Arcanum (37 page)

Messinger continued to explode. Who would have thought that such a short man could contain such boundless reserves of fury?

They’d even got to the stage of discussing whether or not to extend the number of capital crimes, so as to feed the boilers of Eckhardt’s proposed magic-factory. Just a thought, a suggestion.

“Stop,” said Thaler. “This is preposterous.” He got up out of his chair and walked across the room to the windows, where it was cooler and he could think more clearly.

“Mr Thaler, I insist you rejoin us.” Allegretti frowned at him.

“And I insist the prince hears what we have to say. We have rights of audience.”

“The mayor has rights of audience, Mr Thaler. Under-librarians do not.”

Thaler expected Trommler to intervene, but he didn’t. He did, however, raise one eyebrow ever so slightly, and Thaler took heart.

“Master Allegretti, all free men of Carinthia have rights of audience to their prince, whether they’re the lowest shit-shoveller or the highest … whatever.” Thaler leant back into the wonderfully cool window alcove. “And I, through fate, represent the library.”

“I accept your right, Mr Thaler, but we must have discussed the matter thoroughly first, in order to advise our lord wisely. He is tired, and distraught. Better we leave him to rest until we have something to say.”

“Gods, man,” growled Messinger. “You always have something to say. If your swordplay was as prodigious as your word-play, I’d be talking to Gerhard.”

Allegretti’s hand dropped to his right-hand hilt. “Where I come from, you would be on the end of this for such an insult.”

“You’re in Carinthia now, and we can tell blowhards like you to shut the fuck up as often as we like.” Messinger leapt up and deliberately kicked his chair over on the way. “But if you like, I can see about learning some Italian ways.”

Trommler rose like a shadow between them. “Gentlemen. We do no service to the prince by such actions. Neither does it appear we can usefully agree on a course of action to present to our lord.”

“The mayor and Mr Thaler are intransigent, I agree,” said Allegretti, and sighed dramatically.

“Who is this man anyway?” appealed Messinger. “Nothing but a glorified teacher.”

“Perhaps I should teach you some manners.” Allegretti half drew his sword, and Thaler decided that this meeting was already a disaster. He hurried over and interposed his bulk.

He took the mayor by the shoulders and pushed him back until they were outside the circle of chairs around the fire and in the orange darkness beyond.

“You’re doing exactly what he wants, man. Don’t rise to it.”

Messinger shivered with frustration: “What
is
it that he wants? He can’t honestly want to barter lives for magic, can he?”

“There will be many who will. Don’t tell me you’re not tempted.” Thaler dropped his hands and clasped them in front of him. “Lights for the library. You think I want to spend the next however-many-years ruining my eyesight, reading by candlelight? All the other librarians, all that work, all that copying: how many lives do you suppose that’s worth to me?”

“But you know as well as I do that once we’ve entered into this pact, there’ll be no end to it. We’ll run out of criminals sooner rather than later, then what? Who do we pick after that? Bavarians? Jews?” Messinger span away and paced the floor. “Yes, of course I’m tempted. It won’t be like before, where everyone had magic, just not as good as ours. We had an edge then, enough of an edge to make us rich and allow us peace. We’ll have magic and no one else will. Not so much an edge as an overwhelming advantage. Can we resist abusing that? If it means we don’t have to feed our own to this Eckhardt’s desire, but can take prisoners from the lands around us, who wouldn’t?”

Thaler was struck by the differences in their ambitions. He just wanted a good light by which to read a book. Messinger was talking about invading their neighbours and taking sacrifices from the conquered lands.

“I’m a peaceable man, Master Messinger…”

“And so am I, Thaler. I know I bluster and strut, but that’s what’s expected of me. I can’t countenance this … this, monstrous exchange, no matter how it might damage us otherwise. Because if the Wiennese, or the Bavarians, or even the Venetians get wind of what we’re up to, we’ll have three fuck-off-sized armies camped on our doorstep before autumn. And they’ll know exactly what’s at stake. It’ll be either us or them.” The mayor subsided momentarily as he gnawed at his fingernail. “I won’t have it, Thaler, do you hear? Better we fade into obscurity than have our name remembered as a byword for this outrage.”

Thaler hung his head. “We’re of one mind. We must convince the prince.”

