A Season of Spells (A Noctis Magicae Novel)

by Sylvia Izzo Hunter

  “Steady on, Mr. Marshall,” Captain Tremblay murmured, and Gray discovered to his chagrin that he was bobbing anxiously up and down, shifting from foot to foot, in a most undignified manner. He ruffled his feathers apologetically and settled his wings, though inwardly feeling no calmer.

  The briefing, such as it was, concluded with an offering to Mithras, the soldiers’ especial deity, and to Lady Minerva, whose sacred bird was the owl; and at last by Captain Tremblay’s unlocking a battered dispatch-case and extracting from it an equally battered ledger and three small leather bands hung with miniature soldiers’ talismans.

  “Sixteen,” he said, reading aloud from the inner surface of the first band; Kerambrun made a note in the ledger. “One-and-twenty. Three.”

  Gray cocked his head, eyeing the odd objects in Tremblay’s hand and pondering whether they might be charms of concealment such as he had worn once or twice before; Lécuyer and Ollivier, however, put out their left feet and waited patiently whilst the bands were fastened on by Kerambrun. Gray, when his turn came, followed their example.

  “Should anything befall you,” said Kerambrun quietly, as his quick fingers worked the tiny buckle about Gray’s leg, “which the gods forbid, any mage-officer in the company, whether or not he has ever laid eyes on you in either form, could work a finding-spell to seek this talisman, and so find you.”

  Well, that is one question answered, at any rate. Again Gray bobbed his head in acknowledgement, and hoped that his relief might not be outwardly visible.

  The three owls were then conveyed to the camp’s forestward edge and up a ladder to the makeshift watchtower, from which—without further unnecessary ceremony—they were tossed out one by one.

  * * *

  Gray knew perfectly well that his attention ought all to be on the ground below him, the forest all around; but after these earthbound months in London he could not help, for the first few exhilarating moments, simply glorying in being aloft. He coasted to a convenient branch—surveyed the forest floor below, seamed by meandering tree-roots and inches deep in leaf-mould—spotted a belette creeping from tree-trunk to tree-trunk, and repressed his owl-body’s urge to dive after whatever it might be hunting—dropped from his branch again, spreading his wings, and launched himself once more into the night air.

  His position was equivocal, his companions temporary, his present task dangerous and of dubious utility; yet a part of him—and no small part, at that—rejoiced, happy as, in all his life, only flying and Sophie’s company had ever made him happy.

  That night’s patrolling—and all the next several nights’—yielded no startling or even particularly interesting intelligence with respect to the troops massing along Britain’s frontiers. Their numbers seemed to be increasing, but slowly; they were, to all appearances, as solidly entrenched as their counterparts of His Majesty’s army; the juxtapositions of hitherto warring dukes’, counts’, and viscounts’ banners—though certainly baffling—were only what Kergabet had led Gray to expect.

  When not aloft, Gray wandered about the camp, taking note of what the officers and men and camp-followers spoke of; striking up an apparently idle conversation whenever he could; and becoming friendly with the sentries, so as better to observe the camps’ many comings and goings. Though apparently exploring idly and at random, he had actually been proceeding in accordance with a plan of the camp, consulted almost daily with Colonel Dubois, on which he was steadily marking off each tent, picket, and cookfire—and there were now very few persons in the camp with whom he had not had some contact; yet thus far all his overhearings, all his faux-casual questioning, had revealed nothing more unsavoury than petty thefts and a tendency to lewd and sometimes cruel jesting. Most had heard the name Imperator Gallia; many had specific, often contradictory details to relate; but all dismissed it as the species of rumour always liable to be spread by troops wishing to unsettle and intimidate their opponents.

  Unbeknownst to Kergabet—or, at any rate, without telling him of it—Gray had succeeded in absconding with one of Lord de Vaucourt’s spelled maps, and throughout his sojourn at Ivry he had been using it to work Cameron’s mapped finding, nearly every day—but thus far no trace of Amelia, Appius Callender, or any of the other conspirators had he found.

