Ash and Silver

by Carol Berg

  He touched the two shards of silver together and a spark jumped between, confirming the link between them. As long as the two splinters were within a few quellae of each other—in the same house or the same town—a sorcerer could transfer power between them. It was a property unique to silver, as valuable as its property to hide evidence of enchantments. It enabled a sorcerer to work magic at a distance, as the Order did with the memory-wipe tokens.

  “If you consent to carry one of these, an infusion of magic will leap between these splinters, not to destroy a memory, but to set a meeting place and time where we can exchange information.”

  I held out my hand. “I’d like to examine them.”

  He dropped the shining bits into my open palm. “I’d think less of you if you didn’t.”

  “What if I don’t consent?”

  “We shall proceed as if this meeting never happened. If you wish to leave the Order, you may go with my blessing and my sincere regret, but you’ll retain no memory of your time at Evanide, including what has transpired here today. If you choose to continue on your own path here, I’ll not interfere with your actions, save as my duty to the Order and my convictions lead me, though I will continue to do everything I can to gain your trust. In any case, if you try to harm Damon or me or the Archivist, or interfere with our work, I will stop you.”

  “I appreciate your frankness,” I said.

  He rose and moved away, leaving me to my examination.

  I picked apart every word and revelation, seeking flaws, inconsistencies, or contrivances. Though his refusal to be more specific about Damon’s plan and the personal matters that had him so agitated could hide any manner of wickedness, I had no evidence to suggest what that wickedness might be. On the other hand, his feelings about the Order seemed genuine and heartfelt. I was not ready to exonerate him, but I was inclined to believe his story.

  As to the examination, a splinter held but one spell, and the wooden tokens were magically sterile, so I quickly ensured he had not added any nefarious enchantments, subtle or otherwise to the simple declaration spell. It was precisely the same spell Inek had installed on my silver bracelets.

  At my unspoken agreement, he returned to his place and charged one of the splinters with a spurt of magic. The one I’d kept spoke to me of the seaward wall at eleventh hour. The words vanished once released. No one else could perceive them. I charged the splinter in my hand, entwining the magic with a phrase of my own.

  “The boathouse at dawn?” he said. “Old Fix would drop his aging teeth to see me walk in.”

  “Unless you stroll about the fortress from time to time, shed of your Marshal’s garb.”

  No idea of jest had prompted me. But the Marshal shook his head and laughed softly. “Ah, Greenshank, that is ever a temptation. I shall take no position on whether I succumb to it.”

  It was that laughter . . . so entirely human, filled with regret and sparked with wit and good humor . . . that convinced me trust was worth risking.

  Feeding magic to a tiny crescent on my left bracelet allowed my finger to embed the silver splinter easily into the smooth, hard wood of the token. Though I perceived no burst of magic, I assumed he’d done the same.

  “We’ll talk again soon,” he said as his token vanished into his robe. “Damon has bound our fates together, so together we shall judge his actions. Together we shall determine whether his vision will create a new and better world or a new corruption. And together, we shall take what action is necessary to ensure the one and prevent the other.”

  “Take action . . . ?”

  “Whatever is necessary to fulfill our oaths to the Equites Cineré—to ensure that justice triumphs. Those called upon to realize visions must take on the charge to ensure their humanity.”

  He led me back to his great chamber. As if a different man inhabited the white robes, he gestured me sharply to the floor. I knelt.

  “Paratus Greenshank, your public discipline of forty lashes with the Order whip and a silent apology to your brothers will take place at first hour of this afternoon’s watch in the usual place. Afterward, you will be confined to your sleeping cell. You will remain silent and solitary until dawn.”

  “As you say, Knight Marshal.” My skin crawled. My only other adventure at the whipping post had been four lashes, easily dealt with. But forty—

  “Your new orders arrived in a dispatch from Curator Damon this morning. You are forbidden to speak of them to anyone.”

  “Again, as you say.” Every nerve stung, sharpened and ready.

