by John M. Ford
"Your surgery—"
"Is only to examine those nodules, be sure of what I suspect. I might be wrong; it would not hurt me at all to be. I've only seen the disease once in my life; Pier's book mentions only three cases."
"And he could not treat these?"
"No, he couldn't. But there's a footnote to one case: 'Referred to a sorcerer. Apparent remission.' So you see—"
"Cynthia... do you ever feel an aching in your muscles and sinews? A great aching, more than you would expect from exercise?"
"Don't change the subject." What had Earl Rivers called the wizard Morton? Old deceiver. She was not going to be deceived or distracted, not with her patient dying down the hall. "I have an oath to Minerva Medica," she said, and thought Which I will not break again.
"I do not." He lifted the latch. "You should rest now, Doctor."
"If you won't do anything, let me take him to Mary!" Was she shouting? The air was ringing. "Or anyone who will help—Doctor Morton—"
"How old do you think Morton is?"
"What? Thirty-five, perhaps forty, I suppose."
"He will be sixty in the next year."
"What does that have to do with this?" She caught her breath. "I don't know your age, Hywel."
"Before you choose to trust my lord wizard with Edward's life, not to mention his soul, I would remind you that Guillaume of Anjou probably had a similar trust in him as well." He went out, closing the door hard.
She realized, long delayed, that she had succeeded in hurting him, and he had not been able to deal with it. Maybe he should be hurt, she thought suddenly; better that than an atrophied soul.
She let her wooden pattens drop loudly to the floor, then lay back still dressed, sinking into the feathers for what seemed forever.
The arches of the canopy above her were carved with images of a man-faced moon drifting through its phases, the full moon smiling down from the apex.
She wondered if he really believed that Morton was his unknown English wizard, or if he had only said it to frighten her.
Her arm and back muscles began to hurt, exactly as Hywel had said. It was the bed, she thought, and the suggestion; like a student who felt the symptoms of every disease she read about. Did Anthony Woodville, reading his books—
She knew it was not the bed. The pain had come before, and it was indeed much more than a common night cramp. It struck her worst while she slept, because then she dreamed, of straining to escape from a box nailed shut. Or a bed, with snow blowing through the window, and her blood draining out.
Hywel had seen her awaken, sweating cold, she thought. Perhaps he had watched her nightmares, despite his supposed rules for himself. He had done it once before.
She lay wide awake, paralyzed, less by the pain than the knowledge that just for an instant it had pleased her to have hurt him.
Cynthia took off her white cotton mask and hood, pulled the pin that held her hair, and shook it out. She was aware of Anthony watching her as she stripped off her silk gloves and linen apron. A servant took the apron, and the Earl's as well; she looked dolefully at the blood drying on Cynthia's.
"That was amazing," he said.
What kind of medicine did they practice in this country, she wondered; then Rivers said "I've seen battlefield cutting, as I said, but never anything so delicate as this. Then, I admit, I haven't visited a school of medicine in a long time."
"You were a great help, my lord Earl."
"I like to be flattered, as long as I know that's all it is," he said easily. "I held a sponge and a hook—"
"Retractor," she said automatically; then, "You had Doctor Leone's book in your library. You didn't faint when I excised the nodules."
"All right! Pax!" They entered the solar, where a late breakfast was being set out. "Now I wonder if I can put a knife into a kipper."
The suri shone through a window, over-gilding his hair; she thought he must surely be an Apollonian.
They sat down. Rivers stared at a platter of cut bacon and said quietly, "Is there really no hope for the Prince?"
"What I have said, I would not say lightly—but I would never say 'no hope.'" She had not mentioned magic to him. Her feelings this morning were too confused.
Rivers nodded, tapping his fingers on the table, making ripples in the pitcher of wine. "I should like... to have you available, Doctor."
She chuckled, not meaning to; he looked up and grinned foolishly. "I trust you take my meaning. Must you travel so soon?"
