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Season of the Sword (part 3 ) - A Revision

Started by DoctorM, December 06, 2019, 09:06:33 PM

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DoctorM

[The third part of a revision of a story I had in Deryni Archives a lifetime ago. It's odd to see how my reading of characters changed over the years. If you're reading this out over the aether, please feel invited to comment. If you've read the original story, I'd like to know what you think of the changes.]


Season of the Sword Part 3 - A Revision


The guards at the door were both in Carminha pale green and white livery. They watched Falkenberg's party come down the corridor with dark Southern eyes.

Guy de Langenay scowled at them. "You go to them like they were kings," he said. "I've seen you keep lords of Mooryn waiting in the rain, but whenever the Jews call, you go running."

"They're more use than kings," Falkenberg said. He glanced out the window. Out there past the Carminha compound he could see the houses of the poorer Jews of Cardosa clumped against the city wall, their roofs thatched with straw. The wooden houses of the richer spread out to overshadow the crooked narrow streets of the city's Jewry. The streets here ran inward, leading to the stone of the Carminha factor's compound. He turned back to the sullen Langenay. "The Carminha can buy kings."

Morgánn edged closer to Langenay. "You do all the right things, Guy. Ride well, fight well, believe in loyalty. But you might try not letting your tongue outrun your mind. You might try that."

The guards came to attention and stood aside. They were announced as they went past: "The Visconde de Daerborne. The Lord Morgánn de Falkenberg." Guy de Langenay stayed back and dropped onto a bench along the wall.

The Carminha factor rose from his chair at the long table. He was young enough—- Cardosa was nowhere important enough for anyone senior —-and he was all Southern silks and graces, hair dark as the Falkenbergs and cut to  a bristly shortness. A silver collar was hanging against the green of his tunic. He made a half-bow and opened his hands toward the chairs drawn up before the table. 

"My lords, " he said. "Visconde Ricardo. Dom Morgánn. I am Eleazar da Carminha."

"Mestre Eleazar." Falkenberg nodded and stretched out in the chair. They had bishops' voices, the Carminha. God and minted silver, the episcopate and the richest of the Southern Jews. They spoke to princes in languid Forcinn and Fianna voices, sure of a power above and beyond all crowns. God and minted silver.

He leaned against the arm of the chair and looked out over steepled fingertips. Oh, I can be Southern, too, my friend.

"You sent your messenger, Mestre. You asked to speak to us."

Eleazar pulled a heavy folio from the spread of parchments and receipts on the table. "Letters have arrived for you, Dom Ricardo. Dom David ben-Abraham da Carminha sends you his greetings and respects. The letters require your seal and signature in receipt."

He laid out the thick packets of waxed cloth, carapaced in green wax and stamped with the galley and rose of the Carminha. Falkenberg traced his finger over them.

"My signature."

Eleazar looked down at the letters. "Bills of credit, my lord. They're in Latin and the Gwynedd tongue and Torenthi. There are half-built quays at Daerborne for our ships. Dom Morgánn is to marry the Dona Sabrine at midwinter. Dom David has guaranteed your ransoms at a thousand silver marks each."

Falkenberg shook his head. "This isn't the Forcinn, Mestre. They do things the other way round here. They ransom in political games and kill out of hand in civil wars."

Eleazar opened one hand. "I've been north overseas for four years now. I've never seen a Christian knight turn down minted silver. Money means nothing to a true knight— unless he needs more. They always need more."

Morgánn laughed. He picked up one of the letters and stared at the seal while Richard signed for them. His brother's seal ring flashed with witch-fire. "Well, now, We'll take our chances with the Michaelines and buy off everybody else in bloody Gwynedd."

Eleazar passed another letter over to Morgánn. It was smaller, sealed in amber-coloured wax. "Dom Morgánn," he said. "From my cousin, the Dona Sabrine."

Morgánn slit the seals with his dagger and unfolded the letter. He looked down at the fine, small script. Latin, of course, with the Forcinn tongue woven through it. Bem-amado, she called him. He closed his eyes. O meu corvo, she called him: my raven.

He looked up at Eleazar, "Obrigado," he said. "Obrigado, Mestre."

Falkenberg looked at his brother. He half-wanted to laugh. All his life he'd watched Morgánn move through women. Rainier had said once that with women Morgánn was like a head cold in winter: everybody gets it, and a week later it was gone.  He'd spent years expecting angry husbands or fathers to come demanding Morgánn's head. Even Imre. The king had had the same reasons as everyone else. But maybe they all knew better. Like a head cold— a couple of days of sneezing and coughing and then it was gone. It would be just like his brother to do the improbable thing and turn an implausible but profitable marriage of policy into a romance.

He looked back at young Eleazar. "Mestre," he said,"my thanks to Dom David. But it's not so foregone  a thing, that the priests and the MacRories get it all."

Eleazar looked down at the documents. "The MacRories and this Haldane king have more soldiers than your lords do. They think you outnumber them, though. They spend their days thinking how to destroy you with a small army."

"We could still win. I'm here, Mestre— in Cardosa with my queen. There's nothing romantic about lost causes. I grew up in and out of the Forcinn; I know that. Whatever they sing about over in Bremagne, whatever the troubadours say, I never thought about throwing my life away for a dream."

Eleazar nodded. He held up one more letter. "You speak for many of the Southern Deryni, Visconde Ricardo. Daerborne has belonged to your house for, what, eighty-odd years, and your house has always looked south over the water. So we ask you to act for us. Dom David trusts your discretion. This is for the Conde de Carismont."

