by Carol Berg
They remained standing. “Divine grace, my lady, but I feel— My lady, is there no way to speak to His Grace?” Even hesitant, Buiron’s hearty basso filled the small room. “All know he’s not yet back to his robust self, but I saw him ride out with you and the mistress on the New Year’s feast and thought he might— We needs must show summat we’ve found this day. But it’s no sight for a gentle lady.”
“Bless you for your concern. But my father has asked me to continue the responsibilities I carried through the years of his absence. Honestly, goodman, I cannot imagine anything happening about Montclaire to match the terrible sights in Merona two years past.”
Though indeed both man and youth were about to crush their hats into pulp. The boy’s hands trembled. I prayed they’d not spotted some blight or pest on the vines. Our vineyards were only just coming back to full vigor. King Philippe had granted us a goodly stipend, but his own treasury was not bottomless. Such land as Montclaire must produce revenue, not only for my family but for the innumerable others who depended on us.
“Then come, if you would.”
I grabbed a hat and my cloak and followed the two as they traipsed out behind the well house and through a tangled juniper thicket. A steep slope seamed with gullies and washes plunged downward toward the tenant fields and Vernase village.
“ ’Twas this morning we discovered a fox took one of our piglets. Pev and me thought to track it down and make sure it couldn’t come back for second helpings. But down the gullies we come on summat we never thought to find on this land.”
A quarter hour’s scramble took us into a rocky notch in the north-facing hillside. The chill of winter nights had already settled into its permanent shadows. Yet a taint I associated with summer hung on the still air. “Something’s died back there.”
“Aye.”
He’d been a big man, bigger than Buiron. Animals had scuffed aside enough of loose rock and dirt to expose one shoulder, one leg, and the back of his head. He’d not yet begun to wither in the dry chill. Dead mere days, then. Teeth had ripped clothing and bared flesh. A dark-skinned man. Black hair. A chill surged through my limbs. His ear…
“We must dig him out. Right now.” I threw off my cloak. We’d need it to wrap him.
Buiron’s protest died unspoken and he nodded at his boy. I was already on my knees, tossing aside the melon-sized boulders and scrabbling through the dirt to expose the man’s face.
I sat back, arm thrown over my mouth to block more than the stench. Calvino de Santo.
Grief, horror, and denial collided. Such a good and decent man. What was he doing here? And in such a state…
Every squared centimetre of his skin spoke of prolonged and methodical violence. Back and shoulders a hatchwork of whip scars, some almost healed, some fresher. Teeth and nose broken; the bones about one eye crushed. Scars on chest, arms, hands, everywhere the animals hadn’t touched. Skin curled back from a slash at his throat. Murdered. On my father’s land.
I threw my cloak over the ruined face so my companions could not describe him.
De Santo bore a rightful grudge against Papa. Disgrace would ever follow his name because my father had rashly blamed him for an attempt on King Philippe’s life. But even if de Santo had come here to settle that old score—which I could not believe—Papa had no strength to do this to any man. His mind spent half his days outside ordinary life and memory. But whispers would spread like plague. I could not allow that until I knew who in the name of all that was holy could have wreaked these horrors on a fine and honorable soldier. And why.
His shirt was mostly gone. His belt had been used to bind his hands. I drew my knife, gritted my teeth, and cut away the outer layers of his breeches. Pockets and folds had been emptied. Nor was anything tucked inside his boots.
Buiron and his son stood waiting.
“Surely thieves have done this,” I said. “Hidden their victim here to disguise their crime. Perhaps he was one of them. My father must advise me how to proceed. Until he says, no one must know the body’s found, lest we alert the murderers. Not your wife. Not even the verger at the deadhouse—not yet. Swear it, goodman, on your lord’s honor, and you, Pev.”
“Aye, we so swear.” They dipped their heads and touched their brows and I prayed they were half so honorable as the man who lay here.
We rolled him in my cloak and buried him deeper, so that animals could not reach him again.
As they headed off to their work, I raced up to the house, for my earlier activities bore a connection to Calvino de Santo that threatened to collapse my knees.
Queen Eugenie wrote frequently, keeping me abreast of her joyous state of life…a long-awaited healthy pregnancy. Her last letter had come just a few days previous, and she had appended a query that I had dismissed as nothing. I burst into the steward’s office, where I’d dropped my writing case and letters, scarce acknowledging Bernard, who had settled in with the account books. My eyes devoured Eugenie’s query.
Dante summoned Ilario to Pradoverde 18 Desen last. Have you any idea when my brother might be planning to return to Merona? I miss him so terribly with Philippe embroiled in Norgand. Yet I was heartened that Dante actually sought his help for some project. I know that Dante appears more ferocious than is truth. That your feelings for him are so certain and strong but affirms my instinct. It would delight me so if he could see the worth in Ilario, that our dear ones might find the joy in each other that we find in them.
18 Desen. Forty-two days ago! For more than two years running, Calvino de Santo had never strayed far from Ilario. That meant he’d likely gone to Pradoverde as well. If the captain lay dead in Montclaire’s soil, then where, in the name of all gods, were Dante and Ilario?
