At Faith's End

by Chris Galford

  Usuri’s doll rose before her eyes. “You will all bleed yourselves dry. What need is there for I?”

  With a quick snap of her wrist, Charlotte sent the doll sailing. “God damn it, witch. What is wrong with you? Every day I come here, listening, watching, and always with the riddles. Some new brand of insanity. Your father dies. You maim and maul. We push too far, the threats turn to our own heads. Endangered, locked and barred, you turn the pain unto yourself and now…love? Happiness? Where do you conjure such senseless grace? What are you?”

  The witch stared after her fallen creation, and for a moment, it seemed, the depression of prior days descended. Bare feet twitched once—fidgeted.

  “Why…?” Her voice fell nearly as low as the earth. It was pitiful. “There is no why. But a broken mind. Broken creature. Conjure? I am senseless. But all of you are so much…so much…” Her eyes wrenched on Charlotte with a wet and sudden fury. “More.” Before Charlotte could backpedal, the girl sprang without so much as a scream, and those dirty feet and those clawing hands were on her, and they scrabbled in the dust.

  Then they were away.

  An army marched, in step. A boy watched from afar. His eyes, they searched a woman out of the gloom, but she bled in the dust. Why, why, the crows seemed to cry as the very sky darkened. Drums of war. Drums of nations. The banners marched not east, but west.

  The same boy sat at the opening of a tent, whispering words into the cradled visage of a coin. Coin. Charlotte knew the coin. Saw its rust. Once, twice—where had she known it? He spoke of love, and the heart, not because it was what he felt, but because he had nowhere else to turn, and the heart was second nature to him—the escape when the world did not provide. He was alone. Like Usuri. Lost and alone, and therein lay that fabled attraction.

  Fire burned her hair and Charlotte stood cracked as a statue, naked in the grass save the crown atop her head. A snake curled around her. Feathers, everywhere the feathers—serpents dined on birds, did they not? The storm was in its eyes, and the fangs bared themselves back wide enough to form a face, and a woman, pulled from its sinewy depths, coiled about her and laid her bare.

  Little bird. Little bird. Don’t you hear the word? There are no strings to pull, for the mind is all so null.

  She saw a forest, fraught with rattling banners. Gryphons hurdled across the branches as horses pounded battle tunes upon the dirt. Dust hung heavy, mingled with the kiss of blackest smoke. Nothing was clear. Nothing was sensible. The coin rattled and the whole vision shook, and the boy, hardened though he was, could not keep his sense. It was too much. He did not want to be.

  The touch was on her and she rasped. The snake-girl delved, and sought the taste of their own night together—woman and boy. The night he fell to pieces, and Charlotte broke her father’s heart.

  It’s not yours, she cried, and the walls struggled against her. But the fangs sank deeper and deeper, and drew them out like a poison.

  The dance. The bed. The laughter. Rattles of chain with morning light. A father’s cold eyes.

  His kiss drew to her kiss, and the witch’s eyes flared. Do you like this, whore? You see: we both are creatures of destruction. The mind is yet so brutal as the body…

  A shadow gathered at the edge. Usuri fled it, but the thing persisted, prodding all the earth for trace of ash and dust. It knew. It knew what she was and what she had done. But where—where had it come from?

  In the distance, a town burned. He saw it. His heart quailed for it, and Usuri, drawing Charlotte up by the hand, let her taste the ash of it all. Then the girl was behind her, wrapping arms about her waist as her chin rested on her shoulder.

  The smoke, you see, is everywhere I walk. It and I—we are nothing without.

  Then Dartrek had the witch by the shoulders, throwing her off Charlotte with a shout. She bounced off the stones and fell silent beside her bed, her short hair hiding nothing of the brutalized face. Imagined lips, still and full, lingered on Charlotte with none of the childishness of a boy emperor. Thunder resounded in the eyes—and this was what it was to know.

  As did she now. A name fell on her lips, and Charlotte knew her vision’s distant plain. She knew it well. “Neunhagen.”

