The Book of Water (35 page)

—
Baron Köthen . . . Dolph . . . a Prince may live still . . . find Hal and ask him
. . . .

Köthen shook his head hard, then pressed his temples with both hands and let out a strangled cough. “Hal?” he murmured.

A sentry’s whistle off to the left distracted him. Quickly, Wender joined him at the edge of the darkness, and Köthen was once again all business.

“Visitors, my lord.”

“Indeed. How convenient. Have you done what you must?”

“We have.”

“Prepare His Highness for transport, then, with the honor due his rank. And, Wender . . . don’t be too quick about it, eh?”

“Will he come himself, do you think?”

“He expects to find his Christmas goose still trussed and hanging.”

Wender grinned his flat, dark grin. His eyes flicked off through the trees toward the road, where the approach of men and horses was no longer a suspicion. “Sounds like he’s brought a whole regiment. And enough torches to light a town.”

“Or burn it. Better send some of the men into the woods to cover us, in case in his madness, he decides to murder us all and lay the blame for Carl’s death on me.”

“What head will he have left then to crown, my lord, having so long ago lost his own?”

Köthen’s laugh was a short bark. “Why, I suppose von Alte’s next in line, poor fool.”

Wender snorted and went off to prepare the body. Köthen drew his sword, set its point to the frozen ground, and leaned on it gently, awaiting the priest’s arrival.

Now Erde’s terror stirred in earnest. From the time her dreams of home began, she knew Fra Guill would enter them sooner or later. Even in his absence, his black aura pervaded them. Her dream-state connection with Adolphus of Köthen, her supposed enemy, was a mystery and a surprise, if now increasingly a pleasure. But from the day the hell-priest first presumed upon the hospitality of her father’s court, from when his thief’s eyes picked her out and
followed her everywhere, when in the barn at Erfurt he had sniffed her out of hiding despite her disguise, she knew that her fate was entwined with Guillemo’s in some grim and awful way. In fact, if there was any way she could manage to wake up, now was the time to do it. But she was unable to wake herself from these dreams as she had learned to with ordinary nightmares. So she withdrew inward as best she could, and imagined concealing herself in Köthen’s shadow.

Even so, when the first of the white-robes appeared, pale ghosts moving between the black columnar ranks of trees, each with its own huge torch, she thought of the lost souls wandering in torment, the souls these white ghosts had put to the torch at Tubin and the other “witch-ridden” towns. And she wondered if it was possible to die of terror while dreaming. Only the thought of the dragon waiting for her a thousand years away gave her the strength and the reason to master her fear, the way the man beside her was mastering his loathing and outrage in order to gain control of himself, and the situation.

The priest’s forces fanned out as they entered the clearing, a long arc of hooded men in white, mounted on tall white horses. Köthen did not move from his casual pose, but his eyes took them in, counting. Erde counted twenty, and was relieved not to find her father among them. Apparently he was not included in this particular conspiracy. Did that imply that Josef von Alte was losing his usefulness to Brother Guillemo? Erde feared for her father’s life if he was.

A space left in the center of the ranks was filled at last by Fra Guill himself, unhooded but wearing a full soldier’s breastplate over his white monk’s robe. His tonsured hair was no longer the madman’s rat’s nest it had been when she’d seen him last, but his face had grown gaunt and sallow. His eyes receded so deeply into their hollows that they appeared as two shards of ice glimmering in wells of shadow.

He spurred his horse forward. “Abroad so late, Köthen? Or is it early?”

If Köthen noticed the lack of honorific in the priest’s greeting, he did not show it. Erde took this as a frightening sign of how far the tables of power had already turned. It
occurred to her to worry for Köthen’s safety as well as her father’s.

“Late, Guillemo, much too late, in fact. But so are you, it seems.”

“The battle against Satan knows no clock. Late is early, is it not? And so, what finds you here?”

Köthen tossed a nod behind him. “A little business. What finds
you
here?”

“Our hardy pursuit of that Satan’s minion, Otto’s treacherous spawn, who’s made a bloody and murderous escape this night.”

Köthen leaned on his sword hilt a little more heavily and replied dryly, “He’d hardly have been trying to escape, Guillemo. He’s barefoot and in his bedclothes.”

