The wizard at Mecq tst-1

by Rick Shelley

  "Simple folk may not know about all the high-flown things that be the bother of wizards, but they can see that the storm that come chasin' your rain was unnatural."

  "Aye, it was." Silvas wiped his hand across his mouth, then reached for his ale before he went on. "It was a weapon hurled by the Blue Rose, another punishment for Mecq."

  "Or was it merely sent to test you?" Master Ian asked.

  Everyone has had their tongues loosened, Silvas thought. Is that natural or more work of the Blue Rose? That brought a fleeting smile to his mind: I begin to see their work in everything.

  "At this point one cannot be separated from the other," Silvas said, clearly not the answer Master Ian had expected. "The form of the attack was clearly a response to my gentle rain. The fact of the attack was not."

  "I've heard more than one ask today why you cannot make good your promise of water and leave," Master Ian said. "Folks think that if you go, the Blue Rose may follow. Or turn their attention elsewhere for a bit. Some go so far as to say that we'd be better off if you just left, even without the water."

  "My leaving would not divert them," Silvas said. "The Blue Rose has condemned Mecq for whatever reasons. I didn't draw them to Mecq. The presence of the Blue Rose is what drew me here. To help. Our Unseen Lord sent me." Silvas drained his mug and handed it to Master Ian for a refill. When the innkeeper came back, Silvas took a long drink and set the mug down.

  "The water problems are tied directly to the evil of the Blue Rose," he said. "Unless they are defeated here, things can only get worse for Mecq, and everyone else. That is most especially true if I run away from the confrontation."

  Master Ian was clearly not satisfied with the explanation.

  "Ask your vicar," Silvas suggested. "If needs be, wait and ask Bishop Egbert himself, since the good bishop realizes that this matter is serious enough to draw him out of St. Ives. Whether we like it or not, Master Ian, there's no turning back for anyone now."

  The frown didn't leave the innkeeper's face, but the look of intense concentration did.

  "As to the water," Silvas continued, "I will make good my vow unless I perish in the fight. That too is possible." That admission was enough to send Master Ian back to his kegs and mugs. Silvas returned to his stew. It was beginning to cool, but it remained surprisingly good. Or else my hunger was greater than I cared to admit, Silvas thought. He thought about asking for another bowl, but Brother Paul came into the inn and Silvas put off thoughts of eating another helping.

  "Good afternoon, Vicar," Silvas said, making a gesture for the friar to join him at the table.

  "God's peace to you, Lord Wizard."

  "Master Ian. Ale for the three of us," Silvas called. He drained his tankard and set it down. He pulled out the coins for his meal and the extra ale and dropped them on the table.

  "I have had additional word from His Excellency," Brother Paul said while he watched Master Ian drawing the ale. "He will arrive in Mecq today."

  "That is welcome news," Silvas said. "I have hoped that he would arrive before the next attack."

  Master Ian arrived with the drinks, and the three men shared a long pull at their tankards. Then Master Ian asked Brother Paul some of the same questions he had put to Silvas. The vicar's responses were similar, which did little to improve the look on Master Ian's face. But news of the bishop's impending arrival did help a little. After a few moments the innkeeper went back to his work.

  "Has Sir Eustace been told yet how soon the bishop will arrive?" Silvas asked as he got near the bottom of his mug.

  Brother Paul shook his head. "I was about to send someone up when I heard that you had come in here."

  "Then I might as well carry the news," Silvas said. "That will also give me a chance to hear whatever new complaints he has thought of since yesterday." I am certain he will have new complaints, he thought.

  – |Silvas wasn't surprised to find Bay emerging from the smoke, fully harnessed, as he approached it. The surprise, if there was one, was that Bay had not been waiting at the door to the Boar and Bear.

  "The bishop will be here this afternoon," Silvas said before he mounted. "We carry the news to Sir Eustace." Since they were in Mecq, Bay didn't reply. Silvas almost wished that he had been able to give Bay the news within the cover of the Seven Towers, just to hear the horse's comment.

