‘You’ll tire and falter, Trattari!’ the cleric shouted enthusiastically. ‘You cannot hope to defeat us all!’
I was absolutely going to tire and falter, and probably sooner rather than later. Even now it was taking most of my strength just to keep pretending to be hearty and hale. ‘No doubt you are correct, Venerati,’ I replied. ‘And besides, if by some miracle my arm stays strong long enough to get through these twenty righteous warriors, then of course it will be your turn. Surely the Gods will grant you, their chosen representative on earth, the strength to dispatch a blasphemer like me?’
The cleric glanced about the field, possibly in search of a new argument. His followers were all staring at him now.
Brell, who I was, I confess, really starting to admire for his raw nerve, gave a magnificent roar and ran for me, the point of his sword aiming straight for my neck.
There were six smart ways to deflect the blow and three to get out of the way, but none of them would look all that impressive to an impressionable audience, so instead I dropped down low, throwing my left leg back and putting all the weight on my right while extending my blade all the way forward into a long and, I felt, quite elegant reverse lunge.
It took all the strength I had not to be bowled over by the force of Brell impaling himself on my blade as his own sword passed harmlessly over my head.
We stood there, he and I, for a long while, our eyes locked. It wasn’t anger or satisfaction that kept me there; Brell’s look of surprise and fear as he realised what had just happened made me want to offer what little comfort there was in the face of another as he saw all the things his life could have been slip away. I did my best to convey as much sympathy as I could. I had to believe that deep down, Brell was probably a decent man who’d made the mistake of allowing himself to be subsumed into the madness of crowds. It was out of this small shred of faith in his humanity that I had aimed my blow to avoid his major organs.
He slumped to his knees and I placed my hand on his shoulder, keeping him in position so that I would do as little damage as possible as I withdrew my blade.
‘He’ll need a healer, if any of you has such skills.’
Two men came around and took him away and a third began seeing to his wound. I didn’t fool myself that my aim was so careful that Brell would be sure to live, but I’d given him as much of a chance as the circumstances had allowed.
I knelt down to wipe my blade on the grass. ‘Come on then,’ I said, examining my rapier to make sure it was clean. ‘Let’s keep things moving along. Beatti feci forze Deato. If the Gods love you, then surely the next man will beat me.’
I rose and faced the crowd. ‘Who’s next?’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The King’s Shadow
‘That was a remarkably foolish gamble,’ Allister said, leaning heavily on my shoulder as we trudged back towards the martyrium gates where Kest and Brasti awaited us.
The crowds ignored us, for the most part. I’d had to duel two more men, one of whom had some talent but no training. The other might have had a chance, had he not been using an over-heavy and poorly balanced sword. Even weak as I was, neither had presented any great challenge. It would have been an entirely different situation if they had thought to swarm me en masse, but once I’d put that creeping question in their minds – why, if the Gods loved them so, had they not given any one of the first three men the strength to beat me – gradually stole away any lust for battle. This appeared to be doubly true of the cleric, who’d made his surreptitious exit before the third man had even fallen.
‘Lucky bastard is what you are,’ Allister said.
I hadn’t see Allister for more than five years, and I’d just saved him, so it was a bit annoying that he had so quickly fallen back into questioning my tactics. He failed to notice my irritation and went on, ‘One day, Falcio, you’re going to be facing a mob who aren’t so mesmerised by your theatrics. What would you’ve done if that cleric had been better versed in his catechism and simply countered with Deato publis magni?’
‘“Through the many are the Gods manifest”? That’s too complicated for your average roadside cleric.’ I paused for a moment. ‘Of course, if you’d like to go back, have them tie you up again and explain to that idiot in orange robes how he could have got everyone to jump me at once—’
Allister grinned. ‘Let’s leave it for next time.’
We were just about at the gates when Allister stopped me. ‘No, not here. Round the back.’
