looked back to the Teuton. “You seem to want to give me reasons to refuse you: reasons I don’t really need because my word is law in this land. You bring your brawling, thieving bunch of mercenaries halfway across Europe, and everywhere you go, you cause trouble. You arrive at my borders having been chased at spear-point through Bavaria, you lie about your numbers, you insult my ears with your accent, and then you have the gall to act surprised when I refuse you and your men passage.”
The Teuton ground his jaw in silence, and eyed his guards. He was currently weaponless, but his snatching a spear was always possible. Then he grew very still. He’d noticed a figure all in white standing half obscured behind a pillar. All in white, even to the extent of having a veiled face.
Gerhard nodded in satisfaction. “Your act is poor, Master Walter. You came here expecting the answer you received, so you decided to be just plain rude instead. Perhaps you thought the Prince of Carinthia had grown weak, or stupid, since last year when a different ugly, sweaty brute stood in your place and mangled good, honest German with his stinking barbarian tongue.”
“Wolfgang of Ludsen, my lord.”
“And what did we do with him, Chamberlain?”
“Cursed his manhood, my lord.”
“Pardon? I’m not sure I heard right.”
“His cock rotted off, my lord, over the course of a few weeks.”
“Yes. That was it.” Gerhard rubbed his palms together, gratified that, at last, Walter of Danzig had gone even paler under the veneer of dirt. “Clearly not deterrent enough. What shall we do this time?”
“I want to return to my men,” said the Teuton, mustering as much of his dignity as remained. He glanced again at the white-shrouded hexmaster in the shadows, and Gerhard knew that although they’d brought their own shaman along with them, it was so much hedge-magic against the high arts of the Order.
“I have not finished with you,” roared the prince. The spearmen flinched, and the order wasn’t even directed at them. “This is my decision: I’m going to have you pressed, and when you’re dead, I’m going to strap your shattered bones to your horse and send it back to your pox-ridden army.”
The Teuton turned to find a score of broad-bladed spears pointing at his guts. He spun back, and reached up for his axe. His hand found nothing.
“This is what happens when you pick a fight with Carinthia,” said the prince mildly. “You can’t win. You just get to choose how you lose.”
The Teuton straightened up. “You have done me wrong, prince, and you will pay for this.”
Gerhard did no more than raise an eyebrow. Trommler hadn’t moved, except to rest himself against the side of the throne, and Felix was stock-still.
“I see no reason to be provoked by you. A civilised man keeps his speech honest, and his temper checked. Take him away, and send word when the stones have been prepared. I’ll want to watch.”
Walter of Danzig spat on the floor and deliberately turned his back on the dais. He looked down at the spear-heads and, growling deep in his throat, knocked one aside with his hand.
The guards marched the Teuton away. Once the Great Hall’s door banged shut again, the white-robed man – or woman, it was impossible to tell – drifted across the floor towards the dais.
“Father,” said Felix, “won’t the rest of them cause trouble for us?”
“Barbarians that they are, I don’t think even they’re quite as stupid as to ignore just how flat pressing makes a man.” Gerhard rose from his throne and bowed. The white-swathed head dipped briefly. “Your presence honours us, as always.”
Again, the slight movement of the head to acknowledge the prince’s will, then the figure walked off, stage right, back into the shadows. A door clicked and creaked, then shut with an echo.
Gerhard couldn’t tell if there had been a real person underneath the concealment, or whether the clothes were merely animated. No concern of his really. He gave them the peace to pursue their studies, and half the palatinate’s taxes. In return, their power shielded the land more certainly than any standing army. Like the tree and the mistletoe, they sheltered within his branches and made his rule sacred.
Or was it the other way around?
“Trommler?”
“Yes, my lord?”
“We could do with keeping an eye on the Teutons, just to make sure.”
“Master Büber is in town. I’ll have him fetched to the castle.” Trommler trotted off, leaving the prince and his son alone.
“So,” said the prince. “What did you think of that, boy?”
“You’re really going to press him?” Felix looked at his hands.
“Yes. He deserves nothing less, and it’ll keep his stinking brothers away from Carinthia at no extra effort to us. They can do what they like to Bavaria or Wien. My people are my concern.”
“And you’re going to watch?”
“Gods, have you really never been to a pressing before? That’s a gap in your education, one which we can happily fill by the end of the day.” Gerhard saw the boy grow white-lipped. “This is what princes do, Felix. They hold the power of life and death in their hands, and the sooner you realise that, the sooner you’ll be ready to take my place, on this throne.”
Felix glanced sharply around.
“Oh, I’ve a few years left in me yet. You won’t be expected to assume these duties until you’re ready. Now get down there” – Gerhard nodded at the space in front of the dais – “and show me your hews.”
The boy reluctantly hopped down off the platform, and pulled out his longsword. The blade rang as he freed it from its scabbard, and as he moved into his roof guard position the edge of the steel glowed with a subtle blue light.
