Closer to the Chest

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Next time, let’s do this in the library,” Mags suggested. “Or maybe some room in the Palace. I finally feel like I kin breathe again.”

  She nodded, and placed a couple of cushions and a rug back where they belonged, although the girls had been very good about cleaning up after themselves. They’d even carried away the teapots and baskets of mugs. There wasn’t a crumb of cake left, of course.

  “So?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Looks like for the Grays he pretty much concentrated on things like you’re not fit t’wear the uniform, your teachers won’t tell you how stupid you are but I will, an’ stuff’n’nonsense like that. Either he didn’t go snoopin’ on their personal lives, or—huh—if Lord Jorthun is right, an’ he’s usin’ some kind of Farsight, maybe he was afraid Trainees’d somehow pick ’im up.”

  “Is that possible?” she wondered aloud.

  “Hell if I know. I didn’ even know there was people with Gifts outside of the Collegia.” He let out his breath in an annoyed puff.

  “Neither did I,” she confessed. “It’s just not something that ever came up.” She hesitated a moment. “What do you think the Trainees will do now?”

  He managed a faint smile. “Other than watch the message baskets like cats at a mousehole, an’ prolly alert the Poison Pen that that ain’t gonna work? Go back t’normal. That’s all of ’em, not just the Grays. All the young’uns wanted t’know was that we was takin’ ’em serious, and we’re lookin’ into it. They see you takin’ point on this one—an’ you’re King’s Own. That lets ’em know we’re takin’ it very serious.” She looked at him doubtfully, but he gave her more of a genuine smile. “Mebbe the Court thinks of you as somethin’ else, but t’these Trainees, you’re King’s Own. They seen more’f you than they ever did of your Pa. They got no doubt of who’s King’s Own, and neither do their Companions.”

  She felt a surge of gratitude to all those serious-faced girls who’d squashed themselves into her sitting room. And along with that gratitude came another unexpected emotion. Confidence. For once she actually felt like the King’s Own.

  “Anything else we can do here?” she asked. He shook his head, and his stomach growled. She chuckled. “Well then, let’s get some dinner, before you wither away.”

  • • •

  Days passed, and Mags’ assessment of the situation, at least so far as the Trainees were concerned, turned out to be completely accurate. If there was any unease, not one of them showed it. No one came running and demanding answers; no one came tattling on anyone else. A few more Poison Pen letters turned up, this time arriving from outside the Hill with the regular letters and messages, and were handed over without a demur. There were no protestations of innocence, no cries of indignation—well, except the indignation from those who had assigned themselves to watch over the message baskets, when it became clear that the Poison Pen wasn’t going to go that route anymore.

  Mags continued to lurk around the Court in his guise of Magnus, but other than noting the increasing tension, suspicion, and irritability among the Court ladies, he didn’t get much for his pains but a great deal of gossip. At least he was able to assure himself that Hawken had settled into the middle of a group of solid, reliable young fellows, and that the two youngest of Lord Lional’s children were engrossed in studies they appeared to find highly rewarding. Loren hadn’t even plagued him for that introduction to the Weaponsmaster, and as for Hawken, he didn’t seem in any hurry to take Magnus up on his offer to take him to Flora’s. So either he and his new friends had already gone down there themselves, which was likely enough, or he had enough to occupy his attention up here on the Hill. In either case, he was still friendly with Magnus, but it was obvious he preferred the company of the lads his own age.

  Eh, I’m an old man, making myself ridiculous trying to keep up with the young dogs . . .

  For his part, he was very glad that Coot was now in charge of the messengers, and he had a good solid network of his own keeping an eye on things down in Haven. Regular notes, so carefully printed out that Mags had to smile a little in sympathy for the effort it must have cost the lad, came up from Coot every other day, making sure he was kept apprised of everything the young man and his small army learned, and that all was well with Aunty Minda and the youngest of the gang.

  At least there was no more nonsense from any of the other thief-masters. Evidently the second confrontation had convinced them that Harkon was not to be trifled with, and no matter how they felt about the littles that had escaped their clutches, they’d best stick to working with adult thieves if they knew what was good for them.

