Angel mage, p.10
Angel Mage, page 10
She tried to remember what she’d heard about the Star Fortress. It had come up in conversation a few times when she first came to Lutace, but Dorotea hadn’t paid attention. Though she did suddenly remember the gist of it: that prisoners who went to the Star Fortress didn’t come back out again.
“I said most people I take to the Star Fortress do more than tremble,” said Rochefort. “Particularly those going to the actual Tower.”
“Oh,” remarked Dorotea. “I suppose they would. Deluynes was put in there, wasn’t she?”
Averil Deluynes had been the favorite of the Queen, but she had been exposed by the Cardinal as being in the pay of the Alban Atheling, having sold him many of the Queen’s private letters.
“For a time,” replied Rochefort.
Dorotea remembered now. There was an executioner’s block in some cavern deep within the rock on which the Tower was built. An ancient stump of oak hardened by angelic magic to be like iron. Many a neck had rested there, waiting the stroke of the ax.
Or a sword, if you were noble, like Deluynes. Though she was said to have lifted her head and ended up not just headless but also in many separate pieces, the executioner getting rattled and chopping away.
“I really don’t understand what I’m being arrested for,” said Dorotea, frowning. “This all seems very arbitrary.”
“The Cardinal is naturally concerned with anyone who exhibits a talent such as you have just shown,” replied Rochefort, holding Dorotea’s elbow to direct the scholar into the carriage. Her grip was harsh, strong enough to leave a bruise, but she did not ease off. “You are being detained for your own protection. You are not being arrested.”
“Much the same thing, surely,” said Dorotea as she settled back on the seat, grateful it was somewhat cushioned, unlike the bare boards of the conveyance that had rattled and shaken her all the way from Tramereine to Lutace. “This is a very comfortable coach.”
Rochefort looked at her suspiciously, as if suspecting sarcasm.
“I’ve just realized I’ve never seen the Star Fortress up close,” added Dorotea. “I’ve seen the Tower, of course, from afar. I took a half day off when I first arrived to see the sights. On a tour for new students. But we didn’t go north of the Mother Bridge. We saw the Temple of Ashalael, the Queen’s Palace, and the King’s House, and the city prison . . . I forget what it’s called—”
“Riversedge,” supplied Rochefort. She still looked at Dorotea, but now her expression was more of bemusement than suspicion.
“Yes, Riversedge. It looked rather damp, I thought.”
“It is,” said Rochefort. “But most people would prefer to be there than in the Tower.”
She slapped the ceiling of the coach. A moment later, it started to rumble away.
Dorotea yawned. The icon-sketching had taken even more out of her than she’d thought. Curling up in the corner, she went instantly to sleep.
Rochefort shook her head slightly, as if unable to believe what she was seeing. A prisoner, being taken to the Tower of the Star Fortress under a letter of durance—which meant no trial and possible lifetime imprisonment—falling asleep as if she had not a care in the world!
Eight
“YOU SAY THE HOSPITAL PORTER HAD SOME SORT OF . . . small crossbow?” asked the lieutenant of the City Watch, a hard-bitten, sallow-faced woman with suspicious eyes, her blackened cuirass dented, and her cream-and-blue jerkin and breeches showing equal signs of hard wear. She had leaned her demihalberd against the wall but constantly tapped the staff as if to reassure herself it was close to hand.
“Yes . . . yes, she did,” answered Simeon. “The other one had a cleaver. They told me to run. I got out the door, and I heard screaming behind me, I’m not sure if it was one of them . . . or . . . or the beastling.”
“The beastling that was in a box of ice sent from Malarche?”
“Yes,” answered Simeon. “At least that was what the Magister told me. And the ice had melted and the beastling wasn’t dead.”
“There was no box in the room,” said the lieutenant. “No beastling, no strange hospital porters, with or without crossbows. Nor Magister Delazan. Only a great deal of blood on the floor and this.”
She held up the two halves of the paper declaring the box to be the property of the Order of Ashalael and not to be opened save with the permission of the Prince-Bishop of Malarche, whose wax seal was appended to the lower half. The seal was cracked and broken.
