“Greetings,” Lady Barb said, with studied casualness. “May we enter the village for the night?”
The two men exchanged glances. “Are you magicians?”
“Yes,” Lady Barb said, flatly.
Emily blinked in surprise. They were two women, travelling alone. What else could they be? And why had they been greeted with weapons?
“The headman told us that a magician would be coming,” the guard said. “He needs your help.”
“Then we will assist him,” Lady Barb said, regally. “Take us to your leader.”
“Prove it,” the second guard said. “We need...”
Lady Barb snapped her fingers. A frog looked up at her from where the second guard had been, quivering slightly.
“It’ll wear off,” she said, then looked at the first guard. “Convinced?”
The guard gulped. “Yes, Lady Sorceress,” he said. “If you will please come with me?”
Lady Barb followed him, holding her head up high. Emily followed her, glancing around with some interest. The village looked deserted, but she could tell that they were being watched.
“Stay alert,” Lady Barb muttered to her. “Something bad happened here.”
Emily nodded. She couldn’t disagree.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
EMILY COULDN’T HELP THINKING OF ONE of the herbalists at Whitehall when she first set eyes on the headman. He was tall and almost painfully thin, with a long white beard that drifted to his knees. Beside him, there were four other bearded men, each staring at the two magicians with expressions that ranged from relief to outrage. Somehow, Emily doubted that they’d called the magicians for anything minor.
Lady Barb nodded at them politely, then lifted an eyebrow.
“We have a problem,” the headman said. His companions nodded in agreement. “We need you to interrogate a prisoner.”
Rudolf, Emily thought, in sudden horror. Did they capture Rudolf?
But they hadn’t. The whole story came tumbling out, slowly. Clearly, this headman did not have unlimited power. His companions inserted their own comments, argued and bickered with each other, pushing forward their own views as the headman spoke. Emily found it hard to follow the explanation, even though the headman generally waited for his companions to finish and then went on. By the time she had a fairly complete idea of what was going on, the sun was setting.
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Lady Barb said. “Two children vanished from your village.”
The headman and his companions nodded in agreement.
“The only stranger who came to the village was a postal worker,” Lady Barb continued, calmly. “Your people decided that he was responsible for their disappearance and threatened to lynch him. You managed to lock him up instead.”
Emily winced as she realized the dilemma facing the headman. If the postal worker was killed without proof of guilt, there would be eventual retaliation from the outside. Even if all they did was cut the village out of the postal route, it would have dangerous effects. The village didn’t import much, but it wouldn’t be allowed to import anything if strangers weren’t allowed to come and go safely.
But if the mob wasn’t allowed to kill the person it blamed for the disappearances – the deaths, if the kidnapped children were the dead she’d seen after meeting Rudolf – it might easily turn on the headman. There was a degree of consensus in this village that was missing from Hodge’s village, an understanding that there were limits to the headman’s authority. He was caught between two fires, either one of which might kill him.
Fortunately for him, he’d been lucky enough to have a pair of traveling magicians walk into his village.
“That is correct,” the headman said. “If he is guilty, particularly if you verify it, we can kill him. But if he isn’t—”
“I understand,” Lady Barb said, cutting him off. “We will hold a morning trial, I think. But I will have to see the suspect first.”
“Of course,” the headman said. He sounded relieved. “And I would be honored if you would join me as my guests for the night.”
Lady Barb nodded. “We would be honored,” she said. Emily knew her well enough to detect a faint hint of irritation in her tone. “Please take us to the prisoner.”
Emily was mildly surprised that the tiny village had a prison in the first place. Peasant customs of law and order were usually very limited. There was simply very little to steal and, for all the hardness of their lives, very few thieves. Those that did appear were normally beaten, sometimes to death, or were thrown out of the village. But then, there were very few things the peasants considered crimes. Beating one’s wife – or husband, for that matter – was certainly nothing unusual.
Once they rounded the houses, she saw the prison – nothing more than a wooden cage. Inside, a young man sat in the stocks, his hands and feet firmly trapped. Emily shuddered when she saw the extent of his bruises, as if the villagers had beaten him on the way to the cage. There were no guards about, so the villagers could come by to hurl stones any time they liked. She was surprised that he was still alive, under the circumstances.
“Leave us,” Lady Barb ordered.
The headman bowed and retreated. Emily watched as Lady Barb healed a handful of injuries, then spoke briefly to the prisoner. She couldn’t hear the mumbled responses. After a few days of such treatment – and probably no food or drink – the prisoner might be on the verge of death. Emily had never been in the stocks herself, but it looked thoroughly uncomfortable. And escape would be impossible without magic.
“He’s delusional,” Lady Barb said, as she stepped backwards. “He was confessing to stealing money from the temple and defacing the statue of the god.”
Emily lifted an eyebrow, surprised.
“It’s not uncommon when one is being tortured to death,” Lady Barb said. “They tend to confess to just about anything, in hopes of getting a quick end. But he didn’t confess to kidnapping anyone.”
“Which saved his life,” Emily guessed. It was unlikely that anyone in the village would care about stealing money from a temple. They certainly didn’t have a temple in their village. “If he’d confessed to the right crime...”
