The Forgotten War

by Howard Sargent

  ‘It’s OK; we weren’t seen or caught,’ she said, not entirely truthfully; she had already decided not to mention the incident with the horse.

  ‘Well, if you weren’t, it is down to the grace of the Gods and no other reason, and what about you? You could have ended up dancing on a gallows if people knew what you were; one man could not stop a lynch mob. Was all this to try to see your parents?’

  ‘No, mentor, I just wanted to see the city as a normal person would.’

  His voice was all cold fury. ‘Get this into that rock between your ears.’ He stood and came over to her. She backed away a little; she had upset him many times in the past but never like this. ‘You will never, never be a normal person in the eyes of the people here. To them, you are a freak, a dangerous aberration; you spoke lightly about being a monster to me the other day; well, to them that is exactly what you are. You are the demon that haunts men’s souls, a night horror...’

  She swallowed. ‘That is a bit unkind; not all...’

  ‘Is it?’ he said. ‘Think about it, why are you here? Is it because you are a graceful dancer, or have a lovely singing voice, or is it because you can kill men effectively?’

  Her mind flashed back to the look of horror on the man’s face after he had crashed into the wagon. It had been easy, too; she barely had to concentrate to do it.

  Marcus sat back down again. ‘And now you have drawn that poor boy into your web; we were his first major command, you know; most of the senior knights are out in the country chasing mages. I have told you before: the knights exist to keep the people and ourselves apart, to keep the hanging crews from us and to stop us frying them in fear, or in temper. Instead, the two of you traipse off hand in hand into the city like two lovebirds going on a picnic. If this gets out...’

  ‘I already said that no one found out.’

  ‘That is fortunate but beside the point. He has been brought up into a world where the ladies of his class are taught to blush demurely and be meek and coy. And then this boy comes across a woman who is smart, beautiful and, for once, even better educated than he. And of course she is extremely manipulative. I should have seen the danger signs a mile off.’

  ‘He is a grown man; perhaps the fault is partly his?’

  ‘Oh, I do not doubt that, but he is not my responsibility – you are.’

  ‘Are you saying that I was too forward with him?’

  Marcus rolled his eyes in exasperation. ‘Of course, I am saying it! This is not the island, and he is not Mikel!’

  ‘But, mentor,’ she said softly. ‘I am sorry, yes, but I had no idea my behaviour was really that untoward.’

  ‘Untoward!’ he snorted. ‘If he gets out of this in one piece, you owe him the biggest of apologies. Perhaps I should have listened to the others about you.’

  Cheris screwed up her forehead. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When I told the Grand Magister I was taking you with me, he and some of the other senior council mages tried to talk me out of it. ‘It is folly,’ they said. ‘She is too young and has no idea of life in the outside world. Her head will be easily turned; you may not think her flighty but the mainland changes people. It would be like finally giving a child the key to a sweet shop that he or she has spent years looking longingly through the windows of.’

  She stared miserably at her feet. ‘I am sorry I have let you down.’

  ‘I am glad you can see it. Do you know what the punishment is for breaking the rules here?’

  ‘No, mentor.’

  ‘You would be put on the next ship back to the island under guard and upon arrival you would serve a time in solitary confinement as determined by the Grand Magister. You should never be allowed to leave the island for the rest of your life.’

  She felt her cheeks burning and her eyes watering. She respected Marcus more than any other person and the shame she felt in letting him down so badly was finally beginning to register with her. When she spoke her voice was hoarse. ‘Is that what you intend to do to me?’

  ‘Believe me,’ – his voice softened a little on seeing her tears – ‘I was sorely tempted, but, if I do that, your good friend the knight will be implicated in your disgrace. It is possible that a knight with such poor judgement deserves it... But then I thought better of it. If people never make mistakes, how will they ever learn, and that applies to both of you.’

  She looked at him, brushing tears from her reddening eyes. ‘What will you do then?’

  ‘The plan is unchanged, but you owe me, my girl... You owe me a lot!’