  “My lady?” Dartrek asked, as his hands slid beneath both neck and waist. He meant to carry her. Was she so weak? “We shall have her chained again. She strikes you ill.” For all the silent years, the humble giant’s eyes burned, and suddenly this, too, she knew.

  Even shadows.

  Whatever the source of the witch’s magic, it had always struck Charlotte ill. For their family’s betterment, or worsening, it seemed to her a wretched thing—one that burned those that used it as readily as those in its path.

  After their encounter, Charlotte spent the better part of a morning abed, dutifully attempting to sleep away the migraine pounding through her head. Exhaustion nipped at her, and she could not shake the feeling of that wild woman’s skin on hers. Not for the first time, either. Her claws were quick, and they knew precisely where to strike. In body and in mind.

  The sensation of being played like a fiddle was unique, but far from enviable.

  Dartrek came to her, but she turned her shoulder and would not answer him. Only the stubborn dedication of a kitchen waif was finally enough to rouse her from her sluggish morn. News rode the girl’s tongue—as it seemed to ride all those of such position—like birds upon the wind. Charlotte knew her; she had used her many times and made it known such work was much appreciated. Boyce had his webs, and she had hers. Little Millicent likely carried the word between them both, but either way, the word had value.

  And the word was that the staff was preparing something extra, for a meeting between her father and some unknown number of attendants. Even the most delicately shrouded of cabals had to eat. Just as the worn and weary must one day rise. Charlotte bore herself up, and sent the girl off with thanks weighted in coin.

  Locating the meeting itself was no hard feat. Secrecy may have been a virtue, but as careful as Count Cullick was, he remained a creature of certain habits. She came on them in his solar, already to wine and cigars. Some musical foolery, undertaken by their house’s jester, Dogbee, entertained the little ones in another room further down, loud enough to drown out whatever words might go astray. Ustrit and Hacket, her father’s bodyguards, let her in without trouble.

  All but Walthere rose at the sight of her. The air of the solar burned with the acrid stench of their talk, but she drew it deep into her lungs and let it take sleep’s place, curtsying her way through her greetings and slipping as carefully as she might into the conversation and a seat.

  There were five men in all—the youngest of Baron Koenraad’s sons, Saelec, as well as his bastard brother Fitz, familiar faces among them. Given their empowerment as diplomats and departure for Ravonno less than two octaves before, their quick return did not bode well.

  The other pair were not difficult to parse out. Both were well-shaved and wore their hair short to the scalp. One bore the blue robes of a Visaji priest, and the other, the rich cape and tunic of a Ravonnen gentleman. Diplomats, likely, in turn.

  After introducing her, Charlotte’s father folded his hands on his lap and leaned genially back from his well-fed guests. It did not take long before the priestly of the pair lay his hands on the table and leaned genially toward the lot.

  There was, in truth, a lot of him to lean.

  “You must forgive my impertinence, highness, but I fear we have little enough time for further small talk. As I told your men—and might have sufficed for you, I add—it is not our decision to change. What is done is done, and we would be to our other duties before that decision spreads.”

  Charlotte quirked an eyebrow to her father, whose fingers stiffened with constrained fury. He did not look back at her.

  Walthere jabbed a finger at the table. “And I say merely there is no history of such a…harsh measure, without warning or evidence. It is ungentlemanly. I ask you to dine with us this eveni
ng, that I might see more—”

  The priest held up his hand as if to make the Lord’s sign. “The Patriarch’s decisions come from the Maker Himself. It is not any man’s will to question. We know you for Farren, highness, and heretic thus, and I would leave it at that. Your people will sort out the rest.”

  “Farren?” Charlotte gasped.

  The priest’s eyes flicked sharp and probing on her. “And by the sins of the father, so shall the child be condemned. Thus are the words of the prophet Ademius. Poor girl. If you put yourself to monastery, you know, the Lord would be forgiving.” His look turned ravenous.

  “Mind your tongue, priest,” young Saelec cut in bitterly. “And mind your place.”

  “You know this house serves under the pleasure of the Empress, surely?” Walthere added, calmly.

