Elisha Magus

by E. C. Ambrose

  “At my brother’s house, I learned to make biscuits, rather on a lark, and I thought I could make them today, you see, and that Prince Thomas might … well.” She smoothed her hands down her skirts. “He’s had such a difficult time of it, and I thought the biscuits would …” Her dark hair tumbled down around her face but not sufficiently to hide the hint of a blush at her cheeks.

  Smiling to himself, Elisha recalled the sense he had, when he danced with her at the ball, that the disguised Thomas had more than a passing interest. “You like him.”

  Rosalynn turned quickly away. “I wouldn’t say that, simply that I appreciate what he did for me, with the bandits, and I know that he …”

  He crossed the room and lightly touched her shoulder. “My lady, I can get you eggs.” She gazed up at him, her eyes wide, her smile wider. “Get your other ingredients ready. It won’t be a moment.”

  Outside the kitchen door, he found the sun barely risen, and Cerberus stretching himself into a shaggy triangle. The dog trotted after as he went to the barn to find a few millet seeds. The last time he transformed seeds to eggs it had been to make a poultice for Thomas’s branded palms. He should remember to check on the wounds, or tell someone else to do it. Eventually, the king would have his own physician in London with all sorts of expensive medicines Elisha could only imagine.

  After seeing to his own needs, Elisha gathered a handful of seeds and brought them back to the kitchen where Rosalynn stood with a huge bowl of flour and a spoon in her hand. She was refreshingly unafraid of work. Elisha took a bowl of his own and set it on the table. He piled the seeds to the side, taking one. “How many?”

  “I should say about five.” Rosalynn stepped nearer, frowning. “I thought perhaps you’d seen chickens.”

  He pulled out a tattered talisman, barely remembering to clasp it tight in his fist so Rosalynn would not see it. The scrap was a bit of the fabric for Rosalynn’s wedding dress—the one she never got to use after Alaric impugned her virginity and put her aside. Elisha let his talisman echo the magic, picturing the transformation, and there—an egg lay in his hand. She gasped, reaching out to touch it, then seemed to sag.

  “I wish I had inherited my mother’s skill.”

  Elisha made a dozen eggs, enough that he felt a tremor of weakness, to be expected after last night’s adventures. He pushed the bowl toward her. “Witchcraft is hardly an easy legacy, my lady.”

  “I can see how hard it is for you, and I know what the terrible risks are, of course, but my father values it, doesn’t he? It’s not why they are together, but it’s why they’re glad they are.” She gathered the bowl in her arms, gazing down at it, holding it as another woman might hold a baby.

  In all his life, even when he might have hoped for daughters of his own, Elisha never imagined he might have such a conversation with a woman. She spoke of entering the convent, but she yearned for something else entirely and feared she would never have it. “You are generous, kind, and courageous, my lady. There are witches who should wish to be all that you are.”

  She smiled as she moved away, and he watched the tension ease out of her shoulders as she cracked the eggs and stirred her batter, beating at first too hard, then recalling herself and slowing. By the time they heard the household stirring around them, the smell of the biscuits drifted through every door.

  “Good heavens, Mary, I didn’t think—” The duke stopped short on the threshold. “Rosie?” He frowned as she looked up at him, the oven paddle in her hand. “I hardly expected you to—”

  “ ‘Thank you,’ Your Grace,” Elisha cut in. “I think the words you’re looking for are ‘thank you.’ ” It was too much, even given their relationship, but Randall accepted his intervention on his daughter’s behalf.

  Thomas followed him in, ducking beneath the lintel. “Thanks, indeed, my lady.” He gave a bow, not too low as befit his higher rank but graceful enough. “It’s been too long since this house felt a woman’s presence.”

  She was blushing furiously but with her back toward the door; Elisha was the only one who knew. “I’ll get the butter,” he said. “And there’s sausage as well.”

  Thomas noticed him then, with the slightest nod, as if he, too, had trouble knowing just who they were to each other: doctor and patient, comrades-in-arms, a king and a barber.

