Elisha Rex (5 page)

S
tartled, Elisha glanced warily
about again, but he knew there had been no mistake. The archbishop of Canterbury, the prelate of the entire nation and beholden to none save the pope himself, had addressed him as the king. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace?”

The archbishop lifted his hands and cried out, “Arise, Your Majesty, God's anointed! Had I not with mine own eyes witnessed the miracle, I should never have believed!” Those eyes shimmered with tears, his hands trembling as he raised them to the heavens. His voice rang, deep and stirring, rich with reverence. “Did you not see, my brothers, my children? God has granted him the holy touch, that sacred power reserved unto kings! A blessed miracle! Thank you, Lord!” Then he dropped to his knees in the dirt, hands clasped, and his voice rang out in Latin, echoing from the gate tower.

With a murmur and rustle—and an occasional cheer—Elisha's followers likewise knelt, except for the healed youth who stared in wonder at his hands, then flung himself prostrate to the ground.

“Get up,” Elisha said, shaking the boy's arm. “This is madness.”

“Your Grace,” intoned the other priest, still mounted on his horse, his accent lilting toward the French, “I hesitate to criticize—”

“Did you not see?” shouted the archbishop again, breaking off his prayer. “And there have been other miracles! A whole extraordinary series of them, from the moment when God's power and will entered into this humble man. As once the Lord elevated a simple shepherd to become the king of his chosen people—yea, verily, even as His only begotten son once worked as a mere carpenter, the Lord has once more granted unto these undeserving sinners a leader in our time of need!”

“It's madness,” Elisha said again, but none seemed to be listening. Even Duke Randall stood gaping before him.

But the archbishop, crazed with the light of God, almost glowing in the vigor of his faith, wasn't finished. “King Hugh, a man in his prime, fell as if aged beyond measure. You yourself, Father Osbert, have travelled all the way from the Holy Father to bear witness to these events. King Hugh's younger son slain on the eve of claiming the throne—his elder son condemned this man to die, but the casket was raised and lo! For it was empty!” The archbishop sprang to his feet, arms spread, cloak flaring out, the golden cross upon it struck with sun. “And I have heard reports of the noise and violence raised up there. As if he fought to rise against a great enemy, and well he might, for surely the Devil himself would have prevented his return.

“And then even our King Thomas, whom we had accepted as our rightful lord, even he was taken from us! And we prayed in misery. All these signs and portents, all these moments, surely they show us God's disfavor! We wept, and prayed, my children.”

A chorus of assent rose up at Elisha's back.

“Perhaps, indeed, we face the end of days, my lambs, but we need not face them alone, no! For the Lord's wrath was bent to this, to reveal His true servant, the one He chose to lead us through the darkness!”

The pope's inquisitor, Father Osbert, blinked down at them, then slid off his horse and stood, frowning.

“Has he not, even as our Lord Jesus Christ, healed his flock of many afflictions?”

“Yes!” roared the crowd, and “Amen!”

“No,” Elisha breathed, as every moment of his last few months was twisted to have some other meaning entirely. “No!” he said again, louder, and scrambled to his feet. “Your Grace, forgive me, you can't do this. You can't simply—” But he had no words for what was happening.

Duke Randall coughed apologetically. “Your Grace, as admirable a man as I find the barber to be, he has no royal blood, nor even noble.”

“It is the mark of divinity that makes a king. Blood is royal when God proclaims it so!” thundered the archbishop.

“He smothered the fire, Your Graces!” called a voice from the crowd. Elisha whirled, but could not find who had spoken.

“We felt it, Father,” cried another. This time, the man limped from the crowd and grasped the legate's sleeve. “We all did, at his graveside, Father. We felt his goodness, and we felt our own shame.”

Elisha's stomach churned. He wanted to laugh aloud at the absurdity of it all. He wanted to vomit at the preposterous stories of his own deeds as others testified around him. He was a sorcerer, a killer—damned to Hell for any of a dozen offences. And yet, the grains of truth at the heart of these wild stories gave him little ground for denial. Yes, he healed that young man's hands. Yes, he healed the wounds of the fallen guard and eased the ills of a thousand others. Diabolical magic or the royal touch? Thomas was king. Thomas had need of him—if he lived. How could Elisha ever do what he must if he were imprisoned by chains of gold? And how could Thomas ever forgive him usurping his throne?

