by Carol Berg
The hard slam of a door and the rattling of keys jostled the ink horn standing in its holder on the shelf. An examination of the ugly and ornate brackets that held the shelf would surely reveal the elusive spyhole.
Bastien returned, the patches of skin revealed by his bristling facial hair only a modest crimson. “Don’t think you’ve—”
“Clearly you didn’t listen to me in front of our visitor.” I spoke quietly, but with all the forceful clarity I knew how. “You taught me well to think around a problem and be careful with my words. If you had listened, you would have heard me foreswear only one particular meeting. We will accept Prince Perryn’s kind invitation, just not at the time of his choosing. I’ve not a notion in the world why Perryn would want to meet with me, unless he thinks a Remeni would be a prestigious escort to the Tower ceremony. We mustn’t let him find out that it’s not true anymore, so we’ll have to be careful on our approach . . .”
Bastien opened his mouth, but I didn’t let him start, hoping to get through everything I had to tell him before his tongue blistered me again.
“. . . and we will only venture the visit when we know the right questions to ask. I’m so very sorry Garen was hurt so badly. I pray he’ll be well and wish with everything in me that I knew some magic to ease him. But, Bastien, our venture was not so much a failure as I first thought. Though I can’t speak of last night”—I held up a hand to keep him silent—“Just listen! What I did for Demetreo—a portrait, yes, and for now I’m sworn on my honor and the prospect of a stapled tongue to keep it secret—made me believe in what I do with my dual bent. More deeply, more certainly than before. I think the curators are afraid of me.”
It sounded prideful, but I didn’t feel so. Damon’s outlandish proposal had confirmed my suspicion: My bent was what bothered them.
“You don’t know—”
“Please listen to me.” Now I’d cracked this skin of detachment that I’d grown over six-and-twenty years, I could not seal it up again. “I’ve pronounced the words my whole life: Magic is a gift of the gods or nature or whatever greater power can bestow or withhold such benefices in a man’s blood. I have accepted that with my entire being, shaped my life around it. If my parents or some aunt or uncle had argued convincingly that my magic was not divine, but merely elicited impressions from my own senses, I would have believed that, too, and still considered it a gift worth the discipline demanded to use it well.
“But now this gift has transported me to a place I’ve never been. Has made me feel sensations that belong to other bodies. Has shown me truths I could not possibly know. And, yes, I learned something new from Demetreo that I cannot reveal without betraying my oath to him.”
I had recorded an event that had not yet occurred and believed in my every bone and sinew that it would come to pass.
“The responsibility of this power fills me with such awe I can scarce breathe, and such dread I don’t know where to turn. They’re going to kill me, Bastien. Or they’re going to lock me in a cage. Or they’re going to force me to run. That’s what our pureblood visitor came to tell me.”
“So you’re actually going to speak about this prickly fellow came today and his square-headed henchman who sat on me like Magrog’s own fiend?” Though not yet ready to relinquish his fury, Bastien could produce little more than a harrumph and a sour breath. “He was no simple messenger boy.”
“No. No messenger boy,” I said. “Our discipline forbids me speak of him or our conversation.”
Stupid even to consider such rules when I had been skirting the law with Bastien since my release—speaking to him of curators’ portraits and family matters, urging Juli to a great lie. But transgression did not unravel the value or meaning of law. Registry discipline had been a foundation of my family, prescribing how we honored and worked with each other, as much a part of me as how I ate, how I walked, the very languages I spoke. I believed Bastien and I had been born to different purposes in this life and that my place required certain things of me, no matter that they felt awkward or difficult or unkind. Yet, my master . . . my partner . . . needed to know what danger he faced.
“But I’ll speak of them anyway.”
Damon was different from the others. For good or ill, he had listened to me; Bastien had likely noticed that, too. And he had done his strange magic to communicate out of public hearing, which confirmed that the dissent among the curators made him wary. I just didn’t know whether that made matters better or worse for us.
