***
Jon led the motley crew, illuminating suspicious alleyways with his lanthorn, and swaggering as menacingly as he could. If Andro were good to his word, Jon would be safe when he reached Wylde’s territory. Closer to home he would be a concern of the Peacock’s, and Matthew would stand for no man to move against him without permission. That was as close to safety as Turbulence allowed.
When trouble came, it was of the other kind.
A small militia of bill-men, the hooked blades of pole-arms bobbing above their heads, came advancing down the road, led by a squad of border horses, harnesses jangling. A censor accompanied them, assiduously searching for trouble.
A lifetime of respectability, and the first time I’m contrary to the law this happens. Jon chewed on the iniquity of it and turned to the leader of the dissenters, half expecting to see him fleeing down an alleyway. Instead, the man had opened his coat a little. His hand rested on the butt of a tiny flintlock pistol. He made sure that Jon had seen it, then let his coat fall closed. The redhead woman and her weaselly companion moved their hands discreetly behind their backs.
Jon imagined how desperate they must be, to contemplate fighting a censor and his squadron. His stomach sank low.
The censor cried for the bill-men to halt and sent the horsemen cantering towards the cart, lances levelled. Jon waited obediently as the horsemen surrounded them in a raucous, iron-shod clatter. The ragged crew around him raised collars and shrouded their faces with hair or hats as the censor and bill-men hurried to catch up. There was no possibility of escape, with or without the cart and crate.
“Good evening, brother,” Jon called out boldly, trying to calm his heart.
“There are rabble-rousers in this area.” The censor gazed intently at Jon’s stevedores, giving each man, briefly, his whole attention. He rested his hand on the pommel of his cutlass. “An infamous rebel is amongst them. There is a substantial reward for his capture, or information about his whereabouts.”
“How much?” Jon asked.
The censor ignored the question. “What is your business?”
“I’m collecting parts from the docks,” which was true, in a way.
The censor looked at him oddly.
“Sir, I am no rowdy; I’m a man of property,” Jon said, as if it were obvious.
“Is that so? And who are these men who accompany you at the dead of night?”
“Stevedores.”
“How long have they been in your employ?”
Jon felt the group stiffen behind him as they waited for his response.
“This lot?” He looked at the young firebrand, weighed the price on his head against his own secret cargo. Betrayal bubbled in his throat. He considered the gun and his illegal consignment. “All afternoon.” He said it even before he had decided, and then nothing could be done. What was worse, he was not sure the censor believed him.
“What about the woman?”
The auburn beauty replied for them both, squawking like a drunken slattern, “A man can get himself into all sorts of trouble round ’ere.” She grabbed at Jon possessively, as if in fear of losing his custom, and her fragrance enveloped him: perfume and not half as cheap as she pretended. “I’m protecting him – from loose women.” She smiled at the censor, lips over teeth to hide their lustre, and slapped her hand onto Jon’s crotch, squeezed gently.
Jon leapt in shock. The soldiers laughed. The censor was unmoved.
“Sergeant, inspect that crate.”
Jon held out his hands. “Please, sir, I’m in a frightful rush.” He played his last card. “Do you not know me? Jonathan Miller? My brother Daniel trains at the seminary.”
“Daniel? Daniel Miller?”
“The very same.”
Now it was the censor’s turn to shift uncomfortably.
“Daniel Miller?”
“Yes.”
“Have you not heard?” His eyes evaded Jon’s searching stare.
“Has there been an accident?” Jon asked, all thoughts of peril banished.
The censor laced his fingers, cracked his knuckles. “Daniel failed the grading. He was not chosen, though he fought admirably.”
“Oh.”
“He has fled the seminary.”
Jon stood dumbfounded.
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of such unwelcome news,” the censor said. He scratched his throat, turned to the militia. “Let them pass. These are not the men we’re looking for.”
