Scarlet From Gold (Book 3) (26 page)

“You think this youth can go to the courts of great cities and just persuade them to turn their armies over to you?” one of the noblemen protested.

“He’s just a boy!” another of the duke’s counselors protested.

“He’s a boy who has seen and done things no other man in all the lands of the old empire under Clovis has done.  He’s a boy who has fought battles that no other man in the old empire could win.  That boy has fought and beaten the greatest monster in the world,” Iasco declared, “the mother of all monsters.

“He has traversed the most hostile landscape that any living foot has ever stepped upon. And he has mastered the most powerful fighting skills that any warrior has ever exercised. This 'boy' could kill every person in this chamber at this moment if he so desired, my lord,” she sneered the last two words.

“He’s a boy who has powers that no other man in the boundaries of the old empire can hold.  He’s second only to myself in the abilities he possesses,” Iasco swatted the comment aside.  “I challenge you to find anyone in the western lands who can defeat him.”

The audience stood in stunned silence.

“And he’s got a very pretty wife!” shouted the Baronet Gustaf, making those present chuckle, as his humor broke the tension in the room.

“The Golden Hand and I will depart tomorrow on our missions, while your Duke will begin to prepare your forces for departure, so that we may rendezvous at Malta.  I urge all of you, as the High Priestess of Ophiuchus, to provide all the support you can to this effort,” Iasco finished her speech, and Marco saw numerous women in the audience nod in approval, or whisper something to the men who stood nearby.

“Thank you for your time and attention,” she said.

“Before you go,” Duke Siplin spoke loudly, “I would ask you to tell these men what has allowed you to come among us.”

Iasco looked at the Duke with an inscrutable expression.

“I want these leaders of our duchy to understand that extraordinary achievements are possible when the Lord’s most powerful spirits and intercessors are on our side,” the Duke explained.

“This spring, a group of assassins landed on the Isle of Ophiuchus,” Iasco said.  “And they killed me.”

The audience gasped, then a sprinkling of nervous twitters ran through the room.

“Over a month ago, Golden Hand came into the underworld, a living man among the dead, and restored me to life,” she said.

The room was profoundly silent.

“It was his abilities that made it possible for me to return to this world to carry out the fight against the darkness,” Iasco said, as Marco blushed on stage, aware of the scrutiny that everyone in the room applied to him.  He had only done what Ophiuchus had wanted him to, what the spirit had made possible for him to do through her extraordinary abilities.  His role had only been to carry out a part, he felt.

“So now you know how far I have come to win this campaign, and you know what achievements I understand Golden Hand is capable of.

“Let us step down, Marco dear,” Iasco slipped into affectionately calling him by his given name.  He offered her his arm, and they walked down the steps, to where Mirra and Mitment and the rest of both Marco’s group and Iasco’s attendants waited for them.

“My lord,” all the members of the temple staff, the women who had come to attend to Iasco, said as they curtsied to him, while Mitment gave him a mock salute.

“Oh Marco,” Mirra’s eyes were shining, while the others from Sant Jeroni stared at him with profound respect, “she told everyone what a hero you are!  Now they all know what I’ve known for so long,” she squeezed him in a tight hug.

Immediately after that, a large group of nobles gathered around to talk to Marco.  The group included several of those he had met at the pilgrimage inn in the mountains in the spring, while still under the geas, as well as others he had briefly met earlier, and many who he had never met before.  All were eager to speak with him, and to be introduced to Mirra, if they had not met her yet.

“Meet me at the temple early tomorrow, Golden Hand,” Iasco told him as she prepared to depart later that night.  “Do you have another package of alchemy supplies ready for this trip?” she asked.

“I do,” Marco answered, glad that he had put the collection together.

“What a good boy,” she spoke playfully, something Marco realized she hadn’t done often in recent days.  “I suspect you’ll need them,” the priestess said before she swept away.

“Shall I call your carriage for you?” the Duke’s steward asked as the evening wound down.

“We didn’t have a carriage; we walked,” Marco said simply, leaving the attendant astounded.  Marco said farewell to the Duke, and then he and his group walked through the empty night-time streets of the city.  They all settled into their spots in Gabrielle’s shop, leaving Marco and Mirra to climb up the attic stairs together to settle in for the night.

