Adrienne Martine-Barnes - [Sword 02]

by The Crystal Sword (v0. 9) (epub)

  The eastern entry to Paris was not better manned than the western, and he was both disgusted at the laxity, and strangely pleased to see the scowling countenance of the guardsman. Dylan dismounted and began to lead the horse up a narrow street, for he was stiff and tired. A clutter of beggars whined at him, but he ignored them. What he wanted most was a pot of beer.

  Eight men-at-arms trotted towards him smartly, their mail tinkling cheerfully as their boots thumped on the paving stones. Their tunics bore a fleur-de-lys over the heart, and Dylan pulled the horse to one side to let them pass. He had no desire to get in the way of the King’s men, whatever their business.

  “Stand!” the foremost man bellowed.

  Dylan dropped the horse’s reins and stood calmly.

  “Are you one Dee-lon d’Ave-a-buree?” The fellow made a face as he tried to twist his tongue around unfamiliar sounds.

  “I am.”

  “Then I arrest you in the King’s name for murder.”

  Dylan looked at them. The tallest of them did not reach his shoulder, and they seemed terribly nervous. A good shout would probably send them running. They clutched their sword hilts with white knuckles and rolled onto the balls of their feet.

  “Murder?”

  “It was sorcery, sergeant,” said one of the men. He rolled his eyes and crossed himself.

  “Yes. Let us just kill him here. I will get some wood,” added another.

  Dylan gestured to his filthy clothes. “Now, do I look like a sorcerer?” he said mildly.

  “No, but you do look like a murderer,” replied the sergeant. “Tie his hands.”

  No one seemed at all eager to accomplish this task, and Dylan could have laughed out loud. That seemed like a poor notion, however, for they were both serious and frightened, and frightened people do stupid things. So he bit his lip and waited while they looked at each other and fidgeted with helms and swords and twitched their tunics into more authoritative folds.

  “Tell me, sergeant, whom am I supposed to have killed?”

  ‘ ‘The Albionese ambassador. ”

  “What? Old Giles de Cambridge? Why, I have known him since I was a lad. He had grown sadly fat, but I suppose that is just your fine Parisian cooking.” I am going to turn into a fine liar if I am not careful. And what of the fair Genevieve? Dylan leaned against the wall of the building and folded his arms across his chest. “I suppose that rat-faced servant of his told you this tale. I did not like the look of him. He was probably stealing the old man blind, and the ambassador discovered it.”

  The men-at-arms looked at one another. This obviously seemed a more plausible explanation to them. Dylan was too unworried to be a murderer. The sergeant was in an agony of indecision. Of course, if he got a good look at Dylan’s silvery fingernails, he would fall back upon the charge of sorcery. Dylan sincerely wished he was a magician, for then he could vanish or turn them into frogs instead of standing here attempting to behave as if he had not a care in the world.

  The sergeant studied Dylan and came to a decision, impressed either by his nonchalance or some other factor. “Would you be so kind as to accompany us, monsignor, until we can come to some conclusion?’ ’

  “But, of course, sergeant.” He paused a moment. “As a chevalier it is my God-sworn duty to serve justice. And, by the Virgin, if Giles de Cambridge has been murdered, I shall not rest until his slayer is punished.”

  Dylan could, almost feel them relax. He had established himself as a knight and a God-fearing man, and, for the moment, they lost their fear of him. Now if he could just stay clear of the superstitious priests, he might avoid any further problems.

  Dungeons, Dylan decided, were for the dogs, and Parisian dungeons were probably worse than others. At least the one he now occupied had nothing to recommend it. The walls of his tiny cell dripped constantly, and the smell told him that the sewer of the Seine was probably the source of the moisture. The straw strewn upon the stone floor was moldy, and the corridor outside echoed with constant groans from other prisoners. The worst of it, however, was how confined the space was. He could not stand upright, for the ceiling was too low, and he was forced to sprawl on a louse-laden blanket.

