A Plague of Swords

by Miles Cameron

  Kronmir bowed.

  All four heads nodded.

  Kronmir noted that the bench was sized for more, and he guessed it was intended for seven people. He also noted that the two figures on the left sat very close, so that their hips touched, and the one on the farthest left had a lock of pale golden hair escaping from the wig.

  They examined him in inhuman voices for more than an hour, mostly on details of the battles fought with Thorn and the role of the Sieur de Rohan and the Archbishop of Lorica. The questioning on the archbishop became more and more sharply focused.

  “And you are absolutely sure,” said the woman that Kronmir guessed was the duchess. “You are absolutely sure that this archbishop is dead?”

  Kronmir frowned. “Yes,” he said.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I killed him myself,” Kronmir said. He leaned back and folded his arms.

  The silence was profound.

  “May we speak of your office?” asked a fourth voice, hitherto silent.

  Kronmir sighed. “Gentles,” he said, “I assume that the custom of ancient times preserves the necessity that you, members of the Seven, should preserve your identities. And that if I should be able to name you...well, it would be rude and even impolitic to do so. And in the same way, I would prefer that my office not be named.”

  The four conferred a moment.

  “I would like to go a step further, gentles. I would like to suggest that I know the source of your discontent. To the outward enemy you add an inward one. You fear that the Patriarch of Rhum, who works actively to eradicate the use of hermetical powers, who claims that there is no power of the Wild and who preaches directly against Alba, and, I understand today, is threatening to preach a crusade—you fear that this voice, the voice of the church, is itself controlled by an enemy.”

  If his dry assertion that he had personally killed the archbishop had brought silence, this second assertion seemed to quell all comment. The four sat still as plaster images in a church.

  Finally, the duchess raised a hand. “We will be in touch,” she said.

  Kronmir stood. “I am not against you,” he said. “But I have my own resources and my own plans. And I must say that there is someone in this city working directly against you. Unless you had me followed here when I was walking with Captain Parmenio, which seems to me a waste of manpower.”

  “What do you intend?” asked the one he thought to be the duchess.

  He bowed. “I will go to Berona and search out Magister Petrarcha. Beyond that, I cannot guess.”

  She leaned forward. “Will you go to the Darkness?” she asked.

  Kronmir smiled. “If the Darkness can be said to have an edge,” he said, “and if I learn the appropriate information from the magister, I will go to that edge, and see what can be seen.”

  She spoke in an inhuman, multitone voice. “We approve,” she said. “We will support this.”

  All four heads bowed, and Kronmir went back down the stairs. His emergence was greeted with a heavy silence, and Kronmir had to assume that more footsteps went up than came down.

  Parmenio was nowhere to be found, but Kronmir bowed to Master Atkins, who was waiting for his own interview in the naval department. Kronmir was not used to reassuring people, but he spent a moment to tell Atkins, in his smooth Alban, that he had nothing to fear from the Venikan naval department, and he repeated his words to young Kieron.

  The weather mage was dressed in a very long gown, almost a fashion of another age, and wore his hood up despite the warm weather outside. Kronmir had much to do, but he was almost certain he’d be dead if not for Kieron, so he made the time.

  “A walk with you, Magister,” he said.

  Kieron looked at the number of people waiting ahead of him and bowed. “I’m not a magister,” he said. “A mere student.”

  The two of them passed outside unchallenged, and into the square. Kronmir immediately detected one of his surveillants from the morning, and he made no attempt to make the woman’s life difficult. Instead, he walked with Kieron to near the center of the square, under the marvelous clock tower.

  “Listen. I think you saved all of our lives. I wish to do you a favour.” Kronmir wished he had the time to be more careful. Or less blunt.

  Kieron bowed, face mostly hidden.

  “It appears to me that you are a woman,” Kronmir said.

  Silence. Around them, hawkers sold curious toys and pilgrims badges and two prostitutes called their skills to the crowd. They seemed to be bidding against each other in levels of obscenity.

