by Glenda Larke
“Hm-mm,” he agreed. “They’ve been hectic years, cluttered with enough disasters to curdle anyone’s insides.”
“I’m not sure if that’s sufficient basis for marriage.”
“Maybe not. But how would you like the idea of being a Prime’s wife anyway?”
“How would you like the idea of being a lawyer’s husband?”
They both laughed and he knew that one day, if they lived, they would return to that conversation. Before then, though, she and Peregrine intended to join up with Deremer’s forces, and the ternion had to tackle Valerian.
As he watched her don her clothes, his appreciation overt, he said, “No matter what happens, I shall remember last night. There is something… clarifying about knowing how close one is to death. It brings what’s important into focus. When I think of the future, the idea that appeals most to me is that you are there somewhere, in my life.”
She didn’t reply, but she did give him a smile, and when they made their way downstairs, there was a buoyancy to her step that had not been there the night before.
Two hours later he persuaded the eagle into the air. There was no time to wait for it to catch its own breakfast, so he bought a fresh bream from fishermen on the docks and threw the half-stunned fish into the water while the bird watched from a rooftop. Feet extended and with leisurely grace, it dipped down to where the bream flapped feebly on the surface. Its fierce triumph as it returned to its perch and its greedy anticipation as it tore into the flesh roiled his stomach.
Curbing his own impatience, he walked back to the Water Purifiers Guild building where the others waited.
From the moment he saw Ardhi and Sorrel, he knew that they had spent the night together. It was there in the little things: the touches, the smiles, the softening in the gaze when they exchanged a look. He saw it, too, in the fear they tried to hide from each other. Two people in love, on the cusp of building a life together, yet having to postpone it, to pretend it didn’t matter because it lay in the darkness of a great shadow.
Please don’t let anything happen to them, he thought. It would tear him to pieces. A ternion wasn’t a group of three; it was a union of three. If one died, they would all shatter. They were family.
As he greeted them, Fritillary came over with Barden, who was almost hidden behind the expanse of an unfolded map in his hands. “Is that bird of yours ready yet?” she asked in a tone that suggested she was chiding him for tardiness.
“Half an hour,” he said equably. “It’s feeding.”
“Come,” she said, heading for the large table in the guild’s dining room and waving Gerelda and Peregrine over to join them. “Postpone your journey north, Proctor,” she ordered. “We may need you.”
Saker rescued the map from Barden, who needed at least one hand to lean on his staff.
An ostentatious fountain sat in the centre of the table, reaching high into the domed ceiling. It held no water now, but was still impressive as an exuberant ceramic confection.
“Giddy-brained Lowmians,” Fritillary muttered under her breath so only he could hear. “Take them out of Lowmeer and they forget all about the austerity of their culture and order falderals like this. On guild money, too.” He thought her exasperation was more that of a fond mother than the censure of authority.
She gathered them around one end of the table, well away from the fountain, and asked Saker to spread the map in front of him. It showed the northern routes from Vavala to Enstrom in Valance, and to Peith in Muntdorn. As he did so, a subtle change occurred in the sunlight entering the room, as if the shadow of a cloud had passed across the building. He wouldn’t have thought anything of it except that the floor shivered subtly at the same time. He looked around at the others, to find them all wearing startled expressions.
Except for Fritillary.
“The shrine of the Great Oak is shifting through time towards the present,” she said. “We are close enough here to feel it. As soon as Valerian dies, or when he leaves the city, we will bring the shrine out of hiding altogether.” She gave Saker a shrewd look. “Where will you tackle him? You’ll only get one chance.”
“In the palace,” he said. “If we can. Too many unpredictable possibilities if he leaves. He’d be surrounded by Grey Lancers all the time then, and he could steal or use the power of any number of his sons. Whereas Perie says there is only one son in Vavala at the moment.”
“Our problem is how to kill him, not where,” Ardhi agreed. “Do you know just how he sucks the life out of others for himself?”
