Arcanum (16 page)

“Does that answer any of your questions, my lord?”

“You could, if you wanted, kill us all and take the palatinate.” He stared straight ahead. “If you’re right, there’s no one who could stop you. Not now.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “but what would I do with it then? I’ve no interest in it and even less idea of how things work off of Goat Mountain. I’d have to resurrect you and all your advisers to show me how it was done.”

“You can do that?”

“No. It was a joke.” The corner of her mouth creased into a smile. “Even if I could bring you back, you’d be a mindless slave. Besides, I’ve no desire to turn you out of your throne.”

Gerhard rode on in silence for a moment. “The boy…”

“The boy’s a boy with wise masters. He’ll become a man who’s been taught well. At the moment, he’s too young to be scared of war, or even of me. He’ll learn that, too.”

“The princes of Carinthia have been in alliance with the Order for nearly a thousand years. What happens next? Where will Felix’s hexmasters come from?” The prince looked pensive. “I didn’t sleep much last night. If at all. These things, going around in my head, all the time. Everything we do relies on the simple effect of magic. Without it? We descend to barbarism and worse. Tell me the Order’s impotence is temporary.”

“The Order’s impotence is temporary,” she said.

“But you don’t believe that, do you?”

“I’ve no evidence one way or the other. Define temporary: is it a week, a month, or a year? Or a decade?”

“This brings me no comfort.”

“I’m not here for that. I’m here because you called.”

“Everyone must think that nothing’s changed. The hexmasters are still in their tower, the prince is still in the fortress. All as it has always has been.”

“But you can’t keep them fooled forever. When the barges stop coming, the millstones stop grinding, the carts stop rolling – they’re going to know.”

The prince turned a strange shade of red. “They will not.”

“My lord, the sun comes up every morning and sets every evening. If it didn’t, just once, the whole world would know and there’d be nothing you could do about it. People talk. No law you pass can change that.”

“They’ll do as they’re told.” Gerhard was adamant. “No one, inside or outside Carinthia must know.”

Nikoleta wondered how he was going to manage that. As far as the people of Juvavum were concerned, only one hexmaster had met the prince’s summons. Wasn’t that worth gossiping over? She’d heard a story once of a Danish king who’d given a simple but elegant demonstration of the limits of his authority by having his throne carried to the edge of a turning tide.

She wasn’t in charge. She had no wish to be in charge and no idea what she would do if she was. Yet even she could tell that the prince’s plan was unworkable. And not because he was stupid, but because accepting the truth was simply too much for him to bear. Gerhard was to be pitied, and she found that she did indeed pity him.

“As you wish, my lord.” She eased off on the reins, and let him pull ahead. Several of his earls overtook her too, and she found herself at the back of the column of horse with Signore Allegretti.

“Good day, Mistress,” said the tutor.

She raised her eyebrows, and he looked to the left and the right.

“My apologies. I had assumed that someone wishing to be on their own would not choose to ride next to me. Should I remove myself from your presence before you remove me more permanently?”

“Where’s the boy?”

“With,” he said, craning his neck, “his father. He can only learn so much from me: defending himself, mainly, not defending the palatinate.”

She looked at him sharply, but he seemed not to notice.

“And, to be honest, he is already a good swordsman. I can still beat him, but my reach is longer and my fire burns brighter. Felix sees everything as a game. Even this. Even what you did. When he learns otherwise, he will outgrow my poor company.”

“I’m sure you’ll do whatever’s best for the boy.”

“Felix will have my best intentions, no matter what. However, this adventure seems singularly badly advised.”

“And you say that for a reason, or because you have an ache in your left elbow?”

“Mistress, as impressive as your demonstration was, I would still like to know where your colleagues are.”

“I…”

“One of the fundamental dicta of any fight, whether it is a brawl between two drunks or a clash of two empires, is to bring everything you have to bear on your opponent’s weakest point. What we have is them …” – he pointed behind him and ahead of him – “and you.”

“Your prince believes it to be sufficient.” She looked again at Allegretti. Her experience of men, mundane or otherwise, hadn’t been good.

