Kronmir went back to his inn, closed the door on his expensive private room, and wrote a long coded missive for his new communications service to carry. He went out towards evening and dropped the whole parchment scroll into a lead pipe strapped to the underside of a farmer’s cart – right where it was supposed to be.
After latching the pipe closed, Kronmir walked back to his inn through the falling snow and listened to the sound of a city triumphant. He ordered a cup of mulled wine, sat down with his back to a wall, and warmed his feet on a stool while he contemplated the new reality.
And wondered if it was time to change sides.
Kronmir sat in the common room of his inn, enjoying a steaming tankard of hot cider and warming his toes at the fire. His tall boots hung over a frame with a dozen other pairs, and one of the inn’s urchins turned them from time to time for a copper sequin.
He’d had a busy week, and a fruitful one. His most reliable palace contact had what might prove a useful resource among the Nordikans. The Nordikans were almost impossible to seduce from their allegiance, but he suspected that there must be some disaffection with the Emperor a prisoner. Although their payment by the Megas Ducas had killed the interest of the two who had considered his earlier offers. Or perhaps all that had been a trap.
He sighed. It was worth a try, although the latest victories by the Megas Ducas had solidified his support almost beyond saving. The Alban merchants had sailed away in the hardy round ships despite winter storms, loaded to the gunwales with the cream of the fur market – but the Etruscan League, having paid its fine, had been allowed to pick and choose among the furs, and had even made private deals with the Alban merchants. Kronmir didn’t have a first-rate source, but his impression was that the Etruscan houses had avoided ruination, and now owed the Megas Ducas for their survival.
He took his eating knife from his purse and stirred his cider.
He felt someone’s regard, and lifted his eyes to see the young artist from the temple outside the city. He remembered the boy well, and his own impulse to kill him.
The boy smiled on meeting his eyes.
Kronmir returned the smile. No spy or hired bravo would flash such an ingenuous smile on his way to strike his target. Nonetheless, Kronmir flipped a slim blade out of the back of his belt and held it along his left arm.
‘Stephan!’ called the young man. He had the air of a student, but he wore a sword on a belt of silver and gold plates, like an Alban knight or a mercenary.
Kronmir knew a moment’s confusion before he settled that he had, indeed, told the young man his name was Stephan. He rose and bowed.
A potboy brought a second chair and bowed to the student.
‘Are you a resident in this inn?’ Kronmir asked.
The student nodded. ‘Red wine – Candian, if possible. What I had yesterday? Yes?’ His Archaic was superb – far better than anything Kronmir had heard from other mercenaries, and that further suggested the boy was a student. He sat. ‘Yes, this is my inn. And you, sir?’
Kronmir groaned. Killing the boy would only lead to complications. But he couldn’t share an inn with a person of wealth and property who could identify him to a magistrate. ‘Just another day or two,’ he said with an inward sigh. I liked it here. ‘You are, I take it, a student at the Academy?’
The young man bowed again, while seated. He had very good manners. ‘Yes. I am Morgan Mortirmir, Esquire, of Harndon. I am Scholasticus Affector at the Academy. And you?’
Kronmir knew the title meant he was a genuine adept – a wizard in training. He wondered if the young man was young enough to seduce to spying, but that was mere wheel-spinning. He would recruit his spy-mage only when he was confident of his own place and security, and this was not such a moment. ‘I am a mere merchant, my lord,’ Kronmir said.
‘Ah!’ Mortirmir said. ‘I had you pegged as a fellow practitioner.’
‘Whatever for?’ Kronmir allowed himself a genuine laugh.
‘The amulet you wear shines like a beacon in the aethereal. Ah – I beg your pardon, good sir. I know that some people mislike all discussion of the immaterial.’
Kronmir toyed with the amulet that the Emperor’s former wizard had given him. ‘Really?’ he asked.
‘It must be very powerful,’ Mortirmir continued. He leaned over, and Kronmir flinched back. ‘Sorry. Curiosity killed the cat, and all. I’ll desist.’
A pretty young woman in a fine Morean gown and wimple brought a wine glass, a tumbler worked with tiny tendrils of decorative glass in blues and greens, and the small flagon. She curtsied. He raised his glass to her.
