by Carol Berg
As I crammed Gruchin’s coin into my pocket, the door opened to Gaetana.
CHAPTER TWELVE
18 QAT 43 DAYS UNTIL THE ANNIVERSARY
Gaetana’s chilly gaze slid from me to Dante and back again.
Dante snatched up the book that yet lay open on the floor and thrust it into my arms. “Does no one in this wretched place heed a man’s word? Keep this nursery tale, librarian, and bring me the books I asked for. I don’t care if you must copy them yourself or crawl all the way to Seravain to find them.”
I hunched my shoulders and gave a curt bow. “I just thought—”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” he said, taking up his staff. “I didn’t ask you to think. Another delay and perhaps I’ll prevent your thinking altogether. Now. Get. Out.”
His staff blurted fire and I scurried out the door, not stopping until I reached the window gallery. Gaetana’s derisive laughter followed me, scalding my ears as if I, too, could hear through walls.
I slid my journal into my doublet and smoothed the crumpled pages of the book Dante had shoved at me. Annoying to note my hands yet trembled, near an hour since his questioning. By all saints, why did any mention of my father throw me over? He couldn’t spring a knife on me again. Onfroi Guillame de Savin-Duplais was nine years over and done with, no matter what the cursed spyglass showed.
When I noted the title of Dante’s book, I almost laughed at the irony. Translated from the ritual language of the Kadr witchlords, its title Rolfkhedri Muerge meant Manifestations of the Dead.
As it happened, I had read the text before. It recounted a history of hauntings and phantasms, enumerating the distinctions between ghosts and spectres, spirits and souls. The writer had been the first to propose the idea that those we Sabrians called saints, the holy dead designated by the Pantokrator as his hand in the living world, actually walk among us reborn into bodily form—a manifestation he called a biengasi. The Cult of the Reborn had grown up around this theory.
Had Dante given me the tattered volume merely to support our diversion, or to keep the book from the woman’s observation, or as material for study? Some day I would force the damnable mage to answer a question or two. I hiked the overlong distance to my apartments, stowed the book behind my armoire, and set out for the administrator’s office to arrange my journey to Collegia Seravain.
THE SUPPLICANT BENCH SAT UNOCCUPIED when I reached Damoselle Maura’s office. The lady herself sat at her writing table, her eyes focused somewhere distant, her tightly folded hands pressed to her mouth. A pen lay idle on her writing table beside an unstoppered ink bottle and a ledger book.
“Divine grace, damoselle,” I said, tapping on her door, “are you well?”
The smudged eyes searched my face and promptly filled with tears.
I shut the door behind me. “Lady, may I be of some service? Fetch you wine . . . or some friend . . . a physician or apothecary, or”—it occurred to me that she might be of a religious bent—“perhaps a temple reader?”
“You still hear them, don’t you, sonjeur? They break your sleep, as well?”
No need to ask whom she meant. “Aye, damoselle. I try to believe . . . There was naught we could have done differently to save them.”
“I try that, too. Though I’m so afraid—” She quickly pressed fingertips to her lips, and a tremor racked her shoulders. Then she forced her features into something not quite a smile and picked up her pen. “What business brings you here this morning?”
That moment’s break between grief and resignation revealed emotion more disquieting than our shared memory of horror. “Lady, what frightens you so?”
“As you said, some matters we cannot alter. Some promises we cannot undo.” She tapped her pen on the table. “And now, please, sonjeur, your business . . .”
Without encouragement, I had no choice but to move on, yet I resolved to return to the question. “Two matters, damoselle. First, Mage Dante has become . . . um . . . insistent . . . about his books. I must travel to Collegia Seravain. My familiarity with the collegia’s policies suggests that some official representation of his position in Her Majesty’s household will facilitate his book borrowing. As to the second matter, you likely recall how Lord Ilario has tasked me to set up a scientific festival. . . .”
We spent the entire morning together laying out Ilario’s exposition, making lists and sketching venues, laughing at the infinite possibilities of magical and scientific exhibits that could astound Merona’s worldly citizens. The easy grace of her company, her bright mind and incisive wit, her consideration for the needs of guests and household only strengthened my growing admiration.
