Arcanum Part 38

"That's not what you said this morning," said Felix. "You said they'd turn on me if they realised there was magic still around."

"They will support you tonight, at least. Everything is ready, and you needn't even speak. It's certainly not required, nor even expected."

Felix looked down at the sword. "Can you hang this on my right? There doesn't seem any point to having it where I can't even draw it."

Trommler looked to see if he could change it, but the fittings were on one side only. He solved the problem by turning the whole belt around, so that the buckle was at the back. "My lord hasn't eaten anything today."

"I had something for breakfast."

"Which is contrary to what the servant I sent to you told me." Trommler gave a mirthless smile. "I shall have him beaten."

"Maybe I didn't. Don't beat him." Felix looked across at the table, with its untouched plate of cold meats and bread and beer. "I'm just not hungry."

"It is, I'm afraid, your royal duty to eat, and drink. Especially drink, and I'd rather you had some ballast inside when you take the horn tonight. I've made sure that the Gothi waters the mead down for you: it wouldn't do for you to either collapse or spew." He guided the boy over to the chair and pulled it back for him. "Anything would be better than nothing, even though it might taste like wood."

"Has the signore returned, Mr Trommler?"

"Not that I know of," said Trommler. "But you cannot wait for his return."

"He can't have failed." Felix poked at a small wheat-flour roll with his finger. "Perhaps he's just waiting for the right moment."

"I'm sure that's the case."

"He couldn't have left me, could he?"

Trommler pursed his lips. "No. I very much doubt that he has. The signore will return when he is done."

Felix sighed and dug his fingers into the roll, splitting it apart and revealing its close-textured middle. "I've got another question, one that I don't want to know the answer to."

"Oh?"

The prince reached behind his bandaged arm and retrieved a small square of folded paper. "I ... no, just read it. You don't need to know where it came from."

Trommler reached out and opened up the paper. The writing was tiny, almost illegible, and he had to hold it well away from his face in order to see anything of it.

"Trouble seeing, Mr Trommler?"

"The enchantment on my eyes has failed, my lord. I'm reduced to this now." He looked over the top of the note. "And no, I don't wish for it back, even though I'll miss easily being able to read even the smallest handwriting."

He finally deciphered the note. In silence, he folded it back up and slid it across the table to Felix.

"It's a very good question," he finally said. Felix waited, and waited some more. Trommler grew increasingly uncomfortable, and eventually went to stand by the fire.

"But is there an answer?"

Trommler's hunched back tightened. "There is, my lord. But, as you wisely said, you don't want to know what it is."

"What if I did?" Felix pushed his chair back and adjusted the sword of state at his hip. He walked slowly across to Trommler. "What if I felt that, as the Prince of Carinthia, I needed to know."

"And not just because she was your mother?" Picking up a poker, the chamberlain riddled the half-burnt logs with something approaching anger.

"Why did she die?"

"She died in childbirth. She died having you."

"That's how she died," said Felix. "Not the why. The note that ... the note asks why she died. I always assumed that the how explained everything. My father never said any more than you just have. There is more, though, isn't there?"

"It's getting perilously close to late, my lord." Trommler replaced the poker and wiped his hands. "Your escort's waiting for you in the courtyard."

"I am the Prince of Carinthia. Let them wait."

Trommler raised an eyebrow. "Just what your father would have said. Perhaps now is not the best time to answer this. Later."

"If I'm to remember my father properly, then now is the only time I can ask. Later will be too late." Felix stood between Trommler and the fire, the heat uncomfortable at his back, but at least it forced the man to look at him. "Why did my mother die? Why was she allowed to die? The Order? They performed miracles: in the old days, it's said they could resurrect someone. A princess of Carinthia died giving birth: I want to know why."

Trommler stroked his scraggy little beard. "Because your grandfather, the king of the Franks, had managed to anger the Order sufficiently for them to want to take revenge. Your mother was the price of that."

Felix stared up at the chamberlain for a moment, then walked away.

"Your father didn't know of the feud," Trommler called after him, and the prince came back.

"What do you mean?"

"It happened when your father was just a boy, far younger than you are now. King Goderic had just ascended the Frankish throne and he tried to detain a hexmaster travelling through his lands: first by bribes, then by force. There could have been a war, but treaties were made instead. One condition was that Goderic's daughter would be given to Gerhard when the time came the bride-price nearly beggared them, which served them right but that wasn't enough for the Order."

