Strands of Starlight (44 page)

She knew that torture and perhaps death would result from Mika's rescue. And she knew also, because she had acted, because she had chosen, because she had played a distinct part in a shaping of causality that was no less definite than Terrill's alteration of the webs by other means, that she was responsible.

I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry. . . .

She could not blame herself for everything, though: Roger of Aurverelle had his own choices. He could have dropped the investigation. He could have been less harsh. But he was determined, and he was brutal: he had his own responsibilities.

Roger raged and questioned. His plans, Mirya noted with some satisfaction, were eroding, and from her vantage among the stars, she felt the entire pattern of Adria and Europe changing, the result of comparatively insignificant actions that had expanded and enlarged like the ripples of a pond or the petals of a flower.

Jaques Alban had been nothing more than an expendable lackey. The plan had been all along that he would vanish and in so doing would provide an excuse for investigation and, later, inquisition. But the investigation had gone awry, for it had led to Cranby's death and thence to the difficulties in which Roger was now embroiled.

And Roger himself had played a part in the disintegration of the plan, for as the result of a casual rape, he had created an angry healer who had become an elven maid with a sword. And she, in turn, had arrived just in time for Cranby and his followers to come into conflict with her so that she might play her own part in the collapse of the plot.

And Cranby had ridden down Charity . . .

And Varden, who had transformed a healer girl into an elven maid, had ended the bishop's life. . . .

And . . .

The web grew in Mirya's mind, intricate, plexed, the relations between events blurring into obscurity, leading her awareness even farther from her, but she reached her limit of comprehension, pulled out the mass of interconnections, and focused instead on Roger, tracking him through the days that followed.

She watched as he eavesdropped on Paul delMari and Clarence, watched him batter the small man's head against a wall until Paul's features were an unrecognizable mass of pulped meat and gristle.

And Paul had betrayed Mika to Cranby . . .

And Mika had . . .

Focus. She shook herself away from the connections. She saw the discovery of Paul delMari's body by a wandering soldier-turned-pilgrim named Roderick. She saw documents—wills, codicils—passed from hand to hand. A young clerk with a roll of parchments began to climb a flight of stairs up to a council chamber where Roger waited as the strands approached the present.

Suddenly Roger's life branched into a matrix of interwoven futures of varying potential, and Mirya sorted through them, allowing them to pass before her like the pageants of a mystery play. Coloring all, though, was the anger that mounted steadily within the baron of Aurverelle: he was looking for something or someone to strike out against, and his inmost thoughts were a welter of blood.

Shuddering, she searched for a way to confront Roger alone, sword to sword. A second entrance into the city would be futile: there would be no way that she could have Roger to herself. She plodded through the potential. Would Roger leave the city, either by himself or with a suitably small company?

The complex braid that was Janet Darci wound through one of the futures. Mirya backtracked. The baron's eyes had been lustful at the sight of the hostage. Doggedly, Mirya traced forward again, approached the knot of possibilities in which her own future entered the picture.

Strand by strand she sorted through the lattices. As a result of Roger's attraction for Janet, there was a future in which he would go hawking with her . . . and with two attendants who could be trusted to become lost at a convenient time.

You son of a bitch.

Grimly, she centered herself again and watched the pageant unfold. Roger, with only the unsuspecting Janet and the attendants, left the city and headed for—dear Lady!—Beldon Forest. And after a while, Baron Aurverelle suggested that he show Janet the beauties of Beldon. Without the attendants.

A few minutes after, one of Mirya's potential futures intersected theirs, and the potentials became confused.

A future. Uncertain probability. Mirya found the stars and began to channel starlight. Power flooded through her. Funneling the starlight into the webs, she filled the desired future with energy, rammed into it her wishes and her will.

When she finally opened her eyes, she was gasping for breath. Her clothing was damp with sweat, and her hands trembled so violently that for some minutes she could not lift them to wipe her dripping face. She was stiff, cold, and hungry; but she had succeeded: the day after tomorrow, Roger of Aurverelle would leave Hypprux with only a young woman and two attendants for company.

