by M. C. Planck
As he sat brooding in his office that night, awaiting the roar of a riot or some other disturbance to reveal his incompetence, the dreaded knock came.
“Sir, permission to enter,” a young sentry said. Christopher had been training his men how to talk to him, and he much preferred “Sir” to the ostentatious “my Lord Curate.”
“Granted, Private,” he answered. His men had also been training him how to speak to them, and he felt like he was making progress.
The door opened to a slightly flustered young soldier and a strikingly attractive woman dressed in peasant’s clothes somehow arranged to give the distinct impression of harlotry.
“She said you would want to see her, sir,” the soldier apologized, as Christopher began shaking his head in anger.
“What an absurd breach of protocol,” he began to lecture, but then the woman interrupted him.
“Take it easy on them, Christopher. I had to work to get this far.” The woman shook out her hair, changed her posture in some subtle way, and suddenly was Lalania again.
The soldier stood, waiting for release or blame. Christopher could hardly give him the latter, so he made the best of it. “Very well, Private. Dismissed.” Damn it, if he had known the man was going to exit with that lascivious grin, he wouldn’t have let him go so easily.
“Where have you been, and why are you dressed like that?” he demanded of the girl.
“The answer to both of those questions should be self-evident,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “Do you see me reproaching you for your whoring around?”
“But I don’t,” he said automatically.
“I am so tired of hearing that,” she said, but not really to him. “Peace. You asked for my help, now take it.”
He really did need help, so he shut up and listened.
“Your wizard is a careful man. And yes, man he is, despite the rumors. Once a week he takes a woman into his tower for the night. Very discreetly, I might add. It took me days to find out where and when the selection was made.”
“Oh, Lala!” he exclaimed. “You didn’t . . .”
“This is my job,” she answered, angry now. “Do not dare to look down on me. When I am done with my appointed tasks, there are not headless bodies lying everywhere.”
If it was a rationalization, it was a good one.
“But it’s not your job to take such risks,” he said, because he could always find something to argue. “If he had suspected you were working for me, he would have burned us both.”
“Or worse,” she agreed, jaunty again now that the topic was mere danger. “But he has great confidence in his power. Each morning he wipes the girl’s mind, so she can recall nothing of what occurred the night before.”
“So you gained nothing? Why even try, then?”
“Because trying costs nothing. If I cannot remember, then I can hardly complain.”
Christopher tapped the desk in annoyance. Either she was talking metaphysics or justifications; either was a waste of time.
“Because I am not a credulous peasant girl. That kind of magic is beyond his reach,” she said, sitting on his desk and stopping his hand with hers. “If not, it would be a fact worth knowing. I prepared myself against the more probable but lesser spell, and was proved right.”
“More danger,” Christopher complained. “What if he noticed?”
“Not with magic,” she laughed. “I am only first-rank. And magic is all he sees. The foolishness of the high; they forget that common sense and cleverness can oft slip thaumaturgical puissance. So now I can tell you what he would rather you did not know.”
That sounded dangerous in and of itself. But knowledge was power, and he wasn’t going to turn down Lalania’s sacrifice.
His face must have revealed his concern, because Lalania grinned at him. “The first and most important thing he does not want you to know is that he is a balding, paunchy, middle-aged man of a thoroughly pedestrian nature. The only unpleasantness I faced was boredom. My skills were wasted on him; clumsy peasant girls are all he can conceive of.”
Christopher did not want to know what skills she was referring to.
“He wears Black to frighten and cow, but he is too wedded to personal gain to be anything but Yellow. He never leaves the tower unless cloaked in robes and illusion intended more to disguise than to terrify. He lives and breathes plot and counterplot, scheme and stratagem. He is desperately lonely, up there in that tower with nothing but his magic and his baleful contingencies, yet so subsumed by paranoia that it has never occurred to him he is his own jailer.
“And most important, he is not immortal. He was an apprentice of the previous lord of the tower. In tried and true fashion, he murdered his rivals and then his master.” Fae had said that was an acceptable way to become a wizard. “It was the tael from the war ten years ago that made him a power and not merely a shadow hiding behind a reputation and a handful of magic looted from his predecessor.
“So you must trim your interactions with him to this pattern. He has true power, so do not be dismissive; but obsequiousness is not necessary or helpful. The promise of friendship may draw him to you against his will, but flattery will only make him suspicious. Though he will not be moved by charity, he can be impressed with hard bargaining.”
“I don’t think I’m going to have any interactions with him.”
“Not unless you improve your social graces. I understand you paid a call on the Gold Curate? The rumors are amazing. Apparently you smashed down his door and walked away unscathed; yet the Gold Curate still lives. Do you know what that looks like?”
“Um. No?” Christopher had assumed that everyone else had seen the shame clinging to his shoulders.
“It looks like a superior chastising his recalcitrant servant.”
“What? Joadan threw me out!”
“Without murdering you? Even Faren would slay a Dark priest who broke into the Cathedral without a second thought. How utterly unlikely that a Gold would let you walk away from his house unharmed.”
