Count Scar - SA (26 page)

"Perhaps I should alert the superiors of my Order first," said Melchior, looking unhappy. "I haven't told you this, Count, but there is a possibility that some of the Perfected Ones up in these
mountains may be working very powerful magic…"

I interrupted him. "What's surprising about that? I thought that magic was always part of heretic lore. Here comes Alfonso."

The prince came up the last rise, sweaty and looking more dissatisfied than ever. I gave him no time to rest his stallion but shook my own horse's reins to lead the way back toward the yellow
striped tents.

If I turned the heretics over to the Inquisition, I told myself, the same heretics I had earlier rescued, they would still be burned to death but at least it would not be in my county. The thought was
not as reassuring as it should have been.

The sun was high and hot by the time we reached Alfonso's encampment. I unbuckled my sword again and threw myself into a chair, draining the flagon of wine his chancellor handed me, then
pushed the hair back from my forehead to let the wind dry my sweat. Doing and saying exactly what I wanted, as though I did not even notice the prince's reaction, had served its purpose in
making him sulky, but was tiring work.

"Let us understand each other, Prince," I said in Auccitan, deliberately not giving him an opportunity to finish his wine. "You would like me as a friend because an enemy at Peyrefixade would
be dangerous, might even be an opportunity for the duke to invade your principality. Alternately, an ally there could be a chance for you yourself to plan an invasion of Argave's duchy. …"

Alfonso glared at me and said something to his chancellor. I was starting to feel sorry for the latter. He answered for his prince, hands turned placatingly palms up. "Prince Alfonso has no
intention of invading the duchy of such a stalwart man as Argave, or of depriving a lovely young duchess of her inheritance." Of course not, I thought. Gaining territory by marriage was always
easier than gaining it by conquest. "But you are quite right that the duke might have unwisely determined to cross the border from your kingdom into ours, by way of Peyrefixade, if the new
count at Peyrefixade had been led to believe that Prince Alfonso was his enemy, not his friend. Thus," he added pointedly, "the prince's warning about the heretics, as a demonstration of his
goodwill"

I nodded gravely when the chancellor paused, but did not answer. Alfonso nudged him to go on. "There is of course one other possibility," said the chancellor uneasily. "The prince wonders—

That is— Some have said the duke deliberately chose a man from the north because he would be easily manipulated by whatever the duke told him, lacking local knowledge. My apologies, Count!

But others have seen in this a first attempt to expand into our territory by the emperor. …"

The emperor! If these southerners were frightened by the thought of the mighty emperor far off in northern lands, well, my old master would be highly pleased, except that he had probably barely
heard of any of these southern counties and duchies. "In all that does not concern Peyrefixade and my allegiance to the duke who made me count here," I said solemnly, "I am the emperor's sworn
man. But I assure you, Prince, that the emperor has no designs on the south—at least, not yet."

All true. But fear of a rumored emperor had nothing to do with an assassin attacking me in the duke's garden or a mage-fire roaring around my bed. "You have been evading my question all day,
Prince. Someone has tried to kill me, not once but twice. You already know that I will make a good friend. Admit your role in the attempts on my life—or prove you had no part in them by
telling me who did—or you shall find me an evil enemy."

My words sank in to Alfonso. His face, already red, went redder. I had been making him sulky and irritated; now I had made him thoroughly angry. Melchior beside me tried to say something,
but I brushed him away.

The prince jumped to his feet and reached a hand behind him. One of his knights slapped the hilt of his sword into it. At my back I could hear the hiss of my own knights drawing their blades, but
I remained planted in my chair, unarmed.

Alfonso would suffer enormous damage to his honor by striking down an unresisting man, to say nothing of probably being killed the next instant by my knights. Waiting and watching him
from under my brows for the space of two heartbeats, I hoped he would think of this, too.

He might not have, but his chancellor certainly did. He seized the prince by the sword arm and hung on when Alfonso tried to shake him off. The instant the latter took his eyes off me, I leaped to
my feet. Before he knew what I was doing, I had my arms around him in a tight bear hug.

And I laughed, a loud, joyous laugh such as the emperor used to give. "By my faith, Prince!" I cried. My heart was pounding too hard to find the Auccitan words; let them interpret the Royal
Tongue as best they could. "You are a man of such courage as I have rarely seen!"

All our knights stood with their swords drawn, in readiness for a fight that suddenly seemed unlikely to take place. Alfonso struggled in my embrace, dropping his sword as I squeezed him
tighter. But then I pushed him away so he could get a good look at my face, while continuing to hold his shoulders in a grip that would tell him I was a lot stronger than he was. "A man like you
I want for my friend, not my enemy," I continued with a grin. "Now that I know you did not plot to assassinate me—and were willing to lay down your life in proving it by the sword—let us
drink to our alliance!"

I poured wine into both our flagons, spilling a little as my hand shook, and thrust one at him. "To such a friend as you I am happy to yield a peasant village!" I looked at him over the rim as I
drank, watching his reaction. He really was much less pleasant to embrace than I imagined the duke's daughter would be.

He looked more angry than ever but confused as well. His chancellor was babbling furiously in his ear, though I couldn't tell if he was trying to give advice or merely translating what I said into
Nabarrese. Time to get away while the confusion lasted.

"I am glad we could have this conversation, Prince," I said heartily, buckling on my sword, "If our two kingdoms ever go to war, it shall not be your principality and my county that begin it.

Now that we are friends, I need not fear an invasion through the mountain passes."

He still hadn't answered when I swung up on my horse, wincing from the pain in my ankle, which had started to throb again. I put my heels in my horse's side and started off, back toward
Peyrefixade, my knights scrambling to catch up.

