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The Roses in November I watch him from the window of the north tower as he makes his way to me through the wilderness surrounding my keep. He is weary, this seeker with his rusted mail and sword smeared with the blood of the vines he has had to cut to keep from stumbling on the rocky path. He is no more than an ant struggling on the horizon at the moment, but I know that he is breathing heavily from the effort it takes to ascend this summit. I consider dispatching a bird to see where he has left his horse when the underbrush grew too thick for the beast to walk through, but there will be time enough for that task later; the horse will be safe enough in the time it will take for her to deal with this rider. I turn away from the window and back into the chamber; it is growing dark again so I light the many candles to drive back the gloom. I am tired, it has been a long watch and I will let Isabeau deal with him. She has slept long and will be much pleased by such a gift. I will wait for him to reach the point they all reach. It is not time to wake her yet. I sit down in the old chair that is so much the center of this room after my love woke me; I am so tired of these invaders. Every time one comes I think that this one, yes this one will be the last and then we will have peace, but that is foolishness speaking. The voice of the supplicant pleading for a mercy that will never come; the fool playing yet another endless prank for his masters amusement and knowing that it will never be enough for him; that he can never stop and be other than a fool. The small cat that has been keeping me company these past few days meows for my attention and then launches himself headlong through the air to land in my lap. He forces his head under my hand while whining for my attention; he knows that before long I will reach out without thinking about it and give him what he wants. Cats may seem impatient at times to the unobservant, but that is only an aura that they cultivate; the great strength of the cat kingdom is their ability to wait for the things that they desire and to nudge events in such a way as to make those around them think that they are granting them some great boon instead of following the marching orders that cats issue so imperiously. I give in and rumple the fur as I wait, there is no harm in it; he rewards me with the throaty rumble of his approval. I reach out with my thoughts to the laboring loon outside, but he is not close enough for me to visit. Soon though, then it will be time for me to rise from this comfortable old chair and tend to him. How many have come this year? Surely less than in years past, but for me to be sure how many I would have to go to the hall and count the shields mounted there in remembrance. The cat nuzzles me and I scratch behind his ears, I must go soon and he will be disappointed but he will always return for what he considers his due. I consider letting the armored fool making his way to me see what he expects to see before Isabeau deals with him or should Foscari the Damned meet him in the manner that he expects? So many choices and it has grown tiresome lately. Ah, he is close enough now, Isabeau smiles at me when I tell her of our guest. I shudder sometimes at the pleasure she gains from these interlopers, but not tonight, I am too tired and sleep as she leaves me. As I leave my beloved to his rest I ease my way into the lump of porridge the intruder thinks is a mind. He has come a long way this young buck, to take me away from Foscari's ancient house. I listen for his name and house; it is so easy to pluck bits and pieces from the thoughts of the unwary. They are so open in all they are and so simple that when you confront them with their simplicity they shudder and call it magic. They have never seen much true magic so anything that cannot be explained by common wisdom or the church by elimination must be magic. I remember, years ago when a pocket conjuror arrived at my fathers court, how the people reacted to his tricks; some clapped their hands with glee and made much over them, but others muttered that he had drunk deep of the well of forbidden knowledge. They whispered to each other that such a cursed man should be driven from the land before God punished them for harboring one of Lucifer's minions. I laugh to myself when I think of what started their prattling; all this furor because he suspended a silk handkerchief over a pot of boiling water in such a way that moments later it had risen into the air. The fools would have acclaimed it a miracle if the cardinal or even a humble priest had done the same thing. Because neither cardinal nor priest had they whispered. Such whisperers are dangerous; they can grow to gales that wreak everything if they are not checked, but still the poisonous whisperers slither in the background. His name is Theodulf; a younger son of a minor baron who has returned from the kingdom of Jerusalem where he has been fighting to keep the holy land in Christian hands where he believes it belongs. Awash in his thoughts it is easy to draw together the real desires for his foolish 'armed pilgrimage'. In his heart I see the lust that coils around it like an adder waiting to strike; lust for wealth, for glory, and for the land and position he is denied by his eldest brother's patrimony. He thought to gain these in the east; first in Aleppo, then in Acre, even in Jerusalem, but everywhere he was denied the prize he felt was his. There were so many minor sons already there, that even in that always-warring place there was not what he sought; even there he remained the lackey of those who had come before him. Oh, he has honors heaped upon him for his bravery against the warriors of Saladin, but like too many of his kind he has never learned that physical bravery is but one of all the flavors of courage to have. Why did he leave I wonder, in the east he could still have risen high in the councils of one of the warlords there; they always have need of fighting men to replace those who are reaped by War in that endless struggle. I probe deeper, he flinches as the memories I am mining are churned to the surface of his thought. Even for an unimaginative lump such as Theodulf these are painful thoughts. There, I have it now... a vision of siege, of knawing, bitter hunger; of rats toasted in half-built fires as a delicacy. Waves of men who surge, ebb, and overpower the walls of Jerusalem. The roar of a single voice rising from thousands of throats- Allahu Akbar and Saladin-over and over until the inexorable hammering at the ramparts and gates die away in the rumble of yielding timbers and clattering stonework. Another memory... impacts of shield arm on Muslim helmets, of blows to his armor, his sword hacked and notched, streaked with the blood of opponents. His voice raw and incoherent from his own cries; Shock, incredulity that the city of the Christ could be laid open to the boot of infidel, of frenzied efforts to form a shield wall and drive them out of the breach they have made in the sanctified walls. The crusaders heavy chargers are useless in the narrow streets; even on the open country outside the walls they had not been enough to crush the host Saladin brought with him. He meets a wiry Muslim in a narrow alley that he has fled down after being driven from the walls; their swords ring with the impact of steel on steel- Toledo steel matched against the smiths of Damascus- slash, counter slash, parry, thrust. He crashes against the little man pinning him with his shield against the wall; the man's teeth snap at his throat, He drops his sword; its clatter is unheard in the endless din the city has become. The dagger at his belt is crushed against the shield, no way to get to it without loosening the pressure that pins the Muslim helpless against the wall; he shifts his direction, the shield rim begins to gouge deeper into the man's throat, the Muslim shifts his efforts