  “My understanding is that you will be welcome here for your skills. But these people are deeply suspicious of anything hidden, and with reason. I recommend you appear as a woman, apologize to Captain Parmenio for the deception, and move on. Women are more nearly equal here than at home.”

  Kieron bowed. “I am what I am,” he said.

  Kronmir had the sticky feeling that he had interfered in something, and his interference was not wanted.

  “I will leave you to it, then, with my thanks,” he said. He bowed, and left the mage standing amid children playing with new baubles. He himself joined one of the throngs of religious pilgrims. He looked at them, and thought about religion, which didn’t usually interest him much. He thought about the Archbishop of Lorica and his actions. It had never occurred to him before that the archbishop’s program in Alba was one of deliberate obstruction and sabotage.

  He saw a doublet that he’d registered earlier, and something clicked in his busy mind, and he bowed to a pretty woman and slipped down a flight of steps to water level and boarded a water taxi just pushing out from a jetty. Two men on the bridge above him leaned out, both dressed as pilgrims, and Kronmir saw the twinkle of sun on metal and he rolled and shot before he considered his actions.

  The man leaning out from the bridge crumpled, arms outstretched toward the water, and then, very slowly, slumped forward and fell off the low bridge into the canal just aft of the water taxi.

  The other man ran.

  The waterman in the stern had eyes as wide as dinner plates. But he kept poling.

  A large steel spike was inches deep in the floorboards of the taxi, and a little water seemed to be coming in.

  The waterman’s eyes went from the spike to Kronmir.

  Kronmir leaned down and placed a gold coin on the steel spike, and looked up at the waterman. He nodded, pursed his lips as if he’d just smelled something bad, and looked elsewhere.

  Kronmir’s sense of urgency peaked. He had intended to wait for Lucca’s recovery but now had little choice. At the palazzo, he checked on his apprentice and exchanged a few quiet comments and two codes. He packed a small script, like any pilgrim on the road.

  He met Parmenio in the hall.

  “You are leaving?” Parmenio said with a bow. “You are good company and you’re welcome here...”

  Kronmir smiled. “As are you, and your selection of books is a delight. I must meet all your authors! But listen. I must be away, and your wife knows why. I need transportation to the mainland. And perhaps a horse.” He shrugged. “A guide would not be amiss, either,” he admitted.

  Donna Theresa emerged from the hall. Her severe face was tense, but she granted him a deep curtsy. “Master Kronmir,” she said.

  They know my name.

  “All is arranged, including the guide,” she said. “Go. With God. And all our hopes.”

  Kronmir nodded. He was not particularly good at having allies, but he tried to be gracious. “I will certainly need local help,” he said. “And horses. Someone just tried to kill me.”

  Parmenio’s face grew red. Theresa shrugged.

  “It is pilgrimage season, and our city is full of visitors. We screen them for disease and for weapons, but we cannot be perfect. We will apprehend those responsible. All day, as you moved, our people were following those who followed you.”

  Kronmir bowed, deeply impressed. “I look forward to working with you, ma donna, and I
see that you are as good at your business as your husband is at his.”

  She curtsied. Kronmir and Parmenio exchanged an embrace, and Kronmir set out.

  Before the sun set, he was landing at a small town in the middle of a vast marsh. In the last light, he saw a causeway running away to the west into the marshes with a good road atop it. There was a storm to the west, the lightning and the thunder rolling at him like a harbinger.

  He was met at the pier by a young fisherman who escorted him to a sailor’s inn where he had a clean bed, on which he sat while he sharpened his sword and poisoned the darts for his balestrino. Before it was time to sleep, a nondescript man in plain clerical brown appeared, fluffed his pillow, and settled into the armchair without a word exchanged.

  When Kronmir awoke Brown was gone, but the man was only as far as the main room, where he was eating a breakfast of fish stew, slightly cold, as the maid had forgotten him, as people usually did. Kronmir sat separately, relished his fish stew and his small beer, and failed to hide his startlement when the duchess ducked her head and entered the low door. She was dressed like a man, in doublet of green wool and plain black boots. The maid curtsied and they spoke. Then she came to his table.

