A Mankind Witch (28 page)

"I had a feeling that was the case," admitted Szpak. "One has to wonder why?"

"All I can tell you," admitted Sister Mercy, "is that there are fewer witches here now than there were when we attempted to divine the thief. But there is still powerful magic being worked, and it has an unwholesome feel to it."

"The weather is not wholly natural, either," admitted Ottar. "Brother, Sisters, something is wrong here. We're definitely not wanted. I overhear things, as the warriors do not think that I can follow their speech. And I have made contact with some of the secret Christians."

"That's risky."

Ottar directed a cool look at him. "So is what they do. And they are not protected, as we are, by a truce oath. At the moment we are in no danger. They are. When that oath is not renewed . . . we may need any friends that we can find. Vortenbras's men are already placing wagers—using your horses as collateral."

Szpak pulled a face. "And I thought that having to explain how we'd lost Prince Manfred was our greatest problem. Well, unless they take us by trickery, or burn us out, we can hold this section of the halls for a while—we can make taking us expensive in the extreme. If the weather lifts we can try to ride for the coast."

"If the weather lifts. The snow is deep out there, and getting deeper, Ritter. We have the sisters to transport, too."

"And meanwhile your scrying has not found either the arm-ring or the prince."

"No. Somehow the arm-ring has disappeared as far as magic is concerned. The spells simply indicate that it is still there, which it plainly isn't. And all we have been able to establish about Manfred and Erik is that they are both alive and very far away."

"The alive part is good news."

Back in Copenhagen Francesca de Cherveuse did not even have that much information. And she was finding it a source of no small irritation. Spies and governments do far more than merely try to listen in on conversations. They also watch things like the lading of ships and the traffic in certain goods. But at the end of the day the best information comes from separate human sources of information, tallying each piece against another, the pieces gradually interlocking to form the entire picture. As a Venetian courtesan, Francesca had been privy to a great many things—including information from disparate sources. Here, in Copenhagen, she had set up her networks, too . . . social networks. The prince's leman was safe to flirt with, politely, although efforts—and they were numerous—to take matters further had to be avoided. Well, men were less guarded with pillow talk, but could still be foolishly informative out of bed.

At the moment it was snowing outside. She grimaced at the view from her window, and turned back to her visitor. She found him a fascinating man even if he could not tell her anything about what was happening in Norway. Most women would not have found Jubal Silvio fascinating—he was elderly, very wrinkled, and not even particularly rich. "Snow. More snow. Snow. Why does it snow so much in the North?"

The wizened man gave a reedy chuckle. "To affront you, mademoiselle." He spoke flawless Aquitaine. He actually spoke some nine languages, and read several more. That was his reason for coming to Copenhagen. In pursuit of rare volumes Jubal had traveled the known world. "Some theorists hold that the North is farther from the sun than the Southlands. A matter of solar angles apparently. An elegant piece of work from a mathematician in Carthage holds them to be correct. But I prefer my theory. And like you, I do not like the stuff. The Venetian spring convoy cannot come soon enough to take me back to Alexandria."

"There are other vessels, Jubal."

"For me, yes. My poor old carcase is not worth much. But for the treasures I have found! A second copying of
Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum
! And in such good condition too. No, I cannot take a chance with that being stolen by Barbary corsairs, for all that they have been less predatory in the last few months. Venetian galleys it must be, regardless of the expense."

Francesca raised an eyebrow. "I can see the corsairs tossing your books overboard, but not stealing them. Pardon my saying so, but they look like poor loot. Not even any gold lettering."

He twinkled. "Ah, but it is the content, not their warped binding and foxed pages, that make them more valued than gold. And there is a ready market on the Barbary coast. Aruj Aidin and his brother may have terrorized the seaways, but they've brought some stability to the Berber. Tunis and Algiers and Carthage are burgeoning places of culture now. As nothing to Alexandria, but still good."

"I suppose piracy pays them well. Perhaps better than librarianship," she said archly.

