He left one squirrel out of the pie, which he now threw to Shadow, who snapped it up.
Bertrand laughed. “Yon wolf has a hungry look in her eye, and I suspect she led you to me expecting dinner.”
He drew himself a mug of ale and pulled up a chair next to the humans.
“Now, let us have that story, and perhaps I can tell you one of my own.”
Erich explained how he had come to Weilburg seeking work, and met Walther and his daughters. Ariel and Astrid explained about the peculiarities of their spellcasting, and how they were fated to marry the same man, since magely marriages were determined by the Flow. But quirks of the Flow had matched them instead with Erich. That led to another long discussion of Erich’s family and his feud with his older brother Wilhelm, a feud that had nearly ended with the three of them tortured to death.
“You humans live such short lives, by trollish measure,” Bertrand observed. “It never ceases to amaze me how you spend so much of them fighting with one another.”
“It was a fight I did not seek,” Erich replied. “But nonetheless, I wish to put some distance between us and my brother.”
“That seems wise. I see now why you wish to travel further away. But the snows are coming, and by my nose, this will be a rough winter. You had best not tarry overlong.”
“That is my intent.”
Bertrand rose to check on the pie. “A bit longer, I think. The squirrels in these woods are tough and require slow cooking.”
“How do you catch them?” Ariel asked.
“Snares. You might think one of my girth would have eaten them all by now, but I have tended my oak trees on this hill for long enough that they give forth an abundance of acorns, far more so than wild oaks. That is enough to bring the squirrels from miles around.”
Bertrand returned to the table. “Now, since you mentioned traveling to Marburg, let me tell you a tale of that town that may be of some use.”
He took a sip of ale.
“Some of this I know, some I have only heard from other trolls passing through. But the people of Marburg, as I hear it, have long had trouble with witches. There is a group of them living in the woods outside the town, though where I do not know. I assume to the north where the river heads into the mountains.”
“Witches?” Erich asked, glancing at his wives.
“That is a term I dislike,” Astrid said. “It is not one you will hear a mage use.”
“It is a name non-mages give to things they do not understand,” Ariel said. “Oftentimes the women they refer to are not even mages, just ones skilled in herbalism and such things. Or they are women pretending to be mages to scare people.”
“But there is some basis to the superstition,” Astrid said. “Many of the things witches are said to do are similar to mysticism. That is an art even many mages mistrust.”
“Quite so,” Bertrand said. “And if what I have heard is true, these witches are no imposters.”
“Refresh my memory,” Erich said. “What is wrong with mystics?”
“Nothing as such,” Astrid said. “It is just that mysticism can be dangerous. It involves dealing with the spirit world. Some spirits are good-natured, but many are not. And mysticism also allows a mage to do things that non-mages especially distrust, such as charming and enchanting people.”
“Remember what I told you about the disciplines in each school of magic?” Ariel said.
“Yes,” Erich replied.
“The disciplines within mysticism are enchanting, conjuration, and necromancy. Each one of those has great potential for evil if misused.”
“Enchantment being what, exactly?” Erich asked. “Your father spoke of enchanting his crystals, but he is an artificer.”
Ariel shook her head. “Mages often use that term loosely, for imburing something with the Flow. But the discipline of enchantment involves using the Flow to bend someone’s mind, whether to force them do things, or to think something or forget something.”
“Yes,” Bertrand said, “and all of that is the sort of thing these witches are supposed to have done. But in Marburg it took on an especially threatening character.”
“What do you mean?” Erich asked.
He rose again. “Let me check on dinner, and then I will tell you.”
Bertrand decided the pie was done and drew it from the oven. He then scooped out bowls for each of them and returned to the table. Erich tasted a spoonful as best he could with Bertrand’s oversized wooden utensils. The taste was wild and gamey, but satisfying.
“Many years ago,” Bertrand continued, “the people of Marburg suffered a plague of changelings. Human babies would disappear from their beds only to be replaced with misshapen, foul-tempered creatures that resembled human children but were clearly not. The changelings would eat as much as ten human babes, but fail to thrive. Very often they would live only a few months and never more than a few years.
“The people were in an uproar and demanded help from the Landgrave. So he sent his soldiers into the woods to find the parties responsible, be they human or demon. For weeks, they found nothing, and the children continued to disappear. Then one troop stumbled across the witches’ den, and a fierce battle ensued between the soldiers and the monsters the witches had enchanted. But in the end, the soldiers prevailed and drove the witches off.”
Bertrand took a draught of ale.
“Or so it seemed. In time, children started to disappear again, and the Landgrave sent his soldiers into the woods once more. This time, the witches were ready for them, and many of the soldiers died. But the Landgrave had suspected as well that the witches’ defenses might have improved, and his men brought along several war mages to assist them. The battle tore apart the forest, and again the witches were forced to retire.
“Yet before the year was out, the disappearances resumed. Now, the Landgrave’s rage was a thing to behold. He instructed one of his mages to send a message to the witches that unless they let the children of Marburg alone, he would burn the entire forest to destroy them.
