Dark Ages Clan Novel Tremere: Book 11 of the Dark Ages Clan Novel Saga Read online

  “Comfort is not a priority for my masters, milady,” he said at last. “Particularly not my comfort. They have generously proffered me one—and only one—opportunity to clean up the mess I made of things. This is how I’ve chosen to make that attempt…bearing in mind the rules as they have now been explained to me.”

  “I see.” She leaned forward. Her voice lowered. Could it be actual sympathy? The damned bitch. “And if you should fail?”

  The laugh that bubbled up from his throat was a good deal more bitter than anything he’d meant to give voice to. “Failure is not among the choices before me, milady.”

  There. Will you be satisfied at last? May I pass on to my next torment now, hellcat?

  “I see,” she said again. She began bearing off her pieces. “You are hardly the only one in Magdeburg laboring under that constraint, Master Tremere.”

  He frowned. It was a hint, certainly. The question was whether it was meant to help him or mislead him. Then again, if she really wanted to frustrate his plans, all she had to do was go on ignoring his existence just as she had for the last several months. Hopefully, the fact that he was here tonight at all meant she felt a need to test the waters, which meant that Jürgen felt a need to test the waters…which must mean that he was worried.

  “Your turn,” she informed him.

  “Actually, since your ladyship has clearly won already, I’m happy to concede the game.”

  She laughed, a perfect bell-like laugh. He relaxed. They were back on their original footing. Perhaps he’d passed the test. Or perhaps they were only on to a new one now, since she followed up the laugh with: “Very well. I’ll let you concede, if you’ll show me a bit of magic instead.”

  “A bit of magic?” he repeated.

  “Unless you’ve suddenly become like those other wizards you were speaking of earlier, who say they’re students of the great secrets and not street-conjurors performing for coin,” she teased him.

  “Not at all, not at all,” he said, feeling absurd. “It should be my honor to amuse such a beautiful and noble lady. Let me see, let me think. Ah. May I use a scrap from that sewing basket?”

  “Certainly.”

  He retrieved one and selected a short length of silk cord from within. “And may I impose again and borrow the ring on milady’s left hand?”

  She smiled, slipped it off and passed it over. He knotted the ring onto the string, then closed his hand over it.

  “Phorba phorba askei kataski!” he cried out, gesturing with his free hand. A spark of blue radiance flashed out from between his closed fingers. He opened his fist to show the cord, now unknotted and missing the ring. Then he rubbed his hands together, to emphasize their emptiness, and extracted the ring from the dice-cup.

  She laughed again and clapped. “Lovely.”

  “But…” he supplied.

  “But…” She hesitated, then shrugged. “Well, the truth is I once saw a juggler do almost exactly the same trick, only without that flash of light.”

  He chuckled. “I’m sure it was the same trick, except for the flash of light which, I admit, I added for pure show.”

  “Then—I see, you’ve been having me on.”

  “Never having you on, milady. After all, I confessed the truth to you right away. But once I did it for a fellow-wizard, and do you know, he pestered me about it for the rest of my visit. Was it this spell, was it that spell, was it a variation on Celorb’s dispersal perhaps?”

  “And yet it wasn’t a spell at all…”

  He polished her ring on the shoulder of his bliaut and handed it back. “If you can’t tell the difference, what difference does it make?”

  “If you can’t tell the difference.” She looked the ring over. He felt a jolt of embarrassment as he realized she was trying to ascertain that he’d indeed returned the genuine article.

  “Milady, surely you don’t think—”

  “No, Master Tremere, I can see that it’s mine. Even you could hardly know to copy the inscription on the inside of a band that hasn’t left my hand since it was first put on, could you? And as you said…at least you confessed the truth to me right away this time,” she went on in a more serious tone. “It’s better for the future, I think, that we clearly understand each other. You are a wizard, yes, but you also believe in practicality.”

  He recovered himself as quickly as he could. “Yes, milady. It is in itself a kind of wizardry to know when to use magic, and when some other method will serve just as well or better—”

  She held up a warning hand. He stopped, irritation melting into apprehension as it became clear that she was genuinely listening for something. One of her handmaidens appeared in the doorway.

