Authors: Miles Cameron
‘Find him, ser knight,’ she said.
‘I’m no knight,’ he said.
Her sad smile told him that his opinion held no weight.
‘What of your own people?’ he asked.
‘Please go,’ she begged.
He had no resistance against her. He got a foot into the near-side stirrup and the great beast grunted.
‘
You aboard?
’
Redmede gave a little shriek.
Tamsin held out an amulet. ‘It will find him. Even if he is dead.’
The bull elk trotted out into the storm.
‘
Can you hear me, boss?
’
Redmede fought his trembling hands – everything in irkdom seemed to scare him. ‘I’m – how do you do that?’
‘
Who knows? Good seat. Don’t worry, I won’t drop you. You do your part and I do mine. And don’t use that fucking bit unless you have to, or we’ll see which of us is stronger. Understand me?
’
Redmede put the reins carefully on the warm beast’s neck and left them there, tied together. The elk increased his pace, and Mogon trotted alongside.
Too soon, they’d left the warm darkness of the Hold and the surrounding huts behind.
‘Why?’ Redmede asked. ‘I’m not unwilling, lady. But why me?’
Mogon ran on. She ran for long enough that Redmede thought he wasn’t going to get an answer, and then she crossed a series of downed trees and paused.
‘We’re in the Wild, man. If his own nobles suspected that he was alone in the snow, badly injured – well. Suffice it to say that his mate asks a Warden and a man to save her lord.’ She turned, far more agile than a creature of her bulk had any right to be, and headed into the open woods.
Thrake – Aeskepiles
‘My father will never agree to outright assassination,’ Demetrius said.
Aeskepiles poured him more hippocras. ‘This is the time, Your Grace. If we allow the usurper to hold the city through the winter, we have lost.’
Demetrius sat back. Despite his temper, he had the quick eyes of the thinking man, and they rested on Aeskepiles’ own. ‘My father said we had already lost. That all that remained of our cause was to see how much of the north we can hold.’
Aeskepiles shook his head. ‘You father is merely despondent. It was a local defeat – a mere matter of marching—’
Demetrius cursed. ‘Listen, Magister. Perhaps the person we needed most was you. This Red Knight – he had all sorts of sorcery. He tied my two
praeceptors
in knots as soon as the action started. He moved a storm front the way a goodwife moves a curtain.’
Aeskepiles nodded. ‘I agree. So let’s be rid of him.’
Demetrius took another drink. ‘The world is full of sons who plot against their fathers. I am not one such. I dislike to betray my father’s trust.’
Aeskepiles could feel his audience wavering. ‘We are not betraying your father, but saving his cause. Was the Emperor a good ruler? No. He was a weak fool who made concessions to every foreigner. May I be frank? Even the usurper is better at ruling the Empire than the Emperor. I know it is blasphemy, but listen, Your Grace. I did not join this rebellion to win more power, or wider estates. There are
greater issues
at hand. We must win. So let’s send that message. When the usurper is dead, we can cry
mea culpa
to your father.’
Demetrius drank again. ‘We’ll need his signet.’
Aeskepiles nodded. ‘And the messenger leaves tomorrow for the city. We must be quick.’
Liviapolis – Kronmir and Mortirmir
More than a week after his return to the city, Kronmir stood at the Gate of Ares and watched the Imperial Army march in from the snow. They had been announced the night before, and it was widely held that they had won some great victories and had with them a fortune in furs. He might have cursed, but he didn’t bother. Kronmir lived his life successfully by concerning himself only with elements that he could control. However, it must be said that the Megas Ducas’ month-long winter campaign and its results had caused Master Kronmir to think certain thoughts about his employer and the likely durability of the cause which he was representing, and Kronmir had spent a day or two taking certain precautions.
The army, led by the Megas Ducas, looked triumphant, and far warmer than they should have. The troopers looked thin; a month of winter campaigning had shed any fat they might have had. But their white surcoats hid any deficiencies of clothing, their animals looked healthy enough, and the long train of wagons behind them spoke volumes for their triumph – Kronmir counted a hundred and sixty wagons. Enormous wagons, many drawn by oxen.
The master spy stood in the frozen evening, his hands deep in the sleeves of his fur-lined cote, and pondered how much advance planning and logistics his agents had missed which had allowed this army to march a thousand miles in winter.
