Part 14 (1/2)
”Ah,” said Zacharias, for a moment at a loss for words. But he had always had a glib tongue, and he knew how to phrase a question to protect himself while, perhaps, gaining information.” Yet a man, even a prince, cannot revolt alone.”
”Truly, he cannot.” Villam knew this ploy as well.” Do you mean to join his retinue, such as it is?”
”Nay, my lord. I have not followed him with any such intention, nor have I at any time known of any plan to revolt. My interests lie not in earthly struggles but with the composition of the heavens and the glory of creation. In truth, my lord, I have never spoken with the prince.”
”Then why did you come to Angenheim asking about his whereabouts?”
”I merely come to ask a boon of him.”
Villam laughed delightedly.” I am smothered in words. Yet you trouble me, frater, with your talk of the heavens. Do you know what manner of man Prince Sanglant is?”
”What do you mean, my lord?”
”I pray you, do not play the innocent with me. You look rather less artless and more disreputable, and you speak with a cunning tongue. Prince Sanglant is no man at all but a half blood, born of a human father and an Aoi mother. What manner of aid might you wish to ask from such a creature?”
This struck Zacharias as dangerous ground. Nor had Villam betrayed any knowledge of Kansi-a-lari's whereabouts, even though Zacharias knew she had walked north with her son.
”Very well,” he said after a long silence.” I shall tell you the truth. I walked east to bring the word of G.o.d to the Quman tribes, but instead they made me a slave. I dwelt among them for seven years and at long last escaped. This is the tale I bring to you: the Quman are ma.s.sing an army under the leaders.h.i.+p of the Pechanek begh, Bulkezu, and they mean to strike deep into Wendish territory. Already raiding parties burn villages and murder and mutilate our countryfolk. You know how the Quman treat their victims. I have seen many a corpse without a head. Your own lands in the east are at risk, my lord.”
”Princess Sapientia was sent east with an army together with that of her new husband, Prince Bayan of Ungria.”
”That I had not heard, my lord.”
”Yet we've had no news from them, so perhaps it goes ill with their campaign, although I pray that is not the case. This chieftain, Bulkezu, has plagued Wendish lands before. Yet why seek Prince Sanglant? Here is the king and his court. Surely your plea is best voiced before the king.”
”Truly, it is,” said Zacharias, thinking fast.” But I have heard much talk during my travels about the king's ambitions in Aosta. The king cannot march both south and east. At the same time, I have heard many stories about Prince Sanglant's prowess in battle. Is the regnant's b.a.s.t.a.r.d firstborn not raised to be captain of the King's Dragons? If the king himself cannot take the field against the Quman, then it would take such an army, commanded by a man second only to the king in courage and reputation, to defeat them.”
”A fine tale. It is true that you speak with the accent of the eastern border, and certainly you look as if you've walked a long way with nothing more than the clothes on your back and, so I hear, a goat. But a fine tale may be nothing more than a brightly woven tapestry thrown up on the wall to conceal an ugly scar which lies hidden behind it. The Quman brand their slaves with a mark.”
Shaking, Zacharias stood. He turned, pulling the torn shoulder of the robe down to reveal his right shoulder blade and the brand, healed badly enough that skin still puckered around it, marking him as slave of the Pechanek begh. Releasing the cloth, he turned back to confront the margrave.” So stands the mark of the snow leopard's claw, my lord.”
”A desperate man can have himself cut to lend credence to his story,” remarked Villam pleasantly.
”Would a man cut himself in this manner, merely to lend credence to his tale?” Zacharias demanded, boldly lifting his robe.
At the sight of Zacharias' mutilated genitals, Villain actually gasped out loud, lost color, and groped for his wine cup. He gulped it down, and then signaled to his steward, the slender man who had stationed himself at the door.” Bring wine for this man, if you please. He must be desperately thirsty.”
Zacharias drank deeply. The wine was very good, and he saw no reason to waste it. Perhaps the shock of his mutilation would throw Villam off the scent.
But the margrave was top old and too crafty, he had played the game for too long, to be thrown off his attack even by such a vicious strike. Once he had taken a second cup of wine, he gestured to his servant.” Humbert, bring me the man's pack.”
Resigned, Zacharias watched as Villam emptied the pouch and, of course, picked up the one thing that would condemn any man. He displayed, for Zacharias' edification, the parchment sc.r.a.p covered with Liath's writing, the scribblings of a mathematici.
Zacharias drained the last of his wine, wondering what he would get to drink when he languished in the skopos' prison d.a.m.ned as a heretic.” You're holding it upside down, my lord,” he observed after Villam said nothing.
Villam turned the sc.r.a.p over and studied it again.” It means even less to me this way.” He looked up with the sharp gaze of a man who has seen a great deal of grief and laughter and trouble in his time. He was getting impatient.” Are you a sorcerer?”
