Elisha Magus (15 page)

Her face pale but strangely resolute, she fell, full-length, and started to scramble up again.

Then, in a few long strides, Thomas sprang from his place. Elisha wanted to scream and rage at the both of them, but before Rosalynn had quite gained her feet, Thomas swept her up over his shoulder and ran for the door.

For a moment before they vanished outside, Rosalynn raised her hand, and they were gone.

Elisha gaped after them. She wasn’t a fool, not really. Her feet had been perfectly stable—she had fallen on purpose, giving Thomas time to rescue her. Elisha wanted to laugh aloud, but the guards were pulling at him.

“Who was that?” Alaric demanded of no one—then he flung himself in front of Elisha. “Who was he?”

“Some charity man she’s taken on,” Elisha replied.

With a wave of his arm, Alaric sent his other soldiers scrambling. “Get them. Bring them back here—I don’t like this.”

“I warned you, Your Majesty,” said Mortimer. “I said you couldn’t trust him. Whatever it is, she’s in on it, too.”

Elisha’s euphoria vanished. He dropped to his knees, pulling free of the confused guards, and slapped his hand to the marble floor, his wrist still bound up with the purple cloth of his talisman. Silk again. Contact. He snatched at his knowledge—strong, smooth, foreign—stone as smooth as silk. He stretched his power into it, as if he wove through the pattern of tiles, then he gave a tug. The floor rippled like fabric, tossing upwards. Men skidded and clattered to the ground, swords sliding away from them on the sudden wrinkles. Mortimer landed with a crack of his head and a groan. Elisha tugged again, sending the wave out behind him as well. He whipped off his right boot and stood up, maintaining contact through the sole of one bare foot.

“Damn it, Mortimer, where’s Farus?” Alaric cried, his fancy cloak swirling about him as he tried to maintain his footing.

But Mortimer only groaned the louder as he struggled to his knees and tumbled again.

“Said you didn’t want him here, Majesty,” blurted one of the guards. He slithered sideways, leapt a hump of marble and fell to his knees. “Went to see his sister!” The words grew louder as the man wobbled in a slick arc, clearing Elisha’s path.

Elisha leapt up and ran, each strike of his left foot keeping the floor briefly steady, before the right made contact and set the floor to shaking. He made for the south transept and the cloister of the monks, for a hundred men who’d call down the pope if any man—even their king—dared shed blood in their precinct.

A man’s length short of the door, an agony of horror snatched his throat and hurled him down, clawing at his neck, his breath cut off and lungs already burning.

E
lisha writhed on the floor,
bewildered, power of speech and spell both ripped away. The rope tore into his throat, his feet kicked free of the earth—No! He was in the church at Beaulieu, his throat was bare, but his flesh remembered the grip of the rope that had hanged him at Dunbury weeks before. His head throbbed, and he struggled for breath. Each time he rocked against the floor, it drew him back into now, but his body recalled fighting the rope, fighting for his life. Pain streaked through him from the terrible grip, but there was no rain to carry his cries, no way to force a word from his constricted throat. No one to save him. Elisha sobbed.

Then, just as it had those weeks ago, Brigit’s face came before his eyes. Tears blurred her, a halo of stained glass lighting her from behind. His agony eased, and he gasped a breath that seared him. His shoulders hitched with effort, his bare foot shaking.

“You see, my lord king, you need me.” Her face briefly vanished, only to return, joined by Alaric’s.

Elisha blinked the tears away, the spasms passing.

Brigit’s brows pinched together, her lips pressed hard, as if she knew some echo of his pain and sorrowed for it. She bent nearer, and looked him over carefully, as he might search a patient for signs of injury. Her frown deepened.

“What in God’s name did you do that for?” Alaric bleated. “Now we’ll have to kill him!”

“What?” Brigit’s attention shifted in an instant.

“Pick him up. Don’t let him touch anything,” Alaric directed, the mask of his majesty returning to his face. Had Elisha glimpsed his terror, or was it his own terror projected on another? “And get your bloody swords!” the prince snarled.

Brigit rose away from him as the guards moved in. Her hands drew apart, one of them concealing something that she slipped away beneath her surcoat. One of the men yanked the wrapping from Elisha’s wrist and bound his hands together. Six guards grabbed Elisha’s arms and legs, letting his head loll, so that he stared at a dizzying image of the door as it retreated from him. Bits of colored light swirled over him, candle flames and the Virgin Mary’s face.

“He shan’t be capable of much magic for a little while,” said Brigit. “But I don’t think he’s badly off.”

“I had this well in hand, Brigit, what are you doing here?” Alaric murmured, taking Brigit’s arm and closing behind Elisha’s bearers, cutting off his glimpse of safety as the procession moved toward the north transept, with its door that would lead to empty fields. At least, so his disoriented memory informed him.

“Looking for something. I thought he’d brought it here.”

“You’re not still after that accursed talisman, are you? You don’t need it. You are strong enough without.”

