Elisha Magus (13 page)

“As if it were your fault.” She studied him, and her round face grew serious. “Elisha, you have done what you must, first to save that other woman—Chanterelle, did you call her?—then to come for me. It was not you who put me in those places, but I myself for my stubbornness.” She shot a look at her maid. “I shall atone for that later in the church. But I should like to give my thanks to your friend as well.” Rosalynn nibbled on her lip, then shrugged. “He seemed familiar somehow, but I cannot place him. Perhaps you’ve had him to my father’s keep?”

“It’s about him that I’ve come, my lady—”

“Do call me ‘Rosie,’ please.”

Mary huffed, and Elisha bowed his head. Twice today, he had been given the name of someone so far beyond his birth that not two months prior he should have been beaten just for speaking it. He used Thomas’s name, and only once, to try to convince him of what must be.

“You may return to your stitching, Mary. I shall ring the bell if I have need of you.”

“But my lady, to leave you with him! Of all people!”

“He has seen me at my worst, Mary—at least, I trust the Lord that was as bad as it shall ever be. You may go.”

Mary went, scowling and muttering, shutting the door with the merest curtsey to her lady. “She is a good maid, truly, but she’s been all upset over my disappearance, and for me to return again in such a fashion. You can imagine what it’s done to her. Like you, she believes she is responsible.”

“My friend,” Elisha began, “I need to find him, but he knows his way around these parts, and I don’t. I hoped you would have some ideas where a man might stay who did not wish to be seen.”

“Is he a criminal? I hope not! He ought to come here for sanctuary. Wait—he’s a deserter, isn’t he? Such skilled swordsmanship, he’s no mere footman if I’m not mistaken. He—”

If she kept talking, Elisha realized, she might well talk her way around to the truth. “Please, my lady, there may not be much time.”

“Is he another spy then?”

Elisha shook his head. “Another spy?”

“Like the woman in the dirt. I may not be of the magi, but I have been raised by one. My mother’s been worried about rumors of dark magic.” Rosalynn crossed herself with a shiver. “Even so, it took me this little while to understand that that woman in the dirt was one of your spies. The magi, I mean.”

For a moment, Elisha sat breathless with astonishment. He travelled with her for days, groaning inwardly as she talked of minor things, and it never occurred to him that she might know anything he needed. That, in fact, it might pay to listen to her. “Tell me about the necromancers, lady.”

She hesitated, pinching her lips together. “It’s not really a proper topic, is it? I suppose it can’t be helped. They are like magi, aren’t they, but they use only, well, murder,”—another cross over her breast—“and their victims, or parts of them. They can create fear, nightmares, and so forth, but they can’t make spells beyond what they know, and all they know is killing.”

No wonder he was accused of being one of them. The chill of Death never quite left him, not since the king. And even his brief use of the talisman this morning had given him a rush of power, threatening to overwhelm whatever faith, love, or reason kept a man from killing.

“It’s why a lot of magi don’t believe necromancers exist,” she went on. “For one thing, why would you limit yourself that way? There are the
indivisi
, of course, but they’re mad. For another thing, necromancers are the whole reason why people like me are afraid of people like you and the other magi.”

“What about the
indivisi
?” Elisha prompted.

“They have made themselves indivisible from their talismans. They know all there is to know about it and they can even define its mysteries—so much so that they take on its aspects. They’re not quite … people anymore. Your woman in the bog, she could just go into the dirt, and she abhorred the touch of clothing, that was plain. It’s not quite normal, is it?” Suddenly her eyes flew wider. “Oh, dear. You’re not thinking of becoming
indivisi
, are you? Only I don’t actually know all that much about you. Perhaps if I did not do all the talking.” She trailed off, plucking the edge of the fur with her fingers.

“I asked you, my lady. You were hardly taking advantage.”
Indivisi
. Utterly devoted to one thing. If a man could know Death in such an intimate way, did that make him
indivisi
? But if he used that knowledge, he became a necromancer, a wielder of terror. If a man could know Death …

“No,” she said, studying him sidelong. “You asked me where a man would hide. There’s a village close to here, or rather, there was a village, but the Conqueror had it cleared out when he claimed this land back for the crown. Not much left of it, I guess, but it would be a dry place, if a man didn’t have another place to go.”

“Nobody’s using it?”

“Just beyond the village is the heath, with all of those pagan burials. Who’d want to live there?” She shivered, then took another swallow of her cider.

