Volotora chuckled. Oddly, Victory seemed to be the only one who cheered him up.
“I have not, my liege.”
“Don’t encourage him,” I said.
“Do you really think it makes any difference?” asked Volotora.
Victory stalked to the edge of my shoulder and leapt to the railing. He paced back and forth with his hands behind his back, muttering.
“Yeah, I do. He’s out of the shell for three weeks and he’s talking about siege warfare and defensive postures. I can’t let him out of my sight or he escapes my room and runs off.”
Victory did a fist pump. “I’m mapping the terrain. We must be ready.”
“Well, stop it. You’re going to be seen.”
“I should be seen.” Fist pump. “I am Victory.”
I sighed. “See what I’m dealing with.”
“I admit it is unusual,” said Volotora.
Victory jumped off the railing into Volotora’s grain and began calculating how much feed he would need during a prolonged siege.
“You see how he is,” I said. “How long can I possibly keep him under wraps?”
“He hasn’t been caught yet.”
“I don’t know how. I found him riding on a human’s head out on the Stephansplatz yesterday. Right out in the open. He said he was looking for his troops.”
“He’s a born leader.”
“He’s a born nutbag.”
“Speaking of nutbags, how’s Bentha?” asked Volotora.
I perked up. Bentha was my bright light. “Better. All three hearts started beating last night and he’s softened up quite a bit.”
“But he’s not talking?”
“Not yet, but it won’t be long now,” I said.
Volotora tossed his head and said, “There he goes.”
Victory had jumped out of the feed and was making a break for the window. I ran over and snatched him up before he could squeeze through a crack in the shutter. “You have to stop that.”
“I won’t get caught.” Fist pump. “I am Victory.”
I groaned. “You make me tired.”
“I will build up your endurance.”
“No, thanks. I have enough things doing that already.”
Volotora chuckled again. “It’s only the tea to deliver this morning?”
I pulled a small linen purse out of my pocket and tied it to the teapot handle. “No, there’s tea tree oil, too.”
“What’s that for?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t say any specifics. Volotora was to take my treatments to the palace and give them to Nanny who would be waiting in the palace stables. He wasn’t to ask any questions, just make the deliveries until the city was considered safe enough for the cardinal’s staff to go out. Then I would go and see the empress in person. Nanny and I wrote back and forth in a code she’d devised. Actually, I didn’t write in or read the code. That fell to Gerald, who had announced that he was a natural at such intellectual pursuits and would be taking charge of communications. Fine with me. One less thing to learn. With the imperial family history to go through I had more than enough to learn. The whole code thing had helped Gerald a lot. It gave him a purpose, a purpose other than annoying Iris, that is. He seemed calmer since we started, so much so that I dreaded the end of our confinement.
“How were the streets yesterday?” I asked.
“Quiet. With the empress making daily appearances, the city has calmed down. She seems quite improved over the last few weeks.” Volotora watched me and I was careful to keep my face placid as if I knew nothing about such things.
“That’s good. I guess the cardinal will be lifting the mourning period soon. Now that it’s calmed down.”
“The funerals are all over, so I believe he will, although I don’t think it’s good for him.”
“You’re right about that. Every time he went out, he got sick. He should stay in,” I said.
“He won’t,” said Volotora.
Victory marched to the tip of my finger. “His Grace is a warrior. He will not hide.”
I blinked. The cardinal was described in many ways, but never as a warrior. “You think His Grace is a warrior?”
“A warrior for love. Mother told me,” Victory announced. “Love will conquer what I cannot.”
“If you say so.”
“I will it.” Fist pump.
I rolled my eyes. “I better go. Rickard will be skulking around corners trying to find me.”
“He still hasn’t done anything?” asked Volotora.
“No,” I said. “I can’t understand it. It was his big chance to ruin me, but he didn’t do anything. He just watches me. It’s creepy.”
“What about the gargoyles? They’re hard to miss.”
“Tell me about it. The master secretary said he’d heard of feral gargoyles changing colors and that was the end of it.”