Kronmir fought his rising fear and made a snap decision – the kind he made every day. Sometimes, it was easier to know things than to live in a world of fear. So he took the chain over his head and handed it to the young man. ‘My master paid handsomely for it,’ he said. ‘It is supposed to allow us to communicate. Over great distance.’
Mortirmir smiled, a little shy now that he was engaged. He took a sip of wine and turned the amulet over. It was a silver pendant in the shape of a praying man. He looked at the base of it, and frowned, weighed it in his hand, and something about his shift in his seat made Kronmir deeply uneasy. He began to look at the exits – his automatic reaction to threat.
Mortirmir flicked his thumb over the base of the amulet, and there was a minute flare of fire – blue fire.
Mortirmir dropped the amulet. ‘Well, well,’ he said with the enthusiasm of the young and passionate for an intricate device. ‘It’s very powerful. How far away is this master of yours? Etrusca?’ He laughed.
Kronmir stood up. ‘You unmask all my secrets,’ he said, taking back his device. ‘You are very clever.’
Mortirmir met his eye. ‘I’d be hesitant to hang all that unshielded potentia around my neck. What if the man who directs your business dislikes you, sir?’ He laughed. ‘I’m only being a ninny. Here you go.’
Kronmir raised an eyebrow. ‘Good to know,’ he said.
He changed inns later that afternoon with a minimum of fuss, but the damage was done – the boy would know him anywhere, and the amulet was like a badge. Kronmir was suddenly obscurely afraid of the power of the thing – as if the young scholar’s fear was a disease he’d caught. He put it in his pocket.
Thrake – Gelfred
‘This is not how I’d planned to celebrate the nativity,’ Gelfred complained.
Amy’s Hob laughed aloud, and even Daniel Favour grinned.
They had six small huts of branches leaning against carefully constructed sapling frames. The lean-tos ran either side of a fire trench that warmed both sides, and the result was like a long, very low Outwaller house. The men – a dozen of them – could lie with their feet to the fire’s warmth and their heads under the lowest and snuggest part of the shelter.
The lean-tos were covered in snow – indeed, they were buried in it, but the deep snow only made the shelters warmer. Every deer they brought down added a hide to the refinements they had worked on the openings, and every hour of daylight added to the immense pile of firewood that formed the north wall of the shelters; a barrier against the wind.
Favour’s two hounds lay with their heads on their paws near the entrance. They had their own hides to lie on, and men collected bits of food to try and lure them as sleeping companions, but they mostly slept with the young wagoner from Harndon. Even now, at the edge of night, they raised their heads when he moved.
‘He’s the youngest, and he must look most like a dog,’ Amy’s Hob said with a rare smile. The other men laughed.
Gelfred fetched his pot off the fire and served out mulled wine.
‘I’d like to do something for our Saviour’s birth,’ he said.
Young Daniel nodded. ‘Not until tomorrow though, Ser Gelfred.’
‘Wouldn’t hurt us none to sing a carol,’ Wha’Hae said. Amy’s Hob cuffed him and Wha’Hae elbowed the man. ‘What? I like to sing.’
Ginger snorted. ‘I know “God rest Ye”,’ h
e said.
‘Ain’t we hiding in enemy territory?’ Amy’s Hob said plaintively.
Young Daniel gave a snort of derision. ‘There’s nothing moving out there but us and the deer,’ he said. ‘And the deer ain’t moving much,’ he added, and got a laugh of his own. Young he might be, but Daniel Favour was the elite hunter among an elite of woodsmen. His patience was legendary, and his arrows flew true.
Gelfred swirled his hot wine and poured a cup for Amy’s Hob, who took it with a surprisingly civil inclination of his head, as if they were all lords. ‘Besides,’ he said in his cultured voice. ‘We have sentries well out, on the road and on the hill.’
‘Sweet Jesu, Master Gelfred, that hillside is cold as a witch’s tit,’ added Will Starling, their newest scout, a former Royal Forester.
Gelfred glanced at the man. They were of an age, and the former Forester liked to swear hard and talk bawdy, which did not sit well with Master Gelfred.
