by Greg Keyes
“Then you will help me escape?” Anne said.
“What good would that do?” Roderick asked. “They would only find you again, and this time you won’t have anyone to protect you. They will kill you, and I will live in Hell. I can’t allow that to happen.”
“What is your solution, then?” Anne asked.
“You’ll marry me,” he said. “If you marry me, you will be safe.”
Anne blinked in utter astonishment. “What makes you think—?” She bit off her reply, which was to end with “I would rather die by hanging than marry you.” She thought a moment, and amended the question.
“What makes you think I would be safe as your wife?”
“Because then you could never be queen in Eslen,” he said. “Yes, I know that much. They do not wish you to become queen. If you were my wife, you could not, according to the law of your Comven. And my father would have to protect you as his daughter-in-law. It’s perfect, don’t you see?”
“And my friends?”
“They are beyond saving. They die tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes. And we shall marry—while my father is away, distracted by the ceremony in the woods. I’ve engaged a sacritor to perform the union. He will register it with the Church in the morning, and we shall have the protection of the saints and my family.”
“This is very sudden,” Anne said. “Very.”
Roderick nodded vigorously. “I know, I know. But you must believe in your heart as I do in mine that we were meant for each other, Anne.”
“If that is so,” Anne asked stiffly, “how could you have betrayed me?”
“The letter came to my father,” he said, without blinking. He apparently had already forgotten admitting he had given it to his father himself. “He opened it ere I saw it.” He gripped her hand until she thought it would break, and tears started in his eyes. “I wouldn’t have told them where you were, my love. I would not have.”
Anne closed her eyes, her thoughts churning, and she suddenly felt his lips against hers. She felt a wave of revulsion and wanted to push him away, but she knew now that he was her only chance. The curse had driven him past reason, and his insane love for her was the only weapon she had.
So, trying to remember how she kissed when she wanted to, when she meant it, she reached her arms around him and kissed him back. It went on for far too long.
When he finally pulled his tongue out of her mouth, he gazed gently down at her. “You see? You feel it, too.”
“Yes, I love you, Roderick,” she lied. “But you can never betray me again. You must swear it. I could never go through that sort of hurt again.”
His face practically split in two with joy. “I swear it, by Saint Tarn, I swear it and may he strike me down if I lie.”
“Then let us be married,” she said, “as quickly as possible. If what you say is true, we will have only this one chance.”
He nodded excitedly. “The sacritor is in Dunmrogh village. He expects us a bell before midnight. I will see to the preparations. You rest now. I’ll take care of you. You will be happy, Anne—I swear that on my life.”
Then he was gone again, and the door locked once more, and Anne was alone, wishing she had soap and water to wash the taste and smell of him from her.
PART V
HARMONY
The Year 2,223 of Everon
The Yule Season
Wihnaht, in midmost Yule, is the longest night of the year. At midnight, the gates of the heavens are thrown open and the omens of the coming year make themselves known.
—FROM THE ALMANACK OF PRESSON MANTEO
Sefta, the seventh mode, invokes Saint Satro, Saint Woth, and Saint Selfans. It evokes bitter memory, love lost, the dying sunset. It provokes melancholy and madness.
Uhtavo, the eighth mode, invokes Saint Bright, Saint Mery, Saint Abullo, and Saint Sern. It evokes the fond memory, the blissful first kiss, the rising sun. It provokes joy and ecstasy.
—FROM THE CODEX HARMONIUM OF ELGIN WIDSEL
CHAPTER ONE
THE SONG IN THE HILLS
LEOFF PAUSED TO RUB his eyes. The notations on the paper before him had begun to blur together, distinct notes melting into meandering black rivulets.
There isn’t time, he thought desperately. There isn’t time to get it right.
But he had to. If he was going to step this far off the edge of the world, it had to be perfect. And it was—almost. Yet he knew something was missing, something he not only didn’t have right, but didn’t have at all.
