A Man Betrayed (83 page)

The knight and his
little party were still somewhere in the city. On Baralis' instructions all the
gates were being monitored closely, so he would know if they left. He had
promised Larn that much. Tomorrow he intended to persuade the newly bereaved
Catherine to mount a door-to-door search of the city. He doubted if they would
be found that way, but it looked good nonetheless. The duchess should be seen
to be actively pursuing her father's murderers. Or at least those suspected of
it.

Oh, the theories
abounded as to who had murdered the duke: a rogue assassin working alone; an
old lover of Melliandra who couldn't bear to see her wed; Tawl, the duke's own
champion on a mission from Valdis; and of course the lady herself, Maybor's
daughter, who never really loved the duke, just craved his power and wealth.
Traff's body had been found: the knife the duke had been killed with embedded
deep within his heart. At this point in time the city of Bren didn't know
whether to call the mysterious dead man a murderer or a hero. Baralis' lips
shaped a slow smile. It really was most delicious.

The fact that Tawl
and Melliandra had fled the murder scene added impetus to the rumors of their
guilt. Innocent people stay and face their accusers; it is the guilty who need
to hide. A commonly held misconception it may be, but one it was never wise to
go against. Everyone in Bren was looking to blame the murder of their beloved
duke on someone, and what better candidates than the two runaways, a traitorous
knight and a foreign whore?

Baralis began to
idly flick through Bevlin's books. Dealing with Catherine had been his greatest
challenge. The morning after the murder she had come to him. Furious, confused,
tears streaking down her beautiful face, she had demanded to know why her
father had been killed. He had been expecting her. The wine he gave her was
drugged. Nothing much: a mere relaxant with a little something extra added to
ensure her pliability. The potion was a fitting accompaniment to his words. He
told Catherine his account of the evening. He explained that when the assassin
burst into the room ready, to slit Melliandra's scrawny little throat, he found
the duke already dead, and Melli abed with the duke's champion. Tawl and the
assassin had fought, and the assassin had sadly lost.

Two things added
weight to his tale: first, the duke's own physicians had concluded that the
knife found in the assassin's heart was the murder weapon; and secondly,
Catherine hated Tawl with a zealous frenzy. She was eager to believe his guilt:
he had killed her lover. It did not take much to convince her that he had
killed her father as well.

Catherine was now
firmly in his court. The new duchess was allowing herself to be guided by him.
Each day she would come to him, drink a glass of tainted wine, brush her plump
lips against his cheek, and then listen eagerly to his advice. Her decisions
were
his
decisions. Her orders were
his
orders. He was running
Bren now. The marriage to Kylock would go ahead.

Once the official
mourning period of forty days and forty nights was over, Catherine would wed
Kylock here in the city. Nothing could stop his plans now. Nothing.

Even Kylock
himself was playing his part well. Having conquered all of western Halcus, and
taken the capital Helch, the young king had actually shown some restraint.
Instead of continuing on and attempting to defeat the entire country, Kylock
had sued for peace. The whole of the north had heaved a collective sigh of
relief at the news. Baralis was well pleased. He could not have asked for
better timing; this latest move of Kylock's had served to pacify Annis and
Highwall. The two cities would now be less likely to hinder the joining of Bren
and the kingdoms. Both powers had secretly been building up their armies for
months and were in the position to raise powerful objections. War was
inevitable, but it was far better that it be delayed until everything was in
place. Annis and Highwall were still on their guard at the moment, after a few
months of peace they would not be quite so alert.

Kylock would
undoubtedly fare well in the coming peace talks with the Halcus. After his
military success in the capital, he was in a strong position to negotiate and
would doubtless come away from the parley with a good slice of enemy territory
in his pocket. The Halcus warlords were no fools; they would rather give up a quarter
of their domain than risk Kylock claiming all of it in yet another bloody war.
The first meeting with the Halcus warlords was to take place this night, in
Kylock's encampment just outside Helch. Baralis began flicking through another
of Bevlin's books. It would be most interesting to see what the morning would
bring.

