In Shade and Shadow

by Barb Hendee

  “Thank you for seeing the captain out,” Premin Sykion said. “A bit of air has done you good.”

  Wynn bit down again at this condescension. Treating her like a child was just another way of undermining her. Although she didn’t care for High-Tower’s cold looks and lectures, at least he was openly hostile.

  “Thank you,” she answered politely. “I understand that we must keep the translations away from general citizens, like the captain . . . but you both know someone may be seeking the contents of our folios.”

  High-Tower grumbled under his breath with a snort, but said nothing discernible.

  “If I had access to my journals,” she continued, “and translations, and the codex of all recent work, I might help find what this . . . person is seeking.”

  “Wynn!” High-Tower growled, trying to silence her.

  “I didn’t just carry back those texts!” Wynn snapped, and it came out too loud, echoing around the empty hall. “I handpicked every one the best that I could! I know what I chose and why.”

  She took a long breath, grasping for calm once more, and appealed directly to the premin.

  “Please . . . I can help stop these thefts, or at least offer a motivation for them.”

  Premin Sykion raised a hand at High-Tower’s impending barrage.

  “Wynn, do you truly believe you would understand the texts better than the masters of our order, or even those of the other orders helping us? Is that not rather prideful and assumptive?”

  Wynn clenched her hands so tightly that her fingernails bit into her palms.

  “Please . . . Premin,” she repeated. “What harm could there be in giving me access?”

  The slightest flicker of anger crossed Sykion’s narrow, serene face. “Your place here, as well as your soundness of mind, has been in question for some time. You will keep away from what does not concern you.”

  Premin Sykion and Domin High-Tower walked away together.

  Wynn stared after the pair until they vanished out of the north archway. She turned to the fireplace and crossed her arms, clutching herself tightly, as if it were the only way to hold herself in one piece.

  Why hadn’t she presented a more reasoned argument? Someone or something was willing to kill for the secrets of the texts—someone who could read the Begaine syllabary. And none of her superiors seemed the slightest bit willing to acknowledge that truth.

  She leaned forward until her forehead touched the hearth’s warm headstones.

  “Oh, Chap,” she whispered. “What would you do?”

  He’d rebelled against his kin, the Fay, not only to save her life, but to do what he knew was right for those he watched over. In becoming an outcast among his kind, even an enemy to them, he found the courage to bear that sacrifice.

  Wynn gazed into the hearth’s low embers.

  If—when—she ever saw Chap again, how could she look him in the eyes unless she found the same in herself?

  CHAPTER 6

  At midmorning Rodian stepped from the city ministry hall overlooking the bay with two addresses in hand: one for Selwyn Midton’s shop and the other for the man’s home. He’d heard of charges filed against an illicit moneylender but never connected this to either deceased sage.

  Once mounted upon Snowbird, Rodian turned eastward through the city.

  The inner business district was closest to the royal grounds. He passed one small bank with polished granite steps and a fine inn of massive size called the Russet Palace. Visiting merchants and even the wealthier ones of Calm Seatt often retained residency there for a whole season. He should’ve been relieved to have uncovered anything besides the guild itself to investigate, but instinct told him to focus on the contents of those missing folios.

  And yet Duchess Reine had asked him to follow other leads.

  He passed through the merchant district’s fringe, filled with respectable and utilitarian shops for basic necessities. Then he slowed to carefully guide Snowbird through a bustling open-air market.

  Why were the royals, the duchess included, protecting the sages and their project? He still remembered going before her inquest tribunal in the main hall of the greatest of the three castles. At first he hadn’t cared for the arrangement.

  The royals of old had established a rule for all citizens to be held accountable in like fashion. Legal proceedings were always held at the city’s high court, prosecuted by the high advocate of the people. It wasn’t proper for any royal family member to be given exception to the rule of law.

  But later Rodian had also broken the law—twice.

  Upon his first interview with Duchess Reine Faunier-reskynna, he noted how much she differed from those of the royal bloodline. Her brother and sister by marriage, Prince Leäfrich and Princess thelthryth, remained close at her side. Prince Leäfrich’s displeasure over Rodian’s questions was politely plain.

  Unlike the duchess’s chestnut hair, dark eyes, and small stature, all reskynna were tall with sandy hair and an aquamarine gaze. Their irises shone like a disturbingly still sea under a clear sky.

  The duchess initially struck Rodian as a shattered woman. Only later did he come to know her as strong-willed, private, and protective of her new family. All she told him of the night’s boat ride was that she’d turned to peer through the dark toward the distant docks. Being a Faunier and an inlander, she was accustomed to wide-open plains and lush woods, and had never learned to swim. Nor did she know anything of sailing. Getting so far from shore made her nervous.

  When she turned back, Prince Freädherich, third in line to the throne, was gone. She hadn’t even heard a splash.