Frustrated, exhausted, he put his head down on the hammarharp and let his eyes close, just for an instant. His thoughts lost their discipline and began to float about like dust motes in a sunbeam. Then the dust motes became thistledown, and he was lying on the still-green grass of early autumn not far from the charming little town of Gleon Maelhen. He’d seen a purple moon the night before—a true wonder he’d stayed up late into the night to observe. Now he was considering a nap to make up for that, until from off in the hills he heard a melody, played on a shepherd’s pipe. It transfixed him, because it was so beautiful and haunting, yet incomplete . . .
“Fralet Ackenzal—oh, I’ve disturbed you.”
Leoff jerked like a hooked fish, scattering his papers everywhere, realizing in a panic that he’d fallen asleep. If the praifec found him like that and saw what he was doing . . .
But it wasn’t the praifec. It was the lady Gramme.
He stumbled to his feet. “Milady—,” he began, all in a rush.
“That’s not necessary,” she said. “I just came to thank you.”
“Then—”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “My men found Mery, just as you said. And I promise you, no harm came to your friend.”
Leoff reflected that he couldn’t be sure of that until he saw Gilmer again, but word had it that the regent’s men were scouring the countryside for the little girl. Gramme had been quick to understand the implications, and had begged him to tell her where Mery was. He’d relented, knowing he was risking his friend’s life, but believing Gilmer and Mery had less to fear from Gramme than from the regent. Once Mery was with her mother, the prince could hardly claim she’d met with foul play at the hand of the queen mother, and if the lady Gramme was discreet, he would never know it was Gilmer who’d watched after her.
“I should like to see her, when it is reasonable,” Leoff said.
“It is reasonable right now,” Gramme replied. “I just wanted to speak with you first, alone. I wanted to know, honestly, why you put yourself at such risk, for no gain I can see.”
Leoff blinked. “I—it just seemed the right thing to do, lady.”
She stared at him, then gave a weary little laugh and before he could react, bent and kissed him gently on the lips. Then she straightened. “Mery’s back in the hall. I’ll send her in.”
He waited, stunned, wondering what had just happened.
Mery came straight to his arms when he saw her, a far cry from the days when she’d hidden in his cabinets.
“How was staying with Gilmer?” he asked her. “Did you enjoy that?”
“He was something of a grump,” Mery allowed, “but he was as nice to me as he could be, I suppose. This one time, we went to the village . . .” He listened as she told him about some adventure of hers, but despite the fact that he was overjoyed to see her, the melody was stuck in his head again, and as she spoke, he began playing at it, the missing notes taunting him like an infuriating itch he couldn’t scratch.
Mery smiled. “That’s pretty,” she said. “May I try it?”
“Of course,” he said. “It’s not finished . . .”
He listened helplessly as she played it—perfectly, of course, but still just as incomplete as his version.
“That’s not quite right, is it?” Mery said.
He stared at her. “No, it’s not,” he said at last.
“What if—?” She glanced up at him, then put her tongue in her cheek, pla
ced her hands on the keys, and pushed them down.
Leoff gasped, absolutely stunned. “Of course,” he murmured. “Saint Oimo, of course.”
“That was better?” Mery queried.
“You know it was,” he said, mussing her hair.
She nodded.
He reached over and gently touched the keys, then did what she’d done—instead of sounding the notes singly as a melody, he played them together, as a chord.
“That’s perfect,” he sighed, as the harmony faded. “Now it’s perfect.”
CHAPTER TWO
CONFLUENCE
CAZIO COUGHED AND SPIT. Through pain-blurred vision he saw bloody spackles appear on the leaves as his head thumped against the ground, and he had an odd sensation of weightlessness, so that for a moment he wondered if he’d been beheaded, instead of struck by the back of a fist.
He briefly considered continuing to lie there, but instead he painfully flopped back to a sitting position—difficult to do with both hands and feet tightly bound.
He lifted his eyes to again regard the man who had struck him. Without his face-concealing helm, the knight looked young—only a few years older than Cazio, perhaps twenty-three or so. His eyes were something between green and brown, and his hair was the color of the dust of the Tero Mefio—not the copper red of Anne’s hair, but a paler and weaker sort of ruddy.
“I apologize,” Cazio said, feeling with his tongue to see if any of his teeth were broken. “I cannot imagine why I called you an honorless, cowardly gelding. How foolish I feel now that you have proved me wrong. But doing is more effective than words, as they say, and nothing proves bravery better than striking a man who is bound and unarmed—unless, perhaps, it is the murder of a woman.”