The weight of him leaning on my shoulder made me question whether I had the energy to make it all the way around the complex myself, let alone half-carrying him. And I wasn’t keen on spending any more time out with the pilgrims than was strictly necessary. But Allister’s face told me he’d considered both problems, and was still insistent.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Just let me tell Kest and Brasti to meet us there.’
‘No,’ he grunted, no longer able to hide how much pain he was suffering. ‘Just you. Something you need to see, going to make your day a whole lot worse.’
*
It took us a lot of slow, heavy steps to work our way around the other side of the martyrium grounds. The tall iron gates ended in a thick stone wall roughly ten feet high. Trees and other vegetation had grown in over the years, so it wasn’t entirely impossible to get over the walls if we needed to, but I was really hoping we’d not have to try.
I let go of Allister and let him lean against the wall. He took a few deep breaths before putting two fingers to his lips and letting out a whistle that pierced the air.
‘Who in hells are you calling?’ I asked.
‘My horse. Kicked her away when those men pulled me off her.’
‘Why in the world would you do that? She might have helped you escape.’
‘Couldn’t take the chance that the mob would catch her.’
‘I’m sure your horse is gratified by your concern, but—’
‘Couldn’t let the mob see what she was carrying,’ he said, then pointed behind me.
I turned to see a pale brown and white mare tear up the ground as she galloped towards us and stopped a few feet away, eyeing me suspiciously. ‘I’m surprised she came back,’ I said.
Allister pushed himself away from the wall and walked unsteadily towards her, placing a calming hand against her muzzle and leaning his head onto hers. ‘Nah, she’s a good girl. Practically fearless.’ He took her reins and led her back towards me, and that’s when I saw that she had something heavy, wrapped in black cloth, tied across her back behind the saddle. It didn’t smell very good.
‘So how long have you been riding around with a corpse strapped to your horse?’ I asked, glancing around to see if anyone was watching us, but fortunately the trees were providing substantial cover.
‘Longer than I’d like,’ he replied. ‘I was coming to find you in Baern when I heard you’d left to come here. Help me get the ropes off, will you? My hands are still too numb; I was tied up for hours.’
I unknotted the ropes, leaving the body to hang limp on the horse’s back. When I pulled off the cloth covering the head, I found the pallid, lined face of an old man. There was nothing particularly impressive about him. ‘Who is he?’
Allister looked at the dead man’s face with a deep sadness. ‘That night, back at Aramor, when the Dukes were coming for us? The King called me into the castle library.’
My own fatigue disappeared instantly and I focused my attention on Allister. Every mission I heard about was another possible clue as to the King’s great plan. ‘What did he ask you to do?’
Allister didn’t answer, at least, not directly, saying instead, ‘Did I ever tell you I almost became a cleric?’
That got a laugh out of me. There were any number of words I might have used to describe Allister; pious wasn’t one of them.
‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘I studied the Canon deo, the Canon sancti, all the rest of them – I thought maybe I would become a venerati ignobli, find my
self a nice little peasant church in the countryside and preach for a living.’ He broke off and laughed at my expression, then added, ‘Never saw much point in the venerati magni myself. Nobles can all read the holy books themselves if they want.’ He smiled and looked off into the distance for a moment. ‘Even thought I heard the Gods’ voices once – thought maybe I was meant to be a deator, but, well—’
‘Allister, we’re both injured and standing outside a martyrium, not all that far from the same mob who, not that long ago, planned to set you on fire, not to mention the fact that you’ve got a dead body on your horse. Perhaps you’d be so kind as to get to the point?’
He glared at me, then said, ‘Somehow the King knew about my past, asked me that night if I still wanted to be a cleric – it’s funny, you know; I don’t remember ever telling the King about it. Anyway, I figured he was giving up the castle and just trying to make it easy for me to go and do what I’d always wanted to do.’ He stared back the way we’d come. ‘Thing is, by then I’d been a Greatcoat for five years, seen all the shit people do to each other, all the excuses they give, and at least half of it’s in the name of some God or some Saint. I just didn’t have any faith any more.’
‘What did the King say to that?’