as well, no longer trying to kill Theodulf, only to prevent the iron rims inexorable progress into his throat. He is no match for the big crusader, his strength lessens, his face becomes purplish; Theodulf hears the pop of the Muslim's trachea as it collapses and releases him to thrash about on the garbage strewn earth. He retrieves his sword and sprints down the alley, ahead are other crusaders, he can hear their shouts. Everywhere is the choking smoke, clotting the breath in the lungs of both crusaders and warriors of Saladin; the screams of the commoners caught helpless in the death-dance of the intaking blend with the battle shouts of the combatants. Theodulf hacks his way through a knot of archers who are unaware that he is behind them. They have some pike- men pinned beneath their hissing shafts in an intersection and they laugh as they banter with each other over the helpless crusaders at their mercy; the archers are few and probably supposed that only their own kind were behind them. They have no armor, those that do not die in the first few slashes of his sword break and run; Theodulf chases them, with distance their fear would abate, they would rally and soon the iron tipped arrows would be hissing through the smoky air seeking him. He strikes them down as he overtakes them, but they are swifter than he is in his heavy armor. The last of them vanish into the maze of the streets ahead; he slows and turns to make his way back to the pike-men. They are glad to see a noble, their own lord had fallen in the first arrow storm and the archers had cut down any who sallied at them as they rose to lead. They rally to him and begin to make their way through the chaos of the streets. They are on the edge of the battle; either it has rolled past them or it has not reached this far yet. As they come across small bands of Muslims or crusaders they slew the Muslims and add the crusaders to their ranks. Theodulf's tiny army grows but he is anxious, he must know must know what is going on; at another intersection he dispatches a squire to a nearby tower. But the squire returns in a few moments with terrible news, the citadel has fallen; Saladin' s banners are streaming in triumph from its ramparts. Saladin's warriors hound crusaders through the streets as more infidels pour through the breaches in the Jerusalem's walls. I withdraw my probe from his mind; this is new, I had not heard yet of the fall of Jerusalem and wonder if the followers of Muhammad still rule there or have they been driven from their prize by yet another wave of crusaders. Does it even matter here in these distant northern forests? I shake my head at the images I have taken from my invaders mind. Do I need to see more? Perhaps. I reach out to him again; he is near the ruins of the town that once surrounded this keep. He sees the fallen roof of the mill with its scorch marks of old fire on the mossy stone walls. The millpond is choked with weeds and the great waterwheel that once turned the grindstones is silent now, its wood slowly decaying where it is immersed in the scummy water. More weeds have grown up in the once packed earth of the street; they grow thicker at its edges and poke like the inquisitive heads of children through the broken ribs of a pair of barrels that are strewn carelessly outside the ruined mill. He shrugs and walks further into the town; the empty doors of the collapsing huts stare at him like empty eye sockets. I touch his mind again; the town reminds him of others he has passed through in the holy land. Why are you here I ask him subtly so that he will take the thought as his own. His mind seizes on this new thought with relief, the tension that had knotted his muscles at the memories of warfare now ease and he begins thinking along that path without questioning its source. In Marseilles, from a former comrade, who because of his wounds had taken vows as a monk, he heard of Isabeau, taken from her father, as she was to enter holy orders at St. Agnes. That she had been spirited away by Foscari the Alchemist mounted on an eldritch steed he had conjured for the purpose and taken to a ruined keep near the Netze River. I am amused as I always am when I read this embellishment in the thoughts of those who come here; it grows greater with each retelling, not long ago they said Foscari was wearing the seven league boots, by next year they will be saying it was a demon that bore us away. Would any of them believe for a moment in the reality of the swift Arabian mare who bore us both here if they were told of and then shown the beast? They so readily accept the explanations of sorcery and at the same time are arrogant enough to believe that they would be immune from its effects when they decide to beard the sorcerer in his lair. Isabeau's father told him of the ones who preceded him, yet he boasts to him that he will triumph in lands where they vanished. I peek deeper in his thoughts and find he is still of this opinion; perhaps I should play with him now, he is too confident. I scan ahead to the tumbled ruin of a cow's byre and form my sending. I am disoriented for a moment; it has been some time since I have taken this particular measure against one of my uninvited guests. Let the game begin. Except for the cry of a distant bird, all is silent in the corpse of the town. Theodulf exhaled and flexed his fingers on the hilt of his sword; he does not feel at ease in these ruins; they reminded him too strongly of similar places in the east. Those towns there had appeared dead but that had been deceitful; he remembered too many ambushes erupting from the dead buildings when he and his comrades had dueled with Saladin's outriders before Jerusalem came under siege. He eyed the empty buildings around him warily; doubtless it was the similarity to those dead, dusty towns that had brought the surge of memory welling up from the past. He inhales deeply and stiffens as the chill breeze brings a familiar odor to his nostrils; all around him is the deep stench of rose, thick and sweet like the gardens the monks of Aleppo had cultivated to use in their tonics and incenses. He looks around, bewildered, for the source of this heavy perfume but there are no bushes in sight that can explain the presence of such a monumental reek. For a moment the odor hangs over the town, infesting everything around him, then it fades to a ghost that clings to the air spicing it with its flavor; he cannot explain the phenomenon but he cannot see that it harms him so Theodulf ignores it. He resumes his careful passage through the town, ahead of him the crossroads around which it had been built stood weed covered and empty. Nothing moves, not even the vermin he would have expected to be scurrying around in the crevices of an abandoned ruin like this. The heavy battlements of the distant keep rose like a squat ogre, sitting beyond the trees, waiting for him. He passes the central well; a hide bucket lay mildewing on the rotted rope that still links it to the rusting iron ring set firmly into the stone that lines the shaft. He hears a whisper of noise, a hint of motion in a tumbling cattle byre and whirls to face it; his sword poised to strike. A tow headed urchin in filthy homespun streaks from the ruin and nimbly leaps the sagging rails of the corral. Theodulf hesitates for a heartbeat, checking the downward stroke of his blade and thundered after the child, his boots beating a heavy tattoo on the overgrown road. Ahead of him the child weaves in and out of the undergrowth like a hare, finding passageways Theodulf can only blunder through with difficulty. Thorns catch his clothing and tug at his flesh as he rips his way out of their greedy fingers. A cry, high and shrill, draws him toward the thicket ahead of him. As he bursts through the brush he catches sight of the brat sprawled over a deadfall of winter killed birch; before the boy can recover and flee again, Theodulf overtakes him and lifts him kicking into the air. "Be