by T. O. Munro
“That’s a special delivery,” the guard clucked. “Might be more’n a silver piece eh Greebo?”
“He’s a hard man to get close to, right enough,” Greebo’s disembodied face concurred.
Niarmit reached for her purse and pulled out two silver pieces and a gold. The guard got the silver, the gold she held out with the missive for Greebo to see. “It is an urgent message, master Greebo, for immediate delivery. For this much of a fee, I will expect you to broke no delay or barrier in ensuring it he has it before I have time to cross the square.”
Greebo grinned, holding his hand to the window to take both items. “For this much money, miss, I would visit the seneschal in the gardrobe and press the note into his hands while he was taking a shit.”
Niarmit coloured and the guard and Greebo both laughed at her embarrassment. “Fear not miss, I’ll be discrete, but I can’t say as to what he will answer. Not lest I know what this says?”
He turned the slim folded paper over, noting the plain wax seal on its back. Niarmit had not dared to use the royal signet ring, discretion was the key. But there was wax enough there to keep the foul Greebo honest and her words secret. “It’s for his eyes alone,” she said.
“And if he don’t answer?”
“I will know if he doesn’t get this note, master Greebo, and if that should come to pass then my anger…” she hastily corrected herself. “My master’s anger will know no bounds and he is a man of both substance and influence.” She grinned. “Besides, the note bids him pay the bearer for delivery, on my master’s account.”
“Double pay for delivering a poxy note,” the guardsman growled. “Almost worth abandoning my post.”
Greebo gave a gaptoothed smile. “I’ll see you right,” he told the guard. “Might stand you a drink this evening.” Then with a dip of his head in Niarmit’s direction the little hatch slammed shut on her gold and her letter.
***
It was a single rap at the door, just one loud confident knock, though the silence which followed it spoke of nervousness. Haselrig covered the swords and looked towards the door curious as to who would visit him before midday. Quintala was likely still abed and few others bothered to bother the ex-antiquary.
The door creaked open and the frowning figure of Odestus shuffled into the room.
“Governor?” Haselrig gave a smiling nod of greeting. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”
Odestus set a brown flagon on the table. If he noticed the swords, or their unusual covering, he said nothing. “I brought your bottle back.”
Haselrig picked the object up and held it to the light. “It’s empty.”
Odestus shrugged, “I didn’t say anything about the contents.”
Haselrig drew in a deep breath through his nose, trying to disguise the attempt to detect alcohol on his visitor. Odestus gave him a bleak look. “I am quite sober Haselrig, can you say the same?”
“I try to be, Governor. At my age and circumstance it seems safest to keep control of what few faculties are left to me.”
Odestus paced the room, inspecting the shelves where Haselrig had gathered the best of the meagre selection of books in Listcairn’s library. He plucked one volume free and leafed idly through its pages. “When last we spoke, Haselrig, you said you thought we might be able to help each other.”
The ex-antiquary grimaced. “And you thought otherwise, Governor, quite clearly and emphatically so as I recall.”
Odestus flashed a smile that turned on and off without leaving any mark upon his expression. “Let us say I may not have been in control of my faculties.”
Haselrig arched an eyebrow. “Oh, so now you think we may have something to offer each other.”
Odestus replaced the book and settled into a chair on the other side of Haselrig’s desk. “We have both survived long enough in Maelgrum’s service to know the power of information. I don’t like surprises, they can be so… so fatal.”
Haselrig gave his slickest ingratiating smile. “I am sure my father would have said the same, if it hadn’t been for that ill-timed runaway cart.”
Odestus held his gaze a moment, searching for a sign of jest. Haselrig kept a rigidly straight face until the little wizard mused, “we all have little tragedies in our lives. So many of them avoidable.”
“And what tragedy do you seek my help in avoiding, Governor?”
A flicker of annoyance crossed the little wizard’s face. He pursed his lips and took a couple of breaths before beginning. “I understand the master has new allies, not orcs or undead?”
“The master has many allies.” Haselrig kept his face inscrutable. “Most peoples find it is the only sensible alternative to a long and unpleasant death.”
“These are different though. I wonder what use he might find for something or someone new.” Odestus hunched his shoulders in a brief shrug. “Is there perhaps, something precious that needs guarding?”
Haselrig’s hand paused mid-scratch behind his ear. There was a tantalising hint that the little wizard held a card he would like to see more of, that Odestus had secrets worth extracting. Maybe it was time to show his own hand a little. “I know that the master spent some time elsewhere seeking to recruit new soldiers. That was why the Lady Quintala was left in command in the taming of the seven counties.”
Odestus gave a snort of derision. For a moment he seemed inclined to explore more fully the topic of Quintala’s failure, but then with a visible effort he refocused his curiosity. “Where did the master go?”
It was Haselrig’s turn to shrug. “What would he have that could need guarding?”
Odestus gave him a long stare, a blank refusal to be drawn, until in desperation Haselrig confessed. “I don’t know where he went, or who he recruited. Only that they were and are so ferocious he could not let anyone else, not even Quintala, make the attempt to bring them within his rule.”
“Would they make good guards?”