  “We do,” the other Ravonnen countered with a haughty roll of the eyes. “And the Patriarch knows you offend the Emperor, with your attempt to bind your Farren heresies to the crown. Which do you think holds more worth?”

  Not long after, it was Charlotte’s duty to show the men out. The nobleman brushed by her without so much as a glance, stirring dreams of daggers and testicles, but his priestly counterpart was just the opposite, taking her hands and clasping them tight. “Remember,” he said, “the Lord is forgiving. Repent, I beg you, for your soul—it need not join your father’s.”

  In that moment, she found not the heart for politick. “To become your sister?” A scornful laugh rose high in her throat. “Only priests should benefit then. Get you gone, man, before my husband hears of your suggestion.” She wrenched her hands from the man as though he were a snake, and he left at her good day, shaking his head in true pity.

  Zealots. Everywhere, yet never bearable, in any form.

  “Bastards,” Fitz summed, almost as soon as they were out the door. He was a blunt one, Fitz was, but also a wise bastard—in noble company, he never would lift his tongue until he knew it might be sought. It was a quality both father and daughter admired in the man.

  Saelec looked far more sullen, and far less certain. “Shall we still make for Ravonno? If we could gain audience, surely we could still…” But the words trailed, and the thought with it. They all knew better.

  “Unless we offer to polish the Patriarch’s boots with our own tongues, I dare say he’s moved a touch beyond that, if he sent such ambassadors as those,” Charlotte countered. She sufficed herself on Fitz’s carefree chuckle.

  “Aye, at that. Those two, as you noted, were coming here at a leisurely pace before you struck on them with the grace of Assal. Ahorse, and at haste, it would have taken octaves to cross those mountains. This was an old action, already set to motion.” Indeed, for the distance between Ravonno and Anscharde, it had to mean the Emperor and Patriarch had already exchanged by way of bird. Given Leopold’s nature, it stood likely they had never been beyond contact. “We can assume they move in tandem,” Walthere summed, drumming his thick fingers across his table.

  “So sticking those two wouldn’t do us no good?” Fitz piped up. “Pity.” And in his pity, he thrust his dagger through an apple.

  “You would stick a priest?” his noble-born brother asked in only partial surprise.

  “A priest is just a man, and holiness doesn’t ward good steel.”

  Charlotte shook her head with a small smile. “No wonder they call us heathens.”

  “And so they know,” Fitz shrugged. “But I should take it for the release it is.”

  Walthere rose and paced toward the window. All eyes stalked him as the serving girls appeared to remove plates and cups. Charlotte watched them all, wondering which were spies. At the least, she knew all of them were gossips. Fortunately, so did the others. Talk fell to the side until the women and the leavings were removed.

  It was Walthere who broke the silence. “Fitz is right. I should have preferred some security on our southern front, but in truth, I had not counted on it, and this will offer us more mobility. We need not slink in the dark and bandy words as the middlemen we have always been.” He paused, to let the words sink in. “We can actually take a stand. A public stand.”

  “It will earn us enemies,” Saelec countered, lamely.

  “We already have enemies. It will but entrench them more deeply in their convictions—yet it will convince potential allies we are not cowards,” Charlotte added.

  Walthere nodded. “Just so.”

  Saelec began to fiddle nervously with one of the rings on his hand. “What of the Empress? And Sara? Should not one of them be made privy to this?”

  “Sara,” Walthere sighed. “Yes, the princess should be told. She will craft some sort of response from their end, no doubt—and we shall need to pull her mother back to our gates or…” He turned to Charlotte. “Better still, we shall send her with your mother to Banur.”

  Since her outburst in the hall, Charlotte had seen neither hide nor hair of Sara. Though the thought of losing her friend pained some repressed part of her spirit, another part rejoiced for the silence. It left her to her thoughts, to regain some small part of herself. That was the problem, she whispered between the lot. She had not had time to breathe. Every spirit needed some small time alone to regenerate the colors time would surely dull.

  She had overreacted. In time she would apologize, even. But not yet. If that infuriated her father, then all the better. Let him stew a while as well.

  “Kings do respect united fronts,” Fitz said.