Such a pall of dread fell over me, I could scarce move. Pressing fists to my face, I closed my eyes and lowered my barriers. The aether was turbulent on this day, disturbed as I’d rarely felt it so far out in the country as Montclaire. Dante was there. I felt the pulse of his life, but far away and strangely quiet. All his anger, wonder, guilt, joy, doubt were but echoes. Despite the bright sun, the touch left me shivering.
Within an hour I had penned a short message to Finn. One of the stable boys ran down to the village with coin enough to ensure Mistress Constanza’s hire messenger would take it north to Pradoverde at once and bring an answer as soon as might be.
Only to Bernard did I entrust the truth. As I told him of de Santo, reasoning shaped a story. The captain could not have been so brutalized for so long anywhere nearby. Vernase was too small. Strangers would be noticed. His appearance—his own belt as a bond, the rifled pockets, the slash to the throat, the shallow burial—spoke of haste. Someone didn’t want him to get to the house. Perhaps he had escaped his tormentors, and they had followed him here.…
With his ineffable calm, Bernard used a variety of ruses from missing cats to eradicating potential vine pests to ensure that one person or another visited every house, shed, gully, and grove in the neighborhood. No stranger, alive or dead, could possibly be lurking within five kilometres. I mentioned rumors of thieves to our captain of the guard; he knew how to heighten the watch without alarming anyone.
After eight long days, Constanza’s bleary-eyed lad Remy rode into the yard. I tore open the splotched paper before he could pocket his tip.
Damozelle,
This is Finn writing to you in answer to your letter. The Lord Ilareyo is not at Pradovairday. None is here but me. Certain he was here in Desen’s month when he and his soljer rode north with the master to see to the master’s da. The master said they would return in seventeen days, but is now running more than a month past. Mayhap his da refused to die as quick as the letter said or he’s learned something more about the majical dream. Theres a few men new in the village say they just come from the north and the winter storms are feerce. So mayhap that has delayed him.
Your horses are fine but oats are dear. I cannot buy more nor pay the New Year tax without you or the master unlock the box.<
br />
Finn
Dante’s father? Dante had refused to share his blighted childhood. But I knew enough to judge that something more than his father’s dying must have spurred him to set out for Coverge in midwinter, with an urgency that forced him to seek help from Ilario. Now one of the three who had gone north, Ilario’s soljer, had somehow ended up tortured and dead. And Ilario was missing. A better friend and nobler spirit did not exist in this world. And Dante…My probe of the aether told me he lived, but distant and somehow…altered. Where are you, friend of my heart?
“Bernard!” I called, spurred to a decision unthinkable even a day earlier. “I’m leaving.…”
ONE THING AND THEN ANOTHER conspired to delay my departure. One of our tenants was found beating his wife, which required my father—with my help—to hold an inquiry and give judgment. A shortage of oak was threatening the vintage and new supplies had to be found.
Then Papa lost another unhealthy tooth. As ever, it catapulted him back into horror. He huddled in corners, believing he was yet held in his underground cell, body and mind disintegrating as his captors repeatedly drained his blood to feed their magic. To draw him out again required constant comfort and reassurance, long walks outdoors, and unceasing talk. My mother was immensely strong, but she could not tend him every hour of every day. An old military friend of Papa’s who often came to share memories and news agreed to stay over in my absence.
I never questioned my decision to go. My spirit would not be settled until I knew Dante and Ilario were safe, and I could think of nowhere to begin the search than the place they began their own mysterious journey.
For the sake of speed and secrecy, I decided to make the five-day journey to Pradoverde alone. I informed our guard captain that Queen Eugenie had summoned me to Merona and would send companions to meet me in Tigano. I had Mistress Constanza dispatch a trunk to Castelle Escalon, ensuring my story would be widely propagated.
Only Ella and Bernard knew my true destination, just as only they knew I could summon magic to protect myself—raw magic, not wrought spells as Dante could work.
After two years of practice, I could control, shape, and release power enough to foil an attacker, while retaining control of my emotions so I didn’t kill anyone without intent. That was all I had ever wanted from Dante’s lessons. Magic had destroyed my sister, crippled my family, and come near bringing the ruination of the world. Its creeping energies in my body still left me queasy and ill.
Dante didn’t understand that. He seemed convinced that if I learned enough about spellworking, I would embrace the wonders of sorcery as he did and work some grand rite to finish what we had begun on Mont Voilline. I didn’t believe it. I didn’t want it. Our shared gift meant he could draw on my blood-born power, and I would ever stand ready to give what he needed of me. He feared that blindness would destroy his own talent, and I grieved at his pain whenever some small failure seemed to confirm it. But if any man was born for one great purpose, Dante was born to wield magic. Neither gods nor nature could be so cruel as to steal it away.
But for now he’d won our argument. I trusted that he had not forgotten Lianelle and the depleted dead, and I embraced the discipline that was his only joy. Through our shared experiences in the aether, I had touched the beauty, the harmony, the rich spirit buried beneath his anger and self-doubt, and I would not it give up. Not ever.
