Count Scar - SA (5 page)

"Yes, it is I, elder Brother."

"Have a look here, then; see what you think."

I bent to peer at the nearly finished capital. It depicted a knight in armor—no, there was a crown on his mailed head: a king. He stood alone in a wild place among rocks, facing an ancient woman
with a pinched face both cunning and fearful. The hag was crouched like a spider, all drawn up except for one long arm flung out with pointing finger to indicate something around the corner of
the capital. I leaned over and saw a bearded figure with a wrathful face, who appeared to be rising up out of the earth amid billowing fog. Looking at the king again, I realized that despite his tall
person and massive limbs he was cowering away from both the hag and the apparition. "Ah, it is Saul and the Witch of Endor, with the ghost of Samuel!"

"Good, good! Just about done; it's nice to find that someone with decent scriptural knowledge can recognize it straight away. Looks all right to you, then?"

"It is magnificent, elder Brother." But in fact something about the king's pose struck me as odd. Stooping over, I saw that one of his legs was bent in a manner that defied normal anatomy very
slightly. It also greatly increased the effect of a normally strong man reduced to shrinking terror, however, so I supposed it must have been an artistic decision by Brother Quercus.

"You're looking at that leg, aren't you?" he creaked as if reading my thoughts—was he, perhaps? "Thinking I did it that way for the effect. Well, look a little closer."

I obeyed, and after a moment I saw a little flaw in the limestone: a bit of quartz crystal, just at the place where King Saul's leg should have bent if it had been carved naturalistically. "A happy
accident, then," I said.

"It's a scar, a scar in the stone." Brother Quercus abruptly laid down his tools and thrust out his hands in my direction. After an instants confusion, I understood that he was requesting me to
help him rise. "Getting chilled; that's enough work for one day. Take me along to my cell, Brother Melchior. I'd like to rest and pray for a little while until it's time for the evening offices and
meal. The boy will fetch in the tools from the damp when he comes."

We walked slowly, as I carefully matched my pace to his. He didn't speak again until we were turning down the corridor that led to his cell. But then, "Funny things, scars, on stones or on men.

You have to work around them, you know."

"So you couldn't carve across the scar then."

"Funny things. Stuffs often the strongest right around them. But you can't strike right onto them, or something may crack. What shows on the surface is only part, you see. Scars always go
down deeper than you can see. They can be the key to the whole fabric, even in the strongest block." We had reached the door of his cell, but as he was about to enter, he turned sharply about, his
face directly toward me though his yellow old eyes were rolled sightlessly upward beneath his bushy brows. "You hear all that, Brother Melchior? You hear what I just said?"

"About scars in stone? Yes, Brother Quercus."

"Stones and men, Brother Melchior, stones and men. Just you remember that; you may find it of use before you expect. Scars can be important things, in stones or men. Other men—or yourself."

As soon as he made this pronouncement all the oaken hardness seemed to go out of him, and I found myself only looking at a blind, weary old man. He turned and shuffled into his little cell, and I
set off for mine, puzzling as I went over the question of whether I had just listened to something extremely vital or merely the random vaporings of a holy but crumbling old mind.

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I arose after fitful slumber an hour before the singing of matins the next morning and took a last walk inside and outside every part of the Orders buildings. After the singing of the first office,
while the eastern sky was still just reddening with the coming dawn, I went along to see Provost Balaam once more. I found him already at his desk, writing by the light of a candle. "Ah, good
morning, Brother Melchior. Are you ready to be on your way?"

"One of the novices is loading my baggage onto a packhorse, my father. I shall depart as soon as our interview is over."

"Excellent; then I shall endeavor to be brief. There are just one or two matters you should be acquainted with before you leave." He looked at me for a minute with the same expression he
habitually wore when perusing a questionable bill from one of the tradesmen who supplied our house with necessities from the village down in the valley. "You passed your first fourteen years in
a mountain holding, so I presume you gained at least some knowledge of the Im-Perfected, did you not?"

I stared at him in deep dismay, wondering what might be hidden behind this question. Could this be a trap; had the provost somehow discovered what I had thought was known only to the old
Master and Abbot Caspar? Yet his face did not look suspicious. Summoning courage, I managed to answer in a normal tone, "Yes, like anyone who grew up in these mountains I have some
knowledge of the Perfected Ones. But I—I hope no person has found any reason to voice doubt concerning my commitment to the True Faith."

"No, not at all. It is merely that Peyrefixade was originally built by those who styled themselves the Perfected, as one of their castles. It was the seat of one of their own greatest Magians at the
time of the great war against them. The possibility exists that it may still harbor certain—ah— manifestations even after so many years, things that a trustworthy son of the True Faith
thoroughly trained in the arts of divination, particularly one with at least some knowledge of the so-called Perfected, might perhaps be able to uncover. I simply wished to make it clear that you
should be alert for any hint of magical forces lingering anywhere about your new station, whether old or recent. It is a matter of some importance for the Order."

I began to relax again, and realized that my hands, hidden within my sleeves, had clenched with his first mention of the Perfected into fists so tight that my nails had bitten into my palms.

"Then I shall strive to be alert. But it would be easier if I could know a bit more."

"I suppose so." He paused, looking as if he would rather not go on. Controlling and doling out information as well as money is the life of every provost, and like most of the rest, ours was always
chary of parting with either. A sigh. "You will recall that Peyrefixade passed from the hands of our late beloved patron Count Bernhard to his granddaughter about a year ago, and fell vacant
again just in November when the countess met with an— accident." As he said this, he reached over to the box where he kept his inks, took out a little spill, and scattered a dusting of soot over the
piece of fine parchment spread on the desk before him. He closed his eyes in deepest concentration, then passed his hand across the parchment and began to speak in a low voice. I had never gone far
in this magic art, and I forgot all my questions and concerns while I focused all my attention on the beautiful patterns of magic that were forming on the parchment. The soot sifted about like
fine sand in a breeze until the face of a woman not much above my own age, adorned with a fine silk headdress and a necklace, formed itself upon the white surface. I had seen the late countess on
one or two occasions among other great ladies, when the region's high nobility had gathered for some great occasion at the duke's court, and was stunned by the excellence of the likeness.