By midafternoon, she had obliged me with an official letter of request to the collegia for whatever materials I would specify, sealed with her authority as the queen’s representative. She also provided me a letter of credit and an instruction for the steward’s office to provide me a mount and expense money for my journey. And naturally, she offered referrals to a number of Merona’s tradesmen who might craft the scientific displays. Among them were several lens makers who might also provide a pair of spectacles at a reasonable price to a private secretary who had not yet received an advance on his pay.
I blotted the page where my unburnt left hand had awkwardly scribed the list of tradesmen, closed my journal, and stood to go, Maura’s letters in my grasp. “Damoselle, this day has been . . . exceptional. And now, please, will you not allow . . . Might I assist you in some more personal fashion? Or perhaps you have some other friend to confide in?”
I felt like a stammering fool. But throughout my worst days, the ready ear of my mentor, Kajetan, had coaxed me out of my skin’s armor, allowing me to release grief and fear and burdens held close since childhood.
She walked me to the door. “Ah, kind sonjeur, you have not lived long at Castelle Escalon. Friends are rare enough for one who holds the queen’s keys. Trustworthy confidants extremely so.” At least I had prompted a smile, however forlorn. “For the present, I must attend my lady and report on the day’s business.”
“I’ll be off, then. But good lady”—my hand rested on the door lever, still refusing to press it—“when I return from Seravain, would you consider—? I would deem it a great honor, and a great favor, if you would forego business and walk out with me some afternoon. I vow by my royal cousin’s head to provide you a trustworthy ear. Or you could regale me wholly with nonsense, if you prefer, as my appreciation of that art has grown deeper with recent experience.”
As the warmth from a morning fire sweeps quietly through a chamber to devour the night’s chill, so did the lady’s pleasure smooth her brow, soften her smile, and flush her cheeks to an even deeper hue. She dipped a knee and tilted her head most charmingly, causing my body to respond in ways it had near forgotten. “It would be my delight to engage in such a venture. Far too long has passed since I’ve spent an afternoon walk exchanging nonsense.”
“Well. All right, then.” I pulled open the door.
“Divine grace smooth thy journey, Portier,” she said as I stepped out, her voice enriching my name as clotted cream improves whatever sorry fruit it sits on.
It required the long, steep hike down to the lower city to replace unseemly distraction with my afternoon’s purpose. But mind triumphed over flesh, and I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring Merona’s craftsmen’s district. After a start on exposition business, I turned to the lens makers.
With six scattered shops on the list, it would have been simpler merely to ask if someone knew which shop used the radiant eye as its crafter’s mark. But Michel de Vernase might have pursued these same lines of inquiry, and I deemed it wise not to walk too obviously in his footsteps. Unfortunately, I completed my last interview at the last shop on the list without encountering any such mark on signboard, doorway, or lintel.
“Your spectacles will be ready tomorrow morning, sonjeur,” said a lanky young man named Watt at a tidy workshop called the Glass House.
I had not truly intended to buy spectacles, not being of an age to require such aids. Yet I had been astonished at the clarity of fine-printed text when reading through some of Watt’s sample lenses. When he proffered a guess that I might suffer blurred vision and watery eyes after prolonged reading, especially in poor light—which was exactly true—I asked how he knew. On a slate he used to tally up costs, he sketched a diagram of the human eye, as presented in a lecture at the collegia medica, he told me. With deft strokes he showed how rays of light enter the eye’s own lens at various angles from close and far objects, forcing the marvelous structure to alter its very shape.
I marveled at this knowledge and could have discussed the subject for another hour. The artistry of such a creation would surely convert a non-believer to the Pantokrator’s service. But as Watt totted up what I owed him, his sketch prompted me to one last inquiry.
I tapped a finger beside the drawing. “I’ve seen this pattern before,” I said. “An eye with rays of light streaming in or out. Simpler perhaps, but very like. I can’t think where. Has someone erected a copper plaque to memorialize this insightful scholar? I seem to recall it etched in metal.”