“Rickard didn’t point out their particular colors or that they’re following you everywhere.”
“Nope. I can’t understand it.”
“I have a feeling that you will soon enough,” said Volotora.
Victory hopped up and down on my finger. “If he makes trouble, I will destroy him.”
“Good luck with that.” I patted Volotora’s flank and left the stall. “I’ll be back tonight. Alone.”
“No, you won’t,” said Victory and Volotora chuckled again.
I tried to put Victory back in my hood, but he hopped around like crazy and I couldn’t get a hold of him.
“Can’t you be good?” I asked the tiny phalanx.
“I’m not good. I’m excellent.”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“It’s everyone’s opinion,” declared Victory as he leapt off my finger for the ledge and I snatched him out of the air and stuffed him in my hood.
“Stay in there or no fly legs for Christmas,” I said.
Victory burrowed into my hood and hid under my hair. I didn’t know what I was going to do after Christmas. I stepped back as Volotora clomped out of his stall. The teapot swung under his chin with the handle firmly between his teeth like a bit. He nodded to me, since he couldn’t speak, and walked away down the long stable corridor to the other exit. His tail was limp and his hooves, once so glittery, were dulled and sad.
“He’s not going to have a Merry Christmas,” I said.
Victory tapped my neck in a particular rhythm and I crinkled my eyes as I concentrated. Victory had decided that I should learn Morse code, so he could communicate with me without speaking. He said it was essential for covert operatives, whatever that meant. But like I said, my brain was full and I didn’t get what he was saying. He did the sequence again and then a third time.
He said, “Make him a potion.”
I’d thought of that, but I knew absolutely nothing about healing for damumoto. I’d asked the empress to send over whatever medical books she could, but they still hadn’t shown up. There would be no potions for Volotora until they did. Besides he would be the first to say that my priority was the empress. The city had gone back to sleep and it was my job to keep it that way.
I kissed Albrecht I’s foot and entered the cathedral through the panel under it. I’d had to kiss his foot so much I’d actually gotten used to it. I don’t know which disgusted me more the foot-kissing or the acceptance of it.
I flew over to the tomb to see whether Iris was up, but thought better of it when I saw Rickard emerge from the entrance struggling with a couple of klitzeklein trolls. After the riot it became important that I spend lots of time in the cardinal’s apartment. The imperial healer’s notes and fat books on the Habsburg dynasty had arrived under the guise that the cardinal had decided to write the history of the ruling family. I had to be with those books and so the cardinal had given me Rickard’s job of cleaning his apartment and I was to catalog and clean the books. Rickard was switched over to troll patrol.
I hovered and watched him for a second. I didn’t realize how good I had it. The trol
ls were annoying and I got bit once, but Rickard was covered in bites. They peed whenever he picked them up and his suits were saturated with urine. They’d chased him down the nave more than once with their teeth bared. That had never happened to me.
I don’t know if the cardinal knew, but the master secretary did and he ignored this change in troll demeanor. I think it had something to do with Rickard himself. He was changed since the day of the riot. He’d stopped bragging and trying to wheedle his way into the master secretary’s good graces. You’d think that would be a good thing, but it wasn’t. There was something there in Rickard that I couldn’t quite make out. A dark shadow on his features. Maybe it was my imagination.
His face turned up, blank and expressionless. I sailed away. What had happened? Everyone else was uncommonly happy since the riots. Aoife was churning out pies at a fantastic rate. Iris couldn’t stop singing. Miss Penrose was completely healthy and excitedly writing lesson plans, since she’d gotten the job at Sisi’s school at the palace. Delphine was sewing day and night. It was lucky the emperor continued to pay me, because she needed lots of fabric and notions. Gerald was studying in the library and making up new codes. He was lecturing less and had even smiled a little when Horc burped last night. Horc had been allowed to meet the cardinal’s accountant, a spriggan by the name of Master Yik. He was thrilled to spend his days with money. Even the master secretary seemed happy. Happy for him, that is. He organized everyone to the hilt and gave more orders than ever, but nobody minded. Rickard was the only unhappy one. I would’ve said it was the trolls, but I couldn’t help thinking it was something more. I had to assume it was hatred of me and I gave him a wide berth.
