The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy)

by Grefer, Victoria

  “What life? You with your wife at home, your wife and babies Bennie couldn’t shut up about when she met them, the boy especially…. I have no life. I buried it this afternoon, you son of a….”

  “This is not how you dull the pain,” said Hayden. “You’ve a drinking problem, understand? You stopped for her, but you’ve a drinking problem, and you’re not going down that road. We’re leaving this dump, all of us.”

  Resisting was no option. Gratton could take either one physically, probably the two together, but had no defense against Zacry’s cursed sorcery. He let them take him to the riverbank, where they climbed the grass-covered levees to look out over the Podra as it bent beneath them, bent like the captain imagined Bennie had when that demon of a titled ass stuck a dagger above her hip. The thought made his throat dry out and his head pound, a pounding of the kind he knew only one way to combat.

  The sun had sunk from view, but still painted the sky a brilliant orange and tinted the racing water a deep purple.

  Hayden said, “You’ll get through this. You won’t come out the other end jobless and resourceless because you destroyed it all drinking. You’ll stay with me until you find a place, and I’ll have your word that both during that time and after you won’t touch so much as ale. Understand?”

  There was no denying Bennie would have wanted that.

  “I’ll keep away from alcohol, but that’s for her, understand? You didn’t convince me with some grand discourse. I don’t care what happens to me now that Bens….”

  “And I don’t care what your reasons are,” said Hayden, “as long as you don’t bloody drink. You will care about the future again, just so you know. You’ll care once you move a bit through the loss, and you do that when you let yourself feel it instead of trying to numb everything night after night to keep the pain at bay.”

  “Don’t talk like you know….”

  “My wife may be at home, but I was in the damned Crimson League. I’ve lost people.”

  Zacry said, “You’re not the only one grieving her, and you won’t go through this alone. You won’t.” Gratton nodded his thanks, and Hayden told him:

  “It does get better with time, if you spend the time sober. I know you want to punch me for even suggesting that’s possible, but it’s the truth.”

  “Go to hell,” said Gratton. His tone was insincere, though, even grateful.

  Zacry had to leave Gratton after a couple of hours to go back to Oakdowns, where he found Vane awake and alert, if solemn, with his vertigo much improved. To flee Podrar would be possible after all. With one arm around his mentor’s neck and the other his wife’s, the young duke managed to stand, and if transporting to Traigland proved unpleasant, it offered no real dangers. Kora followed her brother with Kansten’s plush pup and Teena.

  Zacry returned to Podrar for the next day’s Bugle. As the king had not even attempted to conceal Vane’s part in Amison’s death, the entire edition was devoted to the two men and the results of Rexson’s personal investigation: namely, that Ingleton had acted in defense and had emerged unscathed from the confrontation, transporting with his wife to an undisclosed location for their safety.

  A brief biography of the Duke of Yangerton preceded one of Vane; the latter speculated about the lost years in the Duke of Ingleton’s young life. The writer pondered where Vane might currently be hiding, but never hit on Traigland. A simple bulletin presented the facts of the case as they were known, revealing August’s pregnancy and stating that more details were sure to emerge at the trial of Yangerton’s servant, Rich Goodly. The paper also contained a series of pieces debating Ingleton’s guilt or innocence, whether the case in question was one more example of the persecution the magicked had suffered for centuries, as the king claimed, or whether—August twisted her curls around a finger when she read the term—bad blood will out. Allusion after allusion to Zalski followed, as though the contributing scribes had deemed reminders necessary.

  Only one article mentioned Bendelof. It revealed she had been living beneath an alias after her involvement with the Crimson League, that she recently had married a captain of the royal guard, that Amison’s death had occurred at her home, and that she too had died there.

  “The central question,” the article ran, “is what possible business the Duke of Yangerton could have had at Esper’s domicile. Either he had no business being there beyond invading the house to assault its occupants—a theory that would go far to exculpate Ingleton—or, more plausibly, Bendelof Esper was the latest in a well-known string of Amison’s lovers.”

