Andrew Offutt: The Tower of Death

“Ah, Cormac said. “Twelve, then. The old magic number. The zodiacal total of Lucanor’s eastern haunts… and him with a zodiac sign on his finger.” Then he realized that the Sueve had spoken portentously, and wanted to be asked: “One more. Who, Irnic?”

“The queen.”

“So. Now it’s knowledge we have of her nocturnal trystings, is it!”

“My lady Queen Venhilda,” Irnic said, nodding and looking not happy. “She was well and fully muffled, in a hooded cloak not of fine weave, an old green and red one. A double disguise, then. And… I admit with some shame that I have checked. Such a cloak was indeed in the queen’s chamber this morning. With much mud on its skirts.

Cormac clamped his lips and gave his head a sad shake. “So. Queen Venhilda. It’s not to some nightly lover she goes, but to some damned rite in that abandoned temple! And presided over, I’ve no doubt, by that scowly eastern shaman. And him once unable to save her life! Hmm… mayhap he gained some hold over her then, while she lay so near death-how then was she recognized?”

Irnic smiled, though thinly. “A normal little error. She forgot to remove her ring until just before she was about to enter. By that time the moon was out, and my man saw it clear. What boots it how much care one has for disguise, when one wears the most distinctive ring in the realm?”

“Ah,” Cormac said, and loosed a long pensive sigh. “That ring-Starry Night-a gift of her husband?”

Irnic snorted. “Hardly! Of Lucanor! Once he left her, and Zarabdas effected her cure, she could not remove it. I remember that the king wanted it off. She proved to him that could not be done, and would not allow it to be cut away-as it’s of gold, a good knife would do it, in time.”

“ Lucanor! Rue will be worked by this man, Irnic-is being worked.”

“I know,” the king’s cousin said, very quietly and with dolor, and for a time the two men were silent.

“Well,” the Gael said at last, “to business. Irnic: Tonight we’ll be going in quest of the sirens, or whatever lurks out there, directing kelp to prey on men and the beacon. A chancy business, this invasion of another’s demesne, and worse when it is water and him at home in it. Worse still when the enemy appears… unnatural. Now additional nervousness is on me, Irnic.”

With lips held very tightly, Irnic said, “You think the-the business in the temple may have something to do with the kelp and-Wulfhere’s Ran’s daughters.”

“I think it may.”

“I am personally involved, Cormac. A woman of the cult is married to my cousin,” Irnic said, as if he were not talking about the wife of the King of Galicia. “Take command-my thinking cannot be clear in this.”

“And you are too good a soldier to try. Irnic, Irnic-what a man you are! What great good fortune is on Veremund to have you by him! But I cannot take command-I shall be asea. Or rather hugging the coast in that merchanter coaster, looking for the false beacon.”

“No, I mean-tell me what should be done by my men.”

Again they looked at each other, the tall and dark Gael and the powerfully built Sueve with his auburn hair coiled into a tortured Arabic eight on his head. And Cormac nodded, and spoke.

“On the responsibility of mac Art: Lucanor and all those with him on this night, are to be arrested. All of them. As quietly as possible. Peradventure they could be held there, or near there.”

Irnic, whose face looked as if he’d just bitten into a very green apple, was nodding. “Aye. And… Cormac…”

Cormac turned away from Irnic’s face and put a hand on his shoulder while he stood by his side. He knew the man was in agony over his queen-moreso that her husband was Irnic’s cousin.

“Her too, Irnic, an she be there. Ye knew ye must, man. Bring her away from the others. Mayhap she’ll not be going, this time. As it’s so muffled in the peasantish cloak she goes, mayhap she is unknown to the other… adherents, acolytes… whatever be their purpose.”

“Aye,” Irnic said, very low, and Cormac knew what he was thinking: not likely none would know the queen herself was among them!

“Though there is no doubt she be known to Lucanor.”

“Aye.” Terribly quietly. “And him? What of that damned Syrian himself?”

“He must be taken and kept closely mured up, Irnic. An he has powers, he must be given no opportunity to use them. And be ye mindful that the fellow may have to be made ever silent. An it chance possible to draw a cloak of silence about the queen’s involvement… would that not be the better for all?”

“Were likely necessary all eleven must die. I’d do it, for Veremund.”

“And meanwhile…”

“You suggest that we do not tell the king.”

“That is my meaning. If it is possible, Irnic. I am no Sueve.”

“How well I know, and that I am!” And King Veremund’s military commander nodded, looked gloomy as a priest of the Dead God, and sighed, and departed.

My lady queen , Cormac mac Art thought, remain this night within these walls!

And he went then seeking Clodia, to gain her agreement to suffer a headache and her courses and chilblains as well this night, if necessary, to keep her and the king apart. Mayhap then he and his wife would seek each the companionship of the other; unhappy couple!

The sky hung low in a veiling threat that glowered on the little band of Danes and Sueves. Not even the setting sun was visible. Armoured and well-armed, the silent men accompanied their dark leader onto the dock and aboard the scapha modified to conceal them. Well equipped with grapnels on stout cords the coaster was, as tough to be turned from merchantish pursuits into piratical ones. Spears, too, had been laid aboard, and the sail was of deepest blue.

Though he claimed that no superstition interfered with his excellent mental processes, their Eirrin-born leader had caused the flat-bottomed skiff to be given a name. It had been painted along her hull in green: Sword of Lir. Scapha had become spatha .

The sun that was only a cloud-fronted glow was setting when they eased the square-sterned boat out of Brigantium Harbour and set her big dark sail. At the steering oar was Ivarr of the keen eyes, not he who was surely the best steersman on all the ridge of the world, Ordlaf son of Skel of Dane-mark. Ivarr ruddered the ship out past the lighthouse, then back in shoreward. The tower was unmanned, and its beacon dark.

An the volunteers aboard Sword of Lir saw aught of beacon-light this night, they would know at once that it emanated from their unknown and surely unworldly foe, whether wreckers or sirens or… Ran’s Daughters.

The glow of Behl’s Eye left the sky. Unusually subdued men exchanged looks and glanced this way and that, though from their concealment it was precious little they could see. The world about them went the colour of slate, and then darker still. Their coaster rocked gently amid waters that made lapping, slurping sounds. The men were silent. All knew their vulnerability. The inexperienced Sueves, hardly accustomed to the sea, felt it more than their Danish shipmates. All knew that in full armour as they were, any man who went overboard would sink like a stone and not return in this life.

The sky went indigo-and-black, shot through with streaks of azure and jet and grey-bellied clouds. The sail was hardly lively, in a breeze no more than a zephyr. Seagoing pirates and land-loving horse soldiers alike, the crew breathed deeply of salt-scented air. Crew? Nay; concealed war-men they were; marines.

Cormac stood forward, gazing steadily, moving his head back and forth, back and forth. Beside his left foot lay his helmet, upside down. His deepset eyes moved always, in a roving questing gaze. He strove not to strain his eyes to pierce the dark; any light would be easily seen, this night. Sword of Lir hardly more than drifted along. Across the water came the sounds of insects amid the woods ashore. A frog that must have been fist-sized glugged in a voice deep as the sea.