  Mags managed to get down into Haven long enough to contact Teo and ask him to keep his ear to the ground for any rumors about the Order of Betane of the Axe and let the men at the pawn shop know immediately if he heard anything. In his own person, he paid a visit to the Prioress, but all she could tell him was that there had neither been more letters nor more outrages.

  “But perhaps that has as much to do with our vigilance as anything else,” she had added, a little grimly.

  And so matters stood, as true summer cast its own influence over the city and the Hill. Increasingly warm days either made tempers so much shorter he expected every day for a fight to break out among the women fanning themselves, or induced such languor that even speaking a cross word seemed too much of an effort.

  Mags hoped for more of the latter . . . but feared the former.

  • • •

  “Fire! FIRE!”

  The shouts and the sounds of the Collegium bells being rung in alarm jolted Mags out of an uneasy sleep. He leapt to his feet—it was easy enough, neither he nor Amily had been able to bear so much as a sheet on them, and he was wearing the thinnest sort of excuse for sleeping trews. He made sure the drawstring was tight, and ran for the open door to the bedroom. As he sprinted through it into the sitting room he could see the reflection of flames in the glass of the greenhouse beyond. He paused just long enough to thrust his feet into a pair of the ankle-length boots that were all that were comfortable in the heat, and ran outside.

  Something was going up like an uncontrolled torch out there!

  To his immense relief, it was immediately obvious that the fire was a small one, and confined to an area of the garden. But his relief soon gave way to dismay when he realized that the thing that was on fire was vaguely human-shaped.

  What the hell . . . tell me it ain’t . . .

  :It’s not alive, Mags,: Dallen said immediately. :It never was alive. It’s some sort of . . . object.:

  By the time he got to the source, the gardeners were already there, throwing buckets of water on what proved to be an effigy. It was human-shaped, indeed. And wearing a crude gown.

  Mags cursed under his breath.

  “Blast an’ damn these young’uns!” the head Gardener snarled as he ran up to the group, lantern in hand—a lantern that was needed now that the fire was out. “Ain’t they make enough work for us’n wi’out settin’ fires t’poppets i’middle o’ night?”

  Now that he was able to see, Mags stepped forward to examine the thing. “’Ere now!” the Head Gardener objected. “Leave thet be! Happen summon oughta see ’bout it—”

  “It’s all right, Siman, I’m Herald Mags, and I’m the proper person to be seeing about it,” Mags replied, being especially careful about his accent and speech, since he certainly wasn’t wearing Whites. But a cultured accent, and the fact he knew the gardener’s name should be enough to establish his credentials.

  “Oh! Beggin’ yer pardon, Herald,” Siman said, immediately contrite. “What kin we do fer ye?”

  “Uproot this wretched thing and help me get it back to my rooms before anyone else comes nosing about,” Mags replied. “I don’t think too many people heard the call of ‘fire,’ and I’d just as soon we didn’t have a festival out here.”

  It took only o
ne man to pull up the stake the effigy was tied to; it appeared that it had been planted in a newly turned and planted bed, and Siman was very put out about the damage to the tender plants. Mags left him and the other gardeners to do whatever they were going to do about the garden plot and directed his erstwhile assistant to help him get the effigy into the greenhouse. Absolutely no point in checking that flowerbed for footprints, he thought with annoyance. It’s been trampled all over by too many people at this point. And there was no point in examining people for dirty shoes. Once off the flowerbed, the perpetrator of this “prank” would merely have to wipe his or her feet on the turfed paths, and there would go any evidence. And, of course, the turf would show no further footprints.

  Amily waited until the gardener had left before coming out to the greenhouse with another lantern, barefoot, with her hair loose around her shoulders. “That was the fire?” she asked, as he bent over the half-burned effigy.

  “Yes, and I don’t think it’s a Trainee prank,” he replied, examining what was left of the thing. It was definitely supposed to be female; it had long hair made of yarn, big, pillowy breasts, and a tightly cinched-in waist. He thought there had probably been a face painted on it, but that part of the effigy was too badly burned to be sure in this light. It had been clad in a rudimentary sort of gown made of what appeared to be old bedsheets, but it had an improvised corselet made of some old black material tied tightly around the waist area to emphasize the size of the “breasts,” so he doubted the fact that the gown was white signified anything. It was far more likely that the thing had been made of whatever came to hand.

