Count Scar - SA (39 page)

But he was must be far away in another part of the castle, with luck drawing near to the hiding place of the heretics' great telesma. No use waiting any longer. Gripping my sword, I slowly
pushed the door open.

And found myself looking straight into Raymbaud's eyes.

2

2

His sword was in his right hand, but he raised his left to his lips. "Quiet, Count Caloran," he counseled with a grin that showed his teeth. "Do you want all of Gavain's warriors on you at once?"

When I neither moved nor answered, he continued, "My little finding telesma told me that someone was here in the castle, but I never dared to hope it would be you!"

"I hear you were planning to fake an escape, come to the duke's camp, and kill me in my sleep," I said quietly. "If you're hoping to do so more conveniently here, you shall find a distinct
disadvantage: I am awake and ready for you."

I was thinking rapidly as I spoke, my eyes fixed on his moonlit face. That he had tracked me through the castle without alerting the heretic warriors—doubtless having activated his spell when he
found the dead man at the postern, as he himself was preparing to descend to Argave's camp and put his assassination plot into action—meant that for some reason he wanted to face alone
whoever had entered. And that he still had not raised the alarm meant that he hadn't changed his mind when he discovered the intruder was me.

It seemed a strange decision. I myself was more than willing to postpone having all the heretics rush at me at once, but it was difficult to understand why Raymbaud would prefer single combat. I
had matched swords with him in practice more than once and thought that, good as he was, I would be more than equal to him even with a lame leg.

"You don't want Gavain to know you've found me," I said, guessing but speaking with confidence. A quick glance past his shoulder showed no warriors approaching, so he couldn't be stalling
while waiting for reinforcements. "So far you've betrayed me, the duke, and Prince Alfonso. Now you're planning to betray the heretics' war leader, to make it all complete. But one thing I don't
understand, Raymbaud. Who can you possibly think will reward you for switching allegiance once again? If you think it's me, that I'll forgive you if you help me regain Peyrefixade, you're in for
a severe disappointment."

I paused for a deep breath—and to listen in case they were creeping up behind me through the kitchen. "You first sent hired killers to try to assassinate me in the duke's court. Even that I might

—perhaps—have forgiven. But then you did something for which there can be no recompense. You killed Bruno. If I'm count here again you'll hang. If I'm just a soldier running around a castle at
night, you'll die with my sword in your heart."

I had at least shaken some of his oily self-assurance. "No, no, my count," he said, his own eyes darting from side to side. "I'm not hoping for a reward. And it wasn't me who tried to kill you at
Argave's court." I snorted but let him continue. "But you'll understand what I want here—you must understand better than anyone. You think of this as your castle, so you'll know why I think
of it as mine."

"I understand nothing of the sort," I said icily. I hefted my sword slightly. The desire to run the treacherous murderer through at once was nearly stronger than my sense of self-preservation.

From the far side of the courtyard I could hear heretic sentinels calling to each other, and the lantern still glinted at the top of the great tower.

"I've been here far longer than you have, Count. Peyrefixade was mine when Countess Aenor still ruled here. Oh, I may not have administered justice, or kept track of the rents like that fool
Guilhem"—for a second his expression was worried and I wondered if he had yet associated the dead sentry at the postern gate with the seneschal's disappearance from Peyrefixade—"but the
organization of castle life, the supervision of supplies and the servants, were always in my hands. And my skill with a sword meant that the knights respected me just as much as did the members
of the staff."

I was in no mood for reminiscences about his happy days governing in my castle—to the point where he had easily overcome any hesitation my own knights might have felt in opening the gates
to a disguised Gavain. "And now the duke's son is here," I said coldly, "and some of the heretic Magians, and you expect me to sympathize because they lord it in Peyrefixade themselves, and no
longer give you the respect you feel your years of scheming have earned. Do they perhaps despise you because they know you killed my cousin the countess through your filthy magic? What's your
plan—to regain their respect by killing me in single combat?"

His mouth tightened. "Her death was unfortunate but necessary. I knew the duke would remove Thierri once she was gone—he'd had plenty of reports from me in which I was able to persuade the
duke of Thierri's real character. I thought the castle would be left without a lord for many months, giving me ample opportunity to find the great telesma myself. But I had done no more in my
search than complete a detailed map when the duke produced you."

"That must have been a bitter disappointment," I said, mocking. "Here you'd contrived to make yourself virtual lord of Peyrefixade, hoping the Perfected would reward you with permanent
lordship once you found the telesma, and suddenly this northerner appears and you're back with the wine barrels—hah!"

While distracting him with talk, I had surreptitious been working my knife from my belt with my left hand. Now I pounced forward, the hilt of my sword locked against the hilt of his to hold
both blades high above our heads, my knife beside his ear. "Be absolutely still," I hissed, "and you may delay your entry into Hell a few minutes yet."

This was the most dangerous moment. I had no way of stopping his mouth, and if he had shouted he would have died, but I would have died a minute later with heretic steel in my belly.

But terror for his life kept him silent. That and, I thought wryly, knowing me too well. I could not kill in cold blood someone I had thought of until today as a more or less faithful servitor, even
though I now knew he had killed Bruno.

"Turn around," I said harshly, "and hand your sword back to me, hilt first—that's right, slow and easy. We're going somewhere a little more private than this courtyard, where we can settle for a
certainty the question of who is the true lord of Peyrefixade. You're walking in front."

He started to protest, but I jabbed him with his own sword. "Start walking. You're in front because I don't trust a traitor. If you don't trust me either, well, that will just give you something to
turn over in your mind as we go. If we meet anyone, don't suggest by the slightest sign that there's anything wrong. Otherwise, I'll find out how sharp an edge you keep on your sword by just
how easily it slides between your ribs."

