The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy) (46 page)

“Take those back,” Hayden demanded,
before she could set them down. She looked from Gratton, who muttered protest,
to Hayden, and finally to Zacry. She placed the glasses on the table, and Zacry
handed them right back to her.

“My friend told you to take them back,”
said the sorcerer.

“Your friend didn’t order them, did he?”

Gratton tried to rise, but Hayden pushed
him down. Zacry sent the woman off, and both men took seats across from
Bendelof’s husband.

“She wouldn’t want this,” Hayden told
Gratton.

“She’s bloody well gone, isn’t she, so I
guess it doesn’t matter.”

“She’s gone,” Zacry conceded. He moved
the glass of ale out of Gratton’s reach. “We’re not. So you’re not doing this.”

Gratton jumped to his feet, and Zacry
with him. “What hell right…?”

“What right do we have? That woman was
our sister, that’s what right we have. That makes you family, like it or not,
and we’re not the types that let family drown themselves. So again, you’re
not doing this.”

“To hell with you both,” sneered the
captain.

 
Hayden rose at that. “You think we’re not
reeling from this?” he demanded.

Zacry said, “Zalski blinded that woman
and held her captive for days in a room across from me. She feared every minute
for her life, and she did nothing but console me, because I was twelve. I was
twelve, with no clue what was happening and scared out of my mind. I have a
damn good idea what she was worth, Gratton. She loved you for some reason God
only knows, and for her sake and her sake alone, I won’t let you destroy your
life.”

“What life? You with your wife at home,
your wife and babies Bennie couldn’t shut up about when she met them, the boy
especially…. I have no life. I buried it this afternoon, you son of a….”

“This is not how you dull the pain,” said
Hayden. “You’ve a drinking problem, understand? You stopped for her, but you’ve
a drinking problem, and you’re not going down that road. We’re leaving this
dump, all of us.”

Resisting was no option. Gratton could
take either one physically, probably the two together, but had no defense
against Zacry’s cursed sorcery. He let them take him to the riverbank, where
they climbed the grass-covered levees to look out over the Podra as it bent
beneath them, bent like the captain imagined Bennie had when that demon of a
titled ass stuck a dagger above her hip. The thought made his throat dry out
and his head pound, a pounding of the kind he knew only one way to combat.

The sun had sunk from view, but still
painted the sky a brilliant orange and tinted the racing water a deep purple.

Hayden said, “You’ll get through this.
You won’t come out the other end jobless and resourceless because you destroyed
it all drinking. You’ll stay with me until you find a place, and I’ll have your
word that both during that time and after you won’t touch so much as ale.
Understand?”

There was no denying Bennie would have
wanted that.

“I’ll keep away from alcohol, but that’s
for her, understand? You didn’t convince me with some grand discourse. I don’t
care what happens to me now that Bens….”

“And I don’t care what your reasons are,”
said Hayden, “as long as you don’t bloody drink. You will care about the future
again, just so you know. You’ll care once you move a bit through the loss, and
you do
that
when you let yourself feel
it instead of trying to numb everything night after night to keep the pain at
bay.”

“Don’t talk like you know….”

“My wife may be at home, but I was in the
damned Crimson League. I’ve lost people.”

Zacry said, “You’re not the only one
grieving her, and you won’t go through this alone. You won’t.” Gratton nodded
his thanks, and Hayden told him:

“It does get better with time, if you
spend the time sober. I know you want to punch me for even suggesting that’s
possible, but it’s the truth.”

“Go to hell,” said Gratton. His tone was
insincere, though, even grateful.

Zacry had to leave Gratton after a couple
of hours to go back to Oakdowns, where he found Vane awake and alert, if
solemn, with his vertigo much improved. To flee Podrar would be possible after
all. With one arm around his mentor’s neck and the other his wife’s, the young
duke managed to stand, and if transporting to Traigland proved unpleasant, it
offered no real dangers. Kora followed her brother with Kansten’s plush pup and
Teena.

Zacry returned to Podrar for the next
day’s
Bugle
. As the king had not even
attempted to conceal Vane’s part in Amison’s death, the entire edition was
devoted to the two men and the results of Rexson’s personal investigation:
namely, that Ingleton had acted in defense and had emerged unscathed from the
confrontation, transporting with his wife to an undisclosed location for their
safety.

A brief biography of the Duke of
Yangerton preceded one of Vane; the latter speculated about the lost years in
the Duke of Ingleton’s young life. The writer pondered where Vane might
currently be hiding, but never hit on Traigland. A simple bulletin presented
the facts of the case as they were known, revealing August’s pregnancy and
stating that more details were sure to emerge at the trial of Yangerton’s
servant, Rich Goodly. The paper also contained a series of pieces debating
Ingleton’s guilt or innocence, whether the case in question was one more
example of the persecution the magicked had suffered for centuries, as the king
claimed, or whether—August twisted her curls around a finger when she
read the term—bad blood will out. Allusion after allusion to Zalski followed,
as though the contributing scribes had deemed reminders necessary.

Only one article mentioned Bendelof. It
revealed she had been living beneath an alias after her involvement with the
Crimson League, that she recently had married a captain of the royal guard,
that Amison’s death had occurred at her home, and that she too had died there.

“The central question,” the article ran,
“is what possible business the Duke of Yangerton could have had at Esper’s
domicile. Either he had no business being there beyond invading the house to
assault its occupants—a theory that would go far to exculpate Ingleton—or,
more plausibly, Bendelof Esper was the latest in a well-known string of
Amison’s lovers.”

August had to put the
Bugle
down at that. “How dare they?” she
asked. “How could they dare?” She almost flung the paper in the fire in Zacry’s
living room, where Vane lay on the couch, but Zacry stopped her.

