Authors: Miles Cameron
Redmede turned to catch him and found himself face to snout with the elegantly inlaid beak and tall blue crest of Mogon, the Queen of the western daemons. He knew her. Not well, but they had been—
alliesss.
The thought slipped into his head.
‘Mogon,’ he said. She smelled like burning soap, and filled the tunnel from side to side. She had to crouch to fit.
‘Jack,’ she said. ‘Not your true name, I will guess.’
He stood his ground. ‘I’m Bill Redmede, daemon,’ he said, fighting an urge to turn and flee. All the daemons projected a sort of wave front of fear – as did many of the other Wild creatures, but the daemons were the most powerful in every way. Even at rest, in a quiet hold, surrounded by other creatures, she emanated menace.
She made an effort – the blue feathers on her crest went flat. ‘Why must your little men require me to pretend to be dominated?’ she asked.
Her beak had surprisingly little effect on her speech.
He found himself released from terror. He forced himself to speak. ‘Are you an ally? Of Tapio?’
She sighed and stretched herself in the confined corridor. ‘We’ll see, Master Redmede. May I say: it is a pleasure to find a former ally here?’
‘I am only a guest,’ he spat. ‘I lead no men,’ he added. ‘But the men I brought here remember you. You left us to die, at Lissen.’
‘Really?’ she asked. ‘My brother sent me to warn the Outwallers. Were you not warned? We are a chivalrous people.’ The stench of burned soap increased.
‘Chivalrous? Lady, a hundred of my Jacks died
for nothing
when you turned tail and ran.’ People – irks, men, even a winged faery – were gathering to watch them.
‘Ran?’ she breathed. ‘You insult my brood.’
Redmede realised that her gold-inlaid beak was less than a finger’s width from his nose. He was angry enough that he didn’t care.
‘Your brood is alive to be insulted,’ Redmede said.
The crest on her head sprang erect, and the wavefront of terror crashed around him. He stepped back – a faery vanished with a
pop
and most of the men in the corridor flinched as she raised a heavy forefoot and flexed the vicious talons that could slice through maille.
‘You say words that would end in your death outside the sanctity of this hold,’ Mogon barked. ‘But I will
explain
, Master Redmede. Let is not be said that Mogon Fairweather of the Bluecrest People was ever less than fair, even to vermin and men. My brother
hated
Thorn. He distrusted him. And when he found that we had been posted – and I mean no offence, but speak simple truth – had been posted with only the weakest of allies, he assumed we’d been sent to die.’
Redmede released the breath he’d held through her whole speech. He ducked his head clumsily – the best he could manage of a bow. ‘Lady Mogon, you exceed me in courtesy,’ he growled. ‘I am but man, and vermin. But I love my people as you love yours, and to see them die in defeat fair turned my stomach. Perhaps you are right. I have no time for Thorn and his schemes. But . . . well perhaps if you had charged into the flank of the King’s men, we’d have carried the day. And killed the King.’
Mogon nodded. ‘Mayhap. But killing the King of Alba is worth nothing to me. Not worth the life of one Warden. Every year, there are fewer of us.’
He could feel the heat coming off her, and the stench of burning soap filled the air.
‘But I can feel the loss of your people.’ She, too, inclined her head. ‘I hope we may again be allies. We should not be held to blame for refusing to serve Thorn.’
Redmede tried to keep his knees from shaking. ‘I am just a man,’ he said, offering nothing.
Her hard black eyes glittered in her round sockets. He found it difficult to meet both eyes at once.
‘All the other men and the females, they will follow you when the war comes.’ Mogon nodded again. ‘We will talk again.’
Redmede took another breath. ‘Aye, like enough, lady.’
Ticondaga Castle – Ghause
The closer she grew to the decisive moment with the Queen’s unborn baby, the more concerned Lady Ghause grew with Richard Plangere.
Her unease had begun the day she found his spy-moth fluttering in her casting chamber, but the gradual infestation of the castle with moths – minute, pale silver moths – made her angry.
But anger, for Ghause, was power. And while she had no way to strike back at Plangere – whose power she could feel like a distant lamp in a cold room – she had many weapons in her arsenal. She used her favourite.
Her body.
