The Bloodstained God (Book 2)

by Tim Stead

  “I doubt it,” he said. “It is best that you set fixed times for eating, and tell me when the time has come, for otherwise I am inclines to lose myself quite completely in work.”

  She understood at once. “Of course. I will instruct the staff to call us at midday and at the hour of dusk. Breakfast will be when you wake.”

  Nesser smiled again, that quick lifting of the upper lip. “Is there a catalogue?” he asked.

  Sara flushed. It was the task that Lord Skal had set her, but it was still less than half complete. She was forever wandering off into the pages of books and not sticking to her duty. “It is the heart of my work, Sage Nesser, but not yet complete,” she confessed.

  “And how could it be, with so much to lead you astray?” he said. “Never the less, it would be most gracious of you to let me see what you have completed. This is a fine collection for a private library.”

  He was so understanding, she thought, so wise to her passion for reading that she thought he must surely share it, and indeed that was hardly a surprise in a scholar who must have read thousands of books, and perhaps even written some. What a thing it must be to write a book and see other men read the words that you have caused to be placed upon the page.

  She sat at the opposite end of the table and picked up the volume she had abandoned when Lira called her. She would speak to the servants later.

  * * * *

  When Sara came down to break her fast the next morning Lira whispered to her that the scholars had risen an hour ago and were already about their work in the library. Sara felt like a slug-a-bed. She ate her meal quickly and went to join them. She slipped into the room as quietly as she could and took her seat close to the door. She had finished the Telan book the previous evening, and by way of a change she had selected a treatise on mathematics. It was short on enchanting tales, but she found the pages filled with wonders of quite a different kind. They held the keys to understanding things that she thought could not be understood.

  “Lady Sara?” She looked up. “You do not mind if I call you by name?” Nesser asked. He was settled in his chair, swaddled with blankets like a bird on its nest.

  “Not at all, Sage Nesser,” she replied.

  “Then you must call me Bento,” he said.

  “If you wish it.”

  Nesser eased himself back in his chair, away from the book. He did so with a little frown on his face as though it caused him pain, and Sara thought what a journey it must have been for so old a scholar; how much pain it had cost to come here and read a single book.

  “You have read this?” he asked.

  “I have.”

  “And what did you think of his description of the society of the mage lords, before the war?”

  Sara thought back to her reading of the book. So much had happened since to push it from her mind that she doubted that she could remember, but to her surprise the chapter came easily into focus, swimming back into view as clearly as though she had read it yesterday.

  “I recall that he was vague about it… Bento,” she said, finding the use of his given name both awkward and thrilling at the same time. “He seemed to wish it to be a hierarchy, implying that there had always been a mage emperor, or at the very least a mage lord who was first among them, but the stories he tells suggest that they did not see themselves in that way. Each mage lord saw himself as equal to the others, or at least free from their control.”

  “Excellent,” Nesser said. “A fine analysis. So you believe that the mage emperor was a single individual, and not a dynasty?”

  “I cannot say. It was not written.”

  Nesser shook his head. “I am not asking you to repeat what you read, Lady Sara, but think for a minute. What do you believe, and on what evidence?”

  Sara thought back to her reading and wished that she had read the book a second time. She did not want to disappoint Nesser. The book had treated each mage lord as a permanent fixture, a creature without beginning or end, but they were men all the same. They must have been born even if they could preserve their lives for as long as they wished.

  “It is the author’s fancy,” she said. “There was no dynasty. That would suggest that magical ability is passed from father to son, mother to daughter, yet the mage emperor’s father is unknown, unnamed. His children are mentioned, but not given any importance. It seems obvious that they would not all be equally able, but none was so powerful that they could master even two others.”

  “So what might the mage emperor have been?”

  “A politician,” she said. It was coming more easily now, the ideas marching along together, one following the other like obedient soldiers. “He somehow convinced others to side with him.”

  Nesser nodded. He turned to his secretary. “You see?” he said. “It is not so difficult to draw conclusions.”

  The expression of the secretary’s face was so determinedly neutral that Sara was sure it concealed hostility. She did not like the way she had been used by Nesser to put the man down. It would only cause trouble.

  “I am sure that your secretary is a fine and clever man, Bento,” she said. “If I can answer questions that he cannot, then perhaps it is because I read the book a month ago and have had time to dwell upon it.” She closed her own book and stood up to go.

  “I have offended you,” Nesser said. She said nothing. “I am truly sorry if it is so,” he added.

  “It is not I who deserve an apology,” she said, looking pointedly at the secretary.

  Nesser turned to the man, who had coloured noticeably at her words. She had embarrassed him, she realised.

  “Manoc, I am sorry,” he said. “The Lady Sara is correct. It was thoughtless of me to belittle you, especially in her presence.”

  “There is no need, Sage…” Manoc insisted.

