Marwyn the Mage and the Fellowship of Scientific Elucidation III
Marwyn
The past had a habit of knocking, yet it rarely brought wine.
Qyburn was among the better minds in the Citadel. He had dedication, insight, and formidable rigor. But, he too, was susceptible to the errant bout of stupidity.
Put plainly, he got caught, the idiot.
He never quite understood that you do not preach your more suspect leanings expecting sympathy or understanding from the grey sheep. Nay, it was more astute to invest in a better hiding hole. He might have gone on worrying corpses at the Citadel's expense for half his life, had he chosen a deeper cellar.
Marwyn was particularly vexed by his choice of refuge. A fall from grace was every banished maester's lot, and plying his healing skills to sellswords was as fine a sinecure as any. But why did it have to be the Bloody Mummers? No company was so ill-reputed, nor so hopelessly incompetent. Even their fellow sellswords found their buffoonery outlandish.
Their band took knaves and pariahs from all across the lands, a veritable distillation of reprobate scum. Twice as deadly. They rode zorses, which never failed to make him scoff. No rider would ever choose the ill-tempered striped horses for anything but mummery. Though he was still puzzled at how a band so inept had managed to acquire Jogos Nhai equines. They came from further east than Yi Ti, which was further east than Slaver's Bay. And that was certainly as far as the sellswords ever traveled.
Their other eccentricities were tame compared to their choice of mounts. But, they were an eclectic lot nonetheless: Dothraki with bells in their braids, squat, hairy Ibbenese, Tyroshi with green forked beards. Braavos itself lacked such a colorful troupe.
He would need to extract his fellow from such a motley company on principle alone.
Besides, the man might prove useful in their quest.
Necromancy was a rare skill.
One that merited recruitment.
"Do you know where they are camped?" he asked.
"Not far from the city," replied Lynesse. "They are hovelling inside an old marble quarry that has long ceased production."
"Could one of your factors approach them? Trade coin for their maester?"
"I could ask Tregar."
And so an agent was dispatched on the following day.
Had it been another company, the messenger would have left bright and early. Theirs left close to noon, in deference to the Brave Companions' chancy timekeeping. He carried a heavy purse and was escorted by a score of Ormollen swords—liveried in the merchant house's finest. Something about keeping sellswords honest.
They returned at sunset wearing grimaces, as if they had waded through one long rank sewer.
They brought no maester.
"What happened?" he demanded.
"Their leader refused," answered a scowling Lynesse.
"Pray tell why? I have seen the purse. There was enough for two good healers. Or a Braavosi master healer fresh out of the gates of the House of the Red Hands."
"This Vargo Hoat of theirs suffers from a venereal affliction. As such, he finds your fellow's knowledge of lecherous curses most valuable. He has him examine women before he rapes them."
"Pleasant lad."
"You don't know half of it, maester. They tell me he is the kind of man who plays at being a profaner to sound bigger than he is. But he has too large a tongue, so he lisps and slobbers while swearing. They tell me it was most revolting."
"Pleasant lad."
Lynesse's glare was a mite disapproving. She did not appear fond of his wit.
"He's heavy into the Goat's worship," she said, arms crossed.
And that was no laughing matter indeed.
"Troublesome."
⊙
Vargo Hoat had chosen obstinance. He chose poorly.
Marwyn was determined to recruit Qyburn, and Tregar Ormollen was amenable. Indeed, Marwyn had broached the idea of an assault, checking if it would lessen the merchant prince's standing in the conclave. He was happy to be corrected. The Mummers were so reviled that most Lyseni would be glad to see no more of their hides. And the Disputed Lands being under Red Priest investigation had chilled the usual mercenary currents.
That was why his little conspiracy was plotting a spot of bloodletting.
It never failed to amuse him how the lords back home forgot some simple truths. They were convinced that warfare was solely their dominion. They always forgot who taught them war in the first place.
He rubbed the iron link on his chain—the mark of warcraft. His own skill was middling. It had been a long time since he was a novice and he had never had the misfortune of assuming command.
Yet he found himself, oddly, the foremost authority within the manor. The Free Cities' reliance on mercenaries lessened the personal pursuit of martial prowess, whereas in the Seven Kingdoms, any House would have among its number a satisfactory cadre of knights.
That said, he was facing no army. The Bloody Mummers had a poorer mind for strategy yet—as their choice of abode clearly evidenced. A quarry might offer natural walls and cover, but it was also a most convenient trap. A pit. Something that an amateur planner such as himself could leverage.
One final item of note was the Brave Companions' choice of worship. It presented a further complication. The Black Goat was vile. It was also a vengeful idol. Which meant that magic was too tentative to attempt. It also behooved them to be wary of unnatural vitality or sorcerous second winds.
Fortunately, there was an obvious answer to that dilemma.
"Poison," he declared.
"We have some Tears of Lys set aside," Lynesse offered.
Marwyn shook his head. "Perish the thought. We're not assassins, and I have no wish to beggar your coffers."
"Then how?"
"As much as I would relish singing the breadth of my knowledge on the matter, I shall not." He nodded to Sarella. "We all know her father. She would find such exaltation quite the boorish affair. And we have no need for poison to begin with. Quantity shall suffice."
"Ah. Cheap wine and cheaper ale," said Sarella.
"Indeed. Casks of it. We let the Brave Companions do what they do best—drink themselves stupid." He tapped his chain. "No poison required. Just good, honest excess."
"That is one virtue we can trust, I suppose," said Lynesse.
"By dawn they'll be heavy, slow, and pissing in the dark. Easy pickings. Though whoever delivers our gift should make sure to slip Qyburn a missive. We do not want him caught in the melee."
"What about the strike itself?"
