The Dread Wyrm

by Miles Cameron

  His lieutenant, D’Herblay, laughed with him. Even de Vrailly nodded.

  The King’s Champion frowned. “As is often the way, there is merit in what my cousin the count says.”

  De Rohan shook his head. “Do you deny that the Queen has committed adultery? We have shown you proof often enough. Are you suddenly a convert to her party?”

  De Vrailly shook his head. “I am saddened that we are so divided on these matters. No—I know in my heart she is an evil woman. My angel has told me.”

  At the word “angel” the archbishop slapped his hand to his forehead, as if in pain.

  “I would at least like to order—in the King’s name—the arrest of this woman, Blanche Gold.” De Rohan took a scroll and handed it to de Vrailly. “She has consistently been one of the Queen’s go-betweens with her lovers. We have witnesses,” he said in a low voice.

  Gaston D’Eu watched his cousin accept the scroll and he rose. “I cannot be party to this,” he said.

  De Rohan shrugged. “Then take your divisive accusations and your treasonous talk and go, my lord.”

  D’Eu shrugged. “I have already challenged you. I cannot do so again. That you ignore my summons to combat says all that needs to be said.”

  De Rohan didn’t meet his eye.

  “Coward,” D’Eu said.

  De Rohan grew red.

  “Caitiff. Poltroon. False knight.” D’Eu shrugged. “I see that my words cannot move you. I pity you.” D’Eu turned. “My dearest lord, I take my leave.”

  “Wait!” de Vrailly said. “Ah, sweet cousin. Please await my pleasure.”

  D’Eu bowed and left with D’Herblay at his shoulder.

  “He will ruin everything we seek to build here,” de Rohan said, pleading with de Vrailly.

  The King’s Champion looked at him with surprise. “How can you not respond to his challenge?” he asked.

  De Rohan drew himself erect. “I serve a higher cause. I can ignore a private quarrel, no matter how unfair it is.”

  De Vrailly pursed his lips. “I think you should fight him,” he said. “You are a great knight. I trained you myself. You are the match for any man but me.” He raised an eyebrow. “Otherwise, I have to wonder if he is right. Don’t I? And my lord archbishop, I can’t support arresting the Order of Saint Thomas. We’d have riots. And they help us hold the frontiers.”

  The archbishop looked pleadingly at de Rohan.

  De Rohan sighed. “If you have lost confidence in me, my lord, perhaps I should withdraw to the King’s court at Lucrece.” He bowed to the archbishop. “I agree that they are a nest of heretics. A woman saying mass? It’s an abomination.”

  The bishop raised his eyes to heaven.

  De Vrailly looked at them both for a long time, his expressive, wide blue eyes going back and forth between them. “Archbishop, I have every respect for the cloth, but I have difficulty separating your rank from your youth. De Rohan, if you do not feel that you can respond to my cousin’s challenge then you have my permission to withdraw to your estates in Galle.” He rose, his armoured legs making a slight clack as his legs went straight.

  When he and his men-at-arms were gone, the archbishop put a hand on de Rohan’s arm. “I’ll deal with it,” he said. “I have a man.”

  De Rohan shook his head. His hand on the table was shaking. “That he would dare!” he hissed.

  The archbishop put a hand over de Rohan’s. “In a week—less, if the winds are fair—we’ll have three hundred lances, fresh from Galle. We will own this city, and we will have the whip hand we need.”

  “He exiled me!” de Rohan said.

  The archbishop shrugged. “Wait and see,” he said with a smile.

  When the impromptu council broke up, de Rohan and his people went back to court, where the Count of Hoek’s new ambassador was due to be received by the King. Jean de Vrailly listened to his squire for a moment and followed the younger man into his private study, where D’Eu stood quietly.

  “Cousin,” he said.

  “I’m going back to Galle,” D’Eu said. “I’m sorry, cousin. These men are disgusting. I will not be linked to them. And there is word that…” He sighed. “There is word that the Wild is attacking Arelat. Even Galle.”