Marco watched as Mirra removed the elegant gown she had worn.  “I hope you don’t mind that this bed is narrower than the bed we had last night at the castle,” he smiled at her as she joined him on the mattress.

“I won’t notice if you won’t,” she told him, and with that he blew out the candle.

Chapter 17 – Another Departure

Marco woke up early the next morning, and gently pulled his arm out from beneath Mirra’s body.  He quietly slipped his clothes on, and picked up his pack, then turned to look at Mirra one more time.  Her eyes were open, watching him.

“You’re not thinking of leaving without inviting me along to the temple, are you?” she asked archly.  She sat up, and Marco watched with pleasure as she padded over to a travel bag and selected simple garments to wear for the morning trip to the temple to meet Lady Iasco.

“Let me get Sybele,” Mirra said softly as they padded quietly down the stairs.  Marco continued to the bottom of the flight, and awoke Woods, one of the guards he had brought along to protect Mirra.  By the time his bride came downstairs with Sybele in her arms, Woods was dressed and armed, standing silently near the door awaiting them.

“It’s this way,” Marco quietly told the guard as they left the building.  He thought for a moment of Gabrielle, and realized regretfully that he had not said farewell to the woman who had made it possible for him to live in Barcelon and experience all the events that had befallen him in the past year.  Then he was on his way through the empty morning city streets, heading towards the next adventure.

He took the sleepy Sybele from Mirra, and held the child in the crook of one arm, as his other hand held Mirra’s, while Woods walked a few steps behind.

“There’s the temple,” Marco motioned a few minutes later.  There was activity at the gate, and they no sooner arrived than they were ushered inside, except for Woods, who was made to wait outside the grounds of the female-only cult, Marco having been exempted from the rules of Ophiuchus because of his exalted status with the spirit and her high priestess.

Mitment came to the foyer immediately after Marco and family arrived.  “They told her you’d arrived, and she’s still instructing the acting head priestess.  She’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“Thank you,” Marco said.

“Thank you for what?” Mirra asked.

“I was telling Mitment thank you.  She said Lady Iasco will be here soon,” Marco explained.

“Really?  The ghost is really here right now?” Mirra vainly looked around the room.

“She’s by the door,” Marco explained.  He had a sudden thought.  “Mitment, may I show you to Mirra?”

“Can you?  How?” Mitment asked.

Marco opened his bag, then got down on his knees and began to sort through the contents, pulling out the bag of alchemy supplies, and quickly selecting a half dozen ingredients.  He scrutinized them, then pulled out a pinch of one, and shook a few flakes of another, and added some crystals from a third.  He ground them together with the mortar and pestle, then added another ingredient when the door opened, and a pair of guards preceded Lady Iasco into the room.

“Good morning Golden Hand,” the high priestess said.  “I presume there’s some reason you’re on the floor?”

“I need just five minutes, my lady,” Marco said without looking up, as he pulled a pinch of another of his powders, and placed it in the bowl, then began to stir and sift the dry mixture with his fingers.

“I’m trying to let Mirra see Mitment,” he said as he stood up with his bowl.  “This is a special concoction I just put together; these ingredients are sympathetic to the psychic and spiritual elements of our souls; these are the things that alchemists use to concentrate certain potions that are meant to purify the soul.

“I think,” he said, “that these will temporarily adhere to Mitment, coating her like a cloud of flour in a kitchen, so that we can see her,” he suggested.

“Mitment, you go over in that corner, and everyone else over there,” he motioned across the room, trying to separate Mitment from all the others.

“I’m not sure I like this,” the spirit said.

“Does anyone have a mirror?” Marco asked.  “You can see yourself as well if we have a mirror,” he explained to the invisible being.

Iasco gave a nod of her head, and one of her guards departed to fetch a mirror.

“You’re sure this will work?” Mirra asked in a low voice.

“Not completely,” Marco answered.

“Wait a minute!” Mitment said sharply.  “I’m not here for you to test maybe-maybe-not mixtures on!”

