The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy)

by Grefer, Victoria

  “It’ll look like he’s his uncle. Your Majesty, that spell….”

  “Do you know where he learned it?”

  “A book he found sealed in one of the bedroom walls during renovation. It had been there at least a century, he said, probably hidden by a worker when the manor was built. Val’s mother could never have touched the thing, and Val, he wouldn’t touch it himself at first. After we got married, he made himself study some of the incantations, just in case. He never thought to use a single one. You know he’d never…. It was for emergencies, a life or death moment when there was no other….”

  “An emergency like today. I understand, August. I understand he was thinking he might die, and that Amison could slip out the back while Zacry and Gratton took care of the underlings. He was worried a free Amison meant an Amison who could come after you and your child a second time. I understand what Vane’s intentions were. Unfortunately, as you’ve already noted, the public at large will not. If Vane thought the council protests disturbing…. You can’t stay here, not for the present, neither one of you. I can’t buy you more than twenty-four hours until notice spreads.”

  “Your Majesty, he can’t be moved, not again. It’ll kill him. It’s a miracle he didn’t die the first time. Can’t we hide that Val slew Yangerton? That he ever came to Bennie’s?”

  “I don’t recommend we try that. The rest of the council, not to mention a number of guardsmen, saw your husband rush from that meeting and take Gratton with him. And it’s well known Vane and Amison were enemies, so when Amison turns up dead at Gratton’s house….”

  “We can move the bodies,” August insisted, “create a false crime scene.”

  “And if someone learned we’d done that? No, August, it’s got to be the truth, the open truth. To cover up Vane’s presence in that living room will only paint him guilty. Your husband’s no murderer. That’s why I have to go to the papers, tonight. So I’m telling you, I can bribe them to hold the story for twenty-four hours while I investigate events, but beyond that….”

  She repeated, “He can’t be moved. He’ll die if he’s moved.”

  Zacry said, “If he can’t leave, I’ll stay as long as necessary. Extra security. I just need to speak to Joslyn, and Kora, the Giver help me.”

  How could Zacry tell his sister that Bendelof Esper was dead? The thought made him feel sick, but he looked August in the eyes. “My mother will help Joss with the kids. This is no inconvenience to anyone, understand?”

  “Thank you,” August mouthed, and Zacry transported out.

  Zacry found his sister shredding lettuce and slicing tomatoes in her kitchen, while Kansten helped and Ilana watched the other children. Kora needed nothing more than one glance at her brother, at his red eyes and clenched jaw, to feel her heart rise in her throat and order Kansten to go help her grandmother. She was well aware that day was to be the Magic Council’s first session.

  “Who?” was all she could ask when the child disappeared.

  “Bennie.” Kora’s hand slipped and overturned her cutting board; produce flew across the table. “It’s Bennie. And Vane might not make it through the night.”

  “Oh good God!” She fell back against the wall. “God, no, not him too! You’re taking me to him. I don’t care about people seeing. Zacry Porteg, you’re….”

  “I’ll come back for you,” he promised. “I have to see Joss first. Ask Mother to spend the night at my place for a while, all right?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Trial

  It was close to ten p.m. when Vane came to. The king had left Oakdowns hours before, to see to a quiet removal of the bodies and to bribe the papers not to print anything about Amison’s death for at least a day. Hayden and Kora sat holding hands near the door of the bedchamber. Neither spoke, though they had not said a word to one another since he escorted her out the Palace the day Zalski had died. Zacry, meanwhile, stood a few feet off trying to console Gratton. Teena hovered around the bedside, and August still clutched Vane’s fingers in hers as though his life depended on her not letting go, when everyone heard him rustle.

  Vane blinked a couple times, but then winced, his eyes screwed shut. He turned his head toward August, and she told him, “It’s me. It’s me, Val. We’re at home, so try to rest, all right?” He squeezed her hand as he did manage to look at her, and she said, “Teena’s here, and Zac and Kora, even Hayden. You gave us quite a scare…. No,” she said, forcing him back as he tried to sit up, tried to verify her claim of visitors. “Don’t exert yourself. You’re too weak. You lost loads of blood. You’ve been unconscious all day and you need to rest, understand?” She looked to Teena. “Water. He should drink some water, don’t you think?”

