“Reglum!” Sally yelled. “Reglum!”
Dorentius Bunce ran up, bounded over Sally, shouting. He slid on his knees to Reglum Bammary, his Oxonian rival, his hatmoril. Dorentius, a head shorter than the tall lieutenant, heaved Reglum off the woman. There was blood on Reglum’s shoulder.
“Oh Kaskas!” yelled Dorentius. “Oh Dear Mother!”
Sally, half-blind, ran to the pile of bodies. Reglum opened his eyes. He groaned and swore. Dorentius yelled for help. Reglum looked at Sally, tried to speak, locked her gaze on him. Nexius stood over them.
“Look,” Nexius said. “She’s dead. Shot dead.” He pointed to a gaping wound in her neck, and a spreading pool of blood on the floor. Nexius raised his head, pointed at Fraulein Reimer. “The Reimer hit her before she could fire.”
Reglum tried to sit up, fell back with a gasp. Blood ran from his shoulder. Nexius knelt down. “You’ve been hit, Lieutenant Bammary, clipped in the shoulder by the bullet that killed the Learned Doctor,” he said. “Broke the top of your shoulder blade, it looks like. Painful. Lie back. Here’s help.” He and Dorentius eased Reglum back, pressing the wound to stop the bleeding. Sally heard a crunching sound from Reglum’s torn shoulder.
Marines with a stretcher took Reglum outside. Dorentius went with him. Sally wanted to follow but Nexius, hands red with Reglum’s blood, waved her back. All around were Marines disarming Sacerdotal Guards and pointing weapons at the Learned Doctors. The Arch-Bishop walked up to Nexius.
“This is sacrilege,” said the Arch-Bishop, in a tone that would congeal fire. “You will be imprisoned for this, Captain, if not worse.”
Nexius said nothing but appraised the Learned Doctor and Chief Sacerdote with a calmly belligerent look.
“Oh,” Nexius said at last. “Sacrilege, yes. But not by me or mine. You have much to answer for, using a weapon that is forbidden, and in the Temple of all places.”
“Don’t act the Dusiflux with me, Captain,” said the Arch-Bishop. “No righteous indignation about a weapon that your Marines covet for themselves.”
Nexius shook his head. “You truly misunderstand us, Arch-Bishop, for which I am sorry.” Nothing could have enraged the Arch-Bishop more, which was, of course, Nexius’s intent. Before the Arch-Bishop could retort, Nexius waved up his troops and ordered the Arch-Bishop and the other Learned Doctors taken to their carriages and kept under guard. When he was done, Nexius turned to the McDoons. His face was suddenly weary, his voice mournful.
“He is right about one thing,” Nexius said, shaking his head. “This is sacrilege. We have spilled blood, blood of our own people, in the Mother’s Temple.”
“What happened?” said Barnabas.
“It may take a while for us to know,” said Nexius. He walked over to the body of a Sacerdotal Guard, a young woman, arms splayed, her rifle still gripped in her hand. Two Marines bent down to pick her up.
“Gently,” Nexius said. “Honour her as a fallen comrade. This should not have happened.” As the Marines took her body away, Nexius lowered his voice and said, “They were better equipped, but the Marines were better trained.”
Nexius walked to Fraulein Reimer, who stood staring at the Learned Doctor wreathed in blood on the floor. Sanford had one arm around her. The other McDoons gathered round. Nexius took the pistol from the fraulein’s hand.
“A clean, honest shot, made in your own defence,” the Captain Emeritus said. “You saved Sally’s life, maybe the lives of us all. Hitting Lieutenant Bammary was an accident of war. He will understand.”
Fraulein Reimer looked up with tears in her eyes. She shook her head, mumbled something in German, crossed herself. Sally and Tom embraced her, then led her outside. Nexius saluted the McDoons and moved away to complete the clean-up of the Temple. Noreous Minicate walked to the McDoons and said, “Come, let’s go to the carriages for the journey home. We have had enough of legend-making for one day.”
In the carriage, Sally opened the basket where Isaak had been kept while they were in the Temple. “Tes muddry,” said Sally, and burst into tears.
Chapter 13: Breathing Honied Ashes
“Like the Ornish,” the Queen said in the way that only a sovereign can speak. “We have behaved like the Ornish, defiling the Mother’s Temple.”