  August had to put the Bugle down at that. “How dare they?” she asked. “How could they dare?” She almost flung the paper in the fire in Zacry’s living room, where Vane lay on the couch, but Zacry stopped her.

  “The truth will come out at trial,” he said. “As for Bennie, this is far from the first time the papers have printed outright libel about her. She had thick skin.”

  “I know she had, but this…. It’s sickening, Zacry. It’s sick. They mention her marriage of five months not ten lines above, and then insinuate….”

  “Amison’s servant will confess the truth at trial.”

  “How do you know that?” asked August.

  “Let’s just say the king made clear it would be in his best interest to be open.”

  August blanched a bit, and fell silent. Zacry went on, “It would help if Rexson could throw light on Amison’s motive, on the secret that pushed him over the edge.” The sorcerer turned to Vane. “You’re sure you don’t know what the man meant by a secret?”

  “I’m at a complete loss, Zac.”

  “He flat-out said you knew.”

  “He must have been mistaken. I wracked my brain all yesterday and last night, and I can’t think of anything. I ran into Amison with that woman, sure, but….” Vane indicated the paper. “The man wasn’t exactly discreet with his affairs. And he demanded of August how long I’d known, didn’t he? If this secret had something to do with that night, he’d know exactly how long.”

  “Well,” said Zacry, “his scoundrel of a lackey’s motive is clear, and Goodly’ll hang either way. Being able to pick Amison’s brain would just…. It would make things look better on your end. Much better.”

  August asked no one in particular, “Will we ever be able to go back?”

  “One day at a time,” said Vane. “Don’t worry about that now.”

  “That’s good advice,” said Joslyn. She had just walked in with her infant son in one arm and Viola toddling before her. “For now, you two need to get and stay healthy. That takes priority.”

  Both Vane and August had difficulty putting their worries aside. If that first edition of the Bugle contained some troubling comments, the next day’s news was worse. According to one reporter’s personal account:

  The guard is having trouble controlling uncountable throngs outside Ingleton’s manor. The three acres of fence contain no open spots, and in places people gather ten bodies deep. The overwhelming numbers will not cease their attempts to tear down portions of the fence, but the barrier holds, due to magical protections that do nothing to calm the fervor. Within one hour, I watched fifty torches and lit rags soar above the masses onto the grounds. The flames always extinguish as they pass above the fence and property line, but fires do not cease to fly for that. Not all are well aimed or even make it onto the estate; at least twelve people have suffered burns, and four elms that stood just outside the gate no longer do so. One woman was trampled to death when scores fled the burning trees.

  The only positive note of the morning was Vane sitting up without assistance and eating something more substantial than a brothy soup. He ate an egg and a few bites of bread around lunchtime, with a lack of appetite Joslyn assured Zacry had nothing to do with the young duke’s injuries.

  * * *

  Noon in Traigland was only nine a.m. in Podrar, at which time Rexson’s sons had gone to the library to play with Hune’s beagle before lessons. Encouraging the pup t
o tackle them led to general roughhousing, and before long Valkin was running from his brothers, who had decided to team against him. Egged on by the dog running gleefully in circles, Valkin dove to avoid a leaping Hune and rolled up against the east wall, which separated the room from an unused office and was lined floor to ceiling, like the other three, with books. As Valkin’s shoulder hit the shelf, a number of volumes from the bottom rows showered down on him. The puppy jumped back in alarm, but all the boys were laughing.

  “We should clean this mess,” observed Neslan, while Valkin removed an old edition of Sir Brogle from his chest and Hune offered him a hand up. Most of the shower had come from the third shelf from the floor, where a gap of maybe eight books left the stone wall exposed. Neslan stared at the empty space, calling Valkin back over as the oldest brother retrieved his spectacles from the settee where he had left them.

  “That stone’s off color,” said Neslan.

  “What do you mean?” asked Hune.

  “It looks darker, grubby. Look….”

