Miriam reached out with the power of the choir at her back and found her allies-odd allies. The faery folk and the magister had formed their own choir-an earthy green chorus, like a well-toned tavern revel compared to her beautifully ordered schola. But effective, despite singing carefully and softly in the aethereal, merely shaping and supporting her own with immense subtlety.
Supporting her.
She reached out-mind to mind, image to image, and boldly she went into Harmodius’s palace, where she was pleased to see he was still a handsome young man in velvet.
“It is a sin to seize another’s body,” Miriam said. “That seems a rude way to begin, but that’s who I am.”
Harmodius nodded. “Well, Madame Abbess, would you think better of me if I said he was dead when I took it? Of course, I would then have to confess that he was only dead because I stormed him from within and killed him in his own palace.”
Miriam shuddered, even in her own place of power. “That’s impossible.”
But suddenly they were in her place of power, and he was seated on a kneeling bench in his crimson velvet. “No, quite easy, Miriam,” he said. “Really, you must accept that I mean no harm because if I meant harm, I could effect it.”
Miriam nodded. “May I ask you politely to leave?” she asked. “And then perhaps we might build trust towards a meeting.”
Harmodius smiled. “I’d like to say we saved your girl,” he said. “But whatever happened out there was none of our doing. She’s on the edge of Becoming.”
Miriam put a hand to her metaphysical throat. “What?”
Harmodius shrugged. “You’ll see,” he said.
Back in the real, Harmodius was sitting with a pipe, forgotten, across his lap. The Faery Knight sat on a stool made of antlers-not dispensing justice or even holding court, but instead sewing on his deerskin hose.
“He’ll come for her,” the Faery Knight said. “Ssshe will be too great a temptassshion for him, and too great a potential threat.” He nodded in approval. “Ssshe isss very dangerousss.”
Harmodius rubbed his thumb along the sticky black tar that had formed on his pipe. “She will change his plans. Whatever they are.” Harmodius smiled-and just for a moment, it was the chilling smile of Aeskepiles. “And whatever else it means, it will hold him focused on her.”
The Faery Knight winced as he put his needle into his nearly immortal thumb. But he met the magister’s eye. “You intend to take him on?”
Harmodius frowned. “We’ll see.”
“He’ll kill you,” the Faery Knight said. “I have fought thisss foe before. Never direct confrontation. Alwaysss the indirect approach.”
Harmodius rose to his feet. “I hear you.”
“You would be a great losss, mortal.” The Faery Knight put out a hand, a very human gesture.
Harmodius nodded. “We’re going to take losses.”
An hour later, the Abbess sent them a copy of an imperial message warning of a horse plague delivered from the sky. The warning was timely-and the intent friendly. When the barghasts struck, they found a roof of ops bound white-hot air that burned their feathers and frightened them-and the choir within Lissen Carak turned them as they rose away.
“Now he’sss ssseen usss,” Tapio said bitterly.
“Not if my new friend Miriam stripped off his spies fast enough,” Harmodius allowed. “But we can’t chance it. Best assume we’ve been discovered.”
That night, Abenaki scouts to the north of Lissen Carak-out beyond Hawkshead-found the Black Mountain Pond clan and a great rout of bearish refugees moving slowly. They were pressed-at their backs was a tide of other creatures, old and new.
“We’ll have to fight,” Tapio said. He looked at the human magister. “Jussst to cover them.”
Harmodius nodded. “It is too soon, and in the wrong place,” he said. “Perfect.”
Hundreds of leagues to the south, in Harndon, the Archbishop of Lorica sat in a chair at the foot of the royal dais. Bohemund de Foi was in the full regalia of his office, despite recent defeat and the obvious defection of most of the Gallish knights, who were already negotiating with traitors to secure ships to carry them back to Galle.
The Archbishop was not yet ready to concede the game, and he was not without resources. He had a servant summon his secretary, Maître Gris, who came in his monkish robes.
“Eminence,” he said with a bow.
The archbishop nodded. “I need Master Gilles. And, I think, it is time we made more use of your friend.”
Maître Gris frowned. “I cannot summon him like a servant,” he said.
The archbishop frowned. “But he is a servant. Fetch him for me. I want him to kill this Random.”
Maître Gris bowed again. “As you command, eminence. But messages to this man sometimes take time.”
“Then you should stop talking,” the archbishop shot back. “I am impatient.”
When Master Gilles arrived, he was covered in charms. The archbishop glanced at him and raised an eyebrow. “You appear ridiculous,” he said.
Master Gilles was clearly terrified. “I am alive,” he said. “We have very powerful enemies.”
“And allies,” the archbishop said. “I want you to dispose of several people, beginning with that treacherous sell-sword.”
“The Red Knight?” Master Gilles shook his head. “He is beyond me.”
“No, you fool. I will leave him for my ally. But I mean Du Corse.” The archbishop snapped his fingers at a servant.
The liveried servants of the palace were all members of the Royal Household and all too aware that there might be a new king, that the queen was alive, and that de Vrailly was dead. The service was deteriorating. There was rebellion in the corridors, and the archbishop knew that only fear would keep them docile.
The archbishop glanced back at Amaury, his captain. “Take this one and whip him until his manners are better,” he said.
Captain Amaury nodded, struck the boy to the floor with his armoured fist, and two purple and yellow halberdiers seized the boy and dragged him out.
“You want me to kill the Seigneur Du Corse,” Master Gilles said quietly.
“Yes,” the archbishop said.
Master Gilles bridled for a moment, and then shook his head and sighed. “Very well, eminence. I will need an item of his clothing.”
“I anticipated your request. I have a cap he wore but two days back.” The archbishop handed the cap, still stained with sweat, to the magister.
“May I ask why?” the older man asked.
“He has disobeyed me repeatedly. He has led the revolt of the good knights against the wishes of Mother Church and against me. He signed a craven compact with the rebels when our army was the larger and would have won a straight fight in the field, or at the very least held the bridges while we rebuilt. And now… now he will not even aid me in holding the royal palace. He believes he is in a state of peace with the rebels. I am not. I will hold this citadel until my last breath. And when Du Corse is dead, by the will of God, the other knights will return to their allegiance. When my spy kills Gerald Random, I will have the city back in my hand in an hour.” He nodded sharply and considered what he might have to do to summon his secret ally. He looked up, and Gilles was still there.
“But mostly, Gilles, because I order it, and you will obey.” The archbishop smiled. “Now scuttle away and execute my will.”
It was clear that the magister was going to waste his time in protest. The man bowed. “But…” he began.
Whatever he was intending to say was lost when the servant’s door opened, and in came Maître Gris. With him was a man in green and black, a nondescript man of middle height with a cloak on his left arm and a pointed cap like a falcon’s beak on his head. He was arm in arm with the monk, a surprising bit of familiarity.