“My employer,” said the Italian, “believes a great many things, and believes that his subjects should believe a great many more. I am neither a prince nor one of his subjects.”

“All the same…”

“I would be happier if there were two of you. Happier still if there were three. It is a shame my happiness is not the prince’s concern.”

Nikoleta wondered if she should lie, but she’d had little practice in deceit since childhood. Mind, she’d been really very good then, even though it got her into as much trouble as it saved her from. Lying to a hexmaster, however, wasn’t such a smart thing to do.

“The prince is satisfied,” she repeated.

“Are
you
, Mistress?” He angled his head in an attitude of contemplation. “I do not know the complexities of your craft – no one does – but I have seen a Sicilian conjurer brought down by sheer weight of numbers and literally torn limb from limb.
He
was on his own, too.”

“I’m not on my own.”

“I think you are always on your own, no matter how many of you there are. But I phrase myself badly. German is neither of our first languages, yes?” Allegretti made a deprecating gesture with one of his hands. “You are our most valuable asset. So the prince must concentrate on protecting you, while you win the battle. Not on winning the battle itself.”

“The white robe.” She looked down at herself, at the way she glowed in the morning light; she was clearly distinguishable from all the others, even the earls in their battle colours.

“Now,” said Allegretti, “a group of figures in white robes, throwing elemental forces around as if they were a company of bandieratori, very impressive, very scary, very one-sided. One figure in a white robe, surrounded by nervous armed men? I may be the only man here who has ever experienced warfare in the flesh, so why not ask me where I would tell my archers to fire, where I would concentrate my strongest swordsmen?”

The sick feeling in her stomach didn’t go away. Neither did the Italian.

“You would concentrate on me. Even as I was killing your men.”

“No one expects you to sit passively while all these big, strong soldiers stand around you. They will hold their positions, even when they know that the further they stand from you, the less likely they will be to die. They are all brave, stout-hearted Carinthians, raised on the mountains and in the forests, and they have known nothing but peace for centuries. Who could possibly compare them with these blaggard Teutons, who are fed a continual diet of war and misery, and who have finally summoned enough sense to drag themselves out of the marshes of their birthlands and ride out to conquer more suitable lands?”

Allegretti finally shut up, and Nikoleta found herself mumbling, “I’ll find something else to wear.”

Büber came up behind the column as it approached the Simbach bridge. He’d snatched at some sleep, and managed to catch hold of it only fleetingly. When he’d been woken, everything that followed had felt rushed, including his ride back north.

At least there’d been no more distraught relatives looking for their lost children. He’d thought about that. A lot. He didn’t like where his mind had taken him.

He was known enough not to be challenged – which was stupid, really, as he was known enough, equally, for it to be worth someone’s while to pretend to be him – but he rode up the side of the via, past the marching soldiers to the first of the horsemen.

He looked again. The white-robed figure riding next to young Felix’s tutor was a woman. Then he looked again. Since when did hexmasters ride? All the stories had them floating ethereally above the battlefield, wheeled there on great pantechnicons. Guessing that the other magicians would be ahead in the wagon train, he wondered why this woman was isolated.

“Ah, Signore Büber,” said Allegretti. “A pleasant ride, I hope.”

“No one tried to kill me, if that’s what you mean,” said Büber. He felt tired. More than that, his back burnt from too many days in the saddle. He could walk forever, but riding used different muscles.

He and the woman stared at each other. She frowned at him, and he at her. Her frown deepened, and he could see her concentrate hard.

“It won’t work,” said Büber. He held up his hands to show her his lack of fingers. She didn’t appear to understand, so he explained. “No magic’s touched me, ever.”

She blinked. “You must have had some fall on you. Prayers? A naming?”

He shrugged. “If I had, it didn’t take.”

“Signore Büber is one of the prince’s huntmasters?” suggested Allegretti, but she was now more confused than before.

“Does that make them special?” she asked.

“No, not really,” said Büber. He spotted Gerhard at the head of the horsemen, and thought he really ought to tell someone he’d arrived. “Just … it’s so that magical creatures can’t use magic to find me and eat me. I get enough of that from the wolves, the boar and the bears.”

