NaNoWriMo 2004, Chapter 1.
Nov. 9th, 2004 09:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bouteillebleuI tried to think of a vaguely appropriate chapter title, but couldn't come up with one that might not work better for later chapters. So I'll be posting without chapter names for now. Livejournal also won't let me go back and edit these long posts, probably because they are so very long.
Chapter 1
South-West Perrehum
Town Guild Hall, Vennick
The talks had been going on for hours, and Anna was rather embarrassed to find herself woken up by Lucy during a particularly tedious speech by one of the representatives of the West Church. The awakening was rather painful as well, as Lucy had had to resort to quietly and discreetly elbowing Anna in the ribs to get her to open her eyes.
"You're lucky I didn't yell," muttered Anna as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and then leant back on the hard wooden bench. The first day of the negotiations had been reserved for introductions of those who were going to be speaking in the negotiations, and since Anna and Lucy were there simply to write down records of what was said, they'd been sitting with the other clerks to listen to the introductory speeches. The hall was rather more full than would have been expected, as citizens of Vennick and visitors to the country had also wandered in in large numbers to listen to the speeches. For the first hour or so it had been almost impossible for new arrivals to find a seat, but the current speaker had been talking for almost an hour and a half by now, and some of the curious bystanders had evidently grown tired and left. There was still some amount of muttering and quiet chatter going on in the audience, enough to render a murmured conversation inaudible to the hall at large, but not enough to do the same to the official speakers. By now, there was enough space left that people could sit on the benches without being squashed next to each other, and Lucy took advantage of this to stretch her arms to either side of her.
"You'd never yell, Anna, you'd be far too embarrassed," she whispered teasingly, and glanced around them at the people who were left. The Alcine general was one of the people who had still to make a speech, along with his colonels, but the captains and lower-ranked officials were in the audience with the rest of them. Johnson turned his head just as Lucy was looking in his direction, and smiled at the two of them. Lucy smiled and gave a small wave back, and nudged Anna to do the same. A tired half-smile and a raised hand was the best that Anna could manage, before she slouched against the back of the bench and looked up at the ceiling.
"Are you feeling well, Anna?" Lucy asked her quietly, and then added, "It sounds like the bishop's almost finished his speech. I'll prod you when it's time to applaud."
Anna smiled, still looking up at the ceiling, and said, "Thanks, Lucy. I've just not had the time to sleep the way I did back in Alcine, because of this month we've had of working on reports every day."
"How did you manage in Alcine, anyway?"
"I had lots of short naps. If I don't sleep for very long, I don't dream about anything, and it means I can work hard while I'm awake without having to think about my dreams. Since we moved into Perrehum, there's been lots of work and no time to have naps, so I've just been taking them without meaning to."
Lucy nodded. "Just as long as you don't start napping when you're on duty during the talks."
"We'll be taking turns, won't we?" Anna asked, leaning her head forward again to look at Lucy. "If we don't have to work for longer than a few hours at a time, it'll all work out."
"I hope so." Lucy looked doubtful, and glanced for a moment over to where Captain Johnson was sitting. "The captain hasn't said anything about that yet, and the talks will be properly starting tomorrow. We'd better ask him after these speeches are over."
Scattered applause broke out from the people at the front of the audience as the bishop who had been speaking finally held his hands together and bowed his head, then returned to his seat. The applause increased as the rest of the room appeared to realise that the long speech was finally over, and Lucy and Anna joined in the clapping.
"How many speeches are there left?" said Anna, and Lucy counted silently for a few moments before replying.
"Two. The general's second speech, and the one from the archbishop of the South Church."
"Oh, of course." Lucy looked slightly puzzled, and Anna explained, "Vennick has monasteries from all the branches of the Church, but the South Church is usually agreed to have the greatest claim over the area. So the other archbishops have decided that he's the one who'll get to reply to the general's second speech."
"That makes sense, I suppose." The applause finally subsided, and the general stood up to speak. Lucy murmured, "Did you hear the general's first speech?"
Anna nodded in reply. "It sounded encouraging. I got the impression he was trying to emphasise the partnership between Alcine and the Church, and how Perrehum being part of the empire would make travel and trade between the two of them easier..." She fell silent to listen as the Alcine general began to speak, and after a few minutes her eyes started to close. It wasn't too long after that before she'd fallen asleep, leaning her head on Lucy's shoulder. Lucy smiled, and shifted to make the two of them slightly more comfortable as she sat half-listening to the speech. Anna moved slightly as she slept, her eyes darting from side to side under closed lids, her sleep uneasy.
The town was burning around me.
The town and the people were burning. The air was hot and full of ash, and the buildings were burning.
And suddenly, just in a second, the flames were gone. The smell of fire still lingered in the air, and the blackened bodies showed where the flames had been. And people screamed, those who hadn't already been consumed by the fire.
He was there, standing in the doorway of my house as if he'd come to say goodbye. Everything was covered with ash, my hands were grey, and I looked at him and he smiled, and he held me tight as I cried.
And then I looked up at him, and the dull glow of the fire was in his eyes, and his hair was black like the bodies outside. He smiled at me, and his smile wasn't like before.
Then I ran, and I could still hear the screaming. And I kept on running. And-
"Anna?"
She awoke with a start, and Lucy moved back to look at her.
"What happened? You were muttering something while you were asleep."
Anna shook her head to rid herself of the last traces of sleep, then nodded towards the general as he was speaking, and asked Lucy, "What did I miss him saying?"
"He was still talking about the benefits of Perrehum being part of the empire," Lucy said. "He's just started talking about working together in the future, and it sounds like he'll be finished in a minute or two." She looked at Anna with a critical eye, and added, "You don't look like you're feeling too well. Do you want to leave when this speech is over?"
"I could do with a drink, actually," Anna admitted. Lucy nodded in reply.
"When the general's done, I'm taking you to that restaurant you mentioned in the square. Anything in particular you'd like?"
"Let me think about it," Anna said, and Lucy smiled, then took Anna's hand as the general finished his speech and the audience began to applaud.
"Right, let's go."
Several minutes later, the two of them had settled themselved outside the restaurant at a table with a view of the nearby shrine. The waitress came to them with their drinks, and Lucy shuddered as Anna took the drink she'd ordered.
"What on earth is that?" she asked, as Anna stared at the thick brown-black liquid in her glass. "It looks like you'd need a spoon to eat it with."
Anna took a sip from the glass, blinked several times as she swallowed, and carefully placed the glass down again. It took a couple of seconds for the liquid to return to being level, and some globs of it still clung to the rim of the glass.
"It's very concentrated chirin," said Anna, holding the glass in both hands, but not yet taking another sip. "Usually you only use the leaves and the fruit, but this one has some sap and part of the root as well." She held it out to Lucy, who sniffed at it and coughed as the pungent smell hit her nose.
"That's terrible," said Lucy after she'd stopped coughing. "How do you manage to drink it?"
Anna looked a little surprised. "It was a treat when I was younger. We weren't allowed it unless it was the day of a festival." She took another sip, coughed quietly, and added, "Of course, that could have been because we were allowed to stay up late on festival days. This stuff is the best thing I know of to keep me awake."
"I'd never heard of anyone using chirin root in a drink."
"How did you manage all those late nights you had in Alcine, then?"
"Did you ever see me awake before noon the day after?" Lucy said with a grin. She sipped at her own drink, a mug of warm chiring that actually appeared to be drinkable.
"I suppose not. I spent a lot of time in the library while you were sleeping off your late nights, so you were usually asleep when I left."
Lucy nodded, and the two of them sat silently drinking for a while, with Anna's sips from her drink punctuated by coughs.
"What was wrong earlier?" Lucy finally said once she'd finished her drink. Anna cradled her drink in her hands, and looked down at the table.
"I fell asleep, and... I had one of my dreams again," she said, her voice quiet. "I wasn't expecting that to happen, not during the day. I thought I was safe from them if I just napped all the time."
"Which dream was it?" Lucy asked her gently.
"The one with him in. The burning one."
"That dream you first had when you'd been in Alcine for a few years?"
Anna nodded in agreement. "Yes, that one. I'm really sorry about the last time you woke me up from that one-"
"Oh, it wasn't your fault," replied Lucy. "You'd warned me about it when we found out we'd be sharing a room. And I should have remembered which bed was mine, even if I was drunk..."