  Silvas stopped Bay just before they reached the castle on Mount Mecq. The wizard looked across the valley, focusing his telesight in the direction of St. Ives, scanning the possible approaches.

  "No sight of him yet," he said softly. Bay went on to the gate of the castle and inside. There were six men-at-arms on the wall now. Their attention was concentrated to the north, on the duchy of Blethye and on the gap leading through to it.

  Sir Eustace was waiting for Silvas. The knight had obviously been warned of his approach, and Sir Eustace had progressed far beyond mere unhappiness.

  "I marvel that you have the gall to present yourself before me," Sir Eustace shouted as Silvas entered his great hall. The knight stepped close to Silvas, completely unconcerned that the wizard was a foot taller than him.

  "I will remind you that Mecq is my fief," Sir Eustace said, still shouting. His face was the deep red of anger. "It is my responsibility to determine what help my people need and deserve. I am as upset about the deaths and destruction as you claim to be. Most likely my concern is even greater. Mecq is my village. These are my people." He loaded each possessive with as much volume and anger as he could.

  Silvas kept any show of emotion from appearing on his face. After what I have already heard today, this should come as no surprise, he thought. Anything less would have been incongruous.

  "I don't like outsiders coming into my demesne uninvited," Sir Eustace continued. "I thought I made that clear at our first meeting. And I will not abide outsiders confusing the loyalties of my people and placing them in great danger. My people have hard enough lives without you risking their usefulness to themselves, and to their liege lord."

  When Sir Eustace finally seemed to run into a void for a moment, Silvas gave him the vicar's message. "Bishop Egbert will reach the village today, perhaps well before sunset."

  "More trouble!" Eustace said. He turned and stormed out of the great hall, climbing the stairs to the level above.

  Silvas looked around the great hall, not moving from where he stood. He was alone in the chamber. "It seems I am dismissed," he said softly, with more than a trace of amusement. Sir Eustace's rage didn't call forth a like response from the wizard. The changes in everyone that day served not only to exaggerate the knight's anger, but also to put it in a different perspective.

  Silvas started for the door. The session with Sir Eustace had been shorter, if no less sour, than he had expected. The mood Sir Eustace is in, I should rejoice that he left so quickly, Silvas told himself. It was almost enough to make him laugh.

  He was halfway to the door when he heard light steps hurrying down the stairs into the great hall from above. Almost against his will he stopped and turned. It was, as he had suspected, Maria. Silvas waited, letting her expend the energy to cross the hall.

  "I was afraid you would leave before I could get down," she said.

  "I was just leaving. Your father is particularly angry with me today."

  "He fears that you will make him look bad before the people of Mecq," Maria said. Her tone seemed to suggest that Silvas had already done that… and that she enjoyed her father's discomfiture.

  "I think it's wonderful what you have done," she said. "You are so brave to stand up to the heretics who killed my grandfather, so bold to challenge them. My father wishes that you would leave. I wonder that you don't. It would be safer for you, and you wouldn't have to face the ingratitude of my father and Master Fitz-Matthew. It would serve them right if you left and made them face the heretics alone."

  "My duty would not permit that, even if I were base enough to flee in the face of danger," Silvas said. The words sounded stuffy, and that was
intentional. Sir Eustace's wife might have lost her yen for the wizard, but Maria obviously had not.

  "There is that as well," Maria said, moving so close to Silvas that they were almost touching. "I have never met a man like you before."

  Silvas slid half a step back, but Maria hardly noticed. She moved forward into the gap as if they were tied together.

  "You will leave someday soon, though, won't you?" she asked.

  "As soon as the threat of the Blue Rose has been met." Providing I survive the conflict. If I don't survive, my departure will no doubt come rather sooner. "There will doubtless be other villages that need my help."

  "You don't spend all your time in tiny places like Mecq, do you? You get to cities like London and York and other grand places, don't you?"

  "At times," Silvas admitted.

  "I know you have your lady, Carillia," Maria said. "But I want to leave Mecq with you. There's nothing for me here, and you may be my only chance to escape. Soon enough my father may force me into a nunnery. I can't hope to find a man worth marrying here."

