Dark Ages Clan Novel Ventrue: Book 12 of the Dark Ages Clan Novel Saga

by Matthew McFarland

  He did Mathilde the service of cleaning the blade of his sword before decapitating her: Weiss’s death had no doubt been painful and he had no desire to inflict that on the woman. He crouched down next to Brenner.

  “Armin, I know you can hear me,” Jürgen whispered. “I haven’t decided what to do with you yet. My thoughts so far include setting you on fire, leaving you here for the sun, taking your head as I did with your filthy band of traitors and peasants, or simply carrying you with me to Magdeburg so that you may enlighten me as to the desires and practices of other such coteries.”

  Brenner did not answer, of course. He couldn’t even blink.

  “My personal preference is for taking your head. That’s a fairly clean and quick way to die…” he glanced at Weiss’s corpse, the neck ragged and the bones splintered… “normally. Any thoughts?”

  Again, Brenner could say nothing, but Jürgen could feel the hate and rage emanating from him.

  “Have you nothing to say? No last cry for freedom? No wish for final combat or poetics on the rights of Caine?” Jürgen smiled, and then stood over the Brujah. “Take this thought with you to Hell—you did not lose this battle because I am your master or rightful ruler, although I am. You did not lose because you planned poorly, because your scheme, although clumsy, was actually somewhat inspired. You lost—you died—tonight because you failed to control your subordinates. I found you because of Cardinal and Albin. Had you acted like a leader, like a Scion, you might have bested me in time.”

  Jürgen raised the sword over his head, and then stopped. Something in Brenner’s eyes, or perhaps the colors surrounding him, intrigued him. Jürgen sighed and peered into the Brujah’s mind. As always, it disgusted him, but he was looking for a very specific piece of knowledge. When he found it, his eyes grew wide. He carried Brenner on the back of his horse all the way to Magdeburg, and arrived at the priory just before dawn.

  “Take this one to the dungeon, but do not remove the stake,” he said to the knights who met him, and wandered off towards his bedchambers. Christof found him before he reached his door.

  “My lord?”

  “The Silent Fury has fallen,” said Jürgen quietly. “All but Albin and Brenner, and Albin shall be ash on the wind before I leave for Livonia.”

  “And what of Brenner? Why is he here? Does he have information we need?”

  Jürgen nodded. “In a sense, Christof.”

  She frowned. “My lord? In what sense?”

  Jürgen looked back towards the jail and furrowed his brow. “I had to know, Christof. I took him because I want to discover what brings a man like him to this state.”

  “What kind of man?”

  Jürgen opened his door. The approaching dawn tugged at his undead body, but his mind still grappled with the question. “He’s a Scion, Christof. He walks the Via Regalis as we do.” Jürgen rubbed his wrists; they would not scar or ache in the morning, but they had a strange tingle now. “And I would like to know what happened to him.”

  Chapter Nine

  The next night, as Jürgen left his bedchamber, Heinrich approached him. Right away Jürgen could see that Heinrich was uncomfortable: The usually cheery gait was gone, replaced by a wary sidle. Heinrich was on an errand for someone else; Jürgen could already guess who.

  “My lord, regarding what happened last night—”

  “Christof disapproves?”

  Heinrich smiled slightly. “In a word, strongly. He feels that you put yourself in grave danger—”

  “Christof, of course, is not the prince here.”

  “I feel the same, my lord.” Heinrich looked about as though hoping the walls would tell him what to say. “You are the prince, and I am to serve you. Consider, though, that I am your seneschal and it is my duty to make sure that this domain is run smoothly even in your absence.”

  “You knew that I was leaving and when I would return, and unless you have grown considerably stupider over the past few nights, I’ll guess that you knew I was going to battle.” Jürgen began walking; Heinrich kept pace.

  “That isn’t the point, my lord.”

  “No?” Jürgen smiled. Heinrich was taking this rather seriously. “What, then, is the point, dear seneschal?”

  Heinrich took a breath. “The point, my lord, is that you swore an oath to us.” Jürgen stopped. “To all of us. Myself, Christof… all of your vassals have your word. Part of the oath that you swore is that you would not bring us harm so long as we were faithful in our own oaths.”

