Crow instantly regretted his tirade. Humility withered his impassioned spirits. Then it sank in that the king had said he already knew the girl’s identity. When had that come to pass?
The king didn’t waste time revealing his source. He handed over the parchment he’d been reading. It was a note.
A note from the escaped prisoner. It read:
To His Majesty the king:
I send my sincerest gratitude for your hospitality during my stay at your estates. It proved an informative trip and most worthwhile. I must be on my way now – however, I would be remiss to forget my manners and take my leave without so much as an introduction.
Such would also render the trip pointless, as my appearance – and subsequent disappearance – were carefully devised to make a statement. To come to an understanding.
Like many, you speak of the Master of the Shadows as a fiend, a menace – a dehumanized figure, more shadow than man, with a mysterious agenda at best and a sinister agenda at worst. But I would be so bold as to suggest perhaps he is misunderstood. That in fact he has a heart, and perhaps he would be troubled to know his provocation causes royal funds to be diverted from more important causes.
Because perhaps this ‘shadow’ aspect, this man whose face no one ever sees, represents the unseen people of society.
I say ‘perhaps’, but in fact I know.
He hopes you will see, now, there is little point continuing the hunt for a man who can never be caught, and that funds should be reverted back to worthwhile endeavors.
How do I know of what cares the Master of the Shadows entertains, you ask?
I am him.
I am the Master of the Shadows.
At first, Crow felt nothing at all. He stared down at the letter as if not seeing it, numb to its contents. It was too much to accept. Too much to process.
Then, his erstwhile rage doubled.
He couldn’t decide what angered him more; the fact that the girl would be so insolent as to suggest – nay, not to suggest – to strongarm the king into discontinuing their hunt for the Shadowmaster, or that they’d had the trickster in their grasp and lost him (effectively proving her point).
It had been the Master of the Shadows himself – and a girl, Crow marveled between swells of rage – that they had locked in their dungeon. They’d had him – her – actually had him!
Face turning beet-red, Crow abruptly tore the note into miniscule pieces, shredding it all over the king’s bedroom floor.
“Contain yourself,” the king commanded, obviously in reference to the childlike fit, but then added sternly, and not un-childlike himself, “in one of my prison cells.”
Crow met the king’s eyes sharply, appalled. “But, Majesty, I –”
“Go.”
Mouth hanging open with unspoken protests, Crow stood there stricken. He couldn’t move.
“Very well. For your defiance, it will be the Shadowmaster’s cell you will reside in, so you can dwell every waking moment on the precious prize you lost. May it humble you, Crow. I will not tolerate insolence merely because you are obsessed and cannot help yourself. Do not let your position as my advisor make you think you have freedom to speak to me as if you are my superior – and I, a child in need of reprimanding.” Isavor placed his hands on his desk and leaned forward intensely. “Get out of my sight, you mossy old man, and take your punishment as I have ordered.”
This time Crow obeyed. He walked out stiffly, back-tracked to the dungeons he had only just left behind, and shut himself away in the Spylord’s cell.
15
Secrets and Seduction
“Now you know everything,” Clevwrith had said to her. But it wasn’t entirely true. There was yet a secret between them. A card tucked carefully up his sleeve.
*
Freedom was heavenly, and her clever escape had gone to her head. Despiris felt giddy as she strutted with arrogant confidence back toward the Cob. It had been easier than she anticipated.
First, she had memorized the routine of the prison. Twice a day, a servant distributed meals to the prisoners. Four times a day, a servant offered water. Three times a day, the guards would escort each prisoner out to relieve themselves.
On the second day, the routine was going along as expected when it was interrupted by an administrative assistant for the king, who gave her the opportunity to make a full report regarding her complaints against the Guard. Despiris had assumed the king’s declaration about having the Captain of the Guard refocus his men was the last she would hear of the matter, but indeed not.
It was then that Despiris realized the king was both insightful and cunning. He’d realized the guard Despiris was ratting out could be the same one holding her before him, and if Isavor had promised her the chance to make a report, a wicked man such as Carlisle might possibly have taken measures to silence her. The king had been protecting her.
On that intriguing note, she got back to her study of life in the dungeon. The routine she’d identified resumed without additional interruptions, maddeningly mundane.
Her next order of business was to become acquainted with her fellow inmates. The burly, bearded brute in the cell to her left was awaiting execution for murder, while the young bloke to her right was to be arraigned for trespassing on a lord’s property. He claimed he had only been sneaking around to meet discreetly with the lord’s daughter, whom he was secretly in love with. Of course, telling the lord that would not help his case at all, but Despiris, at least, took pity on him.
Armed with these details of everything around her, Despiris began to form her plan.
The escape would happen at night. That wasn’t even up for debate, given the circumstances that had landed her here to begin with. So after the evening meal, she waited for the guards to start assisting everyone to the privy. When they stole away the young trespasser – named Dov – from his cell next to her, Despiris made her move.
