Master and Fool (58 page)

The stranger
stripped off his gloves. Tavalisk noticed his hands were scarred, the skin
warped and reddened around the knuckles. They sat in silence, the fire cracking
between them, the candlelight flickering above. A vague feeling of unease came
over Tavalisk as he sat watching the stranger. The silence they shared had a
predatory feel, and after a few minutes Tavalisk felt
compelled to
speak.

"The snow is
soft and the winds are high. It's not a good time to take the pass."

The man raised his
gaze from the fire. Tavalisk had never seen eyes as cold as those: they were
ice formed over granite. The stranger stretched half a lip. "But you took
it all the same."

"I had no
choice. I need to get home as soon as possible."

"And where is
home?"

Tavalisk felt a
slight pain in his head. Somehow the stranger had managed to take control of
the conversation "Home is . . . " Tavalisk paused, considering. Home
wasn't Silbur anymore, so where was it? Where would he go?
Somewhere
far
away. He and Venesay had once visited Rorn. Tavalisk remembered it well; it was
a city burgeoning with new wealth and trade. Its streets teemed with people and
its temples were decked in gold. The perfect place to make himself anew.
"Rorn," he said. "My home is Rorn."

The man made a minute
gesture with his finger, and Tavalisk knew he hadn't been believed. "Where
do you come from?" Tavalisk said, trying to shake off his feeling of
unease.

"Leiss,
Hanatta. Silbur."

The last word was
spoken with telling emphasis and Tavalisk felt himself blushing. He was saved
by the reappearance of the tavern-maid. The girl held a tray full of food just
below her bosom. She fussed, smiled, served, and then reluctantly left.

The stranger wiped
the froth from his ale. "What business did you have in the north?"

Tavalisk wasn't
used to feeling cowed and he disliked the sensation very much. He cleared his
throat. "I am a religious scholar. I was visiting with the great mystic
Rapascus." As he spoke, his confidence grew. It was time to try out his
lies. "Unfortunately a terrible tragedy occurred and the great man died.
His home and his works were destroyed."

"Then you
have saved me a journey, my friend. For I, too, was to visit Rapascus."

Tavalisk drew in a
quick breath. This was the man whom Rapascus had invited to take his place. The
brilliant scholar from Silbur.

"Tavalisk, I
believe," said the stranger. "And you would be Baralis," said
Tavalisk.

The one called
Baralis turned to his dinner and broke both wing bones of his fowl.
"Rapascus wrote of you in his letters. He never mentioned you were
interested in religious research. But then you and he must have had a lot to
talk about, as that was his greatest area of interest, too." Tavalisk
loosened the collar of his tunic. He suddenly felt rather hot. "Oh, he dabbled
in religion, but his true love was mysticism: arcane ceremonies, inexplicable
phenomena, sorcery."

"You are
mistaken, my friend," said Baralis in a light but pointed tone. "In
one of the first letters Rapascus ever sent to me, he told of how close he was
to completing a reinterpretation of the classic religious texts. Borc was
revealed to him in a new but beneficent light, and he had spent years styling
that revelation into words."

"Well,
whatever he did has gone up in smoke, so we'll never know the truth of
it." Tavalisk decided it was time to retreat. He stood up.

"Tell me, my
friend," said Baralis, just as Tavalisk's foot touched the stair. "Do
you intend to publish your work?"

At that moment
Tavalisk knew that Baralis had not been fooled. He had seen through his lies as
surely as a nightfeeder sees through the dark. Tavalisk's first instinct was to
get away. Leave now, with the silent, accusing manuscripts in tow. He mumbled,
"Possibly. It's too early to tell," as he took the stairs two at a
time.

Baralis' voice
reached the top before he did. "I shall watch out for you, my
friend," he said. "I'll be most interested to see just how far you
go."

Tavalisk didn't
leave that night, he left just before dawn the following morning. The
tavern-maid took care of the bill. "Oh, I nearly forgot, sir," she
said as she handed Tavalisk the change. "That handsome gentleman from last
night asked me to send you his regards. He said he had a feeling you'd be
making an early start."

Tavalisk glanced
around the room. There was no sign of the man. It was time to get going. He
sorted through the copper pennies. "Here," he said to the girl,
handing her four of them. "Give these to the stableboy. I've a chest in my
room that needs to be brought down."

