Elisha Mancer

by E. C. Ambrose

  “And one who had to keep two children hidden?”

  The man’s dark eyes searched his face. “He would, a man like that. There’s rooms here, by the broken section, where you might still get water and air from the surface.”

  “Bring a dozen men at least, and have them hide around that chamber—not in the tunnels that go through, that’s where the enemy will be.”

  “And if I don’t believe you?”

  “Then all you’ll get is a show,” Elisha told him dryly. “But if they come, we’ll need help. If you can, don’t touch them with your bare hands.”

  At that, the foreman chuckled. “Some kind of poisonous, are they?”

  Elisha did not smile. “Deadly.”

  Chapter 23

  Letting the man depart—hopefully, organizing for the ambush—Elisha finally left the deserted bath. Outside, night loomed, with an autumn drizzle that left him shivering after the heat of down below. He pulled the empress’s gift closer about him, his breath misting the air, and hurried toward the manor. Katherine’s parting words had been a message, telling him to come to the kitchens where they would finalize their plans. The town’s streets all wound upward, houses built like steps on the slope of the salt mountain. Some of the streets, in fact, were steps, broad terraces leading toward the fortified house at the top of the town. A bell tolled Vespers in the lower town—the empress would be dining soon, with her companions. Down a side street stood a series of low buildings, clustered about the sound of running water, and beyond that, the mine entrance. An arched door marked with glowing pink sconces of salt opened on a passage to the Church of Saint Raphael. Good.

  He felt the drift of people on the streets, a stream of miners dispersing back to their homes, children scampering with messages or home from work of their own, women talking and laughing as they hurried through the light rain. The wind spoke of coming winter, and Elisha hoped to be far out of the mountains by the time it struck, although the journey would be long and unpleasant no matter what. He should find himself a map to Rome. If he were right, the mancers were planting relics there in preparation for their invasion, but he had no way of knowing which bones might lead him there. Insufficient knowledge plagued him. And he still didn’t know how they hoped to cow enough of the populace and the priests to bring the continent under their control. The Empress spoke as if each nation bore its own burdens, as if each could simply vanquish its own enemies and perhaps conquer a neighbor or two if events turned that direction, turning the chaos to their own advantage. She claimed the nobles bore the responsibility of those beneath their station, but it was those below who would die to cement Ludwig’s grasp on the empire.

  As he approached the manor, Elisha wove himself a deflection, enough to dodge the glances of guards no doubt ordered to keep the lusty doctor from the vulnerable margravine. At the kitchen door, a server pressed a sack into his hands, whispering, “Be at the well by the crossing, at Compline,” then hurried him back out against a backdrop of roasting meat, steaming pots and the clatter of knives. He did not see Katherine at all—but neither did the empress see him.

  In a sheltered courtyard between manor and mine, Elisha opened his sack. He found a wedge of a meat pie, a stoppered jug of wine, and a vial that rattled with salt. To sit “above the salt” at feast, where one could sprinkle as much of the stuff as one liked, a man must be very noble indeed, and now, a barber sat outside the feasting hall, granted the salt that was the wealth of nations. He uncorked the vial, shook some onto his pie, and took a bite. The crust flaked against his teeth, the meaty aroma filling his mouth—then a shock of terror dissolved against his tongue.

  The taste of blood blossomed, stinging with pain. Elisha spat out the pie, then vomited, purging the flavor of death that oozed down his throat.

  Gasping, wiping his mouth, Elisha stared at the meal laid out upon its sack beside him. He hesitated, then took up the wine, taking a long pull and spitting that out as well, before drinking long from the jug. Dry and heady, it could not erase the memory of that taste. He shivered and took another swallow. Careful now, he touched the pie, searching it with his magical senses, but it was only meat, thick with the tiny deaths of animals he barely noticed. The vial of salt winked in the vague torchlight that spilled from the upper windows of the feasting hall. Taking a few of the large grains on his smallest finger, Elisha touched them to his tongue. Pain, fear, grief, and dying. He shuddered and stuck the cork back into the vial. Did the empress dine tonight on blood salt? No—such large, gray crystals would offend the taste of nobility. The salt on the empress’s table would be fine-grained and white. He tossed everything into the sack and returned to the kitchen, barely remembering to cast his deflection as he neared the guards.