Saved out from her dinner, a soft, doughy morsel of bread grew clammy in her palm waiting to be put to use. Slinking to the front of her cell, she reached through the bars and extended the tidbit toward Dov’s door. Left ajar while he was away, the latching mechanism was vulnerable, just asking to be tampered with. The clever automatic lock would not be considered nearly so clever a feature when they realized it was far easier to sabotage than a manual alternative.
Despiris merely stuffed the bread into the hollow nook that was the latching dock, fishing around with her little finger to mold it adequately into the mechanism. The door would appear to close as usual, but the blockage would just keep the latch from catching.
“As often as intricacy makes a scheme brilliant,” Clevwrith’s phantom instruction echoed in her head, “you will find that the most elegant solutions are just as often the simplest.”
A piece of bread. That was it.
Well, and the interpersonal prudence that saw her carefully analyze, select, and befriend a neighbor to be her partner in crime. That was more of a sophisticated dance.
Still, Dov was a dream puppet on a string. He feared the lord’s sway at court would influence his trial, and yet it mattered little, for life was not worth living without his forbidden lady-love. His only chance at happiness was to dodge his trial and run off with his sweetheart before anyone was the wiser.
He would jump at the opportunity, and Despiris wouldn’t have to worry about him being loose in society, unlike the murdering marauder on her other side.
And so, confident in her choice, Despiris went back to sitting in the corner of her cell, awaiting her turn at the privy. When she returned, she would bide her time until the middle of the night – when the other inmates were fast asleep, the guards were at the their sleepiest, and she was at her liveliest.
Then she would awaken Dov and inform him that his cell door was not, in fact, locked. She would warn him about the various dangers about the palace grounds, however, displaying her aptitude for the sharp situational awareness he would want at his side for his best chance a
t escape.
When he had shaken his head in wonder and asked, “Who are you?”, she had decided to hell with it and revealed she was none other than the Shadowmaster’s partner. It could only help her case as being invaluable, at that point.
First he had stared, mouth agape. Then, slowly, he grinned. But Despiris couldn’t have him getting all starry-eyed and losing focus, so she’d quickly redirected him to the tactical details of what she required of him.
This was where it got dicey. The biggest unknown of the plan. Everything hinged on Dov being able to sneak into the warden’s chamber and pilfer his key ring. Considering he’d been caught trespassing, Despiris would be lying to herself if she said she wasn’t just a little nervous. But he’d been quite up to the task, her insistence on utmost caution evoking the comment,
“Fear not, Shadhi. I had well clear of a dozen successfully secret rendezvous with Yennifer before being caught. Despite the evidence to the contrary, I am good at what I do.”
And with that, he’d snuck off and returned with the key ring, quietly freeing Despiris.
Before dashing off to freedom, she had removed the bread from his door and locked both cells behind them, leaving the spectacle to mystify whoever discovered them gone. Then the duo of escape artists made their way to the surface, and to freedom – after, of course, Despiris made a quick stop to drop the king a note as he slept unknowing in his bed.
To escape the palace grounds, she pilfered a lady’s fine dress and a suit for Dov from the laundry, a couple horses from the stables, and at dawn they simply…rode out through the gates. The guards had little reason to question them, and Dov’s casual, “My lady requires an early morning ride,” was the only explanation they needed to let the duo pass through.
After that, they parted ways, Despiris wishing the lovestruck trespasser godspeed on his quest for forbidden love, and in turn he thanked her for all she had done – swearing himself to secrecy regarding his association with the SFH.
Smiling to herself about the whole heist, Despiris couldn’t wait to tell Clevwrith about how she’d used her supper to escape the royal dungeon. Then she sobered, remembering her exchange with he king. The inconvenient truth about funds being diverted from humanitarian causes to fight crime. To hunt the Shadhi.
She was confused. Never had she considered that the manifesto she lived for could be at odds with the long-lost cause lodged deep in her core. That her legacy might conflict with her true identity. What if, all this time, everything she’d been doing went against what mattered to her most? She nearly worshipped Clevwrith, but what if…what if there was more?
“You are not the same girl,” he had said to her, and she had rejoiced at that, at getting out – but what of her family?
Once, in the early days after recovering from her illness, she’d gone back to her family home, seeking those she loved. But she’d found the house empty, clear signs of abandonment and decay leaving her to wonder what had become of them. To this day, the mystery haunted her.
What if they were out there, yet starving, and her actions – albeit indirectly – kept food off their table?
What if down all the dark twists and turns of her transformation and liberation, Clevwrith had inadvertently led her astray?
An uncomfortable feeling – guilt, she realized – gnawed at her as she raised questions against her master.
How could she question Clevwrith – the master, the savior, the enlightener? The giver of life and bestower of gifts and sharer of sacred secrets? He’d given her a life far richer, far grander, than most would ever experience.
And yet, that was the point, wasn’t it? All the others who would never find themselves so lucky, when Des and Clev lived in luxury, not sharing their excess. Their essentially limitless resources, since they staked claim to whatever they pleased.
They were worse than the king she’d so scathingly reprimanded.
And she didn’t know what to do with that. Didn’t know how to reconcile who she was with what she claimed to care about.
