Dark Ages Clan Novel Ventrue: Book 12 of the Dark Ages Clan Novel Saga

by Matthew McFarland

  “A bit further south, the river—” Jervais began. Jürgen stopped him.

  “This information I could obtain from mortal travelers. What of the Telyavs? Are the pagan sorcerers gone?”

  Jervais gave him a smug smirk. “Yes. Their leader is gone, and their peoples are being routed.”

  “So they are all dead?”

  Jervais’s face fell. “Well, my lord, I can’t say with perfect certainty—”

  Jürgen leaned forward. “Jervais, destroying every last wolf in the forest is not impossible, but knowing that you have destroyed the last one is impossible. What I would like to know is if you knowingly left any Telyavs still in existence when you and my knights left Livonia.”

  Jervais stared back at the Prince of Magdeburg for a long moment. Trying to decide what I already know, Jürgen thought. Tell the truth, Jervais.

  Finally, the Tremere spoke. “Surely, my lord, the knights you entrusted to me have made reports as well.”

  “They have, but that doesn’t answer the question.”

  A mortal man might have sighed in resignation; Jervais simply slumped his broad shoulders. “As we were returning, and since, I have learned that a few isolated Telyavs may yet remain. I believe, however,” he said, pointing a finger to the map, “that all of their elders—and thus much of their magical knowledge—is gone.”

  Jürgen nodded. “Fair enough. You destroyed their leader and broke the back of their power. I can’t expect a sorcerer to be a warlord.” He knew this would chafe the wizard, but he needed to remind Jervais who was the true power here, sorcery or no. “Very well, please continue. Auce, you say, is a potentially beneficial outpost, but I think it is too far north to name as a primary goal. What of this region?” he said, pointing to the Nemen River and its surrounding lands.

  Jervais looked over the map. “Livonia, as you well know, boasts no Cainite overlord. Most of the native Cainites are—or were—pagan and feral. As civilization and the Cross come to land, others of our kind come with them, but no one has established power.” He peered closely at the Nemen. “If memory serves, this area and much of the south and east of the Baltic owes some loose obeisance to the Voivodate, but again, there is no clear ruler.”

  “The Voivodate. Naturally.” Jürgen grimaced. In any campaign to the east, he would face Clan Tzimisce. A part of him, the man that understood what the Tzimisce did to their foes, didn’t relish the thought of facing them again. But the soldier within him, the soldier he truly was, wanted nothing more. “How secure is their power?”

  Jervais thought, choosing his words carefully. His clan despised the Tzimisce as much as Jürgen’s. “They claim domain over Livonia and Prussia, but I have seen no concrete evidence that their power is as secure as they claim. Hungary is, of course, largely their domain,” he said, “ignoring the lands that your clan has taken.”

  The Arpad Ventrue ruled the Cainites of several cities farther East, and had alliances even among the Tzimisce, astonishing as Jürgen found that to be. “Yes, but in this area, what elders need I be concerned with?”

  “A Tzimisce called Visya once dwelt in, or visited, the area,” said Jervais uncertainly, “but has since left for an eastern city. I am not sure which one. And of course the Obertus order—”

  Jürgen looked up sharply. “Surely not this far west?” The Obertus’s noxious patron, Vykos, had received his lands by brokering a deal between Jürgen and the Tzimisce leader some years ago, but those lands were in Hungary.

  Jervais gestured at the map helplessly. “It’s possible that the monks were Dominicans, my lord. Besides, no Cainite was ever sighted among the monks.” His voice dropped. “If anyone is the true Cainite power in these lands, it is Qarakh.”

  “The Gangrel warlord,” Jürgen muttered. Jervais nodded. Neither vampire said what they were both thinking. Qarakh was more than an animalistic warrior or even a chieftain among his people, though both of those were true. Qarakh had slain Alexander of Paris, the last western Ventrue to march into the Baltic. “He is allied with the Telyavs?”

  “He was. I do not know how their leader’s destruction has affected any such alliance, and the rules of honor by which the beast is bound are unclear at best.”