  “Will you hep me stand?” Nesser said. Manoc helped him to stand, glad of the distraction, it seemed. When he was upright and securely in possession of his stick he turned to the young man again. “Read on,” he said. “I have need of air, and if the lady will be good enough to accompany me I can spare you to study on your own for a while.” He turned a questioning glance in her direction. She nodded.

  One they were in the corridor she slowed to his pace and walked beside him.

  “Is there a place that we can walk outside?” Nesser asked.

  “Of course. There is a seat on the far side of the lawns, and a small lake there. Well, it is a pond I suppose, but it looks well enough.”

  They continued at the old man’s pace out of the front door and across the grass, which Nesser seemed to find easier than the gravel. Once they were well away from the house the sage began to speak.

  “You were kind to Manoc, and I’m sure he will appreciate it,” he said.

  “I think he will resent it, and me,” she said. Nesser seemed startled by her direct way of speaking, for he paused, looked at her again, then continued to walk.

  “No. I will explain. Manoc has noble blood, but very little of it. He is the third son of the second son of a knight of Avilian. Yet he feels that blood. You are the opposite thing, a woman who had been given blood because of something you have done. Your nobility has been earned, like the General Arbak. He admires this, and wishes that he could do some great deed himself.”

  “But his blood is real,” Sara protested. “Mine is borrowed.”

  “He does not see it that way, and neither do I. Noble blood is no more than a shadow of ancient deeds and vanished politics. It is a signifier that an ancestor was once worthy in some way of elevation, of being raised up. The great houses are forever plagued by the obligation to that blood debt. They know as well as any that they do not deserve their position.”

  “I did nothing,” she said.

  “You killed a man – an enemy of your lord. Men have been honoured for less.”

  “I killed a man to defend my child.”

  “As good a reason as any, to be sure,” Nesser said. “But there are few people who have killed,
and fewer still that have no cause for remorse at the killing.”

  Sara was silent. She remembered the killing well. Each of them had held a knife, and they had struck at the same time, but it was Sara who had lived. She thought that perhaps it was because she had struck with no thought of survival. She had expected to die, and her only concern, indeed her only hope had been that he would also die and that her child would be safe. She remembered the pain as his blade had struck home, and remembered, too, the feeling of her own blade, a simple fruit knife, as it split the man’s flesh. Elejine; his name had been Elejine. She should not forget his name.

  “I have offended you again,” Nesser said.

  “No. No, I am not offended,” she reassured him. “I was thinking of the man I killed. His name was Elejine.”

  Nesser looked up at her for a moment as though she were the most complicated of texts. “Let us sit for a while,” he said. “I want to talk to you about books.”

  41. Lorrimal Seat

  Narak sat and watched the house. He was less than a mile away, tucked up in a tree with a clear view of the place. There was no hurry. He did not mind that time was passing. Somehow he was certain that he would not find Hesham here no matter when he approached, but he wanted to watch for a while first, to get a feel for the rhythm of the place.

  It seemed quiet. He knew the house simply as Lorrimal Seat: the seat of the earls of Lorrimal. It was an unimaginative name for an unimaginative place. Where High Stone had been strong this place had an echo of strength. There was a curtain wall, but it was in the grip of ivy, and quite untended. The keep within was more like a house, but no more pleasing to the eye for being that. It was made of stone and punctured by a mix of glassed windows and archer’s slits whose random nature was not in the least charming.

  It could have been a ruin, but that the gates were closed and barred.

  He looked for men on the walls, but saw none. He studied the road for signs of traffic to and from the house, but though the road was obviously used – there being two clear ruts made by carts passing – he saw nothing.

  After an hour of fruitless examination he decided on a closer look. He dropped from the tree and strolled easily up to the gate. There was no indication that anyone saw him coming. The gate was a simple one as far as he could tell. Wooden planks nailed through to crossbeams at top, middle and foot. It was not strong, not new. He could probably have kicked it apart. He knocked instead, hammering a fist against the thickest part.

  It was a while before there was any response. His hand was raised again to strike the gate when he heard footsteps.

  “Who is it?” a voice called. It was not a young man’s voice, Narak thought.

  “My name is Narak. I seek the earl of Lorrimal,” he replied.

  “He’s not here. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll go away.”

  “Open the gate,” Narak said.

  The voice on the other side came back lower, almost a whisper. “Look, you need to get away from here. He’s not here, but if he was, and he might be soon, he don’t like visitors. Go away for your own sake.”

  “It is your master you should fear for. I am Wolf Narak. Open the gate or I will knock it down.”

  There was a silence on the other side which became quite long.

  “The Wolf God?” the voice said.

  “The same.”

  “Well, then, I’ll open the door for you.”

