“Someone is coming.”
The first cursed fulsomely, but the sound of his activities ceased. “Horses. Is it Moors?”
Deciding it would be better to answer than not, Germanno called out, “No, it is not Moors. I am a traveler bound for Aragon.”
The two men whispered to each other, and were standing a bit apart from the man they had killed when Germanno rode into the small clearing.
One of the men was spattered with blood, his colobion torn from shoulder to waist, and his chaperon hanging by a frayed cord. He was breathing fast and his knuckles were skinned from fighting. Although custom forbade the men to look directly at one so clearly their superior, the two men stared directly at him, anger and fright making them bold. “You are a long way from the road,” he said, and Germanno recognized his voice as the first he had heard.
“There was a fire on that road,” Germanno said gently, almost apologetically. “And a battle, not so many hours ago.”
“He has the right of that,” said the second man, a fellow somewhat older than the first, wearing the same peasant garb as the first, but with a leather belt instead of a corded one, showing his relative prosperity. He coughed and spat, not taking his eyes from Germanno as if he expected treachery. “The soldiers came through our village two nights ago. They took all the geese and all the cheese.”
The first nodded. He moved a little, as if to screen the body that lay beyond them, prone and battered, a lance leaning through him. “Soldiers take food and wine, they take our donkeys, and they use our women,” he said resentfully but with wariness; he was having trouble understanding Germanno’s speech. “It does not matter what side they fight on.”
“And that unfortunate—” Germanno indicated the body without appearing overly curious—“what had he done? He does not appear to be a soldier, Moorish or Christian.”
“He is not,” said the first. “There are other dangerous men than soldiers abroad, good traveler,” he said.
“Yes, and there would appear to be one less of them,” Germanno said at his driest. “What did he do, to earn your enmity?”
“My what?” the first asked suspiciously.
“Your hatred,” Germanno replied.
“He kept a hostel—he and his harlot—and preyed on those who were foolish enough to stop there,” the second said smoothly, but with ill-concealed rancor. “The Moors killed her, and welcome. We have done for him. He and his kind are not like other men. He brought misfortune to those of us who live in this region, where the Viexa Armoza and her children drink of men.”
“So when the battle came, you thought no one would bother with one body more or less?” Germanno suggested, saying nothing about the Viexa Armoza. “Or that the Moors could be blamed, since they killed his companion?”
The second man narrowed his eyes. “The same could be said of two bodies.”
The first made a hissing sound and gestured to his comrade. “No. He is not—”
Germanno interrupted, achieving an amused smile. “Do I understand you: you think you could kill me?”
The first did his best to appear brave. “I have a lance.”
“Which you must first pull from that man’s body,” Germanno pointed out.
“There are two of us,” the first bragged.
“And I am on horseback, with swords and daggers,” Germanno said, sounding bored. “Why should you threaten me? I have done nothing to you. This is useless. Listen to me before you regret your words.” He looked at the two, seeing their terror behind their posturing; they knew they had gone too far. “What you have done to this man is of no importance to me. I tell you that I will say nothing of this; I have no reason to. My mission is too essential to be thwarted by this one incident. I am a courier for King Idelfonzuz. I carry his staff. You know that lends me the King’s authority.” He indicated where it hung in its scabbard. “If you have any regard for your King, go away from here at once, and forget you have seen me, as I shall forget I have seen you.”
“So you say,” the first blustered, but was stayed by the second.
“Why should a man of your rank bother himself over what we say or do not say?” He studied Germanno carefully.
“Exactly my point,” Germanno agreed affably. “You have no reason to think I would trouble myself with the likes of you when I have the King’s mandate to fulfill.”
The first was growing apprehensive. “You could order us killed for what we have done although we have spared our people, and many travelers, from a hideous death. You do not know what we have known.”
“Then you will have to let your own people decide what is to be done with you,” Germanno said calmly. “Go on your way now, and do not return here.”
“Why should we not?” The first man took a stance that showed he was ready to fight if he had to.