  “May I sit with you, Master Kronmir?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  Her eyes flicked to Brown. “He is wonderful,” she said.

  Kronmir scratched under his beard.

  “I am your guide,” she said.

  “Is this some misplaced chivalry?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “I am down to about forty people I trust, and the one that can be spared just now is me.”

  Kronmir noted that with her nails trimmed close and all the rings stripped away, her hands looked very competent.

  “We can be in Berona this evening if we ride hard. I have two changes of horses arranged, and the Tyrant will receive me, where he might ignore you.”

  “You have nothing to prove to me, Donna. I have worked with women all my life.” He rose.

  She smiled. “Well,” she said. “That will make a refreshing change. Usually, I have to train each man to my hand, like a falcon.”

  Kronmir looked away. “I sense we could be uneasy allies,” he said.

  She shook her head. “No. We are, truly, at your service, and despite my husband’s distaste for warrior emperors, you are virtually our only hope of salvation. But...I must see this Darkness for myself.”

  The quarter hour rang from the church, and they were ahorse, the three of them, with three more horses behind them. They rode quietly until they were clear of the town, and then the duchess leaned forward on her horse’s neck and broke straight into a gallop. The two men followed, and the three of them pounded across the long causeway and onto the road through the marshes, and the duchess led them, never glancing back, until the horses were lathered in sweat and the long-awaited rain began to come down. Then she reined in, opened her saddlebag, and pulled out a cloak.

  “You’ll find the same in each,” she said.

  Brown quietly transferred the saddles to fresh horses, and they ate slices of bread spread thickly with goose liver ground fine with pepper, and drank a little wine. The rain went from a scatter of drops to a downpour.

  They rode across the rainy morning, and as the noon bells rang they rode into a fine town with a magnificent cathedral and more churches than Liviapolis. Brown, whose indescribable face seldom changed expression, registered satisfaction.

  The duchess raised an eyebrow.

  Kronmir shrugged. “What should I call you?” he asked.

  “Call me Giselle,” the duchess responded. “Also, please allow me to save you time and insist that I’m quite as fond of my husband as any man I’ve met, and that a day’s riding never raises the least amorous thought in me.”

  Kronmir couldn’t think of what to say in response to this flat delivery, but he decided to smile. “I do not think I deserved that yet,” he said.

  “Exactly,” she said. “That’s the time to say such things. In my experience.”

  “Do we expect to be attacked?” Kronmir asked as they remounted on fresh horses. Vadova, as the city was called, seemed to abound in good food and beautiful horses.

  She shrugged. “Why?”

  “I was attacked yesterday. In Venike.” He shrugged.

  “I know,” she admitted. “We caught the man you didn’t kill. That’s when I decided to come myself.”

  Kronmir paused. “Am I allowed to know why?” he asked. It was like flirting, conducted with pieces of information.

  “Because he was one of the Corners’ most trusted people,” she said. She glanced at Brown. “You trust him?” she asked.

  “As much as I trust anyone,” he said.

  * * *

  All three of them were soaked to the skin by the time they entered Berona—soaked, and stiff as boards. Kronmir could just manage to walk, and his memory of the crossing of a high pass was so hazy that he wasn’t sure he hadn’t dreamt part of his day away.

  They were ushered into a fortress—another magnificent building in the local style, a great castle of red brick. The guards were alert despite the weather, and Kronmir noted, favourably impressed, that every man-at-arms on duty had full harness and polished silver despite the rain, and that the captain of the guard was polite but very careful with them.

  For example, he took all of Kronmir’s weapons. He remained courteous as the arsenal was disclosed. Giselle smiled and handed over a sword and dagger, prettily handled in Umroth ivory, and they were escorted into a superb hall, illuminated with tall windows all along the south side, and with frescoes from floor to ceiling.

  The Tyrant, as he was sometimes known—Il Conte to his own circle—was a dark-haired, handsome man of middle height. He had a pointed black beard and heavy brows, but his intelligent face and elegant dress relieved him from a look of brutality, and he moved with dignity. Furthermore, he rose as soon as Giselle entered his hall, and came down from his dais to bow to her, as did the men and women of his court.

