Grand Conspiracy (19 page)

‘Dharkaron's Black Spear!' The crown's master healer rammed to his feet in flustered annoyance. He pressed through the busy women in the factor's office, cracked the door, and yelled to his youthful assistants, ‘Get busy lighting the sconces and candles! Now! Jump on it! His Grace's high officers have no liking at all for musty dim corners and shadows that remind them of darkness.'

Abandoned in the wake of last-minute preparations, the old man retrieved the dropped pitcher. He rinsed the soapy head
under his fingers, and without visible hurry, toweled the comatose soldier's streaming hair. Then he left his charge in the care of the women.

‘Don't scream if he stirs,' he admonished on parting, his amusement damped back to a madcap twinkle in the artless depths of his eyes.

‘Ye're moonstruck,' the grandmother among them replied, laughing, and shooed him back into the warehouse.

There, he might as well have been invisible for all the notice anyone paid him. The frenzied scurry of preparations flowed right and left, banked candles and lanterns set burning at profligate expense. If the Prince of the Light went nowhere without ceremony, his high council officers emulated court style. The old man chose an unobtrusive stance against the sagged boards of old shelving. His ancient, patched coat flapped against his booted ankles as the large double doors that fronted the dockside were unlatched and dragged open.

Two pages entered, their deep blue crown livery adorned with sunwheel sashes. Next followed a herald, his tabard roped with gold, the glittering white silk smirched with a dusting of snowflakes. While the chill swirled and flowed to the farthest-flung crannies, and candleflames streamed with the draft, he bawled out his formal announcement of the imminent presence of crown officers.

Two magistrates stepped in as the echoes died away. They wore their formal robes of judgment and collars of gleaming links. With them came the Lord Crown Examiner, robed in ermine and white silk, and a second figure of impressive presence and seal-colored beard and hair. Diamond studs shot scintillant fire, warmed by a linked chain of dragons masterfully wrought in tooled gold. The inclement weather had not ruffled his fine clothes, which meant that somewhere outside, a stoic pack of servants had borne a closed litter or palanquin.

The argumentative clutch of clerks trailing the first pair did not merit such nicety. They wore snow in their hat brims, and discommoded expressions of forbearance. Last came the lean and predatory form of the Alliance Lord Commander at Arms. That one strode in like a hungry hawk, his black-hilted weapons and alert carriage in sharp contrast to the disdainful court secretary who waddled, self-important as a citybred pigeon. Six sunwheel guardsmen escorted the retinue, their glittering trappings and ceremonial helms buffed to a dazzling polish. These ushered in
their turn a trio of curiosities: a tall woman trailing a sequined train and a shoulder yoke of pheasant wings and peacock eyes. Next came a skinny, bald man robed in sable and purple velvet; then a wizened creature of indeterminate sex, with one gouged-out eye socket and a blackthorn walking stick capped with a crow skull and fringed with rattling bone beads. Four liveried footmen brought up the rear, loaded chin high with oddments and bizarre paraphernalia.

The array was eclectic. From his unobtrusive vantage outside the hub of activity, the old man picked out several portable bronze braziers, clay vessels stamped with runes, and two amphorae of ruby glass. Less wholesome than these, stained with the aura of dark usage, was a goblet made from a cranial bone rimmed in tarnished silver. A trailing tangle of embroidery identified the filched mantle from a ransacked hostel of Ath's Brotherhood. Two matched onyx candlesticks wafted a perfume of heavy incense, even through the rampaging wind that rushed in, rank with the salt rime razed off the harbor.

Through a sifting swirl of snow, the rattle of bone beads, and the sonorous flourish of the herald, the page boys wrestled the heavy doors shut. There panoply paused. The crown's master healer hastened forward and bowed under the gimlet regard of the Lord Commander. The high councilmen looked bored, and the clerks stood resigned, while the countrywomen whispered from the inner doorway of the factor's office, their capable hands pink from wash suds.

Their interest was matched by the old man in the rag coat, tucked in his corner with the pert fascination of a house wren. ‘You know that's a necromancer's stick?' he commented to no one in particular. ‘Very rare. Dangerous, too. I wonder whose unpleasant little sigil lends it power?'

