Darker Jewels by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro Read Free Book Online Page B

yourselves,” ordered Father Pogner. He regarded Istvan with brief interest. “If there is someone who should inform the King of our arrival, tell me his name.”
    “I will tend to it,” said Istvan. “Hasten to make yourself known to the Bishop, by all means. The King will wait your pleasure,” he went on, aware that only he appreciated his irony; the three priests left the room.
    Father Krabbe stumbled toward the hearth, his habit showing wet stains at the shoulder and across the back. For a moment he steadied himself against the stones of the mantle, then he sank down onto his knees in front of the fire and began to pray, interrupting himself with the same tense, hacking cough as before. He was shaking visibly.
    “Zary, go find Rakoczy at once. Tell him to come here.” Istvan got up from his chair, leaving his saddle half-polished.
    Knowing advantage when it stared him in the face, Zary went down on his knee, kissed Istvan’s hand. “It is done,” he said as he hurried from the room.
    From his place by the fire, Father Krabbe stared. His face paled as Istvan approached him, and very hesitantly he said, “Majesty?”
    Istvan’s joints were too sore to permit him to do more than bend down a little, but he did this, saying, “God give you recovery, good Jesuit. I am Istvan Bathory. You are Father Milan Krabbe, I believe Father Pogner said.” As Father Krabbe broke off praying, turning his face up in true shock, the King went on. “I am sorry you are ill. It is not fitting that men in my service should suffer unnecessarily. That is why I have sent for the alchemist who is to travel with you. He will be able to tend you better than the physicians we have here, who are used to binding up minor wounds and cauterizing serious ones but have little skill beyond such treatments. Rakoczy will know what to do to make you better.”
    “You must forgive them. They intended no insult, Majesty. Father Pogner did not know,” Father Krabbe said urgently, masking his cough with his hands. “Truly, Majesty, he did not know.”
    “That was apparent,” Istvan said dryly, who was less certain than Father Krabbe that such knowledge would have made much difference to Father Pogner. “For if he did know, he would have had to pay his first duty to me, no matter what he preferred to do.”
    “He will be ...” This time his coughing covered his confusion.
    “I suppose he will be embarrassed. He has brought that on himself. Still, it is acceptable to me that he was candid.” His leg ached steadily, and he leaned against the stone mantle of the fireplace to provide some relief. “Depending upon how he comports himself when he discovers the truth, I will endorse or end his chagrin. If he is chagrined.” He rubbed at his hip. “Winter has been hard on all of us. Your illness has been prevalent with some of my men. Four of my captains have been sent to monasteries in order to recover.”
    “The monks will cure them, in the Name of Our Lord,” said Father Krabbe with the kind of desperate certainty that comes with having the same disease.
    “Perhaps.” He looked up as the door flung open and Hrabia Zary returned. “Rakoczy is coming, Majesty,” he said with a casual bow. “He begs that you will excuse him for not accompanying me; he asks you to wait a moment or so while he completes his preparations.”
    At another time Istvan would have been dissatisfied with this message, but after the calculated indifference of Father Pogner the grace of this response was most satisfactory. “If he does not expect me to wait very long.”
    “He was loading something into that peculiar oven of his, the one that looks like a brick-and-stone beehive,” said Hrabia Zary in disgust. “And that manservant of his was sifting through a tray of little green pebbles. Rakoczy claims that the pebbles would combine with acid to yield copper.” He shook his head at such nonsense.
    “Did you tell him about Father Krabbe?” asked Istvan, just a