by Carol Berg
“Which are likely not safe, either.” Nor would they ever be, my gut told me.
“Likely not. But the sexton will see our people safe. And, I’ve a notion where we might take refuge and assess the outfall from our day’s work . . . our cursed, lunatic, useless work.”
Face twisting into righteous rage, he lifted the copper tub and threw it into the wall. The dregs of my dousing extinguished half the rushlights and dripped in ashy rivulets to the floor.
CHAPTER 32
It was in the sop-house called the Bucket Knot on the night after the inquest into Ysabel de Tremayne’s murder that the Pretender to Eodward’s throne was born. This fourth royal son was strong, intelligent, courageous, and nurtured far from Navronne, destined to be the hope of all who learned the truth of Perryn the Weasel, Bayard the Smith, and Magrog’s rival, Osriel the Bastard. Of course, this virtuous youth was not birthed of a human mother and good King Eodward, but of a disgruntled coroner and a drunken pureblood.
I’d been starving and tight wound as a crossbow, knowing half the city was after us with murder on their minds. In a few short hours I was to sneak into the Tower, and examine the curators’ portraits to learn who wanted me dead. Meanwhile, I had to sit, unmasked, amid a taproom full of ordinaries, expected to talk and jest as they did. And though my side seemed only bruised, it hurt fiercely, worse even than my head. Concentrating on the cups of stout ale rosy-cheeked Tansy kept setting in front of me eased all these discomforts. I’d never imbibed so much with a gut so empty. An hour in and I was giggling like the sop-house girls.
Bastien whispered that he’d best get drunk like me or he’d be hauled out for the happy mob to dismember. He was furious with himself for expecting better of the loathsome Perryn.
When Tansy’s mistress arrived to complain that we had dented the Bucket Knot’s prized copper tub, Bastien waved toward me, mumbling that his servant had some delicious gossip to repay the debt, and somehow in my onrushing inebriation, I came up with the rumor of Eodward’s fourth son. Bastien pounced, imbuing our creation with the necessary virtues. As the night wore on and everyone in the common room grew louder and unlikely to remember their own names, much less ours, we’d thought it a great joke to whisper of it with each of the sop-house girls, swearing each to forget where they’d heard it. Soon everyone in the house was talking of the Pretender.
Yet in the pitchy hour before moonset, as the two of us stumbled down the hill toward the hirudo, I could not imagine why the prank had seemed so amusing. The moon’s dull light stabbed my eyes like a poignard. My mouth tasted like a stable floor. We had to stop every few steps to gather our wits, get a better grip on each other, or puke. I repeatedly asked Bastien where we might sleep that we wouldn’t be slaughtered in our beds. He kept answering, “Head homeward.”
That homeward should lead me toward a city of the dead seemed a kind of blasphemy.
“Halt!” Three Cicerons stepped out of the brush at the base of the slope. Lantern light revealed bloody knives and clothes, and a smoking rubble where two huts had once stood. Reason rushed back.
“Fetch Demetreo,” I said, swallowing bile and hauling Bastien’s heavy body upward yet again. “Tell him it’s the coroner and his servant. We need a safe place to sleep.”
* * *
Bastien’s snores could have waked the entire population of his necropolis. The dawn that reddened the sky had not yet reached the hirudo when I wandered outside the flimsy lean-to in search of quiet. I found a piece of broken wall to sit on and pulled my grandsire’s canvas-wrapped spindle from under my baggy shirt. Bastien had kept hold of the rucksack through magic and melee, dousing and drunkenness. He felt no sensation from touching the spindle, which was astounding. Even yet, its enchantment had me wanting to claw the skin from my bare hand.
The whole was no longer than a woman’s hand, wrist to fingertip, the cross-section no thicker than my thumb. Only the outer wrapping was sturdy canvas, the material my grandsire used to protect fragile documents when he had no supple leather to hand. Examining the end of the tight little roll revealed a more fragile fabric underneath the protective sheath. The frayed edge and mottled color spoke of age. Carved into each end of the wood spindle was a five-branched tree. Xancheira.
