It occurred to Luneté that there was surely some formula for the proceedings to follow; the Court had a formula for everything. She had no idea what it might be.
“Good afternoon,” Dewar said pleasantly, and she glanced back as she rose to see him leaving the window. He had not bowed. “How stirring to see such interest aroused by a little unfashionable sorcery,” he said.
Luneté wanted to slap him and tell him to keep his flippancies for light matters, such as the Baroness of Broul. She breathed slowly and deeply, damning Laudine’s ill-measured needlework.
“Lord Gonzalo, the protocol?” Dewar asked.
Lord Gonzalo nodded, coughed slightly, and spoke. “I have conferred with the Master of Protocol. As it was done in Prince Esclados’s case,” he said, “the procedure was to establish paternity as claimed by the Prince. There has not been a case of disproving paternity, and there really is no protocol.”
The sorcerer shrugged: then he would invent one. “The object of this sorcery,” he said pedantically to the waiting Princes, Princesses, and the Emperor and Empress, “is to establish two things. First, to establish the truth or falsity of recent claims that Baron Ottaviano is not the son of Prince Sebastiano. Second, depending on the outcome of the first, to establish who in fact sired the Baron. I will state now—for Master Cremmin’s always-useful record—that it is quite plain to me, as it is plain to anyone with proper training in the power granted by the Well, that Baron Ottaviano’s father was an initiate of the Well. His mother was not, but he bears nonetheless the signs of Well-engendering.”
Ottaviano was taken aback. Luneté opened her mouth to speak and closed it. Lord Gonzalo’s and Prince Gaston’s bland expressions did not change at all, and the others glanced sidelong at one another with the beginnings of surmises in their faces.
“What are these signs, Lord Dewar?” asked the Empress, as much to disrupt the moment as to know the answer.
“Madame, they are difficult to describe, but easy to see. Poetically, but not wholly accurately—the Baron has the requisite streak of Fire in his soul.”
“Is the soul visible to you?” she inquired, managing to make the question sound curious and not contemptuous.
“No, madame. I did say, poetically. When viewed with perception in the proper—octave, the Well’s Fire is apparent in the Baron.” Dewar paused; the Empress nodded, and the Emperor scowled. “Before I continue,” Dewar said, “all present must swear that they will endorse the truth which I shall discover in addressing these two questions. I require the Oath of Blood.”
A brief silence of shock was followed by a storm of royal and Imperial outrage. “Blasphemous!” cried Pallgrave. Cremmin, faithfully taking notes for the Emperor, resorted to abbreviations. Dewar stood, arms folded, and Ottaviano and Luneté followed his example and remained quiet. He seemed to know what he was about. Lord Gonzalo stood gazing at the covered table, his expression remote and grave.
The sorcerer lifted his hand. “If you refuse,” Dewar said, “I shall perform the sorcery anyway and shall broadcast both the result and that the witnesses refused to endorse it as truth. Your credit will suffer, I assure you, and denial of the Well’s truth always brings its own unpleasant consequences.”
“Blackmail,” Prince Herne muttered.
“Prince Herne, you may leave if you do not wish to remain,” Dewar said. “Which I would also make a point of mentioning.”
There came still no word from the Emperor; the Empress and the others were waiting for his lead. Dewar’s expression was cool, contemptuous; Prince Fulgens was glaring at Ottaviano as if it were his idea (Luneté did not think it was).
The silence ended. “I do swear by the Well that sustains me, to endorse the truth of the matter of the birth of Ottaviano, which shall be revealed here through sorcery; an I fail of this oath, let the Fire of the Well in my blood destroy me,” Prince Gaston recited quietly.
Luneté realized that the Marshal had just embarrassed the rest of them heartily and forced them into the Oath. If he took it and they did not, they would look very bad when the matter came to be discussed by others, as Dewar would assure it would be. Even without an oath, the Fireduke’s probity was proverbial.
The Emperor stiffened, visibly angry; but he said the Oath, almost muttering it, his expression hard.
Luneté thought she wouldn’t want to be Prince Gaston later.
The others followed the Emperor, and Luneté, Otto, and Lord Gonzalo swore as well.