  The situation had, in fact, all the earmarks of a stalemate, and after nearly a se’nnight Gray was on the point of giving it up—was laying plans to move on from Ivry, over the frontier into the territory of Blois, in search of Amelia, the absconded traitors, or both—when the decision was taken out of his hands.

  He had come very near to all three garrisons on various occasions—near enough to note the details of banners and to make approximate counts of men and horses—and always had felt, even in owl-shape, the telltale raising of hairs (or, in this case, feathers) up the back of his neck, which warned him of the working of magick. From this evidence together with that of Ollivier and Lécuyer, as well as of the day-scouts Fournier and Tanguy, and of the several mage-officers who took it in turns to accompany Captain Howells’s infantry scouts, Gray concluded that the three most proximate enemy encampments almost certainly had mages of their own, and that very possibly these mages had worked (or were presently working) some manner of protection, illusion, or concealment.

  And if that is so, he wrote, concluding today’s dispatch to Lord Kergabet, all of our observations are—or may be—as good as useless, for we cannot know for certain what is truth, and what illusion.

  Having laboriously enciphered his text and burned the unenciphered original, he sealed the enciphered copy and tucked it into an inner pocket of his very unmilitary coat, locked away his writing-case in the bottom of his trunk, and made for Colonel Dubois’s command-post.

  Gray had been sleeping badly, alone in his too-short bed amidst the noisy bustle of the camp’s daylight hours; he missed Sophie most fiercely not at night, when the twin imperatives of surveillance and survival occupied the lion’s share of his attention, but during the long, restless days. They could not correspond except by way of Kergabet—even this dubious privilege was a compromise, which he dared not protest lest it, too, be withdrawn—and to end each day without telling Sophie of its happenings large and small, without hearing in return what had occupied and preoccupied her, unsettled him far more than he judged it ought.

  Nevertheless, Sophie and he had learnt many things in the course of their years in Alba, one of which was that their magicks linked them, whether they themselves were together or far apart. Though none of their researches had taught them any means of controlling or influencing this link, by patient experiment they had learnt to see one another’s magick, in the same way that every mage sees his own.

  His dispatch delivered, Gray ducked back into the night-scouts’ tent, shrugged out of his coat and slung it across the lid of the trunk, and carefully folded himself into his borrowed camp bed. Then, closing his eyes, he sank deep into the consciousness of his own magick; having found it—a vast dim autumn rose of blue-green flame—he felt cautiously outwards into the warm dark, seeking the frail bright thread which, at this vast distance, was all he could see of Sophie’s. It came, when at last he grasped it, with a faint, aetherial chorus of treble voices—which Gray had half expected—and a bright anticipatory spark of excitement, which he had not.

  What are you about, Sophie-of-mine? But whatever it was, at any rate Sophie was not—at this particular moment—sunk in melancholy. I wish you well of it, love, and may the gods grant us leisure to tell all our adventures very soon.

  Outside, some heavy object fell to the ground with an ominous clatter, and a man’s voice shouted, “Mars and Mithras! Have a care!”

  Gray’s eyes flew open; Lécuyer stirred in his sleep; Ollivier flung up one arm and let out a single stentorian snore. Gray chuckled wearily, closed his eyes once more, and at last drifted down into sleep.

  * * *

  After a long, unbroken spell of fine
weather, that night brought a lashing rain, the occasional clap of thunder, and a tense twilight conference amongst the night-scouts and their captain as to the advisability of a sortie.

  “Ollivier cannot possibly go,” declared Lécuyer, folding his arms across his chest; for a wonder, they had both dressed in full uniform, if not very carefully, and Lécuyer wore in addition a vast great-coat which smelt strongly of lavender-oil. “You know what his feathers are like; he should be waterlogged and in need of rescuing within a quarter-hour, and what good is that to anyone?”

  Ollivier glared, but did not attempt to contradict him. Gray was no expert on the physiology of Tyto alba, but it was true that the soft feathers which enabled barn owls to fly so silently in dry weather must absorb water to a dangerous degree when it was wet.

  Captain Tremblay pressed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger and sighed. “I am sorry to say it, Mr. Ollivier, but that is certainly true. Mr. Marshall”—he turned to Gray—“what experience have you of flying in wet weather?”