I exhaled a pent breath and began to work on the layered protections. First my grandfather’s knot spell that locked the ribbon tie, easily countered. The canvas sheath bore a protection against fire, but naught else. I removed it, exposing a roll of fragile linen.
But then matters became most discouraging. The harsher enchantments that pierced and itched my hand were bound to a locking spell so complex I wasn’t sure I even knew how it worked, much less how to undo it. Cursing, I set to work . . .
. . . and at the first touch of my magic, both spells vanished. A delicate flap of linen fell loose, inviting me to look. Such an odd combination of spells—the fire that pained only me, a lock that kept no one out, unless . . .
Without magic, I touched the linen wound on the spindle. Pain coursed through the sinews of my arm. The hem of the fabric began to smolder. But with the slightest infusion of my power, both pain and thready smoke vanished. Magic was as distinct as an artist’s brushstrokes, thus it did not seem farfetched to conclude that my grandsire wanted me, and no one else, to notice the spindle.
Excitement sharpened my attention. O Serena Fortuna, let this not be some ancient house dam’s inventory!
I unrolled the fragile linen, spreading and folding it over my knees, ensuring its trailing ends didn’t fall into the muck. Bordered in intricate spirals of gold thread, it was longer than my estimate. Surely it was a stola, an Aurellian ceremonial scarf made to hang from one’s neck and invoke blessings or interventions from the gods. Fine stitches of colored silk formed fans of words and symbols along its length, arranged from the center so that both halves of the array would appear right side up when the garment was worn.
Hope of enlightenment faded as my eyes devoured its length. The inscriptions were no household inventory, but almost as mundane. At the tail of each half was a single name—one side Domenica, one side Eruin. Stitched above each was a genealogy, each fan marking a generation of parents and children. This was certainly a wedding stola, worn by a Xancheiran woman of Aurellian heritage—a pureblood woman—as she assumed the responsibility of carrying on her new husband’s bloodline as well as her own. It was a beautifully crafted record of a sacred heritage, for each name was accompanied by the symbol of a pureblood bent, just as Registry documents would display my own lineage. Here was an eye for a diviner, there a loom for a weaver, crossed chisels for a sculptor, and—
I shifted around so that the rising sun would strike the fabric more directly. Some symbols were missing. Not worn or rotted away, for the threads where the symbol should be lay flat and smooth beside the names. Henik, the great-great-grandsire of the bride, had no designation. Either the sewing woman had been careless—difficult to believe with such exquisite and significant work—or the stola had been wrought before the Registry formalized the breeding laws, for indeed Henik was a Moriangi name, not Aurellian. He was an ordinary.
Henik’s wife, Neria, was a pureblood sculptress. And the same symbol appeared beside the name of their daughter, Regan. Their halfblood daughter, if I was reading this correctly.
My skin prickled. In the next fan down the stola, Regan’s name was linked to one Philo. The mark of the sculptor’s bent was repeated beside Regan’s name. And beside the name of her husband, two marks had been stitched—the pincers of a goldsmith and the quill of a scribe. Two marks—a dual bent.
My gaze snapped down to the names of Regan and Philo’s children. And there, the tiny stitches of this ancient garment proclaimed the impossible. Marcus, a scribe. Philomena, a sculptress. And Jullian, no mark. Two grandchildren of a pureblood and an ordinary were marked as bearing pureblood bents. Impossible.
My gaze darted to another name that lacked a mark. The bridegroom Eruin’s grandmother, an ordinary named
Cymra, had wed a pureblood, Leonid, who bore the dual bents of a linguist and a singer. Each of their five children had been gifted, and so, too, their grandchildren, including Eruin himself, a singer—one whose songs could make his listeners see visions.
The Registry declared our blood sacred, because no descendant of a halfblood could carry the bent. Never could purebloods and ordinaries interbreed without committing the blasphemy of destroying the gods’ gift of magic. To protect that gift, we had devised the disciplines that kept our kind separate, that forbade us simple friendships and the choice of what life to pursue or what person to love, that allowed the Registry to punish any of us who strayed from our rules and destroy any ordinary who dared interfere in our ways or claimed to work magic. This simple fact of nature had created a way of life that kept our gifts precious . . . and rare . . . and our family treasuries full, and the Registry powerful enough to rival and balance Crown and Temple. Only that simple fact was a lie.