“For the first stage of my work,” Dewar said, “I must have either a Key or some article intimately and strongly associated with the late Prince Sebastiano. As the associations of the Prince’s belongings are weakened with time and disuse, and I have no appetite for tomb-openings to retrieve relics from the dead, I hope someone has a full set of Keys or can fetch them.”
“I’ve mine,” Prince Josquin said, and fished a flat, hand-sized leather case from an inner coat-pocket. “You may borrow them,” he said with a grin. He tossed the case underhand to Dewar, who plucked it out of the air, giving Prince Josquin in return a slight bow and a smile.
“Thank you. Which is Prince Sebastiano’s?” Dewar had opened the case. The objects within were unlabelled, all different, arrayed in rows.
“On the bottom, third from the right.”
Dewar extracted the square-topped iron Key from the case and removed the cloth from the table. Underneath were a golden candelabrum, a tall shell-footed silver ewer, and a hemispherical gold basin. A round silver box with high sides, like a lady’s powder-box, was also there, its lid hiding its contents. The candelabrum was one Luneté recognized from the banquets she had lately attended; its form was of two open circles one above the other, candles in two tiers—an epergne. At the banquets, flowers, statues, or even portraits and conversation-pieces were displayed in the circles, lit from all sides by the candles. Dewar picked up the golden bowl and put it inside the circles; it fit as if made to do so.
The onlookers watched without interrupting. The Emperor’s face was hostile and cold.
From somewhere Dewar produced a little flame, dancing at the end of his finger; he touched each of the candles and they flared high, then settled into a steady burn. Their light reflected in the golden bowl and lit his face from below. Luneté felt a tickle in her belly; Gaston lifted his head as if scenting something; the Emperor leaned forward without knowing; and Otto moved half-a-step toward Dewar.
“Susceptible,” muttered Dewar, or something like it, and he lifted his hand to Otto: wait.
Otto shook himself as if waking and stopped.
Dewar opened the silver box and took out something crescent-shaped that flashed in the candlelight. He set it aside on the white tablecloth. Luneté was suddenly aware that he was talking, speaking in a rippling undertone singsong, and she wondered how long he had been doing that. His expression was at once remote and ecstatic and wholly attentive. The candle flames streamed upward; Dewar lifted the ewer and poured water into the golden bowl, and it looked like fire streaming downward.
Somehow he had picked up Sebastiano’s Key, and he dropped it into the bowl. It sparked and glittered as it fell more slowly than it ought, and the water did not splash when it struck. Instead, there was a deep bell-like sound.
Dewar, gazing into the bowl, beckoned peremptorily to Ottaviano. Otto joined him at the table, watching and listening to Dewar’s murmured spell. Dewar grabbed Otto’s arm, shoved his sleeve back, and held his wrist over the flames above the bowl, which was glowing with light now, the Key’s outline visible as a dark shadow-form over it. Dewar picked up the silver sickle and paused, said “Now!,” and blood gushed from Otto’s arm down into the bowl, or blood and fire, and the shape of the Key remained a hollow shadow.
Luneté smelled the blood. Her stomach roiled. She swallowed and clenched her hands, biting her palms with her nails, and slowed her frightened breathing.
Dewar released Otto’s wrist. Otto stepped back, pressing the cut. The sorcerer moved hi
s hands, speaking indistinctly, and a veil of carmine-glowing blood swirled upward from the bowl. It moved around and around the shape of the Key, upward and downward like a tubular fountain, and Dewar stood with his hands to either side of the candelabrum and bowl, watching it.
He broke off his muttered incanting and said, “Is this clear?”
“Yes,” whispered Ottaviano.
“No,” said the Emperor.
“If Otto were of Sebastiano’s line, his blood would by its affinity form the shape of Sebastiano’s Key, drawn to its origin. Were I to do this with your Key, Emperor, and Josquin’s blood, that is what you would see, for his is yours; he is your son.”
“Ah,” whispered the Empress.
“The next phase will be rather trickier,” Dewar said, “as it involves using all of your Keys, balancing the force in all. You may feel a touch strange.” He clapped his hands once—did they pass through the candles?—and the blood subsided. Sebastiano’s Key was hanging there instead, between the candles. Dewar reached in and cupped it in his hand, lifted it out gently, and set it aside.
