Ishmael

I shmael had only warning enough of his arrest to realize the futility and dangers of flight. When Eldon shook him awake, it was to tell him that the men had already encircled the wing of the house, armed and in force. His servant had heard Casamir Blondell in the side vestibule, talking to the superintendent about a warrant for murder. Tercelle Amberley, almost certainly, if not the man he had shot while escaping—but how had his disguise been penetrated so quickly? Ruthen would not have betrayed him. Was it Blondell’s doing, then, and if so, why? There was bad blood between them, but surely not that bad. He swiftly rejected the possibility of testing his luck against their mettle; escape was too unlikely to be worth the punishment that would befall Lorcas and Eldon for forewarning him. He rolled out of bed, shedding his rumpled shirt. “Get my leather vest.” The leather vest, with its stiffening of metal links, was armor against knives, and protection for his ribs, at least the first time anyone went at him. “If this goes ill,” he said, “y’need t’tell the Hearnes that it’s Guillaume di Maurier who’s gone seeking their daughter; Hearne knows him, and I’m sure Lady Telmaine knows of him.” He pulled on the vest, a clean shirt, and gloves, and when the footsteps and the pounding came, he made his menservants stand well aside, out of the line of any fire, and opened the door himself.

Sonn resolved two heavy pistols, pointed at his head, from the agents on either side of the city superintendent. He wasn’t sure whether his nobility or his villainy merited such attention. Behind the double rank of public agents stood Casamir Blondell, his form indistinct amongst the echoes, but his expression twisted in anger and loathing. The extremity of that expression gave Ish the briefest of warning before they laid hands on him—it had, he thought, taken them rather a long time to appreciate that in his shirtsleeves, with his gloved hands spread, he offered neither threat nor resistance. He tensed involuntarily as they hauled him forward, reacting to too many memories of similar manhandlings, but he did not resist as they dragged him into the corridor.

“Ishmael di Studier, Baron Strumheller,” the superintendent said, “we are arresting you in the name of the archduke on suspicion of the murder of Lady Tercelle Amberley one night past, and on suspicion of sorcery committed against Lord Vladimer Plantageter two nights past.”

He stiffened in their grasp, his mind suddenly locked with horror at the second accusation and its implication. “Vladimer—” he started to say, unwisely, and the men holding his arms turned the joints upon themselves with the elegant efficiency of men practiced in the technique. He cried out once, in agony, and hung between them, gasping.

“Lord Vladimer, as you surely know, lies senseless in the ducal summer house,” hissed Blondell.

The superintendent’s expression shifted subtly toward distaste. Ish could not allow himself to hope, not with the charge of suspected sorcery against him, but he knew Malachi Plantageter to be as scrupulous in the discharge of his duties as the realities of politics allowed. He had descended from the old nobility—he shared the ducal surname—to this lowly public service, and made it his own. Ishmael said, in a low voice, “I am innocent ”—a gesture from the superintendent stayed any move to silence him—“of both those charges, but especially of th’last.”

“The law grants that possibility,” the superintendent allowed, “and ensures all men a fair trial, whatever the charges, witnesses, and evidence. I will ensure you are guarded, until we know the outcome of Lord Vladimer’s affliction and know the exact charges to be laid.”

He heard the threat and the promise in that, stretched as he was in painful suspension between his guards. Murder was a capital charge, one that would leave a man shackled outside to await the day. Proven sorcery—and there was a conundrum, since the witnesses who could disprove it would hardly be considered upstanding citizens and witnesses—could have him exiled, confined to an asylum, or executed. Death by blades of light had last been used twenty years ago, against the mage who’d aided the kidnappers of Guillaume di Maurier and his sisters.

That was always assuming he escaped being knifed or beaten to death in the cells. Lord Vladimer might be feared, but he was also respected for his mastery of the underhanded arts, and he was the archduke’s brother. Criminals, Ish had noticed, tended to be traditionalists. His very survival through the next day, never mind to the trial, depended upon the superintendent’s readiness to do his duty. And who would help Vladimer, with Ish confined to a cell? Why did they think Vladimer’s affliction was magical? Because it seemed unnatural; because it confounded the physicians . . . They’d not let him know or even ask. His mind circled on itself like a mad dog gone frantic with thirst.

The superintendent finished the formal reading of the charges, a ceremony Ish had endured several times before, though never in such august surroundings or company. Setting and sobriety were not as much compensation as he might have thought.

His guards efficiently chained his wrists, but left his ankles free. He was, he thought, rather out of practice in being arrested as a mage, as he did not know whether this represented current thinking on how to contain a mage’s power. He hoped it was; he’d no desire to be rendered unconscious, or dosed with some concoction intended to mute his powers, usually by the expedient of drugging him into stumbling imbecility. Flanked by four guards, and led by the superintendent, he was started along the corridor. Imogene’s tits, he was thankful that none of the Hearnes, particularly Telmaine, had opened their doors, though they had surely been aware of the affray. He could almost feel the intensity of her listening attention. But only almost—and that was surely imagination alone. She did not know how to reach him herself.

He could change that. He had already worked with her, showing her how to direct her power. He could try, in the few seconds he might sustain such a contact, to convey to her the essence of his own magical understanding, in hopes she could organize and use it. Mind-touching her across distance would incapacitate him, to be sure, and end any chance of escape en route to the prison, if chance there still were for him, shackled and under guard. And if he were to cripple himself mind-touching anyone, he should be getting a warning to Magistra Hearne, or even Phoebe Broome. In short, he was once again being a sentimental fool. But neither of the other women, each a known mage, would be able to reach Vladimer. Neither of them had the loyalty to Vladimer that he had, and Telmaine as a member of Vladimer’s own class would have, and Vladimer had to have the help of a loyal mage, if this were truly sorcery. Telmaine had the power to help; she should have the willingness; what she lacked was the knowledge. Every step was taking them farther apart, which might not be a real impediment, but felt like one, even so. He drew a deep breath, paused at the top of the stairs, as though to catch his balance, and reached into the core of his vitality, tearing loose the largest part of it he had ever committed to his magic. He threw it—vitality, will, magic, intuition—into the strongest mental shout he could summon: <Go to Vladimer! You must help him!>

It was all he had to give. The inside of his skull felt as though he’d everted it in sunlight. He was going down. He was vaguely aware of the voices around him shifting from harshness to consternation as he slid to the floor, boneless, and then his awareness went, mercifully, to ash.