The Last Days of Magic (12 page)

“Other than the High Coven,” added Jordan.

“Their magic is unnatural and perverted. We will eliminate them soon enough.”

Jordan doubted that the High Coven was going to be that easy to deal with, but he returned his attention to the chart. “Given the forces protecting Ireland, how do you plan to invade?”

“We’ll have the English do it,” said the legate, a smug look in his eyes. “Their little island always leaves them hungry for more land, and the Scottish and French haven’t been very accommodating.”

Jordan laughed. “The English will never go. Not after what happened last time—Strongbow’s entire armada was wiped out. Not a single ship returned.”

“Last time the Vatican made the mistake of placing its trust in the deposed Irish king of Leinster, a human who claimed to know the secret to landing an armada. He was too weak a sorcerer. This time we’ll have a Sidhe king lead the invasion. This, my new marshal, is your first mission.”

“And how do you expect me to do that?” asked Jordan as the legate rolled up the chart and handed it to his secretary.

“Fortunately, there are some Irish Vikings, high within their nobility, who have secretly come to fear Christ’s judgment and, frankly,
love gold more than they love Ireland. My Viking spies have discovered that one group of Sidhe, a clan of wood faeries known as Skeaghshee, have rejected the ancient treaty with the Celts and attempted a rebellion. I have passed word to the Skeaghshee that the restored Roman Church does not share its predecessor’s desire to conquer Ireland. Instead we share a common enemy: the Irish Christian Church.

“I’ve made a proposal, using the Irish Church as a ruse: if the Skeaghshee help us conquer the Irish Church, the Roman Church will help them conquer the Celts. We’ll receive all the Irish Church’s monasteries across Europe and Britain, and they’ll regain all of Ireland.”

“Unlikely that they’d believe Rome would agree to that.”

“It’s your job to convince the Skeaghshee of our sincerity. Or lead them to think they can easily betray us after the Celts are defeated. We will, of course, make our move against the Skeaghshee when they least expect it.”

The legate turned to his secretary. “Please bring in Prince Ruarc and his . . .” He waved his hand in the air. “His attendants.”

After the secretary left, the legate added, “Just remember, my new marshal, that breaking a promise to a Sidhe wouldn’t be a sin. Keeping one would be.”

Jordan carefully maintained an impassive air as he finished his wine and considered the consequences if the Vatican and the English were to conquer Ireland, that last fully magical land. When the secretary returned, he was followed closely by a lean and weathered man dressed in journeyman’s clothing and a frail woman wearing a flowing red robe. A tall faerie entered behind them, moving slowly and deliberately into the room.

“Marshal Jordan d’Anglano,” the legate said, “this is Prince Ruarc, eldest surviving son of Kellach, king of the Skeaghshee, future high king of the Sidhe.”

Instinctively, Jordan started to bow, only to hesitate and finish with less flourish than he would for a human prince.

“With him,” the legate continued, “are Dary Fitz-Stephen, direct
descendant of Robert Fitz-Stephen, marshal to Strongbow, and his wife, Eithne.”

Jordan’s eyes stayed on Ruarc. “How is it even possible for you to enter Venice?”

Ruarc reached out to Eithne, who immediately stepped to his side. Her skin was chalk white, stretched over a gaunt frame. She took Ruarc’s hand, and he slid back her sleeve to reveal an emaciated arm and a bandaged wrist, the patch of blood that soaked through not yet having dried brown.

“Eithne graciously sustains me with her own lifeblood, for the sake of all Sidhe.”

Jordan glanced at Dary, whose furrowed face had sagged. To Ruarc, Jordan said, “You know what that will do to you?”

“Marshal d’Anglano, we have only just met, yet you express concern over my well-being. Put your mind to rest, I will ensure that I do not become dependent upon it.”

Jordan wondered if Ruarc was strong enough to give up feeding on fresh human blood once he no longer needed it to counter the enchantments permeating Venice. He had read in Marija’s grimoires that once started, it was a practice impossible to stop.