Watt laughed and from a shelf on his wall pulled out a common magnifying lens, its scuffed ring of tarnished brass fastened to a yellowed ivory handle. He pointed to a scratch on the brass ring. “Was this the mark?”
My soul exulted at the chance so nearly missed. “That’s it exactly. Is it your own?”
“Nay. ’Tis the mark of Reven Skye, a fellow artisan known more as a lampwright, who crafts both instruments and lenses to order. He’s a decent sort who works cheap. Only two streets over. In confidence”—he leaned forward—“he’s only a bargain if you don’t care about finish or precision. I can refer you to three instrument makers will do you better for a lord’s exhibition—and my lenses come second to no one’s. You’ll hear it said all over.”
I asked no further details, insisting my master would not tolerate poor work. But I explored the area “two streets over” from the Glass House and found Reven Skye’s grimy little shop down an alley. No one in such a place was going to believe I’d come to consult about a royal exhibit, so I presented the equally grimy Reven Skye a different story.
“A fellow from Castelle Escalon recommended you as one who could make uncommon instruments,” I said, exposing my hand quickly, so he could not identify the family mark. His own left hand was bare. “Perhaps incorporating a particular lens I’ve made myself.”
“Aye,” he said, and licked his yellow-brown front teeth. “I’ve done specialty work for your like. What kind of instrument? And who’s your friend?”
“He’d rather me not say, as he’s employed high, you know,” I said. “And the matter’s confidential. I’ve a need to peep in a gent’s window. See if my wife’s visiting. He said you do a fine spyglass.”
“Gruchin!” He leapt from his stool, sending tools and metal bits crashing to the floor. I was wholly unprepared when he barreled into me, his soft, heavy body crushing me against the table, fetid breath bathing my face and a rasp pointed at my eye. “Where is the whoreson villain? Near three years and he’s never paid me for the instrument. Sneaking belly-crawler, with his precious lenses and grand schemes. Claimed his luck had turned. Said the thing’d make us a fortune.”
“He’s dead . . . honestly, Goodman Skye . . . I’ve no money. . . .” My babbling attempts to divert his wrath soon convinced him I wasn’t worth a charge of murder.
“I don’t believe Gruchin’s dead,” he grumbled, grinding his rasp on a lump of bronze. “Some said it when his house burnt. But they only found his wife and youngling in it, and maybe his luck is what had him away from home when it happened. For sure as I’m born, not a year ago, he stole that cursed spyglass right out of here. Thieving weasel. I spotted him running away with it.”
A half hour and all the coins in my pocket save Gruchin’s double strike silver—the dead man’s luck charm, so I learned—and Reven Skye was back at work, mumbling of vengeance, thievery, and cheats. Climbing the hill to Castelle Escalon, I pieced together the story. After Gruchin was dismissed from the mages’ service, he had fashioned lenses with spells he’d learned from them. Skye said the guardsman had decided to make himself a sensation by selling glimpses through his magic spyglass, “Though I never saw the use of a miracle glass that showed naught but a blur.”
Verger Rinaldo would find no girl child to rescue. According to the lens maker, Gruchin’s house had burned shortly after his dismissal from the Guard Royale, well before the fateful arrow shot. I added the child and her mother to the tally of murders. Perhaps Gruchin had learned what they’d done to his family and planned his revenge all the months they’d bled him. But, for certain, early on the very day Gruchin donned the armor of a royal guardsman and joined the Guard Royale’s exercises, likely the only moment of freedom he’d had in almost two years, he had stolen the “useless” spyglass from Reven Skye’s workshop. Once he had taken his not-quite-murderous aim at the king, the mule had grasped his unholy glass and stood where the fallen guardsman could not possibly fail to kill him. Though his captors had muted him, he had found a way to expose something of their work.
Nothing suggested the mages had come looking for the spyglass, either before or after Gruchin’s death. An eager ferocity rushed through me. It seemed to me that unless a captive Michel de Vernase had told them, they didn’t know it existed.
CALVINO DE SANTO UNHARNESSED HIMSELF from the coal cart in the pale glow of a watchlamp.