The door opened, and the guard returned holding a small mirror.  As Mitment glanced over at the movement, Marco flung the contents of his bowl up into the air above the spirit, creating a momentary small cloud that immediately began to settled towards the floor.

All eyes watched in fascination, as Marco reached out and took the mirror from the staring guard.  He stepped back and watched with the others, hopeful that his spur-of-the-moment idea would prove effective.  He could see Mitment looking up and around at the powder that hovered above and surrounded her, and as the powder fell, he could see it starting to stick to her head and shoulders, and the hands that were swatting ineffectually at it.

“Look at that!” one of the guards gasped in astonishment.

The powder was a pale yellow color, and a pale yellow woman was clearly outlined from the mid chest up, and more faintly below as the density of Marco’s powder diminished.  Marco reached forward and held the mirror for Mitment to look into.

The guard looked into the surface with fascination, then reached out and took it, so that she could examine herself more closely, while the others stared in amazement.

“You really did it,” Mitment said softly as she looked in the mirror.

“What did she say, Marco?” asked Mirra, who along with the others in the room had seen Mitment’s mouth move, though they were unable to hear her.

“She said I really did it,” Marco answered.

“That’s quite a display,” Iasco commented.

“I forgot what I looked like,” Mitment said.

“She’s starting to fade!” one of the guards spoke up.

It was true; the active elements of Marco’s powder were already reaching the end of their capacity to outline the spirit, and starting to lose the energy they generated.  As everyone watched, the spirit slowly faded back into invisibility, and the clinging powder dropped down to the ground.

“So that is Mitment,” Marco said to Mirra.  “Now you know that I haven’t been making this whole story up!”

“I never thought you were,” Mirra said demurely.

“What else can you do?” Mitment asked.

“What made you think of that?” Iasco asked.

“I was thinking of how to show Mitment to Mirra, and I thought about what would show up most strongly.  The strongest emotions seemed most likely to be the ones that might have a chance to draw materials, so I used the elements and ingredients I thought were most relevant to Mitment – thistle, iron, adamantine, thorn tree pollen,” he explained with a grin at the spirit.

“There’s going to come a time!” Mitment shook her fist at Marco.

“Marco, be nice to the poor girl; she’s dead!” Mirra admonished him.

“I understand the logic of your choices,” Iasco laughed.  “Is there more you can do for her?”

Marco paused.  “I’ll think about it and try to come up with an answer.”

“We must be off.  The captain sent a note saying that we had to catch the tide before mid-morning if we want to set sail today, and we do want to,” Iasco addressed them all.

They left the temple grounds, and were joined by Woods as they walked through the increasing foot traffic that populated the city streets on the way to the harbor.

“I remember some magical moments here with you,” Mirra laid her head on Marco’s shoulder as they stepped onto the pier with the Ophiuchus ship was waiting.

“We’ll have more, I promise,” Marco whispered.  “I remember the first time I kissed you was after we went swimming in the harbor, and Kieweeooee helped rescue you.

“I promise I’ll come back, and we’ll go skinny-dipping in the harbor again someday,” he told her.  He bent over and kissed her, then enveloped Mirra and Sybele in a tight hug.

“It’s not easy to leave a loved one behind, I know,” Iasco said softly.  “But I promise that all of us will do our best to bring you two together, and I’m sure there will be many stories to tell, and perhaps a new baby to introduce, hm?”

Marco looked down at Mirra, who blushed brightly.  He rubbed his nose against hers.  “You be careful, and take care of yourself,” he whispered.  “I love you.”

“I love you too, Marco – Golden Hand!” she smiled coyly.  I’ll wait as long as it takes for you to return.”

“Excuse me, can you make some powder that shows me getting sick?” Mitment asked.

Marco released Mirra, then followed the rest of the small group that walked up the gang plank.

“Keep her safe for me,” Marco called to Woods, who saluted his intention to do so.

Mirra held Sybele’s hand in her own, and made the small fingers wave, as the baby smiled at the fun.  Marco stood at the railing and watched, his eyes and Mirra’s locked upon one another, as he suddenly felt a sense of being haunted, a conviction that he would not see his new bride again, and his eyes started to water.