There was a cough from a metre or so away, and a voice asked, "Excuse me, could you help me to find the guild hall?"
The two women turned to see a man dressed in dusty travelling clothes, with a cloak folded over his arm. He smiled politely to them, and then said, "I'm very sorry, I came on pilgrimage to see the town of Vennick, and I heard that the guild hall was a place of some significance. Could you tell me where to find it?"
Lucy stood up and went over to the man's side to point out the direction, saying, "From here, you go down the street there, and then it's left and then left again. There are talks going on there at the moment, but once they're over you might be able to ask for a tour."
"Ah, thank you so much," the man replied. He took one of Lucy's hands and brushed his lips against it, and then bowed to her, still smiling. "I am much obliged."
Returning his smile with one of her own, Lucy said, "Enjoy your time in Vennick. It's a very interesting town, isn't it?"
"It is an interesting town indeed," said the man, his smile a little wider. "Well, thank you for your directions, and I wish you luck in Vennick as well." With another slight bow, he walked quickly off towards the street that Lucy had pointed out to him, and was soon out of sight.
"Strange fellow," Lucy commented to Anna as she sat down again. Anna smiled, sipped her drink again, and said,
"He was. Did you see the dagger he had on his belt?"
Lucy blinked. "I didn't, no."
"Ah, that's okay. It just looked familiar, that's all." Anna took another sip of her drink, this one more of a slurp than usual, and grimaced a little at the taste.
"What do you mean, 'familiar'?" asked Lucy. "I didn't realise you knew anything about that sort of thing."
"It's nothing, Lucy. I just remember little details of things, and I'm sure I've seen the design on that dagger's hilt somewhere before. Maybe I dreamt about it at some point."
"That's something I've wondered for a long while. What do your dreams mean?"
"What do they mean?" Anna echoed, before tilting her glass back and slurping the last of the thick liquid in one gulp. She shuddered as she swallowed it, then set her glass down and dug in her pocket for money, pulling out a mixture of silver and copper coins. As she put them on the table and sorted through them, she said,
"I'm not sure. They feel almost like they're memories, or maybe they're premonitions of something that's going to happen. If they're memories, though, they're not my memories." She pushed a small pile of coins to the centre of the table, and put the rest back in her pocket, adding, "I might not have had the best time when I was younger, but I don't remember anything like these dreams happening."
"What happened when you were younger? I was wondering - if you don't want to say anything, I won't ask."
"It's nothing much, really," said Anna as she watched Lucy count out her money and add it to the pile. "Just some bad memories, though not as bad as those dreams. I'd rather not talk about it, to be honest."
The waitress came to their table again, and smiled her thanks as she took their glasses and payment. Lucy looked quizzically at Anna when the waitress left, saying,
"Should we head back to the guild hall, then? The speeches will have finished, and the captain's likely to want to talk to us about tomorrow."
By the time they arrived back there, the final speech had indeed finished, and the audience had mostly dispersed. Captain Johnson was standing outside the guild hall, and when he saw Anna and Lucy approaching he walked up to them, relief on his face.
"I was worried you two had gone to look around Vennick and got lost," he said, and Anna shook her head with a smile.
"Lucy suggested that we get something to drink to keep us awake," she told him. "I almost fell asleep during the general's speech, and I didn't want that to happen again today.
Lucy nodded in agreement with this, and Johnson smiled. "I'm glad you two got back now, though," he said. "The general and the archbishops decided to hold a meeting to explain to all the clerks what they were supposed to do, and I didn't have a chance to tell you until after the speeches were over."
"When is the meeting, then?" Lucy asked.
"In about quarter of an hour. It's good that you're awake, Anna, but if you'd stayed away too long you'd have missed the meeting, and I don't think they'd hold it again just for you two." Paying no attention to the flush of Anna's cheeks, he pointed back through the doors to the guild hall. "The meeting is in here, in one of the smaller council chambers. Follow me, and I'll show you where to find it."
He led them through the large hall, where a few people were still milling around and looking at the ceiling and the ornately designed windows. Anna noticed the man they'd met earlier looking at one of the smaller windows, his back still to them as she and Lucy followed Johnson through one of the doors at the side of the hall. They walked down a corridor, followed it round the corner to the right, and entered a room at the end which was already half-full of people who were chatting rather loudly, and several rows of seats which were rather sparsely occupied. Most of those who were there appeared to be monks or nuns, though on one of the rows there were three other clerks from the Alcine army who Lucy smiled and waved to as they came in. One of them waved back, while the other two of them were apparently deep in conversation. Anna and Lucy came over, and the man who'd waved to them said,
"How did you find the speeches, then? The general sounded like he did quite well."
"The archbishops had a lot of interesting things to say as well, I thought," Lucy said. She sat on the end of the row next to the male clerk, and Anna took a seat behind Lucy's, leaning on the back of Lucy's chair as she listened to the two of them talk.
"So, are you looking forward to the rest of the week?" the man asked Lucy. "Captain Fisher said that our two groups would be working together. Maybe the two of us will be on duty together at some point."
With a smile, Lucy replied, "Maybe we will, though I haven't seen any list of when our shifts will be. I think Captain Johnson's going to have me on duty with Anna, though. We've been studying together for the last few years, and we do well together."
Anna murmured a quiet, "Afternoon," to the man, who turned to give her a smile and a nod. "Afternoon, Anna. Are you looking forward to the talks?"
"They'll be interesting, I think," she replied. "Let's hope they go well, though."
"That's a good point, if they went badly, then..." The man shook his head. "It'd be bad, but that's probably why they're holding a meeting for us - so that we can smooth things over if they go wrong." He turned to Lucy, and added, "Speaking of smoothing things over... I'm really sorry about that party a few months ago. I shouldn't have-"
"It wasn't a problem, don't worry," Lucy replied, laughing. "I didn't even find out until after I got back to my room, and it only took a little while to sort everything out again..."
The two of them continued to talk, and Anna sat back in her own chair. The noise in the room was lessening somewhat, and people were starting to take the remaining seats. A pale-haired monk in a dark grey habit sat down next to Anna, looking slightly bored at what was going on, and a fairly plump monk wearing a black habit came to the front of the room and cleared his throat.
"Ladies, gentlemen, please sit down. We have several things to make sure of, and these are important so that the talks proceed as smoothly as possible."
Once everyone was seated, he started to talk about the correct conduct required from clerks, the duties they'd be expected to perform (apparently all that was necessary was to be able to write accurately at speed, preferably in such a way that what they'd written was also readable afterwards) and the expected content of the negotiations. Anna listened along carefully for the first fifteen minutes, but by the time he'd got to twenty minutes of enumerating the different ranks to be recorded of speakers on each side of the negotiations, her eyes were starting to close once more. She shook her head a little to try to clear it, but it didn't appear to be enough - and, despite the strong drink she'd had earlier, she fell asleep once more.
Today, the world wasn't burning. Yesterday it might have been, tomorrow it might be. Today, though, it wasn't.
Today the land was flat and grey, looking almost like the grey sky above. There was no sign of the sun, just grey clouds that foretold rain.
He wasn't there, either. Nobody was there except me. I was standing under a tree, its branches stunted and almost bare, the few remaining leaves leeched of all colour and rotting and grey in the misty air.
But there was someone there. Or was it something? I couldn't tell. There was something there, just a few metres from me. It was grey, just like everything else, but it wasn't the land or the sky. I had to see what it was. Was it just a rock? Maybe a large pile of cloth?
And then, just as I bent down to touch it, see what it was, the screaming started. I jerked my hand back-
The scream continued for a few seconds after Anna woke up, and she looked around to see one of the guild hall maids at the door, one hand clasped to her mouth. One of the people who'd had to stand went over to her to ask what was wrong, to which she replied in heavy breaths between sobs,
"It's horrible, it is. The abbot, he's... it looks like he went into the gardens, and he's stung all over..."