  Jürgen paused and stared past Jervais at the wall. With no other preeminent Cainite powers in the land, claiming Livonia and Prussia as his own would be much more his sort of war—conquest, rather than alliances and courtly tactics. This meant, however, that staying to the west would be advisable, rather than following the Teutonic Knights and their mortal Hochmeister von Salza too closely in Prussia. I shall have to extend the Black Cross to the Sword-Brothers, then, he thought, if I am to have the manpower I’ll need.

  “Thank you, Master Tremere,” he said. Jervais gathered his belongings and left, probably grateful to be out of the room. Jürgen watched him go, and wondered about sorcerers. Their goals seemed so… strange compared to his. Power could be taken and used by sword and fire. The effort that they went to, the risks their souls must incur—it seemed unnecessary.

  Shaking off these thoughts, he turned his attention to the matter at hand. New lands and war beckoned, and he was anxious to leave. His last foray into the east, after all, had hardly been a true victory.

  The fact that Alexander had fallen in battle to a Gangrel chieftain of some kind was well and good. Actually, he thought, I couldn’t have asked for a better end for him. Jürgen now had to venture east himself if he wanted to take the territory, and that did require him leaving his German fiefs without his direct supervision for some time longer, yes, but if he could succeed where Alexander failed…

  What? She will love me all the more?

  He ground his teeth and focused on the coming campaign. It required him to put his affairs in the strictest order. When leaving for battle, assume you will not return, he reminded himself. He picked up a pen and his few sheets of clean paper.

  He first wrote a letter to an agent in the city of Acre—he had not heard from Etienne de Fauberge in many months. The Prince of Acre was nominally his vassal, but Jürgen had heard disturbing rumors that he was casting about for support in Outremer and attempting to sever ties with Europe. Jürgen grimaced and shook his head. Etienne was no Scion—Cainites ruled by their faith could make and break alliances and simply claim God was moving them in one direction or another. Jürgen knew the simple truth—God was one more overlord, and did as was His wont. All on Earth were His vassals and minions, some He favored, some He did not. All done in His name for His glory was good, and all would be measured when the Time of Judgment came. The faithful certainly had respectable Cainites among their ranks, but those cut from Etienne’s cloth—those unsure, soft Cainites who harbored notions of damnation or forgiveness—he had no use for them.

  But then, it could be worse, he reflected. Some Cainites fancied themselves God’s true inheritors, blessed instead of cursed. These Cainite Heretics had never reached Outremer, to his knowledge, and that was well, because his impressionable vassal might well fall in with them. He instructed his agent to investigate Etienne’s court and find out where the Ravnos’s loyalties lay, and then send word back. Jürgen kept his words in letters simple, true and curt. The written word, so arcane to most of the kine, held power. Jürgen had gleaned that much from the Tremere, and although he did not understand their magics (nor did he care to), he was careful when he wrote letters never to reveal too much of himself. Everything he sent out into the world remained there, and could be discovered by anyone who looked diligently enough. Jürgen of Magdeburg had too many enemies with too many resources—one detail about himself loose in the world was too many.

  Which made the question of what to do about Rosamund that much more pressing.

  He ignored the matter for the moment. He finished his letter to Acre, and sealed it. As he did so, he whispered, “This is my seal. I lock this seal with my soul and blood, and any who break the seal but the man for whom I wrote this shall be known to me, and he shall face my wrath.
” He bit his finger and dripped a few drops of his potent blood onto the still-cooling wax, and set the letter aside. It was as secure as he could make it, and there was more business at hand.

  He would have to leave Magdeburg in capable hands; he could be gone for years. Many of his vassals were young Cainites, and too many of his enemies would be happy to destroy a fledgling vampire and take the important city from him. His sire could, of course, offer some assistance in guarding the city from rivals, but he was loath to ask Hardestadt for anything of late. Hardestadt was bitter about Alexander’s departure and subsequent demise and still looked askance at his childe’s failure to acquire new territory east of the Elbe. He had once considered leaving the city under Father Erasmus’s guidance, but had since decided he needed to leave Magdeburg in the care of a fellow Scion. He needed a man he could trust, a man sworn to him and who would respect the vows of fealty, but who still had the age and patience of an elder Cainite. Oh, and who could survive having a duplicitous bastard like Jervais in the city, as well.

