Paul Kearney - The Heretic Kings

Isolla. They had all played together as children, at conferences and conclaves as their fathers changed the shape of the world. She was thin and russet-haired, with a freckled face and a bend to her nose that had been evident even then, when they were not yet into their teens. She was only a year or two younger than himself-quite old to be married for the first time. He remembered her as a quiet, long-suffering child who liked to be left alone.

Such memories were beside the point. The important thing was that the Hebro-Astaran alliance would be firmly cemented by this marriage, and personal feelings did not come into it.

(He thought of Jemilla and her swelling belly, and felt a thrill of uneasy apprehension for a reason he could not fully understand.)

The feeling passed. He went inside and shouted for attendants to come and help him disrobe and wash. He poured himself a flagon of wine from the gimballed decanters on the cabin table, gulped it down, bit into a chunk of herb bread, gulped more wine.

The cabin door opened and his personal steward and valet were standing there, still in their castaway clothes, one chewing.

“Sire?”

He felt ashamed. He had forgotten that these men had been through whatever he had, and were as hungry and thirsty and tired and filthy as he was himself.

“It’s all right. You are dismissed. Clean yourselves up and get yourselves as much food and wine as your bellies will hold. And kindly ask Admiral Rovero to step back in here when he has a moment.”

“Yes, sire. The sailors have heated water for you in one of their coppers in the galley. Shall we have a bath prepared?”

A bath! Sweet heavens above. But he shook his head. “Let the lady Jemilla use the water. I will do well enough.”

The men bowed and left. Abeleyn could smell himself above the usual shipboard smells of pitch and wood and old water, but it did not seem to matter. Jemilla was carrying his child, and she would appreciate a bath above all things at the moment. Let her have one-it would keep her away from him for a while.

He realized suddenly that he did not much like his mistress. As a lover she was superb, and she was as witty and intelligent as a man could want. But he trusted her no more than he would trust an adder which slithered across his boot in the woods. The knowledge surprised him somewhat. He was aware that something in him had changed, but he was not yet sure what it was.

A knock on the door. Admiral Rovero, his eyebrows high on his sea-dog face. “You wanted to see me, sire?”

“Yes, Admiral. Let us go through this plan you have concocted, you and Mercado, for the retaking of Abrusio. Now is as good a time as any.”

There was to be no rest, no chance to sit and stare out at the foaming wake and the mighty ships which coursed along astern, tall pyramids of canvas and wood and gleaming guns. No time to turn away from the care and the responsibilities. And Abeleyn did not mind.

Perhaps that is what has changed, he thought. I am growing into my crown at last.

Albrec’s head was full of blood, swollen and throbbing like a bone-pent heart. His face was rubbing against some form of material, cloth or the like, and his hands, also, felt swollen and full.

He was upside-down, he realized, dangling with his midriff being crushed by his own weight.

“Put me down,” he gasped, feeling as though he might throw up if he did not straighten.

Avila set him down carefully. The young Inceptine had been carrying him slung over one broad shoulder. The pair of them were breathing heavily. Albrec’s world dizzied and spun for a moment as the fluids of his body righted themselves. The lamp Avila had been carrying in his free hand guttered on the floor, almost out of oil.

“What are you doing?” Albrec managed at last. “Where are we?”

“In the catacombs. I couldn’t bring you round, Albrec. You were dead to the world. So I piled up stone in front of the hole and tried to find a way out for us.”

“Commodius!”

“Dead, and may his warped spirit howl the eons away in the pits of hell.”

“His body, Avila. We can’t just leave it down here.”

“Why not? He was a creature of the lightless dark, a shape-shifter, and he tried to kill us both to protect his precious version of the truth. Let his corpse rot here unburied.”

Albrec held his aching head in his hands. “Where are we?”

“I was following the north wall-the damp one, as you said-trying to find the stairs, but I must have missed them somehow.”

“An easy thing to do. I will find them, don’t worry. How long has it been since. .?”

“Maybe half an hour, not long.”

“Great God, Avila, what are we going to do?”

“Do? I–I don’t know, Albrec. I hadn’t been thinking beyond getting out of this dungeon.”

“We’ve killed the Senior Librarian.”

“We’ve slain a werewolf.”

“But he changed back into Commodius the librarian. It’s the last thing I remember. Who will believe us? What signs are there on his body to tell anyone what he was in life?”

“What are you saying, Albrec? That we are in trouble for saving our own lives, for putting an end to that foul beast?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know what to think. How could it happen, Avila? How could a priest be a thing like that, all these years, all the years I have worked with him? It was he who haunted the library; I see that now. It was his unclean presence which gave it its atmosphere. Oh, lord God, what has been going on here?”

The pair were silent, their eyes fixed on the tiny lamp flame which did not have too many minutes of life left to it. But it did not seem important that they might soon be left here in impenetrable darkness. The place seemed different somehow. They had seen the true face of evil, and nothing else could frighten them.

“They know,” Albrec went on in a rasping whisper. “Did you hear him? They know the truth of things, the real story of the Saint and the Prophet, and they have been suppressing it. The Church has been sitting on the truth for centuries, Avila, keeping it from the world to safeguard its own authority. Where is piety, where humility? They have behaved like princes determined to hold on to their power no matter what the cost.”

Avila fingered his black Inceptine robe thoughtfully.

“You have claw marks down the sides of your face,” he told Albrec, as though he had only just seen them.

“There’s blood on yours, too.”

“We can’t hide our hurts, Albrec. Think, man! What are we to do? Columbar is dead at Commodius’ hand and Commodius is dead at ours. How will it look? We cannot tell them we were trying to discover and preserve the truth of things. They’ll put us out of the way as quickly as Commodius intended to.”

“There are good men yet in the Church-there must be.”

“But we don’t know who they are. Who will listen to us or believe us? Sweet blood of the Blessed Saint, Albrec, we are finished.”

The lamp guttered, flared, and then went out. The dark swooped in on them and they were blind.

Avila’s voice came thick with grief through the lightlessness. “We must flee Charibon.”

“No! Where would we go? How would we travel in the depth of winter, in the snows? We would not last a day.”

“We’ll not last much longer than that here once this gets out. When Commodius is missed they’ll search the library. They’ll find him in the end. And who is the only other person who has the keys to the library? You, Albrec.”

The little monk touched the torn skin of his face and neck, the lump on his forehead where the werewolf had knocked him. Avila was right. They would question him first, for he was Commodius’ closest colleague, and when they saw his wounds the inquisition would begin.