Cold Magics (11 page)

The bishop stepped to the door, opened it and looked out. Thomas tried to look past him into the street beyond, but could only see the torches of the crowd and the backs of the horsemen who stood in front of the doors.

“Stand fast!”
Henry’s call rang out clearly above the rest of the noise.
“Stand fast but do not attack!”
The tone changed, and Thomas guessed that Henry was turning his attention to the watch.
“We are here on behalf of the Royal Academy of Learning to execute a writ, demanding the return of Thomas Flarety to the custody of the Academy by order of the chancellor himself! These men block the way and seek to block the king’s justice!”

The bishop stepped away from the door as another guard stepped in. “Your Grace, a dozen men on horseback are riding toward our troops. One of them is the leader of the students. What shall we do?”

“Is the watch doing nothing?”

“They are stepping aside,” said the guard. “He does have a writ, your Grace, with the Royal seal on it. And the men riding with him are fully armed and armoured, and moving in a disciplined formation. What do we do?”

The bishop thought a moment. “Let them come. Tell the guard to step aside. If they wish to talk, we should afford them the opportunity.” He turned to the men holding Thomas. “Follow me. Bring him.”

The guards holding Thomas kicked his legs out from under him and threw him face down on the ground. With no way to stop his fall, Thomas hit hard, the wind going out of him. Two guards grabbed his ankles and hauled him across the floor. A moment later he was outside, and a moment after that they sent him rolling hard down the stone stairs. Thomas landed on his chained arms, crying out in pain.

“Who are you?” he heard the bishop saying. “And by what right do you demand this prisoner?”

Thomas forced his body to twist to the side, then into a sitting position as Henry rode forward.

“I am Lord Henry Antonius, son of the duke of Frostmire, and student of the Royal Academy. I am here on behalf of the Academy and the king, whose Lord Chamberlain instructed me to give you this.”

He held out the writ. The bishop gestured and the guard stepped down the stairs and took the rolled up paper from Henry. He handed it to the bishop with a bow. The bishop opened it, looked at it, and returned it. “Very well, take him.”

“Unchain him,” said Henry.

“No.” The bishop turned and walked back toward the doors. “You have your man. Take him and go, or I’ll order the cavalry to ride down the students.”

Henry looked at the horsemen that lined the front of the building, then raised a hand to his own mounted troops. Sir Lawrence dismounted and went to Thomas, helping him to his feet. Thomas barely managed to stay upright. Lawrence looked back to Henry. “He can’t stand, my lord.”

“Help him onto my horse,” said Henry. “I’ll hold him up.”

“This will hurt, lad,” said Lawrence to Thomas. “Sorry.” At his gesture, another of the knights dismounted and helped lift Thomas up. Between the two of them lifting and Henry pulling from above, they got him seated precariously on Henry’s saddle.

Henry put an arm around Thomas to steady him, then turned his horse and rode carefully toward the students. If he noticed how Thomas stank, or that Thomas’s breeches were wet, he gave no sign of it. When they were halfway to the students, Henry called out, “He has been released!”

The students cheered, their voices filling the square and ringing off the buildings. Thomas saw that their numbers were closer to two hundred, all raising blades in victory. Henry waited for the cheering to die down.

“We have done what we have come to do!” he declared. The cheers grew louder, wilder. Henry’s voice rose above them. “But now!” He waited until he could be heard. “But now is the time to show that you are no mere rabble! Not mere rioters, but proud students of the Royal Academy! Lead us back to the student quarter, and there let us celebrate our victory!”

The crowd cheered again, and hundreds of feet began moving. Someone started singing the school song, and two hundred voices joined in.

“Thank the Four,” said Henry into Thomas’s ear. “We borrowed these horses from the king’s stable. He wouldn’t be happy if they came home damaged.”

Henry pulled Thomas close to him and started the horse moving. Past his shoulder, Thomas could see the two knights mount, and all of Henry’s men followed after him. Two garrisons of the town’s watch were standing to one side, letting the students pass. Henry saluted the captains and rode forward. The crowd milled around them. Henry signalled to his knights and the other riders formed up around him, keeping the students from getting too close and possibly jostling Thomas out of his seat.