The priest’s eyes narrowed until their light was virtually extinguished. “You have news of the villain?”

“I have news of the Prince, if that’s who you mean.”

Erde wondered if Köthen was hoping to make Guillemo beg. He was goading the priest, for some hidden reason or because he could not restrain his hostility completely. Either way, she wished he would stop. Was she the only soul in Christendom besides Hal Engle who understood how venomous Fra Guill really was? When she’d faced him last, in Erfurt, he’d seemed wily but entirely mad. Now he appeared to have regained possession of himself. Erde was unsure if this was better or worse.

“You’ve caught up with him?” Guillemo sat up ever so slightly to peer past Köthen toward the huddle of men on the far side of the clearing.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“What’s the news, then?”

“Your heart’s desire, Guillemo. The Prince is dead.”

“Ah.” Instantly, the priest crossed himself and bowed his head. A moment later, twenty white-robes did likewise, sending a rustle of wool and rosaries through the damp, still air. “Did he confess his dread villainy and call on his Savior before being given his end?”

Köthen seemed to be working a bad taste out of his mouth. “I doubt he was given the chance. He was dead when we got here.”

The banked glimmer in Guillemo’s eyes flared up again. “Ah! Distraught, then, with the weight of his bloody deeds,
as a ray of goodness pierced his heart and made him see his . . .”

The priest had an infinite supply of self-serving rhetoric, as Erde clearly recalled. But Köthen had had enough. “Carl was murdered, Guillemo. By brigands, one supposes, unless you have any better ideas.”

“Murdered? You’ve seen it . . . him . . . yourself?”

“You know me, Brother. I never take anyone’s word for anything.”

“I’ll go to him, then. To offer whatever poor words might be allowed to intercede for his tarnished soul.”

Köthen cocked his head, still leaning on his sword. “Be my guest.”

The white-robes remained in their long array as their leader rode across the clearing. The torches made way for him, and a man-at-arms leaped forward to hold his horse as he dismounted. As he moved into the crowd of soldiers, Köthen jerked his sword out of the ground and strode after him.

Wender met him just outside the circle of light, stooping to pick up Köthen’s hurried murmur.

“I don’t like it. He’s taken it too quietly.”

“Grace in the face of being outmaneuvered, my lord?”

“Not even a possibility. Stay by me.”

They found Guillemo on his knees beside the Prince’s corpse, peeling back the wrapping of cloaks and oilskins with his own too-eager hands. Hoch and Wender had artfully arranged the layers to allow exposure of the Prince’s wounds with a minimum of effort. Guillemo wished to see a little more. He yanked and burrowed until he was satisfied, and all Köthen could do was stand and watch. Erde wished he would move off a bit. She had little stomach for being forced to observe the poor mutilated body at such close range. But she did note how all evidence of Carl’s true cause of death had indeed been erased by Wender’s careful butchery.

Guillemo studied the wreckage carefully. He touched his finger to a ragged gash, then smoothed the blood between finger and thumb, sniffing at it cautiously.

Wender muttered at Köthen’s side, “More like a chirurgeon than a priest.”

Köthen watched and waited, and soon had his answer.

Guillemo sniffed his bloodied fingertips again, rubbed them together and sniffed again. Abruptly, he cried out and sprang to his feet.

“Water! Ho, water! Quickly, on peril of my soul!”

A man-at-arms grabbed a waterskin off the nearest horse and ran over, shoving it at the priest with both hands in frantic bewilderment.

“Pour it for me, fool! Quickly, on my hand! Or else we’ll both be damned!”

The nervous soldier drenched Guillemo’s hand, water spilling everywhere, even on the Prince’s body. The priest then raised that hand, dripping, and held it out from himself like it carried some treasure or disease. “A torch, now! Bring me a torch!”

A torch appeared, and Guillemo directed the man to angle it toward the ground so that the flame swelled and leaped upward, overfed with fuel. With slow ceremony, Guillemo passed his wet hand through the dancing flame, several times, back and forth, until the soldiers murmured and gasped and took a step or two backward, away from him.

A mere carnival trick, fumed Erde, yet see how it amazes and subdues even these hardened fighting men.