still, serf," Theodulf bellowed, shaking the child. "Mercy, Lord, Mercy," the boy wails. "Silence, boy," he answered shaking him again. The boy went limp in his grasp and began to whimper. Theodulf lowered him to the ground grasping him firmly so he could not bolt again. "Answer my questions, boy, and if you lie or try to run I'll give you a good hiding." The boy cringed and whimpered some more at the threat. "Where are the rest of you miserable serfs hiding, any fool can tell its not in that dung heap back there." "N-No ones hiding my L-Lord. They're all dead, all but those in the Master's keep and me," the boy answered trembling. "Did your master punish you serfs or did plague take them?" "Neither my Lord. Horsemen it were. Funny looking horsemen with bows on small ugly horses, they had no beards and their eyes were shaped strangely. Imps they were! Sent by the Devil himself to drag us down to hell!" The boy began whimpering again. "Stop that!" Theodulf ordered cuffing the boy. "Where were you, when this happened boy?" "In the master's keep, I was tending his geese and I watched the demons from the walls." "And what did your master do when these demons came?" "Nothing he could do my Lord, not against a horde of demons." Theodulf glanced at the forest around them, this news worried him. If a sorcerer as powerful as Foscari was as helpless as the boy claimed he was against this horde of demons, what chance did a mortal man have? This could well be the reason so many would-be champions of Isabeau had not returned. His flesh crawled as he remembered details that priests had repeatedly used to describe the agonies inflicted on the damned; he repressed a shudder at the thought of unjustly suffering them himself. "Are the demons still here boy?" he said quietly. "No, my Lord, once they had taken every one they did not slay, they rode back to hell and none have seen them or those they took since." "Why were you skulking about when I found you boy?" "The master sent me for mushrooms, my Lord, the kind that grow in cows dung. He uses them for dreaming deep magic," the boy answered, beginning to calm down. "And where is your master now boy?" "In the keep, my Lord, Where else would the master be?" Theodulf considered the boys answers, they rung true to him. But the boy not being able to tell him where the sorcerer was at was problematic, still you could not expect serfs to know where their betters were. Perhaps he could use this urchin. He slowly lowered the boy to the ground. "What is your name boy?" "D-Demitri my Lord," he stammered. "And your Masters name Demitri?" "Lord Foscari of Turimac." Theodulf forced a broad smile. "Then I am fortunate man indeed, I have traveled here from the Holy City of Jerusalem, where I first heard his name, to take service with your master. Demitri gazed up at Theodulf in awe, the shaking he had received moments before forgotten. "From the Holy City!" he gasped in awe. "Is it truly made of gold? Is it true the Saints gather there with the angels in God's sight and none go without, not even the poorest?" The boys questions flowed like water past a burst dam. Theodulf grinned at the boy's naive outburst, the Jerusalem he knew was only golden with the dust that coated everything in the land and while it was certainly in God's sight, the men he knew there were neither angels nor saints. Thinking again of his final days there he grew somber remembering the days of siege when want and suffering ruled as firmly as death. It had been nothing like the sagas heard in his youth. There had been no glory in knotting his belt tighter against the ever- present complaints of his belly or the carnage on the bloody walls. Nor had there been much justice. He remembered the fate of a Jew accused of passing information to Saladin's forces during the siege. He had been dragged to one of the great ballistae and secured to the pan so that he faced the sky. A squire lashed his abdomen until the blood from the wounds dripped in rivulets down the arm of the engine. A pot of starving mice was tied over the gory wound. When his screams peaked and the lumps that were tunneling mice could be seen burrowing away from the pot's edge, the squire yanked the lanyard. The ballistae bucked and the Jew flew screaming in a high arc to splash bloodily in Saladin's camp. Theodulf knew the man had been no spy, but an example was needed to deter those who were, besides it would not have been right to do such a thing to a Christian. "It is those things and more, but lead me to your master, my journey has been long and I would meet with Lord Foscari to offer my services," he said, pushing away the old memories. The boy shook his head in agreement and began to pick his way through the snarled growth back to the path. The brambles tore at their flesh just as enthusiastically as the two made their way out of the thicket, the boy filled the air with his chatter about how what a good lord Foscari was to his vassals, but Theodulf heeded him no more than he would have heeded one of the squirrels of the forest. The tangled woods opened abruptly into the tumbledown village and shaking the last of the clinging brambles from his surcoat, Theodulf stepped gratefully onto the road. The road was no different than when he had left it to pursue the boy but it still seemed different to him. The weeds still grew over the permanent ruts made by endless processions of ox-carts. The places where water had begun to erase the road were still there, but it seemed less desolate to him. It was the serf child he realized, whose constant chattering gave life to the desolate place; he had traveled alone since leaving the North Marches, skirting the settlements he did see in his haste to reach this place. True he had spent many nights in quiet contemplation, as hermits did when they exiled themselves from the world around them so that God could speak to them more clearly without the interference of the world intruding on that solemn communication, but while he was a believer he had no use for a monks robe and would never don one while his limbs were intact. He shuddered to think of life without steel at his side and women to warm his nights; no, a warrior's path was his to walk and he would seek no other. The Keep loomed into view, squat and bulbous. It's ugly walls stained with scorch marks, the mortar between the stones crusted with gray lichen giving it the appearance of a cheese shot through with mold. The crenellations atop the wall were jagged like teeth with murder holes for the archers to fire from beneath them staring at Theodulf like malevolent serpents eyes. The moat was nearly ten yards across and rank with pond scum and the stagnant reek of decay. The bridge of the portal gate extended from the barbican on the shore to end midway on slime coated stone pillars jutting upward from the water. Just beneath the surface he thought his eyes detected the sharp points of iron stakes driven into the moat's bottom at an angle waiting to rip the bottom out of any boat that essayed to cross. He did not have to see the inner gate between the portcullises to know what waited there; spouts that would pour flaming oil on the assaulting troops trapped within that slaughter jar, overhead grates that would drip red-hot sand on armored heads and more murder holes for archers to add to the man-made hell created in that tiny space. A siege would be bloody and protracted against this keep; starvation being the only weapon that would succeed against those forbidding walls. Theodulf did not envy the army that would attempt it. But there was no movement atop them; he could see no sentries pacing the hours away, waiting for the invader's approach and there was no challenge even though they could clearly be seen by now. The serf said something that included Isabeau's name and Theodulf turned his attention back to him. "Who is this you speak of?" he asked the serf, feigning ignorance. "The Lady Isabeau," he answered. "I understood it to be that