“And what would you have done with your talents had you not joined the Vigil?”
“Fess, I was practically a child,” she said. “What does a girl of sixteen know?” She almost laughed. “I thought I wanted to be a sculptor’s assistant. The marble of Elania is prized for its pure white color veined with specks of copper that give sculptures a lifelike cast. I thought nothing could be more beautiful.”
He nodded but showed no inclination to answer the question she had posed.
So she asked again, “Why don’t you smile anymore?” and settled herself to wait in silence, hoping the question’s weight would be enough to prompt him. Minutes went by as they rode and he performed the ceaseless scan of the landscape, searching for threats.
Perhaps a mile later, he spoke, a single sentence that negated any further attempts at conversation. “Because I’m not happy.” His voice carried just enough breath to make it to her ears.
A few hours later the road entered a copse of trees, and Fess’s gaze sharpened as he searched the woods for threats. Nothing stirred beneath the canopy except for squirrels or other small game, but Fess jerked, facing a bend in the road.
“Someone’s coming.”
A moment later she caught the percussive sound of plodding hoofbeats and the creak of a wagon. Fess pulled to a halt and signaled her to do the same and they waited. She measured time by the call of birds until the wagon came into sight, a rickety affair pulled by a horse that should have seen its last pasture long ago. The man on top held the reins with one hand. His other arm hung useless at his side.
“He’s wearing Aille’s colors,” she said.
The man’s gaze came up off the road just once before guiding his horse to the right. He gave no other sign that he’d noticed her and Fess or that he cared.
Toria put her horse in his path, forcing him to stop. “Soldier.” He lifted his head, but his eyes hardly saw her. “Are you come from the Darkwater?”
His head dipped in a single nod. “Aye.”
“What happened?”
Enough of his abstraction fell away for him to laugh caustically. “Our idiot of a commander received his first and last lesson. Darkness belongs to them.” He didn’t bother to elaborate.
The rasp of his laughter could have peeled bark from a tree. “That sort of sentiment doesn’t usually go over well with officers,” she said.
He smiled at her, but behind his eyes she saw horror working to get free. He turned to poke one of the bodies stacked behind him. “You don’t mind d’ya, sir, if I offer an opinion on yer glorious leadership?” The driver jerked as if at an unexpected response and bent to put his ear close to the dead man’s mouth.
He straightened to leer at her. “He says he doesn’t mind.” He laughed. “We’ve had quite the conversations, we have, the commander and I. An idiot in the field he might be, but there’s no denyin’ he’s a great listener. Always gives me his undivided attention, he does.”
Fess moved forward and extended his hand. “Fair travels to you, soldier.”
A bit of the soldier’s frantic leer faded as he accepted the gesture. “You’re riding into a killing field, lad, and no doubt.” Without warning, he spun in his seat and struck the dead officer with his fist. “Against King Rymark’s instruction, the captain there thought it would be clever to dress us in black and cover our faces in charcoal to scout the forest at night. Idiot. Even if those in the forest couldn’t see us, we wouldn’t have been able to see them either, as if we could aim our bows by sound alone. We were slaughtered, two hundred men and women, except for me. My ma always told me I was lucky. I guess I had enough blood coming out of my arm that they figured I’d bleed to death.” He shrugged. “Or maybe they’d had their fill.”
She nodded. An unhealthy flush marred the man’s complexion. “How many of them came out of the forest against you?”
The soldier’s expression hardened. “Two.”
Fess pointed at the pile of bodies. “What’s so special about these eight that you have to cart them back to Cynestol?”
The soldier shook his head. “They’re nobles. They may be stupid and arrogant enough to get everyone in their command killed, but an accident of birth means they get carted back to the city instead of buried in some unmarked grave up north. Can’t have them touching common men, not even in death.”
Memories of war and dying fought to escape from behind the doors where she’d locked them away. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Maledetto.” He laughed.
Toria nodded to him. “As you say. Find a healer at the next village for your arm. It’s infected.”