The man squatted next to him, grabbed him by his hair, and pulled his head back. “Why can’t you shut up?” he asked in thickly accented Vitellian. “By all the ansu together, why can’t you just learn to keep your mouth closed?” He looked over at z’Acatto. “Has he always been this way?”
“Yes,” z’Acatto answered blandly. “Since the day he was born. But you have to admit, he does have a point. That’s why you hit him, because it’s so frustrating when he’s right.”
“I hit him,” the man said, “because I told him to be quiet.”
“Then put a gag in his mouth and spare us all,” z’Acatto said. “You the embarrassment, and him the beatings.”
“Better yet,” Cazio said, pulling his face toward his enemy’s, even at the expense of losing some hair, “why don’t you untie me and give me my sword? How is it that even though you cannot die, you fear to fight me?”
“Are you a knight?” the man asked.
“I am not,” Cazio replied. “But I am Cazio Pachiomadio da Chiovattio, ennobled by birth. What father raised you, who will not fight when he is challenged?”
“My name is Euric Wardhilmson, and my father was Wardhilm Gauthson af Flozubaurg,” the man answered, “knight and lord. And no son of his need favor any ragtag ruffian like you with an honorable duel.” He pushed Cazio’s head back farther, and then released it. “In any event, my men and I have been forbidden from dueling.”
“That’s very convenient,” Cazio said.
“No more convenient than noticing hundscheit in time to step over it,” the knight replied with a nasty smile. “Anyway, it hardly looks like you defeated Sir Alharyi in a duel. It looked more as if someone dropped stones on him from above, then cut his head off while he was down.”
“That would be the gentleman in the gilded armor, back near the coven Saint Cer? The one covered with the murder-blood of the holy sisters? The one who attacked me in the company of another and with the aid of the Lords of Darkness?”
“He was a holy man,” Euric said. “Do not speak ill of him. And if you must know, I am not ansu-blessed as he was. Only one of us at a time is given that honor, and Hrothwulf was the chosen.” He nodded toward another of his captors, a man with hair as black as coal but with skin so fair his cheeks were pink, like a baby’s.
“Well, send him over. I’ll fight him—again, I mean. I’ll sit him down on his ass a second time.”
“I’m starting to like the old man’s suggestion of a gag,” Euric said.
“You haven’t gagged me since I’ve been your captive,” Cazio said. “I don’t imagine you will now.”
Euric smiled. “True. It’s much more satisfying to show you how completely your words don’t bother me.”
“Which is why you struck me, I suppose,” Cazio said.
“No, that was just for the pleasure of it,” Euric countered.
“Don’t make a fool of yourself, lad,” z’Acatto said. “You let him talk because you’re hoping he’ll get you mad enough to untie him. You want to fight him as much as he wants to fight you.”
“Well,” Euric allowed, “I would like to see how he thinks he could beat me with that little sewing-needle of his, yes,” Euric said. “But I’m on a holy mission. I can’t think of myself when my task comes first.”
“There’s nothing holy about chasing two young girls all over creation,” z’Acatto grunted.
“That’s done with,” Euric said, his eyebrows lifting in surprise. “Didn’t you know? We found them just after we caught you. In fact, Hrothwulf thinks you killed them.”
“Killed them?” Cazio blurted. “What are you talking about?”
“They had their throats slit, both of them, just over the hill from where we caught you. There were already ravens pecking at their carcasses. That’s how Auland got hurt.”
Cazio stared at him. “What, the fellow who lost his eyes? The one that died of blood poisoning before the day was even up? You really think a raven did that to him?”
“I saw it myself,” Euric said. But he looked strange, as if somehow he doubted what he was saying.
“Although—” He broke off. “No. I saw them. Their heads were nearly off.”
“You’re lying,” Cazio said. The girls had just gone over the hill to answer nature’s call. He’d only taken his eyes off them for a few minutes. Still, he pictured the girls, brigand’s grins cut in their throats, and suddenly felt a wave of nausea.