“How bad was it?” asked Henry.

Thomas shook his head, unwilling to answer. He could smell himself, and was sure Henry could, too.

Henry said, “The doctor told the guards that he needed to treat Lionel at his office. While they were leading him there, Eileen ran away to the Residence. Baron Cavish sent six men to get George and Lionel, and then found me.” He sighed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have been here sooner, but we had to try the legal channels first. I was addressing the students yesterday, so I spoke to the Master of Law and the principal. They sent letters, but nothing happened. This morning I spoke to the chancellor. Finally I got him to sign a writ and rallied everyone in our apartment block to come here.” He looked at the crowd. “It seems to have done the trick.”

Thomas watched the square slowly retreat into the distance and felt a wave of relief roll over him. Tears he couldn’t stop began to fill his eyes. He was still horribly ashamed of himself and could barely stand to let Henry hold onto him, even though release would mean falling off the horse.

“Kept you chained the whole time, did they?” said Henry. Unable to make a cohesive reply, Thomas only nodded. “Don’t worry,” Henry said. “We’ll have you back to the Residence soon. Eileen and George are worried sick about you.”

Not like this, Thomas thought. He tried to speak the words, but they nearly came out as a wail. He forced himself to breathe slowly, forced himself to try again. “Not like this.”

“It will be fine,” said Henry. “They’ll understand.”

“Not like this,” Thomas repeated. He tried to keep his voice solid, but it cracked on the last word. “Please.”

Henry shook his head. “We need to get you out of the street.”

“Please,” Thomas’s voice cracked again, and tears and words started flowing. “I don’t want them to see me like this, Henry. Please. I’m disgusting. I smell. Don’t let them see me like this. Don’t let Eileen…”

He lost the words, tears taking over. He forced his sobs quiet, forced himself not be loud enough to be heard, though he knew the other knights could see. When he could speak again, he said, “I didn’t tell them anything. Not anything. But they’re going to come after George and Eileen. You can’t let them.”

“We won’t,” said Henry. “No one will hurt them.” Henry looked over his shoulder, called to Sir Lawrence, “We’re going to the Street of Smiths. Slow down and let the crowd get past us, then we’ll turn off.”

Lawrence called back an affirmative, and the knights around Henry slowed. Most of the students went on their way. A few tried to stay back, but Henry shooed them onward, claiming that they would join them later.

Once the last of them had moved past, Henry turned his horse down another street and picked up the pace, keeping the horse to a fast walk and maintaining a tight grip on Thomas. Neither said anything more. Thomas hated the tears falling down his face, hating crying in front of Henry. He couldn’t wipe at his eyes with his arms still bound—couldn’t do anything, really—so he sat there, trying to control his breathing while Henry led them through the city.

They rode quickly to the Street of Smiths. Henry sent men down either side until one of them found a smithy still open. The man there, a short, wide fellow with shoulders that would have looked proper on George, wrinkled his nose when they helped Thomas down to stand, swaying, in front of him.

“By the Four, is the boy so drunk he can’t boy control his bowels?” complained the smith. “Can’t hardly work with a stink like—”

Henry’s rapier was at the man’s throat, the tip pushing against the skin. “Be silent,” said Henry, “and do the job. Quickly.”

He did as he was told. A few blows with a hammer and chisel broke the pins that held the manacles on his hands. Thomas’s arms dropped to his sides and a whole new sort of pain raced through them. Henry tossed a silver coin at the ground in front of the smith and helped Thomas walk away.

Thomas’s breath came out in hisses. He forced his arms to swing, feeling muscles pulling and blood forcing its way to areas long neglected. Henry walked alongside him, holding his shoulder to keep him steady.

“Now what?” asked Henry.

“Bath,” said Thomas. “Clothes.”

“You can get those at the Residence.”

“No.” Thomas kept himself moving. “I’m not going back there until I’m clean.”

“All right,” said Henry. “Lawrence! Michael!”

The knights, both still mounted, rode up beside them.

“Escort Thomas to the baths. Give him a ride if he wants, or let him walk. Baron Meekin?”

The baron, also still on his horse, rode up.

