The Element of Fire Page 6

  It was clear even from the monk's crabbed notes on the evidence that Grandier had been a victim. The nuns' testimony had been confused and contradictory, and the details of how Grandier had enchanted them were vague at best; if they had brought such charges in Ile-Rien a magistrate would have had them all hauled off to gaol for false witness and wasting the time of a law court. According to the monk, one nun had even tried to recant her testimony but the judges had refused to hear her.

  Grandier had been tortured with fire, the choking-pear, and the other devices the Inquisition used to obtain confessions of heresy. Despite this the sorcerer had refused to confess, and had been sentenced to the question ordinary and extraordinary. He had been subjected to both strappado, having been hoisted by his bound arms and dropped to a stone floor, and squassation, during which the executioner had attached heavy weights to the victim's feet, then hoisted and dropped him to within a few inches of the floor until limbs had been dislocated. The scars would be visible on his face, his hands. Even if he's healed himself, he can't conceal that kind of injury. It would be a miracle if he could straighten his back or walk without limping, Thomas thought.

  Grandier disappeared from his cell a few weeks after his torture. A month later the priest who had brought the original complaint died insane. Within another month the bishop who headed the Inquisitorial Committee followed him. The witch-pricker, who had probably falsified the demon marks he had reported finding on Grandier's body during torture, died later in "terrible delirium," as the monk described it. The account ended there, before the plague and the other horrific disasters now attributed to the outlaw sorcerer.

  If he wasn't working dark magic before the trial, Thomas thought, he is now.

  * * *

  The afternoon at the Mummer's Mask passed slowly as the tavernkeepers recovered from the night before and the acting troupe prepared for the night to come. Baraselli and his assistants sat at a big round table on the tavern's main floor arguing over which characters they would use tonight, while the actors lounged nearby feigning disinterest. Shafts of sunlight from the cracked windows glittered off the dust in the air and the various paraphernalia of the stage that had been hauled out for inspection.

  Silvetta, the actress who played one of the heroines, said, "What did you say your name was?"

  There was a moment of hesitation before the woman who had been hired for the Columbine mask answered, "It's Kade." She was sitting on top of one of the wine-stained tables, her legs folded beneath her skirt in a position that most women of better breeding would have found difficult if not impossible. The playing cards she shuffled were a tattered pack belonging to the tavern.

  "Really? Don't tell Baraselli." Silvetta shuddered, rolling her eyes in a gesture better suited for the stage. "Bad luck, ill omens, that's all he talks about. But they don't give children that name here anymore, do they? Except in the country. Are you from the country?"

  "Yes."

  "When did you learn Commedia?"

  "I traveled around with one for a while and learned the Columbine mask. That was after I got out of the convent," Kade told her.

  Silvetta leaned forward. "Why were you in a convent?"

  "My wicked stepmother sent me there."

  "Oh, you're telling me a tale." Personal questions out of the way, she said, "Do my fortune again."

  Kade's brows quirked. "I doubt it's changed any in the past hour."

  "You can't tell; it might have."

  "You can tell," Kade said, but began to lay out the cards for the fortune anyway.

  Corrine, the other heroine, appeared out of one of the back rooms carrying two dresses visible only as tumbled confections of sparkled fabric and lace. "What do you think, this blue or that blue?"

  Both women paused to give the matter serious consideration. "That one," Silvetta said finally.

  "I think so," Kade agreed.

  "What are you wearing?" Corrine asked her.

  Kade suspected she was anxious to make sure she wasn't going to be outshone by the woman playing her maid. With a shrug of one shoulder, Kade indicated the loose red gown she wore over the low-necked smock. "This."

  "You can't wear that," Silvetta objected.

  "I'm playing a maid." She laughed. "What else should I wear?"

  The free fortune-telling had won Silvetta over completely. She said, "At least let me curl your hair."

  Kade ran a hand through fine limp hair that the dusty sunlight was temporarily transforming into spun gold. Ordinarily she considered it the color of wheat suffering from rotting blight. "With an iron?"

  "Of course, you goose, what else?"

