by Carol Berg
I was straining to come up with something more to boost my worth, when the refectory door burst open and Voushanti hurried toward us. “My lord prince, your guest has arrived. As you commanded, I informed him that only the two principals and his pureblood would be allowed in your presence. He was not pleased, but neither did he leave.”
“Well done, Mardane. You’ve taken the measure of his desperation, it would seem. Let him cool his heels for a moment, while I instruct my sorcerer.”
The visitor had a pureblood in attendance. He was nobility, then, or clergy, or a civic official wealthy enough to purchase a pureblood contract, someone who thought to profit from traveling to this remote site to wait on the Bastard Prince, even as Osriel’s eldest brother was ready to declare victory in Navronne. All parties to this war were realigning themselves since Prince Bayard’s alliance with Sila Diaglou and the Harrowers had broken three years of stalemate.
Voushanti left as he had come. Once the door had closed behind him, Prince Osriel returned his attention to me. “I require your complete obedience tonight, sorcerer. Without reservation or any of your clever deceptions. You will stand to my right and slightly in front of me, angled where you can see my hands and I can see your face without moving my head. I wish you to listen carefully to all that’s spoken and observe all that remains unspoken. You will say nothing without my permission. Do you understand? Nothing, even if you are addressed directly. But if I require you to respond or offer an opinion, you will speak in perfect honesty, without subterfuge or withholding. Is this clear or must we argue it? I promise you, I will prevail.”
Though such threats could not but raise my hackles, innate perversity no longer drove me to pointless rebellion. For the sake of my friends in the cabal, I needed to learn what I could of Evanore’s prince and those who came seeking his favor. So I rose and bowed, touching my forehead. “As you command, Your Grace.”
If my master thought my presence would lend him some kind of prestige in a lordly negotiation, he had an unhappy lesson coming. By now every pureblood in the kingdom would know of Osriel’s contract with the infamous Cartamandua renegade.
Moments after I slipped on my mask, straightened my cloak, and took my position at Prince Osriel’s right hand, the great door burst open, and I gaped as if I’d seen a fish walk out of the ocean. Prince Bayard of Morian walked in, followed by his half-brother, Perryn of Ardra, and Bayard’s attendant pureblood sorcerer—my own brother, Max.
Chapter 4
Bayard and Max, layered in mail, leather, and fur-lined traveling cloaks, each made a quick survey of the room. The two of them were similar in build, though Max’s tight bulk came in a smaller package than the Duc of Morian, called the Smith for his brutal manners. The last I’d seen of Max, he had been chortling at the news of my father contracting his rebellious younger brother to the most feared man in Navronne.
Perryn, Duc of Ardra, remained near the door, shivering in grimed silk and torn lace, his once golden hair greasy and unkempt, his head bent, and his arms wrapped about his middle. His furtive glance took in Osriel and the dancing shadows. Then, as if he had seen enough, he hugged himself tighter and closed his eyes.
Max bowed respectfully to Osriel, touching his forehead with his fingertips. His eyes reflected humorous irony as he pivoted to face me, touching one middle finger to the center of his brow—the proper greeting of one pureblood to another while in the presence of ordinaries.
I made sure to close my mouth, which still hung open in astonishment. Unsure whether my master would consider a returned greeting as speech, I remained motionless, my hands at my back, grateful for the mask that might hide the extent of my surprise. What possible circumstance could bring Bayard supplicant to his despised youngest brother in the very hour of his triumph? Every notion of politics claimed the Smith should be seated on Caedmon’s throne at this moment, planting his brutish foot on the necks of groveling Ardran nobles.
“So is this the kind of foolery the terrifying Osriel spends his time on? Playing with shades and gargoyles in a Karish ruin?” Bayard’s posture, feet apart, hands resting lightly at his waist, spoke everything of self-assurance. But deep creases in his brow and stretched smudges about his eyes hinted that victory did not rest firmly within his grasp…as if his presence at this assignation so far from Palinur was not indication enough.
“Is one fool’s occupation to be preferred to another’s? My shades leave no one bleeding.” Prince Osriel’s cool jibe heated his elder brother’s cheeks. “You requested this parley, brother. And you said I should choose a neutral venue.”