The girl and her
bosom simpered simultaneously. She shook her head and raised a flattened palm.
"Oh, the stableboy's already been paid for the job, sir. That nice
gentleman thought you'd be traveling with a heavy trunk."

Tavalisk couldn't
leave Lairston fast enough. He paid the wagon master to take the whip to his
horses and wouldn't hear of stopping, even for food.

Two weeks later he
reached Ness. His neck was badly cramped from constantly looking over his
shoulder, and his fingernails were bitten to the quick. Time and the warm climes
of the south eventually cured him of his watchfulness, and by the time he
arrived in Rorn- he had shaken off all his doubts. Baralis might indeed know
that he was in possession of Rapascus' lifework, but he was just one man with
no proof. It would be the word of a suspected sorcerer against the word of a
man of God.

And that was what
Tavalisk styled himself on coming to Rorn-: a man of God. It was his last and
final incarnation: Brother Tavalisk, classic scholar, man of letters.
Visionary.

Working out of a
small basement located beneath a fishmonger, it took Tavalisk two years to
transcribe Rapascus' work into his own hand. During the last few months, he
distributed a series of religious pamphlets as a taste of what was to come.
Even before he published the first of his masterworks, his name was made. Rom,
with its growing merchant classes, its new found sophistication, and its
burgeoning sense of pride, was ripe for the taking. It was hungry for new
ideas, new leaders, and new blood. Successful in its own right, it was ready to
step out from Silbur's shadow and find a sun of its own.

It was so easy.
With the pamphlets he gained disciples, with the masterworks he gained a city.
He was feted by everyone: the merchant classes loved his position on wealth,
the intellectuals loved his subtle attacks on religious traditionalism, and the
lower classes loved his wit.

Only the Church
hated him. And that was, for their part, the worst thing they could possibly
do. At that time in Rorn clergymen were looked upon as Silbur's spies. Silbur
itself was eyed with growing resentment by the people of Rorn-. What business
did that old, decaying city have telling them how to live their lives? Rorn was
vital, new, flourishing. Silbur was as bloodless as old bones.

Tavalisk became a
champion of this movement. He nudged, he stirred, he inflamed. Each night he
rifled through Rapascus' works, looking for more fuel for the fire. Pamphlet
after pamphlet he published. His fame spread, his following grew. He couldn't
leave the cellar without being mobbed.

Then the old
archbishop died and everything came to a head. Silbur sent a replacement out
straightaway-it was a grave error in judgment. They acted rashly because they
were afraid their influence was waning in Rorn, and they felt a flex of holy
muscle was in order. The man they sent was unknown to the good people of
Rorn--he was a dour-faced authoritarian who originally hailed from Lanholt--and
the city forcefully rejected him. During his welcoming parade, he was dragged
from his horse and stabbed in the back countless times.

It was a sight
Tavalisk never forgot. It demonstrated exactly what the people of this fair
city were capable of: brutal, daylight murder.

After that Silbur
became cautious. Fearing that they might lose influence over Rorn- altogether,
that a dangerous fracturing might occur in the Church and the city might simply
declare itself a religious power in its own right, Silbur agreed to let the
city choose its own archbishop. Well, not the city itself exactly, rather the holy
synod, but by that time Tavalisk was so powerful with the merchants and the
masses that the clergy dared not pick another. Apparently Tavalisk was not the
only one who never forgot the sight of the newly appointed archbishop lying in
a pool of his own blood. After all, clergymen were notorious cowards.

Within a month
Tavalisk was ensconced in the holy see of Rorn. He was the most popular
archbishop in over a thousand years. Silbur hated him, the local clergy
despised him, and He Who Is Most Holy had tried, unsuccessfully, to
excommunicate him. The citizens of Rorn adored him: he had brought the Church
to heel. He was young, brilliant, rebellious-a man of the people. He grew with
the city; as it prospered, so did he.

Months, years,
decades passed. Rom became the greatest trading city in the Known Lands and
Tavalisk became the most influential holy leader. His power was immeasurable,
his influence still great enough to cower Silbur. No one dared challenge him,
not He Who Is Most Holy, not even the old duke himself. He was the unofficial
head of the Church in the east, and was as good as a king in his adopted home
of Rom.