And he would ride to Beldon Forest.

Codicil the Second:

It being that my dear wife and I were not granted a son until comparatively late in our lives, at which time we were given our most beloved Charles, and said Charles—who by the grace of God shall be eleventh baron of the House of delMari and of Furze—being but ten years old at this date, I, Paul delMari, baron of Furze, make herewith this second codicil to my will.

I hereby command that should I die before my eldest son reaches his majority, George Darci of Saint Blaise shall be regent and executor of my will until such time as said son shall come of age and assume the rights and responsibilities of his title and house. George Darci shall have, until that time, control and command over my estates, lands, possessions, chattels, and trusts, excepting of course those of my wife (should she survive me).

I adjure George Darci, as my friend, confidant, and milk brother, to have a care for the wishes and desires of my wife and eldest son and to listen carefully to their advice, for they are not without wisdom and knowledge, notwithstanding sex (in the case of my wife) or age (in the case of my son).

Should George Darci not survive me, I assign all rights and offices enumerated above to the town council of Saint Blaise, under the same conditions, limitations, and terms.

I command that copies and records of my will and codicils thereto be kept at my house in Furze, in my castle at Shrinerock, and in the record house of Hypprux.

With my own hand do I write this codicil, and do sign and date it this twenty-first day of March, in the Year of Our Most Blessed Lord, One Thousand Three Hundred and Fifty-one.

***

Roger sat without moving for some time after the clerk read the last word to him. It was well after midnight, but candles provided a ruddy light that flickered in an amber wash over the big room.

Suddenly he moved, sweeping the candle holders from the table before him in a jangling mass that hit the flagstones of the floor with a clatter, rolled, and lay still. In the half darkness left behind, Roger pushed back his stool roughly and turned to clerk.

“Is that what it says?”

“It is, my lord.”

“
That traitorous bastard!
” Roger stood, fists clenched, jaw working, wanting nothing right now so much as revenge. But what revenge could he have against a dead man?

“Shall I return this to the record rooms, messire?”

Roger did not answer. He was occupied, casting his mind about, considering the consequences of the insignificant bit of parchment. Furze under the control of the Free Towns! It seemed incredible. Milk brother! Why had no one told him about that?

“My lord—”

Roger turned, snatched the parchment from the clerk, backhanded him off his stool. The young man fell among the rushes and lays tunned for a moment before he tried, weakly, to rise. His hands and feet scuffed futilely on the tile floor. His robe tangled with his legs and he cried.

His hand shaking with impotent anger, Roger held the manuscript above the flame of a remaining candle until it caught. When his skin stung with the flame, he tossed it into the fireplace.

The clerk was sitting up, whimpering, his hands pressed to his face. Blood seeped from between his fingers.

“Get out,” said Roger.

Groping, the clerk made his way out the door and into the corridor. His sobs faded slowly into the distance.

Burning Paul's will, Roger knew, accomplished nothing. There were copies storied throughout the land, and doubtless the most official of them was in the keeping of Paul's steward.

The crusade was steadily slipping away from him. First Gugliemino, then Paul delMari, and now, on top of everything else, that jackal of a bishop of Maris, Clarence.

And his mate!
Damn him!
Dead in the harness!

Cranby's body had been brought back to the city for examination. Aside from some wounds left postmortem by wild animals, there was not a mark on the bishop. The cause of death, though, was obvious: Cranby's spine had been broken twice, the fractures created with the skill of a surgeon, precisely placed.

Elves.

Roger left the room abruptly, slamming the thick door behind him. His shoulder throbbed as he made his way down the hall. Even after a year, the wound still reminded him of its presence, of the Elf that had given it to him.

The Free Towns would pay for that, one way or another. He would see to it. He wished that he had the time to journey down to those despicable little cities and begin exacting the cost immediately, but he had to put off his departure for the wilderness yet again, for now affairs in Hypprux had to be handled with great delicacy. Not only was there a chance that the whole plan would fragment, but Clarence was there on the fringes, hatching his own plots, eager to pounce if given the chance. And Furze of all things.
Furze!

