“You had no right!” she cried. “No right.”
She watched as his hands ceased their shaking and went limp, his mouth wide. And the sound of the explosion, like a rolling thunderclap, made her collapse to her elbows; some new terror. The Tree of Life began to wail, a high-pitched scree of protest.
Not long after, she became aware that someone was lifting her up. She felt numb all over. Opening her almond-shaped eyes, she looked into Danamis’s sea-grey ones as he cradled her in his arms.
“Please forgive me, Citala,” he said as he hefted her and held her tightly.
She spoke so quietly that he had to place his ear close to her mouth to hear her.
“The sea,” she whispered. “The sea.”
The three Decurions were standing together, aghast at the evil that stretched upwards before them, a thing that by rights should not exist in the world. They saw the pitiful human remains strewn at the base of its glistening trunk and one of the men began to sob.
“Blessed Elded save us!” said Aratino. “This is the blasphemy and murder we feared.” Strykar joined them before the dreadful tree, wiping his flushed and sweaty face and still clenching his dripping side sword. Aratino muttered, half to himself, “What shall we do?”
Strykar looked up at a tiny homunculus head suspended by a stem. It had opened its eyes and was glaring at him, it little lips moving in some cursed tongue.
“Burn it,” he growled. “Burn the damned thing to the ground.”
Thirty-Five
AS THEY PASSED through the east gate of Livorna, unhindered, Acquel felt a sense of elation despite the fear that a gauntleted hand might descend upon his shoulder at any moment. He was home again after weeks of misadventures on sea and land. Although he knew it could never truly be home, his memories held him up as he entered the market square, leading Timandra upon the remaining mule.
They had salvaged what supplies they could find, thrown by the more unfortunate of the two mules as it was dragged down and torn to shreds by the mantichora. Whether by accident or by that strange terrifying creature’s generosity, the other mule they had found wandering, its cruppers a-tremble. To onlookers, they would have appeared as nothing more than two new arrivals to the free city, a travelling merchant and his wife. He watched as Timandra took in the scene around her: a jumble of limewashed houses with undulating terracotta roofs, a hundred market stalls teeming with hawkers and buyers, a group of white-robed novices huddled in a knot as they made their way across the street, heading uphill towards the Ara, a flock of sparrows swooping down to liberate a dropped crust of bread. He smiled up at her.
“And where are you taking me now?” she asked him. “For proper fare and drink I should hope after what we’ve been through.”
Acquel nodded. “I know of a few hostelries down in the Low Town. We shall stay there this night.” He gave her a reassuring smile. She had spoken little since her revelation, no doubt from deep shame and the worry of how he would judge her in light of it. Indeed, he could still not reconcile the bluff but big-hearted woman he knew with some cold-hearted murderess. Whether he realised it or not, Acquel had subconsciously diluted her crime, convincing himself that she must have had good motive for killing the man. For Acquel, she still held his heart in her hand.
They saw not a single Temple guardsman as they wended their way through the narrow streets down to the poorer end of the small city. As for Livorna’s militia, they never ventured far from the gates and walls, and something in the way the town felt—the normal throb of daily life—told Acquel that they were not even looking for him. They stopped at the first creaking shingle they saw for an inn and entered the stone arch into the stable yard. They took a room as man and wife and the bitterness of this was not lost on Acquel as he wistfully shut the door to the cramped chamber in the roof space and turned to face her. “You take the bed and get some rest,” he told her.
There was hardly room for two. She nodded and sat on the mattress, the rope bedstead groaning. “When do you want to…”
“Break into the Temple? Tonight. I dreamt again last night of the door… some chamber beyond it. The secrets of Elded lie in there. I’ve seen it more clearly than since last I dreamt of it.”
She reached out and took his hand. “And what do want with these secrets? What can you do with them even if you find them and read them?”
He looked away for a moment and then back to her. “I mean to share them with everyone. With the world. The truth of the Saint has been buried far too long. The priesthood is rotten.” A vision of poor Brother Kell, of innocent Silvio, passed before his eyes.
“And what will the people do when they learn that the Blessed Elded had mer blood?”
