“Soon.”
They stood, waiting. George looked across the water, the bulk of the bridge blocking what light there was and creating deep folds of shadow around them. Elizabeth watched George a bit longer and then, in frustration, turned toward the water, too.
Then she heard something. Dim and hard to distinguish from the rush of the river, but it was distinct and manmade: the creak of a boat in the river, an oar slicing through the current and guiding it towards the cove where they stood.
Then it was there. Sliding through the shadows under the bridge, the narrow boat turned out of the body of the river and into the cove, pulling up to the sea wall and bobbing in front of them. The bottom of the boat scraped across the stones of the sea wall, the river water was so high. The tall figure of the pilot extended a pole and braced the boat, half-resting on the ground where Elizabeth and George stood.
Elizabeth had never seen anyone as tall as the hooded pilot. The rocking boat bumped into the sea wall again, though, hard, and the hood fell away. Long, tangled locks fell around the figure’s shoulders and Elizabeth realized the pilot was a woman. It was difficult to make out any features of her face, but Elizabeth’s impression was that the woman was haggard and tired.
A second figure sat in the boat in front of the pilot, a hunched-over figure with a kerchief tied around her head, apparently also a woman. The details of her face and clothing were even more difficult to make out in the shadows. But something seemed familiar to Elizabeth, some aura that hung around the boat and its occupants resonated with her. She was about to put a name to it when one of the boat’s occupants spoke.
“You called me, boy?” The speaker was the figure in the front, her voice harsh and grating. Angry. “What are you looking to get from me, a poor old woman with naught to her name but the dress and apron I have on?”
“I am no boy,” George answered, his tone almost a sneer. “I have come to aid you in your quest for… what you have termed ‘justice,’ but I think differs somewhat from that.”
The woman leaned forward and peered at George. “Ah,” she muttered at last. “It is you. I understand now.” She sat back in the boat as Elizabeth realized what struck her as familiar about the characters on the water. It had taken her a moment to place the aura, partly because she so rarely met it in others and therefore was not expecting it, even though George had said he was summoning a spirit with the burnt dandelion.
The aura Elizabeth recognized was that of death. The women were dead. Ghosts. Or at least the small one who was sitting was dead. The larger one, the pilot, had some heavy sense of death wrapped around her, though she seemed not to be a dead woman herself. Some non-human entity deeply involved with the dead, but not a dead human woman. Elizabeth guessed that the woman in the front of the boat must be Fen’ka.
Another realization struck Elizabeth at the same instant. Neither George nor the dead woman had spoken with their mouths. They had been thinking to each other and she had been listening to their thoughts as well. It wasn’t so much the words as the intent they wanted to communicate that came across.
“Who is this?” George sneered, gesturing to the figure who steered the boat. “Do you not possess the skill to heed the summons yourself?”
“This is Jarnvithja,” answered Fen’ka, defensively. “You would do well to watch your tone with her, child. She is the troll, the one who holds the dead who sleep in the river. After I was… so treacherously burned, the ashes of my body were deposited in the river. So I found myself committed to her care. None of the dead who sleep in the river can come to the surface without Jarnvithja’s care and assistance.” She paused, trying to control her temper. “She has become my friend,” she added. Jarnvithja turned slightly and nodded to Fen’ka.
“I see.” George stood back and crossed his arms. “There must be many that she cares for.”
“How did you know to call?” the dead witch asked, ignoring his comment.
“I took the tarot card that inspired Magdalena’s vision,” George explained. “I burnt it with dandelion stems. Since that was the card with which you called Magdalena, I knew that it would call you as well.”
Fen’ka nodded. “Intelligent,” she admitted, perhaps in spite of herself. Elizabeth fought back the urge to giggle.
“What need you to know?” Fen’ka turned and looked at the open river. Then she turned back to shore and peered at both Elizabeth and George. “You.” Elizabeth realized that the witch was addressing her. “You are the Dearg-due. Very good.” Fen’ka turned to George. “You are the grand master of the covens, then.” She looked back and forth between them. “Why are there only two of you? With the girl, Magdalena, that makes three. There should be four.” She sounded confused.
