Count Scar - SA (35 page)

My hand went to the cross upon my breast when I grasped his meaning. "Why—that could produce a great surge of destructive magic—completely undirected—as bad for them as for us. It could
lay waste to—I can't even calculate how far."

"If the destruction did not extend well beyond Ferignan, I for one should be quite surprised," said the prior with a grim nod.

"But surely the Perfected will understand the danger also?"

"Those bold young Magians they have with them may suppose that they can control the telesmas' power without the conviare. Who knows the quality of their training? It would not be the first
time that magic-workers among the Perfected have shown over-much audacity, to the sorrow both of themselves and those about them. And there is always the possibility they might in fact
succeed, also not an attractive thought."

"But how are we to prevent one of these things happening?"

"I fear that may require both you and your count to run even greater risks than you have faced thus far." He leaned back. "But the time to think of that is not yet. Right now, you had better get to
work on your own telesma. But be sure to take some rest as well. You should recoup more of your strength before you essay any more hard magic in your count's service."

I walked about the camp for a little while after leaving the prior, and what I discovered worried me. It was obvious that the duke had carefully scattered the tents he'd given to Count Galoran's
ransomed knights among those of his own men. Moreover, none of those tents were placed anywhere close to the one the count and I were sharing. Dispersing the forces sworn to another man
among his own is hardly the way a lord treats a trusted vassal! Returning to the tent, I forced myself to put such worries aside for the moment and set to work with my grandfather's telesma.

After my recent bout of intense training, the magic lines seemed almost to flow, and in less than an hour I found I had restored more than half of its power. But then a weariness overtook me so
that I remembered the prior's words and went to lie down, and immediately dropped into a deep sleep that lasted several hours.

2

2

Awakening much restored, I immediately went looking for the count. I finally found him at one of the sentry posts, gazing toward his castle where it stood far up the hill. After thanking him
formally for coming to my defense before the duke, I recounted what the prior had told me concerning the danger from the great telesma.

"That sounds very bad, Father Melchior," he replied in a flat and distant tone. "But you had better tell it to the duke. He's the only one in a position to do anything."

"Prior Belthesar will tell Duke Argave, I'm sure. My task is to help you and serve your interest."

"Then perhaps you ought to ask your Order for a new assignment. What point is there in serving a count without a castle?"

"We must find a way to recover your castle, that's all."

"And how are we to do that, Father Melchior? In my years on the northern borders, I saw many a larger castle than Peyrefixade but none more impregnable. The duke's son can well afford to have
his jest at my expense; he's safe enough."

"The duke has sent for reinforcements, I understand."

"Yes, though I can't see what good they will do. Gavain could hold Peyrefixade with half the men he's got against ten times the number we have out here." He turned his back to the castle and
pointed far down the valley road. "But look there, Father Melchior. I've been keeping watch on that cloud of dust for some time. What do you see with your second eye; is it the new troops
coming?"

I concentrated. "It—yes, I can see a large party of knights. Many ride horses carrying the duke's livery."

"Ah, well, at least we can set up a proper siege encirclement now —you are not attending to me, Father Melchior; what else do you see? Is Lord Thierri by chance among them?"

I blinked my fleshly eyes and concentrated to be sure I was in fact seeing clearly with my second ones. But there could be no doubt. "Yes, Count, Lord Thierri rides just behind the duke's captain of
the guard. But that is not all. The Lady Arsendis is with them!"

If the count and I had been startled, the duke was amazed, and also far from pleased. We reached the lower edge of camp just as he stepped forth to meet the arriving party and saw his daughter and
her handmaiden among them. "Arsendis!—what does this mean? This is a camp of war, no place for you or any lady!"

"I cannot agree, Father. It seems to me I can be nowhere else now." Lord Thierri offered her his hand and she slipped from her horse with easy grace, her bright scarlet cloak billowing. Spotting us,
she smiled and said, "Ah, Count Caloran, you see I have come to visit you at last. I only wish I could have seen your castle the first time under somewhat better circumstances."

"And I fear it is not in my power to offer you the hospitality that is appropriate to such a lady," the count said with a stiff bow and a ghastly smile. "Even the tent that shelters my head is mine
only by your good father's charity. I can only offer to surrender it at once if he now requires it for you. Excuse me now; I shall attend upon you again when you are settled." He gave another
wooden bow, then turned and limped away while the duke glared and the lady gazed after him with a troubled face. I hurried to follow, but he went at such a pace despite his limp that I didn't
catch up until he stopped near one of the picket posts well away from the duke's camp. When I spoke his name he rounded on me.

"What does she mean by coming here now, with Thierri riding at her side!?" The unscarred side of his face showed deep anguish, the scarred side looked like a mask from Hell. "Does she seek some
kind of amusement at seeing me cast down, dispossessed, overthrown? Even if we do somehow regain Peyrefixade, I see scant indication her father will ever wish to place it in my hands again.

Nor is he likely to encourage any further a union between me and his daughter. I had imagined her different from the heartless ladies one sometimes meets with at the emperors court, women who
derive their pleasure from turning hard fellows into soft fools."

"I cannot believe the Lady Arsendis feels any joy at witnessing your plight, Count."

"Let her not speak lightly of it, then. Tell her that, if you see her before I return to camp. I am going to inspect the other pickets."

I watched him limp off, then hurried back to the tents to seek the lady. As soon as she saw me standing before the duke's pavilion, she said, "Ah, Brother Melchior, I had so hoped you would come!

Walk with me a little." As she led the way onto the meadow below the camp, I saw a pair of the duke's guardsmen fall in behind us, too far back to hear our words but close enough for protection
should any threat to their lord's daughter appear.

"The situation here is full of danger, Brother Melchior. I had not realized how raw were the count's feelings. And I find now that my father is equally inflamed."