“His name is Damon. He is a curator. I don’t know him well, but he is immensely powerful and we disregard him at our peril. I think he prefers the running to the axe or the cage. But I can’t run. I won’t. Juli remains in their hands, and she would suffer for my rebellion. And if the slightest whiff of collaboration clings to you, then you and Constance, Garibald, Garen—all of you here—will die, no matter what the outcome for me. It’s not right that it should be so, but it is.”
He could not be more astonished at my words than I was.
“You have to be wary, Bastien. To prepare.”
Bastien had settled on my stool. “Go on,” he said quietly. “None can hear us.”
Shaking off anger and horror, I bent my mind to the present and matters I could control. To learn who my enemies were I needed Bastien, and I already owed him my help.
“I’ve got to find out what’s going on before one faction or the other wins out,” I said. “But we have a problem here at Caton. My ruse at the temple didn’t work as well as we planned because Irinyi was expecting something to happen last night. She said she had been warned about a Registry spy. She had a duc from the Ardran court there with a cadre of at least twenty armed men. They were not there to bathe. Someone has been carrying tales.”
“A spy here?” he murmured. Voice and body spoke denial.
But my spirit was sorely frayed and I couldn’t allow it. “Think! The curators told me that someone reported the hour I left the necropolis on the night my house burned. That departure time became evidence to condemn me. At first I assumed some Ciceron had sold them the information, but how would the true villain know I wouldn’t interrupt his setting the fire? What if the spy told someone that I would be on an errand from you once I left here? It gave the murderer ample opportunity to make it seem as if I had come home and set the fire myself.”
“It must be someone else.” A weaker protest. “Only a few knew what you were about.”
“I told you about the shadows and dreams I had in the cellar, how they were always trying to get me to draw. What if those were no dreams? What if someone from here had reported that my presence flickered when I worked, that you felt it necessary to move me inside the prometheum to avoid alarming your patrons? And then I stupidly mentioned the very same thing to Gilles. Would they have believed such a thing possible if I’d only posed the question, or was it the two events together that convinced them? Because the night after I so stupidly asked the question, someone made me responsible for a crime so terrible that I could never again walk free.”
Someone who wanted me in a cage, perhaps, or someone who considered me the most fearsome danger to our way of life that had ever existed. Or someone who wanted me to run away to . . . what? A madhouse?
Bastien’s hand plowed the forest of hair and beard slowly. “Five years at the least I’ve known most of them—the runners, the scrubwomen, the diggers,” he said, softly, “and Garibald and Constance for more than a dozen. I’d trust my life to any one of them.” He glanced up to the shelf and its suspicious brackets. “But you’ve made a case worthy of my inquest chamber.”
I did not tell him about Constance’s gossip with Demetreo in exchange for necessaries in my first days here. She had freely admitted her offense and promised to keep my business private. Even then, I had believed her. Knowing her better, knowing how she valued her position and flourished in it, I was even more convinced. I had sworn silence on the matter, and until I had more evidence against her I’d keep my word. Bast
ien would look at his people fairly.
“Damon himself warned me that someone might be listening.”
“I’ve locked the closet where I sit to watch you. Not even Constance has a key to it. I’ll get back the key to this chamber, too. Constance and Garibald keep it, but they pass it around when there’s need. I’ll find the spy.”
“Then I’ll leave the matter to you,” I said, relieved that he believed me. “Because I’ve got to tell you about the temple. . . .”
Bastien was up and pacing by the end of the tale. I could almost feel the heat of his racing mind. “A duc from the Ardran court, ready to pounce. He was wearing Ardran colors, then—those of Perryn’s household, not his own?”
“Yes, but he’s not our murderer.”
“Why not? Bayard or Osriel might suborn just such a man. How many lords come running at a temple priestess’s beck? Perhaps one who frequented that temple. One who owed her favors. So who was he?”
“Never heard a name,” I said, trying to recall everything about the man I’d seen with Irinyi. “Never saw his boots. But the nobleman with the priestess was no bigger than me. Yes, he was hairy—black-haired with a beard. But I can’t see even a child calling him big.”
“You’re sure she said he was big?”