She did not answer, because she did not know; only that Hywel must do so. And now...
"Perhaps you would like a position... a teaching chair at the University at Oxford?"
Oh, White Lady, she thought. It might have been Lorenzo speaking: I would like you to go to Pisa, bella Luna. Her throat was quite tight, and she sipped some wine. Surely, she thought confusedly, losing her home did not mean that all places on earth must be alien. Even the half of the world that was not Byzantine was a very large country.
"We spend ten thousand pounds a year to hold Berwick under the Scots' noses; I think we can spend a little to endow a place for your better services."
As he spoke of the Scots, she thought of Dimitrios and Gregory, and causes she had asked to be part of. "It is a most generous offer, Ser Antonio," she said, half aware her tongue had slipped, "but I... cannot accept it now. I am... sorry," and she knew she would be. "The Prince's acute illness will pass soon. He will feel much better."
"I am glad of that." He sighed. "But he will not be any better... ?"
"No, my lord. I doubt he will ever be that If I might be
allowed to consider your offer again, sometime in the future?"
Rivers nodded as if he had not heard her at all.
Her bags were carried down to the castle courtyard a little after noon. Hywel was already there, mounted on a dark chestnut horse, a gift from the Earl; a white palfrey waited for Cynthia. She laughed when she mounted it, so that she would not cry. They rode out into a gentle October breeze.
After the castle was well up the south road, Cynthia said "Thank you for the light; their lanterns were all very smoky. Did it..." She worked not to sound snide. "... cost you greatly to cast it?"
"There is always some cost. But it's common light. It will not harm those cast upon, or darken the eye."
"I thought—" she let the statement drop: she had thought it was Morton in the mask and hood, throwing light from his palm onto her work. But Anthony told her later that Morton had departed the castle before dawn.
Finally she said "Where do we go next?"
"I cannot believe in impossibilities," Hywel said, "but some can, and do. We are going to Llyn Safaddan, to see Mary."
Hywel looked up past Talgarth Tower at the Mynydd Du, saw rippled gray clouds scraping the mountaintops. People were out on the road in numbers, headed for the circles of the old faith, to be safe against the spirits that would have the freedom of earth tonight—and if a wind that blew your roof off wasn't an evil spirit, what was? Cynthia had drawn up her hood, and Hywel dropped his staff by the way, and now fewer people made signs at them as they passed.
Hywel could see the circle fires, hear chants borne on the wind; but to his mind they were invisible, silent. His mind saw and heard the wizard who was working, miles ahead.
It was John Morton, he knew, at Aberhonddu—Brecon Castle drifted in and out of his witchsight—and Morton was crafting tonight as if he were a novice, just woken to the possibility of power.
But novices lacked control; the damage they could do was limited. Morton was not by any means a novice.
There was a little stone shed, all dark inside, just off the road. "Stop here," Hywel shouted. They tied the horses on the lee side of the shed, carried lanterns inside, and struck them alight; the place was bare, except for rags hung across the windows and door. There were smells of peat and manure.
Cynthia said "Mary's cottage isn't much farther—"
"It's warded against some things," Hy
wel said. "Her presence itself
makes... just a moment." There was something more, now, in the air with Morton. It was not another sorcerer. That left only a few things it could be.
Hywel eased his Venetian eye from the socket. He held it cupped in his palm, shadowed. He caught one of the streaks of energy in the air, pulled it down and tied it. The glass began to sparkle, faintly, from within. He waited for it to come fully alight; then he scryed the pupil—
"What's the matter?" Cynthia was trying to get him on his feet. His knees hurt where he had fallen on them. He thought he might have lost the eye, but his fingers were painfully tight on it.
He had seen Morton with absolute clarity, as he worked in the tower chamber at Brecon. "Edward..." he said raggedly.
"The Prince?"
