by Veras Alnar
The bishop's thin mouth turned up slightly, “you may not remember me but I remember you, Fulk the grave master. I know it's gold that you want from me but I've already paid you plenty. Despite your poor performance it seems that providence has already finished the job I asked of you and I will politely request your help now in lieu of what my gold has put up to being finished.”
Amis glanced between the two of them and to his surprise saw Fulk go a sickly pale.
“Bishop Nethir of Elaine, is it,” Fulk said, rather stiffly.
“That it is,” Nethir said, “I will be returning to my brother's house. May I take your arm, Amis?”
“Oh,” Amis said, roused from his torpor, “of course.”
It took them significantly longer with such a slow old man between them but as they came upon the keep's gate he showed signs of extreme exhaustion and was beginning to lag even further, nearly slumping on them both.
“Where were you?” Lord Guain said, as he met them at the gate, “I was about to close up. It's almost nightfall.”
“We found another man,” Amis said, winded from carrying him.
“Might be dying from the plague,” Fulk amended.
“I'm not dying of the plague, you idiot,” the Bishop said, “I'm just exhausted.”
“He says he's your brother,” Fulk said, “which I thought was a funny thing and just about impossible considering-”
“Stop both of you,” Lord Guain said, “this man is my brother, let him in.”
Once again Fulk went a rather, sickish gray and Amis was left confused as anything. But the worst was the paling of the Bishop whose eyes beheld Lord Guain in a way that bordered upon disbelief. As quick as the expression came, it passed and Amis was left feeling even more at a loss.
“It's about damn time you answered my call,” Nethir snarled.
“I've been busy,” Lord Guain said.
“This man,” Fulk said, “is your brother? The Bishop of Elaine?”
“Yes,” Lord Guain said, “and since I attested to it, I expect you to treat him with the respect a Bishop is due, grave master.”
“Has he been starving you? You're a heap of uncomfortable bones” the Bishop said, turning to Amis.
“No,” Amis said, annoyed, “I was sick.”
“Can't imagine how that happened,” Nethir said.
“This way please,” Lord Guain said, “into the great hall. And never mind my brother's sorry rambling, he's traveled a very long way indeed, all the way from the heart of the kingdom.”
The bishop was set up in a chair in the great hall and seemed to be coming back to himself. He was handed a basin and some stale bread along with some wine. He ignored the bread and drank deeply of the wine and rinsed the blood from his face with the washing cloth.
“Are these your servants, Guain?” the man asked.
“In a manner of speaking yes,” Lord Guain said, “they're people from the town.”
“Not going to introduce us, then?” Nethir said.
Amis fancied he seemed more of the world than most Bishops he had heard of, not that he had ever met any in person. But the monks of Fairfax and their like were severe, joyless types and while this man seemed very serious, there was something flippant about him that seemed incongruous with a scholarly religious life.
Lord Guain heaved a world weary sigh, “Fulk the grave master and Amis...”
“Son of a gong farmer,” Amis flatly replied.
“Meet my brother Nethir, the Bishop of Elaine,” Lord Guain said.
“We've met,” Amis said, “I mean, he introduced us.”
“Not much for social niceties are you, boy?” Nethir said.
“Go easy on him,” Lord Guain said, “he's been in rough shape recently, far rougher than yourself I'm sure.”
“Son of a gong farmer,” Nethir said, “and a grave master. That's a bit off from the company you usually keep. The boy is pretty in an offset way, I'll give you that.”
“I'm nearly twenty-two,” Amis icily replied, “and I know very well how to use a sword.”
Fulk snorted, “that's about all he knows but he does do it well.”
“I would ask your skills grave master,” Nethir said, “but I'm already quite familiar with their breadth and depth.”
Then the most peculiar exchange happened, they both met eyes and it was as if they knew each other and Fulk wasn't pleased with what he saw. And the Bishop when he turned to Amis was smug with some other kind of knowing.
