The Empire's Ghost

by Isabelle Steiger

  Do you cherish that face of yours? she asked.

  No, he said.

  Because you know what lies behind it? No one had ever asked that but her, over and over again in his dreams.

  He opened his mouth to answer her, but the wind snatched away his voice. He would have pursued her, even if it meant being cut again, but suddenly there was a hand on his arm, pulling him sideways, pulling him out. He jerked awake, and found himself staring at Seren, the marquise’s bodyguard.

  “Sorry,” she said, a trifle awkwardly. “I would not have woken you, but … the way you were perched on that window…”

  Cadfael looked to his other side, and shrank back involuntarily from the drop. “Ah,” he said, hoarse. “I … see. Thank you.”

  “It’s all right,” she said, and turned to leave.

  He frowned. “Shouldn’t you be guarding her? Lady Margraine?”

  “That is what I’m attempting to do,” she said. “Someone is skulking about these corridors who shouldn’t be, so I turned the guard over to Gravis until I find him.”

  “I wish I could tell you for certain that no one passed this way,” Cadfael said, “but the truth is, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. I don’t know what came over me; I was never this heavy a sleeper before.”

  She rubbed the side of her wrist. “I will be glad to quit this place.”

  Cadfael slipped off the windowsill. “If there is trouble, it’s not from the king.”

  “I know that,” she said. “I’m just surprised Elgar would dare in a place like this.”

  “Did you mean what you said to him?” he asked, before he could think better of it.

  She only half turned to him. “Did I mean which thing I said to him?”

  “After your duel, when you talked of your debt to Lady Margraine. Was that true?”

  She took her time replying. “He asked me why I served her. That is the kind of question that has many answers. I gave him the one I did because I thought I should put it in a way he could understand. Obligation is a simple enough idea, so at the time it seemed best.” She looked away. “Later I thought that perhaps my lady wished for him not to understand. Perhaps I should have given him a different answer.”

  “What answer?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Then I was commanded to reply, but now I am not. Leave it be.” She frowned, looking back down the corridor. “He seems to have gotten away, or…” She did not finish the sentence, just peered into the dark.

  “Shall I help you look?”

  “No. I should return to Lady Margraine; perhaps I shall lure him back again.”

  “Are you truly at peace, serving her?” Cadfael asked. “Are you sure you won’t regret it?”

  Her smile was crooked, ironic. “What does it matter to you?”

  “It does.” He didn’t trust himself to say more than that.

  “Then don’t be concerned. I might regret many things, but never that.”

  He reached for the hilt of his sword. “I was much like you, once.”

  Her smile cracked wider, almost as if she might have laughed. “That’s funny. I was going to say I was once like you.”

  That puzzled him, and he chose his next words carefully. “I meant that I once used to believe following orders was enough.”

  “And I meant that I once felt I had no purpose, and suffered for it.” She spread her fingers wide, staring down at her open hand. “I found my own answer, even if that answer troubles you.”

  “But you don’t want to tell me.”

  “There is not enough time to tell you,” she said, not unkindly. “The hour is late, and we both have other things that we must do. And I … I am not good at talking. I doubt I could explain it in the way I wish.” She curled her fingers in toward her palm, not quite making a fist. “That scar,” she said at last. “It has meaning for you. Why?”

  He closed his eyes, just for a moment. “It was a gift.”

  “Then repay it,” she said.

  After she had gone, his sister crept once more into his dreams, though the woman who had marked him stayed away. Again he tried to teach her, to train her, as he always did. Through all his dreams he kept at it, as if one night it would be enough and she would stand before him again. Instead he woke alone, and leaned out of the window, the mist still thick in the dawn air. He drew his sword half out, and watched the gleaming metal pick out what scattered bits of sunlight there were.

  With what cruelty, with what heartlessness did you strike her down? he thought. I will find you. No matter how large this world is, no matter how much lies between us, I will draw you to me. I would clear out everything else, whole towns and cities like so much brushwood, if only it would lead me to you.