Lord Foscari dwelt alone with only his retainers for companions." "No," the boy answered with even greater enthusiasm. "The Lady Isabeau is mistress here as Lord Foscari is master. She came back here with him when he ventured to the west some years ago. The older people told me her father spurned the Lord's offer of alliance and gave her to God to spite my Lord, but she loved him so deeply that she defied her father and stole away from the guards her father had tasked to take her to the convent to be with Lord Foscari. They say that it was her knowledge that gave Lord Foscari the keys they needed to escape for he did not wish to slay her fathers minions who were only followed orders." They passed into the shadows of the barbican's arch and began walking across the iron studded planks, the clumping of Theodulf's boots sounding hollow as they echoed against the still water below. "She is a kind lady, after the demons took all my family it was her that comforted me. When Father Genet said that the demons came to punish us for our sins, she told him that if the demons did the bidding of God did that not make him the Devil since that was who the church told us ruled the demons. She said it was more of a sin for him to attribute to God what was the work of the devil than any petty sin that the villagers had committed. He wanted to excommunicate her immediately, but the older people tell me he could not because he feared Lord Foscari." They emerged from the barbican and walked into the courtyard beyond. No cattle lowed for attention in the empty byres against the far wall, no smoke rose from the darkened smithy opposite it; the sparks that should have illuminated the forging of iron were cold and the anvil silent. The fodder for the cattle, sprawled in great piles by the byre, slowly settling into musty heaps, the men-at-arms who would have been practicing in the open yard in other keeps were absent. Only the birds that huddled in the dovecote and the hawks in the aviary were present. The keep looked as though it had already been sacked, he glanced into the darkened smithy expecting to see the moldering bones of the smith but there was only ashes and dirt. The geese that serf spoke of keeping, chose that moment to flood around the corner of the cattle- byre and pass them in a feathered, honking mob that waddled into the barbican and splashed into the moat a few minutes later. "Boy, where are Lord Foscari's retainers?" he asked, glancing around the silent parade ground. "In the great hall, my lord, where my master bid them to gather for the festival later on this evening," the boy answered smiling at the big knight. "They make merry and leave the gate unguarded, the walls unwatched? This is madness, were I an enemy with an army I would be in here now with torches and steel. I must speak to your lord now and warn him of this laxity." Theodulf began walking toward the central hall; this was good he thought to himself, he could get access to Foscari under the guise of an eager vassal who only thought of his lord's interests. "My master keeps watch for them," the boy-serf answered in a voice gone ancient, a harsh whip-crack in the still air that cut through Theodulf's bones like an icy northern wind. "As for enemies, you are already here, but you have no army." Theodulf's sword rasped from its sheath. He spun on the balls of his feet and struck at the boy before he could summon the guards and close the trap. The serpent's hiss of steel cutting air where the boy had been was the only sound. The serf was gone. Around Theodulf raised again a clotting reek of roses so strong that he had to blink from the palpable solidity of the stench. It faded as quickly as it had been summoned. Theodulf breathed deeply several times to clear the odor from his nostrils. As he was glancing around for the guards who should have been overwhelming him by now, he heard the snarling clatter of chains as the iron gates of the portcullises dropped into place. A trap, and neatly sprung too, he thought. There still were no guards in sight. Theodulf, not needing to wait for them sprinted toward the main hall and ran along the east wall. Whatever that thing was, it had said that the guards were inside. It probably lied, but there was no sense in taking more foolish chances than he already had. In the shadows of the supporting pillar of the colonnade that ringed the hall, he paused long enough to unsling his buckler from his back. He still heard no cry of alarm, no pounding of pursuing guardians behind him. It was as if, after letting Theodulf know he was aware of the knight's presence, Foscari was telling him how little of a threat that he really was. Theodulf gritted his teeth in fury, he would show this wizard he had reason to fear him. He crouched, sword ready, the senses that kept him alive in the holy land alert. He began hunting another entrance. I withdraw the sending back into myself, my invader is puzzled and angry. Good, that will work for me as well. He is so like the buffoons I knew in my youth, so easily provoked into foolish action in the name of their honor. As I watch him move along the wall in the shadows of the colonnade I think of Rufort, who I knew at my father's court in my youth. Rufort, the son of my fathers guards captain. That annoying gnat who filled my ears with his constant, infernal boasting and my hours with his crude torments. Rufort, who I arranged to fall from grace from a distance and gloated all the more when he came to me for help with his sudden trouble never suspecting that I, who he had been so unbearable too in years past, was the architect of his present anguish. I remember when he left for the east, after supposedly taking the cross of his own free will, even though all knew it was exile for the sake of the service his father had rendered to my own sire that spared his neck from the executioners blade. That his own father would not even believe his son's protestations of innocence made the slow simmer of my retribution that much sweeter as I watched from the shadows. When word came of his death as a common pike-man in some skirmish and the priest intoned that such things come to pass for they are the will of God, I nearly howled with laughter and told the old fraud that it was by my will all this had come to pass, not the impotent god he was forever raving on about from the pulpit at every mass. But instead I held my tongue and cherished the consummation of my success in the silence that was my victory. I consider delving into the mind of my prey to see if he knew of Rufort's death but discard the thought almost as soon as it occurs to me. There is no reason why the armored fool toiling below me would have paid any attention to a common pike-man, even if said pike- man was the disgraced son of an even more minor nobleman than himself. I turn back my attention to the prey; he is close to the end of the colonnade in the shadows of the kitchen entrance. The sending of Dimitri worked well; perhaps another in a similar venue will work as well. Theodulf smelled the odors wafting through the door before it came into view, wood smoke and the sizzle of roasting meat. A kitchen then, it would make a good an entryway as any other he thought. But there was other scents as well, scents that made him wary as he approached, the scents of roses rising in strength as he approached. It could be no coincidence that he had smelled that before when he had last been brushed with Foscari's magic. He eased his way into the open door, the stone paving was covered with old crushed bulrushes mixed with earth that had been tracked in by others. The fire in the immense hearth ate its way into the bulk of the logs that were charring in the coal bed casting their light on the room. The meat turned on a spit above the coals while in an iron cauldron suspended over the flames something was burbling merrily away. At one end of a table, her back turned to him; a female serf was stripping something he could