‘Cold as a virgin’s—’ he added with relish.
Gelfred handed him a cup of hot wine. ‘Master Starling, life is hard enough without reminding these men of the women they do not have among them. And it is my pleasure, while you serve with me, not to hear my Saviour’s name taken in vain, or even the parts of a woman’s body. Here. Have some wine.’
Starling was interested in being provoked, but it is difficult to maintain a resentment against a man with mild manners and a cup of hot, sweet wine for you on a winter’s day, and he subsided muttering something about priesthood.
Young Daniel took his horn cup and nodded. ‘But he has a point, Ser Gelfred. We ought to build a blind. A lie. Like we was hunting deer, or duck. The wind on that hillside goes through my cloak and my cote and my gown and my boots all together.’
‘Cuts me to the prick,’ Starling said, but his heart wasn’t in it.
The oil lamp that burned by the entrance flared, and there was a slight buzz, like that of a hornet in high summer.
‘Company!’ Gelfred said, and every man had a blade in his hand. They piled into their winter gear – most had their boots to hand. Favour threw his white wool gown over his head, picked up a boar spear, and emerged into the freezing sunset air. He got his feet into the loops of his snow rackets and trotted towards the road.
The sentries each had a device rigged by Gelfred, who had command of the ars magicka. The buzzing meant the road, and a high, clear tone meant the hillside. Favour trotted well to the north of the sentry’s position – it was Short Tooth who had the road, and he wasn’t given to false alarms. Favour moved quickly, but he stayed clear of what little undergrowth stood proud of the snow and he didn’t give his position away. When he crested the low bluff which dominated the road, he fell flat in the soft snow and wriggled forward.
‘I have a pass, you nitwit!’ shouted the man on the wagon. ‘It’s fucking cold and I want to get over the pass before it snows again.’
Short Tooth moved slowly clear of the huge wagon, which towered twice the height of a man, and whose wheels sank all the way to the roadbed through three feet of snow without putting the wagon body near the surface. They were exceptionally tall wheels.
‘What you carrying?’ Short Tooth asked.
Favour saw Wha’Hae drop into the snow a few yards to his left, closer to the wagon. He worked the action on a crossbow – a latchet – while rolling on his back. Across the road, Will Starling glided up behind a dead tree and froze.
‘Grain for farmer’s market,’ the driver said. ‘Hey, you for the old Duke or the new Duke?’
‘Why don’t you shut your trap and we’ll just see your grain,’ Short Tooth said. He had worked his way to the rear of the tall wagon and he carefully cocked his own crossbow. It was a very expensive weapon – another steel latchet.
The man on the wagon box saw it.
Favour jumped down into the road and ran lightly along the surface in his rackets.
Short Tooth spared him a glance and waited for him.
‘There’s another one!’ shouted the man on the wagon box, and everything went to shit.
The back of the wagon seemed to lift off, and Short Tooth shot a man on instinct. His bolt vanished into the man’s coat-of-plates and blood splashed the snow.
Behind him, another man spanned a crossbow, but the bow itself was yew and he hadn’t warmed it so it cracked. Favour’s spearshaft caught him alongside the head.
The driver fell face first into the snow with Starling’s arrow in the back of his neck. Blood poured out of him, and he thrashed, leaving an obscene snow angel in red agony.
But there were more men in the wagon body, and Favour caught a shaft – right through his abdomen. The pain doubled him up and he fell, the snow cold against his face, and there was a cold wetness ruining his cote.
Gelfred worked – the air grew warm, there was a flash above his head, and then the men on the bluff began to pour shafts down into the wagon bed. Favour knew he was hurt badly, but he was still fully aware – he could hear Short Tooth, the man’s latchet clicking away as he pulled the cocking handle back against the weight of the steel bow and then slapped it forward.
The man was under the wagon, loosing his quarrels up into the wagon bed. And the canvas roof of the wagon provided no cover to the men inside. Blood began to drip out from between the boards.
‘Surrender,’ Gelfred called. ‘Or we will surely slay you all.’
Favour heard the men in the wagon, and heard the sound of someone throwing something heavy in the snow.