  It did not matter how many others Shinsei had killed, that day or any day: how many foes, how many men and women, how many children. It did not matter how long ago it had been or what else might have happened since. Cadfael would make him remember her, no matter what it took. He did not need to know how it had happened: he knew she had died bravely, as she had lived. But he would make her killer remember her. He would think of her, of how bravely she had died, and then he would feel his own life slipping away from him, and squeal like a coward as Cadfael lowered the blade to his throat.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  An hour’s ride out, the mist finally started to thin. Varalen tried to relax, but he hated riding with a passion he reserved for precious few things in life, and he’d never sat a horse that didn’t seem to know that, somehow. This one, a brown-black mare every groom at the Citadel had assured him was as sweet as a newborn, had the advantage of being smaller than he was used to, but he couldn’t say he felt much safer. Elgar, on the contrary, always rode as if he were entirely unaware he was doing it—Varalen was fairly certain some men devoted more concentration to walking.

  He would have dearly loved to see the inside of a carriage, but Elgar had insisted on riding, and he always insisted that Varalen be denied any pleasures he’d forfeited for himself. Perhaps he merely thought that if they were somehow attacked, Varalen, in his bright red robes, was the one who would draw attention. If that was so, however, it wasn’t exactly prudent of him to ride so close.

  “Was there something you wished to discuss with me, my lord?” he asked at last.

  Elgar looked up. “If I had something to discuss with you, Varalen, I wouldn’t wait for you to issue me an invitation to do it. I do have orders for you, but you can hardly ride and carry them out at the same time.”

  Varalen shrugged. “You could at least tell me what they are; it’d pass the time, anyway.”

  “It’s about the plan you proposed,” Elgar said shortly. “I’ve decided it’s time to execute it.”

  That certainly wasn’t what he’d been expecting. If he’d thought staying on the horse had been difficult before … “M-my plan? My lord, are you sure—?”

  “I wouldn’t be telling you if I weren’t. We’ve waited long enough. We won’t find a better time than this.”

  “A better time than now? My lord, the reason we waited this long to begin with is because it’s a very difficult thing to arrange—”

  “Of course it is. If it were simple, I wouldn’t need you, would I?” He tightened his grip on the reins. “You told me all was ready. You told me our little bird was ready to play his part whenever it was required of him.”

  “In theory, yes, but you know that he believes—I told you that he insisted on—”

  Elgar waved a hand at him, barely bothering to hold on to the reins with the other, yet his horse seemed not to notice. “You can make him whatever promises you feel are necessary, Varalen. It isn’t as if he’ll be able to enforce them once he’s played his part.”

  Well, that was true, but it hardly made Varalen feel more secure about it. He wasn’t the one that was going to be put out if the scheme failed, though, was he? “Very well, my lord. I’ll send a message on its way as soon as we reach the capital.”

  “Y
ou’ll send a message on its way as soon as we make camp. Why wait until we’ve returned just to give it farther to travel?”

  Gods, he was serious about this. Varalen prayed all was ready. “As you say, my lord.”

  “Good.” He peered off into the trees. “What did you think of our enemies?”

  He could see Arianrod Margraine as an enemy easily enough, but he still didn’t like to picture King Kelken that way. Boys become men all too soon, he tried to remind himself. “The king was … not as I had imagined.”

  “Nor I,” Elgar allowed. “He’s braver than he has any right to be, yet for all that I don’t think he’s a fool.” He twitched the reins. “The woman was just as I had pictured her, though.”

  Varalen shrugged, to hide the fact that he thought more of her than Elgar did. “Those suitors of hers must have quite a time of it.”

  “Mm, fools have always been able to find hope where none exists. Most people who say they’ve no use for marriage change their minds rather quickly after their first infatuation—isn’t that your story?—but I wonder if she truly meant it.”

  As to that, Varalen had no idea, and the rumors from Stonespire hardly helped. He was used to wild stories, but he’d seldom had to deal with such a contradictory crop. One popular tale had it that, when her father was alive, she had used to invite the sons of his honored guests into her bed under his nose, while a different set of gossipmongers claimed that she preferred her own chambermaids. Still others insisted she was as frigid as the White Waste, incapable of being stirred to passion of any kind.