“You said you cut this off the box?” asked the lieutenant.
“Yes,” said Simeon, then quickly, as he saw the trap. “At the Magister’s direct command. I asked him if we should not fetch a cleric of Ashalael—”
“But you did cut it?”
“Yes,” answered Simeon. “As I said, only when Magister—”
“As this is the only crime I can definitely prove, by your own confession, Simeon MacNeel, I arrest you for degradation of an official document, and also to be questioned for the possible murder of Magister Delazan—”
“What!” roared Simeon. He stood up to his full, imposing height. “I told you what happened!”
The lieutenant took a step back, snatching up her demihalberd. Her sergeant stood closer, half raising his own, full-sized halberd, which did not feature the gold tassels that adorned the lieutenant’s smaller weapon.
Simeon looked at the big halberd’s long, rusty blade and settled back on his bench. He had been in this cell—one of several the hospital used for unruly patients—for five hours, and things had only gotten progressively worse in that time.
“Let me finish,” said the lieutenant testily. “Since the offense proven by your confession was committed against the Order of Ashalael, it’s temple business. We’ll hand you over to the Cardinal’s Pursuivants and they will sort out the rest of your tale, including the murder or disappearance or whatever it is of Magister Delazan. I do not doubt your story is a lie entire, but fortunately I do not need to explore it any further!”
With that, she clapped her helmet back on and left the cell, her sergeant retreating more cautiously, keeping his eyes on Simeon. Only when he was in the doorway, and Simeon still slumped on the bench, did he turn and dash out, pushing the heavy oaken portal shut behind him and lowering the bar.
A few minutes later, Simeon heard the bar raised again. He pushed his back against the wall and stretched his legs forward, wanting to make it obvious he was not a threat, despite his size. He wanted no trouble with the Cardinal’s Pursuivants.
It was not one of the Cardinal’s officers who entered but old Magister Foxe, the Dean who was in charge of all the first-year students at the hospital. An Alban, he had come to Sarance so long ago it was easy to forget his origins, save that when he was excited or upset he occasionally lapsed into his native tongue.
As he did now, muttering something Simeon couldn’t understand, while throwing his arms up and down in either anger or excitement, and tugging at his beard, which though long was thin and ropy. Eventually, Foxe realized what he was doing and switched back to Sarancian.
“Do you realize what you’ve done, MacNeel?”
“No, ser,” replied Simeon. “All I did was obey Magister Delazan, exactly as you are always telling us we should obey the magisters.”
“Don’t be impertinent,” snapped Foxe. “You’ve brought the Cardinal’s attention on the hospital, which is something we do not want. We do not want it, do you hear?”
“I don’t want it either,” said Simeon. “But truly, Magister, I haven’t done—”
“Quiet!” roared Foxe. “Listen. Do not speak. Something else I am always telling you students. Listen!”
“I’m listening, but—”
“Listen! We do not want the Cardinal’s attention.”
“You already said that—”
“We do not want it. We are not going to have it, because as of this moment, you are no longer a student of the hospital. No, as of yesterday. I will amend the records accordingly.”
“But you can’t do that!” protested Simeon. “I am a student! I have a copy of my indentures; my parents paid the fees—”
“Not a student!” roared Foxe. “Not ours! We’ll repay your parents. The indentures will be torn up!”
“You can’t even do that,” said Simeon. “That’s the whole point of both of us having copies. And why do you even want to? I will be cleared by the Pursuivants. Everything I told the Watch lieutenant is true.”
“You’re a troublemaker! Too clever by half, and Delazan was a fool. We’re best rid of both of you. I have the backing of the Conclave of Magisters, I will not discuss this further. You must leave the hospital forthwith!”
“I’m a prisoner, you numbwit!” exclaimed Simeon. “Waiting to be collected by the Cardinal’s people!”
Infuriated beyond bearing, Simeon stood up. That was sufficient to make Foxe scuttle back to the doorway, where he almost collided with a very tall, dark-haired woman with a scarred face, who easily pushed him aside with one scarlet-gauntleted hand. Foxe squeaked and opened his mouth to utter a sharp retort, but shut it, instead exhibiting a clumsy bow.