Gelfred was at his side in a dozen heartbeats. ‘Stay with me, boy. It’s Christmas. No one dies on Christmas. Everyone lives.’
Favour coughed, and blood came out.
Suddenly, everything seemed further away.
‘Right – clear them out of the wagon. Disarm all of them. Get young Daniel in the wagon. Starling, come with us. Keep him warm. Hob – you take the post.’
Then Gelfred leaned over him and passed his hands across Favour’s eyes, and that was all—
Gelfred turned to the wounded prisoner. ‘I’m in a hurry. I won’t make threats.’
The man was an Easterner, and he shrugged.
‘He won’t talk, even if we cut his fingers off,’ Starling said. ‘This one will.’
The young Thrakian whom Favour had bashed with his spear shaft held his head and retched.
The other rangers took the rest of the Thrakians away, leaving Gelfred and Starling, Wha’Hae and the Thrakian boy.
‘Just tell me,’ Gelfred said.
The boy looked at him. His pupils were enormous.
‘He can suck the soul out of your body,’ Starling said. It might have been a terrifying threat, except that the boy spoke only Morean Archaic and no Alban at all.
Gelfred leaned over. ‘You’re only six miles from the city in the worst weather in ten years. And you’re coming out of the hills with a guard of Easterners.’
The boy put his head in his hands.
‘Do you serve Duke Andronicus?’ Gelfred asked gently.
‘Yes,’ the boy answered, and was undone.
In a moment, he poured his fears out, while Starling watched in contempt.
Finally, Gelfred motioned for Wha’Hae to take the young man to the other prisoners.
‘The Duke will want to meet all of them,’ he said. ‘Leave Amy’s Hob and Wha’Hae and Short Tooth here. Watch the road and forget the hillside. The rest of you get to sleep warm tonight. Horses!’
There was a cheer, and in a handful of minutes, they were off.
‘Bring us back something nice,’ Amy’s Hob said. ‘It being Christmas.’
‘We’ll settle for the boy’s life,’ Wha’Hae said. ‘And some ale.’
Chapter Fifteen
Harndon – Christmas Court
The Queen loved Christmas above all things, and she decorated the Great Hall of the palace the way her mother had decorated her childhood hall – with wreaths of ivy and balls of mistletoe. She visited jewellers and tailors and made
herself as busy as she might to keep away her darker thoughts.
‘You’ll hurt your bairn,’ Diota said. ‘You’ve no business keeping yon secret from the King.’
The Queen shrugged. ‘I am my own mistress, I think,’ she said with some of her old spirit, but in truth, the daily sickness and the bloated feeling sapped her interest in sparring with her nurse. And her temper was sharp – sharper than usual. Weary anger was the mood of her Advent, and she resented this wicked intrusion on her life.
‘Baby is his business, too,’ Diota said. ‘And with the wicked lies I hear told every day in these halls, I would think you’d want to tell him he’s going to be a papa.’
‘There are things I want to know first,’ Desiderata said.
‘Beware lest the King want to know some things as well,’ Diota rumbled.
‘Nurse, are you – what—’ Desiderata spluttered.
Diota gave her a quick hug. ‘I ain’t impugning your bairn’s paternity, if that’s what you mean. I’m saying: just tell him.’
So a few days before Christmas Eve, after they shared a loving cup and he kissed her under the ball of mistletoe, she led him away to their bed, snug amidst a veritable castle of tapestries and warming pans.
The King moved quickly along his usual course of events and she laughed into his beard and slowed his rush to conclusion and finally forced his hand onto her belly.
‘Listen, love. There’s something stirring in there,’ she said.
‘Dinner?’ he asked with a low laugh.
‘A baby,’ she said.
His hand stiffened. ‘Are you – sure?’
She laughed. ‘I know what a milkmaid knows – and a little more. He’s a boy. He’ll be born in June.’
The King breathed silently by her in the darkness.
‘Say something, love,’ Desiderata said.
‘I cannot make a child,’ he said grimly. He rolled away from her.
She caught at his hip. ‘Yes, you can. And did.’
‘Madam, I am not a fool,’ he spat.
‘My lord, that court is still out. For I have never lain with any man but you.’