I sailed over to the kitchens and picked up my buckets. Aoife was already hard at work. She and Lonica were making the Christmas Eve feast. I’d never seen so much food. The shelves held pies, cakes, loaves of bread, racks of pasta were drying in front of the stoves, sauces of every description bubbled in pots. I didn’t interrupt the meeting they were having around the center table. The topic was meat and Aoife didn’t do meat. I told her she didn’t have to give Horc meat. I could have some delivered, but she wouldn’t hear of it. I think she was excited by the challenge.
I slipped out and filled my buckets at the skull font. Percy and Penelope were circling a tour group of humans who were walking by the font getting a lesson on cathedral construction. Percy had already stolen five pins out of a woman’s hair and her bun was unwinding. Penelope had spotted an emerald earring she just had to have and was hovering next to a young girl’s head eyeing it. The mourning period was particularly rough on the dragons. They were used to going out to the markets and bothering tourists there. During the two weeks of confinement, they gone a little batty, stealing anything and everything. Iris had taken on the job of taking all their spoils to the cathedral lost and found, since we couldn’t stop them from thieving.
“Hey!” I yelled. “Stop that!”
Penelope ducked behind the girl’s head as if I couldn’t see her wide wings on either side. I rolled my eyes and decided to overlook it. It was the master secretary’s fault. He was the one who confined them along with the staff. He didn’t explain himself, he never did, but he requested the Percy and Penelope stop sleeping outside in the bell tower and perch on the pulpit instead. The cathedral guard was woefully inadequate. I figured he thought a couple of unruly spice dragons were better than almost nothing for security.
I flew my buckets to the pulpit and filled each of the secretary’s pitchers before going to the cardinal’s apartment. The master secretary was in his lux apartment and said nothing about the order that I chose to fulfill my duties. Actually, he hardly said anything to me anymore and turned a blind eye to what I might be doing behind closed doors. And I always kept them closed, firmly, and locked for good measure.
The cardinal looked up from his desk and smiled as I entered. “Mattie, my girl, how does it look outside?”
I bobbed a curtsy. “I haven’t been outside, Your Grace.” We kept up the pretense, even in private.
“Yes. Yes. I meant out in the nave. Everyone excited about Christmas?” His eyes twinkled.
“Absolutely. This is Horc’s second Christmas and he’s all wound up about presents.”
“And what will Christkind be bringing Master Horc?”
“Money and pork.”
He laughed, a big and booming laugh. “Of course. I don’t know why I asked.”
There was a pat on my neck and I glanced reflexively at the closed door. I’d revealed Victory to the cardinal a couple of days after the riots when it became clear that I couldn’t control him, but Bentha was still a secret. I couldn’t burden the cardinal with all my problems and at least Bentha stayed put.
“Alright,” I said.
Victory leapt out from my hood, did a quadruple somersault, and landed on the cardinal’s desk like a gymnast. “I have arrived, Your Grace.” He bowed and the cardinal nodded back. “What shall I conquer today?”
The cardinal puzzled for a moment, tapping his fingers on the desk. “How is your Chinese?”
“Chinese?” I asked. “He doesn’t speak Chinese.”
Victory stalked to the edge of the desk. “I am deficient. I will learn Chinese. Where is the book?”
The cardinal produced a fat volume bound in red silk from under his desk. “You’re very young to learn Mandarin. Wouldn’t you rather try Italian?”
“I mastered Italian last Thursday,” he said, hands on his tiny hips. “My aunt believes I can do it.”
They looked at me and I fixed a concerned look on my face. “I don’t know. Maybe you should play instead.”
“Play? That is for mere children. I am Victory.” Fist pump.
“You’re something. I’ll give you that. But this may be too much for you. How long will it take?”
Victory tilted his head and thought. “Seventy-two hours at most.”
“Alright, if you’re sure you wouldn’t rather build something with blocks,” I said.