One thing was for sure. She couldn’t allow the uncertainty to fester, un-aired. She couldn’t afford to be conflicted in her line of work; hesitating for even a split second could cost her everything.
But she also wasn’t ready to call into question everything she held dear now. It was too much, too fast. And she’d hardly even gotten to savor her most epic escape yet.
So she allowed herself to savor it the rest of the way through the city, strutting and grinning and gloating like a peacock. But she couldn’t shake the speculation completely. A nauseating mix of giddy and troubled, she found herself back in the Cob, feeling strangely out of place in familiar alleys.
She blamed the fine dress, but knew deep down it was far more than that.
*
It had been days since Clevwrith had sensed Despiris anywhere in the Cob. But he wasn’t worried. He was guilty of disappearing for days at a time now and then, too, and she was entitled to come and go as she pleased. She was probably just trying her hand at a more extensive heist, caught up in the thick of it.
Clevwrith went about his business, stocking the supply room and tending things in the greenhouse. He’d added fennel to the herb garden, alongside the small pots of basil, spearmint, rosemary, chamomile, and thyme lined up in the east windowsill. There was lavender and St. John’s Wort, too, in larger quantities stacked on a ladder-like shelf in the corner. He still wanted to add bay leaves to the collection, and perhaps some bergamot, when he could find them–
Over the strong aromas of the herb garden, his nostrils flared at the scent of rain.
She was home.
He looked up to find her standing in the doorway, a distracted expression clouding her features. Her eyes were dull – not alight with the thrill of some heist or even just the usual spark that made her ‘Des’.
He was distracted from her demeanor, however, by the lavish crimson dress that swathed her form. His eyes swept downward, admiring her figure.
“I can’t wait to hear this one,” he remarked. His eyes had not yet returned to her face when, morose, she asked,
“Why do we do it?”
Forgetting her satin-hugged figure, he met her gaze. “Do what, Des?”
“Well, what is it you can’t wait to hear about? My latest frivolous conquest? My latest pointless heist?”
“Frivolous?” he asked, startled by her choice of words. But she’d asked a question, so, analytically, he sought the answer for her. “I do not think of it as a frivolous conquest, but a…transcendent ritual. Unlocking our full potential, celebrating our gods-given abilities. It would be an insult, a waste, to deny the gifts we were bestowed with.” He frowned, tilting his head to consider her. “Why the sudden doubts, Des?”
“I was…” She hesitated, as if unable to fully grasp the concept she wished to express. “…caught.” The revelation fell flat, the word empty as if foreign. But something shifted inside Clevwrith, an eerie little flicker.
“By who?” he asked carefully.
Swallowing, Despiris grappled with the answer, finally allowing herself to say it. “The king.”
It had been a long time since anything but the cold drew goosebumps to Clevwrith’s skin. But the hairs on his arms prickled, hearing that. “And?” he prompted neutrally, wary of where this might lead.
“And…he spoke with me. Opened my eyes to…ideas I hadn’t considered before.”
“What kind of ideas?”
“The idea that goading him to come after us draws resources away from more important causes. The idea that…I don’t actually know what I’ve been doing.”
“Des…” Disappointment and concern tinged his voice. “This is your calling. Your destiny. One conversation with a stranger, and you think he knows you better than I?”
It was her turn to frown. “No, of course not. I… I just…”
“You live for this,” Clevwrith reminded her. “I see the spark in your eyes when we do what we do. The way you breathe in
the night, taste danger on your tongue, seek the thrill of the chase as if it’s the bread that feeds you. Tell me – can you imagine your life, without this? Outside of this?”
She searched for the answer within herself, eyes glistening in the morning light. He had never seen her so conflicted. But she realized the truth, admitting, “No.”
Letting a bit of the tension go out of him, he abandoned the herbs along the windowsill and crossed the green-filled room to her, taking her hand in his. “Come,” he said. “Have some tea with me. We will talk further.”
She nodded, and he led her back through the stacks to the lounge, where he let her sit quietly while he set about preparing the tea. No sense in prompting her to express more of this nonsense until he had a moment to gather his thoughts, to decide what to say in return. How to steer her back to him.
To them.
The tea, of course, was actually a tool. A doorway to a subject he’d been debating broaching with her for some time.
Now was the time.
She thinks a stranger could possibly be more suited to give advice on the path she should be on? Let her see it isn’t so.
Stirring cream and sugar into her steaming teacup, he turned from the cart and handed it to her. With a distracted smile of thanks, Despiris received the cup and put it to her lips, sipping the brew straightaway.
Clevwrith sat across from her with his own cup, holding it idly in his hand and watching her while he waited for the steam to dissipate. “Have you ever wondered,” he began, “why you receive a steaming cup of tea and sip it without waiting for it to cool?”
Despiris went still, her lips hovering at the porcelain rim of her cup. By the blank look on her face, he would guess she had not. She blinked, mulling it over. “I…suppose I just like it hot.”
“It is scalding,” Clevwrith said. “Unbearable at this temperature.”
Despiris looked down into her tea, not finding any answers there.
“But perhaps, if you looked, you would see that yours is not steaming, as mine is.”
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