not see clearly off a branch she had taken from a pile of similar branches on one side of her. He crossed the room in silence, his feet seeking the places where the rushes lay thickest and was on her before she was even aware of his presence. His hand snaked out over her mouth dragging her back to him, the blade of his sword flashed in the firelight as it crossed her bared neck. She gasped in surprised fear and groped for the hand, but went rigid when she felt the steel touch her skin. "Quiet wench," he whispered. "Cry out and your blood is the first my blade will taste before those you summon arrive." "Answer me true and you will suffer no hurt at my hands, play me false..." Theodulf draws the blade downward and feels the serf stiffen as the kiss of the blade parted the skin slightly. "Where are the Lady Isabeau and Lord Foscari? Quickly now and remember the price of lies." The woman grimaced as though the fruit she had bitten into was home to a family of worms. "You come then to take the Lady and slay the Lord," she whispered, her voice no louder than the snapping of the logs burning. "What if I do?" he answered. "It will make no difference if you speed the way and live or I find them myself and you die." "It would be better for all if you killed the lady and spared the lord," she spat at him in a malicious tone. "She is evil, the good Father Genet knew her for what she was when he saw her and tried to spare the people from the evil that would follow one such as her but Lord Foscari would hear nothing ill of her and ordered the holy fathers death when she grew tired of his accusations. He was martyred at the hands of one who is more evil than Herod's wife. She is a whore who caused the death of a righteous man when she could no longer stand for her sins to be laid bare." The sword in Theodulf's hand eased away from her neck. "What is this mockery you spin? Slandering a woman spirited away from her calling as a holy sister to be debauched by a sorcerer!" The woman's face was a mask of loathing. "Hardly!" she spat. "One can slander what is already foul than make what is foul sweet. Spirited away? Debauched? One could more easily debauch a trull as the 'Lady' Isabeau. Whoever told you she was raped away from her place has played you false. The lady went willingly with my lord even to the planning of their escape as she was being exiled to that convent her father planned to inflict his evil seed on." What is this madness he wondered, the creature Dimitri spoke of Isabeau's willingness to escape with the alchemist as well, though not with the spite that this woman gave vent to. Why? Was she a concubine who had lost her place at the lady's arrival or was she only a mean- spirited serf resenting her betters? There was more afoot here than Isabeau's father had told him. He had said nothing of exile when they spoke. "What is this evil you prate of wench? You spin lies about your betters whom god has placed over you and expect me to believe your wagging tongue? Give me a reason to believe you or I will still it's wagging for good!" The sword cut into the woman's flesh again and she shuddered at its kiss. "It's gods truth my lord!" she gasped. "I have seen the mark of evil in her flesh with my own eyes. When I saw, I knew that she was the reason the demons fell upon the town. She was the one who led them here. She served their master the Devil in her deceit as they did in their fury." "What is this nattering," Theodulf hissed. "Tis not, my Lord, I saw the mark plainly whilst she was bathing, though she knew not that I saw." "What mark is this?" "I can't speak of it, it fills me with such loathing even to think of it. Strip her to her bare flesh, my lord and you will see the Beast's mark on her as I did. And when you see it strike her down and free my Master and his people from her." The cauldron hissed as the liquid that boiled within jumped and struck the hot edge, Theodulf glanced down at the table he held the woman against. The surface was covered with piles from left to right. On the farthest pile were roses trimmed from most of their stem, in the center were piled the freshly plucked petals and in the last were the shorn twigs gathered there waiting to be thrown away. "What is this you were doing when I entered?" he asked the woman. "The mistress set me to boiling down the petals to take the essence of the rose for her own pleasure. You must have smelled it my lord, when I do this task the scent can be found even in the village below; at least it could when there were souls there to smell it." "I did smell it there," he acknowledged. "But I thought its source was from elsewhere," Theodulf eased the sword from the woman's neck. "Raise the alarm and I'll strike you down," he said quietly. "Now lead me to the Lady Isabeau. Show me this mark and prove to me your lies are true." "I'll raise no warning," she agreed. "But I beg of you, spare the Master, he lies in his chamber in communion with his power and can do you no harm. Spare him and I will lead you to that creature that has ensnared him. None need see you along the paths we will take and when you have her I will show you a way out of these walls that others have forgotten. None need know you have left and taken her with you." "You hate her so much then?" "As only good can hate evil, yes." Theodulf thought for a moment and then agreed. "Lead on then, but mind you my blade is at your back and at the hint of betrayal it will be in it." The woman nodded and beckoned him to follow her. They passed out of the kitchen and into a passage lit sporadically by torches in iron brackets that were festooned with the weavings of generations of spiders, there were rushes strewn thinly on the paving here as well but his nose told Theodulf that they had lain underfoot for some time. The woman paused at an archway, watching the room it led to for a moment and then flitted past it motioning Theodulf to do the same. "The demons may have killed most who were here before, but there are a few remaining. They do not know the mistress as I know her and will fight to keep her here," she whispered. As Theodulf passed the archway he glimpsed the room within. The great hall surely he thought to himself, no other room would have had the rich tapestries to cover the walls or the shield and banners of friend and foe displayed with equal honor hanging overhead. "This passage girds the hall so all may be attended to when they feast but my lords men come not here." They rounded a corner and midway down the passage a stair led up into the heights above. "Up these stairs, my lord to the next floor. There you will find a hall that stretches from left to right. The whole floor belongs to Lady Isabeau but she spends most of her time in the tower at the end of the right passage. You will find her there. Once you have her come back to me and I'll reveal the sally port you can bear her away through." "You take me for a fool then," Theodulf answered, pressing the woman against the chill stone wall. "I pass up these stairs and find Foscari and his minions to receive me on my return? I think not." He started to drag the serf up the stairs. She dropped to her knees trembling. "Please Master, bind my wrists and tongue then if you must or strike me senseless. Either would be preferable to seeing that evil again before I must. Understand me my lord, I fear her and she knows it, though she is not aware why. If she knew for sure that I know her as she is, I would already have joined Father Genet in martyrdom." The woman unbound the rope that girded her hips and proffered it to him with her hands crossed for binding. "Please, don't ask this of me," she begged. Theodulf thought it over a moment and nodded. "You must be out of sight then. If you are discovered bound it would be as if you screamed," he said as he lashed her wrists together. "Midway up the stairs is an alcove where none can see from here," She whispered, seemingly relieved that she would have to go no further