  “Mi fate honore,” he said. You honour me.

  The introductions were brief and the formality light. A group of young women began dancing with a dozen of the count’s knights. Giselle was taken away, to wash and change.

  “You are an officer of Il cavaliere rosso,” the count asked.

  “I am,” Kronmir said with a bow.

  “Tell me,” Il Conte Simone asked. “Is he the very paragon of chivalry that has been described to me?” He leaned forward. “Is it true that he killed the Galle de Vrailly in single combat?”

  Kronmir bowed. “So I understand.”

  “How I wish to have seen this!” the count murmured. “The woman currently calling herself Giselle says that perhaps he will come here.”

  Kronmir bowed again. “It is possible.”

  Count Simone smiled. “That would give us some hope,” he admitted. “I used to brag that I had the best knights in Etrusca,” he said. “And perhaps I do, yet. But my gut tells me that knighthood is no match for the Darkness.”

  Kronmir spread his hands.

  “This is our magister, Master Petrarcha,” the count said. “This is one of my staunchest knights, Ser Tomaso Lupi.”

  Kronmir bowed to each. “Master Petrarcha?” he asked, to be sure.

  “Yes,” the old man answered.

  Kronmir reached into the breast of his doublet and withdrew a scroll tube. He handed it to the old man with a bow. “From Magister Harmodius,” he said.

  Ser Tomaso smiled as the old man cracked the seal on the scroll tube. “I gather you intend to try to scout the edge of the Darkness,” he said.

  Kronmir cursed inwardly. “How many people know this?” he asked.

  Tomaso made a face. “Perhaps three. Watch the dancers. Comment on how beautiful that woman is. My wife, by the way.” He grinned. “The duchess is being very careful. There will be an entertainment and no public gathering. You will leave in the morning, with me as your guide to th
e hills. When you go to relieve yourself, you will be met.”

  Kronmir felt naked. “How bad is it?” he asked.

  Lupi shrugged. “I trust everyone in this city,” he said. “We take these precautions because the duchess asked us. Berona is not Venike, and the Patriarch of Rhum has no friends here.”

  Kronmir did not protest to this nice young man that almost anyone could be bought, something in which he had some experience.

  An hour later, when the dancing—brilliant—and the music—dazzling—was over, and Kronmir had been introduced to the Beronese chivalry; Ser Alessio, Ser Maurizio, Ser Achille, Ser Lucca and a dozen more knights and their ladies. Ser Tomaso introduced him to Sophia di Castlebarco, a famed beauty, and Kronmir allowed himself to be dazzled. But even while playing the courtier, Kronmir noted that Master Petrarcha returned briefly to the hall, met Lupi’s eye, and vanished into a dark doorway. Kronmir rose and begged to be excused every eye was on Ser Maurizio and Donna Sophia and he made his exit unnoticed.

  He was taken to a bedchamber hung in embroidered linen. The old hermetical master was sitting behind his bedcurtains.

  “Really, I’m too old for these games,” he said, but he smiled. “I have already prepared your workings. I will offer you another one. My own theory.”

  Kronmir bowed.

  “If this is indeed our enemy from Ifriquy’a,” the old man went on, offering a selection of phials of glass, “then I suspect that this will act as a specific against his intentions. I have no idea how long it will last or what side effects it will have.” He shrugged. “It is a matter as simple as like to like, however.” He nodded. “Or in this case, unlike to unlike.”

  Kronmir had endured more than a year of Askepiles, and he was used to the torturous reasoning of hermeticists. “What is it, Magister?” he asked.

  “Umroth ivory, powdered,” Petrarcha said. “The very bones of the not-dead.”

  Kronmir twitched.

  Petrarcha shrugged. “I take it as a sign of hope for us that Harmodius, Al Rashidi, and I all have a common theory,” he said. “Let this be my contribution. It should work, but I have no means to test it unless I walk into the clutches of the Darkness myself.”