The Charnel Prince (17 page)

“He’s a criminal?”

“No. He’s the prince of criminals, at least in this quarter.”

“What are we going to do?” Anne said.

“Until the right ship comes along, and we have enough to pay passage for it, there’s nothing we can do. They’re looking for you everywhere now. We’re safer here than anywhere.
If
z’Acatto knows what he’s doing.”

“I’m sure he does,” Austra said.

“Let’s hope so.”

Anne didn’t say anything. She knew very little about z’Acatto other than that he stayed drunk most of the time. Now, as it turned out, Cazio didn’t know as much about the old man as he thought he did.

It might be true that z’Acatto would never betray Cazio. But that didn’t mean Austra and Anne were safe—not in the slightest.

FRESH ACQUAINTANCES

The Year 2,223 of Everon

Late Novmen

Prismo, the first mode, is the Lamp of Day. It invokes Saint Loy, Saint Ausa, Saint Abullo, and Saint Fel. It evokes the bright sun and the blue vault of Heaven. It provokes optimism, ebullience, restlessness, brash behavior.

Etrama, the second mode, is the Lamp of Night. It invokes Saint Soan, Saint Cer, Saint Artumo. It evokes the Moon in all of her phases, the starry sky, gentle night breezes. It provokes weariness, rest, and dream.

—from
The Codex Harmonium of Elgin Widsel

Prismo, the first parry, is so called because it is the easiest one to do on drawing the sword from its sheath. The riposte is awkward.

Etrama, the second parry, is named this for no particular reason, but it is a strong parry against flank attacks.

—translated from
obsao dazo chiadio
(“work of the sword”), by Mestro Papo Avradio Vallaimo

“I THINK THIS MAN WANTS TO KILL US, Hurricane,” Neil told his mount, patting the stallion’s neck. Then he shrugged, took a deep breath, and studied the sky.

He’d always reckoned the sky was the sky—changeable with weather, yes, but essentially the same wherever you went. But here in the south, the blue of it was somehow different, bolder. It went with the rest of the strangeness—the rambling sun-drenched fields and vineyards, the white-stuccoed houses with their red tiled roofs, the low, gnarly oaks and slender cedars that spotted the landscape. It was hard to believe that such a region existed in the same world as his cold, misty homeland—especially now, with the month of Novmen half-done. Skern was probably under a king’s yard of snow right now. Here, he was sweating lightly beneath his gambeson and armor.

The wonder of it did not escape Neil. He remembered his awe at first seeing Eslen, how big the world had seemed to a boy from a small island in the Lier Sea. And yet these last months the world had seemed to shrink around him, and Eslen Castle had become little more than a box.

Now the world seemed larger than ever, and that brought for him a sort of melancholy happiness. In a world this spacious, the sadness and fears of Neil MeqVren were not so large a thing.

Even that mixed pleasure brought with it a certain amount of guilt, however. The queen lived in constant danger, and leaving her for any reason felt wrong. But she had chosen this road for him, she and the shades of Erren and Fastia. Surely they knew better than he what was the right thing to do.

Still, he ought not to enjoy himself.

He heard shouting, and realized that the man in the road didn’t care to be ignored in favor of the sky.

“I’m sorry,” Neil called back, in the king’s tongue, “but I can’t understand you. I am not educated in the speech of Vitellio.”

The man replied with something equally unintelligible, this time addressing one of his squires. At least Neil guessed they were squires, because he reckoned the shouting man to be a knight. He sat upon a powerful-looking horse, black with a white blaze on the forehead, and it was caparisoned in light barding.

The man also wore armor—of odd design, and awfully pretty, with oak leaves worked at the joints, but lord’s plate nevertheless. He carried the helmet under his arm, but Neil could see that it was conical in shape, with a plume of bright feathers arranged almost like a rooster’s tail. He wore a red-and-yellow robe instead of a tabard or surcoat, and that and his shield bore what might be a standard—a closed fist, a sunspray, a bag of some sort—the symbols meant nothing in the heraldry familiar to Neil, but he was, as he had been reflecting, very far from home.

The knight had four men with him, none in armor, but all wearing red tabards with the same design sewn on them as the shield. A large tent had been erected by the side of the road, flying a pennant with the sunspray alone. Three horses and two mules grazed in the pastures along the side of the rutted red road.

One of the men shouted, “My master asks you to declare yourself!” He had a long, bony face and a tuft of hair on his chin trying to pass for a beard. “If you can do so in no civilized language, then speak what babble you will, and I shall translate.”

“I’m a wanderer,” Neil replied. “I may tell you no more than that, I fear.”

A brief conversation followed between the knight and his man; then the servant turned back to Neil.

“You wear the armor and bear the weapons of a knight. In whose service do you ride?”

“I cannot answer that question,” Neil said.

“Think carefully, sir,” the man said. “It is unlawful to wear the armor of a knight in this country if you do not have the credentials to do so.”

“I see,” Neil answered. “And if I am a knight, and can prove it, then what will your master say to that?”

“He will challenge you to honorable combat. After he kills you, he will take possession of your armor and horse.”

“Ah. And if I am merely masquerading as a knight?”

“Then my lord will be forced to fine you and confiscate your property.”

“Well,” Neil said, “there is not a large difference in what I call myself then, is there? Fortunately I have a spear.”

The man’s eyes went round. “Do you not know whom you face?”

“I would ask, but since I cannot give my name, it would be impolite to require his.”

“Don’t you know his emblem?”

“I’m afraid I do not. Can we get this over with?”

The man spoke to his master again. For answer, the knight lifted his helmet onto his head, couched his lance beneath his arm and lifted his shield into position. Neil did the same, noticing that his own weapon was nearly a king’s yard shorter than his foe’s.

