Earls of Iron: Part 5 of 6

Fables of Blood and Fate
Book One
Earls of Iron


A Fantasy Novel
by
Jason Norman Thompson
Part 5: 58,685-76,268 words 
The Pyre

The breeze has almost died and plumes of grey woodsmoke stream straight up into the air from the huge bonfire that blazes a short distance back from the road. Slaughtered assassins lie on a bed of grass and wildflowers before the death pyre. The corpses have been arranged in supine poses of rest.
Deathmaster Serpere Sinuosus’s lips curl in disgust as he regards his fallen comrades with a baleful eye. The rest of the troop stand at his back and light from the fire washes over his face to lend his features a fearsome demoniacal cast that perfectly reflects his mood as he walks along the line of bodies to tally his losses.
Four Murderers and two Killers and two Butchers and two Assassins. Ten dead.
The poxy Huntress had killed seven assassins and three horses with her pet bear before they had a chance to retaliate. Another three riders and their mounts had gone down in the beast’s final charge after which it had lumbered off into the hills. Seven more assassins were wounded and a horse with broken legs had to be put down. Only eight of his companions had escaped the encounter unharmed.
These were sore loses for the Assassins’ Guild to bear. Deathlord Mancus Lineamentum would be livid. More than the fury of his immediate superior Serpere dreaded the Guildleader’s reaction: he would doubtless be punished. All because of that accursed Huntress.
It was bizarre. None of the assassins involved in the major massacre at Earlshome had died or even been gravely hurt. Yet a tenth of the Guild’s strength had been lost while engaged in the minor matters of murdering the Bridal Party and the Nabbing Gang. Added to which the contract had still not been executed because Castus Ferrumanus still drew breath. The damned Huntress was to blame for that too.
Serpere returned to the start of the line. The first four dead were simple Murderers. Second-rankers just one grade above the Bloodletters who held the lowest position and title in the Assassins’ Guild. They were young: three men and a woman.
He stood for a moment at the first corpse and spoke in a crisp clear voice.
‘Contract expired. Scorbutus Toxicum, eighteen years, Slasher. Death awaits all.’
The others echoed his words in a low monotonous chant. With hoods drawn over their heads as a mark of respect four assassins moved forwards to seize the dead man by his limbs and swing the body into the death pyre. Hungry flames devoured his clothing and the succulent pungency of roasting human flesh mingled with the deep dry aroma of burning wood. The grey smoke darkened to black. Serpere moved on to the next cadaver.
‘Contract expired. Bottare Illudere, nineteen years, Slasher. Death awaits all.’
He too was fed to the flames. Serpere gazed down at the third corpse for a few moments longer than he had the first two. He recalled her laughter just a short while past when they had looted the murdered maidens.
‘Contract expired. Febris Ulcus, twenty-two years, Slasher. Death awaits all.’
Her body was thrown into the fire and then twenty-four-year-old Poena Postumus was in turn immolated and the Deathmaster moved on.
‘Contract expired. Pestis Obscaenus, twenty-two years, Slasher. Death awaits all.’
He was joined in the fire by twenty-seven-year-old Palus Manus and Serpere shifted along the line. Most of the dead wore peaceful expressions but not Venter Venialis. The bald ugly Butcher’s face had been destroyed by a brutal sweep of the bear’s paw. Flesh hung in ragged strips where talons had gouged his features and the bones had been smashed inwards making a grotesque flattened ruin of Venter’s face.
Serpere felt little regret at the loss of his twenty-four-year-old comrade. Venter had been a churlish man of despicable habits but his considerable talents with axe and blade would be missed. Despite his dislike of the baldy Butcher the Deathmaster dutifully says the words.
He then repeated them for Butcheress Cucullus Tergiversari. As gorgeous as she was deadly her love of combat and a marked lack of interest in other aspects of the Fatal Arts had seen her progress in Fraternity Obitus stymied. Although she had only reached the fourth rank in her twenty-six years she had been almost as skilled with sword and knife as Serpere himself.
Serpere came to the last two corpses. The cold controlled flame of rage that burned in his heart intensified as he gazed upon the lifeless face of Caedere Tacitus. She was exquisite even in death.
The twenty-six-year-old Snatcher had been the last to fall beneath the beast’s terrible onslaught. The bear’s claws had torn through the throat of her rearing horse which had fallen backwards and rolled on her before it died. Caedere’s neck had snapped and she had died instantly.
Caedere had been exceptionally gifted: her intelligence and lethality surpassing her incredible beauty. She had also been Serpere’s Novice and his lover. Only steely self-discipline stopped the Deathmaster from screaming his loss from the depths of his soul. He would miss her at his side in the field and in his bed.
Silently Serpere swore an oath: I swear Calma Taiscealai I shall make you suffer for this when I catch you. You whoring Huntress. I shall butcher the little brat and his verminous cronies. But not you. I shall be taking you as spoils. Oh yes. You will be coming home with me. I have a special room. For special guests like you. And I shall be keeping you there. For a long long time. I will have a Mystic block your abnormal abilities. And I will have a healer on hand. To save you any time you come close to death. Then I am going to subject you to every last torturous torment ever devised. You will beg me to stop. I shall refuse. You will beg me to kill you. I shall refuse. As you have refused me the joy of Caedere. I shall do things to you. You fucking animal. I shall do things you cannot imagine. I will do things no one has ever imagined. The agonies I inflict upon you shall become the stuff of legends. The stuff of nightmares. I will tire of you eventually. But your suffering will not end there. Oh no. I shall take your eyes. And your tongue. And your limbs. I shall turn you into a blind mute basket case and deny you the Noble Deed. Oh no. You will not escape your fate through suicide. And I am going to give what is left of you to the Whoremaster at the House of Forbidden Delights. You will spend the rest of your miserable excuse for a life enduring the perverted lusts of sexual deviants. I Serpere Sinuosus do swear this on my heart. And I shall not rest until this oath is fulfilled.
‘Contract expired. Caedere Tacitus, twenty-six years, Snatcher. Death awaits all.’
Serpere intoned the obligatory words and the flames took his lover. The last body was a grisly sight. The bear had crushed Carduus Meticulosus’s skull to shards between its mighty jaws and the top half of her head was gone. What remained was a gore-drenched misshapen mess.
‘Contract expired. Carduus Meticulosus, thirty-one years, Snatcher. Death awaits all.’
Serpere finished his litany and her body joined the others on the pyre. With the death rite over it was time for the assassins to move on.
Seven horses had been lost and five assassins had suffered minor injuries while two were badly wounded and forced to ride in the coach. Nefas had lost his left arm at the elbow and Odium’s horse had fallen on her and broken her right leg in several places. Mendicus had a broken collarbone so Serpere told him to drive the coach. That left five mounts riderless. Serpere allocated these to Mendax and Caro Vilis and three other juniors from the carriage.
Serpere swung himself into the saddle of his handsome palomino stallion. He drew his shortswords from their sheaths at his hips and clanged the flats of the blades together.
‘Mount up,’ says Serpere. ‘Fraternity Obitus, the shades of our brothers and sisters cry out to us. What do they say? Death! We must answer.’
‘Death!’ roared the assassins.
‘Our enemies owe us a debt. A debt of blood. Our fallen comrades have paid their price. They demand satisfaction. Now we must make our foemen pay us back in kind. Only one coin will suffice. The currency of death. What is that coin?’
‘Death!’
‘Death!’ roared Serpere.
He spurred the stallion with his heels and galloped into the woods and the others followed close behind.
They left carnage in their wake. The bodies of their victims: Gensor Sanglys and her bridal party and her Honour Guard lay where they had fallen. Their corpses had been further desecrated by the mutilations of the looters. Slaughtered horses were sprawled on the road and in the grass nearby. The pyre blazed on spewing smoke high into the air.

* * *

Just over two miles to the northeast the grizzly bear lay on his side with his mouth open. The haft of a spear jutted from his exposed flank. His jaws were wet with blood: his prey’s and his own from the punctured lung. When the bear had collapsed with his prodigious strength gone the arrow had been driven deeper into the mortal wound. The great beast shuddered and a drawn-out rumbling rasp escaped him. His dark eyes glazed and the grizzly breathed his last.