She shook her head, then pressed on. “Is he guilty?”
“I don’t know,” Lady Barb said. She frowned at the prisoner before giving Emily a long, hard look. “I need to have a few words with the headman. You stay here and keep an eye on him. If someone tries to hurt him” – she nodded towards a handful of stones on the ground near the stocks – “stop them. But don’t talk to him.”
Emily nodded. Lady Barb turned and strode back towards the headman’s hut, moving with a confidence Emily wished she could master. She found herself praying that Lady Barb hadn’t weakened herself again, then pushed the thought aside. Instead, she shook her head as she looked at the prisoner.
Even with some of his wounds healed, the prisoner still looked to be on the verge of death. Failing to treat non-fatal injuries could easily make them lethal if the wounds were allowed to fester. She looked closely, wondering which of the cuts and bruises were already infected. Chances were, the prisoner would need weeks of recovery, even with magic repairing the damage.
She was still mulling it over when Lady Barb returned, two younger men in tow. Their eyes passed over Emily without ever quite seeming to register her presence, something that puzzled her until she realized that they were afraid. The guard Lady Barb had turned into a frog was probably back to normal by now, filling their ears with tales of the all-powerful magicians. His fellows wouldn’t want to show any interest in Emily...
“Clean him up, bind his wounds and then stand guard,” Lady Barb ordered, addressing the two men. Neither of them looked very pleased at the orders, but they hastened to obey. “I do not want him touched in any way until we hold the trial. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Lady Sorceress,” the guards stammered in unison.
Emily followed Lady Barb back to the head
man’s hut, wondering if they were doing the right thing. What if the prisoner was guilty? It seemed unlikely – the bodies she’d seen had been used in a necromantic rite and a necromancer could have burnt down the entire village without raising a sweat – but he might be working for the necromancer. If that was the case...she remembered Alassa executing her treacherous aunt and shuddered. The headman would have to execute the prisoner at once. Nothing else would suffice.
“I trust you remember how to cast a truth spell,” Lady Barb said. “You’ll be casting it tomorrow.”
“Only the first three levels,” Emily said. The first one was light, easy to brush off if the victim knew what was happening. “What if he’s strong enough to resist?”
“I use a heavier spell,” Lady Barb said. “But I don’t think he has any incentive to resist.”
Emily swallowed, remembering an old problem from Earth. If someone didn’t have anything to hide, the reasoning ran, why would they object to having their bags searched and their computers monitored? But the reasoning didn’t take into account a person’s natural outrage at not being trusted, let alone an equally natural desire for privacy. The prisoner might resist, even without meaning to, a spell intended to force him to tell the truth. And if that happened, the mob would conclude that he had something to hide.
“What...?” She swallowed and started again. “What if he is guilty?”
“Then we deal with him,” Lady Barb said. “But I don’t think he is.” She shrugged. “But you may have to cast the spell on someone else, just to prove it works, or perhaps over a general area. In that case, we will work out the questions in advance. The spell won’t last very long, no matter how much magic you pump into it.”
Emily nodded. One area-effect spell made everyone within its sphere of influence tell the truth – and nothing but the truth. It didn’t compel them to answer, it just prevented them from lying outright. But she’d had enough lessons with Master Tor to know that a poor choice of questions could present misleading responses. They would have to do a great deal of research in a very short space of time, just to make sure that there was no room for evasion.
The headman’s wife welcomed them as they stepped back into the house, offering them the master bedroom, such as it was. Emily was embarrassed to even think of kicking the older couple out of bed and Lady Barb clearly agreed, because after some haggling she managed to talk the woman into letting them sleep on blankets in front of the fire instead. There was no real privacy – she reminded herself to set up wards to ensure some privacy, once they were lying down – but there was no alternative. It would have been rude to ask to sleep outside the house.
“Tell me what happened,” Lady Barb ordered, as dinner was served. “Who did you lose and why?”
“A boy and a girl,” the headman said. He seemed to be attaching more importance to the girl than the boy, which was unusual. “One was the oldest son of his parents, the other was the middle daughter of my son.”
Emily kept her face expressionless. That explained it.
Lady Barb’s lips pressed into a thin line. “How old are they?”
“Both are eleven,” the headman said.
Emily shivered. Old enough to have magic within their blood, young enough not to be able to access and use it deliberately. A necromancer would consider them prime targets – if, of course, they did have magic. There was no way a peasant village could test for it. Or would if they could.
“Might they have run off on their own?” Lady Barb asked. “They were certainly old enough to fancy themselves in love.”
Emily gave her a sharp look. Now who was forgetting the bodies? But then, they didn’t have any proof that the bodies and the missing children were one and the same. Lord Gorham’s castle was two days walk from the village. While it wouldn’t be a problem for a magician to do something like that, why go to all the effort of transporting the children when there were plenty of prospective victims closer to the castle? Unless the necromancer had feared that missing children would break the power of the runes...