  “You are to join Curator Damon at Castle Cavillor twelve days hence, afoot, wearing no mark of the Order, and armed with only your bow. No dagger, no sword, no blade of any kind. You are to inform no one when you leave Evanide. Nor will you reveal to any person your destination, your route, your location at any time along that route, or anything we have discussed here this morning.”

  Cavillor. A town grown up around a castle of the same name, now the seat of the pureblood family Canis-Ferenc, and the site of the Sitting of the Three Hundred, scheduled for a month hence on the first day of autumn.

  “As you command, Knight Marshal,” I said with what breath remained in me after such orders. Did I hold to my word, everyone in the Order save the Marshal would believe me a deserter.

  CHAPTER 31

  As I left the Marshal’s quarters, I gripped the token in my pocket, trying to reconcile the Marshal who had revealed himself behind his chamber door with the man I’d just left. He had created a trap designed to destroy a mind and crushed my past to dust, believing he had reason enough to commit crimes that should see him dead. He had just dispatched me into Damon’s clutches as near naked as a paratus could be. Yet his call for justice thrilled in my blood. Terrible events demanded terrible risks.

  What lay under that white robe? Rogue, villain, deceiver, or the man I wanted him to be? Were his limbs banded with silver like Fix’s, the metal threaded into his flesh so that their spells and knowledge had become a part of his body? Or did that single silver pendant hold his favored spellwork? As I left his quarters he yet clutched it as if it held all the secrets he could not yet remember. Odd, that pendant and the gold coin embedded in its back. What had struck me about it?

  I halted abruptly at the edge of the Marshal’s courtyard. Doorward Horatio paused in his patrol. Inclining my head, I resumed my journey through the colonnade that led toward the infirmary. Once out of sight I closed my eyes and braced against the wall, dusting off bits of history and legend buried in corners of my mind little used since coming here. I laid those bits alongside what I had just seen and heard, and therein lay a possibility that near halted my breath.

  The gold disk embedded in the Marshal’s silver pendant had felt familiar because it was no common coin, but a historical rarity called a celebration medallion. Celebration medallions were easily recognizable. They bore a distinct raised rim of braided laurel and were slightly larger than a standard solé, the common gold coin struck with a king’s image.

  The medallion could fully explain the Marshal’s agitation . . . the intensely personal secrets he’d not yet come to grips with . . . his compulsion to follow Damon’s plan . . . and his conviction that, with the Order at his back, he could redirect any deviance from justice and right, because in all of Navronne’s history, only six events had mandated the striking of a gold celebration medallion.

  The kingdom’s founding had been the first. The image of the strong-featured Caedmon on the medallion’s obverse was so clear in my mind, I must have seen one at some time.

  Two centuries later, the sixth and last medallion had celebrated Caedmon’s distant grandson Eodward’s final victory over the Aurellian Empire. Its face was the timeless symbology of peace.

  But in between, in a stroke of vanity for a man born an illiterate petty noble, who had unified the most magnificent and generous of kingdoms, a medallion was
struck for the birth of each of Caedmon’s four children. And only one of those—one of all the six—would have shown a woman’s face.

  Our first king’s two eldest sons had died in the war against Aurellia with no issue. His third son was but an infant when Caedmon abandoned the provinces of Morian and Ardra and retreated into the southern mountains. All trace of that third son was lost until his great-great grandson Eodward rode out of nowhere at the age of one-and-twenty to claim his ancestor’s throne. But Caedmon had sired a daughter, as well.

  In those days a king’s daughter would have been discounted as a potential heir and married off, so that even her name was lost in the fogs of history. Why would the Marshal wear her birth medallion? Other than its weight of gold and its historical novelty, I could think of only one reason. It belonged to him.

