by Vox Day
Theuderic dug into his pouch, found the key, and held it out before him.
The bridge commander, discovering that two outraged archbishops in full tongue were considerably more intimidating than the sight of two old men on mules in the distance, was quick to seize upon the opportunity to retreat from the prelates.
“You’re not having us on about the silver, are you?”
“No, I am not. Nor about the archbishops either, as I believe you have discovered, my good man. Or the lady elf. Now, am I correct in assuming that you have no authority to let us pass?”
“You are correct, sir.”
“The correct form of address is ‘You are correct, my lord comte,’ but we shall let that pass. May I ask your name, Commander?”
“Paetinus Alvus, my lord, ah, my lord comte.”
“Well, Alvus, I have a plan. Since I suspect you have no idea where to even begin finding the individual with the necessary authority to permit us to enter the city, and you probably have no more desire to watch over thirty armed men than the archbishops and I have of sitting here for the remainder of the afternoon staring at your lovely bridge, I suggest a compromise. Why don’t you and several of your men escort myself, the archbishops, the nuns, and the silver to the Sanctal palace, where you can transfer the dilemma of this decision to a churchman of sufficient rank, if not to the Sanctified Father himself? I will give you my word that my men will wait here, more or less patiently, until they are given permission to enter by someone whose orders will be accepted.”
Alvus’s face screwed up with concern. “I’m not sure…”
“The alternative, of course, is that I simply turn around and ride away with the silver and a clear conscience. I have fulfilled my obligation in delivering the scot to the city. If the Sanctified Father and the Church won’t acccept this offering from His Majesty, well, I suspect I could find some use for it.”
“Of course they’ll accept it!” Alvus looked alarmed. “You can’t simply ride off with it after coming all this way!”
“I don’t see that you leave me any choice.” Theuderic nodded to the Amorran and began to back his horse toward where he would have room to turn it around. “As much as I have enjoyed our little conversation, Paetinus Alvus, I shall leave you to begin thinking about your explanation to the Sanctified Father, or more likely, to the ever-curious Congregation for the Doctrine of the True Faith concerning where the Church’s silver has gone and why you sent it away.”
Alvus went pale at the mention of the holy inquisitors. Theuderic could almost see the calculations taking place inside the man’s head. What was more likely to prove problematic for him: whomever was in charge of the city guards knowing that he’d let someone over the bridge, or the Church thinking he’d permitted a stranger to steal three hundred pounds of its silver?
“Fear not those who can kill the body, but rather those who can kill the soul.” Theuderic helpfully reminded the Amorran of a heuristic he had always found considerably more poetic than applicable to his own life.
“Wait!” Alvus cried before Theuderic had even managed to turn his horse about. “I will bring you to the palace! If you’ll only order your footmen to stay here until you send for them, I’ll even see that they’re given bread and cheese while they wait. But I’ll have to accompany you alone. I’ve got the only horse.”
“The archbishops and I should much appreciate your company, friend Alvus. I’m sure we need not fear being waylaid under your protection.” Theuderic did not permit himself so much as a grin as he waved to the man driving the wagon, indicating that he should come forward. “And if you would arrange to see that my men are provided with a bit of wine as well, I don’t believe it would be taken amiss.”
Once broken, it seemed the Amorran dam gushed plentifully. After mounting his horse, Paetinus Alvus rode alongside him and showed no hesitation to answer his questions to the best of his ability.
It seemed that one of the leading lights of the empire’s ruling council had been murdered by another council member, which would not have been of any great significance were it not for the fact that both men controlled massive family armies each comparable to the size of the king’s royal forces. It was little wonder that the Amorran council had never evolved into a monarchy, not when its nobles were permitted to wield such power.
The new restrictions on foreigners were somehow a consequence of this murderous political struggle, which Theuderic was given to understand had been ongoing for more than a decade. The garbled version Guermont had received from the northbound traveler made a little more sense now, as it appeared that the murdered man had been a champion of giving imperial citizenship to the occupied provinces, a policy that looked to have died with him. His murder, and its subsequent justification by the council, had given violent offense to the nobles of the provinces, and many of them were now known or rumored to be in open revolt against the council, if not necessarily the empire itself.
It was all very complicated and legalistic, which was to say, characteristically Amorran, and Theuderic despaired of attempting to understand it well enough to explain it to the Haut Conseil when he returned in the spring. He decided to take an optimistic attitude toward the affair and assume it would sort itself out before his departure.
Recent events within the Church were rather easier to follow, at least to the extent they were explicable to anyone outside the internecine battles that took place within the hierarchy. The new Sanctiff was from one of the usual noble families, but he was younger than usual and, prior to his elevation to the Sacred College three years ago, had spent his archbishopric in the provinces, thus rendering him somewhat of an enigma within the city. It was eminently clear that in Amorr, the difference between a man of the city and a man from anywhere else in the empire was nearly as vast as the difference between noble and commoner in Savondir.
Unlike the archbishops who now leaned in to hear the guard tell the tale, Theuderic had little interest in the man presently sitting on the Sanctal throne. He was rather more interested to hear of the murders that had helped put the young celestine on that throne. Mainly because murders by magic were nearly unheard of in Savondir, where its use was actively embraced. For anything of the sort to occur in a place so viciously anti-magic as Amorr was simply astonishing!