  They had a glass prepared, and Teena and August propped him up to drink something of it. When he had, and was trying to smile at everyone though he lacked the strength for talking, Kora walked up with tears of relief in her eyes. He recognized her and even rasped out her name. “I’ll have to go soon,” she said. “I’ll have to go in maybe half an hour, though Zac’ll stay. It’s close to one in Traigland, and I have to rise early, with the children. I was waiting as long as I could, hoping you’d come around, but I’m coming back tomorrow. You’d better listen to your aunt and wife in the meantime and be here waiting for me, understand?”

  Vane nodded weakly, too weakly for his liking. All of him ached. Though not completely lucid, he was lucid enough to ask, “Bennie?”

  His most direct response was August bursting into sobs. “Try to rest,” Kora told him. “You try to rest.”

  Vane’s head was spinning from lack of blood, so he did not resist when August helped him lie back down. His body was in such shock the only thing it knew to do was sleep, and so he slept while August stroked his hair. Kora left, then Hayden and Gratton together. Zacry settled for the night in the corridor between the master suite and the manor proper, leaving August and Teena with the invalid.

  “Is he out of danger, do you think?” August whispered.

  “His coming to was good, and he recognized people, which is better.”

  “Is the baby safe?”

  August held a hand to her stomach; Teena placed one on her shoulder. “If the shock of all of this was going to make you miscarry, you would have by now, I’d think. But still, you really should rest some. Try to feel calm.”

  “I can try. I don’t think it’ll happen, Teena.”

  Teena nodded in sympathy. “Did I ever tell you I lost a daughter?”

  August let out a little gasp. “I had no idea….”

  “I didn’t miscarry, though I could have. I was married to a man who beat me routinely, worse than ever when I told him I was pregnant. Quint refused to think the child could be his. It was, of course. Thanks be to the Giver, he left after that last beating. I never saw him again. Never got word of him, either. I thought I’d lose the baby from the assault, half-thought that might be best, but I carried her to term. She was beautiful, August. I was terrified she’d look like him somehow, but no, she looked exactly like my mother. She was jaundiced, though, and her health was poor. The local doctor could do nothing, though he tried different salves. My Marcie was too small for any kind of bleeding. That would have killed her outright. She only made it to one month, bless her tiny heart, and I was devastated, but then Laskenay showed up with her infant.”

  “That part I do know,” August said.

  “I had no business accepting her son. My husband could have returned any day and thought the boy was my child. He could have seen Vane’s mark, believed me proved unfaithful, and killed us both. I’m sure he would have. Taking Laskenay’s sweet angel was the most selfish thing I’ve ever done, but the Giver be praised, the boy never suffered for my choice. Quint kept his distance. Vane grew up beneath my care, and the precautions I took to protect him from his uncle, from my husband, distracted me from my grief over losing my daughter.

  “August, you haven’t lost your baby yet, which is a miracle in itself. But if you
should, I promise you life goes on, and life is filled with miracles of all shapes and sizes. They don’t all come wrapped in blankets or wail all night long.”

  “It’s a miracle Val got to me in time. A miracle he’s alive right now. I don’t know what I’d do without him, Teena.”

  “Neither me,” said the older woman.

  “Did you ever tell him about Quint and Marcie?”

  “I haven’t had the strength to confess what danger I put him in. Please keep my confidence, August.”

  “Of course I will, if you’d like me to. If you want my opinion, though, you feel guilty where you shouldn’t. Val’s been blessed his entire life to have you, and I’m glad you’re with me now, with the both of us.”

  Teena patted her nephew’s wife on the arm. “Which settee would you like? East wall or west? I’m not leaving you alone tonight, just in case. Why not take the east? It’s softer, you’ll sleep better.”

  “I doubt I’ll sleep at all. But I will try.”