  Inside, the flurry of activity went on, servers passing dishes to the young nobles who served at table in the feasting hall. Music echoed from the hall, and the clear sound of Agnes, singing. Elisha dodged two boys carrying a whole hog on a huge platter, and spotted the woman who had handed him his dinner. Sidestepping cooks who snarled at his approach, Elisha came up to the woman. She glanced at him and back to the bowl where she sifted flour in a white blur.

  “Did you pack my supper?” he asked. She kept her eyes downcast, her face tight, then gave a sharp nod.

  “At my mistress’ request.”

  “And she chose the food?”

  Dropping the sieve with a clatter, the woman took up a huge wooden spoon. “She hasn’t the time for that, has she?”

  “Clearly she trusts you,” Elisha ventured, shifting his presence to suggest that the margravine trusted him as well.

  “Something wrong with the food, that’s down to the cooks.”

  “And the salt?” He put a hand in the sack and drew out the little vial.

  “Our salt is known round the world,” she said stiffly. “Nothing wrong with it.”

  “It tastes like blood,” Elisha whispered, and the woman turned, her hands pressed to the table. Her eyes widened as they met his, then her gaze dropped again.

  “Surely not.”

  “Freda!” someone barked. “Get to work, or get on! Get your man out of the kitchen.”

  “Come then,” Elisha said, seizing her elbow. “Get me out of the kitchen.” He towed the reluctant Freda across to the outside door. “Tell me about the salt, and be quick before your master gets angry.”

  “She told me to give you the best,” the woman hissed. “Like you’re royalty, but I know her Majesty’s warned you off, and you should be gone. As if you could hide those eyes. Everybody’s heard about you.”

  “Stop it.” Elisha squeezed her arm lightly. “I don’t care if you hate me—I need to know about that salt. She wanted you to give me the best, but you didn’t. What did you give me?”

  “The gray. It’s for salting fish, mostly, and there’s an inn that takes it—not the kind of place where anyone’d want to eat anyhow. But you can’t taste the blood—nobody can.” Her chin rose with a sharp pride and rippled through her presence.

  “But there is blood in it,” Elisha said carefully.

  “Cow’s blood, to separate the impurities. But even in the gray, the blood’s long-gone, skimmed off in the curing.” Shaking off his hand she said, “Like you should be.”

  He gave a nod, stepping aside, then asked, “The message about the well, is that what she really said?”

  “You leave her be. She deserves better.”

  “Agreed,” Elisha snapped, “but at least let me bid her farewell.”

  “Farewell at Raphael’s chapel,” the woman snarled. “Where the priests of pain will keep their vigil—and keep you honest. Then you leave her be.” She swept away from him in a puff of flour.

  Blood-cured salt, for salting fish, or for a certain inn. No wonder the mancers had an interest in the margravine and her mines. He hadn’t asked how they found her, how they knew about her husband—but th
e answer seemed plain: when her husband died, the mancers were already here, enjoying the added savor of salt that tasted of death itself. Elisha slipped out the back with a few men emptying the peelings. He returned to the old yard, stomach rumbling, and finished the pie—without salt—and drank the wine. The vial of salt he slid into a pouch at his belt. With another hour or more to wait before Katherine broke free of her guests, Elisha sat in a dark corner, legs pulled up beneath his cloak, and forced himself to rest, his senses extending through the cracked stone, the tufts of grass, the autumn rain. When he shut his eyes, he imagined the scene to follow, but it was Thomas he followed into the dark maze of tunnels, and Brigit who kissed him there with the promise of death.

