“All of it, sir? Or will I need to return with a few rondelieri to make a thorough search.”
The man blinked a few times and reached again for the cupboard. He pulled out a silver pocket flask and reluctantly offered it up. “My personal supply,” he said, giving a disingenuous smile. “Offered up for the cause.”
Acquel nodded and took it from his hand.
“But you have still not told me, nor did the Coronel, why the Temple Majoris has need of this mixture. I mean, it is, after all, his property. However, I am the one who distilled it. Is it so important to the One Faith?”
“It is a cure for many ills,” said Volpe. “Both big and small.”
Outside, Volpe gently tucked the three flasks into his own satchel, making sure each stopper was firmly seated. Acquel hefted the linen sack of leaf. “Do you reckon we will have enough to do what is needed?”
Volpe looked tired. “Brother Acquel, we are both now deep into terra incognita. We must pray that Elded is still our guide.”
IT WAS DARK when they returned to the villa attached to the great temple of Maresto. Acquel was flagging, still exhausted by the wild ride down from Livorna nearly two days gone by. The High Prelate had given them rooms, asking few questions of their mission, trusting in Acquel’s high office as Magister of the Ara. Volpe thought the fewer details given the better but Acquel knew this only raised more concern in the Prelate.
Volpe’s eyes fell to the sack that Acquel carried. “I’m going to find a drop of wine in this place. Are you coming, brother?”
Acquel shook his head. “I am off to bed. Strykar wants us down at the harbour with the myrra after dawn. So don’t get over-friendly with the bottle, brother.”
Ugo scowled. “Give me the benefit of knowing my limits with the noble grape.”
Acquel closed the door to his chamber and set the precious sack down on the floor next to his bed. He threw off his cassock and fell onto the narrow mattress and pulled up the coverlet. He was asleep almost as soon as he drew up his legs, huddled, fatigue dragging him down into blissful oblivion.
His sleeping mind took him on several journeys, into his past and his present. And then he found himself standing in a sun-blazed meadow of high summer, filled with wildflowers. The sky shone an almost unnatural shade of ultramarine, unblemished by cloud. It was glorious and he knew immediately this was no ordinary dream.
He turned and saw her. She was standing six feet away from him, long blonde hair falling about her slim bare shoulders, a white gown that was high-waisted with full sleeves bedecked in red ribbons. Lucinda della Rovera, fallen canoness of Saint Dionei, regarded him with gentle curiosity.
After all that had befallen him in the past year, he had never truly spoken with her, their few encounters always too brief and bloody for conversation. She smiled at him. “Brother Acquel, the one who struggles so hard for so little.”
He wasn’t fearful. She was in his mind but not probing him. She was toying, studying him. “You have found me, murderess, so speak your piece while you may.” Her face glowed with unearthly beauty: high, rosy cheeks and perfect lips, her eyes almost matching the vivid sky.
She crossed her hands over her belly. “We are coming for you, Magister. The forces of the rightful ruler of Valdur who is aided by Berithas and the true faith of this land. You will not prevail in the coming days. You know that, don’t you? In your heart.” She delivered the last with a voice of almost tender concern.
At that moment, Acquel felt a great weight upon him, with a determined grimness to match it. He knew he was dreaming but somehow not dreaming. “Your demons will not save you or your usurping Duke. I will seek you out and deliver the justice of Elded and the true saints.”
She laughed lightly and looked down her nose at him. “Really? Brother Acquel you have misplaced your faith and you squander your bravery. Elded will not save you or the Ara. You’re running out of High Priests.”
Now and only now he felt her inside his mind and he pushed back, casting her off. “Why?” he asked. “I want to know why. Why all of this?”
He saw her brow crease at his words and she seemed to struggle for a reply. Suddenly, her perfect features relaxed. “Why you ask me? Let me tell you a story, Brother Acquel.” She floated towards him until they were but a pace apart. Her pale skin seemed to shimmer. “When my mother was delivered of her last child a fever took hold of her. As I watched her sink closer to death, Lavinia and I prayed upon our knees. We beseeched the Lord to save her. I begged the sky god, your god; offered my life instead of hers. For two days. He did not deign to answer my prayers.”
