The Fell Sword (38 page)

Almspend’s hand paused.

The King laughed. ‘A stiff-necked drover? He’d never accept it from me. He has to go win it for himself – aye, and he’ll be a better man for it, and you’ll bloom all the more.’

Almspend finished her task. ‘As Your Grace says, of course,’ she breathed.

The King frowned at Lady Almspend. ‘Do you know as much of religion as you do of history, my dear?’

Almspend bowed in her chair. ‘Your Grace, religion is nothing
but
history.’

Ser Richard laughed aloud, but the Queen frowned.

‘Why do these gentlemen disapprove so strongly of the Captal’s cousin Guillaulme as Bishop?’ the King asked.

Almspend raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m sure I am
not
the one to discuss this with the King and privy council,’ she said.

The Queen put a hand on her back. ‘The King asks
you.
’

Almspend shrugged. ‘Guillaulme Le Penser is one of the leaders of an intellectual movement.’

The King nodded. ‘Come, that sounds promising.’

Almspend raised both eyebrows. ‘He is a teacher at the University of Lutece. He and the other Scholastics – as they call themeselves – believe that the use of hermeticism is connected to the worship of Satan; that the miracles of God are of an entirely different order; that those who use power should be burned as witches.’

There was a stunned silence.

The King leaned forward. ‘Why would they believe such a foolish thing?’ he asked.

Almspend shrugged. ‘I can give a politic answer, an intellectual answer, or a pragmatic answer, Your Grace.’

The King nodded. ‘Let’s have pragmatic, for all love.’

Almspend tried to meet the Queen’s eye before she went on. ‘Your Grace, the University of Lutece follows the Patriarch of Rhum. As the Academy – the centre of learning, especially hermetical learning – is in the grasp of the Patriarch of Liviapolis, it serves the needs of the Patriarch of Rhum to make his rival appear a witch. Further to that all of the Scholastics are men and none of them have access to power. They seek to create a world that they can dominate – after all those capable of using power are burned away.’

The Count of the Borders shook his head. ‘Sweet Saviour, then how will we stop the Wild?’

‘Lutece is a long way from any battlefront with the Wild,’ Almspend replied.

The King nodded. ‘Well, best to know. I’m sure he’ll be difficult – look at the Captal and his heavy-handed policies. But he does get things done. Perhaps his cousin is from the same mould.’

The Queen looked baffled. ‘My dear, you just heard Becca say he’ll try to rid the realm of all hermeticals?’

The King patted her hand. ‘Fear not, love – I know what’s best for the realm. Random wants a new bishop. This man sounds very intelligent. He’ll be a help at council, and we’ll simply have to show him the kindly light of our hermeticals.’ He nodded, dismissing the women. ‘Lady Almspend, your learning lights my court like a hundred candles.’

She curtsied. ‘My lord, it would be a good thing for the realm for Magister Harmodius to be replaced. A new magister could help us persuade the Bishop.’

The King nodded and waved a hand.

When they were gone, Gareth Montjoy shook his head. ‘Was that poised young woman with the lovely ankles my daughter?’ he asked. ‘Need they pluck so much of their foreheads and show quite so much leg?’

The King laughed. ‘When I was coming to manhood women wore sacks in layers. I prefer the modern taste.’

Montjoy shook his head. ‘Your Grace is not a parent,’ he said, and then stiffened. He’d come close to the unsayable.

The King looked at him mildly. ‘I suppose someday God will bless me with a child,’ he said, and his face grew tight. His sigh was heavy.

‘Your Grace, I am sorry.’ Gareth bowed. Reminding the King of his childlessness was not a good start to a day.

The King waved him off. ‘Never mind, Gareth,’ he said. ‘God will provide.’ He turned to Ser Richard. ‘Why so long-faced, Dick?’

Ser Richard shrugged. ‘I think I may need to ask a leave of absence from Your Grace and go ride about on errantry until my worth is ranked higher.’

The King frowned. ‘You were at my side at Lissen. Indeed, you stood by me to the end. No man here doubts your worth, and your hand was reckoned mighty that day.’

Ser Richard bowed. ‘It is kind of Your Grace to say so – but many men fought valiantly at Lissen.’

The Count nodded. ‘Aye, and to brag about it, carping on all day. And every one of them Galles.’ He looked at Ser Richard. ‘Are you really proposing to leave court for a while?’ he asked.

Ser Richard met the King’s eye. ‘Yes, if I have leave.’