No such interrogation could end happily, but Zacharias refused to collapse in fear as long as his tongue seemed safe.” Nay, my lord, I am not.”
”Truly, you do not resemble one, for I have always heard it said that a sorcerer has such magnificent powers that she will always appear sleek and prosperous, and you, my friend, do not appear to be either. Why are you seeking the prince?”
”To find out where that parchment came from, my lord. I have reason to believe that he knows who made those marks on that parchment. That person must know some portion of the secret language of the stars. I have no wish to be a sorcerer, my lord. But I was vouchsafed a vision of the cosmos.” He could not keep his voice from trembling. The memory of what he had seen in the palace of coils still tormented him; he dreamed at night of that billowing cosmos, rent by clouds of dust and illuminated by resplenCHILD or FLAME dent stars so bright that, like angels, they had halos. His loss of faith in the G.o.d of Unities no longer troubled his sleep, because the desire to understand the workings of the universe, a dazzling spiral wheel of stars hanging suspended in the midst of a vast emptiness, had engulfed his spirit and consumed his mind.” That is all that I fear now, my lord: that I might die before I understand the architecture of the universe.”
That I might die before I see another dragon. But that thought he dared not voice out loud.
Villam stared at him for a long time. Zacharias could not interpret his expression, and he began to fidget nervously, waiting for the margrave's reply. He had told the truth at last. He had no further to retreat except to reveal the one thing which would d.a.m.n him most: that he had traveled as a servant with the Aoi sorcerer and witnessed her humbling and frightening power. Once they discovered that, they would not care that she had, in the end, discarded him as thoughtlessly as she would a walking stick she had no further use for.
”I am at your mercy, my lord margrave,” he said finally, when he could bear the silence no longer.
”So we come to her again,” murmured Villam.” Can it be true, what the prince said of her ancestry? Is it not said of the Emperor Taillefer that 'G.o.d revealed to him the secrets of the universe?' The virtues of the parent often pa.s.s to the child.”
”I do not understand you, my lord,” he stammered, temporizing. Villam would mention Kansi-a-lari's name in the next sentence, and the trap would be sprung.
”Do you not?” asked Villam, looking honestly surprised.” Did Prince Sanglant not marry the woman named Liathano?”
Relief hit like a fist to his gut.” I do not know her, my lord.”
Villam smiled wryly.” Had you seen her, you would not so easily forget her.”
”That one! Was she young and beautiful, my lord, not in the common way of beauty but like a foreign woman with skin of a creamy dark shade? Had she a child in her or newly born?”
”That one.” Villam sighed, considered his wine cup, and took a hank of bread to chew on.” What became of her?”
”You do not know? Angels took her up into the heavens.”
”Angels?”
i o ”We might also call them daimones, my lord.”
”I do not know what to make of these tidings,” said Villam thoughtfully, looking troubled.” Is she an agent of the Enemy, or that of G.o.d? Is she of humble origins, or of the n.o.blest birth? Did she bewitch the prince, or is her favor, bestowed upon him, a mark of his fitness to rule?”
”My lord margrave,” said the servant Humbert so sharply that Villam blinked, thrown out of his reverie by those words.” The King's Eagle waits outside. She bears a message for you.”
Villam said nothing for a while, although as he mused he drew his fingers caressingly over the curve of an apple.” I will need a rider to carry a message to my daughter,” he said at last, ”a trustworthy and loyal man, one from the home estates. Waldhar, perhaps. His father and uncle served me well against the Rederii, and his mother is a good steward of the Arvi holdings. Let him make ready to leave and then come to me.”
The servant nodded. He had a tidy manner, efficient and brisk.” Will you need a cleric, my lord margrave, to set the message down on parchment?”
”Nay. It is to go to my daughter's ears alone. Give him an escort of three riders as well.”
”I would recommend six, my lord margrave, given the news of Quman raids.”
”Yes.” Villam had been margrave for many years, with the habit of command and the expectation that his servants would run to do his bidding at once, and effectively.” See that this frater is given food and drink and then send him on his way. Best that it be done quietly.”
”So will it be done, my lord margrave.” Humbert looked Zacharias over with a look compounded half of curiosity and half of disdain.” Would you prefer that those who serve him are like to gossip or to remain silent about which direction the prince rode out in three days ago?”
”Alas, people are so wont to chatter. That is why I keep a discreet man like yourself as my steward, Humbert.”
”Yes, my lord margrave.” Humbert gestured to Zacharias. He did not have a kindly face, but he looked fair.” Come, Brother. You will not want to linger long here at the king's court, for it will go hard with you, I am sure, should your quest become generally known.”
”I thank you for your hospitality, my lord,” said Zacharias, but Villam had already forgotten him as the doors opened and a woman strode in. She wore fine clothing and, over it, a cloak trimmed with red and pinned at one shoulder with a bra.s.s brooch shaped as an eagle.