“You can't do this!” He spread his hands before him, pleading. “I beg you to stop.”

The archbishop turned, his face pink with excitement, then he gave a little gasp—for an instant as dumbstruck as Elisha himself—his eyes flared, the color fled his features, and he fainted to the ground, sagging in a sigh of gold and white.

At a hint of movement, Elisha thought the papal legate might come to the archbishop's aid. Indeed the man crossed himself fervently, mumbling in French and Latin, then dropped to his knees, his gaze arrested by Elisha's outstretched hands.

A scar marked the center of each palm, a short tear, healed with Thomas's help. A little of Martin's blood pooled in the left-hand mark, and Elisha pulled back his hands, horrified.

“I was branded,” he protested. “You know that—you all must know that.” But his voice faded as he clenched his hands, the scars just as visible at the back as on the palm. “They're not what you think.”

Helena parted herself from the crowd, approaching almost timidly. She reached out and took his fist in her hand, staring at the pale mark, then peeling open his fingers. “These are no burn scars,” she murmured. “How did I not notice them?”

“Helena,” he said softly, urgently, “you, of all people, must know I'm not divine.”

“And I,” snapped another voice. Sister Lucretia pushed up close, glaring. “I was there, in the Tower, the night before his execution. Treason, and sorcery! Black Magic!”

Elisha flinched to see his old friend's face so twisted with her anger.

“Madame! Good Sister, surely you do not accuse His Grace of blasphemy?” The black-robed inquisitor inched forward on his knees. “Or can you explain the signs that have been seen?”

“The fiend may counterfeit miracles, Father.”

“And the very stigmata of our Lord? How do you explain this?”

Helena met Elisha's gaze. There had been a fiend involved, true enough, but Morag had been a devil of mortal origin, and Elisha did not know how to tell the story without drawing in Thomas, or Alaric's death.

Lucretia faltered, her veil fluttering as she turned away. “I cannot, Father. That's why you're here, isn't it? To explain false miracles?”

Gravely, the man nodded his silvered head. “Indeed, Sister, I shall seek out such truth as may be, but I have seen the healing with my own eyes and have heard these witnesses with my own ears—a hundred citizens or more who saw the inferno doused at this man's intervention. It is my task to seek for heresies, or for saints.” His deep-set eyes searched Elisha's face and figure. “It is another matter to investigate God's miracles in the presence of the one who was their tool.” Then he gave another nod, deeper this time. “Your Majesty.”

Almost, Elisha took the lord's name in vain. Almost, he flew into a rage to let them think the madness was his own. But the claim was not so lightly set aside, not if his every gesture should be taken as a sign, his every movement as holy.

“Elisha.”

He turned to Randall's voice, hoping for some wisdom to dispel this insanity, but the duke gently shook his head, placing a finger to his lips as he, too, sank to his knees, head bowed.

“No!” Elisha seized him. “No,” he whispered urgently. “Not you, too.”

“Look around you, Elisha,” the duke whispered back, clinging to his arms. “How can I defy this? How can I be the last man standing? Someone must take the throne.”

“Thomas! And Rosie.”

Randall winced, then pulled away. “When they are found.” He held the crumpled note in his fist. “If they are found, Elisha. Until then, who will stand against France? Who will mediate between the peasantry and the barons?”

“But the barons will never accept me—this will only rile them more. Surely there is another more worthy. Who stands heir to the throne?”

“Thanks to the blood I share with Hugh, it's me,” the duke said softly, his face a decade older since his daughter's disappearance. “I'll take it, if I must.”

But it would be the death of him—his pasty skin said as much.

“Many will stand with me, if I support you. More will stand with him.” Randall tipped his head toward the archbishop. “Especially when they see the army at your back.” He lifted his chin in the direction of the citizens of London.

A growl of frustration or fear lodged in Elisha's throat, and he stalked over to the archbishop. Here, at least, was a problem he might affect, a small thing, well within his skill. He laid his hand at the prelate's temple, by the skewed rim of his golden miter. The man's dark eyes flew open. He smiled faintly. “Bless you, Your Majesty,” he sighed. And he felt like nothing at all.