Osriel snapped his fingers. The flames in the twin braziers surged to the height of a man, causing the shadows to lengthen and dance wildly. Two armless wooden chairs took shape out of nothing, positioned to face him. Bayard paled and shifted uneasily.
My master gestured toward the chairs. “Come, brothers, sit. I would not have you stand like servants or courtiers. I’ve missed our long dinners with Father, talking of history and geography, building and art. Should I send for food and wine? Perhaps we could begin again in his memory.” The words pelted the faces of his brothers like hailstones, evoking a cascade of expressions, even as they whetted my own curiosity.
“No need for games, Bastard. You know why I’m here.” Bayard snatched one of the chairs, realizing only after he’d sat how awkwardly it suited. It was much too small for his blacksmith’s frame. Max moved to Perryn’s side, touched his arm, and gestured to the second chair. The blond prince shook his head and huddled deeper into his own embrace. One might have thought him cowed, save for the occasional glance of purest hate that speared Bayard’s back.
“I am guessing you’ve at last seen Father’s writ of succession,” said Osriel. “And that you are preparing to proclaim to the people of Navronne that it names you heir, just as you’ve insisted all these years that it would. But we know the truth of that, don’t we? As does our frighted brother. Have you found a better forger than his?”
The truth laid out so quietly exploded in my head. My gaze snapped from one to the other. Osriel—Eodward’s named successor? I recalled the grand depiction of the ordo mundi painted on the walls of the Gillarine guesthouse and imagined it flipped end over end, the denizens of heaven and hell dislodged and poured out to mingle with the tangled creatures of earth’s sphere. Horror, wonder, denial, and awe mastered me in rapid succession.
One would think Bayard chewed iron. “You will never wear my father’s crown, Bastard. I’ll gift it to a Hansker chieftain first.”
“So what do you propose to do about this little disappointment?” Osriel’s throaty whisper exuded subtle menace. “Do you think to snatch those few who know the truth and feed them to Sila Diaglou? I hear her executions are most efficient, if a bit gruesome. I quite resent your allowing the bloodthirsty priestess to destroy my city and slaughter my subjects—even holy monks, I’ve heard.”
All confused bulk and outrage, Bayard spluttered. “Navrons will never accept a crippled, half-mad sorcerer as king. You’ve no warrior legion and no strength to lead one. That’s why you’ve never pressed a claim. Fires of Magrog, you sneak onto our battlefields and mutilate the dead. You squat on your treasure, waiting for the two of us to kill each other off—”
“You and Perryn chose your own course of fraternal mayhem,” snapped Osriel. “I warned you at the beginning I would not play. As for the rest, I have my own purposes. Now, what do you want of me? I will never kneel to you. Put that right out of your thoughts.”
Osriel…king. Every belief must shift and skew at the imagining.
Bayard burst from his chair, swung around behind it, and gripped the squared oak back, as if wrestling a hurricane into submission. Both face and posture declared he would prefer to open his belly with a dagger than speak what he had come to say. “The woman Sila Diaglou is a demon gatzé. But using her legion of madmen was the only way I could get this sniveling imbecile to heel before he burnt my ships and yards—our only hope to
hold off the spring raids from Hansk. I agreed to cede her territory—some wild lands, a few villages, a town or two. She said that with sovereign territory ‘properly cleansed,’ she could prove to the rest of us the power of her Gehoum. But this lunacy she’s wrought in Palinur…” He spat his words through the bitter edge of humiliation. “I gave her no mandate for executions. I ordered her to stand down and withdraw her filthy lunatics from the city, but her partisans goad everyone to their own madness. Now the witch has presented me with a list of demands, threatening to raze Palinur and set her madmen on Avenus and other cities if I don’t comply. I’ve squeezed Morian’s treasury dry to get this far, believing I’d have Navronne’s wealth—mine by right—to control her at the end. But what have I found?”
He strode to Perryn, huddled against the wall, dragged him to Osriel’s feet by the neck of his silk tunic, and shoved him sprawling. Perryn threw his arms over his head and lay quivering, and I cursed myself once again for ever believing he was man enough to lead Navronne.
