Corambis (15 page)

“Essentially, yes. And the briars are . . . well, botanically speaking, they’re very odd. They’re extremely tough, and if you do manage to break them or uproot them, they bleed. And scream.”
“I didn’t do that,” I said, although it was splitting hairs, and Thamuris knew it as well as I did.
He said, “No, you only gave them something that would nourish them.”
“Noirance,” I said, for it made perfect sense.
“I beg your pardon?” Thamuris said, and I wondered in an irrepressible, irrelevant corner of my mind whether he’d picked up that par tic u lar inflection from me or I’d picked it up from him.
“It’s a thaumaturgical theory I got from reading the Coeurterrenes. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a fancy way of saying you’re right.”
He glared at me, unimpressed. “In any event, Diokletian and I can’t get through the briars, and even if we could, we’re both rather doubtful that we could pick up the beehive, and even if we
could
, what in the name of the blessed Tetrarchs are we supposed to do with it?”
“I know,” I said. “I know. I have to take it back. Do you think . . . Is the Khloïdanikos dead?”
“Not yet,” Thamuris said, almost grudgingly. “It’s very strong. But Diokletian doesn’t think it can last much longer.”
“Diokletian is an inveterate wet blanket,” I said, which was true.
“That doesn’t mean he’s wrong,” Thamuris said, unyielding.
“I didn’t say he was,” I said and sagged down to sit at the foot of the bed. “But there’s another problem.”
“Yes?”
“The briars. They . . . that is, I’m not sure how, but—”
The world split open with a tremendous rattling clap of thunder and dumped me back on the floor of the room in the Fiddler’s Fox.
It was broad daylight, and someone was knocking on the door.

Common decency,
the foreigner had said in his light, oddly breathless voice, and it was revealed to me, like a ban dage ripped off a festering wound, that this was what I was come to, that strangers,
foreigners
, looked on me and felt pity, felt that
common decency
demanded they do something.

The thought was insupportable, all the more so as there was nothing I could do about it. It was not by choice that I crouched here on the cold marble, chained like a beast to my master’s dead body, not by choice that I was filthy and shivering, not by choice that I was blind. As they were not my choices, I could not make different ones. I could not even choose to bear my captivity more nobly, for was not as if I had been mewling or cursing or displaying myself lewdly to the citizenry. I had been cuffed across the back of the head, hard and more than once, for “looking” at my lady visitors. I kept my head down.

And was that pragmatism or broken pride? I knew not, and I had not cared, until I had heard the truth in his voice: he would not treat his enemy’s dog as I was being treated.

Day by day, my fate became less certain. Glimmering wanted me paraded around the countryside; the Convocation in the person of their secretary wanted me brought to Esmer for a trial or an excoriation or something they had not yet thought of; the Seven Houses wanted me put in Stonewater, which from all the stories was no more than an excuse to avoid the mess and bother of a public execution. No one could decide if I was a traitor or an enemy or a criminal; no one could decide to whom I belonged. They wrangled over me like a bequest in a disputed will. I was viewed by a succession of parties: Glimmering with other Corambin generals; Glimmering with the representatives of the Seven Houses; several different configurations of Bernathans, most of which I could not puzzle out; and finally a group of Bernathans escorting Roderick Lapwing, the Honorable Secretary to the Convocation.

I knew Roderick Lapwing, had met him twelve indictions ago, during the negotiations over Isobel’s marriage. He had not been Secretary to the Convocation then, merely secretary to His Grace the Duke of Murtagh. I remembered his hands, soft and unworked and beautifully kept, and his voice, which was the epitome of the Corambin voice that I had been taught to mock as a child.

Here in Bernatha, he did not speak to me any more than any of the others did; an I had been able, I would not have listened as they spoke to each other, but was another choice I did not have. And I could not deny my curiosity. I would have expected the Duke of Glimmering and his staff to be very much about Mr. Lapwing, and yet here he was and I heard nothing but Bernathan voices around him.

They were speaking of the action Corambis would have to take to reestablish governance of Caloxa. The Bernathans were angling openly for concessions, seeking as always to increase their separation from and in de pen dence of Caloxa. It was not so much that they wished to be dependent on Corambis as that they considered the Convocation, being farther away, easier to ignore. The Corambins had yet to understand this; thus the Seven Houses were likely to get what they wanted. And later, someday, the Corambins would learn that Bernatha had no loyalty to be bought.

