11.3

Jonathan glared at the Countess Bathory’s Wizard. Jaksa the Red stood with a serenely contemplative mood across from their captive of war.

There was not a hint that the Sorcerer was at all bothered by the accusation that had been leveled against him in public earlier. Neither out in the open nor now that the Generals, Jonathan and the Wizard were all here in a closed door council to discuss the details of the official surrender.

The wizard’s face bothered Jonathan. It was an expression that Alexander might make when he had stumbled onto an unfamiliar spelling of a familiar word.

Or perhaps when one was trying to recall what they had for lunch a fortnight ago.

It was not the expression one should have when being accused as an accomplice to murder of a fifteen year old lady by her father.

“I must admit to you, Lord Thurzó, that I cannot recall at this time if your daughter was among them.”

Jonathan could not quite hold back his gasp. He glanced hard to his fellow vassal and confidant in that viper’s nest that was the Kaeketeh court.

Kliatbatrn’s jaw clenched hard and then the man turned away from him.

More than enough admission of some knowledge of it.

He turned to Fiebron who shifted and flexed fingers, hands and arms in the familiar half-aborted language of Gryphon Riders in close quarters.

A question to verify.

Jonathan flexed and shifted himself with a denial, unseen movement.

Thurzó shook his head and laughed. “Among them?”

He fixed Jonathan with a hard look and then made three sharp gestures wide and open with his hands.

They would be easily visible from a hundred paces or more.

The sign in Gryphon Cant to verify a flier had been spotted.

Fiebron and Jonathan stared at the man who smiled, although his eyes were now downcast.

A heavy breath whistled from his teeth as a sigh of relief and exhaustion.

“So at least two of you didn't know. Probably most out there in the courtyard don’t know? That their Countess is a monster that bathes in the blood of the innocent?”

Jaksa the Red sighed and shook his head, tone that of a Father lecturing a son who had made a particularly stupid mistake.

“She is neither a monster nor does she bathe in the blood. And for the most part those that contribute are hardly what I would call innocent. Ladies of the night, Witches selling false cures, adulterers, vagabonds, peasant girls, unwanted street youth.”

He huffed heavily.

“The stories and rumors around my Countess’ condition and her treatment in the realm are sensationalized to absurdity. If half of them were true she would have depopulated all of Viznove a decade ago.”

Thurzó glared at him.

“And yet you are not certain that my daughter, a lady of noble birth and impeccable virtue is not amongst them?”

Jonathan felt a pit in his stomach growing deeper as he considered Marcisław Kliatbatrn’s face. There was no denial there, no surprise, nothing but pained acceptance.

He’d known.

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The Wizard spoke smoothly and calmly.

“I can’t say I was present for the actual enacting of every ritual, the proper manner of it has been one the Countess Bathory and her handmaidens have been able to perform for well over twenty years now.”

Twenty years?!

Jonathan briefly wondered why everyone in the room was staring at him. Then he realized he had spoken that out loud.

“Yes, Lord Rochford, The Countess Bathory has been of ill humor since she was born. Her sight and body were routinely struck by accursed starsent visions that overwhelmed the senses.”

The wizard’s tone took on a heat that had been absent before.

“Plagued with blinding light and deafening sound, was as she described it. And a feebleness could strike her that was far beyond even a sheltered lady of her birth could expect. I’ve attended her at her family's request since before my assumption of the mantle of Wizard.”

He smiled then, as if in a happy reverie of the past.

“It was my formulation of the very ritual which assures her good health and vigor that saw my start upon the path to my station.”

Fiebron fixed Jaksa with a glare that seemed to slide off the Wizard entirely.

“And what, pray tell, is this Sorcerous ritual?”

To which the delighted smile seemed to shine all the more.

The disquietingly dark and slick hair of the Wizard almost seemed to ripple to Jonathan’s eyes.

“Why, to trade life and vigor, via the blood of the whole for the illness of the wanting.”

Thurzó shook his head at that and pointed at Jaksa.

“She has had her accursed life drawn out longer than it had any right, the witch should have perished before she ever flowered! She Inspired a Sorcerer of blood as a child! Is there any further proof you need that she's a monster? She murders to extend her own life!”

Again Jaksa made that condescending sigh that if it had been directed at Jonathan might have brought him to punch the man. Wizard or no.

“Of all the daft peasant tales and witch words you idiot of a man! None of the feedstock perish from the ritual.”

That struck Thurzó still. His eyes suddenly wide.

A bit of a near manic light suddenly shining.

“They live?”

Jaksa the red scowled across the way at their captive.

“Assuming that she was somehow taken by mistake in the last four years? Yes, absolutely. She should be merely woozy and perhaps a bit out of sorts from spending a year or so in the countess’ care asleep.”

There was a sagging relief and all the strength seemed to go out of their captive. He looked hollow and yet inexcusably happy.

“But assuming she is amongst those the Countess Bathory draws vigor from for her health? Then yes she is fine. Easily returned to you. I presume that producing your missing daughter and giving her to you will suffice for you to withdraw all accusations against the Countess as we have already offered? Since no murder has in fact occurred?”

There was nothing in the near-broken looking man that was György Thurzó. Just a relieved smile and a nod.

Then Jaksa nodded and the Wizard intoned with a voice that struck the air and the stone and deep into the bone and out through the flesh.

“I swear on the blood of my covenant that I shall restore to you the daughter you have lost.”

And in that declaration none could deny the truth of that.

They moved out of the chamber, Jonathan staying back as György and Fiebron left, then Jaksa.

He waited till his friend in court, who had briefly seemed to betray his daughter and him was the last to exit. Then he leaned in close and asked the question he most feared the answer too.

“What would happen to the girl if it had been five years since she was taken by the countess?”

Marcisław Kliatbatrn turned and stared at him and there was nothing but a sunken horror in that gaze.

He whispered back quietly.

“She’d be worse than dead.”