“In our realm, my love, a witch can never be strong enough. What do you mean, ‘now we have to kill him?’ Weren’t you already trying?”

A door at Elisha’s feet pushed open, releasing them into a world of chill twilight, the sky still bright overhead. His bearers crunched over stone, then grass. Patric and Ian appeared, bowed, with greetings gruff but pleasant enough for the prince and his lady.

“You’re sure he can’t act against us?” Alaric glowered down at Elisha, the prince’s face swimmingly upside down.

“Look at him. He hasn’t even figured out what happened to him.”

Alaric gave a sharp gesture, and they dropped Elisha onto the clipped grass, near a mound of sheep dung. He rolled to his side, retching and gulping at the air. The familiar smells of sheep and hay refreshed his battered throat as he took his first deep breaths. Hadn’t figured out what happened to him, but the memories of the past still chilled his flesh. Only the hanging rope itself could conjure such a vivid horror, the rope Brigit had taken for a talisman the day it almost killed him.

“Should we go after Lady Rosalynn now, Your Majesty?”

Sucking on his teeth, Alaric considered, then shook his head. “Her behavior’s been so wild of late. The lady I knew would never allow herself to be handled by a commoner, never mind two in one day. After this, I can’t imagine anyone short of her father will listen to her—seems she’d do anything to get a little barbering.”

Brigit gave an exasperated sigh. “I can’t explain where that attraction came from—he didn’t strike me as so eager for the duke’s favor.”

Mortimer loomed up then, blood matting the right side of his hair, his nostrils flaring. He nudged Elisha with a boot, pushed him to his back and pinned him firmly beneath his foot, sword extended. “So, Your Majesty, now may I do the deed?”

“Kill him,” said Alaric, and Brigit began to speak, but he overrode her, “He’ll never trust us again—never.”

The sword shifted, pressing harder, but another voice interrupted.

“Now, you don’t want to be doin’ that here, Majesty, begging your pardon and all.” A thick hand patted Mortimer’s sword hilt, then clasped over it, giving it a friendly wiggle that nicked Elisha’s chest.

“Where did you come from—and who the Devil are you?”

“Humble gravedigger, Majesty, at your service, all that. But I do know my work.” The lumpish face of the hunchback from Dunbury loomed into view with something like a smile. “Didn’t expect all this to-do. Jest looking for work myself, y’know.” He smacked his lips together. “Plenty of criminals hereabouts. Plenty to keep busy.”

Mortimer gave a little shake of his head, then glanced at his king, looking for guidance. Alaric, too, started at the man’s approach, but his eyes went round as if the gravedigger frightened him.

“Now, don’t say nuffin’, Majesty, jest you let old Morag take care of this, eh?”

Alaric’s brows leapt, his lips parted as if to speak, then he scowled instead, drawing back from the intruder, masking his brief concern in his royal air.

Elisha felt a whiff of fear. His chest shivered with pain, each gasp pressing the sword into his skin, but this fear was not his own. Was this what Alaric had somehow sensed to startle him like that? It drifted around Elisha, up from the earth perhaps, a sudden sense of watchfulness, of his own insignificance. He wanted someone else to take charge, to make the hard choices and do the dirty things. Elisha, too, shrank from this queer blend of desires, but the chill, at least, felt familiar, and he focused on Morag. Was he real, truly the gravedigger from Dunbury? Or had Elisha’s addled mind imposed Morag’s face upon a stranger?

Elisha squeezed his eyes shut and popped them open to the same sight.

“Back ’ere’s a better spot, where they do the sheep for table. Nobody’s like to notice more blood, eh?” The gravedigger leaned down and grabbed Elisha’s upper arm, causing the startled Mortimer to pull back his sword and his foot rather than fall over as Morag lurched into motion, dragging Elisha with him across the grass. “Come on, Majesty.”

“My lord king, you can’t do this,” Brigit insisted softly. “Some of our friends will be furious.”

“Then don’t tell them,” Alaric snapped. He hung his hand on his sword, following the gravedigger.

“As if I would—but they will know. They will find out. If we are to bring our peoples together, we can’t simply flout their wishes like this.”

“How will they? These are my most loyal men.” He stared at the gravedigger moving ahead of them, Elisha’s view bouncing as he thumped over the grass. “Even that one, it seems.” Alaric nodded at Morag, who gave a sickly grin in reply.

“Too true, Majesty.” He gave Elisha another yank, and the chill of death seeped up from the dirt through Elisha’s back, the smell of slaughtered sheep filling his skull.

“Please, Alaric, listen to me. I only wanted to stop him running before you’d finished, don’t you see? We can control him. We can find another way.” Brigit clung to his arm, but he gently set her aside, with a shake of his head.

“I am sorry, Brigit, truly. When you’re thinking more clearly you’ll understand. If you knew all that I know—” he broke off with a sharp breath. “Go back, find the talisman, whatever you need, darling. You don’t need to watch this.” He rubbed her arms, smiled fondly, kissed her forehead.