* * *

In the vacant warehouse that adjoined The Weary Wayfarer inn Mancus the Deathlord marched along the line of assassins who stood facing him. He inspected their disguises. All thirty-six wore the worn shapeless garb of farmhands and common labourers. Simple tools were borne in hands or slung over shoulders or tucked into belts: picks, mallets, axes, sickles, scythes, adzes, spades, hoes, long-and-short-handled hammers, hatchets, chisels and a plethora of smaller implements. Beneath their loose garments they wore tight-fitting cuirasses of toughened leather inset with thin moulded steel plates with similarly-constructed bracers on their forearms and greaves on their calves. Each assassin also had a range of death-dealing instruments secreted about their person: knives, daggers, throwing stars, spikes and discs, blowpipes and poison-tipped darts, garrottes, stilettos and caltrops as well as lockpicks and diamond-tipped glasscutters and other pieces of burglars’ kit.
‘Good,’ Mancus says. ‘Now, form up into squads.’
The assassins mustered into half-a-dozen groups of six with a high-ranking Squadleader to the fore and the others ranked behind. Mancus moved over to the two gangs dressed as farmhands and addressed their leaders.
‘Crena, Pontifix, each of you has memorized the identities and locations of your primary targets, yes?’
The two women nodded their assent.
‘Your wagon and team, Pontifix?’ asks the Deathlord.
‘The stables of The Stuffed Goose inn,’ Pontifix says, ‘near the West Gate of the city.’
‘And yours, Crena?’ Mancus asks.
‘The Ram and Ewe. East Gate.’
‘Good,’ says Mancus. ‘Remember, no witnesses, no survivors, no mercy. I expect your return on the morrow. Fare well. Death awaits all.’
‘Death awaits all,’ chanted the assassins.
Pontifix and Crena led their squads across the warehouse and they filed out through small side-doors.
‘The rest of you,’ says the Deathlord. ‘You each know what is required of you. Six targets apiece, and their entire households. Spouses, offspring, relatives, servants, personal guards and any visitors unfortunate enough to be present. Total annihilation. Partial success is tantamount to utter failure, and that will be unacceptable. Go now, and do your duty, for the notoriety of Fraternity Obitus. Death awaits all.’
‘Death awaits all.’
The four remaining groups separated and two left by the eastern exit while the others used the door to the south.
Once they had departed Mancus strode over to the steel door in the western wall and knocked. He went into the Weary Wayfarer when it was swung open for him by the sentries within and made his way into the common room. Mancus took the stairs up to the third floor where he opened the door to his room just wide enough to slip inside and close it behind.
The Deathlord stepped over the tripwire just behind the door: an iron chain as thin as a necklace that stretched across the room at ankle-height and was looped around a protruding nail in either wall to run up to the triggers of two small crossbows. Both were aimed at the doorway. He walked over to the left-hand trap and removed the poison-tipped bolt and unhooked the chain from the trigger and then dry-fired the weapon to release the tension on the bowstring. Mancus knew that prolonged stress would cause the taut catgut to weaken which might render the death-trap ineffective or even useless. He then repeated the process with the second weapon and placed the two bolts on top of the chest of drawers by the small sash window that overlooked the street several storeys below. Mancus moved to the foot of the narrow bed and lifted the sheepskin rug that lay there. He collected the venom-coated iron caltrops that he had embedded in the pine floorboards underneath and set them beside the pair of crossbow bolts.
The Deathlord went into the en-suite bathroom where he lifted the pair of thin calfskin gloves that were draped over the rim of the washstand. He pulled them on and flexed his fingers. He then moved over to the covered iron pail that sat in the corner of the room and removed the lid. A linen facecloth floated in several inches of vinegar. He reached in and wrung it out. Had he a nose the acrid reek would have made him wrinkle it.
He returned to the bedroom and used the vinegary cloth to remove all traces of the lethal contact poison from the doorknobs. He repeated the process with the iron handles on the chest of drawers and the wardrobe. Mancus then went back to the bathroom and dropped the wet rag into the pail. He pulled off the gloves and tossed them in too.
Having disarmed all of his traps save the one at the window Mancus the Deathlord walked across the bedroom to the corner by the door. He crouched down to slip the tip of a knife between two floor panels and prized open the hinged compartment that he had made there. Mancus delved into the concealed niche and took out a speculum with a small fragment of lapis lazuli attached to it by a delicate verargent chain. He tapped the smooth bright surface with the blue stone and a sibilant voice whispered in his mind:
Deathlord, what news?
Have you found it yet?
Soon, Mancus, soon.
The League