His eyes narrowed. “And how would you know that?”
“It stinks,” she said.
With his one good arm, he shook the reins and the horse continued its slow plod south. Toria watched him go. “If he doesn’t get healing for that arm, he won’t make it back to Cynestol, whatever his name is.”
“He told you his name,” Fess said.
She pulled a deep breath through her nose, hoping to erase the stench of death from the cart, but it still hung in the air. “Maledetto means cursed.”
Chapter 13
After we gained the safety of the walls of Cynestol, most of our escort peeled off in ones and twos until we rode in the company of only Hradian and eight of the cosp, half of whom were of an age with Rory. Hradian’s presence managed to get us past most of the small-jobbed, small-minded functionaries who considered it their mission to keep the common man away from the cathedral and the Archbishop. Our journey was marked by a succession of clergy who rose in rank the farther we penetrated into the cathedral. When we arrived at the Archbishop’s “office”—a word that was far too small to convey the proportions of the actuality—Hradian and his soldiers withdrew as if they’d been about to step on sacred ground and be struck dead for it.
Bolt stopped short at the sight of the Archbishop’s secretary. “He’s new.”
“Is that bad?” I asked.
He sighed. “It probably means Amicus has died. I don’t know why I’m surprised. He was older than I. Don’t grow old, Willet. You won’t like what comes of it.”
My circumstances as one of the Vigil, any of whom might ultimately reach ten centuries, probably meant Bolt had made a joke at my expense, but when I looked his way, his expression remained as closed and stoic as ever.
Our current escort, an aged bishop by the name of Serius, bowed his greeting to the man behind the desk, who nodded absently because he was too busy looking at us as if we might have brought a disease into the cathedral.
“Cardinal Jactans,” Serius said, “these men were brought here by Lieutenant Hradian and wish to see the Archbishop on a matter of urgency.”
Cardinal Jactans appeared to have a talent not spoken of in the Exordium. He could ignore anything he chose. Serius’s tone and posture had no effect on the secretary. “Everyone wishes to see the Archbishop, and it’s always urgent—at least that’s what they claim. Hmmm. You’re sweating and your skin holds the pallor of those from the north. What is your business with Archbishop Vyne?”
I nodded. “Our business is of an urgent and sensitive nature, and I’m not authorized to share it. However, I’m sure Archbishop Vyne will apprise you of it in due time, and I’m certain he wishes to see us immediately.”
Jactans stared down a considerable length of nose, his lips pursed in disapproval. “No. I think not. The Archbishop is currently engaged.” He nodded toward a thickly upholstered bench that ran the length of the wall opposite his desk. “You are welcome to wait, of course, but I feel compelled to inform you that it often takes days for the Archbishop’s calendar to clear.” He cleared his throat. “Even for matters of urgency.”
Serius looked at us as though he wished to apologize, and for the first time his gaze slid past Gael and me and the rest of us to peer at Bolt. The two men were of an age, though my guard did a far better job of carrying his years than the bishop.
“I know
you,” Bishop Serius said.
Bolt tried to shake his head, but the bishop stepped closer, peering into Bolt’s face from a handsbreadth away, his finger stabbing the air with his disagreement. “Yes, you’re him.”
I came alongside my guard. “Him who?”
Serius looked at me as if I’d suddenly transformed into the village idiot. “You have Tueri Consto as your guard and you have no idea who he is?”
“He more or less assigned himself to me.” I looked at Bolt. “You never told me you were from Aille.”
“I’m not, but you never asked where I was from, and I haven’t been back to Cynestol in a long time.” He sighed, looked to Serius, and nodded toward Cardinal Jactans. “Do you think you could impose upon the gatekeeper to let us pass?”
Serius nodded deep enough so that it was almost a bow. “Certainly.”
We followed Serius, ducklings in his wake.
“Cardinal Jactans,” Serius said, “you must admit these men at once. This man is Tueri Consto.”
Jactans didn’t appear impressed.
