Chapter 7 #6
Something buffeted my head about. It was the bag, being dragged off over my chin and nose. Then light; I closed my eyes, but not before the murderous glare blinded me.
“Right,” the voice said behind me, “on your feet. We need to get moving.”
I opened my eyes. The hut was still the same, except that there was a man’s body lying on the floor. No way of knowing if he was dead or alive. Goons don’t count, according to Svangerd.
“Who the hell are you?” I said.
Two hands thrust under my armpits and tried to lift me. “Up,” said the voice. “Come on.”
Aside from the fact that it was soft and low, strong but sweet, like Blemmyan wine, the voice reminded me of my mother. I put my weight on my feet and stood up. You try doing that after God knows how long tied to a chair. I ended up on the floor.
She caught hold of my arm and dragged me up, nearly dislocating my shoulder.
She was nearly as tall as me, young, slender, stunningly beautiful and dressed in chainmail, shimmering like a fish.
“Lean on me,” she said, so I did. She staggered under my weight, and I ended up back on the floor. “Get up,” she yelled.
“I’m trying,” I said. I got to my knees, then onto one knee, then pressed down on it with both hands to force myself up. “Who are you?”
There was something not quite right about her mailshirt, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. “We need to go now,” she said. “They could come back at any moment.”
Unlikely, I thought. I located the chair, which hadn’t gone far. I sat down. “Give me a minute,” I said. “And tell me who you—”
“Oh, for crying out loud.” She was clearly torn, between stomping off and leaving me and some great responsibility. “I’m here to rescue you.”
I frowned. “Really. Who from?”
“The Order. I’m rescuing you, and then we’ve got to save Svangerd.”
A quick process of elimination. Then I said, “Piss off.”
She rolled her eyes. “What’s the matter with you? We’ve got to—” She gave up. “Yes, all right,” she said. “I’m an officer of the Loyal Opposition. Special operations division, if you must know. But there’s no time to lose. They’ve got Svangerd, and they’re going to—”
“No,” I said, “they aren’t. Mother Grimhild explained it to me.
They’re going to get that thing out of her, but without hurting a hair of Svangerd’s head in the process.
And all I’ve been doing for the last God knows how long is make things difficult for everybody.
My fault,” I added before she could interrupt, “but I choose to put the entire blame on your lot. Now fuck off and leave me in peace.”
“You idiot.” The fact that hitting me would be counterproductive was tearing her apart. “They’re lying to you. They’re going to put Svangerd in a huge copper pan and boil her down into glue.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Now, they told me to wait here until someone came and collected me, and that’s what I’m going to do. You can piss off.”
“They tied you to a chair.”
“To give the demonic influence time to wear off, yes. They explained about that.”
“How could anybody be so stupid? They’re going to kill—”
“Talking of which,” I said. I stood up, wobbled a bit, and went over to the body lying on the floor. He had a pulse. “Just as well for you,” I said. “If you’d killed him, I’d have smashed your face in.”
“Look.” She was at the end of her rope, but I didn’t care. “They lied to you. They want the demon. They don’t care what they have to do to get it.”
I yawned. “I’m going now,” I said. “If you follow me, I’ll thump you. Got that?”
“Grimhild is planning to weaponise the demon,” she spat at me. “She’s going to use it to possess the Patriarch of Eipen.”
I frowned. It’s the little details that do it.
Like when you’re concocting a really good lie.
All you need is for one small, peripheral detail to ring true, and you’ve planted the possibility that you might just be telling the truth.
If she’d said His Holiness Vitimer, or one of the five cardinals, or someone like that, the mighty pillars on which Holy Mother Church rests, the seed would’ve fallen on stony ground, and I’d have socked her on the jaw and moved on.
But the Patriarch of Eipen – if I was going to infiltrate Holy Mother Church by means of demonic possession, that’s who I’d choose.
Not a major public figure, but a governor of the treasury and ex officio chairman of the doctrine committee…
“Prove it,” I said.
“I can’t. Not here and now, in a hut. And if I could, I’m not allowed to. I shouldn’t have told you, it’s classified, for crying out loud. For all I know, telling you could utterly screw up the Plan. What’s the matter with you? Why can’t you just do as you’re told?”
“Tell me what you know,” I said, “and I’ll consider it. If not, forget it.”
There’s a cliché about trying the patience of a saint.
I guess the same holds true on the flipside.
She made a heroic effort, closed her eyes and opened them again.
“Grimhild is going to boil the demon out of Svangerd’s body and seal it in a bottle.
Then she’s going to break its will, so it’ll do what she tells it.
When she attends the general synod at Iden, she’ll infest the Patriarch with it and take over the Church. That’s all I know. Isn’t that enough?”
“Why would she want to do that? No, better question. Why wouldn’t you want her to do that?”
“I don’t know, do I? Presumably if she’s leading the Church, it’ll be more effective, and her lot will win and we’ll lose. Believe it or not, they don’t share every last detail of long-term policy with grade three field agents. The point is, they’re going to kill your friend. Can you risk that?”
The question hit me right between the eyes. Sharp blows on the head tend to make me feel stupid for a minute or so. “Hang on,” I said. “Let me think about this. Basically, it’s your word against Grimhild’s.”
That made her go cold and quiet. “Yes,” she said. “I suppose it is.”
That, I realised, was different. The word of someone who believed she was a servant of the non-existent devil, against that of a high-ranking Church politician. Who do you trust? Neither of them, obviously.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll go with you. We’ll find Svangerd and make someone tell us what’s really happening. If you’ve been lying to me, I’ll break both your arms. How does that sound?”
“Fine,” she sighed. “Because I’m telling the truth. Now can we please go?”