She watched as his face grew suddenly hard. “They will accept it. All the old lies will be shed. Cast off like dead skin.”
She felt cold, her eyes moving to the chain that hung around his neck. Unexpectedly, for the first time since she could remember, she felt not in control of her own life. “I have pledged myself to help you, Acquel. Come what may. If it brings me closer to Elded’s blessing and God’s forgiveness, then I will be happy.”
Acquel went down on a bended knee, his sword thumping on the rush-strewn floorboards. “Dear Timandra, you mean everything to me. But I cannot ask you to risk your life. Help me get into the undercroft unseen and then wait for me to return. That is all I ask of you. The Temple guard does not know of you and we must keep it that way if I fail.”
She felt tears come, another surprise, stinging her eyes. “Tell me what I must do.”
THE MANSERVANT HAD just closed the leaded glass casement to the High Priest’s apartments now that the sun had set and the night chill had descended. A knock sounded on the door of the antechamber and Brachus looked up from his table, annoyed at the interruption. He dropped a paperweight upon the vellum scroll he was reading and sat back in his chair.
“See who that is, boy. If it is the Magister you may send him through. Anyone else may wait until the morning.”
Brachus had forgotten the servant’s name again and so had taken to calling him “boy” instead. Indeed, he was finding himself more tongue-tied than usual these past weeks, no doubt, he thought, due to the bad business in the tomb and wretched Kodoris’s bumbling of the affair. He sighed as he looked at the curling vellum scroll. He was forgetting the liturgy now as well and needed to read it every night. More than a minute had passed and “boy” had not returned. He pushed back his heavy chair, the feet scraping loudly on the tiles. But then the servant did return, opening the door to the private apartments widely and stepping to one side. Brachus was about to ask the dolt why he stood so mute when a woman in blue taffeta entered the room.
Brachus pushed himself up into a standing position, the great sunburst medallion jangling at his chest. His rheumy eyes squinted at the visitor. “Why, it is the canoness is it not? I recognize you.” His slippers scuffed as he began to move around the table. “What brings you to seek me out—and at this hour?”
Lucinda della Rovera gave him a knowing smile. “Good evening to you, Holiness. I bring you good tidings.”
Brachus cleared his throat. “That may be so but this is not the hour, or even the proper manner of doing so. You should speak with the Magister.”
“Good news such as mine should not wait. And I must insist that you hear it because it does involve you to some extent.” She gestured and the servant, his face vacant, walked over to Brachus. He gripped the High Priest roughly and forced him into his chair.
Brachus resisted, sputtering his protests. “Boy! Unhand me!” He looked over at Lucinda who was observing with an expression of confident knowing. “What is the meaning of this outrage?”
She moved closer to the table and ran a hand along the fine marble top. “It is about the new order of things. I am here to tell you that today is the beginning of the end. The end of Elded’s new faith and the beginning of the restitution of the old.” She spread her hands wide and lifted them. “T
o the everlasting glory of the eternal three. To Belial. To Beleth. To Andras.”
“Sacrilege! Abomination!” Brachus stuttered and tried to rise but the servant clamped his hands upon the old man’s shoulders and forced him down.
Lucinda raised a pale hand to her left shoulder and her fine silken chemise. “I am chosen. The spirit of the Revealer fills me, guides me. Berithas has told me what I must do.”
Brachus had stopped his struggling, his eyes wide with fear and dread at the names filling the chamber, uttered in the canoness’s beautiful crystal voice. His lips repeated the name of the great Deceiver, the one whom Elded had cast down. “Berithas?”
She nodded slowly, the smile broadening. “Yes. And the Tree of Life, the great wellspring of the faith, will be reborn. From the Ara, the newly nourished roots will spread deep throughout the land. The followers will rise up, no longer in the shadows. And now, your Holiness, you must play your part in the great plan.” She reached behind her back and drew out a curved dagger. Brachus watched in horror as she focused her gaze on the servant. She was instructing him, wordlessly. He tried to push himself up again but an arm pushed him back. Lucinda held out the dagger and the servant reached for it and took it in his grasp.