The Arch-Bishop returned her look. He stood in the audience hall, not the small reception room where the McDoons had first met Her Majesty. Over one hundred people filled the room: the heads of the major Optimate houses, the deans of the Learned Doctors, the Tragiarchs of the Gremium for Guided Knowledge, senior officers from the Marine & Army, councillors from the Collegium. The Queen’s ministers sat behind her, with the chief justices of the Royal Courts flanking her. The Lord-Chancellor sat at her side. The McDoons sat at a table of their own. Outside the hall swarmed the writers of libelles and broadsheets, eager to interview the departing dignitaries and to be the first with the news for a public clamouring for information about the events at the Sign of the Ear. Also outside, and just as keen for news, were diplomats from the Free City of Iquajorance, from The Land of the Painted Gate, and from the Ornish Coerceries.
“Surely Your Majesty recognizes the rationale for what the Learned Doctors did,” said the Arch-Bishop.
“If I did, Arch-Bishop, I would not have asked you here today to answer my questions,” replied the Queen.
So the exchange went for over an hour. Besides the Learned Doctor whom Fraulein Reimer had killed, six Sacerdotal Guards had died and three Marines, with Reglum Bammary and others wounded. Each side accused the other of firing first. The Wurm-Owl’s appearance and the disappointment of having the door closed were cited as explanatory factors: it was said the owl’s malevolence had gusted into the soldiers’ heads, deluding them, caused panic and misjudgement. (Left unspoken was the long-standing rivalry between the Marines and the Sacerdotal Guards, symptomatic of the deeper and even more tacit rivalry between the Chamber of Optimates and the Royal House.) Each side blamed the other for the failure to keep the door open.
“The Karket-soomi were bewitched by the Cretched Man,” cried the Arch-Bishop. “The boy, the Key-bearer’s nephew, spoke on the Cretched Man’s behalf!”
The crowd buzzed. All eyes moved from the Arch-Bishop to the McDoons and back again. Sensing his advantage, the Arch-Bishop turned to the assembly and raised his voice as if he were preaching a sermon, which, in effect, he was. He said: “The Cretched Man had poisoned the boy’s mind, turned him against us. We feared a dire alliance, were forced to use drastic means to remind the Key-bearer of his duty. The Marines clearly supported the boy and the Key-bearer in their willingness to abide by the Cretched Man. We acted to save our colleagues from dereliction of duty!”
Nexius was on his feet, along with a half-dozen other Marine officers. Sally would have laughed at the pugnacity of the short, absented-minded Dorentius Bunce and the slender, nervous-fingered Noreous Minicate but for the cold fire in their eyes. (She knew how Reglum would react if he were here instead of recuperating in the lazarette; she had a sudden sharp memory of him leaping in front her, yelling madly and sweeping out his sword.) The hall erupted in shouts, the Lord-Chancellor called for order, and members of Her Majesty’s Household Guard banged their rifle-butts on the floor to remind everyone where they were.
The Queen pondered the Arch-Bishop’s allegations but focussed on the issue of the tube-weapon the Learned Doctors had wielded.
“The Verniculous Blast is forbidden,” she said. “By our own law and by our treaty with the Coerceries of Orn. You defied the law.”
“In the name of a higher necessity,” said the Arch-Bishop. “Our law allows, even requires, such actions when undertaken for the greater and higher good.”
So it went for many more hours. The judges thumbed through codices and pandects, the Optimates debated, the Major-Captain defended Nexius and the Marines. In the end, the enquiry was inconclusive as such proceedings often are: any higher truth that might have been abstracted from the strange event
s at the Temple was thoroughly enmeshed in human error. The Queen was advised that neither law nor politics would make it easy to ascertain culpability, and that more would probably be lost than gained in the attempt. Zinnamoussea had not been Queen for over two decades for naught, and she was a Hullitate to boot. She issued a ruling that avoided further crisis while putting the Learned Doctors on notice.
“No charges will be brought against either the Marines or the Sacerdotal Corps, provided each drops the complaints against the other,” she said. “With one exception: the Learned Doctors shall be fined for possession of and attempted use of the Verniculous Blast, and must surrender that technology to the Crown immediately, while foreswearing future possession.”
The Arch-Bishop glared at the Queen but held his tongue. Many among the Optimates did the same thing.