  Thomas had begun to look his part, clad in some of his own old hunting clothes, an ensemble in green and brown, fine woolen trousers, silk shirt, a leather jerkin worked with patterns of leaves. His hair was combed back, at any rate, his beard still too long and wild, hiding his lips. His clothes hung a bit loose on his tall frame. Elisha, too, wore one of those shirts, borrowed from the king’s possessions; but for Elisha, the sleeves were long, the shoulders a bit tight. The bruise on his jaw throbbed in time with a dozen other injuries. He must have looked like the last drunk standing at a tavern brawl. It was he who had brought these people together, and now it was he who should depart from where he did not belong.

  Breakfast conversation was sporadic, and the meal seemed longer as the number of topics they avoided expanded as well. When the soldiers came in for their own mess, the little party adjourned to the solar with its diamond-paned windows and painted walls. Elisha trailed after and perched on a chest by the window. The ladies shared a long settee, leaving two cloth chairs for the duke and the king, but Thomas, restless, remained standing, running his fingers over the books that lay on his desk, his gaze finding one then another of the little things a prince might keep: a glass inkwell, an ivory miniature of the crucifixion, a sprig of dried herbs that hung from the rafters.

  It was Duke Randall at last with his customary directness who broached the first difficult topic. “Your Highness, will you seek the throne?”

  Thomas’s blue gaze flicked to Elisha, then to the duke. “Your Grace, I am the heir, born and raised, but I have no army. You know better than I what the barons might think.”

  “They think you a traitor. They believe you hired that young physician Benedict to kill your father, even though the plan did not succeed.” He held up his hand as Elisha moved to speak. “There was a note, Your Highness, offering to build a medical school if he obeyed you. The barons don’t want such an eager prince. If you had tried to best Hugh by right of arms, they might have been swayed, but poison and subterfuge they won’t countenance. The church, especially, is against you.”

  Head bowed, Thomas folded his arms, but Elisha said, “Alaric as much as admitted he wrote that note. He planned to frame Thomas for the killing and take advantage of the barons’ anger.”

  “So you say, but who are your witnesses, now that Alaric is dead?” Randall’s round face looked surprisingly stern. “There’s none but you and Thomas. We can give out the story that Alaric hired out King Hugh’s death, of course, and let that rumor spread, but neither of you is an uninterested party, and your association will only seem to substantiate the claims of those who believe the conspiracy. I’ve always been a supporter of yours, Your Highness, I think you know that, but I don’t know that we can stand against the rest of England, especially not with the church backing the other side.”

  “They would need another candidate,” Thomas pointed out.

  “I can think of half a dozen in France alone who’d love to turn the bad blood over Hugh’s succession into a chance to make their claim. They tried to woo Alaric into an alliance and are paying some calls on the barons as well. It’ll be a few days at least before they hear of Alaric’s death, but you’d best believe there will be French armies calling in a matter of months if we can’t unite the barons at home.”

  “Lord Roger Mortimer has his own plans,” Elisha pointed out. “If he hadn’t broken their gift to Alaric, I’d guess he’s involved with the French.”

  Randall cocked his head. “Unless he broke it to deflect suspicion? Hmm.”

  And the mancers had a candidate of their own, Elisha thought. But who it might be, and how they hoped to get so close to the throne again, he could not
say. The idea that they would try it chilled him. He had not had much chance to sort through what Morag and his master had said. More to the point, he wanted to talk it over with Thomas, who knew more about royal politics than he did.

  “If you had any surviving children—forgive me for saying it, Your Highness—that might make a difference to the barons. They might have been willing to accept a regency on behalf of the next generation.” Duke Randall steepled his hands, elbows propped on his chair.

  Thomas finally sank into the chair provided for him, and with such a weight that Elisha winced. He unfurled his awareness to the walls of the room, sensing the tremors of emotion.

  “Really, dear,” Allyson murmured, and Rosalynn looked as if she wanted to fly to Thomas’s side to comfort him.

  Thomas looked up, his expression bleak, but his words strong. “We can ride to London and seize the treasury. It’s worked in the past. With your backing, we might make it stick long enough to sway some of the others. I’ll need to find a way to make amends with the church. I can swear an oath in good faith that I had nothing to do with my father’s death. With luck, we can build an army strong enough to match the French, especially if their support is divided among more than one candidate.”