Hywel had also seen what was lying before Morton, and what Morton had done to him. "No. The King." He stood up, pulled one of the window rags aside to look at the sky. The moon was invisible; he knew it was in dying quarter. That was good for the crafting but bad for the sending of it. Even this atrocity, this outrage, was bound by the laws of matter and energy. "We have a little time," he said, trying to think how best to do what they must.
"Time for what? What's happening to the King?"
Carefully, he said "What can be done for a man who has suffered a massive apoplexy?"
"Very little. Wait, work... love."
"Not good enough," Hywel said through his teeth. He sat down on the dirt floor. "There are some candles, and a piece of white Dover chalk, in my left-hand pack. Will you please get them for me?"
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm taking you to Windsor," he said, working at his bootlaces. "A short road, but a hard one."
"And this point of the Road is Windsor," Hywel said.
"And this point of the Road is Windsor," Cynthia said after him. Hywel lit a short candle and put it into the triangle he had chalked on the ground, near the apex.
"And this is Windsor Castle, where the Road shall end," Cynthia
echoed him. He lit the last candle, placed it upon the acute point of the triangle; he dropped the bit of gunner's matchcord he had used to light the candles.
He stood slowly, feeling the wind through his light woolen robe, the chill of the earth against his bare feet. The candles gave no warmth, and almost no light.
Because it was his nature, he wondered just what it was he was doing, what levers of the universe he pushed at, naked with candles. Certainly he could not transport two people a hundred and fifty miles simply by commanding it. Nothing would happen outside, and something inside him might snap and kill him; he'd seen it.
Yet there were rules, and rules. Strip, to carry less weight—that made sense; fix the route with a map of chalk and candles—he could understand that. But he did not know why the Road must be walked barefoot, and without lanterns.
And up in Brecon Tower a man was torturing and killing another, so that a third would suffer and die. It did not seem to follow; it was just wishing, with a knife. And still Hywel knew it would work. He'd seen it.
The last of Hywel's five sorcerers who never felt the power gnaw their vitals was a Hungarian noblewoman, who did no magic without an accompanying human sacrifice. She was powerful enough to get quite a lot of work done.
She had faith absolute that as long as she had someone to kill, she need never herself decline; and there was no evidence that it was not true. When she died, she did not even curse the mob that tore her apart.
Hywel had been there to see the end.
John Morton had visited her some years before that.
Hywel stepped next to Cynthia, who stood, wrapped in her cloak, at the base of the triangle. Candles flickering in the darkness, the figure did faintly resemble a road, lanterns to either side, converging in the infinite distance.
"Are you ready?" Hywel said.
She nodded, let her cloak fall, stepped out of her shoes. She wore a satin shift, silver-gray, and a silver ribbon tied her hair. Later, Hywel thought, he would tell her about Arianrhod.
"Hope we don't arrive in sight of King Edward," she said, shivering a bit. "Might be ap-apoplexy on the s-spot."
Hywel said, "And, Cynthia..."
"Yes?"
"A large enough magic has... side effects. Corona, it's called, or just spillage. Something like this..."
"You m-mean," she said, "that you were influenced, at L-ludlow."
"I suspect I was. It doesn't change the substance of what I said... but I'm sorry for the way I said it."
"Do you have to be a wizard to feel that? I mean, to be affected?"
"No." When we destroy ourselves, he thought, we may take the rest of humankind with us.
"Th-then don't apologize. Not to me. Just get us s-somewhere warm."
Hywel began to pave the Road. He could see Britain unfolding before his mind, candle-bright points of reference: Hereford, Gloucester, Oxford, Maidenhead. The Road stretched, a journey in a single step—
He was struck across the lower back, and fell hard, hearing himself groan. One of the candles rolled past his face and went out. He put up an arm by instinct, to stop the next blow; a hand grabbed his, a thick hand, not Cynthia's. Lanternlight flashed around. Something cold struck Hywel's wrist, something metal, greasy. Then a gloved hand caught his ankle, and there was the same coldness; if they were cutting him apart the knives were unearthly sharp.