  Gray considered this question carefully, listening to the keening of the wind and the drumming spatter of the rain against the canvas roof and walls. A great deal of his flying, in fact, had been done in wet weather, but he had never had reason to go aloft on a night like this one, and it was not the rain but the wind which gave him pause. Too, this lashing rain would impede even his owl’s eyes, making reconnaissance difficult if not impossible—even if he and Lécuyer were fortunate enough not to be blown off course or, worse, against a tree.

  On the other hand, if I were a general contemplating an invasion, I should make use of any circumstance which seemed likely to shield my movements from the enemy. What might we fail to see tonight, should we choose the prudent course?

  “I can give you no promises,” he said at last, “but I am prepared to make the attempt.”

  “Good man!” Tremblay clapped him on the shoulder—the left one, which had ached all day as it always did when the air was damp and chill.

  “Captain, is this wise?” said Ollivier.

  Gray turned to look at him, startled; he had observed before now that Captain Tremblay’s men, and the mage-officers in particular, observed the forms of military discipline only as the humour took them, but never before had he seen any of them issue so direct a challenge.

  “Tell me, Mr. Ollivier,” said the Captain dryly, “which of us commands this company?”

  “Your pardon, sir,” said Ollivier. He did not look remorseful, however—or even abashed—and Gray was irresistibly reminded of Joanna at thirteen, fearlessly berating persons older and more powerful than herself when she believed them to be in the wrong; she was grown more politic now, and to his surprise he rather regretted the change.

  Ollivier, indeed, was not deterred: “Can the Colonel not wait till morning for the next report?” he said. “It is a difference of only a few hours, and at what price?”

  “Kannig,” said Lécuyer, who looked acutely uncomfortable. “Hold your tongue, idiot.”

  “I shall not, then,” said Ollivier, turning on him. “And which of us is the idiot, to insist on flying in this unholy mess? Not I.”

  They looked ready to come to blows, and Gray was as much relieved as startled when the furious tension between them was broken by Captain Tremblay’s saying, in a tone of well-controlled ire, “Enough. Mr. Lécuyer, Mr. Marshall, you will make ready to go aloft in half an hour’s time. Mr. Ollivier, you will go back to your quarters at once, and I should advise you very strongly not to be seen outside them before tomorrow morning. Is that clear?”

  “As a midsummer sky, sir,” said Ollivier, through gritted teeth. He saluted smartly, turned on his heel, turned up the collar of his coat, and vanished into the driving rain.

  There is a story there, thought Gray, gazing after him. Ollivier, in his observation, had no less courage than any of the other scouts, though he was rather less reckless; it was not cowardice or an excess of caution, presumably, which had pushed him to such behaviour.

  Gray and Lécuyer, avoiding one another’s eyes, turned up their collars likewise and followed Ollivier out into the rain and wind. They were very damp indeed—Gray particularly—by the time they reached their own quarters, and Lécuyer flung off his dripping great-coat and collapsed upon his bed with a theatrical groan, one arm across his face.

  Ollivier had shed his regimental coat and wrapped himself in a thick travelling-rug, and was pacing to and fro, already wearing a path in the packed-earth floor. He looked daggers at the oblivious Lécuyer and, when Gray shrugged out of his coat and sat down gingerly on his own bed, at once sat down beside him.

  “If you must go, do keep an eye on him,” he said, low, before the startled Gray could protest this liberty. “He is as brave as a lion, and he has no more sense than a rabbit.” He leant closer and added, almost inaudibly, “And there is something uncanny about this storm.”

  “Shut up, Kannig,” said Lécuyer. His words were muffled by his coat-sleeve, but his exasperated tone was entirely audible. “I have not needed a nursemaid these twenty years. You had better take your dry night’s leisure and thank Jove for it, than to be making such an almighty row.”

  Ollivier, on his feet once more and glaring down at his brother-officer, scoffed. “You were quick enough to stop me from flying,” he said; when Lécuyer made no reply to this, he continued, “If I hear tomorrow that you have been taking stupid risks, Arzhur, I shall kill you myself. And not quickly.”