Her troubled, green-eyed glance fell briefly on Elisha, then she stepped away, Ian and Patric falling in with her. If he had voice enough to speak, would he thank her for trying? The gravedigger, Morag, bowed politely as the lady withdrew.

Then Morag tightened his grip on Elisha and jerked him into Hell.

The smell of brimstone reminded him of the bombards’ smoke on the battlefield. The world snapped apart, filled with shrieks and terrors, a thousand icy winds tore at Elisha’s clothes and hair, wrapped his throat, and stung the brands of his punishment. For a moment, he felt suspended in a tempest, mad wails whirling about him, streaks of light like shooting stars. His head pulsed with the crazed rhythm. He tried to open his eyes, and found they were already open, garish colors writhing in his sight. His ears throbbed with every sound of human misery, and his throat burned with foul mists. Faceless tormentors trailed pain and pleading across his skin.

The world blinked back. Elisha reeled as the gravedigger turned about with him. Elisha lay once more on a marble floor, staring up at a church ceiling, but one with enormously high painted arches, red stone and three ranks of galleries. He gaped at it. Hell to Heaven in the space of a breath.

“Naw, bad idea,” Morag muttered.

Hell snapped them up and spat them out once more, under trees and a twilight sky. Tall, pollarded oaks that smelled like home, and a bed of acorns that nubbed into his back. The New Forest? Elisha blinked up at the branches.

Finally, he wet his lips and swallowed past the pain. “What was that?” he breathed.

“Tossed ’em a smoke bomb and ran like the devil. You’ve been out a little while, friend.”

“No, I haven’t,” Elisha managed, but he had smelled smoke, hadn’t he? He pushed himself up on his elbows until he could sit, wavering slightly. Then he grabbed the knotted cloth in his teeth and tugged until it came free. He rubbed his aching wrist and re-wrapped it slowly, this time without help.

“Prob’ly thought you’d gone to Hell for a moment, eh? All in your head.” Morag reached out and gave Elisha’s skull a rap. “When you think you’re dead.”

He recoiled from the touch. Had he been close to death? He hadn’t had any visions at the hanging tree. Absently, he rubbed his neck. The memory had receded far enough that Elisha felt himself returned fully to the present. Certainly, he had not been quite lucid since Brigit nearly strangled him with a scrap of the same rope. How could she choke the life from him with her magic, then claim they shouldn’t kill him? But then, she had not yet gotten what she wanted, and she would give up no advantage until she had—even the symbol she had made of him to rally the other magi. It wasn’t as if she wanted him free. “Thanks.”

“Pffff.” The gravedigger tossed off his gratitude with a careless flap of his hand. “We’re not far from where we were—close enough that you’ll have a deal of running afore you leave him behind. And he’s the king and all, so that makes it tricky.”

Elisha nodded vaguely.

Morag scratched the stubble under his chin and eyed him sidelong. “Might be, a man had some friends, some with … similar interests, he might get out all right.”

Recalling the wave of anxiety that came over him when Morag appeared and how, by force of his presence alone, he had pushed away the prince’s men, Elisha said, “You’re a magus.”

Again, Morag gave a dismissive flop of his hand. “Y’ could say.” He moved surprisingly well for a hunchback, and Elisha wondered if his deformity were some kind of skin condition or growth rather than a problem with the skeleton itself. “Y’did something in that church, eh?”

“Something,” Elisha agreed. Now that he had returned to his faculties, he began the process of attunement, letting his awareness creep out into the duff on the forest floor and up to the trees, and over to the strange man who saved him; a man who felt like nothing at all. Elisha glanced at him, to find the sunken eyes staring back.

“Without no talisman.”

“A minor one.” He held up his sore wrist with its purple binding. Elisha could see Morag, feel the moisture of his breath, smell the slightly putrid presence, and knew the strength of the arm that had dragged him here—through what means, he could not quite be sure. But with his other senses? Nothing. He felt tempted to touch him again, to see if closer contact might reveal more.

Morag reached out and flicked the purple cloth at his wrist. “That? Pffff. How d’you get a spell from a thing like that?”

“Same as any other talisman.” Elisha shrugged. “As I said, a minor one.”

“You got a fuckin’ earthquake from that?” Morag gave a hoot of disbelief, then he glanced around Elisha, as if expecting to see something else. “No jest?”

For a moment, Elisha sensed interest, the same kind of questing he had felt when he called upon the power of that other talisman. “I appreciate your help back there, but I really must go.”

“So the king can lop your head off, and I don’t get nuffing?”

Elisha rose, a little lopsided with one foot bare and one booted. The ground felt warm. “Can you point me back toward the abbey?”

The gravedigger shoved himself up, dusting off his sloppy tunic. He grabbed Elisha’s shoulder before he could dodge the reaching hand, and pushed him about. A river gurgled at the edge of the trees. Beyond that, a high stone wall with a steeple poking out. Morag leaned into him and rumbled, “What if I told you it was Rome you saw, not Heaven?”