‘You took a risk,’ the captain said, looking at the Abbess.
She met his gaze mildly enough. ‘They came through your trench, Captain, and through the tunnels. This hill has many rooms and many doors.’
‘Like your father’s house?’ asked the captain.
The Abbess’s look suggested that he wasn’t as witty as he wanted to be.
‘And many secrets,’ Harmodius said. ‘We are thirteen.’
‘The number of Hermeticism,’ said the Abbess.
‘Jesus and his disciples,’ Harmodius added.
The captain gave a lopsided smile. ‘Which of us, I wonder, is Judas?’
The men at the table gave a nervous laugh. None of the women laughed at all.
The Abbess looked up and down the table, and they fell silent. ‘We are here for a council of war,’ she said. ‘Captain?’
He rose and stretched a little, still feeling strong. A curious feeling, for him. ‘I didn’t summon a council of war,’ he said. ‘So what do you wish of me?’
‘A report,’ she snapped. ‘How are we doing?’
He was being told to mind his manners. Amicia was glaring at him, and Jehannes, too. He thought of Jacques’ admonition to be on his best behaviour. Jacques seldom said such things by chance.
‘We’re not losing.’ He shrugged. ‘In this case, that constitutes winning.’
Jehannes looked away and looked back.
‘Your own men disagree with you, Captain,’ the Abbess said.
‘That’s an internal matter,’ the captain said.
‘No, Captain. It is not.’ The Abbess tapped the floor with her staff.
The captain took a deep breath, looking around to pick up social cues from the audience as he had been taught.
Amicia was very tense. The Abbess gave nothing away, nor did Harmodius, although their blankness contrasted – his a studied indifference, hers an apparently angry attentiveness. Father Henry was nervous and upset. Mag was willing him to do well. To deliver good news. Johne the Bailli was too tired to listen well.
Tom was trying to look down Amicia’s dress; Jehannes was on the edge of his seat; Master Random was sitting back with his arms crossed, but his whole attention was on the captain.
Ser Milus was trying not to go to sleep.
The captain nodded.
‘Very well, lady. Here it is.’ He took a steadying breath. ‘This fortress is ancient, and contains a powerful Hermetic source that is of equal value to magisters of all species. This fortress and the people in it are an affront to the Wild. Events – a slow progression of events that recently reached a crescendo, and include the advent of this company – forced the hand of certain powers of the Wild. And now, the Wild has come to take the fortress.’ He paused.
‘Take it back,’ he said, slowly, for dramatic effect.
Even the Abbess was startled.
‘It was theirs,’ the captain said, in a quiet, reasonable voice. ‘They built the well. They carved the tunnels.’ He looked around. ‘We took it in a night of fire and sorcery,’ he picked up his wine cup, ‘two hundred years ago, I’ll guess. And now the Wild is back, because the lines are shifting and things fall apart, and now we’re weaker than we were.’
‘Alba?’ asked Jehannes.
‘Humanity,’ the captain said. ‘That’s all just background. But it is important, because I have puzzled again and again over why the enemy is taking casualties and engaging us here. It is costing them. Jehannes, how many of the enemy have we killed?’
Jehannes shook his head. ‘Many,’ he said.
‘So many that I can only wish I’d signed the Abbess to a per-creature contract,’ the captain said. ‘In fact, I was suckered into this contract. My youth was taken advantage of.’ He smiled. ‘But never mind that. The enemy has lost several dozen irreplaceable minor powers, as well as hundreds – perhaps even thousands – of the small inhabitants of the High Wilderness. We have lost twenty-seven local people, seven sisters, three novices, and thirty of my soldiers. We have lost all the farms, and all of the animals not penned within the fortress. We have lost the Lower Town.’ He spread his hands and leaned onto the table. ‘But we have not lost the fortress. Nor the bridge. Most important of all, we have not lost.’
‘Lost what?’ asked the Abbess.
The captain shrugged. ‘It’s spiritual. A matter of faith, if you like. Our enemy depends on success as much as on displays of power to hold his place. It is the way of the Wild. Red in tooth and claw. Wolf eat wolf. Every tiny defeat we hand him, every bee sting, causes his allies to wonder – is he as strong as he seems?’