“Have we met?” Amis said, feeling very uncomfortable.
“Not as such,” the Bishop replied, “I may have known your mother. You take after her.”
It was a very strange thing to say, his mother had always said it was his father he looked alike to, though perhaps the sternness of their expression and dark hair did bare some remote resemblance. But she had been lighter in the face and far more heavy set than he could ever hope to be.
“How the hell did you get here all the way from court?” Lord Guain suddenly demanded, “Surely it wasn't only on foot.”
Amis felt taken aback by his rudeness, there was some tension brewing between them. Though over what, he could only guess.
“That's a fine greeting. No hello to your most beloved brother? No gracious offering of hospitality or kindness? But I should be used to your chilly treatment, especially in my old age. It was a simple matter of following your trails,” Nethir said, “they leave a mark, always have. There's something about your particular brand of politics that makes it easy to pinpoint where you've last been. If you had gotten any of my last messages you might have known what I meant.”
“Well,” Lord Guain said, “I hadn't.”
“The Baroness wishes an audience with you,” Nethir said.
“I don't care what she wants,” Lord Guain said, cooly, “nor do I care what the court of Adelaide has decided on my behalf.”
Nethir glanced at Fulk and Amis in turn, “do these people have any idea what sort of situation you've put them in?”
“They don't,” Lord Guain said, “nor should it matter to them as they are both safe and alive and shall remain so as long as the keep is in my hands.”
The bishop banged his hand on the table startling them all and then seeing their shocked faces, began to laugh in mirthless tone.
“What manner of insanity is this,” the Bishop said, “what fool thing have you done to make this strangeness a reality? I wouldn't have believed Garstwrot was what it was unless I had come to see it for myself. Since the bottle has been popped you can bet there will be others clamoring to find what you've found and they won't be as forgiving as I will be. And then there are all the evil legends about the place and ash raining from the sky! If one thing is true, who knows what else might be.”
“Keep your opinions to yourself,” Lord Guain said, “you've made a grave mistake coming here.”
“Lord God have I ever,” Nethir murmured, backing down, “but my ambition still lives even as yours dies daily.”
“I've still taken care of what I can in my own way,” Lord Guain said, “and my two friends here have been of the greatest help.”
“This kind of power comes with a price,” Nethir said, “it's one you're not used to paying, yet. That's the only further message I will give you and with that said, I must return to King Hune's side before I lose my head because of your foolishness.”
“Is that all,” Lord Guain said, “you could have sent a song with a minstrel. That would have been much more agreeable. I'm finished here and you can stew in your own anger for all I care, I will return to my books and my hard earned keep. What you decide to do with yourself is up to you. Though there is a horse in the stable you can use if you choose to return to Medlam castle, like a coward.”
“You idiot, you're not the only one with the ability to read! Or a collection of the type of books you find most agreeable,” Nethir said, dabbing his mouth, “there's only so often one can land in a barrel of shit and come out smelling like a r
ose, Guain and you've pushed your chances much too far with this diabolical place.”
It was an exceedingly strange conversation and everyone left the table that night on edge. That evening lacking any other solutions, Amis met Fulk in the library just as they had discussed, feeling terribly uneasy.
“What was that all about,” Amis said, “why would that man know me? I've never met him.”
Fulk shook his head, he was pacing in the little room picking books up and putting them down, ruffling pages on the table.
“You know more than you're letting on,” Amis said, “why won't you tell me.”
“Amis,” Fulk said, clapping a hand on his shoulder, “I could always count on you to be painfully honest and dutifully naive.”
“What the hell do you mean?” Amis demanded, “If Lord Guain is keeping secrets it hurts us too! Is he the poisoner or isn't he? Who is this brother of his, is it him? He works for the King, doesn't he? And both Kings want this land-”
“Secrets from the likes of him are better kept,” Fulk said, “than exposed. They aren't blood brothers but rather brothers of a common lot.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Amis demanded, “Who are these people?”