The man next to her rose, as people started to mutter among themselves. "Where is he?" he asked the maid, and she shook with more suppressed sobs as she replied,
"He's in his room down the hall. It's Abbot Francis, he was such a nice man-"
Without a word, the man pushed past her out of the room, and Anna ran to follow him, her curiosity piqued by his actions. He walked quickly through the corridors, the route he was following an apparently familiar one, and she was only a few steps behind him as he opened a door, entered the room and stopped a few paces in. Anna stood at the doorway and stared into the room, at the heap of what looked like dark grey cloth that was lying there. She stood and watched as Wilfred crouched down and pulled back the cloth to reveal a man's swollen face, and took a hesitant step into the room as he gently touched the swellings on the man's cheeks, each of them an angry reddish-pink and their number so great that it was amazing that the man's features were even partly visible.
"Sorry, abbot," Wilfred muttered, as he sat back on his heels. It wasn't necessary to close the dead man's eyes - the massive number of stings had swollen them shut.
Anna took another few steps forward, still staring at the dead body. Wilfred turned to look at her, shrugged, and then looked back at the abbot's body.
"He didn't die by accident," he said as he stood up. "Those are bee stings, not wasp stings."
"What's the difference?" Anna asked.
"Bees die if they sting you, wasps don't," replied Wilfred. "Their stingers stay in the wound and tear their body apart when they fly off. For this many bees to sting him, he'd have had to do something really stupid like punch a beehive, and even that wouldn't explain this many bee stings."
Anna nodded, and returned to staring at the body. Wilfred leant over and felt the man's neck with careful fingers, then frowned.
"Who are you?" he said to Anna as he tried to open one of the eyes. One hand didn't appear to be enough, so he crouched down again next to the man's head and tried to separate the lids with both thumbs.
"Um, I'm Anna. I'm one of the Alcine clerks."
"So why are you here?" He nodded towards the door. "There's a meeting you have to be at."
"Why are you here, then? You should be at that meeting too."
With difficulty, Wilfred finally managed to open the man's eye a little, and peered at what of the eye was visible between his swollen lids. "He's my abbot, that's why."
"Oh, I'm sorry about that..." Anna took a step forward, and Wilfred shook his head.
"I didn't know him very well, but he usually listened to what I said. Not many people do that at the monastery."
"Which monastery are you from?"
"The Northern Church monastery near Vennick."
"The only Northern Church representatives other than the archbishop?" Anna said, and Wilfred nodded.
"He said so, yes."
With a shudder, Anna stared down at the abbot's body again. "And now he's dead. So what about the archbishop?"
"What about the archbishop?"
"Where's he staying for the talks? Is it anywhere near here?"
Wilfred shrugged. "I don't know. The abbot would have known, but you're not going to get any answers out of him."
Lucy came hurrying into the room, closely followed by Captain Johnson. "Anna, what are you doing?" Lucy asked, sounding almost frantic. "I know that it's terrible, but... they're continuing the meeting regardless, and you'd better come back now." She glanced at Wilfred, and said, "And you too. Sorry, I don't know your name."
"Wilfred," he replied shortly, but shook his head. "I'm just here as a clerk for my abbot, and now he's dead there's no point in me being a clerk, is there?"
"I suppose not, but-"
"Then I'm not going to the meeting. And do either of you know where the gardens are?"
Lucy stared blankly at him, while Johnson moved past her to say, "Anna, you'd better come back, then. We can't hold up the meeting too long, and there are things that they have to tell you."
"You don't need more than one person to listen and remember what's been said. Please, just tell me afterwards what he talked about and I'll be fine." She gave her best reassuring smile to the two of them, and Johnson sighed while Lucy smiled hesitantly back.
"Anna, I'll remember what was in the talk for you, but... what on earth are you doing?" she said.
"I'm worried about this," Anna replied. "I had a hunch about this, and I'm worried about whether the archbishop's safe at the moment."
Johnson sighed once more. "Look, Anna, this isn't... seriously, he's been stung to death. There's no way someone could have intentionally done this to him, so it's nothing that could happen to someone else. It's very, very unfortunate, but not something that's likely to happen to anyone else. Especially once people know to be careful in the gardens."
"Where are those gardens?" Wilfred asked again, and Johnson pointed out through the open doors at the other end of the room.
"There's a small garden through there, and it links to a bigger garden once you go through an arch. That's probably where he was when he was stung."
Wilfred nodded, and headed out through the doors to the garden. Anna looked at Lucy, smiled an apology, and hurried to catch up with Wilfred.
The air in the garden was warm, and there was a lazy note in the humming that could be quietly heard from across the garden. It was coming from near several bushes in the centre of the neatly-arranged garden, their white-and-pink flowers starkly pale against the dark green of their leaves, and Wilfred walked quickly over to them, then stood near them, looking up at the swarm of bees above them. He stretched out a hand carefully, but none of them appeared to notice it. A bee that had been investigating a flower on one of the bushes flew over and landed on him, flying off a few moments later as he moved slightly. With a shrug, he walked back towards the doors, and stopped as he saw Anna watching him.
"What are you doing, still not at the meeting?" he said.
Anna smiled slightly. "I had a hunch about this. Sort of a premonition. I want to know what's happened and how that abbot died." She sighed, adding, "I'm worried that I might know why he's dead already."
There was movement near the arch that Johnson had mentioned, as someone who appeared to have been standing there moved away into the larger garden on the other side, and Wilfred noticed it a second or so before Anna did. He hurried along the path at the side of the garden and through the arch, with Anna following behind a short distance. There was nobody there, but the garden here was much more ornately arranged and designed, with clumps of larger bushes here and there, and a stream running through the garden with trees on either side. Anna followed the route of the stream back up along its length up until its source at a spring against one wall, and frowned for a few moments as she saw a man drinking from the bowl that was underneath the spout in the wall.
"Isn't that a bad idea?" she commented to Wilfred, pointing at the man as she headed in that direction. "The spring might not be safe for drinking."
"If it comes from inside the building, it's probably safe," Wilfred replied, sounding rather uninterested.
About to raise her voice to warn the man as they approached him, Anna noticed that he appeared to be rather more still than she had at first thought - and, indeed, as she got closer she realised that he wasn't drinking from the bowl, but his head was floating face down in the water, with his shoulders and upper body resting on the rim of the bowl. She ran the last few metres, and stared down at him as Wilfred caught up with her.
"He's an archbishop, isn't he?" she said quietly, and Wilfred peered over at the man's head and then at the robes he was wearing, finally nodding in reply.
"The Northern Church's archbishop. Maybe that water wasn't safe after all."
Anna looked around, saw nobody else in the gardens, and motioned back towards the arch. "We'd better go and tell someone about this."
"Why?"
"Because if we don't, and someone else sees us here, it looks very bad for both of us."
Wilfred frowned. "He's the archbishop of the church that runs my monastery. What'd be the point in me killing him?"
"Never mind that," Anna said firmly, beckoning him along as she headed towards the arch again. Wilfred looked a little puzzled, but followed her anyway. As they walked back through the smaller garden, he said,
"Besides, if I wanted to kill the archbishop, I wouldn't drown him. Poisons work much more quickly, and there are lots of places to get poisons in a garden if you look closely enough."
Anna raised her eyebrows, but simply replied, "When we get back to the meeting room, you tell them what happened. He's your archbishop, and so they'll probably believe you more readily."
Wilfred shrugged in reply, and they went back into the abbot's room through the open doors. By now, there was a group of monks there dressed in brown habits with thick belts of dark grey, some of whom were wrapping up the body in a finely woven dark grey cloth, others of whom were saying prayers over the body. There were two other men there - a tall and slightly gangly man in a pale grey habit with an angry expression, and a stockier man wearing a black cloak. Anna looked at the black-cloaked man as she came in, and her eyes widened as she she saw the pattern and the coppery colour of the embroidery on the shoulders. Wilfred, on the other hand, stopped and addressed the two men.
"What's going to happen to Abbot Francis?" he asked them. The angry looking man in the habit sighed, his expression less angry as he replied,
"He'll be buried with the proper rites in the Northern Church's cemetery in Vennick. Were you his clerk?"
Wilfred nodded, and pointed through the door. "I went to look for what had happened to him, and found the archbishop in the big garden through there. He looked rather dead when I found him."
The man's face turned pale, and he turned to the black-cloaked man next to him. "If you'll excuse me, sir, I must go and inform the others of this." At the nod from the man in the black cloak, he scurried off back into the corridor, leaving the other man to turn his attention to Wilfred and Anna.