“This will suffice,” the Emperor said sharply, beginning to rise.
“Oh, no,” Dewar said, glancing at him, “one doesn’t drive sorcery like a horse, Avril; it is in hand, it is moving, and it will go on. Pray you remain.”
His fingers had been busy as he spoke, plucking Keys from Josquin’s case and putting them, one by one, in the candle-flames, where they hovered and became little balls of flame. They moved, arranging themselves; lines of fire leapt among them, drawing two squares overlapping: an octagon, a star of white-gold fire.
The Emperor had fallen back into his chair, gripping the arms, breathing hard, and perspiring copiously. Gaston was nearly smiling, his eyes half-closed, and he made a small, contented-sounding “Hmm …” noise as if savoring a fine wine.
“The Well,” Herne whispered, and Fulgens and Josquin both looked wild-eyed and folded their arms tightly.
Otto was shaking. “Come on, man,” he moaned.
“I wonder what Esclados thinks of this,” murmured Dewar, “and Father,” but he took from his sleeve a slender black wand, touched with silver and gold, and moved it through the star-shape.
A line of Otto’s blood rose up like smoke from the gold bowl, following the wand-tip as Dewar traced the two squares, touching each Key-light in turn.
“Gaston, no,” Dewar said quietly, passing one. “Prospero, no. Herne, no. Fulgens, no.”
Otto was whispering the “No”s with him, his eyes closed, concentrating. Luneté wondered what he felt; he was still shaking, and she stepped quietly closer to him.
“Yes!” shouted Otto explosively, a triumphant happy note in his cry, as Dewar’s wand and the blood-plume touched a light, which flared and shot down into the bowl.
Dewar flicked the wand past the remaining lights; they dimmed and fell with metal clanks on the table and candelabrum. The Empress had cried out, and she and Princess Evote were fanning the Emperor, who half-lay now in the throne-like chair on the dais.
The sorcery was dissolved. On the table were eight candles, scattered Keys, a bowl of blood and water, an empty silver ewer. A few scarlet drops bloomed on the white cloth.
Dewar stood with his arms folded, smiling slightly, looking down at the table; then he began picking up the Keys, examining each one, and returning them to the case.
The Emperor recovered himself and pushed the Empress and Princess Evote aside.
“Well?” Princess Viola asked. “What does it all mean, sorcerer?”
“Mean?” Dewar repeated, glancing up at her, at all of them. A merry wicked light was in his eyes, but his face was set and cold. He put the tip of his wand in the bowl and lifted the remaining Key free, holding it up for them all to see, dripping blood. “Why, Madame Princess, it means it is impossible to hide the truth from the Well; that all things are clear in the end; that blood is thicker than water; and that the Emperor Avril is Ottaviano’s father.”
Luneté felt her mind leave her, flying away into comforting darkness and leaving her body to pitch gracelessly toward the floor.
Drugged, Freia allowed herself to be parted from her father and put to bed, bruises bathed and salved; but she roused often, crying out, and betweentimes whimpered in uneasy dreams. So Prospero sat by her, gnawing his nails to the quick, talking to her low-voiced, telling her tales and fables. Two maids sent by the Empress stayed sewing in the outer room; one or the other fetched him coffee, water, a towel, more candles when the Prince commanded, but they would not look at him and sidled away, at once afraid and disdainful. He read when Freia was quiet, and when the sedative’s effect lessened and she distressed herself with wild talk, he made her drink the bitter-tasting cordial-laced stuff. The third time, she sank shortly after into a deeper sleep—the silver light of a wolf-dawn making her repose deathlike—and in a while, as the maids left and others came, Prospero slept too, sitting, book slipping from hand to lap, snoring softly.
A touch woke him; he started, clenching hands and body, shaking his head, casting off sleep’s net.
Freia was trying to take his hand.
“Puss,” he said to her, and patted her fingers. The fire had finally warmed the room, even to the windows; her hand wasn’t icy-frail.
“Papa, please, let us go home.”
