by Carol Berg
Duskborn, waiting closer to the stable door, snorted and blew. Footsteps crunched on the dirt. Two sets?
I made sure my hood covered my hair and ducked behind Ladyslipper.
“Here we are,” said Finn. “Give me a moment to explain. My lady”—he hurried into the stall—“the men from the north are gone. Picked up and left yesterday, saying they were headed south where there might be building going on. But there’s something else.…”
Finn’s urgency quenched my explosive disappointment.
“Nelli told me a lone woman came in yestereve, asking where to find the lady of Pradoverde as she had information of great importance for her. Nelli did as we’d agreed, saying you were gone back to Aubine months ago and weren’t coming back. But Nelli was just feeding her a bite before she rode out, so’s I stepped up and said I could send on her message if she liked.”
“And you’ve brought her here?” I snapped, recalling the extra footsteps. “I told you we needed to be secret.” Of a sudden, the stall felt much too confining.
“Had to. She says ‘a friend of yours’ is in terrible trouble with the Temple, and she’s taken a terrible risk to bring his message. I figured”—he swallowed hard—“a lone woman was taking more of a chance meeting up with you than you were with her. With your…you know.” He widened his eyes and waved his hand at me in a way that could only signify magic. “But even yet, I would have put her off and come to ask you first, but I asked her what friend, and how was I to know it was even someone you cared for. She said he gave her this to show you…”
He held out a small bundle of black string, seashells, scarlet beads, and silver bangles.
Impossible. My breath halted—as suddenly and painfully as if I’d fallen from a rooftop. The bundle was entirely unmistakable. “You were exactly right. Bring her.”
Grief and rage battled for my heart. But I pressed my back to the wall just inside the stall gate and drew my zahkri, the Fassid dagger my grandfather had given me when I could never imagine killing anyone with it. When Finn led the woman through the gate, I stepped into the doorway and blocked her way out. “Who are you and what have you done to the man who owns this?”
Only one person in the world carried a charm to protect himself from crocodiles—Ilario de Sylvae.
CHAPTER 16
LAURENTINE
“My name’s Rhea Tasserie, healer in the service of the Temple.”
She retreated to the corner post of the horse box, poised as if ready to climb over the wall into the next stall to get out. She was almost a twin to the post—tall, bony, all knots and knobs, brown hair cut short for use, not beauty, skin rough from wind and weather. Her brown eyes were young, though. And fearful, maybe.
Her gaze darted from me to Finn and over my shoulder to the quiet stable behind me.
“Go,” I said to Finn. “Watch.”
He vanished into the dusty gray light. I waited for the woman to speak.
“You’re the one, then? Lady Anne, the conte’s daughter?” She bent a knee, little more than a jerk, almost as an afterthought. “He said you were small and beautiful and…fierce.”
“I was told he was dead.” And if she was responsible, she’d soon follow him into Ixtador. “Why have you come?”
She folded her long arms across her breasts. Her plain, sturdy traveling clothes displayed no mark of the Temple. Her mouth twisted and tightened, as if resisting an answer on its own.
“He’s not dead. He lies in the hospice at Merona’s Temple Major,” she said, at last. “We only moved him there a half month since, as he’s been very ill. He’s under strict guard at all times.”
A Temple prisoner…brought from the north. Great gods, was he Ferrau’s witness? Relief was quickly overwhelmed by fear. Ilario knew the truth of Mont Voilline, of how Dante had saved his sister and his friend Portier and the world from unimaginable horror. Of necromancy. He was wary of Dante but would never betray him, unless…Calvino de Santo’s wounds flared in memory.
“What kind of illness? What have you people done to him?”
Her long body bristled. “If you’re thinking to accuse me or anyone at the Temple of harming him, you’d best think again. He’ll tell you himself, he was as near dead as a man can be this side of the eternal Veil. He suffered a belly wound, pierced clear through. We Temple healers saved his life.”
“Forgive me for being argumentative, Rhea Tasserie. But I don’t equate saving a life with the right to hold a man prisoner or to torture or murder him.”
“The Temple has every right to protect the people from daemonic evils.” But her gaze faltered and slid off in Ladyslipper’s direction as she spoke.
“Daemonic?” I shook Ilario’s odd little charm at her. “There is no nobler soul in this world than the man who carries this.” Having just mourned Ilario, I would battle the Souleater himself to reclaim him.
But which Ilario had they seen, the lighthearted dandy the world knew or the man who had devoted his life, his reputation, and his considerable intelligence and skill to his royal sister’s protection?
The woman’s bony shoulders twitched under the brown wool. She riveted her gaze to the horse. “That’s why I’ve come. Someone’s got to persuade him to answer what’s asked of him.”
“So it wasn’t your prisoner, but Tetrarch de Ferrau who sent you here. His Excellency didn’t believe me when I said I couldn’t help him.”