Simeon bowed too, as much to the scarlet tunic and gold sash and the badge in the red hat as to the woman who wore them. He knew she must be some high officer of the Cardinal’s. Not to mention the air of menace that came with her, the way her long red-leather-clad fingers—several adorned with cameo icon rings—lightly caressed the hilt of her sword. That long blade would be out in an instant and buried in someone’s heart, Simeon felt sure, if this woman felt it was required. Not to mention the pair of silver-chased pistols thrust through her belt, and her icons . . .
“Ah, Captain Rochefort!” said Foxe, bowing again. “I am Doctor-Magister Foxe, and I assure you this young man is not, not, not . . . a student of ours. Whatever he may have done, he has done on his own account.”
“So I heard,” replied Rochefort. “But your statement is belied by the fact that he is a student, Magister. Her Eminence is a seeker of truth, not of fancies. We desire this young man to come and tell us his story, and we will test it. Should he prove truthful, as I suspect will be the case, what then?”
“What!” exclaimed Foxe. “All that nonsense about a beastling, and hospital porters with crossbows, none of which were to be found, and Delazan missing?”
“The rather inadequately mopped-up stains on the floor of the . . . ah . . . old jar room are a mixture of the peculiar ash blood of a beastling, conjoined with a rather large quantity of human blood from the now doubtless dead and perhaps not particularly lamented Delazan,” said Rochefort.
She tilted her glove, inspecting one of the icon rings, ignoring Foxe. “I would have thought an entire hospital full of doctor-magisters would have noticed that.”
Foxe gobbled, lips quivering. Rochefort turned to Simeon.
“Come, Doctor Simeon MacNeel. We must look further into this, but I fully expect you will be returned here by the morrow. Unharmed.”
“I had not thought otherwise,” said Simeon untruthfully.
He straightened his long coat, lifted his chin, and followed Rochefort out of the cell, leaving Foxe still gobbling, fearing to loose the spiteful words that were doubtless forming in his throat.
Several Pursuivants were waiting near the main gate of the hospital, but Rochefort did not go out onto the broad street of Queen’s Avenue. Instead, she led Simeon along the path by the hospital wall, which ran down to the river. The Pursuivants fell in behind.
“Are we not going to the Cardinal’s Palace?” asked Simeon. The palace was not far away, perhaps twenty minutes’ brisk walk, if the streets were not too busy.
“No,” said Rochefort. “The Star Fortress.”
“Oh,” mumbled Simeon. He felt a sudden empty sensation in his stomach.
“I meant what I said,” added Rochefort. “Your story sounds plausible, given what we know of Delazan and his gambling debts. The use of a beastling to assassinate him is unusual but not unprecedented. The trick is to put a Refuser in a box, force an angel to affect them—which is no small deed—and hope it will produce a beastling and not a pile of ash. Difficult, expensive, and likely to fail numerous times before it succeeds—but salutary. The story has already spread among Delazan’s favorite haunts, and I am sure a number of other belated debts have suddenly been paid. I am not entirely sure what the Night Crew masquerading as porters had to do with it, or why they would have saved you. Perhaps two of Delazan’s creditors both plotted to kill him, one in a more sophisticated fashion, and the plots coincided.”
They walked on in silence for several minutes, leaving the path by the wall to take the steps down to the hospital’s landing stage, a rather rickety jetty that thrust out into the Leire. One of the Cardinal’s barges was docked there, a long and heavy vessel rowed by a dozen scarlet-clad matlows on each side. Two more Pursuivants waited on the jetty, watching the river traffic, and there were two more on board.
With a prisoner, Simeon realized—a tall, pale woman with nasty-looking sun spots crawling across her face. She wore a shapeless Refuser smock and was already clapped in irons, her ankles and wrists manacled. The woman sat on a thwart quietly and did not lift her head as Simeon climbed on board. He tried to look at her without being obvious, the manacles further unnerving him about his own destination. She was perhaps ten years older than he was, and apart from the Refuser clothes, he could not guess at her occupation or why she was there.
