Spirit of the Sword: Pride and Fury (The First Sword Chronicles Book 1) (14 page)

Dux Tzimisec looked at Miranda as though she were a piece of ham on display at the butchers. His eyes were grey and cold, like a blade. Despite his obvious years there was something hard about this man that did not admit of weakness.

"So you work miracles. Can you save him?" he demanded.

"I do not know what is wrong with him yet," Miranda replied. "But I have saved many people from the brink of death before. I hope that this time will be no different."

Nikephorus' expression did not alter. "I don't believe in miracles, as a rule. But that boy up there is like a son to me. If you save him, you won't find me or the army ungrateful."

"I shall try my best, sir," Miranda said. "Now, where is Lord Manzikes?"

"Up the stairs," Lord Commenae said. "Follow me."

He led the way up the blue-carpeted stairs, Miranda following with Octavia behind her, then Major Skleros and his soldiers trailing them all. Nikephorus followed more slowly, still giving orders as he went.

The first floor was much as the ground was, decorated with tapestries of old victories and trophies from old battles. Lord Manzikes' room was a few doors along, guarded by two soldiers: a burly soldier with black skin and a weasel-faced man with a bronzed southern confection. They both stood to attention as they admitted Miranda and the entourage she had gathered around her into the chamber.

Two ladies in plain dresses sat on either side of the bed that dominated the room, clutching the hands of man who lay upon it. Another soldier stood unobtrusively in one corner of the room; he was a dandified looking fellow, who looked far more like a gentleman than Major Skleros did, with his dark hair in ringlets and his skin the pale of one with too much leisure.

A man whom Miranda took to be Lord Manzikes himself sat entombed in a vast bed, covered in many layers of bed clothes topped with a sheet of cloth of gold. His breathing was shallow, his eyes were closed, occasionally he muttered something indistinct beneath his breath.

The ladies rose to their feet when they saw Miranda.

"Alexius," murmured one of the young ladies, a beautiful young woman with eyes of sapphire blue and blonde hair worn in ringlets. Her skin was fair as milk, her features were soft as the face of a babe, her lips were red as Corona's famous roses and her eyes sparkled. She was the kind of woman who would be immortalised in statuary, and who would inspire poets to compose odes to her beauty and paens attempting to seduce her. "Who is this?"

"Hope, darling," the Lord Commenae said. "By the name of Miranda Callistus."

"Miranda Callistus?" the other young lady, who was not quite so fortunate in looks as the blonde but who possessed the same quick and intelligent blue eyes and whose brown hair was worn in curls framing her face, mused. "You are Prince Antiochus' woman from out of Corona, aren't you?"

Miranda smiled. "For Prince Antiochus' enemies you certainly know a good deal of his business."

"Of course we do," the brunette said. "We are his enemies."

"Filia Miranda, may I present Lord Manzikes' daughters: his heir, Helen, and my wife Anna."

"What is she doing here?" asked Anna, the blonde and more beautiful of the two daughters.

"I am here to help, as best I can," Miranda said. "If only to avert a civil war."

The two young ladies looked at one another.

"You are Papa's heir, Helen," Anna said. "This is your decision."

Helen Manzikes frowned. "It seems that we have much to gain but nothing to lose. Do what you can, Filia, and I will consider the political implications later."

"Thank you, Lady Helen," Miranda said. "Now, if you would give me a little room to approach.

Lord Manzikes' daughters cleared the way for her, and Miranda hobbled forwards to stand at Lord Manzikes' side, looking down upon the ailing soldier.

It was clear from his frame that Lord Manzikes had once been a powerful man, but it was as though the flesh had melted from his frame, leaving his skin clinging to his bones. She could see his ribs, she could make out the bones of his shoulders and his arms, she could see the joints of his knees. His cheekbones were sunken, his skin was jaundiced; Miranda bent down and forced one of Lord Manzikes' eyes open and found that his pupils had yellowed.

She could see his veins, and they were black.

