Ars Magica

by Judith Tarr

  Alba, scenting a stable, speeded her amble slightly. As long as he could cling to her back, he was not a useless old man.

  He drew himself up. The pope had not guessed that he was ill. He would be damned if Pavia would.

  Someday magic would find a way to banish fever. One or two of the students in Rheims had a gift in that direction. Richer —

  Richer was not going to learn that his master had needed his potions and his power. Else Gerbert would never hear the end of it.

  “You won’t tell him,” said Gerbert earnestly. “Promise me.”

  “I promise,” said the shadow at Alba’s head. Sometimes it had Bruno’s face. Sometimes it had wolf’s teeth; or its cloak unfurled into wings. Then it would grin, and Gerbert would know where his sickness had come from.

  oOo

  His servants turned on him. They faced him to a man, and refused to leave Pavia until the doctors judged him well. “Quacks!” he raged. “Charlatans!” And to his traitor servants: “Mutiny!”

  His body, alas, rebelled most treacherously of all. It could barely stand. When he drove it toward the stable, it fell and lay prostrate until the rebels laid him in bed again.

  In the end, perforce, he yielded. He lay and seethed, but he did not try to get up. Often.

  He was not grateful to discover how quickly he mended, once he gave his body time to rest. It had simply been worn out. The spirit’s malice had been a dream, a delusion of his fever. It was safe in its prison, trapped and powerless.

  While he lay ill but not unconscious, he learned that he had indeed seen a banner over the city: the golden eagle of the emperor. Otto, third of that name, was in residence, though likely soon to forsake the fogs and fevers of Italy for the cleaner air beyond the mountains. Outland blood never prospered in this pestilential country.

  Some part of Gerbert that was not lost to sickness recalled that he had hoped to find the emperor here. At first he could hardly care. But as his body began, too slowly, to mend, his mind shook itself free of the fogs that beset it. It was awake again and thinking — scheming, his enemies would say. It focused on this young emperor with the fixity of a mind that had little else to occupy it; it gathered all that it might, of what Otto was, and who, and what he might portend to a mage who had been an archbishop and who was now little more than carrion. But carrion with a flicker of life in it yet.

  Otto would be out of boyhood now and into youth. His father had died, leaving him the empire, when he was barely out of infancy; his mother, who had been a princess in Byzantium, had ruled as regent until she died, not so long ago. Italy had killed them both. The boy was interesting, people said, half a Greek and half a Saxon, but all a Roman.

  Gerbert had known his mother and his father, and his grandfather whom people called the Great. This third Otto, Gerbert had never seen. He was pious, rumor had it; he had the family fondness for men of learning, and not a little of that himself. Remarkable in a youth who had been emperor at three, who had led armies to war at seven.

  Remarkable enough, perhaps, to be of use to a desperate man. Gerbert had sworn oaths of fealty to the German emperors; and he had been loyal to them, whatever the cost, in all the years since he left Hatto’s guardianship to serve that first, great Otto. Surely this latest of that line owed him something. A hearing, at the least. And, perhaps, a word to his cousin the pope, a suggestion that his holiness might do well to judge in Gerbert’s favor. Gerbert would ask no more than that.

  When he was well enough to walk about a little with a stick to lean on, he sent his message. It was simple. The magister of Rheims begs leave to look upon his imperial majesty.

  “Only to look?” the Jinniyah mocked him, but gently.

  He was recovering his temper with his strength: he merely glared at her. Some fool, thinking to indulge his master’s eccentricity, had set her by the bed, which Gerbert in his right mind would never have allowed. Even in the exigencies of travel, when there was no place for her but beside him, he had always kept her covered when modesty required it.

  “Not,” he muttered, “that you could have seen anything to tempt you.”

  “No?”

  She was laughing at him. A harlot without a body, an elderly priest who had never had one to brag of — a fine pair they made.

  Before he lay down, he turned her face to the wall.

  oOo

  Much more quickly than he would have expected, his message received an answer. It was as brief as his own. The magister of Rheims may attend his majesty on the morrow after the daymeal.

