“He lies!” the woman shouted. “It was her! She was dressed exactly the same!”
“They dress identically, as twins often do,” Erich said to her. “The three of us arrived in Marburg only last night, and she and I have never set foot in this part of your town before. I have witnesses who can vouch for this. We came just a few minutes ago from the castle.”
The woman shook her head.
“But I saw her running that direction, after I took back my daughter.”
“Did she have a wolf with her?”
“Yes! Her witch’s familiar!”
“Do you see a wolf with us?”
The woman’s agitation weakened as she glanced around. Then she turned to the cleric. “They could have hidden it.”
“Who are you?” the cleric asked. “What is your purpose in this town?”
“I am Erich von Jülich-Berg, brother of Wilhelm, the Duke of Jülich-Berg, and we are merely passing through here on our way to Wittenberg.”
The name had the impact Erich intended. He knew the cleric, being a Teutonic knight and not merely a village priest, would likely be familiar with the prominent nobles of the Empire. Never mind that Wilhelm might imprison them again the next time they saw him.
The cleric was pensive for a moment.
“You believe your wife’s sister did this thing?”
“I know nothing. We lost her this morning and have been trying to locate her since. I will ask you again, what happened here?”
The cleric turned to the woman, who drew herself up.
“I lost my Nadja this morning. She disappeared. I was looking for her all over. When I came to the church, I saw her with . . . with your wife’s sister. She was leading her away from town. When I ran after them, she let go of her. But when I called for the priest to arrest her, she ran away.”
Erich’s eyebrows creased in annoyance.
“And how do you know she meant your child ill? Perhaps she was simply trying to help her find her way home.”
“I saw her familiar! She is a witch.”
The cleric looked at Erich questioningly. Erich had avoided this issue, but he realized he had to explain Shadow’s presence.
“My wife and her sister are mages. Naturalists and healers, not witches. The wolf is their familiar, yes, but I am sure she was merely trying to help the girl.”
Some of the townspeople gasped, but the cleric looked around at them, who held up a hand.
“Peace. As I have explained to some of you more than once, there is a difference between mages and witches. The Landgrave himself has mages in his employ, good and godly men whom I know and trust.”
Several of the villagers muttered, still glaring at Astrid, but no one said anything. Then the cleric looked back at Erich.
“I would recommend finding your sister. And then continuing on your way, as you said.”
17.
WALTHER WAS puttering away in his workshop when Johannes arrived.
Since he, Erich, and his daughters had returned from Köln, he had been trying to build a new, improved version of his resonance cube—Ariel having destroyed the first one as a result of her infatuation with Erich. He wanted one that would do more than simply compare flows. Walther thought it would be useful to also be able to analyze them somehow, but as that was a skill more tied to naturalism and mysticism, he had run into some problems. He thought it would be possible to duplicate the naturalist approach with the right crystal enchantment, but doing that required some consultation with a mage who knew how to do it in the first place, which Walther did not.
He had asked Ariel and Astrid for help before the three of them had left, but not wanting to intrude too much on the first weeks of their marriage, he had not pressed the matter a great deal. Instead, he had been exchanging missives with Johannes, who had offered some suggestions.
The day after Erich and the girls left, Walther was eating lunch (or dinner, depending on how you wanted to look at it; he tended to lose track of time when he was tinkering) when another letter from Johannes arrived in Johannes’s brass crow. Walther had one just like it, save that it had a W engraved on the chest plate instead of a J. The automaton birds had been gifts from their friend Constantine, whom they had met during their studies at the university. Constantine had since taken a position with the House of Hessen in Marburg, but they used the crows to keep in touch. Constantine’s crow, naturally, had a C on its front.
Johannes had answered Walther’s most recent inquiry on his project, but most of the letter was taken up by something else entirely.
Walther read the letter with growing interest. He had been pondering the meaning of his daughters’ strangely blue marriage bond since that night, but had come up with no ideas. He had mentioned it to Johannes, who was intrigued but could not tell him much Walther did not know already.
Now, it seemed, that had changed.
Johannes—or rather, one of his colleagues—had discovered something important, and Johannes was convinced Ariel and Astrid were connected to it somehow. Walther did not know Dieter, but he had met his son Alfred, who worked with Johannes at the university. What Johannes told him was fascinating but baffling, and more than a little worrying. Walther had chosen life in a small town like Weilburg precisely to stay out of the political and ecclesiastical entanglements that often caught up prominent mages, and he wanted to keep it that way. That went double for his daughters.
But if Johannes was right, this was important enough to take the risk. Except, there was a slight problem.
Walther wrote back, explaining regretfully that Erich, Ariel, and Astrid had left, and that he did not expect to seem them again for some months.
Late that night, there had been another tapping at his window. Walther was about to summon Fortitude, his armored guard automaton, when he realized it was Johannes’s crow again.