  Varalen couldn’t understand why so many people should care so much—it wasn’t as if she was fucking them, after all—but sifting through rumors was part of his job. “I am beginning to think,” he finally said, “that Arianrod Margraine never heard a story about herself she didn’t find amusing, true or false. Perhaps that’s why there are so many—other rulers would have their subjects’ tongues out for telling any tales they didn’t wish to hear.”

  “Well, one of those tales brought us a bit of amusement, at least.” Elgar twitched the reins again, pulling slightly ahead. “There is one more thing you ought to know, for when you compose that letter—I’ve decided to give Nathaniel command of the men.”

  Varalen nearly fell off his damned horse. “Wyles? My lord, Wyles is captain of the city guard. That position, while respected, hardly qualifies him for—”

  “You mean that he’d be leaving his post, I suppose,” Elgar said, unperturbed; he knew that wasn’t what Varalen had meant at all. “But I’ve found that captain of the guard is an easy enough post to fill, especially temporarily. And Nathaniel did ask for the assignment, after all.”

  Had they been discussing this behind Varalen’s back? The way Elgar had always sent Wyles out of the room before speaking of it, he had thought … but no, Elgar must have told Wyles enough of the plan to pique his interest, at least. Worse, by sending him, Elgar made sure that, if the plan succeeded, it was Wyles who would get all the glory, while Varalen would no doubt be held responsible if it failed. “Did you truly … think that was best, my lord?” was all he could think of to say.

  Elgar smiled, no doubt because he knew what Varalen was really thinking. “Don’t look so concerned, Varalen. A talented thug is all that’s really needed for that part of your plan, anyway.” He peered over his horse’s head at some far-off point in the distance. “Better think on your composition now. I’ll expect that letter sent off at the earliest possible hour.”

  * * *

  “What’s a wardrenfell?” Kel asked, looking up from the table and across the library at Eirnwin.

  Eirnwin frowned. “A wardrenfell, did you say? I’m not familiar with the term, but it sounds like Old Lantian. Why do you ask?”

  “It was in the title of the book Lady Margraine took with her.” And he had a suspicion about where else he might find it, but he had to wait for his men to arrive from Second Hearth for that. “You don’t know what it means?”

  “Well, Your Grace, I did study Old Lantian when I was younger, so let me see if I can guess. I know wardren is the possessive or adjective form of ward, which is the Old Lantian word for a spell, or sometimes for magic generally—you still see wards used in place of spells in certain treatises on magic. Fell means … ‘gone awry,’ or perhaps ‘out of one’s control.’ There are some Hallerns who still call Stonespire Hall the Fellspire, especially in Valyanrend, but I wonder if they remember why. Most people assume it comes from the modern definition of fell, something evil or dangerous, but that’s only half true. If the history books can be believed, it was Vespasian Darrow himself who coined the term: a pun of sorts, as the castle had both slipped from his control and become dangerous to him.”

  “So then a wardrenfell would be … a spell that’s gone out of control?”

  “That would be my guess. But words are sometimes more than the sum of their parts, I’m afraid.” Eirnwin’s brow furrowed. “Or no, that can’t be right. Wardren is an adjective. A spell gone awry would be a fellward, not a wardrenfell. So if wardren is an adjective, does that make fell the noun? How would you translate that? The … loss of control of a spell? That just sounds like a different way of saying the same thing.”

  “But it has to mean something else, doesn’t it? Or why would there be a separate word for it?” Kel rubbed his leg absently. “Either way, it must have meant something to Lady Margraine.”

  Eirnwin cleared his throat. “Do you really think it was wise to let her leave with that book?”

  Kel shrugged. “It may not do us any good in the end, but I couldn’t see how it could do any harm. If she shares what she learns, it could help us quite a bit, and we’re not doing very well trying to figure it out on our own.”

  “And if she prefers not to share anything with us, Your Grace? If she uses what she learns to hurt you—”

  “Why would she do that? We’re allies, of a sort.”