He chuckled again. "A library's coin is not always gold. She pays in a variety of other bright things. Some I hold as worth more . . . and are harder for the foxes of the pillars of Hercules to steal. Treasures such as your mind, m'dear."

She tapped him with her fan—it was, she thought, a singularly useless fashion accouterment for any other purpose in this climate. "I imagine you say that to all the ladies, who are a lot less flattered than I am. I hear Heinrich with my other guests. Pardon me a moment. I must go and greet them."

Privately, she hoped that it was one of her informants, rather than the head of naval procurement—a noted amateur astronomer—or the bibliophile Count Achen and his vacuous-headed wife. But no word had come from Norway except: snow.

Bakrauf was nearly incandescent with anger. She scratched yet another coin with her nail. A troll-hard nail . . . 

Thin gold foil flaked off, revealing the underlying lead. "After them. After the hostages. They've cheated us!"

She knew that it was too late. The little maggots had already crossed the bridge. Its stones had returned to invisibility. Before her people got there the kobolds would be hidden in their narrow twisty little cracks again. She looked angrily and suspiciously at the fake coin again. Where had mine kobolds, not even up to making their own mattocks, got such skilled work from? Her suspicion naturally fell on the dwarves. She got them to make much of her own fine artifice. But, right or wrong, she was in no position to challenge the dwarves. Besides, she'd need their services again herself, sooner or later. They made the
hednar
needles, with which she bound men to the changeling beast-skin, and many other powerful tools. Revenge on the maggot-kobolds would have to suffice, for now.

From her cage Signy watched the furious troll-wife stump out, cursing. She could not help but be glad. They'd been about to lower the cage again. Now all she got was a leather flask of water, pushed up through the bars on a long pole.

"Are you going to take over the steering?" Manfred asked.

Erik shook his head. "He's a great seaman, whatever else he is. He's even got this bathtub close in to the bank, despite the fact that the current is pulling us toward the middle. The valley has opened up a bit. Rapids might mean that we're coming out of this gorge."

"Or that it gets steeper," said Manfred. Ahead the gorge was misty with spray. Already they had to shout to make themselves heard.

"Contrive oars," yelled Cair. "And get as much weight as you can to the front. We'll see if we can land her."

Erik and Manfred took their swords to levering loose a section of deck plank. This made two rough paddles, but even this and the rudder could not stop the current from wanting to suck their hapless craft toward the strong flowing center. Then they rose up on a huge standing wave, and flumed down it. Cair had the rudder hard over, and that took them skimming past a water-polished tooth of rock. Then into a vast swirl—a sort of maelstrom. At the far edge of this, they struck.

It wasn't a case of thinking about abandoning ship. The impact catapulted them out of the barge wreck and into the water.

They hit the water some yards from the shore—and the flow was still deep and strong, but nothing like as powerful as in the midstream. Erik found himself washed toward the rocky edge and sucked into a gap between two huge boulders. The gap was fortunately partly choked with driftwood that provided handholds which the slippery, polished rock did not. With a tearing of clothes Erik hauled himself out. His first act was to look for Manfred. The prince was coming downstream fast. Erik ripped a stripped and water-polished spruce from the driftwood and thrust it out to him. Manfred grabbed and hauled. Then, both on the boulder, they looked around for Cair, to see him crawling onto the rocks a little upstream. He was considerably closer to the real shore than they were.

They still had to make their way across several house-to-generous-barn-sized boulders, with water sluicing between them. With some jumping and some driftwood bridges, the three of them finally stood together on the shore, such as it was. It was merely there because several rocky lumps had fallen from the broken cliffs, and were too huge for even this river to wash downstream. They had to shout to hear each other. Ahead, downstream, you could see the huge river seething and fuming across rocky teeth. The kobolds wouldn't come looking for them, or the lost barge.

"We go down, I reckon."

"Ja." Erik agreed. There weren't many other alternatives—up the cliffs would involve a lot of climbing, on what appeared to be rotten rock. The three of them began picking their way down the slimy spray-damp rocks. It wasn't easy going. Several times they had to go back and try another route. But eventually they came to a point where the river reformed into a lake, and the boulders became interlinked with soil.