“I suspected as much,” George told her. “There were meant to be four to assist you, were there not? One for each of the four Tools of Prague?”
“Yes. Four. One for each tool,” the witch agreed. “Did that silly girl fail in her conjuration?” She spat in the river.
“She made the conjuration but stopped before the last one to be called could be revealed,” George guessed. “She was inexperienced. She did not know how to judge whether the conjuring was completed.” He shook his head. “But no matter. The three tools that we do gather should be sufficient. I am able to manage the most difficult of the four tools.”
Fen’ka seemed to study him for a moment. “Which of the four do you think most difficult to obtain? What makes you think you will succeed where others have failed?”
“Because I know the secrets of the bridge,” the coven master-priest boasted. “I have studied the bridge all my life and have already set in motion the demise of its power. Once that is dissolved, the sword of Bruncvík can be removed from its foundations.”
Fen’ka fell back against the backrest of the bench she sat on and then leaned forward. She seemed shocked. The pilot also leaned in closer and turned her head, as if to better examine George.
“How?” demanded Fen’ka.
“I have taken an egg and placed within it four baneful herbs, one for each of the four elements, and then placed the poisoned egg into the bridge,” George explained, in a tone he might use for children or very dimwitted adults. “The poison is now seeping into the mortar of the bridge and should have accomplished its work by tomorrow night. Tomorrow, I will return here. I want you to have pulled the sword from the foundations by that time and deliver it to me.”
“Clever. Very clever.” Fen’ka was clearly impressed. “Yes, tomorrow, on Sunday night. Jarnvithja and those committed to her care will extract the sword from the bridge once its power is weakened enough by the poison. She will bring me to you on Sunday night. We will have the sword.” She nodded. Elizabeth thought Fen’ka may have even licked her lips. “With the bridge’s power poisoned, the three tools you are able to gather will be more than sufficient.”
Dmitri continued his prayer. He had sung quietly (so as not to disturb his sleeping wife) a series of short poetic stanzas to various saints, asking for their prayers and protection: Cyprian and Justina, patrons against sorcery; the four leading archangels, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel; Margaret and George, both early martyrs who triumphed over dragons; Vitus, whose cathedral had been built to exorcise the hilltop where Svetovit had been worshipped; the martyr Wenceslaus, who had allowed himself to be murdered to spare Bohemia from civil war; and, finally, the Mother of God.
He turned to the back of his prayerbook, where he had tucked a copy of an old Irish prayer he had discovered during his student days in London.
“Christ be with us, Christ within us, Christ behind us, Christ before us, Christ beside us,” he recited. “Christ beneath us, Christ above us, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger.”
The swirls of fragrant smoke from the censer, rather than drifting aimlessly, congealed into a delicate circle around him. He added more incense to the charcoal and the circle became denser, more opaque.
Jarnvithja the pilot moved as if to push
the boat with her barge pole from its mooring and back into the river.
“There is another matter I must discuss with you,” George spoke up quickly, taking a step forward and reaching as if to grab the troll’s arm. “We have been discovered. By at least one person. More probably two. Or even more. People who are attempting to thwart us in our efforts to… vindicate… your name. Can you see who these might be?”
Dmitri began to name each member of their fellowship, in his mind’s eye picturing them standing within the ring of incense with him.
“Theo.”
“Sean.”
Was it too late to mention Peter? Might he still be aided by the priest’s prayer? It was worth an attempt to aid the missing man. “Peter.”
Jarnvithja stopped the boat, swinging it around and bringing Fen’ka closer to George and Elizabeth. The boat scraped along the stones.
“Discovered?” the witch demanded.
“By one, whom we have dealt with,” George told her. “But we must know if there are others.”
Fen’ka took a deep breath. She folded her hands into her lap and peered into the night sky and said nothing for what seemed a long while.