  “Today you are, Your Grace.”

  “And we were when she was here, and when she gave me the hint about King Arvard.” He tapped the edge of the book’s cover with one finger.

  Eirnwin pursed his lips, hesitating a bit before replying. “And what if she did not intend to help you with such advice, but only to mislead you?”

  “I doubt that,” Kel said. “What would she get out of doing that?”

  “Is it necessary for her to get anything out of it?”

  “I think so,” Kel said, “yes.”

  “To put it a different way, Your Grace, some people—”

  “Yes, I know what you’re going to say: some people just like wreaking havoc for their own amusement. But I don’t think she’s like that—or even that Elgar is, for that matter. Elgar was … Elgar was surprisingly easy to understand, didn’t you think? He was far more … almost reasonable than I’d ever expected him to be.” He interlaced his fingers, resting them on the table in front of him. “With Elgar I can think, What does he want? and know the answer straightaway: he wants my land, and hers, and probably Issamira, too. That’s no secret, and he hardly tries to make one of it. When I ask the same question of Lady Margraine, the answer doesn’t come as easily. I don’t know exactly what it would be, but I really don’t think it’s my destruction. She wouldn’t care about that one way or the other.”

  “I think Kel’s right, Eirnwin,” Alessa called, and they both looked up to where she was pacing about the second floor, a book open on her outstretched arm. “She might be capricious, but she’s not careless or foolish enough to ruin us for a lark, not when we could be helpful to her.”

  Eirnwin was still frowning, but he said nothing more, just dipped his head and glanced back down at his reading.

  “You know,” Kel said, as much to Alessa as to Eirnwin, “I was thinking about it—about whatever Elgar and Arianrod Margraine could possibly want in common. And the only thing I could think of is that they both want to find a way to bring magic back.”

  Eirnwin looked at him sharply, an
d Lessa peered over the edge of the balcony, nodding slowly. “Elgar, certainly,” Eirnwin said, “but Lady Margraine, as well? She seemed more sensible than that.”

  “Why isn’t it sensible?” Kel asked. “To hear her tell it, there are a lot of sound reasons to believe magic really did exist. And if it was here once, who’s to say someone couldn’t call it back again?”

  Eirnwin sighed. “It’s not for lack of trying that magic hasn’t come back, Your Grace.”

  None of them really wanted to leave off what they were doing, so Eirnwin went to tell the cooks to have supper sent up to the library. “Is that much exertion good for you?” Kel asked Lessa, who was still pacing. The air at Mist’s Edge was cold and damp, which couldn’t possibly help her. She was coughing more than usual, but she hadn’t had any serious attacks as of yet.

  She smiled wearily at him. “I can’t sit still.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “I’m frustrated.” She leaned against the railing. “We know our enemy—that’s more than most people can say. We have time, though we don’t know how much. But I can’t think of anything for us to do! So we just end up sitting here and doing nothing, just waiting for him to decide it’s finally time to attack us.”

  “We’re not doing nothing,” Kel said. “We’ve been organizing our men, moving battalions about…” He had admittedly done most of that as Eirnwin had advised; his knowledge of battle strategy left much to be desired. In the end, though he’d never say it to Lessa, it mattered little. No matter how they arranged their soldiers, they simply didn’t have enough of them. “But we’ve got to change the way the game is played—you’re right. If we keep these rules in place, we’re setting ourselves up to lose.”

  She sighed. “Did you find anything in that book Lady Margraine gave you?”

  Kel stared down at it. A quick skimming of chapters seven and twelve had yielded nothing, and his more methodical second reading wasn’t faring much better. “I don’t know what about it she expected to help me. Chapter seven is basically a fat lot of praise about Arvard, how such and such things he said or did were witty or clever or brave—nice to know my ancestor was such an upstanding fellow, I suppose. And chapter twelve is just a record of some alterations he made to Mist’s Edge: he reinforced this wall, extended it here, this other wall fell down halfway through and had to be redone … thrilling stuff, really.” He shrugged, tapping the table for emphasis. “What, was she trying to be my schoolmaster?”