Shroud of Shadow (40 page)

Adoro te devote, latens deitas.

Hidden. Hidden. But the demons—

“Lord Inquisitor!”

Siegfried nearly cried out. But no, this was no diabolical force come to carry him away, but only a servant of the Inquisition. “What do you want?”

“Some people ha' cam t' see you, Lord Inquisitor. There's a rich man down there.”

Siegfried had no time for men, rich or not. With a continent-wide assault on Holy Church staring him in the face, he found himself with an armory full of feathers and milkweed pods, for the coffers of the Inquisition were all but empty.

He needed power, power and money. “Later,” he said, preparing to brush past the servant.

“I told him you were busy, Lord Inquisitor,” said the man, “but he wan't take no for an answer.”

The wealthy were all alike: arrogant and demanding. But the thought of money made Siegfried pause. “You say he is rich?”

“Mor'n rich, brother. He's Jacob Aldernacht hi'self!”

Siegfried stood, struck. His hands clenched. Suddenly, he had no more doubts about God or Divine Providence. “O Lord,” he said softly, “into mine hands hast Thou delivered him!”

“Brother Siegfried?”

Siegfried grabbed the servant by the shoulders. “Who is with him? Many?”

“He's got abou' a dozen soldiers wi' him, brother.”

“Where are they?”

“Downstairs.”

Siegfried tallied up the opposing sides in a moment. Jacob had a dozen. Well, that was all right, for the Lord had hundreds. And soon, very soon, the Lord would have thousands. The money of Jacob Aldernacht himself—servant of devils, co-conspirator with Elves—would see to that.

“Tell Jacob to come up to my office,” he said. “I will speak with him. Alone. His men will wait down in the courtyard.” He glanced at his servant. “Down in the courtyard,” he repeated.

“Aye, Brother Siegfried.”

“And then tell the captain of the guard that I want fifty armed men outside my office door as soon as possible. At my word are they to enter. Do you understand?”

“E'erything, master.”

“Good man. God bless you.”

The servant trotted off and, at a shout from Siegfried, increased his pace to a run.

The Inquisitor found that his heart was beating fast with the nearness of opportunity. Here it was at last. Minutes away. God had done His part, and now Siegfried would reciprocate. “Oh, my Lord and my God,” he said softly, “give me strength.”

But God had already given Siegfried strength, and it seemed that, with the sudden appearance of Jacob Aldernacht, he had given the Inquisitor something else, too: an assurance of His presence, an assurance that, yes, someday His humble and dutiful servant would look up to a sky split wide open by divine decree, and see, without the slightest trace of intervening shroud or veil, the face of his Creator.

Siegfried climbed the last flight of steps with a light heart.

***

“The Inquisitor wi' see you now.”

Jacob nodded curtly to the servant. Generous handfuls of Aldernacht gold had quickly produced information about Natil, opening the lips of guard, informer, and citizen alike. Yes, she had entered the town. Yes, she had been looking for help for the girl who was with her. Yes, they had both been arrested by the Inquisition and led off to the House of God.

It had all been very simple: loyalties to Siegfried and fear of prosecution had crumbled before the promise of a few coins.

“The rest of your men must wait here,” the servant continued. “The Inquisitor is a busy man.”

“Yes, yes. Of course he is.” Jacob did not bother to conceal his hostility. “He has to worry about burning harpers and shawm players, doesn't he?”

The servant stared. Insolence? Or a dull acceptance of the fact that, in Furze, the Inquisitor's word was law? “They must wait here.”

Jacob wondered for a moment what a sack of gold would do for the servant's attitude, but he shrugged inwardly and started up the steps toward the doorway. He already knew what gold would do. He could buy the servant. He could buy anyone in Furze.

Manarel slid from his horse and laid a hand on his master's arm. “A moment, Mister Jacob.”

The servant had paused at the door, waiting, but Manarel calmly conferred with one of his men, then took a coil of rope from one of the saddle packs. Slinging it over his shoulder, he bowed to Jacob. “I'll be coming with you, master.”

Jacob gave Manarel a nod and started up toward the door again. Manarel was a big man, and could not but add to his master's words an air of intimidation that, alone, even gold could not convey. Siegfried had taken Harold, and now he had taken Natil: Jacob was going to make him understand that he was in a great deal of trouble.