“The truth will come out at trial,” he
said. “As for Bennie, this is far from the first time the papers have printed
outright libel about her. She had thick skin.”

“I know she had, but this…. It’s
sickening, Zacry. It’s sick. They mention her marriage of five months not ten
lines above, and then insinuate….”

“Amison’s servant will confess the truth
at trial.”

“How do you know that?” asked August.

“Let’s just say the king made clear it
would be in his best interest to be open.”

August blanched a bit, and fell silent.
Zacry went on, “It would help if Rexson could throw light on Amison’s motive,
on the secret that pushed him over the edge.” The sorcerer turned to Vane.
“You’re sure you don’t know what the man meant by a secret?”

“I’m at a complete loss, Zac.”

“He flat-out said you knew.”

“He must have been mistaken. I wracked my
brain all yesterday and last night, and I can’t think of anything. I ran into
Amison with that woman, sure, but….” Vane indicated the paper. “The man wasn’t
exactly discreet with his affairs. And he demanded of August how long I’d
known, didn’t he? If this secret had something to do with that night, he’d know
exactly how long.”

“Well,” said Zacry, “his scoundrel of a lackey’s
motive is clear, and Goodly’ll hang either way. Being able to pick Amison’s
brain would just…. It would make things look better on your end. Much better.”

August asked no one in particular, “Will
we ever be able to go back?”

“One day at a time,” said Vane. “Don’t
worry about that now.”

“That’s good advice,” said Joslyn. She
had just walked in with her infant son in one arm and Viola toddling before
her. “For now, you two need to get and stay healthy. That takes priority.”

Both Vane and August had difficulty
putting their worries aside. If that first edition of the
Bugle
contained some troubling comments, the next day’s news was
worse. According to one reporter’s personal account:

The
guard is having trouble controlling uncountable throngs outside Ingleton’s
manor. The three acres of fence contain no open spots, and in places people
gather ten bodies deep. The overwhelming numbers will not cease their attempts
to tear down portions of the fence, but the barrier holds, due to magical
protections that do nothing to calm the fervor. Within one hour, I watched
fifty torches and lit rags soar above the masses onto the grounds. The flames
always extinguish as they pass above the fence and property line, but fires do
not cease to fly for that. Not all are well aimed or even make it onto the
estate; at least twelve people have suffered burns, and four elms that stood
just outside the gate no longer do so. One woman was trampled to death when
scores fled the burning trees.

The only positive note of the morning was
Vane sitting up without assistance and eating something more substantial than a
brothy soup. He ate an egg and a few bites of bread around lunchtime, with a
lack of appetite Joslyn assured Zacry had nothing to do with the young duke’s
injuries.

* * *

Noon in Traigland was only nine a.m. in
Podrar, at which time Rexson’s sons had gone to the library to play with Hune’s
beagle before lessons. Encouraging the pup to tackle them led to general
roughhousing, and before long Valkin was running from his brothers, who had
decided to team against him. Egged on by the dog running gleefully in circles,
Valkin dove to avoid a leaping Hune and rolled up against the east wall, which
separated the room from an unused office and was lined floor to ceiling, like
the other three, with books. As Valkin’s shoulder hit the shelf, a number of
volumes from the bottom rows showered down on him. The puppy jumped back in
alarm, but all the boys were laughing.

“We should clean this mess,” observed
Neslan, while Valkin removed an old edition of
Sir Brogle
from his chest and Hune offered him a hand up. Most of
the shower had come from the third shelf from the floor, where a gap of maybe
eight books left the stone wall exposed. Neslan stared at the empty space,
calling Valkin back over as the oldest brother retrieved his spectacles from
the settee where he had left them.

“That stone’s off color,” said Neslan.

“What do you mean?” asked Hune.

“It looks darker, grubby. Look….”

He indicated a stone on the left side of
the gap in the otherwise filled shelving. It did look a bit smudged, as though
someone had handled it or touched it much.

“That’s odd,” said Valkin. He ran his fingers
over the stone indicated, and realized the grout around it was not secure.
“It’s loose,” he said. “And heavy,” he added, trying to pull it from the wall.
“Help me.”

The stone, one foot square in size, had
been cut in half in such a way that the office beyond remained sealed off. The
part Valkin and Neslan removed had been hollowed out as well. It housed a
collection of identical yellowing books with figures and notes written in a
hand unfamiliar to the boys, a hand spiky, straight, and bold. Valkin flipped
some pages of the first, his brothers reading over his shoulder. Soon Hune
began to shake a bit and reached for his puppy in alarm. Neslan told him, “Get
Father.”

“Father’s meeting with Mason Greller,”
the boy protested.

“Interrupt them,” said Valkin, and shut
the book. He wished his youngest brother nowhere near it or its fellows. “He’ll
thank you later. He needs to see this.”

* * *

When Zacry brought the next day’s
Bugle
to Triflag, a robed and distracted
Rexson joined him. The king’s greeting was to toss one of the books his
children had come across to Vane, who was sitting on the couch with August and
Joslyn. Zacry’s wife stiffened in disbelief to find a royal standing in her
home, while the king seemed to take no notice of her or his surroundings,
directing the duke, “The eighteenth page.”

“Rexson, what is this?”

“A record book Zalski kept and the boys
found yesterday. Page eighteen…. Does it mean anything to you?”

Poor Joslyn seemed unable to move, but
August peered down while her husband flipped through to the eighteenth yellowed
page. There they read:

“Hune would have nothing to do with my
would-be plant. He’s too suspicious. Perhaps I’ll find greater success turning
an associate he already trusts—have Malzin devote men to creating files
on Klark Manst and Mouser Rone, as one of their friends was kind enough to
offer up their names. Perhaps one of them might prove grateful for a chance to
live, and for a bit of gold as well.