The Spirit Lens

by Carol Berg

  “He’s been dead more than a day,” said Dante, kneeling up. “There’s no rigor. What blood he had left is well settled in his legs—he was standing or, more likely, hanging.” Raw wounding encircled Edmond’s wrists.

  “No bound enchantments cling to the corpus. Given more time, I might be able to determine where he was kept.”

  “Can you learn how he was brought here?” I asked.

  “I doubt that.” Dante shrugged, rising.

  Restive murmurs among the guests had yielded to excited babbling and pointing fingers. I excused myself and hurried to the back of the pendulum circle where people pressed against the silken ropes, craning to catch a glimpse of the fallen man. Surely someone had noticed the bundle carried in.

  “Scholar,” I said to a young academician. “A word with you . . .” Two sharp-eyed ladies and a gentleman with a shock of red hair pressed close behind the young man. “Did you—or any of the rest of you—happen to notice our ailing gentleman stumble into the circle? We’re seeking the rest of his party. But his tongue is a bit thick, as happens with the falling sickness, so we could not understand the names. He’s wearing a purple mantle. . . .”

  Though everyone behind the stanchions wished to speak, none had anything useful to report. They had been watching the light beams or the pendulum or had looked away just then. Several mentioned the lights going dark, but no one had observed anything odd or anyone looking ill.

  When I returned, frustrated, to the pendulum, two guardsmen with a litter had joined Ilario and Philippe. Dante had vanished. “Where’s the mage?”

  “Says he’s gone to ‘check the perimeter.’” Ilario knelt at Edmond’s side, tucking the purple wrappings about the young man’s long limbs.

  “Bear the poor gentleman carefully, lest he suffer another spasm,” I whispered to the guards. “Keep gawkers away. As you can see, his sickness shames him. Chevalier, will you show them where to lay him?”

  The soldiers lifted Edmond’s enshrouded form gently and followed Ilario through the parting crowd. Once they had gone, Philippe crooked a finger at the lamp. I held it close as he broke the seal on the letter.

  After only a moment he refolded the paper and passed it to me. “You need not fear you’ve erred in your conclusion, cousin.”

  What have I learned?

  First: To explore the new, one must not fail to look behind and inward.

  Second: Setbacks on the field of battle winnow the weak.

  Third: All secrets are writ in blood.

  Never more in your shadow.

  Curiosity begged me to probe Philippe’s understanding of this message. But the man had receded to an untouchable distance, as if Discord’s Worm, lurking beyond the horizon, had sucked down the roiling ocean. Only the king remained. He pulled a slender scroll from his brocade waistcoat. “Dispatch this to the warder at the Spindle. At middle-night I will come down to the docks to welcome my wife home.”

  An unseemly rush of relief and excitement engulfed me. Father Creator, by morning, Maura could be free. I needed to notify an accomplice that our game was on. I needed to get to the harbor before the cordon of guards tightened around it to protect Philippe. Yet the Aspirant’s accomplice, and all the answers he could provide, might be lurking in the Rotunda.

  As I wrestled with the conflicting demands of duty and desire, Philippe strode back down the aisle to the dais, his authority like a gale wind sweeping away his guests’ doubts and fears. “We have done for our ailing gentleman what can be done,” he announced. “So let us declare this an interlude to savor the wine and delicacies in the Portrait Gallery, then return and proceed with this extraordinary event. I would see what these mages have to offer that can match our astronomers’ exceptional presentation.” The king bowed to his two astronomers as would his own most gallant chevalier.

  The assembly applauded and cheered. Conversation burgeoned as children were released from their seats, and ladies called to friends, and gentlemen expounded on the afternoon’s events to any who would listen. Philippe and Baldwin led the way through the wide doors. The glittering guests pooled behind them and flowed like a mighty river into the gallery.

  I had never imagined a king’s life to be so like a player’s, or a spy’s, forced to live masked and walk through scenes no matter the state of his health or his heart. As with so many of the grand destinies explored on my boyhood nights, truth was altogether different from the dreaming. I could not run off to play rescuer. Not yet. I had a murderer to catch.