Montjoy looked at the King. ‘De Vrailly is on his way back here with the Earl, isn’t he?’ he asked.

The King shrugged. ‘Yes.’

‘We need to get all the Southerners – all the knights from Jarsay and their retinues – away from court before there is blood.’ Montjoy leaned forward.

The King sighed heavily. ‘Yes,’ he admitted.

‘And what if he gets above himself?’ asked Ser Richard. ‘Don’t you need the Southerners to balance the Galles?’

‘By Christ I hate all these factions,’ said the King. ‘And I’m the King, not the head of a rival faction myself. I need nothing to curb the Captal but my word.’

Montjoy’s eyes met those of Fitzroy. But after a long unspoken message – pleading – he nodded. ‘I’ll go. Where do you have in mind, my lord Constable?’

‘Albinkirk,’ said the Constable, ‘needs new men for the garrison, and Ser John has been fighting. He’s virtually alone, and he deserves better of us.’ He turned to the King and squared his shoulders as if entering combat, and said, ‘Is Your Grace determined on this new bishop? I feel it is an error to give de Vrailly another boon.’

The King set his face. ‘I will have nothing to do with factions,’ he said.

‘Your Grace, I have not asked you for
anything.
I stand for the kingdom. And I say that de Vrailly has too many men-at-arms and too much power already, and that this man should be sent back to Galle as soon as his ship touches the shore.’

‘I’ll consider it,’ the King said.

The Queen led the way down the corridor. ‘That was easier than I expected. Why do you think that the old King’s writs and letters are closed, Becca?’

Almspend was already regretting her fashionable gown with its high collar – managing it required the very skills she’d spurned when other girls were learning them, so that she could instead master High Archaic. Her beautiful deep-blue slippers offered no protection at all against the cold of the stone.

Why is it the Queen never seems to be affected by these things?
Almspend wondered. The Queen seemed to float along, never hot, never cold, never troubled by cramps or headaches or even a runny nose.

‘My lady, I would guess that the old King said some outrageous things in his time. He certainly had lovers – women and men both, according to my father. He played favourites and while he was an excellent king, my lady, one rather has the feeling that he was not a particularly good person.’ She shrugged.

The Queen laughed. ‘How exciting! For the first time, I understand your interest in history. Where are we?’

‘My lady, this is the donjon – we are entering by what would have been the secret passage, back in King Uthaneric’s day. But when the New Palace was built—’

‘Becca, is there anything you don’t know?’ asked Lady Mary. ‘By the Virgin! I thought the New Palace had been here two hundred years and more.’

‘Yes, Mary,’ Almspend said, in the voice she reserved for the great number of otherwise intelligent beings who seem to have no interest in history. ‘The New Palace is almost exactly two hundred years old. I can show you a foundation stone with the date. Sixty-two sixty-three.’

‘How old is Harndon, then?’ asked Lady Mary.

‘The Empress Livia and her legions established a fortress here one thousand and fifty years ago. Or so.’ Almspend shrugged. ‘Actually, there’s a great deal of argument among scholars about the date of the expedition, and whether Harndon was established in the first or second expedition to the Nova Terra.’

‘Really?’ asked the Queen. She rolled her eyes at Lady Mary, but Almspend either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

‘At any rate, my lady, Harndon is a very old name and probably pre-dates the Archaics. When good King Ranulf returned from the Holy Land and built the New Palace, his chamberlain, Hildebald, writes that the deepest excavations found both tunnels, a temple foundation, and a road of logs laid side by side and planed flat with an adze of great antiquity. The temple still held enormous latent
potentia
and had to be cleansed by the archbishop. He died of the task, and the Patriarch had to come from Liviapolis.’

The three women walked along the corridor for a few more steps.

‘How terrifying!’ said Lady Mary. ‘Where was this temple?’

‘Oh, just behind us, about twenty paces. Some of the old stones were reused in the corridor – look – see the Green Man? That’s one of their old signs.’

The Queen put a hand on the stone. She closed her eyes. ‘They still have power. They called this place—’ She paused. ‘Harn Dum.’

‘Why yes!’ Almspend was delighted. ‘Did you read that in Tacitus?’

‘No,’ said the Queen, clearly shaken. ‘I just heard a voice in the stone.’

‘You mean to say that our world sits atop yesterday’s world, and that one sits atop another, and another? Under our New Palace is an older palace, and then a temple – what’s under the temple?’

‘Something wrought by the Wild, perhaps, or by the Old People.’ Almspend laughed.

