by Carol Berg
He chortled gleefully and clapped his hands as he rounded the end of the table, his bare feet attempting a dance step. I stared at the libation bowl, the etched bronze glinting sharply in the candlelight. I sought the scent of wine instead of my grandfather’s reek and tried to imagine it was dulling my senses…dulling memory, hatred, and revulsion.
“Wicked certainly. Yes. But I’ve told no secrets, and they’ve not found thee, have they, boy?”
My father charged through the door to the kitchen, still shouting for my grandfather’s pureblood caretakers. The other servants who cowered in the shadows—ordinaries—were not permitted “adversarial contact” with any pureblood. Thus they could not wrestle my grandfather back to his room. Silos was nowhere to be seen.
Meanwhile my grandfather crept up behind me and whispered in my ear as he had always done, lapsing in and out of Aurellian and Navron. “We’ll show them, boy. Prasima—how long till thy birthday? Claudio keeps me shut away, so I know not the day or season. Tell me. Prasima coteré—how long till thou’rt free forever?”
“You’re too late, Capatronn,” I said. I did not whisper, but held up my silkbound hands so he could see. “They found me. And I doubt I’ll ever be free again.” But I would. I would, else I’d be dead or as mad as he was.
“Shhh…” He pawed at my shoulders, stroked my arms, and pried at my chin, trying to turn my face toward his. “All grown up now. Tall, aren’t thou? Not like these dull fools. I knew it. Tall and beautiful…so far above. Stand up and show me. But how long till eight-and-twenty? On that day thou shalt be free of them forever. Tell me.” He hammered his fist on my shoulder. “Tell me, Valen. I’ve kept thee free. Given everything for thee alone. How long?”
Somehow, seeing him in the flesh sapped my fury. However hateful and cruel the old gatzé had once been, he was only mad now, echoing this old nonsense in my ear. His dementia had ever been fixed on my birthdays. “Ten…twelve…weeks until my birthday, I think.”
He wrapped his arms around me from the back as if to heave me up. He was still strong. “Stand up, boy. Stand up and let me see. So cruel…so cold…they despise any who are not like them in all ways. But they’ll never break thee. I saw to it.”
“Leave me be, Capatronn,” I said in exasperation more than anger. “Live or die as you will, old man, but just leave me be. You never took me away. You never set me free. I had to do it all myself, but I failed.”
I shifted around to face him as a tired man instead of a defiant child, so that this once in all my life he might believe what I said. “I don’t want your—”
My mouth hung open, paralyzed in the moment. The insult I was poised to throw died unspoken.
My grandfather’s face was a landscape of suffering, creased with pain and scarred with madness, his skin rough and tattered like leather left to rot. He had chewed his lips raw. And his eyes…Lord of the Sky, I had never looked so close…so deep…coal black and searingly hot, a damned soul gazing out from the maw of hell, begging for one word of consolation…filling with tears even as he bobbed his head like a mummer’s puppet.
“Ah, Clyste,” he whispered, touching my cheek with a dry trembling finger. “Not even for thee could I allow it.”
Two brawny men dragged him away before I could react, before I could ask what he meant or why he invoked that name, a name perched on the edge of memory and mystery.
“Wait!” I said. But the caretakers were already bustling him out the door.
“What was all that?” asked Max. “He wants to throw another party for your birthday?”
“Yes,” I said, struggling not to reveal that I was as bewildered as I had ever been in my life. “Perhaps he thinks I’ll turn into something useful when my years are eight-and-twenty—the perfection of seven times the magical balance of four.”
My livid father straightened his fur-trimmed mantle and stood at his end of the table. “Despite this unseemly interruption, our feast is not yet done,” he said, his voice quivering with anger.
It would not have surprised me to see his leather strap appear in his hand. But it was merely a scroll of parchment that he snatched from a silver tray a servant set beside his plate. The scent of hot beeswax drifted on the warm air. “This night we seal the first and last contract of our recondeur. When the opportunity arose this morning, I felt Serena Fortuna’s blessing enfold our house once more. Valen needs a strong hand, a master who can control his violence and deceit and bend him to his duty. And yet our family will never stoop to unworthy contracts, even to salvage what we may of Valen’s honor.”