Jon’s hired crew hurried down the street towards the market square, pushing him before them. He offered no resistance, lost in his thoughts. Once they were out of the sight and sound of the patrol, they relaxed.
The young leader spoke to him. “That was well done, goodfellow, well done indeed. I owe you my liberty.”
The solemn behest
Daniel slouched over the long refectory table, his fighting robes garlanded with other people’s blood. He ignored the excitement all around him, rotated a tumbler of Carthusian in his hand. The liqueur looked like a fairy-tale poison, a lurid green drink that could fell a giant. He made a toast in thanks to the Brotherhood for all it had given him: a cold billet in a half-abandoned monastery, a war’s worth of bruises and the disfavour of the gods, then shot it back. He felt his throat burn and tried to ignore the taste.
The refectory bustled with aspirants, nursing wounds or eager to hear stories of the grading, all oblivious to his gloom. Word of Daniel’s performance in the test of arms had spread through the seminary like a bad case of the itch. He was the first aspirant to have defeated all comers since George Quicksilver, forty years previous. The juvenile aspirants, who were not allowed to enter the refectory after sundown, crowded in the arched exit that led to the dormitory and jostled to see their new hero. He winced at a slap on his back from an ebullient aspirant.
“You’re indomitable – the Qart-Hadian reborn! You trample foes like his war-elephant.” It was a history lesson disguised as a compliment from a bookish aspirant with girlish arms.
The room was brought to attention by an ear-splitting clanging – the seminary’s chancellor ringing his handbell with metronomic authority.
“The following shall report to the inner sanctum for ordination.” An excited hush settled on the room, even the kitchen boys paused to hear whose names would be pronounced.
“Keither, Wolfe, Umberto, Lucas, Flounders.” The refectory roared with approval at each call and the jubilant aspirants were lifted onto the willing shoulders of their colleagues. The chancellor rolled up his scroll. Daniel felt the embarrassed disappointment of his colleagues settle on him like a fever. He sat trembling, staring at his tumbler of spirits, transfixed by its glistening green light.
The chancellor’s bell tolled again. “Mr Miller is to report to Magistrate Lang in the chapter house. Immediately.” Some of the younger aspirants cheered, and were immediately elbowed into silence.
Daniel stood malevolently, jaw and fists locked, glared around the hall, daring anyone to speak. The aspirants standing closest edged away. He left in absolute silence. Aspirants scattered from his path like blown leaves.
***
There was a chill wind in the quadrant and the expressions of the dusty gods that edged the cloister twisted in the guttering light. Daniel ambled towards the soft glow of the chapter house’s latticed windows. His fighting robe left him exposed to the cold but the Carthusian inured him against it. He puffed out his chest and steadied his gait. He really didn’t need some pompous prick to remind him that he was a failure, especially not when he was drunk out of his six senses.
The chapter house stood between the old temple and the armoury. It resembled a fortified manor house. A pair of censors guarded its iron-banded doors, halberds crossed, in no way ceremonially. They raised their weapons as they saw Daniel approaching and one of them knocked a code on the ironclad doo
r with his gauntleted knuckles. It swung open, and Daniel stepped inside for the first time.
He found himself in a galleried hall, dominated and illuminated by an enormous canopied fireplace. Intricate theological carvings decorated its dark panelling and the walls were hung with gold and silver plates and rich tapestries that depicted the comings and goings of the gods. The magistrate lives well, Daniel thought. The warmth of the room brought a prickle of sweat to his brow and he loosened the already dangling strings of his collar.
“Splendid, isn’t it?” a soft clear voice declared from above. Magistrate Lang hovered in the gallery. He still wore his simple blue robe, but now it was adorned with an indigo stole trimmed with ermine, held down by a heavy chain of office. He descended the thickly carpeted stairs to the hall. “Of course it was their undoing. The godsworn spent their tithe even more quickly than we could collect it, and far more willingly. But those days are long gone.” He approached Daniel using the silent walk, perhaps to show that he still knew the ways. “Now this hall brings respite and calm where it is needed most. It allows for clear thinking. These are challenging times, Daniel. Clear thinking is a most precious thing; to be able to see the world as it is, not clouded by hope or prejudice.” Lang’s head seemed to glide as he drew closer, owlish, stalking.