Elisha remembered his own cup, cool enough now not to scorch. It tasted sweet and wonderful down his bruised throat.

“If you leave Beaulieu to the west, you can take that road for a bit, then you’ll turn at the pond.” Scooting down into her fur and blankets, Rosalynn tipped her head toward the window where rain had left behind the steely sky of late afternoon. Her knuckles whitened on the mug. “There was a sweep of the forest after the princesses were killed, and I think any bandits in the village were routed. Except, they’re coming back now, aren’t they.” She faltered, moved to sip her mug again, and found it empty. “Elisha.”

His name echoed softly from the empty mug, and he had to lean forward to hear what she said next.

“The man who seized me, today, he said something strange. Their captain had torn my dress, and the man, he asked if I were a part of the price, and the captain laughed, and he said, ‘No, mate, she’s a bonus.’ ” She stirred as Elisha put his hand on her arm. “I don’t understand.”

For a moment, he didn’t either, looking into her dark, puzzled eyes and thinking of the men who held him, who did not merely slit his throat and take what they would. “They weren’t bandits,” Elisha said. “They were mercenaries. They were hired to kill us.”

A
fter taking his
leave as gently as he might, Elisha pelted down the stairs and burst out the door.

The startled Mary shouted after him, “At least take the filthy boots I carried for you!” When he glanced back, she flung them at him, catching him in the shins, causing him to stumble.

Ignoring her triumphant air, he snatched the boots and winced as he stuffed his aching feet into them, then hobbled back into a run. The moment he put the truth to Rosalynn’s words, he knew who would hire out the attack and why. It wasn’t their deaths the brigands sought, but something else—something that required subjecting Rosalynn to their foulness, something that made them hold Elisha without killing him, even after Rosalynn admitted their poverty and tried to escape. They didn’t want him dead, they wanted him frightened and furious—desperate enough to save Rosalynn that he would summon up the very essence of Death from the talisman he carried. So that the woman who had marked it with her blood could learn how to use it herself. Brigit.

He ran all the way to the gate of the abbey grounds, dodging a drift of people moving in the opposite direction, before he realized that speed would avail him little: it had been hours since the attack, and Brigit would have been ready for the next step, whatever that might be. Even if she kept contact with the talisman from the comfort of the lodge, she could have mounted up in pursuit once the attack was over. But she need not hurry either. She would be expecting Elisha to carry the talisman as far as Beaulieu. Once she knew he had defeated the bandits, all she needed was an excuse to come looking for him. She knew he was a sensitive. She wasn’t—she didn’t know what little it might take to alert him of her interest. She would not, therefore, risk maintaining her contact with the talisman when she already knew where they were going. She would expect to find Elisha taking the talisman away with him. If she did search, it would lead her directly to Thomas.

In this one foolish act, allowing another man to carry his burden, Elisha had aimed all of their enemies in a single direction.

Elisha turned for the stables and stopped short. A large party of riders milled about there, dismounting and handing off their mounts to the grooms. A stocky fellow hesitated, then glanced in Elisha’s direction. He put out a hand toward the nearest horse, where its rider waited for a stable boy. The rider looked sharply up and smiled.

“Why, Elisha! The very man we’ve come to see.” Prince Alaric’s smile, spread upon his youthful face, was nearly contagious. “I was surprised to find you gone so early, but it did not take much work to find out where.” He kicked free of his stirrup, the other man still holding his mount, and slid down, straightening the layers of his sumptuous clothing, ermine close about his throat beneath a golden chain.

Another member of the party glared down at Elisha before sliding from his own mount. “Please tell me we needn’t violate sanctuary to gain satisfaction, Your Majesty.” Mortimer—the drunk from the ball—rested his hand on his sword, his own dark woolens replete with golden stitching. Elisha liked him better drunk.

A boy hurried up, hands out for the reins, but Alaric gave him a resounding slap across the face with the short crop in his fist. “You’re late.”

“Sorry, my lord,” the boy piped up—and Alaric threatened the crop again as the boy cowered.

“Do you not recognize your king?” Mortimer snapped, and the boy dropped to his knees, head bowed nearly to the earth.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty.” He huddled at the prince’s feet. Elisha’s hands clenched of their own accord, his wrist throbbing. He had once had much the same view of the royal boots of King Hugh, and he noticed Prince Alaric wore his father’s silver spurs.