He also couldn’t help but notice that the crowd – ten deep at the gate and six deep even in the squares – cheered the army like madmen. They cheered the weather-beaten stradiotes, who looked proud as Pilate, every one of them, and they cheered the spry Vardariotes and their wind-reddened faces that matched their cotes, and they cheered the magnificent Scholae, who looked a little less magnificent in white wool, but still bore themselves like elven princes. They roared for the Nordikans, who rode by, hauberks swinging, tattoos almost black against their winter-white and sun-reddened skin, and singing a hymn to the Virgin Parthenos. And, most disturbing, they roared themselves hoarse for the Megas Ducas on his tall black horse, wearing what appeared to be a cloak of white ermine – entirely of white ermine. He had a rod in his hand – a command staff – and he used it to salute the crowd, like an emperor of old.
At the back of the convoy of wagons there were forty further vehicles – just pairs of axles carrying heavy loads of lumber, pulled by oxen.
Kronmir went back to his inn, closed the door on his expensive private room, and wrote a long coded missive for his new communications service to carry. He went out towards evening and dropped the whole parchment scroll into a lead pipe strapped to the underside of a farmer’s cart – right where it was supposed to be.
After latching the pipe closed, Kronmir walked back to his inn through the falling snow and listened to the sound of a city triumphant. He ordered a cup of mulled wine, sat down with his back to a wall, and warmed his feet on a stool while he contemplated the new reality.
And wondered if it was time to change sides.
Kronmir sat in the common room of his inn, enjoying a steaming tankard of hot cider and warming his toes at the fire. His tall boots hung over a frame with a dozen other pairs, and one of the inn’s urchins turned them from time to time for a copper sequin.
He’d had a busy week, and a fruitful one. His most reliable palace contact had what might prove a useful resource among the Nordikans. The Nordikans were almost impossible to seduce from their allegiance, but he suspected that there must be some disaffection with the Emperor a prisoner. Although their payment by the Megas Ducas had killed the interest of the two who had considered his earlier offers. Or perhaps all that had been a trap.
He sighed. It was worth a try, although the latest victories by the Megas Ducas had solidified his support almost beyond saving. The Alban merchants had sailed away in the hardy round ships despite winter storms, loaded to the gunwales with the cream of the fur market – but the Etruscan League, having paid its fine, had been allowed to pick and choose among the furs, and had even made private deals with the Alban merchants. Kronmir didn’t have a first-rate source, but his impression was that the Etruscan houses had avoided ruination, and now owed the Megas Ducas for their survival.
He took his eating knife from his purse and stirred his cider.
He felt someone’s regard, and lifted his eyes to see the young artist from the temple outside the city. He remembered the boy well, and his own impulse to kill him.
The boy smiled on meeting his eyes.
Kronmir returned the smile. No spy or hired bravo would flash such an ingenuous smile on his way to strike his target. Nonetheless, Kronmir flipped a slim blade out of the back of his belt and held it along his left arm.
‘Stephan!’ called the young man. He had the air of a student, but he wore a sword on a belt of silver and gold plates, like an Alban knight or a mercenary.
Kronmir knew a moment’s confusion before he settled that he had, indeed, told the young man his name was Stephan. He rose and bowed.
A potboy brought a second chair and bowed to the student.
‘Are you a resident in this inn?’ Kronmir asked.
The student nodded. ‘Red wine – Candian, if possible. What I had yesterday? Yes?’ His Archaic was superb – far better than anything Kronmir had heard from other mercenaries, and that further suggested the boy was a student. He sat. ‘Yes, this is my inn. And you, sir?’
Kronmir groaned. Killing the boy would only lead to complications. But he couldn’t share an inn with a person of wealth and property who could identify him to a magistrate. ‘Just another day or two,’ he said with an inward sigh.
I liked it here.
‘You are, I take it, a student at the Academy?’
The young man bowed again, while seated. He had very good manners. ‘Yes. I am Morgan Mortirmir, Esquire, of Harndon. I am
Scholasticus Affector
at the Academy. And you?’
Kronmir knew the title meant he was a genuine adept – a wizard in training. He wondered if the young man was young enough to seduce to spying, but that was mere wheel-spinning. He would recruit his spy-mage only when he was confident of his own place and security, and this was not such a moment. ‘I am a mere merchant, my lord,’ Kronmir said.