“You,” she said, “you were one of the men who rescued the barge.”

“No. We lost the barge. We got the two bargees off, though, before the Teutons got to it.”

“The other man. Was he a hunter too?”

“Nadel? Yes.”

She went as white as the clothes she was wearing, and kicked her heels into the flanks of her horse. She rode up the line towards Gerhard.

“What did I say?” Büber hoped that Allegretti would supply some sort of explanation, but the Italian merely took off his hat, gave it a shake, and repositioned it on his head.

“The ways of wizards. And of women. Who knows, signore?”

“And since when did they let women into the Order?”

“From what I understand, at least ten years ago, because that is how long she has been on Goat Mountain.” Allegretti watched her back recede. “They could all be women. When did you see one of their faces or hear them speak?”

Büber was about to answer, but closed his mouth on his words: it had been only a couple of months ago that he’d found the first unicorn horn, when they’d warned him not to tell anyone what he’d discovered. All the voices coming from under the white hoods had been male. He’d just assumed.

“The stories?”

“Stories have a way of filling the space that is required of them. They may start out true, but what do they end up as?” The Italian looked up at the sky. “Snow?”

Büber followed his gaze. The wind was at their backs, and the clouds were ragged and grey.

“It’s not cold enough for snow, not now. Rain, later on.” He was used to the elements, but he didn’t know about the castle guard, who didn’t really train if it was too hot, too cold, too snowy, too wet or too windy.

Allegretti’s mouth twisted into a half-smile. “Rain. The gods do indeed piss on all our endeavours.”

“Well, it’s not like this won’t be over quickly. We’ll be home by tomorrow night.”

“We have to catch the Teutons first, signore. They are a day ahead.”

“They rise late and stop early. We can take them during the night and be roasting horse-flesh by sun-up.” Büber’s blood sang with the twang of his bowstring and the whistle of bolts and arrows. He wanted to experience the same intensity again, the closeness of death and the cheating of it in the same breath.

“Have you ever fought at night, signore?” Allegretti stroked the stubble on his chin with his thumb. “It is not to be recommended.”

“And you have, I suppose?”

“I have seen and done a lot of things, signore. We foreigners within your borders all have our reasons for coming here and throwing ourselves on the mercy of Carinthia.”

Büber noticed that Allegretti wore a ring on his right hand, which he played with as he spoke.

“We have the hexmasters fighting for us. Day, night, rain, shine. It hardly matters.”

“You remind me of the boy,” said Allegretti. The boy in question was now in the care of one of the earls, as Gerhard had drawn aside with the sorcerer. They were talking, heads close, but their arms were making numerous short, sharp, chopping actions, with repeated pointing to all directions.

“What are they doing?” asked Büber. “What did I miss?”

“That witch is our only hexmaster, signore. No one else answered our lord’s summons. It adds an unwanted layer of complexity to our battle plans, most notably that we are both outnumbered and undermagicked.” Allegretti sighed. “Yet we still march north.”

Büber’s horse plodded on. “
One?
” he eventually managed.

“Her ability is not in question – at least, I would not presume to question it – but yes. Just her.”

“What happened to the others?”

“I am at a loss to know how to answer you, signore. Simply put, they did not come. It seems that everyone else is content that a quick victory over the Teutons is assured and that any Bavarians who might object to our marching through their lands will be swept away by our vast and powerful army.” He leant in. “I do not share their confidence.”

“So why did she suddenly ride off to talk to the prince? What did I say that made her do that?”

“You could always go and ask them. I am certain that they would be able to supply you with complete and satisfying answers, in a way that I am sadly unable to.” Allegretti dragged the corners of his mouth down with his fingertips. “I am only Felix’s tutor, not the Oracle herself. Apologies.”

Büber felt that his world was suddenly and unnecessarily confusing, and that people were the cause of it. What he wanted to do was turn around and disappear into the forest for a month. What he actually did was slowly ride up the column until he’d reached the wheels of the rearmost wagon.