Accidental War Mage

To my surprise, negotiations resumed over breakfast in the morning. Things were a little chaotic because Raphael’s men had locked up the highest-ranking servants in the lower fort; a precautionary measure, he said.

Raphael wanted to hire me for one more service – not, he clarified, my whole company, but me personally. He had an idea in mind that could avoid a lengthy and bitter siege.

“Trial by combat,” Raphael said. “It’s an old tradition, but … with you, it’s a real option, if he takes the challenge.”

“You have seventeen knights with you,” I said. “Three of them officers.” I glanced over at the knight-captain, who continued silently spooning groats into his mouth. Getting no explanation from that quarter, I directed my skepticism back to the thick black substance in the small teacup in front of me, and then back full circle to Raphael.

“Father Waldemar is a war mage,” Raphael said. “A strong one. He fought at Varna. If he sent a champion, maybe Sir Guy could take him on, but if he decided to take the field himself, no ordinary knight would be able to stand against him in a trial by combat. You, though… I’ve seen your aura.”

I rubbed my temples. I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t have any real training as a war mage, so I looked back down at the cup in front of me and its dark contents. A quartet of tiny cups had been brought out by one of the presumptive bishop’s servants; Raphael, the abbot, and the knight-captain had each drained their cups already. I sipped tentatively. It was bitter and sweet at the same time.

I set the cup back down. “Suppose I faced him and lost. What then?”

“Well,” Raphael said. “At that point, I would be obliged to give up my claim to Bishop of Batavis. Which is why Old Sourpuss over there is glaring daggers at me.”

I turned, taking in the abbot’s frown. “And if I don’t take your offer?”

“Then you go off on your way with my blessing, and I hold this fort until Father Waldemar or I figure out how to break the impasse,” Raphael said. “Likely we eventually fight a battle. Perhaps someone else intervenes to force one of us to back down – the emperor, maybe, or Rome.” He shrugged. “I can’t offer you coin in hand, but I promise I’ll find a way to pay you.”

How far was I willing to put my trust in this man? He seemed to be willing to trust me with his future as prince-bishop; my first instinct was to respond to trust with trust. The talent for reading auras might seem weak, but it allowed him to extend a sense of absolute faith effortlessly down from his relationship with God down to his relationship with ordinary mortals – and speaking as an ordinary mortal, that faith was seductive.

“I’ll go get my armor ready,” I said, standing up.

“Oh, no,” Raphael said, shaking his head. “I need you to borrow the armor from one of my knights. You have to look like my champion. Sir Wolfgang’s armor, I think? Nobody can know you’re my champion”

The knight-captain nodded. “He’s the tallest we have,” the knight-captain said. “If it doesn’t fit, we’ll try to make adjustments.”

“But…” I paused. “There are enchantments on my armor,” I said.

The abbot nodded. “I have a protective vestment you could wear under Wolfgang’s plate. It won’t have the mass to anchor to that your armor does, but you could power it nonetheless. If you know the standard fourth protection of Saint Jerome?”

I stared at him blankly.

The abbot turned back to Raphael. “Are you sure …”

Raphael nodded. “God has placed this man in my path for a reason,” he said.

My stomach twisted. I felt I didn’t deserve the man’s faith, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to dispel his confidence in me.

The abbot laid out the orichalcum-threaded robe on the table. “Now, you must be very careful with your pronunciation,” he said. “The incantation starts here, on the right shoulder. I will repeat it for you, stanza for stanza, and you will repeat it back to me. Clear pronunciation and rhythm is critical, as is the focused intent. Then we will draw up a salt circle for a binding. It will probably take two or three tries before it takes. These vestments were made for me thirty years ago, and I rarely lend them out.”

Laying my finger on the right shoulder of the robe brought the orichalcum threading into focus. It was much like Hebrew lettering, I thought to myself. No, it was Hebrew lettering, of a sort. I muttered along under my breath as I traced my finger along the vestment.

The abbot kept talking. “Now, the first verse is: Shir heharim …” The abbot’s voice stopped suddenly. Presumably, he’d turned and looked at me and realized I was staring at the garment instead of him. “Pay attention,” he said with an irritated tone.

The robe flared with bright turquoise light as my finger finished tracing the line. “Sorry,” I said. “I got distracted.”

“I thought you said you didn’t know the standard fourth protection of Saint Jerome.” The abbot was irked.

“I don’t,” I said. “I’m paying attention now, though, I promise. Go on?”

The abbot gave me a hard look. “Joking around like that is inappropriate and disrespectful,” he informed me. “You will suffer long in purgatory with an attitude like that.”

I watched the abbot leave, still uncertain about what the standard fourth protection of Saint Jerome was. Was it really just the Hebrew poem sewn across the shoulders of the robe? I read the back over the words, this time silently, trying to commit the bit of verse to memory. There was a tiny glimmer of light, even though I hadn’t said a word aloud. And that, dear reader, is how I learned the fourth standard protection of Saint Jerome.

Seated on the top of an unfamiliar eight-legged machine, I held an equally unfamiliar lance in my right hand, upon which flew an azure and gold striped pennant, a flag I’d never seen before arriving in Batavis. I wore unfamiliar mage-tempered armor, the suit smaller and lighter than Ruthenian steam knight armor; only the horse beneath me was steam-powered. Underneath the armor, I wore a badly-fitted arming doublet, the abbot’s enchanted vestment wrinkled up beneath it.

