Count Scar - SA (17 page)

When the attack began last night, this conviare drew the magical wind and fire to you far more powerfully than would have occurred had you not been wearing it, and also greatly enhanced their
strength."

Count Caloran had drawn his knife from his belt before I was finished speaking. With a single motion he slashed the cord and thrust the conviare into my hand. The corner of his eye twitched as
he muttered, "Then take the damned thing and seal it away in whatever fashion will best secure us against its power. I want no more devil's fires here! Indeed, would it not be best to have the
blacksmith simply melt this deadly weapon down at once and be done with it?"

"I think we should keep it, Count Caloran. It is not dangerous in itself, only when dangerous power is directed toward it. It was not necessarily even fashioned to be a weapon. Your attacker
simply took advantage of its capacities."

His chest rose and fell rapidly, then more slowly, and when he finally spoke he was able to make his voice at least sound level and calm. "Which leads straight back to my first question: who might
that attacker have been? And how do we go about finding him?"

"It will not be easy. Almost anyone could have inserted the tile telesma into the gap between the stones any time from when work was finished on the lower fireplace to the day the chimney was
completed. The person need not even have known the nature of the object he was placing. It may have been one of the masons, of course. But the man could just as well have belonged to the castle."

"That hadn't escaped my notice." The count paced quickly to the window and stared down into the yard, where Raymbaud and some of the knights were practicing with their swords. I could see
the tension in his shoulders easing as he watched the men going about their soldiers' tasks. After a minute he continued, "But it is hard to see why. I know the duke has a spy in the castle, but
there is no reason Argave should have put himself to the trouble of bringing me all the way down from the northern marches and setting me here, merely to have me killed shortly afterwards. It's
clear I have some enemies about, considering what almost happened at the duke's court, but no one new has joined us here at Peyrefixade. I don't see how an enemy could have subverted a member
of my household so quickly." He stiffened, then slowly turned to face me. "However… Perhaps I'm unwise to ask you, since you are a priest yourself, but I conclude from your behavior when you
helped stop the burning of those poor wretches that you have no great love for the Inquisition. Do you suppose they might be behind this?"

I felt an immediate shiver go through my own body, but relaxed when I thought on this a little further. "I think not, Count. The same argument applies to them as to any other enemy of yours:
they've not had time to subvert any member of the household. Of course, it is entirely possible they may have had a man placed here for years, but it is unlikely they would use such a spy in a
covert attack like this. They employ spies and agents of all sorts to gain information, but their true power derives from destroying whatever enemies they uncover in the most public fashion
possible, not by stealth."

"That's true enough. But what you say raises something I had not properly considered before. The attacker may have been someone who was in the castle long before I myself came here, but one
who has nothing to do with either Duke Argave or the Inquisition." He went back to the window and stared down with a grim expression at the knights practicing below, jerking his knife
halfway out of its sheath and jamming it back repeatedly while he considered this. "An enemy of my whole family and house, not merely of myself."

I paused to swallow the last of my bread and drink, giving me time to decide I must tell him the rest. "Yes, there may indeed be such an enemy here. The masters of my Order believe that the death
of your predecessor the countess was caused by someone using magic."

Count Caloran glanced sidelong at me from his place before the window. From my angle only his unmarred side was visible. With some surprise, I found myself looking at the profile of a
thoughtful but firm-looking man, with rather handsome features. That profiled face was stamped with sadness at the present moment, but also with determination—and surprisingly, a certain
detached interest, even some ironic amusement as he willed himself to become calm again. I had thought of him as pure steel when I'd first met him. Now, once again, came a hint that perhaps
there might be more to the man.

"I have heard rumors suggesting something like that myself, Father Melchior," he said dryly. "Well, if the countess's killer and my own attacker are the same man, then he's still here in the
castle and may well try for me again. But he will not find the way so easy now that we have been alerted to the danger. I think I and my knights can handle any attacker bearing weapons of steel.

May I rely upon you to defend us against any further magical assaults?"

I surprised myself with how readily the answer came to my lips, "For as long as you may keep me in your service, you may."

We buried old Bruno later that day in the cemetery down at the village, the nearest place with soil deep enough for graves. I had recovered enough strength to sing the office of the dead acceptably
in the chapel, but was very glad to ride rather than walk when we followed the rough coffin down the steep winding road. The sexton of the village church, alerted that morning, had already
prepared the grave by the time we arrived. We performed the interment quickly, for this would be only a temporary tomb for Bruno. Count Caloran had decided that the old soldiers final resting
place would be at my own House of the Three Kings. Indeed, it appeared ironically that I had done much toward mending the Order's standing with his family simply by doing what both instinct
and duty had demanded the night before, for the count had told me as we rode that he intended to make a gift sufficient to establish anniversary observances with singing of the high office for
Bruno as well as for his predecessor the countess. Now the count, a somber Raymbaud, the gloomy seneschal, the knights, and a few of the villagers standing to one side bowed their heads as
Bruno's coffin went down. As we remounted, I saw Count Caloran look back at the little mound, just once. Then he set his face toward the castle and led us home.

I was in my little study off the chapel toward evening a few days later, doing the first of the several cycles of incantation that would be required to replenish the magic store of my ivory telesma,
when I heard a diffident knock. It had been very pleasant to feel up to undertaking some real magic, without feeling exhausted, for the first time since the night of the fire, and I wanted to have
this job done before we left to go down to the duke's spring court, to be held at the same time as the Paschal Feast. So I set the telesma aside with regret at the interruption and called out, "Enter!"