Trying to add up dates in his head, Felix murmured, "That's..."

"Fifteen years later. Oh, they made all the right noises, apologised that their magic was insufficient, that she was too far gone to save. She died, and those few of us who'd served long enough to remember vowed never to tell your father."

"Carinthia needed the Order to survive."

"You see? What would Prince Gerhard of Carinthia have done in his grief if he'd found out that the Order of the White Robe had let his wife die?"

"He would have fought them."

"And he would have lost everything. Now I'm the only one left of those old servants and, by fate, I've lived to see the day that Prince Felix of Carinthia finally took steps to break free of the Order." Trommler glanced over at the table where they'd been sitting. "Who gave you the note?"

"A ... friend," said Felix.

"Sophia Morgenstern, then." The chamberlain clicked his tongue. "She is quite perspicacious, for a woman. There's no possible way she could have known."

"Unless she'd read it in a book."

"Ah, yes. She's the bookseller's daughter." Trommler looked down at Felix. "Allowing her here into the fortress, leaving her outside in the corridor, expecting her to sit and wait until she was called. What was I thinking?"

He turned away quickly and walked stiffly to the door. He held it open for Felix.

"My lord. Your final duty to your father is ahead of you. Have courage, and don't be afraid."

"Mr Trommler, are you ...?" Felix didn't have the words.

"I am your servant, my lord." Trommler bowed. "We really must go."

Felix left the solar and walked down the nearest set of stairs to the ground floor. He thought of his growing up as the only royal child in a castle. His half-brothers and sisters were significantly younger than him, and he hadn't had much in common with them.

He would give them titles and see them make marriages he knew that much was expected of him and in return, they would owe him fealty. What did that even mean? They were just children, and so was he. But he had the Sword of Carinthia on his belt, carefully cleaned of the muck and gore it had collected in his father's hand at Obernberg.

It was no longer a magical blade, one that would cut through wood, leather, chain and plate with little more effort than it would cleave flesh. It was, however, still potent. As long as he held it, he could claim the palatinate as his. There might be some point at which friend, or even foe, would pry it from his cold, dead hand. By then, he'd be past caring.

Unlike his father, though, he'd go to meet the gods in full knowledge that his mother had been left to die because of something that someone else had done when she was still a baby. Having ordered Allegretti to go and kill Eckhardt, he wished now that he'd gone to kill him himself.

The honour guard, sitting around the courtyard, were called to order by Reinhardt. Felix hadn't thought he had that many soldiers left, and from the way that the captain growled and kicked at them as they formed up, he suspected that some of them weren't part of the garrison at all, but were cooks and porters and stablehands pressed into ill-fitting armour and handed unfamiliar weapons.

They mostly looked the part, though, and it was dark. The first stars showed in the northern sky, and a crescent moon was low to the south-east. When the torches were lit, the effect would be complete, as long as no one dropped anything or tripped up over a spear-haft.

Trommler fussed about, making sure everything was ready as tradition demanded. Felix's stepmother appeared from another part of the keep: her children huddled around her, their expressions ranging from pensive to uncomprehending. They had lost not only their father, but their home too. Perhaps, thought Felix, they blamed him for that. He hoped their mother would explain.

"My lord," she said formally.

How was he to reply? Trommler leant in and whispered in his ear.

"My lady," said Felix, adding, for want of anything better to say, "Are you well?"

"We're going to Ischl in the morning. They're expecting us there." She wore a dress so dark in its redness it appeared almost black.

"Hello, Ulf," he said to the boy by her side, almost lost in the folds of her skirt.

"Mother says I'm to call you my lord now," he said.

Felix crouched down, sword scabbard scraping against the flagstones. "I don't mind if you still call me Felix. Otherwise I'll have to call you Earl von Ischl."

"Are we going to say goodbye to father?"

"Yes. That's what we're going to do. Did Mr Trommler tell you what's going to happen?"

Ulf nodded. "He said there would be a boat, and a big fire, and the boat would sail away with father and take him to Valhalla."

"Then we come back here." Felix felt the first pricking of tears. "Can I come and visit you in your new house? Not straight away, but soon?"

"Of course you can. We can go riding and hawking and fishing, though I don't know the best places yet. There's a big lake, and Mother says sometimes the spirits come up and talk to you."

Not any more. "That would be lovely." Felix patted the boy's mop of golden hair and straightened up. "I think we're ready, Mr Trommler."

