Elisha Mancer Read online

  Bardolph, the German mancer who escaped the battle in England when Elisha saved Thomas, might have gone anywhere through the Valley of the Shadow, any place where he knew the dead and could make contact through a talisman. Had Bardolph spread word of Elisha’s coming? Elisha could not know if the mancer flagellant recognized him as one who stood against them, or merely as a sensitive magus, to be scorned for his rejection of stronger magic, but he could not wait to be sure—he had to get back to the boat. Their journey would soon diverge from the Rhine and he could not navigate to Trier and the emperor on his own.

  A rattling box was pushed in front of him by a smiling priest, and Elisha dropped in a coin to win his right to pass away.

  “We do not have much time, sir, and should be going,” Brother Gilles pointed out, leading the way toward the door where they had come in, but Elisha hesitated, seeing the rain and the crowds. He might cloak himself in death—would he be able to project a presence so unlike himself as to pass beneath the notice of the mancer?

  When the friar turned to him with raised brows, Elisha said, “I can’t go without a hat.” He sounded like a vain fool, like just the kind of man he’d always hated.

  “Ah, your unfortunate hat, I remember.” The friar cocked his head. “We might exchange robes, sir. Mine has a hood.”

  “It’s asking much of you, Brother.”

  “Nonsense. When we return to our vessel, you shall return the favor by examining my relics. I shouldn’t like the emperors themselves to find my offerings wanting.” The friar untied his belt and began wriggling out of his long woolen habit.

  Elisha followed suit, smoothing down the layers of tunic and undershirt his supposed position as a royal physician required and shivering as he handed over his own wet robe.

  “Do be careful, there are relics stitched in at the cuffs and collar.” Brother Gilles, holding the robe given Elisha by the king himself, clearly considered his own bits of bone to be more valuable.

  Mindful of the garment’s saintly cargo, Elisha drew it on over his head and pulled up the hood. It hid his face and the ample sleeves gave him room to tuck in his hands. More than that, the garment hummed with fragments of the dead. It felt like a musical consort tuning up, a dozen different presences tingling against his skin, some chilly in the ordinary way of death, a few stinging with the cold of betrayal, murder, torture. Elisha took a deep breath to brace himself and opened to their touch, their influence mingling with his own. There could be no finer disguise than this, especially for a man who knew death. Elisha smiled grimly. “Thank you, Brother. Lead on.”

  With this web of relics draped over him, Elisha followed the friar out into the rain. He kept his own awareness thinly stretched, the pain and power of the flagellants’ circle numbed by Gilles’s robe. Cries of hurt and devotion echoed as they passed, and Elisha felt the tingle of the mancer’s interest reaching toward the friar who wore his own robe, but it faded back again, then they moved beyond its reach and hurried down the steps.

  By the time they reached the foreshore, the bells rang out behind them and the captain frowned as he heaved them both into the boat, men standing ready to push it back into the river.

  Before they reached Trier a few days later, Elisha had acquired a handful of bone shards from the friar and carefully stitched them into his own clothing. He selected them based upon their different presences, arranging these fragments of death as an artist arranges his paints. Several of the friar’s other offerings showed signs of medical intervention including saw marks and even wounds from the bombards at Dunbury. The friar’s description of the ugly monk he had received them from matched Morag himself: apparently the mancer had a sideline in passing off parts of soldiers as relics of saints. Without participating in the death himself, Morag couldn’t use these as talismans, so he seemed to have found another way to profit by them.

  Many items in the collection sent the shock of murder straight to Elisha’s center, and the friar did not even need to ask if they were genuine. They might not be the bones of the saints, but they were surely martyred. The supposed Arm of Saint Brendan, which Brother Gilles hoped to offer to the Emperor Ludwig, showed the marks of Elisha’s own saw, but the friar merely mourned the sad circumstances of the monastery forced to let go of any part of their fabled saint, even if it must be by cutting.

  Both men arrived at Trier the happier for having met—and the more prepared for what they must meet next: the Holy Roman Emperors. One emperor needed a relic to appease a pope, the other might well keep a retinue of necromancers to control the throne.