Across the warehouse, the official with the resplendent dress exchanged smooth talk with the healer. His seamless, court bearing set each gesture apart, while the more heavyset Lord Examiner shifted from foot to foot in resentment, and the servants divested their burdens with thinly concealed distaste. The guardsmen and the robed magistrates looked on like cranes, overseeing disposition of the eccentrics, who were named as prisoners under arraignment for the practice of unlawful sorceries.

Their condemned status notwithstanding, they argued. The discord swelled into an arm-waving clamor concerning who held right of precedence. The magistrates deadlocked over whose
authority should silence them, while the herald, resigned, waded in and settled their shouting with a peasant's practice of drawing straws. In decorous language, the clerk of the court then assigned each mismatched contestant to a cot with an unconscious occupant.

The bald man jabbed his splayed fingers and demanded that everyone stand back.

‘What, for you?' the woman retorted, skirling in spangles to face him. ‘Why should we give way one inch for a showman who couldn't draw spells to drop fresh dung from a pig?'

The altercation flared, while the withered oldster caught in between remained single-mindedly oblivious.

‘Good people!' the herald called in vexation. ‘There will be no specialized treatment between you. The Lord Examiner and Avenor's crown magistrates will judge merit upon equal standing!'

A strained truce prevailed, while the master healer looked irritated, and the contestants who had rudely invaded his domain reclaimed their sundry paraphernalia. Under the frosty regard of the Lord Examiner and the unnamed, dapper high officer, they began setting up with businesslike self-importance. The heavyset secretary broke out his lap desk and uncorked his inkwell, while his chilblained apprentice sharpened his quills, and the robed clerks readied the sunwheel seal and gold wax, and snipped lengths from a spool of white ribbon. The magistrates shook melting snow off drooped hats. They peered down long noses to render judgment as the woman unclipped the clasp at her throat, shed her train amid an electrical jitter of reflections, and undertook the first trial.

She began by spreading her sequin train over her assigned victim. She lit tapers. The ancient, carved sconces streamed cloying smoke as she waved long-nailed hands to a chiming descant of silver bracelets. For an interval, the officials coughed and dabbed runny eyes, while she circled the cot and muttered a singsong incantation.

‘A farce, indeed,' muttered the old man in the shadows. His eyes became piercing, narrowed to slits as the flashy train was whisked off to unveil the man underneath. His pale face was still, the comatose limbs no more responsive than before.

The magistrates straightened from their whispered consultation. The elder one rapped out his verdict. ‘The accused is proved guilty of fraud.'

‘Another charlatan!' the Crown Examiner concurred. He pronounced the lighter sentence. ‘The objects used for this act of chicanery shall be burned without recompense. The offender will be fined ten silvers and set free with a warning not to repeat her offense.'

‘No more have I coin, since your constables ransacked my lodgings!' the woman yelled in defiance.

The magistrates lent her outburst no credence. ‘If she has no relations to dun for her fine, give her penury and hard labor with the city's slop crews.'

The secretary scribbled the added amendment, and the woman resorted to curses. Her shouts turned shrill as two burly guardsmen ushered her, struggling, through the door and remanded her into the custody of the garrison men-at-arms posted in the snowfall outside.

Due process ground on, as ribbons and seal were proffered by the clerks, under candles that flagged in the draft as the outer doors were shoved closed. The healer masked his face in weary hands, and the raggedy character with the crow skull stick flashed a triumphant smile celebrating a rival's departure.

‘Next defendant,' droned the magistrate. ‘Make your case for the court.'

The man in gaudy velvet strode forward. Chin held high, each gesture theatrical, he unwrapped a set of shell rattles, then lit something in his brazier that gave off a reek like singed wool and cat piss. His display opened with patterns chalked in a circle around a row of candles, moved on through a muttered consultation with a smoky quartz scrying ball, then broke into rattling, witha swaying ululation over a brush tied from a hanged man's hair. The act ended in daubing a sticky decoction over the face and the feet of his still unconscious subject.

The fine for his failure was double the woman's.

‘Well, at least they recognize a fake when they see one,' the old man said, bemused from the sidelines. His expression now shaded toward genuine concern, as though he perceived something more than straightforward trial and judgment.

Last came the shapeless oldster. The shed hood revealed female gender and a filthy bristle of white hair. She wore a necklace of pig's teeth. The necromancer's stick pinched within her twig fingers seemed to glare blue for an instant as she bent and ignited the twisted black rootstock she had shredded in her brazier.