The doors to the Grand Council Chamber are flung open and Valentia Ferrumanus sweeps through at the head of his entourage with Lascivia Ferrumanus the dowager Viscountess of Farina at his side. His siblings trail behind followed by Sieur Custos Pedester the Baronet of Venari and over a score of Guardsmen armed with swords but without their standard spears. One of the Guardsmen bore the heavy verargent Insula Libris before him at arm’s length while another is laden with a small oaken casket and a third holds a lit beeswax candle on a golden stand.
Valentia is resplendent in his stylish attire and his dashing appearance is further titivated by the seven Regalia Lucidus. The horn and the key hang from his belt along with the scabbarded sword while he grips the rod in his right hand and wears the ring on his middle finger and bears the chalice in his other hand. The cloak of paper-thin verargent drapes his shoulders and flutters in the air behind him like a shiny silver banner caught in a stiff breeze.
Valentia’s heels clacked on the marble floor as he marched towards the long table in the centre of the room. He stopped and cast an imperious eye over his esteemed guests: his devious co-conspirators. Guard-Captain Pedester stepped forwards to stand to his left and Lascivia positioned herself on his right.
Her father Count Aurumcutis Auduxoculus sat at the opposite end of the table flanked by the other members of the Truesilver League and their advisors. Liveried guards and retainers stood behind each Noble. The Count’s retinue was the largest and almost equalled Valentia’s in number.
‘All hail Valentia Ferrumanus,’ says Sieur Custos Pedester. ‘The Iron Hand of Power. First of that name, sixteenth Earl of Tellus Isle. Lord Brigadier of Aesfortis. Guardian of the People. Keeper of the Regalia Lucidus. Francus Ferox Vulpus. Free fierce foxes.’
The Count regarded Valentia. A hint of scorn glinted in the dark depths of his eyes. A goblet of red wine sat on the table before him. He raised the golden vessel to his lips and drank deep and then he stood and raised his goblet. The others followed his lead.
‘Hail Valentia Ferrumanus,’ they chorused. ‘Earl of Tellus Isle. Francus Ferox Vulpus. Long may he live, well may he rule, may his Noble Clan prosper and thrive. Hail, hail, hail.’
They drank a toast and resumed their seats; all save Count Auduxoculus. Broad shouldered and barrel-chested with muscular limbs and massive hands his great size was accentuated by steel shoulder guards and a hooded hauberk that stretched from his collar to his knees. His flat hard face boasted a proud jawline and firm chin. It was furrowed with deep creases especially around his mouth and upon his brow. Aurumcutis sported bushy eyebrows and a sweeping mane of dark hair salted with grey. The Count’s features were dominated by his penetrating eyes which glowered down the length of the table at Valentia.
The tabard he wore over his armour depicted the Signum Oculus. The insignia of Familia Auduxoculus was a stylized golden eye on a crimson field. Valentia thought the Count’s glare was a deliberate attempt to personify that emblem and live up to the family motto. Oculus Audux Vide Omnis. The Bold Eye Sees All.
‘Valentia, what is the meaning of this outrage?’ the Count demanded. ‘You send a lackey to inform us of your father’s murder. You lay claim to his title. Not only that, but his position in our venerated League, without consulting any of us on the matter. And then, to season insult with abuse, you have us held here, against our will, until you deign to honour us with your presence. Your callous disregard for our esteemed personages is surpassed only by your intolerable arrogance.’
‘Earl,’ says Valentia.
‘What?’
‘Count Auduxoculus, you addressed me as ‘Valentia’. As Earl, I expect my peers to do me the courtesy of remembering to use my proper title.’
The Count’s face flushed and Valentia struggled to suppress a smile. His amusement was compounded by the knowledge that Aurumcutis’s umbrage was feigned. The Count was the sole member of Foedus Verargent with any foreknowledge of Valentia’s plans and the two men had rehearsed their present confrontation some weeks previous.
‘Atrocious!’ sputtered the Count. ‘Audacious boy. How dare you upbraid me like some scullion! You forget your place. Until your official investiture, you are not Earl. Even were that the case, I would still outrank you. I have a mind to remind you of these unassailable facts with more than mere words.’
He grasped the hilt of the broadsword at his hip. Valentia ignored him and placed the chalice and the rod that he carried on the table before him. Sieur Pedester pulled out his chair and Valentia swept his shimmering cloak out to drape it over the backrest as he sat. Lascivia took the place to his right and his siblings sat on his left: Validus then Alma then Fornax in order of seniority.
Valentia watched Aurumcutis with a placid eye and smooth expression but it was the woman to the Count’s right who spoke.
‘Enough of the bombast,’ she says, ‘and do sit down, Aurumcutis. We must talk.’
With a frown Aurumcutis obeyed Ospres Aveugler, Marchionissa of Prudparoche. The cascade of blonde curls that framed her face and tumbled to the middle of her back did nothing to soften her stern features. High cheekbones a sharp nose thin lips and a pointed chin combined with cool blue almond-shaped eyes to give her a striking appearance: haughty and indomitable. She wore a heavy gown of dark blue satin buttoned to the neck and embroidered with golden birds. Their eyes were tiny emeralds or sapphires. The insignia of Familia Aveugler a diamond-eyed osprey with bloodied scarlet claws was worked at her breast in silver thread and miniscule chips of ruby. Gemstones dripped from the Marchionissa and she sparkled when she moved.
For generations a feud had existed between her Clan and Count Auduxoculus’s and the pair tolerated one another with the bare minimum of decorum and civility. That the causes of the long-standing grudge had been forgotten decades before mattered not one whit to either party. While the Count’s family name meant ‘bold eye’ in his native Durian it was no quirk of fate that his rival’s translated as ‘to blind’ from the Reaumish. Nor was it mere happenstance that Familia Aveugler’s motto was Blason les Joeux. Shield the Jewels. A double entendre because jewels was an archaic prosodic name for the eyes.
The air of superiority that Valentia adopted in their presence was not entirely feigned. Years earlier he had learned the truth of the matter from his great-grandfather Capax’s journals. It had been Earl Capax Ferrumanus who had manipulated the Heads of each Clan at the time Vigilare Auduxoculus and Aigle Aveugler into proclaiming a vendetta against one another. Capax had then acted as a mediator between the two feuding factions and helped assuage the situation before their quarrel erupted into unbridled warfare. The old fox had engineered the whole affair in order to secure strong allies independent from each other. Vigilare and Aigle swore to support Familia Ferrumanus in trade and warfare and signed treaties to that effect. Their descendants had upheld those oaths ever since.
The acrimony between the Marchionissa and the Count perennially simmered under the surface of every glance and comment that passed between them. Valentia had yet to antagonize the submerged rancour but he intended to provoke the two Clans into a resumption of hostilities when it suited him best.
That possibility had been considered analysed and addressed in Capax’s memoirs as a precaution should the Earl of Tellus Isle ever face authentic simultaneous threats from the two powerful Clans. It would be easy for Valentia to rekindle the vendetta and have them at each other’s throats instead of his own. Aurumcutis and Ospres represented the greatest risk to Valentia’s position and his life but he was not ready to deal with them yet.
While it would be expedient to have the entire Truesilver League slaughtered such a move would be suicidal. Most of his confederates had strong ties with the Monarchy of his Realm and every Sovereign had formidable military resources at his disposal. More than enough to destroy Tellus Isle’s small army. Since main force was not an option Valentia had no choice but to resort to his wits.
‘My Lords, and Lady,’ Valentia says. ‘Fellow Nobles. My father, Viscount Feroxos Ferrumanus, requested your presence here for three reasons. First, that he might reach financial settlements to compensate each of you for your invaluable support and assistance regarding the planning and execution of the recent coup d’état.
Second, with the entire Grand Council having been wiped out in the massacre, Feroxos needed your endorsement, as fellow Nobles, before he could officially assume the title of Earl, with all related privileges and responsibilities...’
‘Yes, yes,’ says Gubernator Tonsor Plagiarius, ‘we know all this. Enough procrastination. Remunerate us, and we can proceed with your investiture.’
Careful to let none of the revulsion that he felt show on his face Valentia regarded the obese Agertellian. Tonsor’s immense bulk was concealed beneath voluminous lilac silken robes stained at the breast with spilt food and wine. A ludicrous hairpiece of tight blonde ringlets sat askew atop his immense hairless head. Small dark gimlet eyes a broad flat nose a profusion of fat warts wide rubbery lips and slack jowls made his pale fleshy face resemble that of a bloated toad. The man was a glutton.
As the son of a drunkard father Valentia had developed a deep abhorrence for hedonists. He had heard that Tonsor’s insatiable appetites extended far beyond food and drink into much less savoury regions. Valentia had yet to investigate those rumours but he planned to and hoped to unearth indiscretions that would allow him to manipulate the unwholesome Gubernator.
‘Rest assured, I shall address those matters presently, Gubernator Plagiarius,’ says Valentia. ‘However, I mentioned that my father invited you all here for three reasons. The first two are known to you, the third is not. It was his plan, upon attaining the title, to have you all murdered in this very room...’
‘Madness!’ says Aurumcutis.
‘Idiocy,’ Ospres says.
The other Nobles ranted and raved. All save Duke Tacitus Intuerius and Valentia’s eye was drawn to him. The Duke was an austere figure who did not share the other Nobles’ proclivity for ostentatious displays of wealth. Of average height and build his face was lean and his calm eyes as grey as cold iron. Cropped short like a soldier’s his hair was the same colour. Although well cut and fashioned from the finest Durian linen all of his clothes were in sombre shades of grey.
Valentia suspected that the Duke went to considerable lengths to maintain his nondescript façade and he regarded Tacitus as the most astute and pragmatic and possibly the deadliest member of the Truesilver League. No animosity existed between the two men or their Clans and Valentia hoped to shape an alliance between them in the future. Assuming he survived that long.
‘What proofs do you offer?’ asks the Duke.
Valentia nodded and lifted the rod from the table before him and then he stood. The solid verargent Artefact was two feet long with a finely wrought fox’s head at the tip and a globular base. He extended his arm.
‘The Bastum Dominus Eligere,’ he says. ‘The Rod of the Lord Elect. Called The Rod of Truth by some. One of the seven Regalia Lucidus of Tellus Isle. As you are all doubtless aware, whoever bears or touches this rod is incapable of uttering a falsehood.’
‘Unable, perhaps, to tell a direct lie,’ says Ospres. ‘Naturally, that does not preclude prevarication, tergiversation, or simple silence. In devious, clever, foxy hands, the Bastum could lend credence to an otherwise preposterous account.’
‘Aye,’ says Thane Thirle Snike. ‘Truth is a tricky, slippery beast, harder to catch and keep a hold of than any eel that ever was spawned. And a fox is more crafty, by far, than a fish.’
With a slight smile Valentia passed The Rod of the Lord Elect to Sieur Custos Pedester.
‘Tell my confederates,’ Valentia says, ‘of my father’s murderous plans for them.’
Custos gripped the rod tight in both hands as if it were a live viper and did nothing but stare at the Artefact for a long moment. Then he cleared his throat and began to speak in a low voice.
‘If it please your Lordships, just three days past...’
‘Speak up, man,’ Aurumcutis says. ‘I, for one, cannot make out one bloody word of whatever it is you are muttering there.’
Valentia patted Custos on the shoulder. Sieur Pedester gave a hesitant smile and then adopted the hectoring tone he used to barrack his subordinates.
‘My Lords, my Lady, three days ago, I was in the palace, performing my official duties as Guard-Captain of the Earlsguard, when I was approached by Viscount Feroxos Ferrumanus. We discussed some minor matters, then he offered me a Lordship, if I agreed to have you all put to the sword.’
‘And when, exactly, was this supposed to happen?’ asks Ospres.
‘Today, my Lady,’ Custos says. ‘After the massacre... sorry... the coup in the Great Hall. Once you had signed and sealed the documents naming him as Earl.’
‘And you acquiesced to this?’ asks Tacitus.
‘Aye, my Lord, I did. See, I had already agreed to take part in the massacre, so, the way I saw it, I might as well be hanged and damned for a sheep as a lamb.’
‘Or the whole bloody flock,’ muttered Aurumcutis. ‘Yet, if what you say is true, then why are we not dead?’
Sieur Pedester cast a sidelong glance at Valentia who favoured him with a slight nod.
‘Well, my Lord,’ says Custos, ‘the very next day, his Lordship, Valentia Ferrumanus visited me at my home. He told me that his Lord Father planned to have me and my men slain by the assassins after we killed all of you.’
‘So,’ Ospres says, ‘one imagines that you switched allegiances, else you would not be standing here now, Sieur Pedester. Or should I now call you Lord Pedester? Presumably, Valentia here offered you the same reward as his father before him?’
‘Aye, my Lady,’ says Custos. ‘With the promise of a Baronetcy, after ten years’ loyal service.’
‘And what, pray,’ Ospres says, ‘caused you to take his word over his father’s?’
Sieur Pedester thrust out The Rod of the Lord Elect. ‘This. Valentia Ferrumanus bore this, my Lady, when he came to see me.’
‘Did he command you to murder us, as his father had done?’ asks Tacitus.
‘No, my Lord.’
Before the Truesilver League could pose any further questions Valentia held out his hand and Custos returned the rod with alacrity.
‘Thank you, Captain,’ he says. ‘That shall be all for the moment.’
Sieur Pedester placed his right hand over his heart and his left on his swordhilt and then he snapped his heels together and stepped back from the table.
‘I have no plans to harm anyone here,’ Valentia says, ‘nor do I intend to instruct any other party to do so in my stead.’
He laid the rod on the table before him and saw that Tacitus regarded him with a speculative expression on his angular face. Valentia pushed the rod and the chalice several feet along the table towards the other Nobles and turned to look over his shoulder.
‘Bring the coffer,’ he says.
The Guardsman who bore the small oaken casket moved forwards. He set it on the table in front of Valentia and stepped back a pace. Valentia stood and threw back the lid to remove six sheets of vellum and stack them on the tabletop. The Guardsman lifted the pile of documents and marched to the end of the table whereupon he distributed them among the Nobles and then returned to his original position. Valentia gave the Truesilver League a few moments to study the contracts. Each bore his signature at the bottom beside a length of black ribbon held in place by a thick disc of silver wax impressed with the foxhead seal of Familia Ferrumanus.
‘As you can see from these Deeds of Covenant,’ says Valentia, ‘the percentile share of any future returns from the isle’s verargent mines that I have granted each of you exceeds what my father offered. And, at four years, the duration of these agreements is twice the two that he agreed.’
‘Most generous, I am sure,’ Tonsor says. ‘However, I also see that you have endorsed yourself as Earl. I take it that means these Covenants are worthless, until you have ascended to the title?’
Valentia answered with a thin smile. He drew three large vellum scrolls from the wooden chest and set them on the table. These were followed by six smaller ones five sticks of sealing wax: red, green, gold, silver, grey and blue a dozen strips of black ribbon a stoppered golden inkpot a goosefeather quill the solid verargent foxhead seal of his Clan a little silver saltshaker and a leather pouch. Valentia closed the lid and the Guardsman lifted the coffer and returned to his place in the ranks behind. The Guardsmen who carried the Insula Libris and the lit candle strode forwards. The first placed the huge tome on the table where the casket had been and stepped back. His colleague set the candlestand down beyond the Book of the Isle.
Valentia opened the pouch and upended it. Oblate pea-sized Golden Globes poured out and piled on the table’s smooth surface. One rolled a little but Valentia slapped it flat with his palm and tossed it onto the heap. He then proceeded to unroll the vellum scrolls weighting each at the corners with Globes before moving on to the next. When he had finished documents covered the breadth of the table to either side of the Insula Libris. Valentia placed his hands on the cover of the book and drew a deep breath. The scents of dry parchment aromatic leather fragrant beeswax and piquant ink filled his nostrils. He exhaled and relaxed and took up The Rod of the Lord Elect.
‘Investiture to the rank of Earl,’ he says, ‘requires the commendation of three Nobles of equal or greater rank. A further condition, specific to the Earldom of Tellus Isle, dictates that one of the sponsors must be a Durian Noble, and another Reaumish. My Lords, my Lady, I, Valentia Ferrumanus, the Viscount of Farina and environs, first child and son of Feroxos Ferrumanus, therefore ask you, with a humble heart, which among you shall vouch and stand for my investiture, with the mark of your Noble hand and the seal of your Noble Clan?’