In the meantime, however, it seemed that the governorship of Caloxa was up for grabs, and Lapwing was trying to sound out the Bernathans, to discover whom they favored. Would not have been surprised to find Bernatha giving her support to the corrupt and ineffectual former governor, Miles Jaggard, but perhaps they had not cared for his taxation schemes, or perhaps they were playing a deeper game. All I could extract from the portion of the conversation to which I was an audience was that they objected to the idea that Glimmering, as the person who had ended the Insurgence— merely, as the Bernathans delicately pointed out, by virtue of being the person to whom I had surrendered— should have any say in the matter at all. The cows had clearly not been as effective a gift as he had hoped, and I was pettily pleased.

I was no longer a margrave; I had the bitter, hateful luxury of being petty, and nothing in the long cold hours of my existence to provide better thoughts. I was fed twice a day, escorted shuffling and chained to the lavatory twice a day. Sometimes my guards, and they were never the same men, would allow me to drink from the sink faucet; mostly they would not. At night I slept, still chained, at the foot of Gerrard’s catafalque. Sometimes the guards remembered to give me a blanket before they left; sometimes they did not.

I learned to gauge the passing of time by the temperature of the hall, for it was cold in the mornings, and grew steadily warmer through the afternoons. In what I reckoned had to be late afternoon, I even felt the direct heat of a sunbeam; thus I deduced that the hall faced west. And thus also the residual heat which made the nights less horrible than they might have been.

The day after my encounter with the foreigner, I had endured the morning and reached the moment when the warmth began to grow, when a voice said, “My lord Rothmarlin, I must speak to you.”

I did not raise my head. “I am no lord.”
“Then what am I to call you?”
“Why need you call me anything? Who are you?”
“My name is Edwin Beckett. I was a correspondent of the late Prince Gerrard.”

The late Prince Gerrard whose body was no more than three feet from us. But I remembered the name. “Are the man who wants to start the Clock of Eclipses again.”

“Yes! And that is why I must speak to you.”
“I know nothing about the Clock,” said I, perplexed.
“No, not that. I need you to tell me what went wrong.”
“What went
wrong
?”
“Prince Gerrard wrote to me because he wished advice about starting a

Cymellunar engine he said he knew to exist under Summerdown. I advised him as best I could and told him much about my own efforts. But he did not write me again. And so I must know why he failed.”

“Is not obvious enough? He failed because it killed him.”
“Surely it’s the other way around. It killed him because he failed.” “I cannot help you,” said I.
“I have Lord Glimmering’s permission to speak to you. He assured me

you would be cooperative.” His voice was soft and level, but the threat was clear. Glimmering continued to attempt to buy the Bernathans’ favor, first with cows, now with me.

“He hired the ser vices of a magician- practitioner in Barthas Cross,” I said dully. There was no use in fighting. Was not as if it mattered to anyone save me. And, apparently, this Edwin Beckett. “Anselm Penny was his name. He walked the labyrinth and examined the engine, and he and Gerrard conferred a great deal, but I know not what they said. He sent Gerrard directions, and we followed them. And six men died.”
“Tell me what
happened
,” said Edwin Beckett, inexorable. I would liefer have allowed him to set me on fire, but I cooperated as

Glimmering had said I would. I described the ritual Gerrard had performed, for indeed I remembered it as clearly as it were engraved in the place inside my skull where my sight had been. Beckett took notes— I heard the scratching of his pen— and peppered me with questions, although at least he was not interested in what had happened when the engine came to life. He wanted the details of where each man had stood and what Gerrard had said and how Penny had determined the sequence in which to complete the ritual’s tasks.

With that last, I truly could not help him, for Practitioner Penny and I had not liked each other. Gerrard had been very closemouthed about Penny’s letters. He might have told Benallery, but he had not told me, and no, I most certainly had not asked.