"What do you think happened here, then?" he asked Wilfred, who looked over at the cloth-wrapped body with the monks around it and then replied,
"He was stung, several hundred times. I didn't know there were that many bees in the gardens here. Who are you, anyway?"
The man raised an eyebrow. "You don't believe it was an attack by a sorcerer, then?"
Wilfred stared at him incredulously. "He was stung to death. By hundreds of bees. Nowhere near any hives, or honeycombs, or even a swarm that was at all angry. The only way it could have not been done by a sorceror is if he'd run naked headfirst into a beehive."
"I... see." The man turned to look at Anna. "Is this man quite mad?"
"I do keep bees at our monastery," Wilfred said, interrupting him. "I know what I'm talking about. He was stung by honey bees, and they die when they sting someone. You don't get coordinated bee suicide like this unless their hive is being attacked. And the abbot knows - well, he knew better than to do that."
There was no reply from the man, but he turned to Anna once more and asked, "Did you see the archbishop that this man was talking about?"
"I did," Anna said quietly with a nod. "He was floating face-down in the bowl at the source of an ornamental stream, and he wasn't moving. I think Brother Wilfred's telling the truth about his abbot, too."
"Wilfred, is it?" He glanced at Wilfred, and then back at her. "And you are?"
"Anna Foster. I'm a clerk for the Alcine army. If you don't mind me asking, sir, are you from the Council of Magic?"
The man looked at her long and hard, and she smiled slightly and added, "It's the cloak design. One of my friends from home was recruited into the Council some time ago, and the people who came to test the town had patterns like that on their robes."
"You're quite perceptive, Miss Foster. And you're also quite right." He held out his hand, which Anna took and shook carefully, feeling a slight shock as their palms met. "My name's Alexander. How did an Alcine army clerk like you know someone in the Council?"
Anna gave a sad smile. "I haven't spoken to him for years. We both came from the same town in Perrehum, but I moved away after he joined the Council of Magic and we never kept in touch."
Several more of the monks in brown habits and grey belts came into the room, carrying a rather large coffin on its side. As they placed it down and set about carefully lifting the dead abbot into it, the man in the pale grey habit from before came in behind them, and went over to Wilfred as he came in.
"I've told the archbishops the news about these... misfortunes," he said. "Since you're the only member of the Northern Church who's currently in Vennick itself, would you be willing to represent your branch of the Church at the negotiations?"
"No," replied Wilfred shortly. "The abbot asked me to be his clerk, and that's all."
"This does put these negotiations in a rather delicate situation, you realise," the man said, somewhat hesitantly. "With Abbot Francis dead, your monastery will be in some confusion over who's to run it and who's to assist him, so we can't very well ask for someone else from there... and the nearest Northern Church monastery is at least a week's ride away."
"I don't know anything about how the Northern Church works, or even what makes it different from the rest of the Church," Wilfred said, sounding almost exaggeratedly patient. "I'm here because my abbot wanted me to be a clerk, not because he wanted someone else to argue for him. I can argue about beekeeping, and that's all."
The man in the pale grey habit looked despairingly over at Alex, who frowned in concentration and said, "Let the talks continue without the Northern Church for now, then. Have the other three branches each nominate someone to speak for the North, and the three of them will be joined by the archbishop's temporary replacement as soon as he arrives. It's unfortunate, but these negotiations ought to continue despite the setbacks."
Looking far more relieved, the man in grey nodded. "I'll go and inform the other archbishops of your decision, sir. Thank you for taking the time to advise us about this." He bowed deeply, and scurried off back through the door. The group of monks, meanwhile, had carefully placed the abbot's body into the coffin, and were now slowly taking it out through the door. The doorway wasn't large enough to accomodate one of them on each side, nor tall enough to let them carry it on their shoulders, so two of them held each end, the ones at the front walking backwards through the door and casting frequent glances behind them. Wilfred moved over and whispered something to one of the monks holding the back end, who nodded, after which Wilfred turned his head to say,
"I'm going to stay with the abbot until he goes back to the monastery. He'll start rotting soon, but at least I can try to keep the flies and maggots off."
Both Alex and Anna shuddered slighty at this, but Anna gave a quiet, "Good luck," to him as he followed the monks from the room. Alex looked at her once more, his expression curious.
"Which town in Perrehum did you come from?" he asked her. "I might know your friend. The Council's a rather close-knit group, you see."
Anna smiled and waved a hand slightly. "It's just a small town in the northeast. One of the ones near the foot of the mountains. I don't know how it's doing now - it's been several years, it could have got bigger and merged with the one next to it, or even been abandoned."
Alex took her hand, the one he'd shaken, and held it in his, looking at it with an intent expression. After a few seconds, a smile curled the corners of his lips, and he looked Anna in the eyes.
"You're not quite telling me the truth, are you, Anna? Come on, don't be so shy. I only want to know if I know this friend of yours."
Pulling her hand away from his, Anna nursed it with her other hand, and didn't look up at Alex again as she said, "He wasn't from the same town as me. I was visiting when the people from the Council of Magic came round, so I only saw them there. If they ever came around to our town, I never saw them." She looked up to see Alex staring levelly at her, the smile still on the edges of his lips.
"A small town in the northeast. Is your friend from Strangford, by any chance?"
Anna smiled in response, but it was a tight smile, and her eyes were somewhat narrower than before as she said, "Go on."
"Of course. And if he's from Strangford, then you would be from..." Alex's grin broadened. "You're not from that heretic town that's half-inside the mountain, are you?"
"I've heard it called a few names since I left," Anna replied coolly. "I never tried to find out what happened to it since I left, though."
"You haven't been there in about... hmm, ten years, I suppose?" asked Alex. Anna shook her head, and Alex looked thoughtful at this reply as he said,
"Come to think of it, I haven't heard about it since ten years ago, either. I tell you what..." He took Anna's hand once more and squeezed it, sending another odd jolt of energy through Anna's hand. "You find out what happened to it, and let me know, and I'll see if I know that friend of yours."
"That's a lot of effort to go to just so you can tell me about a friend," Anna said. "Why don't you just go and find out for yourself, and I'll look for this person I knew?"
"Oh, that wouldn't do," Alex said, idly raising his hand. "Firstly, I'm very busy and so I couldn't possibly go halfway across Perrehum just to find out what happened to a village we've already dealt with. And secondly, you'd never be able to find him if he was a member of the Council. I told you we were a close-knit group, didn't I?"
Anna stared at him, her eyes still narrower than before. "You dealt with it? After what had already been done to it?"
Alex winked at her, smiling once more. "Do you think I'm going to tell you what happened? Go and see for yourself, Anna Foster. It'll be an educational experience."
She didn't move, but continued to glare at him. "And why are you doing this, then? What does one of the leaders of the Council of Magic want with someone from a town in the middle of nowhere that might not even exist anymore?"
"I'm playing with you, of course. I've never had anyone to play with before, and it looks like it might be fun. I can see what Kurt liked about it." Noticing that Anna was still standing there and glaring at him, he whispered a few words and twisted his hand back, forming a hook with one finger. Anna froze, her muscles locked rigid, even her voice muscles unable to move. Alex's smile faded a little until it was just a slight curl to his lips once more, and said in a quiet voice,
"Run along, little heretic. I'll keep an eye on you. And do try to remember that it's your word against mine if you feel like blathering about this to anyone." He whispered two words, and held his palm out flat, and suddenly Anna was free to move again. She stumbled forwards, and Alex caught her before she could fall.
"I suggest you get back to your companions for now," he told her in a more normal speaking tone. "You'll need to perform your duties at the negotiations, of course, and we don't want them failing just because of a few small problems."
"'We'?"
"Nobody wants these negotiations to go badly, do they?" Alex said with a shrug. "It seems to be in everyone's interests to conclude them quickly and easily. Except for whoever killed these two, of course. Long, drawn out arguments wouldn't help Perrehum or Alcine." He took a step towards her, and she moved away in the direction of the door.
"As you suggested, I'd better get back to the meeting," she said quickly. "Thank you, it was nice to meet you."
"Get going, then," Alex said as she continued to move towards the door. "And don't bother coming back unless you want to tell me about your home town and whether it's still standing."