  * * *

  The next morning Vane was not as pale as before, though he suffered severe vertigo when he so much as turned his head. Wilhem and Walten had drawn him pictures, and Kansten, on hearing Vane was sick, sent her mother with the plush puppy she always snuggled when she was feeling bad herself. Kora could not help but smile when August propped it beside Vane on his pillow.

  “That’s a loan, mind you, not a gift. Kansten was emphatic on the point.”

  They held their breaths, every one of them, when Teena brought in the Podrar Bugle, but Rexson had succeeded in—literally—buying them precious time. Though news of Amison’s death would break the next morning, Vane already seemed stable enough to be moved without great danger. The hope was that, by the end of the day, his vertigo would be less severe and transporting to Traigland that much safer.

  Once Zacry knew Oakdowns would be secure for the day, if not necessarily through the night, he transported out to question Amison’s only living accomplice, the one still frozen in Bendelof’s living room. As he arrived at the murder scene with Rexson, who wore his robes so the brute would know precisely with whom he was dealing, Zacry thought his skin had never crawled so much. The bodies had been removed, including the only one he cared about, but he could feel the deadened eyes looking up at him still, could see that horrid crimson X carved on Amison, hear August’s pleas to Vane not to leave her. Blood had pooled and spattered everywhere—across the walls and furniture, on the white wooden door that led out back—blood that by then had browned and congealed. Trying not to contemplate which puddles came from Bennie, Zacry held a swordpoint to the statue’s chest, and Rexson forced the man against the wall when the sorcerer restored his cognizance. Amison’s accomplice, stout and full-bearded, stared at the two in shock.

  “Who are you?” barked Zacry.

  “Yangerton’s servants. We’re all….” The man’s eyes darted around; he realized he was alone. “We’re all his servants. Where…?”

  Rexson demanded, “What secret was he convinced Ingleton knew?”

  “If it’s something he’d kill Ingleton’s wife over it’s not something he’d tell us, is it?”

  That confirmed August’s account of the motive. “So she was the target?” the king demanded. “How long were you tailing her before…?”

  “Three weeks. Maybe four.”

  “And she never caught on?” said Zacry.

  “No one would have. We knew what we were doing,” claimed the assailant. Zacry moved his sword up to the man’s Adam’s apple.

  “Have you a plant at Oakdowns?” he demanded. The man issued a denial. “Have you? I’m not jesting.”

  “By the time Yangerton thought to try that, Ingleton’d made all hires. He hired staff back in December.”

  “That’s true, Zac,” said the king. “Gracia suggested relatives of proven servants at the Palace. He hired no one else.”

  Zacry lowered his sword and asked the conspirator, “What the hell was Amison thinking, do you know?”

  “That he had nothing to lose. Bring down Ingleton and flee, or watch Ingleton destroy him with the information he’d gathered: those were his choices. At least, that’s what Amison said.”

  “And you?”

  “Me? I was thinking one less sorcerer to screw up the kingdom, the better.” The man smirked. “Where’d the duchess go, is she alive? And Ingleton, eh, where’s he? We didn’t kill the son of a bitch?” Zacry swung the hilt of his sword so hard into the conspirator’s face the gloating man’s nose cracked, and he doubled over, hand above his mouth. Zacry forced him back aright; blood was already matting the servant’s beard.

  “You will not insult that man or his mother in front of me.”

  The servant nodded in a panic that only grew more intense when Zacry muttered unfamiliar words, some kind of spell. The sorcerer, though, did nothing more than heal him.

  “My guard is on its way,” said Rexson. “Do you know what woman your master killed yesterday?”

  Confusion replaced the panic. “Yesterday?”

  “It was yesterday,” the king repeated. “Do you know who she was?”

  “She told us, didn’t she? Bendelof Esper.”

  “Indeed,” said the king. “The wife of one of my guard’s captains.”

  Panic returned to the assailant’s face. “A captain? He’s just a common soldier. She wasn’t married to….”