than that. She led him up the stairs to the promised alcove and made no further protest as he rolled her onto the stone bench that was set into it and tied her so she could not roll out and betray him in his absence. He gathered her shift in his hands and tore several strips from its hem and gagged her. Satisfied that she was secure he turned and made his way up the remainder of the steps. The woman watched in silence as he descended the stairs into the depths below, when he had passed from sight she closed her eyes, smiled and dissolved into a colorless cloud of rose scented ether that wafted away into nothingness. He passes down the stairs, watchful of the chance encounter that will send guards scurrying after him. He does not imagine that he has been found out yet or that he approaches the games ending. His eyes pass over the stonework without recognition, although that is no surprise to me, he would hardly have seen the twin of my hall when he lodged under its roof. That section of the keep would not be open to a traveler calling on the sacred duties of hospitality. He approaches my open door, in a moment he will pass through and the final steps of our dance will be complete. The door stands open; he feels the fresh air passing his face carrying to him the odor of rose that he is learning to loathe the more often he is confronted with it. A woman is humming a melody softly amid the clink of glass on glass. Theodulf breathes deeply and steps inside. Her back is to him; tables with bowls of rose petals are lining the walls. Narrow windows with the shutters thrown open admit the fading daylight; it is later in the day than he thought it was. He hears the slight thump against the carved tabletop as she replaces the carafe she was pouring wine from. Her hair flows in an ebon stream down her back confined only by three ribbons that imprison it in a single length. She raises the goblet to her lips and drinks. Theodulf silently paces into the center of the room and kneels by the chair that rests in solitary splendor there. "My Lady", he says quietly, "I have come to free you." "Why would I wish for such a thing to happen?" she answered before drinking deeply of the wine again. Theodulf raised his head, he had somewhat expected this since the serf woman confirmed her willingness to flee with Foscari that the child- creature had spoke of. "My lady, your father bid me to seek you wherever you had been taken to and free you that you might be restored to your proper station in your home. They yearn to embrace you again under the roof of the holy sisters you wished so fervently to join ere this happened," Isabeau snorted contemptuously into her goblet. "Again, I say, why should I wish for this to pass. I have more here, in these walls than ever I had under their roof. Far more now than they could ever suspect." She placed the now empty goblet beside the carafe and turned to face Theodulf. "Why should I desire this thing, pawn of my father?" She demanded. Theodulf stared surprised at the cold fury in Isabeau's eyes; her shoulders trembled with suppressed rage. "You think I am a prisoner here, yet it is to a prison you would condemn me. You think I should be grateful to my jailer? That I should rush to the cell that awaits me at my father's hands?" She took a step toward him. "Your kind has hounded me since I seized the freedom my father would steal from me!" she screamed at Theodulf, her face twisting with fury. She glared at him for a long moment as he anxiously glanced at the door. The guards would be pounding up the steps any moment now. He turned back to Isabeau; he would have to bear her away by force he realized. "Or perhaps you think that having retrieved me, my father would give me to you rather than send me to that prison he bribed the church to make for me?" She laughed unpleasantly, chamber seeming to grow colder in the echo of that harsh sound. He rose to his feet and glanced back at the passage behind him; the guards should have been here already, there was no way Isabeau's raised voice could have remained unheard. Clothing rustled behind him, he turned toward the sound, toward Isabeau and blanched at the sight. "Christ have mercy!" he swore. His blade came up. "Do you not appreciate your prize?" she hissed. His answer to her was a crusader battle cry that rang against the walls of the tower room, his sword whistling as it arced at her. Before the blade could bury itself in her flesh the air was filled with a hundred objects that pummeled Theodulf with the fury of a legion of stones. He raised his shield to ward the things from his face and lurched toward Isabeau. She gestured and his helmet was torn free of his head. As he staggered forward waving futilely against the hail of bowls, tables and smaller objects striking him it described an arc behind him and crashed into the back of the head it was to have protected. Theodulf collapsed senseless to the floor as the blizzard that had assailed him subsided. His sword clattered as it fell from his limp hand. Isabeau smiled, her face a wolves mask and gestured again. The steel floated upward and hovered above the unprotected neck of the fallen knight then slowly began to move down. "No." She whispered after a moment, causing the sword to back away from the unconscious knight. "You'll not have that way out. Wake instead to the fate you would have given me." The sword clattered as she released it and lay still. The words followed him down into the pit of oblivion as Isabeau and the room around Theodulf dissolved into a rose stench that crawled into his nostrils and waited for consciousness to return. Water was dripping in the darkness. He could hear it when he swam back up into pain filled consciousness. He slitted his eyes open, his head throbbed where the helm had crashed into it and his body was bruised underneath the mail where the impact of the contents of Isabeau's room had struck him. Dim light filtered to his eyes from somewhere off to one side. He had been moved. A familiar odor assaulted his nose, one he had smelled far to often over the years since he had rode away from his fathers holding. He opened his eyes wider and knew where he was. To one side of him, only four paces away an armored corpse filled the air with a putrid cloud. Something skittered in the gloom and he knew that the rats that had dined on this wreck of a man as well as the others he could dimly glimpse through the shadows would be paying him a call soon. Obviously, he thought, the guards had arrived after he was struck down and had carried him down to this dungeon. He raised himself to a sitting position, wincing, as he did so. His head pounded from the sudden exertion, but he paid it no attention. Something else had captured that. When he had rolled over and stretched his legs they had brushed against something metallic that grated over the stone floor as it was shifted out of position. He reached toward it in the darkness and grunted in surprise when his hand closed over the Toledo steel he had carried since he had been knighted. His left hand fluttered to his belt to find the sheathed dagger still there as well. This was wrong. Weapons belonged to the victor, not the vanquished. By rights they should be gracing the belt of his conqueror, not cast into the dank cell he woke to find himself in. He peered into the gloom at the nearest of his decaying neighbors. His eyes had adapted to the dim light, his breath rushed in. The place was a charnel house not a prison! He could see nearly a dozen bodies scattered in various positions. Some had been slain and left there, others he was sure had died of slow starvation and all of them were armed. He rose to his feet, the pounding of his wounded head forgotten and looked around the tomb. It was of closely fitted stone with a single door that showed scars of past unsuccessful attempts to force an exit. At the base of the doorframe he spied the broken shaft of a war axe, splintered and useless. He lurched to it