by Dave Duncan
The shed was a long space with a dozen or so cots lined up on one side. A big stone fireplace halfway along the opposite wall crackled happily, and the pungent fog of smoke hanging under the thatch was not as thick as I was accustomed to. Candles in sconces along the walls made the room bright. It was clearly a men’s place: it stank of men, horses, and oil, while workbenches along the fireplace wall were piled with saddles and other tack, waiting to be cleaned or repaired. Men’s clothes lay almost everywhere and were hung to dry on makeshift clotheslines everywhere else. Bundles and baskets had been shoved in under the cots.
Alwin led me along to the middle, to a cot directly across from the fire. “Here,” he said. “You sleep here, visitors’ place of honor.” My designated mattress was piled higher than any with clothes, but he proceeded to tip it up and slide them all off, onto the floor. “Help yourself to anything that the slovenly nithings have left around. Here’s a towel. Hungry?”
I was bone weary and relaxed to jelly by the heat and the light and the sense of comradeship. For once I was a Saxon among Saxons, a hostler among hostlers. I could jabber in the old tongue and be understood and accepted. I need not fawn and grovel.
“Could eat a wild boar live.” The leftover rations had gone with the Normans’ baggage.
“We’ll roast it for you. You! Scur!”
He was addressing the only other person present, a shapeless older man heaped like a bundle of old rags on the foot of a cot next to the one the master of horse had just assigned to me. He seemed to be staring into the fire, and had shown no sign that he was aware of us. Nothing of his person was visible except some stringy gray rat-tails dangling from under his hood.
After a moment for reflection this relic swiveled his head just enough to reveal a dirty gray beard and one glittering eye, but the rest of his face remained concealed. He stared fixedly at my boot.
“Aye, boss?” His voice was somewhere between a groan and a croak.
“Aye, you.”
“Aye, I. Then we are agreed, and all is well. Unless the horses, your masters, cry, ‘Neigh’? And if they cry nay, then surely you must not answer, ‘I.’”
“Fool, go fetch some victuals for brother Durwin. Tell the cooks I sent you, mind. Tell them it’s for a guest.”
With a sigh Scur heaved himself upright and turned toward us. He was surprisingly large in all directions, while still resembling a bag of rags. When he drew close to me, he raised his head so I could see all of his face. It was a wreck, as if it had been stepped on by a roughshod stallion: his nose was a misshapen blob, his left eye had been replaced by a patch of white scar, and his mouth twisted and distorted. He stood there for a moment as if to give me time to inspect this horror, while his remaining eye studied my face to see how I was reacting.
“Food would be welcome,” I said.
“Move your fat ærs,” Alwin said, “before I kick it out of here for good.”
I moved aside as Scur lumbered forward, but then the old man stopped and leered a nightmare, toothless smile right in my face. “Will fair to behold fare to be held?” he croaked. Cackling as if this were some rib-splitting humor, he continued on his way. When he opened the door, the fireplace belched smoke.
Alwin tapped his forehead and rolled his eyes to indicate that Scur’s injuries were internal as well as external. He certainly had not spoken like an average stableman.
I stripped off my sodden hood and cloak, dried my face on the welcome, if grubby, towel, and then shivered into goose bumps. I was happy that my adept’s cape was safely out of sight in my satchel, because to reveal that now would end any chance of informal chatter with the hands. Only in an academy could an adept ever be one of the boys.
As always, I must consider the boot on my leg. I couldn’t strip with it on; I could barely walk without it. “Can I borrow some clothes while mine dry?”
Alwin had sat down to watch, perhaps waiting to see how the trick footwear worked. “Said so, didn’t I? Here, take the biggest. They should fit you.” He rose to collect replacement garments from nearby lines and cots, and dumped them beside me. Then he returned to his perch on the edge of the cot that the man Scur had just vacated.
“Thanks.” I turned my back on my host before unlacing my leggings and removing my shirt. After years of living by myself, I was uncomfortable exposing myself in company. I toweled vigorously. I would not have been surprised to see myself steaming. “Tell me how the sage died.”