Felix held his stance, concentrated on his breathing, and, when he was ready, swung the point of the sword down and away, dancing lightly on his feet to execute a squinting hew, then again into a part hew. He pressed forward strongly, the tip always in motion as he slipped from one attack to the next, ending each move with the appropriate guard before bringing the blade around again.
When he reached the end of the dais, he retreated as if facing a stronger opponent, switching from guard to guard as the imaginary blows rained down on his slight form.
He was pink with effort by the time he reached his starting point.
“Not bad, boy. Not bad at all.” Gerhard pushed his sleeves up. “Let me show you how to do that in battle.”
4
Still completely covered by her Order’s white robe, Nikoleta Agana left the fortress by the little-used Snake’s Passage, and took the steep steps down to the riverside. Her soft shoes and billowing skirts made it look like she was floating. She could do that: her superiors hadn’t even had to ink her and teach her levitation, as she’d arrived at the novices’ house already able to fly. For her, it was as natural as breathing.
But she liked to walk. She enjoyed the feeling of stone under her heels, of grit against the soles of her feet, the meaningful stretch and ache of muscles as she moved. Some of her fellow adepts took it as a weakness, but after a bout of spell and counter-spell, it was they who were left dizzy and breathless, while she was alert and ready.
It was warm under the cloth. The days had turned from thrilling cold to showing a hint of summer. The townspeople, the merely mundane, had thrown off their winter clothes, but, whatever the weather, the Order wore the same white robes, and that was all anyone ever saw.
They saw it now as she approached the Witches’ Bridge. Nikoleta didn’t have to break stride, despite the road being busy. It was a centuries’-old concession, letting munda
nes use the bridge, but the arrangement stood firm. Everyone had to get out of the way of a hexmaster or suffer the consequences.
They parted before her, and made Loki’s horns at her behind her back. Even though the bridge was narrow, the mundanes pressed themselves against the parapets and tried not to pitch either themselves or their loads into the swiftly flowing river below.
They weren’t to know that she wasn’t a hexmaster. They weren’t to know that they never saw a hexmaster, and that it was anonymous novices and adepts that passed among them. The hexmasters stayed in their tower – plotting, researching, writing – unless there was dire need for them. And that was what she wanted for herself. A woman master: there wasn’t even a word for what she wanted to become.
Her life – her adult life, at least – had been one of control and concentration. She could blank her mind of external stimulus, recall information instantly and perfectly, even slow her own heartbeat by an act of will. Freeing herself from the internal storm was more difficult: that was the difference between being adept at the secret arts and true mastery.
She used her learning song to calm herself; she sang it under her breath as she went, using the points of the simple, repetitive melody to inform her pace and fill her lungs. It was a song from Byzantium: that and her raw talent were the only two things she’d brought with her from the East.
“Hoson zês, phainou,” she whispered, “mêden holôs su lupou.”
It started to work. Not magic, exactly, but close.
The mundanes continued to move out of her way. Of course they did. Even a bare-faced novice would find their path clear. How much more would they scatter for one fully robed, muttering unintelligible words from under her hood?
“Pros oligon esti to zên, to telos ho chronos apaitei.” Over and over again. She was so deep in a trance, she was almost blind and deaf. Her feet carried her like tiny automata into the town-beyond-the-wall, and up the shaded trail to the summit of the Goat Mountain.
Not a real mountain, more of a hill – steep, shrouded in trees – and no goats, either. The high peaks of the Alps that lay to the south dwarfed it, but it was more feared than any razor-sharp pinnacle. The slim tower balanced on its broad back was instantly recognisable by anyone who considered themselves wise.
She climbed under tall trees all the way to the top. She didn’t know the route, had never before been permitted to approach the White Tower, let alone enter it. Yet it was easy: the slick black shine of the tower’s walls peeked at her through the canopy during her ascent. It was only when she neared the summit, and the trees grew gnarled and wrong, that its size became apparent.
Her home city had inured her to architecture on a massive scale, but that was in the context of a city, the capital of an empire. The hexmasters had – not built, because that would imply the work of human hands – had raised themselves a spire that scratched at the heavens like a thorn.
Or so it looked from its base. Smooth black rock, half melted, windows like teardrops. One way in, a doorway, but no door.
An intruder would have to be completely insane to enter. There were things a sorcerer could do to a thief that were simply indescribable, and despite the fact she’d been summoned there and had express permission to go through the opening in the base of the tower, it was all she could do to prevent herself from turning around and fleeing as far and as fast as she could.
There were carved wards set into the stone either side of the doorway, faintly glowing in the shadow. She could see them for what they were because she wore the ink to do so, although their designs were arcane and their functions obscure. Those shallow engravings were responsible for part of her terror. The rest came from inside herself.
She took a step closer, and felt their full impact. If they’d gone for her, she’d have been a mewling, vomiting heap on the ground, unable to escape, utterly defenceless. Perhaps someone would have been along later to drag her away and trust she’d learnt her lesson. Or drag her inside, depending on their mood.
She’d seen it for herself, once, down at the novices’ house. It had been instructive, but if she’d been asked to say what had actually happened, she’d have shrugged and said that the man had died, eventually.