The Abbess nodded. ‘Can we win?’ she asked.
He nodded decisively. ‘We can.’
‘How?’ she asked.
The captain crossed his arms and leaned against the mantelpiece. ‘By hurting him so badly that his allies think he is weak.’
Harmodius shook his head. ‘None of us can take him, lad.’
‘He’s not that bright,’ the captain said. ‘I think that all of us, working together, can take him.’
Harmodius rose. ‘You’re out of your depth,’ he said. ‘He’s more powerful than you can imagine. And even if you hurt him-’ He paused, obviously a man on the verge of saying too much.
The captain sipped wine. ‘I’ve seen him retreat twice now.’
Harmodius spread his arms. ‘I admit he’s cautious.’
‘If his people see him run from us, surely that’s enough.’ The captain looked at the Magus. ‘Isn’t it?’
The Abbess slammed her stick on the floor. ‘Captain. Magus. Surely you don’t believe that we have to raise the siege ourselves?’ She looked at the captain. ‘Don’t you believe that the Prior is coming? The king?’
Harmodius didn’t turn to face her. ‘The king-’ he said. He shrugged.
The captain smiled at her. ‘Lady, I believe the king is a day or two away. But I believe that the essence of a good defence – whether my opponent is a tribe of barbarians, a feudal lord, or a legendary mage, is a good offence planned to keep my opponent off balance. Let me tell you of the next two days.’ He grimaced – for the first time, the others saw the fatigue under his banter. ‘Let me guess at the next two days,’ he said.
‘Tonight, the enemy will cross the fields in force, and endeavour to cut us off from Bridge Castle in two ways. He’ll try to occupy the trench we built, and he’ll seek to destroy our engines.’ He looked at Harmodius. ‘He’ll try it directly. With powerful workings overloading the Hermetical defences of the walls.’
Harmodius nodded emphatically.’
‘His purpose is so that he can storm Bridge Castle. He is only interested in taking it now because the king is on the south bank of the Cohocton. As long as we hold the Bridge, we have the ability to end the siege in an afternoon.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Jehannes said.
‘Sometimes,’ the captain said, looking at the Magus, ‘You know a thing to be true, whatever the evidence. Our enemy is not that good at war. In fact, he’s learning to lay a siege from us, as we hurt him. He learned, perhaps three days ago, that the king was coming along the south bank. I’m guessing based on the tempo of his attacks.’ He shrugged.
Jehannes shook his head. ‘If you are wrong-’
The captain slammed his fist on the table. ‘When, exactly, have I been wrong? I’ve done a pretty damn good job here, and we’ve gone from victory to victory – even when we stumble. We’re still standing, at odds of twenty to one.’ He looked around. ‘Our magazines are full. Our casualties are acceptable. At this rate, if the worst happens,’ he realised he was growing too angry to sway them but his words were tumbling out, ‘then we’ll lose the siege engines tonight, but it will be four more days before he storms the Bridge Castle, it will cost him a thousand creatures to take it. And he still won’t have a chance to take this fortress!’
Ser Milus snorted. ‘I think you just condemned my garrison to death.’
The captain shrugged. ‘I
’ll go and command the Bridge Castle and you can command here. This is war. We are not losing. Why are any of you considering surrender?’
Jehannes swallowed heavily.
‘Speak!’ the captain insisted. ‘Why are you all so silent?’
Amicia said quietly, ‘Your eyes are glowing red.’
The Abbess snorted. ‘Every young man would have glowing red eyes, if they only could.’ She got up. ‘But I agree with you, wholeheartedly, Captain. We will have no more talk of truce, surrender, or accommodation. The Wild will kill us if they penetrate these walls.’ She raised her staff. She appeared to grow. Not taller, nor more beautiful, nor younger, and yet, in that moment, she was greater than any of them.
‘Do not be weak, my friends.’ She smiled, and her smile had the warmth of the sun. ‘We are strongest, we mere humans, when we unite. Together we can resist. As individuals – we are no stronger than our weakest.’
She diminished, and sat.
Harmodius sat silent.