‘No!' The old man flipped up his cowled collar and strode out
of the shadows, no longer deferent, but charged to a startling, sharp air of command. ‘You will not light that here, madam!' Nor was his authority less than absolute as he entered the circle of candlelight. ‘The herb you've chosen will cause harm in this case, and that stick is an unclean implement with which to recall a man's blameless, strayed spirit.'

‘The lad will awaken,' rasped the crone, the glint in her single eye sullen.

‘Pass the Wheel, more likely,' the old man corrected. The improved illumination fully revealed him, even to the peculiar, detailed threadwork that patterned his coat of drab motley. The boots he wore underneath the long hem were a horseman's, scuffed with hard wear and marred at the toes with small holes that looked punched by cinders. For some reason beyond logic, that oddity lent his presence a fierce credibility.

The royal guardsmen deferred to his onslaught of aimed purpose. The Lord Examiner's bellowed query passed unheeded as the old man burst into the inner circle, quashed the sullen, smoking coal in the brazier with a bare-handed touch, then faced the herb witch head-on.

‘My lords, beware!' snapped the Alliance Lord Commander, spurred to an explosive rush forward. ‘This newcomer wields true magecraft.'

The old man in his motley turned not a hair, despite the scrambling retreat of crown officers, then the Lord Examiner's outraged order to stand firm, and the subsequent cry for the royal guards to form a defensive cordon.

‘The stick,' the stranger demanded. Each word fell distinct through the wail of bared steel. As though disconnected from the surrounding consternation, his attention remained fixed on the woman as he extended his hand. ‘I'll dispose of it safely.'

‘This is a rank outrage!' Avenor's Lord Examiner elbowed past the dumbstruck secretary and clerks, his slab jowls jerked to a tic. ‘Who are you?'

The old man smiled, the turn of his lips beneath beard and hood disarming as new butter. ‘Someone you'd dearly enjoy burning, no doubt.' Still focused on the hag, he asked, ‘Woman, what do you fear?'

‘No fear!' shrilled the crone. ‘Not of you! None for him.' Her distraught gesture encompassed the diamond-still presence of the state official who had thus far not deigned to speak. The moment of impasse gained force and momentum, while the
crone clutched the stick, and a cold like spun current ran off its incised runes and shaved the air brittle with danger. The court magistrates stopped their clamor; the guards froze to a man. Lord Examiner Vorrice turned his nose sharply, a hound on a scent, then snarled at the Lord Commander at Arms, whose hard restraint trapped his wrist.

‘What do you fear?' the old man repeated. His entreaty held a note of compassion that belled through explosive stillness.

The woman's gaze fell. ‘I fear to burn. You know this.' The stiff, clawlike hand clasped to the artifact spasmed to trembling frailty. Whatever malevolent force the stick channeled seemed poised, unstable as the suspended cling of a waterdrop.

The old man surveyed her desperate stance and discerned deeper meanings behind her simple admission. ‘You're cold. The winter is cruel where folk are made fearful of those who sell the old remedies. You may take my word for your safety and the promise of shelter.' He shed his rag coat in one fluid motion. ‘Go to freedom in Havish in exchange for leaving that stick.'

‘You have no right to release a crown convict!' pealed the Crown Examiner in flushed rage.

‘But I have, in this case.' Underneath the drab motley, in startling transformation, the old man wore wine red robes with edged borders of black interlace that looked newly made from the tailor's.

‘Your bond, I can trust,' the crone relented. Her short laugh held an unlooked-for delight as she yielded and curtsied, and let him accept the stick from her unsteady grasp.

The pending sense of danger built and trembled on the air. Though the candles burned straight in the draftless atmosphere, the stone floor seemed to rock without movement.

With no fanfare, no warning, the old man ran his gnarled palm hard down the length of the wood. The staff spoke, a chilling vibration of sound like the wail of a terrified child. In shattering contrast, the light that bloomed under his sure touch was wrought out of limpid clarity. A wash of bound energies whined past and dispersed. The candles streamed then, and the scentless backwash ruffled the feathers and damp hats of the magistrates, and shot queer, starred pulses off the steel of the guards' helms and weaponry. Nor was the staff scatheless. The carved runes dissolved in a spatter of red sparks, licking scintillant fire through the odd, silent courtier's pale ermines and exquisite linked diamond studs.