"It is true, my lady. They came within an eyelash of fighting each other just this morning." I told her about the travesty of a parley with her brother and how angry it had left both the count and
the duke.

"Ah, my dear brother always has known how to place the pin of his words where it will sting the worst. And you men can be such fools!—priests excepted, of course. A phrase ill spoken, a jab to
someone's delicate sense of honor, a defeat some fellow feels he cannot brook, and before one can prevent it the swords are out and something irretrievable has been done. When I was rather younger,
I did not understand how much delicacy may be required in dealing with men, and provoked more than one fatal incident when merely seeking a little amusement at the expense of one or another
of my dimmer suitors. My father and the count are both full of rage, but neither can strike out at the things that really trouble him. Do you see that?"

"I can understand Count Galoran's difficulty well enough," I told her. "From the first moment I met him, all his thoughts and energies have been fixed on making a success of his position as
Count of Peyrefixade. To be dispossessed like this, with no evident course of action he can take to put things right, must be terrible."

She nodded her graceful head. "And my father's situation is no better. He is faced with an invading force of the heretics he despises. They have seized a castle dependent upon him, something no
duke could tolerate. But their captain is the son—and the brother—neither of us has quite learned to hate despite all that has happened in the past. If Father were able, he would simply settle in
for a long siege and wait until their supplies ran low, then offer terms allowing them to depart if they would yield the castle without a fight. That would be the customary strategy when a
commander with far superior numbers faces a foe holding an unbreakable castle, but he cannot use it here. Even if we put aside the danger of this great telesma I've now been told of, my father has
the Inquisition to worry about."

"The Inquisition!"

"Certainly, the Inquisition." She gazed at the castle high above us, then down along the valley road running toward her father's city. "They have ears almost everywhere, you know, probably even
within your Order and certainly in my father's court. He had no alternative but to send word of this incursion to Haulbe, unless he wished to fall under suspicion himself as soon as the report of
it reached them anyway. Of course, Father very shrewdly sent that message to my uncle the archbishop rather than directly to the Inquisition."

"But surely he did not think—?"

"Oh no; he did not do it in hopes of any favor. Uncle is very strict about doing all of his duty as a bishop. Indeed, he considers my brother dead to the family, and would show no hesitation about
destroying him should he have the opportunity. But he is highly jealous of his position as the highest churchman of the region, and on that account is no friend to the Inquisition. He will not
inform the chief inquisitor of what has occurred until he has mobilized his own knights and is fully ready to set forth. That will gain us an extra day, perhaps. But when Uncle does march here
with his soldiers, you may be sure the Inquisition will ride with him. Once inquisitors are on this spot, the only possible fate for any man who is with the heretics in Peyrefixade will be death by
the sword or death by fire. The Inquisition would never allow any of them to escape after such a daring strike into what they have so long claimed as completely secure territory. You may also be
sure the Chief Inquisitor will send for Prince Alfonso to rally to their banner at this place with his army, simply on the chance my father might think of daring to defy them. And if the prince
joins the siege, he will certainly allow no end other than the destruction of every man of the Perfected within Peyrefkade—and the castle in his own hands, if he can manage it."

Prior Belthesar had hinted there were dangers other than the great telesma; now I understood what he had meant. "But surely your father is right, my lady—you should not be here."

"Ah, but I must. I have to witness whatever happens for myself." Her eyes flashed now with both anger and tears and all her air of amused aristocratic detachment had fled. "The only men I care
anything at all about are facing one another here, and I cannot imagine how this can end without the destruction of some or all of them. I see no possibility of Count Galoran's being restored to
both possession of his castle and my father's good will, of my father's escaping the awful necessity of making war upon his own son, and of my brother's being allowed to leave here alive, with the
hope that he may yet learn to reject the heretic doctrine and return to the family and station that should be his. But if it ends otherwise, what then? Suppose my father decides to cast off Count
Caloran and deliver Peyrefixade back into the hands of Lord Thierri? On the other hand, how could I either continue living with my father or wish even to look Count Caloran in the face if the
two of them had united to overthrow my own brother and deliver him to the flames? Or supposing those my brother has allied himself with should find this devilish telesma and destroy my
father, the count, and so many others; how could I wish to escape? A way must be found to preserve them all, but what can it be, what can it be?"

She turned her back on me suddenly and stood facing down the valley with her shoulders rising and falling for several minutes, too proud to let even a priest see her weep. When she turned again,
her accustomed look of amusement at the whole world had been drawn back across her beautiful features like a veil of silk.

"Ah, Father Melchior, please forgive that moment of indisposition and escort me back to camp. My father has called another council to meet after the evening meal. I intend to be at hand to hear
whatever is said, but I must rest a little first if I am to make any sense of it."

The count and I were just finishing our soldiers' supper of lentil stew when we heard the sound of running feet, and I felt my throat tighten with apprehension. Then a man loomed up in the
firelight and panted out, "Count Caloran, Father Melchior—you both must come—at once!"

"What is it, man?" said the count in surprise "It's not time for the council to assemble yet."

"A man—badly wounded—escaped from the castle. He is with—they took him to the duke. He's asking for you; it is your seneschal!"

We had to push our way through a crowd of curious knights and soldiers to get to the duke's pavilion. They'd wrapped the seneschal in blankets and laid him near the fire. Duke Argave, his
captain, Lord Thierri, and the prior were standing over him while the duke's personal physician-surgeon tended his wounds. I saw a flicker of silk within the tent behind them and guessed that
Lady Arsendis must be watching and listening from there. The physician stood up, shaking his head, just as the messenger led us through the guards holding the crowd back. "A knife thrust
pierced some of his lower viscera. He may last a few more hours, but he'll not see the dawn."