Shroud of Shadow (14 page)

Awry: it was all going awry. In order to keep her word to Omelda, she had given her word to Jacob Aldernacht; and now, because of the second obligation, she could no longer fulfill the first. But she made herself answer politely. “Because, sir, I am not a proper woman. I am . . .” An Elf. She could have said it. An Immortal. One of the Firstborn, the People of the Stars, who had seen life arise from a pit of slime and grow into something like this Jacob Aldernacht who was asking her about head coverings and proper womanhood. But she refrained. “. . . a harper.”

Jacob's eyes narrowed, and Natil thought that she detected a trace of a smile at the corners of his hard mouth. “Right out front,” he said. “I like that. Well, be a hussy if you want. And keep your feather. Maybe it'll bring us luck.”

“It is meant to bring luck, Mister Jacob.”

Jacob laughed: a hard, brittle sound. “Well, we'll need it in Furze!” He looked at Francis. “Let's get going.”

Francis examined the harper once more, shook his head, turned for his mount.

Jacob swung back to Natil. “You get your ass up on your horse, girl. And I daresay you'll learn to cover your head in Furze!”

Natil blinked. “Why is that, Mister Jacob?”

“Siegfried of Madgeburg is reason enough for anything,” said Jacob. “He wants women to be obedient, properly cowed, and respectful. Just like he wants everybody. Just like
I
want everybody.” He motioned for a servant to bring the harper's horse, stared Natil in the face with narrow, parsimonious eyes. “So I'll let you in on a little secret, girl,” he said in a confidential whisper. “Siegfried hasn't met up with Jacob Aldernacht yet. He's got a lot to learn about some things.”

They started off then. Jacob and Francis rode in the lead, escorted by picked members of their private army. Following them were the servants and the musicians and the luggage and more soldiers. It was a businessman's entourage: here was finery, to be sure, but only of the solemn, straight-to-the-point variety, the kind as equally suited to audiences with kings and barons as it was to contract and bargains and screaming at the son of a bitch on the other side of the table that he was an idiot and a fool for not seeing it the right way, the only way, the Aldernacht Way.

And as one of the other musicians told Natil after she introduced herself and took her place among them, this trip would perhaps partake of a little of all of the above, for any dealings with Furze would involve, by necessity,
four
parties.

“There's Mister Jacob, of course,” said Harold as the horses and mules clopped across the morning-damp cobbles of the deserted streets, “and there's the wool cooperative. That's two.” He grinned at her, the pouty underlip of a shawm player evident even in the proximity of so many white teeth. “But then we have David a'Freux, the local baron, to deal with, as well as . . .” He waggled his eyebrows roguishly. “. . .Siegfried of Madgeburg.”

“The Inquisitor.” Natil looked down at her horse's mane, sighed.

Again the white teeth. “You've heard of him, then.”

Natil mustered a thin smile. The Inquisition had not been kind to the Elves. “Who in Adria has not heard of him?” she said.

Harold feigned a pout, his shawm-lip turning suddenly comical with exaggeration. “And here I thought I was telling you something wonderful and new. But . . .” A flicker of a grin. “. . . here I am flirting with my superior.”

In spite of her concerns about Omelda—who was, this prime, on her own—and about her own present situation, Natil laughed outright, and even the men of the Aldernacht guard looked up, startled by the sudden brightness of her voice. “I will not give you permission to flirt with me, youngster,” she said.

“Youngster!”

“Youngster.” She knew how incredulous he was: Harold was in his twenties, but she herself looked little more than eighteen. “But I will not insist upon formalities, either.” She turned to the other musicians. Grown men, all of them, given over to a young woman's charge as though they were a troop of little boys. “I am a harper,” she said. “We are all musicians. I ask that we treat one another in accordance with the holiness of our calling.”

Dumbfounded stares. Holiness?

Natil cleared her throat. “Holiness, gentlemen.” Turning back to Harold, she smiled politely. Always polite these Elves: all that they held sacred might be torn apart, their world might be at an end, their loved ones might be murdered before their eyes . . . and yet they would be polite.

A painful thought. No. Not always. Something had happened long ago . . . something that had ended with Natil laying her harp on the pyre of a friend. She shook off the memory, though. Mirya was gone now—gone for good, gone beyond all returning—and so were all the rest. Everything elven was in the past. The far past. There was but one Elf left now, and she was beginning to doubt her claim to that title.