“That depends on what needed guarding. What do you think needs guarding?”
Odestus got to his feet, stumbling slightly against the table. “I’ve said enough.”
“You’ve said nothing.”
“I’ll tell you then, but later, in the castellan’s chamber.”
“You are forbidden to go in there.”
“That should not be a problem to a man of your ingenuity, Haselrig. Even in your pomp, your talents were small but your achievements were great. Now that your abilities have shrunk to nothing, you should find yourself capable of anything. Certainly getting a small wizard into a locked room should be well within your compass.”
“It would be the death of me.”
Odestus smiled. “We are all dying, Haselrig, just some of us faster than others.” He leaned over the table and suddenly snatched the cloth free of the swords it covered, the gleaming Father and The Son. “Still searching for answers in steel, Haselrig?”
The ex-antiquary lunged for the precious cloth. “Give that back.”
Odestus swung out of his reach with surprising agility.
“Give it to me, it’s mine, I need it.”
Odestus held him at bay with a raised hand, fingers curled in an initiation of spell casting. “Not so fast, Haselrig. I will give you this ghoulish rag when we stand together in the castellan’s chamber not a second before.”
Haselrig bit his lip. A wizard was a wizard and he was not. He knew an unwinnable argument when he saw one. “And if I do, then will you tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“Tell me what you think it is that the master might want guarded.”
Odestus leaned in close, fingers still at the ready, the stolen cloth balled in his other hand. “I will tell you everything you need to know, Haselrig.”
The ex-antiquary gulped. “When?” He surprised himself by saying.
“This evening, when Quintala has ridden out to tour the orc encampments. Meet me on the battlements then.”
***
Niarmit chased the last drop
of soup around the bottom of her bowl taking care not to catch it. The rush of lunchtime clients was dying down, the crowded tables thinning so that she drew less hostility from the innkeeper for her extended occupation of one of his more popular discrete booths. She shook her head. He hadn’t come. The bastard Greebo must have swallowed her money and her message. She was minded to set out to the town square to make that point with her fists through the little hatch in the double doors if need be.
She half-rose from her seat but then froze at the sound of a familiar but unplaceable voice. A woman’s voice, distinctive but, without the visual clue of a face, she could not match the sound to a name. The woman had a companion, younger with a tinkling laugh. Niarmit wracked her brains to place the first voice and then, by a circuitous route, realised in a rush who was sliding into the booth behind her, even without the female friend gushing, “Oh Lady Maia, you are too much.”
Maia! Who else would it be, what other woman in the whole of Oostsalve had Niarmit heard speak at any length. She settled back down in her seat, scraping the spoon around the bowl. Maia might just see through the disguise, it would not do to risk walking out past them. She would have to wait.
“So,” the other girl chattered gaily. “Enough tales of Lord Tybert, tell me more about the brave seneschal.”
Niarmit’s ears pricked up and she found herself gripping the spoon a little tighter.
“Come now, Lady Jade,” Maia said in her most silken husky voice. “You cannot expect me to gossip away a man’s secrets.”
“But, Lady Maia, that is exactly what I expect.” There was a swish of silk as Lady Jade bent forward to beg another question. “Is it true what they say of him?”
“That depends what they say.”
“That he has been bed slave to a medusa and a queen.”
“Let us just say there are number of things the good seneschal would rather forget.”
“And you are certainly one to help a man forget, Lady Maia, or at least to give him something better to remember.”
“I like to think I have been helping the seneschal in the healing process.” Maia’s voice was a contented purr. “Though it would be indiscreet of me to say too much. There are some secrets that should stay within the bedchamber.”
“Ohh!” Jade’s intake of breath was pure pleasurable shock. “Then you have! You did?”
“Hush,” Maia hissed. “As I have said, discretion in all things.”
Jade tittered. “When was it then? When did you break down his ramparts and conquer our bold soldier?”
Maia’s laugh was deeper and richer. “Well I have to say his ramparts were definitely up.”
“You are so shocking, Lady Maia.” There was admiration in the younger woman’s voice. “It was at Duke Unslow’s reception wasn’t it? That’s when. I was sure, I should have guessed.”
“That was the first time, yes.” Maia left a pause before adding with evident pride. “And the second as well.”
“I am sure you lost nothing by comparison with a queen or a medusa.”
“I like to think that, besides a little easing of his spirit, I may have shown him that there are other women in the world worthy of his attention. A man like that should not pine. He has no reason to.”
“Is it true,” Jade’s voice dropped to a hoarse whisper in anticipation of being scandalised. “Is it true that the medusa could turn a man to stone with her gaze.”
Maia gave an ugly laugh. “I believe so and experience would suggest there is one part of good Seneschal Kimbolt that the abomination spent a long time staring at.”
Niarmit stumbled to her feet. Despite the afternoon hour and the blessing she had drawn from the Goddess she found a wave of morning nausea washing over her. She gulped back vomit as she fled the inn, tossing a silver piece at the barman and staggering against a couple of tables on her way out. She dared not look back at the two women who had inadvertently tormented her. There was silence behind her, the precipitous but clumsy departure having drawn the ladies’ attention away from their vile discourse.