Finding nothing of
interest in the book he had just picked up, Baralis moved on to the next one.
It was a very old copy of Marod's
Book of Words.
He very nearly decided
not to bother with it at all--every minor clergyman and halfwitted scholar in
the Known Lands had a copy of Marodbut there was something about the delicate
patina on the sheep's hide cover that caught his eye. The book was not merely
old, it was ancient.

As he turned the pages,
his excitement began to grow. Clearly discernible beneath the text lay ghosts
of words: pale fragments of what had once been written and then later washed
away. The paper had been twice used. A thrill of pure joy raced down Baralis'
spine. This was one of the four original Galder copies. It was a well-known
fact that Marod had died penniless and that Galder, his servant, unable to buy
new paper, had been forced to write over old manuscripts. Baralis began to
treat the book with a new respect; it was more valuable than a chest's worth of
jewels.

Holding it up to
the light, he began to examine the paper more thoroughly. As he tilted it
toward the candle's flame, something slipped from the book. A marker. Baralis
caught the silk ribbon before it fell out all the way. Holding it in his hand,
he opened the book on the page it had marked. It was a verse. At first glance
he thought he knew it, but as he read on, he realized that the version he was
familiar with was subtly different from the one before him:

When men of honor lose sight of
their cause
When three bloods are savored in one day
Two houses will meet in wedlock and wealth
And what forms at the join is decay
A man will come with neither father nor mother
But sister as lover
And stay the hand of the plague
The stones will be sundered, the temple will fall
The dark empire's expansion will end at his call
And only the fool knows the truth

By the time he had
finished reading it, Baralis' heart was thumping like a drum. The verse spoke
of the marriage between Catherine and Kylock. It predicted the empire he
intended to build and it named a man who could destroy it. Baralis took a deep
breath, trying to steady the shaking of his hand and pounding of his heart. It
was all here, written on this page. Everything. Three bloods were savored on
the night of Kylock's begetting-he had tasted them. The men of honor were the
knights-ever since Tyren had taken over the leadership gold had been their only
cause.

Baralis stood up.
Crossing over to the fire, he poured a slim measure of wine. He had to think.
Bevlin had sent the knight to find the one in the prophecy: the man with
neither father nor mother. The boy who Lam had said was to be found in the
kingdoms. Trailing his fingers around the rim, Baralis stared into the cup. The
wine was the color of blood. Who in the kingdoms could be the one?

A memory of a
drawing skimmed across his brain. A drawing so strong that it had woken him
from his sleep. He sent his mind further back in time to another drawing and
eight score of loaves barely browned to a crust. Every fiber of Baralis' being
was resonating, every hair on his body stirred at the root. The cup in his
hands became a chalice and his fingers wove around it like a priest's. Jack the
baker's boy. He was the one.

Tavalisk was in
the kitchens choosing crabs. He and his cook were standing over a metal tank,
putting the wily crustaceans through their paces. Choosing crabs was an art and
the archbishop was a grand master. The secret to the perfect crab was neither
size nor color: it was speed. The fastest crabs were the meatiest, the
tastiest, and the most satisfying to the tongue. In order to judge the
quickness of the various creatures before him, Tavalisk had devised a test. He
would throw large heavy stones into the water, aiming for the greatest density
of crabs. Those crabs who were crushed by the stones were pronounced unworthy,
while the fortunate few who managed to scuttle away -to safety were marked for
the flame.

Tavalisk grimaced.
The last stone had killed nearly half of them.

"Your
Eminence," came a voice from behind.

"Yes,
Gamil," said the archbishop turning round. "What is it?"

"Annis and
Highwall have received the shipments of gold safely, Your Eminence."

"And the
armaments?"

"They were
sent out last week and so might take a little longer."

"I trust you
made sure they were well guarded? I wouldn't want fifty wagons worth of steel
and siege engines to fall into the wrong hands."

"A whole
battalion rides along with the shipment, Your Eminence. And as a further precaution
they are taking a lower pass. They will not come anywhere near Bren."

