by Simon Morden
It was a narrow bed. They were jammed in together like piglets, naked and pink, and their clothes lay strewn with indecent haste across the rest of the mean lodgings – a room at the top and back of her master’s house.
“Aelinn? Aelinn, wake up. It’s morning.”
She stirred, felt behind her to touch the outside of his thigh, and sat up suddenly. “I need to lay the fires and boil the water.”
“Wasn’t there enough laying and boiling last night?”
She hit him lightly across his bare chest. Her breasts bounced, and Ullmann was distracted.
“Work is hard enough to come by these days, and there’ll be a dozen like me wanting to take my place if I don’t get on.”
“Aelinn…”
“Up, dressed, and out, before the rest of the household wakes.” She pushed his questing hand away. “We can talk about last night later.”
“Aelinn—”
“Max, please. This is important to me. I have a job to do, even if prince’s men can order their own hours.” She slid from the bed and went hunting around the room, gathering up her clothes and throwing Ullmann’s at him. He was hit in the face by his own breeks, and he laughed inappropriately.
She gave him a look – no, the look – that made him realise that he really ought to do what she said, but she was still as blonde and slim and pretty as she had been before, and they hadn’t been drunk except on each other.
He’d sought her out. They’d walked and talked and eaten and flirted. He had, up to the point they’d kissed on the doorstep, been the perfect gentleman. It became a little blurred after that point, but they’d ended up in her room doing all manner of things to each other, for quite a long time, before falling sated onto the mattress.
She was dressing, and reluctantly he started to do the same. Ready long before he was, she found his boots for him. He didn’t recognise them, then remembered they were the Bavarian’s.
“Thank you,” he said, and she waited, arms folded, while he pulled them on, unfamiliar and ill-fitting.
“Max, you’re going to have to go. Now.”
He dragged his shirt on over his head, and struggled into the sleeves. “You seemed more than happy last night to have me stay.”
“That was last night. There may well be other nights.”
“May?”
She half smiled. “Yes, may. But it’s morning now, and I’ve a day’s work to do.” She reached out and snagged his arm. She was surprisingly strong, and he didn’t have the will to resist her anyway. He found himself propelled towards the door.
“Can I call on you again?”
“Yes.” Her hand was on his back, pushing him down the narrow stairs.
“Tonight?”
“I thought prince’s men had important duties: ones that might keep them from calling.”
He stopped at the turn of the stairs, and looked up at her shadowed face. Above her was a defunct light. “Aelinn, have I done something wrong?”
“No,” she said. “This is a bit quick, that’s all. I didn’t mean to …” – and she gave a small squeak of frustration. “Give me a little while, yes?”
Ullmann worked his jaw. “Whatever you want.”
“Don’t be like that.”
He started down the stairs again, thought about deliberately making some noise, but resisted the urge. He didn’t know what was going on here. It should have been simple, but apparently it wasn’t. “Like what?”
“Huffy,” she said. “All I’m doing is trying to get you out of the house before I get into trouble. Any more trouble.”
“I’m going. I don’t mean to be a nuisance.”
“You’re not, it’s just everything else. Now, quiet as you can.” She squeezed past him, front to front, stifling a giggle at his startled expression, then tripped through the remaining rooms on her tiptoes.
The front door was substantial, and bolted. He helped her draw the bolts back and ease the latch up. Outside, the sky didn’t look promising, and it was colder than it had been the day before.
He raised his eyebrows at her and started to slip through the gap between door and frame. She caught his chin and kissed him hard on the lips before sending him across the threshold with a shove.
The door clicked shut again, and Ullmann found himself looking out over the main square. The fortress was a grey slab above the rooftops and greening branches of the sacred grove, and wood smoke flavoured the air. Breakfast, then. No man could tell him he hadn’t worked up an appetite.
He could find a beer cellar or street vendor: he had a purse of florins and shillings now, but was unused to wealth. What he should do was send some of it back to his parents to help them pay for the things they’d need for the farm that would soon be theirs by right, no longer beholden to any master or earl.
His only immediate desire was another pair of boots. And another night with Aelinn. Not just because it had been the first uninterrupted sleep he’d had after stabbing Nikoleta Agana, but because he liked her more than he thought possible in such a short time.
His daydreaming had brought him to Library Square. A trickle of workmen were beginning to arrive – apprentices and journeymen – making ready to begin their labour, even though the doors to the library itself were still shut. The library refectory would be open, though, he remembered, so – ignoring the few enterprising bratwurst sellers who had turned up in their carts to make the most of the prince’s coin – he slipped in the side door.
It was early, even for librarians. The hall was almost empty: a sprinkling of people at the kitchen end of the table. He thought about turning around, but was called over.
“Master Ullmann!”
It was Master Thaler, waving across at him. Ullmann took his place next to the man.
“Good morning, Master Ullmann. Up with a larks and ready to seize the day?”
“Carpe diem indeed, Master Thaler.” He reached forward to claim a wedge of bread and chunk of cheese. “The world is full of possibilities, and it’s up to us to make the most of them.”
