Chapter 252: Inquisitors [BONUS]

"Sir Aldous Fenwright is to return to Caelmar at once," the rider said, "and give account of the northern road in person, before the Council of War."

He stood in the mud outside the commander’s tent in the red and gold of a Crown courier, holding out a letter sealed with the Emperor’s sun.

Sir Aldous took it and read it under the awning.

Tobin, who was holding the commander’s cloak, watched his face. He expected anger. A recall was not usually good news. Commanders were recalled when they had failed, or when someone more important wanted their post.

Instead, Sir Aldous smiled.

"In person," he said. "Excellent."

"My lord?" said Captain Hale.

"Don’t you see, Hale? They want to hear it from me first." Sir Aldous folded the letter and slipped it inside his coat. "Before the Gannons can send their version. Before the old man in the cart can send his. The Council wants the Crown’s officer in the room. That is exactly where I want to be."

Captain Hale did not answer.

"You’ll hold the camp here," Sir Aldous went on. "Keep the men in order. Do nothing to provoke the ridge. I’ll take ten riders and the squire. We leave in the morning."

He turned to Tobin.

"Pack my things, Tobin. The good clothes. I won’t be standing before the Council of War in a field coat."

"Yes, my lord."

That night, Tobin packed the commander’s chest. He folded the silver-grey silk doublet and the good boots and the jewelled crane pin wrapped in velvet. He packed the writing case and the sealing wax.

Then he went back to the squires’ tent and packed his own saddlebag.

The ledger went in last, at the very bottom, wrapped in his spare shirt.

He did not know why he was taking it. The ledger belonged to the company, and the company was staying at the ford. By the rules of the Order, it should have stayed with Captain Hale.

But he thought about the old woman at the river, and the name in the margin. And he thought that if somebody in the capital ever asked how long the Order had taken to reach the north, someone ought to have the answer with him.

He fastened the bag and lay down.

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"The northern file, Captain."

The clerk put it on the desk and stepped back as if it might bite him.

Inquisitor-Captain Odric Grane looked at it without touching it.

It was a thick bundle of papers tied with grey ribbon. The ribbon told him it had already passed through three offices before reaching his. Grey meant that nobody above him had wanted to keep it.

He untied it.

Grane was a man of about fifty, with grey hair cut short and a face that people forgot within an hour of meeting him. He had served the Imperial Inquisition for twenty-six years. In that time he had questioned dukes, bishops, two generals, and a great many people who had believed they were cleverer than he was. He had never once raised his voice. He had never needed to.

He read slowly.

The first paper was a letter from Sir Aldous Fenwright of the Silver Crane. It was written in a very good hand, and it said a great deal without saying very much at all. A garrison that had abandoned its post. Convicts and deserters protected by Gannon soldiers. War engines built against the frontier charter. The Grand Magus, unwell.

Grane read it carefully.

Then he set it aside, face down.

The second paper was a copy of the Crown’s record of the northern command.

According to records - the Wall had fifteen seats of command.

The Lord Commander, Vice Commander, nine Watch commanders, Steward of the Wall, Far-Watch Captain, Chief Healer and the Leader of Lampwrights.

No Strategist.

The third paper was a list of rumours, gathered by the Inquisition’s own listeners in the city’s taverns and markets. Grane ran his finger down it.

A man who had frozen a river. A man who had held a bridge alone against a horde. A man who could see through people. A man who had killed an Elder of the Great Green with a single cut. A man who had been carried away by a ghost. A man who could burn thousands of gorehorns and more exaggerated ones.

Grane sat back in his chair.

The fourth paper was the report of the traitor at the gate. Wilm Trask, Commander of the Sixth Watch. Opened the Center Gate. Died of poison. His last words, according to three witnesses, was "The Empire shall burn. For the revolution.".

And beneath it, a line from the Wall Council’s own record, copied by someone careful.

William Trask, the Sixth Watch commander had voted in favour to give the Strategist his seat.

Grane looked at that line for a long time.

Then the door opened, and the Lord Inquisitor came in without knocking.

Lord Inquisitor Mauris Vey was older than Grane and much heavier, with a soft voice and small, patient eyes. He sat down on the other side of the desk and folded his hands over his stomach.

"Well, Odric?"

"It’s untidy, my lord."

"The Regent Queen does not like untidy things."

"No, my lord." Grane turned the papers so that they faced the Lord Inquisitor. "A traitor opens a gate and shouts ’For the revolution’. The same traitor voted to seat a man the Crown had never heard of. That man built machines no frontier command is allowed to build, emptied the fortress, and moved convicts south under a Gannon writ. Then he stood on a bridge and did something that nobody can describe the same way twice. And now he is conveniently dead."

"You think the rebels used him."

"I think it is possible. I think it is also possible he used them." Grane tapped the note in red ink. "And I think that a disgraced drunk does not become something that freezes a bridge in two years by honest effort. Power of that kind, if it was truly witnessed, does not come from nowhere. In my experience, when it comes too fast, someone has paid for it in a way the Church of Vessa would not approve of."

The Lord Inquisitor’s small eyes did not change.

"Are you implying he made a contract with demons?" he said.

"I am not saying it. I am saying we should not ignore the possibility."

"But he is a dead man."

"The dead have families, my lord. And the families have records."

The Lord Inquisitor was quiet for a moment. Then he stood, slowly, and smoothed his robe.

"Take one other with you," he said. "Go to the Duke of the North first. Ask him what his son was. Then go to this ridge and ask the living what they saw. Write down everything. The Queen will want it before the Council sits."

"And the charge?"

"Collusion with the Revolutionary Army," the Lord Inquisitor said. "And the other thing. As a question, Odric. For now."

He went out.

Grane tied the grey ribbon again, neatly, and put the file under his arm.

Two days later, two riders in plain dark coats left the capital by the northern gate. Nobody looked at them twice, which was how Grane preferred it.

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Thank you for the magic castle, @Stingdragon ~