  Once I had dispatched a messenger with Philippe’s orders to the Spindle, another to the Lestarte brothers that they should delay the fireworks display until middle-night, and left a brass token in a palace alleyway to alert my evening’s accomplice, I hurried into the Great Hall. The exhibits had been dismantled. A few, like the virginal, sat atop wheeled carts, waiting to be hauled out.

  A sheen of silver flickered beyond the colonnade at the far end of the hall. Even at so great a distance, Dante’s magic shimmered in my veins, as unlike the sorry residues of the day’s magical displays as this palace was to a bondsman’s hovel. I stayed away from him, though, not wanting to associate our activities.

  Each of the twelve entrances to the Great Hall remained manned and guarded. I interviewed the registrars and scanned their lists, paying particular attention to persons who had arrived in the last hour. Most names were familiar, though oddly . . .

  “No one at all passed the door between the quarter hour and the half hour?” I asked the registrar at the southwest door. The gap only struck me because the registry for the southeast door had shown the same quarter hour with no entries.

  The young woman peered at her page full of time notations and signatures. “None. We don’t have the servants sign each time they come through. We just tally them on their own list as you told us. But . . . I suppose not.”

  I returned to the registries I’d already examined. Every entry register exhibited the same quarter-hour gap. The tower bells had struck sixth hour as Edmond was carried away, which meant the Rotunda would have gone dark no less than a half-hour previous—approximately the same time interval, which meant . . . what? That everyone in Castelle Escalon had gone blind for a quarter hour?

  Magic, surely, yielding just time enough for someone to carry a body in and leave again. Perhaps Dante’s perimeter could tell us whose magic had left us blind.

  Unfortunately, Dante had left the Exposition. Indeed, no one had seen the mage since he’d been “working his devilry” in the Portrait Gallery. Damn the man! Where had he gone?

  I raced up the stair and around the long route to the east wing, calculating the time I had to get questions answered. The supper interlude would consume at least another hour and a half. Once the king returned to the Rotunda, Orviene would begin his demonstration. And then Dante would be needed on the dais. And he wanted me in the Rotunda. Saints knew why.

  Jacard’s chair outside Dante’s apartments sat empty. I barged in without knocking. The mage was not at home. I was not tempted to linger. The air in his great chamber squirmed and wriggled as if I were immersed in one of the royal fishponds. He had wanted more time with Edmond’s corpus, so I took off for Ilario’s apartments.

  Michel had surely intended Edmond’s murder to demonstrate his own superior strength and cleverness, as well as a serious vulnerability in Philippe’s household. Vulnerability to sorcery, to intrusion, instilling fear, uncertainty, and suspicion in the court, and in Philippe himself. The Conte Ruggiere had proclaimed himself an enemy so bold as to murder the son of Philippe’s friends and perhaps . . .

  My suspicion of Edmond’s parentage would explain Philippe’s confidence in his choice of heir. How much better than some random courtier would be a son of his own body, a well-educated, well-trained young noble of intelligence and modesty. Though a bastard could not inherit directly, anyone’s name could be scribed on the Heir’s Tablet in the royal crypt. Perhaps that was when Michel’s rebellion had begun. Never again in your
shadow. Perhaps the common soldier raised so far above his station, for twenty years the king’s closest friend, had expected his own name to be etched in stone.

  Captain de Segur’s two men stood watch outside Ilario’s door. “Sorry, sonjeur,” one said, barring me from approaching. “Chevalier de Sylvae commanded none is to enter.”

  “I am the chevalier’s secretary, Savin-Duplais,” I said. “Inquire.”

  Moments later, Ilario was dragging me toward his small sitting room. “Blessed saints, Portier, the lad was so hurt, so . . . damaged.”

  Edmond was laid out on the divan. Dante was bent over him, scraping at the lacerations.

  “There you are!” I said, relieved. “What have you learned?”