“You sons of whores,” he swore. “You get of distempered dogs. I’ll kill every last one of you.”
“No,” Euric said. “You’d be dead already, if we didn’t need a swordsman. But the old man will do, I think, if you’re so very impatient to meet Ansu Halja. Rest assured, you will die, and it won’t be pleasant, so take this time to pray to the ansu you pray to.”
He put a loop of rope around Cazio’s neck and jerked him to his feet. Then he threw the rope over a low-hanging branch and tied it off, so he couldn’t sit down without choking himself.
He left Cazio trying to think of new curses.
That afternoon, more men rode in, most dressed like men-at-arms, but more than a few like clergy. That brought a brief hope, but it didn’t take long to see that they were friendly with the knights.
Cazio had little to do other than watch them work, and try not to fall asleep.
The camp was near a rough mound of earth and stone, the kind that in Vitellio were called persi or sedoi, and often had fanes built on them. Those taking holy orders were said to walk such stations in a proscribed order to be blessed by the lords. But whatever was going on here seemed decidedly unholy. The newcomers had captives with them, as well, women and children, and they set about planting a ring of seven posts around the mound then clearing back the vegetation. Others began constructing a stone fane upon its summit.
“Have you any idea what they’re about, z’Acatto?” Cazio asked, studying his enemies as they went about their antlike business.
“Not really,” the old man said. “It’s hard to think without wine.”
“It’s hard for you to stand without wine,” Cazio replied.
“So it should be,” the old man replied. “A man should never be denied wine, especially one who’s soon to die.”
He wa
s interrupted by a commotion of some sort. There was a good bit of distant shouting, and the knights mounted and rode out from the clearing, followed quickly by the five men dressed like monks. They returned perhaps a bell later, leading more captives. These were all men, one of middle years and three younger, the youngest looking barely thirteen. All of them were wounded, though none seemed seriously so.
The older man they tied as Cazio was tied, just a perechi away from him. Then they went back about their business.
When none of the enemy was near, the new captive glanced over at Cazio.
“You’d be the Vitellians, then,” he said in Cazio’s native tongue. “Cazio and z’Acatto.”
“You know us, sir?” Cazio asked.
“Yes, we’ve a couple of friends in common, friends of the fair sort.”
“Anne and—”
“Hush,” the man said. “Pitch your voice very low. I think those are all Mamres monks, but some may be of Decmanis. If so, they can hear a butterfly’s wings.”
“But they’re alive, and well?”
“So far as I know. My name is Artoré, and I was helping them to find you. It looks as if I’ve done at least part of my job, though I would prefer that the circumstances were different.”
“But they escaped? The knights didn’t see them?”
Artoré shrugged. “I can’t say for certain. My sons and I held them off as long as we could, but the monks are deadly shots. They wanted us alive, or we wouldn’t be.”
“How can the Church be part of this?” Cazio whispered. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“All men are corruptible,” Artoré said, “and the more easily if they can tell themselves they are doing holy work. But in fact, I don’t know much more about this than you do. My wife would be the one to ask.” He looked glum. “I would have liked to see her one last time.”
“We’ll escape somehow,” Cazio promised. “Just watch. I’ll find some way.”
But as he pulled at his intractable bonds, he still couldn’t imagine how.
Neil sat his horse, his hands crossed on the pommel, thinking he didn’t like the looks of the forest that lay before him. He didn’t know much about forests to start with—there weren’t any on Skern, and besides the pretty thin ones he’d passed through on his way to Vitellia, he hadn’t seen much of them on the mainland, either. But once, when he was about fifteen, he’d gone north with Sir Fail de Liery to Herilanz. The trip had started as an embassy, but they’d been set upon by Weihand raiders. It had come to a sea fight which they’d won, but not without damage, and so they had put ashore for repairs. Beyond the narrow, rocky strand there had been nothing but forest, a holt of fir and pine and black cheichete that seemed to Neil like one vast cave. Facing your enemies on the open heath or the great wide sea was one thing, but fighting where concealment was everywhere was quite another. They’d gone in to find a good mast, and come out with half their number, pursued by a tribe of tattooed howlers that recognized no king or crown.