"Your men have confirmed the quarry's features and they are most helpful. We can follow the hill to position archers above the sellswords. We just need to seal climbing paths behind us.
"The Mummers have erected enough tents and canvas for a proper blaze. We shall reward that with fire arrows. Oil pots too, if you have them. Roll them gently up the hill, and then it is an easy tumble down on some unsuspecting but very deserving heads."
"So we set the drunkards on fire and make them panic?"
"Precisely. We further fan the frenzy with generous helpings of arrows. They shatter. They run. Into the sole exit, where a shield wall awaits with a full complement of spears and lances."
The plan was simple and serviceable—something that the borrowed house guards of Ormollen could execute alongside the Hightower retinue.
Speaking of the nameless Hightower swords, one of their number was nodding along.
Curiously, the lad had the same complexion and coloring as Malora and Lynesse.
Marwyn had a niggling suspicion.
He looked at the man again. The knight stopped nodding and was now trying to hide his mirth.
The knight.
Blast and bother, he had been dim!
He had bemoaned the lack of expertise in the very room where Hightower knights were present. Most embarrassing. He had no head for faces nor names, and had forgotten that Leyton had lent them some of his best killers. Forgotten what that truly meant. He would bet there was a commander or three among them.
Most embarrassing indeed.
Still.
Even if Lynesse had forgotten faces after too long away, Malora should not. The maid observed proprieties better than a septa. She should have alerted him.
He pivoted toward her.
She was calmly gazing at him with the fairest visage of repose.
Ah.
She was having a laugh at his expense. And perhaps teaching him a lesson.
Malora nodded to the man who had caught his attention, then began, her voice still that soft, serene timbre.
"Yes, old friend. Ser Humfrey Hightower is most apt in warcraft. Is the good maester's scheming sound, dear younger brother?"
"Yes, sister."
"Can you order the men and conduct the strike?"
"Yes, sister."
Marwyn was more concerned about finding a hole to hide in.
⊙
Mortification sat ill on his shoulders, but it did not keep him from his work.
And it did not keep him from the quarry.
They had received word after dawn that the assault was a resounding success. Qyburn was reported hale and whole. Yet the fool had not seen fit to leave his new playground. Thus, Marwyn had to impress some sense into his greyed skull in person.
He brought Sarella along for what might yet prove a teaching moment. The maid he left with her sister. Oh, she would not shy away from Qyburn's work—she was thrice the practitioner he could ever be. But he preferred to err on the side of propriety until he had a better read on this Ser Humfrey.
He had not known Leyton's youngest before, so he would rather not have his older sister traipsing through guts and blood under his watch.
They reached their destination in short order.
The quarry had become a kiln.
Vargo Hoat and his lieutenants' heads greeted him first. They sat on pikes at the top of the pit—Lys's own Traitor's Walk. The display was precarious, however; their troops had not had time to embellish their work, so the pikes were loosely held by piles of rock.
Inside, canvas smoldered in black heaps, and men were busy moving corpses. The narrow throat of the exit was littered with shattered spearwood and crescents of blood. The air was likely a morass of charred cloth and flesh. Marwyn could not say. His sense of smell had long been waning until it met its final death in Asshai.
He met Ser Hightower there.
"Losses?"
"Two cuts, one broken wrist, and Ser Addam singed his beard."
"And among Ormollen's?"
Humfrey raised a shoulder in dismissal—who well cared about some merchant house's guards?
Fair enough.
He waded further into the pit.
He found Qyburn knee-deep in a still-twitching man and in excellent spirits.
Marwyn sighed, then gathered his voice for a proper greeting.
"Give that man mercy and focus, you nitwit!"
"Archmaester," Qyburn replied, nonplussed. "I was told you were behind my rescue. You are most kind to retrieve me. I am in your debt."
Qyburn stood and gave him a deep bow—as if Marwyn were some pampered lord. He had forgotten how ingratiating the senile ghoul could be.
"Stand straight, you fool. There's work to do."
Qyburn eyed the half-living man. "You did disrupt my work, archmaester."
He had the temerity to attempt petulance after his mummery of courtly graces ran flat. Marwyn held an exhale that could have rattled the walls of a keep. Instead, he brought his hands to his brow and rubbed most vigorously.
He considered the sight before him. Few had surrendered, and fewer had survived. Corpses aplenty, already being sorted by Qyburn's own logic. The intact went in one pile for later study. The damaged went in another for the pyre. Those still breathing received thread, hooks, saws, and Qyburn's serene concentration.
And still the former maester kept on missing the obvious!
Marwyn smashed his Valyrian steel rod into the twitching wretch's skull. The half-dead man got mercy. Marwyn got Qyburn's full, undivided attention at last.
"Feel it, you fool. I know you can. You heard of the dragon nearby, didn't you? Feel it. Feel its magic in the wind. Cease fondling those bound for the grave and start raising. Properly, for once."
He passed Qyburn the bloodied rod. The sorcerous steel ought to sharpen his senses. His fellow closed his eyes and focused. Then he started mumbling in Asshai'i. Marwyn almost tasted the moment of realization. Qyburn froze, then went on, moving with a slow, cautious touch, as if the very air might betray him. The fool had finally felt the thread of sorcery fanning his lifefire. He had finally realized he was more.
Capable of more.
Marwyn knew that in this here pit, buffeted by the power of Silverwing, Qyburn was finally capable of proper wight raising. The slain would prove exceedingly useful—silent sentinels who did not eat, did not sleep, and did not ask questions. That was the point of retrieving the man. That was the point of the whole bloody affair.
He turned to his Dornish charge.
"Focus, Sarella. This is a rare indulgence. I know no finer necromancer than Qyburn!"