“I can't trust you to keep your mouth shut proper or I'd tell you! If they knew clearly what I know,” Fulk snapped, “I'd be better off dead.”
It was a chilling admittance; Fulk knew something more than him that was far more terrible than he could guess.
“Then I'll tell you a secret first, maybe you can think to return it. I think Lady Anna is dead,” Amis said, “in fact, I know it to be true though I can't exactly say how or you'd think I've gone mad.”
Fulk sucked in a breath, “damn! You're supposed to be my escape plan. We'd go to the King of Elaine and with that great sword arm of yours and be free to do as we will but now trapped in here with those two-”
“Who are these people,” Amis insisted, “if you don't tell me, I can't very well fight them now can I?”
“They aren't the type to be cut down easy,” Fulk said, “they aren't the kind who fight with swords. You'd not know their names even if I told them.”
“Then tell me!” Amis insisted.
“Gessetto and Carbone, though I doubt the first,” Fulk said, “doesn't ring a bell now, does it?”
“No,” Amis admitted, “so, who are they?”
“My father's killers,” Fulk said, “more importantly, the murderers of many men. They left from Adelaide after the governor’s began to clean it up, ugly place Adelaide was, filled with thieves and scoundrels and torn apart by plague and great wars. But then there was peace and law and they were found out, though I had heard Gessetto had gone mad when he was first shut up in Carbone's tower.”
“You've been working for your own father's killers?” Amis said.
“It was his own idiot fault he messed up,” Fulk said, “and only my Uncle put it back to rights and a good thing he had, or right now I'd be long dead. But that's not the bit that's bothersome it's Lord Guain himself, I knew he was a crooked sort when I met him. A nose like mine can sniff them out after living with schemers and scoundrels long enough and he was off from the second I saw him in Fairfax church marrying our Lady of the keep. No man that looks like that would ever marry a woman so old unless there was something sinister afoot or some greatness to be gained. But Garstwrot has neither land nor money and Lorix is a land for sheep and cattle, not worth so much as a raised sword unless you're very much in love with cheese. But if he is Gessetto, though I can't imagine how he could be, then sense doesn't matter and we're really in it deep, he was a mad bastard made of evil stuff.”
“He doesn't seem driven mad,” Amis said, “just lonely.”
“That's because you're an idiot,” Fulk said, “who can't see the forest for the trees. There is something wrong about him and the way he's obsessed with Garstwrot. When I sang that song it wasn't only for his benefit I wanted to see what Garstwren was worth to him. Do you know what he paid me?”
Amis shook his head.
“This,” Fulk said, and pulled from his pocket a satchel of spices.
Amis stared at it, “it's for cooking, isn't it?”
“No it's not just for cooking,” Fulk said, “it's enough spice to buy several keeps like this one.”
Recalling the conversation Amis had with Lord Guain in the kitchen, he realized what he was actually looking at. It was most of the keep's spice cabinet, all stuffed inside a bag.
“It was worth that much,” Amis said.
“He would have given anything to have it,” Fulk said, “a little bit odd don't you think? Even for a rich man...”
Amis had to sit down, it was a very strange picture. He didn't exactly think of Lord Guain as a good man, and wasn't sure if he was a murderer but he certainly hadn't acted unhinged.
“Just because he's interested in Garstwren,” Amis said, “doesn't make him insane.”
“No,” Fulk said, “but this certainly turns my heart to water. Gessetto was the older one, he was older than Carbone by at least fifteen years. Do you understand what that means? Gessetto should be eighty-four.”
“That's impossible,” Amis said, “no one on earth could turn young again.”
“The amount of times any claim of magical anything could be true in the entire world, could probably be counted on one hand. But sometimes the stories about this place made me pause,” Fulk said, “and here there's something different to the land, a strange feeling you get when you walk about the stones at night. I'm not the superstitious type, I carried the dead for a living and put them in the ground but even I could feel it. That chill in the air on certain days, the whispers on the wind that the old druids sang about.”