The valley no longer closed above them. Instead they were under a slate-gray sky. The noise level had dropped off, too. Manfred announced a break by sitting down. "I'm all in." He looked at Cair. "Got any food left?"

Cair shook his head. "I'm afraid not."

Manfred looked at his feet. They were cut and bruised. He grinned. "No food. No boots. Wet gear. I don't suppose you've got any strong drink either? Or perhaps a horse stashed somewhere?"

The man looked as tired as they were. And he was a good few years older than them, too. Nonetheless, he smiled. Erik noted that he was at ease with the prince. He was a very odd thrall—wealthy, powerful men were usually ransomed rather than enslaved. "Patience. We'll get them, but these things take time."

"So. Where do we start looking?"

Cair pointed at the bare feet. "Firstly, let us contrive some sort of footwear. Your feet are too soft for walking barefoot, and more boots are a little beyond me right now."

"Moccasins?" said Erik, reluctantly eyeing his leather trousers.

Cair shook his head. "I think sandals will do. The terrain eases. We should find some planking remains at the waterside. Those will do for soles. I have seen the peasants in Atlas make do with bark, too."

Manfred raised his eyebrows. "You're a widely traveled man, friend."

"Sailors tend to be," said Cair, getting to his feet and heading toward the water.

Erik looked at Manfred and said nothing.

Manfred got to his feet, uneasily. "If he's just a sailor, then I'm an Alexandrine courtesan. Come on, Erik. Let's go and see what fiendish plan our love-struck 'sailor' has for shoes."

"Love-struck?"

Manfred nodded. "In my humble opinion, yes. Be careful around him, Erik. Men tend to be unusually illogical when their balls start thinking; and when their emotions get tied up in it, too, doubly so. Watch what you say about that girl. He's old for it, and if anything that makes a man worse."

Erik nodded. In affairs of the heart—or at least the groin—Manfred was his master. "You be careful around him, Manfred. I know the type. He's a calculator. While he finds us useful—he'll use us. I'd not wager a clipped penny that he rescued us from that kobold mine for any reasons but his own benefit."

"I reckon. Look. He's calling us."

Cair was beckoning. They picked their way across the rocks to him. He had several pieces of pine-planking that he'd hauled out of the water. "You have knives—you need soles. And then we must look to binding. We can cut some thongs off your breeches, Ritter. I have an iron needle. It will serve us in more ways than one."

* * *j

Cair sat drawing the iron needle patiently in one direction along the knife blade. The other two were still working on their sandals. He had some advantages. For one, as a thrall, he'd walked barefoot for months. For seconds, he had found the planks—and had chosen the best pieces. Now he had time to look around and think. And to avoid thinking about food.

The valley they were in didn't seem to hold much promise of that. There were sparse grasses and dry bracken upslope. Mosses here. It was a bleak place, and what it would be like after dark, temperature-wise, was another matter. Their clothes were wet—to a greater or lesser degree. He'd been lucky—when they'd struck he'd been flung far further than the other two, and had landed in water that was not even three cubits deep. He'd thought he was going to hit the rocks, barely yards from where he had landed. He hadn't even gotten his hair wet, on that second, more involuntary swim. But now he was faced with various questions, the first of which was how, in this apparently deserted land, was he going to find where Signy was being kept? Had that bridge been destroyed after the bearskin-dressed ones had crossed it? Or should his first priority perhaps be staying alive? Perhaps to follow the river—construct a raft? Head for the sea?

He had no easy answers and plenty of doubts so instead he turned to the practical things. He tested the needle. He'd been working on it in the little spare time he'd had before they'd set out. It stuck, weakly, to the iron of the knife. Now . . . a thread from his cotte. The linen was coarse, but it was thinner than the wool of the jerkin. He tied it carefully while Erik watched curiously. The needle had to balance. It worked better if floated on a sliver of cork in water, but hung from something steady, out of the wind, it should give them a bearing. He attached the other end of the thread to a stick and hung it in the lee of the rock.