  Silvas stepped back again, surprised at the echo of his own assessment of her probable future… and even more surprised that she would be so candid about it.

  "I could make no promises like that." He held his hands up to stop Maria from coming so close again. "Your father has enough excuses to revile me. And I still have a dangerous battle to face with the Blue Rose." She makes me as nervous as the thought of that battle.

  "My father has never needed excuses to revile anyone," Maria said. "It is his nature to spew bile at all who come around. He could not think worse of you, and he might even offer grudging thanks if you removed the problem of my future from his shoulders."

  "It is too soon to talk, or even think, of things like this," Silvas said. "I must put all my mind to the coming battle." He backed up another step. "And now, young lady, I really must be leaving."

  "If you must." She didn't bother to suppress a sigh. "I will see you to the gate."

  "That isn't necessary."

  "But it is," Maria insisted. "My father didn't stay to perform that courtesy. I would not have you think the entire family is so crude."

  Silvas bowed to the inevitable.

  "I beg you to consider my request as you may," Maria said as Silvas opened the door. "I must escape this place, and you are my only hope."

  "As I may," Silvas said, knowing how little that vow cost him.

  They crossed the courtyard together. Silvas had Bay at his left and Maria so close at his right that she kept brushing his arm. Then one of the sentries on the wall pointed across the valley and shouted, "There are riders approaching the village."

  Silvas hurried up the wooden stairs that led to the ramparts and stared off in the direction that the soldier had pointed.

  "There are thirteen riders," Silvas said as he focused his telesight on the group-nearly two-thirds of the way across the valley, "and I see the pennant of St. Ives above them. It is Bishop Egbert and his monks."

  The sentry who had spotted the riders scurried down the stairs and ran for the keep. Silvas was a little more cautious descending to the courtyard.

  "And now I really must hurry," he told Maria.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Bay hurried down the narrow road to the valley as if he were in a race. Silvas made no attempt to slow his pace even though it made him edgy. The drop at their side would hardly be forgiving. But Bay never made the slightest misstep. And when he reached the flat below Mount Mecq, Bay really stretched out to cover the last few hundred yards to the village green-even though the bishop and his retinue were at least a quarter hour away.

  Brother Paul had begun to marshal the people of Mecq to greet the bishop. The village could offer little in the way of decoration, but the families were gathering in the village green. The vicar had found some white streamers for the front of St. Katrinka's. They fluttered in the light breeze.

  "You saw that he is coming?" Brother Paul asked as Silvas dismounted.

  "One of the sentries on the hill spotted the riders. I identified the bishop's pennant."

  Brother Paul looked across the river. The riders were scarcely visible from this vantage. The vicar couldn't make out the design of the pennant.

  "You have exceptional eyes," Brother Paul said, raising an eyebrow. Silvas nodded.

  "Will the bishop have time to shake the dust from his robes before the attack comes?" the vicar asked.

  Silvas looked around the green, then up at the sky. "Perhaps. So far the Blue Rose has attacked only at night. Whether they will attack tonight or not, only they know." He shook his head. "I am reluctant to hazard a guess."

  "At least the bishop should arrive before trouble comes," the friar said.

  "Or be close enough to come to our assistance," Silvas said grimly.

  By the time the bishop's party reached the bridge across the Eyler, the entire population of Mecq, except for those who were working in the castle, had gathered.

  The members of the bishop's party were all dressed alike, even the bishop. The white cassocks of their order were covered by traveling cloaks of unbleached gray-brown wool. The bishop himself, according to rumor, never wore the more ornate robes of his office except when he officiated at Mass in his cathedral on special feast days. There was no flurry of dust as the thirteen riders pulled to a halt at the edge of the village green. The ground was soft and moist from the rain of two days before. The dust didn't come until the riders dismounted and started beating at their cloaks.