Anna was standing in the doorway by now, and she turned her head to look back at Alex. Her face seemed to be calm, but her lips were tightly pressed together, and he smiled at her.
"Good luck, my little heretic. Try not to die on the way."
Chapter 1
South-West Perrehum
Town Guild Hall, Vennick
The talks had been going on for hours, and Anna was rather embarrassed to find herself woken up by Lucy during a particularly tedious speech by one of the representatives of the West Church. The awakening was rather painful as well, as Lucy had had to resort to quietly and discreetly elbowing Anna in the ribs to get her to open her eyes.
"You're lucky I didn't yell," muttered Anna as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and then leant back on the hard wooden bench. The first day of the negotiations had been reserved for introductions of those who were going to be speaking in the negotiations, and since Anna and Lucy were there simply to write down records of what was said, they'd been sitting with the other clerks to listen to the introductory speeches. The hall was rather more full than would have been expected, as citizens of Vennick and visitors to the country had also wandered in in large numbers to listen to the speeches. For the first hour or so it had been almost impossible for new arrivals to find a seat, but the current speaker had been talking for almost an hour and a half by now, and some of the curious bystanders had evidently grown tired and left. There was still some amount of muttering and quiet chatter going on in the audience, enough to render a murmured conversation inaudible to the hall at large, but not enough to do the same to the official speakers. By now, there was enough space left that people could sit on the benches without being squashed next to each other, and Lucy took advantage of this to stretch her arms to either side of her.
"You'd never yell, Anna, you'd be far too embarrassed," she whispered teasingly, and glanced around them at the people who were left. The Alcine general was one of the people who had still to make a speech, along with his colonels, but the captains and lower-ranked officials were in the audience with the rest of them. Johnson turned his head just as Lucy was looking in his direction, and smiled at the two of them. Lucy smiled and gave a small wave back, and nudged Anna to do the same. A tired half-smile and a raised hand was the best that Anna could manage, before she slouched against the back of the bench and looked up at the ceiling.
"Are you feeling well, Anna?" Lucy asked her quietly, and then added, "It sounds like the bishop's almost finished his speech. I'll prod you when it's time to applaud."
Anna smiled, still looking up at the ceiling, and said, "Thanks, Lucy. I've just not had the time to sleep the way I did back in Alcine, because of this month we've had of working on reports every day."
"How did you manage in Alcine, anyway?"
"I had lots of short naps. If I don't sleep for very long, I don't dream about anything, and it means I can work hard while I'm awake without having to think about my dreams. Since we moved into Perrehum, there's been lots of work and no time to have naps, so I've just been taking them without meaning to."
Lucy nodded. "Just as long as you don't start napping when you're on duty during the talks."
"We'll be taking turns, won't we?" Anna asked, leaning her head forward again to look at Lucy. "If we don't have to work for longer than a few hours at a time, it'll all work out."
"I hope so." Lucy looked doubtful, and glanced for a moment over to where Captain Johnson was sitting. "The captain hasn't said anything about that yet, and the talks will be properly starting tomorrow. We'd better ask him after these speeches are over."
Scattered applause broke out from the people at the front of the audience as the bishop who had been speaking finally held his hands together and bowed his head, then returned to his seat. The applause increased as the rest of the room appeared to realise that the long speech was finally over, and Lucy and Anna joined in the clapping.
"How many speeches are there left?" said Anna, and Lucy counted silently for a few moments before replying.
"Two. The general's second speech, and the one from the archbishop of the South Church."
"Oh, of course." Lucy looked slightly puzzled, and Anna explained, "Vennick has monasteries from all the branches of the Church, but the South Church is usually agreed to have the greatest claim over the area. So the other archbishops have decided that he's the one who'll get to reply to the general's second speech."
"That makes sense, I suppose." The applause finally subsided, and the general stood up to speak. Lucy murmured, "Did you hear the general's first speech?"
Anna nodded in reply. "It sounded encouraging. I got the impression he was trying to emphasise the partnership between Alcine and the Church, and how Perrehum being part of the empire would make travel and trade between the two of them easier..." She fell silent to listen as the Alcine general began to speak, and after a few minutes her eyes started to close. It wasn't too long after that before she'd fallen asleep, leaning her head on Lucy's shoulder. Lucy smiled, and shifted to make the two of them slightly more comfortable as she sat half-listening to the speech. Anna moved slightly as she slept, her eyes darting from side to side under closed lids, her sleep uneasy.
The town was burning around me.
The town and the people were burning. The air was hot and full of ash, and the buildings were burning.
And suddenly, just in a second, the flames were gone. The smell of fire still lingered in the air, and the blackened bodies showed where the flames had been. And people screamed, those who hadn't already been consumed by the fire.
He was there, standing in the doorway of my house as if he'd come to say goodbye. Everything was covered with ash, my hands were grey, and I looked at him and he smiled, and he held me tight as I cried.
And then I looked up at him, and the dull glow of the fire was in his eyes, and his hair was black like the bodies outside. He smiled at me, and his smile wasn't like before.
Then I ran, and I could still hear the screaming. And I kept on running. And-
"Anna?"
She awoke with a start, and Lucy moved back to look at her.
"What happened? You were muttering something while you were asleep."
Anna shook her head to rid herself of the last traces of sleep, then nodded towards the general as he was speaking, and asked Lucy, "What did I miss him saying?"
"He was still talking about the benefits of Perrehum being part of the empire," Lucy said. "He's just started talking about working together in the future, and it sounds like he'll be finished in a minute or two." She looked at Anna with a critical eye, and added, "You don't look like you're feeling too well. Do you want to leave when this speech is over?"
"I could do with a drink, actually," Anna admitted. Lucy nodded in reply.
"When the general's done, I'm taking you to that restaurant you mentioned in the square. Anything in particular you'd like?"
"Let me think about it," Anna said, and Lucy smiled, then took Anna's hand as the general finished his speech and the audience began to applaud.
"Right, let's go."
Several minutes later, the two of them had settled themselved outside the restaurant at a table with a view of the nearby shrine. The waitress came to them with their drinks, and Lucy shuddered as Anna took the drink she'd ordered.
"What on earth is that?" she asked, as Anna stared at the thick brown-black liquid in her glass. "It looks like you'd need a spoon to eat it with."
Anna took a sip from the glass, blinked several times as she swallowed, and carefully placed the glass down again. It took a couple of seconds for the liquid to return to being level, and some globs of it still clung to the rim of the glass.
"It's very concentrated chirin," said Anna, holding the glass in both hands, but not yet taking another sip. "Usually you only use the leaves and the fruit, but this one has some sap and part of the root as well." She held it out to Lucy, who sniffed at it and coughed as the pungent smell hit her nose.
"That's terrible," said Lucy after she'd stopped coughing. "How do you manage to drink it?"
Anna looked a little surprised. "It was a treat when I was younger. We weren't allowed it unless it was the day of a festival." She took another sip, coughed quietly, and added, "Of course, that could have been because we were allowed to stay up late on festival days. This stuff is the best thing I know of to keep me awake."
"I'd never heard of anyone using chirin root in a drink."
"How did you manage all those late nights you had in Alcine, then?"
"Did you ever see me awake before noon the day after?" Lucy said with a grin. She sipped at her own drink, a mug of warm chiring that actually appeared to be drinkable.
"I suppose not. I spent a lot of time in the library while you were sleeping off your late nights, so you were usually asleep when I left."
Lucy nodded, and the two of them sat silently drinking for a while, with Anna's sips from her drink punctuated by coughs.
"What was wrong earlier?" Lucy finally said once she'd finished her drink. Anna cradled her drink in her hands, and looked down at the table.
"I fell asleep, and... I had one of my dreams again," she said, her voice quiet. "I wasn't expecting that to happen, not during the day. I thought I was safe from them if I just napped all the time."
"Which dream was it?" Lucy asked her gently.
"The one with him in. The burning one."
"That dream you first had when you'd been in Alcine for a few years?"
Anna nodded in agreement. "Yes, that one. I'm really sorry about the last time you woke me up from that one-"
"Oh, it wasn't your fault," replied Lucy. "You'd warned me about it when we found out we'd be sharing a room. And I should have remembered which bed was mine, even if I was drunk..."
There was a cough from a metre or so away, and a voice asked, "Excuse me, could you help me to find the guild hall?"