“I am no magician,” I said. “I did as he told me and did not wish to know more.”
“But surely he gave you
some
idea,” Beckett began, and then there was a tremendous clattering ruckus at the door, and a voice I recognized said, “Wyatt, remind me never to be accused of a crime in Bernatha.”
It was my brother- in- law, the Duke of Murtagh.
His boot heels were sharp and annoyed across the marble floor. He said, “Sir, I don’t know who you are, and neither do I care. I need to speak to my brother- in- law, so you are simply going to have to leave.”
He might not know who Beckett was, but Beckett, departing in a flurry of apologies, most clearly knew who he was. Ferrand Carey, the Duke of Murtagh, the Dragon of Desperen Field. His was a familiar and distinctive face in the newspapers of Corambis and Caloxa alike. And then Murtagh said in a soft voice, “I’m going to have Glimmering’s head on a stick.”
“Is my penance,” said I.
“Penance,” said Murtagh, and I knew the skeptical way his right eyebrow would arch. “I see. Voluntary or involuntary?”
“Involuntary.” I could feel my face heating, although I knew not why I was embarrassed.
“Quite,” said Murtagh. “And who were the intendeds who pronounced your penance?”
“Albern, Marcham, and Gye.”
“Albern. Of course.” He raised his voice: “Wyatt, fetch me Intended Albern, would you?”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“End this farce.”
“You do me no favors if I end in Stonewater.”
“You won’t. I bring the ruling of the Convocation.”
“Which is?”
“You’re stripped of land, titles, and property, as I’m sure you expected.” His voice was matter- of- fact, and I was grateful to him for not making a fuss. “You are, in fact, a dependent of the Duchy of Murtagh. I am responsible both for your upkeep and your good behavior.”
“I assure Your Grace, I have no intention of fomenting rebellion.”
“I know you well enough to know that,” said he, which was a thought disturbing enough that I said hastily, “What becomes of Rothmarlin?”
“In essence, we’re treating the case as if you had died.”
“Cecil,” I said with loathing.
“He
is
your heir.”
“And notable for his lack of participation in the Insurgence.”
“That, too,” said Murtagh, refusing to be goaded.
“And what will you do with me?”
“Well, I thought I’d find you a wife.”
“A
what
?” said I.
“A woman to marry. Surely you’ve heard the word before.”
“I . . . I cry your mercy, Your Grace. I do not contemplate marriage.”
“Which shows a becoming modesty in a gentleman of your . . . circumstances.” I sank my teeth into my lower lip and did not respond to his baiting as he had not responded to mine. “But there are other considerations.” A pause, and I could only imagine him contemplating me, as a tomcat contemplating a broken- winged bird. “You will be well dowered.”
“Do not mock me, Murtagh. I may be your dependent at the Convocation’s plea sure, but I am not your dog.”
“Do all the Brightmores have this monstrous chip on their shoulders, or is it just you and Isobel? I am not mocking you. I am making you a promise, assuring you that you can in fact support a wife and so need not hesitate to enter in upon that state of matrimonial bliss to which, I am informed, all men aspire.”
“I assure you, Your Grace, I have no such aspirations.” I never had, although I had known I must at some point marry and beget at least one child. Now there was no such duty.
“No? Well, it does not matter. I have them on your behalf.”
“You wish me to marry?”
“Very much. And I have a candidate in mind. Her name’s Vanessa Pallister; she’s the widow of the Warden of Grimglass. It isn’t exactly an
exalted
match, but it is not a mésalliance, even for a Brightmore.”
“Grimglass?” said I. Now this conversation made a good deal more sense. “Out of sight, out of mind.”
“Well, it won’t
hurt
. Even the most panicky of my peers will be forced to admit there’s very little trouble you can cause out there.”
“I told you, I don’t—”
“I know. But, Kay, have you not realized? You are a hero of the Insurgence and the last of Gerrard’s inner circle. Were you to raise your banner, either for Prince Charles or for yourself, you would draw every malcontent, royalist, and troublemaker in Caloxa.”
“Are you
mad
? I’m blind, destitute, a public spectacle, and the man who surrendered to the Corambins. Who’s going to follow that?”
“The general consensus,” Murtagh said dryly, “seems to be that your surrender is an invention of Glimmering’s. And no one believes that any of the rest of it could stop you if you were truly determined.”
“Then why am I not in Stonewater already? Why am I not hanged?”
“Oh, for many reasons,” he said, his tone light and careless, “including the fact that your sister begged me to protect you.”
I jerked as if he had slapped me. He must have seen it, for he said less viciously, “And because I believed— and believe— that your crusading passion died with Prince Gerrard.”