Acquel watched her eyes look beyond him and into her own past. A small smile came to her lips. “But Berithas heard me. He came to me and promised help, if we would serve Him... and if he could have the babe. My mother lived and the child was taken.”
Acquel felt a deep chill flow through him.
Lucinda nodded. “I saved her, through Berithas.” Her eyes moved again to focus on Acquel. “But my father found out my secret, later, months later. When he caught me at my prayers. Told my mother, he did. They beat me for a sorceress, an unholy witch they said. He would have turned me over to the elders to have me condemned and burned.” Her eyes bored into him as another smile spread upon her face. “But Berithas saved me... He took them too.” She gave a girlish shrug. “I have been chosen. As you have.”
Acquel could almost feel his blood freeze in his veins. “You have chosen emptiness and death, Lucinda. Over life and hope.”
She raised her head, her chin as sharp as her tongue. “I might say the same of you if you wish to prattle about motives. It will change nothing. Can you not feel it on the wind? The old gods are returning. Berithas leads them to Valdur once again.” Her eyes flared and he felt a stabbing in his chest. “There is nothing you can devise to stop what is coming. Bow down while you can.”
Acquel summoned all his will and silently invoked Elded. He felt her recede, as if her icy hands had slipped away from his body. He stared back at her image. “Look into your own heart. They are not gods. And they will fail you in the end—just as they failed your poor sister, Lavinia. Have you forgotten her?”
Her eyes narrowed. She seemed to hesitate before recovering with more bluster. “We will meet soon, Brother Acquel. And your blood will then nourish the great tree under the Ara. What marvellous fruit it will bear!”
Her last words seemed to echo around him and he felt himself falling into blackness. He gasped and sat up, face and chest slick with sweat. The lone candlestick near his bed still burned. He lay back and let his head sink into his pillow. It was she who had pushed him away and broken their contact. Then he prayed, prayed fervently that he had shielded from her his knowledge of the myrra and the guns that would deliver it straight into the bellies of the beasts of Berithas.
Thirty-One
AS THE GULLS screamed overhead, Gregorvero’s voice boomed out over the Vendetta’s main deck. “Watch out there! You, keep both hands on that line. That gun is worth more than all your miserable hides.”
The orichalcum cannon swung drunkenly out over the quay, suspended from the boom of a braced crane on the dock. The seamen managed to steady the copper-coloured piece, lowering it until it made contact with the flatbed cart to join its mate already bedded down. Danamis stood silently, watching from the long quarterdeck, arms folded, as two of his precious guns were offloaded. He turned to Strykar standing next to him, equally grim-faced. “That makes four, as you asked.” Two hours earlier, he had had to shout down Bassinio on the Royal Grace when he demanded that two cannon be taken off his deck for Strykar’s mad scheme. And to hear his own doubts thrown at him from the mouth of Bassinio was hard to bear. True, he still had four guns (and the Grace the same) but should Torinia mount an attack by sea he would need everything he had.
Maresto harbour was practically an open invitation to attack with but one long mole virtually undefended and no towers or chains. He had decided that he would anchor bo
th Vendetta and Grace end to end at the mouth of the harbour to form a floating battlement. It was the best he could do to honour his promise to the Duke but he prayed that he had intimidated the rag-tag Torinian fleet enough to keep it in its port. If he was right, it looked as if the battle for Maresto would be a landward one and he would be but a distant onlooker.
“Thank you, brother,” said Strykar. “It will give us the chance we need and God knows we have precious few of those.”
“Did that lickspittle Malvolio strip you of your command yet?”
Strykar grumbled. “No, not exactly. But now Captain Cortese commands the rondelieri, the spearmen, and the horse. I’ve been afforded this unique opportunity to show my prowess instead. Sure my brother twisted his arm on that.”
“Half brother.”
“On that horse again are you? Well, at least he knows damn well I’ve fought on land and at sea—with you. Who better to fight and command a ship on wheels?”
“It’s likely to be slow as a snail under the weight of those guns. If the ground is muddy...” Danamis shook his head.