  Then he curled up on his bed—muddy boots, travelling-rug and all—and closed his eyes. He was still feigning sleep when Kerambrun arrived to collect Lécuyer and Gray.

  * * *

  A sound like a hound’s barking caught Gray’s ear through the tumult of the storm, away off to the northeast. He pondered it, curving his wings to catch an updraft and gliding perilously above the tops of the trees. It came again—from the general direction of the largest enemy camp, but . . . higher? Yes: not a hound’s bark but the call of an eagle owl sounding the alarm. Lécuyer has found something he wishes me to see.

  There was another possibility, of course, but for the moment Gray resolutely refrained from considering it.

  He answered the call with a series of low hoots, and—somewhat to his surprise, for the wind had risen to a sort of keening wail—was answered in turn by another brief volley of barking. Each hearing made the source easier to pinpoint, and before long Gray had sight of his quarry, clinging damp and bedraggled to the bottom-most branch of an enormous oak-tree half overcome with mistletoe. Lécuyer, catching sight of him in turn as he glided in, greeted him with a more usual oohu-oohu-oohu. For some time they huddled close for warmth, quite unselfconsciously, Gray’s right foot nearly overlapping Lécuyer’s left; then Lécuyer tilted his body forward and, with a powerful thrust of his legs, dropped away from the branch. Gray followed him as closely as he dared, skimming close to the forest floor.

  They reached the river, swollen by a full day’s heavy rain to within a foot of the near bank, and Lécuyer sheered away upwards, climbing high above the rushing water, above the new-felled trees on the far bank, above the camp which for at least a fortnight had flown the banners of lords beholden to Blois, Poitou, Anjou, Artois, and Bourgogne so puzzlingly side by side. New banners had been raised alongside and above them—the number was larger than before—but the lashing rain made them impossible to distinguish.

  But this, whatever it might mean, was neither the worst nor the most astonishing discovery to be made that night; for as he followed Lécuyer’s circuit of the camp, farther aloft than either of them ordinarily flew, he saw that it appeared to have tripled in size since the previous night—even, in fact, since this morning’s report from Fournier and Tanguy—and that yet more troops—foot-soldiers and cavalry, pikemen and archers, teams of horses pulling siege-engines, trébuchets, and huge carriage-mounted saltpetre-cannon of the sort armies use when th
ey have no battle-mages to sow large-scale havoc amongst the opposing force—were pouring towards it along the southern road.

  Gray had always found this body less sensitive to the presence of magick than his human one, but down the back of his skull and all along his spine there now crawled a prickling sensation in reaction to someone else’s spell-work. Were there mages—trébuchets and cannon notwithstanding—amongst those steadily moving columns of men and horses below? Doing what exactly? Or had Ollivier been correct in supposing that this storm was not of natural origin? If so, were the persons responsible en route to the enemy camp, or were they in residence already?

  They circled the camp twice more, attempting to see as much as they could of its drastically altered configurations; the rain grew heavier, harder—solidified into tiny hailstones, striking with painful force—and Gray began more seriously to consider Ollivier’s theory. Navigating the increasingly violent wind was becoming exhausting; a sharp ache in his left wing began to demand his attention and quickly grew impossible to ignore. At last, subordinating curiosity to common sense after a particularly punishing buffet of hailstones, he called to Lécuyer, and when the latter had circled back to him, gave the agreed-upon signal for injured, returning to camp. Had Ollivier been with them as usual, Lécuyer might have seen him across the river, into friendly territory, and then turned back, but in the circumstances, Gray was not surprised to be escorted all the way back to the eastern watchtower of Colonel Dubois’s encampment.

  He was surprised, however, at how closely Lécuyer followed him—their wingtips sometimes almost brushing—and astonished by the commotion that greeted their return. It was customary (or perhaps a rule of military conduct) for the scouts to be divested of their identifying leg-bands and returned to their quarters before resuming their natural form, but they had no sooner alighted in the watchtower than Lécuyer was exploding from owl to man—mother-naked and entirely heedless of the fact—and bellowing, “A healer, quickly! He has caught an arrow through the wing.”