“We know a little,” Fritillary said. “He can’t hurt those with witcheries. His victims all seem to be either children or his own sons. That’s either because they offer him the most power, or because they are easier to kill. We know he can coerce anyone he can see, but to gain their longevity, we believe the victim has to be close by, possibly even within his physical grip. What do you know about how we can kill him?”
“Chenderawasi legends and history tell us that it was…” he groped for the right words “… a blending together that brought victory. Witcheries, sakti, artefacts, people, all interwoven and focused.”
“So?” she asked.
It was Sorrel who answered. “We have Ardhi’s kris and his climbing witchery. A small piece of a tail plume, nothing like as powerful as breast feathers. There’s Saker’s command over birds. My glamour witchery. Pitifully little, in fact.”
“It’s not what we have,” Ardhi said, reaching out to cover her hand with his. “It’s how we combine them that counts.”
“There are many local people with witcheries who can’t be coerced,” Gerelda said. “Can you use them too?”
“Not directly against Valerian,” Ardhi said in flat denial. “They aren’t powerful enough. Believe me.”
“Then it’s just us. The ternion,” Saker said.
“And that’s all?” Gerelda asked. She sounded dismayed.
“There’s me,” said Barden.
They looked at him, blank-faced, then at one another in fidgeting embarrassment.
It was Fritillary who broke the silence. “He could just be right,” she said slowly. “Barden has no Shenat blood, yet the Great Shrine-oak of Vavala gave him his staff, made from its own wood, contrary to all custom. The staff can make decisions and attack by itself, just as you’ve said your Va-forsaken dagger can.”
“The kris is not Va-forsaken,” Sorrel said quietly.
Fritillary nodded. “Right. You’re right. I’m sorry. That is an expression born of unthinking arrogance and I must remember not to use it. Anyway, the staff is another weapon we can use.”
Ardhi’s face had lit up as she was speaking. “Made from an oak tree of great venerability,” he said, “containing sakti, wielded by a man of great wisdom – yes! A weapon worthy of this battle. That gives me another idea. What about smearing the sap of an oak shrine on our blades? Would Fox find that… unpleasant?”
“Worth a try,” Barden said. “A tiny wedge in a pie of weaponry. Who knows which slice he’ll find lethal?”
“Who’s going to use your staff?” Gerelda asked.
Barden’s rheumy eyes glared at her. “I go where my staff goes,” he said. “Naturally.”
“And I’m going with you,” Fritillary said. When Saker opened his mouth to protest, she held up her hand. “Not just because I’m the true Pontifect, either. Listen. Just before Valerian launched his attack on Vavala, forcing us to flee, there was a black smutch in the sky, evidently some kind of sign to his scattered forces. An extravagant gesture that must have expended much of his power, when he could surely have used an easier, more ordinary way.”
“Vaunting his power,” Saker said. “Just like him.” He touched his cheek in memory, fingers catching on the roughness of the skin that he could feel but no one could see.
“My point is what happened next,” she said. “While we were watching the smutch, I touched Deremer, he winced and I felt as if my fingers had been stung. I looked at them and they were glowing, even
though I wasn’t consciously using my witchery. At the time, I thought it was something about Deremer. Now, I think I had it wrong. Sir Herelt winced because my witchery flared as it reacted to that smutch.”
Saker was interested now; they all were.
“I think there’s an added layer to my witchery. Once, when Fox tried to coerce me in the Pontifect’s palace, something unsettled him. I felt then as if I was sucking his horrible smutch into my body. And on that day of the sky smutch, just possibly my witchery reacted to the overwhelming amount of sorcery by trying to change it to a harmless witchery glow. There was too much of course, but something did alter. We have to think of a way to exploit that.”
“You’re our Pontifect. You may die if you face Valerian as if you were a – a combatant,” Gerelda said.
She snorted. “So? I’m not indispensable.”
“My people believe the Chenderawasi sorcery was just too much witchery in the wrong hands,” Ardhi said.
“Sorcery and sakti are not so different then?” Fritillary asked. “Now that is worth thinking about.”