“She-devil!” hissed Brachus. “Witch! You will burn. I swear to almighty God you will burn.”
Lucinda’s eyes rested briefly upon a squat, silver-lidded clay drinking pot that rested on the table. She picked it up and slowly poured out upon the floor the dregs of wine that it held. “So as this, will your life pour out, Holiness. To give rise to what once was.” She lifted her chin and looked at the servant. There was a moment of hesitation in the youth, but Lucinda’s blue eyes bored deeply. With his left arm, he held the High Priest firmly in the chair and with his right hand he drew the silver blade deeply and rapidly across the old man’s throat. Brachus kicked out, gave a stifled gurgling cry, and a spray of crimson shot out over the table, spattering the parchment and books that lay there. Brachus’s own grip on the servant sagged, and his eyes looked out past Lucinda, still wide, but now unfocussed. She quickly moved to the carved arm of the blackwood chair and held out the pot to the pulsing fountain of blood that ran down the High Priest’s purple robes. A metallic smell began to permeate the room as the blood dripped and pooled on the floor. The little pot filled quickly and she knocked the lid shut, the sleeve of her dress somehow unsullied. She then calmly picked up a vellum page—a prayer for a good harvest—and carefully wiped the vessel clean before tossing the sticky and stained vellum back to the table. Her head tilted to one side as she beheld her work.
She then looked back to the servant. “Well done. Now you know what you must do next.”
The youth walked drunkenly to the casement window and opened the latch. He hesitated, bringing a hand to his head.
Lucinda picked up the dagger he had let clatter to the floor and wiped it clean before slipping it back into the sheath she wore on her jewelled girdle. She saw that the servant had turned to face her, silently fighting her will. She tutted. “Come now, that won’t do at all.” And suddenly, the youth went rigid. Slowly, he turned back to the window, climbing up onto the ledge. He kneeled. The hinges squeaked as he pushed the window open as far as it could go.
“Go ahead…” she coaxed, as if speaking to a child reluctant to walk out into a summer shower. The youth leaned forward and then was gone, three storeys down to the courtyard below. Lucinda raised the clay vessel, admiring its glazed beauty and the swirled engraving on the silver lid. She smiled, its contents warming her hand.
Outside the antechamber, Lucinda brushed past the still frozen Temple guardsman, lost in strange dreams where he stood. Awareness would return to him later, and with it, a surprise to be discovered in the High Priest’s room. Lucinda walked briskly to her apartments on the other side of the Ara palazzo, along half-lit porticos, her dress swishing as it dragged across the well-worn flagstones. She clutched the clay pot to her bosom, safeguarding the precious liquid. And she was not alone. The voice filled her head but the whispers carried to her ear as well, emanating from the mouth below her collarbone.
She is failing us.
Lucinda’s voice was hushed as she replied. “She is weak. Always was.”
She has sent for the Magister. To reveal all.
A wave of anger washed over her as her delicate velvet shoes slapped on the stones. “She wouldn’t! She does not know everything. I have not revealed it.”
She knows more than you have supposed. Now she has failed you… and the Faith.
“I will punish her.”
If you desire her power you must take it from her.
Lucinda stopped and stared down at the flagstones.
Only then you will be equal to the task before us. You must do it.
“Then I shall.”
When she reached the apartments, Lavinia was standing in the centre of the bedchamber, expecting her arrival. She wore only her chemise, her long blonde hair tied back behind her neck. Her expression was nervous, surreptitious even. Lucinda did not need Berithas’s warning that her sister had done that which she should not.
She placed the ceramic vessel on a table. “Dear sister, why have you betrayed us?”
Lavinia hugged herself and looked away. “You told me stories of the olden times. Tales of long ago. But they were true. Not legends.”
Lucinda’s pale visage shone orange in the candlelight of the room. Her features, sharp and fox-like, were as though chiselled from stone. Cold and unmoving. “Tell me what you have done, sister.”
Lavinia looked into her sister’s eyes. She normally would not even need to give voice to her thoughts. They would share them instantaneously. Not now. “You are planning something bad. Very bad. I thought that it was a game… imaginings. But it is real.”