The two women turned to see a man dressed in dusty travelling clothes, with a cloak folded over his arm. He smiled politely to them, and then said, "I'm very sorry, I came on pilgrimage to see the town of Vennick, and I heard that the guild hall was a place of some significance. Could you tell me where to find it?"
Lucy stood up and went over to the man's side to point out the direction, saying, "From here, you go down the street there, and then it's left and then left again. There are talks going on there at the moment, but once they're over you might be able to ask for a tour."
"Ah, thank you so much," the man replied. He took one of Lucy's hands and brushed his lips against it, and then bowed to her, still smiling. "I am much obliged."
Returning his smile with one of her own, Lucy said, "Enjoy your time in Vennick. It's a very interesting town, isn't it?"
"It is an interesting town indeed," said the man, his smile a little wider. "Well, thank you for your directions, and I wish you luck in Vennick as well." With another slight bow, he walked quickly off towards the street that Lucy had pointed out to him, and was soon out of sight.
"Strange fellow," Lucy commented to Anna as she sat down again. Anna smiled, sipped her drink again, and said,
"He was. Did you see the dagger he had on his belt?"
Lucy blinked. "I didn't, no."
"Ah, that's okay. It just looked familiar, that's all." Anna took another sip of her drink, this one more of a slurp than usual, and grimaced a little at the taste.
"What do you mean, 'familiar'?" asked Lucy. "I didn't realise you knew anything about that sort of thing."
"It's nothing, Lucy. I just remember little details of things, and I'm sure I've seen the design on that dagger's hilt somewhere before. Maybe I dreamt about it at some point."
"That's something I've wondered for a long while. What do your dreams mean?"
"What do they mean?" Anna echoed, before tilting her glass back and slurping the last of the thick liquid in one gulp. She shuddered as she swallowed it, then set her glass down and dug in her pocket for money, pulling out a mixture of silver and copper coins. As she put them on the table and sorted through them, she said,
"I'm not sure. They feel almost like they're memories, or maybe they're premonitions of something that's going to happen. If they're memories, though, they're not my memories." She pushed a small pile of coins to the centre of the table, and put the rest back in her pocket, adding, "I might not have had the best time when I was younger, but I don't remember anything like these dreams happening."
"What happened when you were younger? I was wondering - if you don't want to say anything, I won't ask."
"It's nothing much, really," said Anna as she watched Lucy count out her money and add it to the pile. "Just some bad memories, though not as bad as those dreams. I'd rather not talk about it, to be honest."
The waitress came to their table again, and smiled her thanks as she took their glasses and payment. Lucy looked quizzically at Anna when the waitress left, saying,
"Should we head back to the guild hall, then? The speeches will have finished, and the captain's likely to want to talk to us about tomorrow."
By the time they arrived back there, the final speech had indeed finished, and the audience had mostly dispersed. Captain Johnson was standing outside the guild hall, and when he saw Anna and Lucy approaching he walked up to them, relief on his face.
"I was worried you two had gone to look around Vennick and got lost," he said, and Anna shook her head with a smile.
"Lucy suggested that we get something to drink to keep us awake," she told him. "I almost fell asleep during the general's speech, and I didn't want that to happen again today.
Lucy nodded in agreement with this, and Johnson smiled. "I'm glad you two got back now, though," he said. "The general and the archbishops decided to hold a meeting to explain to all the clerks what they were supposed to do, and I didn't have a chance to tell you until after the speeches were over."
"When is the meeting, then?" Lucy asked.
"In about quarter of an hour. It's good that you're awake, Anna, but if you'd stayed away too long you'd have missed the meeting, and I don't think they'd hold it again just for you two." Paying no attention to the flush of Anna's cheeks, he pointed back through the doors to the guild hall. "The meeting is in here, in one of the smaller council chambers. Follow me, and I'll show you where to find it."
He led them through the large hall, where a few people were still milling around and looking at the ceiling and the ornately designed windows. Anna noticed the man they'd met earlier looking at one of the smaller windows, his back still to them as she and Lucy followed Johnson through one of the doors at the side of the hall. They walked down a corridor, followed it round the corner to the right, and entered a room at the end which was already half-full of people who were chatting rather loudly, and several rows of seats which were rather sparsely occupied. Most of those who were there appeared to be monks or nuns, though on one of the rows there were three other clerks from the Alcine army who Lucy smiled and waved to as they came in. One of them waved back, while the other two of them were apparently deep in conversation. Anna and Lucy came over, and the man who'd waved to them said,
"How did you find the speeches, then? The general sounded like he did quite well."
"The archbishops had a lot of interesting things to say as well, I thought," Lucy said. She sat on the end of the row next to the male clerk, and Anna took a seat behind Lucy's, leaning on the back of Lucy's chair as she listened to the two of them talk.
"So, are you looking forward to the rest of the week?" the man asked Lucy. "Captain Fisher said that our two groups would be working together. Maybe the two of us will be on duty together at some point."
With a smile, Lucy replied, "Maybe we will, though I haven't seen any list of when our shifts will be. I think Captain Johnson's going to have me on duty with Anna, though. We've been studying together for the last few years, and we do well together."
Anna murmured a quiet, "Afternoon," to the man, who turned to give her a smile and a nod. "Afternoon, Anna. Are you looking forward to the talks?"
"They'll be interesting, I think," she replied. "Let's hope they go well, though."
"That's a good point, if they went badly, then..." The man shook his head. "It'd be bad, but that's probably why they're holding a meeting for us - so that we can smooth things over if they go wrong." He turned to Lucy, and added, "Speaking of smoothing things over... I'm really sorry about that party a few months ago. I shouldn't have-"
"It wasn't a problem, don't worry," Lucy replied, laughing. "I didn't even find out until after I got back to my room, and it only took a little while to sort everything out again..."
The two of them continued to talk, and Anna sat back in her own chair. The noise in the room was lessening somewhat, and people were starting to take the remaining seats. A pale-haired monk in a dark grey habit sat down next to Anna, looking slightly bored at what was going on, and a fairly plump monk wearing a black habit came to the front of the room and cleared his throat.
"Ladies, gentlemen, please sit down. We have several things to make sure of, and these are important so that the talks proceed as smoothly as possible."
Once everyone was seated, he started to talk about the correct conduct required from clerks, the duties they'd be expected to perform (apparently all that was necessary was to be able to write accurately at speed, preferably in such a way that what they'd written was also readable afterwards) and the expected content of the negotiations. Anna listened along carefully for the first fifteen minutes, but by the time he'd got to twenty minutes of enumerating the different ranks to be recorded of speakers on each side of the negotiations, her eyes were starting to close once more. She shook her head a little to try to clear it, but it didn't appear to be enough - and, despite the strong drink she'd had earlier, she fell asleep once more.
Today, the world wasn't burning. Yesterday it might have been, tomorrow it might be. Today, though, it wasn't.
Today the land was flat and grey, looking almost like the grey sky above. There was no sign of the sun, just grey clouds that foretold rain.
He wasn't there, either. Nobody was there except me. I was standing under a tree, its branches stunted and almost bare, the few remaining leaves leeched of all colour and rotting and grey in the misty air.
But there was someone there. Or was it something? I couldn't tell. There was something there, just a few metres from me. It was grey, just like everything else, but it wasn't the land or the sky. I had to see what it was. Was it just a rock? Maybe a large pile of cloth?
And then, just as I bent down to touch it, see what it was, the screaming started. I jerked my hand back-
The scream continued for a few seconds after Anna woke up, and she looked around to see one of the guild hall maids at the door, one hand clasped to her mouth. One of the people who'd had to stand went over to her to ask what was wrong, to which she replied in heavy breaths between sobs,
"It's horrible, it is. The abbot, he's... it looks like he went into the gardens, and he's stung all over..."
The man next to her rose, as people started to mutter among themselves. "Where is he?" he asked the maid, and she shook with more suppressed sobs as she replied,
"He's in his room down the hall. It's Abbot Francis, he was such a nice man-"
Without a word, the man pushed past her out of the room, and Anna ran to follow him, her curiosity piqued by his actions. He walked quickly through the corridors, the route he was following an apparently familiar one, and she was only a few steps behind him as he opened a door, entered the room and stopped a few paces in. Anna stood at the doorway and stared into the room, at the heap of what looked like dark grey cloth that was lying there. She stood and watched as Wilfred crouched down and pulled back the cloth to reveal a man's swollen face, and took a hesitant step into the room as he gently touched the swellings on the man's cheeks, each of them an angry reddish-pink and their number so great that it was amazing that the man's features were even partly visible.