“Archibald? We were all gathered in the hall for dinner, see, just afore noon yesterday. Countess puts on a grand spread at this time of year: fresh fish, onions, beans, apples, bread and butter, and meat three or four times a week! Beer was a bit thin, I thought, and there was some muttering about that. But the fiddler plays for us and sings a song or two whilst we’re eating. The sage was up at the count’s table, as usual. We’d just gotten started. Chaplain said grace. We’d no sooner seated us down when the sage tried to leave, like as if he wasn’t feeling good. Then he sort of stumbled. The count saw, shouted for someone to help him. He was carried out, and Father Randolf went after them. At dawn they tolled the church bell for him.”
I donned a fresh shirt, still slightly damp and somewhat tight across the shoulders, then sat down to unstrap my boot. Because one side of my cot was made inaccessible by the clothes Alwin had dumped there, I perforce must sit directly opposite my host, almost knee to knee. I wished he would stop staring at me as if I were some sort of freak show.
The sage’s death didn’t sound too bizarre; a stroke, or a sudden hemorrhage in the bowels. Why had the count invoked the Despero in extremis cry for help?
“An old man, was he?”
“Not near. Doubt if he’d seen thirty winters. Just came here a couple of years ago, after Sage Charles left.”
That made more sense of the count’s alarm. I laid the boot beside the cot, dropped my leggings, and began toweling my legs. Meanwhile I rearranged my thinking. Death came to all like a thief in the night, as the priests said, but few men in their twenties die quite that fast. Unexpected death must always raise whispers of black magic, and doubly so when the deceased himself had been a sage.
“You mentioned murder. Any reason except that it was so quick?”
The master of horse just shrugged and continued to stare at my knees. A pretty girl’s legs I could have understood. I had heard of men who fancied men, but never met any. Alwin’s curious taste might explain Scur’s parting jest. I felt uneasy until I had pulled on the borrowed leggings—much better quality than those I had just shed—and laced them to my britches as well as I could while sitting. Then I strapped my boot on again, found my staff, and stood up to complete my toilet.
I was still lacing when another gush of smoke proclaimed the return of old Scur, who shuffled along to me and to offer a flask of beer, a slab of bread loaded with a slice of salt fish, and a thick wedge of yellow cheese. It looked good and would have looked better had the old man’s hands been cleaner.
Nevertheless I took the offering and said, “Thank you.”
Scur rasped a horrible cough. “Half a leg is better than no brains, they do say.”
“I know people with all their brains who limp when they think.”
The old man greeted my attempt at a jest with a laugh that turned into another cough, and he spat on the floor.
Smoke billowed, a couple of dogs arrived, eager to help me eat my supper, and the hostlers followed, complaining about mud and “that hellish stallion of yours.” They were all youngsters. Somewhere in this anthill of a castle there must be married quarters for older men.
As I ate, conversation turned to my journey, the flooding, the harvest, and other less alarming topics than murder, until a distant bell began to sound the curfew. Alwin rose to snuff the candles in the sconces, lighting a torch at the last one, then bade his lads a safe repose and went out into the night.
There was some discussion of whom he had gone to visit, and all the names seemed to be male, but a lot o
f them were greeted with laughter. We lay down and chatted by firelight for a while, but exhaustion wrapped me up like a shroud. I was asleep before the serious snoring began.
chapter 12
“this one . . . Durwin! Durwin, wake up. Wake up!”
Who was waving a lantern in my face and shouting? Squire William, of course; his hair awry, his voice shrill. Two other men stood behind him; hostlers on nearby cots were stirring and growling.
“Wha’s matter?” I said.
“Get up! The count wants you.”
That worked like a bucket of cold water, no, a lake of it. I sat up. The count wanted me? Me? Wanted me? I lay down again to grab for my clothes, which I had placed under the cot on top of my satchel to keep them off the dirty floor—not my own clothes, which would still be wet, the clothes I had borrowed. Voices were warning what unthinkable things were going to happen if certain unmentionable people didn’t take those unspeakable lanterns away.
