Indeed, it was a sort of celebration, was it not? No matter that, until a few days ago, the exploits of the highwayman in question had been glorified in The Fox and other broadsheets favored by simpler folk. However, there was one thing people loved more than raising a hero up for his daring successes, and that was casting him down for his public failures. That the people who once drank to his name were the same people who now clapped and jeered and threw taunts at the gallows, Eldyn had no doubt.
Nor did the thought trouble him as it once had. He had once worried about the wisdom of the common folk—that, if given the chance to choose for their country, the people of Altania could not be trusted to choose well. Yet as he pressed through the throng and felt the glee, the outrage, the desire, he knew he had been wrong.
It was not for their wisdom that crowds were important. The people were not the head of Altania but rather its heart. It was their task to feel in a way that Assembly and the Crown could not: to laugh, to want, to lash out in anger or fear without reason or warning. A man might use logic to try to decide what was best, but without feeling—without craving or dread or revulsion—how was he to truly know what to do or feel pleased when it was done? Tomorrow it might be something else they wanted, but today the crowd wanted death.
And they would have it.
A roar went up in the square. The iron door had opened, and three men were led out, their hands and wrists in shackles. Two of them hung their heads as they went, but the third stood tall, a smile on his handsome face, his gold hair shining in the morning sun. He raised up his bound hands as if in a gesture of victory.
Hisses and cries of murderer! sounded all around. Someone threw a rotten cabbage, and it struck the tall man in the face. After that he lowered his arms, and he did not smile as the guards led him and the others up the steps of the scaffold.
Eldyn slipped between two groups of men and reached the front of the crowd, just below the gallows. The last time he saw Westen, the highwayman had looked at ease and assured. Now, despite his earlier display of bravado, he no longer appeared so confident as the hangman slipped the noose over his neck. There was a light of fear in his tawny eyes. All the same, he kept a proud face, his shoulders back and his head up.
After leaving the highwayman that day, Eldyn had written a letter to Rafferdy, explaining the danger to Lord Rafferdy and Mr. Quent and giving all the particulars of the highwayman’s plan. He had signed it only, A friend. He knew the letter might be greeted with some suspicion but also that it could not be ignored and that Lord Rafferdy would see to it there were soldiers at the ready.
Thus it was that Lord Rafferdy and Mr. Quent were delivered to the exact place, at the precise time, that “Sashie” had promised to Westen. And thus it was, when the highwayman and his compatriots prowled from the shadows (though in some accounts it was dogs who were with Westen, not men), guns fired, and the soldiers fell upon them. According to the stories in the broadsheets, the battle lasted only a few moments, and neither Lord Rafferdy nor Mr. Quent was injured in any way.
An energy moved through the crowd. Atop the platform, the nooses had been tightened around all three necks. The moment had almost come. Nearby, Eldyn saw a cart selling sweets. He went to it and bought a treacle tart. On the gallows, the hangman began putting hoods over the heads of the prisoners.
“Nothing stops today!” the highwayman called out, his voice rising over that of the crowd. “It cannot be stopped. The wind changes, and a storm comes. When it does, Altania will rise! Altania will—”
Catcalls and jeers drowned out his voice. His face went red as he tried to shout over the noise, but it was no use. Then the hangman came and put a black sack over his head.
Yes, a storm did come, Eldyn thought, but right now the sun was warm and the sky a flawless blue. Later he would head to St. Galmuth’s and meet Sashie. Since their ordeal, she had taken to going there every day to offer a prayer. She had been very sweet to him of late, plying him with frequent kisses on the cheek and always bringing him a cup of wine when he returned to the inn after a day of work at his new clerking position.
His sister had mentioned Westen only once since the night they fled from Lowpark.
“I thought his words meant more because they were whispered,” she said one day as they walked along the Promenade in their finest clothes. “And that his gifts, because they were secret, were all the more precious. However, I know now that real love does not come in shadows. It shows itself every day, in bright light for all to see.”