  Gerbert came perilously close to refusing. It was too soon. He was too weak. Worse than that: he looked like a sick man. He did not want a young man’s pity.

  That Gerbert did not refuse had nothing to do with what one did and did not say to emperors. He was stubborn, and he had had enough of lying about feeling sorry for himself. He called for a bath, though the servants — good Franks all — cried that he was sealing his death warrant; he called for a barber. He would go as a simple priest, but his habit was new, his linen clean. If he could not look either young or hale, at least he would not look as if he were about to give up the ghost.

  The barber had a mirror. Gerbert was not appalled by what he saw there. A certain transparency did not go ill with the habit and the tonsure. His eyes were grey today, almost silver.

  “Lead us not,” sang the Jinniyah, softly, softly, “into temptation.”

  He flung his nightrobe over her and dismissed the barber, who was looking sorely puzzled.

  There was then the matter of getting to the palace. Alba’s saddle was as yet an unscalable eminence. A litter, therefore, it had to be.

  Gerbert did not have to like it. It was not only pride. That a mage would not willingly cross water, the world well knew. What the world did not know was that a mage could not in comfort contemplate the rocking, swaying progress of a litter.

  It was that or nothing. He set his teeth and let himself be helped into the infernal conveyance.

  oOo

  It cast him up, green and shaking, in the first courtyard of the palace. Servants were there to look after him, dismissing his own anxious escort. Well trained, these: their service was subtle, their assistance unobtrusive. They expressed neither pity nor dismay. Nor did they hurry him. He had time to calm his heaving stomach, to find his land legs. They offered wine; he discovered that he could swallow a little, and that it steadied him.

  At a pace that seemed less labored than stately, his guides led him through the palace. They did not press him to hasten; they paused at intervals that he might rest. Later, when he could spare thought for aught but breathing, he would be interested to note their destination. Had it been an older Otto who summoned him, he would have been profoundly honored.

  The small chamber had not changed. It was still an oddity in a fortress: a place of light and air for all its smallness, one wall an open portico that looked upon a bit of garden, the others painted in an ancient style to seem a sunlit hillside. The floor was its anchor: myriad tiles laid in a pattern of perfect simplicity, the cross and crook of the Chi-Rho, gold on white.

  There were attendants, as there must be; some would be lofty indeed. Gerbert did not see them. On the low cushioned chair — its cushion faded now, and somewhat worn — where an Otto had always sat, was Otto.

  He looked like his mother. That, for a moment, was all that Gerbert saw. He had her great eyes like an icon’s, her pale oval face, her long elegant nose. His hair was lighter, with a suggestion of his father’s ruddiness; the down that was trying to become a beard was reddish fair. He was slender, almost frail; for a Saxon he was not tall, though he would still be taller than Gerbert.

  Their eyes met.

  This was what it was to fall in love. The shock that ran through the body, that had nothing to do with desire. The certainty, sure and absolute. This was made for me. This is the other half of myself.

  He was aware of absurdity. A priest who at fifty had grown old. A boy who at sixte
en was barely yet a man. A peasant’s brat and an emperor. A magus and —

  Theophano had had power, little use though she made of it. Her son had inherited it. All of it. And more. How much more, Gerbert could only begin to guess.

  They must have spoken words of greeting, words that were no more than empty air. The attendants seemed to notice nothing amiss. There was a chair for Gerbert, with back and arms, and cushions blessedly soft. The emperor insisted that he sit in it, though Otto stood himself, bending over Gerbert. “If I had known you were ill,” he said, “I would never have made you come here.”

  Gerbert stiffened. But it was not pity with which the emperor regarded him, or even dismay.

  “Next time,” said Otto, “I’ll come to you.”

  It was as simple as that. There would be a next time.

  Otto, Emperor of the Romans, dropped down at Gerbert’s feet and smiled at him. “I’m sorry I made you come when you were sick, but I’m glad you came. It’s been a long wait.”

  “You’ve been expecting me?”

  Otto did not laugh at his stupidity. “All my life. Mother told me, you see. When I was ready for you, you’d come.”