He sighed, shook his head, and said, “Nay, Freia. We may not leave.” And, as he’d feared, within two brief minutes she was halfway to hysteria again, wanting to go home, to leave the evil place and the hateful people, and he must drug her again for peace. So it went later in the afternoon; he coaxed her to eat, that time, half of a bowlful of soup one of the insolent maids brought, and in the course of eating Freia again began pleading to leave and telling him she feared Golias, stammering and weeping and speaking incoherently, and Prospero again gave her the potion he had brewed, regretting he’d not made it stronger. She was overwrought, all out of proportion to what had happened; he was near losing patience with her distress and demands and must mind his tongue.
No one came to inquire about her during the day. Prospero sat and read, deliberately reserving himself from outrage and rage, tending his daughter and biding his time. He sent the maids for food and wine, and watched the heatless light leave the clouds as he dined, and watched the stars beyond the fire’s reflection as he supped. For some little while the Well was uncommonly agitated; he felt it surging and catching at him, never fastening: some sorcery afoot, but there seemed no threat in it, and soon it faded away. With a heart-pang, he supposed that Dewar was working.
Freia’s own exhaustion finally regulated her; she woke, said nothing but accepted some boiled chicken and custard and kept them down, and slept true sleep afterward. Prospero, pleased but cautious, thought he had better stay a few hours more. He was surrounded by the heavy winter night; the fire and two candles by the bed were all the light. The maids left and no others came. Again Prospero dozed, his hand on Freia’s wrist where beat a steady dream-paced pulse.
11
“PROSPERO!”
Light, movement, noise: Prospero started, the image of his cavern-cell fleeting from his mind’s eye, his name ringing in his ears.
“Be still, damn thy throat!” he hissed as he sat up. “She sleeps. Herne?” Prospero stood.
“Aye,” Herne growled, appearing with a candle in his hand at the sitting-room door, and Fulgens behind him, both frowning.
“Your tender avuncular hearts move ye to odd calling hours,” Prospero observed, scowling too, and they glared at him.
“Thy tender fatherly heart, likewise,” Fulgens said. “Come.”
He pointed past them to the door. “Nay. I’ll not leave her; she’s wracked and strained. Get out; you’ll wake her with this blather.”
“The Emperor desires thy presence in the instant,” Fulgens said. “Prettily enough said? Now come; nor the matter nor the Emperor admits delay.”
“Nay, I say; I’ll not leave my girl. She’s unwell and I
mistrust th’ Emperor’s charity.”
Herne showed his teeth. “She’s not thine, but the Emperor’s; all thou hadst is his, Prospero, even to thy life. Wilt find no refuge behind her skirts nor sickbed. She malingers,” he snorted.
“Begone,” Prospero said, his hand itching for a weapon. He tensed; Herne shifted, setting the candlestick he held on the table by the door, stepping a half-step toward him.
“Shall give me great pleasure to invite thee with my fist—”
“Papa?” Light as a sparrow’s twitter, the word dropped Herne’s hands.
“Let’s see the maid,” Fulgens said to Herne as Prospero went to the bed again. “Be she ill, one of Glencora’s women can sit with her.”
Freia was speaking to her father, a liquid low tremolo. “So cold, so cold, O Papa, so cold, and I couldn’t move—Papa, don’t go—”
Seated on the bed, Prospero had turned to face the two Princes, his daughter’s arms around his neck.
She made a fearful whimper as she saw them; Fulgens frowned, looked down a moment. Herne reached forward.
“Don’t touch me!” Freia shrieked, a pure high thin sound of terror. “No! No!” and Prospero, wroth in an instant (but secretly pleased at her distraction) turned on them, rose up roaring and shoved Herne back.
Fulgens dodged between them, grabbing Herne’s arm and keeping him from swinging again at Prospero, whose stance was defensive.
“Go home, go home, go home—” Freia was keening into her hands, knees to her chest, pressed into the corner of the bed, a sound halfway to madness even to the most unsympathetic ear.
“Be still, girl!” Fulgens yelled. “Makest noise enough for a flock of mews!”
“Get you gone!” Prospero shouted.
Footsteps and clatter came in the outer room, and someone called for Prince Herne.
The Price of Blood and Honor Page 18