  ‘Thank you, mentor. I will learn from this, I promise.’

  ‘I know,’ he said gently. ‘Tell me: was your transgression worth it?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. We went to the market – it was like nothing I have ever seen.’

  ‘You went to the most populous place in the city? Even I am forced to admire your boldness. Now come.’ He lifted a cloth covered object off the bed and pulled the cloth away to reveal a platter with bread, cheese and apples. She noticed a goblet on the dresser. ‘Your food – it is why I came here in the first place.’

  She thanked him. ‘What is happening on the morrow?’

  ‘We leave early,’ he said. ‘Be ready at first light. One thing, though,’ – he looked at her guardedly – ‘I did speak to the knight in charge here; I told him that you and Sir Dylan had become ... close.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The result is, he will no longer be travelling with us; he will be replaced by an older, hopefully uglier, knight. The commander assured me there was no disgrace in this; it would be put down to an administrative error; he will be sent into the country to investigate reports of newly discovered mages and will be assigned to another mage ship in the near future.’

  She nodded, a little downcast at this news. ‘I see.’

  Marcus got up. ‘I will leave you to your thoughts for now,’ he said. ‘Enjoy your food then rest awhile. If you wish, we can speak later.’ He walked out, shutting the door.

  She did eat, and greedily. The wine made her feel heady. In her room was a copy of the Book of Artorus and the Divine Pantheon, the standard book of prayer issued by the church. She hadn’t read it in years but found herself browsing its thin, leafy pages. She read some passages about the danger of excessive pride and the cautionary tale of the man with the great mansion house by the sea; how he used to invite people around to show off the grandeur of the mansion but then was never content with it, believing that it could be even better. So he added another wing, and another, and another. In the end it grew so large the cliff could not support it and it collapsed into the sea, leaving him with nothing. She shut the book.

  She undressed and lay on the bed in her thin white shift, constantly replaying the day’s events over and over in her mind. She thought of Uba, the god of fools, and how he now had one extra convert to his cause.

  Chief among her thoughts was the ease with which she had hurt that man. He was horrible, yes, but his livelihood was stuck on that road – if he couldn’t shift his wagon, she was sure there were plenty of cut-throats who would help themselves, and then there was the other thing. The disturbing thing, the feeling inside her when she looked at his face. She had enjoyed seeing his fear. The separation of mages from the people was something that had always vexed her – could they not learn from each other? – but now, for the first time, she was having doubts. Did merely having this power make her the monster of which Marcus had spoken? It was not her fault that she possessed these abilities, but within an hour of arriving in the city she had used them ... and badly. No wonder they killed mages here and elsewhere.

  She sighed and thought of Dylan. Please don’t let him be in trouble, she thought.

  She felt tired. The wine did its soporific work and she drifted unawares into sleep.

  Suddenly she snapped to. There was a tap on her door. It was dark outside; she had slept longer than she had intended to. Assuming it was Marcus, she went and opened it.

  I
t was Dylan, back in uniform, carrying a bundle. She gestured him in, forgetting she was only partially dressed. In the dark, though, he didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘I am so, so sorry,’ she whispered.

  ‘It is all right.’ He smiled wanly. ‘Nobody noticed us; everyone had thought I had gone to the market in my off-duty time anyway. Only they thought I had gone alone, an assumption I did not challenge.’

  ‘What about the man? And the horse?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I mentioned I had seen a man and a horse injured when I got back and our farrier and a couple of knights went to have a look. The man was dazed; he said he remembered shouting at some woman and that he must have tripped and fell. He wasn’t badly injured; he was patched up and the wagon righted.’

  ‘And the horse?’

  ‘I am sorry. It was too far gone; there was nothing anyone could do. We lent the man a horse to take his goods back to his warehouse.’

  She sighed. ‘Poor horse. Have you heard about tomorrow?’

  ‘The change of command? Of course I have. It was inevitable, I suppose; knights should not get too friendly with mages. You are a dangerous lot, you know.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said again. ‘I have made so much trouble for you.’