  For three days he had languished, apparently forgotten. They had been quite courteous about locking him up, courteous and inflexible. They had fed him maggoty bread and stale water, and changed his privy pot once a day, and ignored his protests and demands. It seemed unlikely that they had delivered his letters of introduction to anyone in authority, or if they had, that anyone believed he had not stolen them. And now the turnkey said his execution orders had been sent down. On the morrow, he would die.

  Dylan coiled a bit of beard around one finger in unconscious imitation of his father, and flogged his brain for some way out. Shape-changer that he was, he could not walk through solid stone. They had left him his pouch, with Beth’s leaves and the hank of licome hair, but they were no help. Despair nibbled away at him.

  I cannot help if I am not asked. The words rose in his mind, and Dylan tried frantically to remember where he had heard them. He saw his mother’s face for a moment, then superimposed upon it Saille, Lady of the Willows. But neither of them had said those words. Sal’s dark hair paled into silver, and she was Beth of the White Birches. Or was she? She seemed different somehow, but he could not put a finger to the change.

  He did not want help, not a woman’s help, not even a goddess’s. It made him feel like a little boy, as if he had simply traded one mother for another. It was infuriating, the sense of powerlessness, as if the manhood he had conceived in the depths of the forest was nothing at all. Women were nothing but trouble. A woman he had never even met had gotten him into this mess in the first place!

  Dylan indulged himself in this manner for some time, until it finally struck him that he was behaving like a sulky little boy. This enraged him at first, then left him miserable and ashamed. It was nothing but stubborn pride.

  Dylan swallowed his pride—a bile-bitter gulp, he found— and tensed his shoulders. He gritted his teeth, then ground them together. “Beth, please help me,” he whispered. There was no hint of her presence, no smell of green, no shimmer of silver, no faint tinkle of soft laughter. He was utterly alone, abandoned to his fate.

  XIII

  The stomp of booted feet in the corridor outside aroused him. Was it morning so soon? Dylan knuckled his eyes and combed his curling hair with his fingers. His mouth was dry and tasted like dirty hosen. There was some sort of argument going on outside his door, a low-voiced dispute, and he wondered if they were still undecided about whether to behead or bum him. Beheading seemed quicker nnd cleaner, so probably it was the stake for him. He hoped he wouldn’t scream too much, and nearly laughed at this foolish vestige of dignity. He did not want to die well when he had barely begun living.

  The door creaked open on unoiled hinges. A figure limned in an enormous aura stood in the opening. Dylan was dazzled. Even his mother did not shine so brightly. If ever there was a candidate for canonization, it was the man who stood before him.

  His eyes finally adjusted, and he saw a slender man, clean shaven except for a pale moustache, simply dressed in the habit of a mendicant monk of St. Benedict. His hair was not tonsured, however, and he carried himself with great assurance. He had sharp, light-colored eyes above a prominent nose, a hawk’s face. Dylan hoped the man had not come to confess him. Those eyes would have all his petty lies and venialities out of him in a moment.

  Someone spoke from behind, and the man made an impatient gesture. “Enough.”

  “But, sire—”

  “Enough, I say. This sty is an outrage! Come out of there, chevalier. Tell the warden I want clean straw in all of these cells before Vespers. How can we be men of God if we treat our fellows like dogs!”

  “Clean straw?” It was a different voice. “But, Your Majesty, if we begin treating prisoners like ...”

  The King turned his head and the voice trailed off. Dylan stood up slowly and bent his
shoulders down in a half-crouch until he was clear of the door. He then stood up straight and made a low bow to the man. Louis made a gesture like shooing away flies.

  “I want this man fed and bathed and given decent clothing, and I want him in my audience chamber within the hour. Further, I want the documents on every prisoner in this hole brought to me before the midday meal.” “Documents, Your Majesty?” The speaker was a plump man with a clear sheen of sweat on his brow in the flickering torchlight. He wrung his hands across his ample belly. “We ... ah ... we have no ... I mean . . . Your Majesty, common thieves and filch-purses do not have documents.” He said the last with the air of one quoting scripture.

  “Warden, any prisoner here without a written charge is to be released immediately. We are a Christian nation, and the least of us are still children of God!”