But as the old man followed the servant along the interminable corridors and up the flight after flight of stairs that led to Siegfried's office, he could not help but wonder why the harper had become so idiotically important to him. She was, after all, only a musician, and Jacob, who had possessed no appreciation of music to begin with, had gained little during her tenure. For a corridor or two, then, he tried to put the whole affair down to revenge, to a determination to reclaim the harper because she had left him. But it was not that. And so, as he climbed another flight of stairs, he tried to consider it in terms of property: Siegfried, after all, had unjustly appropriated an Aldernacht servant. But it was not that either.

As he stepped out into the short corridor that led to Siegfried's office, then, he had to confront the truth. He was trying to save Natil because he
liked
her. Because he, in what was perhaps inexcusable vanity, believed that she, perhaps, liked him. Because she had played for him, advised him, listened to him, and had never—not once—given even the slightest indication that she was more interested in Jacob Aldernacht's money than in Jacob Aldernacht himself.

And that was it. He was trying to save her because she was good. Because his own family had turned out to be anything but good. Because, even in the flinty hardness of his avaricious and cynical heart, he yearned for that goodness.

Yes, that was it. And he would never tell anyone about it, either.

The servant, pausing at the door, caught sight of Manarel, who, silent as a shadow, had been following right behind Jacob. “The Inquisitor said that you were t' cam alone, Mister Jacob.”

“I
am
alone,” snapped the old man. “This is my steward. He's like a secretary: he's not here.”

The servant was obviously about to repeat Siegfried's prohibition, but at the sound of sudden movement in some corridor far below—footsteps, shuffling, muffled voices—he nodded, opened the door, and bowed them both in.

Siegfried was waiting at his desk, looking very calm and composed. He did not rise, nor at first did he even acknowledge Jacob's presence. He shot a suspicious glance at Manarel, but the steward found a stool at the back of the room, sat down . . . and might not have been there any more. With a barely perceptible shrug, Siegfried proceeded to ignore him, too.

The door closed. Jacob stood across the desk from the Inquisitor, folded his arms. He knew the game. He had played it often enough himself to know just how to put an end to it.

“All right, Brother Siegfried,” he said, “and a very good morning to you. God bless you and all that. Where's Natil?”

Siegfried tried hard not to flinch, but Jacob saw the flicker in his black eyes. Yes, he had Natil, and, moreover, he appeared—surprisingly—to be a little nervous about that fact.

Jacob suppressed a thin smile. Siegfried had good reason to be nervous!

“Who are you, sir?” The reply was measured, cool. If Siegfried had been shaken by Jacob's blunt approach, he was determined not to show it.

“I'm Jacob Aldernacht. But you knew that already, didn't you?”

“Aldernacht. Ah, yes. The wool cooperative . . .”

Jacob glanced back at Manarel. The steward was staring off into space.

“. . . Paul Drego, and the others.” Siegfried spoke casually, disinterestedly, but Jacob knew that the Inquisition could not have been more interested had there been a chest of florins on the desk before him. “Why are you here?”

“You know that, too,” said Jacob. “You've taken my harper. I want her back.”

He did not really expect Siegfried to comply instantly with his demand, but he nonetheless felt his anger rising when the Inquisitor merely examined him levelly and answered: “I believe I might have someone named Natil in custody. That, of course, is no affair of yours. Or perhaps it is: the Inquisition will decide.”

“You know damn well it's my affair.”

“Do you know why she is here?”

“I assume you've trumped up some charges of heresy against her.”

Siegfried's eyebrows lifted innocently. “Trumped up?”

A sound, something between a scrape and a shuffle, came from the corridor. Jacob glanced at the door. So, he noticed, did Manarel. He noticed also that Siegfried did his best to ignore it.

“Trumped up,” he repeated. “Natil's about as heretical as I am.”

“Indeed,” said Siegfried with another flicker in his eyes. “I know that.”

“You know? Then why don't you—”

A bump from the corridor. Siegfried was staring at him with a curious sort of appraisal in his expression. The thought struck Jacob that there quite possibly was more going on in this room—and outside of it—than he knew.