“We’ll wait outside,” said an older man’s voice, and its owner hung his lantern on one of the wall sconces. The intruders departed while I struggled with someone else’s leggings . . . my boot . . . someone else’s shirt . . . smock . . . my shoe . . . my cloak and hood.
Going to meet a count? I dug the adept’s white cape out of my satchel. Then I found my staff, slung the precious satchel on my left shoulder, and was ready to take down the lantern and go to be presented to a count. I hoped I wouldn’t make too big a fool of myself. I hadn’t shaved for two days. Fortunately my blond stubble was not too conspicuous.
Outside, the sky was brightening in the east. Above the thatch of the cottages, lights showed in narrow windows high in the keep. In the cold stood Squire William, all alone, hugging himself as if to keep warm, although the air wasn’t cold. Raising the light, I studied the Norman’s face and decided that he was scared. Yes, the boy who would deliberately goad his teachers into giving him vicious beatings was now shivering with fear.
“Come on! Hurry!”
I leaned on my staff and planted one real foot and an iron one. “First you explain to me just what in Satan’s shit house is going on.”
“Count Richard wants you, Saxon. Now!”
“Tell me why or I won’t—”
“Because Rolf is dying. His brother. He’s frightened he’s been murdered like Sage Archibald.”
Appalled but still barely awake, I cried, “And he thinks I did it?”
“No, no, no,” William was gabbling. “He wants a sage. Two murders in two days and he asked me if I could explain it and I told him I couldn’t but we had an adept with us who was very learned—I stressed that, Adept, I truly did! I told them how highly Sage Guy always praised you, even though you’re only a Saxon, and I had to explain why you weren’t sleeping in the hall where I was, and the count sent me to find you right away, and see if you can save Rolf, so you must hurry; we have to hurry! The chaplain’s giving him the last rites. He’s dying.”
I was already hobbling along the miry lane. Called to aid a dying man? Who or what did I think I was? I had my bag of herbs in my satchel. I could minister to boils, constipation, or bellyaches, but I had never treated serious diseases, only witnessed them while assisting one of the sages. And the chances that I could unwind a major death curse were less than a moth’s odds in Hell.
On the other hand . . . most people don’t understand that there are many types of sorcery. Even a sage’s brother might not understand the difference between an incantation and a potion. If the killer—and obviously there must be a killer to cause two such sudden deaths in two days—if the killer was using poison, then there might be hope. There are ways of dealing with poisons, even when you aren’t certain which poison has been used. Rarely an attempted remedy might make the situation worse, or so Guy had taught me, but those chances were often worth taking, better than doing nothing in cases likely to be fatal.
“William!”
The squire slowed down to let me catch up. He didn’t even complain about the lack of a respectful title. “Yes?”
“Dean Odo has taught you—I know he has because I’ve heard him doing so—that the first half of success is trust. Remember? The sinner must have faith in Lord Jesus, the patient must trust the doctor, and the client must believe in the sage. So the doctor, priest, or enchanter must believe in himself. That is the first step, always the first step.”
“I remember, but—”
“No butting! I appreciate that you praised me and that will help, but you must stop looking like a gang-raped milkmaid. You’re a Norman and the son of a knight. Straighten your shoulders. Stick out your chin. Be proud of the responsibility we bear. Look eager to see how your hero the adept will solve the problem! I know you’re not a coward, because I’ve oftentimes known you to deliberately bait the sages into welting your ass off. You have a lot more courage than I have, so start using it. While I’m wearing my adept’s cloak, you must address me as ‘Adept’ or even ‘master’ if you can manage it without choking.”
“Tu es un chien merdique des Saxons!”
“And you are a son of Norman warriors being called upon to do your duty as your ancestors did. Can I count on you, William?”
“You expect me to grovel to you, cripple?”
“For now, I just want the respect due my rank, but I demand no less. What happens later doesn’t matter.”
William uttered a strangled noise that might have been, “Aye, sir.” After a moment, he added, “For now.”