She had taken his hand in her own then, and as they walked through the greatday afternoon, he could not remember a time he had thought her so pretty or himself so blessed as a brother.
Today was his free day, so after going to St. Galmuth’s, he would seek out Dercy. There was time for a drink before tonight’s performance, and Dercy had promised to teach him some new tricks. However, there was no hurry. It looked as if the hangman had been bribed, for he had tied the ropes short. There would be no quick deaths today; the people would not be denied their entertainment.
Eldyn took a bite of the treacle tart. It was sweet and good. And when the hangman pulled the lever, he cheered along with the rest of the crowd.
THE PARLOR AT Lady Marsdel’s house on Fairhall Street was pleasantly quiet as its usual denizens amused themselves in their customary manner. Mr. Baydon read through the latest issue of The Comet while Lord Baydon sat on the sofa, hands resting on the expanse of his waistcoat, snoring softly. Nearby, Lady Marsdel fanned herself along with the bit of white fluff that served as her dog, for the afternoon had grown sultry. At the table, Mr. Rafferdy helped Mrs. Baydon fit together a puzzle.
Not that he was being of much assistance, she informed him at frequent intervals. Why, now that he was a magician, he could not simply work a spell to find the most confounding piece she was missing, she did not know. She could only imagine he enjoyed making it difficult for her.
“Isn’t that the point of a puzzle?” he asked her. “I thought it was supposed to be difficult.”
“Really, Mr. Rafferdy, for a clever man you seem to have a difficult time grasping the simplest things. One only wants puzzles to be difficult after they’re finished. That way one can feel proud of one’s accomplishment. However, while we’re in the act of doing them, it’s preferred that they are easy.”
He could not help smiling. “I believe that the most difficult puzzle in the room is yourself, Mrs. Baydon.” Then he picked up a piece and set it in place, much to her delight.
“I see you’re still wearing that awful ring,” she observed. “Though I suppose you have to if you’re going to be a magician. Still, it’s quite hideous. How unbearable it must be for you to wear so unfashionable a thing! Everyone must stare.”
Rafferdy lifted his right hand. The gem set into the ring sparked with blue fire, but it was only the sunlight glinting off the facets of the stone. “To tell you the truth, I don’t really care what others think of it,” he said. “I’ve rather grown to like it.”
Mrs. Baydon looked at him.
“Now it’s you who’s staring,” he said. “Do I have a bit of jam on my face or something?”
“You really have changed, Mr. Rafferdy,” she said. “And it’s not just when you’re wearing that new solemn look of yours. It’s the air about you. I suppose we’ll all have to start taking you seriously now.”
“Please don’t,” he said emphatically. “If you do, I’ll have to find others who will see me for the silly, worthless son of a lord that I am.”
“Every man has worth, Mr. Rafferdy. The only question is, how much?” With that she directed her attention back to the puzzle.
Rafferdy opened his mouth to utter a smart rejoinder; however, none came to him. He picked up a piece of the puzzle and turned it over and over in his fingers. The ring on his right hand shimmered as he did, and the thought came to him: She would say you have worth. Nor was it Mrs. Baydon this thought concerned.
The moment was still viv
id in his mind: the thrum of the ancient words of magick as he spoke them, the sapphire light that welled up from the circle of power to encapsulate the crystal orb, and the feeling on the air as if lightning were about to strike. He had always believed that power was the last thing in the world he desired. However, as he spoke the spell, he had wanted nothing more than to feel his own will at work.
And it had worked. By the time the blue light faded, the sphere no longer expanded like a widening eye. Instead, it had shrunk in on itself and had gone dark. The only light within it was a single dim spark of crimson. The binding had been renewed.
So the spell had worked, but why had he been given the opportunity to speak it at all? The magicians had entered the room, they had bound him so that he could not move, could not see or hear. Then the next thing he knew Ivy was calling to him, and the magicians had stood before the artifact, their eyes, their expressions, empty.