‘Ah!’ Mortirmir said. ‘I had you pegged as a fellow practitioner.’
‘Whatever for?’ Kronmir allowed himself a genuine laugh.
‘The amulet you wear shines like a beacon in the
aethereal.
Ah – I beg your pardon, good sir. I know that some people mislike all discussion of the immaterial.’
Kronmir toyed with the amulet that the Emperor’s former wizard had given him. ‘Really?’ he asked.
‘It must be very powerful,’ Mortirmir continued. He leaned over, and Kronmir flinched back. ‘Sorry. Curiosity killed the cat, and all. I’ll desist.’
A pretty young woman in a fine Morean gown and wimple brought a wine glass, a tumbler worked with tiny tendrils of decorative glass in blues and greens, and the small flagon. She curtsied. He raised his glass to her.
Kronmir fought his rising fear and made a snap decision – the kind he made every day. Sometimes, it was easier to know things than to live in a world of fear. So he took the chain over his head and handed it to the young man. ‘My master paid handsomely for it,’ he said. ‘It is supposed to allow us to communicate. Over great distance.’
Mortirmir smiled, a little shy now that he was engaged. He took a sip of wine and turned the amulet over. It was a silver pendant in the shape of a praying man. He looked at the base of it, and frowned, weighed it in his hand, and something about his shift in his seat made Kronmir deeply uneasy. He began to look at the exits – his automatic reaction to threat.
Mortirmir flicked his thumb over the base of the amulet, and there was a minute flare of fire – blue fire.
Mortirmir dropped the amulet. ‘Well, well,’ he said with the enthusiasm of the young and passionate for an intricate device. ‘It’s very powerful. How far away is this master of yours? Etrusca?’ He laughed.
Kronmir stood up. ‘You unmask all my secrets,’ he said, taking back his device. ‘You are very clever.’
Mortirmir met his eye. ‘I’d be hesitant to hang all that unshielded
potentia
around my neck. What if the man who directs your business dislikes you, sir?’ He laughed. ‘I’m only being a ninny. Here you go.’
Kronmir raised an eyebrow. ‘Good to know,’ he said.
He changed inns later that afternoon with a minimum of fuss, but the damage was done – the boy would know him anywhere, and the amulet was like a badge. Kronmir was suddenly obscurely afraid of the power of the thing – as if the young scholar’s fear was a disease he’d caught. He put it in his pocket.
Thrake – Gelfred
‘This is not how I’d planned to celebrate the nativity,’ Gelfred complained.
Amy’s Hob laughed aloud, and even Daniel Favour grinned.
They had six small huts of branches leaning against carefully constructed sapling frames. The lean-tos ran either side of a fire trench that warmed both sides, and the result was like a long, very low Outwaller house. The men – a dozen of them – could lie with their feet to the fire’s warmth and their heads under the lowest and snuggest part of the shelter.
The lean-tos were covered in snow – indeed, they were buried in it, but the deep snow only made the shelters warmer. Every deer they brought down added a hide to the refinements they had worked on the openings, and every hour of daylight added to the immense pile of firewood that formed the north wall of the shelters; a barrier against the wind.
Favour’s two hounds lay with their heads on their paws near the entrance. They had their own hides to lie on, and men collected bits of food to try and lure them as sleeping companions, but they mostly slept with the young wagoner from Harndon. Even now, at the edge of night, they raised their heads when he moved.
‘He’s the youngest, and he must look most like a dog,’ Amy’s Hob said with a rare smile. The other men laughed.
Gelfred fetched his pot off the fire and served out mulled wine.
‘I’d like to do something for our Saviour’s birth,’ he said.
Young Daniel nodded. ‘Not until tomorrow though, Ser Gelfred.’
‘Wouldn’t hurt us none to sing a carol,’ Wha’Hae said. Amy’s Hob cuffed him and Wha’Hae elbowed the man. ‘What? I like to sing.’
Ginger snorted. ‘I know “God rest Ye”,’ he said.
‘Ain’t we hiding in enemy territory?’ Amy’s Hob said plaintively.
Young Daniel gave a snort of derision. ‘There’s nothing moving out there but us and the deer,’ he said. ‘And the deer ain’t moving much,’ he added, and got a laugh of his own. Young he might be, but Daniel Favour was the elite hunter among an elite of woodsmen. His patience was legendary, and his arrows flew true.