by Ken Hood
Brother Bernat drew in his breath in surprise. "Who did this?"
"The Inquisition, Brother."
"Ah, a great evil! And your speech? Sore throat! Let me tend that first. Relax as much as you can and do not be afraid."
Dry, cool fingers clasped Toby's neck. He felt a tingle, then a strange sensation like ice water soaking through his flesh. The fires died away to a lingering ache. Even his torn mouth stopped hurting. Spirits! This was gramarye as potent as any he had ever met.
"Is that better?"
"Much better, Brother! Thank you. Thank you very much. How do you do that?"
The old man shook his head impatiently. "We have much to talk about. Ah, your wrists! But your arms must be the worst, yes? Can you sit up?"
Toby shuddered. He took a deep breath, released it, and then performed the fastest sit-up of his life, letting his hands trail in the dirt. His shoulders exploded in thunderbolts. He did not cry out, not quite, but that was only because he knew the child was there.
"Ah, fool that I am!" said Brother Bernat, clasping Toby's head between his hands. "Peace, my son!" The agony subsided a little. "Now I have to open your jerkin. Pepita, your fingers are faster than mine. Unlace this for the captain."
At once Pepita was there, kneeling on his other side, looking very solemn. Her hands fluttered like butterflies: jerkin, doublet, shirt—and then she chuckled gleefully. "Look, he has hairs on his chest! And a locket! Can I see?" She reached for the little leather packet Toby wore around his neck.
"No!" The amethyst was the thing he prized most in all the world, Granny Nan's farewell gift to him, but if this child were to try and take it, he could not lift a finger to stop her.
"Pepita, your manners!" Brother Bernat said sharply. "That is the captain's. Leave it." With delicate, careful movements, he stripped off Toby's loose garments until he was bare to the waist. Pepita sat back and stared, but even Toby could see that his shoulders and arms were puffed out like red melons, the left one worse than the right. He had a better view of his hideously discolored elbows, his bruised and bloody wrists. His ankles felt as if they were scraped raw again inside his buskins.
The friar muttered angrily. "This arm is out of place, my son. It may hurt when I put it back. Wait." He laid his hands on the fiery swelling, and his touch produced the same icy relief as before. "Ready?" He pushed.
That gentle pressure should have had no effect at all on a dislocated shoulder, but Toby heard a crunch and a thud as the bone slid back into place. Despite all he could do, a whimper escaped him, then it was over. The coolness returned. Gramarye!
After a few moments the friar switched his attention to the other arm. "Pepita? Put your hand here. See if you can feel what I am doing." He placed his long, slender fingers over her tiny ones.
She frowned at first, then smiled delightedly. "Yes! Yes! Can I try?"
"By all means. Take it slowly, calmly. You work on his elbow."
Toby had always thought that gramarye was pure evil—like the houses in Mezquiriz bursting into pillars of flame. This was pure goodness, the most blessed relief he could imagine. He did not understand, but his gratitude was infinite. He would never doubt Brother Bernat again. And although Pepita was not producing any detectable results in her efforts to copy what the old man was doing, he did not believe now that her trick with the mouse had been a trick.
Sounds in the distance told of the pilgrims mounting and preparing to move off, then he felt the ground shake and knew the tread of Don Ramon's horse.
"What are you doing, Brother?" demanded the arrogant voice. "And what is that child doing? Why is that man indecently exposed?"
Exposed? Had the noble lord never seen the poor toiling in the summer fields?
The gray-robed friar looked up, frowning. "We are invoking the good spirits of this country to heal him, senor. He injured himself when he fell."
Still being considerate of his arms, Toby twisted around to look up at the caballero. "It is as he says, senor." His voice was hoarse, but it was a voice again.
The don raised his eyebrows in surprise at this miraculous recovery. "Indeed? From the look of you, you fell a long way, Captain. Can you catch up to us? I mean, if I leave a wagon to carry you, you will follow soon?"
"We shall catch up," said the friar. "Pray proceed."