“If you would come with me,” said Henry, “I know someone who will sell clothes to us. Even at this time of night.” He looked over the rest of them. “Sir Martin, ride with Meekin and myself. If the rest of you would return to the Residence, that would be appreciated. No one takes our guests out without permission from me. Not even the king.”

A chorus of “Yes, my lord,” answered Henry, and the men rode off. Henry turned back to Thomas. “There’s a bathhouse that’s open all night at the base of tavern row. Do you know it?”

“Aye.”

“Go there. I’ll meet you there with some clothes as soon as I can.” He clapped Thomas on the shoulder once, then turned and mounted his horse. A moment later he was gone.

“My apartment,” Thomas called after Henry. “There’s some left in my apartment.”

“There’s nothing left in your apartment,” said Michael. “When I went back, the guard had thrown everything out into the street and were carting off all the books.”

“Bastards.” Thomas’s face tightened and he swallowed back more tears. “Bunch of bastards.”

“It was rough, was it?” said Lawrence.

Thomas scrubbed at his face, smearing tear tracks and dust. “They wouldn’t unchain me, is all.”

“For two days?”

“Aye.”

“No wonder you can’t walk straight,” said Michael. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”

“No,” said Thomas.

“I’ve had the stinking guts of a man stabbed through his belly and bowels across this saddle, and I rode him five miles. Carrying you to the baths won’t bother me, lad.”

It will bother me,
thought Thomas, dreading the thought of sitting in his own filth again. He shook his head and started walking. The knights watched him go a moment, then rode their horses beside him, keeping pace as he stumbled through the streets.

It took Thomas some time to get to the bathhouse, and when they arrived the man who ran the baths tried to refuse Thomas entry. Sir Michael and Sir Lawrence pushed past him and led Thomas inside. He stripped, throwing his soiled clothes into a corner and grabbing a bucket and scrub-brush. Michael paid for a private room and tub while Thomas poured cold water over his body and attacked the filth.

It took a half hour of scrubbing before Thomas felt clean. He washed himself twice and then twice more, scourging himself with the coldest water and hard sweeps of the brush to wash away his shame and humiliation at his weakness. Only when his skin was raw and his body shivering from the icy water did he go to soak in the large, steaming tub that was waiting for him. He pushed himself deep under, willing his mind to be still as the heat scalded his skin. He came up in pain and with a mind no clearer, and he sat in the hot water that burned against his abraded flesh until Henry walked into the room.

“Thomas,” he said, putting a pile of clothing on the bench near the door. “Feeling any cleaner?”

“No.”

“When my cousin was caught by the northerners, they tied him to a tree and left him there. Took us four days to find him. He said it took weeks before he felt like the filth had actually left his body.”

“Weeks,” Thomas repeated. “Wonderful.”

“Did they torture you?”

Thomas shook his head. “Only this.”

“Which they stayed and watched, of course.”

Thomas felt himself colouring. “Aye.”

“Torture enough,” said Henry. Thomas didn’t reply, and Henry was silent for a time. “We need to talk about magic, Thomas.”

Thomas turned, looked quickly to the door. It was shut. “What about magic?”

“They destroyed everything in the apartment. Hauled away all the books, threw all the furniture and clothes into the fountain. Wrecked the doors. There’s nothing left.”

“Nothing?” Thomas tried to envision the mess. “Did they at least get the bodies out?”

“The watch did that, but only after the church guards left. There’s still blood all over the floor.”

“By the Four.” Thomas ran his hands through his hair, wishing he could sink beneath the water again.

“So I need to know,” said Henry. “How much do you have memorized? How much magic do you have?”

“Not enough,” said Thomas. “I’ve got lightning and fog and fire-lighting and the healing. I can see in the dark. I can remember how to make a charm to keep vermin away and another to keep things from being stolen. I can levitate objects, but nothing huge.”

“Can you summon more power?”

“Not without the book. That spell was hugely complicated. I’d need the books to get the symbols right.”

“Damn.”

“Are you sure they took everything?”

“Everything. They even ripped down the shelves,” said Henry.

“What about behind the bed?”

“They threw the bed into the fountain,” said Henry. “Anything behind it is gone.”

“There was a hidden panel in the wall,” said Thomas. “I hid books there. Was it broken open?”