  Elisha’s eyes snapped open. He pushed himself up and stalked away toward the church, shedding some of his deflection. The enemy must know his approach, but must not know he suspected. Instead of revealing himself completely, he allowed flickers of anticipation to brighten his presence, like a man going to his lover, as if even a magus could not contain such excitement. Candles flickered in hollows scooped into salt to guide him down beneath the mountain. He heard the murmur of prayers, startled that, for the first time in months, he heard them before he sensed their need. A handful of citizens knelt before the altar or stood regarding the cross that hung over it. Elisha crossed himself, breathing deep of the gritty air. Three tunnels led from the chamber: the one he’d come down, a broad passage leading toward the mine entrance, and the one that pointed east, deeper into the mountain of salt. What if Stoyan had not believed him, and no one hid there to come to their aid?

  Just inside the church, Raphael, angel of healing, stood carved in a listening posture, hands spread, head bent, great wings folded at his back. The statue showed bands of pale salt veining the pink. Elisha knelt before him, bowing his head as if in prayer. He sought attunement, the people around him vanishing as he shut his eyes, emerging as a vague pattern of warmth in the strange emptiness of the salt. If he stretched his power, it echoed back, but weak and fragmented, as if it sifted among the thousand crystals in the air. Instead, Elisha gathered himself. He opened himself to each talisman, to the silk of Thomas’s lock of hair and the sting of the earth where his brother had died, to the absurd collection of toenail clippings Brother Gilles had given him, which had saved him from ambush once before. This time, the Valley offered no escape for him, nor any entry for his enemies. They must walk inside on foot, as blind and senseless as any other men. Most of the magi Elisha knew awakened to magic early in their lives, often as they developed from children into men or women, like Mordecai as a boy, realizing without being told that his mother was pregnant. Elisha, with his late awakening, had spent most of his life without the special senses and skill the magi depended on, more used to being desolati than gifted. With luck, that would give him an advantage here.

  The weak presence of one of the worshippers by the main altar spiked with interest and receded, likely an ordinary man asked to watch out for him. Good. Someone needed to send the mancers where Elisha’s allies would be waiting for them. If his allies even came. He pushed aside that fear, instead considering what he could do alone, or with Katherine’s help. Before she arrived, the power of his dread talismans hovered beneath a projection of anticipation and lust.

  A whisper of Katherine’s agitation preceded her into the room and Elisha rose. Carrying a lantern of salt that glowed like the dawn, she wore a hooded cape, concealing her identity from the ordinary men and women around them—but not from the mancers who would be looking. The hooded head turned, found him, and she hurried over, hands already reaching so that he caught her arms, not yet drawing her close. Lips parted, she gazed up at him from beneath the hood.

  “They brought my son Rudolf to the feast. Both boys were sick, they said, and Matteus still lingers in his sickness—Rudolf barely spoke, fear rolled from him, Elisha.” She trembled. “They took him away again, even as I rose. I had no chance to learn more, even to touch him!”

  Sliding his hands up to her shoulders, Elisha sent, “But he’s alive.”

  “He looked awful, half-dead. So pale.”

  “You are meant to be seducing me, Katherine,” said Elisha, cupping her cheek and kissing her lightly.

  “I don’t know how, not so they can feel it.”

  “Focus on the emotion you would project. Take only that and cover the rest. Your talisman gives you the power. Let its death conceal any part of your own life.”

  Her presence, already shading with relief at finding him, rallied with each breath. Through their contact, he guided her, projecting his own false calm, conjuring desire, letting fear become excitement, urging her to do the same. “Holy Mary, Elisha, if we survive this, I shall plead for the right to marry you.”

  He projected what he willed, and kept the turmoil of his true emotions locked away. “Come.”

  “We should—” A brief note of surprise warmed her skin. “—you have a plan.”

