Count Scar - SA (27 page)

The knights rushed up behind me, but I motioned them back. If this was an ambush, it was the most unusual one I had ever seen. But why had Melchior's powders not revealed this man? Unless

— Unless this was no fleshly human, but a spirit.

I gritted my teeth and clenched my sword. If he moved toward me, we would see what steel would do against an insubstantial spirit.

"Count Caloran," he said, "you have an enemy at Peyrefixade. Someone in the castle serves not you but another master."

"Someone certainly tried to kill me," I said, not letting down my guard for a second. Could whoever started the mage-fire that killed Bruno have been not the stone masons but someone on the
castle staff, someone I saw every day, who was now waiting for a better opportunity?

"And may try again," said the hooded figure. "Watch your back—and, if you leave the castle again, watch who you leave in charge."

I jerked on my horse's reins to take him a step closer. "How do you know this?" I demanded. "And why are you warning me? I don't know if I should believe anything told by a man who hides
his identity."

At that he reached up a hand and for a second pushed his hood back so I could see his face. My first reaction was intense relief that he even had a face. There was a gravity of presence about him,
and his black eyes were intense. He pulled the hood forward again immediately, leaving me with a strange sense of familiarity, even though he was quite clearly not one of Alfonso's men nor one
of the heretics from the village of Three Cuckoos.

"I know this," he said quietly, "because I am among those who are making plans to gain control of Peyrefixade. As to why I am telling you: I cannot say myself."

"At least tell me the traitor's name," I said gruffly.

"That," said the figure, "I cannot tell you." And he turned and vanished among the greenery. For a few seconds the hanging vines swayed and there was a crackling of small branches, then all was
still again.

I slowly turned to face the others. If he was among those who wanted Peyrefixade, he must be a heretic himself. At this rate I wouldn't need to bother reporting the heretics to the archbishop; my
own men would be writing to complain that I was a known friend of the Perfected. I wondered now why I hadn't just run the pestilential heretic dog through on the spot. But I couldn't have
attacked an unarmed man, especially one who was trying to warn me.

The knights waited respectfully and with no expression on their faces. But Brother Melchior looked both frightened and distressed.

I let out all my pent-up feelings on him. "What kind of Magian do you call yourself?" I shouted. "Nobody's within half a mile, you tell me. And there's someone concealed not thirty yards away!

Can your spells not detect somebody who's hiding in the bushes?"

He started babbling apologies, but I cut him short. "For the rest of the way, you ride in front. Maybe that will give you the incentive you need to make sure there isn't someone else waiting in
ambush."

We met no more heretics and none of Alfonso's men the rest of the way home. Whoever the heretics had planted in the castle had not taken advantage of my absence to barricade it against me. The
horn sounded three times as it always did as I came up the final steep stretch to the gates, but they let me in at once.

I felt a fierce kind of joy as I came through the gates into the grim red castle. Peyrefixade was mine and would remain mine. I had only been count here a few months, but this place was home the
way that my brother's castle back in the north had never been.

The knights who had accompanied me were quiet and attentive while we ate, but after supper they slipped off, doubtless to tell everyone else a highly colored version of what had happened. I
myself settled down by my new hearth with a keg of beer and set out quite deliberately to get drunk.

But I hadn't gotten very far on this project when Brother Melchior came slowly toward me across the hall. He must have been up in the chapel, praying, I thought, realizing I hadn't seen him in a
while. He still clutched a book in his hands.

"I would like to apologize again, Count," he said, "while you are still sober enough to hear me." He managed to look at the same time deferential, self-righteous, and slightly amused. "That spell
should have revealed anyone, hidden or not, bushes and rocks or not. There are, however, hints in some of our Order's ancient writings that it is possible for someone well-versed in powerful magic
to create a counter-spell, to hide someone's location even from a Magian. Perhaps I should have tried a second divination spell as well, as a check on the first."

