Page 35 of Crucible of Chaos

So, was Someil’s warning meant to curry favour with King Filian by protecting his beloved Greatcoats from the supposed ‘demon plague’ awaiting them on the island, or to ensure no magistrate would be present to witness the invasion that might be the prelude to taking his throne?

A crack of thunder out over the water drew Estevar’s gaze to the darkening sky beyond, then a sudden flare of lightning returned his attention to the table, for the wooden figurines had taken on an eerie glow. For an instant, it almost looked as if the pieces had come to life and were marching across the map.

A trick of the light, he knew, but he still bent to examine the carvings and their positioning. Estevar was no military strategist, but he’d once made a thorough study of warfare in the hope of applying it to the investigation of certain criminal organisations. He need only memorise the tactics laid bare upon this table and share them with the margrave for all of Mother Leogado’s preparations to come to naught.

A ruse, then?he wondered.False plans left here for my benefit so that, if I am a spy for the margrave, I will lead him into a disastrous campaign? Or does the general seek to persuade me that she is the only one capable of defending the abbey’s religious freedoms, thus, I must rule in favour of her faction against the others?

Thunder boomed, louder this time, and the wind began to whistle a haunting tune through the window. Estevar feared for what new destruction this approaching storm would bring.

‘You wasted your time meeting with the Wolves,’ Mother Leogado said, the hem of her black under-robes swirling around her. ‘Strigan is an apostate– and worse than that, he’s a fool.’

‘A fool who commands almost as many monks as you do, and has a greater share of the abbey’s old armoury.’

Still not meeting his gaze, she returned to her table, picked up another piece of wooden dowel and began carving again. ‘You are best known for investigating matters of the occult on behalf of the king, are you not?’

Another twist in the conversation,he thought.She seeks to lead me down a path, but what is its destination?

‘You accused me of divination earlier,’ she continued, her knife making quick, deft cuts into the wood. ‘When I spoke of the margrave’s impending invasion, you called it a prediction. That’s as good as charging a woman with witchcraft in so devout a place of worship as this abbey.’

‘I believe you are aware that was not my intention, Madam. Furthermore, I will remind you that it is not the King’s Magistrates who imprison his citizens for witchcraft. Such cruel and superstitious prosecutions are the province of your own Cogneri.’

Little shards of wood fell at her sandalled feet as she continued working her knife. ‘You’ve met Brother Agneta, then?’

‘You know I have.’ He pointed to the window she had earlier abandoned. ‘It was you I saw watching me as I rang the bell for entry. You ignored my plea until I used the pattern of a magistrate. Only then did you send two of your “Trumpeters”–to take me prisoner.’

More flashes of light blossomed in the north-facing windows, the booming thunder that followed behind so deafening it might’ve been mistaken for cannon-fire.

‘You should have begged to go with them,’ Mother Leogado told him, ‘given the state in which Brother Agneta left you. But let us return to the matter of witchcraft.’ The curved blade of her knife was tearing chunks from the wood almost as quickly as she changed subjects. ‘What is your opinion of divination?’

‘Divination?’

‘Soothsaying. Prophecy. Crook-backed crones casting cards, rattling bones and imbibing hallucinogens to trigger mystical visions. In all your travels, have you ever encountered evidence supporting the belief that one can predict the future?’

‘No,’ he answered simply.

In his various supernatural enquiries on behalf of the Crown, he’d witnessed many forms of magic. Some had proven genuine, others merely intricate fakery. When it came to divination and soothsaying, however, the results had always been the same.

Mother Leogado resumed her clockwise perambulation around the room, her rhythm so steady she might have been a wind-up toy. She stopped at a third window, this one overlooking the courtyard and the ruins of the statuary. ‘You claim no one can foretell the future, yet I am willing to wager all I hold dear that you, Estevar Borros, possess the ability to predict with near-perfect accuracy the fate awaiting the self-styled “Wolf-King and Sorcerer Sovereign” of Isola Sombra. Is that not a kind of divination?’

Wary of the knife in Leogado’s hand, yet more at ease with this peripatetic warrior woman than he’d felt in a long time, Estevar joined her at the window. She didn’t shy away, and her confidence was as attractive to him as her incisiveness. He could almost imagine the two of them seated by a fire in some little cottage somewhere, debating philosophical conundrums and the finer points of logic, without rancour or competitiveness, for days at a time. A shame, then, that their respective roles all but guaranteed they would soon be at odds with one another. ‘What you speak of is not Strigan’s destiny, Madam, but the inexorable destination to which his choices will lead him.’

She leaned ever so slightly closer to him. He liked the way she smelled, reminiscent of the spicy fragrances of his homeland. It would be a pity if the first time she met his eyes was while stabbing him through his sword wound with her whittling knife.

‘And what destination might that be?’ she asked.

Estevar risked extending an arm over her shoulder to point towards the Venerance Tower on the other side of the cloister. ‘Days from now–possibly hours, depending on how quickly they run out of wine and what little food they thought to gather after the abbot’s death–his followers will grow anxious over their own futures. Worry will turn to resentment. These lapsed monks will begin to doubt Strigan’s claims of being on the verge of harnessing the island’s power to their own ends. They will see themselves in the mirror, feel the discomfort of those silly tattoos he convinced them to inscribe upon their own skin, and wonder whether perhaps–just perhaps–the only miracles conjured up by his nonsensical sexual escapades masquerading as demonic rituals will be a few unintended pregnancies.’

Rain began to patter upon the open glass, softly at first, but within seconds, it was coming down in torrents outside. Leogado laughed at Estevar’s joke, untroubled by the worsening storm outside. ‘You Greatcoatsdohave a way with words, don’t you, Eminence? Allow me to complete the tale.’ The playfulness disappeared from her voice, her tone now imbued with the grim certainty of a magistrate rendering a verdict. With her knife, she pointed to the lightning-struck statuary below. ‘They will drag Strigan to this last, terrible centre of genuine godly power to perform a final ritual that will complete their apostasy. They will slit the Wolf-King’s throat, his wrists and ankles, desecrating the abbey grounds with his spurting blood as punishment both for Strigan’s lies and the ones they blame on the rest of us.’

‘A dark prediction indeed,’ Estevar said, taken aback, but Mother Leogado wasn’t done.

‘Chaos and bloodshed will ensue as his feral apostles run wild through the abbey, slaughtering everyone they encounter, providing the perfect moral and legal justification for the Margrave of Someil to invade Isola Sombra and—’

Her ominous prognostication was interrupted by more thunder. The crack of flagstones outside being fractured suggested lightning had struck. Estevar wondered where Caeda had taken Imperious, and hoped the poor mule wouldn’t be driven to panic by this gods-be-damned storm.

‘Would you condemn us to madness and mayhem?’ Leogado asked, turning to place a hand on his arm, her gaze down at her feet. ‘Or will you take action and save not only the lives of Abbot Venia’s flock but also the religious freedoms for which he fought so long?’

‘You make an excellent case, General,’ he conceded, gently removing her hand. ‘I encourage you to act as chief advocate for your faction after I have completed my investigation into the abbot’s murder and hold a hearing into who should govern the abbey.’

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