I lifted the strap from my shoulder and passed him the satchel. “Guard this carefully. It contains a priceless grimoire that Guy loaned me, and my bag of common remedies. Do you recall the favored treatments for poison ingested by mouth?”
“No, Adept.”
“Try!”
“Um, vomiting . . . er . . . master?”
“That’s one. A feather down the throat, or an emetic of mustard and water. Another antidote is finely ground charcoal. I have all of these in my satchel. If I ask you for anything, it will be in my satchel, clearly labeled.” I knew William could read, despite his pretense otherwise, but I did not know how well.
Giving orders to a Norman felt unreal. I would be made to pay for this later. My limp wouldn’t save me from the beating of a lifetime if William thought I had earned it.
“Master?” That time it came out more clearly.
“Yes, Squire?”
“A sage and then a sage. The killer is targeting sages. Is it wise for you to wear your cape? He may strike at you next.”
Did he honestly think that I hadn’t thought of that?
“It is my duty, Squire. If I am to help his brother, I must persuade Count Richard to believe in me and believe what I say, even though I am, as you so perceptively remark, only a shitty Saxon dog.”
William muttered, “Yes, Adept.”
The door of the keep, at the top of the long staircase, was guarded by four men-at-arms with pikes and lanterns. In one of the greatest surprises of my life, they saluted me. Of course they were only honoring my cape, but no one had ever touched a forehead in my direction before and it felt bizarrely good, at the same time as it increased the nervous turmoil in my belly. It might impress my doubting disciple, but it made me feel even more of a fraud.
The entrance was narrow, so as to be easily defended, and led only to a spiral staircase, which was not the easiest climb for a man wearing an iron sole and leaning on a six-foot staff. At the top, I emerged into what was no doubt called the great hall, although it was no larger than the refectory in Pipewell Abbey. Count Richard’s castle was tiny compared to the huge one in Northampton, whose hall must be truly great. It was still dark, unlit except by our lanterns and a fire blazing in the fireplace built into the far wall, possibly heating cauldrons of water for His Lordship’s toilet.
I could see that bedding almost completely covered the floor, for the knights, men-at-arms, and male servants would sleep here. A few of them were honored with cots, which probably transformed into benche
s and tables during the day. The rest slept on fleeces or right on the rushes, like the snoring dogs. Although the bell for matins had not yet been rung, most of the inhabitants seemed to be awake, sitting up or leaning on their arms, quietly chatting, either to their neighbors or in small groups. Word of the count’s brother’s plight had spread, and the talk must be of curses and black magic.
As I began to walk, silence spread through the hall like ripples on a pond. Thump . . . thump . . . thump . . . staff, iron boot, white cape. A boy dressed like a stable hand wearing an adept’s insignia? I kept my chin high and stared straight ahead, studying the tangles on the back of William’s head as he led the way between the pallets, heading for the platform at the far end. There were only four beds up there, all vacated. The count would dine on that dais with his family and officers, but it was only one step up, and I managed it without a stumble, aware of a hundred eyes fixed on me.
At that moment, a distant bell tolled. It was too deep and far off to be the castle bell I had heard sounding the curfew the previous evening, and I knew at once that its somber tone proclaimed the sage’s death. For a moment the world seemed to freeze. William glanced back at me with the staring eyes of a bird, and his tangled hair emphasized his horror. A second sage dead in two days?
My first thought was relief that I did not have to try to treat a dying man, so could not be accused of killing him when I failed. My second thought was utter shame at the first. I had not liked Rolf, but I had respected his learning and his dedication to both music and arcane studies. No man deserved to die by the treacherous hand of an assassin. I crossed myself, as everyone else was doing, and was murmuring a prayer as the second knell rang out across the night-shrouded countryside.
Could I really help Count Richard identify the killer? The count was certainly the local sheriff, the king’s deputy for upholding the law, but I was now the local expert on arcane arts. I gave William a nod and he led the way across to the door at the back of the platform. This he rapped on and then opened, stepping back to bow the adept in. So William was going to play his part, and I must do the same.