The chamberlain called for Gerhard's body to be brought out of the Great Hall: the doors were flung open, and the bier was carried out by the few remaining earls. The black, red and gold cloth, covering both the shrouded body and the wooden frame, rippled with movement, but nothing came untucked. Trommler had seen to everything, even making sure that the colours of Carinthia had been tacked at the corners.

At his signal, the torches were lit, and fire bloomed from dozens of sources, the flame being passed from one to another until the courtyard was alive with leaping shadows and twisting flames.

He recalled watching as Obernberg burnt, flames consuming the whole town like a handful of dry twigs. He'd had the signore with him then to steady him, and the Italian's absence gnawed at his guts. Where was the man? Why hadn't he returned?

His ashen-faced stepmother stepped up beside him. It was a well-meant gesture, but he shook his head. "Stay with the children. I'll walk with Mr Trommler."

She nodded, patted him on his good shoulder, and shepherded the boys and girls together at a respectful distance. Trommler came and stood next to Felix, his hands clasped around a walking-stick.

"My lords," he said, "if you please."

It began. The earls carried Gerhard at shoulder height towards the Hel Gate, with everyone following according to their rank, and the soldiers taking up the rear. Servants carried the torches along beside the procession, the hiss and crackle of their tar-soaked wood just as loud as the murmuring of their feet.

At least they could still make the torches, thought Felix. We haven't forgotten everything.

"Has there been anything from Mr Thaler?" he whispered to Trommler.

"No, my lord. Neither is now the time to worry about that."

"Oh."

They walked through the echoing gatehouse and down between the high crenellated walls, across the bridge and along the path to the Chastity Gate. The fortress was a huge presence above them, and there was still further to go down to the outer wall and through the Wagon Gate.

Then into the maze of deserted alleys and houses, dark and silent except for them, their boots and their burning.

Felix had never heard the collective hush of thousands of people, just waiting. They were lined up on both sides of the river, downstream from the bridge, a black mass that strained and shifted like a living thing.

The prince hesitated, and Trommler's hand came out to steady him.

"Remember who you are, my lord."

I am twelve years old and an orphan. And the Prince of Carinthia. I faced down a charging Teuton horseman and killed him, even though he broke my shoulder. I killed another, even though my shoulder was already broken. The battle was won, in part, because of me.

He took a deep breath and carried on.

The bier was carried onto the bridge. He followed, and everyone followed him. A small barge, loaded with firewood, was anchored under the bridge between the piers. The ropes holding it in the midstream flow creaked with the effort.

Trommler halted the bier, and stevedores attached ropes to it as the sweating earls stood back. Then, slowly, carefully, Gerhard was lowered over the side. The bier swung, was steadied, and arrived on its final resting place with little more than a bob of the boat.

Felix looked around once more, to see if Allegretti would emerge from the crowd, or perhaps Thaler, or even, possibly, Sophia. All he got was the Gothi, in white and green, ceremonial hammer at his belt. The old man held up a ram's horn, and gave it to the prince.

The mead was sticky, sweet and potent. Whether or not it had been diluted was of little matter: he would have had to drink it even if it had been liquefied goose fat.

The first few mouthfuls weren't too bad. It was harder after that, but he forced himself to swallow all but the last few drops. Those he poured over the parapet, onto the banner and his father's body.

A servant passed Trommler a torch, which was so heavy he struggled to hold it. Felix had to take it from him quickly. His head buzzed, and his own fingers felt fat and unresponsive.

This was it. He held the fire up, feeling its dirty heat on his hand and face. The river was ahead of him, Trommler behind. He reached out, and let the torch fall.

It burnt brightly as it fell, then almost disappeared as it dropped between the gaps of the stacked logs. A distant, obscured flicker shone through the pyre for a moment.

Then the fuel caught. Flames leapt out, and the flag glowed at its edges. Felix stepped back as the first sparks rose into the air. The ropes holding the barge were paid out, and it started to drift downstream. The earls took torches and hurled them towards the flames. His stepmother cast hers with a strong and practised right arm. After that, he lost sight of quite who did what: everything became a teary blur of flames and reflections.

But he could hear. The solemn stillness suddenly broke with an incoherent shout, and the murmur that ensued rose and rose until it became a howl. The people of Juvavum were mourning their lost prince, giving voice to their grief.

Chapter end