“Great gods, sorcerer, you look as if you’ve seen the end of the world.”
I glanced up, vision blurred and mind slowed to a crawl as two centuries of history and lies and vanished cities and massacred populations clogged my thinking. But as surely as the indistinct features resolved into Bastien’s grimy curiosity, so did the fullness of our danger strike me harder than any magical thunderbolt ever could. The end of the world indeed. Holy Mother! Lord of Light!
No wonder Capatronn had stopped speaking to me. No wonder he had tried to excise my second bent—the very talent that might reveal the truth he’d learned—in front of the First Curator of the Registry. No wonder he had buried me in the Registry portrait studio, where all could see how ignorant I was. He had been terrified the Registry would find out what he knew and assume he had told me.
This flimsy bit of cloth explained the Registry suppression of a second bent. For if those with two bents could reinvigorate a broken bloodline, we could make the impossible possible. The gift of sorcery could spread outside pureblood families. Loyalties and disciplines would be upended. The Registry would lose its stranglehold on magic.
“This is—”
No. Bastien could not know. He could not even suspect. If he and his friends were to survive, he had to be able to swear without hesitation that he had no idea what I might have discovered about my grandsire’s investigation. They would question him under enchantments of confusion; they would probe his mind and memory. The least glimmer of this truth, and he and anyone he might have told would die . . . as my family had died.
“A sample of Xancheiran needlework,” I said, rolling the fabric on the wooden spindle and relocking its protective spellwork.
“So I’m naught but a rock-headed ordinary again. Good for swordwork and rescuing, but not to be trusted with pureblood business.”
“I trust you beyond anyone in this world. With my life. With my sister’s life.” If I so much as hinted that the scroll was dangerous, a Registry investigator would ferret it out . . . and assume I’d told him more.
Closing my eyes, I pressed the spindle into his hand. “Bury this with the lily child to remind us of our failures. My grandsire thought me useless and ignorant, and so I am. If Tremayne or the Registry doesn’t clap me in a dungeon, you should see to it yourself.”
“You’re a wretched liar, and I’m not stupid!”
“No, you’re not. That’s why I will not speak of this again.” Think, Bastien. Use your logic, and draw your own conclusions. Then you can say truthfully that I told you nothing.
I set out through the hirudo’s narrow lanes, leaving Bastien to follow. I regretted his bitterness, but I couldn’t apologize and I couldn’t retreat. The knowledge I bore could change Navronne . . . the world . . . forever, and once changed, there would be no going back. The word pureblood would have no meaning.
Who at the Registry knew the truth? Gramphier, most likely. And Pluvius. Albin? Pons? What if my portraits of the curators had not exposed personal faults at all, but rather which of them knew the truth, and thus bore the stain of my family’s slaughter?
“It’s even more important I see the portraits tonight,” I said. “If the curators tell Perryn I’ve gone crazy, Tremayne will never wear a noose.” Nor would my dead ever have justice. As for the lie . . . and changing the world . . . I’d have to consider what to do about that.
The hirudo was awake and wary. Every shadow held an armed man. There were no dice players. No children. No laughter. No syrinx. Even through my own fear and tumult, the air felt taut. When would they go? Would Perryn’s ascension and the promise of peace keep them here a while longer? To pass through an enchanted doorway and into an unknown realm was no easy choice, no matter legend or promise or a mad sorcerer’s assurance.
We’d just reached the piggery when Demetreo took shape from the crowded trees.
“We thank you for the hospitality,” I said. “Our eyes are open and minds unclouded this morning.”
Perhaps the Cicerons were Deunor’s lost children. Had their own ancestors worked the true magic in their commons house?
Demetreo’s dark eyes darted from me to Bastien. “Just thought you should know, Coroner, your messenger passed through safely yesternight. But not long after, we turned away some dangerous men. Some insisted on passage . . . to their sorrow. Others retreated. But of course, we could not prevent those from taking other paths to the dead city.”