All right, then. The direct approach. He dragged up a stool, sat down, leaned toward Siegfried. “I'll be frank with you, brother . . .”

“That would be in your best interest.”

“. . . how much do I have to pay you in order to secure Natil's release?”

“You say that you are as much of a heretic as she?”

The counter-question caught Jacob off guard, and he was about to reply to it when he realized the insidiousness of the trap that gaped before him. Obviously, in Siegfried's opinion, Natil was already guilty and condemned. And now, just as obviously, the Inquisitor was attempting to formulate an accusation against her master, too, thereby dragging the Aldernacht fortune straight into the Inquisitorial purse.

Jacob fixed him with a cold, gray look. “I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer, Siegfried,” he said. “I'm not here to play games. You know the truth.”

“Indeed.” Siegfried looked pained and hopeful both. “Indeed I do.”

“Shut up. You know that you've got about as much reason to hold Natil as you do to clap irons on this desk. In my entire life I've never met anyone as absolutely good as that harper.”

“I believe you when you say that you believe she is good,” said the Dominican.

There was an increasing sense of presence and movement on the other side of the door. Jacob glanced uneasily at Manarel, wishing that he would get up and . . . do something. But the steward continued to stare off into space.

“And I will tell you what I believe is good,” Siegfried continued with great deliberateness. “I believe that what Holy Church teaches is good. I believe that the law of God is good.”

“So I believe,” said Jacob impatiently.

Siegfried smiled. “You believe that I believe it. But while I believe some things, I know others. I know, for instance, that you are guilty of the most pernicious and evil heresy about which it has ever been my duty and trial to hear.”

“Oh, Christ!”

“Do not blaspheme. I know about you because I have heard it from Natil's lips.”

Jacob stared, startled by the Inquisitor's brazen lie.

“And you—trying now to bribe me in order to secure her release—give proof to her words.” Siegfried eyed him. “Do not attempt to deny it, Jacob Aldernacht. I
know
.”

Jacob rose up, heart laboring, fists clenched. But Siegfried did not move.

“God is merciful,” said the Inquisitor. “Confess.”

“The hell I will,” said Jacob, and, throwing himself across the table, he seized Siegfried by his cowl, dragged him forward, and slammed his face down on the desk top. “You sanctimonious son of a bitch, you got my shawm player, you got my harper, and now you're trying to get me, too!”

Siegfried, his nose broken and bleeding, struggled against the old man's outraged grip. “You fool,” he said. “I already have you!” He broke free, shoved Jacob away. “Guards!”

The door flew open, and Jacob saw that the hallway was crowded with men. They wore the livery of David a'Freux, and their weapons were in their hands.

Blood was running from Siegfried's broken nose and dribbling down his chin. Shaking with emotion and eagerness, he pointed at Jacob. “Arrest him in the name of God!”

But Manarel was suddenly in motion. He lunged at the Dominican, lifted him out from behind the desk as though he were a puppy, and hurled him straight into the mass of men and weapons that were just then pressing forward. The monastic projectile struck them squarely, toppled them back. In a moment, Manarel had slammed and barred the door.

Jacob was rather surprised: he felt little fear, only shock and surprise and incredulity. This was impossible. This was absurd. This simply could not be happening. And, damn it all, Siegfried was going to pay for it!

“We're . . . we're in trouble, Manarel,” was all he could manage.

“Yes, master,” said the steward. He was already uncoiling the rope he had brought. “But not so much as we'd be if we were no in chains.”

The murmurings in the corridor were rendered unintelligible by the thick door, but Jacob heard Siegfried giving orders as Manarel shoved the Inquisitor's heavy desk flush against the wall beneath the window. The steward fastened one end of the rope to it, dropped the other outside.

“We must hurry,” he said. “Climb on my back, Mister Jacob.”

Jacob glanced at the door. “Manarel, Siegfried didn't accuse you. But if you help me . . .”

The steward waved away his master's concern. “I know about people like Siegfried,” he said. “People like Siegfried never worry about whether people like me are guilty or innocent. I'm your man, Mister Jacob. That's all he needs to know.”

A thud shook the door. The bar vibrated, but did not yield.

“Come, master: we need to be away before they realize what we've done.”