  “Oh, but she was. Amison would have done better not to ignore the man of the house…. Neither Ingleton nor his wife are dead, I’ll have you know, and the duchess told my captain exactly how his wife was killed. If you’d prefer I not give my soldiers direct orders to hand you over to him before your trial and subsequent hanging, you’ll explain how this came about, and you’ll give me your version of yesterday’s events.”

  They had followed August once, four weeks ago: not long after Vane’s run-in with Amison outside the theater, if August’s information had been correct. When she went to Bendelof’s that day, they kept the house under surveillance to see whether she returned, and noticed August came most Tuesdays, while Gratton was never home then. Those weeks she failed to appear, she sent a servant with an excuse from Oakdowns.

  When the Magic Council’s first session was scheduled for a Tuesday, which meant Ingleton would be occupied, Amison set his ambush. August had come a bit later than usual, but came nonetheless. As for the home invasion, the man’s account dovetailed nicely with August’s, though his was more precise. Rexson’s guard arrived as the servant finished his tale; when they had carted him off, Zacry asked the king, “Can we try him without August’s testimony? You can’t subject her to testifying, to the threats and the jeers and the…. She’ll miscarry for sure, from the strain. She’s been through enough.”

  “We can and will try the bastard without involving her, and in open court. We just heard his confession. I’ll testify to that myself.”

  “So will I, but we coerced him, Rexson. She might have to give a corresponding description, and if so….”

  “He’ll confess before the judge, don’t you worry. He knows if he doesn’t he’ll have to deal with Gratton, and the Giver help us all, I’ll let Gratton at him in a heartbeat if the judge lets him go. No one’s party to Bennie’s death without repercussions, not while I hold power. If there’s one woman in Herezoth you bloody well don’t mess with, it’s….”

  Rexson’s voice started shaking, so he stopped mid-sentence.

  “I’m trying not to think about it,” said Zacry. “Each time I do I want to kill that man myself.”

  * * *

  Hayden stopped by Oakdowns that afternoon, and Zacry returned with him to his house to check on Gratton. The Peasant-Duke lived in a comfortable-looking cabin that overlooked the Podra River; when they arrived, Hayden’s wife told them Bennie’s husband had gone out.

  Hayden assured Zacry, “I know where he’s gone.” He led the way five blocks north to a tavern, one of the few in Podrar that served no food at all beyond hard, dry rye loaves
. The place smelled like stale whiskey and sick, and was nearly empty because the hour still was early. Gratton, unshaved and dull-eyed, sat at a corner table with one depleted beer glass and a second he had hardly touched. He looked to have changed his mind about the drink, because a woman in a grubby apron brought him two servings of liquor as Zacry and Hayden made their way over.

  “Take those back,” Hayden demanded, before she could set them down. She looked from Gratton, who muttered protest, to Hayden, and finally to Zacry. She placed the glasses on the table, and Zacry handed them right back to her.

  “My friend told you to take them back,” said the sorcerer.

  “Your friend didn’t order them, did he?”

  Gratton tried to rise, but Hayden pushed him down. Zacry sent the woman off, and both men took seats across from Bendelof’s husband.

  “She wouldn’t want this,” Hayden told Gratton.

  “She’s bloody well gone, isn’t she, so I guess it doesn’t matter.”

  “She’s gone,” Zacry conceded. He moved the glass of ale out of Gratton’s reach. “We’re not. So you’re not doing this.”

  Gratton jumped to his feet, and Zacry with him. “What hell right…?”

  “What right do we have? That woman was our sister, that’s what right we have. That makes you family, like it or not, and we’re not the types that let family drown themselves. So again, you’re not doing this.”

  “To hell with you both,” sneered the captain.

  Hayden rose at that. “You think we’re not reeling from this?” he demanded.

  Zacry said, “Zalski blinded that woman and held her captive for days in a room across from me. She feared every minute for her life, and she did nothing but console me, because I was twelve. I was twelve, with no clue what was happening and scared out of my mind. I have a damn good idea what she was worth, Gratton. She loved you for some reason God only knows, and for her sake and her sake alone, I won’t let you destroy your life.”