The Vitellian knight started first, his charger kicking up a cloud of red dust in the evening sun. Neil spurred Hurricane into motion and dropped the point of his spear into position. Beyond the rolling fields, a cloud of blackbirds fumed up from a distant tree line. For a moment, all seemed very quiet.

At the last moment Neil shifted in the saddle and moved his shield suddenly, so the enemy iron hit it slantwise rather than straight on. The blow rattled his teeth and scored his shield, but he swung his own point to the right, for his enemy was turning in a similar maneuver. He hit the Vitellian shield just at the edge, and the whole force of his blow shocked into the knight. Neil’s spear snapped, its head buried in the shield. As he went by, he saw the Vitellian knight reel back in the saddle, but as he turned, he discovered that the fellow had somehow managed not to fall.

Neil grinned fiercely and drew Crow. The other knight regarded him for a moment, then handed his lance to one of his men and drew his blade, as well.

They came together like thunder, shield against shield. Crow beat over and rang against the Vitellian’s helm, and the strange knight landed a blow on Neil’s shoulder that would certainly have taken the arm off if not for the steel it was sheathed in. They tangled like that for a moment, horses crushing their legs between heaving flanks, but they were too close for hard blows.

Hurricane broke free, and Neil wheeled him around, cutting almost instinctively. He caught his foe right at the neck and sent him crashing to earth. The black horse stamped fiercely and stood to protect his master.

Amazingly, the knight came shakily to his feet. His gorget and the thick cloth wrapped beneath it had stopped the edge, but it was a miracle that his neck wasn’t broken.

Neil dismounted and strode toward his opponent. The Vitellian cocked his sword back for a swing, but Neil shield-rushed him, sending him staggering back a step. Neil used the opening in distance to make a cut of his own, hitting the shoulder of the man’s weapon arm. The armor rang like a bell, and the foe’s blade clattered to the ground. Neil waited for him to pick it up. Instead, the knight dropped his shield and pulled off his helmet, revealing a face rounded by middle age, tousled black hair streaked silver, a well-tended mustache and goatee. His nose was a bit shapeless, as if it had been broken too many times.

“You are a knight,” the man admitted, in accented but comprehensible king’s tongue. “Even though you will not name yourself, I must yield to you, for I believe you have broken my arm. I am Sir Quinte dac’Ucara, and I am honored to have faced you in combat. Will you guest with me?”

But before Neil could answer, Sir Quinte fainted, and his men rushed to his side.

Neil waited as Sir Quinte’s men peeled him out of his armor and washed him with a perfumed rag. The shoulder bone was indeed broken, so they made a sling for the arm. Sir Quinte revived during the process, but if the shattered bone caused him pain, he showed it only a little, and only in his eyes.

“I did not speak your tongue before,” he said, “because I did not know you, and it would not be meet to speak a strange language in my native land. But you have bested me, so Virgenyan shall be the language of this camp.” He nodded at his dented armor. “That belongs to you,” he managed. “As does
zo Cabadro
, my mount. Treat him well, I beg you—he is a fine horse.”

Neil shook his head. “You are generous, Sir Quinte, but I have no need for either. I must travel light, and both would slow me.”

Quinte smiled. “You are the generous one, sir. Will you not extend that generosity to telling me your name?”

“I may not, sir.”

Sir Quinte nodded sagely. “You have taken a vow. You are on secret business.”

“You may guess as you like.”

“I respect your wishes,” Sir Quinte said, “but I must call you something. Sir
zo
Viotor
you shall be.”

“I don’t understand the name.”

“It is no more than you named yourself, ‘the wanderer.’ I put it in Vitellian so you can explain who you are to less educated folk.”

“Thank you then,” Neil said sincerely.

Sir Quinte turned to one of his men. “Arvo, bring us food and wine.”

“Please, I must be going,” Neil told him. “Though I thank you for the offer.”

“The hour is late. Lord Abullo dips his chariot to the world’s end, and even you—great warrior though you may be—must sleep. Honoring my hospitality could not hinder your quest by much, and it would give me great pleasure.”

Despite Neil’s protests, Arvo was already spreading a cloth on the ground.

“Very well,” Neil relented. “I accept your kindness.” Soon the cloth was covered in viands, most of which Neil did not recognize. There was bread, of course, and a hard sort of cheese, and pears. A red fruit revealed countless tiny pearl-like seeds when husked. They were good, if a bit of a bother to eat. A yellowish oil turned out to be something like butter, to be eaten with the bread. Small black fruits were salty rather than sweet. The wine was red and tasted strongly of cherry.

It occurred to Neil only after they began eating that the food might be drugged or poisoned. A year earlier, he would never have even imagined such a dishonorable thing. But at court, honor and the assumptions it carried were more a liability than anything else.

But Sir Quinte and his squires ate and drank everything Neil did, and the thought left him. However strange his appearance and standard, Sir Quinte was a knight, and he behaved like one—he would no more poison Neil than would Sir Fail de Liery, the old
chever
who had raised him after his father had died.

Vitellio suddenly did not seem so strange, after all.

The Vitellians ate slowly, often pausing to comment or argue in their own language, which to Neil’s ears sounded more like singing than speaking. Dusk gave way to a pleasant, cool night. Stars made the heavens precious, and they, at least, were the same stars Neil remembered from home.

Except that in Eslen one rarely saw them. Here, they dazzled.

Sir Quinte switched back to the king’s tongue somewhat apologetically. “I am sorry, Sir Viotor,” he said, “to leave you outside of the conversation. Not all of my squires speak the Virgenyan tongue, nor does my historian, Volio.” He gestured at the oldest of his men, a square-headed fellow with only a fringe of gray hair on his scalp.

“Historian?”

“Yes, of course. He records my deeds—my victories and losses. We were arguing, you see, about how my defeat today shall be written—and what it portends.”