Behind me stood the abbot and Lieutenant Quentin Gavreau, the former wearing formal robes and the latter wearing his own mage-tempered cuirass. Beside me was Lieutenant Ragnar Rimehammer, the ancient warhammer I’d given him at his side, his sword-staff at the ready, his face hidden behind his helmet. From the minute motion of the helmet, though, I knew he was watching the messenger.

For reasons unknown to me, Raphael had decided to send Giselle, the niece of the artist whose paintings adorned the sitting room – a woman he’d kept in a locked room until I’d finished putting on the unfamiliar armor. She was wearing a wine-colored silk gown; a long blonde braid ran down her back and just past her belt, swaying gently along with her hips as she walked up the causeway, a gently rolled scroll of paper in one hand.

A pair of guards watched from the upper fort. They had arquebuses close at hand, but they made no motion to ready them.

“Hello the castle!” Giselle called out once she was near, holding her empty hand to her mouth. “I come bearing a message from Raphael de Burgogne.” She held up the paper, unfurling it. “He offers trial by combat, promising he will vacate his claim if his champion is defeated.”

The guards acknowledged her message, one of them disappearing to speak with others. A little while later, the gate slowly opened, revealing a small cannon, about a dozen soldiers, and an older man in white and gold robes with a pointy hat and a staff with a curled end. By the miter and crosier, I inferred this was Bishop-presumptive Waldemar himself.

After exchanging greetings, pleasantries, a hug, and a short discussion of the health and well-being of both parties, Giselle handed Waldemar the paper; he read it twice, then spent a long moment looking at me. I waited patiently behind the line of salt laid down by the abbot, meeting his gaze as best as I could through the tiny slits of the helmet’s visor.

Waldemar read the paper again, then leaned forward to whisper in Giselle’s ear. “Who is his champion? The man with the pennant, on the steam-horse.” Father Waldemar pointed.

“I recognize the armor from last night, Father. I believe he is called Sir Wolfgang,” Giselle whispered back, blithely failing to address the man as either “Bishop Waldemar” or “Your Excellency.” She continued. “I believe he is a knight-banneret. Devout, but not very bright. No magical talent to speak of.”

“Perhaps Raphael is looking for a way out,” replied the would-be bishop, ignoring the informality of the address. “He cannot simply walk away from his unwise claim. Who is that man standing as his second?”

“One of the mercenaries. His name is Ragnar,” Giselle said. “I know it’s him because of the hammer – he knows it’s enchanted, he wouldn’t possibly let someone else have it.”

Waldemar nodded thoughtfully. “Raphael is a clever young man to arrange for a neutral witness for his defeat.” He stepped back and then spoke loudly. “Go, and tell them I have accepted his challenge. When I win, he shall quit this land and go back to Burgundy.”

“Yes, Your Excellency,” Giselle said back loudly. She curtsied and walked back down the causeway, stopping just in front of the line of salt laid down by the abbot. “His Excellency accepts the challenge of the usurper,” she said. “May I return to the upper fort?”

The abbot nodded. “You are no hostage here,” he said.

She walked back up the causeway. I watched the blonde braid of her hair sway gently back and forth until it disappeared behind the waiting soldiers, assuming that Ragnar’s vision was fixed in a like position. The gate stayed open after she passed, the soldiers waiting ready for any sudden treachery. I could not fault their readiness; out of sight behind me were a pair of Swedish walking-guns, one to each side of the open gate.

Mentally, I rehearsed the incantation I’d learned from the abbot’s robe, the cloth of the vestment tingling against my skin underneath the arming doublet. Sitting in the summer weather on top of an idling steam engine is not the most comfortable thing in the world, even if it is a cloudy afternoon. I waited, uncomfortably warm and nervous, still behind the abbot’s line of salt.

Then Father Waldemar reappeared, wearing armor that looked to be halfway plated in orichalcum and on top of a horse. He was still holding a staff, but a different one; this one was battered, the tracery of black showing where the silver had tarnished inside the runes. A pointed helmet topped with a crucifix replaced his miter. Giselle also reappeared, looking out of an arrowslit next to the gate.

Slowly, the priest began to ride down the causeway. I opened up the throttle on my steam-horse and shifted it into first gear. Moments later, it started forward slowly, the iron hooves trampling over the line of salt. The priest’s head jerked back, and a moment later pulled his horse to a stop, looking at me. He turned his head back for a moment, then turned back to face me.

I kept my steam-horse moving forward at a slow walk, uncertain if I was supposed to level my lance or not. Was he readying his first attack?

“May I know your name?” Father Waldemar asked, shouting to be heard clearly over the steam engine and a distance of some thirty yards. As an old man, he was likely hard of hearing.

I throttled my eight-legged machine to a stop. “I am called Marcus Corvus,” I called out, matching his volume.

Under his breath, Father Waldemar cursed creatively for a dozen heartbeats in his native Gothic, then smoothly digressed into muttering in Latin. Rain started to fall. Another verse of dactylic hexameter and his silver staff dipped to touch the smooth and well-worn stones of the causeway. Ice sprang from the tip of his staff, sheeting down the slope of the causeway toward me.

Belatedly, I realized our duel had begun.