It was still the effect of the wards. She swallowed hard and pushed through. As soon as she crossed the threshold, their influence faded, and she was left in the wide corridor that led to the main hall. Behind her, the outside had gone. There was nothing but a black wall. Ahead of her was a mess of hazy light, where blurred shadows walked.
She reached up and pulled her veil aside, folding it back over her head to expose her face. There was no point in hiding anything here, not from them. She served the hexmasters without question, obeying reflexively to avoid the pain of punishment. She went to find the master who had called her.
The space she was in was luminous, so bright that the hexmasters’ white robes were grey in comparison. She couldn’t tell how far the hall extended – even whether or not it was too large to fit inside the circumference of the tower.
There was no time to explore though, nor to wonder at the space. The moment she entered, she was surrounded. Figures coalesced out of the white mist, drawn towards her by the flame of her youth. Every one of them was old. All of them were shorter than her. They leant on their staffs and their hands were as white as parchment, as thin and brittle as twigs.
Mundanes could never attain that age. These men should all be dead. And yet … and yet, here they were, eking out their threadbare lives.
The air around her seemed to seethe with magic. She shuttered her usually impregnable defences down further to prevent her coming to inadvertent harm.
Her mouth was dry, though, and there was nothing she could do about that. “Master Eckhardt?” She didn’t know which of them was Eckhardt. He had come down to the adepts’ house, fully veiled.
“Adept Agana.” A man taller and straighter than the others moved through the crowd. He was still old: the skin on his round head was heading towards his feet, and his owlish eyebrows were pure white. “What did the prince say?”
She closed her eyes to remember, and was suddenly aware of the pawing, the dry brushing of withered fingers against her robes, tracing the outline of her breasts, her belly, the hollow of her back.
Block it out, block it out. “Hoson zês, phainou, mêden holôs su lupou.”
“The prince, Adept?” The mood of the master was plain. Eckhardt was quick to anger, slow to forgive.
“Gerhard is going to press the Teuton leader and send the body back to his men. He believes this will be sufficient warning to stop the Teutons crossing into Carinthia.”
The touching didn’t stop. If anything, it grew more intimate.
“Where are they now?”
“They are camped by the river at Simbach. If they cross, Gerhard means to call on you to kill them.” Nikoleta shivered. The butterfly caresses fluttered away for a brief moment.
“This Teuton: what was he like?”
“Coarse. Rude. Tall. Strong. Smelt of horse.” She wanted to leave, and knew she mustn’t. “Brave. Unschooled. Cunning. Proud. Mortal.”
Eckhardt grunted at her description. The light was blinding her, and it hurt to look at him. What little hair remained on his head shone like a halo.
“And Gerhard: what about him?”
He was their prince. Surely they’d know everything there was to know, even things that Gerhard himself had forgotten?
“I …” She found herself completely disorientated. It was the glowing, dream-like air, the inconstant, intrusive touching, the vibrations in her skull from being surrounded by so much magic.
“It matters not. All such men are the same, whether they rule few or many.” Eckhardt reached out and took hold of her chin. He turned her head to the left, then to the right, not gently either. His fingers dug into her flesh. “Go. We might need you again. Wait at the adepts’ house.”
That was her dismissal; she knew better than to argue at he
r treatment or linger for an answer, and she didn’t want to do either; she needed to obey. She turned, and the frail figures, hunched over their sticks, slowly, reluctantly, stood aside for her.
She took a step away from the masters, and another to get completely out of range of their hands. A smudge of darkness presented itself ahead and to her right. She walked towards it with the same steady gait that had brought her there.
The darkness expanded, swallowed her whole, and vomited her outside. She was shaking, retching, scrubbing her body through her clothes with her nails. She needed to lean against something to stop herself from falling. Not the glassy wall of the tower though, and not one of the nearby trees, which were tainted and untrustworthy. Nothing for it then but to stumble down the path towards the base of the hill, which led to the adepts’ house and the novices’ house beyond it.
The sun, clean and warm, filtered through the leaves. Its light was nothing like the syrupy, cloying incandescence of the White Tower. It was the same sun that had beaten down on her uncovered head as a child. She’d been barefooted then, her clothes nothing more than holes stitched together with remnants of weave; a wild, feral child, tormented and shunned.
She’d gone far enough from Byzantium to be safe then, and she’d gone far enough from the tower now. She slumped forward against the trunk of a chestnut and hugged its rough bark like it was her …
No, not that. Her mother feared her and hated her. If she was still alive.
The tree beat with rising sap, a slow, steady pulse. She could feel it if she concentrated on it, and it was so much easier to do that than consider her first, and only, meeting with the leaders of her Order.
After a while, when she thought she could stand again unaided, she let go and put her back to the tree, sliding down the trunk in a way that made her robes rise up and expose her legs, and the black ink under her olive skin. The palms of her hands were marked with ridges where she’d pressed them into the bark. But they soon faded. Her knuckles were smooth, her fingers straight. She was young.