“The next day, the queen of the witches appeared at the Landgrave’s castle. Far from being the hideous old crone they had expected, she was a beautiful woman with raven hair and piercing green eyes. Though she came alone, she had a power about her that kept the soldiers at bay.
“She asked to speak to the Landgrave, saying she had a proposal to settle this war between her people and Marburg. So the Landgrave agreed to meet with her.
“The witch explained that her people needed the children because they could not bear human babes on their own. The spirits they lay with could only beget the misshapen changelings who had no talent for the Flow. Without the children of Marburg, her people would die out.
“The Landgrave’s heart was at first hardened at this news. But the queen of the witches explained that her people were doing many things to help the folk of Marburg without their being aware of it. ‘We bring rains when the weather fails and your crops would die,’ she said. ‘We husband the game so your hunters have quarry for their tables and the wolves do not starve and threaten your livestock. We temper the winters so your people do not suffer. Without us, your life would be far worse than you realize.’”
Bertrand finished off his serving of pie with a gulp.
“Now the Landgrave was filled with doubts, for what the queen of the witches had said made sense. Marburg often prospered when hard times hit the lands around them. But he still demanded proof. So she went to the window of his castle and summoned a storm. In minutes, the rain was pouring down from what had been a clear blue sky.
“The Landgrave was at last convinced. ‘What is it you want?’ he asked of her. ‘I cannot allow you to take so many babes from my people. They are on the verge of revolt.’
‘‘‘Our numbers are safe for now,’ she replied. ‘But the time will come when we need them again.’
“The two of them negotiated to settle on a time and a number. The queen of the witches explained that they took so many b
abes because they needed to find ones with talent. She claimed that many of the supposed changelings were in fact talentless human babes they were returning, and if their behavior had changed, it was because they could not always know the right families to return them to.
“In the end, the queen and the Landgrave agreed that the witches would take only one child every ten years, but they would be allowed to choose one with talent for witchcraft, and that babe would be surrendered to live amongst them. The wholesale kidnapping of the babes of Marburg would end, but that single child each decade would join the witches forever.
“Thus did the witches’ covenant end the war, and thus do the Landgraves of Hessen still deliver to the witches a babe of their choosing every ten years.”
4.
WHEN GIANCARLO awoke the morning after learning of his wife’s death, he suddenly realized how much the news changed his circumstances. He had been in the midst of preparing to return home at last. He had signed on with what remained of his band to guard a caravan heading south, and the merchant train would be leaving in a matter of days. He was deep in preparations for the trip when the messenger approached him, asking if he was Giancarlo Attendolo, the mercenary captain from Firenze.
Now there seemed no point whatsoever to the trip.
Giancarlo had no property in Firenze to speak of. He and his wife had no children. She had borne him three girls, but none lived past two years. His wife had been staying with her brother and his wife in his absence, and he sent what money he could to her while he was gone. But with her dead, what did he have to return to? In truth, nothing at all.
He had no business in Firenze. But perhaps he still had some here.
The more he thought about it, the more he felt he needed to make amends for what he had done for Count Wilhelm. But how?
He realized at that moment that he had not been to mass in some time. His faith was important to him, but his martial life interfered with regular attendance. It was perhaps time to correct that.
Mass was said each day at the cathedral in Köln, though the Archbishop himself was banned from the city by the council. Giancarlo could go, make confession, and perhaps find some answers.
When he arrived at the cathedral, he found his way to the confessional and waited his turn behind the others who had come that morning. Eventually the last person in front of him exited the small box.
Giancarlo made confession, as he usually did, in Latin.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been several months since my last confession.”
“What sins have you to confess?” the priest asked.
“I am a professional soldier, Father. There is much I do in the service of my employers that violates God’s commandments.”
“St. Paul says that we must obey the laws handed down by those God has placed in rulership over His people. Have you violated such laws?”
“No, Father, not as such. I took a commission from a duke in these lands, and by my actions, a man and—” Giancarlo caught himself, not being prepared to explain Erich’s strange relationship with those two mages. “—and two women, and another man, may be suffering greatly as a result. I was commissioned to deliver the man to the duke, though I am not certain his crimes merited what he is certainly facing now.”
“I am not sure I understand. These men and women were criminals?”
“I cannot say, exactly. Only that the duke had certain grievances against them.”
“Again, my son, the scriptures say we must trust those whom God has placed over us. They rule by His permission.”
“Even if they command us to do things that violate God’s commandments?”
“Were you commanded to do such things?”
Giancarlo gritted his teeth. This was not going the way he intended.
“No, Father.”
“Do you believe the man to be innocent?”
Giancarlo sighed.
“No, Father. I know he was guilty of the act the duke sought him for.”
“Then you must trust that God will guide this duke’s hand justly and righteously.”
Giancarlo did not trust Duke Wilhelm to listen to anything God might tell him—if he was such a man to listen to God at all, which he doubted very much. But what could he tell this priest?