“Perhaps you would like to review the document, Valen?” He brought the scroll around to my place and unrolled it on the table in front of me. “Tell me, do you find any terms you would like to change? I can have pen and ink brought.”
Cheeks on fire, I squinted and strained to make out the letters that might hint at whose name was listed on the contract. But of course the sun still rose and set, and the earth still plowed its course through the stars, thus the blotches mixed and mingled on the page like swarming bees, defying my comprehension. Sweat rolled down my neck. I wanted to scream at him to tell me who my master was to be. But without hope of altering his gleeful course, I would not give my father the satisfaction of begging for an answer I would learn soon enough.
“No objection or qualification?” He snatched the page away and returned to his place, pleased with his little joke. “So we can proceed, then.”
My mother unsnapped a gold disk from her neck. She turned it over and over in her hand as my father positioned the ends of a red silk ribbon looped through the tail of the page and dripped a puddle of wax from a small pewter ladle onto the joining.
“Who is this master, Patronn?” said Thalassa. “Should we not be told before the papers are sealed? Of course it is entirely your and Matronn’s decision, but my position makes certain demands.” I was amazed to hear she didn’t know.
“No one in the temple will question my choice, Thalassa,” said my father, frosty and imperious.
He jerked his head at my mother. My mother pressed her disk to the wax and held it. After a moment, she lifted the slip of gold, threw it on the table, and reached for her wine.
My father affixed his seal beside my mother’s. “Who but royalty deserves the service of a Cartamandua-Celestine? The Duc of Evanore will send his man to retrieve Valen tomorrow morning.”
My flesh went cold as a widow in winter, and the bottom fell out of my stomach. The Duc of Evanore…My father had contracted me to Osriel the Bastard.
“Patronn!” Thalassa jumped to her feet. “What are you thinking? Valen is your son!”
Phoebia gaped at me as if I were already some flesh-eating monster. Max clapped his hands to his head and collapsed backward onto his dinner cushions, roaring with laughter. My mother emptied her glass and waved for more wine.
“Mind your manners, Sinduria,” snapped my father. “You are still my daughter, and you sit in my house.”
Thalassa snapped her fingers at a servant who scurried away to retrieve her cloak. “Never again, Patronn. Not as your daughter, at the least. You have disdained my path since I first submitted to the temple, and you have scorned my position that brings honor and respect to all purebloods. I do not think the Registry will refuse me independent status. Not after this madness.”
In a swirl of silk, my sister crouched beside me. “Forgive me, Valen,” she said softly. “I’ve never understood this bloody war between you and Patronn. I still don’t. But I’ll do what I can.”
I stared up at her, numb, scarcely comprehending what she was saying. What uses would the Bastard have for me? Tracking down corpses and gouging their eyes? Seeking the path to the netherworld? Mapping the realms of the dead? I’d heard that his mages tried to keep a victim living while they took his organs for their dark workings. Perhaps they needed more power. Perhaps I was to hang in their web while they stole my magic…my blood.
My sister pressed a cold hand firmly
to my forehead for a moment, and then swept from the room, leaving me with naught but a sensation like an arrow piercing my skull and a deadness in my soul.
Bia wailed at my mother, horrified at the thought that the Bastard Prince himself might walk through our door.
My father bellowed at Silos. “Set extra guards about the western walls tonight and lock the courtyard gate. Reinforce the wards on Valen’s door. The man who lets him escape will never see daylight again.”
Max was still chortling as Caphur and Silos led me out of the noisy brilliance of the dining room and into the quiet night. I hobbled through the ice-skimmed slush, my thoughts as frostbit as the night.
“Your Registry valet has returned to the city, plebeiu,” said Silos after a while, as we threaded the courtyards and brick passages. “I think he was afraid of you.”