“Yes, I can see them.” Fen’ka spoke quietly. “There are… three of them? No, perhaps more.” She bit her lip and swept her gaze across the stars. “Five. Why five? An ill-chosen number. No. There were eight. Two each for the sword, the staff, the chalice, the pentacle. A number well-chosen. Eight. A number chosen to confuse and thwart Svetovit.” She shook her head.
“This is not good,” she went on, turning to George. “You have been clumsy, allowing yourselves to de discovered.” She spat into the river again and scowled.
“It was Magdalena.” George’s tone was combative. “The girl of your own choosing.”
Fen’ka spat again.
“There were eight,” Elizabeth spoke up, drawing the witch’s attention back to her. “Now there must be only seven. Is that not correct? Who are they?”
Fen’ka studied the Dearg-due and then looked back up into the night, above the bridge.
“It is difficult to see,” she admitted. “The power of the bridge blocks my seeing. But, wait. Perhaps… yes. There they are. I can make them out somewhat. A man. Peter. But he… is he still involved? He is the one that has been dealt with, is he not?”
“Yes. He has been dealt with,” Elizabeth confirmed.
“Then it is the others you are interested in.” Fen’ka closed her eyes, concentrating. She spoke again, nodding to herself. “Two women. Five men. These are the ones who remain.”
“Their names!” snapped George impatiently. “What are the names?”
Dmitri shivered, a cold chill running down his spine. The circle of fragrant smoke wavered and shifted, the billows at his side buffeted by a breeze in the room that was otherwise imperceptible. Tendrils of smoke drifted away from the wreath that circled him.
He continued to recite the names of his colleagues.
“Alessandro.”
“The priest Dmitri.” He included himself in his formal petition.
There was a shift in the smoky circle as one side buckled inward. The priest cringed, pain piercing his torso on the side where the smoke had buckled. It felt as if a great force, more than someone’s fist and more like a club, had been swung by an invisible presence and struck him in the ribs. As if the energy of the protective circle had been driven into his side when it was struck by whatever power seemed determined to break it. He stumbled, catching himself on the back of the chair he had been sitting in earlier.
The protective ring of smoke writhed, another blow striking Dmitri. The inward puckering of the incense shivered and grew thin. He forced himself to stand upright, determined to not surrender to the invisible assailant. Another blow struck both the smoke ring and the priest, nearly shredding the bludgeoned circle.
Fen’ka opened her eyes and stared at George, her brows knit together in fury at his interruption. She looked at the troll in the back of the boat and then back to the sky. “Their names? They are…”
Dmitri blessed himself again with the sign of the cross. He took a deep breath, wincing as he did so. The smoke surged and swirled, its agitation increasing. “Mother of God, save us!” he implored in a hoarse whisper. There was a flicker of the candlelight in front of the icon and a sudden, unexpected but gentle light glimmered throughout the incense in the air. Dmitri forced himself to stand upright again, despite the pain in his ribs.
He began to repeat the short hymn to St. Vitus to rebuke the attack. The smoke ring shuddered and the thin, distorted portion of the circle snapped back against the source of the blows with a ferocity that reverberated throughout the circle. The integrity of the circle reasserted, the incense-smoke flowed back into an even consistency around the priest.
Having completed the hymn to the saint, he named the remaining colleagues united against George, Elizabeth, and Magdalena.
“Wilcox.”
“Sophia.”
“Victoria.”
He began the usual prayer of blessing he offered at the conclusion of services.
Fen’ka recoiled, as if slapped across the face. She reached up, as if to slap someone else in return, though no one was there to slap. She hesitated a moment and then spat into the water, towards George.
“I cannot see. A curtain has been drawn,” she declared. “Their names you must discover for yourself.” She snarled something at Jarnvithja, who responded by shoving the boat off into the center of the cove under the bridge.
Fen’ka half-turned back toward the shore and held up a finger as if to jab George in the chest.
“Tomorrow night!” she barked. “If you are as clever as you think, the sword will be ready for you on Sunday night!”