‘You are the rightful heir?’ asks Aurumcutis. ‘First in line to the title?’
‘Suavis Ferrumanus, the Earl of Tellus Isle, is now deceased. Perspicax Ferrumanus, the Viscount of Aesfortis, first child and son of Suavis Ferrumanus, is now deceased. Jubilare Ferrumanus, the Baron of Aesfortis, first child and son of Perspicax Ferrumanus, is now deceased. Pica Ferrumanus, a Lady of Aesfortis, second child and first daughter of Perspicax Ferrumanus, is now deceased. Racemes Prudpan, nee Ferrumanus, the Countess of Estanche, second child and first daughter of Suavis Ferrumanus, is now deceased. Douxjoel Prudpan, the Viscountess of Estanche, first child and first daughter of Racemes Prudpan, is now deceased. The precise whereabouts of Castus Ferrumanus, the Baron of Copia, third child and second son of Suavis Ferrumanus, are unknown,’ Valentia watches Ospres and several of the other Nobles grin at this news but he carries on with his litany regardless. ‘Three Deathsquads of Fraternity Obitus hunt him, and he is not expected to live out this day. Parere Ferrumanus, a Lady of Aesfortis, fourth child and second daughter of Suavis Ferrumanus, is now deceased. Feroxos Ferrumanus, the Viscount of Farina, first sibling of Suavis Ferrumanus, is now deceased. I, Valentia Ferrumanus, the Viscount of Farina and environs, first child and son of the first sibling of Suavis Ferrumanus, now stand as heir apparent to his title, the Earl of Tellus Isle, and all attendant holdings and obligations.’
The Dowager Marchionissa rises to fix Valentia with a raptorial eye and say, ‘Speaking strictly, until the demise of Castus Ferrumanus, the Baron of Copia is confirmed, you can lay no legitimate claim upon his Noble father’s title. However, given the diligence of Fraternity Obitus, his chances of survival are non-existent, his death assured. I, for one, am therefore willing to regard his position as nullified.’
‘You have my most heartfelt gratitude, my Lady,’ says Valentia.
‘Do not thank me yet,’ says the Marchionissa. ‘I had not finished. One would assume that, should you attain the rank of Earl, your brother, Validus, would be named Viscount of Farina in your place, yes?’
Valentia nodded and Validus stood.
‘Very well,’ Ospres says. ‘I shall disregard the claim of your cousin, Baron Castus Ferrumanus, and act as your guarantor, with the proviso that your brother, Baronet Validus Ferrumanus sign and seal a marriage compact with my daughter, Soigne Aveugler, Baroness of Baileloge.’
The brothers Ferrumanus looked at one another. They had discussed the likelihood of this stipulation months earlier when they planned their father’s murder. Validus had conditions of his own.
Valentia expected the Marchionissa to accede to his brother’s demands. Less than an hour past he had uncovered a deep dark secret concerning Ospres Aveugler and her only daughter Soigne. He had found an account in the Insula Libris written in his uncle Suavis’s hand detailing Soigne’s marriage to an impoverished minor Reaumish Nobleman.
Some six years earlier in the Aestas of 1457 Doree Morille, Baronet of Telier had abducted and wed Baroness Soigne Aveugler. The Nabber had been seventeen and his bride a year younger than he was. Their nuptials had been short-lived. The Marchionissa had led a troop of soldiers who tracked the Nabbing Gang down a few days later. Everyone was put to the sword save her daughter.
Three months later upon discovering that Soigne was with child Ospres had her daughter beaten about the abdomen with a wooden stave until she miscarried. Soigne Aveugler’s secret shame was buried with her unborn baby.
After being dismissed from Ospres’s employ for theft a disgruntled servant of the Marchionissa had shared the scandal’s details with a Tellian mercenary in exchange for a few Golden Globes. The soldier had gone to Earl Suavis Ferrumanus who paid a pouch of Truesilver Tears for his tale.
Valentia had discussed the matter with his brother en route to the Grand Council Chamber. Validus was unconcerned about the theft of Soigne’s maidenhood because his knowledge of the affair would grant him considerable power over the woman. His only true passions were for hunting hawking carousal and combat so a biddable wife would suit him well. He could do his duty: wed her and bed her and then leave her to raise his heir while he engaged in pursuits more amenable to his nature.
‘My good brother is agreeably disposed towards your proposal,’ says Valentia, ‘provided that we can reach an accord concerning his prerequisites. There are two. First and foremost, Baroness Soigne Aveugler must renounce her title and holdings at Baileloge, and reside with her husband, my brother, at his seat in Farina. Second, on the last night of every year, his wife must join him in holding a vigil from dusk until dawn, in memory of his dearest friend, Doree, who died under tragic circumstances six years past.’
Valentia locked eyes with the Marchionissa and tapped a finger on the Insula Libris’s stiff cover. Ospres blanched and glanced at the Book of the Isle. She opened her mouth and then shut it again.
‘He and his young friends,’ says Valentia, ‘were set upon by a vicious pack of brigands, and slaughtered to a man. The despicable perpetrators were never brought to justice, despite the not inconsiderable bounties offered by the bereft families of the victims.’
‘Agreed,’ Ospres says and sat. She fixed her gaze on the Insula Libris with her face set in a rigid emotionless expression as she struggled to conceal her shock and dismay.
Count Aurumcutis Auduxoculus stood. ‘I shall consent to second your investiture, provided that you put your hand to a bond of marriage to my eldest daughter, Viscountess Lascivia Auduxoculus.’
Valentia had already privately agreed to this prerequisite. While he knew that he would be clasping a serpent to his bosom when he took Lascivia as his wife he was also sure that he could manoeuvre the arrangement to his advantage. Neither his lover nor her father the Count were as clever and cunning as they believed themselves to be and Valentia felt confident about his ability to lull them both into attitudes of complacent credulity.
He moved over to Lascivia who rose as he approached. Valentia placed his right hand over his heart and gripped the hilt of the Gladius Parere Lumen with his left hand. He drew the Shining Lightsword from its verargent sheath. Modelled upon the standard gladius borne by Agertellian legionaries since the time of their Great Empire the Lightsword was just over two feet long and had a broad double-edged blade with a pointed tip a solid oval guard a rounded grip moulded to accommodate the wielder’s fingers and a circular pommel. The whole shortsword had been forged from verargent and there was a palm-sized piece of black onyx set in the pommel.
The pommel stone was inset with a truesilver foxhead while the reverse showed the Signum Vulpus of Clan Ferrumanus in onyx. This comprised two letter ‘F’s one of which was reversed set within a ‘V’. The upper bar of each ‘F’ was angled upwards while the lower was in line with the wings of the ‘V’. The emblem resembled a foxhead and the letters FVF were an initialism of Familia Ferrumanus’s motto: Francus Ferox Vulpus.
Valentia dropped to one knee and held the Lightsword aloft and then he touched the blade with his forefinger. The Artefact blazed with a bright silver incandescence that was almost blinding to look upon. The light filled the room and all within was bathed in its stark radiance. Every object and person shone silver and nothing cast a shadow. The Lightsword’s dazzling luminescence brought tears to the eyes of everyone present.
‘Viscountess Lascivia Ferrumanus. I, Valentia Ferrumanus, rightful Earl of Tellus Isle, do humbly beseech your hand in marriage, to love you and cherish you more than breath, all the days of my life. What say you to this proposal, heart of my heart?’
Her eyes wide with wonder Lascivia smiled and nodded.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I love you, Valentia. I love you like no other, and would spend my every moment by your side, for always and for ever.’
She took his right hand and raised him to his feet. Valentia slipped the Lightsword back into its truesilver scabbard. The moment his hand left the hilt the intense luminosity winked out. Those present blinked and rubbed at their eyes. The daylight that flooded the hall through the tall windows set in the wall facing the doors seemed weak and wan after the sidereal silver brilliance of the Lightsword.
Valentia and Lascivia embraced and Count Auduxoculus led the others in a rousing cheer. Valentia then led his fiancée by the hand to stand beside his seat. Sieur Pedester hefted Lascivia’s chair and carried it around to set it beside her betrothed’s in the place of honour at the head of the table and she sat.
‘Excellent,’ says Aurumcutis. ‘I hereby put myself forwards as sponsor for your investiture to the rank of Earl, Liegelord of Tellus Isle, Viscount Valentia Ferrumanus.’
‘For that, my Lord,’ says Valentia, ‘you have my undying gratitude.’
The Count smiled and sat. Gubernator Tonsor Plagiarius rose to his feet. The obese glutton rubbed his hands together and licked his fat lips as he spoke.
‘I shall agree to be your third sponsor,’ he says. ‘On the sole condition that you permit me to act as your advocate while arranging the marriage of your sister, Lady Alma Ferrumanus, to an Agertellian Nobleman of my acquaintance.’
Alma’s face went pale. Her eyes bugged her lips thinned and she glared at her eldest brother. Valentia met that vehement stare with a tranquil pensive expression as if he were considering Tonsor’s proposal. His sister’s hands were clenched white-knuckled on the table before her. Valentia turned to look at Tonsor.
‘You have my ear,’ says Valentia. ‘Does this Nobleman have a name?’
‘My own worthy nephew,’ Tonsor says. ‘Crapulentus Plagiarius, Senator of Piscina, whose standing in Agertellian society almost equals my own.’
Valentia glanced askance at his sister. The colour had returned to her face with a vengeance. Her cheeks blazed red and frustrated fury glinted in her dark eyes. Her nostrils flared and she bit her lower lip hard enough for a spot of blood to glisten there. Alma was mortified. Hilarity bubbled up in her brother’s chest and he struggled to maintain his unruffled demeanour.
‘Really?’ Valentia says. ‘How intriguing.’
Blind to the quagmire at his feet Tonsor blundered on. ‘Indeed, my Lord, indeed. My nephew’s eminence is surpassed only by his eligibility. Moreover, he is young yet, but twenty-seven years old. Of an age with your sister. I would not suggest that you have her wed some old lecher.’
‘Most considerate of you, I am sure,’ says Valentia. ‘I am sure that my sister shares my delight in your recommending such a suitable match. Why, look how prettily she blushes. The darling girl can hardly contain her ecstasy at the prospect of marriage to so illustrious a Nobleman as your good nephew.’
Aghast Alma’s jaw dropped open and she fixed her brother with a glare that seethed with combustible wrath.
‘You see, Gubernator,’ says Valentia. ‘My dear sister is struck dumb, speechless, so extreme is her astonishment at your proposition.’
Tonsor’s fat froggy face gleamed with sweat and he could scarce contain the triumphant delight he felt at his own cleverness.
‘Yes,’ Valentia says. ‘Alma is astonished. As am I. Frankly, I find myself quite astounded.’
Tonsor bobbed his large head and gave an obsequious smile revealing blackened teeth. Blubbery jowls wobbled and the risible periwig of tousled curls slipped to the right of his scalp.
Valentia allowed the loathsome worm the luxury of revelling in his phantasmal victory for a few moments more before he snatched it away. His voice grew cold and hard as granite.
‘Truly astounded. Flabbergasted, even. By you, Gubernator Tonsor Plagiarius. By the blatant temerity you exhibit, seeking to beard me in my own lair...’
‘But, Valentia...’
‘Silence! Interrupt me again at your peril. You have my word on that.’
At his back there was a metallic crunch as his twenty armoured Guardsmen snapped to attention with hands on their swordhilts and glowers on their faces. Tonsor’s toupee slid from his head and flumped onto the tabletop where it lay pathetically like the pelt of some small mange-ridden mammal.
‘Tell me, Tonsor, when you mistook my youth for credulity, did you also confuse that perceived naiveté as downright ignorance?’
‘Bu-bu-but, my Lord,’ says Tonsor, ‘I fail to see...’
‘Yes, you do. You fail to see how I could know that the rank of Senator is among the lowest in Agertellian Nobility. The equivalent of a common Baron here in Tellus Isle. Or that Piscina is a tiny, impoverished fishing village on the Western coast of the Quarz Sea. You fail to envisage how I might be aware that, ‘Crapulentus’ translates as, ‘very drunk’ from the Agertellian. You also fail to appreciate how I might know precisely who this purportedly eminent and eligible nephew of yours might be. Do you believe that I have spent the last twenty-five years living in an egg? An egg from which I only hatched this very morning?’
Throughout Valentia’s attack although he flinched at each point as it thrust home Tonsor’s stunned expression transformed into one of outrage.
Around the table the Northmen grinned and the other Nobles wore looks of wry amusement. All save Tacitus who merely fingered his chin and arched an eyebrow at Valentia.
‘How dare you upbraid me so, whelp?’ hissed Tonsor. ‘Stripling boy, you forget your untenable position. You need my assistance to secure the title you snatched from the father you murdered, and your uncle before him. Your strumpet of a sister is but a small levy to pay, when measured against the mountain of evil that you have perpetrated to reach this point.’
It was Valentia’s turn to gape and blanch with indignation at Tonsor’s affronts. Before he could open his mouth and utter something irrevocable Tacitus spoke in a measured tone.
‘Face facts, all of you,’ says the Duke. ‘Feroxos would have made a terrible Earl, and this Realm is better off without him. I shall put my hand to your warrant, Valentia, and do so gladly. Furthermore, all I ask in return is that you rule wisely and well, to the best of your ability to do so.’
‘Preposterous!’ fumed Tonsor.
The Duke turned to regard him with a wintry gaze and Tonsor’s beady eyes darted around the table from the face of one Noble to the next: seeking support but finding only cool disdain and dismissal.
‘I shall not stand for this,’ he says, ‘and I am removing myself from this League. I shall not sit at the same table as that.’
Tonsor flicked a haughty glance at Valentia. He snatched up his hairpiece and Deed of Covenant from the table and then gathered his robes around his enormous form and made for a side door to the chamber. Two of his legionary bodyguards who accompanied him moved ahead to open the door while the other two and his four servants fell into step behind. Despite his bulk the Gubernator was light on his feet and he covered the distance in heartbeats. At the doorway he stopped and turned to address Valentia.
‘These slights shall not be forgotten, Earl of Foxes. Nor shall they pass unrewarded.’
Valentia’s hand dropped to the Lightsword and Guard-Captain Pedester stepped forwards to half-draw his blade from its sheath.
‘Begone, Lord Toad,’ says Valentia. ‘Get out of my sight, before I kill you.’
Gubernator Tonsor Plagiarius bustled out and slammed the door behind. One of the servants who followed him opened it again and Tonsor could be heard haranguing his legionaries in a strident voice as the retainers passed out of the chamber until the door swung to once more.
Silence reigned in the Grand Council Chamber for a few moments until Aurumcutis shook his head. He rubbed at his eyes and let out a great guffaw.
‘Lord Toad,’ he jeered. ‘Tonsor the Toad. Priceless.’
Ospres cracked a smile although her eyes remained distant her manner and bearing as reserved as they had been since the moment Valentia revealed his knowledge of her daughter’s secret shame.
‘Well, I, for one, am not sad to see him go,’ she says. ‘He always sat beside me. I cannot say which I found more offensive. His shameless ogling of my bosom, or the foetid cloud of flatulence in which he perennially cloaked his unpleasant form.’
Tacitus’s face puckered in an expression of mild distaste followed by a slight grimace and a wince.
Valentia was struck by the man’s reaction. It was as if the Duke had just popped a particularly horrid hors d’oeuvre into his mouth. With no wish to consume the vile thing he was too refined a gentleman to spit it out either and all the while the offensive unsavoury squatted on his tongue pervading his palate with its odious taste. Ultimately Tacitus accepted the inevitable and swallowed the distasteful morsel without complaint much as it pained him to do so.
‘They never made any noise,’ says the Duke. ‘That was the worst thing. There was never any warning.’
‘Not always,’ Aurumcutis says. ‘Sometimes, if you listened hard, you could hear a little hissing sigh.’
He blew air between his teeth and made a soft soughing sound. Ospres giggled and covered her mouth and then she adopted her habitual humourless mien. The Northmen were in hysterical convulsions and men and women chortled and smiled all around the chamber.
‘Not that it did any good,’ Aurumcutis says. ‘They always lingered long enough to bring tears to the eyes, no matter how long you held your breath.’
Tacitus uttered a high-pitched bray of laughter that sounded like a winded donkey and the others roared with glee. After a while the merriment dissipated into hitching snorts snickers sniffs and snuffles. Throats were cleared and noses blown and eyes and cheeks wiped dry of mirthful tears.
‘Come on,’ says Count Auduxoculus. ‘Time to make this brazen young man an Earl.’
He got up to move down the table towards Valentia and Marchionissa Aveugler and Duke Intuerius joined him.
The Cull