“No! I mean, it was neither one of them sent me. He—the prisoner—had told me about you, and I thought maybe an intelligent person that he respected might make him see sense. So I told my superiors that my mother was ill and only I could ease her, and I took his silly charm and came here to find you. But yes, it’s the tetrarch’s questions he needs to answer, elsewise he’s going to be linked to horrible things—blasphemy, necromancy, murder. He’ll be exposed. And his kin will be linked to those things, too.”
Danger hollowed my stomach. Eugenie, so recently maligned as the shadow queen. The king. Their long-awaited child. This woman certainly knew who Ilario was. But did de Ferrau? “Does the tetrarch understand the consequences of his threats?”
“How could I know that?” She pressed one long, slender hand to her brow and scraped her wisps of hair backward, holding tight as if to gather her thoughts. “I’m but a minor healer who’s not even supposed to know this prisoner’s name. Tetrarch de Ferrau is trying to persuade the senior tetrarchs to arrest the daemon mage. He is a most persuasive speaker, a good and holy man, the youngest tetrarch there has ever been, so he will convince them. And then this prisoner will have no choice but to testify. If he refuses, they’ll judge him equal in guilt with the sorcerer.”
Discipline held me steady. I sheathed my knife.
“Why do you think I can persuade him to a course he does not choose of his own? I could go straight to his family and reveal everything you’ve just told me.”
Eugenie would do anything for Ilario. That would reveal the Temple’s despicable use of her brother to the king, and the tetrarch and the Temple would inherit a powerful, implacable enemy. Perhaps de Ferrau believed that Anne de Vernase, corrupted already and hoping to avoid condemnation for her own deeds, might succumb to threats and save them a pot full of trouble.
For a while, I thought Rhea Tasserie wasn’t going to respond. She bit her lip and stared at the stable ceiling—the very portrait of exasperation…or misery. Perhaps she prayed for guidance. But eventually, she hugged her middle again and met my gaze.
“I heard something I shouldn’t, and to speak it—” She shook her head, jaw and mouth clenched. “I should be forever exiled for revealing a Temple secret. But I cannot— If the slightest word leaks out to the prisoner’s family, he will disappear. No one will be able to prove he didn’t die of his wounds in Coverge. Ask anyone serving at the Temple hospices in Jarasco or Castelivre. They’ll tell you about the swordsman companion of the daemon mage and how he died of a belly wound back in Desen’s month. No one who tended him in those first
few days ever saw me. No one else knows he survived.”
“He would disappear?” Bless Dante, who had taught me to leash my power for magic, else anger might have propelled me all the way to Merona to crush the Temple Major on its tetrarch’s murderous head. “How dare you claim Ferrau is holy? By this measure, your own life is forfeit.”
“His reasons are not petty,” she said urgently. “It’s the mage he wants. The necromancer. None of the rest of you. Certainly not me.”
“No reasons suffice. You’re speaking of secret execution of a good and decent man. Murder.”
“A man complicit in unholy rites—and in the murder of a dozen servitors! Though”—I could feel her retreat from her charge as soon as she’d spat it out—“not necessarily deserving of a charge of blasphemy or its severest consequences.”
Holy angels, severest consequences…not just death, but excruciating death.
“Again, healer, state why you’ve come to me. If the chevalier will not spew whatever falsehoods your tetrarch demands to save his own life, then what can I possibly do?”
She folded her arms and turned away. “I could get you inside the Temple walls. He says you are ‘eminently resourceful in matters of seeing.’ I’ve no idea what that means. I don’t want to know. I am trying to convince you to persuade him to confession. That’s all.”
I gaped. Released a slow breath. Ilario knew of Lianelle’s potion. Part of my young sister’s legacy was an enchanted concoction that left its user unseeable. He would never have even hinted of such a resource to this woman if he didn’t trust her…or was desperate enough he had no alternative.
I picked up the brush and resumed grooming Ladyslipper, letting the rhythmic motion and the feel of her, warm and living, settle my agitation as thoughts shaped themselves into this new pattern. Rhea was offering to help me rescue Ilario. Or leading me into a trap.
Rapid, shallow breaths jerked her shoulders. Fingers wrapped around her sleeves tapped and squeezed. Excitement? Fear? Or a war going on inside her?
“How can I possibly trust you?” I said. “How will you not be tainted by our wickedness? How will you reconcile your conscience?”
“Your friend trusts me. Everyone else at the Temple thinks him a fool. But I was with him when he was out of his head and said things…he wished he had not said. Eventually, when his position became clear, he allowed me to know that charm would be recognized by his friends. I had thought it nothing of worth.” Her trembling hands rubbed her upper arms. “If my superiors discover I’ve come here, I’ll tell them that I hoped to gain higher status in the Temple by persuading the prisoner to speak what he knows. They already believe me hopelessly naive about how the Temple must navigate political waters. As to conscience, I am damned if I do this and damned if I do nothing. But I am a healer before all, and I would not see this man dead.”
Her voice cracked as she spoke this last. I wanted to believe her. Perhaps de Santo’s fate had bruised her conscience. Saints’ mercy, if this was a trap, I had no choice but to leap into it. Dante would have to wait a bit longer. I could not allow Ilario to be murdered, too.
