The Justice of Kings, page 12
“I feel it too,” I said.
It sounds foolish and not a little dramatic, looking back on it now. It is funny to think how quickly we fell for one another. It is a thing that only the young seem capable of. But I think I would be doing both my younger self and Matas a disservice to simply dismiss my feelings as the wanton affection of a maid. Just because it was quick did not make it any less real. I sometimes have to force myself to remember that.
“Will you tell me what you know?” I asked. “I promise I will come and see you again soon. As soon as I can.”
“Of course. But it is not much. Her name is Sanja Bauer. There was nothing special about her that I can recall. I have never spoken to her, though I used to see her around the town often enough. She is probably about our age.”
“Lord Bauer said that she had a calling to take the cloth.”
Matas shrugged. “I know she is up at the kloster. I’ve never really thought about it, but it did seem to happen very suddenly. And she has not left since, as far as I know.”
I frowned. “But the kloster is less than a mile away,” I said. “There is no ordinance in the Nema Creed that prevents people from leaving, is there?”
Matas shook his head. “No; they come down all the time. Most of the Nemans will be here for Wintertide, for one reason or another. You can see them fussing about the temple. And they bring gifts to the alms houses and orphanages as is traditional for the season. They are supposed to take in the beggars too, for the winter, but judging from the frozen corpses I have seen at the temple doors they have not,” he added bitterly.
I nodded absently. I remembered being on the receiving end of similar charitable activities in Muldau. The monks and nuns used to come down from the klosters and distribute food and old clothes to us. Some of them were deeply virtuous, but there were plenty who preyed on the poor and young. I had no love for the Sovan religion, but I actively despised the hypocrisy which seemed to infect its more zealous adherents.
“But Sanja does not come?” I asked.
“I couldn’t say with certainty, but I don’t remember seeing her for a while now. Maybe… a couple of years?”
“How can anyone be certain she is still there?” I asked.
“Oh, I think Lord Bauer goes to visit her from time to time. I believe she is very devout. It is not unheard of for some to remain within the walls of the kloster for their whole lives, especially the old and crippled. For anyone else… Well, religion does funny things to your brain.”
I was about to agree with him when a thought struck me. “You said she has not been seen for a couple of years?”
“Well, I have not seen her,” Matas said. “That’s not to say others have not.”
“But you said a couple of years.”
“Yes.”
“Two years?”
He shrugged. “Could be about that.”
“Two years three months?”
“Nema, I cannot be that specific!”
“Think!”
He looked surprised. He paused for a long moment. “Yes, I’d say so. I remember because I saw her at the Harvestide fair. And I do not remember seeing her since.”
My mind raced. “I must speak with Sir Konrad,” I said.
“Helena, is everything all right? What is it that I’ve said?”
“I’m sorry, I have to go.” As I spoke, I heard a horse’s hooves thumping in the mud outside, and someone from the tower above us hailing the rider. I recognised Bressinger’s voice calling back.
“That is Dubine,” I said. I planted a quick kiss on Matas’s cheek. “I will see you again soon.” With that, I hurried out the door.
“Ah,” a serjeant said as he saw me. “There’s a gentleman here to see you, miss.”
“Helena!” Bressinger called up. He was sat atop Gaerwyn. He did not look angry, as I had expected; rather he bore a strange, urgent countenance. “I have been searching for you for the thick end of an hour.”
“I must speak with Sir Konrad,” I said, hurrying down the steps of the curtain wall.
“Nema’s arse, you smell like a bonfire,” Bressinger said as I approached. He had my cloak with him, and nodded to the one I was wearing. “You’d best give that back to the lad; he’ll freeze without it.”
I quickly removed it and hurried back up the steps, but the serjeant intercepted me. “I’ll take it to him,” he said with a wink. I muttered thanks and made my way back down to Bressinger.
“Come, quickly,” he said as he pulled me up on Gaerwyn.
“What’s the matter? I asked, pulling my own cloak about me. “I know I must speak with Sir Konrad.”