“This parasite,” snarled Bayard, “this weak-livered vermin, did not merely exhaust Ardra’s patrimony, but Navronne’s, as well. Our father’s treasure house sits empty, its gold squandered on oranges from Estigure, on brocades and perfumed oils from Syanar, on follies, jugglers, and lace, on miniature ponies for his whores, on puling spies and legions of mercenaries from Aurellia and Pyrrha who have never set foot in Navronne, if they exist at all. If I am to crush this devil woman, I must have Evanore’s gold.”
Osriel perched on the edge of his chair, coiled tight as a chokesnake. Bayard bulled ahead without a breath. “You will not have to kneel. You will have autonomy in your own land until the day of your death, and I will recognize you publicly as my sovereign equal in Evanore. Together, we can prevail. Together…” Bayard’s speech trailed away in the face of his brother’s frigid stillness.
“What does she want?” said Osriel, quiet and harsh.
Bayard’s beard quivered with pent rage. “It doesn’t matter what she wants. She’s a madwoman. We yield on these demands and she’ll come back for more. I see that now.”
Osriel leaned forward slightly, and I knew Bayard felt the pressure of his brother’s will as I had earlier. “Tell me what she asked for.”
Heaving a sigh of suffering patience, Bayard whipped his hand toward Max. “Tell him.”
My brother stepped forward and bowed slightly to his master. “First, she demands the province of Evanore, whole and entire. Second, she desires that one of my lord’s brothers, either one, be turned over to her as mortal forfeit for the offenses the line of Caedmon has wrought against the Gehoum.” My brother cataloged the unthinkable as if the items sat on a shelf like tin pots.
Osriel tented his pale hands, his fingertips just touching his chin. He did not speak.
Max bowed again and flicked a glance at me. “Third, she desires a piece of information—the location of a secret library that she claims is anathema to the Gehoum. It does not appear to exist where she was told. And lastly, she wishes to own the contract of a particular pureblood sorcerer.”
“A pureblood?” Prince Osriel dropped his hands abruptly into his lap. “Who? For what reason?”
The public half of Max’s face remained perfectly neutral as his position required. But an eye accustomed to looking past a pureblood’s mask could not miss the wicked humor behind the sheath of dull blue silk. “She insists on controlling one Magnus Valentia de Cartamandua-Celestine, lately returned to the discipline of the Pureblood Registry. She did not explain why.”
Magrog’s teeth! My suddenly sweating hands came near slipping out of each other behind my back.
Bayard shoved his chair away so viciously it tipped over and clattered to the floor. “The cheek!” he fumed, striding to the windowed wall only to reverse course and return to kick the toppled chair. “As if I would go scrambling about the city like her pet hound, hunting libraries and purebloods. My own sorcerer’s brother, as if that would make her my equal.” He paused and glared at me as if Sila Diaglou stood behind me with her hand on my shoulder. “What does she want with you, pureblood, eh? I hear you are a renegade, a liar, and a thief.”
Mind reeling, I pinned my gaze on Osriel’s hands. They were still, so I kept silent and asked myself the same question. Why would the Harrower priestess want me? Not merely for the Cartamandua blood. Max…Phoebia…my father had no contract, for the gods’ sake. They all displayed the bent of my grandfather’s line. Unlike me, they were trained and skilled and intelligent enough to read books and make sense of the world.
“You’d best keep an eye on him, little brother,” said Bayard with a sneer. “By the Mother’s tits, I’d give her Perryn and offer to gut him myself, save for the damnable impertinence of her insisting on a kill of my own blood. But Evanore…”
Perryn had crept to the foot of Osriel’s chair and hunched there in a shriveled knot. “You wouldn’t let him give me over, brother,” he said. “I was ever kind to you. It was Bayard played the bully. He swears he’ll do this bargain, and throw you in as well if he can persuade the witch to forgo Evanore’s gold.”
“Does anyone outside this room know that you two have come to me?” Osriel spoke over Perryn’s head as if the fair prince were some whining hound.