  Narak waited while the noises the other side of the gate suggested the man was moving to the left and then the right. There was a wooden clatter that suggested a bar being dropped from its cradle, and then a dragging sound as it was pulled clear. Bolts were drawn, and then the gate eased inwards about a foot and a head appeared in the gap.

  The man was not as old as he had thought. He was fifty years, perhaps; greyed but not bowed by age. He looked a better man than his voice had suggested.

  “You’re the Wolf?” he asked. His tone suggested that he was disappointed by what he saw. Narak didn’t bother to reply, but thrust the gate wide open and strode through into the bailey as the man dodged out of his way. He looked about him. This was truly a house in disrepair. The courtyard was a mess, and the only signs of life were chickens, several of which picked through the straw that lay scattered on the ground. There was a broken cart on its side to the left and a pile of half rotten wooden boxes beyond. The keep itself stood with its door gaping, as though caught in the midst of a shameful act.

  “Where does Lorrimal keep himself?” he demanded.

  The man, who Narak now assumed to be no more than a caretaker of this derelict habitation, nodded towards the keep.

  “In there,” he said. “Up the top he has rooms that’s always locked.”

  “Show me.”

  The caretaker took a few steps towards the keep, then stopped and turned round.

  “You sure you’re the Wolf?” he asked. “It’s just that it’s a big risk for me showing you stuff. If he finds out I did he’ll kill me sure as anything, or maybe worse.”

  Narak was growing impatient. This craven servant had every right to be afraid, he supposed, but those that serve evil should expect evil to be visited upon them. He grabbed the man by the neck and lifted him clean off the ground, holding him at arm’s length. Legs kicked ineffectually in the air for a moment. Narak dropped him into a heap on the floor.

  “Satisfied?” he asked.

  He heard a bow release, the sound coming from the keep, and he stepped to one side so that the arrow passed by, bouncing off the ground and shattering against the stone of the wall. He looked up, trying to see where it had come from. His hands lifted to the pommels of his swords.

  The caretaker was suddenly on his feet again, and waving both arms above his head as he stepped towards the keep.

  “Don’t! Stop!” he was shouting. “It’s the Wolf. Don’t shoot.”

  A figure emerged from the darkened doorway, bow in hand. It was a young man, and Narak noted that there was still an arrow on the string, though the bow was not drawn.

  “My son,” the caretaker said. “Just looking out for me, great lord. Forgive him.”

  Narak let his hands slip away from his blades. There had been no blood silver on the arrow. He would have smelled it. Perhaps the younger man had been acting as the older had said.

  “We will go up,” he said, and the caretaker nodded and led him up the steps to the keep door. The younger man retreated before them into the darkness, and when Narak saw him again they stood in a great hall, or a room that had once been worthy of the name. He was still holding the bow, and had backed away until he stood in the far corner of the hall, as far from Narak and the caretaker as he could get, and with a stair to his back.

  The room was obviously where these two lived. A fire burned in the hearth, and Narak wondered why he had not seen the smoke. Next to the fire a couple of beds were made up; one to either side. There was a table in the centre of the room with the remains of a meal laid out. Barrels were stacked in one corner and a brace of pheasant hung against the wall close to the fire.

  “Just the two of you?” he asked.

  “Aye, great lord, just me and my son. We keep the place.”

  Narak nodded. Just two men to keep the house from falling down, to keep the gates barred and make sure there was food about and people chased away. It was not a lord’s house at all.

  “Show me where Lorrimal’s rooms are,” he said.

  “I will, I will,” the caretaker said, and headed at once for a stair opposite to the one at his son’s back. He led the way upwards, and Narak became aware of the presence of smoke, which thickened at they ascended. The man coughed. “Chimney’s broke,” he said. The smoke stayed with them, though it became thinner as they ascended higher up the stair. That at least explained why he had not seen the smoke from without.

  They came to a door barring their way and the caretaker stopped. “This is it,” he said. “I’ve not a key.”

  The door was new and thick, heav
ily studded with iron. Placed as it was across the stairs it would be even harder to break. There was nowhere to set his shoulders against, nowhere to get a run at it. He kicked at it by way of experiment and felt the solidity of it, but the door was only wood, and it flexed at the impact.

  “Stand back,” he told the caretaker. He braced himself with his arms both sides of the stair and kicked at it as hard as he could manage. The door boomed, but did not break. He kicked again, and the second blow was rewarded by a splintering sound, and one of the heavy planks shifted a little. He aimed the third kick at the weakened spot and saw the wood break, allowing a chink of darkness to be seen beyond.

  He slipped his fingers through the gap and pulled, tearing the plank away from its fellows and casting it down the stair past the startled caretaker. The second plank was easier, and it seemed that he had dismantled the door in less than a minute, each plank in turn ripped from the whole and flung backwards until only splinters and darkness remained. There was no lamp lit, and none to light that he could see.