Miranda set her stick aside and sat down on the chair that Helen Manzikes had vacated. "Somebody give me a knife."

"Are you mad?" Narses' spat.

"I suspect that whatever is wrong is in his blood," Miranda explained, speaking quickly. "I need to find out for sure. All the time that he's been ill did you never once think of bleeding him."

"We did bleed him," Helen said. "And many other things besides. If that is your advice then your coming here was a waste of time."

"I can help your father but I need someone to give me a salt-stained knife!" Miranda snapped.

"Silius, I know you've always got a knife handy," the Lord Commenae said. "Hand it over."

"How many do you want, sir?"

"Just the one will do fine," Miranda said.

"Well, give it back when you're finished won't you?" he said. Miranda heard the sound of a blade being drawn, then felt the hilt of a knife being placed gently into her hand. It was a silver blade, she was surprised to see, with a mother of pearl handle. A much nicer weapon than she would have expected a common soldier to be carrying.

She grabbed Lord Manzikes' wrist and held it out, calmly, slowly and carefully manoeuvring the knife to make the tiniest incision into his most visible blood vessel.

Black ooze began to emerge, slowly and sluggishly. Miranda scooped a little bit up onto the blade and sniffed it tentatively.

"Wrath of God, it's Traitor's End."

"Traitor's End?" Lady Commenae asked.

"A poison, sometimes used by the Crimson Rose back home," Miranda said. "I've seen it before. Kills slowly, but has no known antidote." A small smile crossed her lips. "Except for me, of course." She sliced up Lord Manzikes' vein, causing more black goo to splurge out onto his arm. Miranda held out the knife and felt someone take it away. "Thank you." She stood up. "Octavia, I will need both my hands free for this, so will you stop me from falling?"

"Of course," Octavia murmured, putting her arms gently on Miranda's waist.

Miranda let her stick drop to the floor - her leg twinged a little at the extra weight  upon it, but Octavia was bearing most of the burden - and held out both her hands towards Lord Manzikes.

She pulled upon her power like a stable hand pulling on the reins of an unruly horse, dragging into line, forcing it to obedience. It wanted to run wild. It wanted to be free, it wanted to explode. It was Miranda's role to control it, to master the power, to force it to obey her will.

Her left hand began to glow, warming up as she reached out for the corruption filling Lord Manzikes. She could feel it working inside of him, clogging up his veins, choking his organs, slowing his heart. It was like a serpent writhing inside of him, sinking its fangs into every part of him. She sent her magic into her patient not like a cleansing fire, but like a hunting beast, sniffing out the taint, the illness, the poison. Her power grappled with the poison, wrestling with it, overpowering it, and then Miranda pulled.

She pulled it out of him in a great black flood, erupting from the cut she had made, ooze pouring out like a mud slide in reverse. From every pore, from every smallest vessel, from liver and heart and throat Miranda pulled the poison out of him even as her hand burned so hot that she would have dropped it if she could.

Miranda's eyes were wide but she saw nothing. The magic was all. She could not feel her leg, she could not feel Octavia. She could not feel the air crackling around her with power restrained. All she could feel was the magic flooding out of her and then returning, pulling all the corruption from Lord Manzikes' body and binding it together in a sphere before Miranda's palm.

Then, with her right hand, she poured strength into the ailing lord. Even if she removed all of the poison, he was so weak that he was like to die anyway. Miranda lent him strength, by sheer will rebuilding his ravage muscles, putting flesh upon his bones, quickening his heart and breath. While her left hand burned, her right hand froze and Miranda began to tremble as all her strength ebbed out of her.

And then she found that she had nothing left to give.

The ball of oozing corruption she had drawn out of Lord Manzikes hit the floor with a splat, Miranda would have fallen if Octavia had not been holding her tight. She opened her eyes and could see everyone staring at her in amazement.

"Silwa and Sera above us," Lady Helen murmured.