Another piercing shriek rang out on the other side of the door and Seligere Tractatus jolted upright in his chair. Fear swelled in his heart and he was filled with the conviction that Naevus was being brutally murdered in their bedchamber while he sat outside in the corridor wringing his hands in impotent frustration. Seligere wrenched his long-fingered hands apart and gripped the armrests of his seat. In the silence that followed the scream he forced his mind to return to the consideration of banalities thus distracting himself from his present concerns.
Seligere took his work very seriously. At twenty-six years of age after three years of study at the School of Wisdom in Xulontopos he was the youngest person in many generations to achieve the coveted position of Chief Procurator to Buttis Inspicere, Harbourmaster of Aesfortis.
While examining the transportation and acquisition records for the previous six months Seligere had discovered quite blatant and grave discrepancies between orders placed with the Alkhali spice merchant Adha-ul-Hegira and what had been delivered to the city docks. Without fail almost a fifth of each monthly shipment received had been reported as damaged or lost with ever-more specious excuses offered to justify the obvious shortfall.
Seligere knew that raids by bandits or pirates were not uncommon and many ships’ cargoes suffered some degree of destruction from seawater or vermin although such factors typically accounted for a loss of no more than a tenth of any consignment. Nevertheless the pattern that he had discerned in the various catastrophes alleged to have befallen Hegira’s ship the Azimuth had aroused Seligere’s suspicions. Almost without fail each calamity had occurred while the vessel was being loaded at the docks of the Alkhali Capital, Emirsegai before the precious cargo was safely stowed away in the hold. Upon closer analysis of the manifests Seligere had found that the explanations given to account for the considerable losses were so outlandish as to be risible: from sacks of goods being struck by lightning or snatched from the deck by a tornado to as one invoice claimed their being devoured by a great Sea Wyrm that had attacked while the Azimuth was still moored in Emirsegai’s harbour.
Broadening the scope of his investigation Seligere had consulted the archives stored in Aesfortis’s Hall of Records and come to realize that there had been a significant shortfall in every last shipment supplied by Adha-ul-Hegira throughout the course of the eight-and-a-half years that he had been trading with Tellus Isle. While the earlier reports listed more conventional causes for the losses such as pests disease and fungal contamination the reasons had become increasingly more bizarre as time went on.
Despite his conviction that the Alkhali merchant or the Azimuth’s Captain Kameez-ul-Djellaba or the ship’s crew or all of them together had perpetrated a prohibitive long-term fraud Seligere was faced with a quandary. Adha-ul-Hegira had negotiated a shrewd contract with Earl Suavis Ferrumanus back when he first began to trade with Aesfortis. The agreement stipulated that the merchant was to be paid in advance for any shipment because of the rarity and value of his goods and the distances and hazards involved in their transportation to Tellus Isle. This meant that only the Earl could annul the covenant.
Seligere and Harbourmaster Inspicere had both been invited to the Wedding Feast at Earlshome where the young Chief Procurator had intended to bring the matter to his superior’s attention and he had collated all the evidence of the spice merchant’s deception with that in mind.
Then just before dawn his wife Naevus had gone into labour two weeks earlier than predicted and Seligere was obliged to remain at home for the birth of his first child. The midwife and physician had been summoned Seligere had given the household servants and retainers leave to attend the festivities in Earlscourt once the Healers arrived. Among the household staff only Naevus’s childhood nursemaid old Caritas Assidus and her husband Topiarius the gardener had elected to stay behind for the birth.
Seligere looked up and gazed through the window into the enclosed garden where he saw the white-haired old man pottering about with a pair of secateurs. Topiarius’s head came up and then he turned and shuffled towards the door at the corner of the courtyard that opened out onto Scrivener Street.
Before Seligere could consider who the unannounced visitor might be the door to the bedchamber swung open and Caritas’s wrinkled face creased into a gummy gap-toothed grin.
‘Come, Seligere,’ she says. ‘Welcome your son to the World.’
As he sprang to his feet and dashed into the room Seligere’s heart leapt with joyous delight. Propped up with pillows Naevus sat in the wide bed her small lovely face aglow with bliss and a tiny blanket-wrapped bundle cradled in her arms. The slender blonde-haired midwife Tactilis Obstetrix and the stooped balding physician Citare Mensura stood smiling on the other side of the room.
Seligere went over to his wife and tears welled in his eyes as he gazed down at the little red puckered face of the newborn. Naevus held the baby out to him.
‘Say hello to our son, my love,’ she says.
With a mixture of tenderness excitement and anxiety lest he break something so fragile and small Seligere reached for the baby.
‘Take care to support his little head,’ says Tactilis, ‘for his neck is not strong yet.’
Seligere nodded and took his son into his hands. He raised the child aloft and held him out at arms’ length and grinned like a fool when the baby’s dark eyes met his own. An overwhelming surge of love and protectiveness flooded through his entire being as Seligere marvelled at the little wonder he held. He was jolted from this perfect moment of rapture when the midwife and the physician turned towards the doorway behind him and their faces proclaimed shocked dismay. Seligere glanced over his shoulder and could not comprehend what he saw. Old Caritas had fallen to the floor and a dark red winestain spread across the front of her plain white robe.
‘Wine?’ Seligere thought. ‘What?’
Several figures darted into the room and bright shards of light flashed from their hands. Seligere felt a wicked blow strike his neck and found that he lay across the bed on top of his wife’s legs. Some reflexive instinct had made him twist his body as he fell forwards so that he did not crush his newborn son. The baby’s tiny face screwed up and he began to bawl. His mind full of numb uncomprehending horror Seligere watched Tactilis and Citare topple over like felled trees. He tried to rise but found himself unable to move. He opened his mouth but could not speak.
Seligere registered a terrified shrieking and then he realized that it came from Naevus: his wife had been screaming since Caritas went down. Then he heard a gasp and her cries were cut off.
The sun went down and the World grew dim and tenebrous shadow loomed over him. Seligere tried to hold on tight but his hands refused to obey his commands and the baby was snatched from him. Helpless, hopeless, aghast, he watched as his precious child was hurled through the air to smash against the wall with devastating force and his son’s piping wails were forever silenced.
Night fell on Chief Procurator Seligere Tractatus and everything was black.