“Indeed it is. As I was just explaining to our newest librarian, our circumstances may have changed but our skills are still valued by the learned.” Thaler affably raised his mug to his colleagues.
Ullmann raised his own and glanced around the table. His skin prickled.
On the far side of the master librarian was a man not much older than Ullmann, who he recognised as Fottner. Opposite the junior man was Braun, and next to him … The man … no, woman – though with her rough, short-cropped hair and pale northern features, she could have passed for a boy – reached out for her mug to return the toast. Her black robe pulled back from her wrist to reveal a maze of tattoos.
“She’s …” His first bite of bread remained unswallowed.
“As you yourself argued before the prince, it is what she is and can become that now directs all our behaviour. What she was is immaterial. The past is indeed a foreign country. We know it not.” Thaler swigged his watered-down wine. “To the future, where we will journey together, as one.”
The woman fixed Ullmann with her pale eyes. She lifted her mug, but her salute was mocking, and her gaze never left him as she drank.
He was instantly suspicious. She’d swapped her white robes for black, but she couldn’t be mistaken for anyone else. He’d taken the instructions regarding the Order to Wess only yesterday afternoon. He wet his mouth with his wine. “You move quickly, Mistress.”
That was an understatement: it was almost as if she’d been waiting for such a letter to be written, possibly even predicting its appearance. Had he made a mistake?
“I’ve learnt through bitter experience to do so, Master.”
All Ullmann could see was Nikoleta. Her tattooed hands trying to cover the wound in her chest. Her fever-bright eyes wide and round as she recognised her murderer. The flames as they caught the clothes she was wearing, her hair, her skin.
His hand brushed the place on his chest where she’d touched him, marke
d now by five silvery oval scars, and composed himself. The woman opposite wasn’t Nikoleta, and didn’t resemble her in any way. She had a thin, sculpted face. Almost elfin. Ullmann couldn’t see the tops of her ears. They were hidden in her hair, but it was entirely possible that they ended in points.
“Apologies,” he mumbled. “I was just surprised at the speed of your arrival. I should have been told if and when hexmasters enter the town.”
“There’s scarcely been time,” said Thaler, “and now you know. We must also remember that the mistress is not a hexmaster, and never was. But whether a novice or adept, she is literate, and gods know I need as many of her as I can get. She is both welcome and wanted.”
“If I could still do magic,” said the woman quietly, “do you think I’d be here?”
Thaler beamed at his newest recruit. “If you thought the transition to our new world is painful for us, Master Ullmann, can you begin to imagine what it is like for those who are now adrift in it like shipwrecked sailors? The library is their Pharos, showing the way home.”
The tension that had built up started to spill away. With conscious effort, Ullmann reached out for the jug and offered to refresh his dining partner’s drink. After a brief moment in which he thought she might refuse, she held up her pottery mug, still resting her elbow on the table.
He poured the wine-pink stream until her cup was half full. “Mistress.”
“Master.” She drank slowly, lowered her mug slowly, and returned to her meal slowly, all the while enjoying Ullmann’s discomfort.
“Excellent,” said Thaler. “Now where was I? Yes. You are free to come and go as you please: a salary will be paid, with a small deduction for board and lodging while you remain in library accommodation. Working hours are, perforce, during daylight alone now, until we can invent something better than a lantern. If you find something you’d rather be doing, then let me know – you’ve sworn no oaths and made no promises regarding the length of your stay, but of course if you feel the work and the life suits you, you are welcome to join our small band of brothers.”
“And now sisters,” said Ullmann.
“What? I …” and Thaler sat suddenly upright. “Gods yes. I hadn’t even thought of that. I hadn’t thought of that at all. Well then: if the Order took women, then so do we. Another tradition on the bonfire.”
He charged his mug and gulped down its contents to cover his confusion.
Ullmann noticed that the woman opposite now seemed to be regarding him with less hostility. He joined in the small talk and, because he was a good talker and knowledgeable about the town, the others listened to him. He observed how she ate and drank; freely, taking what she wanted, when she wanted.
He’d visited the novices’ house. He’d picked over the jumbled pile of bodies behind it, and wandered its empty corridors, confronted again and again with devices that could only have been used to inflict various grades of pain. Everyone who’d been through that school would be a formidable opponent. He suspected that the former witch was never going to be content to be a mundane like everyone else.
Finally, he thanked them all for their company and left the refectory, intending to head to the fortress. He was halfway to the outside door when he heard his name called.
It was her.
“Mistress?”
The corridor was almost completely dark. She came towards him, only stopping when she was uncomfortably close. “We need to talk privately, Master Ullmann.”
“We do?” Ullmann judged his exits.
“Yes,” she said. “Master Thaler is a good man, and well suited to oversee the library. Do you agree?”
“There’s none finer in the land, Mistress. Master Thaler lives and breathes books, and he has a rare passion for knowledge.” He wondered where she was taking the conversation.
“Do you also agree that he’s ill-equipped for any measure of intrigue and politicking?”
“I can’t say whether he is or isn’t, Mistress.” All Ullmann could see of her was her silhouette. “I dare suppose Master Thaler could turn his hand to anything if he chose.”