“No charges will be brought against any soldier for discharging his or her weapon in the Temple or for the consequences thereof,” said the Lord-Chancellor. “The fallen will be given state funerals, and will be buried, not in the cemeteries of each corporation, but intermixed in a special section of the Royal Burying Grounds.” The Arch-Bishop and the Major-Captain shared a dislike for the last provision but admired begrudgingly the political finesse of the offering: the families of the fallen were being afforded the highest possible honour.
The Lord-Chancellor clapped her hands and said, “As her final ruling in this matter, the Queen requires the Sacerdotal Corps to hand over the key to the Royal House for safekeeping.” Before his arrest by Nexius in the Temple, the Arch-Bishop had been careful to extract the key from the keyhole. Nexius had been careful to notice the Arch-Bishop doing so.
The Sacerdotes and many of the Optimates roared their dismay but the military and the merchants and others of the Optimates roared louder their approval. The Queen turned to the McDoons and said, “Before we close this enquiry, and send our prayers of thanks to the fallen, and our pleas for forgiveness to the Mother, let us consider for a moment the remarkable bravery and astounding accomplishments of the Key-bearer and his companions from London in far-off Karket-soom.”
All heads strained to see Barnabas and the others. Nexius spoke in simple terms, a soldier’s description, of what had happened from the time the door opened to the time the Wurm-Owl flew back into the moon. The Arch-Bishop interjected with different interpretations, more florid and elaborate than Nexius’s account, but otherwise the audience hall was silent. Those waiting outside pressed their ears to the great doors.
The Queen stood up and made a great circle with her right hand, then bowed to the McDoons, and made a great circle with her left hand and bowed again. “In the name of the Trees and the Great Mother,” said the Queen, “we thank you for wishing yourselves to come to Yount, and we beg forgiveness for the pains and sorrow we have caused you.” One by one, with greater or lesser enthusiasm, every person in the audience hall rose to bow to the McDoons. The McDoons looked around the room and were embarrassed and doubtful and a little bit angry all at once. Barnabas said, “Quatsch,” and rose to make a speech, but Dorentius Bunce, who was translating for them, pulled him back down, saying, “Not necessary here, old chap; save your speech for private talk.”
Barnabas had plenty to say in private: “What an earful that was, some of the best clarifyin’ I have ever seen, or the worst, depending on your point of view. That rascally bishop and his crew pretty much had their way, especially seeing as how they started it all by bringing that what-did-you-call-it forbidden weapon! And then they complained about being dealt with unfairly! Hah, and what about us, then? Rushin’ through unnatural wind and down strange roads to get here, to save them, and then the Learned Doctors try to kill us, not to mention we almost get eaten for their sake by an owl the size of an elephant. It’s all topsy-turvy now, and I almost feel sorry for the Cretched Man, which makes no sense at all!”
The other McDoons nodded vehemently. Sanford asked, “What was the weapon the Doctors brought?”
Nexius said, “The Verniculous Blast. So terrible that even we in the Marines dare not use it. It can barely be controlled, often destroying those who wield it as well as those it is aimed at.”
Dorentius added, “Do you remember the Supply Island, where the air was weak and the buildings did not age? We have found other places in the Interrugal Lands where the laws of nature are not identical to those in our world and yours. On one of these we found a material in an ore that, when altered and arrayed, causes death. But not just death: a slow and horrible death, maiming and mutilating slowly over months before killing.”
“A verniculous slow fire,” said Nexius.
“We in the Marines have long suspected the Doctors of keeping the technology in violation of the law,” said Dorentius. “That they would try to use it on you, whom we have called to help us, well, I cannot fathom it, no matter how desirous we all are to open the door. I am so sorry.”
Barnabas said, “We understand now that Yount is more complicated than perhaps we were led to believe, but I think we know who our friends are in this place. I guess the Queen had little choice — she seems to like us — but the Doctors did not get much of a punishment.”
Nexius said, “Perhaps you should know that the Arch-Bishop is also head of the House of Loositage.”
“The chief house in the Chamber of Optimates,” said Dorentius.
Sally made the connection. “The House Presumptive when the Hullitate line ends,” she said.
“Unless the prophecy comes to pass,” said Nexius. “That the eleventh dynasty in Yount shall be started by two from Karket-soom.”
“A prophecy the Arch-Bishop and all the Sacerdotes have declared heretical,” said Dorentius.