  Wishing to ensure the integrity of his heirs, Caedmon had hired sorcerers to enchant each celebration medallion, using a drop of the child’s blood. Any example of those four birth medallions would glow with its own inner light when worn by an heir of Caedmon’s blood—unless it was encased in pure silver to mask its enchantment. Caedmon had created undeniable proof of his lineage. And the Knight Marshal of Evanide wore that proof hidden in a silver pendant.

  Was it possible Damon had discovered a fourth claimant to Eodward’s throne? And one, assuredly by virtue of the Xancheiran secret, who possessed Aurellian blood? For unlike Caedmon, the Marshal was a sorcerer.

  It would explain everything of Damon’s secrecy, of the Marshal’s story . . . the hints of conspiracy shown on Inek’s portrait, a gravity that drew in the Archivist and even the previous Marshal. A king bearing magic could reshape not just the Registry, but all the Middle Kingdoms. Maybe soon, maybe well after the resolution of the prince’s war. Damon had time. The Marshal was a young man.

  What better place to hide and train a magical Pretender to the throne than Fortress Evanide? And what an unimaginable shock for a man with no personal memory, a man content with his anonymous life guiding the work of justice, to discover that he could be plunged into responsibility as great as any in the world. A sorcerer king.

  If the Marshal was the obverse of this greater story, what was the reverse? What was my own role—a man of power trained in combat and steeped in rage? A threat to use and discard? A sword to enforce Damon’s will on a puppet?

  My feet had led me into the infirmary. Mother’s grace, how I needed to speak with Inek. I was still missing something.

  The scudding clouds allowed shards of sunlight through the arrow loops by each bed. A mere two days on and the crowding was greatly relieved. Pureblood healing sped recovery from most injuries. Despite my hard row of the morning, I’d near forgotten my stitched back.

  “He’s been transferred back to the Archive Tower,” said Adjutant Tomas as he passed me by and poured some syrupy potion down an insensible man’s throat. The infirmarian never stopped moving. “We weren’t doing him any good here.”

  “Thank you, adjutant. Do you think he’s made progress?”

  “I’ve no experience with the mind’s wounds. The body is complicated enough.” His palm released an acrid bite of magic into the sick man’s temple. Then he faced me, empty spoon in hand. “But if the Archivist’s mumbling parallels my own, I’d say he’s closing in on an answer, though not fast enough for his liking. Sorry.”

  Third-quarter bells rang.

  “What’s the hour?” I called after Tomas’s retreating back. I’d lost all sense of time during the Marshal’s interview.

  “Eleventh hour almost gone.”

  There was naught to do about outlandish theories just now. The word would be out that I was under discipline. To avoid additional stripes, I had to be where I was expected—which was with the swordmaster for two hours of speedwork, and then the Inner Court for my appointment with the Disciplinarian. Forty lashes . . . gods save me.

  Meanwhile, I was starving, parched, and desperately needed a trip to the chart room to assess the tides and the weather. No matter punishment, no matter the fate of kingdoms, magic, or a severed world, tonight I would bring my sister and two hundred others home to Navronne.

  • • •

  Agony without blood or bruise. Humiliation without words. Apology without excuse. Such was the nature of Evanide’s punishment discipline. After forty blows with a lash that somehow marked the skin and seared the soul while leaving the receiver physically undamaged, an anonymous shepherd led me blindfolded from one observer to the next. At each I knelt and pressed my forehead to the paving and my hand to his foot.

  My hand reported the infinite variety of shoes, sandals, and boots that populated Evanide, most of them damp. And surely someone had imported five thousand extra people to read the posted charges:

  Greenshank, Paratus, recklessly endangered the lives of his brothers of the Order by abandoning his post and spending a night off-island without permission.

  Focusing on such trivialities was the only way to keep from groaning every time I bent my back. Muscle and bone certainly believed they were damaged. By the time the low, brassy war horn crowed dismissal, I could not rise on my own.

  Eventually, the departing shuffle of observers was replaced by the soft flutter of wings. Beaks pecked at the pavement. My shepherd remained my only human companion.