The pain in my head dulled. I allowed myself to see nothing, feel nothing. This night’s events could not possibly pertain to me. My father could not have bound me to the monster of Evanore for the rest of my life. My grandfather could not be something other than I had always believed. His words…the same words he had babbled in my ears for as long as I could remember…could not be demanding new interpretation now I was old enough to hear them. And the name he had invoked…Clyste. Clyste’s Well, they had called the walled pool beyond Gillarine’s valley, a Danae holy place. I could do nothing about any of it. Osriel…holy gods…for the rest of my life.
“The bodyservant sent by the Sinduria will attend you tonight,” Silos continued, as if I might care.
Even when we stepped into my warm apartments and he began to unbind my hands, my trembling did not cease. Caphur poked up the coals in the brazier and left. Silos bundled the silken cord into a ball and unshackled my ankles. I did not move except to wrap my arms about my churning belly. Probably a good thing I had eaten nothing.
“The Sinduria will do what she can, plebeiu.” Only as Silos raised his eyebrows and nodded a good night did I heed him. “But do not try to escape again. More than me will be watching the walls tonight, and they’ll not hold back as I do.” He closed the door softly behind him.
Someone appeared in the doorway of my bedchamber, but I could not be bothered to look. I had to decide what to do. My head felt like porridge. My gut ached.
“I’ve been sent to attend you, Broth—plebeiu.” The youthful voice cracked like a donkey’s bray.
Purest disbelief spun me about. “Jullian!”
Chapter 26
The boy must have grown three quattae in the weeks since I’d left Gillarine. Whether it was the green temple livery or the grim circumstances, he looked older as well. And though forthcoming with news of Gillarine, he no longer babbled with the tongue of innocence. Resentment and withholding laced his every politeness.
“I’m truly sorry to hear Gerard’s not found,” I said, forcing my thoughts to focus as we sat close to the little brazier, devouring the cold roast duck and soggy bread he’d brought from the kitchen. “He didn’t take anything with him at all? Has he family?”
“Not even his cloak. And he has only his gram in Elanus; she hasn’t seen him. Father Abbot fears he is harmed and that’s why he brought me away from Gillarine, besides to come here and take your messages and pass on his. I ought to be back there searching for him, not—” He pressed his lips together.
“Not playing servant to a recondeur.”
His downy cheeks flushed. “The lady—the Sinduria—believes I’ll be allowed to stay with you wherever they send you next. She’ll set up some way for me to get messages back and forth.”
My head swam with heat and fear. Thalassa had sworn to help. Gods, she had asked my forgiveness and threatened to break with my father, and I’d scarcely given her a thought. But she would have sent Jullian before she knew where I was going. “No. You cannot stay. It would be a comfort…more than you know…but after tomorrow, they won’t allow it. I won’t allow it.”
But tonight…Somehow Jullian’s presence moved me to decision. To action, however useless.
“Who has come with you to Palinur? Brother Victor, I know, and you said the abbot…”
“Father Abbot and Brother Victor have been summoned to appear before the hierarch tomorrow at Terce. Brother Gildas and I accompanied them. We’re staying at a priory here in the city. When he left Gillarine, Father Abbot spoke to the brothers as if he weren’t coming back. He gave the care of the lighthouse to Father Prior—”
“Nemesio? Is he mad?” I threw the bone onto my half-filled plate, the last bites of meat still attached. “Nemesio likely betrayed him to the hierarch!”
“Prior Nemesio helped build the lighthouse with his own hands.” Though he kept his voice low, the boy could have cracked nuts in his jaw. “His father and brother are carpenters, villeins of an edane with great landholdings in Morian. We’d not have half the tools and seeds were it not for him. He would never betray the abbot. Never. You don’t know us at all.”
Clearly not. How easy it was to look backward and see myself as young and stupid and unforgivably self-absorbed. Had I aged so much these few weeks? The boy’s deepest grievance sat before me as bald as a monk.
“And you don’t know me, either, do you?” I said, wiping my greasy fingers on the table linen. “A traitor to god and king, you think. Not the wounded soul you rescued at the sanctuary gate.”
“Aye. I don’t know why Father Abbot thinks one like you could help us.” He began twiddling his eating knife. “He said I was to obey you on my soul’s life.”