Ser Milus leaned forward. ‘Captain,’ he said.
‘Aye, messire?’
‘I agree. He’ll go for us next. Bolster the garrison. Give me fresh troops and more men-at-arms and I’ll hold it a week.’ He nodded.
The captain subsided into his seat. ‘Excellent thought. Take them tonight, when you go back – as soon as ever you can.’
Harmodius shook his head. ‘I still think he is too intelligent for all of us, even if we could all cast in concert.’ He rolled his shoulders like a North Country wrestler preparing for a match. ‘But I’m game. And I admit that the captain has a point. We don’t have to defeat him, only make it look as if he can be beaten.’
The Abbess smiled. ‘Well said. This is the kind of company I love. Let dinner be served.’
The dinner was not rich. There was no roast swan, no peacocks with gilded beaks, no larks tongues. Duels between torsion engines had killed a dozen sheep on the ridge so every mess in the fortress was eating mutton, and they were no exception.
The venison sausage was superb, though, and the wines were as ancient as human possession of the fortress.
The conversation was slow to start but by the second cup of wine, Mag was amused by Tom’s ribald story, and Johne the Bailli roared with laughter at the tale of the student and the hornsmith’s wife. He told one of his own, about a bad priest who disgraced his vows, and Father Henry glared.
The Abbess passed wine. She had the captain on her right, and Amicia on her left. When the talk had become general, she turned to the captain. ‘You have my permission to engage her in conversation,’ she said.
The captain tried to smile. ‘I’m not sure my eyes aren’t still glowing,’ he said.
‘Anger and lust are different sins,’ said the Abbess. ‘Amicia is going to take holy orders, Captain. You should congratulate her.’
‘She has my fullest congratulations. She will make a remarkable nun, and in time, I expect she will make a remarkable Abbess.’ He sipped his wine.
‘She is not for you,’ the Abbess said, but without rancour.
‘So you keep telling me, while dangling her like a tourney prize.’ He took a bite of meat. His tension was only visible in the force he used to cut the mutton.
‘I’m right here,’ Amicia said.
He smiled at her.
‘Once again, you bite her with your eyes.’ The Abbess shook her head.
After dinner, the Abbess held the magi back. Mag was surprised to be invited. ‘My working is very slow,’ she said. ‘I never even know-’ She shrugged.
Amicia put a hand on the seamstress’s shoulder. ‘I can feel every stitch you sew,’ she said.
Harmodius snorted. ‘You share a mixing of gold and green,’ he said. ‘I should have come to this place years ago to have all my notions of Hermetics shattered.
The Abbess said, ‘It is my will that we should stand in a circle, and link.’
Harmodius winced. ‘I’m granting my secrets to every woman in the room!’
‘You have little time for mere women,’ Amicia snapped at him. ‘We’re too patient in our castings, are we not?’
‘Women are all very well for healing,’ Harmodius said.
Amicia raised her head, and a sphere of golden green sat in it. She projected it to a point roughly halfway between herself and Harmodius.
‘Try me,’ she said.
The captain was surprised by her vehemence.
The Abbess, on the other hand, merely smiled a cat’s smile.
Harmodius shrugged and slapped at the sphere with a fist of phantasm.
It moved the width of a finger.
Then it shot across the room at Harmodius. He caught it, struggled with it, and it began to move – slowly, but without pause – back.
‘Of course he is stronger than you,’ the Abbess said, and she extinguished the globe with a snap of her fingers. ‘But not as much stronger as he would have expected. Eh, Magus?’
Harmodius took a deep breath. ‘You are most powerful, sister.’
The captain grinned. ‘Let us link. I reserve some memories. But my tutor taught me to hold some walls while opening other doors.’
‘I give a great deal for very little gain,’ Harmodius said. ‘Bah – and yet, the Abbess is right. I am not an island.’ He extended his hand to Amicia.
She took it graciously. They took hands around the circle, like children in a game.
‘Captain, I intend to pray. Try not to vanish in a puff of smoke,’ said the Abbess.
She began the Lord’s Prayer.
Prudentia was standing at the door. ‘If you were having guests, you might have asked me to sweep up,’ she said.