  Jürgen turned to face his servant. “Bring harm upon you? By slaying rabble?”

  Heinrich cocked an eyebrow. “My lord, please be reasonable. How many things could have gone wrong? How many different chances did you have to meet Final Death last night? More than one, I’d guess. And if you fall to enemies, it endangers us, and therefore your oath to us. Not to mention your oath to—”

  Jürgen’s head snapped up. He locked eyes with Heinrich and glared, ready to command him never to speak of Hardestadt, as he had with Albin. He stopped, and released the seneschal from his gaze. “I am sorry, Heinrich.”

  “My lord?” Heinrich was unaware that anything had happened.

  “I am sorry for my behavior last night.” The Beast screamed that he retract that apology, and then remove Heinrich’s arms for his temerity. Jürgen ignored it. “You are right—Christof is right—had anything gone wrong, the city and indeed the Fiefs of the Black Cross might have been endangered. You do well to bring such things to my attention.”

  Heinrich smiled. “Well, my lord, I flatter myself that is why you keep me.” The two Cainites began walking again.

  “Please tell Christof what I said, Heinrich,” Jürgen said as they reached the door to his room.

  “I shall, my lord.” Heinrich walked off into the night, and Jürgen sat down at his table. He had much to do—planning his route, first and foremost, but he had awakened with the strange feeling that he would receive a visit tonight.

  His visitor was not long in arriving.

  “Doing the Lord’s work?”

  Jürgen raised his eyes from the map on his table. The door was opened, but he hadn’t heard it. The man standing before him, however, wasn’t a threat.

  “Gotzon.”

  The Lasombra didn’t smile. Jürgen, in fact, had never seen him do so. The shadows he cast in the light from the fireplace recoiled as though being attached to the magister was painful to them. Gotzon lowered his hood and stared at Jürgen, and Jürgen could see what Rosamund had meant. Those eyes were devoid of life, but not of intelligence. Gotzon, despite anything else that might be said about him, was brave and pious in a way only someone who had seen Hell could be.

  “What brings you here?”

  Gotzon closed the door and sat down. “You’re leaving soon.” He nodded towards the maps. “Setting affairs in order?”

  “You know me, Gotzon.”

  Gotzon nodded, and peered at the map. “Following von Salza?”

  Jürgen grimaced. “Up to a point. Von Salza is in Prussia; my target lies somewhat farther west. The Sword-Brothers, though not of my order, do much the same work. I am stuck in the unfortunate position of having either to follow these knights to defend them from a horror that killed Alexander of Paris, or leave them to their own devices and let Alexander’s death go unanswered. The former is unpalatable, the latter impossible. So onward we march.” He smirked, but stopped when he met Gotzon’s gaze.

  “God cries out for justice and for His Light to grace the pagans of the land. Despite your feelings of how ‘unpalatable’ this situation is, Lord Jürgen, this is what God intends.”

  “Amen,” murmured Jürgen. “But what brings you? Do you intend to follow?”

  Gotzon narrowed his ebon eyes and Jürgen looked away. He should have known better; Gotzon never answered direct questions about his plans. He trusted in God to direct him in all things.

  Jürgen stood. “Surely you have heard of the happenings with the Silent Fury.” Got
zon nodded. “I intend to leave their leader with a splinter of wood in his heart until I return.”

  Gotzon didn’t respond. He knew something of secret societies. His clan had taught him in the blackest arts possible, the mastery of the shadows of the Abyss. A paltry bunch of rebels were probably beneath his notice even as a crusader. Jürgen felt the need to justify his decision.

  “He is a Scion. That’s why I want him kept alive.”

  “We are none of us alive.”

  Jürgen checked himself. Of course Gotzon was right; some Cainites were more particular than others in their terminology. “Kept intact, then. I want to know how a Scion came to this.”

  “And you’ll wait until you return for this?”

  Jürgen shrugged slightly. “You disagree?”