I was frozen in that instant, wondering if he had used the word “passion” deliberately as a barb. But there was no way he could know the truth; no one knew the truth except Intended Gye, whom I did trust to honor my secret in the keeping of it. I let my breath out, feeling the weight of my grief settle again over me like a lead- lined mantle. “Yes,” I said. “I would not willingly cause more bloodshed.”
“That’s good,” said Murtagh. “And that’s why I am getting this nonsensical penance revoked and taking you back to the Althammara, where you can bathe and shave and I’ll get a practitioner in to look at you as well.”
“You needn’t—”
“Oh, I think I do. Raise your head, please.”
I did, though I was bewildered. “What?”
“You’re staring straight into the sun,” Murtagh said, and there was something in his voice that almost sounded like pain.
“Is nothing any practitioner can do,” I said, ducking my chin and turning away from his voice. “Blind as stone, is all.”
“Yes. That’s one of Glimmering’s arguments for keeping you on a chain as a sort of object lesson to the people of Caloxa, so you’ll understand if I object on principle to taking his word for it.” Was always hard to assess Murtagh’s moods, for neither his voice nor his face reflected them reliably— and was even worse now, when I had only voice to judge by— but I realized, and was startled to realize, that he was furious, as seethingly, violently angry as I had ever known him. His expressed desire for Glimmering’s head on a stick had not been persiflage, but in fact sincere. I had never imagined Murtagh angry on my behalf; it seemed unnatural, unreal, and I was glad when there was another ruckus at the door, for I knew not what to say.
This ruckus was Intended Albern, who was indignant, and also as unhappy as a turtle turned out of its shell at being dragged out from behind his brother. His protests were laced with references to His Grace the Duke of Glimmering and what he would say when he found out about Murtagh’s high- handedness, until finally Murtagh said, “If I were you, Intended Albern, I would not be quick to admit my spiritual judgment depends so heavily on the wishes of a carnal prince.”
Intended Albern sputtered. “Do you deny that this man bears an intolerable weight of sin on his spirit?”
“So do I,” said Murtagh, “but no one is driving me into involuntary penance. And in any event, I find insufficient difference, Intended Albern, between your definition of penance and my definition of torture. And I think the Prince Aethereal will agree with me.”
“Murtagh,” I said. “Is not—”
“
You
hold your tongue. Well, Intended Albern?”
A pause, uncomfortably long, and Intended Albern said, “Very well.” I heard him approach and was prepared for the weight of his hand on my head. He spoke the formulas quickly, pulling his hand away as soon as he could, and he left without responding to Murtagh’s pointed “
Thank
you, Intended.”
Then Murtagh’s boot heels tocked away and returned in company with the duller tread of one of the guards and the rattle of keys. The cuffs around my wrists were unlocked, and then those around my ankles, and then the guard leaned over me in a wash of onions and old sweat and unlocked the end of the chain from the catafalque.
There was a pause, and Murtagh said, “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“I’m sorry, my lord,” the guard said, quite audibly ner vous. “We don’t have the key to the collar.”
“Then who does?”
“I don’t know, my lord. His Grace of Glimmering, maybe?”
“Of course,” said Murtagh, very quietly, and the guard took a jingling step back. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.” The guard took that as his opportunity to flee— for which I could not blame him— and Murtagh shouted, “Wyatt!”
“Yes, my lord?”
“I need to talk to Glimmering, and sooner rather than later. Would you kindly induce him to stop by my suite in the Althammara?”
“Yes, my lord,” said Wyatt, who was evidently the latest successor to Roderick Lapwing as Murtagh’s secretary and was either stolid by nature or had been with Murtagh long enough to grow accustomed.
He, too, left, and Murtagh said, “Kay, can you stand?”
“Am blind, not crippled,” said I, and I hoped I sounded convincingly irritated rather than merely pathetically grateful. I stood up, feeling strange and unsteady without the weight of the chains.
“I perceive,” said Murtagh, “that I must keep the other end of this chain so it won’t trip you. And then I think . . . will you take my arm?”
“Have I a choice?”
“Well, you can always stay here, though I wouldn’t recommend it. Here.” He took my hand and guided it to the crook of his elbow. “The Althammara isn’t far.”