The reason Albornoz had located the Church’s clandestine office in Venice, Jordan suspected, was the protection the city offered against infiltration by all Nephilim, even the Sidhe. More so than the Adriatic Sea that it was connected to, Venice’s shallow marshy lagoon had once been a playground of the Elioud: sea nymphs called Nereids and their male counterparts the Vodyanoy, bird-headed Sirens, animalistic Nuggle, and shape-shifting Nix. At the founding of Venice in the second century, these beings provided protection to a group of humans who had made peace with them, allowing the humans to build a city on wooden piles out in the marsh. Then the humans betrayed them.

Vade retro Satana
—“Go back Satan”—was the beginning chant in the Christian sorcery known as exorcism. The power of exorcism to drive Nephilim from land and sea was first recognized by Pope
Fabian in 238 when he created the order of exorcists. Exorcism then became part of the official canon of the Roman Church at the Fourth Council of Carthage in 398. With this the Church had new roles for the educated but psychopathic sons of wealthy families, who would ship off their darlings into the priesthood, along with large endowments. The most capable and fanatical of these exorcists formed an alliance and wore a medal of protection around their necks inscribed with the abbreviation of their opening chant, VRS, and thus they became know as the VRS League.

Venice, a city rapidly growing in wealth and power, hired the VRS League in the fifth century to drive out the very beings that had originally protected it from waves of Germanic and Hun invasions. After years of cleansing, the Nephilim were kept out with a constantly maintained weave of blessings, graces, and, clandestinely, enchantments.

By the ninth century, though, some Nephilim had learned that they could survive in protected cities such as Venice by drinking blood from a living human, but doing so carried extreme risk. Human blood was so addictive that after a short while the creature became obsessed only with getting more of it, forgetting their original purpose.

“I could ask the same question of your companion, Marshal,” said Ruarc, walking over to Ty and staring up at his face. “Do you let him feed on you somehow?”

“Absolutely not. Ty is an aberration. Enchantments don’t affect him in the same way as other Nephilim.” Deciding that Ruarc’s blood consumption did not concern him—not yet—Jordan continued, “You can land an armada safely in Ireland?”

Stepping back but continuing to study Ty with a look of concern, Ruarc replied, “I can get a small group into Ireland. Only my father has the power to land an armada.”

“Ruarc’s father, King Kellach, has been imprisoned on the Irish island of Great Skellig,” said the legate.

“Trees are sacred to my clan,” said Ruarc. “My king was simply trying to protect them from the Celts, as you would protect your
own holy places. But how could he, while the Morrígna was siding with the Celts and preventing other Sidhe clans from helping us?”

The legate added, “Kellach is being unjustly punished for his efforts to free the Sidhe from the oppression of the Goddess Morrígna, by attempting to expel her from this world.”

“The treaty between the Celts and the Middle Kingdom threatens the very existence of my kind, who live in the woods,” said Ruarc.

“I have stressed to the prince our outrage over the desecration of his people’s trees,” said the legate. “Marshal d’Anglano, you’ll go to Great Skellig with Prince Ruarc, free King Kellach, and convey him to England. Your ship will be ready as soon as the spring storms abate. You and Prince Ruarc are to craft and deliver a plan, along with a requisition for supplies and men, to my secretary within a month, and then—”

“No, we must leave this city right away,” Dary broke in. At a hiss from Ruarc, Dary looked down and added softly, “For the sake of my wife.”

Ignoring Dary’s outburst, the legate said, “I look forward to seeing your plan.” His secretary opened the office door and led Ruarc’s party out.

Jordan waited until they were gone. “What of Patrick’s Bell?” he asked the legate. “The Blood Bell?”

“Your knowledge is impressive. Orsini assured me that the Bell will not be in Ireland when the English armada arrives. It’s not your concern.”

Jordan bowed and left. He was confident he could handle his role, and it would give him the chance to sail to Ireland, which was something he never thought he would get to do. He wondered if a country still steeped in magic would look or feel any different.

Making no more sound than a breeze, Ty bent, twisted, and followed Jordan out the small door. The legate, watching this impossible move, blinked twice.

Outside, on the small dock, Ty rumbled, “Ty not like legate.”

“He has granted me a valuable position,” said Jordan. As he climbed into the boat, it rocked, and he had to grab the side to steady himself.