“Because there will be more soldiers coming. If you are found near the fighting, or near a body, the soldiers may well hold you to account, and they may not be as willing to listen as I am.” He spoke with the ease and certainty of conviction. “Believe this.”
The second man had taken his companion by the arm and was tugging of him. “This is the King’s man. We must not stand between him and what he is sent to do.”
“But—” The first pointed to the corpse.
“His back is broken. It will suffice,” the second said, still pulling the other man away. “We are leaving,” he announced to Germanno.
“Go in God’s care,” said Germanno, and remained where he was as the two men fled the clearing.
Germanno sat in the saddle until he was certain the two men were gone, then he got out of the saddle and went to look at the body, already anticipating what he would see. He dropped on one knee next to the dead man and wiped the dust and bits of leaves from the blood drying on his face, nodding grimly as he recognized the bruised features. “Olutiz,” he said aloud. For an instant he recalled the dead man’s birth, nearly five hundred years ago, and for that instant, Germanno felt as keen a pang of grief as if he had a true bond of blood with him. Then it passed and he sighed, wanting to leave Olutiz where he had fallen, but knowing he would have to return him to his mother.
Gathering up the body, he carried it to his second horse, and using the spare set of straps from his pack-saddles, he bound Olutiz to the horse, hoping as he did that they would prove sufficient to hold the dead man in place for the journey ahead. Then he remounted his horse and tugged the second horse and mules to follow him as he set off through the night, bound toward the high peaks where Ximene still held sway. As he went, he considered his mission for Idelfonzuz; he would resume it, he told himself, when Olutiz was finally home.
By morning Germanno had put the burning far behind him and was at the border region between Aragon and Barzelunya, climbing steadily into the mountains. He had seen a number of small, hidden shrines with offerings of chalices of blood; these indicated to him that he was still within Ximene’s territory. A few of them had been destroyed, their cups overturned, their niches broken, which evinced the conflicts that raged in this border region. At dawn he had found an empty village, with tumbled walls and collapsed roofs on the houses. Choosing the safest of these to stall his animals, he searched out a cellar for himself and Olutiz’s body, reminding himself that even the undead decay, and that he did not have much time to find Ximene before he would be forced to bury her son himself, and bring her only the sad news.
As he reclined on his earth-lined bedroll, he let his thoughts go in search of those of his blood, hoping as he did that he would not be distracted by other vampires—Ximene’s vampires—that were in the region. Usually he applied this skill with animals, to gain a level of control over their activities, but now he let the extension of his mind roam in search of the long-denied blood-bond with Ximene. Finding the sense of her was as elusive as piecing together scraps of song borne from far away on the wind, but gradually he gained an impression of where she had gone. As he did, he recalled the two Moors who had guarded her, more than three centuries ago: what would protect her now? How many of her numbers had been ordered to ward her eyrie, for he had no doubts now she was high in the mountains, away from the wars and the sliding hills.
He wakened just before sunset, a bit disoriented by what he had done, and feeling depleted in a way his native earth could not wholly ameliorate; what he lacked was a connection to life, the intimacy that the living could provide to the undead. The only compensation for his reaction to his exercise was that he now knew where he had to go, and how he would be able to get there. Removing Olutiz’s body from the cellar, he took the time to wrap it in a length of cloth before securing it to the blue roan Germanno had ridden the day before. When he had saddled the mules and loaded their pack-saddles, he groomed and saddled his horse for a long night of travel. He was in need of nourishment, but there was no relief for that possible, and he resigned himself to waiting for the opportunity to feed after he had discharged his self-appointed obligation; he was no stranger to such deprivations and he followed his habitual discipline now.
A band of erosion swathed the rising flank of the mountain where the trees had been cut down, and the night air whistled with a rising wind that was still hot from its passage over the high plateau to the west. Germanno let his horse pick his own pace along the edge of the landslide; he neither hurried nor checked the pace the blue roan set for the others, knowing that the horse understood their perils better than he did. Once the unstable shoulder was crossed, Germanno guided his animals along the crest of the mountain, going toward the next rise beyond that led toward one of three high passes in the mountains, for his dream-like explorations had shown him that Ximene had gone to the highest of the three passes and made a kind of fortress for herself in that harsh place.