“But that surely has nothing to do with a man so old,” Amis said, “Lord Guain can't possibly be more than forty.”
“Precisely! Which is why all this bothers me and makes my soul shiver. Carbone promised me money ages ago for the location of his brother but I never thought I'd find him or that Lord Guain when I first laid eyes on him remotely fit the description. I was expecting someone much older and far more twisted. A white haired man wasted thin with a presumptuous tone. An old ratty beggar missing teeth with a hunchback and twisted shoulder, convulsing from his own insanity. Not a handsome man with a straight back and head full of lovely blonde hair. But with black magic on his side that was real and not just a fable, I think I understand all those little children that disappeared from Fairfax the past few years.”
“If childrens' blood made people young,” Amis said, “there wouldn't be a child in the world.”
“Obviously something more was done to make it happen,” Fulk said, “who knows how the devil works, do you? I don't. I don't want anything to do with that stuff it chills me to the bone. Spending all night talking with gods and devils, the thought of the dead getting up and walking around again makes me pale.”
Amis supposed if that happened, Fulk really would be in trouble considering how he had treated them when putting them into the ground.
“If there's black magic afoot,” Amis said, “what are we supposed to do?”
“Here's where it goes crosser. Don't you get mad about it now; the Baroness of J'Andeux paid me to find Margaret of Fairfax's son. And if I did and he was dead, to bring her proof of it. And so, when you lay dying I tried to cut your hair thinking you were a goner.”
And that was really far too much for Amis to remain even tempered about.
“You sold me out,” Amis said, becoming furious, “would have given my hair for money! You bastard!”
“If you were dead!” Fulk said, “Otherwise, we'd get out of here and out of their schemes. I didn't give a wit what some rich Baroness from Adelaide wanted as long as she paid me for it. ”
“Why would a Baroness from some far away country want anything to do with me,” Amis said, “I was disinherited.”
Fulk said, “When you were but a little boy do you remember? The way they shut you
up in the tower? Everyone knew about it who had ears, it was quite the scandal.”
“Yes,” Amis said, skin going clammy at the memory, “I became very ill and they sequestered me away. It never really left me since then, that awful sickness. I've still never gained the weight I lost and my skin has never gained its color back, I never felt truly well again.”
“I suspect it was the Baroness herself who poisoned you somehow,” Fulk said, “trying to get her claws in Garstwrot.”
“What would I have to do with Garstwrot,” Amis said.
“Before you were dumped on us,” Fulk said, “did you ever wonder why? Did you ever think that it was odd that your father suddenly appeared and came and got you?”
“Of course I found it odd!” Amis said, “It was embarrassing and awful and humiliating in front of the court-”
Amis took in a few great breaths, he wouldn't cry. He was determined.
“I felt such shame,” Amis said, “it was indescribable. My entire life had been a lie, though I feel stupider still that I didn't notice the signs.”
“Like what,” Fulk said.
“She never held me,” Amis said, “my mother kept me at arms length. My siblings were given favor, my father wasn't bothered over my education or whatever I did. I could fall from a tree or burn down a village, it didn't seem to matter. I even beat my mother's prize geese to death just to see what she would do about it. And nothing! Because I meant nothing. Not to any of them. I suppose being the youngest made my lot seem evident but it makes ever more sense now that I know the origins of my birth.”
It was difficult to say out loud and hurt worse to acknowledge.
“I was a bastard,” Amis said, “remnants of some wicked night.”
“Have you ever wondered if all that was true,” Fulk said.
Amis said, “Of course it was true! Why would they lie about something so horrible? I even look like him, the awful Martin, as much as I detest it. I should hate the parents who raised me in Fairfax hall but I don't, I miss them. I miss my house and my horse and even the cat who stole fish from my plate at supper. I hated Garstwrot village and I still do and I hated my father. I was brought to him and he-”