“This is not going to look good for Joadan,” Christopher said.
“You think?” Lalania said, with wide eyes and an exaggerated tilt of her head. It was uncomfortably close to the way Joadan had looked at him.
“I mean, he was already talking about trouble at home. Some kind of schism. So if they think he’s working with me, the Gold Throne is going to come down on him.”
“What do you know of schism?” she said rather more sharply than he would have expected.
“Joadan was apparently an enemy of Black Bart. He let me go because I was the one who killed him. Torme seems to think it means the Yellow Church is in some kind of conflict.”
“And indeed it is,” Lalania said. “Joadan, whom you have been sent to destroy, is the lighter side of that bronze coin. There is dark, and then there is Darkness. The Gold Throne is under a shadow. I came here and did what I did not for you but to see if the wizard cast that shadow and if Joadan was his tool. Now I find my suspicions a-jumble, and all because of you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Christopher asked.
The bard paused, and it occurred to Christopher that she did not, in fact, work for him. There was no particular reason she should share her secrets.
“An oversight,” she said, “and unworthy of our alliance. I won’t let it happen again.”
“I don’t understand what you mean. How can a whole Church be under a shadow?”
She paused again, considering her words, trying cover it up by adjusting her blouse. Which was an admittedly effective distraction.
“There are intrigues among the gods, just as among men. The Iron Throne, in particular, does not work by daylight. Instead it infiltrates other Churches, turning their priests one by one to the Black, until it inhabits the shell of the church like a rotting carcass under a carefully preserved skin.”
Christopher thought of Bart’s priest and the black robes that had been hidden under his yellow cloak.
“For once, you are a master of understatement. But I have had my fill of banality for now. I am going to take advantage of your wash-room, and quite possibly one or two of your young peacocks.”
“We saved you a room in the officers’ quarters,” he hastened to tell her retreating back. She had just said that last part to tease him.
Probably.
In the morning he had other things to worry about. None of the men he had given leave had returned. Like with any dog that goes missing, he feared the worst, but resolved not to panic until he had at least checked the local pound.
He and Torme walked through the town until they found the jail, where he discovered his men lounging around, battered, bruised, and caged.
But not demoralized. They snapped to attention without a trace of shame when he stood outside their bars.
“What happened?” Christopher asked. He recognized a face in dismay. Charles, his quartermaster, still a short and skinny kid, was the one he’d thought of as a paragon of reason compared to the average teenager.
“What else? They got drunk and started a fight,” answered the jailor.
Christopher ignored him, frowning at Charles’s black eye and split lip.
“It is true that we had plenty to drink, sir,” Charles said. “But we did not start any fights. We can’t help that the local girls are interested in real men, not smelly simpletons.”
“You Darkling rat!” barked the jailor, and lunged at the bars, raising his club. The soldier didn’t flinch.
“Please don’t do that,” Christopher said to the jailor. The man immediately cowered, properly terrified of Christopher’s rank. “Please don’t do that, either,” Christopher sighed futilely. Fear he could evoke instantly. Understanding took time.
“If they really were just defending themselves, is it still a crime?” he asked the jailor.
“That’s not my domain, Lord Curate. For that you must speak to the Captain.”
“Is it permissible for my assistant to see to their injuries?”
The jailor really wanted to say no, but in the face of Christopher’s exalted rank, he wilted.
Christopher started to leave, but he didn’t want to deal with the Captain without Torme at his side. Then he thought of something else he should do before that meeting.
“Where are the others?” he asked the jailor. “The ones my men fought?”
The jailor stared at him, carefully blank. “I would not know, Lord Curate. We were unable to identify any of them.”
While Christopher was busy fuming about the unequal treatment, Torme explained from inside the jail cell.
“The Curate only wishes to heal your fellow citizens, Squire. He has no desire to punish.”
The jailor did not look convinced. “All the same, Pater, we cannot give what we do not have.”
Torme came out of the cell while guards locked it behind him. “I doubt it is necessary, my lord. These men have only bumps and bruises.” Christopher could see he hadn’t bothered to heal any of the men. Torme didn’t consider mere pain worth worrying about. But then, neither did the men.
“So there were no weapons involved?” Christopher asked.
“No, sir,” Charles answered. “They apparently felt outnumbering us three to one was sufficient.”
If his men had really faced such odds and come out with so little damage, they were tougher than he had thought. On the other hand, bar fights were mostly about spirit, not skill. He could see how his men would have had a huge advantage over the ordinary peasant. He could also see how so much arrogance would be insufferable to the locals.
On the way to the Captain, he asked Torme about it. “Do you think they are innocent? Did they really not start the fight? They seem awfully cocky.”
“They did not need to start a fight,” Torme answered. “They were doomed from the moment they walked into the tavern. They hold their heads like lords, the girls react accordingly, and the men react to that.”
Christopher’s concerns about what the rest of the Kingdom would think caught fire and burned.
“We’ve got to get them to stop that. We can’t afford the attention right now.”