At last, Guillemo withdrew his hand from the flame and held it up to show how it remained unsinged and unscarred. “A virtuous man has no need to fear the purifying flame,” he remarked. Then he turned slowly toward Köthen. “But you, my lord baron . . . what unlawful devil’s ritual have you been enacting here?”

Köthen went entirely still. Erde could see he was suddenly and exquisitely aware of the trap that yawned before him, reeking of brimstone and the black smoke of the stake. If he told the truth, his earnest sacrilege would be for naught. Poor Carl would have only an excommunicant’s grave in unconsecrated ground. To deny the deed would mean lying to a priest, God’s representative on Earth, and there were a dozen men present who might not be so willing as he was. A moment later, Köthen relaxed. Either he’d found an opening, or he was simply brave enough to fake it.

“Since when is it unlawful to bring a King’s son home for burial?”

“You wish me to believe that you found him like this? With the devil’s own sign cut into his mortal flesh?”

“What? Where?”

Guillemo pointed. “There!”

No sane man, nor an honest one, would have traced out a pentacle among the crisscrossed wounds on the Prince’s chest.

“I don’t see . . .” began Köthen. He turned to Wender. “Do you see . . . ?”

“Of course he doesn’t, for foul magic has hidden it, from all but a wary and knowing eye!” Guillemo met Köthen’s furious stare for the length of a breath, the gleam in his own eyes already victorious. Then he rounded on the nearest man, the frightened one who’d brought him the waterskin. “You, my son, for the salvation of your immortal soul! You tell me what’s gone on here! What terrible unholiness has this godless man led you to commit?” Without looking, the priest raised his arm and pointed at Köthen.

“This is nonsense, Guillemo,” scoffed the baron, but Erde could see he knew it wasn’t. “We have more important tasks in front of us.”

The priest turned, his head high, shoulders flung back. His eyes seemed to have found their former life, and filled the hollows below his dark brows with flash and danger. “My lord of Köthen! What could be more important than a man’s immortal soul?”

Just lie to the man
, Erde pleaded desperately. Had she been there in reality, she would have flung herself at Köthen whatever the peril, and begged him not to pursue this futile debate. Like his mentor Hal before him, he refused to believe that the craft inspired by lunacy could win out over the craft inspired by reason. But Erde was sure that he’d soon learn, as Hal had, how easily men are swayed by superstition and terror.

Wender had apparently reached the same conclusion. From the moment the debate was joined, he’d begun to ease himself backward through the cluster of men. Now he moved casually along the outside as if trying for a clearer view of the action, grasping certain elbows, prodding certain backs as he worked his way around the circle. He got concealed nods in return, and those men, four, six, seven of them, keeping the rest of the onlookers between them
and the long line of white-robes across the clearing, backed off slightly and quietly readied their weapons. Their eyes strayed to Hoch, who would give the order. When Erde looked for Wender again, he was gone. Slipped off into the woods, she guessed, to alert the hidden reinforcements.

Meanwhile, Köthen was saying, “Nothing is more important, good Brother, unless it be the bringing of peace and order to the land, so that its people have time and security enough to tend properly to their spiritual well-being!”

Guillemo rolled his eyes and groaned as if hearing the worst sort of blasphemy. “Oh, dear Savior! Forgive the day your loyal servant agreed to an alliance with this unbeliever!”

“You go too far, priest! How dare you question my faith?”

“Who better to question it than a man of God?”

Köthen spread his hands and turned to the men around him, seeking a show of their support, a sign that they knew where Fra Guill’s posturing was leading and would have none of it. Erde felt a moment’s pity for him. Hal had said that men’s willingness to follow him was Köthen’s greatest strength. He’d risen to power on their loyalty and support. When he searched their faces now and saw loyalty ebbing away, as she did, he would know he had lost them, and losing them, had perhaps lost everything.

But would the realization be enough? Or would he keep flailing away at the priest’s apparently invincible juggernaut of unreason? She must tell him to forget reason, forget honor! Tell him he must back out of the trap while he still had a chance, for once closed, it would open again only as the flames rose up around him at the witches’ stake!

She
could
tell him. She was there, at his ear. . . .

—. . . 
Run, my lord baron! . . . you must save yourself!
 . . .

Köthen shook his head, a negating shudder.

—. . . 
Listen to me! You must flee!
 . . .