“What do you want of me?” Elisha took a step forward, drawing their eyes from the quaking stable boy.

Alaric tossed down his crop and gloves and strode over. “You left me with a foreign mess, Barber. I intend to know why. You have done me service in the past, for which I am grateful, but I will not be tolerant forever.” Behind him, the boy gathered up Alaric’s riding things and scrambled for the horse. A sharp, red welt crossed his face.

“My lord king,” called a monk as he hustled toward them, bowing, a trio of other monks at his back. “The abbot is clearing his house for you, Your Majesty, but it won’t be ready for a little while. Is there another way we might accommodate you? There is a fine solar in the—”

“We need a private place to talk.” He reached out and slung his arm through Elisha’s. “Immediately.” Six of his men moved forward as well, with casual menace.

The monk scowled at them. “If you will join us for Vespers service, Your Majesty, the brothers shall to bed, and you may have the Abbey entire.”

“We must away shortly after Vespers, for an appointment at Compline. Pray you leave the gates ready for us on our return,” said Alaric with a gracious smile. The monk’s lean face failed to show any change of expression though the king-apparent planned to claim the very church and bend the monastery to his own regimen. The bells had nearly finished, and Alaric tugged Elisha with him toward the church, Mortimer following close at their back with the retinue of soldiers. They joined the press of monks, lay brothers, guests, and townsfolk. Elisha spotted Rosalynn and her maid among the crowd, not far from a ragged gathering of beggars assembling in the hopes of offerings from the parishioners. Was Thomas among them? Elisha felt chilled. Pray God he had not chosen to return tonight.

“Come, Elisha, join us in the abbot’s row,” Alaric murmured close to his ear. “If you look penitent enough, perhaps people will stop calling for your head.”

Mortimer gave a snort, eyes narrowed as they met Elisha’s.

“This is absurd, Your Highness,” Elisha said. “Tell me what you want from me. There are a thousand other places we might go.”

“Don’t you want to go to service? Why not? Are you afraid of God?” But Alaric’s throat bobbed as he said it, his glance sneaking up to the cross they passed below. With a twitch of ermine, he swept the crowd with his gaze as they entered the church then moved toward the rood screen beyond which the monks would be gathering. Then he hesitated and his smile twisted. “Her? Are you trying to protect Rosalynn? Lord, Elisha, tell me you’ve not fallen for that baggage. You’ve already got Randall’s favor, and I can’t imagine any other reason a man would court her.”

Elisha gritted his teeth. “You may not know her as well as you think, Your Highness.”

Alaric chuckled. He stared in Rosalynn’s direction and tipped his head towing Elisha past to stand in the front. Once there, Alaric glanced around a bit, his grip tightening. “I ought to have sent my rider on earlier—then at least they’d have set out a chair.”

The prince’s men crowded close by Elisha’s other side, hemming him in. Their entry had been so public that even the strongest deflection wouldn’t allow him to slip from the church. Nothing short of an earthquake would free him from Alaric’s oppressive grip.

The abbot, resplendent in his dark habit and gold-embroidered chasuble, emerged from behind the rood screen to the monks’ chanting. His voice rang in prayer through the church, then changed mode, calling out over his congregation. Latin, of course. Alaric stared up at him, listening, frowning, one of the few on this side of the screen who would understand Latin. His fingers gripped Elisha’s arm from time to time, as if the abbot’s words were aimed at him, and he did not like them.

As the abbot droned on, Elisha studied the statue of the Virgin Mary, placed to one side; a lovely wooden figure, brightly painted with a gown of red and mantle of blue. She balanced the chubby Christ child on one hip and held out a lily in her other hand. Beneath her benevolent gaze, Elisha grew warm, Father Michael’s injunction to repent resounding in his skull. She was a mother—
the
Mother—why did she not intercede on behalf of the mothers he had known? Helena had prayed to her for her own child’s safe delivery, and that, like so many other births, turned to grief. The statue’s pretty face and attentive look concealed a heart of wood. She reminded him of Brigit, herself a mother-to-be. Would the baby soften the mother’s heart?