He could not help a shudder as he recalled the looks on their faces. It was clear they had gazed through the eye and that their minds—indeed, their very souls—were gone. But why? They had seen what happened to the one who looked through earlier; surely they had known not to repeat his folly.
Mrs. Quent had said only that they had been forced to gaze into the eye. How, he did not know. Perhaps, as the binding upon it weakened, it was the artifact itself that had drawn their gazes against their will. One thing he did know was that, whatever its origin and nature, the eye was a thing of unsurpassed evil. Mr. Lockwell had understood. That was why he had sacrificed himself to keep other members from the Vigilant Order of the Silver Eye from opening it.
What would he have sacrificed to prevent its opening? Rafferdy hadn’t been forced to answer that question, a fact for which he was glad. Nor would he have to answer it in the foreseeable future. The binding on the artifact had been restored, and none of the magicians would ever come again to try to open it, for they were all up at Madstone’s now.
Yet they were not the only ones who knew about the Eye of Ran-Yahgren.
What had become of Mr. Bennick, they did not know. They had not seen him at the house on Durrow Street after working the spell, and he had not shown himself at Lady Marsdel’s since that day. Perhaps he had returned to his manor in Torland. Even if he remained in the city, there was nothing he could do to open the doorway himself. He was not a magician.
Yet whether or not he could do magick, there was no doubt he was still a dangerous man. Mr. Quent’s letter had made that clear. And while it was only a feeling, Rafferdy could not dismiss the idea that he would see Mr. Bennick again one day. Indeed, he counted upon it.
And I’ll have learned more by then, he thought, twisting the ring on his right hand. Much more…
“You look very determined all of a sudden,” Mrs. Baydon said. “Are you scheming something, Mr. Rafferdy?”
“Only whether to buy a new coat before a new hat, or the other way around.”
With that he rose, called for his cane, and begged his leave of Lady Marsdel. This was granted, if grudgingly, and he went out into the bright afternoon.
He had promised to dine with his father that night, for Lord Rafferdy was still in the city. Although the lumenal was not long, he still had several hours to waste, so he walked along the Promenade, past gardens of flowers and groups of young women, all similarly clad in color. However, none of them caught his eye.
Lord Rafferdy had not told him why he thought the rebels had been plotting against him. When the anonymous letter arrived at Warwent Square, Rafferdy had thought it some sort of prank, but there was something about the urgency with which it was written that had caused him to show it to his father, and Lord Rafferdy had taken it seriously.
Which was fortunate. As it turned out, there had indeed been an attack planned against Lord Rafferdy upon Mr. Quent’s return to Invarel. However, the king’s men had been ready, and the rebels had been apprehended. Rafferdy could only believe the threat against his father had passed.
Yet why had those men sought to harm him in the first place? Rafferdy had never wanted to know the nature of his father’s business, had studiously avoided it. Since the thwarted attack, however, he could not help wondering exactly what sort of work it was that his father did for the Crown, with which Mr. Quent assisted him.
The lord inquirer. That was the person Mrs. Quent had come to the Silver Branch to meet that day—the person who had been none other than Lord Rafferdy himself. Of what sort of things was he an inquirer? Was it for these inquiries that the rebels had wished to do away with him? Perhaps tonight, if his father spoke again of duties and responsibilities, Rafferdy would not be so quick to change the subject.
He looked up as a cart rattled by, and he realized he was no longer in the New Quarter but instead walked through the narrow ways of the Old City. Perhaps he should go to the Sword and Leaf and see if Eldyn Garritt was there. It would be good to meet with his old friend, to have a drink, and to laugh a bit.
However, as he turned a corner onto a broader way, he realized it was not in search of his friend Garritt that his feet had unwittingly brought him here. Just ahead was an iron fence and high hedges of green. It was Durrow Street he walked down now, and not twenty paces away was a wrought-iron gate.