She glanced up at the morning sky. No 747. She felt disappointed.

“What about David and Siegfried?” she said to Harold. Her voice was soft.

But before the pouty shawm player could reply: “Mistress Natil,” came the shout from the front of the columns, “Mister Jacob wants you.”

Harold abruptly looked wise. “Ah, the old man has a taste for young women. He'd best watch his heart.” A waggle of the eyebrows. “In more ways than one.”

“I do not understand.”

Harold blew a spit bubble from between his half-open lips, let it pop. “Paper thin, mistress. Paper thin.”

Natil did not comprehend, but the summons was repeated, and she lifted an arm to wave her acknowledgment. The town gate was narrow, but once she had passed through, she trotted her horse up alongside the road to Jacob's side.

It was still early, and much of the landscape was clad in mist. To the south, though, Natil could make out a dark line of trees: Malvern Forest. There, she had hoped to find an end, but Omelda had come, and then the Aldernacht family. And so: “You called me, master,” she said.

“My father would like—” began Francis.

“I'll do my own talking,” said Jacob. He glared at his son. “Always sticking up that nose of yours. God knows, you didn't get that from your mother.”

Francis's jaw clenched. “No, I didn't get it from Mother. I got it from you.”

A flicker in Jacob's eye? A sudden faltering in his glare? But: “I'm glad you remember where you came from.”

Francis kept his eyes fixed on the horizon. “I remember. I think even Josef remembers.”

“Then shut up and drool over your memories.” Jacob turned to Natil. “What kind of claptrap has Harold been giving you?”

“Hardly claptrap, master. We discussed the state of affairs in Furze, and then he offered the common homage tendered by any man to any woman.”

Jacob's glare turned stony. Natil realized that she had said the wrong thing, and at decidedly the wrong time. No stars, no futures, no sense of probabilities here: Natil lived in the present, made mistakes, shoved her foot into her mouth now with as much alacrity as the silliest mortal.

“He
what
?” said Jacob.

“I am sorry, sir,” Natil said quickly. “I think of common gallantry as such.”

“I know gallantry,” said Jacob. He eyed Natil. “It's all rat shit and bird farts.”

Perhaps I will be lucky
, though Natil.
Perhaps they will simply relieve me of my obligations here and let me go
.

But she had no more luck than Omelda, it seemed, and an outright dismissal was not forthcoming. Jacob's expression abruptly turned cunning. “What did Harold say about Furze?”

Natil looked at Francis. Francis was doing his best to look elsewhere.

“No,” said Jacob. “Don't pay any attention to Francis. Pay attention to me. I pay you, I own you. I'm your master as long as I live.” He leered at Francis. “Any particular plans, Francis?”

Francis blinked. “Well, you know, I'm sure I haven't any idea what you're talking about, Father.”

Jacob thumped his chest, feigned a hacking cough. “Oh, dear,” he said in a wheezing voice, “the lad doesn't know what his dying father is talking about. And what will become of the company? All that money just left lying around idle because the son doesn't understand. Ugh! Ugh!”

Paper thin. Natil suddenly understood Harold's words. Paper thin . . . in many ways.

Francis did not look at his father, but a muscle up near the corner of his jaw had begun to twitch. Natil, who had positioned her horse directly between the two men, wished fervently that she was somewhere else.

“I'll tell you about Furze, Mistress Natil,” Jacob continued in a normal voice. “There are some bright young lads down there who are sick of living like beggars. They've decided to bring industry back to their city. My industry.” He eyed the harper. “Ever been to Furze?”

“I have.” She discovered that she was smiling wistfully. All she had now were memories . . . and a few hopes. “But that was . . . a long time ago.”

“Well, they used to be dairy down there, everything was dairy. Milk, cheese, butter. But when the city went down, Belroi picked up all the business, and now there isn't much left for anyone. You've heard the saying: even the rats don't like Furze. But Paul Drego and his boys are sticking it out, and they're going to try wool. And I'm going to help them.” Jacob looked at Francis. “Despite my son's counsel.”

“It's a bad idea, Father,” said Francis. “It's just non-acceptable. The Inquisition could take everything.”

“They'll not get a penny.”