‘The Wild cannot build anything,’ said Lady Mary.

‘Nonsense! The Wild makes wonderful things. The new scholarship studies these things. Irks build, they have music, and they have towns and castles.’ Almspend nodded, happy to be able to discuss the things that delighted her with her friends, who too often talked about dancing.

‘That is merely the imitation of man,’ said Lady Mary.

‘Not at all. That’s a very dated theology, my dear,’ said Almspend. ‘In fact, it is far more likely that our works are an imitation of theirs.’

‘Poppycock!’ snapped Mary, who was tired of being patronised by her father and didn’t intend to let Becca Almspend get into the habit. ‘Rubbish!’

Surprisingly, it was the Queen who agreed. ‘Before he left, Harmodius was experimenting with issues raised along these lines,’ she said. Almspend nodded. ‘The Archaics understood these things far better, Mary. I could—’

‘By the virgin, Rebecca, in a moment you’ll tell me that you worship Tara.’ Lady Mary crossed herself.

Rebecca smiled. ‘Mary, would it shock you to know that some scholars think that the Virgin may be the early Church’s attempt to harness the worship of Tara the Huntress?’

‘You only say that because we’re deep beneath the earth where the lightning can’t hit you,’ said Mary. Her voice was light, but she was clearly mortified.

‘Tar,’ said the Queen.

The other two women were silent. They had come to a great oak door with iron hinges and all three women stopped.

‘They call her Tar,’ the Queen said, in a dreamy voice. ‘She became later Tara, but her name is Tar.’

‘My lady?’ asked Mary.

The Queen looked at her strangely. ‘Yes?’ she snapped.

Almspend kicked Mary with one slippered foot and Mary squealed and stepped away from the Queen. ‘Ouch, what was that for?.’ Her eyes met Almspend’s.

‘What just happened?’ asked the Queen.

‘You touched one of the Green Man stones and went all funny,’ said Almspend in her matter-of-fact voice.

The Queen shrugged. ‘And now I remember. Well. Here we are.’ She produced a key, and the three women took turns working it in the lock with sweet oil until it turned.

The Queen put a strong hermetical light over the door, and the three women gaped. There were piles of scrolls spilling onto the floor, and heavy tomes piled on heavy slab tables. A large rat stood in the middle of the central table, chewing parchment with malevolent, spiky teeth.

The rat met the Queen’s eye.

The Queen raised a hand and the rat turned to ash.

‘Oh – very good!’ said Lady Almspend. ‘Well hit!’

The Queen allowed herself a smile. ‘I have been practising. That animal was under someone’s control – I can see the web of its hermetical owner.’

‘Who would want to read these old—’ Lady Mary stepped back and gave a shriek. She leaned against the door frame, a hand to her bosom. ‘By the Blessed Virgin. Saints protect me.’

‘By all that’s holy – or unholy!’ said Almspend. ‘I see why this room is protected! These are Plangere’s papers! In with the King’s! Sweet Jesu, my lady – this is raw power for the taking! Did Harmodius know?’

‘I’ll guess he did not. But his own papers need to be protected as well – you wouldn’t believe what I’ve found in his rooms. That man was far deeper than we ever realised.’

‘They all are,’ muttered Almspend, rifling through an enormous grimoire. ‘Oooh! This stinks of Archaic necromancy.’ She literally held her nose. ‘My lady, what are we looking for?’

The Queen looked back and forth between her two most trusted friends. ‘Do you two know what old wives whisper about my husband? That he is impotent, and cursed?’

There was a pause. Hermetical light is very white, and unflattering and the two women looked at their Queen under its glare, each struggling to hide something.

Almspend bowed her head. ‘I have heard this, yes. And worse.’

Lady Mary nodded. ‘Although the Galles all say it is you, my lady. That you are barren.’ Even in the cold white light, she flushed.

Almspend nodded. ‘The Galles are the most vicious gossips I’ve ever heard, for men. I thought only women were so poisonous. Once or twice I’ve wished I wore a sword and could use it, so I could cut the comb of a braggart who needed it.’

The Queen put a hand to her belly. ‘I’m pregnant,’ she said. ‘By the King, if that needs to be said.’ She sighed.

In some ways, she was the most human that Lady Mary had ever seen her.

‘My husband has a secret,’ the Queen went on. ‘It concerns the Red Knight. Beyond that, I know the older women say the King had an affair, and she is the woman that cursed him with impotence.’