Not Hamish. He would refuse to leave without Toby.
"If your honor would be so kind as to inform Sergeant Jaume that this is my wish, senor? The password is, 'Strath Fillan.' "
Don Ramon nodded and tried to repeat that, although his Castilian tongue stumbled over the consonants. Looking uncharacteristically doubtful, he turned his horse and rode off without another word. The three of them were left sitting on the grass.
"Wagon?" Toby muttered. "Is he truly crazy or just deceiving us?"
"Attend to his actions, not what he says, my son." Unlike several other members of the company, Brother Bernat was not a gossip. "Pepita, you are doing very well. Let me finish the elbow, and you try his wrist."
The gentle laying-on of those ancient hands brought relief from pain, the most welcome thing in the world, and yet it also brought its own shadow in the knowledge that the respite could only be temporary. A few days from now Toby would have to meet it again, and then there would be no magical escape. His flesh cringed, his courage wavered. Could he bear to remain with the pilgrims after this warning?
"Can you walk now, my son?"
"I think so, Brother. But my ankles..."
He reached down and the friar intervened, removing his buskins and then hauling his tattered hose up his shins. He clucked when he found the lacerated skin, but again his touch worked its healing magic, and this time the effects were more visible. Eventually he sat back with a sigh, looking weary for the first time in Toby's experience. The parchment face was paler than ever, the dark eyes more deeply sunk.
"That will have to do for now, Tobias. It is not enough. I am sorry."
"It is enough. It is wonderful. I am so grateful that I cannot find words." He was still very sore, but he was not a cripple.
A trace of the familiar smile crept back. "You must find a lot of words."
"I shall tell you everything, Brother, and gladly. And now I do believe that you can help me. I am very sorry I ever doubted you. Can you rid me of the hob?"
"Hob? What is a hob?"
Dismayed, Toby paused halfway into his shirt. "A spirit, an untrained one. Not quite an elemental but one that knows something of people. It was the spirit of the glen where I was born."
"Ah! I understand. We call them imps." The inscrutable dark eyes studied him. "Then your problem is even worse than I suspected. No, I cannot rid you of it. I may be able to help you deal with it, though. I wish to rest here a little while, but you must tell me the whole story. And then we shall rejoin the others."
"I shall tell you gladly, but I do not know that I wish to rejoin the others. I am sure that someone in the party betrayed me."
Brother Bernat sighed. "I expect so, but you must not think badly of them for that, Tobias. The Inquisition is very skilled in its questioning and never betrays those who tell tales. Even an account of what happened to you here this morning would be enough to condemn you, and many people saw you fall. You are not the only person who fears the inquisitors."
"You have endangered yourself by helping me!"
"Don't worry about me. I have survived a long time." The old man smiled his cryptic little smile. "Now tell me everything, or I cannot advise you."
"I shall. Now?" Where to begin? "Let's see. I was an orphan in a very small village in the hills of Scotland. The woman who raised me was what we called the witchwife..."
It was a very long tale. When he came to tell how he had fled Scotland to escape Baron Oreste, the old friar heaved himself up.
"We must start moving. You can talk on the way."
Toby was shaky, but he could walk. There was nothing wrong with his legs, although the tormentors would doubtless have
gotten to them soon enough. He tucked his hands inside the front of his jerkin, thinking that would help support the weight of his arms and ease the jarring on his shoulders. He would not want to be carrying his pack, or even his sword. Hamish would have taken care of those for him—capable, dependable Hamish. That was why he had to go on to Barcelona, to see Hamish safely on a ship. He continued with his history.
Even the brief rest had restored Brother Bernat, for he set off at his usual distance-eating pace which so belied his frail appearance. His haggard features were intent, but he displayed no reaction to the improbable story, other than an occasional penetrating half smile. Pepita hurried along at his side, looking worried or shocked or puzzled by turns, but saying nothing.