He was still marveling at the news of these peculiar and untimely killings when he saw they were approaching the city walls of Amorr. They stood some seventy piedz high, and while they didn’t have the benefit of the mountainous terrain helping secure them, thanks to the Amorran legions scattered around the empire they were effectively as impregnable as the walls of Malkan. No enemy had ever forced them, and it seemed impossible to imagine that any ever would.
Nor had the Amorrans relaxed their guard over the centuries. Their reputation for rigid discipline appeared to be well merited. Unlike the larger walled cities in Savondir, a rigid undeveloped zone was strictly maintained, preventing the houses and other buildings of the exurbs through which they had ridden from piling up against the walls. It looked as if a spell had been cast recently, flattening everything in a concentric ring.
Only the bricked road continued past the invisible line of demarcation. The buildings and other detritus of civilization came to an abrupt end despite there being no marker that Theuderic could see. This grass-covered ring surrounding the walls was about four hundred piedz wide, and the children of the exurbs gamboled about it in the company of numerous goats and the occasional cow.
Alvus appeared to have taken a proprietary interest in them, and the Amorran officer called out aggressively to the guards at the open gate, telling them to fetch their captain. Theuderic didn’t know if the gate commander was more impressed by the archbishops, the elf, or the fact that they were the invited guests of the Sanctiff, but after some brief, but animated wrangling between the two Amorran officers, Alvus proudly announced they would be permitted to enter the city proper and that a runner would be sent to the palace to warn the Church offic
ials of their imminent arrival.
Lithriel had donned her veil again to avoid attracting unnecessary attention, but, once they followed the two mounted officers and entered the city itself, they quickly learned it wasn’t necessary. The sights and sounds and press of the crowds was overwhelming, even to one accustomed to large cities such as Lutece and Malkan. Amorr held more than twice the population of either of its rivals, and it seemed as if most of them were filling the streets and sidewalks today. Many of the residential buildings, which Avlus told him were incongruously called islands, were seven stories high. They appeared to be disturbingly ill-constructed too, as some of them visibly leaned over the streets they kept in shadow despite the clear skies and afternoon sun.
In such a place, even a single battlemage could wreak great devastation and remain undetected, Theuderic thought to himself. Surreptitiously transform just two or threescore stones at the ground level into their component sands, and you could kill ten thousand “island” dwellers in a matter of seconds, to say nothing of the hundreds more passing under the tilting buildings. The temptation to experiment with just one building whispered for a brief moment, but he reminded himself that he was now supposed to be a royal ambassador. Mass murder would hardly be diplomatic of him, even if no one suspected the truth.
Impeded by the crowds, they hadn’t progressed far from the gate when blaring trumpets caused the street to clear as if by magic, and a small mounted squadron of gold-cloaked troops, followed by four squads of footmen in white armor, approached them. They did not look friendly. Theuderic glanced at Alvus and saw that the guard commander’s eyes were wide with alarm, which did not inspire a great sense of confidence in his own heart.
“I assume the ones in white are the Sanctal guard. Am I correct, friend Alvus?”
“Mm-hmm,” Alvus nodded.
“Then what is the meaning of the gold cloaks on the horsemen?”
“They are priests of the Order of St. Michael.”
Michaelines. The mage-killers. Of course they were. Theuderic smiled ruefully. He couldn’t help it. What were the odds? This sort of thing was exactly why he was convinced that even if there wasn’t a God, there must be a Devil. And if he had observed anything over the years, it was that the prince of this world had a wickedly twisted sense of humor.
Fortunately, the Michaelines didn’t appear to have any special means of detecting mages, as the priest-captain immediately took charge of them and ordered Alvus to return to his station without showing any indications that Theuderic was of any particular interest to him. Theuderic slipped Alvus a silver coin for his trouble as the pious wall commander received a parting blessing from Archeveque Nivelet. One never knew when it might come in handy to be on good terms with a guardsman.
But even if he wasn’t hostile, the Michaeline captain was rather less friendly than Paetinus Alvus had been. He looked over both Theuderic and Lithriel with open suspicion, and Theuderic was reminded that these particular priests were not only the empire’s witch-hunters, but were trained specifically to deal with orc shamen, elven sorcerers, and, as it happened, human mages like himself, on the field of battle.
He was very nearly certain the Amorran could not know that Lithriel had lost her magic or that he was more than a simple Savondese noble and king’s ambassador, but from the way the Michaeline looked at them, he was clearly open to the possibility that either or both of them might be a practitioner of the forbidden. The priest-captain’s suspicious glare made him very glad that he’d resisted the urge to experiment with the stability of the islands. Sometimes virtue truly was its own reward.
The Sanctiff’s palace was constructed on the Inculpatine, the hill that marked the very center of the city. Built entirely of a white harabescato with only the faintest of light grey veining to the marble, it was a spectacular architectural achievement, particularly as Theuderic knew it had been constructed without the aid of magic or dwarves.