“I still feel the sting of sin over this matter,” he said finally.
“Then pray one rosary, and God will show you the way forward.”
That was clearly all Giancarlo was getting here. So be it.
GIANCARLO HAD only been introduced to the rosary since his time in the Empire, but he found the devotion calming and fulfilling. A monk he met in Trier gave him a set of prayer beads, and he had carried it with him since.
As he sat on the bench saying Ave Marias over and over, his mind cleared. There was nothing he could do to help Erich and his wives now. They were in the hands of God and Duke Wilhelm. He must trust that God had a plan for them all.
But what was Giancarlo to do, himself? The words from Matthew floated up in his mind. Do to others what you would have them do to you. This is the sum of the Law and the Prophets. Giancarlo had treated Erich and his wives, and their father, as honorably as he had been able to under difficult circumstances. Perhaps that would guide Wilhelm’s hand.
Giancarlo had no affairs to wind up at home in Firenze. But these four perhaps did here.
When the mass started, Giancarlo’s mind was elsewhere, though he recited the liturgy from long memory with little thought. He had tracked them as far as Weilburg, and he knew that Walther had left a home and business there. He was not sure what he could do about it now. But the more he thought and prayed on the matter, Giancarlo knew his path was clear: He would return to Weilburg and do what he could.
THE MERCHANT was greatly displeased to hear the news that Giancarlo was not, in fact, joining them on the trip south, and his mood was more sour still when two of Giancarlo’s men, Tomas and Heinrich, elected to remain with their captain rather than the caravan. But Giancarlo did what he could—expending some of his own funds in the process—to find replacements.
Tomas had been with him since he came north, and Giancarlo knew he would likely follow him anywhere. Heinrich he had recruited within the last year, but he was a good man and one Giancarlo would have been sad to see go. The three of them could manage the trip to Weilburg with little trouble.
The weather held through the trip, though it grew cold when they climbed into the hills above the Rhine. In a few days, they reached the point above the small river where Giancarlo recalled the road had been blocked by a fallen tree when they passed through some weeks earlier. The tree had since been moved to the side by someone, which would have taken some effort.
When Giancarlo looked briefly around the spot, his nose caught the whiff of lingering decay. Down the hill to one side, he spotted the remains of two large bodies, though it was impossible now to tell what they had once been since birds and forest beasts had come to feed on the carrion.
“Capo?” Tomas asked. “What do you see?”
Giancarlo shook his head. Something about this seemed important, but he could not tell what.
“Nothing. Let’s keep moving.”
THE THREE OF THEM reached Weilburg a week after leaving Köln. Not knowing what else to do, Giancarlo took a room at the inn where they had stopped the first time. The proprietress was a fat woman with enormous breasts who brought them their ale and their dinner but otherwise let them alone.
As Giancarlo ate, he pondered his next course. He had only the name of the mage to go on, and knew nothing else about him. Even once he identified the man, what was he to do then?
Chewing slowly, he closed his eyes. Give me a sign, Lord, he thought. Just one sign.
When Giancarlo finally looked up, nothing seemed to have changed. But a moment later, he noticed a young man in a green velvet doublet across the room. He was sitting with two other men about the same age, drinking ale and conversing quietly. There was nothing remarka
ble about him—except Giancarlo realized with a start that he recognized him.
It was the same boy who told him how Walther had left Weilburg with Erich when his band arrived here those weeks ago.
Feeling a chill across his back, Giancarlo rose from his chair. Tomas and Heinrich looked up at him questioningly, but he held up his hand: Wait.
As he crossed the room and approached the three young men, they stopped their conversation and looked up at him. The boy in the green velvet doublet was sitting with two others about his age, one in a blue waistcoat and the other a large young man in working clothes.
“Good evening, my friends. Might I join you?” He looked at the boy in the green velvet doublet. “You may not remember me, but you did me a service a month or so past.”
The boy sat up, lines of concern creasing his face.
“I do. What do you want?”
Giancarlo sat down in the last chair at the table, motioning to the innkeeper’s wife to bring another round of ale.
“You need have no concern. The business you helped me with is done. I have merely returned here in hopes of cleaning up behind myself.”
The three young men looked at each other in confusion nonetheless. They said nothing as the fat woman brought another four mugs of ale. Giancarlo flipped her a few coins to pay for the drinks.
“What is your name, might I ask?” Giancarlo asked the boy.
“Hans Bergdahl,” he replied.
“I am Giancarlo Attendolo. I am, or was, a mercenary captain from Firenze. Do you recall that I asked about Walther the artificer when I was here before?”
“I do.”
“My business concerns him. I regret that my actions may have done him a disservice, though this was not my intent. I do not expect that you will see him again. I have returned here in hopes of concluding what business he might have had.”
The three of them sat up in concern.
“Something has happened to Walther?” the large boy asked.
“Yes. I am sorry to be the one to tell you this.”
“When? He came to buy bread from our shop just this morning.”
The Witches' Covenant (Twin Magic Book 2) Page 3