“Better just to kill him and have done with it!” insisted Wolfhere.
“Nay!” Zacharias choked out the word. “She led me through the spirit world. I saw—” His throat burned. “I saw a vision of the cosmos!”
Spasms shook his entire body and made the bruise at the base of his neck come alive with a grinding, horrible pain. He folded forward, almost passing out.
After an unknown while, he struggled out of the haze to find himself bent double over his arms. Wolfhere had returned with a wine sack. Gratefully he guzzled it, spat up half of it all over his fetid robe before he remembered to nurse along his roiling stomach. He must go slowly. He had to use his wits.
“What is this vision of the cosmos that you saw?” asked Marcus when Zacharias set down the wineskin.
“If I tell you everything I know, then you’ll have no reason to keep me alive. It’s true I followed Prince Sanglant, my lord, but I only followed him because I hoped he would lead me to his wife, the one called Liathano. It’s her I seek.”
Marcus had an exceedingly clever face and expressive eyebrows, lifted now with surprise. “Why do you seek her?”
“I seek any person who can teach me. I wish to understand the mysteries of the heavens.”
“As do we all.”
“I will do anything for the person who will teach me, my lord.”
“Anything? Will you murder my dear friend Brother Lupus, if I tell you to?” He gestured toward Wolfhere, crouched within the pale aura given off by the lamp, his seamed and aged face quiet as he watched the two men negotiate.
A breath of air teased Zacharias’ matted hair, curling around his ear. Was this the whisper of a daimone? Was Marcus a maleficus, who controlled forbidden magic and unholy creatures? He shuddered, his resolve curdled by a flood of misgivings. Yet he couldn’t stop now. He was a prisoner. He was as good as dead. “I am no murderer, my lord. I haven’t the stomach for it. But I am clever, and I have an excellent memory.”
“Do you?”
“I do, my lord. That is why I was allowed to take the oath of a frater although I cannot read or write. I know the Holy Verses, all of them, and many other things besides—”
“That’s true enough,” commented Wolfhere. “He has a prodigious memory.”
“Is he clever?”
The old man sighed sharply. Why did he look so distressed? “Clever enough. He survived seven years as a slave among the Quman, so he says. Escaped on his own, so he says. Sought and found Prince Sanglant with no help from any other, so he says. He talks often enough of this vision of the cosmos that he was vouchsafed in the Palace of Coils. He entertains the soldiers with the tale. He says he saw a dragon.”
“I only tell them the truth!”
“Well,” said Marcus speculatively. “A dragon. Perhaps you’re too valuable to throw overboard to drown, Zacharias. Perhaps you can serve the Holy Mother in another fashion. Perhaps I will teach you what I know after all. That will serve as well as killing you will, in the end.”
Zacharias dared not weep. “You will find me a good student, my lord. I will not fail you.”
“We shall see.” Marcus fanned his hand before his face. “You must clean up. I cannot bear your stench. Brother Lupus?”
Wolfhere’s lips were pressed as tight as those of a man determined not to swallow the bitter brew now on his tongue. “Do you intend to go ahead with this?”
“We are few, and our enemies are many.” Marcus had a cherub’s grin that made Zacharias nervous. The cleric’s riotous black curls gave his round, rather bland face an angelic appearance, almost innocent.
Almost.
“If this man can and will serve us, then why should I cast him away? We can all serve God in one manner or another. This is the lesson I learned from the one who leads us.”
“So you did,” said Wolfhere sardonically. “Very well. Are you satisfied, Zacharias? Will you do as Brother Marcus says?”
Such a thrill of hope coursed through Zacharias that he forgot his nausea, and his pain. “You will teach me?”
“I will teach you everything that I can,” agreed Marcus with an ironic smile, “as long as you will serve me as a student must serve his master. Do as I say. Be obedient. Do not question.”
“I can do that!”
Did Wolfhere whisper, again, “You sorry fool!”? It was only the creak of the ship rolling in the waves. It was only memory, mocking him.
“Let it be done,” said Marcus, who had heard nothing untoward. “I will teach you the secrets of the heavens, Brother Zacharias. I admit you into our holy fellowship.”