I closed my eyes for a moment, recalling the interview in the tepidarium with the forlorn little sweeping girl. “She said, ‘He were dark and hairy, as Fleure always told me . . . and his boots were shined like a black mirror glass. I called him—’” My palm slapped my aching forehead. “Aagh, that must be where the image of the bear came from. Gab named the murderer the Bear Lord with Shiny Boots. I assumed that meant frightening and hairy and . . . big. The knife teeth could signify he murdered her.”
“So, we’ve a starting place. A duc of the Ardran household. There’s only five. Noplessi is old as the sea and bent like a spoon; he’s been there since before Eodward. The others—Marcout, Tremayne, Vuscherin, and Comlier—I know the names but not the men. But he’d be dark, hairy, bearish. . . . Maybe big. Maybe not so much. If you’re going to be a witness, you must be precise. But we can find him. My runners know how to talk to servants, tinkers, grooms—them that will know.”
“One of your runners did talk to servants. Is he—?” Bone-deep weariness shoved aside every other thought save the consequences of the night’s failure. “Great gods, Bastien, why did you send someone so important to you on a temple burglary with an inept sorcerer?”
He folded his arms and propped himself on the bier. “’Tis not my way to tell Garen what he can and cannot do. I’m neither his da nor his wife nor his jailer. You needed someone. I chose our best for the job and asked if he was willing. He wanted to go. As for what you did . . . he told me. How you got him out through the drain tunnel, down that damnable wall. How you killed a man to save him. ’Twas your first, wasn’t it? And I’d guess it’s hit you wicked hard.”
Too tired to shut out the memory of rubbery flesh and spilling blood any longer, I couldn’t stop my hands from knotting or my thumbs from trying to wipe them clean. Bile stung my throat, and I had to swallow multiple times before I could speak without disgracing myself further. When I had more time to dwell on it, wicked hard might be too mild a description. “More than I expected.”
“Good. It shouldn’t be easy.” He paused, continuing only when I’d gulped in enough air to suppress the urge to spew. “But mostly we don’t have time to go through all the rights and wrongs of a deed. We have to trust our nature. If our nature makes us lash out too easy, we have to tame it. But if our nature prevents us saving a good man’s life, then we’d best examine what we believe. I doubt you have a murderer’s nature, Servant Remeni.”
“Never thought I did.” But then I’d never thought lies could be such a part of me, either . . . or madness or such deep-rooted panic at losing everything of importance to me.
“Once I spent my spleen, I would have told you how it was with Garen and me. Some don’t hold with our way, but it’s our business, not theirs. Figured you, of all men, would understand that. But I lost one like him years ago, and seeing this’n bloodied threw me off the cliff a bit.”
“I swore I’d bring him back unharmed. I tried, but—”
“And so you did.” From behind his sand-colored thatch beamed a smirk. “I’ve a stone cot a quellé or so out the back gates. Near had to lock the young fool in this morning to make him stay abed, but his worst injury is that an older fellow like you, brought up soft, had to carry him out. Mayhap I’ll go ask if he ferreted out anything about the temple’s noble visitor.”
Relief shone a bit of sunlight on the day. “Good . . . most excellent.”
“So, what do we do about all this?”
“Keeping me locked away will be good. Make sure all who work here know you do it. Watch your own back and keep a clear head.”
Stillness fell over him. Shame and guilt and no small amount of anger that a decent man and his friends sat in such danger at the hands of purebloods kept my eyes averted. My bones felt like lead; my spirit hollow. The straw mattress lay in the corner like the gods’ own sanctuary.
Drawn as if by enchantment, I hobbled toward the pallet, chains rattling on the stone. “With your permission, Master Bastien, I’m going to sleep for a while. If you wake me while there’s still light, I could likely do a drawing or two. But instead, I might suggest we concentrate on our plan to catch Fleure’s murderer. I would very much like to accomplish that before doom falls.”
I felt his eyes on my back. “Aye. A good notion.”