The Abbess appeared in his hall. She was young, voluptuous in a tall, thin way, with an earthy power to her face that belied her spirit.
Amicia was elfin and green.
Harmodius was young and strong, hale – a knight on errantry, with a halo of gold.
Miram was shining like a statue of polished bronze.
Mag looked just like herself.
He was at once in his place of power, and simultaneously in Amicia’s, standing on her beautiful bridge. He sat in a comfortable leather armchair in a great tiled room – that had to be Harmodius – surrounded by chess boards and wheels with wheels. He stood in a chapel surrounded by statues of knights and their ladies – or, as he realised, ladies and their knights, each with a golden chain attaching them. A chapel of courtly love – surely the lady’s place of power. He knelt before a plain stone altar with a cup of red blood on it. Miram’s place of power.
He stood in the Abbess’s hall, and there was a needle in his hand. Mag’s place of power was external – in that moment, he understood how very powerful her making was, because where the rest of them worked the aether, she worked the solid.
There was a glow or health, of vitality, of goodness, of power. And no time at all.
He knew many things, and many things of his were learned.
They made their plan.
And then, like the end of a kiss, he was himself.
He sagged away from them, tired from the length of the link. Other perspectives were haunting, exhausting – he could see, as quickly as Harmodius had, how a sisterhood of dedicated nuns was the ideal basis for a choir of Hermeticists, because they learned and practised discipline – together.
Harmodius was stroking his beard. ‘You are taking all the risk, lad,’ he said aloud.
The captain gave them all a lop-sided grin. ‘A single, perfect sacrifice,’ he said.
The Abbess rolled her eyes. ‘Sometimes your blasphemy is just banal,’ she said. ‘Try not to die. We’re all quite fond of you.’
Amicia met his eye and smiled at him, and he returned her smile.
‘I have many things to prepare,’ he said. He bowed to the company, and went out into the night.
First he walked to the northern tower and climbed the steps to the second floor. He climbed softly, his black leather boots and smooth leather sol
es giving nothing away. The card players were attuned to the sound of sabatons.
Bad Tom was playing piquet.
‘A word,’ he said.
Tom raised his head, pursed his lips, and put his cards face down with a start. ‘I can leave cards like this any time,’ he said, a little too carefully.
Bent was hiding something under his hand.
Given the circumstances, the captain didn’t think he needed to care.
Bent shrugged. ‘They’ll be the same when you come back,’ he said.
‘Better be,’ Tom said. He followed the captain out onto the garrison room’s balcony over the courtyard. ‘My lord?’ the big man asked, formally.
‘I’m going for a ride tonight, Tom,’ the captain said quietly. ‘Out into the enemy. I’d like you to come.’
‘I’m your man,’ Tom said cheerfully.
‘We’re going to try and take him,’ the captain said. He made a sign with his fingers, like antlers or branches growing from his head.
Tom eyes widened – just a hair. Then he laughed. ‘That’s a mad jest,’ he said. ‘Oh, the pleasure of it!’
‘Forget the watch bill. I want the best. Pick me twenty men-at-arms,’ the captain said.
‘’Bout all we have on their feet,’ Tom said. ‘I’ll get it done.’
‘Full dark. You will have to cover me when I- Tom, you know that I will have to use power?’ the captain said.
Tom grinned. ‘I guess.’ He turned his head away. ‘Everyone says you used power against the daemons.’
The captain nodded. ‘True. If I have to cast, I need you to cover me. I can’t fight and cast.’ Then he grinned. ‘Well. I can’t fight and cast well.’
Tom nodded. ‘I’m your man. But – in the dark? After yon horned loon? We need to bring a minstrel.’
The captain was lost by the change of subject. ‘A minstrel?’
‘Someone to record it all, Captain.’ Bad Tom looked off into the dark. ‘Because we’re going to make a song.’
The captain didn’t quite know what to make of that. So he slapped the big man on the shoulder.
Tom caught his arm. ‘You can’t be thinkin’ we can take him with steel.’
The captain lowered his voice. ‘No, Tom. I don’t think so, but I’m going to try, anyway.’
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