  “I can’t see much in this light,” he finally said. “We’ll look at it again in the daytime.”

  Amily nodded, and led the way back into their bedroom.

  “Is it—” she asked hesitantly, as he kicked off his half-boots and lay back down on the bed, wearily.

  “Very likely,” he replied, as she put the lamp out and settled in beside him. “The Trainees know better than to pull a trick like this right now, and there’s no one in the Court who I think would be likely to think of it.”

  “There’s no one in the Court who’d be willing to get up in the middle of the night in this heat just to engineer anything of the sort,” she responded dryly. “And why would they? If it had been meant to represent someone, something about it would have been immediately unmistakable, and there’s no one I know in the Court who’s angry enough at women in general to go to all that effort.”

  He groaned, and let his accent slip. “An’ a-course, everybody’ll hev the same alibi, that they was sound asleep in their own beds. An’ if they weren’t, they sure as hell ain’t gonna admit it, even iffen that’d be a alibi thet’d clear ’em.”

  “This place is too big, too open,” Amily whispered, in what sounded a little like despair. “And all the freedom we enjoy here only makes it easier for him to get away with this!”

  “I ain’t gonna advise we put th’ Hill down under guard,” he said flatly. “We do thet, an’ all we do’s give the damn bully what ’e wants, and ’e wants us afeared, mostly of each other.”

  There was a long heavy silence between them.

  “Go to sleep,” Amily advised, at last. “Whatever clues there are will still be there in the morning. And at least the Poison Pen has aired his frustration at being balked in the least harmful way possible.”

  • • •

  “I’ve performed an analysis of your Poison Pen letters,” said Lord Jorthun, as they all lounged in a sort of gazebo on the top of one of the round towers that ornamented his manor. At three stories up, it caught every bit of blessed breeze, there was plenty of shade from a wide, round, conical roof, and there were reed screens that could be let down to further block the sun. It was probably the coolest spot on the Hill, and Mags and Amily were terribly grateful he’d invited them here. “I didn’t bother to bring them; I just brought my notes. So . . .” He consulted a leather-bound notebook of his own. “There are a remarkably few number of letters that are direct attacks on specific women—I say remarkably few, because I happen to know of nearly every single illicit affair going on at Court, and believe me, they outnumber the actual letters by a factor of five. These are all nearly identical . . . a lot of vitriol, followed by a lovingly detailed description of the sort of divine retribution that will strike the sort of whore who pursues another woman’s husband or betrothed.”

  “The divine retribution part is what’s interesting, in a sick sort of way,” Amily observed. “Is it specific enough to pinpoint a sect or a religion?”

  “Sadly, no.” Jorthun shook his head. “On to the more numerous sort. The majority of these are harangues against women engaging in ‘unwomanly’ behavior, mostly daring to take on a ‘man’s job’ and take the food out of a man’s mouth. That covers all of the Trainees, plus a lone Guard here at the Palace, and the scrawls on the walls of the sanctuary. I don’t actually have most of those letters, since your Trainees generally pitched them in the fire, but Mags’ interviews give me the general numbers.” He tapped his pencil on the page. “Now, of the ones I do have, there is a religious tone to them as well. Women are divinely appointed to be the servants of their men, is the general gist of the message.”

  “Huh.” Mags scratched his chin. “Hadn’t noticed that.”

  “Neither had your Trainees. But the Prioress certainly did, and so did the female Guard. And unlike the ‘retribution’ letters, the ones on the walls and the one sent to the Guard combined equal parts vitriol and obscenity. The theme of the obscenity seems to have been along the lines of what I would call, railings against the maneaters.”

  “Then our culprit seems far more likely to be a woman,” said Amily uneasily. “And a particularly insane one at that. With a religious mania and a craving for other peoples’ pain.” She shudders. “Ugh. And a lot of nasty repressions.”