  "I hate that."

  Corrine draped the gowns over a chair and said, "The thing to do is to attract attention to yourself. There's plenty of men there, gentlemen, lords, wealthy men, on the lookout for mistresses. Of course, it's not often you can get something permanent, you understand, but it's worth a go."

  "Really?" Kade asked, her tone a shade too ingenuous, but not so much so that the other two women suspected subtle mockery.

  "Much better than an actor," Silvetta said, and jerked her head in the direction of the tavern entrance. The actor who played the Arlequin stood there talking to one of the tavern-keeps, having just come in from the street. He was darkly handsome, clean-shaven after the current fashion in Adera, and didn't look at all like the other actors who played clowns.

  After a moment, Kade said, "How well do you know him?"

  Silvetta answered, "He's new. Baraselli hired him last month when the other Arlequin died."

  Kade glanced at her. "Was he an old man?"

  "Oh, no, all our clowns are young. He died of a fever. It was very bad luck."

  The Arlequin had looked in their direction, and seemed to be staring at Kade. Corrine, who apparently had only one thought in her head, grinned and said, "He likes you."

  But Kade, who could read wolfish contempt in those dark eyes, snorted. "Hardly," she said, and by sleight of hand managed to insinuate the card for future wealth into Silvetta's fortune.

  * * *

  Thomas had spent the afternoon checking on the progress of the inquiries he had set in motion last night, but the King's Watch had made little headway so far. He had wanted to sound out Galen Dubell on the subject of his one time student Kade Carrion, but last night hadn't seemed the right moment after the sorcerer's rescue from three harrowing days as Urbain Grandier's prisoner.

  Galen Dubell had moved into the late Dr. Surete's old rooms, and Thomas found him there when the afternoon sun was glowing through the windows and filling the high-ceilinged room with light. The old Court Sorcerer had needed this room when his eyes had started to fail; the multipaned windows in the west wall took full advantage of the daylight. Gold-trimmed bookshelves covered the other walls and a globe still shielded by its protective leather cover stood in the corner. The rest of the furniture was buried under piles of more books and a fine layer of dust.

  When the servant led Thomas into the room, Dubell looked up from his writing desk and smiled. "Captain." He was wearing a battered pair of gold-rimmed reading spectacles and open books were spread out on one side of the partners desk Dr. Surete had once shared with his assistant Milan.

  Thomas said, "I wanted to thank you for what you did for my man last night. He would have died if you hadn't healed him."

  Dubell smiled. "You are welcome, but I don't think that is the only thing you came to speak about. Please be direct."

  Well, well. Thomas leaned on a bookshelf and tipped his plumed hat back, finding himself more amused than discomfited. Directness was not something one encountered often at court. "We've had a message from an old acquaintance of yours. His Majesty Roland's half sister Kade."

  "So that is it." Dubell took off his spectacles and tapped them thoughtfully against the carved arm of his chair. For the first time he looked like a young man who had gradually grown old rather than the model of an aged wizard-scholar who had sprung fully formed out of the f
ertile ground at Lodun University. "Indeed, I know Kade."

  "She was your apprentice."

  "Not quite. I was the first to show her the uses for the talent she already had. A mistake I have already paid for. Ten years is a long time to be banished from the city of one's birth." He shook his head, dismissing the thought. "But you have had a message from her?"

  "Yes. It seems to suggest she's about to pay a visit."

  "In person? That is odd. She usually sends tricks disguised as gifts, doesn't she?"

  "If you can call them that." Kade's tricks ranged from the dangerous to the ridiculous. The goblet that no adulterer could drink from had provided some embarrassing and humorous moments for the entire court. A gift of a necklet that, once clasped, contracted and cut the wearer's head off had been considerably less entertaining. The ancient knight who had arrived last midwinter with his beheading game had been one of the most frightening but the least substantive. Of course, Renier had fallen for it like a sack of rocks off a wall. It had taken the Preceptor of the Albon Knights off on a two-month quest that was notable for its pointlessness and not much else. Presumably the fay sorceress had watched from a distance, laughing her own head off. When violent, Kade was about as subtle as a thrown hammer; when devious, she still preferred to sign her name to the deed. As an enemy Thomas would have preferred Kade over Urbain Grandier; she, at least, was a known danger. "Could she be coming to see you?" he asked Dubell.