Enough bullshit, Daniel thought, just get it done with, and wondered why drunken thoughts seemed to slur, even when unspoken. The magistrate paused serenely and cast his arms wide.
“So how do you see things, Daniel?”
He looked the magistrate straight in the eyes, as straight as he could manage.
“However you decide.”
Lang’s mouth curled dolefully. “If only life were that simple.” He looked at Daniel in a peculiar way and beckoned. “Follow me.”
Daniel tried to will himself sober as they climbed the stairs together.
“Do you know what a solemn behest is?” Lang asked. Daniel knew it well from his studies of the Brotherhood’s history; an undertaking never to be admitted or discussed, even upon pain of death.
“Do they still exist?”
“Oh yes.”
They continued their ascent. Dan tried to match the silence of Lang’s walk and failed. Lang halted, turned to him and made the sign with his hand. It asked a simple question of him: ‘Do you accept my solemn behest?’ Daniel’s heart lurched. There was only one possible answer.
He dropped to one knee, gave the censor’s salute and then ran his finger across his throat, making the life-pledge. He expected some kind of affirmation, but when he looked up Lang had already reached the top of the staircase. He hurried after him to a door on the landing gilded with the magistrate’s name and engraved with the Thrice~Crossed Swords of the Brotherhood. Lang unlocked the door with a heavy iron key.
“My office.”
It was as opulent as the entrance hall, its shelves laden with leather-bound tomes of history and law, its thick oak floor carpeted with rugs from the Orient. An expansive tapestry of the Unity and a smaller one of the Empire covered one wall. Both were dotted with tiny flags of many different colours.
In the centre of the room was an enormous desk. It bore a gemstone globe, a rugged travelling case and the strangest device Daniel had ever seen, a giant brass seashell mounted on a squat wooden pedestal. A glass alembic was fixed to the device’s side, a ticking clock in its base. Its purpose was unimaginable. It reeked of cunning.
“This is a hekamaphone, a gift from the Convergence. It allows for conversation over any distance.”
“Like a beacon, or the flags they used to mount on windmills.”
“No. Voices are transported instantaneously – outside of time.”
“How can a machine talk like a god?”
“The difference between cunning and miracle is a question that troubled the godsworn terribly; the idea that a man’s invention could surpass the imagination of the gods was unthinkable to them. Thankfully, it is no longer our duty to worry about such things.” Lang opened a small drawer in the side of the pedestal. It contained rows of tiny phials, each labelled with a name. Lang selected one and poured a drop of pale red liquid onto a small spoon.
“Is that blood?”
“Greatly diluted. Now we wait. Whatever you hear, you will remain silent. Do I make myself clear?” Lang spoke forcefully for the first time, and his tone was iron. Daniel saluted.
When the clock chimed the hour Lang lifted the lid of the alembic and tipped the drop of blood-water into it. Immediately a faint whistling began to emanate from the shell-horn. It became a crackling noise, like the crunching of snow under a sledge, and slowly resolved into speech.
“Magistrate Lang? Can you hear me?” the horn said. The howl of unnatural winds cut across the disembodied voice.
“Reporting,” Lang confirmed.
“You have chosen your man?”
“Yes, sir. The aspirant.”
“Did he pass the tests?”
“At combat he is a new invincible.”
“And how was his sight?”
“He performed well enough.”
“I am surprised. It is rare to master it so quickly.”
The voice changed in tone, turned patrician, superior.
“I am now speaking to the one who has been chosen. In accordance with our methods I do not wish to hear your voice or know your name.” Daniel nodded and then remembered that the voice could not see him.