"Of course. The tale of her having fallen while walking alone upon the ramparts was everywhere at the time."

"But are you not also aware that her untimely death, though most regrettable, was not entirely a bad thing for our Order?"

It was now my turn to think it might be better if Provost Balaam did not disclose too much information to me. "Well, of course I knew there had been some misunderstanding between our Order
and the countess, my father. The novices, and even some of the more senior brothers, were always gossiping about it. There was even talk of a possible case at law. I tried to pay as little attention
as possible to such idle gossip; I wanted no idle distractions from my studies and devotions." Which was perfectly true—in fact I had simply walked away from several discussions when they had
turned to this subject. I only wished I could do so now, but having once made a beginning, Provost Balaam evidently meant to go on.

"The matter begins even before you returned from our priory in the duke's city of Ferignan to join us here at the Mother House. Not long before his death, full of years and virtue, our esteemed
patron the old count had been contemplating a final gift to us, one more munificent even than the one in which he joined the duke when founding this house of ours. Just two months before his
end he visited our dear and glorious Master at his place of retirement to discuss the matter. Abbot Caspar, the dean, myself, and several other senior officers joined them there one day and heard all
about it. The gift was to establish a memorial for the souls of his dead wife and son, as well as his own, and would have been generous enough to establish an entire new daughter house! But the
good old Count Bernhard died suddenly before the firm arrangements for the larger part of this gift could be completed, though title to certain very seemly lands had already passed to us. After a
decent interval, our man who was then serving as capellanus at Peyrefixade approached our patron's granddaughter, the new countess, to see if she intended to carry through what her grandfather
had proposed to undertake. She demurred, though she did go so far then as to make a modestly handsome gift of her own in order to establish anniversaries for her grandfather and the others I have
mentioned."

"A few months later, however, her seneschal called upon our father the dean to inform him apologetically that half the annual profits from the mill at Riveau-Noir, which the old count had long
remitted to our Order in their entirety, would no longer be coming to us." Provost Balaam took up a feather and swept it lightly over the countess's image, murmuring once more. Her image
vanished, and the deeply lined face of a man of about fifty, with intelligent, sad eyes, slowly replaced it. "Several such visits and announcements followed over the succeeding months. Soon it
became evident to the brother then serving as capellanus to the countess's court that her consort, Lord Tnierri, was prevailing upon her to look on our Order with far less favor than her family had
formerly shown."

He passed the feather across the parchment once more and the seneschals image also dissolved, as the elegant magic patterns shifted the soot to form the face of a courtier in a velvet hat, a fine-boned man with a subtle expression. "Such situations are not uncommon from time to time between an established house and the new heir belonging to a family whose heads have traditionally
been patrons, as you know. But it was nonetheless highly distressing. We reasoned with the countess, of course, and for a time we thought the matter had been amicably settled. Then in the
autumn we learned to our distress that the countess and her consort were now contemplating bringing a formal dispute before the duke—and if that did not answer, the king!"

"Yes, even I heard those rumors. But no one in the cloister knew any particulars, so it was hard to be sure how much was real."

"Oh, it was real enough. They intended to contest all the lands and other properties that the good old count had managed to convey to us just before his death, and even some of his previous
patronage as well. Nothing formal had been done in the case at that point, but we received positive information that the entire matter would be placed openly before the duke when the countess
and her consort attended his winter court. But the countess, heaven rest her, died first."

"Heaven rest her indeed." One must say this, or be thought to have presumptuously assumed that the hand of God had intervened in our behalf. "But aside from the fortuitous aspect of the
misfortune occurring just at the time, how is our Order's interest affected now?"

"It is affected because there is a rumor that some form of Magic Arts may have been employed to cause the accident. And that has caused whisperings, and sometimes more than whisperings, in
circles where anything to our discredit would be far from unwelcome."

"But surely the brother who was on the scene at the time must have investigated at once, if magic appeared to be involved! What did he find?"

"He was given little chance to discover anything. The countess's consort sent him away from Peyrefixade the very morning after the accident and summoned a parish priest from the local village
to perform the offices for his wife instead. Brother Nuage did manage to get close very briefly to the place from which she fell, just after her body had been discovered, and believes he did detect a
hint of recent magic there. The late countess's consort did not permit any member of our Order to enter Peyrefixade after that, so there could be no confirmation. But now, with the arrival of this
new Count Caloran and your entry into his service, you shall have ample opportunity to investigate the matter on the spot. Of course it is far too late to find any trace of magical activities where
the countess fell, but you can be alert for any sign that someone may be working magic now."

He paused to open a box and took out a little sheaf of parchment scraps bound together with an old bit of thong. When he handed them to me, I saw that they were pages salvaged from old books
and scraped free of the original writing, standard material for recording informal notes. "Brother Nuage has been staying at our priory in the duke's city ever since he left Peyrefixade. This is the
account he wrote concerning everything he saw or surmised during the last part of his time at the castle. It may aid you. Remember, however, your first order of business must be to impress this
Count Caloran with your diligence and loyalty as his priest and advisor. His arrival represents a new chance for our Order to regain the good-will and patronage of Peyrefixade. It will be up to
you to guide his thoughts in that direction—and to defend him from any magical attacks such as the one that may have killed the countess."