  “And the safety it provides will remove another fear. But…what of the young Emperor-in-Waiting? Charlotte?” Saelec’s head spun to meet her. “Will he not go with his mother?”

  “I am not my fiancé’s keeper,” she spat, and surprised herself with her own bitterness. Thankfully, her father answered over her.

  “I will deal with the Empress. Fear not. And we will take the opportunity with her son for what it is. Time with your…keep will do you good, Charlotte.”

  The look they might have shared was venomous, but Charlotte struck it away. For her father, she remained the picture of modest grace, dipping her head to his command, and settling her curling fists against the folds of her skirt. “You know best, father.” With small satisfaction, she kept a sarcastic twinge at the end of her submission. His thinning lips told her it was not unnoticed.

  Fitz loudly cleared his throat. “If there is nothing else—”

  “Wait,” she clamored. “There is something. Father, if I might—regarding the tower?”

  She had yet to share Usuri’s revelations of the morning. While she might have sent a servant, she had deliberately waited. It was news, surely, but it would be held wild by the regards of most. She hesitated, for she hated the thought of being wrong, but then the images returned to her unbidden, and she knew it would not do to leave them.

  Walthere took her meaning, and dismissed the others. Neither Fitz nor Saelec knew of the witch, and her father preferred it so. “Tell me,” he demanded as soon as they were gone. So she did, from its beginning to its end, leaving no detail unturned, save Usuri’s seeming fascination with her night within the Matair boy’s bed. Plainly alarmed, Walthere pushed back from the table as soon as she had finished. She stood with him.

  “Are you certain she speaks true? Boyce has said nothing of this.”

  “Does Boyce keep men astride the border? He is much distracted otherwise, father.” Indeed, the spymaster had been all but exiled in recent days, wandering the halls but no longer at his master’s heel. His failure remained a sore spot in Walthere’s mind, and while Charlotte was no friend to that fool, she did not disrespect him—nor wish to see further harm upon his name. “I am certain she speaks truth. As certain as anything. After what she showed…” She shivered.

  “Hells,” Walthere snarled. He rounded then on the door, and the servants beyond, shouting, “Bring me Maynard! And Boyce—I want the damned fool here now!” As feet pattered quickly beyond, he turned back on her, and drew a steadying breath. “Is she useful? Or not?”


  “Father, you should send word to Anscharde,” she cautioned. “Surely they already know, but if the Bastard has the army at his beck, it should be sufficient threat to ward a civil war.”

  “It is the court he shall strike for, if it is so,” he countered, obstinately. “If we united, who do you think they should turn on next? Best to wipe them out while they might be distracted.”

  He did not see the obvious. “And if he comes, he comes through the north. Where your allies lie. If they are distracted, and we are left to the southern powers…”

  Everyone would burn. Yet she dared not give it voice, lest it be given strength.

  “Charlotte. The Bastard’s troops will be starved by now. They will have been harried half to Hell by Effisians, and of those left, I do not doubt a great many will fade away in the night. They will be met by a steadfast wall of experienced troops, and even if they break through Momeny, who do you think will aid them? They have no supply line, and no aid. They will be chipped and isolated until they can be surrounded and destroyed. That is fact.” With a sudden fury, his hands slammed against the tabletop. “But what none of this tells me is whether or not that girl can be trusted.”

  Charlotte drew still. Still as prairie grass, wilting beneath an arid sun. Then she leaned forward, placing her hands on the table to imitate her father’s stance, but with slow and purposeful poise. It was a steady eye that met his.

  “I pray you think on the girl a moment, father. Let her example stand for the Bastard’s folk. Battered they may be, but what will the survivors be? Killers, with all the fat sheared from their bones.” She patted the table with her palms, then leaned back again, crossing her arms about her chest. “The witch is as well as ever she was. She no longer hurts herself, it is true, but there is a madness bred deep inside her, and you knew that when you took her. Will she listen? Yes. If you are asking, will she kill? I cannot say. She has at least the peace of mind to know she hates what she is, and I cannot tell you why she willingly aids us. I would not, in her place.”