  “Mademoiselle, forgive me,” the woman said. “But your brother—”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Rosamund interrupted. “See him in.”

  The woman dropped a hurried but graceful curtsey and backed out again. Jervais heard the soft chink of spurs and the slap of leather on wood, which was shortly followed by the entrance of Sir Josselin de Poitiers, Rosamund’s brother-in-Blood.

  “Petite,” he began, “you must—ah.” He stopped short, looking down his slim handsome nose at Jervais. His glare rippled violently through the warlock. Those of Josselin’s blood often had that ability, to send the passions of their humors through the very air. Though Jervais had grown more used to it over time, it still caught him unprepared now and again. His teeth gritted under the onslaught.

  It seemed to catch the knight himself unprepared too, after a fashion. At least he hastily reined himself in, the aura of demigod’s pique disappearing as though it had never been, and turned instead to Rosamund. “Blanche might have told me you were still with…your company.”

  She waved this off. “Josselin, not now.”

  “No, not now,” he agreed at once.

  “Is there news?”

  “Yes. You must come at once. You’ve been asked for. Forgive us, Master Tremere,” he added.

  Why is it I’m never granted my own name? “Not at all, messire,” Jervais replied in his best tone of empathetic concern. “I certainly would not wish to keep her ladyship from anything important. Indeed, if it’s that serious, perhaps I should go myself.”

  “I don’t recall your being appointed one of his Highness’s advisers,” Sir Josselin returned. Then he seemed to realize that he was giving away too much in his eagerness to insult, and he fell silent.

  “Of course, and I should hardly presume, messire,” Jervais said. “But if his Highness is indeed summoning his advisers, then he may soon require the assistance of his humbler servants as well. And I would far rather arrive to find my services unwelcome than hear later that I was asked for and nowhere to be found.”

  The two nobles exchanged glances.

  “In that case, I suppose we should all ride together,” Josselin said. “We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you on the road.”

  “You do me too much honor, messire.” Jervais stood and made a low, unctuous bow.

  Chapter Two

  The ride to St. Paul’s was short and silent but filthy. The streets and roads were plagued with muck that three days’ worth of drizzle had dampened but not washed away. At first Jervais tried vainly to hitch up his fine long bliaut so that it wouldn’t be spattered, then he decided it might be to his advantage to give the appearance of having hurried pell-mell to his host’s aid. It was important to remember what sort of Cainite Jürgen was, and his monk-knight lieutenants in the Black Cross order as well. The preciosities that other courts thrived on they considered despicable, indulgent. A little mud no doubt conveyed sincerity.

  A pair of groomsmen took the bridles of their steaming horses almost before they’d stopped, and a young squire was waiting nearby to usher them inside.

  “Lady Rosamund,” he blurted. “Sir Josselin.” He stopped and stared at Jervais.

  “And Jervais bani Tremere of Ceoris,” Jervais supplied richly. “Your august lord knows the name, I assure you
.”

  The lad opened his mouth to speak, glanced at Rosamund and Sir Josselin (who offered no help or hindrance whatever), then shut it again and nodded. “Very well. Come, please.”

  He conducted them across the grounds into the guesthouse of the fortified priory. A fire leapt on high in a hearth at one end of the room—a huge hearth, meant to warm a room filled with dozens of human folk, perhaps cook them some soup at the same time. With a bare handful of wax-pale Cainites there now, the enormous blaze looked more menacing than cheering. Indeed, as Jervais used his blood-strength to sharpen the weak eyesight a mocking God had given him, he could see that they all stood a safe distance away from it. Rosamund and Josselin were let inside without a murmur, but the door-guard’s spear came down at an angle before Jervais, stopping him at the threshold. The squire leaned up on tiptoe to whisper into the guard’s ear. Jervais could have sharpened his hearing as well and heard the precise words, but there was hardly a need. The guard leaned his head slightly inside the door to hiss at someone just within. Further words were exchanged. A few moments later Jervais heard a murmur arise at the far side of the room. The voice of Prince Jürgen soared over it.

  “I don’t care. Let the man in. Let him in!” he repeated for the benefit of the mortal man at the door. Jervais smiled as the spear moved aside again. But he hastily composed himself into what he hoped was the right purposeful, slightly worried manner before he went in.