Tavalisk dropped
another stone into the tank. "Good." The water splashed up against
his sleeve. It was thick with crab spume. "So there's no chance of Baralis
getting his eager little hands on them?"

"You mean the
duchess Catherine."

"No, Gamil. I
mean Baralis. It is perfectly obvious that he is ruling Bren now." The
archbishop peered into the murky water. Another clump of dead crabs met his
eyes.

"Does Your
Eminence think it's wise to send arms to Annis and Highwall with peace looming
on the horizon?"

"Peace!"
Tavalisk snorted. "This so-called peace will last about as long as that
crab over there." He pointed toward the corner of the tank where one of
the few surviving crabs lay hiding in the shadows. The archbishop promptly
dropped a stone upon it. The feisty little devil actually managed to run away.
Tavalisk found compensation in the fact that its two surviving companions were
agreeably flattened.

"May I ask
why Your Eminence has been putting such great effort into rallying southern
support for Annis and Highwall?"

"Certainly,
Gamil. Kylock will now marry Catherine, that much is certain. With the duke out
of the way, the kingdoms and Bren will become one. Already Kylock has secured
the support of the knights." Tavalisk looked quickly at his aide.
"Can't you see? The lines have now been drawn. It will only take the
slightest provocation for the war to start, and the way things are at the
moment, Annis and Highwall won't have a chance. They need our support, else
before we know it Kylock will have all the north to himself. That is something
we simply cannot allow to happen. We all know where his ambitions will lead him
next: south." The archbishop dropped another stone in the tank. "And
the southern cities are hardly in a position to put up a fight. We don't go in
for fortresses and high battlements like the north."

Gamil nodded.
"Does this relate to Marod's prophecy, Your Eminence?"

"You remember
that, do you?" Tavalisk rubbed his pink and hairless chin for a moment,
considering whether to let Gamil in on his theory. The time was right: he had
been modest for too long. Turning to his cook, he said, "Kindly excuse us,
Master Bunyon. I will call you when I need you." The cook, whose main duty
at this point consisted of handing the archbishop stones on command, nodded and
left. The archbishop turned back to Gamil. His aide was looking decidedly
sheepish. Taking a deep breath, Tavalisk began to recite the prophecy. He now
knew it by heart:

"When men of honor trade in
gold not grace
When two mighty powers join as one
The temples will fall
The dark empire will rise
And the world will come to ruin and waste
One will come with neither father nor lover
But promised to another
Who will rid the land of its curse. "

Tavalisk finished
his recitation with a suitably dramatic flourish and then turned expectantly
toward Gamil. "I trust everything is clear to you now?"

Gamil was
cautious. "Not exactly, Your Eminence."

"Really,
Gamil, and you call yourself a scholar!" The archbishop crooked a finger,
beckoning his aide nearer. "It is not obvious to you that the verse
predicts the moral decay of the knights, Kylock's rise in the north, and the
decline of the Church?"

"The decline
of the Church, Your Eminence?"

"Yes, you
dimwit.
The temples will
fall. Who besides the Church has temples,
eh?"

Gamil nodded
slowly. "Your Eminence could be right. Who then will be the one to rid the
land of its curse?" Tavalisk smiled like a rich widow. "It is I,
Gamil. I am the one named in the verse."

"You!"

"Yes,
me." The archbishop was not at all put out by the stupefied expression on
his aide's face. "Think for a moment, Gamil. Consider the line: `One will
come with neither father nor lover'-I have no father, and my position prevents
me from taking lovers. And then in the next line: `But promised to another'-I
am promised to another, Gamil. I am promised to God."

Gamil was looking
at him as if he were mad. "What does Your Eminence intend to do about
this?" he asked.

"I am already
doing it, Gamil. It is obvious from Marod's prophecy that I have a sacred duty
to put an end to Kylock's ascension in the north. I must do everything in my
power to bring about the new king's downfall. It is my destiny. If I fail, then
when Kylock comes south, he'll be bringing the knights with him. Before we know
it Tyren will be burning our places of worship and forcing everyone to follow
Valdis' creeds of belief. It would mark the end of the Church as we know
it."