The pilgrims could not be very far ahead, because once Hamish came trotting into sight and stopped when he saw the stragglers. He waved. The friar waved back, and Hamish disappeared again. Then Brother Bernat slowed down a little, as if unwilling to catch up with the group before the discussion was ended.
Toby concluded with the visions that had begun about two weeks earlier, a total of five of them now—a man in Valencia he had never met, the ghoul in the orange grove, Oreste's dungeon, the executions in Barcelona, and finally the Inquisition. There seemed to be no logic to them, no pattern, no rationality.
"Are these prophecies, Brother, or are they madness? If they are madness, why do they injure me? If they show the future, they contradict each other. Once the Inquisition has demolished me, how can I ever become Baron Oreste's headsman?"
"Perhaps your meeting with the Inquisition will happen later."
"No, I was wearing these clothes, I am sure of it."
The friar nodded. "The visions are not madness, Tobias, although they may drive you mad. They happened but did not happen. They are real and not real. They may be true or false. All they show is that you are in fearful danger. If the Inquisition may be looking out for you at Tortosa, then we shall have to scout the town very carefully before we enter it." He smiled wanly. "You are not alone in having reason to be wary of the inquisitors."
"They are friars too."
The old man thrust out a bony jaw. "Not of my order!"
"I am sorry, I should not—"
"No you shouldn't. To rid the world of demons is commendable, but if those who seek to do so use methods as evil as the demons themselves, then where is the benefit? And if the methods do not work, then the total evil is worse than before. But peace, Tobias! Let me think on what you have said." Brother Bernat fell silent.
CHAPTER FIVE
As they were walking past the remains of an orchard, the friar began to talk again, gazing at the road ahead and speaking so softly that he seemed to be musing aloud.
"Like you, Tobias, I can see elementals. That is not a birthright but a knack one gains from dealing with them. You were a witchwife's child, and I have studied the spirits all my life. I don't know how old I am—ninety, perhaps more. It is too long to remain ignorant, but that is what I am. Spirits are still mysteries to me, and especially I do not know where they come from. They do not procreate as mortals do, but they must be replenished somehow, else the hexers would have stripped the world clean of them long ago. I like to think they are spontaneous manifestations of nature, outpourings of the power of life and beauty. Anywhere I have ever encountered a sprite was a place of beauty—a grove of willows, a grotto, a bend in a stream. But I don't know if the elemental is attracted to the beauty, or creates it, or is created by it."
He smiled his patient, gentle smile, which Toby now thought was more effective than a castle wall at preserving secrets.
"I have gathered a little lore in my time, though, and I shall share it with you if you promise not to ask any questions until I am done."
"I should gladly promise more than that, Brother."
"That will suffice. Most people know of only three types of spirit, although they are all varieties of the same, of course—the wild elementals, the benevolent tutelaries, and demons. It does seem unfair, doesn't it, that the evil ones are able to move around while the tutelaries remain always in their own domains? Their mobility is bought at a terrible price. Whatever the Inquisition did to you, Tobias, or would have done to you, could be nothing compared to the tortures an adept applies to a spirit to make a demon of it. And the spirit cannot even hope to die, as I am sure you did... would, I mean. Small wonder they are so malevolent!
"Your hob, though, or imp as we call them, is not bound as a demon is. It has free will, and undoubtedly it is responsible for your visions. Those are very unusual and very dangerous. Think of them not as prophecies but as warnings. No hob nor spirit can foretell the future, not in any detail. A great tutelary may recognize a sickness in a man and know that he will die soon. It may have knowledge beyond mortals' ken and be privy to great secrets, but it cannot write a history of the future. The hob knows less of what is going to happen to you than you do, because it lives only for the moment."
The pause seemed to invite comment, so Toby said, "Yes, Brother." Whatever this long introduction was leading up to must obviously be bad news.
"You, for example, are deeply concerned by the problem of finding enough food for us, but that is completely beyond its comprehension. Mostly the hob just watches the world unfolding around you, satisfying its childish curiosity. If it becomes excited, then it may do foolish things, but otherwise it is only an observer, I think. You agree?"