  The duke sighed. “We’ve not fully recovered from the battle of Dunbury Ford, Your Highness. Neither in terms of army resources, nor goodwill among the barons. Some were my supporters, others sided with the king and transferred their loyalty to Alaric readily enough. We can field an army, we could even match a handful of French competitors. If they draw up behind a single candidate …” he spread his hands. “Your guess is as good as mine, Your Highness.”

  Thomas nodded. “Some of your men can ride for the treasury and seize it in my name, while I go to Canterbury and swear an oath. We gather up what support we can and plan for war. It’s either that or I renounce my birthright and live in exile. My father-in-law might take me in.”

  “Would he support you in battle?”

  “It’s hard to say. He’s under excommunication, and he’s still fighting off the supporters of his rival emperor. I don’t know that he has much to offer.”

  It took Elisha a moment to remember: Thomas’s father-in-law, the Holy Roman Emperor. Elisha felt briefly dizzy at the level of the conversation. He shut his eyes, kneaded his temples. These men were planning the fate of their country, worrying over France, thinking to draw in the Emperor himself. Either way, it would be war: civil war among the barons, war with the various duchies of France. Against the backdrop of his closed eyes, he saw the battlefields of Dunbury, the houses burned, the pits of the bombards’ strikes, the bodies burned and broken, some of them still screaming for release, crying for mercy from an unlistening God. Elisha would be there again, crawling among them. He had more tools now than sutures and saw, but even with magic he could heal only one man at a time, and there would always be too many. He could smell the blood, the burned skin, the foreboding reek of powder that hung in the sky. Last time, he did not know what the battle was for. This time, he might well know every little plan and goal and still be as helpless as ever. What was magic for, if it was powerless in the face of war?

  “No,” said Elisha, raising his head. “No, Your Grace. There need be no war.”

  The duke broke off his enumeration of the barons he thought he might count on, and every eye turned to Elisha.

  “Arrest me.” Elisha swallowed hard, dodging Thomas’s keen blue eyes and addressing the duke. “Bring me to trial for killing King Hugh. Let the new king bring me to justice and win his own reprieve.” He knotted his hands together, the burn scars along his arm tingling as he spoke. “The church and the barons would unite for that—”

  Thomas’s voice came soft and hard, “They would unite to watch you die.”

  Chapter 29

  “No!” cried Rosalynn, “It’s too horrible!” Allyson wrapped her arms about her daughter’s shoulders.

  “It is horrible,” the duke muttered, “but likely effective. It would deny that his highness played any role in the death and show his commitment to justice.”

  But Elisha ignored them. He stared at Thomas, who met his gaze. Elisha’s heart thundered. This was what loyalty meant, the fealty they spoke of in poetry, that a man might be willing to die for his king. But it was rare for the man to claim his own choice in the matter.

  “No,” said Thomas, sitting up straighter. “There’s got to be another way.”

  “You’ve just listed them, Your Majesty, and I didn’t hear one that ends without war.”

  “I’ve just found you,” Thomas murmured. “I wouldn’t be here if not for you, and you want me to tie you to the stake. The answer is no.”

  At the suggestion of the stake, Elisha’s throat went dry, and he nearly acquiesced, but the fact that Thomas cared enough to want to stop him gave him the strength to go on. His friends and neighbors, the peasants he served, deserved such a king. “I’ve been speaking to Duchess Allyson, among others, about this … power I have.” The talisman in its jar rolled on its thong against his leg—an unconscious summoning? “My knowledge of healing and dying gives me affinities that others can’t use. I can do things that surprised even the necromancer.” He took a deep breath, and shared the last. “I think, given all that I’ve learned, there is a very real chance that I cannot die.”

  “What?” said the duke, but his wife made a little sound of discovery.

  “ ‘A very real chance’?” Thomas asked. “You seemed near enough to dying last night.”

  Elisha nodded. “But it also made me see I have a special relationship with Death. I can feel it coming, I can locate it around me, I can use it, as I did during the healing. If I know what I’m facing, Death cannot touch me.” He held his breath, hoping he sounded more confident than he was.