"Sorry, abbot," Wilfred muttered, as he sat back on his heels. It wasn't necessary to close the dead man's eyes - the massive number of stings had swollen them shut.
Anna took another few steps forward, still staring at the dead body. Wilfred turned to look at her, shrugged, and then looked back at the abbot's body.
"He didn't die by accident," he said as he stood up. "Those are bee stings, not wasp stings."
"What's the difference?" Anna asked.
"Bees die if they sting you, wasps don't," replied Wilfred. "Their stingers stay in the wound and tear their body apart when they fly off. For this many bees to sting him, he'd have had to do something really stupid like punch a beehive, and even that wouldn't explain this many bee stings."
Anna nodded, and returned to staring at the body. Wilfred leant over and felt the man's neck with careful fingers, then frowned.
"Who are you?" he said to Anna as he tried to open one of the eyes. One hand didn't appear to be enough, so he crouched down again next to the man's head and tried to separate the lids with both thumbs.
"Um, I'm Anna. I'm one of the Alcine clerks."
"So why are you here?" He nodded towards the door. "There's a meeting you have to be at."
"Why are you here, then? You should be at that meeting too."
With difficulty, Wilfred finally managed to open the man's eye a little, and peered at what of the eye was visible between his swollen lids. "He's my abbot, that's why."
"Oh, I'm sorry about that..." Anna took a step forward, and Wilfred shook his head.
"I didn't know him very well, but he usually listened to what I said. Not many people do that at the monastery."
"Which monastery are you from?"
"The Northern Church monastery near Vennick."
"The only Northern Church representatives other than the archbishop?" Anna said, and Wilfred nodded.
"He said so, yes."
With a shudder, Anna stared down at the abbot's body again. "And now he's dead. So what about the archbishop?"
"What about the archbishop?"
"Where's he staying for the talks? Is it anywhere near here?"
Wilfred shrugged. "I don't know. The abbot would have known, but you're not going to get any answers out of him."
Lucy came hurrying into the room, closely followed by Captain Johnson. "Anna, what are you doing?" Lucy asked, sounding almost frantic. "I know that it's terrible, but... they're continuing the meeting regardless, and you'd better come back now." She glanced at Wilfred, and said, "And you too. Sorry, I don't know your name."
"Wilfred," he replied shortly, but shook his head. "I'm just here as a clerk for my abbot, and now he's dead there's no point in me being a clerk, is there?"
"I suppose not, but-"
"Then I'm not going to the meeting. And do either of you know where the gardens are?"
Lucy stared blankly at him, while Johnson moved past her to say, "Anna, you'd better come back, then. We can't hold up the meeting too long, and there are things that they have to tell you."
"You don't need more than one person to listen and remember what's been said. Please, just tell me afterwards what he talked about and I'll be fine." She gave her best reassuring smile to the two of them, and Johnson sighed while Lucy smiled hesitantly back.
"Anna, I'll remember what was in the talk for you, but... what on earth are you doing?" she said.
"I'm worried about this," Anna replied. "I had a hunch about this, and I'm worried about whether the archbishop's safe at the moment."
Johnson sighed once more. "Look, Anna, this isn't... seriously, he's been stung to death. There's no way someone could have intentionally done this to him, so it's nothing that could happen to someone else. It's very, very unfortunate, but not something that's likely to happen to anyone else. Especially once people know to be careful in the gardens."
"Where are those gardens?" Wilfred asked again, and Johnson pointed out through the open doors at the other end of the room.
"There's a small garden through there, and it links to a bigger garden once you go through an arch. That's probably where he was when he was stung."
Wilfred nodded, and headed out through the doors to the garden. Anna looked at Lucy, smiled an apology, and hurried to catch up with Wilfred.
The air in the garden was warm, and there was a lazy note in the humming that could be quietly heard from across the garden. It was coming from near several bushes in the centre of the neatly-arranged garden, their white-and-pink flowers starkly pale against the dark green of their leaves, and Wilfred walked quickly over to them, then stood near them, looking up at the swarm of bees above them. He stretched out a hand carefully, but none of them appeared to notice it. A bee that had been investigating a flower on one of the bushes flew over and landed on him, flying off a few moments later as he moved slightly. With a shrug, he walked back towards the doors, and stopped as he saw Anna watching him.
"What are you doing, still not at the meeting?" he said.
Anna smiled slightly. "I had a hunch about this. Sort of a premonition. I want to know what's happened and how that abbot died." She sighed, adding, "I'm worried that I might know why he's dead already."
There was movement near the arch that Johnson had mentioned, as someone who appeared to have been standing there moved away into the larger garden on the other side, and Wilfred noticed it a second or so before Anna did. He hurried along the path at the side of the garden and through the arch, with Anna following behind a short distance. There was nobody there, but the garden here was much more ornately arranged and designed, with clumps of larger bushes here and there, and a stream running through the garden with trees on either side. Anna followed the route of the stream back up along its length up until its source at a spring against one wall, and frowned for a few moments as she saw a man drinking from the bowl that was underneath the spout in the wall.
"Isn't that a bad idea?" she commented to Wilfred, pointing at the man as she headed in that direction. "The spring might not be safe for drinking."
"If it comes from inside the building, it's probably safe," Wilfred replied, sounding rather uninterested.
About to raise her voice to warn the man as they approached him, Anna noticed that he appeared to be rather more still than she had at first thought - and, indeed, as she got closer she realised that he wasn't drinking from the bowl, but his head was floating face down in the water, with his shoulders and upper body resting on the rim of the bowl. She ran the last few metres, and stared down at him as Wilfred caught up with her.
"He's an archbishop, isn't he?" she said quietly, and Wilfred peered over at the man's head and then at the robes he was wearing, finally nodding in reply.
"The Northern Church's archbishop. Maybe that water wasn't safe after all."
Anna looked around, saw nobody else in the gardens, and motioned back towards the arch. "We'd better go and tell someone about this."
"Why?"
"Because if we don't, and someone else sees us here, it looks very bad for both of us."
Wilfred frowned. "He's the archbishop of the church that runs my monastery. What'd be the point in me killing him?"
"Never mind that," Anna said firmly, beckoning him along as she headed towards the arch again. Wilfred looked a little puzzled, but followed her anyway. As they walked back through the smaller garden, he said,
"Besides, if I wanted to kill the archbishop, I wouldn't drown him. Poisons work much more quickly, and there are lots of places to get poisons in a garden if you look closely enough."
Anna raised her eyebrows, but simply replied, "When we get back to the meeting room, you tell them what happened. He's your archbishop, and so they'll probably believe you more readily."
Wilfred shrugged in reply, and they went back into the abbot's room through the open doors. By now, there was a group of monks there dressed in brown habits with thick belts of dark grey, some of whom were wrapping up the body in a finely woven dark grey cloth, others of whom were saying prayers over the body. There were two other men there - a tall and slightly gangly man in a pale grey habit with an angry expression, and a stockier man wearing a black cloak. Anna looked at the black-cloaked man as she came in, and her eyes widened as she she saw the pattern and the coppery colour of the embroidery on the shoulders. Wilfred, on the other hand, stopped and addressed the two men.
"What's going to happen to Abbot Francis?" he asked them. The angry looking man in the habit sighed, his expression less angry as he replied,
"He'll be buried with the proper rites in the Northern Church's cemetery in Vennick. Were you his clerk?"
Wilfred nodded, and pointed through the door. "I went to look for what had happened to him, and found the archbishop in the big garden through there. He looked rather dead when I found him."
The man's face turned pale, and he turned to the black-cloaked man next to him. "If you'll excuse me, sir, I must go and inform the others of this." At the nod from the man in the black cloak, he scurried off back into the corridor, leaving the other man to turn his attention to Wilfred and Anna.
"What do you think happened here, then?" he asked Wilfred, who looked over at the cloth-wrapped body with the monks around it and then replied,
"He was stung, several hundred times. I didn't know there were that many bees in the gardens here. Who are you, anyway?"