She couldn’t remember much of the running walk through focal park. She had blundered into a baker’s boy sending loaves of bread flying and earning a tirade of abuse which she returned in decidedly unregal language. It was not the lad sprawled on the path that she really wanted to feel the sharp edge of her tongue; the accusations of imbecility and incaution were for herself.
She had been so stupid. Stupid to let him go. Stupid to trust him. Stupid to think she was or could ever be anything other than alone. Davyd tried to betray her to orcs, Albrecht had emotionally belittled and physically abused her, Kimbolt had abandoned all memory of her in a harlot’s bosom. The Goddess clearly meant to give her a message, and this was the third time it had been delivered. The deity must think her servant deaf, to need such unsubtle guidance.
She wrenched open the gate to the maze and slipped inside. The cloudiness of her vision misled her and she found herself brought up by a dead end. She had strayed into one of the dog-legged side turnings from the main path. She stood a moment, breathing heavily trying to clear her head of the cacophony of self-reproach and anger.
There was a seat, a simple bench, against the closed wall of the hedge lined passage. She set herself down on it, trying not to think of the many courting couples who must have used it before her. This was a choice location for the young men and women of Oostport to snatch a discrete moment together concealed within the green walls of the maze.
Her vision cleared as she asserted her will over the clamour of weak piping emotion washing through her. She had faced the dragon, she had faced Maelgrum himself and she had done it alone. When it came down to it, she had always been alone. This would be no different. Alone. That was how it was meant to be.
Her eye caught a dark stain on the hedgerow opposite, a blemish of a deeper duller green against the summer vibrancy of the maze’s ancient shrub. The leaves were broad and cardioid in shape with a white trim around their edge. They spread across the thin bladed ferns behind, stealing their light. She knew their shape, their colour. She reached out and plucked a leaf as large as her palm. The plant did not grow everywhere, she had only seen it twice in her life.
The first time had been when she was ten or so. One governess had taken her on a woodland walk, making an adventure of hunting down this strange plant with its variegated leaves. Niarmit had been so proud when she had found them and the governess had promised her a special treat as a reward, whatever she wanted she could have it. Niarmit had stayed awake long into the night trying to think what she could ask for and dimly aware of the strange sickly sweet smell coming from her governess’s room. Sleep had claimed her eventually, but then she had awoken to raised voices, her father stern, the governess pleading. She had known better than to get out of bed to see what the adults were arguing about. She would find out in the morning. But in the morning the governess was gone. Her father tight lipped would only say that he had been disappointed that she had shown herself not fit to be governess to a princess. Niarmit had asked how, but he had only promised to tell her when she was older.
Niarmit crushed the leaf in her hand. Again that sickly sweet smell. She shook her head slowly, amazed at how the Goddess guided her.
The second time she saw the plant had been six years later. The deaconess in charge of her training in midwifery had shown it to her. It was an area Niarmit had chosen not to specialise in, beyond a grasp of the basics, but this was one of the basics. “Beware this weed,” The deaconess had said. “It is called mother’s bane and with good cause. Mind now, there is many a foolish lass who has sought it out of her own volition thinking it a solution to her woe.”
“What does it do?” she had asked and the deaconess had told her. And suddenly she had understood the young governess’s desperate search for the plant, a means to relieve her of an inconvenience. With equal clarity she had grasped her father’s disappointment in the woman’s fall from the high moral standards he expected from his
staff. Although General Matteus had not found the occasion to explain the woman’s peremptory dismissal, after that lesson from the deaconess, Niarmit no longer sought or expected it from him.
And here it was, the weed itself, thrust into her line of sight. She pulled another leaf free from its stem, taking care not to break the cuticle and unleash the distinctive aroma. Was it irony or design that had this plant growing in exactly that place where young couples might, in a relaxation of inhibitions, find they had created a need for its powers?
She gathered more leaves, laying them out flat until she had a stack of ten. She added a couple more for good measure and then put them carefully in the pocket where she had stored the note for Kimbolt. Then with a grim smile of resolve, she rose from the bench and made her way to the centre of the maze where the shimmering gate awaited her.
The room at Lavisevre was warmer than when she had left. The sun rose high above Rugan’s palace even as, in Oostport, it had already begun its slow descent towards the western horizon. She plucked her crescent symbol from the handle of the cupboard and watched the window on the Oosport maze shrink out of existence. Then she changed quickly from her simple clothes into attire more fitting for a queen.
Her heart was beating a little faster. The course of action she had resolved upon had its perils, not least of which was ensuring that, unlike the long ago governess, she could pursue it undiscovered. She hung the crescent over her neck, stroking the cool metal of its edge, feeling for the reassuring nick in its smooth surface. She nodded a conclusion to a brief internal argument. If it were done, it were best done quickly.
***
Haselrig stood shivering at the doorway to the castellan’s chamber. Fear might have played some part in the shaking which consumed him, but there was also the pure physical chill which leached through the walls and the door into the spaces around Dema’s place of internment.
“You’re not going to do anything stupid are you, Governor?” He had to ask the question, though he was unsure what he could have done if Odestus had answered yes.