Walther’s curiosity was aroused. This was most unlike Johannes, who had enough other concerns to deal with as vice-chancellor and Dean of the School of Naturalism that, even with the crows, correspondence with his colleagues was almost always a matter of days—if not weeks—rather than hours. Yet here was his reply already.
The note was very short.
Am coming to Weilburg, should be there in a few days. Have sent word to C. asking him to intercept your daughters if possible. Pls be ready to come with me. V. impt. —J.
With nothing else to do, Walter had prepared for another trip and awaited his friend.
Johannes arrived on an exhausted horse a few days later. Walther showed him into his workshop.
“I am hoping you have a bit more to tell me about what is going here than you have shared thus far,” he said.
Johannes nodded, “Yes, but we need to do this quickly. Are you ready to leave?”
Walther’s eyebrows rose. “Now?”
“After we eat, yes.”
“I am packed, yes, but is it really necessary to leave this late in the day?”
“We can reach Wetzlar by nightfall if we move quickly. We need to catch them before they get too far. I am not sure which route they may be taking after Marburg, and if we lose their trail, it may be months before we find them again.”
“This is truly so vital?”
“I am not certain, but if my suspicious are correct, it is a matter of critical scholarly importance.”
“All right, then. Let us eat, and you can explain.”
WHEN LUNCH was on the table, Walther listened while Johannes explained Dieter’s research in more detail.
“So this is not mere parlor tricks?” he said finally.
“No. Dieter’s experiments clearly show there is something important here, something none of us has suspected before this. I would not normally interrupt my schedule to go chasing after a pair of girls, but I know of no other way to continue this research.”
“So Ariel and Astrid are in the middle of it?”
“Not in the middle, necessarily,” Johannes went on. “But you yourself witnessed how ther
e is some blue character to their talents. I saw it myself that night I was trying to test a possible match with Franz.”
“They told me blue things interfered with their casting, until they married Erich. Then, all of a sudden, it seemed to enhance them. Erich found a pair of sapphires when we fought those ogres on the trip to Köln, and he had them set as rings. They have been glowing blue since the moment he put them on their fingers.”
Johannes nodded.
“And there was that spell they mentioned, that caused a blue flash?”
“Not visibly. Erich merely said he saw a blue flash in his head when they cast the spell.”
“I am convinced this was no coincidence, having this happen right under my nose right before Dieter came to me with what he found.”
“But what does it mean? So there is something blue about their talents. How that does explain what Dieter found?”
“That I do not know, nor does Dieter. But he is convinced blue plays some key role in this, just as it controls the colors of the schools. It may prove to be nothing. It may also be a monumental discovery.”
Walther pondered this for a few moments.
“All right. Let us assume Dieter is correct and that blue is the controlling color. That would mean a blue talent has some ability over and above merely being able to cast spells of a particular school.”
“Yes,” Johannes said. “What that might be, I do not know.”
“Well, think about it. If the blue glass sits in the middle of the schools as Dieter suggests, then a mage with a blue talent would do likewise. But Ariel and Astrid have never been anything but naturalists. Now and then when they were young, the girls would want me to show them how I made things. They were never able to manage even the simplest crystal enchantment.”
Johannes shrugged. “That may mean we are on a fool’s errand. It may mean nothing. We are in our infancy with this research. Knowing blue is the central color tells us nothing about what we do with that fact. But until we can find them and work with them on this, we will never know.”
LUNCH DISPENSED with, the house locked up, and Fortitude set in place to guard things, Walther struggled to mount the single draft horse he had remaining from the trip to Köln. Erich and his daughters had left with the others.
“Marburg is not the place I would have chosen for anything involving mysticism, if half the things Constantine has told me are true,” Walther said.
“I would not be overly concerned,” Johannes said. “The common people are suspicious of magery, to be sure, but we should be conducting our business in the castle, assuming we do not return to Köln immediately.”
Walther nodded. “You have higher ambitions for this trip than may be warranted by the means we have at our disposal.”
“I mean to change horses in Wetzlar, if we can,” his friend replied.
“Let us get there first,” Walther muttered.
18.
JULIA STOOD in front of one of the kitchen automata, feeding turnips and carrots into the top, and collecting the sliced pieces from the bottom for the soup the chief cook was preparing. The kitchen was in absolute chaos in preparation for the ball that night. She had been working since dawn with only a brief break that afternoon.
When the bowl was full, she took it to the cook, who snatched it from her and tossed the vegetables into the soup, then dashed over to one of the stoves to shout at the women preparing another one of the banquet dishes. Julia had long since lost track of all the things they were making.
Fortunately the heat and noise of the kitchen, as it often did, had lulled Maria to sleep. Julia could focus on her tasks without needing to fuss with her daughter at the same time.
Which was fortunate, because her mind was elsewhere.
She had meant to spend her break with Constantine. Julia’s heart had still not warmed to the mage, as kind as he was to her and Maria, but her head could see where things were meant to be. Constantine’s intentions were clear enough.