  The mage corked a glass vial and tossed it into a cloth bag that rattled as if it held more such vials. “I’m trying to understand what was done here. The spells used on him are the same used when they took your blood—which means only that they used the same implements. It is likely his injuries were inflicted by the same who inflicted the first of your leeching marks—this Aspirant. Not surprising. Clearly they planned from the first to kill him. One-and-twenty days since he left here, and he was dying for most of that time. But whyever would they leech a man with no blood family connection?”

  “Cruelty, taunting, smirking. Michel’s telling us he still has tricks.” The words burst out of me without thought. For reasons I had no time to explore, I could not tell Dante what I suspected about Edmond’s parentage. “Or perhaps this was sheer vengeance. We found Eltevire. Forced him to destroy it and retreat before he knew how to use it. Transference is only a means to some greater magical end, and Eltevire, in whatever perverse way, represents that end. Michel’s letter, setting up this murder, came to Philippe the very night we returned to Merona. And then Philippe set the dogs on Michel and his family. The conte must have been furious, doubly so when he lost Gaetana. I doubt we’ll know more than that until we question Michel himself.”

  Dante lifted his dark brows, then turned back to examine Edmond’s fingers. The damnable mage likely knew I was withholding. But the matter was too private—for my cousin, for Lady Susanna, for the queen—and it was only a guess. Ilario stood in the doorway, fondling his crocodile charm, eyes averted.

  “So, what did you learn from the perimeter?” I said.

  Dante untangled the purple mantle from Edmond’s long limbs. “Michel’s son is here.”

  “Ambrose!” The startling news pushed aside speculation. This was bold. Brazen. My doubts about Michel’s stellar family were rapidly diminishing.

  “The boy entered the Exposition early in the day. He lied about his name, but a pattern on the perimeter shield matched the one at Montclaire. I found no evidence of his leaving.”

  “What of the contessa or the daughters? Have they even arrived in Merona?”

  “None of them crossed the boundary, as far as I could tell. Alas, the boy did not accompany our dead man. Mayhap he was a scout, though. An hour or so after he arrived, a gentleman brought in a ‘sickly cousin determined to see the displays.’ Evidently the cousin had fainted, and two of the guards helped carry the man in. They deposited him on a bench under the colonnade so he could recover. The impression on the perimeter showed only three men crossing the perimeter together at that time, not four, but then, my enchantment reveals only living persons, not dead ones. Sadly, neither the guards nor your registrar glimpsed the sick man’s face. They didn’t worry, as the person who brought him was familiar—a householder, too. The fellow made a tick mark by some earlier signature on the servant’s list; thus he scribed only the sick man’s name on the registry—Largesse de l’Aspirant.”

  “Gift of the Aspirant,” I said, mouth awash in bitterness. “And, naturally, no one could remember the householder’s name or could say which signature on the servant’s list he annotated.”

  “Not a one of them.” Dante buckled his bag.

  “And so this mysterious householder waited and placed Edmond in the pendulum circle when the Rotunda went black to hide him,” I said. “That was done with magic, wasn’t it? You sensed it. I was watching you. I’d wager the householder left the palace right then. Every guest register shows a quarter hour gap just at that time.”

  “Just before the light vanished, I detected a burst of infantile spellwork, scarce stronger than a beginning student’s. And you guess rightly. I found a second impression of the mysterious householder, a few hours later than the first—very likely the time of the darkness. He departed.”

  “Did he work the darkening spell?”

  “Perhaps. I’d too little to go on.” Dante hefted his bag, retrieved his staff, and slid the hearthside gargoyle that opened the hidden panel in Ilario’s wall. “Now, we’ve twittering birds yet to shock, student. Are you coming?”

  “I’d best leave the way I came,” I said. “But I’ll be there.” Considering Dante’s erratic behavior, his insistence on my presence could not but leave me uneasy, but I reminded myself that he had saved my eyesight, the use of my hand, and my life twice over. He had earned my trust. Sadly, I was finding it harder and harder to give.

  As the panel closed behind Dante, Ilario laid a silk sheet over Edmond. “I’ll summon the Verger,” he said. “My physician will swear to whatever I tell him. He’ll assume he was drunk when he examined the ‘ailing guest.’ ”

  “How will my cousin bear this?” I said, softly.