  Ruling as one of the lords of the night, he reflected, was much more difficult than ruling as a mortal. A mortal’s reign, no matter how glorious, ended, and so there eventually came a time when a ruler could stop planning new conquests or answering troubles within his realm and instead focus on turning over power to a successor. The transition was rarely easy for the inheritor, but at least for the departed ruler the struggle was over.

  And is that what I’m doing now? Preparing to leave on a final journey? Does my time as Prince of Magdeburg end here, no matter whom I put in charge?

  It did not, he decided. When he had chosen his road, his ethos to allow him to remain in control of the hunger and fear that was the Beast, he had chosen the only one that made any sense to him. The Road of Kings was a difficult one—it required absolute adherence to sworn oaths and noble behavior at all times—but it was every inch a warrior and conqueror’s path.

  But not just a warrior’s path, he reminded himself, for Rosamund walks the same road. The Road of Kings holds diplomats and scholars as well as warlord. One doesn’t need a sword to be a Scion.

  Jürgen stood and paced his chamber. He would have to feed, he knew, before attending to much more. He idly wondered what sort of fare he might sample; wars in the “Holy Empire,” as it was laughably called now, were different from in his day. Prisoners were treated with more respect. Jürgen understood that the kine changed their customs with each setting of the sun, but the practice of ransom did make feeding difficult for him. He opened the door and beckoned for a servant.

  The boy was no more than twelve summers, and approached Jürgen as though he were approaching a bear tied to a pole with a fraying rope. “Yes?”

  Jürgen knew that the boy was afraid, cowed by the aura of kingship that the Sword-Bearer exuded. He also knew that he could do nothing about it, and so did not bother being gentle or understanding. “Tell Christof I would speak to him. Also tell Hans that I shall be visiting him soon, and that I would prefer if he would have a vessel waiting for me.” With that, Jürgen turned his back. He had learned not to watch the servants’ expressions; many of them felt threatened or even offended when Jürgen referred to prisoners of war as vessels. Jürgen had no time to consider the feelings of his subordinates.

  He returned to the matter at hand: What manner of man to leave in his stead? A possibility occurred to him; he could leave Rosamund here as an acting prince. He shook the thought off immediately. Doing that would require him to place a great deal of trust in the young Toreador. She was too recently a Cainite to handle the responsibility, and he feared that her sire in the Courts of Love might exploit the situation. He certainly would, in Queen Isouda’s position.

  Besides, the notion of not being able to see her face for months or years…

  Is irrelevant, he thought. Of course the Artisan is lovely. They always are. And besides, it’s hardly fitting to take one such as her to war. He stopped in the middle of the room and closed his eyes as a pang of hunger—or desire?—rose up within him. The Beast stirred, but lazily.

  What does the Beast know of love? No more than I do. God is for priests, love is for women, war is for men.

  Christof knocked on the door. Jürgen knew the footsteps by their sound, the knock by the tone and force before the knight even entered the room. The prince sat in his chair and smiled. “Christof. I was just thinking of men and women, and here I have both in one body.”

  Christof shut the door behind her and said nothing at first. The prince knew that discussion of her double unlife—as Sister Lucretia and Brother Christof—made her uncomfortable. She had worked too long and too hard at maintaining both not to feel threatened when the subject was broached. When Jürgen did not continue, she spoke. “There is a messenger here for you, bearing papers and books.”

  Jürgen frowned. “Where does he come from?”

  Christof removed her headgear. Her hair had been cut to just about her ears; Jürgen knew that come the next nightfall it would once again hang past her shoulders. “I don’t know, sir. He is a Cainite and his walk and manner suggest he is of noble blood.” Jürgen nodded in approval. “But I cannot guess at his clan. One of us, perhaps, but just as easily a Brujah or a Toreador. He is congenial and asks to present himself—and his business—to you at your convenience.”

  Jürgen nodded slowly. “And what of his thoughts?”

  The knight-commander lowered her eyes. “I could not see. I have been practicing, and can read the thoughts of my own ghouls and the other knights. In fact, I discovered that one of them had learned,” she gestured down at her body, “the truth about me, and I changed his memories before they had settled.”