2

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Not until we were several miles away from Alfonso's encampment, back across the border into my county, did I let my tired horse slacken its pace. A small stand of gnarled oaks stood in the
shelter of a ridge, and I slid off into their shade.

At first I simply sat still, head between my knees, trying to catch my breath. But after a minute I heard someone approaching and glanced up to see Brother Melchior.

He sat down beside me without speaking, although his lips were moving silently. Looking past him, I saw that the knights had also dismounted. They sat in a group a little distance away,
talking quietly. "What are they saying?" I asked.

The priest looked surprised at the question, but he obediently turned toward the knights, concentrating with wrinkled forehead. After a minute he said, "They are saying that their Count Sc--

That their Count Caloran is a brave man."

This was much better than the alternative, that their Count Scar was a reckless man, likely to start a suicidal fight for no reason at all. I smiled, although judging from Melchior's expression the
effect was not as good-humored as I intended. But my breathing was almost under control again. "Well," I said. "I thought the parley went well. I learned several important things."

He cocked his head. "Besides learning where the Perfected fled?"

Should I write to Archbishop Amalric? I wondered. Or would it be better to let the inquisitors do their job, without seeming to interfere or to tell them their own business? "I'm fairly sure now,"

I said, "that Alfonso was not behind the attempts on my life. I know you traced the one assassin to a cloaked figure with a Nabarrese accent, but that's not enough to implicate the prince himself.

Especially since it took three accusations of him being an attempted murderer before he reacted: if he'd really been trying to kill me, he would have been furious the first time I mentioned it."

"Could it have been someone else at his court?" asked Melchior.

I nodded thoughtfully. "I rather had the impression that his chancellor makes most of the decisions that Alfonso thinks he makes himself, and other courtiers may well be pursuing independent
policies and plans without bothering the prince with them."

The wind rustled the young oak leaves above us. As the sun moved down the sky, here in the shade I could once again feel the bite of air off the ice. The priest's eyes were dark in the shadows.

"What else did you learn?"

No need to mention again the information that the heretics wanted something hidden in Peyrefixade, which he'd heard as clearly as I. "That Alfonso fears the duke intends me for his daughter," I
said, looking away. Melchior did not immediately comment, but in a moment I chuckled. "You will note that I left without promising not to marry her. In fact," I added, "I did not promise
anything, except not to claim jurisdiction over Three Cuckoos, which I hadn't intended to do anyway."

The priest took a deep breath. "I know that acting as spiritual advisor in a noble court is not the same as contemplating God's will within the walls of the cloister. But there are dangers, to one's
soul as well as to one's body, which even among the violence of everyday life may be excessive, which—"

I laughed and rose to my feet, slapping him good-naturedly on the back. "You're going to counsel me, Father," I said, loud enough that the knights could hear me too, "not to perform any more
rash deeds that might get me killed with all my sins unconfessed and weighing on my soul. Well, consider the message delivered. Maybe when I'm old and tired I'll take a canons vestments
myself, but not yet."

In spite of my bold words, I felt a prickling between my shoulder blades as we rode on. Prince Alfonso had not found my humiliation of him nearly as amusing as I did. He might not have tried to
assassinate me before, but depending on whether his chancellor's good sense prevailed he might decide to try now. And the heretics in the village of Three Cuckoos, knowing I had seen them, might
try to find a way to assure that I never wrote any letters to the bishop.

The road we were traveling made great loops down from the plateau on which Alfonso had been camped, and although we had now come some ten miles—which our horses, plodding slowly,
certainly wanted us to know— and should see Peyrefixade's far-off tower from the next ridge, we were still not very far away from the plateau in a direct line. The descent would be too steep for
horses, but several armed men on foot, who knew these mountains, would be able to get ahead of us and wait in ambush.

Up ahead, the track passed through a narrow defile, overhung with vegetation clinging to the side of the cliff. I pulled up my horse and considered. If I had been sent by the emperor to ambush
someone, this is exactly the place I would have chosen.

I might be the fearless Count Scar to my knights, but there was no use getting us all killed to prove it. I motioned to Melchior. "Can your magic tell if there's anyone hiding up ahead there?" I
asked.

It took him only a few seconds to realize what I meant. He concentrated for a moment, while the knights waited a dozen yards back. Glancing over at them, I saw them loosening their swords.

The birds around us had begun singing again once we stopped. If there were enemies ahead, they must be keeping very still. "I hear no voices," said Melchior. "If you will but wait a minute, I can
tell better with my powders." He reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a little cloth-wrapped bundle, from which he extracted a few grains of a white powder. It did not blow off his palm as he
held it up, even when he stirred it with a finger and mumbled over it. Heavy for powder, I thought— perhaps ground from human bones?

That would rather be something for heretics, I told myself firmly. But the magic the Order of the Three Kings practiced owed much to the heretics.

"There are no men within at least half a mile but ourselves," said the priest then. "Beyond that I cannot tell."

"Prince Alfonso's an even bigger fool than I thought," I said loudly, for the knights' benefit. "I would certainly have tried to ambush us on the way home. At least we gave our horses a chance to
breathe."

I shook the reins and moved forward. If I didn't have to worry about fighting off Alfonso's men, I could look ahead to supper at Peyrefixade.

My horse trotted through the narrow defile, the sound of hooves echoing loud from the cliffs on either hand. The hanging vegetation swayed in the wind, then suddenly, unbelievably, a hooded
figure stood on the track before me.

My horse reared, and I had my sword out in a second. But there was only one man, and I saw no weapon.

"Count Caloran!" he said in a deep voice. "I have a warning for you." His face was invisible in the shadows of his hood, and he stood perfectly still, though my spooked horse's hooves came within
a foot of him before I had the animal under control again. It might have been my imagination, but the air seemed to be growing rapidly colder.