  ‘Forget it!’ He smiled. ‘I fully intend to go and see Sir Adnan and make him insanely jealous.’

  ‘Yes, tell him that the lady Miriam is utterly, utterly devoted to you and that her heart belongs to no other. Tell him she realises her status is too low for you to wed so she intends to keep you by using every wile known to women in the bedroom. Tell him she has studied the Tarindian ways of love-making and practises all of them on you, and, finally, tell him she would rather lay with a suckling pig than a red-faced man with gout.’

  They both giggled. She was close to him, and he could feel her breath on his face; it smelled sweet, like a breeze from a meadow full of spring flowers.

  ‘What is that?’ she asked, pointing to the bundle.

  ‘Oh yes.’ He opened it – inside was the dress she had worn earlier. ‘She is quite agreeable to parting with it.’

  ‘Wonderful!’ said Cheris excitedly. She took a purse off the dresser and handed him a crown. ‘I am ever deeper in your debt.’

  ‘It is costing you a lot more than it is worth.’

  ‘No matter! It is worth it to me.’

  ‘I had best be on my way.’ He turned to go.

  ‘Oh Dylan, I am so sorry for today. Never listen to such a stupid girl again.’

  ‘Life is a learning process, and the last thing you are is stupid.’

  She leaned forward, kissing him lightly on the cheek. ‘Thank you, my friend.’

  ‘Goodnight, my Lady. I hope and trust in the Gods that we shall meet again.’

  ‘Goodnight, Sir Dylan. I hope that day will come soon.’

  He nodded to her, his cheek warm with her kiss, and then he was gone.

  She looked after him, thinking hard, then at the dress he had given her. She lifted the lid of her trunk and folded it gently inside.

  Perhaps it had all been worth it after all.

  9

  It was a fine clear night and a full moon sat heavily in the sky under its carpet of stars. Now and then a thin wisp of cloud would float tentatively in front of it, fragile and ephemeral, a delicate strand of gossamer, until it had traversed its ghostly face and disappeared into nothingness. The air was crisp, brittle. As she breathed, she exhaled gouts of smoky-white air into the velvet blackness.

  Where was she?

  She looked about her. She stood on a narrow parapet atop a great tower, an impossibly tall tower, and by the light of the moon she could see that it was sheathed in gold. It was the bell tower of the cathedral. Looking down confirmed this for her. Under her feet was the cathedral’s sloping roof framed within its own spires and surrounding it the cathedral square, its colossal flagstones hardly visible in the cloaking darkness such was her height above the ground.

  She kept looking down without ever wondering how she had ended up here in the first place. It would be so easy, so, so easy, just to throw out her arms and then, while still cruciform, just to lean gently forward, little by little, inch by inch, until her momentum would be unstoppable and she would be ... falling.

  Falling, so she was, she was falling, arms outstretched, wind coursing through her uncombed hair, buffeting her face and ears, as, eyes open, she beheld the ground, its enormous rectangular flagstones rushing towards her. She idly and quite dispassionately wondered which one she would hit. It would be any second now ... any ... second.

  But no, she hadn’t hit the ground; rather, she was moving upwards, the moon getting closer, the roofs of the houses getting smaller and smaller. She was flying.

  Where was she now? The momentum had stopped. She was still, alone in a pool of night in which nothing, not even silhouettes or shadows, could be seen. All there was was the sound of water, a steady drip-drip-drip into a large body of water close by. It was probably a lake. There was a cavernous echo to the sound – was she in a cave? She felt cold; there was a glacial bone-deep chill inside her. She felt like she wanted to move her heavy, stiff limbs, but she just couldn’t, just couldn’t. Was she paralysed? It certainly felt like it. And then she understood why all was darkness about her; it was that her eyes were shut firmly. She couldn’t open them either; her eyelids felt like two great, lead shutters, impossibly heavy, like the rest of her body. She felt frustration building inside her, real frustration. Whenever this sort of thing happened to her as a child, she would get redder and redder in the face until at last she emitted something that sounded like a great sigh or an angry sob without it being either. She was going to do it now, she could tell. With an effort of will she thought barely possible, her mouth opened; her frustration was building from her stomach, up her throat and into her mouth. And then she ... roared. Not a sigh, nor a sob, or even a howl, but a full-throated animalistic roar powerful enough to send stones falling from the cave roof. The roar of some ... monster.