It had seldom failed her since her breasts budded. Had Plangere been a woman, she would have had to use other wiles, but in his case . . .
She danced naked, throwing gouts of power into the
aether
. She walked about her chambers naked. She stroked her flanks, ran hands over her own breasts and between her thighs, stretched, bobbed, stripped and dressed. Moths gathered in veritable clouds, and while she made violent love to her husband or teased a groom, she postured for Plangere, while thinking,
You always were a fool. Look at me, and devour me, and you’ll never see what I’m doing.
The moths made her laugh – he was always so proud of his toys.
In a space in the cellars, heavily defended by runes and sigils and her own workings and some ancient webs too complicated even for her, she killed moths with various techniques until she perfected a method of killing them that was efficient and absolute, because a single survivor would mean the end of her plan. And she moved her great working there. The floor of her tower room was a web of silver and alum chalk, while the floor of her cellar sanctum had only a simple pentagram and ten words in High Archaic.
Then she built another spell – simple to power, labyrinthine in is complexity. It was a layered illusion.
Of her.
Naked.
She watched it critically, several times. She’d only get one chance at this. She made different versions.
She’d cast her curse on the Queen’s foetus, Plangere would come to watch, and she’d ensnare him. Or not. He was very strong. Either way, he’d know to keep his distance.
She was eating honey cakes and stretching – there were moths aplenty – when Aneas came to the door and informed her that the Earl needed her.
Her son stayed to lace her kirtle and pull her velvet gown lined in ermine over her head. She twirled a few times – for herself – and put her feet into slippers with wool felt soles.
‘What does your pater want, sweeting?’ she asked Aneas.
He shrugged. ‘He’s planning a war,’ he said. ‘He’s going to take me with him.’
She climbed out of the cellars and walked along the corridor that was lined with cells. The Earl inclined more to outright murder than to cruel confinement, and the only men in the cells were a soldier taken for rape, a second taken for theft, and a woman accused of killing another woman. Ghause peered into each cell.
The woman had power. She hadn’t noted that before.
She followed Aneas up the guard’s stair, smiled lasciviously at the two men on duty, received the attention which was her due, and passed up a second flight of stone steps to the yard.
Aneas’s weapons’ tutor was waiting in the yard with two saddled warhorses, a great deal of kit, and a small train of servants. She smiled at him.
‘Ser Henri!’ she said, and waved.
He dismounted and knelt. ‘My lady,’ he said, in his attractive Etruscan accent. ‘How may your most humble servant indicate his devotion?’
‘Oh, you will turn my head, you flatterer!’ she cooed. ‘Please – take my son out to the tiltyard and make him a great knight. I can ask no more.’
Ser Henri had the good grace to appear disappointed. ‘No one I can kill for you, Madonna?’
‘I have my husband for that,’ she said. ‘Aneas, pay heed to your tutors.’ She swept past, and crossed the yard on the cobbles – some considerable distance, and there was the bite of snow in the air. But when she passed the kitchen she smelled new-baked bread. She paused and inhaled deeply, and grinned like a girl. She went into the kitchen and stole a new loaf, because when she was tempted, she succumbed, and she entered the Great Hall from the kitchens, chewing bread.
The Earl was surrounded by soldiers – a dozen of his officers. She knew them all, in a vague way – much the same way she knew all his horses, even when she didn’t know their names. He loved to make war, and he did it with flare and with cunning, but she thought he did it for his own entertainment and all the talk of goals and strategy were just so many rationalisations for a boy who wanted to hit things.
‘Ghause, my beauty. You said something about this sorcerer.’ The Earl was the kind of man who had little interest in sorcery. Sometimes she suspected that he didn’t believe in the power of the hermetical. It was an absurd position, but he was always surprised – surprised in a way she didn’t like – when she displayed her powers.
Sorcery in others he liked even less. And understood not at all. She suspected he thought it was all tricks – like a montebank’s show at a carnival.
She smiled. ‘You mean Thorn?’ she asked. Every moth in the hall rose from their rest and fluttered towards the high clerestory windows.
Some of the soldiers paled, and two of them made horn signs with their fingers.
The Earl shrugged. ‘Richard Plangere. That’s who you said he was.’
She nodded. ‘He was. I don’t think he is any more.’