Lucinda paced slowly to close the space between them. “You have sent word to the Magister, haven’t you?”
Lavinia shook her head. “You mustn’t hurt him. I like him. He reminds me of father.” Her voice trembled.
Lucinda smiled and reached out to touch her cheek. “What we do we do for the Faith, our Faith. Not theirs. We must make sacrifices. All of us.”
Lavinia struck her sister’s hand away. “You killed our father! And our mother!” She leapt for the entranceway, seizing the iron ring and yanking the great oaken door open. Captain Flauros blocked her way and she gasped, falling backwards into the chamber. Lucinda closed the door and led Lavinia back to the canopied bed.
“Our parents died of weak hearts,” she soothed. “Maybe broken hearts. I have told you that before.”
Lavinia shook her head furiously and placed her hands over her ears. “The greyrobe is coming. I must warn him too!”
Lucinda pushed Lavinia onto the thick, soft mattress and held her there. “I am not going to hurt the greyrobe, sister. I am going to meet him soon.”
Lavinia whimpered and tried to roll herself into a ball. “It’s all wrong! We’ve done wrong.”
“Lie yourself down.”
Lavinia exploded forward, shoving Lucinda backwards, a look of fear and rage mixed on her face, tears streaming. “Go away!” she screamed. “You are not my sister! You’re a monster!”
Take her gift!
Lavinia’s eyes darted to her sister’s shoulder, from where the commanding voice had come. And then she looked at her sister again, head shaking in a silent plea. Lucinda reached behind her back and drew out the long thin blade. Her left hand, as fast as a striking serpent, reached forward and grasped the top of Lavinia’s chemise, holding her fast. Her voice was steady and certain. “I offer you to the gods, my sister. Sleep you well.” And she plunged the dagger into Lavinia’s throat, up to the hilt. The girl arched her body in spasm and fell back onto the bed, clutching at her neck. As Lavinia went limp, Lucinda felt her head fill with a thousand images, flashing through her mind’s eye. She staggered and threw her arms around the bed post, her fingers gripping the barley-twist carvings. She could see
anew. Those she sought. Those who sought her.
She was lightheaded as she fell into Flauros’s arms. But she quickly pushed herself away. “The Magister is here,” she said. “Do nothing unless I tell you.”
Flauros smoothed her shoulders. “Just give me the word and he is dead.”
The knock sounded a moment later and Flauros moved off to the side of the chamber. Lucinda bade the visitor to enter and Kodoris rushed in, slightly out of breath. Flauros shut the door behind him. Immediately the Magister saw the arc of crimson across Lucinda’s dress and then his eyes fell to the figure sprawled upon the bed.
“What have you done, you miserable creature!” He strode forward ready to seize the canoness where she stood. But then he felt something heavy lie on his left shoulder and saw twenty inches of naked steel resting there. He slowly turned to see the unsmiling captain of the Temple guard, whose gloved hand now held the short sword at this throat.
“Ah. She has bewitched you too. I thought as much. So much for your oath.” He backed away towards the table, realizing now, too late, that he had been well and truly cozened. “More fool me though. There were always enough signs if I had not been so blinded by desperation.”
Lucinda’s voice was calm, but a trace of triumph rose up to the surface. “Magister, how can you say that? I am about to complete my task. The task you set out for me. I will deliver the greyrobe to you this evening.”
Kodoris looked over at the body of Lavinia. “Why did you kill her? She was trusting of you. She had the mind of a child.”
Lucinda’s piercing eyes narrowed. “You know why. She betrayed me. And the cause.”
“The Tree of Life,” Kodoris whispered. “Lavinia tried to tell me. You are truly so mad as to serve the pagan gods and kill for them. They are dead. Gone these centuries. Your crimes—your heresy—will be punished.”
A wide grin broke out on the face of the canoness. “I suppose you did not stop by the High Priest’s bedchamber before coming here. You would have found an even more interesting surprise than you have seen here.”
The Guns of Ivrea Page 35