“Speak to him or leave him be,” I murmured to Dante as we crouched in the alley watching. “Does it give you pleasure to spy on a good soldier’s shame?”
The tarry night of the stale, filthy alley behind the Guard Royale barracks obscured my companion’s face, though I doubted I could read any more answer there than usual. Dante had devoured my tale of Gruchin’s spyglass like a starving dog cleans a bone, then insisted on searching out the disgraced guard captain immediately, while revealing naught in return. We had expended an hour of the unseasonably warm evening hunting de Santo, and three more following him about his night’s drudgery. Every time I made a move to approach the man, Dante’s iron hand had held me back.
“Will you just—keep—silent?” he snapped through gritted teeth. “I’ve worked a theory.”
De Santo’s yoke and straps clattered as he threw them into the cart. He left it standing beside the black hill of coal that fed the guardpost braziers throughout the palace, then disappeared into the barracks doorway.
Annoyed at the wasted evening and Dante’s surly company, I stood, stretched out my aching legs and back, and cradled my throbbing hand. It was almost middle-night. “I’d like some sleep. I’m off to Seravain tomorrow early. We can test your theory when I get back.”
Dante’s cold grip encircled my ankle. De Santo had reappeared in a stream of yellow light spilling from the doorway, a blanket thrown over his shoulder and a pail in one hand. As the closing door shut off all but the pale watchlight, he turned away from us and trudged farther into the alley, where an iron fence barred the end, and the shadows were deep.
Metal clanked dully on stone. Water sloshed. The man coughed and spat. Silence fell, but Dante did not release his grip. Moments later, de Santo began to speak. “Holy angels, messengers of Father Creator”—the familiar prayer rose from the distant dark—“heed my petition for hearing and grace to ease the journey of Galtero de Santo, honored father, and Nicia, beloved mother, of Barela and Guilia, sisters fallen in their childhood, and Roland, son of my body. Let neither my dishonor nor my corruption taint their memorials or slow their steps. . . .”
His prayers were lengthier than those I dashed off each evening, and heartfelt as only a man who asked naught for himself could make them. I growled at Dante and dragged at his shoulder to come away. We had no right to hear this. But the mage would not budge. He gripped his staff and stared into the dark and whispered, “Discipline.”
I cl
osed my eyes and crushed my rising temper, and in that fathomless darkness behind my eyes appeared a snarled tangle of scarlet threads and purple barbs, and disjointed blots of shaded gray crossed with livid stripes. How could a pattern of color writ on the inside of my eyelids turn my knees to jelly?
“And for one other lost traveler, unmourned”—de Santo’s voice quavered—“hear me, most gracious angels and holy saints. . . . No, no, no!”
Shifting air stirred the warm stink of piss and rot in the windless alleyway. The chill, dry intrusion spoke of earth and dusty leaves and cedar.
“By Heaven’s grace, leave me be!”
When de Santo’s panic wrenched my eyes open, I thought Dante’s magical seeing had seared through my head. Faint silver flashes and purple flickering outlined the captain’s kneeling form. Not lightning. Only the great bulk of the palace armory stood beyond the iron fence at de Santo’s back. My stomach rolled.
“What do you want of me?” de Santo cried. “I pray for you. I can do no more than that.”
The light crawled about de Santo, shooting out tendrils of livid green and purple, charging the air to bursting. De Santo’s pleas disintegrated into a despairing moan.
I pressed my back to the brick and sank down beside Dante. “By the Creator’s hand, what . . . ?”
The question died on my lips. The mage had pulled out the spyglass, propping the brass body in his clawed right hand while holding the eyepiece with his functioning fingers. When he tried to adjust the eyepiece, the wider end slipped out of his dead fingers. Swearing softly, he tried again, with the same result.
I slipped my shoulder underneath as a prop and steadied the glass with my unbandaged hand. Better to be the support than the one peering through that cursed lens.
Dante’s breath caught; then he exhaled, long and slow. After a moment, he eased his grip on the glass and pressed it urgently into my hands. No mistaking his intent.