Tavalisk laid a
hand upon Rapascus' manuscripts. He could trust no one with the task of moving
these. Their discovery would ruin him. All the provocative theories, all the
blinding insights, the subtle reinvention of the Church: none of it was his.
And these documents alone could prove it. Tavalisk dragged the chest across the
room. It was time do what should have been done long ago. Picking a scroll at
random, he threw it onto the fire. It crackled, caught, and blackened in an
instant, giving off a thin plume of musky smoke. Tavalisk tossed in another
straight after it, and another after that. Soon the fireplace was raging like a
makeshift hell. The sight was comforting, to say the least. Now only he and
Baralis would ever know the truth.

Melli was huddled
in a comer. She had two blankets to keep her warm, but it was still barely
enough--even now, after Kylock had ordered Mistress Greal to have the shutters
sealed and thick velvet curtains hung to keep out the drafts. No fire, though.
That in itself was telling. Kylock was obviously worried that she might try to
set either the palace or him alight. And he was right: she would.

Melli wasn't at
all sure if she liked the new refinements to her room. With the shutters
closed, the light came in stingy slivers, banding the room like the markings on
a tourney field. Melli had developed a certain superstition concerning the
slow-moving lines and never liked to cross them. She was obviously going quite
mad cooped up in here. Not crossing lines, indeed!

The problem was
that when there was nothing else to do, little things began to occupy, then
niggle, the mind. Those new curtains, for instance. Melli was quite sure-but
not positive-that they were the same ones that used to hang in the duke's
bedchamber. Her wedding night was one of the few times she had been in that
chamber, but minor details had a way of staying with her. Strange to think that
whilst being held at knife-point, her gaze had wandered to the furnishings.
Well, eyes had to look somewhere, and better the curtains than the knife.
Anyway, the point was Melli believed that the curtains were one and the same,
and she was now concerned with deciding if it was a bad omen or a good one.

The duke had died
in sight of those curtains, but she, herself, had survived. Melli now knew that
she had never really loved the duke; she was flattered by his attention,
impressed by his power, and drawn along by the sheer force of his will. She had
desperately wanted to be loved for herself, and the moment she thought that was
so, she swooned like a lovesick maiden. She had no experience of love, nothing
to judge it against. The duke was the first person to woo her. He gave her
exotic, eloquent gifts and filled her head with praise. He loved her spirit and
acknowledged her intelligence by promising her equal say. All this coming from
the most powerful leader in the north. Her vanity wasn't just flattered, it was
overwhelmed.

She hadn't been in
love with the duke, she'd been in love with his vision of
her.

Her feelings for Tawl
had put everything in perspective. When you really loved someone, their absence
didn't make you feel numb, it tore away at your heart. The duke's death had
been a shock, nothing more. It had left her cold, frightened, and bemused. She
had hardly spared him a thought in months, and if it wasn't for those green
velvet curtains, she wouldn't be thinking of him now.

Melli shrugged.
Perhaps she was hard-hearted, but having endured over four months of
imprisonment and persecution and abuse, she was inclined to think her husband
got off lightly.

The curtains
were
a good omen, she decided. They weren't red, and that in itself was a
blessing, but more importantly than that, they were the curtains that had
swished on the breeze as Tawl raced in to save her life. With luck they just
might swish again.

Not that she was
content to count on luck. Melli stood up. Her knees cracked like an old woman's
and her back protested like an old man. Her body was now heavy with pregnancy
and every movement she made was a challenge to her spine, her joints, and her
hips. Swollen-ankled, belly cupped, Melli made her way toward her secret stash.
She crossed two light lines just to spite herself and paused to put her ear to
the door for safety's sake.

Her collection, as
she liked to call it, was hidden in the space between the large linen chest and
the wall. It had started with Mistress Greal's left glove and now had grown to
another left glove--courtesy of Kylock this time--a glass goblet, a candle, a
belt and buckle, and a handful of old bones. Melli wasn't entirely sure that
all of them would prove useful, but she cherished them all the same. Turn
Kylock's glove inside-out and it would do for her right hand. The belt could
tie someone up. The candle was a problemshe needed a flint to light it-but the
goblet was a weapon in the making.