Andrew Offutt: The Tower of Death

Balsus dropped the winged serpent on the table beside the casket.

“Handsome,” he said casually. “Yes. But as I mentioned, trade becomes ruinous. And there are bribes. The custom-house must document, for lawful credibility, such goods as I buy from you… the which is naturally not done for love. Its chief grows more and more demanding. I’ve cut back his profits, and chanced the sale of more common goods without telling him, but what you bring tonight is not of that class. ’Tis conspicuous-such as none but kings or great nobles can purchase. Such folk are finicky over forms of law, if not their letter.”

“We can spare ye the danger and worry,” Cormac said bluntly. “It’s kings and great nobles there are in the west of Britain whose fathers never bowed to Rome. These are not, I promise ye, finicky with forms of law. It’s no such foolish questions as where we got it they’d be asking.”

“There now, father, see what you’ve done!” This from Clodia, leaning on Cormac’s shoulder. “This customs official Nestor is greedy, true-but he takes what he can get, and sweats and shivers o’ nights, I shouldn’t wonder, lest the Consul get wind of his… private transactions. What can he do but complain? Nay, he’s that eager to tumble me he scarcely even does that-the fool, hankering to mix business with venery!” (Which was Cormac’s own opinion on the matter, and the reason he had not tumbled Clodia in the years of their acquaintance.) “I doubt he so much as suspects he’s been cheated.”

Someone found that cue too apt for resisting.

An object, impelled up the stairs by a casual toss, arced through the doorway left open for the promised ale. Its distinct sodden thump on the floor drew their eyes, which widened, Balsus’s and Clodia’s in profound horror. The object rolled to a terminus and tilted a face of starkest agony towards them.

Balsus croaked involuntarily, “ Nestor! ”

Cormac did three things, and on the instant, and so near simultaneously that the difference was not a practical issue. He shoved Clodia violently away lest she cling to him in shock. He sprang to his feet, overturning his chair. He ripped sword from sheath with a harsh metal whine.

And one action more he took. Stooping, he snatched his helmet and covered his square-cut black mop with it.

All this was done whiles Wulfhere and Thorfinn were rearing upright, in an explosion of hair-trigger response too swift for the eye. Then Cormac was ominously, totally still again, a strip of edged pointed steel in one hand and readiness to kill in every line of him. Yellow lamplight shone on his mail and helmet.

Men seethed into the room, ten or a dozen, disposing themselves either side of the door.

Cormac recognized them as Franks.

Ax-armed they were, in long leather vests and closefitting trews; with the backs of their heads shaved bald, most of the remaining hair drawn up in a thick tress on top of the head and the rest combed forward in a fringe over their brows, they could be from no other tribe.

No half-civilized Goths or Vandals had they here, but untamed killers out of the forest marches.

“Let nobody,” a voice came from the dark beyond the door, “move a finger.”

The speaker sauntered in. Lithe and handsome, indeed over-handsome, begemmed and perfumed and shaven, his dark brown hair exquisitely barbered in Roman bangs, he was a picture. Limpid hazel eyes were scarcely needed to complete it; despite their colour, though, they had even less warmth in them than Cormac’s. Too, they were as watchful, if not so slitted and deep-set.

Wulfhere looked infinities of scorn at him. The Dane’s horned helmet stood on the table. Coolly, deliberately, he set it on his shaggy head. The stranger betrayed no irritation.

“A defiant fellow,” he said affectionately. “A fearless, overgrown rat in the woodwork of the kingdom! You are going to squeak like a mouse between the claws. I have some clever iron devices that will reduce you to manageable size, a nose here, a finger-joint there. And your glowering, dark-visaged friend.”

None answered him. He lifted the head of the customs official by the blood-splashed hair.

“This fool could tell you; were he not forever dumb. But perchance his expression says enough. He did not die graciously… and he did suspect.”

Thump went the ghastly thing on the table. Clodia started. The stranger lifted a brow in appreciation of the sight that made.

“Your late friend Nestor contracted a fever last month, and thought it was plague. He called for a priest right enow, and he couldn’t babble his confession sufficiently fast. The priest broke the confidence of confessional to gain favour with his bishop, Remigius of Reims… and in my turn I owe the bishop a favour, now. There is always proof to be had when one knows where to look for it. The king was pleased… behold in me the new customs assessor of Nantes!

“My name is Sigebert. It will be better known for this night’s work-a fortunate one for my future, eh? The new broom sweeping briskly, as they say. One fat traitorous merchant and a trio of sea-pirates on the first night of my office, all for torment! I judge your profession aright, do I not? Methinks I can even guess your names, or two of them. The Count of Burdigala might pay well to have you handed across the Loire into his hands. My king would approve the transaction, I am sure.”

Sigebert loved, Cormac noted, the sound of his own sweet voice. Aye, and in particular when it was explaining how clever he was. Cormac despised the man, but he remained silent.

Sigebert raked the woman from hair to feet with sparkling eyes.

“You need not suffer, my dear,” he said politely. “Unless of course you’re of firm mind to join your father and this low company you’ve fallen into, whither they are bound. Let me advise you: welcome me instead to Nantes in appropriate fashion.”

Clodia shuddered. Her father, no doubt, would have pleaded for leniency, but he was too terror-stricken to find his tongue. Such was never a fault of Cormac’s, and he felt that Sigebert had orated long enough.

“Be not a fool, man,” he said. “I suppose none of your soldiers is after having a Latin education? They do not look it.”

“They apprehend not a word we are saying.”

“And I’d lay wagers that it is not by chance. Well, then-take ye Nestor’s private arrangements unto yourself, as ye have his house and station. Accept our bond that we will deliver ye full accounting of all we… find, asea, and a third share in the profits. They ought to suffice for such splitting, with the Nantes customs assessor to pass us intelligence. And that ye may look better than him who preceded ye, to be sure, we’d be looting no Roman craft. In such wise it’s happy and wealthy we’ll all be!”

Sigebert considered the swiftly sketched proposition. Watching, the Gael began to believe he had talked his way out of this trap.

He knew Sigebert’s kind. There were Franks in some numbers at the court of Soissons; their kingdom lay to the east, where they had been settled as federates of the Empire. The polite fiction was that they were still its subjects. Franks made up a large part of King Syagrius’s army. Much rarer were polished courtiers like this one, but they existed, wearing Latin speech and Latin education like their jewels, and Sigebert had seemingly learned Latin calculation as well. It had not changed him.

Under costume and manners this Sigebert was Frankish to the marrow: treacherous, bloody and cruel.

Thus too had Clodia assessed him, with no difficulty. She knew men. When she thought of having to please this one abed, and gave thought to what that might involve, claws of panic terror ripped at her mind. She could not help shaking.