"That was something else and a half, wasn't it, sarge?" one of the soldiers muttered.

Major Skleros glared at them. "All right, that's enough, this isn't a gods-damned tavern you know. Get back to work, the lot of you, before I have you flogged till your backs are bloody! Out!"

He slammed the door. There was a moment of silence. It was only then that Lady Commenae asked the question that Miranda was certain the others were all thinking.

"Did it work?"

Lord Manzikes certainly looked better: stronger, healthier. But he was still asleep. There would be no way to tell for sure until he woke.

Fortunately, he chose that moment to open his eyes.

"Nik?" he murmured. "Anna, Helen, Alexius? Major Skleros? What in the name of all the gods are you all doing here?"

Lady Commenae and Lady Manzikes both cried aloud for joy, and rushed to embrace their father with such speed that they nearly knocked Miranda to the floor. Major Skleros bowed his head and let out a sigh of relief so deep it sounded as though he had been holding onto it for days.

"Empress be praised," he murmured.

Nikephorus looked as though tears might spring to his eyes. The Lord Commenae had a smile on his face that made him look even more foolish than normal.

Lord Manzikes took his daughters in his arms. "I...I hardly understand. Clearly I have missed something important."

"No," Anna whispered. "Not important. Not now that you're here."

Lord Manzikes smiled fondly. "So you say, but it must have been something to have brought you together with Major Skleros."

Major Skleros came to attention with a loud stamp of his foot. "Seventh Legion Commena Eudora Valeria Victrix reporting for duty, sir!"

"What has been going on in my absence?" Lord Manzikes asked. He looked at Miranda. "Young lady, I do not believe we've had the pleasure."

Miranda bowed from the waist. "Filia Miranda Callistus, of Corona province, my lord. I am a healer, of sorts. And now my work is done."

"Someone must tell me what is going on," Lord Manzikes said.

Nikephorus smiled paternally, his tone when he spoke both fond and jovial, "I'll let your daughters explain it all to you. Alexius, Major, Filia Miranda; let's leave them too it."

It was a dismissal casually couched, but a dismissal nonetheless. Miranda followed the three officers out of the room - Octavia was her constant shadow - and out onto the first floor balcony. The faded maroon carpet shifted lightly beneath her footsteps.

The three men formed three sides of a square, the Lord Commenae and Major Skleros facing one another and Nikephorus facing Miranda as she joined them.

It was Nikephorus who spoke for all of them. "Filia Miranda. On behalf of the Imperial Army, and on my own account, I would like to thank you. Should you ever have need of the army's assistance we are in your debt."

"Thank you, sir." Miranda allowed herself a small smile. "When I am next in need of a legion of soldiers I will remember you said that."

Lord Commane chuckled. "You have the gratitude of the Commenae family also, Filia, which you may find more useful in this world of politics and nobility into which you have launched yourself. In addition, the matter of your fee: will five hundred eternals cover the cost, do you think?"

Miranda boggled at him for a moment. "Five hundred...yes, yes I should think that would be quite adequate. Though, should not Lord Manzikes help to decide-"

"You misunderstand me, Filia," the Lord Commenae said. "I have no wish to burden Lord Manzikes at such a time, the Commenae family will handle all your expenses."

Miranda blinked. "Why would you do such a thing?"

"My father was murdered by my own uncle when I was a small boy," the Lord Commenae said. "Lord Manzikes and his late wife took me in. His Lordship is a second father to me. And Anna's happiness is dearer to me than all the treasures of my house." He smiled. "If that is acceptable to you, Filia Miranda, I can have the gold delivered first thing tomorrow."

"You have that much money to hand?"

"It will represent most of my current holdings in coin, but I daresay I can find some more if I need it. The wealth of the Commenae family was founded on the spoils of conquest, but it is maintained through usury. I am the largest money lender in this city, and beyond. It is not a well which ever runs dry, and there is always a repayment due."

"I see," Miranda murmured, half wondering if she should have asked him for more money.