“Legate wishes to murder Ty’s world,” said Ty. He unfastened the rope and stepped in behind Jordan. Other than being pressed down into the rancid water, the boat did not stir until Ty began working the oar.

“That’s one way to look at it,” replied Jordan. “I didn’t know you were paying attention.”

“Ty has ears. How does Jordan look at it?”

That question had already been troubling Jordan. This was not only a great opportunity for him, it was a chance to redeem his family’s name, perhaps his only chance. But the Church did not just want to conquer Ireland, they wanted to end everyone’s access to magic, except for that of their own exorcists. And magic was becoming as interesting to Jordan as status. Back when he was struggling to survive plague and famine, he never thought he would face a conflict between wealth and desire.

“What would you have me do?” he asked.

Ty took so long to answer that Jordan thought he had not heard the question. Then, in a faint, gravelly voice, Ty replied, “Ty not care what Jordan does. Ty not belong in either world.”

“You belong with me,” replied Jordan.

. . . . .

In the legate’s office, Geoffrey Chaucer emerged from a side door.

“Were you able hear everything?” asked the legate. “Thoughts?”

“He’s exactly the kind of man you need, if you’re going to go through with this gambit,” said Chaucer, helping himself to the leftover wine. “Just don’t underestimate how hard it will be to convince Richard to join.” In the court of England’s King Richard II, Chaucer held the posts of Poet to the King, Clerk of the King’s Works, and envoy to the Vatican. Richard was the second king Chaucer had worked for as a bureaucrat and diplomat, but his first love remained the emerging English language, and his throaty-voiced recitations of elaborate tales were popular at courtiers’ dinner parties.

“How is Richard’s mind these days?” the legate asked cautiously. He had yet to meet the inbred and notoriously eccentric king.

“Increasingly difficult to reason with,” Chaucer replied laughingly. “Is there no way to take Ireland without him?”

“I have my instructions from Orsini.” The legate gave a deep sigh. “Our condottieri are stretched thin with our European expansion. The plague has left few men to recruit. We have no navy yet.” He ticked off the reasons on his fingers. “Without the English we can’t muster an invasion force or get it to Ireland.”

He refilled his own wine goblet. “But we have to attack now,” the legate continued, “while the Skeaghshee revolt gives us an opening. The first we have had in two centuries.”

“And we know how well it worked out last time,” said Chaucer, shaking his head. “Nevertheless, nothing ventured, nothing gained. If your dashing new marshal actually gets Kellach off that Irish rock alive, I promise to secure you an audience with Richard.” Chaucer lounged in a chair, took a sip of wine, and observed his friend thoughtfully. “The king might be crazy, but even he will be skeptical about putting all his faith in a tree-loving faerie who failed so mightily in his own plans that he’s exiled on a barren island. It will be an interesting discussion. I sail back to London on the morning tide.”

The legate pulled a heavy coin purse from his desk. “Someone dropped this on the plaza. Is it by chance yours?”

Chaucer eyed the pouch—the king paid functionaries little and poets less, which was why he was forced to fill three posts. He held up a hand. “No, but thank you. Richard would have me flayed if he found out. Besides, the story material you provide is as gold to me.” He raised his goblet in a toast to the legate. “To quote myself: ‘The life so short, the craft so long to learn.’” He drained the wine.

“How go the stories?” asked the legate as he retrieved the carafe and poured the last of its contents for Chaucer.

“Very well! Hawkwood provided all the inspiration I needed for the Knight,” replied Chaucer, referring to one of the characters in his
ongoing series
The Canterbury Tales.
The legate and Chaucer had become close friends long ago when Richard had sent Chaucer to Rome as emissary to Hawkwood when he was helping Cardinal Albornoz wrest the papacy away from French control. Chaucer, sensing a rich vein of subject matter, had made sure he remained his king’s connection to the Vatican’s clandestine office ever since.

“And with all this talk of enchantments,” Chaucer said, looking disappointed at the empty carafe, “I hear the muse’s call. I believe I shall write a story containing that magic ring you told me about, King Solomon’s, wasn’t it?”

“Be careful with your tales, my friend. There’s getting to be too much sorcery in them. You don’t want to give the Church a reason to flay you either.”

“Forbid us something, and that thing we desire.”