Falkenberg stared at the letter. Eleazar was watching him with blue eyes of the richest Forcinn Jews. Carismont?

"Earl," he said. "In Gwynedd they quit saying count a long while ago. Earl."

"Eu o aprenderei. Earl of Carismont, then. But it is for your queen's captain-general."

Falkenberg reached out for it. "Am I trusted with the message?" Carismont's never spoken to a Jew, never been south even to Concaradine.

"The Houses of Carminha and Seixas will lend the Festil queen the price of five hundred men-at-arms for six months. Please convey this to the Earl of Carismont and to the lord of Kincardine. As a favour to Dom David and to the Seixas."

Falkenberg sat back. He looked over at Morgánn. His brother was staring at Dom David's letter. The green seal stood out like cat's eyes in the dark.

"Mestre, Dom David has never concerned himself with the north before. It might be a handsome offer if it had a reason behind it."

Eleazar shrugged. "Five hundred horsemen to help buy our safety. Now this is no secret. At Concaradine the new government in Valoret has come to borrow money. They want ten thousand livres d'or and they'll pay any interest anyone cares to name. There are some Gwynedd houses among my kind that see only their percentages: plate and produce to be shipped south or sold in Howicce or Bremagne. What they don't see—- well, you're Deryni, my lord. You and your brother should see."

Falkenberg ran his fingers over the heavy green wax. "I know," he said. "We all know— Ariella and the southerners. Deryni Gwynedd's like ice, hard and pretty, but you can't stop it cracking once it starts."

"The old houses will come back," Eleazar said. "I've seen party warfare; I know how it can happen. The Festils displaced the old houses, and they'll have their revenge. And then...underneath, too. It'll be the peasants' turn, soon enough. They see Deryni and they say 'heretic' and 'witch' to themselves. They think those things are for burning. The day is coming when the priests and their peasant cattle will come to burn Deryni."

Falkenberg looked away. He tried to imagine the words for it: o país despovoado, ruin and desolation. Eleazar's eyes were blue and cold as polished sapphire, the blue of the desert sky. His voice was pitiless and sharp as the desert wind. Silver and blood and power: in the Forcinn they saw the outline of things and how they were in the world.

"We swim in alien seas, my lord," Eleazar went on. "We swim together, too, Jews and Deryni both. Heretic, Jew,  Deryni, witch— the distinctions are too fine for the peasant mind. They'll turn on the Deryni, and then they'll come for the Jews. That's how it always works.  Whoever it starts with, it's always the Jews who are the next in line as enemies. They'll burn Deryni, then they'll remember my kind. The Carminha and the Seixas want your Deryni queen back on the throne for our own safety. The others, the ones at Valoret— if they win, everything that your kind and mine made will end up torn down. The Earl of Carismont can have five hundred men-at-arms from us. The money will be at Beldour. Tell him that."

O país despovoado. The breath went out of him and he could feel it: desolation and all the coastlands brought to nothing.

"They'd do it," he said quietly. "They're animals in Gwynedd, knights and serfs all together. Dear God, ask my brother; he was at Grecotha. What did they teach him— no salvation without the shedding of blood?"

"It's not enough," Morgánn said. "Not enough, and it's too late. Too late to raise more troops. By autumn we'll either be in Valoret or the priests will be preaching against Deryni in every dunghill village in Gwynedd. The joke's on Culdi and the Michaelines. And it's not even fair: the peasants may get to burn out Grecotha before I can." He tipped his head back and looked up to the painted rafters. "You're right, though, Mestre. If it starts in Gwynedd, it won't stop. I'll be in the Forcinn with Sabrine. I don't want my children to have to be afraid of what's over the water."

"It's too late,"Falkenberg echoed. "We need horsemen now, this week, this month. Recruiting season's done. But I'll give this to Carismont. You're right about it all, Mestre. It won't stop in Gwynedd. My kind built it all in Gwynedd— the Great King's followers, Deryni or not. Westerners foul everything they touch."

Eleazar sat forward. "The bargaining's started in Gwynedd. You know the way lords behave in wartime, Dom Ricardo. Your Ariella's supporters have come to us, asking for advances against the lands they'll seize. But you should know this: the Baron of Carthane has gone to moneylenders at Valoret for gold. He says that his spoil will be the Daerborne lands."

Falkenberg's hands clenched. "Nobody gets Daerborne. Daerborne's mine. I'll see it burnt to ash before I let Murdoch of Carthane set foot in my halls. Nobody lays a hand on what's mine, Mestre. Not in this life."

Morgánn stretched his legs out. "Murdoch's nothing. A court hanger-on. His family's been licking gutters since the Conquest, begging for other men's lands. They're coming out from under their rocks— all the ones like Murdoch, all the unlettered and unwashed lordlings. Both bloody sides of this, too. If Murdoch of Carthane's in Daerborne, even being in the Forcinn won't be enough. There's not enough salt air on the Southern Sea to clean the stench off the north wind. Nobody takes Daerborne from us, Mestre. Murdoch's nothing."

Eleazar gathered up his portfolios. "Your armies march soon enough. I'm leaving Cardosa for Beldour. If SIghere of Eastmarch seizes the roads north, his tax collectors will ruin the trade through here back into Torenth." He gave a forced smile. "We will be in Beldour, Dom Ricardo. I wish you success, my lord of Daerborne. For all our sakes."