And if I did not accept his help, there was the third option he had politely failed to mention: he could drag me at the end of the chain like a dog. I gripped his arm, and when he moved, I moved with him.
My feet had healed somewhat, but the cobbles of the Bernathan streets still made me limp. Murtagh said, “I could carry you.”
“You could try,” I said, gritting my teeth. “I don’t need to see you to break your arm.”
“Your temper has certainly survived intact. Isobel
will
be pleased.”
“Sorry.”
“No, no. I find it reassuring, actually. Just keep walking.”
The Althammara was, as he had promised, only a very short distance from the Clock Palace. Its floors were wood, with lush Ygressine carpets. Murtagh had hired the entire top floor. He handed me over to his manservant Tinder, who was polite and impeccable and made no personal remarks of any kind while he helped me bathe and shave and dress in clothes that were too large but both warm and blessedly clean.
“That’s a vast improvement,” Murtagh said when Tinder brought me back out into what I guessed to be the sitting room. “You look almost human again, instead of like a particularly ill- conceived waxwork. And—” He broke off. “Hark, I believe I hear the dulcet tones of His Grace of Glimmering in the offing. Tinder, I think Mr. Brightmore would prefer to wait for the physician- practitioner in his bedroom.”
“Yes, my lord.”
But I stood my ground. “Am not a child, Murtagh. I do not need to be cosseted.”
“Who’s cosseting? This is going to be a most unpleasant and squalid fight, and I’d rather not have witnesses. Go on, Tinder.”
I could not in honesty have said I wanted to face Glimmering again. I let Tinder lead me back in the direction of the bathroom, let him put me in a small room probably meant for a paid companion or a nursery maid or some such, and let him leave me there with the assurance that he would bring the physician- practitioner when he arrived.
I sat on the bed, smelling clean linen and lavender sachet, and willed myself to stop shaking. Was no need to unravel like an old blanket just because Murtagh had unexpectedly come to my rescue. Was all the more reason to be watchful, in fact, for no Corambin duke believed in philanthropy. Any favor Murtagh did, he would expect to be repaid, and I had very little currency left, even of the meta phorical kind.
I heard muffled shouting: Murtagh and Glimmering. I wondered if I could find my way to the door for purposes of eavesdropping. Was a woman’s trick, my father had taught me, and I could imagine very clearly his contempt for me. Could imagine my own contempt, the Kay Brightmore of an indiction ago, or a wheel ago, looking at the craven, creeping, spying creature I had become. But it was either eavesdrop or sit in stupid, honorable ignorance, and ignorance seemed worse to me now than the petty dishonor of spying.
I stood up before I could muster arguments against myself. The room was quite small; three steps directly forward brought me to the wall, and from there I moved sideways in an inelegant shuffle to where the texture changed from wallpaper to the wood of the door. It took me what seemed an unreasonable amount of time to find the doorknob, and when I did, I thought, Will serve thee right if Tinder hath locked the door against thee. But he had not; I supposed he had quite sufficient reason to assume that I would not try to escape. I opened the door the width of my hand, and Murtagh’s voice floated immediately to my ears, still somewhat muffled, but now intelligible: “I know you grieve for your brother, but revenge is not the answer.”
“How dare you assume I would allow personal considerations to dictate my actions?” Glimmering’s voice, as strident as iron nails on slate. “Kay Brightmore is a traitor and a murderer and far too dangerous to be allowed to run free.”
“Which is why you had him locked in Stonewater as soon as you reached Bernatha.”
“I wanted him where I could keep an eye on him. I don’t trust the Bernathans.”
“You wanted him where you could watch him suffer. Really, Thomas, chained to Hume’s bier like a dog?”
“You can’t deny it was appropriate.”
“No, what I
can’t
deny is that it was inhumane.”
“Let the punishment suit to the crime.”
“That’s Usaran law, not Corambin, and not a pre ce dent I care to invoke. It gives the righ teous too easy an excuse for behaving like criminals.” “Then you don’t deny—”
“When Gerrard Hume raised his banner, Kay Brightmore answered, like six of the other sixteen margraves of Caloxa. His crime is no worse than theirs. And yet I don’t see you hunting them out of their castles and subjecting them to this treatment. And that’s because you
can’t.
Imagine the outcry. No one would stand for it. You took advantage of Kay’s peculiar vulnerability to make him your scapegoat, and that, Thomas, is despicable.”
“You’re only protecting him because he’s your brother- in- law.”