  “What am I, that the emperor should wait for me?”

  “Magister.” It was both title and answer. The strong brows knit. “Do I presume? I’m not worthy, I know, but — ”

  “My emperor is worthy of anything he pleases.”

  Otto tossed his head, impatient. “Oh, do stop that! I get a bellyful of it from the court.” He stopped, clapped his hand to his mouth. “Magister! I didn’t mean — ”

  Gerbert laughed. He could not help it. “I know what you meant. So you want a teacher. Haven’t you had enough of that as of flattery?”

  “Not what you can teach.”

  “And what do you think I can teach?”

  “Whatever you think I can learn.”

  Gerbert knew that he should be wise. A man in love was the worst of fools. No matter what kind of love it was.

  Was this what Ibrahim had felt when he saw Gerbert?

  Gerbert’s heart contracted. There would be a price for this. This was an emperor. A good one, people said, though young. So had Nero been. And Gerbert knew what had become of Nero’s teacher, who had been the wisest man of his age.

  Cold thoughts before those clear brown eyes, that look of hopeful expectation. Otto would not go the way of the tyrant. Theophano had been no Agrippina. This was no raddled, Godless Rome.

  “Do you know,” asked Otto softly, “what I dream of? Rome; but not the tattered shadow that the years have made of it. Rome reborn, the high laws, the ordered peace under a single lord. Am I arrogant, magister? Do I presume too much, in wanting to be Constantine?”

  Gerbert’s breath caught. Audacious, indeed. And yet... “You have the power,” he said.

  The boy’s eyes shone. “Do you think so? Do you really think so?”

  Careful, Gerbert warned himself. This was not simply the eager boy he seemed to be, leaning on Gerbert’s knee, charming him with adoration. That narrow hand could sway an empire. That mind — bright, yes, and quick, and perhaps it had the seeds of brilliance — could will whatever it pleased, and see it done.

  So prudence warned. Gerbert’s heart was beating. Here was power indeed. Tense, braced, waiting for one to aim it. What every teacher dreamed of: a pupil worthy of his teaching. An heir who could be all that he was, and infinitely more.

  Old fool, his head said. His heart surged over it and drowned it. “Tomorrow,” he said, “we begin.”

  oOo

  Gerbert would lodge in the palace. Otto would not hear of anything else. With miraculous dispatch, Gerbert’s baggage and his servants appeared and were installed in a suite of rooms that, when last Gerbert had been there, had belonged to the empress herself. “Of course,” said Otto. “I have to be emperor, but whenever I can, I’ll be your scholar. Why make it difficult by putting you where I can’t get at you?”

  It was excellent logic. It was also somewhat disconcerting. Gerbert wondered if Aristotle had felt like this when he came to be tutor to Alexander: as if he had been caught up in a whirlwind.

  The emperor’s physician was part of the amenities, and he was not to be put off by rudeness or temper Or outright rejection. A Greek, he, and — Gerbert stilled under his hands — a mage. The man smiled faintly, nodded more faintly still. Recognition; acceptance. And warning. Some things, even here, were not spoken of lightly.

  Gerbert bowed his head a fraction. That was wisdom. He had learned it in Barcelona. People, even priests, could accept much; but only if it was broken to them gently. One taught not by proclamation or by blasts of magefire, but by example. By pursuing one’s purposes without fanfare; by hiding in plain sight.

  It was evening before he remembered what he had come for. In the light of Otto’s eyes, he had forgotten even Rheims.

  oOo

  Where Gerbert had thought to find only frustration, the barring of his way to his city and his archbishopric, there, suddenly, was his heart’s center. There in a moment the world had shifted. What he had taken for his destiny seemed now but a hollow thing, a bitter tax on mind and body.

  But Gerbert was nothing if not a stubborn man. He had begun this battle. He meant to finish it.