“I go by Bolt now.”
Serius wrinkled his nose as if he’d caught a whiff of something foul. “Nonsense.”
Jactans looked my guard up and down. “You’re telling me this is Tueri Consto, the last Errant?” He snorted. “Surely you jest. This man is hardly taller than I am.”
Bolt sighed. “I get that a lot.”
Gael looked at Bolt, her blue eyes wide and vivid against her fair skin. “You’re dead.”
“Not yet, though it’s been a close thing a time or two. This is why I don’t come back here,” he muttered.
With a sigh, he reached into his tunic and pulled forth the silver medallion I’d seen once before, when he’d accepted Duke Orlan’s challenge in my stead. With a toss he sent the heavy tarnished silver crashing onto the ordered desktop of Cardinal Jactans. “If the Archbishop finds you’ve kept us waiting, he’ll be displeased.”
Jactans stiffened, though he didn’t go so far as to stand. “I take orders from the Archbishop and only the Archbishop. Not northerners with tarnished trinkets.”
Bolt nodded. “As you say. I’m going to have a seat, and when the Archbishop does see me, I’m going to tell him exactly how long you’ve kept me waiting.” He flicked his glance to Bishop Serius. “At that point I’ll probably add a recommendation about your replacement.”
With a smile that never advanced past the corners of his mouth, he stepped away from Jactans’s desk and moved to the pew along the wall, signaling the rest of us to follow.
“Will this work?” I muttered.
Bolt shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We’re not in that much of a hurry. Plus, I’ve noticed that one of the ways to get something from people you don’t like is to threaten them with the consequences of their own decisions.” He nodded to where Jactans sat at his desk, his lips pursed as he examined Bolt’s worn medallion. “And I meant what I said about suggesting Serius for the job.”
Gael took the seat on the opposite side of my guard. “But you’re dead.”
Bolt’s self-satisfied look soured. “Will you stop saying that? I disappeared. There’s a difference. You’re a smart girl—I’m sure you can work out what happened when I changed jobs, so to speak.”
She shook her head, unwilling to be put off. “But all the Errants died. I’ve read the accounts of the attack on Queen Chora. All four of you—Tento, Valens, Beald, and Consto—died saving her.”
“Almost all.” Bolt’s gaze grew distant, a look I’d seen on veterans as they sat over their ale remembering comrades who’d fallen. “Can we talk about something else?”
“I’m sitting next to a legend,” Gael said.
This last comment was too much for Jactans. His chair scraped across the floor as he rose, Bolt’s medallion in hand, to scurry over to the towering double doors of the Archbishop’s office and step through.
“Finally,” Gael muttered. “A moment longer and I would have had to kneel at your feet and kiss your boots.”
My guard smirked. “I thought you were laying it on a little heavy.”
She patted his check. “Only a little. I never really thought you were dead. Even the manuscripts in Bunard are clear on the fact that Tueri Consto disappeared after the attempt on Queen Chora’s life, but Jactans didn’t know that.”
The door to the Archbishop’s office opened, and Jactans came bustling out to bow to Bolt and the rest of us. “My humble apologies for the delay. The Archbishop will see you immediately, of course.”
Bolt held out his hand to the secretary. “Might I have my medallion back? It’s a bit worn, like me, but I’ve had it for a long time.”
Jactans bobbed his acquiescence. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
We stepped through the polished mahogany doors and into two thousand years of accumulated opulence. A long rosewood table that I could have used as a shaving mirror held a dozen gilded chairs across from a desk big enough for a squad of soldiers to stand on. The northern wall was filled from floor to ceiling with books, and I wondered idly if there were any there Custos hadn’t read. As I reminded myself to stop in to visit my old friend, I craned my neck to look at the mural on the ceiling, some twenty or thirty feet above eye level. Stained-glass scenes from the liturgy filled the southern wall and cast a rainbow of colors on the white marble floor.