Guards wearing red cloaks over the same enameled armor as the footmen accompanying them took their horses and mules from them, at which point they had to climb the steps that led to the palace entrance. Neither Lithriel nor Nivelet had any trouble with them, but Vincenot was quickly exhausted, and Theuderic was forced to lend the elderly archeveque his arm for support.
The armored guards had unloaded the chests that contained the silver as well as those in which their clothes and personal belongings were stored from the donkey cart and were struggling up the steps behind them, two to each chest. The Michaeline priest-captain had offered to escort the cart around to the other side of the hill, but Theuderic had no intention of permitting the silver out of his sight until it was turned over to the Sanctified Father. If he and the elderly churchmen had to mount the stairs, then by God and His Vicar on Earth, their hosts would have to do so as well.
A small but impressive delegation of celestes and archeveques were waiting in the palace for them. Several of them appeared to know Nivelet and Vincenot, or at least knew of them, as the two archeveques were soon engaged in what appeared to be a warm and friendly conversation in the high Church Utreccan language that bore only a slight resemblance to the vulgar form that Theuderic spoke.
Vincenot informed Theuderic that they were fortunate indeed, as the sanctiff would grant them an audience that very evening, after which they were invited to a private dinner here in the palace given by His Eminence Petrus Clementus, a tall, white-bearded celeste whose episcopal cathedra of Mons Celsius was apparently of some reknown, judging by the air with which the archeveque informed him of it.
“How very kind of the king-priest to permit you to give him tribute without first making you wait,” Lithriel remarked irreverently. Fortunately, she had spoken in elvish.
“Some of these men are scholars, my lady. Perhaps the finest in the world outside of the Collegium. Don’t assume none of them will understand your tongue.”
“It’s only been two years since they decided we weren’t animals, my love.”
“Pity, I might have been able to keep you in my room if they hadn’t.”
He winced as Lithriel’s laugh sound drew the attention of the Church delegation.
A short, stout man wearing the celeste’s light blue vestments walked over to them. He had bright, intelligent eyes. “Do excuse us, seigneur comte,” he said in excellent Savondese. “Some of us have been corresponding with Archeveque Vincenot for thirty years, but this is the first time we have had the opportunity to meet with him. My lady Everbright, am I correct in assuming this is the human tongue with which you are most familiar?”
“I speak some, yes, sir priest.”
“Then allow me to bid you and the Comte de Thoneaux welcome to Amorr and to the Aula Consecra. I am Celeste Praxidus Domenicus, of the cathedra of Sainte Marcellus, and it is my honor to host your mission to the Sanctified See. If you have any requirements or requests, you have only to ask me or one of my subordinates.”
“Other than being shown to our chambers so that we can prepare for this evening,” Theuderic said, “I have thirty men cooling their heels on the far side of the northern bridge, Your Eminence.”
“Lodgings have already been prepared for them outside the walls, Comte, in Sainte Esquilinus. The messenger should have reached them by now, and they will likely dine long before you are able to do so. May I escort you to the rooms we have prepared for you now? I shall have the chests brought along immediately, of course.”
Theuderic wasn’t sure which was more impressive, the grand two-room suite he’d been given, which was large enough to sleep most of his thirty men, or the fact that his suite had direct access to the smaller, even more elaborately decorated chamber in which Lithriel had been installed. And he wasn’t sure which was more alarming, the awareness that the Church already knew so much about him or that they couldn’t be bothered to hide their knowledge from him. He was certain the arrival of the priests of St. Michael earlier had been no coincidence. If the Amorrans didn’t know he was one of the King’s Own, he w
ould take bloody vows himself.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to visit the baths, but the marvelous aquaduct system that brought water directly to the palace did allow him to at least sluice the dirt of the road from his face and hands. He even managed to shave himself. By rights, he should have had at least a manservant or two, but fifteen years of fighting in the field, mostly on the western borders, had left him too accustomed to solitude to welcome the intrusion of another. Perhaps more importantly, it would complicate things with Lithriel. The two of them were always happiest when they were alone together, and she had never expressed any desire for a lady-in-waiting. Elves, insofar as he could tell, didn’t go in for such nonsense.
An hour later, Theuderic was escorted into the Sanctiff’s throne room. It was built on a grander scale than anything the kings of Savondir had ever envisioned. There was a small army of white-armored guards, priests, novices, prelates, eveques, and archveques in the domed chamber. The man himself wore a white robe embroidered with cloth-of-gold and wore a high, exotic headpiece in place of a crown. He sat upon the huge apostolic throne that was raised up on a platform that stood higher than a man’s head.
Theuderic understood that the throne, the Sedes Ossus, was a holy icon of sorts, more like a veritable catalog of holy icons. But the effect of the various bones of which it was constructed and the four gold-plated skulls at its corners was rather gruesome, and almost barbaric. The simple, silver throne of the de Mirids was much more elegant and kingly in his eyes, despite being about one-quarter the size of the skeletal Amorran behemoth.
But he couldn’t complain about their reception by the Sanctified Father. When he was summoned for the basiamanus and mounted the platform, he was surprised to see that His Sanctified Holiness Pelagianus was a handsome man not more than five years older than himself.