  Chapter 2

  After it diverged from the heavy traffic of the Rhine, the Mosel River flowed between high sloped vineyards with castles every hundred yards, or so it seemed, and backed by hills thick with dark trees. Despite the heavy scent of grapes in the air, the entire land lay too quiet, waiting for war between the rival emperors. Unsettled by Emperor Ludwig’s excommunication, the group of powerful nobles and churchmen who made such decisions had recently elected Charles in opposition to Ludwig. So far, Charles had apparently been patient, waiting for Ludwig to give up the throne of his own accord—or, Elisha suspected, under from the influence of the mancers. Curious that the mancers, who so enjoyed the horrors of battle, would be so patient as well. This was another movement in a dance whose pattern Elisha had not yet discerned.

  When the valley widened at Trier, Elisha breathed more freely without those castles and the deep forest overshadowing his passage. The broad gray wall of the city stretched along the river toward an ancient bridge. The captain pointed out a cluster of pennants snapping over a brick tower just visible within the walls. “The Emperor Ludwig’s banner flies. You’re in luck.”

  Along the river stood a few squat round towers with cranes poking out of their rooftops. The vessel pushed in next to one of these, longshoremen making fast their bowline. With a groan and squeal, the roof of the round building rotated, the crane’s lines lowering toward them, and the crew leapt to work tying off Brother Gilles’s crate to be lifted ashore to a waiting oxcart. Elisha took up his own small chest and waited as a plank was laid from the gunwale to the base of the crane.

  “Is that all?” Gilles asked, shaking his head. “My dear doctor, I don’t know how you expect to make an imperial impression with such limited options.”

  “I’m not looking to be hired, Brother.”

  “No?” Gilles waited, but Elisha said no more, and the friar shrugged. “Perhaps we shall meet again in the emperor’s halls.”

  Bidding him farewell, Elisha swayed across the plank to the solid shore. He crunched his way over the tiny clamshells that decked the muddy foreshore, the smoke of iron smelters clogging his throat until he coughed. From the shape and size of the wall, he expected Trier to be as vast and dense as Cologne, but once inside, found houses clustered on a few streets and separated by fields of grain where farmers wielded their scythes and flails. He walked steadily into town where the houses finally closed out the fields, and it started to feel more like home, with shops at the street level and two or three stories of living space above them. Here, the stone-built houses rose smoothly without the jutting levels of those in London, allowing broad bands of sky to show through. Layers of brick separated some floors while other houses were painted pink, orange, or red, with round-arched windows that seemed to smile down onto the streets.

  The high red tower the captain had pointed out proved to be one end of a huge brick building that looked like half a church, round where the tower rose up a level higher than the rest. Smaller windows had been built into the large red-stone frames as if the current occupants took over an earlier structure. At the flat end of the building, where it joined with a lower cloister, stood a peaked wooden door cut into the brick. Elisha presented his travel documents—a letter dangling with the seals of King Thomas—to a guard who eyed him from the slit in his helmet, then took the parchment inside. Elisha set down his
chest, shaking out his hands, and extended his senses in every direction.

  A shiver of interest reached back to him, and he sensed a presence retreating from the gallery above.

  At length, the soldier returned, this time sliding the bar to open the door beside him. “Leave that here,” he directed, gesturing to the chest. Then he ushered Elisha inside—only to lead him through an opposite door until, disconcertingly, they were outdoors again. The old building’s brick frame stood open to the sky while smaller workshops and stables lined its interior up to an elevated walkway patrolled by a few soldiers. A row of old windows gaped open between the rooftops of the new construction and the wooden supports of the soldier’s walk as if the occupiers were not quite bold enough to fill this grand place. At the base of the tower, another soldier scrutinized him, then motioned them into a gap in the wall where a staircase spiraled upward inside its thickness. The dark forest, the city gates, the brick walls of this inside-out place, now this mouse hole of a staircase enclosed him, and a prickling unease tightened Elisha’s shoulders. Soon, he would find Emperor Ludwig, deliver Thomas’s greetings, and warn him about the mancer threat. After the encounter in Cologne, he expected the mancers to try to stop him—but perhaps they did not anticipate his mission after all.