“Sit on the second thwart,” instructed Rochefort. “Behind the prisoner.”
The woman lifted her head as Rochefort spoke but did not utter a word.
“You are not a prisoner,” Rochefort added to Simeon. “Merely a helpful witness. We will ascertain the truth of your story with the help of Larquiniel or Pereastor.”
She looked at the woman captive, and her face changed, the scarred skin around her eye tightening, her lips curling.
“Unlike this Refuser, who cannot be questioned so gently. It will be the hot irons for you, Griselda.”
Simeon flinched at Rochefort’s sudden menace, and the mention of torture, but the Refuser seemed unaffected. She stared sullenly back at Rochefort, who scowled and gestured to the boat crew.
“Give way!”
Oars dipped into the river. The barge ponderously left the jetty and turned to starboard. It was upstream to the Star Fortress, and though the river was low, before the autumn rains came, the current was still strong. Twenty-four scarlet backs rose and fell, the long oars moving in perfect unison.
If the destination was somewhere other than the Star Fortress, and the barge not the Cardinal’s, Simeon thought it would actually be a very pleasant afternoon to be on the river. He was a little warm, still in his doctor’s coat, but he welcomed the sun on his face. He had spent so much time in the past months inside the hospital he had forgotten the joys of sunshine and clean air.
Ahead of them lay the rocky island of Three Firs (the trees long since cut down), spanned by the Mother and Daughter Bridges, six arches on the northern side of the island and three on the southern. The barge turned somewhat to port, making for the widest of the Mother’s arches, the easiest for large craft to pass through.
Simeon watched with interest. He’d been on the river a few times but generally only to cross from the Left to the Right Bank when the Queen’s Bridge—the one closest to the hospital—was too crowded and it was quicker to spend a half-livre piece on a boat ride.
The Mother was built of white stone, huge blocks of it, and the arches were at least forty feet wide and twenty feet above the current level of the Leire. It must have been built with the assistance of an angel, or several angels, for the stonework was so precise and the blocks enormous.
There was a statue in the middle of the Mother Bridge, of Ashalael, in the Archangel’s familiar guise of a patrician-looking woman in classical robes, her wings folded about her. She held a baby in her arms, representing the people of Sarance.
But with the wear and tear over the centuries, Simeon saw the baby’s hands had become more like paws and Ashalael’s face was now a smooth oval, lacking the features that once would have been there. It seemed odd that the statue was not better looked after, or replaced.
He was just wondering if it would be safe to ask Rochefort about this, or whether it would be considered an offense to the Archangel, when he saw a hooded figure detach themselves from the great throng of people crossing the bridge and lean over the carved stone rail to level a long pistol at the barge, it seemed to Simeon straight at him!
Rochefort saw it too. One of her small silver-chased pistols was suddenly in her hand. Both she and the assassin on the bridge fired at the same time. Simeon crouched as the bangs resounded, and a gust of acrid gun smoke blew across his face, forcing him to squeeze his eyes shut. There were more shots a few seconds later as other Pursuivants fired, and a great deal more choking white gun smoke, accompanied by screaming, with Rochefort shouting over it all to the coxswain to steer the barge to shore.
Simeon felt no pain. Gingerly he opened his eyes and took a breath. He was unhurt. Looking around through the haze of smoke he saw Rochefort standing by the stern, touching an icon ring, whispering. A second later, he felt the rush of air that signaled the sweep of an angel’s wings, and the soft harmonic of a plucked harp string.
“’Ware, Captain,” called a Pursuivant. “It was a Refuser fired!”
“Pelastriel watches and follows only,” said Rochefort calmly. “I am sure I hit the man; he flees. Take Dubois and Depernon, enlist the Watch from the post on the northern end of the bridge. Pelastriel will guide you to the malefactor. I want him taken alive.”
The barge shuddered as it met the riverbank. Rowers leaped over the wooden revetment to hold the barge there as three Pursuivants disembarked and ran off in pursuit of the assassin.
Simeon wiped his eyes and stared about him. At first, he thought no one had been hit by the shot. Then he saw the Refuser, tumbled down in the bottom of the barge, her gray tunic dark with blood.