* * *

Unstirred by any breeze the air was still and the muted light was tinged deep green by the foliage overhead. The only sounds were soft ones: birdsong and whirring insects’ wings and jingling harness and creaking leather and the horses’ breathing and the knee-high undergrowth rustling as the party forged a way through leading their mounts by the reins. The trees crowded close together and the travellers were obliged to follow the Huntlady in single file. No one spoke.
Just behind Calma Taiscealai at the head of the column Castus was lost in thought. Unable to see the sun through the trees he could not tell the time but reckoned that no more than two hours had passed since the Huntlady first detected the assassins and rode from the hollow near Flumen. He found that hard to believe because he felt drained and it seemed as if days had gone by.
‘Time,’ Castus thought, ‘is such a curious thing. Somehow, both absolutely objective yet utterly subjective. While its constant progression cannot be hindered or halted, the perceived speed of time depends upon individual circumstances. It cold races or it crawls. An hour of pleasure always passes twice as fast as one spent in dull routine. Perhaps that is why young people constantly keep themselves active and amused, but, as they become older and more aware of their mortality, they led less energetic lives and were content to settle into a banal repetitive cycle of predictability. Young people rush into adulthood, while their elders long to be children again.’
In his heart Castus knew that he was allowing his mind to dwell on abstractions to avoid the grim realities. He shied away from analysis of his precarious situation and speculation about what the future might have in store. He eschewed contemplation of the loss he had suffered and imagining how terrible his loved ones’ last moments must have been.
Despite his best efforts Castus’s thoughts were drawn towards the massacres like a finger to a scabbed wound. Unsummoned the faces of family members and friends appeared in his mind with their features contorted into expressions of horror and pain: Mother and Father and Perspicax and Racemes and Parere and Gensor and Clavis and Claustrum and Morum and Pica and Jubilare and Estalon and Douxjoel and Flavuspilus and Jocundus and Pallidus and Espeer and Cointe and Pite and Pupilla and Soubrette and Jonquette and Avis and Voile and Dativus and Pretiosus and Prunum...
Castus gritted his teeth and frowned and clenched his hands and summoned rage to banish the anguished faces from his mind. He envisioned his adversaries with their features twisted in agonized terror: Valentia the sadist and Validus the oaf and Alma the manhater and Fornax the craven and Lascivia the slut and Aurumcutis the miser and Tonsor the glutton and Ospres the harridan and Thirle the lecher and Awn the imbecile and Tacitus the weasel and the assassins the nameless faceless murderers the evil scum the monsters the devils the fiends...
Silex bursts into song and Castus’s vengeful litany is disrupted by his foster-brother’s resonant melodious voice, ‘I have a magic sword, my love. Each time we touch, it grows. I keep it safe, here, at my waist. It hangs down to my toes.’
The bawdy ballad is a favourite among commoners and soldiers but ‘The Magic Sword’ is seldom aired in Noble company yet Beatus’s deep voice joins Silex’s for the next verse, ‘My magic sword is hard my love. As forged and tempered steel. But it will be much harder still. Should you but have a feel.’
The lyrics are greeted with laughter and several more voices join in, ‘One kiss from your sweet lips, my love. Will make my sword grow tall. As long and thick as any oak. To tower over all.’
Castus shakes his head yet cannot help but grin because everyone is singing now and so he adds his voice to the chorus, ‘I ask a favour, my fair love. I do beseech your aid. For I must have a warm, safe place. To sheath my magic blade.’
The companions file into a broad clearing as the last verse ends and Castus looks around to see bright smiles on happy faces and merry twinkling laughing eyes. Only Calma retains a neutral expression so he is surprised when the Huntlady opens her mouth to sing in a low husky tone, ‘But swords are ever blunted, dear. When men enter the fray. Their special power soon used up. The magic drained away.’
Castus hears a clear sweet voice from the rear and he turns to see Siorai Coillseilg ride into the glade and surmises that she must have completed the mysterious task her Mistress sent her to perform after they first entered the trees as he listens to the two women sing in harmony, ‘I have seen magic swords before. I swear that on my life. But I fear what you wield, my dear. Could scarce be called a knife. Now, run away, dear, while you can. Conceal your tiny charms. For soon, my husband shall return. And he bears heavy arms.’
Hilarity echoes around the glade as the companions hoot and howl at the women’s words.
‘I have never heard that version before,’ Silex says.
‘They sing it thus,’ says Calma, ‘in the Northern Realms of Meerlant and Knarrerim.’
‘Aye,’ says Sieur Ducere. ‘The women are fierce up there. I warrant it is because of the constant cold. Makes them frigid. And ill-tempered.’
‘Perhaps the cold also causes their men’s weapons to shrink?’ says young Vivus.
Siorai rides over to Calma and the two women dismount and confer with one another while the others exchange cheerful banter and then the Huntlady sits on the ground and closes her eyes for a few moments. Satisfaction is plain on her face when she opens them again and then Calma stands and springs onto Tempest’s back and says, ‘We ride from here. Single column. I intend to confound our enemies. Siorai, backtrack from here. You know what to do.’
Her Apprentice nods and mounts Prudence and then she turns and begins to ride back the way they came through Gentiana Wood.
Calma waits until the others are ahorse and then she heels Tempest. The companions continued with their repartee as they follow her across the clearing and a short distance through the trees to a rapid stream. The Huntlady urges her horse down and water splashes from its hooves as she follows the course of the brook.
Castus and the others come behind and he finds that the chatter and laughter have alleviated the grief and anger which ruled his thoughts before and then Silex begins to sing another lewd song, ‘The Vernal Maiden, she is free. With gifts so fine, for you and me. But Vertere’s crone, she is a thief. Who never grants a man relief.’
Other voices chime in and Castus grins. The weight of sorrow lifts from him and he sits up straighter in the saddle. The cheery procession carries on through the woods.