  Ilario glanced up sharply, as if to see if I understood fully what I asked. He nodded slightly and expelled a long breath. “Rock-headed as he can be, abrupt, unforgiving, shortsighted, tyrannical when it comes to matters in which he has no interest, Philippe de Savin-Journia was born to carry his office. He’ll do what’s necessary to see Sabria safe. Not even this will break him.”

  “Will you meet with him tonight?”

  “Yes. He must set Geni free now. If I have to challenge him to a duel, I’ll see he does it.”

  I smiled at his ferocity, seeing both the Ilarios I knew at once, as if the man stood before his own reflection in a distorted mirror. “No challenges, Chevalier. He’s already sent orders to the Spindle. He’ll meet her at the harbor at middle-night.”

  “Saints and angels.” Ilario’s head sagged against the wall. But after no more than a moment, it popped up again. “What of your mysterious plan to aid Maura? Will this help? Set it back? If you’d just tell me what I stuck my neck into . . .”

  “Your sister will send word that she requires her full honors for her return—proper clothes, her ladies. She is vindicated and does not wish to skulk back to the palace like a freed convict. You should support her in her request.” I hoped to tell him without telling him.

  “Certainly, I will support her. Though . . .” No one could twist his face into a mournful knot as could Ilario. “Portier, this is not a night to press Philippe.”

  “He must accede to her requests, lord. Please. Your sister desires it.”

  After much groaning reluctance, and varied attempts to coerce, threaten, and plead his way into my secrets, Ilario agreed, as he had for the past ten days, to remain ignorant.

  “Your sister promised to be sensible, lord. I reminded her there were other ways to help Maura if circumstances did not settle right tonight.” In actuality, however, she had recognized, as I did, that her own freedom would likely signal Michel’s guilt—and reduce Maura’s life to days, if not hours.

  Ilario knew these things, too. “If Geni comes to harm from this, I’ll come after you, Portier. At which circumstance you’d best remind me that she would have locked us both in a hermitage for not telling her about poor Maura.” He was not jesting.

  He walked me to the door. “Do you believe Dante about the magic? A spell that could make twenty door wardens fail in their duties and erase every speck of light in the Rotunda seems more than student’s work. The mage seems . . . off . . . since you came back from Vernase. He doesn’t so much as insult me anymore.”

  “I’d think you w
ould appreciate that.” A glib answer, but I had no other, save that Dante meant what he said about being finished with us. “I make no guesses about Dante just now,” I said. “But I’d not . . . He is cooperating with me today, as he did at Montclaire, but he vows our partnership ends tonight. Something’s twisted him—the sorcery he’s working, anger about his interrogation at the Bastionne—so I’m inclined to believe he means it. I find myself wary of him, and you should be, as well. But then you’ve been wary of him for a long while.”

  He waved off my concession. “I’ve lived at court many years. I don’t trust anyone save you, student.”

  I could not but laugh at his perfect mimicry of Dante’s inflection. But he sobered quickly, his palm weighing the green silk spall pouch at his waist. “This is getting much too heavy, Portier. Keep yourself safe.”

  I laid a hand on his shoulder, wishing I could assure him that all would be well. I had come away from the Spindle with the impression that Eugenie de Sylvae resembled her half brother in many ways of importance, certainly in courage, loyalty, and determination. But belief would be impossible until the queen walked on shore into her husband’s arms with no alarm raised.

  As I started down the corridor and the east wing stair on my way back to the Rotunda, I considered the “darkening” magic. With Gaetana dead, who would Michel charge with delivering his dreadful message to Castelle Escalon? We had assumed all along that other magical practitioners were involved, like Quernay at Eltevire. Assuming such a spell would take training . . . I paused for a moment and closed my eyes to recall the young men and women lined up with Orviene behind the dais, matching faces and names with the household roster of adepts and acolytes I’d jotted in my journal not long after I’d arrived here. Only one face was missing, as it had been for more than a month. . . .