Rory stood goggling at the altar against the east wall. All the implements were solid gold, and every edge of the dark wood had been gilded in the metal as well. “The sale of one serving plate could feed all the urchins for four years or more,” he whispered.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Bolt whispered back. “This is probably the most powerful man on the continent. He might not appreciate it if any of his toys went missing.”
The Archbishop himself sat at the desk, to all appearances waiting patiently for our shock and awe to run its course. A fringe of pure white hair ringed the tanned and age-spotted dome of his head and a short beard and mustache matched the fringe, but his eyebrows still held hints of jet that had been its color in his youth.
After a brief glance at Bolt, his gaze latched on to me, and he stood. “Greetings, Lord Dura.” His voice held hints of effort, as if he worked to force enough air from his lungs to be heard. He then nodded toward Bolt. “Errant Consto, it’s been too long since you’ve graced us with your presence here in Cynestol.”
Bolt shook his head. “You know why I don’t go by that name anymore and why I don’t come to Cynestol.”
The Archbishop shrugged. “Yes.” He sighed. “I do, but I so seldom meet a man of true humility. I think I can be forgiven if it throws me off balance.”
“It had nothing to do with humility, and you know it,” Bolt said.
Vyne nodded as he took in Gael and Rory with a glance that belied his years and I amended my original estimation. Archbishop Vyne, might be old, but he didn’t miss much. “Well, I suppose we’ve satisfied the obligatory pleasantries. How did you get stuck with this duty, Lord Dura? Did you roll double ones or draw the short straw? I told Hradian to bring Pellin or Toria Deel.”
I shrugged. “I more or less became Hradian’s desperation choice. If you’d wanted one of the others, you should have sent him earlier. Pellin and Toria Deel had already left by the time he got to us.” I cocked my head. “You don’t seem very disappointed.”
He nodded with a knowing look in his eyes. “I’ve found that an unexpected turn of events often leaves room for the will of Aer. I’ve been surprised more times than I can count when circumstances have turned out for the best precisely because events didn’t follow my particular plan. Tell me, did the Eldest find something more important to do elsewhere?” Vyne moved past me to take a seat at the head of the polished red-tinted table. I watched his reflection in the wood, like an offering of blood, as he waved at the chairs. “Please, be seated.”
I took the seat to his immediate left. Gael, Bolt, and Rory arrayed themselves along either side. “The Eldest keeps his own
counsel, Archbishop,” I said. “I noticed you sent striplings with Hradian. That seems to indicate a fear that there were dwimor operating in Cynestol. I’m told Queen Chora was hardly ancient and the crowds headed into and out of the city seem to indicate that she died before she could pass her gift on to her heir.”
“The youth were for the protection of the Vigil, Lord Dura. As for the queen, people die from accidents every day,” Vyne said. “Every great once in a while, those people are important. It would be a mistake to assume a probability equates to murder.”
“Do you think she was murdered, Archbishop? Do you need my unique combination of gift and skills?”
Vyne sighed as if I’d failed some sort of test, and his black and gray eyebrows drew together over his aquiline nose. “You disappoint me, Lord Dura. After Chief Brid Teorian’s reports, I expected to be witness to a more impressive display of investigative or intuitive acumen. Surely, your observations on the way to see me should indicate whether or not I believe your skills are needed.”
“I won’t know that until I gather a bit more information, Archbishop,” I said. “I’ve seen too many strange occurrences lately.”
His eyebrows lifted a fraction. “Really? Such as?”
“A suicide disguised as a murder.”
He nodded. “Ah, the girl, Viona Ness. The Chief of Servants told me about her. Very well. You wish to investigate the queen’s death. What do you offer in return?”
“What do you want, Archbishop?”
Vyne nodded. “Exactly what I would have required from Pellin, had he come here. The queen fell down a staircase to her death, and as you’ve conjectured, her gift has gone free. The most powerful throne on the northern continent is empty, and any number of men and women would do anything to fill it. I want you to use your gift to eliminate the pretenders.”
The Wounded Shadow Page 10