So maybe the book in his hand was a book of magic, not of prayers. I shrugged and motioned him to sit beside me. Whoever in the castle wanted me dead might be almost anyone, but not Melchior,
because he had saved me from the fire.

"Just be glad the heretic meant us no harm," I said. "I doubt those dogs would spare a priest of the True Church if they were in a murderous mood. You must have heard what he said. What did
you think of his warning?"

"If a killer who is one of the Perfected is right here in the castle," he said unhappily, "I must do all I can to find him. But my powers of magical divination will do nothing to reveal the state of a
man's soul."

I handed him the mug, and he took a deep draught of beer. "Then we'll have to use other methods," I said grimly. "We could put every man in the castle to the ordeal in turn until one confessed,
but it would take a while, and we'd probably get several false confessions along the way." The priest glanced at me nervously, then quickly looked away to refill the mug. I laughed then and
slapped him on the shoulder, sloshing the beer, "You really believed me there for a minute, didn't you?"

It occurred to me, through the faint haze that was just starting to slide into my mind, that most counts were probably not so familiar with their spiritual advisors. But with Bruno gone and
everyone else here a potential enemy, he was all I had.

He took a deep breath. "It is not right for a priest to reveal the secrets of a man's soul which—"

I took the mug back for another drink. "You think it's the seneschal, don't you?" He looked startled, and I laughed again. "Now you're wondering if your count has divination powers of his own,
is that it? You don't need to tell me any spiritual doubts that Seneschal Guilhem may have confessed to you. I've noticed myself that although he attends chapel service in the mornings with
everyone else, he is always silent and at the back. He seems sick half the time and is losing weight, as though he'd decided to give up food. This all sounds like the religion of the Perfected to me."

"Those who follow its ways," said Melchior quietly, "do not believe themselves heretics. They think they have finally discovered God's true purpose."

"Then that makes them all the more dangerous for the rest of us," I said firmly. "I've also wondered about the seneschal's devotion to the late countess. He clearly hates Lord Thierri for having
shared her bed; might he hate me just as much because I replaced her?"

"And we still don't know why or how she died," said Melchior gloomily. After a brief pause he said, "Might there not be an assassin in the castle even aside from the seneschal—someone who
pushed her off the wall and is now plotting against you?"

With no good answer, I only shrugged. "How about Alfonso's warning that there were two magical objects hidden here in Peyrefixade? One was the conviare I wore for a while, but might the
other be that other telesma, the one that started the fire? Or," not being able to resist a final dig, "might another secret heretical object be hidden from you as thoroughly as the heretic was
hidden?"

"I have concentrated my powers on searching for such an object the last two hours," Melchior said stiffly, "but have found not the slightest hint of its presence. If there indeed were two magical
objects hidden here when the Perfected controlled the castle, the second must still be here, for the fire tile was new and had only been placed here very recently. It may be so well hidden that I shall
have to recover the conviare from my Order and use it in the search."

I nodded, took another pull of beer, and lapsed into silence. We sat quietly for several minutes, passing the mug back and forth. I had hoped for forgetfulness but could instead only feel myself
growing lugubrious. The sorrow of Bruno's death was as fresh as if he had only just died.

It was now full dark outside, and the only light was the glow from the hearth. Our shadows jerked and flickered across the walls. Though it was late, none of the men had come into the hall to
sleep. I wondered vaguely if they had all slipped silently away, leaving the priest and me alone in the castle.

"I ought to send word at once to the archbishop," he said suddenly, breaking the silence. His speech was ever so slightly slurred. "And also the masters of my Order. I ought to tell them where the
inquisitors can find a nest of Perfected—and quickly, before they take fright and go elsewhere."

"It sounds as though you're trying to persuade yourself of something you're reluctant to do," I commented, pleased to find my own speech still clear.

"I am," he said miserably. I poked up the fire, and the light played across his face. Looking at him, I thought that here, far from any other priests, he might find that I was all he had.