“Aye, that you must,” he said, kicking Gaerwyn to a canter. “But not about your spat. Events have overtaken it.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“A rider has come, bearing another letter for Sir Konrad. It is from Sir Otmar Frost, up in Rill.”
“What has he written?” I asked, shouting over the roar of the wind.
“The last words he’ll ever write, Helena. The man has been murdered.”
IX
Return to Rill
“Bad tidings and wise counsel are as easily ignored as one another.”
OLD MAGISTRATUM PROVERB
I can still remember vividly that journey back through the eastern closure. My heart had not stopped pounding since mine and Matas’s tryst; but whereas before it had fluttered with excitement, now it thumped with dread – and only part of it was to do with the death of Sir Otmar.
It was rare for Vonvalt and I to argue. We bickered and sniped, as people who spend too much time in one another’s company are wont to do, but we seldom exchanged truly heated words. He was slow to anger, and in keeping with Sovan mores considered public displays of emotion to be vulgar. If I became angry, he tended simply to ignore or dismiss me until I calmed down.
To see Vonvalt genuinely angry was therefore a frightening experience. Despite Bressinger’s words to the contrary, I was anticipating a difficult confrontation.
Gaerwyn took us back through the closure at a faster pace than was permissible inside the town walls. It had not snowed yet, but clouds were piled high above the Vale, blotting out the weak winter light. I was in no hurry to see Vonvalt, and my mood sank to its lowest ebb as we closed on Lord Sauter’s residence. Already some of the street lanterns in the town’s central streets were lit, though the place was emptying by the minute, commonfolk and merchants alike driven away by the biting cold and the impending snowfall.
“I’ll see to the horse,” Bressinger said as we were admitted through the front gate by the guard and I dismounted. “Sir Konrad is in his chambers.” He paused. “If you want my advice, you would do well to tell him the truth of your feelings. Sir Konrad needs his people present, their minds turned to the problems at hand. He cannot afford to have you distracted, now more than ever.”
I approached the house like a girl approaching the gallows. I could see the flickering light emanating from Vonvalt’s chambers at the top corner of the mayor’s residence. I walked into the house and decloaked. There was no servant to greet me. I hung my cloak up and removed my boots, and walked up the stairs.
“Helena?” I heard Vonvalt call out. I tried to gauge his tone, but it was impossible.
“Yes,” I called back. It almost came out as a whisper.
“I am in my room. Come.”
I crossed the upstairs hallway and entered Vonvalt’s chamber. He was sitting on the window seat again, once more stripped down to his shirt and breeches. The room was full of pipe smoke, and I could see and smell spiced wine on the little table next to the fire. The logs crackled and spat.
“Dubine has told you about Sir Otmar?” he asked.
“He has,” I said.
“Then you know the situation is very serious.”
“I do.”
“Good. Then let us spare five minutes, and no more, to clear the air. I have more important things to worry about than whether my clerk likes me or not.”
Despite his words, he did not look angry. Just grim.
“I owe you an apology,” I said nervously.
“You do,” Vonvalt said. “Sit.”
I sat.
“Have some wine.”
I poured some wine and took a long draw. That, and the fire next to me, thawed me out quickly.
We sat in silence for a moment. I waited for Vonvalt to speak, though much of my initial dread had evaporated.
“When I first saw you, Helena,” he said, looking out of the window, “I pitied you. You were a maid, dressed in rags and temple cast-offs, subsisting on marsh ale and alms. Your parents were dead. You and hundreds more were simple wards of the state.” He sighed, long and loud. “I was not an orphan, of course, but I lost my mother at a young age. I think you know this already. Disease accounts not for rank; it takes emperors as swiftly and easily as it takes paupers. Well, it took my mother, surely enough. My father paid a king’s ransom to the apothecaries, but there was nothing they could do.” He took a long draw of pipe smoke. “My point is, Helena, I know what it is like to lose a parent at a young age. And at an older one.