“What about our first problem?” Sorrel asked. “How do we get anywhere near Fox without him knowing?”
“Especially,” Fritillary said, husky-voiced, “as we have indications that he has boosted his power through the murders of children.”
Saker, trying to thrust that image out of his mind, stared at the fountain. He imagined water trickling down from the top, splashing into the numerous flamboyantly decorated bowls on every level before spilling over into the next through flutes and channels. When it was in operation, the sound of the water would have drowned conversation, and the cascades would have obscured anyone sitting opposite. Such a stupid ornament…
“How do we get into the palace this time?” Sorrel asked. “They’ve increased the number of guards tenfold.”
Fritillary looked around the table. “Any ideas?”
“Divert attention away from what you want to hide, to something else,” Gerelda said.
“That’s where other witchery folk may be just the thing,” Barden said. “Diversions.”
“Water witcheries,” Saker said suddenly, ideas cascading. “Your Reverence, do we have Lowmian Way of the Flow folk?”
“Of course. What do you have in mind? No, wait. Can we get your eagle into the air again first? I want to make sure that everything is proceeding as I had hoped in the north.”
Saker sat still, with his hand on the map and his eyes closed as the eagle launched itself from its perch. He was linking to it, rather than twinning. The bird found a funnel of hot air rising over the ovens in Baker Lane, and spiralled effortlessly upwards, happy to follow Saker’s gentle nudging since it involved little energy. When it was high enough, he encouraged it into lazy circles over the northern end of the city while he watched through its eyes.
“The barracks are a mess,” he said, surprised. “The roof has fallen in by the look of it, and most of the walls have toppled. Can’t have happened very long ago because folk are still pulling people out of the rubble. Most look to be dead.”
Fritillary nodded complacently. “Our woodworkers concentrated their witcheries on bringing down the main beam that supported the lancers’ sleeping quarters. Our healers gave the barrack servants soporifics to put in the evening hotpot so the lancers would sleep well.”
The eagle began to edge out over the expanse of Ardwater, but Saker prompted it to circle back because he’d caught sight of something else interesting. “There’s a disturbance at the lancers’ stables. People arguing outside.”
“That will be about what happened to the horse tackle last night. A plague of rats and mice. I imagine they chewed through every piece of leather in the place.” There was more than a hint of amusement in Fritillary’s answer.
As the eagle flew on, he could only marvel at the ingenuity of those who had been in the hidden shrines for so many months, inventing and perfecting methods to use their witcheries in unaccustomed ways. The previous afternoon he’d heard about Fox family ships springing leaks and sinking at their moorings, while Lowmian clerics had used the Way of the Flow to divert a small stream to flood Fox’s gunpowder warehouse. Vavala’s Faith House, used as the living quarters for Fox’s clerics, was plagued by mould that rotted everything from shoes to the food. He assumed that was the work of a plant healer whose usual task was to control mildew and fungus in stored grain.
The eagle left Vavala behind and followed the river northwards, and Saker opened his eyes to show the others at the table where it was on the map.
The Ard was navigable only as far as Vavala. After that it began to narrow, and bridges linked the Principalities of Valance and Staravale.
“First bridge now,” he told his listeners. “The eagle is not keen to go farther.”
“What can you see?” Fritillary asked.
“Grey Lancers on this side of the bridge.”
“How many?”
“Birds can’t count. It’s more worried about leaving the open water behind.”
He was battling the bird’s instincts and the detail on the ground was obscured because it wouldn’t concentrate. “I’m guessing there’s well over a thousand Grey Lancers on our side of the Ard. On the other side… I don’t think there’s more than a couple of hundred men – Deremer’s, I assume. They’ve built some earthworks as protection. They aren’t trying to cross.”
“Move to the next bridge.”
The view there told the same story. Many Grey Lancers on the east bank, a few soldiers on the west. Where was the bulk of Deremer’s army?
“Fly on,” Fritillary ordered.
The eagle resisted and he had no way of insisting. Instead he hinted it go higher, and it obliged.