  The door swung open, soldiers bowing him through, and a happy voice called out, “So here is the emissary of our brother monarch, King Thomas. No, do not stand on ceremony, but tell us how things fare in England?”

  Elisha straightened from his bow to find a man of about his own age, smiling broadly, arms open in welcome. It took a moment to realize the man had spoken in English, with a recognizably French accent. “Well, your—” But Elisha hesitated, frowning. This friendly blond fellow was far too young to be Ludwig, Thomas’s father-in-law.

  “Your Majesty will do.” He continued to smile, a capelet of purple swishing at his knees as he rocked slightly. “You were expecting a different greeting, I presume. Or a different sovereign?” With this last, he switched to German, turning his hand to indicate his surroundings.

  A chuckle swept the little gathering of soldiers and courtiers arrayed about a pair of tall chairs. A few dogs lounged around the first while a lovely woman clad in satin occupied the second chair, looking peevish. An older man with tonsured hair and a golden robe leaned to whisper to her. An archbishop. He straightened up and stalked nearer Elisha, looking him up and down. “Come, Charles, do not taunt the man. It is you who have chosen to raise the pennant of your enemy alongside your own.”

  The blond man—Emperor Charles IV—sighed. “Any day now, we expect the man who claims my crown, and we do wish him to feel welcome. His wife is pregnant—very much so—and they travel slowly. They have come so far as Heidelberg, but that is still a few days’ journey away.”

  The archbishop took over as Charles resumed his throne. “His Majesty enjoys greeting foreigners because he delights to speak in other tongues.” The old man did not smile, but maintained his air of appraisal. “We are preparing for our luncheon, and you shall join us, of course.”

  Elisha gave another bow. By rights, he had wandered into the enemy camp, yet they received him as a friend. Tension gathered in his neck, but he forced himself to smile. “Of course, Your Majesty, thank you.” Already servants bustled about setting trestle tables and bringing up benches and chairs. “I expected to find—Duke Ludwig here,” he began, employing a title Ludwig held undisputed.

  “And so he should have been,” Charles said, lounging in his throne as platters of food were placed before him. “If it were not for Margaret’s pregnancy, I should guess that he is punishing me. Last time we arranged for such a meeting, it was I who was detained.” He popped a handful of almonds in his mouth and crunched them down. “No matter. Baldwin is an excellent host.” He tipped his head to the archbishop, who gave an almost imperceptible sigh. Hosting an emperor could not be any easier than hosting a king, especially under the present circumstances. Archbishop Baldwin. Elisha searched his memory for the information he’d been given before leaving England, and placed the name: Baldwin was not only the archbishop, but also Charles’s uncle. A man to be reckoned with.

  The lady let out a stream of elegant French, plucking at Charles’s sleeve to draw him nearer. He gestured toward Elisha, answering in the same language, and Elisha caught a few words. “My wife, Blanche,” Charles supplied with a note of apology. “She speaks no English, and little German, though she is learning.” He smiled at her fondly. “But come, you must tell us the events in England. It has been a difficult year, has it not?”

  Sinking into the offered chair, Elisha nearly laughed. A difficult year—and none could know it better. He chose his words with care, hoping he sounded a neutral party in the events of the past summer. “King Hugh died in June, at the battle of Dunbury, against a duke he considered to be in revolt.” Elisha had killed the king, but this did not need to be shared. “We had believed that Prince Thomas turned traitor, but this proved false, so he succeeded his father, but his younger brother was killed.”

  “His brother and heir, if I am not mistaken,” Charles mused. “Pity.”

  Elisha expanded his awareness through the room, the table and the floor. He let his left eye unfocus, distracted by the curving bits of shadow that clung to the relics he wore, bits of death forever stained by the shades of the living people they once had been. A mass of similar shadows rose and shifted in the corner where an ornate cabinet stood—likely some sort of travelling altar—tended by a pair of hooded monks.