“I pitied you, but I saw promise in you. It rose off of you like an aura. You had sharp, intelligent eyes. I could see that the way you acted – like a street urchin, although you had temple make-work to keep you busy – was learned behaviour, not natural. You wore it like a cloak, to survive.
“I knew I could use you. Of all the beggars and whores and urchins and cutpurses in that wretched city, you were the only one with the temerity to try and rob me, an Imperial Justice. I indentured you. I taught you the ways of Sova, of Imperial law and jurisprudence and the Magistratum. I taught you languages and manners. I gave you an education that many lords would kill for for their offspring. I paid you to boot.”
“I know I have been ungr—” I tried, but he held up a hand to silence me.
“Helena, I am not a fool. I know that a maid such as yourself has no innate desire to become an Imperial Magistrate. I know that our lifestyle is not conducive to developing friendships, or relationships. I am not surprised that you are taken with this lad in the watch. To be frank with you, Helena, the only thing that surprises me is that this issue is only now rearing its head. You are, what, nineteen years old? ’Tis common enough to be three years married at your age.”
He took a sip of wine, and a draw on his pipe. “I am very fond of you, Helena – though not in the way you intimated earlier,” he added with his characteristic dourness, and I blushed furiously. “But I will not force you into a career and a life you’ve no interest in. It is no good for you and it is no good for me. So, I have a proposal for you.”
I sat nervously. I had not expected any of this. I had expected harsh words and a frank dismissal. His reasonable treatment of me made me feel even worse. Already I was doubting myself, questioning whether I really wanted to stay in Galen’s Vale. After all, would I not grow bored? Was I not better off staying with Vonvalt until we reached Sova? My thoughts were so clouded on the matter I felt as though I wanted to scream.
“Our business here is progressing quickly. We will either find out who murdered Lady Bauer in the next few days, or no one will ever find out. In that span of time, you will work dutifully and diligently. I will see that you are as involved in the matter as I can make possible. At the end of it, you can decide whether you want to remain employed as my clerk and apprentice, or whether you want to stay here. Does that sound fair to you?”
It was. It was so completely, objectively fair that I began to cry.
“I’m sorry,” I said through my tears. “I am sorry for the way I have been recently. I cannot help my feelings. I am so torn on the matter.” I did not cry often in front of Vonvalt, and he looked distinctly awkward.
“I am not trying to upset you Helena,” he said. “I am trying to find a solution that works for both of us. The fact of the matter is, for all I want you to remain as my apprentice, if you resent me then your work will be poor and we will part on inevitably bad terms. And neither of us wants that, do we?”
“No,” I said, wiping my eyes furiously. “No, I would hate that.”
“Good.” He extinguished his pipe and stood. He picked up a letter from next to him and passed it to me. I could see at the top an imprint of the device of Sir Otmar – the boar’s head and broken lance – and from the shaky scrawl I could see that it had been written in a great hurry. Brown stains which could only have been old blood marked the parchment in great smears.
“What happened?” I asked, my hands trembling slightly.
“A lad from Kolst came across Sir Otmar at the Gabler’s Mount watchtower. Sir Otmar had been wounded, gravely. He gave the boy his seal and enough money for the Imperial Relay and bade him find me.” Vonvalt gestured to the letter. “Read it.”
I looked at the letter again. It was barely three lines long, and I could only make out the following words:
sir konrd
all in Rill slain
the PRIEst
“Prince of Hell,” I murmured. I looked up. “Claver.”
“Come,” Vonvalt said. “Lord Sauter and Sir Radomir are waiting. We’ve much more serious business to attend to.”
The mayor, Sir Radomir and Bressinger were sitting in the reception chamber, the latter two still dressed for outdoors and warming themselves in front of the hearth. Sauter stood as we entered.
“You have received ill tidings, Justice,” Sauter said, wringing his hands.
“Seldom a day goes by when I do not,” Vonvalt said. “Sit, all. I must be brief.”
Everyone sat. Vonvalt remained standing, as though he were addressing a courtroom. “At the very end of Vandahar, on the eve of Goss, we came across a small village in Tolsburg. Rill. There we discovered the widespread practice of Draedism.”