  He indicated a stone on the left side of the gap in the otherwise filled shelving. It did look a bit smudged, as though someone had handled it or touched it much.

  “That’s odd,” said Valkin. He ran his fingers over the stone indicated, and realized the grout around it was not secure. “It’s loose,” he said. “And heavy,” he added, trying to pull it from the wall. “Help me.”

  The stone, one foot square in size, had been cut in half in such a way that the office beyond remained sealed off. The part Valkin and Neslan removed had been hollowed out as well. It housed a collection of identical yellowing books with figures and notes written in a hand unfamiliar to the boys, a hand spiky, straight, and bold. Valkin flipped some pages of the first, his brothers reading over his shoulder. Soon Hune began to shake a bit and reached for his puppy in alarm. Neslan told him, “Get Father.”

  “Father’s meeting with Mason Greller,” the boy protested.

  “Interrupt them,” said Valkin, and shut the book. He wished his youngest brother nowhere near it or its fellows. “He’ll thank you later. He needs to see this.”

  * * *

  When Zacry brought the next day’s Bugle to Triflag, a robed and distracted Rexson joined him. The king’s greeting was to toss one of the books his children had come across to Vane, who was sitting on the couch with August and Joslyn. Zacry’s wife stiffened in disbelief to find a royal standing in her home, while the king seemed to take no notice of her or his surroundings, directing the duke, “The eighteenth page.”

  “Rexson, what is this?”

  “A record book Zalski kept and the boys found yesterday. Page eighteen…. Does it mean anything to you?”

  Poor Joslyn seemed unable to move, but August peered down while her husband flipped through to the eighteenth yellowed page. There they read:

  “Hune would have nothing to do with my would-be plant. He’s too suspicious. Perhaps I’ll find greater success turning an associate he already trusts—have Malzin devote men to creating files on Klark Manst and Mouser Rone, as one of their friends was kind enough to offer up their names. Perhaps one of them might prove grateful for a chance to live, and for a bit of gold as well.

  “Have Grombach devote more manpower to the Letter. Shutting it down’s a first priority. I won’t suffer those malcontents to have a newsletter to help them organize.

  “I’ll have to go after hours to the Yangerton library’s magic history collection and see if no book there mentions the Lifestone. A shame Podrar’s proved worthless.

  “Crescenton must know he’s watched. A week’s surveillance and he’s done nothing subversive. I need solid proof he’s working against me—he is, even if his son has the sense to keep his distance from the man. Damn Neslan! If he’d return home, just once, I’d have him and his father.

  “At least I can trust Carson. He was all too willing to prove his loyalty slicing out that traitor to magic’s tongue. Sweated, but he complied, and now I have that act to hold over his head if he proves bold.”

  Vane’s eyes grew wide, while August let out a gasp and covered her mouth with her hand. Their eyes met and they spoke in unison, though August’s voice was not quite clear.

  “Cat got your tongue,” they murmured.

  Rexson asked, “So it does mean something?”

  “Val, when you said that by the theater, Amison thought….”

  “He thought I’d figured out…. But how could I?”

  August said, “You’re a sorcerer, aren’t you, and you were threatening him with magic. He assumed you’d discovered his secret through magic, that you’d use his crime against him and he’d be ruined, probably arrested. He cut out a man’s tongue. The only crimes prosecuted from those years are blood crimes, and well, that qualifies.”

  Zacry looked confusedly from the couch to the king. He grabbed the record book, to see the entry for himself. “Cutting out tongues? What traitor to magic lost a tongue? The Petroc Kora talks about, that sorcerer from the Hall, is this his brother? The one Zalski killed early on for opposing him?”

  “Amison was the man who did it,” said Rexson. “On Zalski’s orders.”

  Vane said, “That’s the secret he referred to, it has to be.”

  August ran a hand down her face. “I don’t believe this. I can’t believe Bennie’s dead because of a phrase you pulled out of the air.”