Torme shook his head. “You cannot. It is no longer in your power to take away the pride you have given them.”
No, Christopher thought, and I wouldn’t if I could.
“Then what do we do?”
Torme responded like the soldier he had been.
“More discipline.”
The Captain was not in his office. Rather than wander around the city at random looking for him, Christopher decided to go back to his barracks. Torme volunteered to wait. It seemed unfair, but Torme assured him that was what assistants were for.
He spent the day drilling with the troops, trying to keep them occupied. They built an obstacle course and had races through it, with the natural enthusiasm of young men sparked by Christopher’s promise of a gold coin to the winner. He was defeated in his purpose, though, when a squad ganged up under their junior officer, each individual throwing away his chance on the course to hold back the faster runners, while their corporal surged ahead. The sign of cooperation was welcome; the corporal’s promise to spend the gold on drinks for his squad as soon as they were allowed out on the town was not.
Torme returned at nightfall, and Christopher had to order him to eat something before issuing his report.
“The Captain invites you to join him at The Hanging Tree, a local tavern.” Efficient as always, he already had directions and led Christopher through the town, the darkness reduced to a comfortable dim by the plethora of magic streetlamps.
So Christopher would finally get to see the nightlife of a medieval town. In the village, it consisted of men sitting around drinking and discussing the weather, every bit as exciting as an English pub. Not something to write home about. On the other hand, he hoped it wouldn’t be a seedy, smoky bar with topless dancers and the reek of sweat and alcohol.
His hopes were dashed.
The outside of the tavern was his first warning. The windows in the huge stone building were boarded shut, muffling the sounds of voices and music. The bouncers at the door were his second warning. Large, beefy, wearing executioner’s hoods, black leather pants, vests, gloves, and armed with wooden clubs.
They asked for Christopher’s sword. He had it half off before Torme stopped him.
“You are ranked. You do not disarm for anyone.”
Torme threw the bouncers a glare, and they stepped aside.
The door led to a large, open room, ringed by a balcony, with flickering light-stones hanging from the ceiling. There was a small orchestra on one side, but without electronic amplification it could barely be heard over the din of drunken laughing and shouts. Scantily clad women, or in some cases unclad, floated about, advertising their services.
More annoying from Christopher’s perspective was the smoke. It wasn’t tobacco, which didn’t surprise him—he had not seen any New World crops here—but it was just as unpleasant. Not as thick, but twice as cloying, it made the air feel heavy. The source seemed to be a myriad of hand-carved pipes, which were being passed around at some of the tables.
The Captain was in the center of the room, at the edge of a large table, a mug in one hand and a woman in the other. The small crowd around him were cheering and jeering at a man with three oddly shaped blocks in his hand.
Christopher did not identify them as dice until the man threw them on the table. They weren’t cubes, and they didn’t seem to have any symbols he could recognize painted on them. They weren’t even all the same shape.
A shout went up from the crowd, and the man hung his head in defeat. The croupier raked gold coins from his side of the table to the Captain’s side.
“Ah, Curate. Welcome to our table, and many thanks for leaving the door on its hinges.” The Captain greeted him with alcohol-fueled camaraderie and a crude smirk. “Would you care to wager on a throw?”
“You’ve never played Dragons, Knights, and Angels?”
“No,” Christopher confessed, “I’ve never even heard of it.”
“Did they raise you in a monastery?” laughed the Captain. His crowd laughed with him.
“No, it’s just personal.” He’d never understood the point of gambling. If you couldn’t control or at least influence the outcome, why bother?
The Captain, like all bullies, moved on to an easier target.
“What about you, Pater? You have the look of a man who appreciates a good wager.” The Captain pushed the dice toward Torme, who was careful not to touch them.
“I fear not, Lord Captain. My Patron grants me Luck as a domain, and I do not wish to taint your game.”
“Bah,” the Captain grumbled. “You two are as meek as nuns.”
“Speaking of meekness,” Christopher said, “you’ve got some of my men in your jail. I was wondering if I could have them back.”
“Meekness? Your boys are as arrogant as dukes. And as pretty as peacocks, the way you’ve dressed them in all that finery. For the sake of our young women’s virtue, they should all be locked up.”
The young woman he was currently groping didn’t look all that virtuous.
“You know what would cure them?” the Captain continued, coming around to what Christopher suspected was the real point. “Shoveling mud. Put them to work on the walls, and the discipline problems will go away.”
No doubt. If his army was reduced to dirty, simple-minded laborers, they really would lose their appeal. And the spirit that made them an army.
But Christopher was distracted by a technical question. “Mud? What has mud got to do with wall-building?”
“Ha!” the Captain chortled. “Everything. In fact, everything you see here was made out of mud.” He waved his hand at the stone walls, spilling ale on a well-dressed man standing next to him. The man carefully ignored the accident.
Christopher couldn’t decide if the Captain was making fun of him or was just too drunk to understand the question. He decided it would be polite to not press the issue. The Captain was still sober enough to detect his suspicion.