“Come along, then,” I said. “We’ll ride together. You will follow my lead until we get to Merona. And if one hair on my friend’s head is harmed, I swear I’ll see your tetrarch hanged by his thumbs as fodder for crows.”
LEYNOUE
Mud. Thick, sticky, sloppy mud everywhere. The rainstorms that lashed northern Louvel in late winter were legendary, and those that came near paralyzing Rhea and me must have been recorded as the worst in living memory. I had chosen to return to Merona via the river route, lest Rhea have Temple allies awaiting us on the main road. But I regretted the choice bitterly as we slogged our way to Leynoue, only to find no bargeman willing to challenge the swollen river’s dangerous currents. Entire trees hurtled downriver. It didn’t help to know the road from Laurentine to Merona would have been a similar sea of mud.
The delay gave Rhea time to draw a detailed map of the Temple hospice and write down the daily schedule for guards, attendants, physicians, and interrogators. I memorized them and gave them back. She burnt the notes and acted as if they had never existed. Indeed, she scarce spoke outside necessity. We shared a room to save expense at the inn, but naught else.
At least she no longer pretended she’d fetched me to persuade Ilario to testify. We acquired clothes for him—no easy matter, due to his height. Rhea had a spruce green wool cloak that she said was common among lower-ranking Temple servitors and I paid a seamstress to add to its length. I didn’t tell Rhea that my sister’s potion should enable Ilario and me to walk out of her Temple without need of disguising cloaks. Would de Ferrau dare mount a search?
If Ilario was well enough, perhaps we’d join Portier in Abidaijar. Portier might have new information, and the three of us could set out to find Dante and his brother.
On our third morning in Leynoue, Rhea and I sloshed back to the inn after another fruitless trip to the barge landing. Actually, we hadn’t even made it so far as the landing. The lower streets of Leynoue were awash, the landing submerged. Both of us were strung so tight, a pinprick would have us bursting.
Rhea halted abruptly at the foot of a mucky path that led up the hill. “When you— If you were to— You must take all the medicines sitting at your friend’s bedside,” she said. “He isn’t fully healed as yet inside. Few people survive a penetrating belly wound. It’s just a blessing that those who cared for him chose not to put him through the agony of pouring hot oil into the wound.”
“Hot oil…” I’d not grasped the severity of Ilario’s injury. My father made sure to know everything he could about battlefield surgery and had taught me enough to understand the deadly risks of sepsis. “Then how did you keep him alive? The Academie Medica says—”
“I didn’t attend the academie. When I took over his care, I treated his wound open for a time to keep it draining, repeatedly cutting away the dead tissue. It’s a new idea, well proved thus far. However, it prolongs the recovery. He should be fine eventually, but he must keep taking his medicines.”
We resumed our climb, mud squishing inside my boot.
“Where did you learn such a technique?” I said. Papa had also never called in Temple healers when we were ill. He didn’t trust their training and said that one must assume they had divided loyalties, if they thought Heaven was a finer place than this side of the Veil.
“My mother is a Temple healer in Heville. She’s a widow with none to keep me while she worked, so I grew up in the hospice. Watched. Helped out. Asked questions of everyone. The academie physicians and students came to Heville to practice, as we treated such a variety of wounds and sickness. So I learned from them, too. By the time I was old enough to enter the academie, I was already teaching.” She cast a glance my way, averting her eyes when they met mine. Her cheeks glowed scarlet. “My best student is caring for your friend while I’m gone. The method of wound care is my own idea.”
Students? Altering healing practices that had been used for decades? And I had judged her no more than my own four-and–twenty years!
“How old are you, Rhea?” My own cheeks heated the moment I blurted the question. “Pardon, I didn’t mean to pry.”
She shrugged her bony shoulders. “No matter. I’m nineteen.”
Which answer threw me over completely. “Saints! You must be very good.”
“My superiors find me useful.” Her attention was firmly on the slick cobbles winding up the slope to the Street of Innkeepers. Her long legs kept her ahead of me. “I’ve a good memory. I can recall everything I see or hear.”
“I was schooled at home, too,” I said, hastening to keep up. “My father was an exceptional teacher, with wide-ranging interests and a great deal of wisdom about the world. I wish I could have absorbed them all on first hearing.”
“Your father was truly—?” She bit down on the question and cast such a fearful glance my way, she must have thought I, too, was a daemon necromancer.
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Guilt sent its creeping little fingers through my anger and mistrust. If she was telling the truth, she was risking everything to help Ilario.
“Understand me, Rhea.” I lowered my voice so that a man and boy traipsing past us down the hill would not hear. “I owe Ilario de Sylvae my life three times over, and my brother’s life, and a great deal more. To hear of him imprisoned and condemned without defense by those who claim to speak for the Creator of the universe makes it very hard to trust anyone from the Temple. If you want to free him, we are allies. Speak freely.”
“I just wanted—” Her wide brow wrinkled. “Your father was truly the Great Traitor, condemned and then reprieved?”