The grandiose residence of Admiral Velum Tempestas lay in the shadow of Earlshome at the top of Aesfortis Tor. Velum sat in a wicker armchair on the long balcony outside his suite which afforded him a magnificent panorama of the city below and the countryside beyond the walls but Velum has grown heartily sick of the view because he has yearned to gaze out over the azure waters of Lake Solala throughout the six weeks of his confinement to the mansion and he has cursed his father’s name and the man’s contrary nature every day.
The north-facing properties on the opposite side of the hill were more desirable and expensive because they overlooked Argentum Bay and the lake. Velum’s father Pervius had also been an Admiral in the Earl’s Navy. He had deliberately and to his only son’s mind perversely purchased a home from which not so much as a glimpse of any significant body of water could be seen. Pervius’s oft-repeated rationale for this idiotic decision had been simple: the seas were his alluring capricious and sometimes dangerous mistresses but the land was his constant faithful compassionate wife to whom he was wed irrevocably heart body and mind so he wanted to rest his eyes upon her whenever he was at home.
Velum had always interpreted this somewhat pretentious conceit as a non-too-subtle allusion to his father’s habitual dalliances with whores in each of the many ports he visited through the course of his sea-faring career. A propensity that his long-suffering wife Devotus feigned ignorance of all the days of her life.
Velum’s weatherworn countenance curled in a sour grimace. He reached for the silver goblet on the small wrought iron table at his side and gulped down the contents and then called for more wine. A serving-maid appeared. She was young and slight. Her raven-haired head was bowed submissively and her delicate pretty features were marred by a livid bruise on her left cheekbone. Despite the bright sunshine that beamed down from the cloudless sky and the day’s warmth she wore a spinsterly full-length long-sleeved dress of dark wool buttoned right up to her neck.
The serving-maid lifted the bottle from the table and poured rich red wine into the proffered chalice. Her green eyes widened in alarm and her face dropped in dismay as she watched the flow ebb to a trickle and the bottle ran dry before her Master’s goblet was filled. With a cruel glint in his eye Velum glanced askance at the girl and his fist tightened around the stem of the silver vessel. The serving-maid flinched and cast her eyes down and murmured an apology.
‘Fetch me another,’ the Admiral snarled, ‘and be quick about it, lass.’
With the empty bottle in hand the serving-maid dropped a quick curtsy. She backed away into the study behind and turned and went out the door. Her footsteps echoed in the silence as she hurried along the wide empty corridor and rushed down the broad marble staircase to the ground floor whereupon she took a narrow passage that ran towards the rear of the mansion. The corridor ended at a stout oaken door which she yanked open went through and pulled shut behind.
Stepping into the large hot steamy room, she was struck by the contrast between the lifeless passageways that she had just traversed and the noisy bustle of the kitchens. The mouth-watering aromas of roasting meat and boiling vegetables and baking pastry filled her nostrils as she swerved around busy cooks and their assistants on her way towards the other side of the room.
With a wooden spoon clenched in her hand the tall bony head cook turned from the tureen of broth that she had been stirring and caught the newcomer’s eye. A broad grin split the cook’s long angular face and she brushed an iron-grey strand of hair back from her brow with floury fingers leaving a dusting of white powder at her temple.
‘Ancilla,’ she says, ‘don’t tell me the damn guests’ve started arriving already.’
The young girl shook her head and brandished the empty bottle she held.
‘No, Festa. The Master just sent me to fetch more wine.’
‘The drunken old sot,’ says the cook. ‘On me hands and me heart, I swear, after all the trouble I’ve gone to preparing this feast, if he passes out at table again, I’ll skin him alive and boil his bones for stock.’
Ancilla Oboedire smiled although both women knew that the threat was hollow. She saw the cook incline her head and the serving-maid self-consciously lifted her hand to cover the bruise on her face. Festa Coquus’s sharp features creased with sympathetic concern.
‘He struck ye again?’ she asks.
‘Last night,’ says Ancilla. ‘In the bedchamber.’
‘Damn the man’s eyes,’ says the cook, ‘and his insufferable pride. He’s gotten worse every day of his confinement. Both with the drink and the beatings. He shoulda known what woulda happened when he tried to seduce Satureia Ferrumanus, the stupid old goat. The Earl’s wife, of all people. Drunk as an innkeep or no, had I been the Earl, I’d have demanded his lusting head on a spike. The old fool got off lightly, so why can’t he just apologize? But, oh, no, not him. So, instead, he takes his damn temper out on me girls.’
Ancilla’s vision blurred and she blinked back tears of shame.
‘Oh,’ says Festa, ‘I am sorry, me dear. That were bloody thoughtless of me. Never mind me blathering. The heat in here musta stewed me brains. Now, go fetch him his wine, afore the old lecher runs outta patience.’
The serving-maid nodded and scurried across the room to the three doors set in the back wall. She took a taper from the shelf to her left, and lit it in the fires of the nearest oven and then she touched the flame to one of the tallow candles that lay beside the tapers, and opened the cellar door. She went down the stone steps into the dark cool cavernous chamber and dropped the empty bottle into a tun at the foot of the stairs. The glass clinked against the others bottles inside. Wooden racks stretched back into the gloom and she made her way along them until she came to the bottles of Vinea Rubidus the Master’s favourite Agertellian red. She plucked a bottle from the rack and blew dust from the glass and then returned to the kitchen.
One of the head cook’s assistants stood at the threshold of the basement: a tow-haired boy whose name Ancilla could never remember. He greeted her with a nervous smile and took the bottle from her hand and went to work with a corkscrew. Ancilla extinguished her candle and replaced it on the shelf. She waited until the lad had pulled the cork with a loud satisfying pop. He handed the bottle and its cork back to her and met her eyes for an instant. He flashed a bashful grin and then studied his feet.
‘Thank you...’ says Ancilla.
‘Botellus!’ the head cook shouted. ‘Stop moping about like a love-struck mooncalf and get them apples peeled and cored afore I peel your worthless hide.’
The lad shuffled away and Festa Coquus winked at Ancilla and then returned to her duties. The young serving-maid smiled and stuck the cork in the mouth of the bottle so that none of its contents could slosh out and then she strode across the kitchen.
She made her way back through the mansion and stopped outside the door to the Master’s chambers to run a hand through her hair and straighten her dress before she opened the door. Ancilla froze in her tracks and the bottle slipped from nerveless fingers to shatter on the floor spraying wine and shards of glass in all directions.
Wide-eyed and open-mouthed Ancilla stared at the tableau before her. Six intruders stood over the prone form of Admiral Velum Tempestas with long-bladed blood-smeared knives in their hands. As one, they sprang towards her. With a little shriek, Ancilla turned and took to her heels along the corridor. A vicious blow in the small of her back sent her sprawling. Her head slammed against the wall and she slumped to the floor.
A sensation of drowsy contentment fell over her and she recalled a gorgeous Aestas afternoon and a picnic with her family by the side of a lake back when she had been small. Her mother leaned in very close and Ancilla’s vision was filled by her smooth lovely face her deep brown eyes soft with tenderness. Their brows touched and mother’s long dark hair was a silky curtain that shut out the world making her safe from all harm. Her senses were overwhelmed by the warm clean scent of mother and then Ancilla Oboedire knew no more.