“I can see the beginnings of the border country,” he said. From there on, the valley was steep and the river swift. No one could have brought an army across the water, not easily. And then he saw what he’d almost missed.
He laughed and let the eagle fly free to return to Ardwater.
“Ice,” he said and jabbed at the map. “Here. Deremer has got his water witchery folk to build a bridge of ice. At this time of the year! That’s crazy. How did they do that? They are already on our side of the river, readying themselves to attack the Grey Lancers from behind.”
“Deremer always was a very smart man,” Fritillary remarked. “Way of the Flow witchery folk can do many things with water. And what, after all, is ice but frozen water?”
Ardhi smiled across the table at Sorrel. His kris had thought of ice too.
35
Stalking the Fox in his Den
Guided by Ardhi, they spent the best part of the next day weaving ideas into a focused strategy. Ardhi relentlessly hammered the central concept: action based on a combination of sakti and witchery and artefact, with cooperation the key. Finally, they had a plan.
Early the following morning Sorrel donned clothes that gave her the most freedom of movement – sailor’s breeks, tunic and shoes, a cloth belt with a dagger thrust through the waist. She completed her outfit by weaving her hair back at the nape and tying the end.
Ardhi was taking a different route to the palace, so she said goodbye, knowing that before the day was through one of them – or both – might be dead.
And then what will happen to Piper?
Saker had tried to cheer her, saying Prince Ryce already thought of Piper as his niece, and no matter what happened to the ternion, the child would be cared for, but Sorrel found that knowledge more unsettling than consoling. It was just another warning that Piper was not hers to rear. A hint that she was going to lose her second daughter.
The thought cut deep, bleeding grief into her bones.
She’s not Heather. She’s alive and well. She has a future. Be grateful.
She left Proctor House with the others, to find the streets already thronged with city folk going about their daily routines. An early morning service at the stone chapel was the first stop for some; others called
at the open market to buy foodstuff brought into the city at first light from nearby farms, while a few headed to the docks to haggle over seafood sold by the night fishermen.
Gerelda had grumbled, saying that she hated elaborate plans. “So many more things can go wrong. And if you ask me, there are far too many people involved in this. Which means infinitely more mistakes are possible.”
“Too late to change anything now,” Saker replied, smiling in a way that told Sorrel much about his affection for the proctor.
Gerelda sighed. “I know. Trouble is I’ve got used to it being just me and Perie. But today we’ve witchery folk involved that neither you nor I have ever met. Rainmakers, woodworkers, animal charmers… There are just too many unknowns.”
“Spoken like a true writ-wright fact-chaser,” he said cheerfully.
“Oh, muzzle it. It’s fine for you lot. I’m the only non-witchery-endowed person involved here today. I feel like a moulting goose in a herd of thoroughbred warhorses.”
When they reached the meeting place, a shadowed laneway pinched between two overhung buildings, Sorrel looked around the rest of the armed group gathering there, and realised Gerelda was right. Even Barden had a witchery of sorts, with his oaken staff. The others had all been chosen by Fritillary on the basis of their witchery talents. Most of them she did not know.
Someone was distributing pieces of sacking and gave her one. “What’s that for?” she asked.
“To keep the worst of the rain off,” the man replied.
It wasn’t raining then, but a storm was part of the plan.
No one spoke much. Now and then Gerelda would look at Peregrine with a raised eyebrow. Every time he shook his head, meaning he sensed no lancers, and no sorcerers other than the two men in the palace. “A large black spider sitting in the middle of his web,” he said, “with his son scuttling about on the edge.”
“So confoundedly arrogant,” Fritillary muttered. “So sure his hold on the eastern lands is secure that he thinks to destroy the Dire Sweepers and Lowmian strength in one great battle. He believes it possible to destroy all opposition from the Va-cherished Hemisphere with the fell broom of war.” She and Barden were disguised as beggars, and her ragged clothing, stinking like a knacker’s yard, did not match the eloquence of her pronouncement.