  The king pulled up a chair. “You two will have to testify to this, to the run-in in Yangerton. With the threats and the idiom and the record book to support you, Amison’s motive is clear. That he was striking out of desperation, it’s indisputable.”

  Zacry protested, “They can’t testify.”

  Rexson said, “The trial will take place behind closed doors. As long as transcripts are made public after the fact, by law the proceedings are public and valid. There’ll be one or two scribes, that’s required, but they’re prohibited from disrupting the court. If they speak a word, any judge throws them out. As for Vane and August, they can transport directly to City Hall, can’t they? You’ve been there, Vane?”

  “Of course I have.”

  The king told him, “You’ll testify last of anyone, and no one will know you’re planning to do so beyond the judge and us here now. August, are you all right with this? Will it cause you too much strain?”

  “If the courtroom’s clear and the public doesn’t even know we’ll be there, I…. It doesn’t seem too difficult, or dangerous. And if it could clear Val’s name…. But those crowds, Your Majesty, by Oakdowns….”

  Rexson turned blunt: “August, I’d never ask you to do this if there were any risk involved to you or your child.”

  She said, “I’ll be fine to go, but the trial starts tomorrow, doesn’t it? Will Val be strong enough? He’s not even walking yet. We were going to try that this afternoon.”

  Vane told them all, “I can make it to that courtroom. It’s not an issue.”

  At that moment, Ilana walked in from the kitchen with Foden in her arms, following a toddling Viola who stumbled with cries of delight up to her father. “Are these your children?” the king asked Zacry. The sorcerer nodded with a smile. “And your mother?” Rexson shook Ilana’s hand with gusto. “I’m honored, ma’am, truly. You raised two beautiful children.”

  “That I did,” Ilana agreed.

  “You saved my boy’s life, my Neslan.”

  “I suppose I did that too, though August carried him here.”

  The king hugged Ilana as tightly as he dared with an infant in her arms, as though she were the mother he had not seen in twenty years instead of Zacry and Kora’s. He then told Joslyn, who rose to accept his extended hand, “It’s lovely to meet you as well. You’ve given me and my kingdom, and what matters more to me, my family no small support. Forgive me barging into your home like this.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” Joslyn told him. Then her husband and Rexson transported out, and Joslyn sank back down next to August.

  “The king.
The king was just in my living room. Everything’s a wreck!”

  Vane told her, “The man lived in a barn for at least two months. I’m sure he thought your home is charming.” He tried to smile at her, but could not quite manage with the shock of Amison’s old crimes so fresh. Teena came in the front door soon after, with a burlap sack of goods from the general store. Seeing Joslyn, Vane, and August’s somber expressions, she assumed the worst.

  “What’s going on? Has someone died?”

  Vane said, “Some sorcerer named Petroc’s brother, apparently. Seventeen or eighteen years ago.”

  Later that day, Vane supported himself on Zacry’s arm, and together they walked three times around the house before he found himself too fatigued to continue. Most pain had long since dissipated, and even his vertigo had all but disappeared. Fatigue was the only real problem now, and everyone knew it would persist until Vane’s body replaced the blood he had lost. Joslyn served him lots of nuts and spinach, saying that was the traditional Traiglandian diet after doctors performed bleedings on a patient. The following day Vane and Zacry walked six times, and Vane leaned with less force on his mentor’s shoulder, though he never could make more than three or four circuits around the house at once.

  The morning after that, the Bugle released its first reports of the trial. As proceedings were closed to the public, they printed the entire transcript in an edition twice as long as usual for double the price, ignoring other news completely.

  Amison’s servant, after facing a barrage of mixed cheers and insults as he entered City Hall, confessed as completely as he had before Zacry and the king. The judge accepted his confession but decided that, given the questions that still remained and the controversy of the case, proceedings would continue in order to prove the defendant’s claims. He seemed doubtful a man like Carson Amison would throw everything he had away just to destroy someone thirty years less experienced with politics, sorcerer or not.