“Come now. He’s a naif, an innocent. He projects his own good intentions on others, and expects them to treat him honourably. You, however, realise that the Order trains people differently.”
Ullmann’s hand strayed to his belt almost unconsciously. “Mistress, I only know a little of the Order’s methods—”
“All your suspicions about me are true, and you cannot begin to comprehend the depths of depravity which the masters imposed on me.” She tilted her head to one side, and her voice sounded almost wistful. “Master Thaler is wholly different. His nature is light to their darkness, and, astute as you are, you surely realise that I have nowhere else to go. He is ignorant of what I really am in a way that you are not. If you turn him against me, I’m finished.”
He had his fingers on his knife. “I’m content to let Master Thaler oversee your conduct, and as long as it pleases him, it’ll please the prince.”
“Are you still afraid of me, Master Ullmann?” she asked. “Are you afraid I’ll somehow regain my power and try to take everything back?”
It would be easy to drive his dagger into her guts. Easier now that he’d done it to someone else. After the act, though, he’d have Thaler to answer to, and the prince after that. “I’m quite convinced that your witchery is in the past, Mistress, and if necromancy ever tempted you, we’ve already dealt with Eckhardt.”
She leant forward on tiptoe. “I need you to be convinced, Master Ullmann, as much as I need Master Thaler to be convinced. I recognise a potential enemy when I see one, and, right now, one is one too many. I might be the first adept to come over to the library, but I won’t be the last. If others start to plot and plan, I’ll come and tell you. Ask me questions and I’ll hide nothing from you.”
Ullmann consciously moved his right hand to behind his back. “That’s a fine offer, Mistress…”
“Tuomanen,” she said, filling in the gap.
“But what do you expect in return?”
“What do I want? I want to live. Master Thaler thinks the townsfolk will simply accept us in their midst: we both know he’s wrong.” And with that, she turned and walked away, a slight and small grey shape in the gloom.
Ullmann stared at the space where she’d been, and thought that, just as Thaler had under-librarians, and masters had their journeymen, he needed his own people around him: nothing less than a private army to protect him and do his bidding.
All in the name of the prince, of course.
He had coin, and access to more if he made the case for it. It was time to make some appointments.
64
Felix joined Sophia at the window as she peered down into the courtyard. She pointed at the man in the rich cream-coloured cloak.
“Is that him?” she asked.
Felix nodded. “His excellency Spyropoulos, ambassador of the Eastern Roman Empire.”
The ambassador had gold thread embroidered into the hem of his cloak. It glittered as he walked towards his entourage.
“I’m sorry I missed him,” she said. “Something came up.”
“I can’t be trusted to deal with ambassadors now?” Felix watched as the ambassador, a tall man with tightly wound oiled black hair, snatched his reins from the child slave acting as his retainer. “He has a temper.”
“What did you say to him?”
“That I couldn’t lend him half a dozen hexmasters to put down a slave revolt.”
The Byzantine slapped at his slave with the back of his hand, and followed it up with a kick for good measure. The boy fell to the ground, cringing, and Felix felt his hand slide to his belt.
“How did he take it?”
“Badly. It must be a very big slave revolt to need the services of six hexmasters.” Felix glanced at Sophia’s face, and at the serious expression she wore. “Do you think I should ask him to stop that?”
“It’s hardly the boy’s fault,” she said, t
apping her lips with her finger. “Perhaps I should go down.”
Felix looked at the ambassador’s fine white horse and the five other riders with him, dressed in Roman-pattern cavalry armour. They all had young men or boys as retainers, and none were exactly dressed for the climate. Their short tunics and sandals seemed wholly out of place. “We’re not supposed to threaten the ambassador or his retinue. It’s not done.”
“Even if he beats a child to death in front of your eyes, in your own courtyard?”
Felix struggled with the catch on the casement, and finally managed to open the window.
“Ambassador? Ambassador Spyropoulos?”
The ambassador was so intent on stamping on the boy’s huddled legs that he didn’t hear at first. One of the other riders gained his attention and pointed up to the solar.
“Yes, most illustrious prince?”
Felix murmured to Sophia. “How come you never call me ‘most illustrious’.” Then he raised his voice. “You shame yourself and me with your conduct.”
Spyropoulos looked momentarily perplexed. “The slave? You concern yourself about a slave?”
“Yes, ambassador, I do. Stop kicking him. Now.”
Glowing with his exertion, the man stepped back.
“How much?” asked Felix.
“My esteemed prince?”
“The boy. He’s a slave. I’m buying him from you. Name your price.” He felt Sophia’s hand on his arm. He smiled.
“Keep him. One less slave to rebel against the emperor.” Spyropoulos spat at the boy and took up his reins again. “Is our business done, my noble prince?”
Sophia leant in to Felix. “He doesn’t mean it, you know: ‘most illustrious’.”
“Yes, I know.” Felix smiled, then called down again. “It’s done, ambassador.”
He watched the Byzantines ride away towards the Hel Gate, the horses’ iron-shod hooves clattering and sparking on the flags.
“We could have done with those horses,” he said. “Instead, I have a slave.”
“Trust you to think about horses.”