  “Your reasons for not destroying him are your own, Jürgen. I think, however, that if you are following your usual protocol of assuming you will not return—”

  “Yes, you’re right.” Jürgen glanced outside; he guessed he had enough time before daybreak to speak with Brenner. “I’ll visit him tonight.”

  Gotzon nodded and picked up a map showing Jürgen’s route. He traced the line with his finger, stopping at a domain circled in red. Jürgen didn’t bother to wait for the question.

  “The prince of that domain is a Tzimisce. My spies inform me that he is outcast from Rustovitch’s Voivodate and has been casting about for allies.” Gotzon turned to glare at Jürgen. Jürgen sighed in exasperation. “I know what you think, Gotzon. But for all I know, this fiend might be Christian.” Gotzon coughed quietly. “Unlikely, I know. But I can’t simply kill other Cainites in power wantonly, no matter how wicked they might be. If for no other reason than that to do so is a breach of the order that Caine and God handed us.”

  Gotzon set the map down. “We have differing notions of God’s order, Jürgen, and always have.”

  “And yet you never doubt my piety or my ability to do His work.”

  “I never doubt that you do God’s work, that is true. Whether you do it deliberately or not is sometimes more of a mystery.” Gotzon stood, and the shadows which had been creeping up around him fled.

  Chapter Ten

  Brenner’s mouth shut with a snap when Jürgen removed the stake. The Brujah pulled against his chains, on the verge of frenzy. Jürgen decided to wait and see if Brenner could control himself. After a moment’s thrashing, he calmed enough to speak.

  “Why am I not ash on the Elbe, Jürgen?”

  “Why do you not address me properly, Armin?”

  Armin spat on the floor and Jürgen almost groaned. God, not another Ghost. “Properly?” Armin said. “That I address you by your name at all is only in acknowledgment of what you said last night.”

  “Go on,” said Jürgen. A wax tablet sat behind him; he intended to copy any notes he took into the Letters of Acindynus later.

  “You were right. Had I controlled the others better, I might have beaten you. We might have found freedom.” Jürgen shook his head. “Were you mentored, Armin? Taught on the Road of Kings? You must have been.”

  “I was, yes. My sire instructed me, but neglected to point out that childer could be violated and used at whim.”

  Jürgen reached for the tablet. “I beg your pardon?”

  Armin gave Jürgen a withering glare. “Surely you remember, Jürgen. I burned a house here in Magdeburg, perhaps ten years ago. The others freed me while I awaited justice.”

  Jürgen nodded. “I remember. I don’t think I was actually in the city when it happened. I rather doubt they would have attempted it with me here.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself, Jürgen.” Brenner shifted his arms a bit, but the chains held him tight. “They would have done. They might not have succeeded, of course.” He leaned his head back against the wall and looked up. “They wanted for a leader.”

  Jürgen rolled his eyes. “They might have come to me. I don’t turn away capable Cainites.”

  “No, but you do ask them to drink of your blood, Jürgen. And they didn’t understand oaths—all of the Cainites in the Silent Fury had seen only broken promises from their sires and leaders, lies from powerful elders meant to lull their childer into doing their dangerous work. And before you open your mouth to deny you do any such thing, Lord Jürgen, please remember that one of your servants wound up serving under me because you mistreated him, threw him down a well and forced his mouth to your wrist.” Brenner had started to pull against the chains again; his Brujah blood was evidently working him towards frenzy. Jürgen noted what he’d said and allowed him to calm down before speaking.

  “Surely you know that no true Scion makes a one-sided oath. The lord must swear to the vassal; that is how the world stays on course.” This was the most basic tenet of the Road of Kings. If Brenner doesn’t know this, Jürgen thought, then he is truly of no use to me.

  Brenner laughed out loud. “Then there are a great many false Scions in the world tonight, Lord Jürgen. A great many.” He looked at Jürgen’s eyes, unflinching and defiant. “I was Embraced one year before Constantinople fell, and so I was very much a neonate when my sire instructed me to burn that house. He taught me that oaths are always two-sided, that both parties must swear. What he did not tell me was that God does not strike down oathbreakers with a thunderbolt, nor does the Beast immediately and permanently claim the soul and mind of any Scion who dares renege on a promise.”