Lord Gorham didn’t need us to break free, she thought. All he needed was a good reason to start questioning why he acted in a way he shouldn’t--
She contemplated it, piece by piece. The serving girls had been quite open about working for Lord Gorham. He’d been a good master, certainly by local standards. They earned money, they saved enough to ensure they had some independence even after marriage...and they weren’t beaten, harassed or molested. Compared to Emily’s predecessor in Cockatrice, he was a paragon of humanity. And his son, too, had kept his hands to himself. Given how vulnerable the girls were – they literally could not say no – it was odd...and it spoke well of the two aristocrats.
Emily shook her head, annoyed. She was going native. Since when had merely not molesting the girls become the mark of a good man?
She returned to the original train of thought. Lord Gorham cared – and if children had gone missing from his lands, he might well have investigated. And that, in turn, might have ripped apart the haze of magic created by the runes. If he realized that the dead bodies were slipping in and out of his mind, he might have broken free...
The headman snorted, breaking into her train of thought. “I do not believe that either of them had developed to the point where they noticed the other sex,” he said, rudely. “And the girl was not mature.”
Emily hastily replayed the conversation in her mind. It had taken her some time to realize that, while a girl was considered marriageable once she started her periods, most girls outside the aristocracy started their periods much later than girls on Earth. They simply didn’t eat enough to allow their bodies to develop earlier. Visions of child brides had faded, slightly, when she’d realized that periods might start at sixteen or even later. But that didn’t stop children from being betrothed and told they had to marry once they were mature.
“In any case,” the headman’s wife offered, “they knew better than to run off.”
Emily had to smile at her. She clearly wasn’t interested in being her husband’s subordinate, let alone his punching bag. The woman had enough muscles to pass for a sumo wrestler and a hard, but surprisingly pleasant face. If her husband – who looked tiny compared to his wife – tried something, Emily suspected it would be the last thing he ever did.
She turned her attention back to the food as Lady Barb kept asking questions. The stew tasted vaguely spicy, with potatoes, cabbage and a handful of tiny pieces of meat. But meat was rare – or at least expensive – for peasants in such a small village. They couldn’t slaughter all their animals or they would have no way to replace them. Even sheep and goats native to the mountains weren’t numerous. But alcohol wasn’t; she made sure to protect herself against drunkenness before taking a swig of the beer. It tasted foul.
They’re either showing off their wealth or blowing a month’s wages to feed us, she thought, with a pang of guilt. Can they afford to keep us here for long, even if we pay? Where would they spend the money?
“I was surprised you didn’t send the prisoner to the castle,” Lady Barb said. “Would that not have solved your problem?”
The headman shook his head, his expression oddly torn between irritation and surprise. “We wished to handle it ourselves,” he said. “Our Lady is much too busy to be bothered with small matters.”
Emily puzzled over that until she worked it out. Lady Easter might or might not be under the same influence as Lord Gorham, but she would be more concerned about the politics of the situation than the dead children. Releasing the postal worker, even if he was guilty as sin, would repair links between her tiny kingdom and the rest of the Allied Lands. The peasants knew that handing their prisoner over to the aristocracy was effectively the same as letting him go.
At Lady Barb’s muttered suggestion, Emily helped the headman’s wife wash the dishes, which also allowed her a chance to inspect the kitchen. The headman’s wife seemed astonished, but allowed her to help without argument. Emily had to
admit she was privately impressed, although it was simplistic compared to Whitehall’s giant kitchens. It was certainly more efficient than the kitchens in the guesthouses. Once she had finished washing and drying the dishes, she went back into the main room. Lady Barb was alone.
“Think about what questions we should ask, tomorrow,” Lady Barb ordered. “We will need to ask multiple versions of the same questions.”
Emily nodded. The prisoner might not know the names of the children, even if he had taken them from the village. Asking him if he’d taken the children by name might produce a negative response. They would have to ask vague questions, then narrow it down – and hope that the villagers were prepared to be patient. What would happen, she asked herself, if the mob tried to lynch the prisoner anyway?
She watched as Lady Barb sorted out the blankets, then lay in front of the fire and stared at the wooden ceiling. Emily hesitated, then came over to join her, casting a handful of wards as she sat down. Lady Barb gave her an odd look before nodding in understanding.
“This could get problematic,” Lady Barb said, once the privacy ward was in place. “If the prisoner really is working for a necromancer...”
Emily shuddered. Shadye had been defeated through luck. The next necromancer she encountered might be outside Whitehall, away from the nexus. And if they were dealing with a necromancer now...but if they were, it was a very odd necromancer.
“The more I think about all of this, the less I like it,” Lady Barb admitted. “Any necromancer should be completely insane by now, which would make him very noticeable.”
“Unless he was disciplined enough to keep himself under control,” Emily said. But she remembered the runes and knew that wouldn’t be enough, not indefinitely. The necromancer’s perceptions of the world around him would be warped, along with his mind. “How long can a necromancer seem reasonably sane before he cracks completely?”
“There’s no hard and fast rule,” Lady Barb admitted. “Merely...the reports of experiments carried out by people with more magic than common sense. If there was only ever one victim, the necromancer might seem reasonably sane for years. But the power is addictive and the necromancer would need new victims, sooner or later.”
Work Experience (Schooled in Magic Book 4) Page 28