He gave me a withering look and I bit my lip.
“I will learn Mandarin with your permission.” Victory did a little bow. He’d learned a bit of humility after he heard what happened at the palace. Being a kindler was one thing, getting through that mess without using my weapon was another. Victory looked at me differently, like a warrior of untapped potential.
“Go ahead, but study hard.”
“I will do it.”
The cardinal opened the book to page one and Victory ran over and began reading. The cardinal and I exchanged a smile. The tiny phalanx would be out of my hair for three days. When he was learning, he paid attention to little else and I could relax. He wouldn’t try to escape. It was the cardinal who discovered the key to calming him and had immediately set him on reading all the biographies in his library. That had taken two days. He was hatched knowing how to read and devoured books at an incredible rate. What we were doing seemed like a good thing. Victory got an education and only escaped four times a day instead of twelve, but I couldn’t help worrying what kind of creature we were turning him into.
The cardinal heaved himself out of his chair and led me to the side table. “Don’t worry so much.”
I watched Victory flip a page and said, “What do you think he is?”
“A phalanx.”
“And that’s it. Just a phalanx?”
The cardinal watched Victory reading, his tiny lips forming the words to a language not even the cardinal could speak. “He is a phalanx forever. What he becomes is largely up to his family.”
“But his family isn’t here. I don’t know what the commander would say about this.” I filled his basin with fresh water and started preparing his morning tea. Since he’d recovered completely from his injuries and was feeling very good, it was only chamomile and peppermint.
“You are his family.” The cardinal looked away and I heated his tea behind his back.
“I don’t think that’s right. He belongs to the comm
ander and his wife, not us.”
He turned and took the tea. “Victory belongs to himself. He is no one’s property. No child is. You and Iris will form him, but what he does with the gifts you give is up to him.”
“I think he might be,” I lowered my voice, “crazy.”
The cardinal smiled. “All the great ones are, but I wouldn’t worry too much. His love for Iris and you changes everything he might have been.”
“Might have been?”
“I told you once that I can see what is hidden.”
“I remember.” The remembering gave me a little chill down my back. He still didn’t know about my fire, I hoped.
“Victory will change the world. Everything he needs is in him already.”
I didn’t find that comforting in the least. Lots of people had changed the world, not always for the better.
The cardinal drank the rest of his tea and straightened his robes. “I think I will go out today.”
I sucked in a breath. “Out of the cathedral?”
“No. No. Out of the residence. I’m strong enough now and I miss everyone.”
I relaxed and listened to his instructions on how he wanted the imperial books sorted. It was mostly for show, just in case Victory wasn’t learning Mandarin and was listening instead. I would do what he wanted, of course. I would dust and catalog, but that took no time at all. I was really there to research the royal family’s health history, but what the cardinal knew about my activities was a mystery to me. The first of the books had arrived the day after the riot with a big envelope for the cardinal. I didn’t know what it said, but I was given access to the books and the cardinal never asked any questions.
I knelt on the floor and rolled out a parchment. It was a copy of the imperial family tree, starting three generations before the first Habsburg king won the throne in a huge battle. The family tree was super complicated and confusing. Every time I looked at it, I wanted to give up, but I didn’t. I pinned it flat with several books and unrolled my own copy. I was tracing the illness Habsburg by Habsburg and digging through the heaps of records for the treatments the imperial healers tried. I’d only gotten through the first hundred years and was no better off than when I started. The illness was hidden by those that had it. I could only tell by the portraits and early death dates. Those that didn’t have it were long lived, making it into their nineties at least. Some Habsburgs were killed in battle, but the illness was the greatest cause of death in the main line. If they hadn’t hidden the illness, my life would’ve been a lot easier. Most of the imperial healers had no clue what was going on. Their notes were sparse and confusing. I found two healers that did know, but they were clueless about the cause. One made her patient drink distilled dragon blood. The other prescribed long walks in the moonlight. Yeah, right. That’ll help a hideous skin disease that’s killing them.
Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book Four) Page 30