and clasped the bars that blocked the small spy hole. "Guard!" he shouted into the empty space beyond the portal. There was no answer, only the faint echoes that were reflected back at him when he shouted a second and then a third time. He considered beating against the door, but rejected the notion. It had been tried before and judging from the results around him he would be no more successful then they had been. Battering it down was also futile. The wreck of the heavy axe at his feet told him how his sword would be likely fare against the iron-hard oak. He must wait he decided. He was sure that thing would come down sometime soon to gloat. He glanced over at a gnawed corpse; rat's teeth he suspected had made not all of the bites. Time passed in an eternal crawl, he marked it at first by the rumbling of his belly until it ceased to come at intervals and merged into a constant growl. Thirst gnawed at his throat like a dog worrying a bone, the constant dripping of the water he could not find began to drive him mad with delusions. He imagined it at first to be a trickling stream hidden in some corner of his prison. But as the hours crawled by and he failed to find its source, it became a rushing river he would inhale in a single gulp if it was to appear. He seized a few of the fat, loathsome rats when they first approached and had eaten every morsel save the hair. But even now they had ceased to come within reach of his siege-trained skill. The rats on the other hand were patient. They would wait until time had done its work and it would be safe for them to feed on him as they had fed on his predecessors. He planned infinite methods of escape for when the sorcerer and his hell-spawned paramour would visit to gloat, but he began to wonder if they would bother while he was still strong enough to do so or if they would wait until he had joined his companions in their decaying sleep. He began to suspect perhaps they would not come at all; what use would it be to see someone they reckoned so contemptible that they left him armed when they cast them into their prison. "You're in a fine predicament." The voice came out of the darkness and he scrambled to his feet in savage joy. They had come at last; he fumbled over which plan he had devised that would work when they came close enough. "How do you like my brothers little kill-jar?" the voice asked. "Show yourself!" he answered to the darkness. So I can kill you he thought, revenge leaping in his heart. "You don't know it, but you can walk out at any time if you would just look in the right place," the voice answered. "But none of you ever do. I suppose I should show you." "Who are you?" he demanded. There was a moment of hesitation on his visitor's behalf then the voice answered. "Isabeau." The thing had come! He gnashed his teeth in anticipation of the killing stroke his arm was trembling to deliver. He saw a flicker of movement by a corpse on the other side of the cell and his mouth watered with liquid he had forgotten his body possessed at the sight of the small black cat with a white ruff that spread across its neck and back over its shoulders. His body was moving before he could check it. Food! The thought hammered in his brain driving out the hunger for revenge for a moment. The cat though, had other ideas and vanished before he could reach it. "Why should I help you when you do such a thing?" Theodulf shook his head in confusion wondering what new torment the beast was up to. "Madness, the thing sends its familiar to taunt me now," Theodulf moaned in frustration. "Neither of them knows I'm here knight," the cat said. "Why should I believe the lies of a wizard's familiar?" "Because here there is no smell of rose, is there? Pity though, if any place needed it, its here. Still, you can't expect either of them to care about amenities in a place like this." "Why are you here then, if not to taunt me?" "I told you, I'm here to help you." "Explain yourself," he answered. "Sit down where you are and I will," answered the voice. Grudgingly he did so. The cat walked into view again. Theodulf restrained an urge to dive at it again. "That's better," the cat said. "Now I can tell you about the place you are stuck in." "I don't need you for that" Theodulf answered. "Humans!" The cat turned the word into a curse in its exasperation. "Always seeing what they expect to see, rather than what is there to see," Theodulf uneasily wondered at this strange creature, was it a familiar to the monsters above him or just his own fevered mind dying? "What are you?" he asked again. "I told you, I'm Isabeau," the cat said. "Have you been ensorcelled?" he asked. "In a way, I suppose I have been," the cat answered. Theodulf relaxed a little. This explained much, it hadn't been Isabeau he had faced upstairs but rather an image conjured by Foscari. "You've heard it said that cats have nine lives?" "Yes," he answered. "Not all of those lives are spent as a cat, though that is not known by many outside of the cat kingdom." "What is this madness?" "Not madness, only a statement of how things are. Myself, for example, when last I had flesh and walked around, I was Isabeau. When I was killed, I became what is here before you." Theodulf shook his head again, he had failed; the alchemist had killed her only God knew how long before his arrival and trapped her soul in the flesh of this cat. "I've failed you then, My Lady." A thought pricked at Theodulf's mind. "That's twice now you called the sorcerer your brother. How can that be? Your father told me your brother was the first to set out to free you from Foscari. Which of these poor wretches is he?" "None of them," the cat answered. "My brother could not set out to rescue me, since it was he who arraigned my death before I was eight years old." Theodulf was stunned at the revelation. "Impossible, your father told me you were seized on the road to take holy orders at St. Agnes and born away when you were fifteen." "Again you see not what is, but what you are led to believe. Just as you do now, even though it will leave you as these are if you continue to do so," the cat answered, flicking its tail at one of the corpses. "Be patient and I will clear these muddied waters." The cat paused to groom himself, when he had gone over his coat twice he turned back to Theodulf. "My brother, Foscari, hated my from the moment he saw me nursing at our mother's breast, though he was not aware why. It is an old hate, born when I castrated him two lifetimes before. Nursed over time until he could do something about it. When I was eight, he held my face in the moat of our father's keep until I drowned and then cracked my head with a stone. He waited with my body until another boy he hated, Rufort, came to the moats edge to throw rocks at the geese swimming there. Rufort did this constantly. He enjoyed watching the geese honk and scatter all over the water as they tried to get away. When a stone came near where he held me, he screamed, pushed me into the water and hid. Waiting for what would come next. Rufort was condemned for my death, but since his father was guard-captain, Rufort was sent off to the holy land as a common pike-man. He died in his first battle." "What was that thing I saw when I battled your brother then?" "That was my brother as he became two years later. Our Father was never impressed with my brother... he was too slender. He want through all the same training his peers did, but he never seemed to gain in strength as they did. That changed when he reached twelve. He changed." "Most boys do that at that age," Theodulf answered watching the cat groom himself again. "Not like this, they don't," the cat retorted. "At first he began bleeding. My father summoned physicians from as far away as he could, but none could do anything. Before the last of them were summoned, other changes manifested themselves. In his horror, my father turned to mages to stem the loathsome changes in his heir. By the time the exorcists were