At that moment a black carriage came to a halt before the gate. Rafferdy ducked into the cover of a doorway, then peered back out. A man exited the carriage. He was neither tall nor handsome and wore a brown suit that could only generously be described as old-fashioned. His shoulders were thick and rather slumped, and behind a coarse beard his face was grim—though, Rafferdy thought, not unkind.
Indeed, as he reached into the coach to help another, lither figure exit, that beard parted in a smile, and he looked younger than he had a moment before. The object of his attention smiled in return, a very pretty expression and one that Rafferdy, not so long ago, would have given much to have received for his own.
The young woman stepped into the street, the skirt of her green dress swirling around her like leaves. She started to accompany the bearded man toward the gate, only then she paused, looking over her shoulder in the direction where Rafferdy stood. He shrank back into the alcove, counting twenty heartbeats. Then he peered around the corner again.
The carriage was gone, the street empty.
He stood there for a minute, looking at the closed gate. At last he took a breath and made his way back down the street. It wasn’t far to the Sword and Leaf, and he still had several hours before it was time to meet his father. He might as well go to the tavern. And who knew? That rascal Eldyn Garritt might even show up while he was there.
“If he does, it’s his turn to buy the punch,” he said aloud.
This thought cheered Rafferdy greatly. He gave his cane a toss, caught it in his hand, then went to get himself a drink.
THE LUMENAL HAD ended long ago, but twilight lingered for hours, and the night was only just begun.
Usually Ivy felt a feeling of oppression when the almanac told her it was to be a long umbral: an irrational but nevertheless persuasive dread that the night would never end, that day was only a fantasy she had made up, a notion conjured from imagination and books, and that all there ever had been and ever would be was darkness. However, she did not feel that way tonight. As far as Ivy was concerned, a greatnight could not possibly have hours enough.
Then again, it wouldn’t matter how long the night was if he did not cease working at his business.
“So you think me terribly dull, do you, then, Mrs. Quent?”
Ivy blinked, sitting up in her chair. “What in the world do you mean? I think no such thing.”
“Is that the case? Then why did you yawn so prodigiously just now?”
She put a hand to her mouth, realizing it was so.
He tapped his pen against the ink bottle and wrote another line on the parchment before him. “Indeed, considering the evidence, you must have concluded I am dull to an exceeding degree. How could you not? For here before you is a man w
ho has not seen his new wife in over a month—and she is a very charming wife, it should be noted. Now night has finally come, yet he continues to sit at his desk writing letters.”
“I’m sure they are very important letters.”
“They are. But to a young wife they should seem only to be tedious things, pointless and utterly silly.”
She laughed. “I am sure nothing you do is silly, Mr. Quent.”
He looked up, displaying a sudden grin. With his hair and beard being somewhat in need of trimming, he looked suddenly quite wild, like a faun from a Tharosian play, scheming mischief. She had never seen him like this. All her affections, which had filled her upon his return to the city, were renewed even more strongly, and warmly, than before.
“Perhaps I can prove you wrong, Mrs. Quent,” he said. “But first—” He sighed. “First I must continue to be dull and finish one last missive.”
She rose from her chair. “In that case, I will go say good night to my sisters. If I desire some silliness, I am certain at least one of them will be able to comply.”
However, he had already bent back over the desk. Her smile faded, and for a moment she could not help being reminded of how his work had so often taken him away from Heathcrest, leaving her alone. Ivy left the room, quietly shutting the door behind her.
They had taken the uppermost rooms at the Seventh Swan, an inn not far from the Halls of Assembly. It was a fine establishment—perhaps overly fine, Ivy thought, given that some of the other guests were from the families of magnates. Nor did she think Lily and Rose required their own rooms. But Mr. Quent had insisted. He said that since both were ladies grown, they each deserved a private chamber.
Ivy thought Mr. Quent was under the mistaken impression that Lily was older than sixteen (having just had her birthday). However, she reconsidered when this announcement won him a great amount of admiration on Lily’s part and even an enthusiastic kiss on his bearded cheek. For her part, Rose was astonished beyond words, but her beaming smile spoke clearly.
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