Then his wrists were pulled together, and he knew what the cold metal was: lead rods, cast in the shape of snakes. Not as powerful as cold iron, but by the time he could gather his strength again they'd have cold iron on him.
He wondered, unable to help it, why the damned snakes worked.
Finally the lanterns stopped bobbing, and he could see the intruders: there were five or six men, ordinary men-at-arms, in the Duke of Buckingham's livery. Of course, he thought; Morton could hardly do his grisly business in Brecon Castle without the master's knowledge. One soldier carried a little pendulum of corroded silver cupped in his hand, and Hywel knew how they had been found.
He knew better than to try to speak, but he would have liked to ask them what cause they thought they were serving.
One of the troopers was kicking at the floor figure. As each candle went out, Hywel felt a little of the strength he had bound up in the construct return to him. He might, in a moment, even be able to—
Where was Cynthia?
He turned, as much as he could, and saw her. One man held her wrists behind her back; he had his spear propped against his elbow, and was fumbling with a leather strap, trying to pinion her.
Another trooper had his hand in her hair; the ribbon dangled against her throat. The man had set his long gun against the wall; on his baldric, a dozen wooden powder bottles clunked like muffled, dissonant chimes.
He started to push Cynthia to her knees. They were not leering or taunting; just doing the thing as if it were part of their job. Even beasts would grunt, Hywel thought.
The spearman snarled at his companion, "A-ah, let yo'r wick smolder a-an a bit." He got the leather belt around Cynthia's left wrist, pulled the loop tight; as he did, his spear began to topple over. He cursed and grabbed for it.
Cynthia smashed her right elbow squarely into his throat. He made a choked noise and staggered back, losing his grip on her. She swung her bound wrist forward; the gunner let go her hair and dodged the leather, dropping into a fighting crouch. The end of the belt whistled around and cracked like a whip into the spearman's face. He gurgled and clutched at his eyes. The gunner took another step back, drawing a long knife. His heel crushed out the last candle, then came down on the discarded bit of matchcord.
Hywel breathed a word of nine syllables, and stroked his forefingers together. The powder vials across the man's chest went off in a single long flash. He fell down, his heart and lights spilling on the ground.
"Cynthia—" Hywel said, and felt a knobby lead bit shoved into his mouth.
But she alone of all of them
had not hesitated. She was already at the door, running into the night. Hywel could see her very clearly, a silver ghost on the wind.
The man with the pendulum snapped out a name. Another gunner, with a side glance at Hywel, blew on his match and braced his gun against the doorframe.
Hywel strained for a little more power, tasting blood in his mouth, not minding if he died for this.
But someone kicked him and broke the construct, and he fell down, thinking, Kill me, kill me and I'll curse you all blind; but they just held his head down with a boot to his temple. And he could not blind himself, but had to watch after Cynthia running, silver in the darkness, until the soldier shot her down.
PART FOUR
Turnings
of the
Wheel
Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devised at first to keep the strong in awe.
—Act V, Scene 3
Chapter Ten
TRANSITIONS
THE King was dead, long live the King, as the saying went; but nothing is ever so simple.
Gregory von Bayern watched from the side of the hall as Richard Duke of Gloucester conferred with his captains. The news of King Edward's death had arrived at Middleham two days ago, and the house was upside down with shock and gossip and travel preparations. Then, this morning, a letter had arrived by fast post from London, and Richard had added a full mobilization of the household troops to the confusion.
"Lord Hastings states," Richard said, holding the letter with its heavy seals dangling, "that he has sent word to Earl Rivers, with Prince Edward in the marches of Wales, persuading him to show good faith in the public peace by accompanying the Prince to London with no more than a thousand men... a force which Hastings further says he is confident we can match or exceed." Richard looked up from the paper. "I trust we can, Dick?"
Richard Ratcliffe, one of the bannerets, said "We should have twelve hundred, Your Grace." He hesitated. "It's well known that the King meant you as his son's protector, my lord.... Does Lord Hastings propose—"