  From the expressions on the faces of the men around Louis, Dylan thought the new King’s piety was unappreciated and would probably come to be loathed after a very short time. Having a man so virtuous upon the throne of Franconia was going to be difficult, and he was glad that Arthur was in many ways an ordinary man.

  His hair was still damp when a pickle-faced servant led him into a shabby room in the fortress palace of the Louvre. Dylan had not had time yet to marvel at what had happened, nor to puzzle out the circumstances. He had scrubbed away his filth in the large tub usually reserved for knights on their vigil, and was garbed in a clean tunic that almost fit. He was careful not to breathe too deeply for fear of splitting the seams, and the shoes they had given him were tight in the toes, but he was content with a belly full of lentil stew and fresh bread.

  Louis came in a few minutes later, fingers flicking a rosary around his waist in a practiced manner and lips moving in silent prayer. In the greater light of the audience room Dylan realized that the King was only a few years older than he was, and that only the seriousness of his countenance made him appear more. He stood respectfully while the King completed his prayers.

  The King smiled, and immediately looked years younger. “Sit down, please. I have had enough bowing and scraping to last me to eternity. Empty ceremony. I beg you forget my new estate and join me in some wine and conversation. I never thought I would long for gossip. I am pleased to fill the place that God has called me to, but I wish it could have been another. Still, 1 plan to leave Franconia a better place than I found it, if I have to work my advisors to death to do the task.”

  “Since you have saved my life, I am most happy to serve you in any way I can.”

  “We will come to that later.” Louis paused, fiddled with his beads, and sat down. “Why have you come to Franconia?” He sat down at the table and Dylan joined him.

  “Do you know, I am not quite certain anymore.” He accepted a goblet of wine, looked into the pale, piercing eyes of the King, and told the whole tale, omitting nothing, though he glossed over his meeting with Beth and his encounter with the hellhounds rather hastily. Louis listened intently, and nodded.

  The King sighed. “So, it was not the Virgin who appeared to me. Quel dommage. All these years of praying, and I am visited by a pagan tree spirit. Truly, God moves in mystery. I must see this Morel fellow is investigated. I cannot have such witch men practicing in Paris.”

  Dylan, dry mouthed from his story, helped himself to more wine. He felt relieved. The King might be pious, but he did not appear shocked by anything he had heard. “Witch men?” The term puzzled him a little.

  “There are sorcerers, there are magicians, and there are witches. These are the practitioners of the art of magic—as distinct from one like you.”

  “Me?” Dylan shifted uneasily.

  “Yes. You are magical. It is not a learning. It is ... a being. Your mother is a mage—a powerful one, by all accounts—-but you will never be such.”

  “Good.”

  Louis laughed. “Such a reluctant paladin.”

  “All that I have seen of magic, except for my mother’s, seems a pretty ugly business, and I wish no part of it.” “Much of it is, for magic is about power, and that is dangerous stuff.” He paused. “They did not want me for a King, you know, for not only do I see all lies and all truths as clearly as you see your hand before you, but also I have the gift of magic in me. I have sworn it to God’s service, but that is no comfort to those around me. There have been several attempts on my life, and there will no doubt be more. They would have preferred my brother, Robert, who is a weakling. Or the Devil himself, I think. I have sworn to drive the Shadow out of the land, as your King did in Albion, and that does not sit well. Too many profit in various ways from the Shadow.”

  “I never knew a Shadow-held man until I came to this land, and I was surprised when I saw so many here in the city. My mother’s tales of them made me expect living dead men, and those I have seen, but there are others who are less afflicted.” He lifted his hands helplessly. “I cannot explain it better.”

  “But you have been most exact. It is like a fever. Some die but perish not, while others recover a little and become like that child you met at the gates. And many do not get the illness at all. Only the good Lord knows why.”

  “And he has not told you,” Dylan replied dryly.

  “Well, perhaps he winnows the faithful. 1 shall do so, in any case. And you will help me.”

  Dylan felt an icy finger of apprehension creep up his spine. “I will, my lord?”