Frustrated impatience gnawed at Deathmaster Serpere Sinuosus like a ferret in the guts as he sat astride his palomino stallion at the eastern edge of the forest. For every moment of the past hour he had struggled against the urge to goad his horse into a headlong gallop.
Stood in a line to either side of him the mounts of his eight companions anxiously shifted and twitched as if the beasts sensed his foul mood. The coach driven by Mendicus bearing the two seriously wounded assassins had been left a hundred paces back along the trail.
A horse snorted and there was a flurry of wings as a sparrow took wing from the elm above. Cutis Vacare’s hand flashed up and the hilt of a throwing knife appeared in its breast. The bird tumbled lifeless to the ground. Cutis the Killer dismounted and retrieved his weapon.
Caution had prolonged their six-mile journey through the woods. Serpere had commanded his depleted force to move at a slow canter and kill any beast or bird that they spotted on sight. Their passage along the road through the trees was marked by a trail of small dead animals, each creature slain by an arrow, crossbow bolt, blade, slingstone, or throwing star.
The precaution ensured that the Huntress could neither spy on them nor launch another assault, as she had done with the bear. While he had no way of knowing for certain, Serpere suspected that his avowed adversary was too shrewd to attempt such a move again, now that the assassins had their guard up. Nevertheless, he had been complacent in his underestimation of her abilities before, and would not permit another lapse. He could not afford one.
While no assassin in Fraternity Obitus wore a badge of rank or any other insignia to distinguish status between Guild members, the Huntress’s bear had, by some uncanny chance, killed almost half of the higher ranking assassins in the Deathsquads under Serpere’s command. That, while only two of the inexperienced Bloodletters had suffered minor wounds, and none of those expendable juniors had died.
Although he believed that the Huntress and her wards had taken flight, and it was therefore unlikely that anyone remained at the Nabbing Gang’s original site, the Deathmaster refused to take anything for granted. The sly bitch might be lying in wait there, expecting him to assume that she had fled, and so come stumbling into an ambush, a victim of his own hubris. A further possibility was that she had departed, but left some kind of trap, aware of his need to visit the hollow in order to pick up her trail. Another bear, perhaps, or wolves.
That was why, twenty minutes earlier, when they had come to the end of the woods and seen that the road ahead offered no cover, Serpere had instructed his second, Mendax Studium, to choose three assassins.
Mendax had singled out the most capable uninjured survivors of the bear’s attack, the Snatchers Rapere Abducere and Demens Flagrare and Mali Acetum the Butcheress.
Serpere had instructed them to sneak up on the Nabbing Gang’s hollow, some two miles distant, killing any beasts they encountered en route. Should they find Castus and his companions at the hollow, or any sign of a trap, they were to rejoin the main Deathsquad. If the area was clear, then a fire was to be lit atop the hill that overlooked the site.
The four men had exchanged their shiny steel armour and helmets for hooded silks, patterned with patches of brown, green and black. Rather than expose themselves on the open road, they had left their horses behind, slipped southwards through the trees for a few hundred paces, and then left the woods to set off across country on foot. With their camouflage, they had soon blended into the terrain.
Serpere realized that his eyes were fixed on the distant hilltop, expecting the appearance of a plume of smoke, and he tore his gaze away to sweep along the line of assassins that flanked him, four to either side. Five were incompetent Bloodletters, and of the three skilled killers, only one was unwounded. The Deathmaster gritted his teeth, gave a snort of disgust, and resumed his vigil over the hilltop.
While he had no intention of returning to Aesfortis with his tail tucked between his legs to suffer the condescension of Deathlord Mancus Lineamentum, Serpere could not help but feel concerned about his situation. He had grave misgivings about his wretched Deathsquad’s capabilities. The Huntlady rode among a company of twenty-four, which meant that the assassins would be outnumbered two-to-one when they finally caught up with their quarry. The Deathmaster prided himself on the fact that he had never failed to complete a contract, but he wondered whether his motley band of killers would be up to the task.
Serpere recalled his communion with Deathlord Lineamentum. Mancus had declared his intention to send a fresh Deathsquad to assist with the task at hand. That second force had probably been despatched already. If so, they would likely come into sight soon.
Serpere felt a flush of shame. Much as he hated to admit the fact, there was no denying that he needed all the help he could get. He speculated about which of his fellows the Deathlord would have enlisted to command the mission, and concluded that it must be Nuntius Mors. There was little chance that Mancus would have chosen either Crena Milia or Pontifix Limbus. As his equals in rank, the two Deathmistresses would be unable to command Serpere. Apart from the Guildleader, and Mancus, Deathlady Mors was the only member of Fraternity Obitus who outranked him.
The Deathmaster quelled a shudder of dread. Her tongue was sharper than any razor, and Nuntius could lash a subordinate more excruciatingly with mere words than most might manage with a bullhide whip. Having often borne witness to the cruel castigations meted out by the Deathlady in response to failure, Serpere had no intention of being the victim of her humiliating obloquies. He considered how best to shift the blame for the debacle onto the shoulders of his second, Deathdancer Mendax Studium.
Thoughts of censure fled his mind as a wisp of smoke floated up from the remote hilltop. Serpere jabbed his heels into the palomino’s flanks and the stallion sprang forwards in response. His mount galloped along the road, the hooves of the other horses thundered after, and the carriage trundled behind. The gap between the swift riders and the slow coach widened by the instant.

INSERT:
(section detailing assassination of Crassus Potentatus by Fraternity Obitus)


A mile out from the forest, the carriage lurched over a rut in the road. Bloodletter Mendicus Petulans hissed with pain as the broken ends of his left collarbone grated against one another for what seemed like the thousandth time. The woman inside the coach screamed.
‘Damn your eyes, Mendicus,’ Odium the Killer cried. ‘My leg’s in pieces. Slow down, you clumsy whoreson.’
‘Nefas lost half his arm,’ says Mendicus, ‘and I don’t hear him bleating like a lamb.’
‘That’s cause he passed out, while we was waiting in the woods. The poor bugger’s lost a bucketload of blood, but it’s your bloody driving that’s gonna be the death of the pair of us.’
‘I can’t help the state of the road.’
‘The road’s fine,’ Odium says. ‘We wouldn’t be getting tossed about like salt in a shaker if you weren’t going so flaming fast.’
‘Deathmaster Sinuosus told me to keep up. Who do you think I’d rather risk angering? Him or you? Now shut your trap, or I swear, by all that’s tainted and profane, I’ll come down there, and stick a knife in your gizzard.’
‘Try it, and I’ll bite your little pintle off.’
Mendicus bit back an obscene retort, when he saw that the others were riding back towards him, with the Deathmaster at the head of the group. The Bloodletter hauled on the reins, and the horses reared. The carriage skidded to an abrupt halt, eliciting another agonized shriek from Odium, followed by a colourful stream of profanities, directed towards Mendicus, his mother, his sister, and various members of his extended family.
Bloodletter Petulans hunched over as another jolt of pain shot through his injured shoulder, and tried to ignore the woman’s invective tirade. He looked up when he heard the Deathmaster call his name, and saw that Serpere and the others had come to a stop a little ahead of the carriage.
‘Mendicus, take the wounded back to Aesfortis. Should you encounter anyone from the Guild on the way, report that our quarry has fled, but we have picked up their trial, and are in pursuit. No more than that, you hear me? Say nothing about the bear, or any other matter.’
‘Yes, Deathmaster Sinuosus.’
Serpere heeled his horse forwards and peered into the coach’s interior.
‘Is he dead?’
‘Just unconscious, Deathmaster,’ says Odium, ‘though he’s losing a lotta blood, even with the tourniquet. This accursed donkey cart ain’t helping any, what with all the bumping and bashing around. If we weren’t strapped down, the pair of us’d be lying on the floor. Could you not tell that dopey Bloodletter to slow down a bit? Either that, or give us somebody who knows how to drive this bloody contraption.’
‘It’s not my fault, Deathmaster Sinuosus,’ Mendicus says. ‘I’m doing the best I can. My old Pa was a teamster, so I can steer just about anything with wheels, but this wagon simply ain’t built for speed. The rate I’ve been pushing her, it’s a wonder one of the wheels hasn’t come off. And these cobs are gonna die in their traces, if I keep driving them this hard.’
‘Yes, yes,’ says Serpere. ‘I have no time for this nonsense. Return to the Capital at your own pace. Just remember what I told you.’
‘Aye, Deathmaster Sinuosus. Our prey has fled. You are on their trail. Nothing else to report.’
Serpere nodded and heeled his horse on towards the woods. The other riders filed past the coach, and then Mendicus took up the reins. The carriage set off at a pace no faster than that of a man on foot. Odium called up from within.
‘But, Deathmaster Sinuosus,’ she jeered. ‘Deathmaster Sinuosus, it ain’t my fault, I’m only doing my honest best, Deathmaster Sinuosus. Mendicus, you worm, I’m amazed you didn’t get down on your belly, and squirm in the dirt at his feet.’
‘Keep it up,’ says the Bloodletter, ‘and I’ll be coming down there, to do something to your belly, and you won’t like it one little bit, I can promise you that. And, if anyone asks, I’ll just say you died of your wounds and there was naught I could do about it.’
‘Try it, and I’ll geld you,’ Odium scoffed. ‘My blades always find their target, no matter how tiny. Then, you’ll be even more useless to a woman than you already are, if such a thing’s possible.’
‘Since you can’t stop rabbit and porking on about the size of my manhood, I’ve half a mind to come down there and beat you unconscious with the thing.’
Odium’s derisive laughter rang out, and was cut short by a screech, as Mendicus deliberately steered the coach over a dip in the road’s surface. The Bloodletter grinned and the carriage rolled on towards Aesfortis.

INSERT:
(Detail assassination of Habilitas Dedicare by Fraternity Obitus)