He leaned his elbows on the windowsill and rubbed at his face. When he opened his eyes he noticed, on the narrow ornamental ledge that ran just below the level of the window, the print of a boot in the dust. The foot that had made it was small, slender, and Roger had a distinct feeling that he knew to what race it belonged.

And had he not stood at this very window on that very night? Could it be that only a yard or so from him—

He pulled away from the window. Lusting for revenge, he had to content himself with the thin gruel of patience, for there seemed to be no one in Hypprux against whom to strike. Impotently raging, he folded his arms, leaned against the wall.

A stray thought intruded into his anger: a fair girl, with hair the color of flax, reading a book. He hesitated, weighing the thought, weighing other thoughts . . . balancing . . .

***

Kay made his way home through the dark streets of Saint Brigid. There was an empty pyx in his bundle and, in the house he had left a short time before, a vacancy that would ache for some time.

The stars shone down brightly, and the air was warm and clear. Dawn was some hours away, and he carried a lamp so as not to stumble. He stumbled anyway: the lamp was dim, and he was too preoccupied to look at his feet.

A porta inferi
. . .

The words clung to him, dogging his steps along the street, over the cobbles, across the grass of the common.

. . .
erue Domina
. . .

“Deliver me,” he mumbled, fatigue slurring his words. “Deliver us all. The shepherds have thrown in with the wolves, and who shall care for the sheep?”

He was not making much sense, even to himself. His God? Who, or what, was his God anymore?
Erue Domina.
Deliver me, Lady! Had he not been chanting the antiphon over and over for the last ten days? And by what right did he then don the stole of Christian priesthood and visit the house of a dying man, bringing the oil and the wafer and guiding him into a kingdom of which he himself had lost sight?

Domina!

The Elves knew Her, saw Her, spoke with Her. As did Roxanne now. Charity, too, he did not doubt. And they all, without exception, faced with equanimity and calm the future that crested above them like a wave. Whatever came was—how had Varden said it?—acceptable. In whatever form it took. There was no other way.

He stood on the soft grass, bereft, betrayed, traitorous to his own creed. The casual and oft-made promise of eternal life in heaven seemed a paltry thing indeed when held up to the imminent threat of war, burning, death, and torture.

Sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of peppermint tea before her, Mika had told him what they had done to her in matter-of-fact words. The midwife was a middle-aged woman with a kindly look about her eyes and a deftness to her hands, and Kay had found himself listening with horrified fascination to her stories of methodical torment. Miriam had raged, and her anger had dissipated some of the force of her words; but here was a simple peasant woman talking simply of burning flesh, broken bones, red-hot—

He sat down on the grass and covered his face with his hands. He had committed sacrilege this night, and no one knew it except himself.

I can't believe anymore. I can't.

Faith was not enough. Faith was what his Church had demanded of him, and he had tendered it devoutly, with his whole heart and soul. He had clung to it, preached it, guided others by its light, made it so much a part of his own life that it had taken on the form and substance of absolute fact. God loved. Heaven was there. Salvation was attainable.

But since his faith was based, of necessity, not upon direct experience, but on the teachings of those he assumed were wiser than he, it tottered and fell when those teachers flouted the very doctrines they preached.

He dropped his hands. Eyes streaming, he looked up at the stars. “Oh, My Lady,” he breathed. “How long have I been such a fool?”

The stars twinkled in the clear night air. The village was dark and silent, and he pulled himself up slowly, his bones aching, his heart empty. Wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his soutane, he discovered that the once familiar garment now seemed alien, strange, ill-fitting.

His lamp had gone out, its oil exhausted. Groping, he picked it up and made his way across the common. His legs felt weak; the world seemed unreal, thin, as though it could be torn away of a sudden to reveal something different, something he did not expect, something he could not comprehend.