Not even casual admission of killing could astonish me anymore. Nothing could.
“Wasn’t born an idiot,” grumbled Bastien. “We’ll not go prancing through the front gate.”
“No insult meant. Only concerned for those who’ve done amicable business with us. Being of sneaking, suspicious minds as we are, Cicerons pay attention where others might not. The world grows more dangerous by the hour. We hear Prince Bayard doubts the newfound writ and will fight on.”
“We appreciate the warning,” I said, before Bastien could interrupt. “How fares your granny, headman?”
“She holds,” he said, “but not for long. She sorely mislikes the state of the world and fears the coming dawn beyond any change she’s known. If need be, she will act.”
I nodded and tugged at Bastien’s arm. “We’ll be off, then. May Kemen Sky Lord and the Goddess Mother defend your path, sengé.”
“And yours, pureblood. And yours, worthy coroner.”
Demetreo vanished into the undergrowth, even as I quickened my own steps up the hill. If Oldmeg feared the dawn so much that she would initiate the destiny shown in her portrait, our time was short to get things done.
When the slot gate and the dawn-kissed graveyard beyond came in sight, I halted.
“Show me your hidden way, partner mine,” I said, hoping to lighten Bastien’s rightful anger.
“Happy to be of use, domé.” He spat the honorific.
I could not apologize. They would test him.
He led me through a ditch at the base of the outer wall that none but an eagle could see, circling halfway around the necropolis and through a pureblood graveyard to enter the prometheum from the rear. The necropolis was eerily quiet. Carts stood unloaded. Hawkers and merchants huddled in their stalls.
“What the devil?” Bastien’s steps accelerated, until we saw the silent crowd of runners and washwomen jamming the stair to my studio.
“Out of my way,” snapped Bastien as he plowed through. I stayed right on his heels, dread darkening the sunlight.
* * *
“He’d chose to patrol the deadhouse,” said Constance, voice cracked with grieving. “I put him on it, saying I’d a worry for the oils and the lock-chest if crazies got inside. But I never estimated no hurt to ’im, as they’d have to get past Da and the gates first, and then the merchants’ men.”
She stroked Pleury’s blood-matted hair. The soft-bodied youth, who had so carefully arranged the corpses he brought me to draw as if their pose mattered, sprawled on the floor of my studio, his head caved in by one of my shackles. Blood and hair coated the iron
band.
“How the devil did they get inside?” roared Bastien. “I sent warning!”
“They must’ve come over the walls, as Da kept the gates barred all the day.”
Bastien badgered Constance for answers, but I could do more. Speechless with outrage and dread certainty, I touched the bloody metal and called up the magic that burned between my eyes, right in front of every person who could crowd into that fouled chamber.
My shackles. My ankles. The proximity to my own experience narrowed my search quickly. The shackles spurred visions of Tower storerooms and my own prison cell. I knew it from the stink, from the dark, from the dust and desolation, and from my smirking jailers, Nelek and Virit. They dragged me shuffling through the Tower into the Curators’ Chamber and into cells I didn’t recognize. They had locked my chains to chairs, to walls, to hasps set in stone in rooms where undead men lay on biers, and unseen hands shoved pens and ink, brush and paint, into my hands. . . .
I could not linger in those mysteries. A youth lay dead, and I needed to know who had wielded my chains as a weapon.
Digging deeper, I drew in threads, searching for Pleury, who always had a laugh at ready, who had puffed his chest and vowed to beat Garen in a wrestling match before he turned twenty, who liked to tie a bit of thread about a dead infant’s finger so the Ferryman would know that this one was too young to answer his three questions.
“A wasted night. Where is he, vermin?” Cold fury wielded enchantment that pierced the mind like heated nails, that bound the gut with invisible blades, ever tightening, cutting. “The old man says he always sleeps here.”
“Don’t know . . . don’t know . . . don’t know. You was told right . . . always sleeps here. Don’t hurt me, lord . . . domé . . . I don’t know . . .” Words and sense dissolved in screams.
“Finish the useless wretch before he wakes the dead. And erase this mess.”