His chin jutted bravely, but his eyes flicked from his knife to my hands as if hell’s fire might come shooting from my fingers. Best he never see Silos’s tricks.
I sighed and reached for his wrist, stilling the dangerous play of the knife. If I were to trust him at my back, I preferred him to think me a man and not a monster. “Listen to me, Jullian. Surely some men must come to Gillarine with all sincerity, believing Iero has called them to your life…your good and holy life…and then chafe at the rules and break them and not understand why. Eventually they realize that they are meant for other things—to marry and have children, perhaps, or to farm their own ground, or to soldier for their king. All good and holy things, too. It just takes them some time and grief to discover the truth of what the god intends. That could happen, could it not? That has happened at Gillarine, I’m sure.”
“But you never intended to be our brother—”
I held up my hand to hush him. Why was it this boy demanded such painful honesty? I had lived my whole life believing what others said of me, while screaming to the world and to myself that I didn’t care. Now a half-grown innocent forced me to seek explanations I had never bothered to unravel.
“I’m not speaking of my stay at Gillarine. You’re right about that. I was hungry, cold, and wounded, and I needed sanctuary, which you and your kind brothers gave me. But this other matter…I did not come to pureblood life of my own choice, but was born to it, and so one could say the god meant me for that life. Yet from my earliest days, before I could even consider such things, I chafed…sorely…at our rules and did not understand why. For good or ill, I’ve broken every one of them, much as a failed monk might do while wrestling with his destiny. Many of my deeds are simply my own wickedness, and people are right…you are right…to condemn me for them. But my choice to be a recondeur…Jullian, the belief is so strong in me—just as fierce as your belief in the abbot and his lighthouse—that the gods or fate or destiny must surely intend me for other things than this. Likely not the monastery either, to be sure…but something…and I have to keep searching for it, else I must admit I’m mad as well as sinful and deem my whole life a waste. I am not ready to do that. Not yet.” Though the glass was rapidly emptying.
He held quiet and stared at his greasy plate, littered with bones and scraps. Then, abruptly, he jumped up from his stool and vanished into the bedchamber. When he came out again, he carried a large canvas bag.
“Jullian, please don’t l
eave. I need your help to—”
He plopped the heavy bag into my lap. “Are you to ask your grandfather our questions tonight?” he said, still resentful. “Father Abbot said that’s what you would do.”
The surety of this assertion confounded me, for only as I sat here talking to the boy had I accepted that I must speak to the madman before I left this house. “I wasn’t—Not exactly. I—”
“Father Abbot said I was to tell you that he trusts you. Open it.”
Skeptical, I drew open the bag. In my lap lay my grandfather’s book of maps.
I was dumbfounded. Luviar believed these pages held the key to preserving the knowledge of the world through two centuries of darkness, and he had just entrusted them to the hands of a liar and a thief, a traitor to god and king, a prisoner incapable of escaping his own house.
I felt Luviar’s cool gray eyes on me, as if he stood beside Jullian, and I imagined the arch of his brow and the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. What kind of magic did a man wield to unravel men’s souls and mold them to his bidding? Here at the nadir of fortune, the abbot had granted me a moment of profound grace. In thanks, I would have done whatever he bade me.
Wrestling with time and possibility, I smoothed the leather binding and reshaped my plan. “I must speak with my grandfather before I leave this house tomorrow. If you’ll help me get out of this apartment for a little while tonight so I can do that, I’ll take this with me. I can’t promise. But I’ll try to get Father Abbot’s answers as well as my own.”
Though he did not smile, Jullian jerked his head. His mortal judgment had been stayed, but I was not sure for how long. He put his hands on his slender hips. “So tell me what to do…”
Protocol granted even a recondeur bound to the Monster of Evanore privacy for anything involving bodily intimacy. Thus, if someone in my father’s house took the wild notion to visit a violent renegade in the middle of the night, he or she would hold off long enough for me to finish bathing. Jullian was smaller than Lukas, so it was only natural that it would take him longer than Lukas to haul enough hot water from the kitchen. I would have perhaps an hour.