  He must have felt the lash himself at some time, for rather than trying to support me under my agonized shoulders or around my savaged back, he guided my fingers to his arm and let me haul myself up. We crossed the courtyard and into the Great Hall, where the smells of supper, the clank of spoons, and a sudden hush greeted my passing.

  That the fire in my cheeks did not melt my mask amazed me. And I near wept in gratitude when we at last moved into the barracks passage and through a leather curtain. My companion lowered me to my pallet.

  “Before you lie down.” He pressed a flask into my hand. “Drink it all and I’ll bring another. The more you drink, the faster the pain will dissipate. And pull up the blanket. You fear it will hurt your back worse—and it will. But if you wait until you get cold—and you will—the muscles will seize. The cramps will be worse than the beating.”

  “Thank—” His finger hushed me.

  The one being disciplined was not to know those who collaborated in his punishment or communicate with them. I raised the flask in acknowledgement, while cursing my idiot self who had not groveled to the Marshal and begged him to postpone the punishment. How in the name of all gods was I to carry out the night’s work?

  By the time the flask was empty, my companion had fetched another. I drained it, too. Hands helped me down to my side, then nudged my hip to roll me over. “Face down. This will hurt, but it’s the only way you’re going to be able to row tonight.”

  “Wha—?”

  A splat of cold fat or mud or some such on my spine interrupted my surprised question and near shot me to the ceiling. The voice and . . . presence . . . were not those of my shepherd. But I was so entirely breathless with pain, I couldn’t blurt the newcomer’s name.

  “Be still. Bite this.”

  My impotent hand wave was no deterrent to Sir Conall. He stuffed the leather strap—my belt? his?—in my mouth.

  “I’m going to be fast and brutal,” he whispered in my ear. “My laggard tyro guards the door, but you never know who’ll peek in, and you’re supposed to be suffering alone until dawn.”

  He unbuckled my blindfold and pulled it off.

  “You never did tell me a time for your rowing exercise, so I consulted Fix. Astonishing what one can learn from a boatmaster, especially one who’s been one’s mentor for the last month.”

  Consideration of Conall’s words was impossible as he kneaded his cold glop into my back with magic and unrelenting pressure. Pain devoured the world, along with thought, emotion, and self—a storm comparable to the lightless war of rain, sea, and wind the previous night. Stay qu
iet. Stay quiet. Stay quiet. And so passed an eternity of misery.

  “. . . be getting a bit better about now. Wriggle your finger if you’re coming out of it.”

  I tried. Wasn’t any more sure I’d done so than I’d feel a feather’s touch while being stung by a swarm of bees. But my eyes opened to dusty sunlight.

  “Excellent. I knew you weren’t planning some ordinary navigation exercise. Not with all this business of Inek and that curator. Sweet Mother, have you ever seen Damon’s eyes as he watches you? That’s a lot more often than you could possibly know. Fix didn’t tell me everything, but we revised your plan for tonight. I’ll do principal navigation. My marshal-in-waiting will be my tailman. Dunlin and Heron can decide who leads, who tails for their boats. Fix has two other . . . mmm . . . henchmen who can lend an oar. My two laggards will remain behind, so tangled up in unresolvable spellwork that by tomorrow morning they’ll not know where they were, what they did, or who was or was not with them. That way you can concentrate on getting your refugees here from . . . wherever they are . . . and get yourself across on the second pass.”

  “Good. Sorry,” I said, in a rasping whisper. “So risky.”

  “The world is at risk. But my current knight-mentor is the Knight Defender of Evanide. You could have no stronger ally.”

  “Seems so.” But my trust in my own judgment was well fractured.

  “Wait and see.” His cheerful whisper was punctuated by another pounding that left me speechless. But at the end of it and a great deal of blotting with a towel, I was able to sit up on my own. “Better?”

  I raised both of my arms and twisted my torso—tasks I’d not thought to manage for a month or more. “Sir Conall, you are a sorcerer!”