Allister rubbed some of the dirt from his face with the sleeve of his coat. ‘It was the King, Falcio. He did what he always did, didn’t he, ignored the thing you’d just said and then changed the subject entirely. Told me he’d met this man living in a cave up Domaris way. My mission, believe it or not, was to go and watch over him.’
I looked at the body on the horse. ‘And that was him.’
‘Thought it was a shit mission at first,’ he admitted, looking at his boots. ‘He lived in this cave by himself, never talked much – just kept asking me to find books for him or sending me out to look for the answers to obscure questions that never made any sense. But you know, it’s not as if I had anything else important taking up my time.’
‘You’ve been doing this for five years?’
He smiled ruefully. ‘It was peaceful, somehow. Didn’t have to fight anyone or kill or even judge anything. I learned a lot from reading his books, listening to him mutter to himself.’ He looked at the old face lying on the black cloth. ‘Felt like I was just starting to understand the crazy old fool.’ Allister let out a long breath and I thought I saw an unexpected softness in his eyes. ‘Few weeks ago I came back from a long trip – he’d asked me to find him a copy of an old map; I did – but by the time I got back to the cave, he was dead.’
I was about to ask how his charge had died, but Allister was already hauling the corpse off the horse, nearly falling over in the process. I steadied him, then the two of us laid the body on the ground and Allister began unwrapping the black cloth until the old man’s face and upper body were revealed.
Covering the man’s arms and chest were tiny shallow cuts, just like those I’d seen on Birgid.
‘Found something else in that cave,’ Allister said, reaching into one of the saddlebags and pulling out a smaller bundle wrapped in the same black cloth. He unwound it to reveal an iron mask. ‘This was bolted to his face when I found him.’
‘Son of a bitch,’ I swore.
Allister gave a sad, weary smile. ‘He was, in fact, a son of a bitch.’ He lifted the black linens to cover the old man back up in a strangely gentle gesture. ‘Wondered for a long time why the King had sent me to guard this rude, snoring, farting hermit, how this was supposed to renew my faith. And yet, somehow, those years watching over him did just that.’ He looked me in the eye as he said, ‘I’m almost positive that this man was Anlas-who-remembers-the-world. The King wanted me to protect the Saint of Memory.’ He let out a single, racking sob. ‘I failed him, Falcio.’
‘You guarded him for five years,’ I said, as gently as I could. ‘King Paelis couldn’t have expected more.’
Allister turned to look at me, his face as angry and tortured as the one etched into the iron mask I held in my hands. ‘Really, Falcio? You think you know his mind so well? Because I swear, I’ll re-take my oath right here and now and support you as First Cantor from now until the Gods tell me otherwise if you can tell me what the King’s plan was.’
We’d never been friends, Allister and me. We had nothing in common, for one. And I had long suspected that he thought I was an arrogant, moralising show-off who spent my life trying to prove to everyone else I was better than they were. My suspicions about this came from the number of times he’d said these very words, or some variation, loudly and forcefully to my face.
I wasn’t overly fond of Allister, either. He reminded me too much of the boys who’d pushed me around when I was young, jeering about my father leaving my mother and me and coming up with an endless variety of unpleasant reasons why. So we didn’t like each other very much.
But we were Greatcoats, and in the end, that’s all that mattered.
‘I don’t know what the King’s plan was,’ I admitted, ‘but right now I don’t care.’ I held up the iron mask Allister had given me. The carvings on its face had the same rough, almost haphazard quality as the one Saint Birgid had been wearing, though I thought perhaps the eyes and mouth were portraying a slightly different variation of terror and madness. It had the same clasping mechanism on the sides to hold it in place, and the same iron funnel fused to the inside.