“There has been a murder at the Convergence. A most worthy censor’s life has been cut short, Brother Adelmus. We suspect a plot.”
“I suspect treason,” Lang clarified. “The workings of the Evangelicy.”
Evangelicals? Daniel had heard of the deluded worshippers of the prophet Abjemo and his one ‘true’ God, knew that their skirmishers harassed the eastern army of the Empire, but it had never occurred to him that their heresy had reached the Unity.
The voice said, “It is possible. I have already dispatched one of our number to the Verge, Prosecutor Corbin from Whitehaven. No doubt you are aware of the quality of his work, his reputation for thoroughness.” Daniel wasn’t. “The Brotherhood requires you to perform a secret service. You will travel to the Convergence and, while Prosecutor Corbin carries out his formal investigation, you will spy on the demi-masters and the masters from within their ranks.” The voice paused to let that sink in. “Only Corbin, Gleame and I will be aware of your mission.” Daniel had no idea who Gleame was either. “Ensure that you have memorised a credible legend by the time you reach the Verge. Magistrate Lang is very good at that sort of thing. He will assist you as required.”
“We should discuss contingencies,” Lang suggested. A distant cough became a discordant squeal that shrieked from the machine.
“The situation is delicate. Given the sensitivities, a censor spying at the Verge is unthinkable, but Lang considers it essential in the circumstances. If you are caught, both the Brotherhood and Gleame will disavow any knowledge of your mission. You should attempt a disappearance. If you are unable to escape, you will allow yourself to be tried and executed as a foreign spy. A full confession will be provided at the appropriate moment.” Daniel stared at the horn wide-eyed. “You are to depart this evening. Justice Advances.”
“Justice Advances,” Magistrate Lang returned, but the hekamaphone had already fallen silent.
Daniel wetted his dry lips. His mind whirled with questions.
“Who is Gleame?” he said.
“A grand master of the cunning art, and the chairman of the Honourable Company of Cunning. He founded the centre of all their works, the place we now call the Convergence. You could not fairly say that the Cunning report to him – he struggles to control his protégés at the best of times – but he represents their interests. He is a very powerful man. Leave discussions with him to Corbin.”
“The man in the machine, the Chief
Constable…” Daniel knew it was a good guess, because Lang did not deny it. “He doesn’t trust Gleame.”
Lang sighed. “For five hundred years it was the Brotherhood’s task to keep watch over the Cunning. The law was severe, and we were efficient in its enforcement, often with good reason. Old habits die hard.”
“Should I trust Gleame?”
“The first duty of a censor is to trust nobody. Nonetheless, Gleame has arranged much for us. He is as keen as I am to uncover what happened to Brother Adelmus. He allows this deception.” Lang handed Daniel a leather-bound dossier.
“Deception?”
“Of his colleagues at the Convergence. In order to spy on the masters you will take up the guise of a demi-master called Edmund Sutton, and be presented as a late arrival.”
“I understand.”
“Do you? I have prepared some materials for you.” Daniel flipped open the dossier. Several pages of dense writing detailed the Sutton family for three generations. The last sheet was a beautifully painted manuscript passport.
“Memorise this legend, then burn it. It might be easier if you were from more noble stock, but mannerisms are more easily faked than brains and training. You will need both at the Verge. You are now the son of a successful merchant. New money. The passport bears the stamp of a prosecutor. It is unimpeachable. The travelling case on my desk is sealed and can only be opened by Prosecutor Corbin. Deliver it to him at the earliest opportunity.”
“Why me?”
“That is an impertinent question. I would rather send a more experienced man, but an ordained censor could not work undetected in the midst of the Cunning. You do not appear on the register of censors and have never ventured outside Turbulence. You are nobody.”
You mean expendable, Daniel thought, and stared at the floor to hide the anger that flushed his cheeks.
The Censor's Hand: Book One of the Thrice~Crossed Swords Trilogy Page 8