Elisha's breath caught. The hollowness of a necromancer? In the archbishop? It couldn't be. Elisha was simply exhausted, stunned by grief, by casting, by this man's declarations. Still, the words echoed in his memory, Morag's master telling Alaric,
We have made kings before and unmade them
.

“We must arrange a coronation as quickly as possible, or risk the further wrath of the Lord if we should ignore the signs He has sent us,” the archbishop said. The man's manner hadn't changed. He gave away nothing, his voice warm, his face open and almost radiant.

Elisha struggled and found his breath at last, looking for an excuse to touch the archbishop again, to be sure—but in his exhaustion, would he even know? He had numbed himself with the sense of death and had yet to master the grief of Martin's passing.

The archbishop reached up for him then, taking Elisha's arm to draw them both to standing, and his touch conveyed a faith so deep it seemed fathomless.

“Y
our horse,
Your Majesty,” said Lord Robert's voice, suddenly at his elbow, tinged with humor.

Wrong, then. He had been wrong about the archbishop. Elisha clutched the pommel with one hand, seeking balance, as Robert knelt, fingers laced, to help him into the saddle. Once Elisha was mounted, Robert checked the stirrups and handed up the reins. “Last time I escorted you to the Tower, 'twas in a cart.” He grinned. “I never expected to do it again, much less like this!”

“Nor I,” said Elisha faintly. “Thank you.”

“Ought to at least wave, or something,” Robert muttered.

Taking a deep breath, Elisha sat up straighter and gave a wave of his hand. Most of the citizens cheered. Sister Lucretia looked pale and crossed herself but spoke no more, not risking the archbishop's disapproval. Madoc kept shaking his head in disbelief, while Ysabeau retreated to Helena's side. As a few of the duke's guard came forward, the crowd opened to let them pass in procession, Elisha riding alongside the archbishop, who scattered blessings among the crowd and occasionally murmured fervently in Latin. Elisha's time with Mordecai had given him a bit of Latin, but he wasted little effort in translating prayers. Instead, he sought attunement, the familiar stride of his horse comforting him. Smoke still hung in the air, but they need not pass the place where Martin died. They rode instead down streets of charred houses where bodies still lay amid the ruins of their lives. London needed to be rebuilt, not only the buildings, but the unity of her people as well.

At his back rode the ominous presence of the black-robed inquisitor, and the stolid sense of the duke himself. Citizens dodged ahead of them or emerged from their barricaded homes to blink up at him. While many would have seen the former kings in this fashion—at a distance, on horseback—many had known Elisha for decades, personally. He rode to his new place supported by members of all three estates of life: those who worked, those who fought, and even those who prayed. What would his enemies think? What if some of these, the archbishop even, were his enemies? But why would a mancer, and one in such a position, proclaim Elisha king? Of course he had been wrong about the archbishop—perhaps only desperate to deny the crown he was offered, the crown that belonged to Thomas and his heirs. Save that all of Thomas's heirs were dead.

They came up to the barbican, the first defense of the Tower, and the yeomen stood aside, gaping. From below, in the shadowed well at the base of the gate, came a chorus of roars. Elisha's flinch made his horse snort and dance.

“The royal menagerie, Your Majesty,” said the archbishop serenely. “The emblems of your kingdom welcome you home.”

Rather, Elisha thought, the lions smelled blood. He shivered.

Turning down the path and over the drawbridge, they passed beneath the portcullises of the Tower and into the outer defense where Elisha slid down, shaky, and allowed himself to be escorted to the king's chambers, a range of rooms above the thick wall, painted with diamonds of red and blue, lit by huge silver crowns hung from the ceiling upon chains. Thomas's rooms. Thomas's bed. Elisha brushed his fingertips over the blankets.

“Servants shall bring up a bath for you, Your Majesty,” someone was saying, “and they are preparing a feast as best they can. The stores are somewhat less since we have been besieged.” An old man stood before him, tonsured head bowed, hands clasped. “John de Ufford, Your Majesty. Your Lord Chancellor, until you shall see fit to replace me.”