  The sorcerer got to his feet and went toward one of the windows that looked out on the Rose Court five stories below. Thomas followed him.

  The stone paths below formed gray rivers among islands of small red and white fall roses. On one of those shaded rivers were a gallant and a court lady, standing close together in conversation. There was something furtive in the turn of the woman's head that spoke of an assignation. They couldn't know they were being watched by the Captain of the Queen's Guard and the man who would probably be made Court Sorcerer sometime in the next few months, but in the palace someone was always watching.

  After a moment Dubell said, "Kade could have seen me more easily at Lodun. Why should she wait until now?"

  "I can't answer that, Doctor. She's only half human and I don't understand why she does anything." No one had been able to answer the question "why" when Kade's mother appeared at court twenty-five years ago to captivate the old king Fulstan. No one had known she was Moire, a great queen in her own right from one of the multitude of fayre kingdoms that hid under ancient barrows, deceptively deep lakes, or the disappearing islands that lay off the southern coast. She had held Fulstan's attention constantly, day and night, for one year before departing and leaving behind her a baby daughter like a forgotten piece of baggage and a man who was far worse a king than he had ever been before.

  Dubell had a way of seeming to pick up on someone else's train of thought. He said, "I remember her mother. I was a young man then. The King's Company was performing The Fortunate Lands and suddenly she was there, dressed in black and her jewels like stars. The Queen of Air and Darkness." He picked up a book from the window ledge and absently added it to a stack on a nearby chair. "A wiser man might have seen a potential danger in Kade. The fay who appear the most human are often more changeable and vindictive than their monstrous brethren. But I saw only an isolated child with the first stirrings of real power and the wit and the will to use it. I admit I have never felt guilty, Captain. I gave her only an elementary tutoring in the craft. If I hadn't, she would have found someone else. I'm sorry for what she has done with the knowledge since then, but I assume no responsibility for it." He looked back at Thomas seriously. "I suspect that may be lese-majeste."

  "Perhaps, but it's a mild form of it." Compared to most of what goes on here. "And we do need your help." He was sure Dubell realized that until another court sorcerer could arrive he had them over a barrel, and Thomas was curious to see if the old scholar would come out and admit it.

  Dubell shook his head. "I took a vow of fealty when I first came here years ago. Whatever differences of opinion have arisen since then can have no bearing on it."

  The old sorcerer stood there watching the garden below, his stooped shoulders revealing his bone-weary exhaustion. Galen Dubell spoke so freely it made suspicion difficult, even for someone in whom suspicion was a deeply ingrained habit. And how many times does a man have to swear undying loyalty before you have to give him the benefit of the doubt? Thomas thought. At least until events prove otherwise.

  The couple in the court below had moved somewhere out of sight. Dubell asked, "Has anything been heard of Grandier?"

  "No, not so far. He's not going to be so easy to find again. You haven't remembered anything else you heard that might hint of his plans?" Thomas asked without much hope. They had gone over all this exhaustively last night on the way back to the palace.

  "No, I saw and heard very little of anyone." Dubell spread his hands. "A thing to be glad of, since I expect that is why they allowed me to live."

  "I don't know. This is a very complex game he's playing."

  Dubell nodded. "So it is," he agreed. "So it is."

  * * *

  With winter on the way, the days were growing shorter, but as night dropped over the city on this particular day, Thomas felt he had done a great deal and gotten absolutely no results for any of it. As he leaned on the balustrade of the Queen's loggia and repeated to his young lieutenant Gideon the last message from the King's Watch commander, he was even more convinced of it.

  One of the roofed terrace's walls was open to the night and to a view of the park and the river canal where it ran for a time within the towering bulk of the palace's outer curtain wall. Paintings on oiled silk hung from the edge of the roof, rippling slightly in the sharp coolness of the evening breeze.