“Will he believe us over his tutor?” worried Messinger.

“We need to gather the earls – the remaining earls, that is,” Thaler corrected himself, “– and hold a grand council. If Felix hears many voices against and only one for, then we’ll win the day. Surely.”

“And if our lord already has his mind poisoned against reason? Gods, man: he’s just a child.” Messinger started to wind himself up again. “And now he’s gone.”

“Who?” Thaler turned.

“The Italian. Mr Trommler, where did he go?”

Trommler, with his back to the fire, answered. “Gone to fetch the prince.”

“Time for our secret weapon, then,” said Thaler, and went to collect Sophia from the anteroom.

She wasn’t there. He went into the corridor beyond and looked up and down its length. She still wasn’t there.

Had she wandered off? Gone home? Been chased away? Thaler clenched his jaw. It was one thing to hear two old men tell a story about a blood-stained hexmaster promising the world if they’d just give him people to kill. It was another to hear a young woman testify that the Order were killers, and that Goat Mountain was already a graveyard for countless victims.

She could help swing the decision in their direction.

He went back into the solar. “She’s gone,” he said.

Messinger groaned. “That’s what you get when you rely on a woman. And a Jewish woman at that.”

“I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation—”

“As to why she’s left us in the lurch? Curse her.” Messinger looked back at Allegretti’s empty chair. “Do you think I could have him?”

“Who? Trommler?” Thaler was appalled.

“No, the Italian.” The mayor rested his hand on his sword.

“Oh, you mean the prince’s very own Genoese sword-master, the one who fights two-handed and has nothing to do but practise all day, every day, for what? Two decades?” Thaler considered the matter for a moment before concluding. “Don’t be an idiot, man. He’d spit you like a partridge and pluck you to boot. Neither of which will help us find Sophia.”

There was nothing for it but to admit her disappearance to the chamberlain.

Thaler cleared his throat. “Mr Trommler. Miss Morgenstern appears to have vanished.”

Trommler stretched his calves by standing on tiptoe, and turned around to bake the other side. “Vanished, you say? Despite everything, I find that extraordinarily difficult to believe. You are normally so precise in your vocabulary, Mr Thaler: please try again.”

“Well, she’s not there.” The librarian tutted. “Perhaps she’s taken fright after all.”

“Oh, I don’t believe we’re as frightening as all that. Civilised men can and do disagree passionately, something that Miss Morgenstern surely knows.” Trommler rose again on his toes. “Even if she can’t be found, I’m sure she has used her time wisely.”

Messinger started to pace the floor. “We need to offer something in magic’s place. Other than barbarism and defeat, that is. Can we do that?”

“The water,” said Thaler. “The Romans did it. So can we.”

“How? Deliver water to every house, every yard, every fountain in Juvavum?” Messinger snorted. “If you can do it, it’d be—”

“Magic, Master Mayor?” Thaler looked down at his boots. “Yet we know that the water used to flow without it.” Somewhere beneath his feet, beneath the very fortress itself, was the answer. The Romans couldn’t create water like the Germans: the spell for that, the associated rune, didn’t exist then – yet they were still using Roman plumbing, and dabbling in Roman pools.

Then he looked up, so suddenly that the bones in his neck went crack.

“The mikveh,” he shouted.

Messinger, startled, stopped his furious pacing. “What? What’s that you say?”

“The ritual baths of the Jews. The mikveh, they call it. All this time, it’s had water – it still has water – that doesn’t come from magic.” Thaler blinked in surprise. “So where does it come from?”

But there was no more time for questions. The prince, one sleeve of his white shirt trailing like a banner, slipped quietly into the room, and only Trommler seemed to notice.

“My lord Felix,” he said. “The mayor of Juvavum and the library wish to exercise their ancient rights of audience.”

Thaler expected Allegretti to be right behind the prince, but he hadn’t appeared by the time the boy had nodded to both him and Messinger, and crossed to the fire. The night wasn’t that cold, but he seemed to need the heat.

Trommler was also looking around for Allegretti. “My lord should be aware that a decision, or even an indication of his thoughts, is not required at this time.”

“Thank you, Mr Trommler.” Felix looked up at the chamberlain. “Mr Trommler, do you work for me now?”

“If it’s your wish that I keep my position, then I’ll serve you as faithfully as I served your father.”