‘The plan I care about right now is the one that belongs to the man forcing these onto the faces of the Saints.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The First Deception
We brought Saint Anlas’ body back into the martyrium with us. Some of the pilgrims took a few tentative steps in our direction, maybe having some spiritual intuition as to what we carried, perhaps just curious as to why we were walking so boldly back into their midst. Kest and Brasti stood on the other side of the gates, weapons in hand, eyes on the crowd, ready to take on anyone who might make a move on us. But I wasn’t the least bit concerned. As soon as we’d come in sight of the entrance I’d spotted Quentis Maren and his Inquisitors, and it was clear he’d noticed that we were carrying a body with us. He opened the gates immediately and some of his men rushed to assist us, confirming what I’d already suspected.
‘How many?’ I asked, as we passed into the martyrium and the gates closed behind us.
The Inquisitor looked as if he was considering feigning ignorance.
‘How many what?’ Brasti asked. ‘And who is that?’
I waited until we had moved out of view of the pilgrims before taking the dead Saint off the horse and setting the body gently on the ground. I motioned for Quentis to examine him, and he knelt and carefully unfolded the cloth, just as I had done.
‘Saint Anlas, I believe,’ the Inquisitor said after a moment. He hesitated. ‘Though I’d never met him personally.’
Obladias, the old man who was still doing his best impression – not that it was very good – of an uneducated country monk, confirmed it. ‘That’s him. I knew him well enough.’
‘Really?’ Allister asked. ‘He never mentioned you.’
The monk responded with a brief chuckle. Maybe he knew the Saint hadn’t been one for conversation; maybe he didn’t care if we believed him. I didn’t particularly care, either.
‘How many, Cogneri Quentis Maren?’ I demanded, making the name of his order into an insult. It feels good. No wonder people do it to us so often.
The Inquisitor remained silent for a long time.
‘You might as well answer him,’ Duke Jillard said, walking down the path towards us. ‘Falcio has likely figured out a great deal of what you’ve been hiding. He’s a little slow sometimes, but he usually gets there in the end.’
‘Do any of you work for him?’ Brasti asked of the grey-robed Inquisitors standing around us, and when none of them responded he looked at me and asked, ‘Any reason I can’t shoot Jillard, then?’
I kept my attention on Quentis. ‘How many?’
Finally, the Inquisitor spoke. �
��Twelve.’
Twelve . . . I was struggling to grasp what it would take to . . .
‘Twelve what?’ Brasti asked. ‘Would someone please tell me what we’re talking about so I can decide if I care?’
Obladias snorted and said to Duke Jillard. ‘Hard to imagine how that Ducal Council of yours thought to restore order to the country with geniuses like this on your side.’
Brasti shrugged. ‘I leave the details to these two,’ he said. ‘Mine is a more infallible intellect.’
‘He means ineffable,’ Kest remarked.
‘Which one’s ineffable?’
‘Shut up,’ I said to them both, then to Quentis, ‘Twelve dead Saints and you didn’t think to inform the Realm’s Protector?’
‘Or the Ducal Council,’ Jillard added.
‘I don’t report to her,’ Quentis replied. ‘Nor, your Grace, to you. The Order of Inquisitors—’
I cut him off. ‘The last time I checked, the “Order of Inquisitors” had been reduced to a handful of angry old men sitting in their little dungeons staring at rusted implements of torture and trying to remember which one to brush their teeth with.’ I motioned to Quentis’ men. ‘I see newly trained guardsmen here, in newly made coats and armour and carrying weapons that must have cost your churches half their reserves. So tell me, Lord Inquisitor, when did you first discover that someone was murdering Saints?’
It was, I felt, an impressive interrogation. I don’t know why, but Inquisitors really piss me off. And Quentis actually bristled, which pleased me more.
‘We found the first body a year ago,’ he said at last. ‘The second, six months later. After that, a month, and then . . .’
My temporary sense of self-satisfaction faded as the full force of his words began to take hold of me. A year ago, someone had found a way to murder a Saint. No doubt, when it was one Saint, Quentis and his Inquisitors had thought this was something they could manage – an aberration that could be kept secret. But now more dead bodies were turning up and soon everyone, noble and peasant alike, would find out that the beings they prayed to for safety were no safer than they were. I looked at the gates, and out at the pilgrims on the other side. Hells. They already know something is wrong.
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