  De Vrailly nodded. “I, too, have heard this. Bohemund and his people are full of it—because they have this foolish belief that there is no Wild but only the forces of Satan.” De Vrailly shrugged. “Perhaps they are correct.”

  “I have lands in Arelat,” D’Eu said. “I am no good to you here, and I have knight service to perform at home. Please let me go.”

  De Vrailly paced. “We are close, I think. When I have brought the Queen to trial—”

  “An innocent woman,” D’Eu said flatly.

  “And when the rest of my knights arrive—”

  “A foreign army to cow the Harndoners,” D’Eu said.

  “Cousin, my angel has told me—directly—that I must become King to save this realm.” Jean de Vrailly crossed his arms.

  D’Eu came and embraced him. “You know I love you,” he said. “But I will not be party to this anymore. I wash my hands of it. I think you are wrong—you and your angel. And I say that, in your delusion, you have unsavoury allies and you ignore your own beliefs.”

  De Vrailly’s nostrils flared. “Name one!” he said.

  “You preach the Rule of War. But you forbade me to kill that poisonous viper de Rohan.” D’Eu all but spat. “The Rule of War was made for this—when I know in my heart a man is false as black pitch, I kill him. Yet you—you have forbidden me to kill him.”

  De Vrailly ran his fingers through his beard and turned away in frustration. “I was surprised,” he said. “But—my angel has told me—”

  “Your angel may be a devil!” D’Eu said.

  De Vrailly put a hand on his sword.

  They faced each other. “Go,” de Vrailly said.

  D’Eu bowed deeply. “I will be gone on the first ship of spring, my lord cousin,” he said.

  An hour later, Jean de Vrailly was on his knees before his magnificent triptych of Saint Michael, Saint George, and Saint Maurice. He was in his full harness, and the lames around the kneecaps cut into his knees, even though he wore padded hose—bit into them savagely.

  He mastered the pain, and remained kneeling.

  And he prayed.

  His cousin’s stinging words had hurt him. The more so as, in the privacy of his own chamber, he had doubts—severe doubts.

  So he knelt, punishing himself for his doubt, and begging his angel for an appearance.

  An hour passed, and then another. The pain in his knees was now such as to make it past the guards of his experience and his immunity to the minor pains of wearing his harness. Now he had to admit to a niggle of fear for his knees—how long could mere flesh stand to be tormented by steel?

  And his hips—the weight of his mail, of his breast and back, ground into the top of his hips as if he was being pressed to death. If he was standing or riding, the straps on his shoulders would have distributed the weight.

  A theologian would have told him that he was committing sin. That by forcing himself to the point of injury, he was testing his angel, and hence, God.

  De Vrailly was untroubled by such thoughts.

  And eventually, his angel came.

  “Ah, my true knight,” the angel said, his voice like the bells of high mass and the trumpets of the King’s court, all together.

  De Vrailly bowed his head. The angel was so bright.

  “My child, you must want something,” the angel said sweetly.

  De Vrailly’s head remained down.

  “You have doubts,” the angel said, amused. “Even you.”

  “My lord,” de Vrailly said.

  “The Queen is most certainly a witch,” the angel said. “She uses the powers of darkness to entrap men.” The angel’s voice was the very essence of reason.

  “My lord—”

  “You, de Vrailly, must be King
here. Only you.” The angel spoke the words softly, but with great force.

  De Vrailly sighed. “I like the King.” He shook his head. “And I am not sure that the Queen…”

  The angel smiled. “Your conscience does you credit, good knight. And de Rohan surely rivals Judas as a scheming betrayer.”

  De Vrailly’s head shot up. “Yes! To think that work was one of mine—”

  “The King of Kings must use the tools that come into his hand,” the angel said. “Even de Rohan.”

  De Vrailly sighed. “As always, Puissant Lord, you put my mind at rest.” De Vrailly paused. “But I loathe de Rohan.”

  The angel nodded. “So does God. Imagine how He felt about Judas.”

  The angel put an insubstantial hand on de Vrailly’s head, and his power flowed through that hand and over de Vrailly, so that for a moment he was suffused in rich, golden light. “You will have much sorrow in the coming days,” the angel said. “This is no easy task I have set you. Beware the snares. When the King is gone—”

  “Where will he go?” de Vrailly asked.