Bayard spluttered. “My aides know, of course. My field commanders. I’m not a fool—”
“Tell me the truth, Bayard, or I’ll send you back with an ox head instead of your own. Does anyone but these two know you’ve come to Gillarine to meet me?”
“No one else knows,” said Perryn, emboldened like a lapdog that finds its courage only at its master’s feet. “He says we must be secret, else she’ll find out he’s plotting against her. He near pisses his trews at the thought. She sees everything.”
“Good.” Osriel pointed to a spot in front of his chair. “Now stand here, the both of you, and listen. Yes, you, too, Perryn. Your ‘kindness’ fell short back when your pleasure was to lock me into emptied meat casks. Stand like a man and listen to me.”
Perryn slouched to his feet, while Bayard stood his ground ten paces back, bristling like an offended boar. My master waited silently. Only when Bayard expelled an exasperated oath and moved to Perryn’s side did Osriel speak again.
“You came here seeking my help, brothers. Did you think I would shovel gold into your pockets and allow you to continue sending my people to the slaughter as you’ve done these three years? You’ve countenanced crimes that make my activities look tame, and I should rightly take your heads for it.”
Reason. Assurance. Command. Of a sudden this mad parley felt grounded in something more than terror.
“I am the rightful High King of Navronne, whether anyone beyond this room ever understands that or not, and you will stand or fall by my will.”
“You are a crippled whelp who knows nothing of warfare.” Bayard spat the brave words, but held his position in the place his half-brother had indicated. He must be at the end of all recourse.
Osriel raised a hand in warning. “I am allowing myself to believe that the two of you have been stupid and blind these three years, rather than vile and malicious, and that your excesses have been as misreported as my own deeds. Either we work together to salvage this mess you’ve made, or you can walk out of here this moment. As for the fool who attempts to touch my gold without my consent, I will take his eyes living from his head and hold his soul captive in everlasting torment. Choose, brothers. For Navronne. For our father, who foolishly believed in all of us.”
A seething Bayard, his complexion the hue of bloomed poppies, whirled and strode away. I was certain he would broach the door, but instead he circled the refectory. Perryn lifted his chin, sneering as if ready to defy both brothers, but glanced at the ceiling, peopled by writhing shades, shuddered, and dropped his head again. Osriel waited. I held my breath.
Halfway between his brothers and the door, Bayard slowed, growling with resentful fury. “What do you propose? I concede nothing until I
’ve heard your plan.”
Osriel flicked his ringed hand toward me. “Magnus, tell me: Is your brother trustworthy? I will send him out if you say.”
Max stiffened as if one of Silos’s firebolts had fused his spine. Not the least hint of a smirk appeared on either half of his face. For a pureblood adviser to be dismissed in a negotiation accounted him as useless to his master. If report spread of such a thing, it could ruin Max.
Past grievance, childish pride, and my every base instinct gloated in such opportunity. Yet, for some reason surpassing all speculation, my brother and I stood at a nexus of Navronne’s history. My master, who astonished and mystified me more by the moment, required me to offer a fair measure of a man I scarcely knew. And I’d begun to think I’d best heed the Bastard’s wishes. Petty vengeance had no place here.
“My brother is not and has never been my friend, Lord Prince,” I said. “Neither has he been my enemy save in the petty strife of family and as a danger to my freedom in my years away from my family. I have encountered him only briefly as a man, thus I can say nothing of his honor or his moral strength. But he has ever supported and embraced the strictures of pureblood life. Thus I believe he would do nothing to the detriment of his bound master. In any matter of contractual obligation, I would trust him completely.”
“Good enough. He stays.” Osriel’s brisk assent near sucked the words from my mouth before I could speak them. He nodded to Bayard. “Here is what I propose, brother: Send your pureblood back to Sila Diaglou. Tell her you accept her terms.”
“What?” Bayard bellowed.
The green shoots of hope that had sprung up so unexpectedly in the past hour were sheared off in an instant. The Harrower priestess had plunged a stake through Boreas’s gut, reciting her blasphemous incantations: sanguiera, orongia, vazte, kevrana—bleed, suffer, die, purify. And then she had licked my old comrade’s blood from her fingers. I struggled to hold my position without trembling.