  Ceriana sat bolt upright in bed, dripping in sweat, mouth open but unable to scream. Tears welled up in her fear-haunted eyes.

  The door opened and in walked Doren. Sunlight filtered through the great windows of Loubian Hall, where she had the second bedroom.

  ‘Morning, my Lady, no time for nightmares now; I will run a nice bath and myself and the other ladies can get you ready. You will never look more beautiful than you will today. It will be a wedding to remember.’

  Ceriana stared uncomprehendingly for a moment then slumped back on to the bed. Wedding. The top of the bell tower had never seemed more appealing.

  It was a clear, bright day with the merest hint of autumnal chill in the breeze sweeping the cathedral square. Noon had passed and a crowd had gathered behind a line of blue-liveried city guardsmen. As it was not a full state occasion many people were still working hard in the market, at the seafront, or in the halls of the artisans, but there were still enough of the idle and curious to swell the crowd to a respectable size. Quite a few street vendors had moved from their usual pitches to try their luck here – the people selling scarves or leather goods doing less well than the food vendors roasting nuts or strips of meat and fat over braziers, or doling out jugs of mead or ale to those with a thirst. Many had been there quite a few hours and quite a party atmosphere was developing.

  ‘Did you see her go in?’ a matronly lady in a white bonnet said to a friend whose silver hair was covered by a black shawl. ‘I reckon it was samite, white samite studded with jewels. I heard others say it was silk but, well, I guess they never saw samite before.’

  ‘Put a ducat on it,’ replied her older companion. ‘That tall fella over there, he’s taking bets on it, you know.’

  ‘I’ll put one on for both of us, and I’ll bring you back a jug of ale, too.’

  ‘Half a jug! You know how my bladder plays up.’

  ‘Drink it all, then you can use the jug! I’ll be back in a minute.’r />
  After she returned with the ale her companion took a deep draught and said. ‘She is a tiny little thing, isn’t she? You would think with all that money she would be as fat as the barman in the old Crab Pot. If I was as rich as that, I would eat and eat and eat.’

  ‘Well, one thing the likes of us can do is choose who we marry, though even then it is easy to make a mistake. That poor lass gets married off to Elissa knows who and has to get carted off to the middle of nowhere as well! I am amazed her father let it happen.’

  ‘Rumour is that he didn’t,’ said a tall thin man in a stained yellow jerkin standing next to them. ‘As I heard it, he didn’t want her married at all, but the Grand Duke overruled him.’

  ‘And how would you know that?’ said the matron scornfully.

  ‘I has a cousin that ostlers in Edgecliff; he heard the servants talking. They say she is a sad lonely little thing but the apple of her dad’s eye. It’s not good when you think of it, not good at all – the two most powerful men in the country falling out like that.’ He smiled, expelling ale breath over a maw of cracked and discoloured teeth.

  ‘You best be careful what you say, sir, with all these guards about.’ said the old lady. ‘I remember when one of her sisters married here, someone said something untoward and one of the guards dragged him out and put him in the stocks. He was there till next day – ever so sorry for himself he was.’

  ‘Especially when you emptied that bowl of rancid cabbage over him,’ the matron laughed.

  ‘Well, he insulted nobility; I have no truck with people like that.’

  ‘And you never miss one of these occasions either.’

  ‘Not in fifty years; I have seen them all, every one.’

  Suddenly the chimes started. In the bell tower an army of priests were straining on the ropes letting out a paean to the happy couple. A spontaneous cheer came from the assembled throng who pushed against the restraining guards eager to catch sight of the great doors being opened.