The Earl sat back and scratched a dog’s head. ‘I just received a year’s worth of reports, sweeting. Your sorcerer, whoever he is – is getting reckless. He’s raising armies and playing power with the Outwallers.’
One of his soldiers – Edward? Edmund? She couldn’t remember – drank off his wine and set his cup on the big trestle table with a click. ‘My lord, with respect, he’ll be a tough nut. The Outwallers are clearly terrified of him.’
The Earl crossed his legs. ‘That island. Can we flush him out and take it?’
Ghause shook her head. ‘I don’t recommend it. He’s taken a place of power. He’ll be very strong there.’
‘Why – is it well defended?’ her husband asked. ‘I never heard of a stone castle further north than this one.’
In some ways, he was quite brilliant. With the hermetical, it was as if he was wilfully blind. ‘He has much power, my lord,’ she said deferentially.
The Earl threw up his hands. ‘I’ve faced the Wild all my life, love! He’ll have beasts and boggles and some lightning, I have nae doubt. I’ll have a fleet and trebuchets.’
She tried again. ‘I think that he has the power to sink a fleet, my lord.’
‘When you call me
my lord
, I know you’re trying to hide something. Is he a friend? One of your special friends?’ The Earl grinned, and the officers all looked away.
Ghause rolled her eyes. She turned to one of the sergeants-at-arms who guarded the Great Hall.
‘There’s a woman in the dungeon. Bring her here.’ Ghause smiled.
The man saluted – looked to his lord for confirmation – and marched away.
‘Ten ships?’ Edward said. ‘At least. There’ll be ice on the lakes in a month.’
‘What about the report of Galles at Mont Reale, Ser Edmund?’ asked another man.
Edmund
she tried to remember.
Ser Edmund shrugged. ‘I’d like to say it can’t be true,’ he said. ‘But I have three reports – and yon Imperial officer – saying there’s no Etruscan fleet this season. Instead, there are Galles. They have a powerful squadron and too damned many soldiers – that much all reports agree on.’
The Earl sat back and put a thumb behind his beard and pulled on it. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why here?’
Ser Edmund shook his head. ‘Above my pay grade,’ he jested.
‘Will they give aid to the Northern Huran?’ the Earl asked.
All the soldiers looked blank.
The Earl grunted. ‘Best we settle this Thorn quickly and get back here. If the Southerners and the Northern Huran fight – if that Morean was right – then we’re for it.’
Two guards appeared with the woman between them.
The Earl looked at her incuriously, and then at his wife.
‘She’s guilty,’ Ghause said.
The woman stiffened.
The Earl frowned. ‘You’re sure?’ he asked. He prided himself on his justice.
‘She killed Wren with hermetical workings.’ Ghause turned and smiled at the woman, who froze in terror.
She fell to her knees. ‘Your Grace – you don’t know what she did to me—’
Ghause nodded. ‘Get her a priest.’
The Earl motioned the woman away. ‘I’m busy. What’s this about?’
‘I want to show you what Thorn can do.’ The moths milled about. There were far too many of them. The officers murmured at the sight.
Father Pierre came. The woman wept, and the priest shrived her and heard her confession. He turned pale. Ghause waved a hand.
The priest gave her communion. He was far more afraid of his mistress than he was of his God.
Ghause walked over to the woman. She put a hand on her bent head, and then looked at the men at the high table, planning their infantile war.
‘Watch,’ she said. She raised a hand. ‘By my right to the High Justice of the North,’ she said. Just to have the formalities done.
‘Is this going to be a trick?’ her husband asked. But he took his feet off the table and leaned down to watch her.
She
reached out and touched the other woman’s power.
And she devoured it.
The condemned woman turned to ash – all at once. And the ash held its shape for the time it took a silver moth to beat its wings once. And collapsed.
No one moved.
‘Thorn is more powerful than I will ever be,’ she said into the silence.
She only wished she could have been naked. She’d certainly said his name often enough to gain his attention. Inside her head, she was laughing.
The Earl stroked his beard and growled in his throat. ‘Not the fleet this winter then.’
Ser Edmund was slower to recover. ‘This is pure sorcery,’ he said. He rallied hiumself and took a deep breath. ‘This – sorcer is more powerful?’
‘He is far more puissant,’ Ghause said.