Sir Radomir nodded. “’Tis common enough, in the north.”
“Indeed,” Vonvalt said. “The lord of the manor was Sir Otmar Frost. He was not a man of great means, but he struck me as decent, and a man with the welfare of his charges at heart. I fined him for turning a blind eye to the practice of Draedism and commanded that he erect a shrine to Nema somewhere prominent.”
“A just outcome,” Lord Sauter murmured uncertainly. Draedism had different reputations in different places, but somewhere like Galen’s Vale probably had not had to deal with pagan rebels like those towns and wayforts on the Tollish border and up in north-west Haunersheim.
Vonvalt sighed. I could see he was angry. “At the time we were riding with a young and zealous Neman priest. He disagreed with me on how best to deal with the villagers – though certainly he had no basis on which to do so – and we parted on poor terms. I have heard separately from a colleague that this priest has made an ally of the Margrave of Seaguard. Now I have received a letter from Sir Otmar himself, telling me that he and all the villagers have been slain. I fear that since our parting ways, this priest has used this friendship with the margrave to take matters into his own hands.”
“Is it not treason to countermand a Justice?” Sir Radomir asked.
“It is,” Vonvalt said.
“What do you propose to do?” Sir Radomir asked eventually.
Vonvalt drew himself up. “I need to find out what has happened. My guess is that this priest, Claver, has probably taken a posse of Templar initiates south from Seaguard.”
Sir Radomir nodded slowly. “The fortress has a reputation for cruelty.”
“But it is an Imperial castle!” Lord Sauter said. “They are bound by the laws of Sova – by your decision as Justice! Are they not?”
Vonvalt shrugged. “The north is a wild and desolate place,” he said. “In many places it is as rough as the Frontier. Seaguard is attacked frequently by northmen and pagans. The margrave will have taken his own view on how to deal with a place like Rill, particularly if he is a pious man.”
“But it is not within his gift,” Sir Radomir said.
“No,” Vonvalt said. “It is not. Which is why I must undertake an urgent investigation.”
“You mean to leave the Vale?” Sauter asked.
“Yes,” Vonvalt said. “I expect I will be gone for balance of Rusen. In the circumstances, the timing is most inopportune; but I am sorry to say that these matters overtake the investigation of Lady Bauer’s murder somewhat. Dubine will remain behind and act as my proxy. He will continue to assist Sir Radomir.”
I looked immediately to Bressinger, who accepted this unwelcome news with a simple nod. I was sure he would protest later in private, but it would have been unseemly for him to do so at that time.
“There is no sense in delaying until the morning. I will make for Vasaya immediately,” Vonvalt said. “Lord Sauter, you were going to provide me with a list of the town’s council members and their duties. Please now see that you give it to Dubine.”
“Of course,” Lord Sauter said, confused and anxious. It was clear that neither he nor Sir Radomir wanted Vonvalt to leave.
“In which case, I will bid you all farewell – for the time being,” Vonvalt said, forging ahead with single-minded determination. “Dubine, Helena, come with me.”
There was no more discussion. Bressinger and I left the room and followed Vonvalt upstairs to his chamber. He closed the door behind us.
“Sire, you cannot—” Bressinger started with clockwork predictability, but Vonvalt silenced him.
“No, Dubine. You will not accompany me. I need you here. Despite Sir Radomir’s best efforts, I fear this investigation will fail without Imperial intervention. Examine the list that Lord Sauter gives you, detailing Bauer’s duties as a member of the town council. Once you know what they are, make enquiries – particularly of those duties he neglected to mention to us.”
“Sire,” Bressinger said, sullen. Vonvalt ignored his tone. He was too busy packing his things into a leather satchel. He would travel light.
“The next most important step is to track down Zoran Vogt. He is the key that unlocks the next door. It is a shame I cannot be there to use the Emperor’s Voice on him; you must get as much from him – using legal means – as you can.”