"Don't you agree," I said levelly, "that those who have thrown away their own souls, and whose perfidious preaching may lead others away from God, should be hunted down and put to death
before their heresy can infect any more of the faithful?"

"I do," he said, more miserable than ever. "Before God I do. But— Perhaps you can understand this, Count. You said today that you would worry about your soul when you became old and tired.

Maybe, when I'm old and tired, I shall no longer remember the sight—and the sound and smell—of my grandfather burning to death."

I didn't answer, suddenly too choked up to trust my voice. Gertrude and Bruno seemed to run together with Melchior's grandfather. It was quite clear that even if everyone in the county but me
embraced the religion of the Perfected I could not report them to the Inquisition.

"We should take Bruno's body to its final resting place," I said, finding my voice again. "I don't like to think of him in that village cemetery, with no one praying for him—" I stopped, took
another swig of beer, and pushed on. "We'll go in two days and take the seneschal with us, so we can keep an eye on him. The archbishop and the inquisitors can do their own work without any
aid from us."

He nodded, not looking at me. Well, I thought, maybe back with the masters of his Order Brother Melchior could come to terms with his incipient sympathy for the heretics, before it became
dangerously advanced for someone who was supposed to be leading other souls to God.

The beer wasn't what I needed. I stood up abruptly and went to the door of the hall. "Where is everybody?" I bellowed. "It's time to go to sleep! We have to be up early in the morning for divine
service." In the distance I could hear low voices and approaching footsteps. Without waiting for them, I threw myself into bed and drew the curtains.

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After a good day and a half of riding along constantly on the alert, always probing the way ahead for hidden magic workers (using two divination spells each time) or more ordinary villains, it
was a relief to round a bend and see the looming bulk of Conaigue blocking out half the southern sky. Almost as soon as we saw the mountain, I felt the faintest touch of magic brushing across us.

Whoever was on duty on the watchtower high above had scanned us with his distant sight. I felt relief at having detected him so quickly; it appeared my short but intense review of my books of
defensive magic before our departure from Peyrefixade had indeed improved my skills. It had actually been pleasant to immerse myself even so briefly in study, a relief from struggling with the
demons of my worries and doubts. But the journey itself had been a strain. It would be good to relax at last during this final stretch of the ride up to the House of the Order, secure that no ambush
could have been laid for us under that constant magical watch.

As the man who knew the road, I went at the head of our little party. Count Caloran rode at my shoulder, his soldier's eyes marking every turn and landmark—doubtless he would be able to find
the way unescorted another time, should the need arise. Behind came the knights and the pack horses with the baggage. In the midst of them, following a long rein held by the seneschal, plodded a
sturdy old mule with Bruno's earth-stained coffin lashed securely across its back. If the seneschal had found anything odd in Count Caloran leaving Bouteillier Raymbaud in command while we
were away from Peyrefixade, while ordering him to accompany us, he had given no sign. "I want him under my eye," the count had told me the morning we left. "As for Raymbaud, I'm sure he's
spying on me for the duke, but what of it? The fact that he holds the castle for two masters should simply make him the more reliable."

It was fortunate that neither the mule nor any of our horses were skittish or balky beasts. Traveling this steep familiar road with men who were new to it, I was seeing it with fresh eyes for the
first time in many years. I had forgotten just how many places one was required to negotiate a path no wider than a man's outstretched arm, strung along the very edge of a steep drop to sharp
stones on one hand with an equally steep bank crowding one outward on the other. The count's face would show no emotion when I looked back at such a spot, and the seneschal seemed not even to
notice our situation, but there were always rolling eyes and even a few lips moving in prayer among the younger knights behind. The shadows were growing long when we stopped to rest and
water the animals for the last time, high in the hills at the little village that sits on a few acres of level ground hard under the shoulder of high Conaigue. When we started up the still steeper road
that winds up to the House, hurrying now to avoid being overtaken by twilight, the count was moved to speech.