Francis frowned. Natil, still in the middle, was again wishing that she was not.

“I'll tell you something, Francis,” said Jacob. “I think you're jealous of Paul and his boys.”

“Jealous!”

The old man jabbed a finger at his son. “They've got spunk. They've got drive. They've got ambition. They're not waiting around for their father to die off so they can inherit the family fortune. There isn't any family fortune, so they're rolling up their sleeves and making one of their own. I like that. I admire people who work with their hands.” He glanced sidelong at Natil, and the intimation was clear: though the harper might—just might—be included among those who worked with their hands, Francis certainly was not.

“Ah . . .” said Natil into the tense silence. “Harold mentioned . . . ah . . . David a'Freux and Siegfried—”

“Siegfried of Madgeburg,” said Jacob. “Well, we have to take David into account because he's still the baron down there. His family took over after old Martin the Faggot . . .”

Natil's hand tightened on the forepillar of her harp. But Jacob's epithet for Martin delMari was as offhand as a remark about the weather.

“. . . couldn't get an heir on a woman to save his life. Things might have been different if men could whelp through their assholes!” Jacob laughed. Francis laughed with him, but Jacob silenced him with a glare that made Natil flinch. “But David is of two minds about the whole affair, which is easy enough for him, because he doesn't have much of a mind to begin with. Typical a'Freux: he wants the money to come to Furze because that will give him more taxes; but he doesn't want the money to come to Furze because that will mean that he has to deal with townsfolk who are a little better off than serfs.” He cackled. “So he winds up working for both sides at once . . . and accomplishing nothing. Of course, the man he's really working for is Siegfried of Madgeburg.”

“The Inquisitor?” Jacob, Natil realized, was a man who knew many things and enjoyed demonstrating it. Since he obviously expected admiration, she, like a proper woman, nodded in agreement and asked questions to which she already knew the answers. Men like Jacob Aldernacht did not normally converse so casually with their employees, but she was, in fact, not an employee: she was a possession. Jacob might as well have been talking to a wall, to a dog, or to himself.

“David carries out Siegfried's sentences,” said Jacob. “He's the secular power in Furze, and so he has to. Inquisitors can make people do anything.” He rode silently for a moment. “That is, people who care anything about their immortal souls.” Again, he glanced sidelong at Natil, this time as though to defy her to propose that Jacob Aldernacht cared anything about an item that could not be weighed, spun, fulled, or woven . . . and sold. “Although I'm sure David doesn't fuss about the arrangements as long as he gets his share of the confiscated property.”

Francis squirmed.

“And . . . and how does Siegfried feel about the wool cooperative?” asked Natil with an uneasy glance at the son.

Jacob turned crafty again. “A real question, eh? What a sharp little girl I've got for my harper. The answer is: I don't know. Siegfried is a mystery. I don't understand him at all.” Again, a silence. Natil felt Francis's tension.

“I had a man down there a few years back,” Jacob said at last. “Name of Fredrick. He was supposed to find out a few things for me. About the wool cooperative. About Siegfried.” He glanced at Natil. “He was a spy,” he said patiently.

Natil nodded, wide-eyed and dutiful.

“Failed completely. Disappeared, in fact.”

“It was the Inquisition,” said Francis.

“Maybe,” said Jacob.

Francis finally burst out. “He'll take everything, Father! Inquisitors can do that, too! Contracts are null and void! Money and property are forfeit! Is that what you want?”

Jacob examined his son coolly. “I want to make money,” he said at last.

“There's none to be made in Furze!”

“Then I want to lose money.
My
money.” Jacob was not looking at Francis, but Natil noticed his smirk. “I'm an old man, Francis. I have to worry about my soul. Everybody else seems to be buying their way into Paradise these days: why should I be any different? Maybe I'll give my money to Siegfried. He's doing God's work after all. Then again, poor old Albrecht is trying to get a cathedral up down there: maybe I'll give everything to him.” Jacob smiled, but Natil caught a whiff of fear and utterly impotent rage from Francis. The combination, she knew, could be a deadly one.

But: “Play something for us, harper,” said Jacob. “I want to hear a song.”

Natil nodded, set her harp upright. It was a little difficult to play when riding, but she had been harping for a long time, and so her hands were steady as she put them to the strings. “Do you . . . do you like music, Mister Jacob?” she said courteously.