“Aye. It’s a fool’s gamble, I know that. But I’ve seen those beasts that the witch brings with her. We need to take the fight to them, not wait and be slashed to ribbons as we stand. Your guns—and the stuff that the monks are brewing below us as we speak—is the only thing that we’ve got to do them hurt.”
Danamis threw an arm around Strykar’s shoulders. “I can think of no better fool than you to show them how it is done.”
Strykar nodded. “If it works it may make a Temple-goer of me yet.”
Across the length of the ship from up on the fo’c’sle, Citala and Demerise watched the old friends converse. “You have much regard for Coronel Strykar, don’t you?” said Citala.
Demerise looked to the mer princess at her side, her equal in stature. “I do.”
“You have followed him here even though you are no soldier or mercenary.”
Demerise gave an awkward smile. “I could say the same for you... and Captain Danamis.”
Embarrassed, Citala lowered her gaze.
“Messere Strykar,” said Demerise, “is the first man who has ever asked for my help, or valued me for something other than bringing game to the feast table.”
“You have an understanding... as I do, with Danamis.”
“It is clear that you are lovers. I see it in both of you, when you speak.”
Citala had known her for but two days but she had found that they shared much—including a certain bluntness of speech. She gave a slow nod. “I do love him, though that is a risk for both of us. And I sense something more than respect in your regard for Strykar.”
Demerise’s open hand smoothed down the black scarf that wound about her neck, buffeted by the strong breeze that blew across the ship. “We share things too. My scars I wear on the outside, his are on the inside.”
In the gloom of the ship’s hold, another altogether different labour was under way. Near the cramped quarters that contained the Vendetta’s tiny brick forge, Acquel steadied an iron cannonball, the sixth thus far, as master gunner Tadeo Verano bored the soft lead with a screw auger. “Brother Ugo,” said Verano, his face muscles tight with the exertion, “I cannot guarantee these won’t disintegrate upon firing. Never drilled out shot like this.”
Volpe, who was crushing more myrra leaf with mortar and pestle by the flickering light of a lantern, wiped the beads of sweat from his lip with his sleeve. “So long as it does not explode the gun, I am willing to take that chance. Even a spray of iron should give those cursed viverna something to worry about.”
“There, that is deep enough,” said Verano. “Are you ready, brother?”
Volpe scooped up a glob of myrra paste in his fingers and leaned over the rough-cast iron. He pushed the mixture into the hole and tamped it down, adding more as Acquel straddled the cannonball between his legs. He then reached for a fat tallow candle that perched on a bench next to him and tipped it over the hole, dripping wax until it had sealed the opening. He looked up at Acquel smiled. “Why so glum, brother? Our arsenal grows.”
Acquel’s reply was almost a whisper. “What if the mantichora lied to us?”
Volpe leaned back on his haunches, knees cracking loudly. “So that’s what’s bothering you then. Here, Master Tadeo, fetch us another round to drill if you please, I have enough myrra for three more shot.”
Verano shrugged and grunted. “My guns on their own should blow any griffon back to hell, magic potion or not. These are orichalcum! But please yourself.”
Volpe tugged at Acquel’s sleeve. “Here now, boy! Now is not the time to doubt our purpose. Mantichora relish showing how much they know—and they always keep their word, leastways that is what I know of them. That creature was no different.”
“The Saint has not spoken to me. Nor shown me visions. But our enemies benefit from signs and powers from the other side. Does not Elded and the Lord want us to defeat Berithas?” He set the cannonball down with the others in a wooden crate. “I am so low, Ugo. I almost can’t see a way out.”
Volpe sat, rubbed his knees, and sighed. “Let me tell you a story, of the last Dukes’ war. I was newly ordained—a greyrobe as you were—at Astilona. The Order was young but our monks were good swordsmen, competent men, and the Duke of Saivona honoured us by placing us in the vanguard against Torinia. When battle was joined on the plain, we found we were outnumbered. The fight was bloody, started to go badly—after one hour it was looking bleak for us all.”
“But you’re here to tell the tale, so you won.”