“Amen.”
The final blessing prayer complete, Dmitri stood in the midst of the slowly circling incense. He was unsure of what to do next. As he hesitated, the smoke-wall diminished and seeped away, the smoke still suffused with a gentle light. He watched the glowing, musky tendrils of protective frankincense curl around his wife, still sleeping. Other tendrils snaked out under the door or around the window frame. A sense of calm stole across the priest and he heaved a sigh of relief.
Elizabeth watched the troll steer the boat and her passenger, the ghost of the witch, into the shadows and past the massive stone supports of the bridge.
“If I am as clever as I think? Bah!” George spat into the water as the boat slipped into the rushing river beyond the bridge and turned to go. “I have done the work that she has been unable to do for herself for centuries. Does she think me a boy at her beck and call? If she does not deliver the sword as promised, she will rue the day she thought to seek my help,” he muttered.
“Curse them—going out and coming in!”
(Christmas 1356)
S
ister Hyanthé listened to the monastic treasurer describe the situation in the chapter room to the assembled deans one warm September afternoon. Dust motes swirled in the beams of sunlight that shone through the narrow windows piercing the heights of the ancient stonework above the women.
“We expect the harvest from the tenant farmers, as well as their rents that come due on the Conception of St. John the Baptist next week, will arrive in time and support us through the worst of the winter months, but we may need to buy grain by the time Ash Wednesday comes in the spring,” the elderly but spry Sister Elisheba informed the nuns on the stone benches around her.
Mother Deborah, the abbess, seated in the midst of the semicircle of women, looked at her hands folded in her lap. Though her knuckles were arthritic and her fingers long and delicate, all the nuns knew she had been a beautiful girl when pledged to the convent in her youth. The daughter of a cousin of the emperor’s father, there had never been any doubt that she would be abbess one day. She took a deep breath and looked up into the light and dust. “We have never been forced to buy grain in the market,” she said softly. “Who is to say that there
will even be any available at that point?” She closed her eyes and shook her head, ever so slightly.
“It will certainly be an embarrassment,” agreed the novice mistress, another one of the deans. “The families of our sisters may wonder if we are able to adequately care for ourselves.”
“It could lead to a loss of vocations,” another fretted, anticipating one of the worst, and most long-term, effects of the reduction in revenues.
“There is no reason to think that the problem will be either that severe or that long-lasting,” Hyanthé interjected. “The entrance of girls—“
A peal of thunder cut off her objection mid-sentence. The hall went dark as if giant hands had been clapped over the windows. A chill breeze stirred the nuns’ veils as they all looked up. A presence, unlike any Hyanthé—and she suspected, any of the other nuns—had ever experienced, seemed to pervade the room. It was raw, it was savage, and it was bloodthirsty. That much she could each make out. But it was also ancient and defied anything that would attempt to overthrow or contain it. It circled the women on their stone benches, entwining itself around their legs like a serpent crawling along the floor and then it was gone, rushing out the windows in the direction of the Old Town.
“An autumn storm.” Elisheba broke the silence of the women. “Nothing more.”
A volley of lightning illuminated the room, stark and harsh shadows thrown against the walls. The darkness into which the room was then plunged was that much more impenetrable by comparison. The nuns sat quietly in the dark, not even attempting to be heard over the cacophony of the thunder that rolled across the bluff on which the convent stood.
Sitting in the dark, feeling the chill breeze stream through the chapter room on its way towards the Old Town Square and seemingly suspended in the midst of the lightning and thunder, Hyanthé felt as if she were a girl again and was ready to dart into the storm and dance with the raindrops she expected to hear falling momentarily. A few of the sisters crossed themselves and began to recite a psalm or prayer in Latin.
The thunder faded and dim light crawled back into the chapter room. The women still heard no rain, which seemed unusual for such a powerful yet quick-moving storm. Or was this more than a simple storm? Was it perhaps, a demonstration of God’s wrath and anger against the people of the four towns for some arrogance or series of misdeeds?
Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Page 66