“I do wish,” said the prince. “There’s so much I don’t know.”

Trommler looked over to where the Book of Carinthia lay on a table. “My lord mustn’t worry. Good advice is closer than you think. Gentlemen?”

Thaler and Messinger drew closer, and Trommler introduced them. The prince had met the mayor before, but he frowned at Thaler’s name.

“The letter writer.”

Ah. Thaler had wondered when this would come, and it was sooner than he thought. “Yes, my lord. Both mine and Peter Büber’s loyalty to Carinthia are as solid as the foundations of this fortress. If he is at fault in fearing the Order, then I’m more to blame.”

“He took the blame for himself.” Felix blinked up at him. “Both he and the witch are banished. He admitted he should’ve told my father.”

Thaler felt his heart sink. “Our fault was assuming he already knew. My deepest regret, my lord, is that we didn’t discover the Order’s perfidy in time. We failed Carinthia.”

Instead of sending him away, or calling for the guard, what was left of it, Felix looked away. “I … mistakes get made, sometimes.”

“My lord would not have a fiercer protector than Master Büber,” said Thaler, knowing it was true.

It seemed that the librarian wasn’t the only one with regrets. Felix turned to the chamberlain. “Is there any way I can change my mind?”

Trommler cleared his throat. “We can try and get a message to him, but he’s the huntmaster and will be difficult to find. Such men are much more adept at disappearing than even Miss Morgenstern.”

“She didn’t disappear,” Felix blurted. “She was with me.”

Then Allegretti came back in, signalling his approach with the jingle of his scabbards. Thaler, open-mouthed, had his slack jaw closed by the back of Messinger’s hand.

The Italian stalked to the centre of the room, looking at the faces of the others to gauge what had transpired while he’d been away. Thaler was examining Allegretti’s features, with similar intent.

“My lord, gentlemen.”

Messinger grunted impatiently, and seemed eager to state his case to the prince, but Thaler wanted something else first.

“Will Miss Morgenstern be joining us, Master Allegretti?” The Italian had returned some time after the prince had arrived. If Sophia had been with the boy, then so had Allegretti.

For a brief moment, the mask slipped and Thaler saw Allegretti’s intent naked: only for a moment, because the urbane tutor reasserted himself quickly.

“She will not, Mister Thaler. As you well know, it is only free men who have rights of audience.”

“If my lord Felix commanded it, however?” Thaler suggested, but the prince blushed and waved at the chairs.

“I don’t need to,” he said, and picked a chair for himself.

Allegretti looked satisfied. Self-satisfied, in fact. Thaler, however, thought he knew Sophia well enough to suspect she hadn’t been entirely silent. The Italian took the chair next to Felix, positioning himself on the other side to Messinger and Thaler, creating the semblance of a faction and promoting himself to the prince’s right.

Trommler hovered in the shadows while the other two took their seats.

“Mr Trommler, is there anything to drink?” asked Felix. “Or eat?”

“I’m sure there is, my lord. I shall return shortly.” Trommler eased himself away, and Felix looked expectantly at the mayor.

Messinger scratched at his chin, and with a resigned shrug of his shoulders recounted the entirety of his and Thaler’s trip up Goat Mountain. When he left something out, Thaler filled in the missing details, including the parts that should have been Sophia’s to relate – and, judging from the prince’s reaction, it didn’t seem that he was hearing these things for the first time.

When the moment came to tell of the encounter with Eckhardt, the mayor reached forward and drank a good deal of the wine provided by Trommler. He could barely bring himself to speak of it to Felix.

So Thaler took over and explained what exactly the hexmaster had offered, and what he wanted in return.

“My lord, those are his terms, and he awaits your answer.”

Felix stared into the fire. “How long do we have?”

“He didn’t say.” Thaler looked to his own wine. Despite everything, he was determined to sleep well that night. “Whatever you decide to do, you have to consider other factors as well.”

Allegretti shifted in his chair. “We have heard your testimony, gentlemen. Thank you. Mr Trommler will show you out.”

Felix looked from the Italian back to Thaler. His lips twitched. “What other factors, Mr Thaler?”

“We can discuss them when the gentlemen have left, my lord.” Allegretti said firmly.

But the boy would not be swayed. “Mr Thaler?”