  “When the King is gone to death, then you will know what to do,” the angel said.

  The appearance of an Ifriquy’an in the yard was made even more exotic by his being with Ser Ricar and the beautiful Blanche, whose tall, wide-shouldered good looks were admired—from afar—by every apprentice at Master Pye’s. More boys had been injured swashbuckling to win her attention than any other girl’s in the square.

  Edmund, who had charge of the yard for most purposes these days, had the gates opened to admit them and never gave it a thought. Ser Ricar had saved almost every one of them from the increasingly violent attacks of the King’s enemies. His sister Mary had been attacked, knocked down, and kicked—and then saved by Ser Ricar. Nancy had been forced to decline service in the palace—the dream of her youth—because their mother would not allow her to walk unaccompanied through the increasingly dangerous streets.

  There was a rumour that Jack Drake was back.

  Spring was bringing more ills than reliefs, except for frozen young men whose numb fingers caused accidents during the winter. And as the tournament was coming apace, the yard was overflowing with work.

  Blanche was taken into Master Pye’s house, where his wife put her in a small room with its own fire and waited on her as if she was the Queen in person.

  In the kitchen, Ser Ricar drank mulled ale against the cold rain.

  The black man drank only water.

  Up close, Edmund found him handsome in a disconcerting and alien way. His features were regular, his eyes large and well spaced and deeply intelligent.

  Nor did he appear to be under a vow of silence. At the table, when he broke bread, he inclined his head and spoke—some foreign words that sounded like a prayer.

  Master Pye came in with his spectacles dangling around his neck. He glanced at the black man as if he saw such in his wife’s kitchen every day and poured himself a cup of the warmed ale.

  “Aethiope?” he asked the black man.

  The man rose and bowed, his hands together as if praying. “Dar as Salaam,” he replied.

  Master Pye nodded. “Allah Ak’bhar,” he said.

  The infidel nodded.

  “You speak the pagan tongue?” Edmund asked his master.

  “Pagan? Not so fast, young Edmund. Heretical, perhaps.” He shrugged. “Dar as Salaam—the greatest city in the world.” He smiled. “Fine swords.” He shrugged. “Not really the best armourers.”

  “You went there?” Edmund asked.

  Master Pye frowned. “I was on a ship in the harbour eight days, wind bound. Went ashore and didn’t get made a slave.” He shrugged. “When I was young and foolish.”

  The black man had a habit of sitting perfectly still.

  “This man is someone important. What happened?” Master Pye was in a hurry.

  Edmund shook his head. “Ser Ricar was there.”

  The Order knight shook his head. He wrote on a wax tablet and Master Pye looked at it.

  “Random has a clerk who speaks Ifriquy’a. Or Wahele or Bemba, I forget which.” Master Pye took his own wax tablet, wrote a note and put his ring on it to seal it. “Take this to Ser Gerald.”

  Edmund took the tablet.

  Master Pye gestured with his hand. “I think you should run.”

  Ser Gerald Random came in person, stumping along with his master clerk who handled all his foreign shipments.

  His clerk wore a gold ring and black cloak like a man of property. He bowed with his hands together.

  The black man returned the bow most courteously.

  The clerk spoke.

  The black man answered.

  After two exchanges, the black man spoke at some length.

  On the fourth exchange, he smiled. It transformed his face.

  The clerk looked up. “He’s a messenger. He’s looking for—for Magister Harmodius.”

  “He’s a little late,” Ser Gerald said.

  “He says he came ashore from the Venike ships; that the Golden Leopard refused to serve or house him, and he intended to leave Harndon at first light.” The man spread his hands and smiled. “He apologized for killing four men, but said that they attacked a woman, and he cannot allow such a thing.”

  Two hours had passed since the two matched giants in ebony and ivory had stumbled into the yard. They’d had enough reports of the carnage in Palm Alley to know who had attacked Blanche and who had died.

  “He seems unconcerned,” Ser Gerald growled.