Volpe put a forefinger by his nose. “Aye, I survived. But at the turning point, standing on the edge of defeat, twenty-five of the brethren decided to call upon Elded to intervene. They knelt in fervent prayer, right there on the field, steel and death a whirlwind around them.”
Acquel listened with increasing interest. “Holy intercession? Did they succeed?”
Volpe snorted. “Succeed? They were cut down to a man where they knelt. The rest of us fought like devils until Saivonan horsemen drove off the enemy. I learned that day that God helps those who help themselves.”
Tadeo Verano stepped between them and thumped down another cannonball on the planks. “Enough tall tales, holy men, here’s another waiting for your magic.”
ON DECK, ONE of the crew gave a long shrill whistle and Danamis and Strykar both looked out to the piazza to see a large armed party of halberdiers approaching, a palanquin trailing them drawn by liveried attendants. Danamis wiped his palm over his brow. “For the love of the saints, why she’s made a game of surprising me like this I don’t know.”
Strykar made a rumbling sound. “Well, they’re the Duke’s men. They could be here to arrest me for all you know.”
Danamis shook his head. “It’s got to be both of them. I’d better go down.”
“Think I’ll stay up here. Holler if you need me.”
Danamis pounded across the gangplank to the stone quay. The fifty-strong guard fanned out while the red and gold brocade palanquin was gently set down a short distance from the ship. He glanced down at himself and yanked his short linen tunic down over his loins and adjusted his belt, pouch and dagger. Sure enough, as the curtain was pulled away on the palanquin, out jumped Alonso who brushed off the attempted aid of his footmen. He turned back and extended his elegant, velvet clad arm to the other occupant.
Cressida emerged, shining as brightly as the sun overhead, dressed in a flowing silk dress the colour of saffron, her pearls and earrings brighter still. Danamis cleared his throat and moved to meet them as they approached, hand in hand. He halted at a good distance and swept off his black felt cap before bowing deeply. “My Queen, your Grace!” Those sailors on deck and working on the quay followed their captain’s example and went down on one knee. Strykar cursed under his breath and followed suit.
“Admiral, rise, please!” said Alonso, grinning broadly. “We know we have interrupted you in your preparations. I apologi
se.”
Danamis stood and replaced his cap. Although he was loath to ask, he had to. “How may I be of service?”
“I wanted to make sure you have what you need to defend the port,” said the Duke, still grinning. “My men are at your disposal if you give the word.”
“That is appreciated, your Grace. But unless we are overrun at the end of the mole, I am confident we can beat back any attack.” He wanted to add unless it is the Sinean fleet but thought that inopportune.
“Excellent! I see Coronel Strykar is managing the transfer of some of your ordnance, as arranged. Master Elanordo informs me the land ship is ready to receive and mount the guns. But I first must redress a wrong, for I...” and he extended an open hand towards Cressida, “we... have not sufficiently thanked you for bringing the queen and the prince safely to Maresto. And for staying to guard the city when I know you must be concerned for Palestro itself.”
Up on the quarterdeck, Gregorvero had sidled up to Strykar. “What’s he so cheerful about?” he whispered. “What with the combined armies of two duchies about to knock at his gates.”
Strykar harrumphed and whispered back, “Can’t you see? The poor fool’s in love.”
Gregorvero blinked and stuck out his lower lip.
Danamis had just completed another bow and doffing of his cap. “To serve the throne is my joy as well as my duty.”
“Well spoken,” said Alonso, nodding appreciatively. Cressida released the Duke’s hand and took a step forward.
“Alonso is right in giving thanks, but this falls to me as well, Admiral.”
From the slash in her voluminous sleeve she pulled out a pendant jewel on a golden chain. The emerald, a hue of moss green and the size of a large almond, caught the midday sun and it dazzled, sparkling white. Her delicate fingers undid the clasp and she moved closer to Danamis, reaching up around his neck. “I ask you to accept this token of my personal thanks.” Alonso took a few steps backwards, hands clasped, and watched as Cressida fastened the jewel around Danamis’s neck. Danamis felt more than awkward and could almost feel Citala’s eyes boring into his back from her vantage up on deck.
The Witch of Torinia Page 37