  Jürgen set his tablet down, nodding. “Go on.”

  “All that a broken oath truly represents is a risk, Jürgen. My sire lied to me. He knew that the man who lived in that house was under your protection, but he sent me on the errand anyway. He thus broke an oath to you and to me, but when that man was dead, he had accomplished whatever his goal was and so fled Magdeburg. He accomplished his goal by breaking an oath—does that make him a better Scion for the task?” Brenner shook his head. “Had the Silent Fury not ‘saved’ me, I might have sworn fealty to you, Jürgen. As it happened, they did, and

  I saw in them my own followers. I vowed I wouldn’t abandon them or use them, and now they are gone and I am awaiting the sun.”

  Jürgen stared at him for a moment, and then wrote his words on the tablet. He then stood. “I cannot spare you,” he said quietly. “You have engineered murder in my domains, and I am vowed to avenge it. I cannot break my vows as easily as your sire, even when I am tempted otherwise.”

  Brenner nodded, but Jürgen could see his fear. The Beast was what drove all Cainites from fire and sun, and moved them to murder their own childer to save themselves. Brenner’s was probably howling loudly enough to wake the dead at present.

  “I can offer you confession and a swift end. That is all.”

  The last of the Silent Fury looked up and met Jürgen’s gaze. “Then I accept that offer, Lord Jürgen.”

  Jürgen left the room, and saw Gotzon waiting outside. “How do you do that?”

  “What?” Gotzon stared past Jürgen into the cell.

  “Appear when needed.”

  “Am I needed? I only came to find you. You’ll give confession before you leave?”

  Jürgen nodded. “Yes. I shall meet you in the chapel. Speaking of confession, the Cainite in the next room faces the sun tomorrow, and would unburden himself before he does.” Gotzon nodded and began to walk into the cell. “Gotzon?” He stopped, but did not answer and did not turn to face the prince. No other Cainite in Europe, save perhaps Hardestadt, would have dared that. “Can Cainites love?”

  “Love God, Jürgen.” The dark figure did not turn.

  “But another of our kind—”

  “Love God, and that is all. That way lies salvation. All else is darkness, pain, and eventually the fires of Hell.” He turned, and Jürgen rather wished he hadn’t. His eyes were still lifeless, but the intelligence behind them had begun to move. The blackness, as Rosamund had pointed out, wasn’t empty, and Jürgen reassured himself that Gotzon had taken a vow never to use his power over shadows and living darkness.


  “I would ask something of you, Gotzon. Will you hear Lady Rosamund’s confession before we leave?”

  Gotzon’s expression told Jürgen everything. Gotzon was disappointed and perhaps even offended that Rosamund was accompanying Jürgen on the journey at all, but he was bound by his vows as an ashen priest to hear confession from any Cainite who asked. The Lasombra nodded, and walked into the cell to hear Brenner’s last words. The light changed as the shadows and the flames assumed their usual relationship.

  Lady Rosamund would be terrified, Jürgen knew. But he had his reasons. If Rosamund had something to confess involving Jürgen, he didn’t want anyone except Gotzon to know it. Gotzon, despite everything else, was a devout priest and warrior of God, and took his vows as seriously as Jürgen took his own.

  And besides, thought Jürgen, if anyone can make him see that Cainites can love, it’s her.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Those with no domains to call their own are like beggars in the streets, or thieves in the night, taking what does not rightly belong to them. It is just for the lord of a domain to seek and punish them for any crimes against him and his own.” Jürgen was reading aloud from Acindynus’s letters to Rosamund. From outside the wagon, they heard the knights trying to move a fallen tree from the path. They could see the fort of Kybartai ahead, and Jürgen had sent a runner to ask for help from the prince, but nearly three hours had gone by and no one had returned.

  “Your thoughts, my lord?” Rosamund was wrapped in furs, and even remembered to shiver occasionally. Jürgen didn’t usually bother—undead flesh did not suffer from chills. As much as he enjoyed winter, as the long nights made possible extended campaigns and battles for him, remembering to exhale and react to the temperature was a bother. He preferred simply to avoid contact with mortals.