Elisha put out his hand, and, after a moment, the old man took it, giving a little bow. In the warm grip, surprisingly firm, Elisha felt his steadfastness, his intelligence, his curiosity. Satisfied, Elisha released him. “I'm sure you'll serve me well, as you have my predecessor.” His throat felt dry, his words stale. The king's presence haunted the place, as much as his first wife's death lingered in the lodge they used to share.

“Lord Richard DeVere, the Lord Chamberlain has, alas, been prematurely executed for his failure to safeguard your predecessor. If it please Your Majesty, I shall assume his duties over the household until it can be determined whether his heir is fit to rise to the position.”

Executed, because his king had vanished. Elisha felt hollow.

“We'll give you a moment, then, Your Majesty.” Ufford bowed himself out of Elisha's presence and shut the door, though whispering could be heard outside for a few minutes, followed by the patter of feet, all the men he now commanded hurrying about their business.

Once they were gone Elisha stalked the rooms, servants springing out of his way, darting glances as if they wondered at the sudden distance between themselves and him. Like the lodge, the bedchamber, solar, and small chapel contained little of a personal nature. A few books and writing things, crucifixes of ivory, Christ staring down at Elisha, no doubt surprised to find a barber claimed as one of his successors. Elisha rubbed at his palm, wiping away the blood that remained from the day's work, and felt a sudden kinship for God the Son, a weary, tortured man, proclaimed a king. Elisha's own mocking would come later, he had no doubt. In the meantime, he had to uphold the trust too many placed in him, and acquit Thomas's job as best he could. He slipped out the talisman, Thomas's hair, and pressed it between both hands as he returned to the chapel. If any witnessed this, let them believe that he prayed. Let him believe such a prayer might be answered. Closing his eyes, Elisha gave his being to the search.

Centering himself, drawing back the tendrils of his awareness, Elisha focused them to a single purpose, that of finding Thomas. First, he must conceive some notion of where to look; he would exhaust himself in searching every house and tree, even assuming his power could reach so far. He envisioned one prison after another, from the nearby gloom of Newgate, to the dank cell in the bowels of this very tower, where he had awaited his own execution. Even across whatever distance lay between them, he had contact through that lock of hair. A magus less sensitive could not put it to such use; so, for perhaps the first time, Elisha's accursed sensitivity served him as he probed all the places a man might be held, and all the while he whispered Thomas's name.

The shadow of his awareness flitted over landscapes of darkness and stone, in and out of every dungeon he could name and more which he only imagined. Briefly here and there, he touched the presence of other prisoners, even a few of the magi, though they did not rise to his touch, and he had no way to maintain the contact.

Elisha expanded his search to barns and stables, inns and outhouses, and finally shed all boundaries but the presence of Thomas himself. His senses stretched thin, a tenuous web spread all around him, as if he could attune himself to the world. All that reached him were echoes of himself, as if his cry bounced off distant mountains to carry back his growing fear.

In the learning of the magi, the Law of Contagion stated that two things once a whole, would always maintain a close kinship. Even if, Heaven forbid, Thomas were dead, that lock of hair should still search out his corpse for the connection it shared. Instead, Elisha found nothing.

The web of his awareness shriveled, and his presence retreated back to the physical, his miserable body hunched on the floor in a painted chamber.

A knock echoed, followed shortly by the door swinging open. The shuffling servants stopped short at the sight of him, and Elisha pushed himself up, wiping despair from his features, as they continued past, the first pair lugging a wooden tub, others following with buckets of steaming water to fill it. Still others set themselves to work at the huge fireplace, building up the coals, and Ufford reappeared at the end of the gathering, bowing, furrowing his white brows. “Do forgive me, Your Majesty, we ought to have seen to the bath right away.” He flipped open a ledger he carried under one arm. “Is there anything you require? Any special tasks, meals, persons? Have you brought a confessor of your own, or body servants?”

Elisha perched at the edge of the bed as activity swirled about him. Anything he required? He could barely conceive of what that might mean to a king. He required the true king's return. In order to do that, he needed those around him he could trust. “Personal guard,” he murmured. “The men who accompanied me into the city.”

Ufford raised an eyebrow. “A mercenary troop?”