  “Meister Tremere. Hurry along there,” Prince Jürgen called out. “Don’t bother making all the legs, just come.”

  Jervais halted in mid-bow and did as he was told, bustling up to the front. “Your Highness,” he said, touching knee to stone as quickly as could be done. Jürgen immediately motioned him up.

  Next to Jürgen stood a thin Cainite in a priest’s cassock—Father Erasmus, Jürgen’s confessor—and another one Jervais didn’t recognize, dressed as most of the Black Cross knights dressed, in the garb of the mortal Teutonic Order. Brother Christof, Jürgen’s second in command, stood brooding off to one side, hand straying reflexively to sword hilt. It took Jervais a little longer to find the last person in the room because he was the only one sitting down. He was a Cainite with hair tonsured in the knights’ usual style and wearing an emblazoned habit, huddled in a chair in Jürgen’s substantial shadow. A blanket covered his legs. One leg seemed to be little wider than a broomstick, and Jervais could just imagine the sight that lay beneath. A vampire could recover even lost limbs, given time and blood enough to heal, but the process of re-growing bone and muscle and re-stringing sinew, was slow and arduous. The firelight threw the lines of pain in his face into harsh relief.

  “Very well. Now that we’re all here…” Jürgen nodded at a human squire, who ran off. “Lady Ambassador, Herr Josselin, Meister Tremere. I think Herr Josselin is the only one of you to have met Brother Eckard before.”

  “Of course, on campaign in Hungary,” Josselin nodded, bowing. “I am sorry to see you injured, brother.”

  The wounded man bowed in turn from the waist. “Herr Josselin. I remember you with great respect.”

  “Brother Eckard rode all the way from the Livonian front despite his wound to carry us the news,” Jürgen said brusquely, glancing at Josselin and then at Rosamund, who stood frozen. “I’m afraid it’s very bad. I thought that you should be the first to know, meine Dame.”

  He turned to the squire, who’d returned with a bit of folded cloth that he transferred into Jürgen’s hands. The prince let it fall open. Framed in his powerful arms it seemed very small indeed, sized more for a slip of a boy than a man—which wasn’t far from the truth. It was a surcoat of fine white cloth, now bloodied and streaked with dirt. Still visible through the blotches of red were the black embroidered “tails” of the ermine pattern and the purple stripe that ran vertically down the middle with a circlet of leaves embroidered atop that in gold thread.

  A choking sound echoed in the room. Jervais glanced up, startled. It was the only graceless noise he’d ever heard emerge from the Lady Rosamund’s swanlike throat. With utmost gravity Jürgen brought the cloth over to her, offering it. She hesitated but then took it. A moment later her skirt wobbled and she began to sink toward the floor. Sir Josselin caught her elbow and bore her up until she recovered her usual proud posture.

  “Vair, on a pale purpure, a laurel wreath or,” he murmured, gazing at it in shock. Rosamund tried to blink back the film of red in her eyes.

  The arms of Alexander, sometime Prince of Paris, now liege-lord to Lady Rosamund and general in service to his far younger clansman Jürgen the Sword-Bearer; recently sent to Livonia to subdue the upstart pagans. As every other heart in the room either sank or quailed, Jervais felt his rise and expand, unshackled at last.

  “How…how is it possible?” Josselin managed at last. “One of such age, such power…”

  “But no faith, I fear,” Brother Eckard finished. The prince frowned but said nothing. “Forgive me, milord. Milord Alexander showed great courage and gallantry in the face of the enemy, and I pray nightly for his soul. But he would not humble himself before the Lord, even though it was the Lord’s work we sought to do. I fear our enterprise suffered for it in the end. Perhaps…perhaps the rest of us failed in spirit somehow as well. I must do penance.”

  Father Erasmus laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “There must have been treachery of some kind,” Christof broke in. “Heathen sorcery.” His quick dark eyes darted over to Jervais.

  Jürgen looked at Jervais as well. “Yes, sorcery…I’m afraid there likely was that.”

  Jervais simply nodded, not knowing if a response was expected.