AT LAST ALL WAS SETTLED enough for me to go. I was stuffing a few last things into my traveling bag when Ella called out from my window. “There’s riders come into the yard. Five, six, seven of them in green-and-white livery.”
I joined her at the window, prepared to fly down the back stair to avoid yet another delay. But surprise held me as Bernard stepped out to greet the newcomers. They were Temple servitors.
The visitors dismounted, deferring to a man of middle height who waited for Bernard to come to him. A man of rank, then. Why would a high-ranking Temple servitor come to Montclaire? My father had always been the king’s man, a champion of science and reason, no enemy of the Temple, but no more its devotee than he was a partisan of the Camarilla Magica.
Bernard bowed and turned for the door, glancing up at my window on his way. Had they come to see me? Fleeting guilts suggested they’d come to accuse us of Captain de Santo’s murder. But that was ridiculous. The Concord between Crown, Temple, and Camarilla Magica left religious crimes alone to Temple jurisdiction. And my arrangements with Dante were known to only a very few.
I pulled off my cloak and passed it to Ella. “Take this, my riding gloves, and my bag to Bernard’s office. I’d best go down.”
She nodded in understanding and headed for the back stair. I descended the main stair and met Bernard in the foyer. “What are Temple servitors doing here?”
“One of them’s a tetrarch, damo—”
“A tetrarch!”
“Aye. Name of Beltan de Ferrau. Begs an interview with you on a ‘matter of grave import.’ Says Mistress Constanza told him you were off to Merona today, so he risked arriving early. I could tell him you’re sleeping.”
“No, I’d best hear him out. I can’t have him bothering Papa. Bring him to the grand salon.”
I sat in a cushioned chair beside the tall window in our best room and took some of Melusina’s embroidery to hand. Though I detested needlework, I felt the need to let a Temple man find me engaged in innocent occupation. My mind was entirely too fixed on murder and a missing necromancer.
The door swung open. “Lady Anne de Vernase, His Excellency Beltan de Ferrau, Tetrarch of the Jarasco Temple Minor.”
“Excellency.” I rose and dipped a knee slightly as the clergyman strode through the doors. Court and Temple protocols would rank my father, the conte of a demesne grande, equal to the Tetrarch of Merona’s Temple Major, and thus well above the administrator of a Temple Minor of a city small enough I wasn’t sure where it was located. But I was a woman, and daughter, not wife. I well knew what protocol deemed my own rank. “Welcome to Montclaire on behalf of the Conte and Contessa Ruggiere.”
I dabbed my thumb on my forehead as a gesture of respect and exposed my marked hand on my shoulder as the law required. He would not find fault with my deportment.
“Lady Anne, please forgive me intruding on your home and your peace.” His voice was pleasant and solid, neither prim nor self-aggrandizing. Indeed, when I raised my eyes I was astonished to see quite a young man for his elevated office. Fair-haired, with rugged features, and strongly built, he more fit the image of soldier than of priest. Indeed, even his garments, though bearing the rich green hue and the white-embroidered symbol of the three pillars, were simply fashioned of common kersey. The blue of his eyes was so clear as to be visible across the room.
“We delight in visitors at Montclaire. Unfortunately, my father and mother are yet abed. They’re in fragile health.”
“I am fully aware of your parents’ ordeals, my lady. And I understand that those of your brother, your young sister—may her Veil journey be swift and true—and you yourself were no less horrific. But it is you I’ve come to visit this day, early, as I’ve told your man, so as not to delay you on your travels.”
“Then, sit, Excellency.” I waved to a chair facing mine, bypassing such politenesses as refreshments. This man had no more interest in politeness than would a battering ram. Well and good. I knew how to build walls.
“I don’t believe in dancing around subjects to make them more palatable, my lady,” he said as soon as I’d sat down again. “I’ve come to speak to you about the sorcerer Dante.”
I blessed Melusina for scattering her needle projects around the house. It gave me good excuse to keep my eyes fixed on her intricate design of a golden-leaved azinheira. My fingers pushed the needle deliberately through the stretched linen, no matter the warning trumps sounding inside me.
“A dark subject for a bright morning,” I said. “My family’s ills are, in some part at least, attributable to that mage.”
“Very dark.
I’ve come seeking your help to apprehend him.”
“Apprehend?” I refused to let my voice heat and deliberately pushed the needle through its next position before continuing. “I understood he was paroled two years ago by order of the king.”
“Only the Temple can absolve a man of blasphemy. And the sorcerer has not been brought to trial for his newer crimes.”
Blasphemy. The needle stabbed my finger and I curled it for a moment so as not to stain the linen. Necromancy was blasphemy of the highest order, punishable by torture and burning.
Rumors of Dante’s deadraising had been rampant throughout Sabria. But if any beyond Eugenie and me had actually witnessed the things I had in the palace Rotunda, they had never stepped forward. So we had believed. And what newer crimes?
“Naturally, I’ve heard rumors,” I said, waving my needle in the air, “but I assumed them naught but gossip from a fearful time. I leave such weighty judgments to my goodfather, the king, and to others wiser than I. As to newer crimes, I’ve no idea what those might be—though everyone in my family and in Sabria, for that matter, could believe any wickedness of that man, true or not.”