  Duchess Reine passed that night in panic and anguish over her vanished husband as she drifted alone until dawn in Beranlômr Bay. A spotty tale at best—perhaps too much so to be a lie—and more than this had left Rodian puzzled.

  The royal family’s belief that the duchess had no part in the prince’s disappearance remained absolute. Later he began to share that belief, though he never came to fully understand why. It took time to uncover the few pieces he learned of Prince Freädherich and the reskynna as a whole.

  From questioning dockhands, and any crew and ship out and about at the time, to finding those who knew scant bits of the prince’s past, Rodian assembled pieces that didn’t make sense. This wasn’t the first time Prince Freädherich had sneaked off and run afoul at sea. Though it was the first time someone had been with him.

  On two previous occasions he’d been spotted too late slipping away in a small boat. The first time, in his youth, he’d made it to the open sea before anyone knew and was later caught by panicked Weardas upon a Malourné naval vessel. Then, a year before he married Reine, he returned alone along the shore, escorted by a trio of dwarven thänæ. His boat was later found adrift and undamaged.

  And one night Rodian had listened to the sketchy rumors of an elder seafarer.

  The old man spent his days selling his services for mending fishing nets. He said Prince Freädherich wasn’t the only reskynna to exhibit such strange behavior. Others as far back as the king’s great-grandmother were known for a silent and unexplained fascination with the sea.

  The royals of Malourné were benevolent, and despite Rodian’s ambition he took pride in serving them and his people. He’d heard occasional stories in taverns and common houses of the cursed monarchs of Malourné, but he gave them no credence. Folktales abounded in any country, and his faith in the Blessed Trinity of Sentience taught him better than to believe nonsense that defied reason. When his inquiries ran dry and nothing more concrete could be learned, faith was all he had left to lean on.

  And he broke the law for the first time.

  He should’ve gone straight to the high advocate, before the court, reported that his investigation was complete, and testified before the inquest tribunal. Instead he went to Duchess Reine.

  Rodian told her he couldn’t clear her of suspicion, but that he also believed she had nothing to do with whatever happened on the boat.
Princess thelthryth was present, quiet and watchful, but open relief filled her aquamarine eyes. When he related tales of the reskynna and the sea, neither the princess nor the duchess said a word.

  At the inquest’s closing session, before the tribunal and high advocate, he reported that no evidence of a crime could be found. Not truly a lie, but then he’d said nothing about the “curse.”

  Unsubstantiated or not, withholding this was the second time Rodian broke the law. And the very act forced him to remember the day of his acceptance into the Shyldfälches, as well as his promotion to captain, when he’d stood before the high advocate with his sword hand upon an old wooden box.

  Within that vessel was the Éa-bêch—Malourné’s first book of the law. Over centuries, the rules and regulations of society had grown until they filled a small library. But the Éa-bêch was still the core of it all. Rodian swore by it to uphold the law of the people, for the people.

  When Rodian left the inquest that final day, his sword hand ached.

  Moral reasoning had told him no good could come from repeating rumors at the inquest. But truth meant everything to him, by both his faith and his duty. He went to temple that same night and prayed—not for forgiveness of the omission, but for relief from doubt in his reasoned decision.

  Snowbird slowed for a tottering beggar crossing the road, and Rodian started from remembrance. He found himself in what the locals called the Graylands Empire.

  Dull and worn buildings stretched beyond sight, many with shutters hung at broken angles. Dogs and unwashed children ran about, and most of the street lanterns showed decay and rust, their glass either lost or shattered long ago.

  Rodian disliked this shabby sector, but duty often called him here. Through the generosity of reskynna, civil ministers had set up charities for the dangerously poor. All cities had their districts of low-end businesses run by those who hoped to move up in the world. Unfortunately, such were patronized only by other unfortunates. Many shopkeepers here couldn’t make enough even for nails to fix their shutters. Of those who could, some simply didn’t bother.

  Rodian refused to pity the latter, those who wouldn’t help themselves.

  He glanced at the paper slip to double-check the address. Selwyn Midton’s shop—the Plum Parchment—was listed as offering “clerical services.” He turned Snowbird left down a street of decrepit shops and one tavern. He had to place a hand across his face as the scent of burning meat mixed with the stench of refuse in a side alley.

  Smoke-stained people milled about in the streets as they went their way, seeking a meager living. Although he passed numerous pony- and hand-drawn carts, he was the only one on horseback.

  Rather than a swinging sign, The Plum Parchment was painted across a faded door. Rodian pulled Snowbird to a stop, and as he slipped from her saddle he patted her gently on the neck.

  Perhaps there was a third time he’d broken the law.