From behind the screen, the monks began to sing, and Elisha caught his breath. The choir of masculine voices resonated through the grandeur of the church, giving that attentive Madonna something worth listening to. They sang in unison, but with a range of tones, from the fluting of the youngest novice down to the sonorous depths of his elders. The stone hummed and echoed; some monks, glimpsed only through the elaborate gilded carving of the screen, swayed with their song. Glory, Hallelujah, Elisha thought—there was some beauty in the church yet, and some who still found their distant God worthy of all praise.

The office at last wound to an end, though the song reverberated a while longer, and Alaric herded him up to receive communion, the prince kneeling first among all for the wafer. “Interesting service, Father Abbot, especially for a sanctuary. A den of thieves, indeed. I hope you didn’t extemporize the whole thing.” He gave the abbot a hard stare.

The abbot merely stared back down his long nose and crossed the prince’s forehead as he intoned a ritual blessing, but the prince’s face softened, his lips a-tremble, as if every word of God were reaching him tonight.

Then came Elisha’s turn. The body of Christ tasted dry, the Son’s battered figure sagging on the cross above them, the Frenchman’s flayed chest overlaying Christ’s own wounds in Elisha’s mind.

Mortimer came next, his eyes closed in a reverent expression as the wafer touched his tongue. While the others accepted their communion and retreated outside to the remnants of day, Elisha stood with Alaric and his soldiers, waiting, his wrist and throat aching, the Body of Christ still clinging to his tongue. Rosalynn and her maid moved up with the line, her glance darting toward Alaric and away, barely resting on Elisha. He moved to speak to her, but Alaric caught the back of his neck, a gesture that might have looked friendly, but he let his thumb and fingers dig in painfully against the fresh bruises. Elisha winced. He wanted to knock the prince’s hand away, but it would avail him nothing. The service felt like his mother’s warning after bad behavior, ushering in the long wait until his father decreed what punishment should fall.

Behind the rood screen, the monks shuffled away toward the south transept leading to their cloister and their beds. They’d be up in a few hours to do it again. Mortimer strode about, trailing the monks and the congregants, giving the abbot a smile and nod and shutting the door firmly behind them.

When the church had emptied but for Alaric’s men and the radiant, mocking glow of the stained glass windows, Alaric pushed Elisha in front of him and gave a gesture that spread out his men around them. “You were talking to the French. Why?”

“A man came to me at the ball, he wanted my help. I wasn’t talking to the French, I was talking to him.”

“Don’t listen to this miscreant, Your Majesty,” Mortimer said, jabbing a finger in Elisha’s direction. “Why else did he kill your father? I’ll wager he went over to the French before he ever saw that battlefield.”

Both noblemen had a few inches over Elisha, with Mortimer given to leaning in. Elisha caught himself cringing slightly, obeying some memory of childhood when the lord’s reeve came to loom over his father, searching for a way to squeeze out more work or more tribute. Elisha forced himself to stand straighter. He spoke carefully. “I believe, my lord, that the prince knows exactly why I killed his father.”

Alaric made a low sound, but Mortimer cocked his head. “Indeed? I’m sure he knows what you want him to think. The Duke may claim you as his”—a wrinkle of the lips—“champion, but the laws of challenge were not met, nor do you qualify for such consideration. You expected more protection than that, I’m sure, before you did the deed. Protection the French offered to supply? Is that why the Frenchman sought you out? A masked ball is a perfect place to betray your king.”

Elisha’s throat ached as if he were about to be hanged all over again. “I didn’t even know the man was French until after he was dead. If anything, he wanted my help against his own king.”

“Really? What did he say to make you believe that?” Mortimer stared him down.

“He feared assassination.”

The lord laughed sharply, dismissing this with a slice of his hand. “A servant in the house of the king? I’m sure King Phillip runs a tight household. The man could’ve been punished at any time.”

Alaric stilled Mortimer with a touch. “We have no need to make more enemies,” said Alaric softly, and Mortimer drew back.

The Frenchman was thought of as part of the ambassador’s retinue, not directly tied to the king, though he had told Elisha about his royal connection. Perhaps Mortimer had learned about it after Elisha’s departure from Dunbury. Or did he know more? Elisha met the lord’s haughty gaze.

“Don’t let mercy weaken you, Your Majesty. He’s already an enemy.” Mortimer drummed his fingers on his sword hilt. “A man cannot fraternize with sorcery and remain godly.”

“Peace.” The prince spread his hands and smiled. “I have more powerful allies whom I trust even less.” He pivoted back to Elisha. “You said he wanted your help, Elisha—with what?”