Janny Wurts - To Ride Hell’s Chasm

‘Cafferty meant well,’ the physician apologized. ‘That’s his way of saying we don’t have a curative treatment.’ He glanced down, noticed his dripping hands, and sighed for the oversight that invariably made him neglect the use of a towel.

‘Your seeress drowned,’ he ran on, ‘though you know that already. My report would have reached you at daybreak. More questions? Ask quickly’ He darted a glance sideways. ‘I have a client waiting. A first pregnancy, bless her. She’s perched on the stool half unclothed, anxious and not at all comfortable.’

Mykkael nodded. ‘Quick, then. The apothecary agreed with your evaluation, but also concluded the old woman wasn’t poisoned.’

The physician stopped, caught the nearest carved chair, then sat down at the glass-topped table and folded his hands. ‘Oh dear. That’s not what we expected to hear.’ His brow furrowed under the combed fringe of his hair, gently faded to ginger and salt. ‘You now have a vexing mystery to solve.’

Mykkael raised his eyebrows. ‘Say on?’

The plight of his nervous client forgotten, the physician ticked off points on his fingers. ‘She drowned. In the moat. Lungs were sodden with water tinged green with algae. But she did not fall in while she was still conscious. She had long nails. None was broken, or dirt-caked. I saw no evidence that she ever attempted to claw her way up the bank or cling to the slime-coated rock of the wall.’

‘She could not swim?’ Mykkael suggested. ‘Sometimes panic sends that sort straight down.’

The physician blinked. ‘They always struggle. This one’s clothes were not torn or disarrayed. And she swallowed no water. Drownings do that, as they flounder.’ He paused to rub at his temples, as though the fraught pressure of his fingers might ease the troublesome bent of his thoughts. ‘Her stomach was empty, except for a pauper’s dinner of beans and bread.’ Silent a moment, he finally looked up, his mild face taut with sobriety. ‘Captain, I’m loath to be first to suggest this, but—’

Mykkael voiced the horror without hesitation. ‘Sorcerers can steal the mind, I have seen. Their victims are often reft of intelligence. A woman touched so might fall into the moat. She would not struggle, or swim, or cry out.’

The stout man at the table heaved an unhappy sigh. ‘She would simply breathe in cold water on reflex, unaware of the fact as it killed her.’

‘Thank you,’ said Mykkael. ‘I’m sorry to say you’ve confirmed my suspicions. At least the crown treasury will compensate you for the unpleasant service. The keep bursar will deliver your fee, at my order.’

Pale with distress, the physician stood up. ‘Oh dear. You think that mad seeress knew something about the princess’s disappearance?’

‘I heard nothing about that, and neither have you!’ Mykkael snapped. ‘Where a sorcerer hunts, that is wisest.’ On swift afterthought, he added, ‘Does the apothecary suspect?’

‘Master Beyjall?’ The physician thought carefully. ‘If he does, he stayed close-mouthed about it.’

‘The man learned his trade in the Cultwaen Highlands,’ Mykkael said, all at once pressed to urgency. Time fleeted past, while an unseen enemy moved apace. ‘Beyjall should have seen a sorcerer’s workings before this. He likely knows not to speak of such things and seed fear that might draw arcane notice. Listen to me. If you sense any creeping unease, or have the unsettled feeling you’re being watched, go and ask the apothecary for a candle to burn after dark. If he doesn’t understand what that means, or if he says he can’t help, go to my personal quarters in the keep. Bring him along with you, and both of you stay there until I come back. Can you do that?’

No coward, the physician straightened stout shoulders. ‘You have my promise. I’ll see you out. Wherever you’re going, I wish you bright guidance. I’ll say this also. If King Isendon doesn’t appreciate what you risk on behalf of his daughter, I do. We are fortunate to have you in charge of the garrison. Warded candle or not, I shall pray on my knees for your safety.’

‘Pray on your knees for your own,’ Mykkael snapped, then made his way out to the street.

The physician watched him go, professionally saddened by the halt in that fluid, athletic step. He stayed by the door until Mykkael’s white shirt rounded the sunlit corner, leaving behind an uneasy stillness, astringent with the breeze riffling down off the glaciers.

MIDDAY SAW THE COURT LADIES RETIRED TO THE SANCTUARY TO HOLD VIGIL FOR PRINCESS ANJA. THE MARBLE-FACED BUILDING, WITH ITS queer, triangular portals and gold spires, crowned the highest point in the city. From the pinnacle at the stairhead, the view encompassed the three tiers of the walls, with the banners over the Highgate streaming like snippets of scarlet yarn in the breeze. Above, the sky hung like a bowl, the horizon notched by the serried ramparts of the peaks, dazzling under the sunlight.

‘There, do you see them?’ Sweating out the dregs of his binge, his face ashen from the rigorous ascent, Prince Kailen pointed from his perch on the paw of the stone lion flanking the Sanctuary’s entry. ‘Kerries will pluck mountain sheep off the high cliffs. You can tell where they nest by the middens of bones piled under the ledges.’

Far off, two pairs of black specks circled, the outstretched curve of their wings delicate as pen strokes in the clear air.

‘They don’t threaten cattle?’ Devall’s heir apparent leaned on the lion’s tail, a touch breathless in his neat velvet. His retinue of servants, strung out below, still laboured to climb the steep stair.

‘They can.’ Eyes shut, since the stabbing brilliance played havoc with his pounding hangover, Kailen added, ‘For centuries, the guard’s archers fare out every spring to hunt down the fledgling young. Adults who lair in the close peaks are poisoned. Naught can be done with the mated pairs flocked in the rookeries over Hell’s Chasm. The country’s too rough to clean the nests out, so we’ll never be rid of the scourge.’

‘No boon to invaders,’ the Prince of Devall observed. He peered into the shadowed interior of the Sanctuary where lighted candles flickered like stars. ‘How long, before your court ladies retire?’

Kailen yawned. ‘Not long.’ He settled his broad shoulders against the lion’s stone mane in a vain effort to ease his discomfort. ‘The priest and priestess lead the prayers at midnight and noon. There, can you hear? They are ending the ritual.’

Inside, echoing under the cavernous vault, a male speaker cried praise to the powers above. Voices murmured in answer. Then the boys’ choir chanted the final verses pleading for intercession. The singing rang out with a purity to scald human heartstrings, the liquid-glass harmony braided into the spruce-scented hush of high altitude.

The Prince of Devall inhaled the wafted perfume of the incense, ringed fingers tapping his knee. While the first of his puffing lackeys arrived, he bent his hawk’s survey downwards. ‘Merciful grace! In such close-knit quarters, how can one woman whose face is well known vanish without leaving a trace?’

‘The king’s men will find her. They must!’ Kailen cradled his aching head, the heart of the realm he would one day inherit spread below like a model in miniature. The sun-washed tableau seemed peaceful as ever.

Only small details bespoke the grave trouble slipped in through the well-guarded gates. Taskin’s patrols came and went, double-file rows of neat lancers threading through the carriage traffic in the broad avenues above Highgate. In the queen’s formal gardens, amid lawns like set emeralds, two dozen tiny surcoated figures enacted the midday change of the guard.