  “The Tartar was like one possessed—whether by sorcery or some other foulness I don’t know,” Eckard mused. “He went bareheaded and barefoot, and moved more like a beast than a man. It was so swift, the fighting, that the eye could barely follow it except when they locked each other immobile for a brief moment. Yet for all the swiftness, it seemed to take hours… and then I was drowned and saw no more.”

  “Could no one intervene?” Rosamund asked desperately.

  “Meine Dame, it seems a mire quite suddenly opened up under the battlefield, trapping everyone, or nearly everyone, except for Qarakh himself and your lord,” Jürgen answered.

  “Who is this Qarakh?” Josselin wanted to know. “Are we any closer to finding that out?”

  “We have a little information… Thanks, in part, to the Tremere of Ceoris,” the prince said.

  A public acknowledgment of my assistance? What next?

  “And now,” he went on, “Brother Eckard and the two other brothers who’ve made it back so far have a little more that they’ve told us.”

  “We must call a council,” Christof urged.

  “We will call a council, but not tonight,” Jürgen assured him. “Herr Josselin, your lady sister needs to be seen home.”

  “Of course, your Highness.”

  “After that, we must request that you do us the great kindness of conveying the news of Lord Alexander’s death back to his childe in Paris.”

  Jervais valiantly suppressed a smirk. That would be Geoffrey, current Prince of Paris—at his lord sire the former prince’s expense. He wondered whether there would be the pretense of grief, or not.

  Josselin absorbed this with obvious difficulty. “Your Highness.” He bowed again. “It is my honor to serve, so long as milady gives her permission of course.”

  Rosamund nodded faintly.

  “Good. Then go at once with my earnest thanks, mein Herr. You may go as well, Meister Tremere, but I think we must have a talk sometime soon. I will call for you.”

  “Of course, your Highness.” Jervais made a deep obeisance but decided not to append any courtly words to it. No doubt they’d only be taken as a jab or an expression of unseemly pleasure. He followed Josselin and Rosamund out and all but ran for his horse. Thank Great Tremere, the house that Jürgen’s seneschal had chosen for him in town was quite close to Lady Rosamu
nd’s abode. He didn’t have much time. Jürgen had said, “Go at once,” and Sir Josselin was, if nothing else, a man to follow orders.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” Jürgen muttered.

  Christof turned his grim face away, but the reproach in the air remained.

  “There’s no choice anymore,” he went on. “Clearly we went in missing vital facts. Either this squat-legged savage is a lot older than we gave him credit for, or he does indeed have the aid of some demonic power. Alexander is dead, my friends.”

  “With all due respect, Hochmeister,” Brother Meinhard put in, “better him than you. If the Lady Rosamund had not, so to speak, volunteered him…”

  “And if he hadn’t agreed to go, for her sake no doubt.”

  “And for his own,” Meinhard reminded him hastily. “In any case, not for the right reasons. I must agree with Brother Eckard fully on that.”

  “Yes, but even if he went in with the worst reasons in the world, he should still have been able to defeat such ragamuffins handily.” Jürgen paced over to a chair, whirled it around and sat. “Clearly we need help. They’ve offered it. I intend to take them up on it.”

  “The Tremere have shown their treachery to you once before, milord,” Christof said, in a voice close to a growl. “And the stories you yourself brought back from Hungary, about the ambitions the Usurpers cherish that have not yet been exposed to the princes of the West.”

  “Stories from Rustovitch’s lickspittles and attendants,” Jürgen returned. “Hardly an unbiased source. I’m sure they were ordered to sound me out about the possibility of colluding with their master against the Tremere. I think Rustovitch would gladly take the hand even of my sire, if it meant the wizards’ destruction. And just as gladly the wizards seek to take my hand in a mutual pledge to destroy Rustovitch—or if I won’t accede to that right away, to a pledge to destroy Qarakh in Livonia so that Rustovitch may be next. And neither Rustovitch nor the Tremere are truly my friends, whatever agreements we make to the contrary. We all wish each other gone from Hungary—indeed from all the East. It’s only a question of what temporary alliances will form on the way to utter annihilation. Be sure I’m well aware of all of this, Brother Christof, but unfortunately it changes nothing.”