Count Scar - SA (45 page)

The prior looked surprised. "Did I not tell you? There are no other Magians in the castle but Melchior and myself. One of theirs is dead, and although there are traces that can be discerned in the
lines of magic of the presence of another, that one has been gone from this castle for at least as long as you have been in it—and he took my shadow cloak with him."

"If you'd mentioned this earlier, Prior," said the duke with another half-smile, "the last hour would have been far easier, not wondering every minute if I should expect a blast of magic from the
keep to knock me senseless. But I thought if Count Caloran can brazen it out, then I can, too."

I ignored them and turned back toward the keep. "Father Melchior is here, Gavain," I shouted. "I hope you aren't planning to add any more conditions to getting out of my keep—for example,
that you get to take my treasure with you. The longer you delay, the closer the Inquisition will be on your tail."

I kept wishing I could see the duke's son, that he was not just a disembodied voice floating down from the keep. "Melchior!" he called. "You warned me in good faith to bring my men up here to
save ourselves, and did not kill me when you could have. You may have rejected the way of Perfection for the infidel path that calls itself the True' Faith, but I believe I may still trust you."

"Though not trust me?" the duke rumbled. But he had not spoken loud enough for his words to carry, and he sat back again when I put a hand on his arm.

I could see in the torchlight Melchior struggling to sit up. He managed on the second try, the prior supporting him. "You may trust Count Caloran," he gasped. "Please, Gavain, take your men
and go. Otherwise I shall have to use the hideous magic of the battle telesma to destroy the keep, and I don't want to kill anyone else."

He had not spoken very loudly, but in the predawn stillness, with the moon down and the air chill, his voice echoed around the courtyard. "That's all I can say," he added, though I was not sure if
he addressed Gavain or me, and collapsed back down. His eyes were shut and face gray as the prior had him whisked away again.

There was another long pause, during which I again had to fight off sleep. I had almost concluded that Gavain had decided not to trust me after all when there was sudden movement in the gaping
hole that had once been the lower wall of my keep. The heretics were coming out.

The first came slowly and cautiously, swords ready, prepared either to fight or to race back inside. I gave a few quick commands, and my knights and many of the duke's hurried to form two lines,
on either side of the direct path between the keep and the stables, then between the stables and the rubble of the gatehouse. There they leaned on their swords, thirty feet back on either hand from
the column of heretics.

Watching them hurry into the stables and then out with their horses, I thought that they didn't look like practicers of demon worship and child sacrifice. They looked like frightened soldiers, a
little embarrassed to be retreating but overwhelmingly glad to be escaping with their lives. "Make sure there aren't any stragglers left with foolishly brave or suicidal notions," I told the duke,

"and send the prisoners we captured off with the rest." I got Thierri to help me rise and hobble, and went off to a storeroom to fall at last into sleep.

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Light had penetrated the storeroom window when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I rolled over on a pile of dusty wall-hangings, every part of my body in pain. It was the duke.

He squatted beside me, looking furious. At this point I scarcely cared how I might have offended my sworn lord, as long as the heretics were gone. I rubbed the grit from my eyes, coughed, and
struggled to a sitting position.

But it was not me with whom he was furious. "We've got a problem," he growled. "Gavain won't leave."

I ran a hand over my close-scorched hair. "They were all leaving," I said, resisting the temptation to flop back down again and sleep for about three days. "He accepted the amnesty."

"And the rest are gone," said Argave, "skipping pretty nimbly down the road, too. But their war-leader"—I noted he had never referred to Gavain as "my son"—"has reblocked the stair in the
keep and won't come out."

I looked at the duke from the corner of my eye. He appeared furious enough to put the scaling ladders up himself and go in single-handed to slay the one heretic left, son or no son, without even
waiting for the Inquisition. "Did he happen to mention why?"

"He won't deign to talk to me," said Argave, frowning even more heavily. "My men and yours kept a close count of the heretics going out, and then they noticed that Gavain hadn't been among
them. When they went to check the keep, they found him holed up again."

"I think I know why he's still there," I said, looking with mild interest at the wound a heretic's sword had put in my leg, up in the mountains. This was the leg I had wrenched last night, tearing
the developing scar tissue away from the wound. It ached worse than ever this morning.

If things had worked out only slightly differently, it would have been I who failed, I who promised his men victory and found only humiliating defeat. If we had not regained Peyrefixade, I would
have had to slink back north to my brother's castle, or try to catch up with the emperor to

see if he might want an old campaigner in his entourage. Gavain had nowhere to slink.

But I didn't say this. "The heretics believe they can make their own salvation," I said instead, "that if they willingly cast off the comforts of the flesh then God will always reward them. Gavain
could not recapture the battle telesma that the self-styled Perfected wanted to use to spread their despicable beliefs across the kingdom. But he thinks he can still make amends and purify his soul
by dying."

Argave made a desperate attempt at sardonic humor. "I was going to take him apart with my bare hands. But if that's what he wants so badly perhaps I should reconsider."

I rubbed my eyes again, thinking hard. "That's no good, Argave," I said, choosing my words carefully. Gavain, I thought, would not have had a very good look at me last night, at some distance
from him and lit only by flickering flambeaux. "I'd be happy to help you tear that trickster apart limb by limb, except that it would just incite the heretics to attack Peyrefixade again. Have
someone saddle his horse and have it ready, and see if you can find me any decent clothing."

The duke scowled but went. Half an hour later I was washed and shaved and dressed in my own clothes again, the very clothes that Gavain had worn to impersonate me, which he had left in a
chest in the undamaged part of the great hall. I sat amidst hangings my predecessor the countess had rejected, eating hot pancakes rolled with honey in the middle, cooked by my own cook, once
again master of his kitchen. Feeling much better than I had any right to feel, I said to the duke and to Lord Thierri, "All right. Let's see if we can get me out into the courtyard without making it
obvious I can't walk unaided."