  "They've lost Grandier's trail completely," Thomas told Gideon. Both were dressed in dark brocades for court, with lace at collars and cuffs and overlapping their top boots. Thomas wore Ravenna's signature color of red in the ribbons on his sleeves and his sword knot. "Which isn't surprising at this point. He was here secretly long enough to establish that house; he could have bolt holes all over the city by now."

  "That's not very encouraging," the lieutenant said with a rueful expression. One of Gideon's duties was the command of the group of Queen's guards that formed Queen Falaise's escort, and he had been attending to her most of the day instead of participating in the more exciting search for Grandier.

  "That's an understatement." Thomas watched the breeze ripple the surface of the canal. Gideon had been Falaise's lover for the past month, and he wondered if the younger man realized that he knew it. Thomas hoped it didn't become awkward. I've known him since he was a boy, he thought. I'd hate to have to kill him. Muted music and laughter drifted up the graceful staircase to the loggia. The open doors in the archway below led into the entrance hall of the Grand Gallery where the night's entertainment for the court was being staged. Thomas said, "Grandier's playing with us. I think he wanted us to find him the first time, and the question of why isn't an easy one." He shook his head. "I'll have to talk to the King's Watch commander again tonight."

  "Yes. Well, there's one other thing." Gideon lowered his voice. "My lady Falaise wants to see you. I know what you've said about that, Captain, and I have put her off, but..."

  "I'll take care of it." You'd think the woman didn't have any sense of self-preservation, he thought. Thomas was trying to avoid giving Queen Falaise an opportunity to make him any offers he would be honor-bound to tell her mother-in-law Ravenna about. "Who is she with at the moment?"

  "Aristofan, he calls himself." Gideon grinned. "His real name is Semuel Porter."

  "Which one is he?"

  "The pimply one."

  Thomas sighed. "They're all pimply, Gideon."

  "The pimply one with the red hair." He hesitated. "Braun's coming this way."

  Thomas glanced around. Dr. Braun, dressed for court in a black velvet scholar's gown, was gesturing errat
ically at them from the landing below the loggia. "He seems to have something on his mind," Thomas said.

  Gideon looked down at the young sorcerer with thinly veiled contempt. "He nearly got Gaspard killed fumbling around with the wards at that wizard-house."

  "Then perhaps it will offset all the times that Gaspard has nearly gotten himself killed," Thomas said, his voice dry. "Go on back to Falaise. See if you can tactfully encourage her to show up for court."

  "Sir." Gideon saluted and headed for the stairway leading to the upper levels and Thomas went down to meet Dr. Braun.

  "I have something I need to discuss with you," the sorcerer said hurriedly as Thomas reached him.

  Dr. Braun was worried, and his normal hangdog expression had given way to a look of frightened intelligence. Thomas found himself asking seriously, "What is it?"

  "Captain!" The voice hailed him from the arched entrance to the Grand Gallery.

  Hell, it's Denzil, Thomas thought. He told Braun, "If it can't wait, tell me quickly."

  Braun hesitated, his nervous eyes on the approaching Denzil. "It can wait," he said. "I'll come to the Grand Gallery later."

  "Are you certain?"

  "Yes." The young man began to sidle uneasily away.

  "Very well."

  Braun nodded and all but bolted out of the entrance hall.

  Thomas went to join Denzil.

  The Duke of Alsene's father had been a wastrel and little better than a border bandit who managed to lose most of the family properties by the time of his death. Denzil had inherited the Duchy of Alsene at age eight, surrounded by a large family of grasping and impoverished noble relatives. Seven years later when he had come to court and captured Roland's favor, all those properties had been restored, and he had been made generous gifts of land, court offices, and the incomes that came with them. Now he had his own cadre of debauched and worthless young nobles, and he encouraged them to plot and spread rumors and otherwise annoy Ravenna, even though two of his foolish friends had gone too far, and died for it on the Traitor's Block outside the city. Ravenna was continually balked by his influence over Roland, and if Denzil's family had deliberately trained him for the part he played now, they couldn't have done better.