“They say there was little salt in the Arch-Bishop’s tears when he heard of Princess Zessifa’s disappearance,” noted Noreous.
“Oh, Quatsch,” said Barnabas. “We did not have to travel through thick and thin for such bother. We have enough disagreement about religion and politics back in England.”
Talk turned to the Cretched Man. Tom described again the conversations he had with Jambres and the Minders. The Yountians continued to be astonished: what Tom reported flew in the face of all their experience and understanding.
“Sometimes the clay is better stuff than the glaze,” observed Dorentius, sounding as if he needed to convince himself. “Perhaps the Cretched Man truly is trying to help us.”
Nexius snorted.
Noreous said, “It has happened before that a seeming enemy became an unexpected friend. Think about those Ornish who refused to reject and came to our side in the War of Affirmation.”
Nexius said nothing but his doubt was plain to read.
Dorentius said, “Sometimes an osprey really can save a tern.”
Nexius waved his arm and said, “Still a gatekeeper. That’s what the Wurm called him. Even if the Cretched Man wants to help us, he cannot. He is under the power of Wurm.”
Tom objected, stressing Jambres’s desire to end Ornish slavery, and thereby speed Yount’s release — and thus, presumably, his own. He and Nexius debated some more until Sally interrupted.
“We cannot sit like the mule between the haystacks who dies because he cannot decide which to eat first,” she said. “I am inclined to think Tom is right about the Cretched Man’s intentions, but likewise I believe Nexius is correct in saying the Cretched Man has limited power to aid us.”
“So, what do we do now?” said Barnabas, ever more impressed with his niece. (To think that I raised her! he thought. Well, beans and bacon, I must have had something to do with her upbringing, mustn’t I have?)
Sally said, “We make sure the fraulein recovers from . . . from her action.” Fraulein Reimer had gone straight from the royal hearing to her room.
Sanford said, “Hear, hear.” Everyone was silent for a few minutes. Then Sanford spoke again: “You must speak with the Queen, Barnabas, about your heart’s desire. You fulfilled your end of the bargain.”
Everyone look
ed at Nexius, who nodded. “I will take you tomorrow,” he said.
Barnabas went to the Queen with Nexius and, at Barnabas’s request, Sanford.
“Sanford was there at this desire’s beginning,” said Barnabas. “He needs to be here at its . . . ending, or whatever this will be.”
They met the Queen again in the small reception room. Only the Lord-Chancellor was with her. There were few formalities, beyond the Queen inquiring after Fraulein Reimer’s state.
“Let us start,” said the Lord-Chancellor. “Her Royal Majesty honours her obligations. We can bring you to someone who is close to your heart’s desire. More we cannot promise.”
“When?” breathed Barnabas, gripping his palempore vest so hard it almost ripped.
“This very afternoon, if you wish.”
“I wish, oh how I wish.”
The Queen sat forward and took Barnabas’s hands in hers. She said, “We ask pardon now if we have . . . meddled, is that your word? Visit first this person and ask us questions after.”
Several hours later, on a Runnow-day in the early winter, late in November by London standards, Barnabas stood before a door in a wing of the Royal Palace in Yount. The Lord-Chancellor had escorted him herself, with Nexius and Sanford. At the door, the Lord-Chancellor paused before opening the lock.
“Pass through, and earn what we owe you for your services,” she said, bowing. “But beware of unintended consequences. We have not the foresight of Nessi in this matter, though all that we have done has been done in good faith.”
Barnabas gripped Sanford’s shoulder for a moment, nodded to Nexius, and walked alone through the door into a garden like none he had ever seen. He was in a courtyard with arched walkways on all four sides and a carved fountain in the middle. Paths ran from each corner, to the fountain, with flowering bushes and beds of herbs in between the paths. Banks of blood-red carnations filled each of the four corners of the garden. Brightly coloured birds flew overhead, alighting on perches under the arcades. Where the paths began stood trees with rich silver-green leaves, some bearing fruit like pomerances, some like shaddocks, yellow and orange-red. A late-afternoon winter sun slanted down over the top of the courtyard but inside it was warm and scented and in bloom. Looking up in wonder Barnabas saw that small flakes of snow fell onto a roof of glass, stretched over a grid of thin iron beams.
The Choir Boats Page 27