  Silvas scanned the group quickly. Bishop Egbert was easy to identify. For the moment, though, Silvas was more interested in the dozen monks who accompanied him. There was not a fat belly in the group. Although the monks ranged in age from youngsters barely old enough to have taken final orders to men showing the signs of great age, they all moved spryly. Their eyes were clear and deep, and all showed the aura of mystic power.

  Bishop Egbert was easily the most impressive of the churchmen. He looked incredibly ancient, immediately reminding Silvas of Auroreus, though except for the air of tremendous age there was no resemblance between them. As the bishop stepped forward, away from the horses, he peeled off his traveling cloak and handed it to one of his monks.

  The bishop might dress only in the white robes of his order, but the cassock he wore was not of the simply spun cloth that most monks of the White Brotherhood wore. The fabric was close-woven and polished, and there were innumerable arcane symbols worked into it in a white that was so near the base fabric that only a person with some gift for magic would be able to make out the symbols-not just the traditional Christian devices of crosses and stylized fish, but some of the symbols of the trimagister and the Greater Mysteries as well.

  Egbert had long white hair, worn unencumbered by any cap while riding. His face was deeply lined and roughened by age and weather. He was so thin that he appeared emaciated, though that look was common in many chapters of the White Brotherhood. Egbert's hands were long and bony, with fingers that seemed to be half again as long as they should be, an effect heightened by long fingernails. His eyes were dark and so deep-set that it was impossible to tell at a glance what color they were.

  To those sensitive to such things, he had a clear aura of magical power, as much stronger than that of Brother Paul as it was weaker than that of Silvas. Brother Paul could never hope to be as powerful as the bishop, and Egbert was clearly not as powerful as the wizard. The auras of the monks who had arrived with Egbert ranged between the bishop and the vicar, perhaps averaging closer to the bishop. The cathedral chapter of St. Ives could marshal considerable force in concert, though even together they would never match Silvas in sheer magical power.

  There were several minutes of confusion on the village green, a babel of voices. Even without the backdrop of fear, the arrival of a bishop in a small backwater parish like Mecq would be a major event, one that the parishioners would talk about the rest of their lives.

  Brother Paul stepped forw
ard and made his proper obeisance.

  "Get up, brother," Bishop Egbert said. His voice was high and reedy but strong, showing no edge of age or infirmity. The bishop's eyes immediately went to Silvas, and the wizard stepped forward.

  "I am known as Silvas, Your Excellency. We have not had the pleasure of meeting before."

  "Your fame is known," the bishop said. A cautious smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "A couple of the brothers recall the service you did Bishop Alfred some years back."

  Silvas bowed his head respectfully. "He was a good friend."

  "I did not know him, save through correspondence, more's the pity," Egbert said. "He did give sage counsel, though."

  "He did indeed," Silvas agreed. "His words are missed by many."

  Bishop Egbert looked around at the people of Mecq. They had almost encircled the bishop and his retinue-except for an open space on either side of the pillar of smoke. Once the bishop had started speaking, the villagers had fallen silent. Apart from their worries, they would wait for the bishop to give them his blessing. The blessing of a bishop, perhaps available only once in a lifetime for the people of a place such as Mecq, had to count for more than the blessing of a country vicar like Brother Paul.

  "I could feel the nearness of the Blue Rose when we entered the valley," Bishop Egbert said, so softly that none of the peasants hanging around the wizard and the churchmen could quite make out his words.

  "As did I," Silvas said. "The feeling was not that specific at first, though. I sensed the evil, but it wasn't until I helped an ill villager that I spotted the signature of the Blue Rose." Even more softly he added, "They seem to be directed by a wizard of my own stature, and they have real power behind them now."

  The bishop raised an eyebrow, but accepted the wizard's estimate. "Perhaps we should defer further talk of this until later?"

  "That might be wise," Silvas agreed.

  Egbert looked past the wizard at Bay then. The bishop had been doing his best to ignore the horse's uncommon size up to that moment, but he could not ignore Bay for long. Egbert met the horse's gaze. After they had stared at each other for a minute or more, the bishop nodded with at least partial understanding that Bay was more than just an exceptionally large animal.