To my surprise it was Seneschal Guilhem who appeared, asking if he might consult with me for a few minutes.

"It concerns the rent rolls and the other records of the count's property you prepared during our trip across his domains," he explained, holding out the bundle of documents with a deferential
expression on his gloomy features. "I shall shortly be summoning the bailiffs to give them their instructions as to the actual collecting of the rents and dues. I wish to make absolutely certain
beforehand that I have exactly the same understanding as to what those revenues should be as the count himself."

"Then I shall be happy to go over the records with you now, of course." As he sat down and began to spread the parchments out on the table an expression of relief passed momentarily over his face
before it subsided back into its accustomed sadness. I felt more than a little sympathy for him. The seneschal had clearly realized that Count Caloran, while a fair and even generous master to
those who served him diligently, was not the man to tolerate incompetence or failure from a subordinate.

It had become obvious during that week we'd ridden together over the lands of the county that the seneschal had always carried all of the records in his head up to now. As we went over my lists
and notations, I confirmed something else I had also come to suspect. Like many of his profession, men who were generally drawn from the more intelligent younger sons of small landowners and
who had received a decent education but could expect no inheritance, the seneschal could read but not write—at least nothing beyond the occasional single word, scrawled in what looked like a
child's first letters, as a prompt to memory. Once I had convinced myself of this, I fetched an ink and pen from the other end of the table without making any show about it and commenced adding
brief but full annotations to the margin each time we came to a place where the information I had noted down during our journey was unclear to the seneschal. It took surprisingly little time, as
the fellow's memory was in truth phenomenal and the points to be clarified were therefore few.

When we had finished he gathered up the parchments with a murmur of thanks, but then hesitated near the door as if he had something else he was searching for a way to say. "Stay a moment
more, Seneschal," I immediately said, seeing this as a providential opportunity. I'd been feeling guilty again about not having done more to seek out and talk with those in the count's household
who might be in need of spiritual counsel, and this sad man certainly appeared to be one such. He resumed his seat and I said, "You seem greatly troubled at heart; would you like to speak of it?"

"Yes, Father Melchior, you are right. I bear a heavy burden of sadness." He spoke with downcast eyes. "The unexpected and so sudden death of our dear Countess Aenor, the horrible manner of it,
they haunt me night and day."

"I have read my predecessor Brother Nuage's account of the event; it was indeed very terrible."

"Ah, he was a good man, Father Nuage. I was so very sorry when our countess's consort"—as the seneschal pronounced this word a passion and venom that burned like a sudden flame entered
into his flat voice—"sent him away from us so abruptly right after the accident, voicing baseless slanders. I would have given much for his kind counsel in the awful days that followed. That vile
man Thierri so suddenly master of this place, lording it over us all, hardly seeming to think of his lady so recently dead under the wall—and him no true part of the family, with no real claim.

Oh, he went about in mourning with a long face, but he couldn't completely hide his delight in thinking his vile plans to become undisputed Count of Peyrefixade had come to fruition so much
sooner than expected! What a pleasure it was to see him ride cursing from the gates after the duke's messenger came to tell him he must quit this place and return to court. Cast down to simple
Lord Thierri once more, lord not of lands and men but only of mincing ways and sneaking schemes, of stratagems and spoils!"

He actually struck his fist upon the table as he spat out these final words, then fell silent, staring straight ahead with blazing eyes. I sat dumbfounded: this, from our sad, dour seneschal! Then a
chill of suspicion went through me and I asked, "Do you mean by this to say that you believe Lord Thierri plotted his own wife's death?"

His eyes swung to meet mine with a glare that struck like a blow, then went suddenly dull. All the quivering intensity seemed to drain out of him as his body slumped in the chair. "No, not that,
Father," he whispered, so low I could barely hear. "Swine though he is, Lord Thierri did not cause our sweet lady's death. I myself can attest that he was on his high seat in the hall swilling wine
when the—the terrible event occurred." His eyes met mine once more, this time filled with what seemed all the sorrow in the world. "At least she has gone to a better place now, one where we can
be sure he shall never go to join her."

Rather than go into the arcana of the doctrine of possible salvation for even the worst of us, with a man who was clearly not prepared to listen, I shifted back to the original subject. "I see that the
countess's death has indeed affected you greatly. But you do right to hope that she has already gone to a better world, or soon shall do so."

"Oh, I am sure she already has, Father! So sweet and innocent a girl she was when young, and so good and virtuous a lady as she grew into womanhood! Always with a kind thought or word for
all of us who served her, always thoughtful to ease our lot and make our tasks in her service as light as possible! She was never interested in rich clothes and show, or gluttonous for fine foods in
the manner of so many great ladies, you know. And she loved simplicity in everything and was always so pious. Surely so pure a lady had nothing left to shed of earthly dross at the hour of her—

her death."

Tears were coursing down his hollow cheeks. Though his account did not square perfectly with every particular I had heard of the late countess, nor with Brother Nuage's notes, I murmured, "You
may well be right."

"Ah, if you had only known her, Father Melchior, then you could not doubt! I strive now to be pure, to shed all taint of desire or want and live only as a wholly virtuous person in the line of
service to which I have been called, for so long as I must still travail within this flawed world, but I must advance far indeed before I attain even a fraction of the virtue she possessed of her very
nature. And I have such sins from which to free myself! I study constantly for ways to give up all desires, to shed every calling of the dross flesh. But you are a man of Faith, Father Melchior, I
need not speak of such matters to you. I should like to ask, however: do you not think that a person who has done a great wrong, but done it without intending to do so—can such a person not
shed that stain?"