The three of us linked arms, and I did my best, in spite of shooting pain, to put the weight on my bad leg as we went out across the courtyard. Gavain's horse was saddled and waiting—if I could
just persuade him to emerge. The guards at the remains of the gate blew the horn, and I was fairly sure I saw a flicker of motion on an upper storey of the keep as I settled majestically into a camp
chair.

"I hear you're in still in there, Gavain," I called. There was no answer, but I had not expected any, or not yet. "We had an agreement which I thought you'd accepted. All heretics out of my castle,
in return for seventy-two hours during which nobody touches you. But those hours are disappearing fast."

There was still no reply, and I began to wonder if I was wasting my time. For a moment I was distracted by a commotion at the ruins of the gate and glanced over to see that a group of riders had
arrived. It couldn't be the archbishop already! But then I turned back toward the keep, smiling inwardly. It looked instead as though the Lady Arsendis on her swift palfrey had eluded her guards
and beaten them by a hair up to the castle.

Now I just hoped she had the sense to stay quiet. "All right, Gavain," I continued, shouting up toward my invisible audience, "I can see you're enjoying mocking me one more time. Planning to
stay there until the Inquisition is actually within the gates, then tweak their noses and escape, is that it?"

I knew perfectly well that wasn't it, but I couldn't very well accuse him of intending to starve himself until his inevitable death arrived—not if I wanted him out alive.

"Don't you think my uncle the archbishop could use a little nose-tweaking?" a voice suddenly rang out from the keep.

I motioned to my knights, who had begun to murmur angrily. "As a son of the True Faith I can't possibly agree," I said sternly. But inwardly I was gleeful; if he was willing to answer me at all,
this just might work. "I have a different proposition, Gavain, one on which we might be able to come to an understanding as knights and gentlemen, even if we cannot agree on religion."

"Are you planning to buy me off, Count?" he asked with a mocking laugh. "Because if so, let me remind you that I captured your treasure chest and have it up here with me."

Better and better. So all my rent receipts hadn't been blown up along with much of the hall. I might be able to afford the masons yet without having to mortgage half my county. "Not at all," I
said, making myself speak still more sternly. "And this is no matter for joking. Because I am challenging you to a fight to the death."

He clearly wondered whether to believe me. "I thought you would have gotten your fill of fights to the death yesterday" he said, but the bantering tone was unconvincing.

"Listen to my terms," I said loudly, ignoring the reactions of everyone around me, who had not expected this any more than Gavain had. "You and I in single combat, here in this courtyard, this
morning, now." I twisted in the chair so that I could unsheath my sword smoothly. The Allemannic steel was nicked from its tumble down the mountainside; I made a mental note to have it
sharpened this afternoon if I was still alive. But he wouldn't see the nicks from up in the keep, only the morning light flashing on the blade.

"Come now, wouldn't you like a chance to avenge yourself and your dead men on me? And I'd much prefer to kill you on my own terms than to wait for approval from the archbishop! If you win,
you leave unmolested. I swear to you that no one but me shall harm you, and that I shall not back down from this fight. But if you yourself wish to back down and take advantage of my amnesty
instead, well, that's all right, too." When he did not answer at once, I added, "Why hesitate, Gavain? You know my word is good."

I could almost hear his thoughts. If he could defeat and kill me, he could return to the heretics as a hero. If I defeated him, his death would be much faster than it would be at the hands of the
Inquisition. I myself did not believe that a few days of fasting and self-purification could make

up for a lifetime of sin, but even if I did, even if I did not know I had to rely on the completely undeserved mercy of God, I would never hesitate to take death in battle over death at the stake.

"How about your priest Melchior?" he called down. "Are you going to have him officiate at our fight?"

"Stop stalling, Gavain," I called back. "He's far too ill to leave his room again and far too much a man of God to take part in a duel. He told you to trust me. If you don't believe him now, why
did you believe him last night?"

Still Gavain wouldn't agree. After another long pause he said, mocking once more, "This offer has appealing possibilities, but I'm afraid it's quite impossible. Your Magian priest shattered my
sword last night. I am unable to fight you."

"A good sword will be provided you," I replied and turned to motion to one of the knights. But Duke Argave was ahead of me. He stalked forward, jaw clenched, unsheathing his own sword. The
sun glinted on his emerald ring as he laid the sword before the ruined keep. For a moment I was afraid he would say something, but he turned, wordless, and stalked back to stand behind me
again.

Then at last I could see Gavain's face, pressed into the arrow slit and glaring down. "Everybody else stay back!" he suddenly snouted, sounding as furious as his father. "This is just you and me,
Caloran. As soon as everybody's out of the way I'm coming down."

Everyone backed off at my signal. It took several minutes for him to unblock the keep stairway and descend. But then he emerged, bright in chain mail, his helmet cradled in one arm and his shield
slung over the other. He snatched up and sheathed his father's sword, then advanced to stand a few paces before me. "So slow in arming yourself, Caloran?" he said, mocking once more, though his
eyes were taking in my burns and bruises. "Getting cold feet now that I've accepted your challenge?"

"I don't need armor," I said slowly, "for what I intend to do." And I heaved myself up by the arms of the chair, took one step, and pitched forward.

He pushed me with a toe until I rolled over and sat up. "What kind of trick is this?" he demanded in a low voice, half uneasy and half furious. He glanced behind him to see that my men had
stationed themselves in front of the hole in the keep wall; there would be no retreating back there now.

"No trick," I said. "But you have stained my honor, Gavain." I just hoped the word "honor" still had resonances for him. "The only way I can recover it is to fight you and, I hope, kill you.