  Jürgen grunted. “Good,” he said. She probably deserved more credit than that. Altering memories, even fresh ones, wasn’t easy for any Cainite. Jürgen remained silent, however. As capable as his knight-commander was, he had no wish to allow her to grow too proud.

  “I could not read this courier’s mind. Perhaps he is closer to Caine than I, or—”

  “That doesn’t matter for reading minds, only for commanding them.” Jürgen sat forward and moved some of the papers on his table. Transporting paper on his journey would require more people, and extra care to make sure the papers were not allowed to become wet or damaged. “The Cainite mind is unchanged by age or lineage. Only the blood—which is what powers the command of thoughts and minds—changes in purity when it is diluted by distance from Caine… or mingling with the fallen.” He paused, and then smiled. “Which reminds me. I shall be taking Wiftet on my journey.”

  Christof nodded. Jürgen imagined that she rejoiced, inwardly. “And me, sir? Shall I—”

  “You shall remain here.” Jürgen stood and crossed the room. He placed a hand on Christof’s shoulder and pushed her gently to her knees, and then cut his wrist. “Drink.”

  Jürgen saw the look of surprise on her face at being made to take blood from him in such a manner. It was degrading to her, both as a woman and as a knight. Normally he would have drained his blood into a cup, asked for a spoken oath along with the strange communion. Why, then, did she not protest? he wondered. Was the scent of blood, her Beast’s hunger, enough to make her ignore this indignity?

  And more the point, why was Jürgen doing it? His Beast growled loudly enough to drown out the question, and Jürgen brought his hand close to her mouth. Her lips closed around the wound, and Jürgen resisted the temptation to clasp his other hand to her head while she lapped at his blood. He didn’t allow her to take much; after only a few seconds, he withdrew his hand. Her lips and then tongue followed the cut, followed the blood, unconsciously. Whatever Christof’s feelings for Jürgen as a man or as a companion, her feelings for him as a leader were enforced by the power of the blood and were therefore unbreakable. The wound on his wrist had already closed by the time he reached down to help her stand. “Remain here, my vassal, as acting prince. Remain here and govern as I would over the Cainites of Magdeburg. Use some
of the knights as your vanguard and your enforcers should any question your rights to the city. But know that wherever I am, I am still Prince of Magdeburg, and I shall take the city’s reins again when I return from my journey.”

  Christof—Lucretia von Harz—nodded, and replaced her headgear. “I understand.” She paused, perhaps wishing to leave, but Jürgen fixed his gaze on her. “I swear I shall do as you ask, my liege.”

  Jürgen nodded. An oath held power for those who walked the Road of Kings. Even hearing her swearing the oath had roused Jürgen’s Beast. An oath made was but one word from being broken, and once broken, the Beast edged ever closer to control. Over time, Jürgen had learned to hear the sound of a breaking oath from miles away, listening for the snap of betrayal through the Beast.

  The prince licked his lips and again felt the odd pangs of not-quite-hunger. He shook his head and looked at Christof, who was staring at him with a look of fear, or perhaps envy.

  “What is it, Christof?” Jürgen walked back to his chair, but realized he would need to feed before receiving the messenger.

  “I—forgive me, sir. But while I drank from you I saw your thoughts.”

  “Did you?” Jürgen kept his words calm, but Christof could surely hear the Beast behind them. Jürgen had agreed to teach her the ways of stealing secrets from others’ minds on the condition that she never attempt such a thing on him.

  “I did not mean to, but when I tasted your blood, when you touched me—”

  “Collect yourself, girl.” The voice wasn’t harsh, but Jürgen knew the words would sting. “That happens. The blood carries everything, life, mind and soul. It’s only natural that you should see something, some random memory of mine, while you drank of my blood.”

  “Pardon me, but no, sir,” she said. “It was something that had never happened, I think.”

  Jürgen glanced up. “Yes? What did you see?”

  Christof cleared her throat. She was stalling, Jürgen knew. The dead had no need for such affectations. “I saw the room as you saw it, while I was drinking.”