"Yes, Brother."
"It takes no heed for the morrow, until suddenly it realizes you are in serious trouble. Then it will react to save you, because you are valuable to it. It is undoubtedly fond of you in its way, and if it cannot understand what pain is, that is not its fault. Suffering it ignores, but your death matters to it. If it can use its powers to save your life, then it will. But supposing it cannot?"
"When it is blocked by other demons?" Toby had promised not to ask questions, but the friar either did not notice that lapse or did not care.
"Baron Oreste's demons, perchance. And the Inquisition undoubtedly uses demons of its own, although the brothers probably do not think of them as that. Once in a while they must pick on a genuine creature, and if they did not restrain it by some sort of gramarye it would blast them. When they disincarnate an incarnate it would merely take over one of their own number unless they had some means of preventing that."
"By 'disincarnate' you mean—"
"I mean kill its host, Tobias. When the husk dies, or soon after, the demon is freed. Suppose... Let us suppose that a few days from now you meet the Inquisition. They may be looking out for you, or someone in our party denounces you, or they just pick on a foreigner. It doesn't matter which, although that poster you mentioned suggests that they are specifically looking for you. Also, the Inquisition is normally extremely patient, absurdly so. It will keep people in jail for years while it prepares its case. For it to put you to the Question so quickly is very unusual. But you say they will begin to torture you almost right away."
"And I cannot tell them what they want to know."
"Of course. And so, eventually, you will die. Even a strong man can only endure so much. Then, and only then, the hob realizes the problem."
"Then? Not until then?"
"Probably not until you are dead or near death. It realizes its mistake, but it cannot just heal you and blow a hole through your cell walls, because it is blocked by some sort of gramarye. So what does it do?"
Toby blinked in sudden sunshine as they emerged from the shade of the trees. "I don't know, Brother."
"I suspect it does what we want to do when we make a mistake. You know that terrible feeling when you have done something wrong and wish you could undo it? A thoughtless word, an error of judgment, hitting your thumb with a hammer? For us, what's done is done, but that may not be true for the hob. Suppose it jumps back in time—taking you with it, of course—and lets the world unfold again? The next time events may turn out differently."
"Spirits! I did not know that
was possible!"
"I find it hard to credit myself, but I heard such a procedure mentioned as a theory once, many, many years ago. I shall discuss it with Father Guillem, if you will let me take him into our confidence. But see how well it fits the facts! Especially it fits the hob. An elemental has no need to violate the order of nature so brutally. A tutelary never would, because to change the past for one person would change it for many and might introduce other evils worse than the first. A demon cannot, because it is bound by conjuration. I have only scant knowledge of such vile hexing, but I do believe that it binds the demon in time as well as in space. The hob, though, is free to do as it likes. I expect it tried this trick once in desperation and it worked, so now it does it more often."
Usually Toby thought of himself as a horse and the hob as the rider. Brother Bernat was saying that this rider gave the horse its head—which might not be true always but could be most of the time—but when the horse wandered into trouble, the rider took it back to... "I find this hard to visualize, Brother."
"So do I, my son, so do I! Imagine that you are dying from the inquisitors' cruelty, say a month or two from now. The hob wakes up to the situation and flips you back to this morning. If it does this properly, then everything that has happened is wiped out. The slate is clean. You proceed more or less as you did before."
"Then I should fall into the same trap again."
The narrow gray shoulders shrugged. "Not necessarily. Life is a series of choices, of chance happenings, of little events producing large results. Small hooks catch big fish. A seed blows in the wind and a tree grows. Things may not work out exactly as they did the first time."
"The ghoul in the orange grove! The first time I tripped over Hamish and..." Toby rephrased a question into a statement. "You think I died, that the creature killed me!"
"It would seem so. The hob would not die unless the sword went through your heart. It mourns its friend Tobias. It finds its house growing cold, if you will forgive a cruel expression. It jumps him back a few days and lets him try again."