The stool scraped on the stone, and his footsteps crossed the room, pausing when he reached the door. “You’d best watch your insolent tongue, Servant Remeni, bossing me around and all,” he said. “What did you mean, self-pitying babble?”
A gust of wind rattled the shutters, as if all the pent anger in the chamber wriggled its way out. I curled up on the straw mat and pulled the thin blanket to my chin, an unlikely grin teasing at my lips. “As you noted early on, I’ve become quite familiar with self-pity,” I said between yawns. “I can recognize it in all its forms. You have perfected one particular variety—the this idiot was brought up rich and coddled and gifted with magic, while I had to scrabble and work and skirt the law for everything I’ve got, and where’s the justice in that, so I’m just going to yell at him and make sure he is shamed by his pomposity and show him that he’s not the only one in this world with a mind variety. You’ve made the point very clear. Thus you can just stop pummeling me with it. Elsewise I might devise an enchantment that will give you boils, so young Garen will never look at you in that unseemly fashion ever again.”
I believe he laughed. And locked me up securely on his way out. But in truth, I knew nothing more for a very long time.
* * *
“Tremayne. Laurent de Buld, Duc de Tremayne.”
I tried to parse the odd words that yanked me out of a sound sleep, riffling through every Navron and Aurellian dialect my tutors had ground into me. When none fit, I rolled over to bury the problem in my pillows and got distracted. No pillows. A thin, scratchy, pricking thing lay under me instead of herb-sweetened linen and a great bolt of feathers. And the room was horribly damp and chill. “Giaco! What are you—?”
“Attend, pureblood! The lily-child’s murderer, we’ve learnt his name. Laurent de Buld, Duc de Tremayne and consiliar prime of the Prince of Ardra’s household. He’s the man who wipes Prince Perryn’s ass.” Bastien stood over me like the messenger of doom.
The lily child . . . a would-be king’s murdered bastard. And Giaco was not waiting to bring me a tisane or to bathe and dress me, but had burnt to death in his bed.
I sat up and rubbed my head vigorously, shoving the scattered fragments of dream, memory, and grief into their proper places. “The bear . . . you found him?”
“Garen told me a noble’s body servant was pawing at one of the temple girls who was in and out of the waiting room with messages. Garen stepped out to speak a w
ord with her, saying she should report the man’s ill behavior. She told him who was the fellow’s master and how he came round now and again, being great friends with the high priestess, so’s the girl didn’t dare complain. The Duc de Tremayne, he was.”
I pulled the blanket around my shoulders. The tail of it was sodden. The deluge drumming on the shutters had puddled half the floor. How long had I slept?
“Seems flimsy,” I said. “Like I told you, the noble with Irinyi on the stair was no bear of a man.”
“While you lolled here most of the day, I sent runners to ask around the market and the districts where ducs are known. Reports say Tremayne is smallish and tight-bodied, but hairy as a black goat and fanatical about his boot polish. Were it only that I’d still have doubts, but the image struck me as more than a child’s impression of a man. So I sent Pleury looking for something else. Our clever lad twinked this from a goldsmith in the Council District. Seems the fellow crafted a new ring for the Duc de Tremayne not a tenmonth ago. . . .”
From his jaque Bastien whipped out a small sketch of a nobleman’s blazon—the heart of the family’s arms. The device was a rampant bear, a bouquet of bristling knives in its mouth.
I sat up straight, all torpor banished. “Deunor’s fire! We’ve got him!”
“No. We don’t.” Bastien’s biting denial quenched my flaring excitement like a pail of slush. “Tremayne’s as rich as a pureblood, with a young wife kin to half the nobles in Ardra and two formidable sons by his first wife. Between the duc, the two sons, and the wife’s kin, they’ve enough men-at-arms that Perryn can never, ever in the world give up the bloody villain to hang for murder.”
Bastien’s foot shoved the studio door shut with such a bone-shaking thud the iron slab almost passed through its frame to fall out the other side.
“But we’ve witnesses now,” I said to his broad back. “Gab. The servant Garen spoke to. Others in the temple could witness to Tremayne’s presence on the night of the murder.”