He turned and started walking, so meekly that I immediately suspected a plot. "Not that way. Along the edge of the courtyard here."

I closed to within a foot of his back, the glint of steel almost entirely masked by his cloak. We were shadowed here from the moon. I let myself limp as we went, both to ease some of the strain on
that leg and to make him think I was weaker than I was. On the far side of the courtyard I thought I spotted Gavain again.

Someone hailed us, someone closer. After only a second's hesitation, prompted by the prick of the sword's point against his ribs, Raymbaud called back, "No sign of anything yet!"

"You don't put poison on your blade, do you?" I suggested in his ear. "Because it would be ironic if you died of it yourself."

From the courtyard I directed him down a low passage that wrapped around the central keep and then through a doorway into a narrow open area, between the storerooms and the outer walls. The
wall here dropped from waist height straight down a hundred feet. This was one of the oldest parts of the castle and little used. With luck, I could kill the bastard and get away from here before
our noise brought the rest of the heretics.

Suddenly, unbelievably, an apparition appeared on top of the great tower. Twice as tall as a man, a skeletal form riding an equally enormous skeletal horse, it sprang from the tower to the
battlements, brandishing a sword from which sparks flew. The horse's long white legs took it careening across the castle, not quite touching down, while the death's-head rider leered and swung
its hellish sword through solid stone.

I staggered backwards, and all through the castle I could hear men screaming. But this apparition, I reminded myself as I fought not to scream, too, was very like those which had appeared in the
duke's camp just before Brother Melchior had hurried me away to the postern gate. I never had found out for sure where those apparitions had come from, but the priest must now be providing
distraction— either for me, or for his own search for the great battle telesma.

Raymbaud seemed frozen in horror. "That's nothing to do with us," I growled. "You don't get out of our fight this easily." I prodded him forward, then tossed him his sword, the steel flashing in
the shadows. "Defend yourself!" I called, readying my own blade. "And let God judge between us!"

But he let his sword hit the ground, ringing against a stone, rather than trying to catch it, and he made no effort to pick it up. Instead he reached inside his tunic, and I realized just too late what
he must be reaching for. This was the man who had already set my bed ablaze with a fire telesma.

The center of the courtyard was suddenly a mass of flames. I froze, so filled with terror that my jaw went slack and the sword started to slip from my hand. "God will judge you for your infidel
faith," Raymbaud shouted in triumph, "and punish you for your harsh treatment of me! For I am of the Perfected, skilled just enough in the arts you decry to overcome you easily. And I tell you,
Count, that it will pain me no more to see you die in the fire, as you infidels want all of us to die, than to watch the death of a beetle."

"Gertrude!" I started to shout, grasping at the empty air. But my sister wasn't here. Neither was Bruno. It was just me and the maniacally laughing bouteillier, protected from me by a wall of
fire that was rapidly closing in.

And then I remembered Melchior's grandfather's telesma.

My left hand shot around behind me to find the cool ivory rod still thrust into my belt. What were those words the priest had told me? I held the telesma before me, glowing pink now in the light
of flames that were only a few feet away. The activating words were almost the last thing he had said to me—

"Hoc est hora!" I screamed, finding the words just in time. The telesma in my hand seemed to jump as the lines of magic Melchior had carefully restored to it poured out again. The fire shot
sparks and rose high for a second, then recoiled and drew back like a lion cheated of its prey, before the force of the telesma's quenching spell. And this time there was no conviare around my neck
to give the flames extra strength against me.

In a moment, although the whole area was scorched, the flames were reduced to something little bigger than a campfire between Raymbaud and me. I leaped forward, my sword ready and the
emperors battle cry on my lips.

But he realized just in time that he had failed. Snatching up his own sword he fled with a squawk, through an archway behind him. I was right on his heels.

Along the walls we raced, Raymbaud slowly pulling ahead. Fear gave wings to his feet while the wound in my leg slowed mine. In a second, I thought grimly, we would attract the attention of
the heretics, and we would then see if the fine bouteillier Raymbaud cared any more about the glory of overcoming me single-handed, when he could join with half a dozen other warriors to make
very sure I was dead.

Then he darted around a corner, and I thought I had lost him. I slowed to a walk, my heart pounding madly, trying to resolve the darkness within the passages and arches on either side into
human form. If he wasn't cowering in terror, he must be preparing to surprise me.

New screams suddenly rang out throughout the castle. I staggered backwards as an apparition shot past me, an enormous disembodied head with eyes of fire and teeth of steel, gnashing as it flew.

One of the screams was very close.

That was Raymbaud's voice. Teeth clenched, I sprang through the open door of the dark room from which his voice had come. There was a crash as he knocked something over, then he leaped out
through the window and was gone down the passage.

At least none of the other heretics would be interfering in our fight, I thought, pounding after him.

He had doubled back in his flight through the castle and was now approaching the terrace next to the great tower where Melchior and I had originally come up from the postern. I almost stumbled
on the steps in the passageway, then found my footing again. No sign of the lantern on top of the tower now—either it had gone out in the excitement, or the watchman had fled. All my
attention was fixed on Raymbaud, but as we burst out onto the terrace I was abruptly distracted by the sight of a scarlet cloak, its color so brilliant it showed even in moonlight.

Someone else had come up the postern stair.

No face showed in the hoods shadow, but I felt a sudden horror-struck certainty who it must be. Raymbaud, closer, must have come to the same conclusion. He yanked an arm around the slender
figure's neck, providing a human shield against me as he put his back to the wall at the terraces edge.