  He waited his time — longer, perhaps, than he needed, simply to be with Otto in unstained amity. Time that had dulled the splendor of the old true things — numbers, music, the stars in their courses — now brought them back untarnished. He was like a boy again, discovering with Otto the manifold wonder that was the world. Otto did not ask him to partake in the drudgeries of empire. He wrote a letter or two now and then, to seem useful.

  Otto laughed at that. “You are the most useful man in the world.”

  “But that’s pure pleasure,” said Gerbert. “Too pure for an old plowhorse.”

  “Plowhorse!” Otto snorted. “Well then, you’ve earned your clover. Why not savor it in peace?”

  “Peace.” Gerbert rolled the word on his tongue. “Is that what it is? I’d been calling it happiness.”

  They were in the chamber of the garden, now accoutered as a schoolroom, Otto where he most liked to be, at Gerbert’s feet with his arm around the master’s knees. He was always one for touching, perhaps because an emperor was so seldom granted that familiarity. He looked up at Gerbert, and his eyes were shining. “Are you happy?”

  Gerbert nodded slowly. “Improbable, isn’t it? All out of time and place, sick and desperate and like to go mad, suddenly I’m happy. If I’d stayed in Rome as some thought I should — if I’d never left Rheims at all — ”

  Otto shivered. “Don’t talk of horrors.”

  But once he had begun, Gerbert could not help himself. “You know this can’t go on. I’d be your teacher my life long, and take naught but joy in it. But — ”

  “But,” said Otto, and his eyes had gone dark, “the world is calling you back. What if I forbid you? What if I command you to stay with me?”

  “Would you do that?”

  Otto held his gaze for a long moment before giving way. “You never stop fighting, do you?”

  “Never while the cause is just.”

  “You know it’s not my judgment,” said the emperor. “If it were...”

  “If it were?”

  “I’d have to hear both sides.”

  Otto said it quietly, but there was no diffidence in it. Gerbert throttled sudden, irrational rage. Here — even here, Arnulf’s poison festered.

  Reason rose trembling to its feet. Not poison. Justice.

  “Cousin Bruno,” said Otto, meaning the pope, “is a very upright man. A bit of a stick, we used to say. He’s not to be bought, and he’s not to be threatened. He’ll judge as his conscience bids him. If he rules against you, I won’t try to force him to recant.”

  “So,” said Gerbert bitterly. “Even you believe the liar.”

  Otto shook his head vehemently. “It’s not that he lied. It’s that he was archbish
op, and still may be. And between the two of you, you’ve thrown Rheims into confusion. Is that wise, magister? Is it fair to your people?”

  “Would you have me flee with my tail between my legs, and leave him to ravage my city?”

  “You can’t tell me that you haven’t prepared for that very contingency. Who rules Rheims now?”

  “Men who know how to rule it.”

  “Friends?”

  Gerbert shut his mouth with a snap. “What does friendship have to do with competence?”

  Otto grinned as if he had won a point. “If I know their kind, and you, they’ll hang on, and they’ll prosper. They won’t let a fool teach them their trade.”

  “Rheims is mine by right, my lord,” said Gerbert, stiff and cold. “I will not surrender it unless and until the Holy Father has judged us both.”

  “But for that, you know where Arnulf must be.”

  Gerbert’s teeth gritted. “And once he’s there, do you think he’ll budge for anyone, king, pope, or God Himself?”

  “Then, if he’s condemned, you’ll win all you could desire; and he’ll have the wrath of the Holy See to contend with.”

  “No,” said Gerbert. “I can’t allow it. I’m sorry, my lord, but I can’t.”

  “Why?” Otto asked him.

  “Because—” Gerbert’s voice died.

  “Because he miscalculated once, and proved somewhat too easy in his virtue. Because he has done to you no more than you, in fighting for the see, have done to him.” Otto’s voice was as gentle as it was relentless. “Magister, has it struck you that you are obsessed?”

  “I am fighting for what I believe is mine.”

  “Just so,” said the emperor.

  Gerbert was silent. He could think of nothing to say that would not make matters worse.

  Nor, it seemed, could Otto. He was not angry, that Gerbert could perceive; merely perplexed. In a little while, without a word, he rose and went away.

  17.