  Elisha had been too close to all of it to think in such political terms. It had never before been his world to understand, now he must at least try. He came here because he knew the mancers—not because this world made any sense to him. He brought his attention back to Charles and replied, “We found that his eldest daughter, Alfleda, survived the attack that killed her mother. She had been taken as a hostage, but she has been restored to him.”

  “Hmm. Interesting. Has he spoken yet of her marriage prospects?”

  Marriage? Alfleda was eight. Before Elisha could form an appropriate response, Charles continued, “Or perhaps, his own? Surely he shall be seeking a new wife, especially now that his heir has passed.” Charles crossed himself with a languid grace.

  The duke’s daughter, Rosalynn, had married Thomas and been killed by a necromancer once she became pregnant with his child. She died believing that Elisha had killed her. Elisha took a swallow of the wine poured for him, letting it warm his throat before he answered, “King Thomas has recently re-married, but his wife is . . . not well. She may not recover.” Brigit. Thomas married her at the depths of his grief, to give his realm an heir in the form of the child she already carried. His brother’s child, so most believed. Elisha’s chest tightened. Not merely his own child, also the heir to the crown of England. If it survived, if its mother’s unwaking sleep could be prolonged until the baby could be delivered. And there was the matter of Thomas’s confession, the hot, confusing weight of the king’s admiration. Elisha took another drink—longer this time—and wished he knew how to change the subject.

  “Pity,” Charles repeated. “I have a sister of marriageable age who is being raised at court in Paris. The alliances could be quite valuable. But of course I wish his wife a swift recovery.” He raised his goblet and cried, “To the health of the king of England, and of his bride!”

  The gathering raised their goblets, echoed the blessing and drank.

  “But you have not spoken of sorcery,” Charles prompted, setting down his goblet and snapping for it to be refilled.

  A sense of heightened awareness passed through the room, and Elisha resisted the urge to look around. Someone else wanted the answer to that question, someone in contact with this floor or this table. “There have been rumors, Your Majesty,” Elisha said. “There are always rumors.”

  “Rumors only? My foster father, King Philippe of France, has lately
been plagued by witches. He has set about a program to remove their taint completely, and he has been given to understand that England was already infested with diabolical magic.”

  “Hence his attempt at invasion.” Elisha set down his goblet and met the gaze of the would-be emperor. “Which was firmly repelled.”

  Archbishop Baldwin tapped his knife upon his silver plate. “Please, gentlemen. We seek only polite conversation at meals. Surely such matters can wait a better time.”

  Charles, the affable emperor, was raised by the king of France, a king who was killing all of his magi—likely at the behest of the mancers. Charles himself might be under their influence; it behooved Elisha to tread carefully and quickly in the opposite direction. “I do appreciate your hospitality, Your Grace, and Your Majesty, but if Duke Ludwig is at Heidelberg, then I should make haste to see him there.”

  “You have only just arrived, and surely are tired from your journey. You must be our guest tonight, at least,” Charles protested. “I promise I shall speak no more of France. There is bad blood between your great sovereigns, and it is not for us to resolve.”

  The archbishop gave an approving nod. “But you have told us nothing of yourself, sir. You are a doctor? An unusual choice for a messenger.”

  The rich food did not sit well in Elisha’s stomach—or it might have been the conversation, fraught with dimensions he did not fully grasp—but he felt a little sour as he sought to explain why he had come, and realized that he had already given a reason. “We are concerned for King Thomas’s queen, Your Grace. When I have discharged my duty to Duke Ludwig, I am to inquire of the local doctors about her condition.”

  Baldwin inclined his head gravely while Charles explained to Blanche. The pretty queen finally showed some color and spoke animatedly, something about a famous doctor. After a moment, Charles said, “My wife suggests that you must contact Guy de Chauliac, the personal physician of the Holy Father. I can, of course, give you letters of introduction should you wish to travel to Avignon to consult him. Also the university at Heidelberg may be of use to you.” Charles toyed with a pheasant leg as he spoke, then glanced again at Elisha. “I myself shall found a university on my return to Prague. We shall be looking for the finest professors . . . if you know anyone you would recommend.”