  “1 cannot drive the Darkness out of my land until I have driven it out of Paris. I cannot leave Paris full of vipers waiting the first opportunity to join forces against me. Therefore, I must cleanse the city, and I wish you to aid ine.”

  “I understood, sire, that you had been training an army for some purpose, and I assume it is to rid Franconia of the Shadow. But surely you have knights enough for that?” “Knights I have, and priests as well, but only a handful who can see the presence of the Shadow as I know you can. A gift from your mother, if my ‘sight’ is true. You see, there are many here in Paris who would point a finger at their business rivals and say, ‘He is Shadow man,’ just for gain. My father’s rule was slothful, and greed has become the faith of many. I need men like you.”

  Dylan sipped his wine and thought. His mother had been charged with the task of restoring the heir of Albion and ridding the land of the Darkness, but he had no such appointment. No Bridget had spoken to him of saving Franconia, and he found he was enormously reluctant to become involved in the project. The office of knighthood seemed lusterless to him, and he did not wish to kill or to lead the slaughter of the hundreds he knew must die to accomplish Louis’ end.

  After several minutes of silent meditation, Dylan realized he was afraid of the killer within him. It was one thing to defend himself against attack and quite another to go looking for victims. The stag-man was wild, but gentle lor all that. The other beasts were less so, but even the wolf did not slay for pleasure. It left a bitter taste in his mouth.

  He looked up and saw Louis staring at him with awe. Dylan could feel the stag’s antlers upon his brow and saw their shadow upon the table and the golden-green light they cast. He did not belong in this noisome city. The stone walls of the fortress oppressed him, and he forced the beast back into his mind. The antlers vanished, leaving him with a blinding headache.

  Louis rose and leaned across the table. He touched a cool finger to Dylan’s forehead and traced the cross upon the moist skin. The headache faded, and the King resumed his seat. It was a small healing, but Dylan sensed its difference from those of the Lady of the Birches. He was marked by both now, by the goddess and by the God of the priests and the cathedrals. He would bear the cross as long as he lived, an unwanted burden.

  Dylan regarded the blazing man across the table from him. How could he have imagined this man a saint? Saints, he thought, did not ask you to help them slaughter hundreds of people. Then he remembered one of his mother’s strange tales of the history of the strange world she had come from, of a holy war called a crusade and a man called Bernard o
f Clairvaux, who at the urging of the Pope, preached men to fight in the strange war. He too had become canonized. Dylan found the idea of a religious war utterly bizarre. Wars were to conquer land or to defend against invasion, and if the Shadow were more like a plague than an assault of arms, it still disrupted the peace of a kingdom. Louis, he decided, was a practical man, and a man who loved Franconia as much as Dylan loved Albion. He realized that if Franconia was healed of its sickness, they would be able to trade again with Albion, and that this would be an excellent result.

  Dylan was about to give an answer when he saw another possibility. A Darkness-free Franconia would be very strong, and therefore a threat to the peace of Albion. Franconians had invaded them before, though except for Guillaume the Conqueror, not with any great success. Still, it was an unpleasant idea, and his mother had often admonished him to consider consequences, adding in a self-mocking tone that she rarely did herself.

  “Very well, milord, I shall help you free your city of its pestilence, and then I will go on my way. But first I wish a treaty made that neither you nor your descendants will ever attempt to invade Albion, and Albion will not invade you. King Arthur is your vassal for Brittany, I believe, but perhaps you can persuade him to some agreement wherein he surrenders his claims to Normandy and Brittany and Anjou in exchange for peace between our realms. It seems to me, you see, that without the Shadow to keep you busy, you might begin to covet our little island, and I would not like that at all.”

  “I underestimated you, Dylan d’Avebury. You are wise beyond your years. Do you really believe your Arthur would sign such an agreement?”

  “I do not know, but he is a thoughtful man, for all his rufus hair and headstrong disposition, and he has been a good King these twenty years. He would, I am sure, prefer to trade with you without the Flems.”

  Louis burst out laughing. It made his rather solemn face twist in unaccustomed ways and he looked years younger. “Ah, oui, the Flems. Grubby little merchants. I understand there has been a royal marriage between your two kingdoms.”