Those villages he saw—those that were still inhabited—Germanno avoided, recalling the temper of the men who had killed Olutiz: they had known enough of the vampire’s nature to be able to kill him without misstep, and so might many of the others in those small, walled towns. Being a stranger might give them sufficient cause to act against him. It was best to stay away from the villages, especially at night. A few isolated shepherds’ huts stood near springs on the rising face of the mountains, each one empty; Germanno encountered no flocks: no goats, no sheep. There were four more shrines he discovered as he went up the mountain, all ruined and with no sign of attempts of repair. Had war devastated these high canyons and peaks so utterly, he wondered, or was this on account of something else?
Daybreak found Germanno well into the upper peaks, his animals laboring in the thin air that was warming rapidly now that the sun had risen, sending crimsons streamers up the sky from the horizon to mark its arrival. He was nearing the place he sought, aware that it was three or four leagues beyond the spring where he had halted to rest the horses and mules. It was tempting to press on, but his animals were tired and the way was becoming more elusive, the trails narrower. He checked Olutiz’s body where it lay bound to the horse, unwrapping it enough to inspect the skin of his face and shoulders: the skin was dry and flaking as Egyptian paper, as if Olutiz had lain in the desert for months; Germanno knew that it would soon become brittle and would fall apart. For that reason alone, he finally chose to continue his journey into the morning, when the path could be more readily seen; he told himself that any guards Ximene had posted would surely be less alert when the sun was up. Wearily he continued on into the morning.
At mid-morning he passed an isolated monastery where he saw habited monks gathering wood and stacking it in a huge pyre. This aroused Germanno’s curiosity, but he did not stop to ask about it; instead he resolved to come by the monastery after he had given Olutiz to his mother, to find out what the monks were intending to do. It would be safer then, without the body, and he had the King’s staff to lend him a degree of palladium the monks would respect. Still, the sight of the pyre made him uneasy, and he was relieved when it was lost to view around the shoulder of the mountain.
The sun, hot and implacable, stood low in the west when Germanno finally reached the place he sought: the stone fortress was not large, but it was formidable, set in the very top of a canyon, perched on a ledge that made it unassailable from any direction but the sky; at this time of day it was nearly hidden in shadows. A path, cut out of the living rock and only wide enough for one horse, led up to the narrow gate. Germanno dismounted and retied the leads of his horse and mules, then, walking ahead of the four, led them along the precarious trail to the stout wooden gate.
There was a brass bell that hung near the gate, the sort that a traveler might find at many fortified sites in the Christian world. Germanno hesitated a moment, then rang it, hoping to hear a quick response. When none come, he rang again.
“Who is there?” a voice bellowed down from above, cross at being disturbed. He repeated the question in the language of the Moors.
“I bring something to Ximene,” Germanno answered, speaking loudly enough to be heard down the canyon, then added, taking a risk, “Tell her Sanct’ Germain has come.”
“Who?” the watchman demanded.
“Sanct’ Germain. She will know.” He stood patiently, grateful for the long wedge of shadow cast by the brow of the crest above him, for his skin was already burned by the sun and he had no wish to make it worse.
“You will be admitted,” the watchman yelled down a short while later.
“Thank you,” Germanno said, loudly enough to be heard but no longer at herald’s pitch.
There was a brief wait, then chain groaned and crumped as the gate was slowly opened, revealing a long, narrow courtyard in front of a bailey built into the mountain.
“Enter,” said the guard who worked the spoked windlass; he was of mixed heritage, with satiny olive skin and dark, slightly curling hair, but having pale-green eyes. He pointed to the door at the front of the bailey. “Go there.”
Germanno inclined his head slightly. “I will. Is there water and food for my animals?”