  On an evening less than half a moon after the inquest, a young white horse had been delivered to the military barracks. She was exquisite, a gift of thanks from the duchess, but as captain of the city guard Rodian shouldn’t have accepted. He kept silent when comrades asked about this high-bred horse he named Snowbird, but likely all knew where she’d come from.

  The Plum Parchment’s shutters were intact but tightly closed. Rodian tried the front door’s latch and found it locked. When he thought of Wynn’s story of Jeremy, he couldn’t picture a young sage coming anywhere near this place.

  “Been gone for two days,” someone croaked.

  An old woman with no teeth shuffled up from the dirty street. Her thinned hair stuck out from beneath an age-yellowed muslin scarf.

  “You are certain?” he asked.

  She nodded, her loose-skinned jowls jiggling. “We heard he was called to the court. Serve ’im right, leech that he is.”

  Moneylenders were always hated, even when legitimately chartered. Rodian couldn’t fathom why people with little coin would borrow more at high interest. He dug in his pouch, looking for a copper penny, but with only silver he handed one to her.

  “If he comes back, I wasn’t here.”

  The old woman scoffed, but pocketed the coin as she shuffled on.

  Rodian mounted and headed northwest. Strangely, Selwyn Midton’s home was a good distance from his shop and the Graylands Empire. And he hadn’t been to work in two days.

  Eventually Rodian entered a residential sector where the main businesses consisted of food carts, eateries, or bread and vegetable stalls—all the things sought on a daily basis near homes. He was surrounded by small, modest houses, but all well kept, as if the inhabitants took pride in their neighborhood. The farther west he traveled, the larger the domiciles became, until he pulled up Snowbird before a two-story stone house crafted in the cottage style, with a wrought-iron fence across its front. He double-checked the address as he dismounted.

  How could a Graylands Empire moneylender afford a home like this? Such parasites fared better than those they fed upon—but not this much better.

  A young woman in a slightly stained apron came around the house’s side carrying two large ceramic milk bottles. As she tried to shift both to one arm, Rodian pulled the gate open for her.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  He waited until she placed the empties in her cart and moved on before he stepped through the gate.

  “Snowbird, come,” he called.

  She followed him in, pressing her nose into his face. He steered her aside off the front walkway.

  “Stay.”

  He closed the gate and approached the house.

  A fine brass knocker hung upon a stout mahogany door. He grew more uncertain that this was the correct home—Selwyn Midton might have given the court a false address. He clacked the knocker, and moments later the door opened. He found himself facing the least attractive proper lady he’d ever seen.

  Tall as himself, she was neither plump nor thin, but rather blockish from her neck to her hips. A two-finger-width nose hung over a mouth no more than a slash above her chin. Her skin was sallow, and her hair, once dark, was prematurely harsh gray. Even worse, some unfortunate lady’s maid had tried to dress those tresses upon her head. The result was a mass of braids like coils of weather-bleached rope.

  However, she wore a well-tailored velvet dress of chocolate brown. Small rubies dangled from her thumblike earlobes. And she peered at him through small, hard eyes.

  Rodian realized that his revulsion had less to do with her appearance than the cold dispassion she emanated.

  “Yes?” she said, and her hollow voice left him chilled.

  “Matron Midton?”

  “Yes.”

  He had the right house.

  “Captain Rodian of the Shyldfälches. I’ve come to speak with your husband.”

  “Why?”

  He thought the mention of his division might melt her ice with a little concern, but she remained unimpressed.

  “It’s a matter of city business,” he returned. “Is he at home?”

  The simple annoyance on her face told him this woman knew nothing of her husband’s court summons. She stepped back and grudgingly let him in.

  The foyer was tastefully arranged with a thick, dark rug and a mahogany cloak stand. Squeals of laughter rolled down the hall as four children raced out of what appeared to be a sitting room—three girls and a small boy, all well dressed. They stopped, struck dumb at the sight of him.

  Rodian remembered his cloak was open when one of the girls stared at his sword.

  “Go back and finish your game,” their mother said, shooing them down the hall, but she stopped at a closed door and knocked loudly. “Selwyn . . . a captain from the city guard to see you.”

  Barely a blink later the door jerked inward.

  A handsome man holding a brandy snifter leaned out with wild eyes—not at all what Rodian expected. He’d met moneylenders before, and the ones at the bottom of society all tended to be small, spectacled, shifty, a
nd wheezy.

  Selwyn Midton was tall and slender, with peach-tinted skin and silky blond hair. He wore black breeches and a loose white shirt. He recovered himself quickly and smiled at his wife.

  “Thank you, dear. Please come in, Captain. Has there been a neighborhood burglary?”

  Rodian advanced, backed him into the study, and shut the door. Then a wide-eyed Selwyn Midton quickly turned on him.

  “I have one more day!” he hissed in a low voice. “The advocate already checked that I’ll make my court date. He doesn’t need to threaten me again!”