The man raised an eyebrow. "You don't believe it was an attack by a sorcerer, then?"
Wilfred stared at him incredulously. "He was stung to death. By hundreds of bees. Nowhere near any hives, or honeycombs, or even a swarm that was at all angry. The only way it could have not been done by a sorceror is if he'd run naked headfirst into a beehive."
"I... see." The man turned to look at Anna. "Is this man quite mad?"
"I do keep bees at our monastery," Wilfred said, interrupting him. "I know what I'm talking about. He was stung by honey bees, and they die when they sting someone. You don't get coordinated bee suicide like this unless their hive is being attacked. And the abbot knows - well, he knew better than to do that."
There was no reply from the man, but he turned to Anna once more and asked, "Did you see the archbishop that this man was talking about?"
"I did," Anna said quietly with a nod. "He was floating face-down in the bowl at the source of an ornamental stream, and he wasn't moving. I think Brother Wilfred's telling the truth about his abbot, too."
"Wilfred, is it?" He glanced at Wilfred, and then back at her. "And you are?"
"Anna Foster. I'm a clerk for the Alcine army. If you don't mind me asking, sir, are you from the Council of Magic?"
The man looked at her long and hard, and she smiled slightly and added, "It's the cloak design. One of my friends from home was recruited into the Council some time ago, and the people who came to test the town had patterns like that on their robes."
"You're quite perceptive, Miss Foster. And you're also quite right." He held out his hand, which Anna took and shook carefully, feeling a slight shock as their palms met. "My name's Alexander. How did an Alcine army clerk like you know someone in the Council?"
Anna gave a sad smile. "I haven't spoken to him for years. We both came from the same town in Perrehum, but I moved away after he joined the Council of Magic and we never kept in touch."
Several more of the monks in brown habits and grey belts came into the room, carrying a rather large coffin on its side. As they placed it down and set about carefully lifting the dead abbot into it, the man in the pale grey habit from before came in behind them, and went over to Wilfred as he came in.
"I've told the archbishops the news about these... misfortunes," he said. "Since you're the only member of the Northern Church who's currently in Vennick itself, would you be willing to represent your branch of the Church at the negotiations?"
"No," replied Wilfred shortly. "The abbot asked me to be his clerk, and that's all."
"This does put these negotiations in a rather delicate situation, you realise," the man said, somewhat hesitantly. "With Abbot Francis dead, your monastery will be in some confusion over who's to run it and who's to assist him, so we can't very well ask for someone else from there... and the nearest Northern Church monastery is at least a week's ride away."
"I don't know anything about how the Northern Church works, or even what makes it different from the rest of the Church," Wilfred said, sounding almost exaggeratedly patient. "I'm here because my abbot wanted me to be a clerk, not because he wanted someone else to argue for him. I can argue about beekeeping, and that's all."
The man in the pale grey habit looked despairingly over at Alex, who frowned in concentration and said, "Let the talks continue without the Northern Church for now, then. Have the other three branches each nominate someone to speak for the North, and the three of them will be joined by the archbishop's temporary replacement as soon as he arrives. It's unfortunate, but these negotiations ought to continue despite the setbacks."
Looking far more relieved, the man in grey nodded. "I'll go and inform the other archbishops of your decision, sir. Thank you for taking the time to advise us about this." He bowed deeply, and scurried off back through the door. The group of monks, meanwhile, had carefully placed the abbot's body into the coffin, and were now slowly taking it out through the door. The doorway wasn't large enough to accomodate one of them on each side, nor tall enough to let them carry it on their shoulders, so two of them held each end, the ones at the front walking backwards through the door and casting frequent glances behind them. Wilfred moved over and whispered something to one of the monks holding the back end, who nodded, after which Wilfred turned his head to say,
"I'm going to stay with the abbot until he goes back to the monastery. He'll start rotting soon, but at least I can try to keep the flies and maggots off."
Both Alex and Anna shuddered slighty at this, but Anna gave a quiet, "Good luck," to him as he followed the monks from the room. Alex looked at her once more, his expression curious.
"Which town in Perrehum did you come from?" he asked her. "I might know your friend. The Council's a rather close-knit group, you see."
Anna smiled and waved a hand slightly. "It's just a small town in the northeast. One of the ones near the foot of the mountains. I don't know how it's doing now - it's been several years, it could have got bigger and merged with the one next to it, or even been abandoned."
Alex took her hand, the one he'd shaken, and held it in his, looking at it with an intent expression. After a few seconds, a smile curled the corners of his lips, and he looked Anna in the eyes.
"You're not quite telling me the truth, are you, Anna? Come on, don't be so shy. I only want to know if I know this friend of yours."
Pulling her hand away from his, Anna nursed it with her other hand, and didn't look up at Alex again as she said, "He wasn't from the same town as me. I was visiting when the people from the Council of Magic came round, so I only saw them there. If they ever came around to our town, I never saw them." She looked up to see Alex staring levelly at her, the smile still on the edges of his lips.
"A small town in the northeast. Is your friend from Strangford, by any chance?"
Anna smiled in response, but it was a tight smile, and her eyes were somewhat narrower than before as she said, "Go on."
"Of course. And if he's from Strangford, then you would be from..." Alex's grin broadened. "You're not from that heretic town that's half-inside the mountain, are you?"
"I've heard it called a few names since I left," Anna replied coolly. "I never tried to find out what happened to it since I left, though."
"You haven't been there in about... hmm, ten years, I suppose?" asked Alex. Anna shook her head, and Alex looked thoughtful at this reply as he said,
"Come to think of it, I haven't heard about it since ten years ago, either. I tell you what..." He took Anna's hand once more and squeezed it, sending another odd jolt of energy through Anna's hand. "You find out what happened to it, and let me know, and I'll see if I know that friend of yours."
"That's a lot of effort to go to just so you can tell me about a friend," Anna said. "Why don't you just go and find out for yourself, and I'll look for this person I knew?"
"Oh, that wouldn't do," Alex said, idly raising his hand. "Firstly, I'm very busy and so I couldn't possibly go halfway across Perrehum just to find out what happened to a village we've already dealt with. And secondly, you'd never be able to find him if he was a member of the Council. I told you we were a close-knit group, didn't I?"
Anna stared at him, her eyes still narrower than before. "You dealt with it? After what had already been done to it?"
Alex winked at her, smiling once more. "Do you think I'm going to tell you what happened? Go and see for yourself, Anna Foster. It'll be an educational experience."
She didn't move, but continued to glare at him. "And why are you doing this, then? What does one of the leaders of the Council of Magic want with someone from a town in the middle of nowhere that might not even exist anymore?"
"I'm playing with you, of course. I've never had anyone to play with before, and it looks like it might be fun. I can see what Kurt liked about it." Noticing that Anna was still standing there and glaring at him, he whispered a few words and twisted his hand back, forming a hook with one finger. Anna froze, her muscles locked rigid, even her voice muscles unable to move. Alex's smile faded a little until it was just a slight curl to his lips once more, and said in a quiet voice,
"Run along, little heretic. I'll keep an eye on you. And do try to remember that it's your word against mine if you feel like blathering about this to anyone." He whispered two words, and held his palm out flat, and suddenly Anna was free to move again. She stumbled forwards, and Alex caught her before she could fall.
"I suggest you get back to your companions for now," he told her in a more normal speaking tone. "You'll need to perform your duties at the negotiations, of course, and we don't want them failing just because of a few small problems."
"'We'?"
"Nobody wants these negotiations to go badly, do they?" Alex said with a shrug. "It seems to be in everyone's interests to conclude them quickly and easily. Except for whoever killed these two, of course. Long, drawn out arguments wouldn't help Perrehum or Alcine." He took a step towards her, and she moved away in the direction of the door.
"As you suggested, I'd better get back to the meeting," she said quickly. "Thank you, it was nice to meet you."
"Get going, then," Alex said as she continued to move towards the door. "And don't bother coming back unless you want to tell me about your home town and whether it's still standing."
Anna was standing in the doorway by now, and she turned her head to look back at Alex. Her face seemed to be calm, but her lips were tightly pressed together, and he smiled at her.
"Good luck, my little heretic. Try not to die on the way."