  “So I should put your head on the block, because there’s a very real chance that you’ll somehow survive? I can’t do that, not to you.” Thomas burst from his chair, his belt slapping as he turned away. He flung himself against the mantel, gripping it with both hands, his entire body tensed as if to push down the chimney. Cerberus emerged from the kitchen, already growling, looking for the threat to his master.

  “Darling?” Duke Randall prompted his wife, drawing Elisha’s gaze back to the settee the duchess shared with her daughter. Rosalynn’s gaze stayed on Thomas, her brows drawn up.

  Allyson tapped her cheek thoughtfully, studying Elisha. “I think it’s possible. He has all the signs of becoming indivisi. He has little training yet, but if he can channel this skill, if he had knowledge of the circumstances, the mode of execution, we could plan for it. We must, of course, seek a method that—” She offered a faint smile. “One that leaves the body intact. Even a skilled healer would have difficulty overcoming certain kinds of wounds.”

  No matter how carefully she spoke, Elisha conjured images one after another of terrible ways to die: drawing and quartering, beheading, hanging, burning—by God, what had he talked himself in to?

  “Even if we did it, there’s the problem of myself,” the duke mused. “Elisha’s been living in my household at apparent liberty for better than a month. I can’t suddenly throw him to the wolves, just because Thomas demands his arrest, especially knowing how weak is Your Highness’s position with the other barons. They’d smell something rotten right away—they might even suspect Elisha’s collusion. Most of them have heard that he’s a witch. It might well look like a sorcerous conspiracy, or some undue influence. The whole thing would be tainted from the start.”

  Rosalynn was nodding her agreement, her dark hair glossy with combing, the house still smelling of her fresh-baked biscuits, then she stilled, watching Thomas. She spoke almost at a whisper, her eyes keen. “It needn’t be, Father. Not if His Highness were able to persuade you to give up your retainer.” She looked to Elisha then, her hands together, pleading and apologizing.

  “Yes, Rosie, but how would he do that?” Randall smiled indulgently, but Elisha had begun to
see where her thoughts were leading—where her dreams might be realized. “With all due respect, Your Highness,” Randall said, “you don’t really have much to offer at the moment. Not much that would convince the barons, in any case.”

  “He does, actually,” said Rosalynn, then she bit her lip, and Elisha could feel her focus and her fear.

  He wondered if Thomas himself were ready to hear of it. As much as he wanted the gift of the king’s friendship, that was too great a gift to offer, far too great if it cost them the kingdom in another war. But, the conversation this morning had shown him that Thomas was a practical man—ready to lead, ready to rule, ready to make the choices that he must. Elisha released his clenched fingers, stretching his scarred palms, and gave Rosalynn a little nod.

  She raised her brows, swallowed, took a deep breath, and finally said it. “His hand, Father.”

  Thomas’s head shot up, his profile sharp as he stared back over his shoulder. The others still frowned for a long moment before Allyson raised her eyebrows at her daughter. Rosalynn ducked her head, looking anywhere but at Thomas, and finally met Elisha’s gaze with a little flaring of her eyes, and the slightest curve of her generous lips. He could feel her nervousness giving way to a desperate hope.

  “That is too bold,” the duke remarked, but softly. “Really, quite extraordinary.”

  At the mantel, the portrait of his dead princesses hanging over his head, Thomas merely stared. His grip now seemed to be saving him from falling.

  Duke Randall went on slowly, in that same speculative tone. “The accused traitor Prince Thomas persuades me to give up my retainer, who killed his father, in exchange for marrying my daughter. Prince Thomas shows himself just, as well as prudent, and willing to serve the needs of his crown by remarrying. If I were another baron who heard this tale, I would believe it.”

  Thomas’s jaw knotted. Finally, he blurted, “He’s right. Damn it all!” He slapped his palms on the mantel, wincing, and shoved away, striding for the door. He glanced at Rosalynn. “Forgive me, ladies. He’s right. And I would be proud to marry you. With your consent, of course.”