summoned my brother had appeared as comely a maiden, but if anyone were to strip away the woman's clothing my father now forced him to wear at all times they would see his shrunken manhood intact. My father let it be known that his son had embarked on a quest and locked Foscari away in a section of his keep that none, but trusted servants were allowed to enter. Those visitors who asked who dwelt in that section of the keep were told his pious young daughter Isabeau was there preparing to take holy orders at a convent yet undetermined. It cost him two hundred and fifty pounds of gold to arrange for the church to accept Foscari as a prisoner at a remote convent. None were to ever know his true identity. But my brother, who was quite mad now, had other plans. When the wagon carrying him was not far from its destination he managed to escape his bonds and wiggle through some boards he had loosened in the floor during the trip. He stole the Arabian mare that the guard captain had brought back as war booty from Edessa and vanished into the east. Eventually he made his way here. Our father became truly desperate. He fabricated the lie he told all he sent after his escaped son. He hoped that one of you would kill Foscari when you realized his true nature and thus far, none of you have succeeded." "Let me escape this hole and I'll do just that. Then I'll beat your father to death with your brothers head!" Theodulf snarled at the cat that was still grooming himself. "That is your business," the cat answered finally, finishing its toilet. "Mine is to show you the path out of here." "And why not one of these knights who came before me?" Theodulf countered, gesturing at the corpses that surrounded them. "Because I was not here when they entered my brothers kill-jar and you are. Feel fortunate that Isabeau was dominant when you arrived and not Foscari. He would have killed you as soon as you were helpless, as he killed that one over there," the cat said, gesturing with his tail at a corpse that was pinned to the wall with an assortment of spears. "What did you mean by saying you castrated him before? Was he a slave? A prisoner you were ordered to make an example of?" Theodulf asked curiously. "Neither," the cat answered. "I was a farmer and he was one of my pigs." The cat stood up and swished its tail. "We must be going now." Theodulf stood up. He had found his helmet soon after awaking, but he had yet to find his or any of the corpses shields though. When he mentioned this to the cat, he told Theodulf that his shield had likely been added to the collection her brother had amassed as trophies. Seeing he was ready, the cat turned around and walked into the gloom it had come from. "You humans would stay in this place and die for your inflexible minds, where a cat would see what is and leave. Be glad you have a cat with you today," he said, as he vanished into the heavy stone of the wall. Theodulf stopped; he had already accepted that the cat had some power despite all of its talk of what was really there as opposed to what seemed to be. He just did not believe all that he had seen since waking in the sorcerer's dungeon. "Come through where you saw me enter," the cat called from nowhere. "I can't," Theodulf answered. "The wall is solid, I already searched it days ago and found it to be true. You're just taunting me for that creature's mischief." "Humans!" the cat spat in disgust poking his head back through the wall. "When I see what incredible stupidity you are capable of. It fills me with no end of joy that, not only am I no longer one of you, but I have only spent a few of my precious lives as one." The cat turned around and poked its long tail through the stone. "Get on all fours, close your eyes and hold onto my tail." Theodulf did as he was told. When the cat moved forward, he closed his eyes and followed. The grim stone of the wall would hurt only a little when his skull met it. After a moment, the cat stopped and ordered him to stop and open his eyes. When he did the light of afternoon that streamed down the staircase caused him to quickly clench his eyes shut again from the dazzling brightness. "You see," the cat said, smugly swishing his tail at him. "What is this magic?" Theodulf asked bewildered. "No magic," the cat answered. "Only what is. Your eyes saw stone and for you it was stone. Even though it was an open door that you or any of those who were there before you could have passed out of. You just had to see what is really around you." "But I saw the door," Theodulf protested. "Did you not see the futile marks the others had hewn into its surface or the great axe that was worthless on the floor?" "Oh I saw that," the cat replied. "I thought it great foolishness that they would break their teeth on a wall of stone that their eyes told them was a door. Now listen to me man and you may live to tell of what passed here. Foscari is new to his power, but it grows with each day. It is something you can't take away from him, but if you use your mind you can gain both victory and revenge. He believes his power rests in the roses that grow here for reasons of his own, but that is not true. Maybe if you took those from him he might leave you alone long enough to leave this place. Perhaps not, but remember the illusions you saw and you may yet disregard the ones you will see." The cat licked himself once more. "Goodbye man, if you win perhaps I will leave this place, but whatever comes you will not see me again." Theodulf opened his eyes into the glare long enough to see the cat bound up the steps and disappear over summit of the stairs. Theodulf stood up; the cat had disappeared to wherever it is that cats go to when they have had enough of humans. The stairs ahead of him were not many and he was at the top of them in a few moments. It was not the stairwell he had expected. It did not lead into the upper reaches of the keep, but instead to a great room dominated by the shaft of a water wheel still connected to the massive millstone in the center of the room. The door hung on one rotting leather hinge and sunlight lazily drifted in to dazzle his eyes. He blinked and made his way to the door. When he looked out, he saw the overgrown street that passed through the derelict village he had met the boy-thing in. So this is what the cat had meant about not seeing what is around you, he thought. He turned back to the interior of the mill. On one side, of the millstone a rickety set of stairs rose into the upper floor of the mill. He walked to the sagging first step and closed his eyes. He swept his hand over the wood and cursed as a splinter pierced his hand. Maybe it was not there, but he would climb up the stairs anyway. He gritted his teeth at the creaking of the boards beneath his feet. The opening into the upper floor was a dark rectangle. When he reached the edge he ducked his head up over it for a quick look. Except for some lumps scattered on the floor, the room was empty. There was no sign of the creature. He leaned over one of the nearer lumps in the semidarkness. It was a shield. They were all shields. Like the near armory below the mill they were in differing states. The oldest so coated in dust that he couldn't make out the heraldry of the owner. The newest was his. He reached for it and turned to go back down the stairs. When he exited the mill, he reflexively glanced to where he had seen the squat ugly keep, but he saw nothing there now but a distant bird circling. "All a dream," he whispered. The wind had begun to pick up now, blowing dust across the dark earth as if it desired to hide the ugliness of the dead village. Along the cattle byre he saw the thick thorny stems of a massive wild rose thicket. The individual bushes had long ago joined to form an impenetrable hedge that was nearly impassable as it raged in full bloom across the dead village. The cat said that Foscari believed the roses held his power for some reason of his own. "Strip him of his power then," he said to