  His clerk shook his head. “Boss, I was there a year. I met men like this. They have a saying, ‘That which is, is.’ And they say, Inshallah, which means, ‘Let it be as God wills.’”

  “Deus Veult!” Ser Gerald said. He nodded.

  Ser Ricar nodded.

  “No wonder they get along,” Edmund said, not very loud.

  Master Pye leaned in. “I have a shop to run. We have a hundred items to deliver in fifteen days. And my gut feeling is that this is going to make a storm of shit.” He looked at Ser Ricar. “Can you hide him?”

  Ser Ricar nodded.

  The clerk spoke to the infidel, and he shook his head vehemently.

  “He says he has a mission and he must go. He says that if we’ll hide him for one night, he’ll be gone by daybreak.” The clerk smiled. “He says if we’d retrieve his horse, he’d be eternally grateful.”

  Ser Gerald rolled his eyes.

  “Grateful enough for me to get a long look at his sword?” Master Pye asked.

  An hour later, while Ser Gerald dickered with a bored Venike factor for a sea-sick stallion, all the apprentices and journeymen gathered in the Master’s shop around the clean table he kept there. Nothing went on that table but finished metal and parchment; today he laid his wife’s third best linen table cloth atop it after sweeping it, and the infidel knight—all the apprentices agreed he must be a knight—drew his sword and laid it on the table.

  The strong daylight from the gable overhead made the blade seem to ripple and move.

  Every metalworker in the room sighed.

  The sword was a hand longer than the longest sword the shop had ever made, and swept in a gradual curve from the long, two-hand hilt all the way to the clipped point with its rebated false edge. The grip was white ivory from the undead mammoths of the deep south, and the crossguard was plain steel. Set into the blade—a masterpiece of pattern welding—were runes.

  “Are the runes silver, Master?” Edmund asked. The colour of the runes was just barely perceptible as different from the rest of the blade.

  Master Pye shook his head. “Oh, mercy no, Edmund. They are steel. Steel set into the steel.”

  “Look at the finish,” murmured Duke. He had become the shop’s expert of finishing, and he now had a dozen boys working for him.

  Sam Vintner, the most junior man present, was trying not to breathe, but he sighed. “So beautiful!” he said.

  Tom leaned very close. “Magicked,” he
said.

  The infidel was on his toes, watching them very carefully. He was very tense.

  The clerk made reassuring noises.

  “He says—he says that in his own country, he would never allow any but his master or the Sultan to touch his sword. He says his master has filled it with power.”

  Master Pye nodded. “Aye, lads. It’s full of power.” He went to a cabinet in the wall behind his prie-dieu and opened it with a word. The journeymen all knew what it was—a secret cabinet with a hermetical lock. Only the older boys knew how to open it—it was where the precious metals were kept.

  Master Pye took out a set of spectacles that appeared to have lenses of faceted jewels. He leaned over the sword and put the jewels over his eyes.

  “Sweet Mary, Queen of the heavens and mother of God,” he said.

  He took them off and handed them to Edmund, who had never used them before. In fact, Edmund, now the senior journeyman in a shop big enough to be called a factory, was learning that Master Pye had more secrets than a necromancer.

  Edmund put them on. The cabinet shone with energy in mage light.

  The sword lit the room.

  “What do you see, lad?” Master Pye asked him.

  “The sword!” Edmund said.

  “Aye,” Master Pye said. “It is a sword in the aethereal, too.” He pointed at the cabinet, which was merely a point source in mage light. “Things that are magicked are like shadows, and the hermetical praxis burns like a flame in the aethereal.”

  “But this is a sword,” Edmund said. He took off the glasses and handed them to Tom, who was bouncing impatiently.

  The infidel was still nervous. He spoke.

  The clerk translated, after a long pause. “He asks if any of us know Harmodius.”

  Tom put a hand on his master’s arm. “He’s got a magick ring,” he said, looking through the jewels at the paynim.

  “Aye. He’s trouble, and no mistake. What do you boys reckon, when you see a sword that’s a sword in both the real and the aethereal?” Master Pye was pedantic, because he was always teaching.