  “Possibly. But I am by no means weighed in that direction myself.” Lord Jorthun consulted his notes. “Either our Poison Pen knows far more about the Hill than anyone other than myself, and knows quite a bit about at least one part of Haven, or, as I suggested before, he is using Farsight.”

  “But how would the Poison Pen know where and when t’look?” Mags asked. “Farsight gets kinda specific. I been asking. You either got to know who you’re lookin’ for, or you got to know the place where they’re at.”

  “The Sanctuary of Betane would have presented no problem,” Dia pointed out. “Everyone in that neighborhood knew the Sisters were going to be gone, and when they’re there, the Sanctuary is wide open for anyone to walk in. So it wouldn’t have been hard for someone with Farsight to spy to a certain extent on the Sisters, and to know when it was safe to desecrate the Sanctuary.”

  “And the Court?” Amily asked.

  “Now . . . that suggests that he’s using his Gift on particular people, rather than looking at places,” Jorthun replied. “That would account for the fact that he’s only catching a fraction of the bedroom-athletics that I know are going on.”

  “Interesting, but I don’t see how that helps us,” Amily said at last.

  “Not directly, but every bit of information we have will build up a picture of the person we are pursuing. A Gift plus a religious mania suggests to me that this might be someone who was cast out of a religious order for zealotry.” Jorthun raised his eyebrows significantly at Amily. “Contrary to what you might think, most religions do not care for zealots. They are not comfortable to the rest of the congregants. They demand too much. They don’t understand compromise. And they are absolutely, positively certain that they and they alone grasp the One Truth—whatever that ‘truth’ may be—and everyone else is either ignorant or willfully blind.” He closed his notebook. “It’s something I can look for. Nikolas has his people doing the same.”

  “Mine ain’t gonna be much help,” Mags sighed. “But I’ve got Teo keepin’ his eyes an
’ ears open.”

  “You seem very certain that the Poison Pen is literally watching us, or at least, some of us,” Amily said, as the breeze made a faint whistling sound through the reed screens. “But the letters have stopped having any effect on the Collegia and he or she is having trouble getting them to the Trainees now. So . . . now what’s going to happen?”

  “Ah,” Jorthun replied, looking troubled. “I don’t know.”

  “Is there any chance she’ll give up?” Dia asked her husband, hopefully. “After all, that’s how one deters thieves. Nothing is burglar-proof, but you just try to make it so difficult the thieves move on to an easier target.”

  Jorthun shook his head. “In my experience, people like this don’t follow the rules of rational behavior. They aren’t afraid of retribution, because they believe their cloak of righteousness will protect them. So they never back down. They only escalate.”

  Mags sighed into the glum silence. “That’s what I was afeared you’d say.”

  • • •

  For the first time in days, Mags was getting the reports of his runners in person. It felt normal, and normal was something to be cherished, so cherish it he did, finishing the reports off with a general distribution of sausage-stuffed-in-a-bread-roll he’d picked up at a baker on the way. Then he just sat for a moment, enjoying his happy, healthy young’uns scampering off to their jobs or their schooling. It was good to have something reliably going well.

  Then he went next door and took his place at the counter of the pawn-shop, waiting for Teo.

  Nothing much had come of the burned effigy; Mags had gone all over it, but there hadn’t been anything about it that hadn’t been common as grass. The effigy itself was two hay-stuffed tubes of canvas tied in a cross-shape. Where the two tubes intersected, the crosswise one had been tied to form the “breasts,” with the rest of it forming arms. The vertical tube had been tied to make a head and neck, then split to make legs. Mags had halfway expected some pubic horror at the split, but there was nothing there. A crude face with black-rimmed red eyes and a huge red mouth had been painted on the front of the head. What he had taken for yarn was actually light rope sewn to the head with a canvas needle and sailmaker thread. Which might have suggested the maker was a sailor, but Jorthun told him not to put too much emphasis on that. “The same thread and needle are used to sew the mouths of grain-sacks closed,” his mentor advised. Which left him right back where he started. And the fact that the effigy had been sewn might have suggested a woman’s hand, but the fact was, there were plenty of men who sewed in the course of their jobs.