“Offer them permanent employment.”

“Very well, Your Majesty.” The quill scraped across the page, and Ufford looked up again. “Confessor?”

“Father Michael of Dunbury.”

“A village priest.”

“A devout man,” Elisha countered, and Ufford nodded mildly, making another note.
“New king is a fool,”
Elisha imagined him writing.
“Duke and archbishop must be God-struck to take a barber for a king.”

The quill poised, but the servants had succeeded in filling the bath and stood aside.

“My word, man, you do look a fright!” The Earl of Blackmere swept in, followed by a few servants of his own.

“By the by, Your Majesty,” said Ufford, still in that mild tone, “there are some people who wish to see you.”

Blackmere's servants set down a pair of chests and opened them to reveal piles of clothing in silk and velvet. “We are much the same size, you and I, and these might do until you get your own.” The earl started plucking things from the chests, arranging them on the counterpane. “Take off those things.”

Elisha shrugged out of his shirt, staring at the blood, then tossed it onto the fire. “Some, my lord? Who else?”

Then she stood at the door, a dark veil draping her hair and down her shoulders, clad in a gown of green like the one in which he had first seen her. “It's true then, you are alive.” Brigit pressed her hands to her lips, quivering with the effort of containing herself. “And more than alive!” She shook herself, nearly smiling, nearly weeping, and Elisha remembered lying in his grave, touched by the distant fall of her tears.

“I told you you were not ready for this,” murmured an older man who stepped up to take Brigit's arm. “Come with me, my darling. Forgive us, Your Majesty.” He managed something like a bow, and Brigit was drawn away, looking flushed and frail.

Shaking off his surprise, Elisha realized he should have known she would be here, as soon as she learned what was happening. Likely, she was staying in town since Alaric's funeral, looking for ways to ingratiate herself with the new monarch, or to establish some standing before she gave birth to the child she carried. Again, he thought of the grave. She had been the next to last person to see Morag alive, and Elisha could not simply dismiss her from his life. In two paces, he reached the door. “Come to the feast!” he called after them, and they paused, Brigit glanced back with a dazzling smile, as her companion glowered, pulling her closer with a protective arm. He urged her on before him down the stairs, but his bright eyes lingered on Elisha's, his mouth grim. And there was something familiar in the set of his brow. Her father, the magus Rowena's husband.

“We've lit the fire for you, Majesty,” said Ufford, and Elisha whirled, imagining the stake and the angel. Ufford drew back, fingers tightening around the book he carried.

“I need you all to go. Everyone. Please.”

With a snap of his fingers, Ufford summoned the attention of the servants, who glanced up uncertainly then gathered their buckets, resettled the drapes, replaced the poker, and filed out past Elisha with a series of little bobs and courtesies. “We shall be on the tower steps, Your Majesty.”

The earl gestured toward the clothes strewn all over the bed. “Your Majesty, I have—”

“Please, my lord,” Elisha said, leaning back against the nearest wall.

The earl bowed his head and ushered his own servants, shutting the door behind them. Elisha gazed at the bed with longing, covered now with expensive clothes. The bed was large enough to suit four patients at hospital. The bathtub steamed quietly near the fire, so Elisha shed the rest of his clothes and stepped in, his skin stinging at first with the heat.

He scrubbed the soot from his face and the ashes from his hair, letting Martin's blood slough away. Oh, if Martin could see him now. And Brigit, returned to seek the throne through him, as of course she would. But how well did she know the mancers? And had the mancers set him here?

Elisha shut his eyes, pushing back the layers of fear and confusion. He was ready for none of this, yet somehow he must be. Beneath all else, he was weary to the bone, weary from casting, weary of dying. He rubbed his hands over his face, finding that some of the blood was his own, a thin cut caused by some broken glass in Martin's house. Now he sat in Thomas's house, at the heart of a nation about to burn. He once used his own blood to conceal Thomas's presence, and he thought of the echoes of himself, as if his searching cry echoed from distant, unseen heights. Could Thomas be concealed from him again, by the same means? His heart quickened with the thought, even as his body relaxed into the warmth of the bath. He needed to make another attempt, but later, when he had regained his strength. With the last of his focus, he healed the slender cut.