  “Don’t speak of it,” he answered swiftly, for the thrum of pain approached, accompanied by sobs and shouts of prayer. The flagellants were coming, the priest of pain. Gripping her hand, Elisha sprinted into the old passage, as if he were fleeing before anyone could see them. By the time they passed the corner of the passage that led out of the church, the edge of the clouded power brushed Elisha’s limited awareness. It had to be enough. Let them think he tried to dodge them, to seize his moment with the woman they thought to use against him.

  “This isn’t the way I said we’d go.”

  “They’ll catch up.” He slowed, choosing the path that Daniel had drawn out, praying Daniel and his men were already there. The walls gleamed dully as their lantern approached. A few beams, some already cracked or fallen, shored up the roof. “One of those in the chapel was watching out for us.”

  “I did as you bid me, I told them I would kill you.”

  He squeezed her hand. “How?”

  “Poison. Wolfsbane.” She ducked her head, her pulse leaping with uncertainty. Elisha drew the symptoms from memory: nausea, tingling, chest pains, convulsions, paralysis, and the awful clarity of mind that lasted even as the body failed. For the mancers, it would be ecstasy. “On my fingernails, as they suggested.” She shuddered.

  The passage opened out into a rough oval with a few dark niches—tunnels that went nowhere, most of them. Elisha’s heightened senses reverberated from the crooked walls of salt, disorienting him until he drew back and stopped his searching.

  “At the height of passion, I am to scratch you.”

  “Carrying it into my blood. Clever.”

  “I don’t want you to die.” She gazed up at him. “I want us both to live, and my sons to live.”

  Blood-borne wolfsbane would take only moments to affect him, likely bypassing the nausea and tingling of the lips that were consequent of swallowing the root.

  “I want that, too.” He slipped the lantern from her numb grasp, noting her painted nails. “It will take them a few minutes to find us. How many do we expect?”

  “Five or six. It’s short notice, and they can’t simply . . . arrive here.” She wet her lips. The rosy, flickering light made her face look younger, her eyes darker beneath the hood.

  Setting the lantern on a ledge likely carved for the purpose, Elisha reached up and stroked his hands over her hair, letting her hood fall away, tipping her face up to his.

  “Here?” she whispered, eyes darting.

  “Trust me.”

  Her eyes closed, her smile both fond and weary. “I do, by God, I do.”

  A thin circlet held a pursed veil to contain her hair, and Elisha plucked it free, running his fingers through her hair, letting it tumble down over her shoulders. Their breath intertwined. He was little trained in the arts of seduction—most of his few partners had been professionals, after all, used to handling the matter for themselves. And when Brigit came to him, he knelt, bound
and helpless beneath her hands. Thrusting aside the memory, Elisha caught Katherine’s face and kissed her, hard, her lips parting beneath his as she moaned.

  He broke away to strip off his cloak, unclasping the pin to spread it out, the rich fur inviting them. With fumbling fingers, she untied her own cape and let it drop, revealing a loose undergown, but the black stain of her husband’s death still hovered at her chest, over her pounding heart. For this to work, for this to be true to those who would sense it and be drawn to the powerful tonic of passion and death, he must divide his attention, burying his thoughts, his plans, his secrets, while revealing exactly what he wanted them—through her—to know. He had to love her.

  Stripping off his jerkin, dropping his belt to one side, Elisha kissed her again. He thought of the ball when he danced with Rosalynn, projecting confidence, allowing her to find her balance and feel her grace, so that Rosie’s father believed he might want her. But this memory tangled with another, one much more complicated. Thomas, in disguise, witnessed the dance that stirred his own desire, but it was not Rosie he was watching.

  Elisha swallowed hard, his breath and heart thundering in concert as Katherine pressed against him. She ran her hands from his shoulders down his spine. One hand slipped across his thigh, stroking lightly, then finding the ties that bound his braes and hose.

  “No,” he breathed. Then, “Not so soon,” working to cover his lapse, stepping out of her hands, her dark nails opening to release him. “The gown.”