He touched her timidly, sometimes laying his hand on hers, or on her shoulder when she came to see him. His eyes would linger on her, more than once flitting across her bust.
She knew what her reality was. The likelihood she would ever find a husband in her situation was slim. If she were to spurn Constantine, she might never have another chance to marry. She would have to raise Maria alone, always knowing that if she were ever to be cast out of the castle for some reason, she would have little choice but to become a prostitute.
Julia would lie in bed at night wondering if she could do the things Philip had done to her with Constantine. The year, or nearly so, that Philip had used her had often been difficult, but there were times she found she could take some pleasure in it. Philip did not care for her, but he was still young and handsome.
And he was the Landgrave. She could at least feel some pride in the fact that she, of all the girls in the castle, had caught his eye.
With Constantine it would be different. He would care for her. But she would get little from him. She could see nothing she might get from the act, except perhaps the knowledge that Constantine wanted to be with her.
She tried to make herself think that would be enough. And it had begun to work.
At least, until she had met the new guard at the wall that afternoon.
Hans.
The name kept ringing through her mind. Where had he come from? Julia had spent more than half her life working in the castle, and knew nearly all of the guards, at least by sight. Plenty of them had flirted with her, and more often than not Julia could tell the things they were thinking. She had been careful to keep her distance from them, at least emotionally. It had not been terribly difficult.
But Hans had been different. He had not stared at her like a piece of meat roasting on the fire. His eyes had been locked to hers. The look on his face . . .
She knew nothing at all about him. He seemed to be her age, perhaps a little older. His face was so smooth and clear.
She laughed to herself. A few moments after they had met, he was already wanting to know about Maria, if she was married.
Julia had a sudden image of herself in bed with Hans, feeling him inside her as Philip had been. A flush shot across her body, and she looked up in embarrassment. But of course no one was paying any attention to her.
She tried to suppress the thought. Surely she would be far better off marrying an important mage, a valued retainer of the Landgrave, than some insignificant young guard. Hans was no one, no doubt a penniless youth who had taken service as a guard in desperation.
Julia closed her eyes and swallowed hard. She knew she needed to shut down this line of thought before it went any further. She was being silly, and with a daughter to care for, she could not afford to be silly.
But she could love someone like Hans. She realized suddenly that she was never going to love Constantine.
A voice shot across the kitchen.
“Julia! Which one of you is Julia?”
She looked up. Four castle guards were at the entrance to the kitchen.
Too surprised to think of what they wanted, she answered. “I’m Julia.”
They stalked over to her. “Come,” one of them said.
She brushed off her hands and followed them out into the hallway. All at once two of them grabbed her arms, and the other two pulled Maria’s sling from her neck. She cried out in alarm.
“What are you doing? No!”
Julia struggled uselessly against their grip as they took the baby from her.
“No! Give me my baby! Give her back to me!”
But the guards said nothing. The two holding her gripped her arms tightly no matter how hard she kicked and fought them. The other two walked quickly down the hallway away from her.
“No! Stop! What are you doing? Bring her back! Where are you taking her?”
Not until they had disappeared through the door at the far end did the two guards holding her turn and shove her back into the kitchen.
�
��Forget the child,” one of them said. “Forget her and be done with it.”
Julia’s cries of despair rang through the lower levels of the castle for some time, but the noise of the kitchen was such that most could ignore them.
PHILIP SAT in his chambers pondering the best way to handle this. He did not want someone who would talk about it. Nor did he want anyone who would be missed if he did not return from delivering the babe to the witches. Philip was still not certain this plan would work, and he knew there was a risk that whoever delivered the child—the wrong child—would face the full brunt of the witches’ wrath.
And he needed this over now, so he could focus on the ball.
Not knowing how Matthias, who had lost a daughter himself, would react to this idea, Philip had engaged one of Matthias’ subordinate captains, Lorenz, to take Julia’s child.
Lorenz now stood in front of him.
“The babe has been taken and is down in my chambers, your Grace.”
Philip had told him as little as possible about the matter, only that the child needed to be delivered somewhere in secret.
“I need a man you can trust, someone who can handle a difficult job on his own. But it needs to be one whose absence will not be noticed if he goes off on his own tonight.”
Lorenz wrinkled his forehead.
“That is a challenging request, your Grace.”
“Do your best, but do it now.”
Lorenz returned about ten minutes later with a man Philip did not recognize. Though he did not know all the guards by sight, he was certain he would have remembered this one, a dark-featured man with a dangerous look in his eye.
“Your Grace, this man is new, but I know him well. We fought together before I entered your service.”
The man bowed.
“What is your name?” Philip asked.
“Giancarlo Attendolo, your Grace.”
“You are not Hessian.”
“No, your Grace. I am from Firenze.”
“You are a mercenary?”
The Witches' Covenant (Twin Magic Book 2) Page 12